VALLETTA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A total of 472 third country nationals were found to have entered Malta illegally and subsequently deported in 2017, Malta's Home Affairs minister Michael Farrugia said on Tuesday.

Farrugia was replying to a parliamentary question by the Opposition's spokesperson on national security Beppe Fenech Adami, who asked how many individuals had been charged in court with being in Malta without the necessary documentation.

The minister said that following a 2002 legal amendment, third country nationals who were in Malta illegally were no longer taken to court, but rather were sent home.

He said that in 2017, 190 individuals had been deported because they were in Malta illegally, with a further 282 being sent back home after they were discovered to have been in Malta illegally "when they were leaving the country to other countries outsides the Schengen zone".

The Schengen zone, which currently embraces 26 European countries, acknowledges the abolishment of their internal borders with other member nations and outside, for the free and unrestricted movement of people, goods, services and capital.