Four Yemenis file submission of no case

Four Yemenis who are alleged to have travelled to Ghana with fake Emergency Entry Visas and French Passports have filed a submission of no case before an Accra Circuit Court.

The four through their counsel, Mr Dominic Owusu Sekyere, argued that prosecution had failed to make a case against them after calling its witnesses.

According to counsel, prosecution also failed to establish the essential ingredients in the charges of possession of forged documents, fake Emergency Entry Visas, and forgery of official documents.

The suspects are Esmail Yahya Zeyad aka Evra Allerson, Gaafar Eissa Yahya Amer, aka Ciro Carlos, Waleed Ahmed Yahya aka Debuchya Allard, all students and Eissa Yahya Amer, a businessman.

Mr Sekyere contended that in the case of Amer, the businessman, he was holding a genuine passport and he was going to apply for entry visa in Ghana.

According to counsel, the act of applying for an entry visa was allowed under the laws of Ghana and the phenomenon was also accepted around the globe.

In the case of the other three, counsel said the officials of the Ghana Immigration Service had the right to have sent them back to their country on any available flight after their checks.

At the circuit court on Wednesday, the defence counsel said he filed his submission of no case today and served the prosecution.

The court presided over by Mr Aboagye Tandoh noted that counsel should have filed the processes on the Attorney General and not the Police prosecutor.

The court therefore directed counsel to serve the AG so they could respond at the next sitting.

The matter was therefore adjourned to March 22.

The four Yemenis have denied the charges of possession of forged documents, fake Emergency Entry Visas, and forgery of official documents.

The four, who spoke through an Arabic interpreter, have been remanded into lawful custody by the court.

DSP Aidan Dery, the prosecutor, who earlier read the facts, said all the accused persons were Yemeni Nationals who arrived at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on board Ethiopian Airline Flight ET 920, on November 24, last year.

He said while undergoing immigration arrival procedures, Esmail, Gaafar and Waleed were found with French passports with different names.

The Prosecution said further search on them revealed that all the accused persons had Yemeni passports too, and when the French passports with different names were examined, they were found to be fake.

According to the prosecution, when the accused persons were quizzed they claimed one Abdulai Mohammed, an individual based in Yemen, secured the French passports for them.

He said they claimed the same person gave them a phone number to call a certain Mohammed on their arrival in Ghana.

The prosecution said the accused persons were on transit in Ghana to France, then to Istanbul, Turkey.

The prosecution said another examination of their Yemeni passports indicated that Esmail and Gaafar had travelled several times to Djibouti before their trip to Ghana.