Four Bahrainis at the centre of a major BD610,800 ($1.62 million) fraud trial will yet again have to wait another month to learn their fate.

Lower Criminal Court judges adjourned the case for further study, but a ruling is expected on May 31.

It is the third time the case has been adjourned when a verdict had been expected for the same reason.

This is for the requirement of certain Public Prosecution documents to be translated into Arabic, according to the alleged victims' defence firm Elham Ali Hassan and Associates.

The case was filed by a group of Australian farmers who claimed they were swindled during a dodgy business deal.

They initially filed a criminal complaint at the Public Prosecution in August 2007 before it was transferred to the courts and has been adjourned more than a dozen times.

The Bahrainis - three women and two men - allegedly tricked the four into entering a fake bond agreement in March 2005.

Claim

They were supposed to pay back the investment of the farmers within three months, along with a sizeable bonus.

But the farmers claim they are still trying to recover their money more than five years later.

The farmers had initially borrowed money from a bank to be part of the deal and claimed they could be entitled to eight million Australian dollars (BD2.8 million) in compensation.

That included interest generated on the loans they took out and compensation for losing their farms as a result of the investment.

The farmers earlier told our sister newspaper Gulf Daily News (GDN) the deal had left them on the brink of financial ruin.

A British woman earlier fell prey to a scam by the same group of Bahrainis in which she was duped into investing £100,000 (BD56,800) to help set up a call centre.

However, Rita Gunshon was granted BD65,000 in compensation by the High Civil Court in June.-TradeArabia News Service