Tik case: Focus on immigration
2005-01-21 14:54
Cape Town - The country's immigration system was being revolutionised to stop the use of fake documents to get in and out the country, the Bellville regional court heard on Friday.
Senior home affairs official Gideon Christians testified at the bail hearing of two of four Chinese men allegedly involved in the manufacture of the drug called Tik (crystal methamphetamine, a new reportedly highly addictive drug) at a house in Plattekloof.
They were arrested last December after police observation of the house, and at a house in Somerset Ridge.
Christians told the court the problem of forged documents was "huge", but it would soon be something of the past.
In the dock were Kam Wai Ho and Kai Nam Chan.
During previous appearances the court heard that a loophole in the country's immigration system enabled illegal foreigners with false documents to slip through check points unnoticed. A "movement control system" at ports of entry did not include photographs or fingerprints of foreigners entering the country, which enabled blacklisted persons with false documents to slip through illegally.
One the arrested men, Jiang Dong Li, slipped back into the country after being fined, deported and blacklisted as an illegal foreigner four years ago.
Arrested a second time
While illegally back in the country, he was arrested, but acquitted in criminal proceedings for the illegal possession of perlemoen (abalone) and was again to be deported.
The perlemoen proceedings ended in the late afternoon, when there was no official transport to get Li from the Somerset West magistrate's court to the home affairs deportation office in Cape Town.
Because Li's lawyer had refused to take responsibility for getting him to home affairs, the fourth accused in the Tik case, Jannie Dalton Hong (presently on bail), had undertaken to take Li to Cape Town.
Instead of going to the deportation office, Li had gone to the refugee section, where he had applied for political asylum and obtained a refugee permit to remain in the country.
- SAPA