Deportation case mother had fake baby death papers, inquiry told

OMG this just keeps getting better and better, best novel ever!!!

Now Pamela admits papers are faked

Pamela Izevbekhai, the Nigerian woman who claims she fled to Ireland in order to save her two daughters from female genital mutilation (FGM), has admitted that documents used in a series of legal challenges against her deportation were counterfeits.

She still insists that she had a daughter, named Elizabeth, who died in 1994 at the age of 17 months after undergoing female circumcision.

Izevbekhai, whose landmark Supreme Court challenge to stay in Ireland with her two daughters, Naomi, 7, and Jemima, 6, is due to be heard this Friday, made the admission yesterday. The disclosure is almost certain to cause the collapse of her legal challange.

Izevbekhai admitted that a document purporting to be Elizabeth’s death certificate was a fake. An affidavit from Joseph Unokanjo, an obstetrician who purportedly treated the child before she died, was also a counterfeit.

Izevbekhai said she only learned that the documents were fake on Friday night when her husband Tony, who is living in Nigeria, admitted he had obtained them from a fraudster. She claimed her husband was forced to obtain the fake documents because Unokanjo had refused to supply the real papers and medical reports without a substantial payment.

Unokanjo has denied this in an interview with The Sunday Times but refused to answer detailed questions about the case unless he received a payment of €5,000 from the newspaper.

Izevbekhai said she now regretted taking a series of legal challenges, including one to the European Court of Human Rights, against her deportation and those of her daughters.

“I didn’t know the documents were fake when I passed them to my lawyers. I am so sorry for what has happened. If people are upset, they have every right to be upset. Everything I did, I did it believing the documents to be true. I know I am in a lot of trouble and I don’t know how to get myself out of it,” she said.

Izevbekhai appealed to Dermot Ahern, the justice minister, to “pardon” her for what had happened. She said she feared being killed in her native country if her deportation to Nigeria proceeded. “Anything that I did was for the safety of my children. Nigeria is not a safe place for me any more.” Izevbekhai said she felt she had let down her supporters, friends and legal team. “My lawyers acted in good faith. I didn’t set out to deceive anyone because I didn’t know the documents were fakes.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5993384.ece