Two pregnant women jailed for theft

Two pregnant Bulgarian pickpockets have been jailed. 

Genoveva Stoilova, 25, and Iliana Ilieva, 23, both heavily pregnant, had been accused of stealing a woman's wallet from a clothes shop in Sliema in June.

Magistrate Joseph Mifsud noted that the women had been positively identified from CCTV footage.

Finding them guilty, he said that a criminal minority was causing great damage to the majority of exemplary foreign nationals.

Although the court always protected life from conception to the grave, it was the accused who had failed to protect their unborn children by joining a criminal organisation who exported them to Malta to carry out a number of thefts before returning them, he said.

The women were jailed for four months each. Lawyer Etienne Calleja was defence counsel.

Inspectors Priscilla Cauana Lee and Alfredo Mangion prosecuted.