Serious doubts on credibilty of Gauci

[What follows is the text of a report that was published in the Times of Malta on this date in 2012:]

Sliema shopkeeper Tony Gauci was always going to be the prosecution’s most important asset in pinning guilt for the Lockerbie bombing on Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.

He was the only one to directly link Mr Megrahi to shards of clothing found at the bombing scene by identifying him as “the Libyan man” who went to buy clothes from his shop at around 6.30 p.m. on December 7, 1988.

Lockerbie investigators had concluded that the bomb on Pan-Am flight 103 was placed in a suitcase that contained clothing produced by Yorkie, a clothes manufacturer in Malta, and sold by Mary’s House in Sliema, which belonged to Mr Gauci and his brother Paul.

And Mr Gauci’s testimony proved to be the single most important element at the Lockerbie trial in Camp Zeist, The Netherlands, to help judges deliver a guilty verdict in January 2001.

But a fresh investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, a body which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, has shed serious doubts on the credibility of Mr Gauci’s testimony.

The report, published for the first time in Scotland on the Sunday Herald’s website, provides an in-depth analysis of the evidence produced in Mr Megrahi’s trial and information that was withheld from the defence that could have been used to challenge Mr Gauci’s credibility.

The report also confirms media reports over the years, which were never challenged, that Mr Gauci and his brother Paul were compensated by the US State Department for the evidence that helped bring Mr Megrahi to justice.

It highlights excerpts of entries in a diary by Scottish police inspector Harry Bell, who took charge of the investigations in Malta, noting Mr Gauci’s interest in monetary compensation.

The commission found that none of the diary entries and memorandums Mr Bell authored, in which witness compensation was mentioned, were ever passed on to the defence.

Of particular interest was a memorandum Mr Bell drew up on February 21, 1991 for his superiors, six days after Mr Gauci had, for the first time, positively identified Mr Megrahi from a photo.

“During recent meetings with Tony he has expressed an interest in receiving money. It would appear that he is aware of the US reward monies which have been reported in the press,” Mr Bell wrote.

In a statement to the commission in 2006, Mr Gauci denied ever discussing compensation with the police, although he did admit awareness of the US reward money. He also alleged that former Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi had also offered him a handsome reward, which he refused.

But the compensation issue also cropped up in 1999 in an assessment report by the Scottish police on including Mr Gauci and his brother Paul in a witness protection programme. It speaks of Mr Gauci’s “frustration” and Paul’s pushiness to get some form of compensation for the troubles they endured.

Without delving into the merits of whether talk of compensation could have influenced Mr Gauci’s testimony, the review commission said the information should have been disclosed to the defence. It concluded that the information could have been used to question Mr Gauci’s credibility and put into serious difficulty the prosecution’s case against Mr Megrahi.

But it is in Mr Gauci’s confusion over Mr Megrahi’s identification where the commission feels “a miscarriage of justice” may have occurred.

Pinpointing December 7, 1988 as the day when the clothes sale happened was crucial for the prosecution because it placed Mr Megrahi in Malta. Any other day before this would have exonerated the Libyan.

Mr Gauci’s testimony in this regard is anything but clear. The only consistent recollection is that on the day he was alone at the shop because his brother Paul was at home watching football.

The only football matches on TV at the time would have been transmitted on RAI, the Italian state television, and would possibly have been linked to European club football matches, putting the day down to a Wednesday.

The prosecution was dilly-dallying between December 7, a Wednesday, and a second day, November 23 – also a Wednesday. But Mr Gauci had also spoken of seeing Christmas decorations “being put up” in the street “a fortnight before Christmas”.

Subsequent research by the defence team, which was never used in the appeal for tactical reasons, revealed that in that year Christmas lights were lit up by then Tourism Minister Michael Refalo on December 6, which means the lights had been “put up” in the preceding weeks.

The court had believed Mr Gauci’s version, even if not solid, as pointing towards December 7 and so incriminating Mr Megrahi.

However, after considering all the evidence before the court on this matter, the review commission concluded there was “no reasonable basis” for the conclusion that the purchase took place on December 7.

