Another criminal court case has been held in Monaco with the defendant absent from the dock. A 22 year-old Tunisian national, described as a restaurateur living in France, stood accused of having defrauded two victims in the Principality, one with a stolen cheque and the other with a falsified cheque.
One case involved a cheque for 630 euros in payment for a coffee machine. The cheque had been stolen. The same victim told the court that he had an IOU from the accused for 60,000 euros. His savings have melted away, he said.
The second victim, the defendant’s landlord, said that a cheque made out for 200 euros was altered to the sum of 22,000 euros to take care of several months of unpaid rent. On presentation, the bank informed the victim that the account had been closed.
A sentence of six months was passed, but the guilty party was not in court to hear it.