The deputy mayor of Pembroke has been charged with threatening his mother and causing her to fear him.

Omar Elaref Arab, 32, pleaded not guilty to domestic violence against his mother in her Pembroke home where he lived with her.

Police Inspector Omar Zammi said that on April 24 at about 6.30pm the mother of the accused filed a domestic violence report. She said her son had a drug addiction problem that had escalated, and she was scared of him.

He was arrested at his girlfriend’s house in Valletta.

Lawyer Etienne Calleja, for the accused, did not contest the arrest. He however questioned the way the arrest was carried out.

Calleja said police “made a show” of the arrest with 20 police officers turning up at the house “to arrest a man in his pyjamas watching a movie.”

The lawyer also asked Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit to issue a ban on the name of the accused saying he was a public figure as he was the deputy mayor of Pembroke.

The inspector retorted that being a public figure was not a reason listed by law to ban the identity of a person from publication. The magistrate agreed saying that, if anything, a public person was more in the public domain than a private citizen unless the matter was intimately personal or involved minors.

The magistrate ordered that the man be remanded in custody and recommended that the prison authorities help him address his drug addiction while in preventative custody.