UAE | Crime

Husband, wife jailed a year for using forged passport to help wife enter UAE

Couple plead not guilty in court

By Bassam Za’za’, Legal and Court Correspondent
Published: 16:46 October 25, 2012

Dubai: A husband and his wife were jailed for one year each after trying to use a forged passport to help the woman enter the country illegally.

The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the 36-year-old Emirati man, S.Z., for forging his niece’s passport and using it to help his 27-year-old Egyptian wife, S.S., enter the UAE through Dubai International Airport.

S.Z. was also convicted of helping the Egyptian woman enter the country although she had earlier been deported.

“The woman will be deported following the completion of her punishment. The forged passport will be confiscated,” said Presiding Judge Maher Salama Al Mahdi in court on Sunday.

When the woman appeared in court, she claimed that she entered the country illegally because she was four months pregnant and wanted to meet up with her husband.

“I entered the country illegal with my friend although I had been deported earlier. When I discovered that I was two months pregnant, I decided to come to the UAE and deliver my baby girl here so she could live with her Emirati father. We got married and our papers were attested by the embassy,” contended S.S.

Prosecutors also charged S.S. with entering the UAE without permission from the Interior Minister after having been deported earlier.

“S.Z. is my husband. I did not commit those charges. I was deported earlier, but when I learnt about my pregnancy I came into the country from Al Buraimi borders. I wanted my child to be raised with her father. It is impossible for me to have forged and used the passport of S.Z.’s niece… she is 16 and I am 27,” argued S.S.

Meanwhile S.Z. contended that the accusations were unfounded.

“I was abroad with my son when this incident happened. I did not forge any document,” the Emirati told the court.

The niece testified that her uncle (S.Z.) took her passport claiming that he wanted to open a bank account for his son but under her name. She claimed that she did not use the passport at the time of the incident. An Emirati employee, who works in preventive security, claimed that a person warned them that S.S. entered the country illegally after she was deported.

“The informant claimed that S.S. came into the country in cooperation with her husband S.Z. We arrested her and during questioning she claimed to be someone else. When we took out her real photo from the Interior Ministry’s records, she admitted that her name is S.S. She alleged that S.Z. is her uncle,” the employee claimed.

Records said S.Z. had his niece’s passport stamped at the airport to claim that she entered the country legally.

Sunday’s judgment remains subject to appeal within 15 days.