Still unclear if Għargħur bomb victim was intended target

The bomb that left a man badly injured was probably still being manufactured when it went off on Wednesday afternoon, police sources said. Għargħur was rocked just after 3pm when the bomb went off inside a small agricultural storeroom on a rural road. Although preliminary investigations were giving some indications, it was still “far too early” to tell if Kevin Ellul, 42, was the intended target and nothing was being ruled out at this point, the sources were quick to add. “Investigations continue and it is not clear what happened exactly. However, judging by what we have seen at the scene of the crime it would appear the explosion was caused by a bomb that was still ‘open’ or being assembled,” a senior investigator said. The blast and the crater it left behind indicated it was not as powerful as other explosions, including car bombs, he added. “Of course, this could also mean other things, like something could have gone wrong with the bomb, which is why we must wait for a more detailed analysis to be sure,” the sources said. “Other circumstances” pointed at the possibility that the bomb might not have been intentionally triggered when it went off, they added, noting, however,...