“I now know the aircraft was separating”

[On this date in 1990 the Fatal Accident Inquiry into the 270 deaths that occurred in the Lockerbie disaster opened in Dumfries. What follows is a UPI news agency report:]

The last tragic seconds of Pan Am Flight 103 were recorded as a blip on a radar screen that split into 'four or five' pieces, then disappeared, an air-traffic controller said Monday.

'I remember that period extremely well in terms of emotion,' said Alan Topp. 'I was worried at the time. But I couldn't prove one thing or another.'

Topp testified on the first day of a Scottish judicial inquiry into the terrorist bombing nearly two years ago of the Boeing 747 en route from Frankfurt, West Germany, to New York after stopping in London.

The Fatal Accident Inquiry will not seek to determine criminal responsibility for the deaths of the 259 people who were aboard the plane and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. That issue is being handled by police and various international agencies.

The panel will consider events leading up to the attack, including whether proper security precautions were carried out at London's Heathrow Airport.

The inquiry is being held at Easterbrook Hall on the grounds of Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries, 12 miles from where the plane fell to the ground in chunks of tangled metal.

Nine American attorneys, representing the relatives of some of the 188 U.S. citizens who were killed, were among the more than 45 lawyers present at the hearing.

Among the other attorneys were ones representing Pan American World Airways, the British Airport Authority, the Civil Aviation authority, the Department of Transport, Hull War Risks Insurance, which insured the aircraft, and George Esson, chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway, who is in charge of the separate criminal investigation.

Topp, a controller for 24 years, was on duty at the Scottish Air Traffic Control Center at Prestwick, on Dec 21, 1988.

Just before 7 pm, Topp said he knew Pan Am Flight 103 was coming into his air space -- he had been warned 15 to 20 minutes earlier. The plane climbed to 31,000 feet just north of Manchester, then was handed over to him by another controller.

Topp said it was normal for a New York-bound aircraft to fly over south Scotland to take advantage of favorable winds across the Atlantic Ocean.

'When I first saw the aircraft on radar it was at 31,000 feet. I asked the captain to identify himself. There was nothing amiss. I gave him his routing which had already been defined by Oceanic Control.'

Topp said he watched the aircraft intently as there was other traffic in the area.

'Suddenly, the response disappeared off the screen,' he said. 'Instead, there were four or five contacts.'

The air-traffic controller said he thought the disintegration -- at 7:03 pm -- was an effect that could occur on a radar screen when an aircraft was flying directly above a radar station.

Topp said he tried several times to make voice contact with the aircraft without success. He also tried to make contact though a KLM aircraft in the area, but there was no response.

Topp said he called Galloway Radar, in the same building, and spoke to a controller, asking him, 'You see my clipper 103 in all that melee?'

A transcript of the conversation, produced in evidence, ended with Topp saying, 'Oh dear!'

The last person to speak to the crew was Thomas Fraser, an air traffic services assistant. He called the aircraft to respond to a request for clearance. The flight's planning controller replied, ''Go ahead,' in a perfectly normal voice,' Fraser testified.

Fraser then provided the clearance.

'At that point he would normally have come back to acknowledge and, of course, he did not. It's not unusual for aircraft to have a radio blind spot. I tried three times and asked another aircraft to try. I then learned from another air traffic controller there was a problem.'

The court was shown a videotape of the flight's progress on the radar screen, appearing as a small square. A cross in the square disappeared, meaning the plane's transponder signal had stopped working. The original square then reappeared as four or five squares.

'The loss of the signal is a fairly common thing,' said Topp. 'And primary responses can appear on the screen when there is nothing wrong. I was aware something was not going quite right but I wasn't aware of the disaster at this stage.

'I can remember I was extremely worried about the status of 103. I had my eyes on the tube all the time. ... I had never seen anything like this before. I now know the aircraft was separating.'

[RB: The findings of the FAI can be read here.]

Libyan UN plea for neutral venue Lockerbie trial

[What follows is a report from the United Nations by the Reuters news agency dated 30 September 1997:]

Libya called on the General Assembly on Tuesday to intervene in the Lockerbie affair to enable two Libyans charged with bombing an airliner over Scotland in 1988 to be tried in a country other than Britain or the United States.

Referring to Britain and the United States, Libyan UN representative Abuzed Dorda said: “How can anyone expect the Security Council to solve the problem when our adversaries are both permanent members of the council and possess the veto power? In other words, they are the judge and the jury.”

