The government has filed an appeal contesting a Court’s conclusion that there was political discrimination in its decision to award the family of the late Karin Grech €200,000 as compensation.

However, it is not contesting the Court’s decision that €419,287 should be awarded to the family.

Karin Grech was killed by a letter bomb more than three decades ago.

In its judgment given on November 30, a court ruled that the “cowardly” crime was a consequence of her father’s work with the government during a politically turbulent time.

The court also ruled the government had discriminated against the Grech’s by not granting them ex gratia compensation that was extended to other victims of lesser crimes.

A government spokesman said this afternoon that the government had received claims for compensation from Ms Grech’s family in 2007. At the same time, it had also received claims from the family of the late Raymond Caruana, who was shot dead on December 5, 1986, as he was celebrating at a reception marking the opening of the PN club.

The spokesman said that after the Attorney General’s office made its calculations according to established criteria, offers to both families were made but while the Caruana family accepted the offered sum of €190,000, the Grech family refused the sum offered, which amounted to €200,000.

The government, the spokesman insisted, felt that it had not discriminated politically or in any other way against the Grech family.

However, it was now accepting to pay the amount as liquidated by the court and in the same way it will be increasing the sum it had initially awarded the Caruana family.

The government also did not agree with the Court's declaration that Ms Grech’s murder was a result of the services Ms Grech's father gave the government or that this had been a medico-political murder.

It is arguing that as the case has not yet been solved, the motive is still not established.

In a judgement given in 1977, the Court had declared the 1970s dispute between the government and doctors as an industrial, rather than a political one, the spokesman said.