ABU DHABI // A Bangladeshi man was sentenced yesterday to four months in prison for forging documents to bring a 13-year-old boy into the country. NA said the boy was his son, but forensic examinations showed the two were not related. The defendant claimed that when the boy first entered the country he worked with him at an auto repair shop in Umm al Qaiwain.
The man said he decided to send the boy home to Cox's Bazar, in the south of Bangladesh, so he could attend school. NA told the Federal Supreme Court, which handles all cases pertaining to state security, that the boy was then subsequently kidnapped and sold to "a Bedouin" and was returned to the UAE against his will with the forged passport. Abdul Kader, a friend and colleague of NA, told the court that the boy phoned the defendant and told him he did not know where he was.
Mr Kader said NA began a search for the boy and found him at a camel farm in Ras al Khaimah. Prosecutors said a fight broke out at the farm between NA and the farm's operator, the Bedouin man. When authorities were called, NA was arrested. No charges were filed against anyone at the farm. Mr Kader told the court that he and NA ran the Al Jasmi Little Biz shop together. He said NA had lived in the UAE for 15 years.
The boy is being held in the Juvenile Detention Facility in Abu Dhabi. NA will be deported after he serves his sentence. myoussef@thenational.ae hhassan@thenational.ae * With additional reporting by Surya Bhattacharya