A former Foreign Affairs Ministry employee was on Saturday charged with falsifying Pakistani identity documents to get Maltese citizenship.

Inspector Anne Marie Xuereb and Inspector Omar Zammit charged Aziz Ahmad, 34, of Sliema with forgery and using falsified documents.

Mr Ahmad claims to have been born in Malta and raised in Pakistan.

He told the court he was a full-time employee of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, however, the prosecution insisted he had not worked there since 2013. They added that he had no financial means to support himself.

A not guilty plea was entered and defence lawyer Joseph Pace requested bail, but Inspector Xuereb objected arguing that the prosecution had doubts about his personal details.

The police said they were still awaiting confirmation from overseas as to his identity. The address he gave was his cousin's and he had not been in Malta for over three years.

Meanwhile, Dr Pace said there were “reams of documents" that explained how this came to be.

He said his client had been coming and going to Malta for the past three years.

His family were prepared to sign a personal guarantee for his continued compliance with court instructions, added the lawyer.

The inspector said that on Friday the accused had declared that the last time he had been in Malta was 2015. “I don’t know how the lawyer said he met him over the past three years,” she said. “Maybe he has a twin.”

Magistrate Doreen Clarke denied bail in view of the charges, the continuing investigation and fear that the accused would abscond.