In Iraq forged European passports for travelers .. Judiciary says "mafias" in Turkey equip them

The investigative authorities said that some of these passports belong to immigrant brothers, while others were stolen from other people who look in their features and similarities with immigrants, as reported that Foreign (mafias) have parties in Iraq selling them for small amounts of money.

It stressed seizing a number of those inside Baghdad International Airport or airports outside Iraq, pointing to the arrest of 30 of them since mid of this year.

According to the investigative judge of Baya court , Ihsan Majeed in a report of the media center for the judiciary received by Shafaq News, "The past period has witnessed arrest cases of people tried to leave the country with official passports but they do not go back to them, but were issued by European countries."

Majid said that "these travelers are using passports either stolen, or they return to their fellow immigrants previously, help them to leave the country, hoping to get a chance to asylum".

The approximate figures show that "the first half of this year witnessed the arrest of about 30 people tried to leave the country in this way," but judge Majid does not have statistical data on "the number of people who escaped from the airport".

He believes that "modern technology and the use of iris recognition may prevent the impunity of many, contrary to what was previously done , now they are directly being revealed and arrested by the forces in the airport."

For his part, the judge of Baghdad airport lawsuits , Qutaiba Badi says that "these defendants are arrested in Baghdad International Airport, or in other countries and air ports and they are being returned to Iraq as detainees."

Badi added that "the intelligence service is responsible for the receipt of detainees who used passport that doesn’t belong to them , when arrived by plane to Baghdad", warning that "the court receives the defendant then to decide his fate."

In contrast, he said " it is not possible to file criminal proceedings against those who are arrested in the airport and from non-Iraqi nationality without permission granted by us President of the Supreme Judicial Council", attributing it to "a procedure put by an Iraqi legislator for any crime committed outside the country."

Badi noted that "the facts before us state that getting stolen passports is through organized gangs (mafias), mostly operating in Turkey."

Judge of Baghdad Airport's files explained that "who wants to travel connect with this (mafias) either via the Internet, or through intermediaries Iraqis carrying fake names, in order to receive a European passport back to the person holding the features close to the facial expressions," asserting that "the price is not high, and a section of the passport does not exceed the price of one thousand US dollars. "

In addition, the judge of Baya criminal court , Mohammed Abdul Karim considering such lawsuits after the completion of this investigation said that "the penalties provided for the crimes of the use of passports for other people is either be imprisonment for a year or two years ."

Abdul Karim said that this depends on "provisions of Article 299 of the Penal Code No. 111 of 1969, which speaks of a person using official documents belonging to others without a right."

The judge said that one of the cases before the Court is about "an accused person at the age of 20 years bought a Dutch passport to a person named Asaad."

He added that "the existing machines at the airport arrested him when he arrived to iris recognition after discovering that he carries no passport back to him, although there are great similarities in the features."