Dubai: A woman has been accused of stealing her aunt’s passport and using it at airport passport control to fly out to Turkey and return to the UAE, a court heard on Wednesday.
The accused, 23, who does not have personal identification papers, flew out of the Dubai International Airport to Turkey using an original passport in May.
According to records, she returned and presented the same passport to the immigration officers at the airport, who found that she was using someone else’s passport. Police then apprehended the woman and forwarded her to the Public Prosecution.
Preliminary interrogations revealed she stole her aunt’s passport and used that as her travel document.
Prosecutors charged the suspect with the theft and use of her aunt’s passport, and also stealing her clothes.
The suspect pleaded guilty when she appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Wednesday, admitting to prosecutors that she took her aunt’s passport to travel to Turkey for two weeks.
When asked by presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi if she had any defence or if she had reconciled with her aunt and obtained a waiver, she replied: “No. I have nothing to add.”
Her Emirati aunt told prosecutors that she discovered the passport missing from her cupboard. “I went to the police and reported the loss of my passport. After checking the immigration e-records, they notified me that someone who flew out to Turkey had used my passport. Afterwards, it was discovered that my niece had stolen my passport and used it to travel. My niece told my family that she was going out with her friends that evening, but later she switched off her phone and didn’t return home,” the aunt testified.
The judge will hand out a ruling on August 12.
