Two Albanian nationals were sentenced to six months imprisonment after admitting to using false passports at the Malta International Airport.
The men, identified as Klaudjo Gjini and Mustafa Sadikaj, were intercepted by immigration police at around 2:30pm on Sunday, after presenting travel documents later found to be falsified.
One of the passports was Israeli, while the other was British.
According to testimony in court, the two were immediately informed of their rights and taken to the airport police station, where they were searched and registered. Both men admitted to the charges of possessing and using false passports.
The prosecution requested the punishment be effective, though kept to a minimum.
Legal aid lawyer Martin Farrugia, who had assisted the pair during their arrest, argued that the men posed no threat to national security and described their actions as a “serious mistake” made by two young men, aged 23 and 25, with no previous convictions. He appealed for the court to consider a suspended sentence rather than imprisonment.
However, the court, presided over by Magistrate Kevan Azzopardi, after hearing submissions, found the two guilty and sentenced them to six months of effective imprisonment.
The men, who do not understand Maltese, were assisted throughout proceedings by two interpreters — one translating from Maltese to English and another from English to Albanian.