Two clerks at the Dubai Health Authority were sentenced to six months in jail for tampering with a visitor’s fitness test certificate after they were found to have changed the test result from medically unfit to medically fit against a Dh3,000 bribe.
The two clerks, A.M., 27, from Nigeria and Z.D., 25, from Pakistan were found guilty of abusing their offices at the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and forging the Filipina visitor’s test results in August.
The Dubai Court of First Instance sentenced A.M. and Z.D. in absentia to six months in jail each and fined them Dh3,000.
Z.D., L.A. and her 49-year-old mother, J.I., were accused of aiding and abetting the Nigerian.
The Filipinas entered a not-guilty plea and contended before the court that they were not involved in the forgery and had not paid any bribe. They argued that they had been told that the Dh3,000 the accused sought were fees they had to pay.
Presiding judge Ezzat Abdul Lat acquitted L.A. and J.I. of aiding and abetting A.M. due to lack of corroborative evidence.
“A.M. and Z.D. will be deported following the completion of their punishments,” presiding judge Abdul Lat said in courtroom on Monday.
An Indian nurse at a DHA medical centre testified that the forgery was discovered coincidentally after his friend contacted him for an enquiry.
“My friend who works in a typing centre asked me over the phone if it was possible to change the test results of a client from medically unfit to medically fit against a certain fees. Immediately I informed my friend that it was not possible; when he told me that he overheard his colleagues discussing the issue, I asked him to forward me a copy of that test result to check it out. When I checked the results of the pertinent applicant [turned out to be L.A.] the DHA’s e-system showed that her fitness test results showed that she was medically unfit. I informed my boss, who directly instructed me to change the result to unfit and notify the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners’ Affairs so that she [L.A.] does not have a visa processed based on forged documents,” the nurse said.
Records said the DHA notified the police about the manipulation. Primary interrogations showed that the two clerks were involved in the forgery in lieu of a bribe.
In her prosecution statement, the mother J.I. testified that her daughter L.A. had suffered tuberculosis right from her childhood.
“We treated her for a long period of time. In July 2014, a clinic in Karama notified us that our daughter had been cured. We applied for her to do the fitness test to process a residency; when she and I went to pick the results from the DHA fitness centre, A.M. handed us the result and said that she was not fit. We cried and asked him what could be done, so he forwarded us to the supervisor who said the results were confirmed. After we left the centre, I received an SMS from a strange number. It turned out to be A.M. He provided me with Z.D.’s number and I communicated with them, they rectified the test results and claimed to me that there was a mistake, I paid them Dh3,000. Then police called me.”
Source - Gulf News
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