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Residency Officer Faces
Trial on Bribery Charges

The 32-year-old Emirati officer is also accused of using a government seal unlawfully to grant access to the Iraqi woman into the country even though she had been sentenced to deportation after she was earlier convicted of indulging in prostitution.

The 20-year-old woman and her husband, who is a policeman, are accused of offering a bribe to the residency officer. According to court records, the residency officer violated his duties while on duty at the Entry Section of the Dubai International Airport by granting entry to a woman who had been deported from the UAE.

The Residency officer, who was interrogated by a committee of the Follow-up section of the Residency Department in Abu Dhabi did admit that he granted entry to the woman on October 30 of 2008 despite there being deportation order against her.

But he explained he had been negligent and it had been a mistake on his part to not make her undergo the eye scan test more than once to verify if she had been deported previously.

In statements to the panel, which he later denied during an investigation by the Public Prosecution, he had said that he had granted her entry into the country because he liked her, and had asked her for her mobile number and called her up the following day after work. He said she had gone to Ras Al Khaimah several times in two weeks that followed and had sex with him. He had said that he’d met her in Syria and had promised to help her enter into the UAE.

He was then suspended following an administrative order and referred to the Public Prosecution. During its investigation, he denied the statements he had given to the panel of the Residency Department and also that he had granted entry to the woman in lieu of money.

He also denied his preliminary statement that he stamped her passport with the entry seal of his department after he collected Dh 55000.

When the Public Prosecution grilled the woman’s husband, he claimed that he did not have anything to do with her gaining entry into the country.

He said that their marriage — arranged by his Iraqi friend — was solemnised through a contract signed by the woman in Syria, for which he had paid Dh700, and that it had not involved a ceremony, nor had they met.

Later, when he asked his friend about her whereabouts, he came to know that his wife had been arrested for running a brothel in Dubai. He also knew that he was wanted by the police in connection with his wife’s illegal entry into the country. He claimed that he met the woman in person for the first time in a police station in Dubai.

mary@khaleejtimes.com

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