A 35-year-old man from Qrendi yesterday pleaded not guilty to smuggling 645 protected songbirds from Sicily in a haul valued at over €30,000.

Aaron Micallef was granted bail by a court against a personal guarantee of €2,000 and a deposit of €500.

He was found in possession of the birds last Friday on his arrival aboard the catamaran, during a search conducted by customs officials and the police.

The birds numbered 326 hawfinches, 164 linnets, 108 serins, 46 goldfinches and one greenfinch, some of which were alive. They were found in his car, which was confiscated.

Inspector Jurgen Vella put the value of the birds at €31,862. The accused was also charged of evading €5,735 in Value Added Tax.

In a separate case, which took place in similar circumstances on the same day, Peter Paul Grech, 68, from Nadur, was fined €3,460 and had his car confiscated by the courts.

The elderly man admitted that he had not declared the importation of 50 live hawfinches from Sicily, worth some €4,000.

These arraignments came in the wake of the news revealed yesterday by The Sunday Times of Malta that over 1,300 songbirds had been smuggled from Italy to Malta over the past three weeks.

This surge in illegal trade of protected birds was spurred by the government’s decision to reintroduce trapping, which involves the use of live birds as decoy.

Apart from the nearly 700 birds seized last Friday, another 551 songbirds were discovered hidden in a van, also aboard the catamaran.

And in Għaxaq, 100 songbirds – mainly greenfinches and goldfinches – were registered with false rings to give the impression they had been bred rather than caught in the wild.