The only evidence which favours that date over November 23, the commission said, was Mr Gauci’s account that the purchase must have been about a fortnight before Christmas and his confused description of the Christmas lights going up at the time.

“In light of the difficulties with those two pieces of evidence the commission does not consider that a reasonable court, properly directed, could have placed greater weight upon them than upon evidence of the weather conditions and of Mr Gauci’s statements – in which he said that the purchase had taken place in “November, December 1988”, “November or December 1988” and “at the end of November”. In the commission’s view, those factors taken together point, if anything, to a purchase date of November 23.”

But another question mark hangs over Mr Gauci’s visual identification of the bombing suspect and his early description in police statements of the Libyan as a man, aged “about 50” and of a height that is “about six foot or more”.

In December 1988 Mr Megrahi was 36 years old and measured five feet eight inches, marked discrepancies from Mr Gauci’s man.

But Mr Gauci had consistently, on various occasions in 1989 and 1990, when shown photos of potential suspects by the police, identified two different people: Abo Talb and Mohammed Salem.

It was only in February 1991 that Mr Gauci identified Mr Megrahi as the man who bought clothes from his shop but the prosecution rested heavily on an identification parade held in April 1999, in the months before the trial, when Mr Megrahi was officially indicted.

In the Netherlands, Mr Gauci had pointed to Mr Megrahi and in broken English told investigators: “Not exactly the man I saw in the shop. Ten years ago I saw him, but the man who look a little bit like exactly is the number 5.”

The commission noted that an “extraordinary length of time” had passed between the date of purchase and the parade but of more significance was the fact that prior to the parade Mr Gauci was exposed to Mr Megrahi’s photograph in Focus magazine. This “raises doubts as to the reliability of Mr Gauci’s identification” of Mr Megrahi at that time, the commission said.

It did note though that in February 1991, there was no risk of Mr Gauci being influenced by media exposure of Mr Megrahi since no indictments had been issued yet.

“However, like those other identifications, the identification by photograph in 1991 was one of resemblance only and was qualified and equivocal.”

The commission concluded that in the absence of “a reasonable foundation for the date of purchase” and bearing in mind “the problems with Mr Gauci’s identification” of Mr Megrahi, it was of the view that “no reasonable trial court could have drawn the inference” that the Libyan was the buyer of the clothes.

The significance of this conclusion, the commission said, lay in the fact that such a finding “might be capable of undermining” the weight of other evidence against Mr Megrahi such as that relating to his presence at Luqa airport on the morning of December 21, 1988.

Investigators had argued that an unaccompanied suitcase carrying the bomb and containing the incriminating clothing was placed on board an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, where it eventually made it to Heathrow before being loaded on to the fatal Pan-Am flight.

“Charges are now possible”

[On this date in 1994 the London Review of Books published a review by Paul Foot of Donald Goddard and Lester Coleman’s Trail of the Octopus: From Beirut to Lockerbie. It reads in part:]

The American investigative columnist Jack Anderson has had some scoops in his time but none more significant than his revelation – in January 1990 – that in mid-March 1989, three months after Lockerbie, George Bush rang Margaret Thatcher to warn her to ‘cool it’ on the subject. On what seems to have been the very same day, perhaps a few hours earlier, Thatcher’s Secretary of State for Transport, Paul Channon, was the guest of five prominent political correspondents at a lunch at the Garrick Club. It was agreed that anything said at the lunch was ‘on strict lobby terms’ – that is, for the journalists only, not their readers. Channon then announced that the Dumfries and Galloway Police – the smallest police force in Britain – had concluded a brilliant criminal investigation into the Lockerbie crash. They had found who was responsible and arrests were expected before long. The Minister could not conceal his delight at the speed and efficiency of the PC McPlods from Dumfries, and was unstinting in his praise of the European intelligence.

