Prof Edwin Grech, the father of Karin Grech, who was killed in a letter bomb explosion in 1977, believes that the police can solve the crime.
Speaking after an appeals court yesterday confirmed a judgement where it linked the crime to the politico-medical situation at the time, Prof Grech said he was pleased with the decision of the court.
“ Satisfaction” was the first word uttered by Edwin Grech when asked if his 30-year legal battle for truth and compensation which ended yesterday had brought any closure for him following his daughter’s violent death.
Prof. Grech said it was not the monetary award he was satisfied with but the fact the police now had proof that the motive which fuelled the attack against him and which killed his daughter Karin was his medico-political involvement in the circumstances of the time.
Sure knowledge of the motive could further their work into the case, which has remained open since the December 28, 1977 murder. “ I believe they can solve the crime,” he said.
He was speaking after the highest court in the land confirmed a previous judgment which had awarded him € 420,000 in damages for the fatal bombing.
His daughter Karin, who was 15 years old at the time, had opened a large brown envelope addressed to her father which contained a penbox shaped parcel in Christmas wrapping. It exploded in her hands.
In Malta on a Christmas visit from her UK school, Karin died in hospital while her brother, who had been standing close to her, had to be operated upon. The First Hall of the Civil Court last year established the motive behind the bomb as being her father’s services to the government during the politically sensitive period.
In August 1977, Prof. Grech was working as an obstetrics and gynaecology consultant in the UK at a time when a doctors’ strike was in progress in Malta.
The industrial action followed disagreement between the government and the medical association.
The government asked Prof. Grech to return to Malta to head the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department at St Luke’s Hospital. He agreed to do so for the duration of the industrial dispute in the best interest of patients.
In that judgment, Mr Justice Ray Pace, had also ruled the government had discriminated against Mr Grech when it failed to pay him compensation.
The government filed an appeal arguing that while it was not contesting the actual sum awarded as compensation it was appealing the “ general suspicion” that the motive behind the bomb was her father’s work.
The government argued that the court could not make such a declaration when the case had not even been solved. Furthermore, it said it had offered compensation, of € 200,000, and had therefore not discriminated against Mr Grech as had been alleged.
Yesterday, Prof. Grech insisted discrimination did in fact exist because the sum was only offered three or four years into the initial court case.
In the judgment yesterday, Acting Chief Justice Geoffrey Valenzia, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Tonio Mallia, in the Constitutional Court, said that once the government had accepted to pay damages during the course of the appeal, then it inferred that it accepted the original judgment and the reasoning behind the award of the damages as they were intrinsically linked.
In a statement yesterday, the Labour Party said the Prime Minister and his Cabinet now had to shoulder responsibility for their insensitivity when filing the appeal.
The court showed that the government had been wrong to deny that the Karin Grech tragedy was linked to the service given by her father.