2 residency officers on trial

dubai — A sergeant in the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs did not show up in the Court of First Instance on Sunday to face a charge of accepting a total of Dh767,000 in bribes from an Omani man, who is still on the run.

The 27-year-old Emirati sergeant was based in the detention and deportation of violators section at GDRFA, when he allegedly processed hundreds of illegal transactions, including exit passes for individuals of different nationalities. He is also accused of processing temporary blocking on tourists wrongfully reported absconding. The sergeant allegedly forged as many as 571 electronic documents and unlawfully used a colleague’s username to process the unlawful transactions. That colleague denied the charges of helping and abetting in the forgery and bribery crimes.

The irregularities, which started as of August 2007 till August 2012, were discovered early January 2015. According to a report by the follow-up on Violators and Foreigners Sector and the Financial Resources Department at GDRFA, the directorate incurred more than Dh2.2 million in losses worth of fees the officers on trial did not collect when processing the said transactions. An officer in the preventive security department in the GDRFA said: “We were informed that the first accused was dealing with the runaway defendant to process illegal transactions. Applications included temporary blocking of files (absconding reports) in the system.” They would pass the applications without settling the Dh6,500 fee for every tourist. The trial has been adjourned to February 12.