So sensational was the revelation that at least one of the five journalists broke ranks; and the news that the Lockerbie villains would soon he behind bars in Scotland was divulged to the public. Channon, still playing the lobby game, promptly denied that he was the source of the story. Denounced by the Daily Mirror’s front page as a ‘liar’, he did not sue or complain. A few months later he was quietly sacked. Thatcher, of course, could not blame her loyal minister for his indiscretion, which coincided so unluckily with her instructions from the White House.

Channon had been right, however, about the confidence of the Dumfries and Galloway Police. They did reckon they knew who had done the bombing. Indeed, they had discovered almost at once that a terrorist bombing of an American airliner, probably owned by Pan-Am, had been widely signalled and even expected by the authorities in different European countries. The point was, as German police and intelligence rather shamefacedly admitted, that a gang of suspected terrorists had been rumbled in Germany in the months before the bombing. They were members of a faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by Ahmed Jibril. The aim of the gang was to bomb an American airliner in revenge for the shooting down by an American warship of an Iranian civil airliner in the Gulf earlier in the year. On 26 October 1988, less than two months before the bombing, two of the suspects – Hafez Dalkomini and Marwan Abdel Khreesat – were arrested in their car outside a flat at Neuss near Frankfurt. In the car was a bomb, moulded into the workings of a black Toshiba cassette recorder. In the ensuing weeks other raids were carried out on alleged terrorist hideaways in Germany, and 16 suspects arrested. One of them was Mohammad Abu Talb, another member of the PFLP, who was almost instantly released. Even more curious was the equally prompt release of Khreesat, who was suspected of making the bomb found in Dalkomini’s car.

The finding of the bomb led to a flurry of intelligence activity. It was discovered that the bomb had been specifically made to blow up an aircraft; and that the gang had made at least five bombs, four of which had not been found. At once, a warning went out on the European intelligence network to watch out for bombs masked in radio cassette recorders, especially at airports. There were more specific warnings. On 5 December 1988 the US Embassy in Helsinki got a telephone warning that 'within the next few weeks' an attempt would be made to bomb a Pan-Am flight from Frankfurt to New York. On 8 December, Israeli forces attacked a PFLP base in the Lebanon and found papers about a planned attack on a Pan-Am flight from Frankfurt. This information, too, was passed on. On 18 December the German police got another warning about a bomb plot against a Pan-American flight. This message was passed to American embassies, including the embassy in Moscow, and as a result of it 80 per cent of the Americans in Moscow who had booked to fly home for Christmas on Pan-Am flights canceled their reservations. (...)

Though the German police dragged their feet and were singularly reluctant to disclose any documents, the facts about the Jibril gang were known to the Scottish police by March 1989. All the ingredients of a solution were in place. The motive was clear: revenge for a similar atrocity. The Lockerbie bomb, forensic experts discovered, had been concealed in a black Toshiba cassette recorder exactly like the one found in Dalkomini's car two months earlier. The German connection was impossible to ignore: the flight had started in Frankfurt. The identity of the bombers seemed certain, and surely it was only a matter of time before they could be charged. But, like Channon, the police were unaware of the telephone conversation between Bush and Thatcher. When Thatcher sacked Channon a few decent months later, she appointed Cecil Parkinson in his place. Shaken by the grief of the Lockerbie victims' families, Parkinson promised them a full public inquiry. Alas, when he put the idea to the Prime Minister she slapped him down at once. There was no judicial or public inquiry with full powers—just a very limited fatal accident inquiry, which found that the disaster could have been prevented by security precautions which are still not in place.

