Updated: Sudanese who helped Indians escape detention jailed

Sudanese Gamil Abu Bakr, 39, was this afternoon jailed for seven years after a trial by jury found him guilty with eight votes against one of trying to help four Indian nationals escape from the Safi detention centre and on to Italy in 2005.

The four years Mr Bakr spent in preventive custody are to be reduced from his jail term.

The accused arrived in Malta in 1995 as a refugee and has since married a Slovenian woman, had two children and obtained Maltese citizenship.