Refugee who claimed sister was his wife given two-year sentence

Sonya McLean

A refugee who claimed his sister was his wife to allow him to bring the woman and his six-year-old son into Ireland on a family reunification visa has been given a two-year sentence.

The 29-year-old Somalian man, who cannot be named for legal reasons in order to protect the identity of his child, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assisting the unlawful entry into the State of a person at Terminal One, Dublin Airport on July 22nd, 2025. He has no previous convictions.

Detective Garda Karen Barker of the Garda National Immigration Bureau told Gráinne O’Neill BL, prosecuting, that the man had full refugee status in Ireland for a number of years before he applied for a family reunification visa. He has been in Ireland since 2021.

They were stopped as a family unit coming off a flight from Cairo, with the woman and the child presenting Somalian identification documents.

The woman claimed to be the sister of the man’s dead wife but said she had then married the accused herself in 2018. She said the boy was the child of her dead sister and the accused’s son.

Det Gda Barker said immigration did not think the woman looked like the woman in the passport. They separated her from the group and brought her in for questioning. She was asked to write her name and date of birth and was unable to do so.

There were concerns for the child’s safety. The accused man initially gave immigration the same account as the woman but then admitted that the woman was not his wife but actually his sister. He said she had come to Ireland to seek asylum.

He said he had left Ireland 20 days earlier and met the woman and child in Kenya before they returned together and attempted entry back into Ireland on the family reunification visa. He said his sister was in imminent danger in Somalia.

State care

Det Gda Barker said the child is now in State care and the woman has subsidiary protection in Ireland, which is a form of international protection for non-EU nationals who do not qualify as refugees but face a real risk of serious harm.

She agreed with Mark Lynam SC, defending, that the accused has injuries and he has claimed that he was the victim of a terrorist organisation in Somalia. She said while she is aware he has injuries she cannot confirm how he got them.

Det Gda Barker acknowledged that the man has permanent refugee status in Ireland but clarified that it was under review.

She said that a number of false certificates were used by the man in order to apply for the family reunification visa, adding that he began the application three years earlier.

Lynam asked the court to accept that these were actions carried out in desperation because the man was concerned for the welfare of his child and sister in Somalia.

False documents

He acknowledged that his client obtained false documents in an attempt to get his family to Ireland.

Lynam acknowledged that he cannot tell the court how long the woman and child were in Kenya before they met his client but he said they are both from Somalia.

When asked by Judge Sinéad Ní Chúlacháin where the mother of the child was, counsel replied “I can’t say – she is not in Ireland”.

He submitted that there is nothing particularly unusual in people travelling to Ireland on false documentation in order to gain access to the State.

Lynam asked the court to accept his client brought the woman and child here out of concern for their safety and that he was not a “professional trafficker” nor was he “doing this for profit”.

“His motivation was to be re-united with his family,” counsel said. “He just wanted to have his family here and he went about it the wrong way.”

Judge Ní Chúlacháin said it appeared to be a once-off offence in which the accused brought the woman and his son into the country, but she said it had been well planned, noting that the false documentation went back three years.

She said the man must have had assistance in obtaining the false documents to get the family reunification visa.

Judge Ní Chúlacháin accepted that that the man did not do this for profit nor was it part of a commercial operation. She further accepted that the injured party was not preyed upon but rather “probably benefitted” from the scheme.

“The integrity of the immigration system in this country is the real injured party,” Judge Ní Chúlacháin commented.

She set a headline sentence of three years before she took into account his personal circumstances and acknowledged that he had been supporting himself in Ireland since 2021.

Judge Ní Chúlacháin imposed a sentence of two years. She said the man should be given credit for the time he has spent on remand in custody. The final year of the sentence was suspended.