Natasha ReidSunday July 19, 2026
A woman was stopped at passport control in Dublin Airport after presenting a travel document bearing another person’s photograph. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni
A healthcare assistant who used a Swedish “lookalike” passport to bring another Somali woman into Ireland has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Muna Sharif (47), of Bodmin Grove, Birmingham, England, appeared at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Thursday alongside the woman she later said was her sister. Sharif maintained that she had acted to protect the woman from a forced marriage in Somalia.
She pleaded guilty to intentionally assisting a person to enter the State and to supplying a fraudulent identity document — a Swedish passport — on April 10th.
Det Garda Kerrie Sullivan, of the Garda National Immigration Bureau, told the court she was called to Dublin Airport’s Immigration Control area that day after a woman produced a passport whose photograph did not resemble her.
The woman admitted immediately that the Swedish passport, issued in the name of Badra Mohammad Ahmed, did not belong to her. She identified herself as Asia Mohammad Ahmed and sought asylum.
Ahmed had travelled from Düsseldorf with Sharif, Sullivan said, although the pair left the aircraft separately and went to different immigration desks. The detective said this was a commonly used method intended to separate a facilitator from a person being smuggled.
Airport observations showed Sharif in the baggage hall looking in Ahmed’s direction. She was also seen collecting a suitcase carrying the same name as that recorded on the passport.
Flight records established that Sharif had arranged and paid for Ahmed’s journey to Dublin. The bank card used for the booking was found on Sharif when she was arrested. A subsequent examination of her phone uncovered WhatsApp messages between Sharif and the actual holder of the Swedish passport, in which Sharif offered 1,500 Swedish krona to use the document.
Sharif told gardaí that a third party had asked her to travel from Birmingham to Düsseldorf, meet the Somali national and accompany her to Dublin. She said she had been provided with a valid passport to bring from Britain.
She said she expected to recover her travel costs but would receive no payment for her role.
The State did not accept that account. A forfeiture application will be made in respect of €1,000 found in Sharif’s possession when she was arrested.
Sharif’s barrister told the detective that his client said Ahmed was her sister, though no DNA evidence had been produced to establish that relationship. Sharif said she had not raised the claim during interview because she did not want her sister to face trouble.
Sullivan agreed that Somalia was experiencing an active conflict and that a terrorist organisation controlled the region. She was asked about Ahmed’s claim that she had fled to escape a forced marriage.
“The flight was from Düsseldorf, which is in a safe EU country,” the detective replied. She said Ahmed had left Somalia, lived in Libya for four years and then entered Europe through Milan.
The court heard that Sharif arrived in the UK in 2002 and later became a naturalised British citizen. She had no previous convictions and has been suspended from her job because of the offence.
Her barrister said Sharif believed she had a moral duty to assist. Although deeply remorseful, she considered it vital that her sister, a woman in her 20s, leave Somalia for a country such as Ireland, he said.
He asked the court to find that the women were sisters, or alternatively that Sharif had tried to help a Somali woman avoid a forced marriage.
Judge Orla Crowe said Sharif’s case rested on two claims: that Ahmed was her sister and that she had been assisting a Somali woman to leave the country.
The judge said Sharif’s assertion that she did not realise the conduct amounted to a serious criminal offence was “simply not credible”.
Judge Crowe imposed an 18-month prison term, backdated to the date Sharif entered custody after her arrest.
