The blast that rocked a businessman’s house in Gozo less than three months ago is set to join the list of unsolved cases, as omertà prevents the police from making any headway in their investigation.
Police sources said the small, close-knit community, where everybody knows everybody else, has led investigators into a dead end in their efforts to identify the person who placed a bomb outside Sandro Ciliberti’s house on January 8.
“Don’t you know how people’s lips get sealed here?” a police source told this newspaper when asked why the crime was being placed on the list of unsolved cases. Sources close to the police told The Sunday Times of Malta that searches had been carried out in the homes of two suspects, who were also called in for questioning. However, there was not enough evidence to pin either of the two to the crime.
Mr Ciliberti, 45, known as Ic-Chilly, and his partner escaped unscathed when the blast from a bomb placed outside their residence in Ġnien Xibla Street rocked the village of Xagħra.
The explosion occurred at about 3.50am, causing extensive damage to Mr Ciliberti’s Mercedes and leaving a gaping hole in his wooden garage door.
The consequences could have been tragic: the garage contained four large gas cylinders used for his kiosk in Comino, which were dented by the blast.
Sources said that in trying to close in on the culprit, investigators analysed Mr Ciliberti’s business links as well as his past. One focus was a beach concession awarded by the Malta Tourism Authority to Mr Ciliberti last year for the hiring of umbrellas and deckchairs at Santa Marija Bay in Comino.
The contract was won by Mr Ciliberti following a bidding process amid harsh competition. A few weeks after starting operations, he claimed that part of his property in Comino was damaged in an arson attack.
Investigators believe that the explosive device used at Mr Ciliberti’s residence was probably made in Malta and transported to Gozo by boat.
The initial theory – that the device may have contained explosive material used in the pyrotechnic industry – turned out to be incorrect when the police found metal fragments at the scene.
But despite having scientific evidence in hand, the police ran into a brick wall when it came to gleaning more information from the public.
Still, police historian Eddie Attard says omertà – the code of silence – in Gozo is no more pronounced than in Malta, mainly due to the islands’ small size and relatively small village communities.
“Omertà exists in Gozo as much as it exists in Malta. This is a label that the Gozitans were given and they were stuck with it. But in reality, it is just as difficult to solve a crime in Gozo as it is in Malta. Gozo might be slightly more complicated because the community is even smaller,” Mr Attard said when contacted.
The island’s size, he said, was to blame for the fact that people were scared to speak to the police, especially when a suspect became known.
“It is a fact that Gozo has a higher rate of unsolved crimes. But it is unfair to pin it down to omertà. I would blame our DNA as a nation. Sicily’s omertà is very similar to ours, but then in the UK, for example, there’s no omertà and investigations are carried out very differently there,” he said.
Mr Attard added that more than 85 per cent of crimes committed through detonated bombs remain unsolved.