The Gauci brothers and reward money

[On this date in 2007, an item headed Now, there's a surprise! was published on this blog.  It reads as follows:]

Lucy Adams in The Herald of 15 October has a story to the effect that Richard Marquise, the FBI special agent who led the US joint task force on Lockerbie (and author of the book Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation, 2006, ISBN-13: 978-0875864495) remains of the view that Megrahi was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103 and regrets only that the will is lacking to bring other more senior Libyans to trial.

He confirms that there were discussions about about monetary payments to the Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, but is unable to say whether any money was in fact paid over.

See "Ex-FBI agent: no will to keep up Lockerbie investigation".

[What Mr Marquise is quoted as saying in the report in The Herald is this:]

He said he was unaware of any financial discussions between the CIA and the Gaucis but confirmed the US government ran a rewards programme for information at the time. "I know that when PanAm 103 went down, the State Department had a new programme called rewards for justice," he said.

It was well advertised in the Middle East, but the Scottish legal system has no mechanisms whatsoever for paying people and no comparative witness protection programme.

"We talked about it and we talked about the Gaucis and whether they needed to be protected," said Mr Marquise. "I think someone spoke to them in 1991 and said if you feel threatened we will relocate you, but as far as I am aware no-one offered them millions of dollars. Tony Gauci told someone that Australia would be the only place he might like to go, but he was happy in Malta and did not want to leave his pigeons so the subject was dropped. Instead extra security, including a panic button, was added to his shop."

[This should be compared with what we now know from Inspector Harry Bell’s diary of his dealings with the Gauci brothers, Tony and Paul.  The following is from a report in the Maltese newspaper, The Times:]

A document seen by the Scottish [Criminal Cases] Review Commission which reviewed the Lockerbie trial proceedings shows that star witness Tony Gauci had shown an interest in receiving money. (...)

The document was a memorandum dated February 21, 1991, titled Security of Witness Anthony Gauci, Malta, that consisted of a report sent by investigator Harry Bell to Supt Gilchrist just after Mr Gauci identified Mr Megrahi from a photo-spread six days earlier.

The memorandum was never disclosed by the prosecution during the trial.

Mr Bell discusses the possibility of Mr Gauci’s inclusion in a witness protection programme. The final paragraph, however, makes reference to a different matter: “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.” (...)

But the review commission also had access to a confidential report dated June 10, 1999 by British police officers drawing up an assessment for the possible inclusion of Tony Gauci in a witness protection programme administered by Strathclyde Police.

In the report Mr Gauci is described as being “somewhat frustrated that he will not be compensated in any financial way for his contribution to the case”.

Mr Gauci is described in the report as a “humble man who leads a very simple life which is firmly built on a strong sense of honesty and decency”.

But the officers also interviewed Mr Gauci’s brother Paul, in connection with his inclusion in the programme.

The following passage in the report details their conclusions in this respect: “It is apparent from speaking to him for any length of time that he has a clear desire to gain financial benefit from the position he and his brother are in relative to the case. As a consequence he exaggerates his own importance as a witness and clearly inflates the fears that he and his brother have...  Although demanding, Paul Gauci remains an asset to the case but will continue to explore any means he can to identify where financial advantage can be gained.”

The report makes it clear that until then the Gaucis had not received any money.

But the commission established that some time after the conclusion of Mr Megrahi’s appeal, Tony and Paul Gauci were each paid sums of money under the Rewards or Justice programme administered by the US State Department.

Of particular note is an entry in Mr Bell’s diary for September 28, 1989: “He (Agent Murray of the FBI) had authority to arrange unlimited money for Tony Gauci and relocation is available. Murray states that he could arrange $10,000 immediately.”

When interviewed by the commission, Mr Bell was asked if Agent Murray had ever met Mr Gauci, to which he replied “I cannot say that he did not do so”.

However, the commission also noted that FBI Agent Hosinski had met with Mr Gauci alone on October 2, 1989 but Mr Bell said he would “seriously doubt that any offer of money was made to Tony during that meeting”.

Rewards for Justice and the Gauci brothers

[An Agence France Presse news agency report on the ABS-CBN News website on 4 April contains the following sentences:]

Since its launch in 1984, the Rewards for Justice program run by the Diplomatic Security bureau of the State Department has paid out $125 million in rewards to 80 people for information leading to the capture of terrorists. (...)

The program is also still seeking information on cases in which the trail appears to have gone cold, including the 1983 attack on a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

[The report does not mention the payments made to the Gauci brothers in the Lockerbie case, nor does the Rewards for Justice website.  This blog’s posts on the issue can be accessed here.]

