A 59-year-old Swiss businessman who admitted to sexually assaulting a hotel cleaner in St Julian’s walked out of a Maltese courtroom with a suspended sentence — and his identity hidden on the grounds that he was a “politically exposed person.” Within days, the claim collapsed: he was revealed to be a failed municipal council candidate from Ticino with no public office to his name. Now, protected by anonymity in Malta, he is publicly denouncing the country’s justice system as corrupt and unprofessional.

When the conviction was first reported, there wasn’t much to go on. The only details released were his age, nationality, and the fact that he had allegedly been involved in politics.

The age turned out to be key. Cross-referencing it with official results from Ascona’s 2024 municipal elections narrowed the list of potential matches to just three people. Two were from one party, and one was from another, Il Centro.

Days later, Il Centro issued a public statement confirming that one of its former candidates matched the profile and that it was initiating expulsion proceedings. The party stressed that “criminal convictions for sexual harassment are completely incompatible with the honour required to carry out any political activity” and emphasised that the man “does not and has never held any office both public or within the party.”

That left little doubt: the man protected by Malta’s courts was Salah Eddeen Al Shweiki, known as Deen, a partner and managing director at a car dealership in Ticino. When we called the dealership asking for him, the receptionist hesitated, asked who we were, and upon hearing we were journalists from Malta, said “he’s not here” before hanging up. A message to his Instagram account went unanswered. Since then, the number we called has either been blocked or switched off.

Only after his identity was pieced together did a statement from his Swiss lawyers, Raffaele De Vecchi and Matteo Simona, circulate in the media. In it, Al Shweiki insisted the charges were “completely false” despite having pleaded guilty in open court. He claimed that during his brief detention in Malta he developed “serious heart problems” requiring hospitalisation, and that “faced with his precarious health and the conditional sentence offered by the criminal authorities, he could not help but admit the charges… for the sole purpose of returning home and avoiding further serious health consequences.”

To be fair, in Malta’s legal system, that logic isn’t far-fetched. Bail is routinely denied to foreign nationals on the grounds that they are a flight risk. Contesting the charges could mean weeks or months in custody awaiting trial. If you are offered a suspended sentence and a ticket home, the incentive to plead guilty, even if you maintain your innocence, is obvious.

Even so, the lawyers went further, alleging that “cases of this kind are not uncommon in Malta” and that he suspected “he would be asked for a fee” to make the matter go away. They also complained that the case went from arrest to sentencing in less than 24 hours, during which their client was never questioned, prompting him to express “profound doubts regarding the fairness and propriety of trials conducted in this manner.”