A 37-year-old Libyan man was jailed for two years and fined €3,000 after he was found guilty of dealing in cannabis on and before 2 April 2005.

Akram Ali Larbi Salem Ossta, who lives in Qormi, was apprehended after the police were tipped off that a person was about to deliver drugs to a residence.

He was caught leaving the house with e700 in cash and led back to the house where a bar of cannabis was found underneath a cushion on which a seven-year-old girl was sitting.

The child’s mother said her husband, who was addicted to the drug, had instructed her to pay Ossta before going to sleep. The man told the police that he had asked the Libyan national whether he could procure cannabis which was scarce at the time and fetched high prices on the streets.

The court, presided over by magistrate Giovanni Grixti, did not hear Ossta give a plausible explanation of why he was carrying e700.

After considering that that was the first time he had ventured into the life of crime, the court jailed him for two years and fined him e3,000.

Police Inspectors Dennis Theuma and Pierre Grech prosecuted.