A 46-year-old man from St Paul’s Bay was yesterday jailed for two years suspended for four after he was found guilty of living off the earnings of prostitution.

The court, presided over by magistrate Lawrence Quintano, found Eugenio Agius guilty of living off the earnings of prostitution of Irina Epanchintseva and Lilia Katchalova, among others, and managing a brothel on 16 May 2003 and the previous months.

The court heard how Ms Epanchintseva and Ms Katchalova had arrived in Malta on 9 May 2003 and were met by four people at the airport.

The two women were taken to Ramla Lodge Hotel in Marsascala, owned by Agius, where they were forced to work as prostitutes.

The women, whose passports were taken when they arrived in Malta, told the court that they would see between two to five male clients a day, spending half an hour with each.

In their testimony, the women said that as soon as they arrived in Malta, they had a shower and met their first client.

The court heard Ms Katchalova explaining that Agius would bring the clients himself to the hotel bar. Each client was charged Lm15 – of these Lm10 were kept by Agius, she said. Furthermore, she added, it was Agius who established how much each client was to be charged.

Ms Katchalova told the court that she could leave the hotel whenever she liked as long as she said where she was going.

She added that she wanted to stop working as a prostitute but had to pay back Agius the cost of her flight ticket.

In handing down his judgement, magistrate Quintano noted that the two women were forced to work as prostitutes and hand over their earnings to Agius.

As a result, he sentenced Agius to a jail term of two years suspended for four and fined him Lm200.

Police inspectors Louise Calleja and Denise Mula prosecuted while Dr Franco Debono appeared for Agius.