Four remanded over fake visas and passports

The case of four men from Yemen who allegedly entered Ghana with fake Emergency Entry Visas and French passports was on Tuesday adjourned to January 13.

The accused persons 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.

The adjournment was a result of prosecution’s prayer to the court that investigations were ongoing as the Bureau of National Investigations is expecting to receive reports from outside the country on accused persons.

The accused persons have been variously charged with possession of forged documents, fake Emergency Entry Visas, and forgery of official documents.

The four who spoke through an Arabic interpreter, have earlier on pleaded not guilty.

At today’s sitting the Circuit Court presided over by Mr Aboagye Tandoh , the prosecution prayed for some time as the case was under investigations.

Defence counsel, Mr Owusu Sekyere prayed the court to admit his clients to bail.

According to counsel, Amer, was a businessman who was in Ghana to explore business opportunities.

Counsel contended that Amer had travelled severally across the world and in the instant case he was trying to assist the three others.

However, the court urged him to be mindful of the security of the state.

According to the court, prosecution should also bear in mind that the Police could not hold the accused persons forever, hence the need for them to expedite their investigations.

The court therefore remanded them into lawful custody.

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

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

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

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

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

The prosecutions said the accused persons were to transit in Ghana and continue to France, then to Istanbul, Turkey.

Prosecution said a further examination of their Yemeni Passports indicated that Esmail and Gaafar had travelled several times to Djibouti before their trip to Ghana.