Addendum

[I am grateful to Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer for supplying the link to a page about the Lockerbie case on the Rewards for Justice website.  It reads as follows:]

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, a US registered Boeing 747 en route from London, Heathrow Airport, to JFK Airport in New York, was destroyed when an improvised explosive device, concealed in an item of luggage, detonated in the cargo hold of the aircraft. This explosion resulted in the deaths of all 259 passengers and crew aboard, including 189 Americans, as well as 11 residents of the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

On November 13, 1991, agents of the Libyan government, Abdel Basset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalfia Fhimah, "together with others unknown to the Grand Jury", were indicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for Conspiracy to Destroy a Civil Aircraft of the United States, Kill Nationals of the United States, and on related substantive explosives charges. The following day, the Lord Advocate announced that al-Megrahi and Fhimah had been charged in Scotland with conspiracy and murder offenses.

On January 31, 2001, al-Megrahi was found guilty of the murder of all 270 victims on Pan Am Flight 103, in the air and on the ground in Lockerbie, by a panel of three High Court judges. He received the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment and was required to serve 27 years before becoming eligible to apply for parole. His co-accused, Fhimah was found not guilty and was flown to Tripoli, Libya. On March 14, 2002, al-Megrahi's conviction was affirmed by a panel of five different Scottish High Court judges, and he was moved to Scotland to begin service of his sentence.

Following an application to the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC), in June 2007, al-Megrahi was permitted to file a new appeal. While that appeal was pending, in September, 2008 al-Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. On August 20, 2009, based upon the advice of the Scottish Prison Medical Service that he had less than three months to live, and after al-Megrahi withdrew his appeal before the Court could rule, al-Megrahi's application for compassionate release was granted by the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice. Including credit for time served in pre-trial detention, al-Megrahi had served slightly more than 10 years of his life sentence when he was released. As of this date, both al-Megrahi and Fhimah are believed to still be in Tripoli.

Believing that al-Megrahi and Fhimah did not act alone in causing a bomb to be loaded onto Pan Am Flight 103, the US Department of State has authorized a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of those responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and the murders of the 270 victims.

[Note that absolutely no mention is made here of the large sums already paid to the Gauci brothers, payments confirmed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission during its investigation of the Megrahi conviction.]

Peculiar reluctance to examine the whole of the available evidence

[Here are two pieces written by Dr Jim Swire to mark the thirty-third anniversary of the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie:]

Those of us who lost family members in the Pan Am 103 disaster of 21st December 1988 just want to know the truth about why the disaster happened, why our innocent families had to die, why it was not prevented and who was responsible.

33 years later we still need those answers and believe that grievous mistakes were made both before and after the blow fell. We are therefore intensely grateful to those who, like some of us, are incredulous about the conviction of a man on such evidence and prepared still to seek the truth

The extraordinary tale of a bomb allegedly transferred from the hand of the Libyan, the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in Malta depended, at his trial in Zeist, upon the evidence of a shopkeeper Toni Gauci, who thought Megrahi “looked a lot like” the man who had bought some key clothing from his shop.

Not only is it now known that Gauci was paid about $2,000,000 for giving evidence that supported the conviction of Megrahi, but from police evidence it is now known that Gauci knew before the trial had even started that serious money would be on offer.

The inducement to give evidence by offering a witness wealth beyond his dreams, if that evidence would support a conviction, sounds to me like bribery or at least an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

Of course to openly accuse the US Department of Justice of such criminal behaviour was never going to add muscle to the US/UK ‘special relationship’. But it was the UN’s special observer at the Zeist trial, professor Hans Köchler of the IPO in Vienna who said and wrote that the proceedings there did not in his view represent a fair judicial process.

We believe that Scottish justice failed even to enforce its own rules at Zeist and that the massaging of the subsequent appeals has been a deep scandal which has allowed crucial defects, particularly in some of the forensic evidence, to remain inadequately examined in any court of law.

This dreadful business requires a full enquiry chaired and defined now by those unafraid of the power wielded by those states still awed by the historic rhetoric of the iron lady and her successors in the Anglo Saxon world.

        .....

[RB: An edited version of this second item has been published today on the website of The Herald.]

Recent evidence quoted in the press reveals that both the UK and US legal authorities were deeply nervous about the quality of the evidence of identification concerning the late Mr Abdelbaset al-Megrahi provided by Mr Tony Gauci the Maltese shopkeeper.

The Scottish police work in Malta leading to this evidence was obtained under the leadership of Harry Bell.

Harry Bell had been keeping a contemporaneous diary, which was irregular.