He said those countries “know, more than anybody else, that Libya has nothing to do at all with this airplane and the tragic incident.” Libya had “no problem with the Security Council and the Security Council has no problem with us,” he said.

If the United States and Britain had accepted proposals made by various regional and international organizations for resolving the problem, the council “would not have hesitated for one moment to accept them,” he added.

Dorda told Assembly delegates: “My country calls on you to intervene so that we can reach a peaceful solution to this dispute, one that would accelerate the holding of the trial for the two suspects before a fair and just court, in a climate free of prior condemnation ... in any place to be agreed upon or to be decided by the Security Council.”

He noted that, when the council held a ministerial-level meeting last week on the situation in Africa, the Lockerbie issue was raise by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, as OAU chairman; by OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim; as well as by foreign ministers.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who took part in the council meeting, said the only place the suspects could face trial under Scottish law was in Scotland. “There is no legal authority in the law of the Netherlands for a court of another jurisdiction to sit in The Hague,” he said. [RB: Less than one year later, of course, the governments of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom supplied the appropriate legal authority for a Scottish court to sit in the Netherlands.]

Replying to Dorda at the end of Wednesday's Assembly session, British UN representative Sir John Weston repeated an offer for observers from the Arab League, the OAU or any other such body to attend a trial held in Scotland, to monitor its impartiality.

“Additional facilities would also be provided, including daily access to the accused if the later so wished,” he said.

“It remains for the Libyan government to meet its responsibilities to abide by the council's decisions in full,” Weston added.

[RB: The full text of Ambassador Dorda’s UN speech can be found here. It is well worth reading.]

MSP slams Lockerbie investigations in Scotland

[This is a slightly modified version of the headline over a report published on the website of the Maltese newspaper The Times on 29 September 2010. It reads as follows:]

The Scottish [MSP] who has taken Air Malta’s side in the Lockerbie case has now described the investigations being carried out in Scotland as “little more than a device to avoid police disclosing a range of controversial material related to the case under Freedom of Information laws”.

In a statement, Christine Grahame said: “Correspondence I have received from the Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Police has confirmed that only one full-time police officer is currently working on the case.

“The bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 previously resulted in the biggest police investigation ever carried out in the UK and I think this revelation simply confirms that the “open” nature of the investigation is little more than a device to avoid the authorities disclosing additional uncomfortable facts which undermine the prosecution case.

“I wrote to Dumfries and Galloway Police back in August to determine what progress had been made in the investigation over the past 12 months, but they are unable to say if they have any new leads.

“I also asked the Chief Constable to confirm whether the Iranian backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command were no longer suspects in the case.

“I posed this question because the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser, recently told journalists that he was unhappy about the manner in which the police investigation failed to thoroughly pursue the links to the PFLP-GC.

“Lord Fraser implied it was reasonable to conclude that members of that terrorist organisation were in fact US intelligence assets and this was the reason that end of the investigation was not followed through and the suspects released before Scottish police investigators were able to interrogate them.

“Dumfries and Galloway Police have not been able to confirm or deny that the Iranian sponsored PFLP-GC remain suspects in this case.

“It is increasingly apparent that only a full and thorough public inquiry will address the outstanding concerns about the safety of the conviction and publicly reveal all the known facts related to this case, including the reasons why key suspects in the PFLP-GC were not properly investigated.

“The fact Dumfries and Galloway Police only have one full time officer working on the case poses some significant questions about how keen they are to pursue all avenues,” she said.

Malta has always denied any involvement in the act but a shop owner had said in the original trial that he believed Al Megrahi purchased clothes from his shop, providing the prosecution with grounds to argue that the bomb had left from Malta and then transferred to the fateful flight.

Malta had provided ample evidence to support its contention that there was no unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta flight KM180 on December 21, 1988. But its defence was trumped by Mr Gauci’s testimony.

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.

Justice for Megrahi petition kept open by Justice Committee

At its meeting held this morning the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee, now under the convenership of Margaret Mitchell MSP (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party), unanimously agreed to keep Justice for Megrahi’s petition (PE1370) open. The proceedings in the committee can be viewed here, with the consideration of PE1370 commencing 1 hour 31 minutes in.

The Official Report (Hansard) of the proceedings is now available here.

