A magistrate is investigating the alleged disappearance of €10,000 in cash from inside prison, an inspector told a court this week. 

Ali Muuse Igaale, from Somalia, says that the money was taken from him as he entered prison but then vanished without a trace, with prison officials telling him they had no record of it. 

Igaale was arrested after he was caught with €160,000 in undeclared cash at the airport. 

Cash control laws allow a person to carry up to a maximum of €10,000 without declaring it as they enter or exit the country. Igaale was allowed to keep that amount, with the remaining cash confiscated pending his criminal case. 

He claims that he handed the €10,000 to a prison officer when he was taken to prison, but when he reclaimed the cash, he was told that the facility had no record of it.

Igaale says he knows which prison officer he had given the cash to, and can name him. He subsequently filed a police report about the missing cash. 

Inspector Paul Camilleri, testifying this week, said that the case was now the subject of an inquiry being led by magistrate Doreen Clarke. 

Police constable Jarrod Vella told the court that he recalled seeing Igaale with a brown envelope full of cash in the police car as he was being taken to prison, and again inside the prison yard. 

He discounted the possibility that Igaale had left the envelope in the car, as the vehicle had been searched. 

Vella said he did not know the exact amount of cash inside the envelope, but that it was the same envelope handed back to the accused at the airport.

Asked by the defence to confirm whether he had seen Igaale with the cash inside prison, Vella confirmed that he had. 

Police officers also searched Igaale’s cell, house and shop. They found some clothes and luggage at his home and €8,000 in cash at his Ħamrun shop.

The man’s lawyers Franco Debono and Francesca Zarb requested bail, saying that the accused had been granted bail by a separate court last week. 

Prosecutors objected to the bail request.

Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech is expected to deliver a decision on bail in chambers.

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