Two Bulgarian women accused of pickpocketing were set free after they won an appeal, as the footage lifted from the shop in question had not been appropriately analysed.

The two women, Iliyana Kirilova Ilieva and Genoveva Stoilova, had been given a five-month prison term after being found guilty of pickpocketing last June while at a clothing store in Valletta.

In his appeal, the women’s lawyer Etienne Calleja had argued that the verdict had relied on the video lifted from the shop. However, he argued, the video could not be taken as concrete proof unless analysed by a forensic expert.

These children are certainly not serving a sentence

The court of appeal agreed that it could not be confirmed that the women were the ones in the footage.

This case had had an additional complication as the women were heavily pregnant while they were serving their sentence, and their lawyer had insisted in an earlier judicial protest that they should move them to hospital for medical care.

Dr Calleja had accused the director of Corradino Correctional Facility Alexander Dalli of failing to give adequate treatment to the women, noting that he had offered the women to option of staying in the library “because it has air-conditioning”.

“These children are certainly not serving a sentence,” the judicial protest noted, adding that Mr Dalli was also responsible for the health of the two unborn babies.

Ms Stoilova, who conceived through IVF, has since given birth, while Ms Kirilova Ilieva is in her eighth month of pregnancy.

The court accepted the appeal, revoked the sentence and set the two women free, in an appeal decided by Judge Consuelo Scerri Herrera.