The Libyan Foreign Ministry said it had followed up with Maltese media reports which claimed the arrest of “a diplomat” at the Libyan Embassy in the capital of Malta, Valletta, on charges of trafficking drugs.
In a statement, the ministry denounced what it described as bad reporting of news, pointing out that the person in question is not a diplomat, nor an employee of the Libyan Foreign Ministry, but has been working as a guard at the Embassy for seven years and has been fired, according to the statement.
In the statement, the Foreign Ministry confirmed that the detainee under charges of narcotics trafficking has Maltese citizenship and has been a resident in Malta for more than two decades.
The Foreign Ministry stressed that it had approached the Maltese authorities regarding the claim made in the Maltese media outlets and that their claim that the accused is a Libyan diplomat is not true.
“The man in question is in fact a Maltese citizen holds Maltese nationality,” the ministry reiterated.
Local Maltese media reported last week that three persons in a drug trafficking network, involving a Libyan diplomat working at the Libyan embassy in Valletta, were arrested.