Giving evidence under oath in the Zeist court Mr Bell perfectly honestly revealed the existence of his diary which was at home in Glasgow.

To the astonishment of some relatives, present in that Zeist court, Mr Bell was not told to go home and get it.

Later that diary was made public.

It appears that Mr Bell knew that an offer of $10,000 ‘for his immediate needs’ was available for Mr Gauci from US Rewards for Justice [sic] funds with essentially unlimited rewards to follow. Mr Gauci is now known to have received $2,000,000.

The diary also reveals that Mr Tony Gauci and his brother were aware of and deeply interested in, the immense financial incentives. 

Wouldn’t you, dear reader, also have been?

Yet Mr Tony Gauci’s was the only supposedly genuine identification of Mr Megrahi as being involved, through the latter’s alleged buying of clothes from Gauci's shop on a certain date. 

Having failed to explore the contents of Mr Bell’s diary there in court, there seemed to some of us to be a peculiar reluctance on the part of the court to examine the whole of the available evidence. To us laymen it was almost as though Mr Megrahi’s guilt rather than innocence was a given. 

I can only agree with Professor Robert Black QC’s comment: “It is now more obvious than ever that the Megrahi conviction is built on sand. An independent inquiry should be instituted into the case by the Scottish government, the UK government or both.” 

The Scottish police - The Crown Office - The payouts

[This is the headline over an article by John Ashton published this afternoon in a special edition of the Scottish Review.  It reads in part:]

The Scottish Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi. Their words, not mine. Their exact words in fact. That, as it happens, is also the position of the lord advocate. You wouldn't think that Megrahi's trial court judgement was described as incomprehensible by the UN trial observer and unreasonable by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), and that numerous informed commentators consider the guilty verdict to be an indelible stain on the reputation of Scotland's judiciary.

Of course, an SNP government will never easily admit that the country's foremost independent institution, its criminal justice system, made an almighty hash of Europe's biggest terrorist case. However, if it continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Crown Office, Lockerbie will one day rear up and bite it very hard. Why? Because, as Megrahi: You Are My Jury lays bare, the Crown Office failed to disclose to Megrahi's lawyers, numerous major items of exculpatory evidence. This has the potential to be the biggest scandal of Scotland's post-devolution era. (...)

There were two key witnesses. The first was [Maltese] shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who on three occasions picked out Megrahi as resembling the clothes purchaser: the first, three years after the bombing from a photospread; the second, in 1999 from an ID parade; and the third time in court. The second was forensic expert Allen Feraday, who said that a fragment of circuit board found within a blast-damaged Maltese shirt was 'similar in all respects' to circuit boards used within the 20 Libyan timers.
     
In their 80-page opinion, the trial court judges, Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and Maclean described Gauci as a 'careful witness' who: 'applied his mind carefully to the problem of identification whenever he was shown photographs, and did not just pick someone out at random…From his general demeanour and his approach to the difficult problem of identification, we formed the view that when he picked out the first accused at the identification parade and in court, he was doing so not just because it was comparatively easy to do so but because he genuinely felt that he was correct in picking him out as having a close resemblance to the purchaser'.

What the judges didn't know, because the Crown failed to disclose it, was that before picking out Megrahi's photo Gauci had asked the police about being rewarded for his evidence. According to previously secret police reports, he was 'aware of the US reward monies which have been reported in the press' and was strongly under the influence of his brother Paul who 'has a clear desire to gain financial benefit from the position he and his brother are in relative to the case' and 'is anxious to establish what advantage he can gain from the Scottish police'.

The Crown also concealed the fact that, for months prior to the ID parade, Gauci had a copy of a magazine article that not only carried a photo of Megrahi, but also detailed inconsistencies between the Crown case and Gauci's police statements – inconsistencies that his subsequent court testimony went some way towards ironing out.

The judges accepted that Gauci sold the clothes on 7 December 1988, the only date upon which Megrahi could have bought them. What they didn't know, again because the Crown failed to disclose it, was that, in his pre-trial Crown precognition statement, Gauci said that he thought the date was 29 November, because he recalled rowing with his girlfriend that day. Had that evidence been adduced at trial, the judges would have had no choice but to acquit Megrahi.

After the trial the Dumfries and Galloway police sought massive rewards for the Gauci brothers from the US Department of Justice. In a letter to the DoJ, dated 19 April 2002, the senior investigating officer wrote: 'At the meeting on 9 April, I proposed that $2 million should be paid to Anthony Gauci and $1 million to his brother Paul. These figures were based on my understanding that $2 million was the maximum payable to a single individual by the rewards programme. However, following further informal discussions I was encouraged to learn that those responsible for making the final decision retain a large degree of flexibility to increase this figure.’ 

