A 22-year-old man from the Ivory Coast will be sent back to Italy, where he has a temporary resident’s permit, after he admitted making use of a forged passport to come to Malta.

Kone Daouda yesterday pleaded guilty to the charges during his arraignment before Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit.

Prosecuting police inspector Frankie Sammut explained that Mr Daouda had a valid Italian identity card and a temporary resident’s permit to stay in Italy.

The permit had expired but, Mr Sammut said, he had a pending application before the Italian authorities to extend it.

The inspector asked the court to hand down an effective jail term. Magistrate Stafrace Zammit said that, in such cases, she usually ordered effective imprisonment since these were very serious offences.

However, she said, the prosecution informed her that Mr Daouda would be repatriated to Italy.

For this reason, in order not to place a financial burden on the Maltese system, she would hand down a suspended jail term so he could be sent back to Italy earlier.

She gave him an 18-month jail term suspended for three years. Mr Daouda will remain in detention until the travel arrangements are made.

Lawyer Alessandro Lia represented the accused.

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