Fraudulent identity leads to deportation of businessman

A businessman has left South Africa after failing to stop the Department of Home Affairs’ bid to deport him when he was found to be using a fraudulent name.

Manar Alnajjar or “Frederik van Wyk” had been detained at the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Mogale City after being arrested in January this year at OR Tambo International Airport on his return from a business trip in Dubai.

He was charged with possession of a fraudulent South African identity document and passport.

Alnajjar appeared before the Nigel Magistrate’s Court and pleaded guilty to contravening the Immigration Act and fraud in April and sentenced to three months direct imprisonment for fraud and R120 000 for being in the country illegally.

The court suspended R100 000 of the amount for three years on condition that he is not found guilty of a similar offence. After completing his sentence, Alnajjar was transferred to the Lindela Repatriation Centre for deportation.

In his defence, he claimed he first entered the country in 2007 using a visitor’s visa and subsequently obtained a general work visa in February 2011.

Alnajjar stated that he aspired to be a permanent South African citizen and engaged the services of an immigration agent.

Afterwards, they visited the offices of Home Affairs in Nigel, which then furnished him with the South African ID containing his photograph and under the name “Frederik van Wyk”.

It was during his stay at the Lindela Repatriation Centre in July that Alnajjar launched an urgent application to the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg to force Home Affairs director-general Livhuwani Makhode, minister Dr. Leon Schreiber and the head of the centre to release him to legalise his status in the country.

Alnajjar told the court that he previously held a Jordanian passport and that his family is originally from Gaza but after the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbours, his family along with others were forced to relocate to Jordan.

During his time in South Africa, he knowingly used the fraudulent document and used it to apply for a passport.

Alnajjar added that he had a life partner who is a Ukrainian citizen, also a permanent resident and holder of a permanent South African non-citizen document, and together they had a daughter, who is 11 months old.

In 2013, he married a Bulgarian citizen but divorced her in 2022. He also insisted that he is a successful businessman and a shareholder of a company operating in the recycling space in and outside South Africa and that he employed about ten people.

Alnajjar said the company had been steadily expanding until he was arrested earlier this year.

However, Acting Judge Patrick Malungana said the court could not countenance the perpetuation of illegal activities despite showing remorse by pleading guilty for fraud after he was arrested in possession of the fraudulent documents.

“The applicant (Alnajjar) has known all along of his fraudulent identity document. It is only when the law caught up with him that he pleaded guilty, and has some sort of expectation for the law to prevent his deportation because he has some family and business interests in the country,” the acting judge said, explaining his decision to dismiss the urgent application last week.

Chris Wentzel, Alnajjar’s lawyer in the urgent application, said his client has already left the country after being unsuccessful in court.

“He and his wife will decide, I assume, what they will do next but I don’t have any confirmation on what they have decided to take things forward,” he said.

Cape Times