Magistrate betrays police’s bias on jail request for migrant

61-year-old Somali national Farah Salah Hisi was handed a six-month jail term, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to assaulting police officers while in a drunken stupor outside the Marsa Open Centre.

Prosecuting inspector Sarah Magri demanded that the accused is given an effective jail term, however Magistrate Anthony Vella reiterated that when a group of foreign students were charged with the same offence, the prosecution had agreed with the mitigation of suspended sentence.

"The court cannot deal with people differently. We cannot feel sorry for students and hand them a suspended jail term and then demand an effective jail term for others," the magistrate said.

The Somali national was given a suspended sentence. Legal aid lawyer Mark Anthony Mifsud Cutajar appeared for the accused.