News / National
3 nabbed over fake passports
08 Apr 2019 at 01:30hrs | Views
THREE Iraq nationals were last week arrested at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport for allegedly possessing fake passports.
Derror Elim (29), Seerwan Khalid (29) and Deror Esav (41) appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs Barbra Mateko on Friday last week facing charges of contravening Section 36(1)(a)(ii) as read with Section 36(1(j) of the Immigration Act Chapter 4:02 "found in possession of or uses any permit or travel documents or any other certificate or document whatsoever which he or she is not entitled to possess or use".
Mrs Mateko remanded the trio in custody to today for bail application.
Allegations are that on March 18 the trio entered the country using Israeli passport numbers 20141582, 20141785 and 20141767 respectively and granted each Zimbabwean holiday visa of 30 days.
The court heard that before the expiry of their holiday visa the trio went to Robert Mugabe International Airport on April 3 where they presented Israeli passports intending to exit the country.
It is the State's case that at the Immigration Department exit point, they were searched by immigration officials who discovered that each accused was in possession of another Iraq passport, with different particulars from those on the first passport, but both had similar photos.
The court heard that this raised suspicion of the trio's true nationality and authenticity of the recovered passports. It is alleged that investigations were conducted by the immigration officials who discovered that the trio illegally secured Israeli passports from an agent in Iraq, leading to their arrest.
Derror Elim (29), Seerwan Khalid (29) and Deror Esav (41) appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs Barbra Mateko on Friday last week facing charges of contravening Section 36(1)(a)(ii) as read with Section 36(1(j) of the Immigration Act Chapter 4:02 "found in possession of or uses any permit or travel documents or any other certificate or document whatsoever which he or she is not entitled to possess or use".
Mrs Mateko remanded the trio in custody to today for bail application.
The court heard that before the expiry of their holiday visa the trio went to Robert Mugabe International Airport on April 3 where they presented Israeli passports intending to exit the country.
It is the State's case that at the Immigration Department exit point, they were searched by immigration officials who discovered that each accused was in possession of another Iraq passport, with different particulars from those on the first passport, but both had similar photos.
The court heard that this raised suspicion of the trio's true nationality and authenticity of the recovered passports. It is alleged that investigations were conducted by the immigration officials who discovered that the trio illegally secured Israeli passports from an agent in Iraq, leading to their arrest.
Source - the ehrald
