10:30am Tuesday 16th January 2007
A REFUGEE living in Watford caught with forged and fraudulently obtained passports has been jailed for nine months.
Idris Abujabal, 37, a Jordanian who fled Saddam Hussain's Iraq in 1999 in fear of persecution, was sentenced at St Albans Crown Court on Friday after pleading guilty to two charges involving forged documents.
Police who searched in home in Harwoods Road in January found a forged Danish passport, and a genuine British one obtained by using a forged birth certificate stating Abujabal had been born in London.
Prosecutor Ian Wade said the defendant had used the Danish documen tto open a bank account and take a lease on a house in a false name, while he had used the British one to visit his sick mother in Jordan.
Abujabal, who claims he is in danger in Iraq because of his brother's political activities, has been refused asylum, but granted indefinite leave to remain in Britain.
Defence barrister John Clifford said his client had been manipulated into applying for the British passport by other people.
He said the 37-year-old restaurant worker, who admitted paying £3,000 for the document, had believed he was merely making a legitimate enquiry about his asylum application.
He pleaded for Abujabal to be spared prison so he could look after his a wife and three young children.
But judge Michael Baker said: "This matter is too serious to be dealt with except by an immediate custodial sentence.
"There is detriment to the country in the continued presence of a person prepared to act as you have done.
"But you have a wife and young family - that leads me to decline to recommend deportation."
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