Edwin Grech, 94, passes away never to see justice done for daughter’s parcel bomb murder

Edwin Grech, the former Labour MP and father of murdered teenager Karin Grech has passed away at the age of 94.

The announcement was made by Grech’s nephew, Opposition leader Bernard Grech, on Facebook.

“A person who left everything behind and who not only gave his knowledge but also his family because he believed in an ideal… a person who only did good and this was paid back in the worst possible way, the murder of his beloved daughter Karin,” Bernard Grech wrote in a tribute to the gynaecologist.

Prime Minister Robert Abela also saluted Edwin Grech's memory, saying that what he did for the country will never be forgotten. "A person who gave everything for his country and his patients... he did this in his profession and as a politician. He made big sacrifices and because he put others before his own interests ended up paying the price with the murder of his daughter Karin."

Edwin Grech had returned to Malta in 1977 at the height of the doctors’ strike and was appointed professor and director of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at St Luke’s Hospital.

Socially ostracised by his medical peers for being a strike-breaker, Grech was eventually targeted in the most brutal of ways.

His 15-year-old daughter Karin was killed by a parcel bomb just three days after Christmas 1977, that was addressed to her father. The girl opened what was a brown envelope enclosed within a Christmas wrapped parcel. The bomb immediately exploded in her face, in front of her 10-year-old brother. She died a few moments later in hospital.

The murder happened at the height of the doctors’ strike, during which Grech continued to work at St Luke’s Hospital. Grech was amongst the few Maltese doctors who refused to strike, as a consultant in the UK at the time who had agreed to return to Malta to fulfil the role until the industrial dispute ended.

Motivated by the medical-political unrest at the time, the crime rocked the nation but remained unsolved. No one was ever charged and convicted of Karin’s murder.

Edwin Grech had unsuccessfully contested the election in 1987 with the Labour Party but was elected in 1992 and 1996.

He served as social welfare minister between 1996 and 1998.

Former Labour prime minister Alfred Sant had nominated Edwin Grech for president but the Nationalist government of the time had turned down the proposal.

Grech had served as dean of the faculty of medicine and surgery between 1979 and 1986 and also a member of the University of Malta’s senate and later the UOM council.

He had also served as an advisor and consultant in maternal and child health for the World Health Organisation.

Grech was born in Luqa on 27 September 1928 and was married to Pearl Bryant.