For the more daring entrepreneurs, the Libya of the 90s and early 2000s was a land of promise – a new frontier where the right connections and the nerves to stick it out meant big money.

But when in 2011 freedom fighters did the previously unthinkable and brought an end to Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year reign, the risks of staying in business rose. For some Maltese who decided to throw the dice and stick it out, the risks proved to be too much.

One of those men, Simon Diacono, sat despondent at a table in St Julian’s earlier this month, shaking his head in disbelief.

Simon Diacono: “I could lose my home because of what happened down there”

“For me the trouble started before the revolution and it kept getting worse. Now the bank is going to foreclose on my house. I could lose my home because of what happened down there,” he said.

Leafing through notes and documents from his time working as a “supplier of things” in North Africa’s wild west, Mr Diacono says he worked with municipalities, the Libyan military and even the maniacal Gadaffis.

He did anything from logistics to fitting out fire trucks or supplying air-conditioned tents for meetings in the Libyan Sahara.

One deal, however, finally went wrong after Mr Diacono’s Libyan counterparts failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

That is the story of how Mr Diacono was left holding a €470,000 bill – money he had borrowed from a local bank to finance the deal. “I tried to get the money back but I was told I would have to go to a bank in Libya, withdraw it in cash and give half to some guys escorting me.

“This is Libya. I would have been shot and left in the gutter,” he said, his heavy eyebrows lifting from behind his spectacles. 

After years of struggling to get his hands back on the money, Mr Diacono said he got the message loud and clear.

“I was told that if I persisted in legal action, not only would I not get my money but that my family’s other businesses would suffer too,” he said.

He detailed how he was kept in Libya for months by Gaddafi’s men, who tried to force him to sign over a consignment of goods. He insisted the situation had degenerated quickly.

This is Libya. I would have been shot and left in the gutter

So instead Mr Diacono turned to the Maltese authorities for help. He was not alone. Senior government sources told The Sunday Times of Malta that since the 2011 revolution, around a dozen businesses had come knocking at the door of the Office of the Prime Minister hoping to find a way to get their money back.

Where was it? Tied up in failed business deals, held in Libyan banks or siphoned away in duffle bags – the spoils of a bloody revolution that has left Maltese businessepeople among its casualties.

Government sources said the entrepreneurs were not all “lone wolves” like Mr Diacono.

“There are some major businesses involved in this. You have to keep in mind that some of Malta’s biggest players did deals in Libya. Some of these went bad. Some of them lost millions of euros,” they said.

Among the “issues”, the sources said, was a local catering giant that had invested millions in a major kitchen and factory that never came to fruition, and an import-export firm that lost hundreds of thousands of euros worth of baby food.

Sources at the island’s economic development agency, Malta Enterprise, said that a series of meetings held between businesses with locked Libyan investments a few months ago had not ended amicably.

As for Mr Diacono, he is taking his case to the Constitutional Court, after insisting he has received no help. 

In a court application filed by constitutional law expert Ian Refalo, Mr Diacono alleges that the Maltese State failed to protect him from the failings of the Libyan government, violating his fundamental human rights in the process.

Is there a way out for Mr Diacono and others like him?

Legal sources point to increased interest in the Libyan funds held in Maltese banks.

“There are rumblings that this could be a way to settle debts. There are some big fish interested in this money,” one legal source said.