Homesick Traveler Assaults Police in Failed Attempt to Get Deported Home

Out of money and desperate to return home, a tourist tried to trick authorities in Malta into sending him back to Sweden.

Despite having no one but himself to blame, police in Malta were not unsympathetic to James John Konteh’s plight. Authorities told the Daily Mail that the 24-year-old Swedish passport holder blew through his vacation budget and was left stranded in the Mediterranean resort destination with no money and no return ticket home.

Officers tried and failed to find the down-and-out tourist temporary shelter at a local YMCA before finally taking the man to a homeless shelter. Konteh, however, decided he had spent quite enough time in paradise and allegedly told the officers trying to assist him that he would commit a crime in an ill-advised gambit to force authorities to deport him. Police say when they could not promise to fly the broke vacationer home, Konteh slapped an officer and broke the side view mirrors on a police car.

His plan backfired. Badly.

Instead of being returned home, Konteh was taken to jail, where he still remains. Konteh stands charged with assaulting and injuring a police officer, destroying police property, disturbing the peace and disobeying lawful police orders.

At last report, the penniless sojourner was still trying to annoy authorities into deporting him from the country. Konteh refused to enter a plea in court and was warned by the judge after continuously disrupting the court proceedings.

Konteh is now on track to get his wish to be deported from Malta, but he will likely have to complete a jail sentence first.

[Photo: iStock]