PN leader Bernard Grech described the late doctor Edwin Grech – who was his uncle and the father of the murdered Karin Grech – as his “hero”, as Parliament paid tribute to him following his passing two weeks ago.

“For us he was an uncle who we admire a lot,” Grech said, speaking on behalf of his family.

Former Labour Minister Edwin Grech, father of letter bomb victim Karin Grech, died on 15 March, aged 94.

“This was a person who only did good, and was paid back in the worst possible way, through the killing of his dearest daughter Karin," Grech wrote upon his uncle’s passing.

Grech said in Parliament on Monday that the doctor served as an inspiration as he was the first professional in the family.

“He distinguished himself with excellence in everything he did,” the PN leader said.

Referring to when his cousin, Karin Grech, was killed in 1977 after she opened a letter bomb, the PN leader said that her father never truly recovered.

“I was only 6 years old; they didn’t take me to the scene but my brother did go as he was 17. He always recalls how he saw Karen wrapped in a blanket in her father’s arms with missing body parts, as her father ran to hospital to try and save her,” he said visibly emotional.

Grech spoke of how he had gotten to know 15-year-old Karin just three days before she was killed, as she attended a boarding school back in England at the time.

He said that following this event many had lost all hopes in politics “as many of us felt betrayed.”

“It was an attack which my uncle never recovered from because he thought her murder was his fault,” he said.

Grech spoke of how the “fault is of the cowards who decided” to kill her and in addressing them he said that “if you are listening you should be ashamed.”

Grech remarked how a court concluded that Karin Grech was killed in the middle of a medico-political climate and that although “we cannot bring her back, we as politicians should learn that when the truth is hidden some wounds will never be relieved from the pain.”

He said that it is within politicians’ scope to learn from these national tragedies and for the truth to always come out and so “that all those (families) searching for some relieve from their pain know who did the act.”

Health Minister Chris Fearne meanwhile said that the doctors of his generation have to thank Edwin Grech as he decided to come back to the country in the midst of a political dispute in order to help the medical sector.

Even though he was going through a social boycott, he still decided to serve his country by teaching future doctors, Fearne said.

“He did not choose to lock himself in a room and contemplate revenge, instead he went to St Luke’s and gave birth to other infants, he went on to teach at the medical school,” the minister said.

“He will not just be remembered among medical circles, he will remain immortalised in the country’s political history.”