A defence lawyer yesterday argued that his client, a Togolese man who had been deported from Germany for travelling with a false passport, was being wrongly tried for the same charges here.

Legal aid lawyer, Martin Fenech, insisted that once his client, 32-year-old Harun Iddris, who left Malta on Monday and was stopped in Hamburg, had been fined €500 in Germany, the proceedings in Malta were baseless.

"He cannot be tried twice for the same crime, Your Honour", he said during legal wrangling over whether the arrest of Mr Iddris was legal, given that he had already been fined.

Police Inspector Geoffrey Azzopardi argued that the sanction the accused received in German was simply an "administrative fine", adding that it was meant to pay for the flight back to Malta.

He justified the arrest and said the crime of leaving Malta using a false passport was punishable with an effective prison term.

Dr Fenech rebutted and insisted that "the fact that he was fined by a judicial authority means that he cannot be tried twice for the same crime".

At that point, Magistrate Audrey Demicoli said that "frankly, the document exhibited (referring to the alleged fine) is illegible and all I can decipher is the number 500 and even that is not clear whether it is actually euros".

Taking this into consideration, she ruled the arrest legal.

In submissions on bail, Dr Fenech said that if his client was found to have spent time in preventative arrest unnecessarily, he would be eligible for compensation.

Inspector Azzopardi said that once the accused left the island, he might leave again. Mr Iddris was remanded in custody.