A judge has ordered a psychiatric report on a Nigerian man accused of obstructing deportation, claiming garda\u00ed mixed him up with one of his nine identical brothers.<\/p>\n
In the first prosecution of its kind, Sam Okwuoha, 28, was due to face trial at Dublin District Court.<\/p>\n
The case stems from a Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) investigation.<\/p>\n
Jade O’Brien BL, for the defence, applied to vacate the non-jury hearing due to concerns about Mr Okwuoha’s fitness in relation to the proceedings.<\/p>\n
She told Judge Michael Ramsey that the defence had been unable to attend personal consultations to enquire into her client’s well-being on remand at Mountjoy Prison. Counsel added that the accused has since been moved to Cloverhill Prison.<\/p>\n
Judge Ramsey noted there was no objection from the prosecution to adjourn the hearing.<\/p>\n
He directed the preparation of a psychiatric report on the accused and adjourned the case for four weeks, when it will be listed for mention.<\/p>\n
The accused, dressed in a grey tracksuit and red shirt, was remanded in continuing custody.<\/p>\n
The alleged “decuplet” claims his arrest is a case of mistaken identity, leading to his being charged with a single offence under the Immigration Act 1999.<\/p>\n
He is accused of obstructing deportation on 6 March at Dublin Airport, after the Minister of Justice, Equality and Law Reform signed the order to remove him on 6 January.<\/p>\n
Mr Okwuoha denies the charge.<\/p>\n
The man, who had previously lived in Dublin, replied, “I am not the person”, when charged, and bail was denied three months ago.<\/p>\n
“It is the first time we have ever used it,” GNIB Detective Garda Graham Dillon had said.<\/p>\n
He had alleged that officers attempted to remove the accused from the State, “and the removal had to be aborted due to his behaviour”.<\/p>\n
The GNIB officer has said the charge “has not been prosecuted before. I suppose the level of resistance is unusual”.<\/p>\n
Det Gda Dillon disagreed and said “we are 100% confident,” adding that it had been confirmed by legitimate authorities.<\/p>\n
The court was told the accused maintained to be “one of decuplets”, ten children from the same pregnancy.<\/p>\n
The proceedings have also heard that Mr Okwuoha maintained he had identical brothers and that he “swapped places with his brother and came to Ireland”.<\/p>\n
The detective believed Mr Okwuoha would not appear in court if granted bail, and that he had a history of failing to attend proceedings in the State and for “giving different names, using different dates of birth and identities”.<\/p>\n
The charge is a “summary only” offence, dealt with at the District Court level, and punishable by a maximum 12-month sentence and a fine of up to \u20ac2,500.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge has ordered a psychiatric report on a Nigerian man accused of obstructing deportation, claiming garda\u00ed mixed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-492690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492690","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=492690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}