Embassy closure was in line with London Met orders

The foreign ministry gave short shrift to l-orizzont’s front-page splash today, in which it quoted unnamed Maltese expats from the London East End complaining on the closure of the Maltese High Commission 15 minutes before closing time on Tuesday.

The ministry said the High Commission had closed its doors to the public on recommendation of the Metropolitan police, in the wake of riots and looting over the past four days across the British capital’s most depressed neighbourhoods.

The ministry said that on Tuesday afternoon, the Met informed the Maltese High Commission that the prestigious W1 area in London could be targeted by rioters. The police instructed embassy officials to vacate the area.

“This meant that all employees left the building 15 minutes before closing time in line with police instructions. The embassy reopened the next day for normal business hours,” the ministry said.

According to the General Workers’ Union daily, Maltese living in “districts of the East End of London” contacted the newspaper to say the High Commission’s closure was “a premature step.”

The newspaper said its sources complained of the hasty closure unlike other embassies. “Our was closed while the Libyans [recently ousted by the UK government to make way for new Transitional Council emissaries] were reopening their embassy… can you make heads or tails of this?” the newspaper reported one source as saying.

The comment was an isolated one, serving as a lead-in for a general report on the London riots which characterised the areas of Dalston, Woolwich, Hackney and Brixton.