Sri Lankan arrested in Milan for human trafficking not a diplomat – Foreign Ministry

The Foreign Ministry confirmed that a Sri Lankan with a diplomatic passport had been arrested at the Malpensa Airport in Milan, Italy while trying to smuggle four youths into the country recently.

However, his diplomatic passport had been cancelled upon completion of his contract and although he was required to surrender it, he is suspected of being engaged in human smuggling using his diplomatic passport.

On to information received by the Daily News, the Sri Lankan identified as Jameel Ibra Lebbe Haji of Maradamule, Kalmunai resides at the Maligawatte National housing scheme. Having obtained a doctorate in International Studies at St. Petersburg in Russia, he had been employed as the Counsellor at the Embassy of Jordan from 2012-2015 sent by the Rajapaksa regime.

The 63-year-old was holding a diplomatic passport number D3643493 at the time, which was later cancelled and he had obtained an official passport. Although his diplomatic passport was recalled in 2015, he had not surrendered his diplomatic passport.

He is employed at the Foreign Employment Bureau as a Manager where he serves to date. However, he has not notified the Foreign Employment Bureau of his trip and had left without approved leave.

When the Daily News contacted his second wife Jameela, she claimed that she had no knowledge of his trip to Italy or with whom he had travelled. She said that he had promised her to return last Saturday but had neither contacted her nor notified her of his whereabouts.

“I have no idea who Jamil went with and what happened. I know the same information as you do. Do you know who he is with?” asked Jameela, who was tending to a toddler at the time the publication got in touch with her via phone.She said she had no idea who Jamil had gone with or what had happened to him. “He didn’t tell me before he left.”

Jameela said that her husband used to travel overseas with his first wife, but she had no contact with her. She said that although she had tried to contact her husband, she had not been able to get in touch with him. She denied any knowledge of his activities, adding that so far, no one had contacted her regarding her husband’s whereabouts.

Jamil was arrested recently for posing as a diplomat and had tried to illegally take four young people into Italy, but was arrested by the officers of the Malpensa Airport Border Police Bureau in Milan.

He had arrived in Italy from Doha with his wife and four the youths-two girls and two boys who appeared to be in their 20s and presented the documents to immigration officials for verification proceedings.

He had produced both his wife’s and his diplomatic passports for inspection, which had Schengen visas issued by the French diplomatic authority.

However, the Italian authorities had been suspicious of the authenticity of the passports of the four youths and they were taken to the immigration office.

The diplomat reassured the officials that the two young women were his daughters and the two young men were his nephews.

However, upon investigation the Italian immigration officers were able to discover that all four passports of the youth were falsified by reconstructing the biographical page, which was made using raw materials and sophisticated printing materials.

According to reports, the four original passports of the youth were found inside the hand luggage of the diplomat. They had left the country using their original passports, but, produced the fake diplomatic passports in Italy.

Jamil too had travelled out of Sri Lanka using his official passport, but produced his cancelled diplomatic passport in Italy.

Further interrogation of the youth by the Italian Migration officers revealed that the four youth were not related to the diplomat, and he was only accompanying them for a fee of 4,000 Euros each.

His wife and the four youths were deported to Sri Lanka.

Speaking to the Daily News the Acting General Manager of the Foreign Employment Bureau W.M.V. Wansekara said Jamil had not obtained leave from the Bureau prior to leaving the country. It has been confirmed that Jamil had left the country on September 7 using his official passport.

“Yesterday we had a meeting and took a decision to initiate disciplinary action against him,” Wansekara said.

Jamil is currently held in a Milan prison and the FEB confirmed that an official from the Sri Lankan Consular Office had visited Jamil on Monday. However, the FEB stated that they had yet not received a full report regarding the current status of this issue.

The Daily News made several attempts to contact former Foreign Employment Minister Dilan Perera for a comment but our efforts proved futile.

 

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post