How did they escape to Malta? (tongue in cheek)

A little confused here. They are on horseback, and suddenly they're in Malta, at the Hotel Valletta, in a room. There's no way they could have escaped Iraq to go to Malta considering they're wanted people. Was something cut in the editing suite?

And then he comes back to Iraq, again without any problems.

Now, I know the movie was shot in Malta, but the hotel scene made no attempt to hide the fact it was Malta: it looked nothing like any Faw (the only port in almost 100% landlocked Iraq), the hotel is clearly called Hotel Valletta (the capital of Malta) and the hotel room was full of crucifixes and images of Jesus Christ and Iraq is not particularly known for religious tolerance. Plus the police who shot at Latif's would-be assassin were clearly not wearing Iraqi uniform, and a quick Google search on Maltese police proves that they were indeed Maltese police.

This means two things:

1. they somehow went to Malta, and it's not explained how they got there or returned;

2. the producers of the film made absolutely ZERO attempt to try and Iraqify this scene, leaving in the hotel name and all these other ridiculous pointers.

While 2 makes more sense, I find it so hard to believe that they could make such a goof with such an otherwise excellent film. I mean, the Catholic imagery alone is a serious enough goof, but to make so many errors makes me think that somehow we are indeed meant to believe they went to Malta.

If the rest of the film were slapdash too, then I would immediately assume 2, but the rest of the film had great attention to detail to make it seem really authentic. Which makes this scene so much more confusing.

Anyone else have any thoughts?