Other events in Baltic States

A Pakistani man's plans to marry a Lithuanian teenager this week were cancelled after Irish police objected to the marriage. The objection was lodged on the basis that immigration officials believed it would be a marriage of convenience for residency purposes.

Muhammad Shafi was fined 250 Euros; he had pleaded guilty to possessing both a bogus Italian and Hungarian passport.

Shafi was arrested as part of the investigation into more than 100 cases of marriages or intended marriage involving women from Latvia, Lithuania and Poland who were paid to marry men from Asia in order to secure them the right of residency in Ireland and other EU countries.

It's understood that the scam involves a bogus company set up in Ireland by Asian men who advertise well-paying jobs for former Eastern bloc women.

They are supplied with false documents in order to secure residency rights for their Asian "husbands", some of whom are believed to have paid up to 10,000 Euros for the marriage certificate.

The court heard that Shafi was one of more than 20 cricket players from Pakistan who arrived to Ireland on a seven-day visa for a supposed cricket match in July, 2008, but that the entire "team" disappeared after entering the country.

Statistics show that last year 384 applications for residency in Ireland were submitted by Pakistani men. Of them, 110 were based on marriages to Latvian women, followed by 50 marriages to the Polish women and 47 marriages to the women from Estonia.