Slalom shirt as dodgy as the timer fragment?

[What follows is taken from an article published on this date in 2011 in the Scottish edition of the Sunday Express:]

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was convicted on the basis that he bought clothes from Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, including a grey men’s Slalom shirt. The clothing was then packed in a suitcase with the bomb that brought down Pan Am 103, killing 270 on December 21, 1988.

The charred remains of the shirt were crucial to the prosecution, as a forensic scientist found a piece of circuit board from the bomb embedded in the collar which first led investigators to Libya, and ultimately Megrahi.

However, it has now emerged that clothing manufacturers in Malta told Scottish police in January 1990 that the shirt recovered from the crash site was in fact a boy’s size.

Campaigners have stepped up calls for an inquiry after the claims surfaced in a documentary broadcast on Thursday by Arab TV network Al Jazeera but seen by only a handful of Scottish viewers.

In it, Scotland’s former Lord Advocate also accepted that Gauci, the main prosecution witness, was paid $2million to give evidence against Megrahi.

Scottish private investigator George Thomson tracked down shirt manufacturers Tonio Caruana and Godwin Navarro in Malta. They recalled being shown a fragment of shirt by DC John Crawford and telling him, independently of each other, that it was a boy’s shirt.

Speaking to the Sunday Express yesterday, Mr Navarro, 76, said: “I stand by my statement. I believe it is a boy’s shirt because of the size of the pocket and the width of the placket, where the button holes are.”

Retired Strathclyde Police superintendent Iain McKie, now a campaigner against miscarriages of justice, said: “The fact that the witnesses say it was a boy’s shirt and not an adult shirt seems to me quite critical.”

He said that if it was a boy’s shirt, then it cannot be the same one purchased from Gauci by the man he later identified as Megrahi – destroying the “evidence chain”.

Supt McKie said the latest claims added weight to calls for the Scottish Government to set up an independent inquiry into Megrahi’s conviction.

He added: “The whole chain of evidence has been totally and utterly shattered. It is looking more and more like the police came to a conclusion and then looked for evidence.”

The programme, Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber, also alleged that a piece of the shirt had been altered, as it is clearly a different shape in two police photographs. (...)

[George Thomson] said: “In January 1990 they realise that what they have is a fragment of a boy’s shirt, while Gauci is saying he sold a gents’ shirt.

“The reason for people saying this is mainly down to the size of the pocket and lo and behold the next thing a fragment of the pocket has been removed.”

"Scottish justice ... subject to cynical manipulation"

[What follows is the text of an article published in The Mail on Sunday on this date in 2002:]

The key witness whose evidence helped convict the Lockerbie bomber has enjoyed holiday trips to Scotland and lavish hospitality organised by police officers, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Legal experts believe the revelation could have significant bearing on the  case of Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, whose appeal against conviction for the murder of 270 people in Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity began last week.

Secret tape recordings, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, reveal witness Tony Gauci boasting about being taken from his home in Malta to Scotland by police for fishing, hillwalking and bird-watching trips.

Astonishingly, Gauci also claims he was taken to Lockerbie to be shown the damage caused by the bomb that ripped through PanAm Flight 103 in December 1988.

The tattered remains of clothes bought from Gauci's shop were found in the suitcase that contained the bomb. The shopkeeper is the only person to have linked Megrahi directly to the Lockerbie bombing, telling investigators he “resembled a lot” the man who bought the clothes.

A Scottish undercover investigator travelled to Malta and secretly taped conversations with Gauci, owner of Mary’s House clothes shop in Sliema, and Det Constable Ian Goodall, a Strathclyde Police officer based in Malta.

Gauci claims he has been taken to Scotland by police on five or six occasions since the Lockerbie bombing.

In the early part of the investigation, Gauci claims he was taken to the small Scottish town to be shown the damage - a highly unusual move as the Scottish justice system frowns upon taking a witness to a crime scene before a trial.

Gauci also reveals that the hospitality of the Scottish police has been extended to four other members of his family. He talks of being taken into the mountains, visiting the Aviemore ski resort, going fly-fishing for salmon and bird-watching. While in Scotland he has on at least one occasion stayed at the luxury £150-a-night Hilton Hotel in Glasgow. A day ticket for a top salmon fishing river can cost up to £1000 a day.

Indeed, Gauci is believed to be in Scotland at the moment. A trip was being prepared for him when the investigator, a former detective, left Malta two weeks ago. It is believed that Gauci might have travelled in the last week under an assumed name.

In a conversation with George Thomson, a leading criminal investigator working undercover, Gauci said he had been an important witness in a terrorist trial and that the police had to look after him to keep the “bad man” in jail.

Asked by Thomson if detectives had indeed looked after him well, Gauci replied: “They have to. They want this man to stay in jail.”

In another conversation, Gauci volunteers information potentially crucial to Megrahi’s appeal that officers took him to Scotland on one occasion “to check the quality of my statement and make sure I am saying the same things.”

