The Prime Minister’s aide Glenn Bedingfield came under fire yesterday after retweeting an anti-Islamic comment on Twitter.

The Nationalist Party condemned the “discriminatory comments against Islam” which Mr Bedingfield had posted.

Human Rights NGO People for Change Foundation said last night it was “shocked and appalled” that a person in his role should post a comment “which can only lead to contempt between different parts of the population”.

On Monday, Mr Bedingfield retweeted a tweet from @Islamlie2, a successor to the blocked Twitter account for ‘Stop Islam’, an Italian Facebook group that has just 48 likes.

The tweet, in Italian, read: “The only difference between the Koran and Mein Kampf is that the latter is more ‘moderate’,” suggesting that Adolf Hitler’s manifesto for Nazism was more moderate than Islam’s holy book.

“The current situation regarding religion-linked terrorism is delicate enough,” the PN said. “Having the Prime Minister’s personal assistant utter such comments clearly does not help.”

The PN called upon the Prime Minister to declare whether he agreed and endorsed Mr Bedingfield’s retweet. “If not, the Prime Minister should take action against Glenn Bedingfield and not choose to ignore such a situation.”

Following the PN backlash, Mr Bedingfield tweeted: “Apologies if my retweet offended people of goodwill, especially Muslim brothers/sisters who cannot be associated to any terrorist action.”

Times of Malta asked Mr Bedingfield what prompted him to retweet the anti-Islamic comment and whether it resonated with him.

Didn’t he anticipate the backlash, given that the tweet conflated Islam with the horrors of Nazism, as well as conflating extremist groups with moderate Muslims? Didn’t he think the retweet helped fuel misconceptions?

Mr Bedingfield replied: “I have nothing to add to my apology posted on Twitter.”