Jimmy Caruana’s feelings oscillated between shock and disbelief when he read in a newspaper that a prisoner was prepared to spill the beans on who murdered his brother Raymond 24 years ago.
Raymond Caruana was gunned down while attending a reception at the Nationalist Party club in Gudja in December 1986 in what was to mark the apex of a politically tumultuous period that turned violent.
“I was shocked,” Mr Caruana said when asked for his reaction to a report in l-orizzont that quoted an unnamed inmate who claimed to know the killer but was only ready to reveal the name in the presence of Justice and Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici.
The prisoner has since been identified as being Kenneth Gafa, who is awaiting trial for the murder of Christine Sammut in Mgarr last December. He was 11 at the time of the Caruana murder. Sources confirmed that Mr Gafa had been questioned by the police but gave no new information on the Caruana murder.
Dr Mifsud Bonnici has already turned down the request to meet the inmate, insisting he had no power at law to investigate criminal acts and expressed his trust in the Police Commissioner.
Mr Caruana, 66, was the first to receive news from the police of his brother’s murder 24 years ago and is unsure how to treat the new claim.
“It might be someone who cannot sleep at night because of a troubled conscience. My brother was almost a saint, he was quiet. But I do not want to rush and I have to wait for the police to investigate this claim.”
When contacted yesterday, Police Commissioner John Rizzo refused to comment.
“There is a pending investigation and I will not comment,” Mr Rizzo said when asked whether the inmate was interrogated by the police over these claims.
Mr Rizzo confirmed that in very serious cases it was normal practice for the police to first carry out their investigative work before an inquiring magistrate was called in.
The culprits have never been found but police investigations showed that the weapon used to gun down the 26-year-old PN activist was the same one used by Labour thugs just four days earlier to shoot at the Tarxien PN club.
At the time, Pietru Pawl Busuttil was accused of the murder after the weapon was found in his Safi farmhouse. Mr Busuttil was later absolved of all accusations with the court confirming he was the victim of a frame-up. Raymond Caruana would have been 51 on May 9 and a Facebook page dedicated to him is packed with recently posted birthday wishes and messages from his nephews and nieces.