A man who eight years ago engineered the theft of his own car in order to commit insurance fraud has been handed a two-year suspended jail term and ordered to refund the money paid by his insurer.

The fraud was discovered when the man who took away the car for spare parts decided to sell it, and the police detected the crime when the buyer applied for number plates.

The court heard that Carmel Zammit in May 2002 made arrangements with a friend, Alexander Cassar for the latter to take his Peugeot 306 for use as spare parts.

But after a number of years during which the car was kept in a garage, Mr Cassar sold the vehicle to Mario Mifsud, who bought it in good faith.

Since the number plates were not handed over and the transfer could not take place Mr Mifsud sued Mr Cassar. The police became involved and they discovered from the chassis number that the vehicle had previously been reported as missing.

Citadel Insurance had paid Lm4800 (€11,180) to Mr Zammit after he reported his car stolen.

The court found Mr Zammit guilty of filing a false report to the police and committing insurance fraud. He was condemned to a two-year jail term suspended for four years and ordered to refund the insurance company within six months.

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