The Libyan Foreign Ministry has denied that a Libyan national arrested in Malta for drug trafficking is a diplomat.

The detainee who is charged with drug trafficking "is not a diplomat and not an employee of the Libyan Foreign Ministry," the ministry's information office said in a statement on Friday.

"He was working as a security guard at the embassy under a local contract lasting seven years. His services have been terminated.

"The defendant is a Maltese citizen ... subject to Maltese law. The case is still before the Maltese courts," the statement said.

It confirmed that the Maltese authorities had been informed that the person mentioned in the media was not a Libyan diplomat.

"The foreign ministry does not tolerate any attempt to negatively portray the image of Libyan diplomats, and especially Libyan ethics in general," the statement added.

Last week, three said people were arrested after a kilo-and-a-half of cocaine and €72,000 were seized from the car belonging to the Libyan national. The man, who was identified as Annajar Osama Soleman, 40, residing in Gharghur, works at the Libyan embassy as a security guard, according to the Libyan government.

This is not the first time a Libyan embassy security guard has been in the spotlight.

This newspaper had reported in the past that the European Central Bank had applied considerable pressure on Bank of Valletta to close bank accounts opened by Libyan nationals since at least 2013 which have been flagged as not having been subjected to legally-required due diligence procedures, this newspaper can confirm.

Documentation seen by this newsroom show that the Maltese authorities, including the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit had been “extremely concerned” about the bank’s lax level of due diligence applied in general to Libyans opening accounts with the bank between at least 2013 and 2015.

One such account concerned the way in which the bank had authorised the opening of bank accounts for two Libyan embassy security guards, despite the fact that they were unable to satisfy the bank’s due diligence requirements in terms of the documentation normally required for such procedures.

The bank had, however, gone ahead and opened the accounts on the assumption that the two were “bona fide embassy employees” and that the accounts would be used for “bona fide transactions”.