All through the rest of 1989 the Scottish police beavered away. In May they found more clues. A group of Palestinian terrorists were arrested in Sweden, among them Abu Talb. Talb's German flat was raided. It was full of clothing bought in Malta. The forensic evidence showed that the Lockerbie cassette-bomb had been wrapped, inside its suitcase, in clothes with Maltese tags. Talb was known to have visited Malta some weeks before the bombing. Off flew the Scottish police to: Malta, where a boutique-owner remembered selling a suspicious-looking man some clothes—similar to those found in the fatal suitcase. Closely questioned by FBI video-fit (or identikit) experts, the boutique-owner's answers produced a picture which looked very like Abu Talb. When a computer print-out of baggage on the fatal airliner appeared to show an unaccompanied suitcase transferred to PanAm 103 from a flight from Malta, the jigsaw seemed complete. Jibril had agreed to bomb an airliner, probably in exchange for a huge reward from the Iranian Government. The task was taken on by a PFLP team in Germany, led by Dalkomini. It was joined by Khreesat, who made several bombs, only three of which were ever discovered. One of the other two found its way, probably via Talb, to the hold of the airliner. The culprits were obvious. But the authorities still dragged their feet. The initial determination to identify the conspirators and bring them to justice seemed to have waned. The Scottish police were exasperated. They made more and more of the information available. Much of it appeared in the Sunday Times in a series of articles leading up to the first anniversary of the bombing. No one who read them could doubt that the bombers were Syrians and Palestinians. The series, mainly written by David Leppard, who worked closely with the Scottish police team, ended with a scoop: white plastic residue found at Lockerbie was traced back to alarm clocks bought by the Dalkomini gang. There seemed no more room for argument. 'The Sunday Times understands,' Leppard wrote, 'that officers heading the investigation — despite a cautious attitude in public — have told their counterparts abroad that under Scottish law "charges are now possible against certain persons."'

There were no charges, however — not for a long time.

[RB: And when they came, the charges were -- surprise, surprise! -- against two Libyans.]

The date of the Malta purchases

[What follows is excerpted from a long article headed Evidence reconsidered: date of clothing purchase posted in January 2010 on Caustic Logic’s blog The Lockerbie Divide:]

1) A choice of two days

Tony Gauci's initial recall of the date of purchase was vague - late November or perhaps early December, or a few weeks before the bombing. It was a football game played on the day (see below) that really narrowed it down to 23 November or 7 December 1988. He recalled the purchse as on a weekday, and specifically "mid-week." In his 2000 testimony, Gauci clarified this meant, exactly, Wednesday. [Day 31, pp 4820-21] Both possible dates were Wednesdays, so that's no help, but the distinction is crucial; as Marquise points out, Megrahi was on Malta on the 7th and so could possibly be the buyer (or to some minds, he clearly is).

If, on the other hand, this supposed purchase occurred two weeks earlier, it had to be someone else; Maltese immigration records and all sources on all sides agree Megrahi had a solid alibi for 23 November. We know the official decision - the purchase happened the 7th. And we know how that helps the prosecution case. But what does the actual evidence offered by Tony, and his brother Paul for that matter, and others, actually say on the subject?

2) Christmas lights

Paul Foot's amazing 2000 booklet "Lockerbie: The Flight From Justice" reports:

On 19 September, 1989, Gauci asserted in a statement to police: “At Christmas time we put up the decorations about 15 days before Christmas. The Christmas decorations were not up when the man bought the clothes.” On 10 September, 1990, Mr Gauci told DCI Bell of the Scottish police: “I’ve been asked to try again and pinpoint the day and date I sold the man the clothing. I can only say it was a weekday; there were no Christmas decorations up, as I have already said, and I believe it was at the end of November.” [p 21 - emphasis mine]

But ultimately another day was needed, a day by which the town would normally have its halls partly decked. By the time Mr. Gauci made it to trial in 2000, judging from the stretches of Q and A I’ve been going over, he was taking every opportunity to fudge the two versions closer together, on this issue and others. The Court’s summarized final opinion document (31/1/01) stated:

“In his evidence in chief, Mr Gauci said that the date of purchase must have been about a fortnight before Christmas. He was asked if he could be more specific under reference to the street Christmas decorations. Initially he said “I wouldn’t know exactly, but I have never really noticed these things, but I remember, yes, there were Christmas lights. They were on already. I’m sure. I can’t say exactly.” [paragraph 56]

Of course among the first things he remembered, that helped mark the memory, was the decorations “were not up when the man bought the clothes.” After this contradiction “had been put to him” by the defense, the Court continued, “he said “I don’t know. I’m not sure what I told them exactly about this. I believe they were putting up the lights, though, in those times.” [para 56]

