A 15-year-old girl was made to have sex with a 31-year-old restaurant worker after he threatened to publish nude photos and videos of her in a gruesome case of online grooming and child pornography.

Mazhar Mushtaq, 31, from Pakistan, living in Qormi was charged on Wednesday with the rape of the 15-year-old girl, forcing her to participate in porn, participating in sexual activities with an underage girl through violence,  misuse of telecommunications equipment and producing child pornography.

The alleged crimes involved the use of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit heard the young girl’s lawyer Veronique Dalli explain how the man had allegedly become fixated on the girl after meeting her a few times.

When she refused to meet him again, he had used three fake social media accounts to pretend he was a third party and demand that she get back with him or compromising photographs and videos would be published.

The 15-year-old was allegedly coaxed into meeting him again by the prospect of the images being deleted if she had sex with the accused in a hotel room, the court was told.

Prosecuting inspectors Paula Ciantar and Jeffrey Scicluna made a joint request with the girl’s lawyers for the court to appoint an expert to extract data from the man’s social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

The accused had only been in Malta for three months and has an Italian residence permit. He came to Malta specifically to be with the girl after the two struck up a conversation on Instagram, the court heard.

Lawyer Christopher Chircop, legal aid to the accused, entered a plea of not guilty and requested bail. This was objected to by the prosecuting officers who argued that the accused had no ties to Malta and that the underage victim had not testified and lived close to his workplace.

There were other persons who were approached by the accused under the guise of one of his aliases and who were also scheduled to testify.

Inspector Scicluna said that after the victim had blocked the accused he had started passing on the threats through third parties.

Bail was not granted, with the court saying this was because of the civilian witnesses, but also because it felt it would be premature to release the accused from custody at this stage.

The court imposed a ban on the publication of the name of the minor involved.
Lawyer Christopher Chircop was defence counsel. Lawyers Veronique Dalli and Dean Hili appeared as parte civile for the girl. Inspectors Paula Ciantar and Jeffrey Scicluna prosecuted.