This is the heading over an item posted today on Lockerbietruth.com, the website of Dr Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph. It reads as follows:]
Former Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill, in his book The Lockerbie Bombing (Biteback), writes:
"Clothes in the suitcase containing the bomb were acquired in Malta, though not by Megrahi."
This totally contradicts the written verdict of the Lockerbie trial judges regarding the identification evidence given by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci:
"[88] A major factor in the case against [Baset al-Megrahi] is the identification evidence of [Maltese shopkeeper] Mr Gauci... We accept the reliability of Mr Gauci on this matter."
If MacAskill is correct and Megrahi did not purchase the clothes from Tony Gauci's shop in Malta, then how could Gauci have seen him and recognized him from photographs and in a police identity parade, and in the courtroom?
As Justice Minister MacAskill was privy to all security reports and the entire trial evidence. He worked closely with the office of the Lord Advocate. [RB: Mr MacAskill, of course, did not become Cabinet Secretary for Justice until long after the Zeist trial and first appeal. However, he was in office when the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission delivered its report on the Megrahi case and during the appeal that followed (and which was abandoned, in murky circumstances, prior to his repatriation).]
If he knows of evidence indicating that Megrahi was not the person who purchased clothes from Gauci's shop, then he has a legal and moral duty to say what it is.
If there is such evidence, then the entire testimony of the only identification witness in the Lockerbie trial, Tony Gauci, is invalid, and a major miscarriage of justice has occurred.
MacAskill's moral and legal duty, and that of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, extends not only to those bereaved relativeswho believe Megrahi to be innocent, but to all bereaved Lockerbie relatives in America and elsewhere.
Nicola Sturgeon must grasp the nettle in this matter and instigate an urgent and immediate inquiry.
I am afraid she will not have the guts to call one as the U.S official in aviation security quoted to a Mr Cadman at the U.S embassy in 1990? Said to him "Our government&your government knows what really happened but they are not going to tell you"maybe the first Minster will have guts to tell us that Bassett was the wrong man convicted of a crime that was the biggest cover up in the 20th century I know what happened but I can not say it on this blog.
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