A lawyer yesterday complained that three weeks had passed and his client had not yet been sent to Italy to serve his jail sentence there.

He accused the Attorney General’s office as well as the police and the prison authorities of delaying the repatriation, saying he could not understand why Fabio Zulian had not been sent back on one of the many flights to Italy or even on the ferry.

But Deputy Attorney General Donatella Frendo Dimech shot back that the AG’s office was “not a travel agency” and that the office had gone out of its way to get Mr Zulian transferred to Italy as soon as possible “but these procedures take time”.

Mr Zulian, who is serving a six-year prison term for defrauding the Casino di Venezia in 2006, is claiming that his detention in Malta is “illegal” because of the failure to surrender him to Italy to serve his prison term there.

Before Magistrate Aaron Bugeja, Mr Zulian claimed that he should have been sent to serve his prison term in Italy “within a reasonable time”, as that was one of the conditions of his extradition to Malta to face criminal proceedings here.

His lawyer, Joseph Brincat, insisted that his client’s arrest in Malta was illegal and charged that the Attorney General’s office was not doing enough to have Mr Zulian sent to Italy.

But Dr Frendo Dimech said these were procedures that took time, especially since there was no specific reply from the Italians on whether the €3,000 fine imposed on Mr Zulian could be converted into an extra term of 260 days in prison.

She said there was a framework agreement between Malta and Italy on how sentences can be transposed between the two countries.

“How can he claim that his arrest is illegal when there is a jail sentence and when he will be moving from one jail to another?” she asked.

Negotiations between the two countries were under way.

Mr Zulian is expected to complete his sentence in April, 2017.

Before sending him to Italy, Malta has to receive assurance that the fine that had been imposed by the Maltese courts will be respected by the Italian authorities.

Asked by the magistrate why he was claiming illegal arrest, Dr Brincat said the time that had elapsed, more than three weeks, did not fall within the definition of “reasonable time”.

The usual time-limit for such procedures was 90 days, said Dr Frendo Dimech.

Last night the magistrate rejected the claim of illegal arrest.