University admin duo accused of taking Dh300,000 in bribes from students to pass them at exams

Russian and Lebanese administrators at Dubai Criminal Court over bribe claims related to English language exams at American Univerisity in Dubai.

DUBAI // Two administrators at a university are accused of accepting bribes from students who failed exams in return for putting their names through the electronic system as having passed.

Russian M N, 32, and M A, 33, from Lebanon, are both charged at Dubai Criminal Court with accepting bribes totalling Dh300,000 from 20 students at American University in Dubai who were going for their majors.

Prosecutors said that it is the defendants’ jobs to receive and process the English language TOEFL and IELTS exam documents from students and put them into the university’s electronic system.

They asked for and received bribes from students in return for changing their status on these exams from “Fail” to “Success”, it is claimed.

The pair were also charged with the forgery of 20 documents and with the use of these forged documents.

The head of the admissions section at the university, T K, 37, testified that M A was sacked in October 2012 as a result of his poor performance.

“On January 19 this year I noticed that five TOEFL documents for five students were not in the system but the students were accepted to the university [major course],” the Lebanese woman said.

“They cannot be admitted unless these documents with pass result are available in the system.”

The admissions chief said that the Russian defendant was responsible for saving these five documents in the system so she talked to him.

“He showed me copies of the documents so I told him we don’t take copies, we only take originals,” said T K.

She checked the copies and found later that day that there were no original documents for these copies. “Then someone I don’t know called me and said they were forged and that M N was aware of the forgery,” said T K.

She said that the defendant was fired from the university and then she spoke to one of the students with the fake TOEFL results. He told her that another student gave him the mobile number of the Lebanese defendant to arrange the scam in return for Dh20,000.

A check was carried out on TOEFL and IELTS results and more forged documents were found.

“Some of the students involved were expelled from the university while some were downgraded,” said T K, adding that M A wrote a confession letter.

The incident was reported to police and M A was arrested on February 5 when he returned to the university to finalise his dismissal papers.

“He denied his involvement but investigations revealed that he showed sudden signs of wealth as he bought a new, lavish car and was about to open a company,” testified police captain W A, 33.

On February 13, the Russian defendant was arrested at his home. Prosecutors said he confessed to charges and said he split the money with his accomplice.

The two defendants were present in court on Tuesday but the judge did not read the charges to them, instead telling prosecutors to amend the charge sheet.

The next hearing is on December 9.