It has never been denied that the brothers received at least $2 million and $1 million. The letter revealed that, at the request of a US official, the senior investigating officer had consulted with the Crown Office about the reward. He reported: 'The prosecution in Scotland cannot become involved in such an application. It would therefore be improper for the Crown Office to offer a view on the application, although they fully recognise the importance of the evidence of Tony and Paul Gauci to the case'. In other words, the Crown Office was prevented by its own rules from seeking a reward, but apparently had no intention of preventing the police from doing so.
     
All this, and more, was uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission during its four-year review of Megrahi's case, following which it referred the conviction back to the appeal court on no fewer than six grounds. Small wonder that the Scottish Government, which claims that it wants the commission's 800-page report to be published, is using legislative ruses to delay publication.

Unfortunately, the Commission failed to properly investigate Feraday's claim about the Lockerbie circuit board fragment. As my book reveals, had it done so, it would have learned that there was forensic evidence that proved the fragment could not have originated from one of the timers supplied to Libya. Tests overseen by Feraday demonstrated that the metallic content of the fragment was different to that of a control sample circuit board of the type used in the Libyan timers. The results were not disclosed to Megrahi's legal team until a month before his return to Libya. Police labels indicated that they had been handed to the police on 8 November 1999, six months before the opening of Megrahi's trial.

All these issues would have been aired in the High Court during Megrahi's second appeal. The Crown Office was no doubt hugely relieved when he abandoned the appeal in order to smooth his application for compassionate release. However, the relief will only be temporary. The scandal will not go away and as the depth of the cover-up is laid bare, sooner or later the government will be forced to distance itself from the Crown Office and abandon the fiction that Megrahi's conviction is safe.

[In an accompanying sidebar, Scottish Review editor Kenneth Roy makes the following comment:]

We knew that Gauci – a witness so convincing that he was later described by Scotland's lord advocate of the time as 'an apple short of a picnic' – had been paid by the US Department of Justice. There were rumours, too, about his brother Paul, who was motivated by a desire for financial gain but otherwise not directly connected to the events in Malta in December 1988.      What we did not know until today was the extent to which the Scottish authorities were involved.      In this special edition, John Ashton quotes from a letter written by the senior investigating officer in Scotland making plain the police's desire not only to reward the Gauci brothers but to seek the biggest bucks available.

• There is no doubting the authenticity of this letter. Ashton has a copy of it.
• There is also no doubting that without Gauci there was no case: Megrahi would have walked free. 
• Where do these revelations leave the reputation of Scottish justice? 
• Is this really the way we want to conduct our justice system?

Public Petitions Committee hearing on Megrahi petition

[On Tuesday 9 November, the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee will hold a hearing on the Justice for Megrahi petition. Dr Jim Swire, Mr Iain McKie, Mr Robert Forrester and I have been invited to attend to make a brief presentation and to respond to MSPs' questions.

The Scottish Sunday Express today runs an article on the forthcoming committee hearing. It reads in part:]

Shocking unseen evidence from the Lockerbie bomber’s abandoned appeal is to be presented to Holyrood this week in a bid to prove his innocence.

Campaigners including Professor Robert Black and Dr Jim Swire will use the documents to try and force a Scottish Government inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s conviction.

Dr Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 killed in the 1988 atrocity, will introduce previously unseen diaries which could cast doubt on one of the trial’s key witnesses and show he was offered cash for evidence. [RB: The journalist is in error. This material will not be introduced at the committee hearing, which will be concerned simply with what action, if any, should be taken on the petition, NOT with the merits of Abdelbaset Megrahi's conviction. That would be a matter for any inquiry set up as a result of the petition.]

Written by a Scottish detective they reveal police knew from an early stage that Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, whose identification of the bomber was pivotal in the conviction, had been promised an “unlimited” reward by the US.

Dr Swire, who will deliver a plea to ministers on Tuesday, said: “The diaries kept by Detective Inspector Harry Bell show he knew when he was interviewing Tony Gauci he was getting excited about the possibility of a reward.

“This information alone would ordinarily be enough to overturn the conviction. Both Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond have made public statements saying they have full confidence in the verdict against Megrahi.

“That is an extraordinary situation given the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has ruled there may have been a miscarriage of justice.” He added: “How can politicians say they have total faith in the verdict when the one organisation that Scotland possesses to look into these matters says otherwise? It is an untenable position.”

DI Bell was the Dumfries and Galloway detective who traced a scrap of material which had been wrapped around the bomb to Gauci’s clothes shop in Malta. When Megrahi was finally brought to trial, Gauci identified the Libyan in court as the man who had bought the clothing.

