Man issued legitimate passport using fake ID, court told

A court has jailed an African man who has been using an invalid ID document to travel to and from Italy for the past eight years.

31-year-old Eliman Seck, from Gambia, who spoke Maltese in court today, pleaded guilty to charges of being in possession of a fake Maltese ID card to obtain a legitimate passport, making use of that document and making a false declaration to Immigration officials when he had applied for the document in 2015.

Inspector Victor Aquilina for the Principal Immigration Officer explained that this was “not the usual passport case.” The accused had arrived on a boat in 2008, the court was told, and had escaped from detention in December 2008 after spending only four months in mandatory detention. Since then, the inspector reported, he has been coming and going to Italy ever since.

The court was told that Seck had conned the passport office into issuing an official Maltese passport by using an Italian man’s details from a stolen ID.

The accused pleaded guilty to all charges and repeated his guilty plea after being given time to reconsider.

Magistrate Audrey Demicoli sentenced the man to 6 months prison, also ordering the destruction of the fake documents.