Ghana repatriates Lebanese immigrant

The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has repatriated a Lebanese immigrant for the illegal acquisition of a Ghanaian passport issued to him in Accra on October 16, 2007.

Rabeih Zaidan was repatriated for fraudulently acquiring a Ghanaian passport.

Rabeih Zaidan, 28, was recently arrested by the Ghana Police Service upon a tip-off, and was handed over to the GIS on November 29, 2010, for further investigations.

 

He was also found to be in possession of a Liberian passport issued to him in Liberia on September 4, 2003, as well as a Guinean passport, which he claimed to have acquired in 1998, with assistance from his uncle who is a naturalised Guinean, but had expired.

Zaidan, according to Francis Palmdeti, used fraudulent means in acquiring the Ghanaian passport, by providing false information to immigration officials.

Palmdeti told The Chronicle that records pulled from his outfit’s computers indicate that Zaidan claimed to be born in Accra to one Hassan Hussein Zaidan, a Lebanese, who is now deceased, and one Habiba Ibrahim, whom he alleged was his Ghanaian mother.

However, background checks on the Zaidan, according to Palmdeti, revealed that his mother was one Maryam Jebber, also a Lebanese, currently residing in Lebanon.
By fraudulently acquiring a Ghanaian passport, Palmdeti said Zaidan was taken to court on December 9, 2010, where he was pronounced guilty by the Prosecutor, Peter Nantuo, who doubles as the Controller of Immigration.

Zaidan, The Chronicle learnt, was repatriated last Saturday, December 9, 2010, forty-eight hours after the court’s ruling.

He is said to have first entered the country from Nigeria, somewhere in 1992, and once worked as a chief cook at Southern Fried Chicken, a restaurant in Tema.
Immigration officials said quite a number of people had been arrested and repatriated for similar offences.

Palmdeti, who could not believe the actions of the Lebanese, urged the general public to note that “not all persons who wish to possess a Ghanaian passport has genuine intentions,” and therefore, appealed to them to contact the Enforcement or the Operations Units of the Immigration Service, for onward investigations.

“We want to alert the public to help us smoke out the bad ones. Ghanaians should be vigilant to ensure that what belongs to them is not abused,” Palmdeti noted.
He was however, optimistic that with the biometric system in place, it would be very difficult for people to acquire Ghanaian passports illegally.