It has since emerged that Gauci received $2million and his brother, Paul, received $1million from the US Department of Justice. DI Bell kept a diary during the investigation, although this was not presented to the three judges at the Lockerbie trial in 2001.

On September 28, 1989, he recorded that the FBI had discussed with the Scottish police an offer of unlimited money to Gauci, with $10,000 being available immediately. On March 5, 1990, he recorded a meeting with the FBI and a Maltese detective to discuss “reward money as a last resort”.

And on January 8, 1992, he said Dana Biehl from the US Department of Justice had offered a $2million reward to Libyan double agent Majid Giaka, who also gave evidence against Megrahi. DI Bell wrote: “He was immediately advised of our concern regarding this. I also clarified with him about the Gauci reward and the response was only if he gave evidence.”

It contradicts police sources who have always insisted the rewards were only “engineered” after the trial to help the Gaucis leave Malta. (...)

At Tuesday’s Holyrood hearing, MSPs will consider for the first time a 1,646-signature petition calling for an independent Lockerbie inquiry. Previously, ministers have maintained such a wide-ranging probe could only be called by Westminster or the United Nations. However, Prof Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: “The reasons the Scottish Government has given for not holding an inquiry are simply not correct.”

Revealed: Scots link in $3m Lockerbie pay-out

[This is the headline over an article by Lucy Adams in today's edition of The Herald on the materials published yesterday on Abdelbaset Megrahi's website. It reads in part:]

Scottish police officers took an active role in seeking a $3m-plus reward for a key witness in the Lockerbie bombing trial and his brother, previously secret papers revealed yesterday.

The documents, which were never disclosed to defence lawyers working for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, also point to another potentially important eye witness whose evidence was never followed up by detectives.

Those revelations, published on Megrahi’s website, further undermine the credibility of Tony Gauci, the Crown’s main witness at Camp Zeist. (...)

It will fuel fears of a miscarriage of justice, and strengthen calls for an independent inquiry into Lockerbie.

A four-year investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) found a number of documents which had not been shown to the defence. The non-disclosure would have been a key plank of Megrahi’s appeal, which he abandoned shortly before his release from Greenock Prison in August. (...)

The papers reveal that Tony Gauci received more than $2m after the trial and Paul, who never testified at Camp Zeist but “exercised considerable control over his brother”, received more than $1m. The family previously had financial problems.

Megrahi’s website summary [RB: I can find no trace of this summary on the website] states: “Tony Gauci and Paul Gauci had both expressed an interest in financial reward prior to giving evidence at trial. None of the documents in which references to the brothers’ financial interest or to the FBI offers of reward was disclosed and no mention of this was made to the defence. Many of the references . . . were in diaries kept by police officers. Parts of the diaries were missing and, most unusually, no police notebooks were kept. Letters written by the Scottish police to the US Department of Justice applying for a reward on behalf of the Gauci brothers were also recovered.”

Another section suggests Megrahi might not have bought clothes later found next to the suitcase carrying the Lockerbie bomb. A new witness called David Wright claims to have seen other men buying them in Tony Gauci’s shop in Malta.

In November 1989, Mr Wright called Dumfries and Galloway Police to say he had been in Mr Gauci’s shop when two Libyans bought similar clothing. He said Mr Gauci referred to them as “Libyan pigs”. But his statement was never followed up by police.

A Crown Office spokeswoman said yesterday: “All of these issues could have been raised during the course of the appeal which Mr Megrahi abandoned.”

[A further article by Lucy Adams in the same newspaper is headed "Is this man key to Lockerbie ...or was he just after the cash?" The following are extracts.]

Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper, became the Crown’s key witness in the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, and was the one man who linked the suspect to clothes found in the suitcase that harboured the bomb.

But new allegations published yesterday, which would have been tested in court if the appeal that began in April had gone ahead, have undermined both his credibility and reliability.

Papers on Megrahi’s website reveal that Gauci and his brother Paul were interested in financial reward from the start of the case, and that between them they received at least $3m (£1.88m) at the end of the trial.

Previously-secret police reports dating back to 1999 indicate “the frustration of Tony Gauci that he will not be compensated” and that “in respect of Paul Gauci, it is apparent from speaking to him for any length of time that he has a clear desire to gain financial benefit from the position he and his brother are in relative to the case.

“As a consequence he exaggerates his own importance as a witness and clearly inflates the fears he and his brother have.

“He is anxious to establish what advantage he can gain from the Scottish police.

