Victim 'was playing around with the switch'

The parcel bomb that maimed a 60-year-old man in Qormi last week exploded after the victim fiddled with the switch of the suspicious package "probably out of curiosity", police sources said.

After receiving the parcel on Tuesday, Philip Cini opened it and saw that inside there was a hollowed out book that acted as a casing for a contraption with a battery pack and switch.

Mr Cini, who was in his kitchen at the time, "played around with the switch", probably out of curiosity, before the parcel blew up, sources said.

As a result of the explosion, Mr Cini lost his left hand and had to undergo an operation because of serious injuries to the left side of his torso.

Until yesterday evening he was still battling for his life at Mater Dei Hospital's Intensive Therapy Unit after his condition turned for the worse on Christmas Day.

The police are still trying to establish the motive behind the crime directed at Mr Cini, who works at his brother's food packaging company, C. Cini & Sons.

Explosives experts have said that anybody with a basic sense of electronics, access to the internet and a lot of guts would have been able to manufacture a parcel bomb similar to the one that maimed Mr Cini.

Such bombs have a basic circuit similar to a torch but instead of the bulb the circuit is connected to a detonator, which is then inserted into the explosive material. Hitting the switch would have caused the explosion.

Police sources said the package, addressed "To Philip from Doris", was delivered on Tuesday morning and Mr Cini's wife found it behind the door of their Qormi home and took it upstairs to the kitchen.

When Mr Cini arrived at about 1.30 p.m., he unwrapped it and the bomb soon exploded.

His wife, who had warned him not to open the parcel, and eight-year-old grandson escaped uninjured despite standing close to him.

The blast damaged the aluminium balcony door and shattered the glass panes of the windows in the kitchen. Investigations have excluded the possibility that the parcel was delivered by postal services.

The blast rekindled memories of the politically motivated parcel-bomb attack which killed Karin Grech around Christmas time 32 years ago today.