Asylum row mum 'has death certificate of child'
Saturday November 07 2009
THE Nigerian mother at the centre of a long-running deportation case yesterday said she has obtained a doctor's certificate proving her claims that her first daughter died as a result of complications after female genital mutilation (FGM).
Pamela Izevbekhai, who represented herself in the Supreme Court after her fourth set of lawyers withdrew yesterday, insisted that her first child, Elizabeth, died in July 1994.
She also said that a sworn statement from a doctor claiming she had never had a child before 2000 was untrue.
Ms Izevbekhai's lawyers had asked to withdraw from the case after they told the court they had received a threatening postcard, which had been sent anonymously.
But Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said threats were made to lawyers all the time and they had to overcome them.
He later accepted a request from Ms Izevbekhai to represent herself after she said she did not want anybody to be under threat.
The case was back in court for an application from the State to have her entire appeal against the deportation of herself and her two daughters dismissed as an abuse of process.
This application was adjourned, but an attempt by Ms Izevbekhai to oppose new affidavits containing fresh evidence disputing her case admitted to the court was rejected.
She said the affidavits were not true, affected her credibility, and that she had no knowledge that a previous affidavit and death certificate submitted on her behalf were forged.
The affidavits the State sought to admit included one from Dr Joseph Unakajo, a Nigerian gynaecologist whose name was used to support a death certificate and the FGM allegations concerning Elizabeth during Ms Izevbekhai's failed asylum application and subsequent High Court challenges.
Forged
In the affidavit, sworn after Irish officials travelled to Nigeria to investigate the case further, Dr Unakajo says Ms Izevbekhai's first child was born in 2000.
He said she had tried to get him to issue a certificate in relation to Elizabeth but he refused.
Irish embassy official Cormac McHenry said in an affidavit that he visited the local government office in Nigeria from which the original death certificate (used in Ms Izevbekhai's asylum application) had allegedly been issued last February and found no such certificate on file in that office.
Ms Izevbekhai, in a replying affidavit, said she "entirely rejected" the doctor's claim that she gave birth to her first child nine years ago.
The death certificate which she originally supplied was obtained through a friend and she did not accept it was forged. Addressing the court, Ms Izevbekhai insisted Dr Unakajo was in attendance at the death of her child and that another doctor, Dr E Ori, later carried out a post-mortem examination.
She had since obtained a death certificate from this second doctor through her brother in Nigeria. She believes Dr Unakajo was acting under influence and she didn't know if this was the same doctor that she knew. She said her credibility was being seriously affected, especially given that the chief justice of Nigeria and the Nigerian ambassador had claimed she was causing embarrassment to their country.
Earlier, the court heard an anonymous postcard was sent to Ms Izevbekhai's solicitors telling them to "back off" and that she was "the greatest con-artist ever". Sharon McElligott, of Murphy McElligott, said in an affidavit that an anonymous postcard received at their office in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, on October 23 had been taken extremely seriously and the gardai were investigating.
In the handwritten postcard, the writer stated: "Take my advice, back off now. Pamela is the greatest con artist ever."
The writer claimed Ms Izevbekhai was "making a fool out of the Irish people and costing tax to Irish people". The writer added: "I know, I am Nigerian, she manipulates everybody."
- Tim Healy
Irish Independent
