Treats for testimony

[On this date in 2002 the Scottish edition of the Mail on Sunday published a long report on the “treats” provided to the Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci in connection with his evidence at the Lockerbie trial. That report is no longer available online, but the story was immediately followed up by other news media. What follows is the text of the article that appeared in The Guardian:]

An investigation has been demanded following a claim that a witness in the Lockerbie trial enjoyed police hospitality in Scotland.

Evidence given by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopowner, helped to convict the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. It is alleged that Mr Gauci was brought to Scotland five or six times, taken salmon fishing and hill walking, and put up in an expensive hotel.

He is also said to have been taken to Lockerbie, to see where the wreckage of the bombed Pan Am airliner landed in 1988, before last year's trial got under way.

Yesterday the Labour MP Tam Dalyell said he would raise the issue as a matter of urgency with the prime minister and foreign secretary.

The claim comes days after the start of al-Megrahi's appeal. Last January the Libyan former intelligence officer was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the bombing, which killed 259 on flight 103 and 11 on the ground.

Last week his legal team said a rebuttal of Mr Gauci's evidence would form a plank of its case.

Mr Gauci was the sole witness to link al-Megrahi directly to the bombing of Pan Am 103. He told the trial that al-Megrahi "resembled a lot" a man who bought clothes from Mr Gauci's shop that were later discovered to have been packed around the bomb.

Yesterday the Scottish Mail on Sunday reported that an undercover investigator had travelled to Malta and secretly taped conversations with Mr Gauci, owner of Mary's House clothes shop in Sliema.

Mr Gauci claimed that police had flown him to Scotland on five or six occasions, and taken him to Lockerbie to be shown the damage. He also claimed that the hospitality of the Scottish police had been extended to four others in his family.

He talked in the tape of being taken into the mountains, visiting Aviemore ski resort, fly-fishing for salmon, and bird-watching. On at least one occasion he stayed at the Hilton in Glasgow.

Dumfries and Galloway police and Strathclyde police refused to discuss the claim yesterday, saying only they could not comment on issues concerning witness protection.

Mr Dalyell said that the reports, if true, would have profound implications for al-Megrahi's appeal. "If Gauci was brought to Scotland before the trial at Zeist, why were the defence and the judges not told? If Gauci came after the trial, what is the purpose of the ongoing relationship?"

Robert Black, professor of law at Edinburgh University, said that Mr Gauci's trips needed to be investigated during al-Megrahi's appeal, adding that he knew of no other Scottish murder trial witness being taken on fishing trips by police.

Megrahi judgment 'full of mistakes'

[This is the headline over a report published in The Herald on this date in 2002. It reads as follows:]

The 82-page judgment that convicted Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi of the Lockerbie bombing is riddled with errors both great and small, the Libyan's counsel claimed yesterday.

William Taylor, QC, told five appeal judges at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands: ''Some of these errors are by themselves gross enough to entitle this court to hold that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.''

Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield, and MacLean jailed Megrahi for life last January after concluding that the evidence against him fitted together to form a ''real and convincing pattern'', but yesterday Mr Taylor used words such as ''flimsy'' and ''unbalanced'' to attack the judges' reasoning.

He accepted that one simple error might not have the effect of causing the appeal court to accept that a miscarriage of justice had taken place, but the combination of a series of errors could persuade the judges there had been a wrongful conviction.

He concentrated his attack yesterday on the way the trial judges dealt with the evidence of Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper whose testimony was instrumental in convicting Megrahi.

The judges decided Megrahi was the man who bought clothes from Mr Gauci's shop in Sliema on December 7, 1988, two weeks before the Lockerbie bombing, and Mr Taylor argued that the date of purchase was crucial to his client's conviction.

He has already told the appeal judges that unless the sale of the clothes - later packed in the suitcase containing the Lockerbie bomb - could be pinpointed to December 7 the purchaser could not have been Megrahi.

