Terror at Transport Malta offices

When the blast ripped through the building at 9.55 a.m., one woman had just popped into the authority’s offices to run an errand as her two-year-old daughter remained waiting in the car with her father.

“I was waiting at the reception when the receptionist said she would make photocopies of some documents. Then, suddenly, there was a loud bang and a glass pane behind the reception shattered and glass was sprayed into the room,” the woman said, sobbing in shock.

Everyone’s reaction was to get out and run for the door, she added, but the automatic sliding door was jammed shut.

“I started to panic. I just wanted to get out. Together with other people there we pried the door open and ran out. Meanwhile, people rushed down from upstairs and ran out.”

The motive of the crime, the first such attack on a government entity, is still unknown. However, police sources said the bomb, which was described as an “anti-personnel” device, was intended for the 32-year-old chief officer of land transport, Konrad Pulè.

It was lowered by a cord from the bastions lining the Sa Maison pine grove, just behind the authority’s offices. A piece of string found on the bastions is believed to have been used to lower the bomb. However, it has still to be established whether the bomb was detonated with a timer or by remote control.

What the police are fairly certain about, however, is that the bomb was designed to cause serious injuries or even death when it exploded by scattering hundreds of fragments which were projected across a huge area with the blast.

Shortly after the blast, Mr Pulè was seen walking out of the building having suffered only slight injuries from the shrapnel. However, traffic consultant Peter Ripard, who was in the office of the young executive for a meeting, was not so lucky.

Apart from Maj. Ripard and Mr Pulè – who is known as the front man of rock band Scar – another man suffered slight injuries and a man and woman were treated for shock.

The land transport section runs public transport, taxis, roads and enforcement, which all incorporate a number of potential hot potatoes that could have placed the executive literally in the line of fire.

However, at this stage investigators are exploring all avenues.

Asked if any threats had been made, a spokesman for the Transport Ministry said that in the case of a regulator such as TM, threats were never in short supply but there had not been any specific threat of an attack of this nature.

The police will be going through the security footage of various establishments in the area. It was possible the TM security cameras were tampered with, police sources said.

Soon after the blast, the police, members of the Civil Protection Department and the Armed Forces of Malta’s bomb disposal unit arrived on the scene. Police Commissioner John Rizzo and the head of secretariat at the Transport Ministry, Emanuel Delia were also present. Transport Minister Austin Gatt was in Brussels.

Three fire engines and two ambulances turned up and one of the ambulances rushed back to Mater Dei Hospital under police escort carrying the injured Maj. Ripard.

TM staff was evacuated and the building was searched for explosives. Some workers were treated for shock and assisted with breathing apparatus outside the office.

The TM’s Marsa head office was also evacuated as a precaution and workers were sent home. Employees at Sa Maison were also sent home but some had to wait in the area until the site was cleared as they had their house keys still in the building or their cars parked in the area cordoned off as a forensic investigation site.

Joe Scicluna, a customer, said he was waiting at the reception for an appointment when the bomb went off. The person he had to meet was late.

“The security guard came up to me and asked me what time I was supposed to meet this person and when I told him it was at 9.30 a.m. he said it was getting quite late as it was practically 10 a.m. He had barely finished the sentence when we heard a very loud bang, and, right after, the glass panes behind the reception desk shattered with the blast, following which they started sending us out of the building,” Mr Scicluna said, adding Mr Pulè left the building shortly after.

A woman was delivering sandwiches to colleagues on the ground floor when the explosion took place. “It was like hearing a fireworks explosion,” she re-counted as she paced around nervously. “If anyone has anything against the authority they should not target us employees... We have nothing to do with it,” she said.

Melvin West and Jesmond Mallia, who were mowing the grass in the pine grove adjacent to the offices for the Environmental Landscape Consortium, said the blast felt like a tremor and “shook everywhere”. The blast was so loud they could still hear it over the rumble of their industrial mower.

In a statement, Dr Gatt expressed solidarity with the workers and “strongly condemned” the violence against the officials, who “are only guilty of doing their work responsibly and with a strong sense of service to the public”.

TM said it asked the police to step up security in all its buildings and today would be considered as a “normal workday”. The authority encouraged all its employees and clients not to let the “cowardly attack condition their work”.

It said it would be providing psychological help to all employees, especially those who were at the Sa Maison offices when the attack took place.

The Union Ħaddiema Magħqu-din, the General Workers’ Union, the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party condemned the attack.