An Algerian man, who was found to have five aliases and five different dates of birth, has been jailed for three years after he lied about having an Irish mother to fraudulently obtain an Irish passport.
Sabouni Abdelhamid (34) claimed to be the son of Catherine ‘Kate’ Corridan, who was murdered in the UK in the 1980s, as well as providing the name of a living person who resides in France, claiming that this was his name, to obtain the passport.
Abdelhamid pleaded guilty to breaching the Passport Act for providing false information to apply for the document on the 30th of December 2023, as well as breaching Section 26 of the Criminal Justice Act by using a fraudulently obtained document at Terminal 2 of Dublin Airport on the 3rd of September 2025.
Abdelhamid also pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching Sections 29.1 and 6 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001, for knowingly being in possession of the fraudulent documents.
The court heard that the accused was born in Algeria but resided for a period in France before he applied for an Irish passport online having collected several utility bills to support his case.
He then used the passport in attempts to travel to the UK via Ireland from Belgium. Belgian authorities became suspicious and seized the passport, allowing the accused to travel to Dublin on an Irish passport card.
When Abdelhamid arrived at Terminal 2 of Dublin Airport, he was stopped by immigration officers who became suspicious of his documents. He was also found in possession of a UK driver’s licence, also made out to the false name on the fraudulently obtained passport.
After he was arrested, he maintained that the name on the false documents was his own name before Interpol and the London Metropolitan police became involved in the investigation. It was then established that the name was that of a person who currently resides in France.
One of Abdelhamid’s aliases has a conviction for possession of a fake driver’s license and bank card, for which the accused received a six-month prison sentence.
Judge Orla Crowe noted the level of planning that was necessary to obtain the passport by deception. She said that the offence had to be marked with a custodial sentence, noting the “highly relevant” previous conviction relating to false documents.
The court also noted that Abdelhamid, who was aided by an Arabic interpreter, has “very good English”, and as such, custody “may not be as difficult as it might be for someone else”, as a “foreign national”.
Judge Crowe set a headline sentence of six years before reducing this to three years, which is to be backdated to the 3rd of September 2025 to give credit for time already served in custody.
An order for the destruction of the false documents was granted to the State.