One of the factors used by the trial judges to pick December 7 as the purchase date was Mr Gauci's evidence about whether Christmas decorations were up in Sliema at the time the clothes were bought from his shop.

Asked about Christmas decorations at the trial, Mr Gauci replied: ''I wouldn't know exactly, but I haven't really noticed these things, but I remember, yes there were Christmas lights. They were on already. I'm sure. I can't say exactly.''

Mr Taylor told the appeal court: ''Gauci gave conflicting evidence in the trial about whether or not Christmas decorations were up or in the process of being up. In a statement to the police he had said that no Christmas decorations were up at the time of the sale.

''There are therefore three self-contradictory positions adopted by Gauci on the matter and the court has ignored the difficulty that Gauci told police in September 1989 that there were no decorations up at the time of the sale.

''It is surprising that the court felt able to reach any conclusion at all on the issue of being able to fix the date of purchase by reference to Christmas decorations.

''The court has preferred one version of Gauci's evidence over others in relation to whether decorations were being put up and has ignored an important contradiction in his evidence in order to reach a conclusion.

''The court attempted to reach a conclusion in the face of contradictory evidence which the court failed to explain away. This was a material misdirection adverse to Megrahi.

''It was at the forefront of the defence submissions that Gauci's reliability was undermined by inconsistencies in his evidence. It is Megrahi's contention that the court misdirected itself as to the date on which the purchase (of the clothes) took place.''

Mr Taylor also attacked the court's finding that Mr Gauci's ''qualified identification'' of Megrahi as the clothes buyer was reliable ''so far as it went''.

He pointed out that descriptions of the buyer given by Mr Gauci to the police less than a year after Lockerbie were ''radically different'' in terms of height, age, and skin colour from his later identification in court and at an identification parade at Camp Zeist in 1999 of Megrahi as resembling the purchaser.

He attacked Mr Gauci's identification of Megrahi as ''inherently suspect and flawed''.   

The hearing continues.

A look at Lockerbie: Intiqam, the man who takes revenge

[On 11 January 2016 I blogged on an article entitled A look at Lockerbie: Iran Air Flight 655 that was billed as the first in a projected series. The second article has today been published on the libcom.org website. It is entitled A look at Lockerbie: Intiqam, the man who takes revenge and reads in part:]

In order to determine beyond a reasonable doubt who was responsible for the Lockerbie crime, one must first understand the crucial pieces of evidence that the case hinges on. First of all, forensics experts have identified that the bomb which blew up Pan Am 103 was concealed in a Toshiba radio cassette player packed in a brown hard-shell Samsonite suitcase. Another important point was that the bomb was triggered by a barometric timer, meaning that it was specially designed to only be triggered at a high altitude where the change in air pressure could activate the device. And maybe most importantly of all, it has been proven that a tweed jacket, a green umbrella, and a jumper with the brand name Baby Gro were all packed in the suitcase that contained the bomb.1,2,3

The key pieces of evidence are well established, but what about the motive and intent?

I discussed in my last blog post the criminal attack on Iran Air 655, and the Western media's characterization of those responsible as heroes. In response to this the Iranian leadership promised vengeance. "We will not leave the crimes of America unpunished," Tehran radio announced, "We will resist the plots of the Great Satan and avenge the blood of our martyrs from criminal mercenaries."4 As Robert Bauer, former member of the CIA investigation into Lockerbie, put it, "They thought that if we didn't retaliate against the United States we would continue to shoot down their airliners." Abulkasim Misbahi, a high level Iranian defector who in 1988 was reporting directly to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, would later recall that, "The Iranians decided to retaliate as soon as possible...the target was to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian airbus."5