Clearly the earlier version, before he became muddled with an awareness of contradiction, is more trustworthy, and the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, announcing a possible “miscarriage of justice” in 2007, found support for this. Among other alarming problems, they unearthed additional specific evidence giving a start date for the Christmas light erection – the 6th of December:

New evidence not heard at the trial concerned the date on which the Christmas lights were illuminated in the area of Sliema in which Mary’s House is situated. In the Commission’s view, taken together with Mr Gauci’s evidence at trial and the contents of his police statements, this additional evidence indicates that the purchase of the items took place prior to 6 December 1988. In other words, it indicates that the purchase took place at a time when there was no evidence at trial that the applicant was in Malta.

3) Weather records vs Gauci's evidence

Gauci’s first statements to the police cited the weather as a clue to the day of the purchase. When the mystery shopper came in, it was raining enough for him to buy, in addition to the memorably random assortment of clothing, a single item of utility; an umbrella. From his first statement, 1 September 1989:

“I even showed him a “Black coloured (umbrella?) and he bought it. … The man said he had other shops to visit and he picked up the “umbrella” and he said he would come back shortly … [and] walked out of the shop with the “Umbrella” which he opened as it was raining.”

Remnants of a black umbrella were found in Scotland and presumed to be from the bomb bag. This looks like a good connection, but the items bought are covered in a separate post. For this post it establishes that Gauci’s story, however true or relevant it really was, featured significant rainfall.

During the 2000 trial, the issue was raised by defense for the first accused (Megrahi). They called as a witness one Major Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese meteorologist who gave evidence on 5 December 2000. He discussed rainfall records kept at the airport. Every three hours (usually), there was a measurement taken, entered in the "Rainfall" on the charts, showing as some entries discussed:

6 Dec 21.00 GMT - "Nil"

7 Dec 00:00 GMT – “Nil”

7 Dec 06.00 GMT – “Nil”

7 Dec 09:00 GMT – “T/R” Mifsud explained the mark “TR” as “a trace of rainfall, less than 0.5 of a millimetre.” This reading refers apparently to a one minute light shower recorded from 8:44 to 8:45 am GMT, ten hours prior to the alleged December 7 purchase. The closest time to that, for 18.00 GMT, Mifsud clarified, showed “a nil entry” for the airport. [Transcripts, Day 76, p 9192-93] All other samples aside from 09:00 were equally dry.

Above: Police records for Malta, December 1988. From Foot, Flight from Justice, p21. Maj. Mifsud testified to records the airport at Luqa (highlighted) and recorded TR (trace rainfall) Dec 7. Rain in Silema (highlighted) Dec 7 is the issue and it, like all others aside from the airport, was left blank. December 6 is similarly dry-looking - these blanks mean either “nil," or everyone else just took these day off.

Note in the chart how these are daily totals, and do not reflect changes in rainfall at points during the day, so the “TR” at Luqa could be used to argue for light rain at Silema around 7pm, even though its daily total shows as blank, or nil. In fact, Foot noted how some did argue “the blank referred to the period from noon on the previous day (6 December) to noon on the 7th. So it could still have been raining at the time the clothes were sold – at about 6.30pm on the 7th.” But this is obfuscation. The As foot noted, Mifsud was quite clear on what the hourly returns meant:

"Q. Just confirm with me, please, apart from the trace of rain that we discussed that fell or was measured at 9.00 in the morning of Wednesday December 7, did any rain fall at Luqa?

A. No, no rain was recorded. No, no rain was recorded.

Q. Up to midnight?

A. Up to midnight." [Day 76, p 9201]

The prosecution asked the witness it could rain in Silema, which is right on the coast, but not the airport, approximately four miles inland (southwest). He admitted “I do not altogether exclude the possibility that there could have been a drop of rain here and there,” and estimated “the possibility that there would be some drops of rain, about ten per cent possibility.” [Foot 21] It’s precipitously less likely to have been enough to warrant buying an umbrella, and only a major screw-up in records-keeping could explain such a rain on the 7th not being recorded.

