Three years in jail for bribe giver and taker

The Dubai Criminal Court sentenced an Emirati public servant and an Egyptian clerk and to three years in jail each for offering and receiving Dh80,000 bribe.

The Egyptian convict HMM, shall be deported after serving the jail term, said judge Hamad Abdullatif Abdul Jawad when pronouncing the sentence.

According to the accusation sheet, over the period from October 2010 to January 2011, HMM, 24, offered corporal at the entry permit section of the Dubai Residency and Foreign Affairs Department, ARG, about Dh80,000 to illegally process and approve applications. He requested for his share between Dh2,000 and Dh20,000 per transaction. The bribe amount varied depending on the value of the due fine.

ARG enabled a number of expatriates form Arab and Asian nationalities to cancel their visas and leave the country or to amend their status without actually paying overstaying fines and showing in the electronic system that they have paid for breaking the laws, according to the records.

HMM is accused of criminal complicity. He agreed with ARG to bring him transactions of violators of the residency regulations and to get a share of the bribes. His share ranged between Dh500 and Dh4,000.

ARG forged electronic records and waived Dh116,200 worth fines and enabled expats subject of the transactions  them to leave the country or amend their status without paying fines.

A Pakistani paid Dh2,000 to avoid paying Dh3,000 fine. The share of the Egyptian was Dh500 and the rest Dh1,500 was paid to the public servant, HMM confessed before the Prosecution.

ARG confessed to collecting Dh20,000 from a Tunisian woman RBJ who overstayed for 703 days and was supposed to pay more than Dh50,000.

The transaction of the Tunisian woman, who was under arrest and administrative deportation order by the State Security, led to discovering the crime.

First sergeant Khalid Mohammed, Follow Up and Control Section of the General Administration of the Residency and Foreign Affairs Department testified that in December 2010, his department received a letter from the State Security about RBJ had extension of cancellation imposed on her and was offered approval of residency visa despite the fact that there was a letter by them dated in January 2009, to arrest and to take necessary administrative deportation procedures against her should she approached a government department. She entered the country against a work permit which she failed to fix the visa on her passport within 29 day and stayed illegally in the country for more than a year.

“Investigating the RBJ status, we found out that the temporary closure of her file being under arrest by the State Security has been removed and her older residency visa was cancelled and her cancellation was extended resulting in waiver of fines. Then she was granted approval of a residency visa against a fresh work permit she submitted and accordingly her status in the country has become legal on November 30, 2010.

Checking employees’ electronic logging on codes to know who processed these transactions, we found that it was ARG.

Confronting him with that, ARG confessed to the crime and that he met HMM who works in a cafeteria and became friends. He said he accepted an offer made by his friend to illegally process the transaction of the Tunisian woman and other expatriates against money since he was passing through financial difficulties, ” he testified.

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