In order to accomplish this goal the Iranians turned to Ahmed Jibril, a man whose organization was well known for bombing airplanes. Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) was well known for two airplane bombings that took place on the same day in 1970. The first bomb detonated aboard Swiss Air flight 330 bound for Israel. The bomb forced a crash landing in which all 47 of those aboard were killed. The second bomb which exploded later in the day on an Austrian Airlines flight also bound for Israel detonated successfully, but an emergency landing avoided any loss of life. The bombs were notable not only for the tragedy and terror which they inflicted, but also for the fact that they were the first barometric bombs ever used. In addition to the notable use of barometric triggers, the bombs were also both concealed within transistor radios.6

The Iranians turned to Jibril, not only because of his proven abilities as a plane bomber, but also because the PFLP-GC was an organization with close ties to Iran's strong Shia ally, Syria. After being contacted, Jibril put the Iranians in touch with a PFLP-GC member Hafez Dalkamouni who was based in Frankfurt.

Unbeknownst to Jibril and Dalkamouni, the West German police were already suspicious of Dalkamouni and were watching him day and night at his apartment in Frankfurt at 16 Isarstrasse. In October of 1988, the West German police started to notice some highly suspicious activity taking place at the apartment. On October 13th, West German police watched as Marwan Kreeshat arrived at Dalkamouni's apartment. The wife of one of Dalkamouni's accomplices would later testify that Kreeshat was carrying a brown Samsonite suitcase. The next day police listened in as Dalkamouni and Kreeshat called a number in Damascus and Dalkamouni was recorded as saying that soon "everything will be ready." Kreeshat then took the phone and said that he had "made some changes in the medicine," and that it was "better and stronger than before."7 A week later Dalkamouni and Kreeshat went shopping. While shopping they purchased three mechanical alarm clocks, a digital clock, sixteen 1.5-volt batteries and some switches, screws, and glue. A police internal memo made that day noted, "the purchase of the materials under the clear supervision of a PFLP-GC member designated as an explosives expert leads to the conclusion that the participants intend to produce an explosive device which, on the basis of the telephone taps, would be operational within the next few days."8 Fearing an imminent attack, on October 26th West German security services launched Operation Autumn Leaves, intended to round up Dalkamouni and his Frankfurt cell. The police followed Dalkamouni and Kreeshat as they drove in a silver green Ford Taurus and stopped to make a call at a public telephone booth. There the police apprehended them and searched their car, inside they found a Toshiba radio cassette player hidden under a blanket. In Dalkamouni's apartment police found a stopwatch, batteries, a detonator, and both time-delay and barometric fuses. On October 29th, police took a closer look at the Toshiba and discovered 300 grams of Semtex sheet explosive shaped into a cylinder wrapped with aluminum foil with a barometric timer. 9,10 While in custody, Kreeshat revealed that he was actually in the employ of Jordanian intelligence, and that he had made a total of 5 bombs including the one found in the Toshiba cassette player. 11,12 So what of the other 4 bombs?

The fate of three of the four bombs would be revealed in an explosion in April of 1989. At this time West German police had reopened the Dalkamouni case and visited the basement of a grocery store owner who was friends with Dalkamouni at the time of his arrest. In the basement police found two radios that fit the description of the bombs that Marwan Kreeshat had claimed he had made for Dalkamouni. The officers brought the suitcases back to their headquarters and left them lying around for a few days. Eventually a technician was ordered to inspect them 4 days later. Soon after he began inspection they began ticking. He quickly ran the suitcases through an x-ray machine and saw that they looked suspicious. Two explosives experts were called in, and while they were working on opening the suitcases the bomb was triggered killing one and severely injuring the other. German police went in force back to the grocery store basement and uncovered 400 grams of plastic Semtex explosive and a detonator wired to a barometer.13

So that explained four of the five bombs, but what of the fifth?

