[What follows is excerpted from a report published in today's edition of The Times of Malta:]
A popular Netflix series about the Lockerbie bombing presents Malta as the starting point of the bomb’s journey, a version of events long disputed by senior Maltese figures as well as some families of the deceased.
The Bombing of Pan Am 103, which is currently the most-watched show on Netflix in Malta and ranks third globally, broadly follows the case presented by Scottish prosecutors.
But that account was disputed by several figures, including certain investigators, former prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami and former president George Vella.
The series, first released in the UK last year, follows the joint Scottish and FBI investigation into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. (...)
Malta features prominently in the series as the Luqa airport is depicted as the place where the Libyan secret service planted a timer bomb in checked-in luggage.
According to the prosecution case, the luggage was transferred to Frankfurt on an Air Malta flight before travelling to London Heathrow and eventually being loaded onto Pan Am 103. (...)
Fenech Adami later questioned whether the bomb could have travelled along the route presented by prosecutors.
In his 2014 book, Eddie – My Journey, he wrote: “My opinion is that it was technically impossible for the bomb to have taken such a complicated route.
“It would also have been a very haphazard method of executing this act of terrorism.”
Alongside many others, the doubts centred on Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper whose testimony became an important part of the prosecution case.
Investigators traced clothing found in the suitcase containing the bomb to Mary’s House, a shop in Sliema owned by Gauci.
Gauci identified al-Megrahi as the man who had bought the clothes in December 1988, weeks before the bombing.
Fenech Adami later described him as an unreliable witness.
“The only evidence against al-Megrahi was the testimony of a Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, who said he sold the Libyan the clothing,” he wrote.
“While I do not think it can be ruled out that al-Megrahi was in some way involved, I have always considered Gauci, who was paid by the Americans, to be a very unreliable witness.”
Vella, who was foreign minister in the 1990s and, again, in the early 2010s, went further.
He told an episode of Times Talk in 2013 that he was convinced al-Megrahi was innocent.
Questions were also raised about Gauci by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body which examines possible miscarriages of justice.
The commission described him as an unreliable witness and said prosecutors had failed to disclose statements to al-Megrahi’s defence showing that Gauci had changed his account on important details over the years.
Al-Megrahi’s defence contended that Gauci was paid “in excess of $2 million” and his brother was paid “in excess of $1m” for their cooperation.
Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, also accused Gauci of “betraying a fellow human being for money” in a Times of Malta interview in 2013.
Documents published later by The Sunday Times of Malta showed that the lead investigator in the case lobbied US authorities to pay at least $3 million to Gauci and his brother Paul for their role in helping secure the conviction.
Neither brother ever confirmed or denied that they had been paid.
Gauci, who lived in Swieqi before his death in 2016, never spoke publicly about the case.
Joe Mifsud, a former Labour Party official and journalist who is now a magistrate, also challenged the prosecution case in his 2014 book Terror’s Footprints.
“It had always seemed manifestly clear to me that the two accused persons had not committed the terrorist attack and that the suitcase containing the bomb which caused the explosion had not left from Malta.”
Mifsud pointed instead to an argument raised by the defence that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command may have been responsible.
The theory is that the Syria-based group received $10 million or so from Iran immediately after Lockerbie. It appeared to have acted as a mercenary or executor in carrying out the wishes of the Iranian Ayatollahs in revenge for the erroneous US downing of an Iranian aircraft in 1988. (...)
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