[attach id=286060 size="medium"]Joe Pirotta. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi[/attach]

Malta was warned over a threat on the life of its consul in Benghazi by US intelligence agents, who reported a credible assassination attempt in the offing. The message was relayed to the Government last Saturday afternoon. By the evening the diplomat, Joe Pirotta, was flown out of Benghazi on a Libyan government jet.

“The message was basically that there was an immediate plot on Dr Pirotta’s life,” a source said.

The Maltese consulates in Libya have been facing continued criticism over delays in the issue of visas, and even faced allegations that Libyans had to pay bribes to get their papers processed expeditiously. However, diplomatic sources said the threat had nothing to do with this and was instead linked to the unrest that gripped Libya’s second city.

“Dr Pirotta was the last Western diplomat in Benghazi. Remember that only two days before he was evacuated, there was an attack on the Swedish consulate,” a diplomatic source said, referring to a car bomb that exploded outside the consulate last week.

Joe Pirotta was the last Western diplomat in Benghazi

The Maltese diplomatic staff appeared to be immune from the protests that have been staged in Benghazi against Western states even at the height of tension following the killing of US Ambassador Chris Stevens in September last year.But the situation has changed dramatically since then.

Libyans who have recently been to Benghazi told The Sunday Times of Malta that Islamist extremism had become mainstream.

“Now you see the black flags associated with Ansar al-Sharia – a group allied to Al Qaeda and which is suspected to have been behind the killing of Chris Stevens – on top of buildings throughout the city,” one Libyan source said.

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com