A man was jailed for a year and fined €200 after he was found guilty of trying to sell cannabis in Paceville.

Ahmed Al Allagi, 27, who is from Libya but lives in Msida, was arrested in September after he was observed by the police pulling out a sachet of cannabis from his shoe and handing it to an Italian tourist.

He was charged with trafficking cannabis in a place frequented by youths and relapsing after the tourist identified him as the person who had given her the drugs.

Both she and the accused said money had not changed hands at that point.

The prosecutors told the court that when they approached the accused he put something in his mouth and swallowed it. While out on bail, he tested positive for drugs, as attested by his probation officer.

When testifying, Mr Allagi had denied ever selling drugs and said he had bought half a gram of cannabis from a Somali man and had shared it with some girls. He said that although the girls had offered him money for the joint, he had refused it.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera, presiding the case, said that there was no doubt as to the man’s guilt in this case due to eyewitness accounts, as well as circumstantial and corroborative evidence.

However the prosecution did not prove he was a relapser.

She noted that the substance given to the girls had been certified as a small amount - 67 grams of cannabis of less than five per cent purity.