AN Eritrean fighter who ended up in Blackburn after a trans-continental search for asylum faces prison and deportation after making a bogus claim.

Blackburn magistrates heard that Sami Aman, who is suffering from active TB, was so desperate to receive medical treatment that he made a second application for asylum using false details.

But immigration officials in Liverpool matched his fingerprints to the ones given in Portsmouth in September, 2004, and he was arrested at his home in Infirmary Street, Blackburn.

Aman, 24, pleaded guilty to attempting to get leave to remain in the UK by means of deception. He was committed in custody to Preston Crown Court for sentence.

Neil White, prosecuting, said Aman's first asylum claim had been refused and he had exhausted all rights of appeal.

"When he was arrested in Blackburn he also admitted making an asylum claim in Italy in 2004," said Mr White.

Andrew Church-Taylor, defending, said in the course of fleeing their troubled homeland in North East Africa his client's brother had died when his boat sank in the Mediterranean and a cousin died in destitution on the streets in Italy.

He told how Aman escaped from Eritrea and managed to cross to Italy where he arrived in July, 2004, and applied for asylum. "He says the process there is that once the application is made you are left to your own devices, with no assistance with housing or benefits," said Mr Church-Taylor. "It was in those circumstances that his cousin died and my client was also told that the wait for a decision could take up to three years.

"He was suffering from TB, there was no medical assistance available to him and when he was told his application for asylum may be more sympathetically handled here he travelled to France," said Mr Church-Taylor.

Aman eventually arrived in Portsmouth in the back of a lorry and applied for asylum, he said.

He was admitted to hospital immediately and spent two weeks receiving treatment and on his discharge was provided with accommodation and £35 a week. He was waiting to hear about the claim but instead received a letter saying any application for asylum had to be made in the European Union country where he first landed and he was told he would be returned to Italy.