Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1243341
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 MAY 2020 NEWS was important that the substance be shipped from within the EU, asking whether it was a good idea to send it via a UK remailer. It was not, replied the seller, who said that the simpler things were kept, the better. Through Protonmail, Calleja men- tioned a friend of his in the UK who could be "a good client in future", al- so asking whether the seller had any "Ricin powder." The seller remarked that he was trying to buy many things at once and said that he didn't have any Ricin. Calleja specified a UK forwarding ad- dress in Essex addressed to a ROGER TABONE, care of EUF Group Ltd in Essex. Eventually a payment of.044458 Bitcoins (€358.28) plus shipping costs at 0.002046 BTC (€16.49) was sent. A new seller wrote to Calleja's Pro- tonmail account, telling him that he had noted the buyer as having a good reputation, saying that he needed to make a customs listing to avoid law en- forcement (referred to as "LE" by the sender) giving them a hard time. Shipment was from the US, he said. Payment was to remain in escrow until the package was delivered. The seller also said he had Glock handguns, suppressors and C4 explo- sives for sale. He was selling blocks of C4 at $750 each plus shipping, but buying two blocks qualified for the possibility of paying $1500 "to be sure it would explode." Shipping would cost $100, he said. The vendor, in another email, gave detailed instructions on how to safe- ly insert the detonator and mercury switch into the C4. After being told that the target was a car, the buyer was told that the best way to attach it to the target vehicle was by using a large magnet. Police intercept package After the package was intercepted in Malta, having somehow slipped past security screening in the UK, the buy- er and seller exchanged angry corre- spondence, with Calleja accusing the seller of being a police officer ("you are one of the pigs") and the seller accus- ing him of trying to get out of paying. Had the items been intercepted in the UK, this would have been "all over the news," he wrote. Calleja had replied that he didn't ex- pect the seller to believe him, but that he "had people everywhere" and was trying to get the package out of the au- thorities' hands. Together with some colleagues, Su- perintendent Cremona had flown out to an Arizona airforce base to see the explosives for themselves. They were shown the C4, a 9-volt battery, a toggle switch, a mercury switch and a blasting cap. The C4 was then removed by ex- plosives experts, who later certified it as a viable explosive. He presented the court with 34 photographs, document- ing the entire process. The Bluetooth speaker was careful- ly reassembled, without the explosive, and with a tracking device placed in- side and sent on its way. The IP addresses of persons who logged into the Fedex parcel track- ing service to track the parcel number were later obtained by the Maltese au- thorities. The package, complete with inert dummy explosive, was sent to Malta for a controlled delivery to be carried out. The delivery to "Roger Tabone", who turned out to be Jomic Calleja Maatouk was supposed to be performed by Ex- press Trailers, but was refused by the recipient. This caused the police to suspect that there was someone work- ing on the inside who knew about the police operation. Express Trailers supervisor Matthew Borg was later arrested and admitted under questioning that he would pass on information to Jomic Calleja. The company has disassociated itself from its ex-employee's actions and has said it collaborated with the police, termi- nating Borg's employment. Calleja was arrested outside the Birkirkara McDonalds outlet as he was about to get inside their car. Suspect- ed drugs were found and a number of electronic devices were seized by the police. These were taken to the US by a court expert for unlocking and anal- ysis. It was on 29 August 2019, after be- ing released on police bail, that Jomic Calleja had written to the seller com- plaining that the order was "found by the pigs". Police are understood to still be ana- lysing an "enormous" amount of data found on the accused's electronic de- vices and computers. The case contin- ues. Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was a British- naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian FSB secret service who specialised in tackling organized crime, assassinated through the use of Polonium 210 "The seller also said that nobody would suspect Polonium 210 because it only emits alpha radiation," Supt George Cremona told the court, adding that the seller had told Calleja it would cause death by pneumonia within two weeks AT 92 years of age, Albert Von Brockdorff – "Brockie" to his friends – has an astound- ing recall. "When the war started, I was 12 years old and I remem- ber everything in detail. The worst year was 1942, after that everything went back to normal, al- though we had rationing up to 1945," he explained. Now 75 years since VE (Victory in Eu- rope) Day – marked on 25 April – today's 'war' against the COVID-19 pandemic is certainly unlike the sounds and horrors of World War II and the way survivors like Von Brockdorff lived through it. "I used to go to the school in Sliema, five minutes from my home. Attached to the school was a large air-raid shelter. At 12 years old we used to be very excited at an air raid because we would meet the girls in the shelter," Von Brockdorff recalled with a chuckle. "Children don't see danger," the nona- genarian said, remembering of how he and his friends would collect cartridge cases falling from aircraft dogfighting in the skies overhead during some air-raids. "You don't realise the danger when you are young. One time a bomb hit a house outside our shelter. The owner was a stamp collector who had an enor- mous collection of stamps. The whole street was full of stamps and we just went scrambling to collect them." Von Brockdorff recalled the fearlessness – and the monotony – of day-to-day life as a youth during wartime. "We lived near Dingli Circus, and there was the largest air raid shelter in Sliema nearby. We used to move around underground and had many friends, but no sign of fear. Life was quite normal once we had the shelters. We even had our cubicles and used to sleep there." Music helped Von Brockdorff and his friends escape from the realities of war. "I remember a Mr Manché, who had an amateur orchestra... they would keep the whole Dingli circus going with their mu- sic." "On VE Day, everybody went to Valletta. I remember it very, very well. Big cheering and crowds and bands and everything. I have never seen such scenes after that day. It was impressed on my memory all my life. I was 15." Von Brockdorff vividly re- members the day the Santa Marija convoy (Operation Pedestal) came in back on 15 August, 1942. "That day we disobeyed our parents and went up to the Barrakka to see the boats coming in. We were forbidden to go there, but we cheered them on an- yway. I remember the names of the boats: Glen Campbell, Ohio, Pampas. They came in but they were sunk in the har- bour." Von Brockdorff said. Von Brockdorff's friend Lyd- ia Aquilina, also 92, lived in Valletta during the war and her memories of wartime Malta remained unclouded. "At our young age everything was ex- citing for us," she reminisced. "Life for a child was quite normal. We had no wor- ries. All we wanted to do was go to San Anton gardens… We were about five families with eight maids living in the same house," she recalled. There was not enough bread, which was rationed, she explained. "We were always hungry and would eat anything. We read comics, played a lot of cards, hide and seek… but never missed a day of school. The nuns at St Joseph's had a shelter, but when the raids were getting bad it was closed for some time. The shelter we had at home was much better, hewn into the rock." Even she remembers VE day was a big day but says they had nothing to celebrate it with. "We got a small bag of beans, two candles and two extra chocolate bars." Once a week her friends would organise "a bit of music in the houses" to dance to. In these private gatherings there would be around ten couples in all. "We never had enough boys so us girls would dance be- tween us," she laughs. Both 92-year-olds said that victory was worth the sacrifice of living through the war – and sacrifices there were aplenty, especially when it came to food. "There were, of course, the Victory kitchens, where we used to go with coupons and get our share. On one occasion, I had gone to collect the food and while coming back I fell over and the food spilled out on to the ground. I picked it all up and every- body ate it – luckily nothing happened to them!" Von Brockdorff says. "We used to sleep in the shelter. Then if there was a break in the bombing, we would go have a shower and rush back to the shelter," he recounts. After 1942 things were much easier, but food re- mained the biggest problem in Malta. "There wasn't any," he recalls. Kids who lived through war: 'we didn't see danger' Victory in Europe day was celebrated on 25 April, marking 75 years since the end of WWII Young at 92! Albert Von Brockdorff and Lydia Aquilina