Dubai: A salesman has been jailed for three months for tampering with the airport exit and entry stamps on a passport that law enforcement officers caught him using.
The officers stopped the 35-year-old Afghan salesman in Bur Dubai area and asked him for his identification papers in November.
He presented a Pakistani passport to the officer who discovered that it was forged and had been tampered with.
Dubai Police’s forensic examination report confirmed that the exit and entry stamps of Sharjah and Dubai airports in the passport had been forged and that the bearer’s photograph had also been tampered with.
On Thursday, the Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the defendant of forging the passport and government stamps [exit and entry stamps] and using the forged document.
According to the charge sheet, the defendant committed the forgery with the assistance of another person, who remains at large.
Presiding judge Urfan Omar said the accused, who had pleaded not guilty, will be deported after serving his jail term.
The accused had contended that he did not know that the passport was forged and maintained that someone had sent him the passport from Pakistan through a courier service and convinced him that it was authentic.
The forged passport will be confiscated, according to the primary judgement.
The defendant told prosecutors that he needed to travel to Saudi Arabia but couldn’t as his original passport had been confiscated by Dubai Courts since 2011.
“I had been banned from travelling since then. So I contacted a Pakistani person, who promised to help me. I paid him Dh1,000 to arrange for me a Pakistani passport. He sent me the passport through a courier and I kept it with me until I was arrested,” he cited as saying.
Thursday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
