Alfred Grima, a former St Paul’s Bay councillor and general election candidate for the Labour Party, has publicly expressed his wish that the Swedish politician wounded in an apparent kidnapping attempt in Mogadishu earlier this week was EU Commissioner and fellow Swede Cecilia Malmström.

However, he issued a public apology to Ms Malmström shortly after the comments were picked up by the media, some 20 hours after he had posted them on his Facebook page.

Mr Grima was reacting, on his Facebook page, to news that Ann-Margarethe Livh, a member of the Left Party, was wounded in an ambush by three or four AK47-wielding gunmen in the Somali capital last Wednesday, shortly after she delivered a speech at the University of Somalia.

Two men – an officer guarding Ms Livh and another believed to be her translator – were killed in the attack, while a Swedish woman of Somali origin was also wounded.

“It's a shame it wasn't you Cecilia Malmström,” Mr Grima wrote on his Facebook profile page.

Last July, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had quipped that Sweden could have Malta’s migrants in response to Ms Malmström’s insistence that the migration numbers Malta was facing were not extraordinary.

Earlier this month, many Maltese nationals similarly insisted that Ms Malmström should somehow take Malta’s asylum seekers to her native Sweden when they flooded her own Facebook page with countless insults – including some of a sexual or threatening nature.

Mr Grima, whose Facebook page shows affiliation to a number of anti-immigrant groups and also includes many anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim remarks, appears to have followed their lead, wishing actual bodily harm on the European Commissioner.

He was initially unrepentant when the story was picked up by the media.

“I am a man of principle and am not ready to defend any arrogant foreigner, let alone betray the interest of my Maltese brothers. To me, Malta truly comes first and foremost,” he said, referencing former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff’s electoral battle cry.

But the former councillor had second thoughts about his remarks shortly afterwards.

“After reflecting on the comment I made with respect to Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, I have come to believe that it was excessive. I publicly apologise to her,” Mr Grima said.