It can’t be ruled out that Gauci was eventually made aware of this disconnect and pressured to shift his story. One can observe subtle changes in the witness' recall of rainfall over subsequent statements made to DCI Harry Bell, who was leading the Scottish police effort on Malta and was Gauci’s usual contact. Two of these later read in court include:

21 February 1990: “I have been thinking about the day the man bought the clothes, November, December 1988. He left the shop after having made the purchases and turned right down Tower Road. At that time, he had the umbrella raised and opened. When he returned to the shop, he came from the same direction, but the umbrella was down because it had almost stopped raining, and it was just drops coming down.” [p 4815]

10 September 1990: “I have been asked about the weather conditions that night the man made the purchase of the clothing. Just before the man left the shop, there was a light shower of rain just beginning. The umbrellas were hanging from the mirrors in the shop, and the man actually looked at them, and that is how I came to sell him one. He opened it up as he left the shop, and he turned right and walked downhill. There was very little rain on the ground, no running water, just damp.” [emphasis mine] [p 4817]

A decade later Gauci tried valiantly to minimize rainfall further in his pivotal trial testimony. The Court summarized his take into this finding, from paragraph 56 of their final opinion: [OoC 56] “When asked about the weather he said “When he came by the first time, it wasn’t raining but then it started dripping. Not very -- it was not raining heavily. It was simply dripping...” What the actual transcripts show is a little weirder. It was delivered in his native Maltese, and translated for the court.

”Q Do you remember what the weather was like when the man came to the shop?

A When he came by the first time, it wasn't raining, but then it started dripping. Not very -- it was not raining heavily. It was simply -- it was simply dripping, but as a matter of fact he did take an umbrella, didn't he? He bought an umbrella.” [Day 31, P 4741]

“Q … on the 1st of September of 1989 your memory was that the man purchased the umbrella, he didn't leave it for you to bundle up with the other things he had bought in the shop, but he left with the umbrella and put it up outside the door of the shop because it was raining?

A Exactly.” [p 4815]

"A It wasn't raining. It wasn't raining. It was just drizzling.

Q We'll come to --

A I can't remember the dates. I don't want to say -- I don't want to give out dates if I am not that sure, sir.

Q Indeed. What I am endeavouring to do, Mr. Gauci, with your help, is to illustrate --

A I always thank you, sir. I am here to help you, sir." [p 4816]

"A I don't want to cause confusion. I don't know dates." [p 4820]

It was barely raining, had just started, just stopped, drizzling, ground barely wet, etc. None of it fits well with December 7, when rain on Sliema would be described as “maybe a few drops, but not that I noticed.” The records for November 23, not surprisingly, are a direct fit for his freshest memories. Major Mifsud, again, from the transcripts: [Day 76, Pp 9207-09] “Light intermittent rain at noon” was recorded, a condition that “persist right down the column until 16.15,” onto the next page to at least 18.00 GMT, 19:00 local, almost the minute of any alleged 6:50 purchase that day. This slot measurement shows .6 of a millimeters of rain was taken at the airport.

Results in Sliema, a bare four miles distant, were likely the same - light but notable. And the buyer noticed enough to buy and use an umbrella. What this evidence shows then, is the unknown purchaser of 23 November, if he really existed, was a bit of a pansy regarding rain. (...)

5) Why doesn’t November 23 work, aside from Megrahi not being there?

I almost left this section blank, to emphasize that I’ve seen no reasonable excuse yet offered as to how these clues add up to 7 December. Paul Foot’s 2000 booklet brilliantly outlined the evidence for 23 November, which I've drawn heavily from, and summarized:

But this evidence was no use at all to the prosecution of Abdelbasset Megrahi, who was certainly not in Malta on 23 November. Was there any other day he was in Malta and could have bought the clothes? Yes, he was staying in the Holiday Inn in Sliema on 7 December, 1988. So the thrust of the prosecution inquiries about the sale of clothes shifted from 23 November to 7 December. [p 21]

This may sound cynical, but in point of fact, DCI Bell, head of the Scottish police investigation in Malta, tacitly admitted as much in a 2006 interview. Speaking with the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, these excerpts were found in the Megrahi defense team’s grounds of appeal [pdf link  - p 229]

DI Bell SCCRC interview (25-26/7/06)

"...The evidence of the football matches was confusing and in the end we did not manage to bottom it out..."

