Clerk stands trial for ‘offering bribe to residency officer’

A man, who works as a clerk, was charged in the Court of First Instance on Wednesday with offering a bribe of Dh10,000 to a corporal at the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs for unlawful favours.

According to prosecution records, the 37-year-old Indian defendant sought the help of the residency officer to cancel the residency of four passports without reverting to the Ministry of Labour and rectifying the status of eight other passports without having to pay the cumulative fines of Dh24,000.

The Emirati residency corporal, 35, told the prosecutor that the defendant called him by phone in December last year.

The defendant offered to pay him Dh500 for the cancellation of the residency visa on each of the four Asian passports. The officer informed his superior and was instructed to go along with the accused in his offer. The accused offered the corporal Dh10,000 if he rectified the status of eight residents sparing them to pay Dh24,000 in fines.

The defendant met the corporal in the latter’s car outside the residency department in Bur Dubai. He picked up the passports and paid the officer the Dh10,000 as per their agreement. He was arrested red-handed.

The officer said that the defendant promised him to bring him more similar transactions in the future saying he would pay him for that.

Another officer at the residency department said during the investigation that he was part of the unit that arrested the defendant in the evening of that day. The passports were seized from him.

He quoted the defendant as admitting that the eight passports had fines of about Dh35,000 due to the residency department.

mary@khaleejtimes.com