Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/890548
maltatoday SUNDAY 22 OCTOBER 2017 Interview 14 The body of Daphne Caruana Galizia was left on the scene of the crime for around 30 hours. How judicious is this with regard to preserving evidence for forensic analysis? It is one of the first instances, in my opinion, in which this occurred in Malta. It has always been the practice that if a person is defi- nitely dead – and of course finding a body in several pieces leaves no doubt that they are dead – then it is best to secure the scene totally so that the evidence is not lost, and only then do you need to start se- curing the body. It happens very often abroad, where they examine the body at the last moment. You start sweep- ing the area slowly until you clear a path that reaches the body. Now in this particular case, since foreign experts were also expected, they could also have requested that the body remains there. Many times in countries like the UK, they leave the body on the site until the full teams arrive to investigate, and when they do, they scan the area, and secure a path where no more evidence can be collected on that path. What would the forensic experts be looking for on that path? In the case of an explosion like this, you are looking first of all for traces of unexploded material. Until you identify the type of ex- plosive used, you have to look for traces of any kind of explosive. You can also identify the force of the explosive, the size and depth of the crater caused by the explosion, and that will lead you to determine the strength of the explosion, which could in turn lead you to identify the type of explosive used. It is on- ly after you've examined the area profusely, and taken swabs of sam- ples found, that you will be able to determine 100 percent what explo- sive was used. So you don't always find traces of the explosive used? No, you don't always find traces. In the case of semtex, even if the explosive is gone, you're still look- ing for trace material that arises from used, exploded, semtex, so that could also lead you to an iden- tification of the material. In this particular case, the most logical explanation is that the bomb was placed under the car, because the car was actually blown up until it started tumbling down, and because the explosion left a crater on the road. From what I have seen, that crater is between 1.5m to 2m across and around half a metre deep, so it's a massive cra- ter. Is it possible the bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia was planted on the side of the road and not on the car? I cannot exclude that but in that case, it would have been buried in the road, covered over and then triggered from a distance. This was the case with the bomb that killed Magistrate Giovanni Fal- cone in Italy; they buried a bomb and then waited for his car to come by before they triggered the bomb. Don't forger that in those days, there were no mobile phones so that bomb was triggered by radio or wireless transmission. So this could be the case, but given the nature of other explosive devices we've had in the past year, it's more likely that they used the same pat- tern. The most indicative explosion, next to that of Ms Caruana Galizia, was the one in Bugibba, where the explosive was actually placed un- der the seat and it blew the roof off the vehicle to a height of around three storeys. In this case, the roof of the vehicle is still there, but it's bloated on the passenger side. What would this indicate? I've been asked if the explosive was placed under the passenger seat. In my opinion, it wasn't. The force of the explosion was so great that the body was broken up into several pieces, so she must have taken the full force of the blast. Because of this, the explosive must have been directly under her. It could have been underneath her seat or underneath the car. Most probably it was placed un- der the car on the chassis, because to place the bomb under the seat would require entry into the car, which would be of a greater risk to whoever placed it. It would also in- crease the probability of Ms Caru- ana Galizia noticing the forced en- try into the vehicle and becoming suspicious. So whoever placed that explosive must have taken all these things into consideration. There- fore the most likely scenario is that the bomb was planted on the chas- sis on the car's underside probably by means of a magnet. With regard to the bloating of the roof, when an explosive device ex- plodes, the blast follows the path of least resilience. Now, most of the blast in this case was absorbed by the driver seat and the body of Ms Caruana Galizia. The part of the blast that was not absorbed by the seat and her body, found the pas- senger seat empty so it would have escaped in that direction and then up towards the roof. We are mentioning semtex, which is very difficult to obtain, especially in civilian circles, but which is probably the most commonly used explosive in this type of crime. It is also the explosive being mentioned most in this case. Why is that? Semtex belongs to a class of ex- plosives known as plastic explo- sives, which can be molded into any shape, like plasticine. And it takes a very small amount of mate- rial to cause tremendous damage. So it is the force of the semtex, coupled with the fact that you only need a very small amount – com- pared to pyrotechnics or commer- cial explosive as used in quarries, for example – that make it a very popular choice. Looking at the photos from the scene of the crime – as an outsider in this case, as opposed to what you've done in the past, when you've been the man to call upon for 30 years – if it were semtex or C4 that was used, how much explosive would it have taken to cause the damage caused to the car, the body and the crater in the road? I would say that around half a kilogramme of semtex was used, certainly nowhere close to the 2kg that were used by Egyptian soldiers to blow open the EgyptAir aircraft that had been hijacked and divert- ed to Malta on 24 November, 1985. In this case, an eyewitness who was driving on the same road in Bidnija when Daphne Caruana Galizia's car exploded, told us earlier this week that he actually heard two explosions; first one explosion, and then, seconds later, a second and larger explosion, and that was when he saw the car burst into flames. How would you explain this? The man probably heard the ex- plosion of the semtex. If the car was not in his sight initially and hidden behind an incline or de- pression, then the sound of the explosion could have been muffled by a rubble wall in the vicinity. But what he heard could also have been the explosion of the semtex, fol- lowed by the explosion of the fuel tank in the car, which would then have set the car alight. In my opinion, one should always follow the evidence that is present- ed. So if this man said he heard two blasts, then most probably there were probably two blasts. But you then have to explain how those blasts occurred. It couldn't have been the detonator being triggered, followed by the explosive, because that is practically instantaneous. Another scenario is that there may have been two explosions because there were two explosive charges planted in the car. In which case, the first explosion would go and then the blast of the first ex- plosion would detonate the second explosive. For the explosive to det- onate you need an initial powerful charge, so a detonator could trig- ger the first explosive, but the blast would then trigger the second. Many theories are being bandied about as to how the explosion was triggered. The most popular theory is that it was triggered through the use of a mobile phone. That is very probable. I am surprised also that the Dutch were called in. In my opinion, I would have called in the Italians, and not their scientific analysis units, but their secret services Bomb probably under the By Paul Cocks She would not have suffered. Because it's not as if she were injured and in pain until passing out; the fact that she was blown into so many pieces means it was instantaneous INSTANT DEATH THE DUTCH SURPRISE