Dentist who bought passport for Dh55,000 to flee Iraq lands in court

Dubai: A dentist who fled from Iraq after she received death and rape threats due to sectarian differences, landed in court for using someone else’s passport while trying to reach Europe.

Law enforcement officers were said to have stopped the Iraqi woman dentist at the airport while she was trying to fly to Brussels via Dubai in transit in September.

Prosecutors accused the defendant of using an authentic passport that belonged to someone once she arrived at Dubai International Airport.

The defendant was travelling from Turkey, via Dubai in transit, to Paris and then to Brussels her final destination.

“Yes, I had to use the passport that belonged to someone else,” said the woman defendant as she pleaded guilty before the Dubai Misdemeanours Court on Tuesday.

“Where did you get the passport from?” the presiding judge asked the defendant in court.

“I fled from Iraq and went to Istanbul and there I bought it for Dh55,000,” she replied.

In his defence argument, the woman’s advocate contended that his client was coerced to buy the passport and use it to run away from death threats.

“Due to Iraq’s current political situation, my client received several death and rape threats and threats that she would be kidnapped due to sectarian differences. Despite the fact that she had been doing well in her clinic, she was forced to leave Iraq against her will … she used that passport to seek a better future and to escape death. She did admit that she used the passport but she did not have a criminal intention. She used the passport to fly to Europe where she planned to seek political asylum. Besides, her act did not inflict any damage on the passport’s owner. She did not harm anyone with what she did,” contended the lawyer in his written defence.

The woman’s mother and sister complained to the Iraqi police that the dentist was kidnapped by a group of terrorists, according to the lawyer.

The advocate provided the court with official papers obtained from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council in which he confirmed that his client had received death and rape threats and that she had disappeared since August.

The defendant’s lawyer asked the presiding judge to hand his client a lenient punishment.

Towards the end of the hearing, the presiding judge convicted the dentist and handed her a one-month suspended imprisonment on grounds of leniency.

Tuesday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.