Four Russian nationals, three of whom are law students and the fourth a manager at a Russian university, were conditionally discharged for a year yesterday after pleading guilty to possessing cocaine.

Dennis Akhmetshin, 20, Viatcheslav Ployansky, 20, Ekaterina Pozdnyakova, 20 and Ksenia Melamed, 24, pleaded guilty to being in possession of an amount of cocaine on 16 August.

The four Russians were not assisted by a lawyer when they appeared before magistrate Silvio Meli.

They were conditionally discharged for one year.

Police Inspector Pierre Grech prosecuted.