An Albanian man received a suspended prison sentence today and was sent back to his homeland after he admitted he attempted to use a counterfeit Romanian identity card to travel from Malta to Dublin.

Erjon Sala, 28, was arrested at the Malta International Airport yesterday while trying to go to Dublin in the hope of fulfilling his wish to earn a living in Ireland.

The prosecution explained that upon his arrest, the accused admitted he bought the fake document for €400 back in his homeland. An original Albanian passport was discovered inside the accused's luggage, the court was told.

The court, presided by magistrate Francesco Depasquale, after taking note of the accused's guilty plea condemned the man to a jail term of one year suspended for four years.

The court also ordered the accused to be immediately removed from the Maltese islands and sent back to Albania.

Inspector Darren Buhagiar prosecuted.Lawyer Noel Bartolo was defence counsel.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.