A Somali migrant who went to Denmark using someone else's passport was jailed for six months.

Awwi Passir, 25, who resides at the Ħal Far detention centre, pleaded guilty to using a false document last December.

Mr Passir also pleaded guilty to escaping from the detention centre. He went to Denmark but was recently deported back to Malta.

Police Inspector Nezren Grixti prosecuted.

In a separate arraignment, a Libyan pleaded not guilty to falsely declaring to the police he had lost his passport. Adel Abdulahbas, 35, was charged with filing a false report in March 2009.

Police Inspector Geoffrey Azzopardi, prosecuting, told Magistrate Giovanni Grixti that Mr Abdulahbas's passport had been stamped by the Customs Office at Tripoli Airport on the same day he claimed it as having been lost.

Mr Abdulahbas, who refused to be represented by a lawyer, insisted he had truly lost the passport but, in order not to get into trouble with the Libyan authorities, had asked a Libyan friend of his, who was also a police officer, to stamp it on a previous date.

"I might have broken Libyan laws but not Maltese," he said.

Mr Abdulahbas said he was ready to plead guilty as long as the court allowed him to catch his flight to Libya yesterday afternoon. Magistrate Grixti told him it was not that easy.

The case was put off to next week and the accused was granted bail against a personal guarantee of €2,000.