Man arrested for having no national ID or passport

Gardaí arrested a man at a car valeting premises in Cork for having no passport or national ID yesterday.

Detective Garda Robert McCarthy arrested Ambrose Amorjie, aged 37, at the valeting outlet in White’s Cross yesterday morning and brought him before Cork District Court. He applied to have him remanded in custody to allow enquiries to be made through Interpol and other relevant agencies.

The charge was of failing to have a passport or similar identification papers as required of foreign-nationals.

Frank Buttimer, solicitor, said there would be an immediate plea of guilty to the offence. The matter could not proceed yesterday, however, as gardaí were not satisfied with his identification.

“He was given ample opportunity to produce it this morning and he did not do so,” Det Garda McCarthy said. “The Garda National Immigration Bureau have no record of the name given.”

Mr Buttimer said: “What he tells me is that this is his actual real name. He came in under the radar in circumstances that were no doubt secret.”

Det Garda McCarthy said: “We said this morning we would bring him to his address but he would not tell us even where he stayed last night.”

Mr Buttimer said the defendant stayed at 6 Gerald Griffin St, Cork. He said the defendant’s previous residence in Europe was in Austria and he had some dealings with the Austrian immigration authorities.

Mr Buttimer said Amorjie had been at that Cork address for in excess of one year and his communication skills were pretty poor.

Judge Olann Kelleher said the accused had failed to co-operate with gardaí so far. He remanded him in custody to next Wednesday.