Foreign national fakes marriage to apply for resid...

Foreign national fakes marriage to apply for residence permit

Michael Mashiri

An Indian man has been retained in custody after appearing in court over charges of attempting to get a Zimbabwean residence permit by presenting a fake certificate of his non-existent marriage to a local woman. His two local accomplices were granted ZWL$ 100 000 bail each.

The court heard that on 25 October 2022, Miriraishe Dororimwe and Kalva Shashank – a national of India- connived with an unknown man at the Harare Magistrates' Court and acquired a fake marriage certificate.

They took the fake marriage certificate to Nash Mashaka who also acquired a fake Chest X-ray report from Parirenyatwa Hospitals.

Mashaka then applied for a spouse’s residence permit on behalf of Shashank and Dororimwe using the fake marriage certificate.

The three accused persons were invited for interviews on 08 December 2022 at the Immigration Offices at New Makombe Building.

During the interviews the immigration officials established that the marriage certificate that was presented for the application had not been acquired following the proper solemnizing process at the Harare Magistrate court.

Magistrate Dennis Mangosi ordered Shashank to apply for bail on 12 December and ordered Dororimwe and Mashaka to surrender their passports to the clerk of court, not to interfere with witnesses and to continue residing at their given addresses and to report to the nearest police station once every Friday.

The matter was postponed to 20 December 2022.