“Although demanding, Paul Gauci remains an asset to the case but will continue to explore any means he can to identify where financial advantage can be gained.”

Offering witnesses financial remuneration is anathema to the Scottish system, and yet this information, uncovered by the investigation of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, was never disclosed to the defence.

Megrahi’s website states: “It is a matter of common sense, and it has long been recognised in Scots law, that the existence of a financial interest and/or the offer of rewards to a witness is of considerable importance in relation to the credibility of that witness.

“Depending upon the nature and degree of any such interest or reward, the law may exclude the evidence of the witness, or leave the effect of same on the witness to be weighed by the jury.” (...)

Megrahi’s website summary [RB: Again, I can find no trace of this summary] also states: “The documents also indicate that Tony Gauci had been visited by the Scottish police on more than 50 occasions – many, perhaps even the majority, of which were unrecorded.

“This information shows that the witness has significantly changed his position over time regarding the items sold.

“In addition there is a clear inference from the timing and context of these inconsistent statements that the witness has been influenced in his recollection by the police inquiries – either by being shown articles such as control samples or fragments or by discussion.”

Expert reports published for the first time on the website also question the validity of Mr Gauci’s identification of Megrahi.

The Maltese shopkeeper

[This is the headline over an article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer that was published on this date in 2008 on the OhmyNews International website. It reads as follows:]

Edward Gauci owns a small store Mary's House, at 63 Tower Road, Sliema in Malta. His sons, Paul and Tony, run the business. On Sept 22 1988, Paul ordered a few Babygros. The investigator of the bombing of Pan Am 103 discovered that the IED had been surrounded by clothes bought from the Gauci store. According to the US State Department, the clothes were bought on, or about, Dec 7, 1988.

In September 2003, Megrahi, the only person convicted of the bombing of Pan Am 103, applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission [SCCRC] for a legal review of his conviction. His request was based on the legal test contained in section 106(3)(b) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

The provision states that an appeal may be made against "any alleged miscarriage of justice, which may include such a miscarriage based on ... the jury's having returned a verdict which no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned."

In June 2007, the SCCRC decided to grant Megrahi a second appeal and to refer his case to the High Court. An impressive 800-page-long document, stating the reasons for the decision, has been sent to the High Court, the applicant, his solicitor, and Crown Office. Although the document is not available to the public, the Commission has decided "to provide a fuller news release than normal."

Based on new evidence not heard at the trial, as well as additional and other evidence not made available to the defence, the Commission formed the view "that there is no reasonable basis in the trial court's judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary's House, took place on Dec 7, 1988."

The conviction of Megrahi relies heavily, in fact almost entirely, on the fact that the bomb was wrapped in clothes that he personally bought in Malta. The prosecutor established that Megrahi was indeed in Malta on Dec 7, 1988 and Tony Gauci, the shopkeeper of the clothes store Mary's House, testified that he had sold the clothes to a man who resembles Megrahi.

New evidence, concerning the date on which the Christmas lights were illuminated in the area of Sliema in which Mary's House is situated, combined with Gauci's testimony and police statements, led the Commission to conclude that the items must have been bought prior to Dec 6, that is at a time where there is no evidence that Megrahi was on the island.

Additional evidence completely undermines the identification of Megrahi by Gauci. Just days before he picked him in an identification parade, Gauci had seen Megrahi's picture in a magazine.

In fact, the judgment (§69) recognizes that Gauci never positively identified Megrahi. On Feb 15, 1991, Gauci was shown 12 photos, among them a picture of Megrahi 1986 passport.

"Number 8 [The photo of Megrahi] is similar to the man who bought the clothing. The hair is perhaps a bit long. The eyebrows are the same. The nose is the same. And his chin and shape of face are the same. The man in the photograph number 8 is in my opinion in his 30 years."

"He would perhaps have to look about 10 years, or more, older and he would look like the man who bought the clothes. It's been a long time now, and I can only say that this photograph 8 resembles the man who bought the clothing, but it is younger," Gauci said.

The US Department Fact Sheet accompanying the indictment does not say that Gauci had identified Megrahi as the buyer of the clothes. The text merely states that "in February 1991, Megrahi was described as the Libyan who had purchased the clothes."

The Commission did not comment on what may constitute other evidence. "Other evidence, not made available to the defence, which the Commission believes may further undermine Mr. Gauci's identification of the applicant as the purchaser," the press release says.

There is however much reasons to suspect that Tony Gauci is not a reliable witness. Lord Fraser is the former lord advocate who issued the arrest warrant against Megrahi.

On Oct 23, 2005, Lord Fraser told the Times Online that he was not entirely happy with the evidence brought against Megrahi.

