A 36-year-old Maltese man has been sent to Mount Carmel after he was charged with assaulting a sunbather in Valletta.

The man, who is from Siġġiewi, was charged with brutally assaulting a Swedish woman in Triq il-Lanċa last Friday afternoon, as well as with breaching bail conditions of another case related to theft and arson.

His defence lawyers Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri requested a psychiatric examination and asked that he be kept at the Forensic Section at Mount Carmel, a request the prosecution didn’t object to.

Magistrate Neville Camilleri appointed a psychiatric expert to examine him.

The man, who reportedly entered the courtroom wearing torn clothes, said he didn’t know his own address.

Inspector Daryl Borg testified that the suspect was tracked down through CCTV cameras after the sunbather reported her assault.

She described her assault in detail in a recent interview with Times of Malta, saying she was sunbathing in Valletta and speaking to her father on the phone when the man approached her with a net in his hand.

She said she asked him to maintain his physical distance, after which he kicked her in the face and assaulted her, leaving her to fear she would be raped and murdered.