Fabio Psaila was jailed for six months today after he admitted violating bail conditions imposed just under two years ago.

A decision on the forfeiture of his bail guarantee of €2,000 has to be taken by another court.

Mr Psaila made his guilty plea at the start of a hearing this morning.

During the hearing, Inspector Anthony Portelli stressed that the seriousness of the case could be seen in the fact that the police had been looking for Psaila for almost three weeks and he had committed crimes during the time he was out on bail.

A person was considered innocent until proven guilty, but Mr Psaila had returned to police headquarters with a shotgun injury and he had himself taken him to hospital. It was true that he had turned himself in, but he did not say why.

The defence said procedures had to be followed according to the law. The fact that a person was accused in court did not make him guilty. Many accused persons were granted bail. The hearing of the case mentioned by the prosecution had not even started yet.

The court had to act according to the available evidence and in this case the evidence was only that Psaila had not signed the bail book. So this case was minor. He had not even been charged, in this case, with committing a crime while he was on bail.

After the court considered the circumstances of the case, it ordered that Mr Psaila be jailed for six months.

A wanted man for over two weeks until he turned himself in, Mr Psaila was arraigned on Tuesday to face a series of 27 charges including the attempted murder of two constables during the HSBC Qormi heist and the attempted hold-up on a jeweller in Attard last month.

He faced an additional charge yesterday of violating bail conditions imposed two years ago.

Since Tuesday's arraignment Mr Psaila has shaved his beard. By this morning he had also ditched his Balzan FC tracksuit and was wearing a jacket and trousers.