"Gauci was not quite the full shilling. I think even his family would say (that he) was an apple short of a picnic. He was quite a tricky guy, I don't think he was deliberately lying but if you asked him the same question three times he would just get irritated and refuse to answer," Fraser said.

"You do have to worry, he's a slightly simple chap, are you putting words in his mouth even if you don't intend to?"

According to The Observer, Gauci was interviewed 17 times by the police and his statements are grossly inconsistent.

"A key witness who could be proven to be so unreliable is more than sufficient to collapse any trial. Plus there was evidence of leading questions put to Gauci, a practice then known to distort evidence," a legal source argues.

According to the verdict, Megrahi bought from the Gaucis several clothes including the "cloth" in which the fragment of the infamous MST-13 timer was "discovered" by Dr Hayes. At first sight, the "cloth" appears to be part of a Slalom shirt, indeed sold in Mary's House.

However, upon closer examination, the "cloth" raises a series of issues. Firstly, the colour of the label is incorrect. A blue Slalom shirt label should have blue writing, not brown.

Secondly, the breast pocket size corresponds to a child shirt, not a 16½ sized allegedly bought by Megrahi, for the pocket would have been 2 cm wider.

Thirdly, German records show the shirt with most of the breast pocket intact while the evidence shown at Zeist has a deep triangular tear extending inside the pocket.

Fourthly, last but certainly not least, the storekeeper initially told the investigators he never sold such shirts to whoever visited him a few weeks before the Lockerbie tragedy.

On Jan 30, 1990, Gauci stated: "That time when the man came, I am sure I did not sell him a shirt." Then, on Sept 10, 1990, he told the investigators that: "I now remember that the man who bought the clothing also bought a 'Slalom' shirt." And to make things worse, two of his testimonies have disappeared.

According to the verdict, Megrahi bought the clothes on Dec 7, 1989. Gauci remembered that his brother had gone home earlier to watch an evening football game (Rome vs Dresden), that the man came just before closing time (7 pm), that it was raining (the man bought an umbrella) and that the Christmas lights were on.

The game allows for only two dates: Nov 23 or Dec 7. The issue is critical for there is no indication that Megrahi was in Malta on Nov 23 but is known to have been on the island on December 7th.

Malta airport chief meteorologist testified that it was raining on Nov 23 but not on Dec 7. Yet the judges determined the date as Dec 7. This rather absurd conclusion from the judges raises two other issues.

The game Rome-Dresden on Dec 7 was played at 1 pm, not in the evening. What is more, Gauci had previously testified that the Christmas lights were not up, meaning that the date had to be Nov 23.

On Sept 19, 1989, Gauci stated that "the [Christmas] decorations were not up when the man bought the clothing." Then, at the Lockerbie trial, Gauci told the Judges that the decoration lights were on. "Yes, they were ... up."

In early October, OMNI reported that huge amounts of money were offered by US officials to at least three key witnesses (see "Lockerbie Investigator Disputes Story"). The defense was never told that the CIA had offered millions of dollars to their star witnesses. Both the FBI and CIA denied ever having offered money to any of the witnesses.

"I cannot speak for the CIA but I believe they had no access to witnesses. But [speaking for the FBI] I can say that no one was ever offered any money for testimony. The FBI does not operate that way," Marquise, the former FBI leading investigator, told me.

"This issue came up at trial and I spoke with the defense lawyers about it in Edinburgh in 1999 -- before trial. No one was promised or even told that they could get money for saying anything. Every FBI agent was under specific orders not to mention money to any potential witness."

In response to a query, a CIA spokesperson ridiculed a witness's accusations that it offered or paid him anything. "It may disappoint the conspiracy buffs, but the CIA doesn't belong in your story," a CIA spokesperson said, insisting on anonymity. The witness is none other than Edwin Bollier whose company is accused of having sold the timer that detonated the bomb on Pan Am 103.

An FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, has confirmed that the bureau met with Bollier in Washington in 1991. Marquise told me that he attended the meeting. But both marquise and the official denied Bollier was offered anything to implicate Libya.

In a formal statement, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko emphatically rejected any suggestions of a payoff. "Any accusations that any witness was paid to lie are complete fabrications and these ridiculous statements should be immediately discounted as the untruths they are," Kolko said. "That is not the way the FBI operates."

However, a source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Jeff Stein, the national security editor of the Congressional Quarterly Web site, CQ Politics, that Tony Gauci and his brother Paul were paid somewhere between $3 to $4 million each for providing information leading to the conviction of Megrahi.

