Letters from Readers: "Mistaken Identity"

"I would like to tell you about my recent experience I had on a trip to Dubai.
I arrived at the early morning hours on Tuesday 15th January. I was travelling with my husband who is a captain for an international airline based in Asia. I had decided to go on a trip with him which allowed me to stop in Dubai for 24 hours on our way to London. I had a lovely day in Dubai visiting the fantastic shopping malls and even had the opportunity to go snowboarding in the indoor ski slope situated in the Mall of the Emirates.

I checked in for my flight at midnight the same day. Everything went as smoothly as to be expected at the airport until I arrived at immigration where the female immigration officer returned my passport to me with a smile and told me to go to the far corner to the immigration office to receive a stamp. At the time I thought it was a little odd as I wasn’t heading in the right direction thru immigration to board my flight although these days there’s so much more security we just seem to do what we’re told.

When I got to the separate immigration office there was approximately 6 male Arab immigration officers looking at my passport and only speaking in Arabic. I asked them if there was a problem and they told me to let them do their job at which time I stayed quiet for a few more minutes and started to get worried so I then asked if I was going to be able to make my flight as it was due to take off in less than 30 minutes. They then passed me a piece of paper with only Arabic writing and a small photocopied photo of a Caucasian girl with the name Kym Maree Day written in English underneath it. I passed it back to the officer and told him that this wasn’t me; my name is Kym Maree Gilsenan. One of the men said ‘you worked for Emirates?’ I replied ‘yes, a very long time ago’. I worked for Emirates Airlines for 2 years from 1996-1998. He then said ‘you had a bank loan?’ I replied ‘yes’. He then said that I did not pay back the loan in which I told him I did a long time ago. At this stage I realized that he thought I was this girl in the picture. With desperation I tried to tell these men that I was not this girl. They told me to take a seat at which time I started to realize that my situation was not looking good as my flight was due to take off and I could see that they thought I was this girl in the picture.

I then sent a text message through to my husband telling him that there was a problem and I was getting scared as they believed I was somebody else. My husband then contacted the airline ground staff and they both came to meet me at immigration. They asked my husband if I had a previous passport with a different name and he said yes. He told them that my maiden name was Kym Maree Collins, he wrote it down for them to put into the computer and compare the passport photo but they refused and then told my husband to get out of the office. The officers just kept saying that I was this girl who once worked for Emirates Airlines and had a 132, 000 AED (42, 000 AUD) bank loan to pay for. They told us that our name, date of birth and nationality were the same. We only saw her name written in English, everything else was in Arabic so it was just my word against these 6 obviously aggressive men that I was not this girl. I couldn't’t believe that this other girl had the same first and middle name spelt exactly the same as mine but she also had the same date of birth, it sounded like something from a movie.

I was then taken to the police station in the airport to try to explain my situation to some male police officers; I was allowed to have my husband and the airline agent with me. We desperately tried to convince the police officers that this was a different girl, after a great deal of confusion and everyone talking loudly in Arabic we were told to come back into immigration in the airport terminal which gave us a burst of confidence. The police officer met with the immigration officers from before. After an intense conversation in Arabic we were told to go back to the police station in the airport which was obviously a step back. I was told to take a seat in a room, I was then told that I wouldn’t be departing Dubai on my flight and I would be escorted by a female police officer and a male detective from the CID to the main police station in Dubai. My husband was very distressed with what he should do; it was very difficult to gain any information from them. There was a lot of loud talking in Arabic but no one would give us any information. They said that my husband couldn’t stay with me. He was supposed to operate a flight from Dubai to London and the flight was already delayed because of my situation. I told him that he should go to work and that I would be ok. So after a few tears from being very scared and extremely confused I said my goodbye’s to my husband and went with the police officer and the detective to go and sort out my situation.

On arrival at the station I was taken to see a male senior police officer who seemed stressed as he was yelling at everyone who came into his office. When he finally got to my case he told me in his raised voice that I needed to pay this loan of 132, 000 dirham’s or bad things would happen to me. I tried to explain that I was not this person but he wouldn’t believe me. Eventually the detective told me to ‘come’ so I left with them for the drive back to the airport police station. I had really hoped that it would’ve been sorted out with the interview although we left without any promise of the situation being sorted. I started to cry and felt helpless as I saw my husbands aircraft take off and pass the window of the office I was in. Nobody was listening to me or explaining anything to me, any documents I saw was in Arabic and everyone was speaking Arabic around me. I had no idea what was going to happen. It was now 5am and I was just told to sit in an office in the police station back at the airport.

Every time I needed to go to the bathroom, I had to be escorted by a female officer. I felt like a criminal and that’s how I was being treated. At about 6.30am I asked one of the officers if he knew what was happening with my case he laughed and said ‘your case? I just arrived and know nothing’. He didn’t make any effort to find out for me.

At about 8am I was escorted by a new female police officer and a male detective to the main Dubai police station again. I was put in a room to be interviewed by a new senior police officer and my only hope was that he wasn’t as stressed and angry as the one earlier at 3am. I sat in his office while he did some paperwork, dealt with another case that came in after me and proceeded to greet every man that walked passed his door. He did not talk to me until about 40 minutes later. He told me to sit at his desk while he pulled out the file of this other girl they thought was me. He opened it to a photocopy of a cheque written to Emirates Bank from Kym Maree Day. He asked me if that was my signature which I replied no. He looked at me with confusion and I just started crying in between trying to say ‘this is what I’ve been trying to tell everyone, this girl is not me’. He then showed me a photocopy of her passport. It was only then that I could explain things more clearly to him as it was the first time that I had been shown a document in English. I compared her passport to mine and told him that we had the same first and middle name but different last name and that my name was quite common in Australia. Then I looked at her date of birth and I realised that her date of birth was 4th April 1973 and mine is 21st July 1975 so it was in fact not the same birthday even though the men were telling me that it was. I was also able to point to my place of birth was Brisbane and hers was Townsville. He then looked at me and asked me why they didn’t see this at the airport. I didn’t know how to respond to such a basic question without breaking down with tears of frustration. After a few more minutes of him looking at the passport he handed my passport to me and said ‘you can go’.

I couldn’t believe it. After being denied my flight to London with my husband, being held for about 8 hours in police custody, being escorted to the bathroom by a police officer, no food, no sleep, no suitcase(it went to London) and no where to stay I was being told that I could go! I asked for him to call me a taxi and he told me I could get one on the street. As it turns out I couldn’t get a taxi so I walked 45min from the police station to the hotel I had stayed at the day before, with my husband, dragging my carry on bag with me.

I had to pay 435 AED (137 AUD) for a hotel and wait until midnight for the next flight to London. The Dubai police didn’t offer me a ride to my hotel, didn’t offer me a flight on another airline to get me to London sooner, didn’t offer to pay for a hotel room and least of all they didn’t even offer me an apology for having the wrong person. I have always enjoyed my visits to Dubai since living there but I cannot believe the way they treated me. It was very rude and disrespectful. I am now a nervous wreck when having to go through immigration at airports and feel for any ex Emirates employees that may have the same first and middle name as a criminal. "

Kym Gilsenan