The Foreign Affairs ministry has said it has not been able to confirm a case, flagged by Reddit users, of a ‘Maltese’ man allegedly stranded in a psychiatric hospital in Honduras.

In a post on a Malta forum on Reddit, an individual claiming to be a relative of a hospital employee said a Maltese national - since named as Jason Sean Maroney - had been taken to the psychiatric institution by immigration authorities around a month ago.
 
“He has been stuck here ever since,” the Reddit user said. “Apparently all his ID and belongings were stolen, he speaks English with a noticeable Maltese accent. He appears to be in ok psychological shape, and the only real reason he's there 8s because nobody knows what to do with him.”

The Reddit post which first flagged the case.

The same user later shared a video apparently taken at the hospital in which the man identified as Mr Maroney says that he had moved to Honduras around two years ago, having previously lived in Ħamrun, and that he has several family members living in Malta. 

In the video, he gives his mother’s surname as Mangion, and says his parents had both passed away. 

However, he appears to indicate that he is not himself a Maltese citizen, saying he had never been issued a Maltese ID card and that he had got by with his passport. 

A Foreign Affairs ministry spokeswoman told Times of Malta authorities had checked with all available channels and did not have any information about the case.

“[We] will keep following and will provide consular assistance without delay in the eventuality that the case is confirmed,” the spokeswoman said.

Mr Maroney also appears in news footage published by on the Honduran website HCH Television Digital on July 9, where he is again named as Mr Maroney and described as an English citizen who had lived in Malta “for many years”. 

According to the news report, Mr Maroney was at the time living on the streets of Tegucigalpa, the capital city, and surviving on charitable handouts. 

In the footage, Mr Maroney says he moved to Tegucigalpa three years ago with a woman with whom he was involved in a relationship, which has since ended.