The US State Department has acknowledged that rewards were paid. "A reward was paid out in the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 case," a spokesperson there said on condition of anonymity, "but due to operational and security concerns we are not disclosing details regarding specific amounts, sources or types of assistance the sources provided."

In the weeks preceding the visit of [US Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice to Tripoli, the name of Megrahi has been mysteriously removed from the Rewards for Justice US Web site.

Ex-leader of Malta casts doubt on conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi

[This is part of the headline over a report published today in The Times. It reads in part:]

Malta’s longest-serving prime minister has claimed it was “impossible” for the Lockerbie bomb to have left the island and suggested that a miscarriage of justice had taken place.

Eddie Fenech Adami, who led the country at the time of the atrocity 30 years ago, also raised doubts about the reliability of the witness whose evidence led to the conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.

A panel of Scottish judges heard evidence that a bomb was loaded onto Air Malta flight KM-180, which left the island for Frankfurt on December 21, 1988, before being taken to London and transferred on to Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie — with the loss of 270 lives — the next day.

Testimony by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper, was central to linking al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, to the case and securing his conviction.

However, Mr Fenech Adami, who served as prime minister between 1987 and 1996 and from 1998 to 2004, has challenged the verdict reached by a Scottish court in the Netherlands.

He wrote in his memoirs: “The evidence against al-Megrahi purported to show he had wrapped a bomb in clothing bought from a shop in Sliema and placed it in a suitcase that made its way to Heathrow from Malta via Germany.

“We have never accepted this theory and no one has ever proved us wrong.

“My opinion is that it was technically impossible for the bomb to have taken such a complicated route. It would have been a very haphazard method of executing this act of terrorism.”

He added: “The only evidence against al-Megrahi was the testimony of Tony Gauci. I have always considered Gauci, who was paid by the Americans, to be a very unreliable witness.”

Air Malta insisted that no passengers or luggage had transferred from its Frankfurt flight to Pan Am 103. Its 1989 internal investigation concluded: “All 55 pieces of baggage have been accounted for and every one of the 39 passengers has been identified.”

Mr Gauci had described his customer as 6ft and aged about 50, while al-Megrahi was 36 and 5ft 8in. (...)

Unconfirmed reports have suggested that Mr Gauci, who died in 2016, was paid £1.6 million by the FBI through its “rewards for justice” programme. [RB: It is odd to describe the reports as unconfirmed. There is no doubt that payments were made to both Tony and Paul Gauci: Lockerbie reward payouts ‘above board’.] 

Guido de Marco, Malta’s justice minister at the time of the bombing [RB: and later President of Malta], wrote before his death in 2010: “It seemed unrealistic that a timing device could have been put inside unaccompanied baggage that took such a complicated route to get on the Pan Am plane, since there was so much room for error.”

He also clashed with the UK authorities. He wrote: “I learnt that the British secret service was tapping the telephones of people in Malta without consulting the authorities. I ordered the investigating team to stop any activity in Malta.” Mr Fenech Adami is unable to comment further due to ill health.

[RB: Today's edition of The Times also contains an article by Magnus Linklater headlined Lockerbie conspiracy theories that challenge al‑Megrahi’s conviction. As an antidote to Mr Linklater's notorious hostility to any criticism of the Megrahi conviction, read this piece by John Ashton: Lockerbie, and the mangled logic of Magnus Linklater.

A further article by Magnus Linklater headlined Lockerbie bombing prosecutors close in on Libyan suspects contains the following:]  

Scottish prosecutors are closing in on two Libyans suspected of planning the Lockerbie bombing.

Using diplomatic contacts that led to an agreement to extradite the brother of the Manchester bomber, US and Scottish investigators are hopeful they will be given permission to interview Abdullah al-Senussi, said to have been the Lockerbie mastermind, and Abu Agila Mas’ud, the bomb maker.

Both are held in a Libyan prison. (...)

So far, 30 years after the terrorist attack, only one suspect, Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, has been convicted for the bombing. He died in May 2012.

Some campaigners claim the conviction of al-Megrahi was a miscarriage of justice, but the Crown Office is certain that the original verdict was correct.

Inquiries by The Times have revealed that the Crown Office commissioned an independent report into allegations that there had been a deliberate plan to steer evidence away from Palestinian terrorists and towards Libya. Investigators were asked to “double and triple check” every aspect of the case.

They concluded that the original conviction was sound, and that allegations that evidence had been tampered with, or deliberately withheld could not be substantiated.

A Crown Office official said: “An independent evidence review did not find any evidence to support claims al-Megrahi, the only man jailed for the bombing, was wrongly convicted.”