A 50-year-old Frenchman was found guilty of exporting a military aircraft to the Ivory Coast six years ago after an appeals' court overturned a previous judgment and fined him almost €12,000.

Jean Jacques Fuentes was found not guilty by the Magistrates' Court a year ago of exporting two Strikemaster military aircraft from Malta to the Ivory Coast in May 2004.

The Attorney General filed an appeal arguing that the first court should have found him guilty.

In his reply to the appeal, Mr Fuentes claimed he did not export anything, insisting it was a company called NCA International Limited that co-ordinated the export of the "aircraft parts". The parts were of a civilian not military aircraft and, moreover, once assembled together, they would not be sufficient to build an aircraft.

But Mr Justice David Scicluna pointed out that in his first statement to the police Mr Fuentes had said: "I had arranged for disassembling G-BXFP in Malta through NCA and Medavia's technicians and also arranged for the shipment of the aircraft via Tristar Agency." It also resulted that he effected all payments.

The judge said that, thus, Mr Fuentes could not disclaim responsibility for the export of the aircraft in question.

The court noted that the aircraft were BAC 167 Strikemasters, a brand of British, jet-powered training and light attack aircraft.

Mr Justice Scicluna said that Mr Fuentes had categorically told the police that he sold the aircraft to the Ivory Coast "for initial military training purposes".

He had also stated that the aircraft was never armed and could not technically be re-armed, also confirming that the aircraft in question was an effective military training aircraft because the instructor and the cadet could sit next to each other.

Taking this into consideration, the judge found Mr Fuentes guilty and fined him €11,646.