Accused in human trafficking trial was arrested before leaving for resettlement in France

Updated at 17:34

A Criminal Court today heard how Adam Hasan Mohammed Khemis, 59 of Darfur, Sudan who is under trial for masterminding a plot to traffic fellow sub-Saharan migrants out of Malta to Sicily, was arrested by police moments before he was due to leave for France under a restettlement programme organised by the French government.

Khemis this morning faced a number of migrants who told Judge Lawrence Quintano that he approached them and asked for €850 each, saying that he had the contacts, and the resources to have them smuggled into Italy by boat. All had paid him the money in a bid to leave Malta and start a new life in Italy.

A three page indictment explains that in May 2009, the migrants who accepted Khemis offer, were made to ride in a mini-bus which collected them late at night and were driven around the island, and later taken back to Hal Far Open Centre, after the accused told them that the place from where the boat had to leave was cordoned off by the police.

Khemis was later reported to the police for fraud, conspiracy and organisation of human trafficking.

Taking the witness stand the migrants said that they felt conned by Khemis after understanding that he took their money, accumulating quite a sum and stashed them to take them with him to France where he was to be resettled.

Prosecutors, Inspectors Priscilla Caruana and Edel Mary Camilleri together with Police Sergeant Kevin Camilleri had gone to the airport in a bid to arrest Khemis who was expected to leave on a flight to Paris together with a number of other migrants.

Khemis had not yet arrived at the airport for the departure ceremony which was presided by the then home affairs minister Tonio Borg and the French Ambassador.

As the police suspected that Khemis understood he was being sought after for the fraud, he was later arrested later that afternoon in the airport's vicinity.

Nicknamed 'commando' police managed to trace him through a series of phone calls made to his mobile phone, using his friends as bait.

Khemis faces a maximum of 12 years imprisonment.

The trial continues on Wednesday morning.