Arraigned on Friday before Georgetown Magistrate Leron Daly on a charge of overstaying her time in Guyana, Angolan national Shantelle Joseph was nearly ordered deported from Guyana because she did not inform the court that she was married to a Guyanese national.
She instead pleaded guilty when a charge was read to her alleging that, between July 23, 2016 and July 28, 2017 at Georgetown, she failed to comply with a permit granted to her and overstayed her time in Guyana.
Magistrate Daly had already fined the defendant $30,000 and ordered that she be escorted to the airport, from where she would be deported, when her husband of eleven years objected to this decision and informed the court that the woman is his legal wife.
He explained that she had been given time to apply for her citizenship by the immigration authorities, but a family member in Angola had suffered a health crisis and the woman went back to her country. She has returned and is again in the process of applying for her citizenship, which is taking a lengthy period.
Documents were presented in court to attest to the information provided, and the woman was accordingly ordered to pay the fine, but the deportation order was revoked.