Deception over Lockerbie

[This is the headline over a long article by Maidhc Ó'Cathail published on this date in 2009 on the Canadian Global Research website. It reads in part:]

The scenes of flag-waving Libyans welcoming home Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the man known as the Lockerbie bomber, further discredited Muslims in the minds of many. For those whose knowledge of the story is derived mainly from TV news, it appeared to be a callous celebration of mass murder, lending credence to the belief that “Islam” and “terrorism” are virtually synonymous. A closer look at the facts surrounding the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, however, reveals a pattern of deception by those who have most to gain from making Muslims look bad.

While the news reports dutifully recorded the protestations of outrage by Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and others at what appeared to be an unseemly hero’s welcome for a convicted terrorist, they neglected to mention that Libyans were celebrating the release of a countryman whom they believe had been wrongfully imprisoned for eight years. Also omitted from the reports was any indication that informed observers of Megrahi’s case in Britain and elsewhere are likewise convinced of his innocence.

Robert Black, the University of Edinburgh law professor who was the architect of the trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, says that “no reasonable tribunal could have convicted Megrahi on the evidence led,” and calls his 2001 conviction “an absolute and utter outrage.” Prof Black likens the Scottish trial judges to the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass who “believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Hans Köchler, a UN-appointed observer at the trial, states that “there is not one single piece of material evidence linking the two accused to the crime,” and condemns the court’s verdict as a “spectacular miscarriage of justice.” And Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was one of the 270 killed on December 21, 1988, dismisses the prosecution’s case against Megrahi and fellow Libyan Lamin Khalifa F’hima as “a cock and bull story.”

According to that “cock and bull story,” Megrahi, the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), conspired with Lamin Khalifa F’hima, the station manager for LAA in Malta (who was acquitted), to put a suitcase bomb on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt. At Frankfurt, the lethal suitcase had to be transferred to another flight bound for London Heathrow. Then in Heathrow Airport, it would have to be transferred for a second time onto the ill-fated Flight 103 destined for New York.

But for that rather implausible scenario to be true, the Libyans would have to have had an inordinate faith in the reliability of baggage handlers in two of Europe’s busiest airports at one of the busiest times of the year. Less optimistic would-be bombers would surely have slipped the bomb-laden suitcase on board in London. Fueling suspicions that this is indeed what happened, investigating police were told by a security guard at Heathrow that the Pan Am baggage storage area had been broken into on the night of the bombing.

The reported break-in at Heathrow was part of 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence that Megrahi’s defense could present at an appeal, which in 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, after a three-year investigation, recommended he be granted.

But before that appeal could be heard, the compassionate release of Megrahi, suffering from terminal prostate cancer, conveniently spared the potential embarrassment of all those involved in his dubious conviction. More significantly, it also averted awkward questions being raised, in the likely event of the Libyan being acquitted, about who actually planted the bomb, and why.

Many of those who doubt Libya’s  responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, perhaps not surprisingly in the current climate, tend to suspect other Muslim countries of involvement. The most popular theory is that Iran hired the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) led by Ahmed Gibril to avenge the “accidental” shooting down by the USS Vincennes on July 3, 1988 of Iran Air Flight 655, which killed all 288 civilians on board.

Others believe that Abu Nidal, the founder of the infamous Black September terrorist group, may have been involved. If they’re right, it raises disturbing questions about who was ultimately responsible for the Lockerbie atrocity. In his fine biography of Nidal, A Gun for Hire, British journalist Patrick Seale confirms long-held suspicions that many in the Middle East have had about the “Palestinian terrorist” who did more than anyone to discredit the Palestinian cause. “Abu Nidal was undoubtedly a Mossad agent,” Seale asserts. “Practically every job he did benefited Israel.” (...)

Writing in the Guardian just before the trial of the two Libyans, veteran American journalist Russell Warren Howe, in an excellent article titled “What if they are innocent?” analyses whether the Iranian government, Palestinian terrorists or Israeli intelligence were more likely perpetrators. Howe concludes, “Even if Megrahi and F’hima are found guilty of the most serious charges, there would still be a need for a new investigation: to decide what was Israel’s possibly major role in mass murder and deception of its main benefactor, the US.” Howe is suggesting that even if the Libyans, or other Arabs, had actually planted the bomb, they may still have been duped into doing so by Israeli agents.

