Forged €3,000 travel document lands man in prison

A court has jailed a Libyan man after he admitted to having presented a forged identity document to immigration officials upon his arrival at the Malta International Airport yesterday.

Inspector Karl Roberts arraigned Mahmoud Ahmed Mousay Alhadar before magistrate Victor Axiak on Wednesday, accusing him of having forged a Belgian residence permit, knowingly making use of the forged document, giving false information to immigration officers and offences relating to forgery under the Immigration Act. 

The court was told that the man had been apprehended by police at the airport on Tuesday afternoon after immigration officials noticed that the Belgian residence permit he had used to travel from Libya to Tunis, and then to Malta, was “clearly forged.”

He later told the police that he had bought the travel document for €3,000 from a travel agency, Inspector Roberts added.

Alhadar initially pleaded not guilty. His lawyer, Victor Bugeja contested the forgery charges after it emerged that the charges had been issued from a template.

“We don’t use templates here,” Bugeja said, demanding that the charges relating to forgery be withdrawn, together with that of knowingly making use of falsified documents.

The disputed charges were withdrawn during the sitting, after which the accused changed his plea and admitted the remaining charges. On Bugeja’s insistence, the court specified in its judgement that the admission was limited to the use and possession of the document in question and not to having forged it.

Both prosecution and defence suggested a minimum sentence.

The court declared the Alhadar guilty on his own admission of the remaining charges and sentenced the man to imprisonment for six months.