Forensic examiner tells court passport was forged in alleged London property case

A forensic examiner, Bamaiyi Mairiga, testified in an Abuja High Court that an international passport presented by prominent lawyer Mike Ozekhome (SAN) and other defendant in a UK property dispute was forged and never issued by the Nigerian Immigration Service.

Mairiga, an official of the Department of Forensic Examination of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), was testifying as second prosecution witness.

“In this particular case, the data page of the Nigerian international E-passport bearing the surname Shani, other names Tali and passport number A07535463 is a forged data page.” The office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) on February 27, charged Ozekhome and Ponca Useni with 12 counts of forgery and impersonation.

The prosecution alleged that the defendants conspired in 2020 and made “a false Nigerian International Passport No. A07535463 bearing the name Tali Shani. The prosecution alleged that the defendants created a fake “Irrevocable Power of Attorney” to help Ozekhome claim the property.

They however pleaded not guilty to the charge. Mairiga said In February, the forensic department of the EFCC received a request from the Director of Investigations of the EFCC, Abdulkareem Chukkol, to analyse the data page of an international passport. “This passport bore the name Tali Shani with the passport number A07535463. “The forensic department analysed the passport using the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) international procedure.

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“Three technologies were used: Keesing Technologies Document Checker (KTDC), VSC 8000 ICAO Optical Character Recognition (OCR) E-Passport Checker and Manual Publication/Calculation,” he said. Similarly, he said, the analysis of the data page was carried out to examine the Check Digits (CD).

The witness explained that the CD is a single numerical character from 0 to 9 placed after the Date of Birth (DOB). He said the Date of Expiry (DOE) and passport number were used to check the accuracy and integrity of the date provided on the visual inspection zone (of the passport) to ensure it matches with that of the machine-readable zones.

According to him, the significance of the CD is to assist the immigration officers, border control officers and forensic documents examiners in identifying forged and counterfeited data pages, the witness said. Mairiga explained to the court that the KTDC was used to verify the accuracy of the information on the visual inspection zone of the data page, where the image holder (on the passport) appears and other personalised data.

The forensic department used the VSC 8000 ICAO OCR E-passport feature to verify the genuineness of the DOB, DOE and passport number. He added why the Manual Publication/Calculation requires the conversion of letters to numerals and the multiplication of the data on the passport. The forensic department placed the passport under these analyses.

The report, he said, showed that the international passport bearing the surname Shani and another name, Tali, with passport number A07535463 was digitally altered.

“The Check Digits for the passport number, DOB, and DOE of the passport are incorrect, and the passport data page has been forged/ counterfeited to reflect the holder as Shani Tali, Mairiga said.

The Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation (DPPF), Rotimi Oyedepo, a SAN, who is the prosecution counsel tendered the forensic report in evidence.

The defendants did not oppose the documents. He noted that while his department received a copy of the data page and not the original, the team had no difficulty analysing it because it was legible “for everyone to see.”

During cross-examination, Ozekhome ‘s counsel, Oyetibo SAN, asked if most of the courses the witness took were short. The witness said some courses ranged from two to six weeks; however, his spent four years to graduate.

He also said that he underwent a two-year uninterrupted mentorship and a year-long post-graduate diploma. He further said he was awarded certificates in all courses. Oyetibo asked the witness how his first degree dealt with the examination of documents.

The witness said he took mathematics as a chemistry student (because the document examination there involved calculation). He also referenced a reaction to chemicals which dealt with ink analysis, narrowing it down to the analysis of the disputed passport.

Oyetibo asked the witness if ink analysis was conducted, Mairiga replied, “No. “The request was clear, to compare the content of the machine-readable zone and visual inspection zone to determine if they are a match.” Justice Chizoba Oji, then adjourned until 29 June for further cross-examination.

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