Tevfick Souleiman

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

The Respondent, a solicitor, was convicted at the Central Criminal Court of conspiracy to facilitate breaches of UK immigration law (involving at least 63 sham marriages), possessing criminal property, and conspiracy to cheat the Public Revenue, and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. The Tribunal found all three allegations proved (breaches of Principles 1, 2 and 6), noting the offences involved a lack of integrity. Though the offences were dishonest in nature, the Tribunal framed its findings in terms of lack of integrity rather than an express finding of dishonesty. He was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £2,665.54.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct was pre-meditated, deliberate and calculated
• Conduct took place over a lengthy period (2004-2011)
• Repeated at least 63 times with large sums of money involved
• Abuse of position of trust
• Exploitation of vulnerable men and women
• Immense damage to the reputation of the profession
• Limited insight due to intention to appeal

Mitigating factors:

• No previous disciplinary matters
• Apologised and admitted the allegations