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Irish Wedding News

03/12/2013

Sham Wedding Stopped In Manchester

A sham wedding was stopped in Manchester after the bride and groom were found to be unable to communicate with each other.

According to the Daily Mail, Sufyan Shahzad from Pakistan claimed to have had a "whirlwind romance" with Hungarian woman Katalin Ottlyk. However, officials became suspicious when they noticed the pair could not communicate properly. They alerted police to the situation and on the day of the ceremony – 27 July – they intercepted the wedding.

Both Mr Shahzad and Ms Ottlyk were arrested, as well as a woman alleged to have arranged the sham marriage. Initially, 25-year-old Shahzad told officers the relationship was genuine, but he was unable to give police any personal information about his fiancee, such as where in Hungary she was from. Ottlyk, 30, later admitted that the marriage was a sham and that she had been paid £1,500 to take part. It is understood Shahzad's student visa had expired a year previously.

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Appearing at Bolton Crown Court last week, the pair's English was said to be so poor that they both required proceedings to be translated into their native language. They both pleaded guilty to the charges and Judge Timothy Stead sentenced the couple to 20 months in prison each, with a further four months for Ottlyk for using an fake ID card which had been stolen from another Hungarian woman. The other woman, Maria Baloggojkovitsne, was due to stand trial for allegedly arranging the sham marriage, but fled the country before her trial.

She is now wanted by police.

(JP/IT)

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"A sham wedding was stopped in Manchester after the bride and groom were found to be unable to communicate with each other."