A 26-year-old Eritrean refugee was yesterday found guilty of committing an offence during the operative period of a suspended sentence and he was jailed for a total of 20 months.

Handing down her judgement, magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera first jailed the man for eight months for committing an offence against Police Sergeant Nicolai Sant and Police Constable Emanuel Agius, slightly injuring them and damaging their uniforms and radios in St Julian’s on 9 May 2006. He was also charged with relapsing.

Habtom Tesema Berhea was further given a 12-month jail term for committing an offence during the operative period of a suspended sentence, which he was given in November 2005 after he was found guilty of assaulting Police Sergeant Brian Caruana at the Marsa Open Centre.

The prosecuting inspectors told the court the incident had taken place after the police had tried to take two people (the accused and another refugee) down from a bus since they were sleeping inside it. A verbal argument had then taken place and the accused had started to become violent against the police.

Police Inspectors Martin Sammut and Carmelo Abdilla prosecuted.