Flashback to October of 1988, while the West German police were watching Dalkamouni's apartment at 16 Isarstrasse. On October 14th, a man named Martin Imandi visited and parked a car with a Swedish license plate outside Dalkamouni's apartment. Imandi and two others were then seen carrying packages and suitcases in and out of Dalkamouni's apartment. The three men returned to Sweden where they and a fourth person by the name of Mohammed Abu Talb had their headquarters in Stockholm. Abu Talb, whose nom de guerre was Intiqam, roughly translated as "man who takes revenge," was a seasoned fighter. He had served in the Egyptian army, had undergone multiple training programs in the Soviet Union, and had served with the PLO in Lebanon. arrested soon after by the Swedish police.

Soon after returning to Stockholm, the West German police tipped off the Swedish police about the danger the four men posed, but by the time of their arrest, Abu Talb and the rest of the Swedish group had hidden any incriminating evidence and were soon released from police custody for lack of evidence. A Swedish police investigation in 1989 would later uncover a plane ticket in Abu Talb's apartment that showed that after his release in 1988, Abu Talb flew to Malta on November 19th. It was in Malta that he stopped to purchase a jumper, a tweed jacket, and an umbrella at a store called Mary's House.14,15

Unfortunately for Abu Talb his purchases had not gone unnoticed. After the bombing it would be deduced from the unusual brand name of the jumper that it had been purchased at Mary's House. When questioned in April of 1989, the store owner, Tony Gauci, remembered Abu Talb's purchases very clearly as Abu Talb had purchased a tweed jacket that Gauci had been trying to sell for 7 years. Gauci provided to police at the time a perfect description of Abu Talb despite it not being common knowledge that he was a suspect.16 [Emerson, 245] Gauci then repeatedly picked Abu Talb's picture out of a photo lineup (before being coaxed and pressured into picking a man named al-Megrahi as I will discuss more in my next post).17 Abu Talb then returned with the clothes to Sweden on November 26th.

From what can be pieced together the story picks back up in London at Heathrow airport, at 2pm on December 21st, 1988. It was at this time that a baggage handler named John Bedford and two other workers began loading luggage for Pan Am flight 103. The flight was scheduled to take off at 6pm and was destined for New York's JFK airport. Bedford began loading the luggage of transfer passengers upright into a large metallic container. At about a quarter after four as things began to slow he took a tea break. When he came back 30 minutes later his partner, Sulkash Kamboj, informed him that he had put two more suitcases into the container during his absence. Bedford looked into the container and saw two suitcases lying flat, not upright. "In a statement given to the police on 9th January 1989 he was able to describe it--'a brown hard-shell, the kind Samsonite make.'" This statement was made just three weeks after the bombing, at which time there was no indication that a brown Samsonite was the bomb suitcase.18
At 7:02pm, 38 minutes after take off, at an altitude of 31,000 feet, the bomb went off in the Samsonite creating a hole in the plane which caused it to disintegrate. Those on board were sucked out of the plane where they fell to their deaths, some still strapped in their seats. All 259 people aboard were killed, and falling wreckage killed an additional 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.

• 1. Lockerbie: What Really Happened? Al Jazeera English (AJE), 2014. Web.
• 2. Emerson, Steven, and Brian Duffy. The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation. New York, NY: Putnam, 1990. Print.
• 3. Kerr, Morag G. Adequately Explained by Stupidity?: Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies. Print.
• 4. Fisk, Robert. The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Fourth Estate, 2004. Print.
• 5. AJE.
• 6. Emerson, Steven, and Brian Duffy. The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation. New York, NY: Putnam, 1990. Print.
• 7. Emerson, 130
• 8. Emerson, 130
• 9. Emerson, 168-169
• 10. AJE
• 11. Wines, Michael. "Portrait of Pan Am Suspect: Affable Exile, Fiery Avenger." The New York Times. The New York Times, 1989.
• 12. Emerson
• 13. Emerson, 208
• 14. Wines, NYT
• 15. Emerson, 249
• 16. Emerson, 223
• 17. Kerr, 241-262 18. Kerr, 89-90

Lockerbie inquiry petition remains open

[This is the headline over a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2011. It reads as follows:]

A petition calling for an inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber has been kept open despite an earlier refusal from the Scottish government.

