Four Yemeni nationals have been hauled before an Accra circuit court for allegedly entering the country with fake French passports and visas, thereby concealing their real identities.
They 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.
They are before a court presided over by Aboagye Tandoh on charges of forgery.
All the suspects reportedly concealed their Yemeni identities and feigned French nationalities in an attempt to beat security personnel at the Kotoka International Airport, Accra.
It is not clear what their real motive of hiding their Yemeni identities was.
The four people entered the country as far back as November 2015, before the suspected two Al-Qaeda foot soldiers detained in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba – who are also Yemeni nationalities – arrived in Ghana for their two-year stint.
It’s not clear if the four suspects’ visit has anything to do with the presence of the Guantanamo Bay former detainees.
According to President John Mahama, discussions to accept the Al-Qaeda detainees took about a year to finalise.
Forged Passports
According to the prosecution led by DSP Idan Dery, the four on November 24, this year, did forge official document being the Republic of France Passport Number 04417928.
The accused persons were arrested by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra in November with different names in their French passports. They arrived at KIA on board Ethiopian Airline Flight ET 920.
However, speaking through an Arabic interpreter, the accused persons denied the offence.
While undergoing arrival formalities, Evra Allerson, Ciro Carlos and Debuchya were found with French passports with different names.
A further search on them revealed that all the accused persons had Yemeni passports also.
When they were quizzed they mentioned one Abdulai Mohammed in Yemen as the one who secured them the French passports and gave them a phone number to call a certain Mohammed in Ghana on arrival.
The accused persons were to transit in Ghana and continue to France and then to Istanbul in Turkey.
A further examination of their Yemeni passport indicated that Allerson and Carlos had travelled several times to Djibouti in Africa before their trip to Ghana.
DAILY GUIDE learnt that Djibouti was a base for Al-Qaeda activists, from where they carried out operations in Yemen.
The circuit court has urged the police to ensure that the trial of the accused proceeds in earnest on the next adjourned date -February 15, 2016.
According to the court, it would not entertain any excuses by the prosecution at the next sitting.
Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Stephen Adjei informed the court on Tuesday that the substantive prosecutor, DSP Aidan Dery, had gone for a course and prayed for a short adjournment.
Judge Aboagye Tandoh did not take kindly to the prosecution’s submission, pointing out that the trial was to begin today.
It noted that an official of the Ghana Immigration Service was in court to testify, only for the case to be adjourned.
Chief Superintendent of Police Duuti Tuaruka informed the court that the matter would be reassigned to another prosecutor in the absence of the substantive prosecutor.
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