A constitutional court ruled that the Foreign Affairs Ministry was justified in withdrawing the Maltese citizenship of a Moroccan woman when her marriage of convenience was annulled.

Fatiha Khallouf got married in April 1996 and applied for Maltese citizenship that month.

She separated from her Maltese husband in October 1997 and, the following year, had a son with another man.

Her marriage was declared null in October 2000.

In 2001, Italy requested her extradition to face charges of conspiring to traffic migrants.

She spent a year in prison between 2003 and 2004 after being convicted by a court in Ragusa and then returned to Malta where she was convicted of heroin trafficking and was imprisoned for 11 years in 2006. Her citizenship was revoked in 2010.

As a result she ended up stateless

Ms Khallouf said that, as a result, she ended up stateless because she had previously renounced her Moroccan citizenship since dual citizenship was not possible.

She argued that removal of citizenship was in breach of her human rights and both Maltese and EU law.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs insisted that the decision to withdraw her citizenship was taken in line with the Citizenship Act after another court had declared the woman’s marriage to a Maltese man to be null and void.

It had resulted that the only reason for the marriage was to enable the woman to work here.

The Civil Court, in its constitutional jurisdiction, found in favour of the minister, given that the citizenship had been acquired in a fraudulent manner and the presentation of false facts as shown in the court’s decision to annul the marriage.

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