Police and the army’s bomb disposal unit searched a garage in Marsascala yesterday used by an elderly man murdered two days ago in Żejtun.

The large garage in Triq ir-Roża belonged to relatives of Peter Cassar, 67, known as Pietru l-Ħaqqa, who was shot dead in his garage on Tuesday at around 2pm.

Police sources confirmed they had carried out a search using sniffer dogs in conjunction with the army’s explosives unit. The unit also searched Mr Cassar’s Żejtun residence hours after the murder.

Court experts and high-ranking police officers were on site during yesterday’s search.

Mr Cassar died after being shot in the neck and chest with 9mm bullets.

It could not be established whether yesterday’s search yielded anything but it was significant in light of the fact that last October Mr Cassar had been briefly remanded in custody after he was charged with being in possession of explosives, pistols and a machine gun, among other items.

The garage is situated in the same street where relatives of Joseph Cutajar, known as il-Lion, reside. Mr Cutajar had been charged in March 2012 with double murder after two men died in a shootout in an underground garage close to the Marsascala apartment.

Eight months later, Mr Cutajar was killed with shots fired from a Kalashnikov rifle and, hours later, Josef Grech, il-Yo Yo, was killed with a shot to the head on the same day. The man interrogated for this double murder, Paul Degabriele, is-Suldat, was shot point blank at close range outside a bar in Marsa five months later.

The police have not yet established whether more than one person was involved in Mr Cassar’s shooting or whether the killer fired from a vehicle.

Investigators are still scouring the area for security cameras in the hope that they might yield clues to the murder. They are also looking into a number of vehicles taken from the Żejtun garage.

Mr Cassar’s murder took place eight days after Joseph Galea, known as il-Ġilda, was gunned down by an assault rifle as he was sitting in his car parked outside his Marsa apartment.

Police are investigating the possibility of any links to these murders, spanning back two years, and are appealing to anyone with information to come forward and contact the police confidentially on 119.