17-09-2022 – The Serenje Immigration Office has secured the conviction of six (6) Bangladeshis for failing to appear before an Immigration Officer. The Bangladeshis, together with eleven (11) other Ethiopians, were handed over to Immigration after being apprehended by the Police on 29th August 2022. Subsequent investigations revealed that although they had valid passports, they did not have entry endorsements, indicating that they did not appear before an Immigration Officer on entry. The six (6) Bangladeshis appeared before the court on 15th September 2022, where they were convicted and each sentenced to pay a fine of K 1,500 or, in default, six (6) months simple imprisonment. The court cases of the eleven (11) Ethiopians and the Zambian driver arrested for aiding and abetting the Bangladeshis and Ethiopians are ongoing.
Similarly, the Chanida Immigration Office, on 13th September 2022, secured the conviction of a 40-year-old Nigerian national for the offences of unlawful stay in Zambia, giving false information to an Immigration Officer and concealing true identity. Kayode Obayelo was arrested on 7th September 2022 at Chanida Border Control following a tip-off from a concerned member of the public to the effect that a Nigerian was using Zambian Documents of National Identity suspected to have been fraudulently obtained. The Office later established that he had stayed in Zambia unlawfully. Further evidence showed that Kayode Obayelo gave false information to Immigration Officers when he presented fraudulently obtained documents bearing the Zambian National Registration Card (NRC) number 142201/55/1. He had concealed his true identity by presenting himself as a Zambian named Michael Kay Chirambo when he was not. He was sentenced to pay a fine K 19,000 for all three counts or, in default, nineteen months simple imprisonment.
The Department of Immigration in Lusaka, on 14th September 2022, also secured the conviction of a South African couple jointly charged for the offence of unlawful stay in Zambia contrary to section 11(3) of the Immigration and Deportation Act Number 18 of 2010 of the Laws of Zambia. Reginald Hills and Francina Wilhelmina Hills both aged 70 were arrested on 5th September 2022, in Mungwala Village of Shibuyunji District after Immigration Officers discovered that they had been living unlawfully in the country since 11th June 2021, when Mr. Reginald Hill’s employment permit, which included his wife, had expired. They were each sentenced to pay a fine of K 2,500 or, in default, three months simple imprisonment. The Serenje, Chanida, and Lusaka court outcomes bring the number of convictions secured by the Department of Immigration between 13th and 15th September 2022 to fifty-two (52).
During this period, the Department also apprehended sixty-six (66) persons of different nationalities for various immigration offences and removed thirty-nine (39) illegal immigrants from the country.
