Updated 7.40pm

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat this evening honoured the memory of parcel-bomb victim Karin Grech as he spoke critically of the "intolerance" that characterised Malta at the time of her murder. 

Teenager Karin Grech died when a parcel addressed to her father blew up in her hands 39 years ago today. She was 15 years old.

Speaking at a ceremony held at a memorial dedicated to her in San Ġwann, Dr Muscat said it was time people stopped thinking in partisan terms when discussing murders such as that of Ms Grech or Raymond Caruana. 

He said Maltese people wanted justice, not vengeance.

Dr Muscat empathised with the pain felt by Ms Grech's family and urged investigators to redouble their efforts to finally bring the perpetrators to justice. 

Earlier today, Nationalist Party shadow minister Jason Azzopardi saluted Ms Grech's memory, and, possibly for the first time, said this was the result of 'political' hatred.

The PN always condemned the tragedy but refused to acknowledge it was politically motivated, arguing that it could have been the result of the tension of the doctors' strike at the time. Young Karin's father, Prof. Edwin Grech, had returned to Malta from the UK and worked at St Luke's Hospital while doctors went out on strike.

Young Karin's father, Prof. Edwin Grech, had returned to Malta from the UK and worked at St Luke's Hospital while doctors went out on strike.

Six years ago the Civil Court awarded compensation of €419,000 to the Grech family, which had claimed discrimination when the government failed to make an ex-gratia payment to them as it had done to others who were killed or injured while in the service of the government.  

A ceremony to mark the anniversary of Ms Grech's death was held in San Ġwann.

Following the judgement, Prof. Grech had said he was happy that the case was decided in favour of the family, especially as it was proved in court that this was a politically motivated crime at the height of the medical dispute. He said he had not accepted the government's initial conditions for compensation, which demanded that the murder should not be described as 'politically-motivated'.

The PN government always argued that while it was not against giving the compensation - and it did so immediately after the court judgement and before it was confirmed on appeal - since the case had not been solved and no one had ever been arraigned, the motive was not known. 

Karin Grech.

In a Facebook post today Dr Azzopardi, who is shadow minister for justice, said: "Today we salute the memory of Karin Grech who was killed 39 years ago, a consequence of political hatred which we never want to see again. So many wounds are still open because of the hatred of the past." 

In December 2011 Prof. Grech suggested that a group of people was behind the heinous crime.

Speaking on Net TV’s Evidenza, Prof. Grech said he had information that the explosive device had been planned by fourth and fifth-year medical students who hired a criminal to make the bomb that was delivered by a carpenter with missing fingers.

In a reaction, former police officer Charles Demicoli, who had investigated the case for several years, said he believed the murder was the work of one person. The main reason why the crime had not been solved, he added, was because that person never spoke up.

“I think it was done by one of the students. I think he did it alone, all by himself and that’s why it hasn’t come out. If there were... (more people involved), as the professor is saying, somebody would have spoken up by now."