His plan to travel via fraudulent documents was intercepted and after appearing before Magistrate Keitha Ellis, the non-national who attempted to do so was fined and deported.
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Ugarajh Thavarajah, from Vaddu North Sithankerney, Jaffna, Sri Lanka was at the District “B” Magistrates’ Court, at the Eric Holder Jnr Municipal Complex on Tuesday.
The assistant store manager, 34, pleaded guilty to the charge that on May 16, while not being at his address, he had with him articles fit for use in connection with criminal deception; those were one Canadian permanent resident card bearing the name Ramalingam Miresh, purporting that it was a genuine permanent resident card, issued by the Canadian government, along with a Sri Lankan passport bearing the same name, purporting that the travel document was a genuine one issued by the Sri Lankan government.
Thavarajah was fined $1 200 forthwith, with an alternative of two months in prison if he could not pay. The fine was paid before the convicted man was handed over to immigration officials.
Constable Tammisha Knight, the prosecutor, recounted that an Air Canada manager reported to police that a man had presented a fraudulent permanent resident card and passport to a passenger agent, while checking in at Grantley Adams International.
More passports found
Police arrived and arrested Thavarajah and during a search, two more passports were found on him, both bearing the name Thavarajah Ugarajh and carrying his photograph.
Thavarajah came to Barbados in 2022 and was residing in Bayfield, St Philip until 2023, when he left the island and moved to St Kitts. He returned to Barbados on May 13 from St Kitts and was set to depart from here on May 16, to go to Canada.
The visitor admitted receiving the fraudulent documents from a man he contacted only via WhatsApp but had never met in person. He paid US$20 000 for the card and passport, he said.
When defence attorney Simon Clarke mitigated on Thavarajah’s behalf, he told the court that his client was contrite and had willingly thrown himself at the mercy of the court.
He submitted that the mitigating factors vastly outweighed the aggravating factors and additionally, no violence was used in the commission of the offence, Thavarajah had no previous convictions, he was remorseful for his actions and cooperated with the police during the interview and the investigation, his attorney said. Clarke added that Thavarajah had also pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and had therefore saved the court precious judicial time.
He urged the magistrate to be lenient and to impose a non-custodial sentence in the form of a fine, or the customary deportation order. (SD)