Cypriot UK bases court jails man for people trafficking bid

A court within the British military bases in Cyprus has sentenced a Palestinian man to six months in prison after finding him guilty of trying to illegally bring two men into a base from the island's Turkish Cypriot breakaway north.

A bases statement said Thursday that Mohammed Aljaro was arrested as he tried to drive through a checkpoint last month.

Two other men who were detained attempting to cross into the base on foot admitted to officials that they agreed to pay the Palestinian to drive them into the internationally recognized Cyprus Republic in the south.

Traffickers are increasingly using the north of Cyprus as way into the European Union, bringing people across the porous UN buffer zone and especially through the bases that border the north. [AP]