The brother of murdered Raymond Caruana has slammed a prisoner who raised false hopes by claiming he knew who killed the young man almost 25 years ago.

“It is not right for people to invent things about my brother to try and obtain certain privileges. Why don’t they let his soul rest?” Jimmy Caruana said yesterday.

He was reacting to claims by Kenneth Gafà – awaiting trial on a murder charge –which turned out to be a charade.

Mr Gafà, 38, last week said he knew the identity of Mr Caruana’s murderer but would only reveal the name in the presence of Justice and Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici. After initially turning down the request to meet Mr Gafà, Dr Mifsud Bonnici did meet the inmate in the presence of the inquiring magistrate and the Police Commissioner.

However, according to police sources, it turned out Mr Gafà was bluffing and was only interested in advancing his requests for certain privileges without providing any information on the murder.

Mr Caruana expressed indignation at the way his brother’s name was abused: “His (Mr Gafà’s) intention was to make a show and appear on newspapers. He was only a boy when my brother was killed. At first, he said he did not want anything in return and then started making requests in front of the minister.”

Mr Caruana had expressed shock and disbelief when news broke that a prisoner was prepared to give vital information on his brother’s case and wondered whether it was a prisoner whose “troubled conscience would not let him sleep”.

Mr Gafà, a jockey from Marsa, is in custody awaiting trial for the alleged murder of his former girlfriend, Christina Sammut, in Mġarr last December.

Mr Caruana was gunned down during 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.

At the time, Pietru Pawl Busuttil, now mayor of Safi, was accused of the murder after the weapon was planted in his Safi farmhouse. He was later absolved of all accusations with the court confirming he was the victim of a frame-up.