A Ghanaian was jailed for four months after being found guilty of acting as an intermediary in the forgery of an international driving licence but was cleared of doing the job himself.

Stephen Osei Boateng was investigated after receiving a package containing “international driving documents”. The police searched his residence, where more documents were found. It transpired that Mr Boateng was the Malta agent of the International Automobile Drivers Club, a private enterprise that issues international driving documents.

During the search, the police also found a passport issued by the “State of Sabotage” bearing Mr Boateng’s particulars and his photograph but giving his place of birth as Togo, not Ghana.

The magistrate held that the false passport was clearly and immediately recognizable as a “fantasy passport”, lacking the basic security features common to all legal passports and could not be considered to be intended to deceive any public authority.

The fact that it purported to be issued by an clearly fictitious country meant that it was not a public document and, therefore, no criminal liability could be found.

The same was held with regard to the driving document. The court noted the detail and high quality of the card, which resembled a genuine driving licence but had the words “this card is a translation of the original licence and must be accompanied at all times by the original” written in small print.

Magistrate Aaron Bugeja ruled that the sale of forged documents in Malta fell within the parameters of “use of a falsified document”.