AN Algerian asylum seeker arrested in Bury during police raids on terrorist suspects has been jailed for six months for using a false passport.

Kremou Azzouz, a baker, of Deal Street, Bury, had failed in his bid for asylum and committed the offences to prevent his return home where his family had been massacred, Bow Street Magistrates Court in London heard.

Imposing the sentence, District Judge Nicholas Evans said: "People who obtain false passports commit serious offences. You had a passport in someone else's name which you acquired and had your photo put into it."

Azzouz admitted having a false French passport in the name of Abdi Nabil and obtaining a Lloyds TSB account, by deception.

Prosecutor Kris Venkatasani said Azzouz's arrest was part of an operation that took place on January 29 after police executed warrants under the Terrorism Act, but it is was not suggested he had any involvement in terrorism.

Officers searched a house in Deal Street and a vehicle and found the passport under the nearside seat. He was taken to Paddington Green Police Station in London, and interviewed.

He entered the country in October 2001 seeking asylum and then used the false identification. "He met a fellow Algerian who provided him with the false passport -- he did so to seek employment," he said.

"During interview he said he used the passport to open the account." Of previous good character, he is a failed asylum seeker.

Chris Studdert, defending, said his client expects to be removed from the UK. His family was massacred by a fundamentalist group, GIA, which destroyed numerous villages in Algeria in the mid 1990s.

Azzouz opened the account to pay in his earnings as a baker and he has saved £4,000 in the account. "It is uncertain he is ever going to see that money. His deception was caused because he is afraid to return to Algeria. He would have an uncertain future in Algeria where his family died."

Mr Evans gave Azzouz six months for the passport offence and three months concurrent for the deception.