Intriguingly, Howe cites a reference in Gordon Thomas’s book on Mossad, Gideon’s Spies, to a Mossad officer stationed in London who showed up in Lockerbie the morning after the crash to arrange for the removal of a suitcase from the crime scene. The suitcase, said to belong to Captain Charles McKee, a DIA officer who was killed on the flight, was later returned “empty and undamaged.”

Moreover, the idea of Libyan responsibility, Howe notes, seems to have originated in Israel. Again, he quotes Thomas, who says that a source at LAP, Mossad’s psychological warfare unit, informed him that “within hours of the crash, staff at LAP were working the phones to their media contacts urging them to publicise that here was ‘incontrovertible proof’ that Libya, through its intelligence service, Jamahirya, was culpable.”

It may also have been Mossad disinformation, Howe suspects, that induced the US government to believe the Libyans were guilty. The day after the Lockerbie bombing, US intelligence intercepted a radio message from Tripoli to a Libyan government office in Berlin that effectively said, “mission accomplished.”

Reminder of Justice Committee meeting

A reminder that Justice for Megrahi’s petition (PE1370) seeking an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial features on the agenda for the meeting of the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee’s meeting to be held tomorrow, Tuesday, 27 September 2016 in Holyrood Committee Room 2, beginning at 10.00. It is unlikely that this agenda item will be reached before 11.00. Further details can be found here. The proceedings will be televised on Parliament TV.

Defector Giaka in witness box at Zeist

[On this date in 2000 Abdul Majid Giaka entered the witness box at the Lockerbie trial. His evidence extended over three days. What follows is the text of the report on the BBC News website of the first day:]

A former Libyan spy has told the Lockerbie trial he saw the accused with a suitcase similar to the one alleged to have contained the bomb.

Abdul Majid Giaka, a key prosecution witness, has been giving details of his role as a Libyan secret service officer at Luqa Airport in Malta.

The prosecution alleges that the two Libyans placed a bomb in a brown Samsonite suitcase and routed it onto Pan Am Flight 103 from Malta.

Giaka told the court he saw Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah with such a suitcase shortly before the bombing in December 1988.

Mr Giaka has been living in the US for 10 years under CIA protection after defecting from Libya.

He was escorted to the special Scottish court at Camp Zeist, Holland, by 30 US marshals.

Speaking in Arabic from behind a screen and with his voice distorted to protect his identity, Mr Giaka told the court he was recruited to the JSO (the Libyan security service) after graduating from university.

He told prosecutor Alastair Campbell QC that he started working for the Libyan security service in 1984 and in 1986 he moved to become assistant station manager in Malta.

This posting, based at Luqa Airport, was part of the intelligence service's airline security section, to protect aircraft, passengers and crew of Libyan Arab Airlines.

The two defendants also worked at the airport for the Libyan airline and were also allegedly members of the Libyan security service.

In court he identified Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi as the head of the airline security section and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima as the station boss.

BBC Scotland correspondent Reevel Alderson, who is in court, said this was the first time in the trial that Fhima had been identified by a witness.

Giaka described how, shortly before the bombing in 1988, he saw the two accused arrive from Tripoli. They were carrying a brown Samsonite suitcase.

He also said that, two years before the bombing, Fahima had showed him two bricks of what he said was the explosive TNT.

The TNT was in the drawer of a desk in the office they shared.

He said: "Fahima told me he had had 10 kg of TNT delivered by Abdel Basset (Megrahi).

"He opened the drawer and there were two boxes which contained a yellowish material."

Mr Giaka went on to outline the role of the JSO in terrorism and assassinating dissidents outside Libya and said his concerns led him in 1988 to contact the American Embassy.

He became a double agent, providing information about Libyan intelligence and people suspected of involvement in terrorism.

Defence lawyer Bill Taylor QC complained that much of what he had to say was "mere tittle-tattle and gossip," and reminded the court that hearsay can be inadmissible in a Scottish murder trial.

Giaka's appearance in court came after weeks of wrangling between the prosecution and defence.

At the heart of the objections has been the issue of the availability of notes of interviews held between Mr Giaka and his CIA handlers in America.

These papers - or cables - have been trickling out with varying degrees of censorship.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that very few relatives of the victims are watching the trial on closed-circuit TV at four sites in the US and Britain.

Virtually no-one has been to the site in Dumfries, while even in New York there is usually only eight to 10 people watching.

[RB: A verbatim transcript of Giaka’s evidence can be found here, starting at page 2095.]