Two illegal immigrants – Mamadou Sidibe Sedu, 25, of Mali and Lucky Opia Paul, 29, of Nigeria, were this morning jailed for eight months after pleaded guilty to using false documents to escape Malta.

Mr Sidibe Sedu was caught in Italy and Mr Opia Paul in Spain. Both were sent back to Mlata.

Police Inspector Geoffrey Azzopardi, who conducted the investigations said such cases were having big repercussions on Malta.

Immigrants were trying to leave Malta with false documents almost everyday, and these documents were almost ridiculous in nature because they were so badly done.

Although the immigrants are reading and seeing in the media that their friends are being jailed for such crimes, they were still going ahead and taking risks.

Legal aid lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace told Magistrate Audrey Demicoli that they were not in court to solve the problems of Schengen but to deal with the specific accusations.

He said he failed to understand why such accused could not be given suspended jail terms because although the crimes were serious they were document related.

Magistrate Demicoli took into consideration the circumstances of the cases, the arguments made and jailed the men for eight months each.

Similar cases are usually jailed for six months.