"...I am asked whether at the time I felt that the evidence of the football matches was strongly indicative of 7th December 1988 as the purchase date. No, I did not. Both dates 23rd Nov & 7th Dec 1988 looked likely.

"...It really has to be acknowledged how confusing this all was. No date was signficant for me at the time. Ultimately it was the applicant's [Megrahi’s] presence on the island on 7th December 1988 that persuaded me that the purchase took place on that date. Paul specified 7th December when I met with him on 14th December 1989 and I recorded this..."

“Applicant” here refers to Megrahi, applying for his second try at appeal, which the SCCRC wound up granting. Note two aspects of his citation of Paul's 12/89 statement: it's mentioned immediately after the admission that it was Megrahi that decided it, as a supporting afterthought. Also this being an oral interview, he had the date of that meeting memorized, ready to call up. This is interesting, but inconclusive, evidence of a memorized and rehearsed spin. Paul’s “specifying” the 7th on that particular day conflicts with his own words, from two months earlier, that "the 23rd November 1988 was the date in question.” Do note that Mr. Bell deceptively places the days as equals, creating some unwarranted “confusion,” when the 23rd is clearly the better fit in all the regards addressed above. But whatever “fog of war” effect he may have suffered on the investigative front lines, Bell admitted he saw no good reason, aside from Megrahi’s absence and one mention by Paul, to dismiss the earlier purchase. And he and the investigation and ultimately the Zeist Court all dismissed the earlier purchase.

Further, Paul's apparent story change between mid-October and mid-December hints at - but far from proves - an intention somewhere to shift the scope onto Megrahi (and thus the date to 7 December), an intention that had somehow influenced Paul to report the other day despite everything. (...)

7) Harry Bell's First Reason

Considering the quote above by DCI Harry Bell, the date 7 December was clearly chosen to fit Megrahi. One must presume this decision was made prior to his citing it, in his police diary, as reason #1 to identify Megrahi. On the day of Tony's "ID," February 15 1991, Bell wrote in support that "He arrived in Malta on 7th December '88. This was the date of the purchase of the clothing." Nabbed. Bell that is, using criminally circular logic he thought would never be exposed. (This is explained in a separate post.)

Operation Autumn Leaves

[On this date in 1988 the German police arrested seventeen men at Neuss in operation “Autumn Leaves” (Herbstlaub). What follows is excerpted (with citations removed) from the relevant article in Wikipedia:]

For many months after the bombing, the prime suspects were the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command (PFLP-GC), a Damascus-based rejectionist group led by former Syrian army captain Ahmed Jibril, sponsored by Iran. In a February 1986 press conference, Jibril warned: "There will be no safety for any traveler on an Israeli or U.S. airliner" (Cox and Foster 1991, p28).

Secret intercepts were reported by author, David Yallop, to have recorded the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) in Baalbeck, Lebanon, making contact with the PFLP-GC immediately after the downing of the Iran Air Airbus. Israeli intelligence (Mossad) allegedly intercepted a telephone call made two days after PA 103 by Mohtashemi-Pur, Interior Minister in Tehran, to the chargé d'affaires at the Iranian embassy in Beirut, instructing the embassy to hand over the funds to Jibril and congratulating them on the success of "Operation Intekam" ('equal and just revenge'). (...)

