{"id":244852,"date":"2026-01-14T20:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/244852\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T20:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:52:10","slug":"teen-jailed-under-operation-failte-after-landing-at-dublin-airport-without-passport-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/244852\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen jailed under \u2018Operation F\u00e1ilte\u2019 after landing at Dublin Airport without passport \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A young <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/albania\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/albania\/\">Albanian<\/a> man arrived at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-airport\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-airport\/\">Dublin Airport<\/a> without a passport, claiming to be under threat from criminals, a court has heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Amarildo Coku (18) who has no address in or ties to Ireland, was arrested during what Judge Alan Mitchell termed \u2018Operation F\u00e1ilte\u2019 and has been in custody on remand since October 21st.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cHe could not have got on a plane without producing some document; there was no document available when he arrived in Ireland\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He pleaded guilty on Wednesday at Cloverhill District Court to charges under sections 11 and 12 of the Immigration Act. The laws require a non-Irish national arriving in the country to produce a passport or identity card on October 20th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He pleaded guilty and was handed a backdated two-month sentence, meaning that with remission, he is expected to be released forthwith.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Court Garda Sergeant Olwyn Murphy told the court that the young man flew into Dublin Airport and, when he met authorities, claimed he had no passport or travel documents. He was referred to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/garda-national-immigration-bureau\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/garda-national-immigration-bureau\/\">Garda National Immigration Bureau<\/a>, charged and remanded in custody.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThis is an offence under what is called Operation F\u00e1ilte,\u201d remarked Judge Mitchell, whose court deals with many immigration prosecutions, which carry 12-month sentences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Speaking via an interpreter, Coku said he was uncomfortable and stressed in custody. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Pleading for leniency, his solicitor Mervyn Harnett said his client came to Ireland because he was under threat from a criminal organisation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Judge Mitchell stated that Coku must have passed through several European nations and that Albania was deemed a safe country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He added that he took a serious view of people coming into the country without documents. He noted the guilty plea, recorded a conviction and imposed a sentence as a deterrent, with one charge taken into consideration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young Albanian man arrived at Dublin Airport without a passport, claiming to be under threat from criminals,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11551,11900,123380,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-244852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-albania","9":"tag-dublin-airport","10":"tag-garda-national-immigration-bureau","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}