Hello!
I'm working on the DS-260 for my father-in-law's IR-5 and was wondering about the "ever been arrested" question. He was never arrested in his home country (Vietnam) and his police record came back completely clear. However, several (~3) years ago, while fishing (his former job; he's retired now) he and the whole crew were arrested by Malaysian police and ended up spending about 9 months in jail in Malaysia. The charge was either fishing in Malaysian waters with an expired permit or no permit at all - can't remember exactly (regardless, they always fished exactly where the owner told them to). They were eventually all released when the owner of the fishing boat paid a certain amount of money - a fine, I suppose. I'm not sure exactly how it was all worded, or if there was ever a conviction per se as opposed to just being detained that long, but anyway he got out and went home and retired.
I'm assuming I should put all of this, in as much detail as possible? My wife thinks maybe we don't need to since it wasn't in Vietnam, and he probably wouldn't be able to get any kind of records from Malaysia if he needed to. Thoughts? And if fully disclosed, what are the chances a type of arrest/imprisonment like this would hurt his case? Would he be asked to provide some kind of hard(impossible? to obtain records from Malaysia?
Thanks for any and all help and advice!