The Justice For Megrahi (JFM) group handed over a petition to the Scottish Parliament in October last year.

It sought an independent probe into the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man to be convicted of the bombing which killed 270 people in 1988.

The petitions committee agreed to write to the government and Lord Advocate.

The JFM group claimed it was "imperative" that the case be examined once more.

However, the Scottish government has already indicated that it has no plans to hold an inquiry and "does not doubt the safety of the conviction".

Megrahi dropped a second appeal against his conviction in the run-up to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to free him on compassionate grounds in 2009.

Megrahi had previously been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

About 1,500 people signed the JFM petition before it was lodged at Holyrood.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, sat through the proceedings during the parliamentary session.

He later said the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) had already decided there may have been a miscarriage of justice and urged the government to open an inquiry.

Dr Swire added: "I think this will be unwelcome in the dying days of the Scottish government to have had this decision by the committee.

"The issue here is so much greater than Scottish party politics. This is not about the SNP. This is about the integrity and, above all, the credibility of Scottish justice."

[RB: Justice for Megrahi’s petition (PE1370) remains open five years later. A link to the most recent discussion in the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee can be found here.]

First hints of Giaka problems

[On this date in 2000 the Libyanet website ran a report reading as follows:]

A key witness in the upcoming Lockerbie trial has watered down his testimony in the case against two Libyans accused of the 1988 airliner bombing, a Scottish newspaper reported on Sunday. Scotland on Sunday quoted sources close to the case as saying that Abu Maged Jiacha, who has been in the U.S. witness protection program for 10 years, had changed parts of his story when he was interviewed recently by defense attorneys. The newspaper said Jiacha would only tell the pair's defense lawyers that he may have seen one of the accused removing a suitcase from a luggage carousel, not loading it on, at Luqa Airport in Malta. The charges by British prosecutors state the bomb began its journey in Malta and continued via Frankfurt and London until its mid-air detonation over Lockerbie, the newspaper said. It said the new testimony was the latest setback for prosecutors in the case. A Maltese shop owner was flown to the Netherlands last year for an identity parade but failed to make a positive identification of the suspects. Lawyers for the accused have been travelling the world taking statements from witnesses who form the basis of the prosecution case. [Reuters]

[The full Reuters report (courtesy of The Pan Am 103 Trial Website) reads as follows:]

A key witness in the upcoming Lockerbie trial has watered down his testimony in the case against two Libyans accused of the 1988 airliner bombing, a Scottish newspaper reported on Sunday. Scotland on Sunday quoted sources close to the case as saying that Abu Maged Jiacha, who has been in the US witness protection program for 10 years, had changed parts of his story when he was interviewed recently by defense attorneys. British authorities were not immediately available to comment on the report.

The newspaper reports that in a bizarre twist, Jiacha would only agree to meet defence lawyers in Washington DC while disguised in a Shirley Bassey wig and heavy stage make-up in the back of a constantly moving van. They were surprised that he would tell them only that he may have seen one of the accused removing a suitcase from a luggage carousel, not loading it on, at Luqa Airport in Malta. The charges by British prosecutors state the bomb began its journey in Malta and continued via Frankfurt and London until its mid-air detonation over Lockerbie, the newspaper said. It said the new testimony was the latest setback for prosecutors in the case.

Senior legal sources have indicated that the trial at Kamp Van Zeist in the Netherlands faces further delays, having already been postponed beyond an original starting date of March until May 3 with the consent of both defence and prosecution. Privately, some legal experts are speculating that if the date is not changed again, then the Crown may admit it has no viable case to make.

In Washington late last year defence lawyers were surprised that Jiacha had so little to say that might incriminate their clients. A source said: "They were blindfolded so they did not know where they were and put in the back of a van driving around the streets. When their blindfolds were taken off they saw Jiacha in what can only be described as a Shirley Bassey wig, and stage make-up." The scene was obliquely referred to at a preliminary trial hearing last month when the defence objected to some witnesses using disguises "Shirley Bassey wigs and plastered in make up" – to conceal their identity at the trial.

