George Thomson writes:
Armed with the intelligence on the PFLP-GC’s activities in Neuss in October and the FAA Warning, the Scottish investigators on the ground, assisted by their American friends, were in no doubt that they were looking for the remains of a copper Samsonite suitcase which would contain a semtex-based IED concealed within a Toshiba Radio. The radio would be enclosed in a cardboard box along with an instruction manual. They even knew that the explosives within the radio would be wrapped in Toblerone type wrapping foil.
In no time whatsoever they “found” what they were looking for. […]
AG145 - debris from the identification plate of the luggage container which Feraday was satisfied was from a Toshiba 8016 or 8026 but then he changed his mind later on. [RB: information about AG145 can be found here and here.] At trial however the air accident investigator Claiden testified that the fold in the identification plate which harboured the debris identified as originating from a Toshiba HAD NOT BEEN CAUSED AT THE TIME OF THE EXPLOSION
A black explosion-damaged cardigan with Toblerone foil violently impacted into its fabric was found and initially was described as originating from the bomb suitcase, but later the classification was changed as the emphasis moved away from the PFLP-GC.
Then, impacted into various items of clothing which Gauci later remembered selling to “a suspect”, originally Talb, the scientists found pieces of the cardboard box, the instruction manual and various pieces of plastics and mesh which Hayes claimed was from the IED Radio.
In relation to the detonation device a report was submitted from the Scottish police to the Lord Advocate asking for the detention of various suspects who had been involved with the PFLP-GC in Neuss. In that report the police assert time after time that the bomb had been triggered by a barometric device.
The net was finally closing and by a spectacular piece of detective work a pair of trousers from the bomb suitcase was traced via the manufacturers on Malta to Tony Gauci’s shop where he remarkably remembered selling a variety of clothes to a suspect, which had turned up in the bomb suitcase. To be fair to Tony however he did not make the whole thing up from nothing, he was shown a variety of photographs of items said to originate from the bomb suitcase and he picked them out.
The slight fly in the ointment however is that the police claimed to have been led to Gauci by a manufacturer’s label (Yorkie) attached to the trousers and by a Stamped Number 1705 on a pocket which was an order number for Gauci’s Shop. Unfortunately we now have a police document which indicates that when the trousers first came into the possession of the police there was no such label attached and the number 1705 apparently jumps from one fragment of trousers to another depending on what report or which police statement you chose to read.
Gauci went some way to identifying Talb as the purchaser of the clothing. However Gauci’s identification would have been bolstered by the evidence of a witness with a shop nearby who made a definite identification of Talb being in his own shop at the relevant time. This shopkeeper’s evidence has never been heard.
So sure were the police that Talb was their man, that they even fabricated evidence of a piece of clothing found in his home in Sweden and originally described as a pair of child’s kick-trousers with a size and a manufacturer into being a Babygro with penguins on the front; the same type of course as described in the shipment note lodged at court to prove the evidence of Gauci and his lamb/sheep Babygro he claimed to have sold to the man.
I could go on and on with discrepancies in the case but I want to make the point that Megrahi was in my mind convicted on evidence much of which was designed to prosecute Talb and all they had to do to was change the tentative identification by Gauci of Talb to Megrahi and introduce the small fragment of circuit board, PT35b.
That’s what makes this case so different. Megrahi was convicted on false evidence originally intended to be used against someone else and if any of that evidence was tested in court by a defence team properly briefed by defence investigators then Megrahi’s name would be cleared.
Baset [Megrahi] would be pleased if that were to happen because on his deathbed he asked me to not only try to prove his innocence but prove that he was deliberately convicted on false evidence.
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