Thursday, June 04, 2009 LONDON: A court jailed an Indian man and two women Wednesday for providing fake degrees and identities to hundreds of immigrants, in what prosecutors said was the biggest visa scam ever seen in Britain.A judge sentenced Jatinder Kumar Sharma to seven years behind bars and Rakhi Shahi to eight years for orchestrating the fraud factory that allowed Indian and Pakistani nationals to study and work in Britain.Another woman, Neelam Sharma, was given a four-year jail term after being convicted of handling some of the hundreds of thousands of pounds that poured into the business in Southall, west London.Jatinda Sharma has been married to Neelam Sharma for nearly 20 years, although a marriage certificate appeared to show he also recently wed Shahi. All three lived together in Southall.Police suspect the business secured visas for almost 1,000 immigrants over two years, Isleworth Crown Court west of London heard, providing them with fake degree certificates, tax and wage receipts, bank statements and references.During the month-long trial, prosecutors also alleged that the trio used fake documents to secure themselves visas in Britain, under a scheme designed to allow well-qualified individuals with useful skills to work here.Prosecutor Francis Sheridan said the case "represents the largest single prosecution of dishonest records ever submitted to the Home Office by an individual business."He described it as a "a huge attack" on Britain's immigration system."We believe we have cracked a major international conspiracy to facilitate the entry of illegal immigrants into the UK," said Tony Smith, regional director of Britain's Border Agency which manages migration, after the trial.Police and border agency officials discovered 90,000 documents during a raid on the business last February, as well as passports, 50 different types of headed notepaper and 150 ink stamps used to create fake documents.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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