Former controversial OPM official Neville Gafà has challenged Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo to work up the courage to visit a migrant detention centre in Libya. 

Apparently taking offence at an early morning Facebook post where the minister thanked the Libyan authorities from stopping 2,000 people crossing the Mediterranean, Gafà hit out at those who were seeking credit after visiting Libya for a “mere” three hours. 

Bartolo accompanied Prime Minister Robert Abela on a flying visit to Libya in May, during which a memorandum of understanding to better coordinate the response to irregular migration was signed. 

The Foreign Minister said that, ever since his visit to Libya, the Tripoli government had taken serious steps to crack down on people trafficking. 

Without explicitly naming Bartolo, Gafà said in a post hours later that it was presumptuous to think problems in Libya could be solved after a three-hour meeting. 

“I recommend that he builds up the courage to visit the detention centres before commenting about them…

“Of course, to visit them, you need to spend a week in Libya like I used to spend, with the difference that when you went it was in a time when there was no fighting in Tripoli,” Gafà said.

Although Abela sacked Gafà upon taking office in January, the former official was called upon by the government to coordinate a migrant pushback to Libya in April. 

The government has since downplayed Gafà’s role in the operation.