An irregular immigrant from Chad would rather go back to his country than continue living in the detention centre where he claims to be picked on by other immigrants there, a court heard yesterday.

Ahmed Salem, 23, expressed his feelings through his lawyer when he was arraigned yesterday and admitted to trying to escape from the Ta' Kandja detention centre and relapsing on Monday at about 8.30 p.m.

Magistrate Edwina Grima gave Mr Salem time to reconsider his plea. When he insisted on a guilty plea she jailed him for six months.

Mr Salem also expressed his wish to be given his passport back, after serving time, so he could leave the island and head back to Chad.

Police Inspector Sandro Zarb prosecuted.

Lawyer Beppe Fenech Adami was defence counsel.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.