A MAN accused of arranging sham marriages used the name of an international footballer at an Oxfordshire register office, jurors heard.
A registrar at Oxford Register Office said Abiola Abdulkareem had called himself Jubril Cissé, which Judge Patrick Eccles noted was pronounced like former Liverpool and France footballer Djibril Cissé.
The defendant denies one count of assisting unlawful immigration to a member state between October 2009 and March 2010 and possessing criminal property in the form of bank credits between 2008 and 2010.
He faced the second day of his trial at Oxford Crown Court yesterday having earlier admitted four counts of assisting unlawful immigration to a member state between 2009 and 2010.
The 31-year-old, from White Road, Cowley, Oxford, previously admitted one count of bigamy when he re-married on September 21, 2007, without having first dissolved a previous marriage.
Registrar Gill Smith told jurors yesterday that Abdulkareem had aroused suspicions after posing as an interpreter at Oxford Register Office in April last year to help a Nigerian man and a French woman apply for permission to marry.
The trial continues.
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