Jibril's right-hand man, Hafez Dalkamoni, set up a PFLP-GC cell which was active in the Frankfurt and Neuss areas of West Germany in October 1988, two months before PA 103. During what Germany's internal security service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), called Operation Herbstlaub ('Operation Autumn Leaves'), the BfV kept cell members under strict surveillance. The plotters prepared a number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) hidden inside household electronic equipment. They discussed a planned operation in coded calls to Cyprus and Damascus: oranges and apples stood for 'detonating devices'; medicine and pasta for 'Semtex explosive'; and auntie for 'the bomb carrier'. One operative had been recorded as saying: "auntie should get off, but should leave the suitcase on the bus" (Duffy and Emerson 1990). The PFLP-GC cell had an experienced bomb-maker, Jordanian Marwan Khreesat, to assist them. Khreesat made at least one IED inside a single-speaker Toshiba Bombeat 453 radio cassette recorder, similar to the twin-speaker model RT-SF 16 Bombeat that was used to blow up PA 103. However, unlike the Lockerbie bomb with its sophisticated timer, Khreesat's IEDs contained a barometric pressure device that triggers a simple timer with a range of up to 45 minutes before detonation.

Unbeknown to the PFLP-GC cell, its bomb-maker Khreesat was a Jordanian intelligence service (GID) agent and reported on the cell's activities to the GID, who relayed the information to Western intelligence and to the BfV. The Jordanians encouraged Khreesat to make the bombs but instructed him to ensure they were ineffective and would not explode. (A German police technician would however be killed, in April 1989, when trying to disarm one of Khreesat's IEDs). Through Khreesat and the GID, the Germans learned that the cell was surveying a number of targets, including Iberia Flight 888 from Madrid to Tel Aviv via Barcelona, chosen because the bomb-courier could disembark without baggage at Barcelona, leaving the barometric trigger to activate the IED on the next leg of the journey. The date chosen, Khreesat reportedly told his handlers, was October 30, 1988. He also told them that two members of the cell had been to Frankfurt airport to pick up Pan Am timetables.

Acting upon this intelligence, the German secret police moved in to arrest the PFLP-GC cell on October 26, raiding 14 apartments and arresting 17 men, fearing that to keep them under surveillance much longer was to risk losing control of the situation. Two cell members are known to have escaped arrest, including Abu Elias, a resident of Sweden who, according to Prime Time Live (ABC News November 1989), was an expert in bombs sent to Germany to check on Khreesat's devices because of suspicions raised by Ahmed Jibril. Four IEDs were recovered, but Khreesat stated later that a fifth device had been taken away by Dalkamoni before the raid, and was never recovered. The link to PA 103 was further strengthened when Khreesat told investigators that, before joining the cell in Germany, he had bought five Toshiba Bombeat cassette radios from a smugglers' village in Syria close to the border with Lebanon, and made practice IEDs out of them in Jibril's training camp 20 km (12 mi) away. The bombs were inspected by Abu Elias, who declared them to be good work. What became of these devices is not known.

Some journalists such as Private Eye's Paul Foot and a PA 103 relative, Dr Jim Swire, believed that it was too stark a coincidence for a Toshiba cassette radio IED to have downed PA 103 just eight weeks after the arrest of the PFLP-GC cell in Frankfurt. Indeed, Scottish police actually wrote up an arrest warrant for Marwan Khreesat in the spring of 1989, but were persuaded by the FBI not to issue it because of his value as an intelligence source. In the following spring, King Hussein of Jordan arranged for Khreesat to be interviewed by FBI agent, Edward Marshman, and the former head of the FBI's forensic lab, Thomas Thurman, to whom he described in detail the bombs he had built. In the 1994 documentary film Maltese Double Cross, the author David Yallop speculated that Libyan agents and agents paid by Iran may have worked on the bombing together; or, that one group handed the job over to a second group upon the arrest of the PFLP-GC cell members. The former CIA head of counter-terrorism, Vincent Cannistraro, who previously worked on the PA 103 investigation, was interviewed in the film and said he believed the PFLP-GC planned the attack at the behest of the Iranian government, then sub-contracted it to Libyan intelligence after October 1988, because the arrests in Germany meant the PFLP-GC was unable to complete the operation. Other supporters of this theory believed that whoever paid for the bombing arranged two parallel operations intended to ensure that at least one would succeed; or, that Jibril's cell in Germany was a red herring designed to attract the attention of the intelligence services, while the real bombers worked quietly elsewhere.