Last night, Jim Swire, spokesman for the UK victims' families, declined to comment. He said: "I will wait for the trial - that is the proper place."

John Ashton responds to Magnus Linklater's latest article

On 6 January 2016 an article by Magnus Linklater headlined We can be confident that the Scottish prosecutors got the right man appeared in the Scottish Review. John Ashton has now responded to that article on his Megrahi: You are my Jury website. Mr Ashton’s response gives the full text of the Linklater piece, interspersed with Ashton’s comments and corrections. John Ashton’s article can be read here.

Shocking admissions about date of Malta purchases

A long journey, followed by a power cut, made it impossible for me to post to this blog yesterday, 22 January. Here is what I would have posted had circumstances permitted:

[On this date in 2010 an article headed Harry Bell and Paul Gauci on the date of purchase: two shocking admissions was published on Adam "Caustic Logic" Larson's blog The 12/7-9/11 Treadmill and Beyond. The admissions relate to the date of purchase in Mary's House, Sliema, of the clothes that, in the official explanation of the Lockerbie disaster, were in the brown Samsonite suitcase along with the bomb. It was essential to the prosecution case against Megrahi that the date of purchase was shown to be 7 December 1988 (when Megrahi was on Malta) and not 23 November (when he was not). The following are excerpts from the article:]

Detective Inspector Harry Bell, who headed the Scottish police effort on Malta and was the main contact point for the Gaucis, was interviewed in 2006 by the SCCRC [Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission]. Some extracts were re-printed in Megrahi's rock-solid grounds of appeal.

Excerpts from there:

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 and 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..."

The bolded is a shocking admission of just what many had guessed. And then, almost as an afterthought (and a quick one I'd venture) "Paul specified 7th December" as the right day, during a meeting of "14th December 1989." He even has the date memorized! No direct quotes provided there of this meeting. But two months earlier, in a 19 October meeting with the same Harry Bell, he clearly specified the other day. In a police report obtained by Private Eye and published in Paul Foot's 2000 booklet Lockerbie: The Flight from Justice, Mr. Gauci said:

“I was shown a list of European football matches I know as UEFA. I checked all the games and dates. I am of the opinion that the game I watched on TV was on 23 November, 1988: SC Dynamo Dresden v AS Roma. On checking the 7th December 1988, I can say that I watched AS Roma v Dynamo Dresden in the afternoon. All the other games were played in the evening. I can say for certain I watched the Dresden v Roma game. On the basis that there were two games played during the afternoon of 23 November and only one on the afternoon of 7th December, I would say that the 23rd November 1988 was the date in question.” [Foot, 2000, p 21]

A Lockerbie trial "must be seen to be fair and just"

[What follows is the text of a statement issued by Nelson Mandela on this date in 1992, just over two years before he became President of South Africa:]

The ANC has consistently condemned all acts of terrorism. The Lockerbie Disaster was a tragic incident which resulted in the unfortunate loss of innocent lives. The ANC once again takes the opportunity to express deep-felt sympathy to the families of the deceased.

It is in the interest of peace, stability and security that if there is clear evidence of the involvement of identified suspects they should be arrested and punished as soon as possible. In the present climate of suspicion and fear it is important that the trial should not be intended to humiliate a head of state. It should not only be fair and just, but must be seen to be fair and just. This must be in the context of respect for the sovereignty of all countries.

The ANC believes that if the above objectives are to be achieved, the following options should be considered:

• If no extradition treaty exists between the countries concerned the trial must be conducted in the country where the accused were arrested.
• The trial should be conducted in a neutral country by independent judges
• The trial should be conducted at The Hague by an international court of justice.

We urge the countries concerned to show statesmanship and leadership. This will ensure that the decade of the Nineties will be free of confrontation and conflict.