There are already question marks over the evidence given by Gauci during Megrahi’s trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, which ended in January last year.

On the second day of Megrahi’s appeal in front of five Scottish judges, William Taylor QC, who leads Megrahi’s defence, said the trial judges had drawn the wrong conclusions from evidence riddled with “contradictions and inconsistencies.”

Mr Taylor said Gauci's evidence was “palpably unreliable” both in its identification of Megrahi and on the question of the date when the Libyan is alleged to have bought clothes in his shop.

Also, the shopkeeper made some 20 statements over ten or 11 years before giving evidence. Most have been leaked to journalists and researchers over the years. They show substantial variations, underlining the difficulty of achieving perfect recall over a long period of time. This suggests his recollection of the crucial events he was involved in might not have been as precise as he indicated to the court.

Robert Black, Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said the matter of Gauci’s trips had to be fully investigated during the course of Megrahi’s appeal.

Prof Black added: “As far as I am aware, this is not normal practice. I do not know of any other witness in a Scottish murder trial to have been taken on holidays and fishing trips by the police.”

He said that if a witness in a trial had been offered “treats” by one side, the other side ought to have the opportunity to cross-examine him to establish whether he might have been motivated to “improve” his evidence in favour of those giving the “treats”.

He added: “If it transpires that Gauci was being treated in this way before or during the trial, or indeed understood that he would be given trips after the trial, it would require his credibility as a witness to be re-examined and could alter the outcome of the case.

“Senior police officers and prosecutors worked very closely on this case.  If the prosecution was aware of the arrangement, it ought to have alerted the defence.”

One of Britain's most senior retired judges said he regarded the matter as “wholly improper”.

The judge, who refused to be named because he feared it would seem “impudent” to criticise the conduct of a Scottish trial, said: “If I learned that a crown witness had been treated and spoiled by the police or prosecution, I would be very concerned that it might have interfered with the course of justice.

“The defence would be entitled to know and to question the credibility of the witness. If such a matter emerged after a guilty verdict, it would be a valid point of appeal. Whether it succeeded would be determined by the weight of other evidence.” [RB: The retired judge in question is still alive.]

Tam Dalyell, the most dogged campaigner on Lockerbie in the House of Commons, expressed shock and dismay last night. He said: “If your information is correct, it is very significant. I believe it’s vital to establish who knew about these trips. Did the trial judges know? Did the lord advocates who were in office during the years of the investigation know? If they did, those who have gone on to become judges should be removed from the bench.”

Dalyell said he would be raising the matter with the appropriate authorities and would seek to establish who was paying for the trips. He added: “This raises the most fundamental questions imaginable about Scottish justice apparently being subject to cynical manipulation.”

British relatives of those who died felt it would be inappropriate to comment because the appeal was underway. But one said: “You can take it we are horrified by this.”

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police said: “We never comment on matters relating to witness protection.”

Det Ch Supt Tom MuCulloch, head of CID at Dumfries and Galloway police and nominally the senior investigating officer in the case, said through a spokesman: “We do not make any comment in matters relating to witnesses in the Lockerbie investigation.”

Gauci’s contribution to the trial was absolutely central to the conviction of Megrahi a year ago. His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, walked free while Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum recommendation of 20 years.

The key difference in the case against the two men was that in Fhimah’s case, no credible witness existed to give the court a first-hand account of incriminating conduct.

Gauci was able to tell the court that Megrahi “resembled a lot” the man who bought the clothes from his shop weeks before the bombing.

His original description to investigators was of a man much taller and at least ten years older than Megrahi, but when shown photographs of the Libyan agent, he always said there was a resemblance.

However, he also identified other suspects, including the convicted bomber Mohammed Abu Talb, serving life in Sweden for terrorist bombings, as resembling the man.

Despite acknowledging that Gauci’s identification was not absolute, the three Scottish judges who found Megrahi guilty of murder attached much weight to it and clearly were impressed by his evidence.

Taylor has already set out his grounds for appeal to the five-judge bench that will decide his client’s ultimate fate. Already, it is clear that the appeal hinges largely on Gauci’s evidence.

As well as arguing that the judges were not entitled to conclude from his testimony that Megrahi bought the clothes, they will also argue that they were wrong to conclude the clothes were purchased on December 7.

The trial heard evidence that the likely date of purchase was in fact November 23, when Megrahi was in Libya, but opted instead for December 7, when he was in Malta where he worked for Libyan Arab Airlines.

This conclusion was reached despite evidence that it was raining when the buyer left the shop and testimony from Malta’s met office that it did not rain on December 7.

Thomson learned that Gauci already enjoys protection from armed Maltese officers. Witness protection officers in the UK are normally assigned only to someone whose life is considered to be in danger as a result of their testimony in a trial. In such cases, the witness is moved and given a new identity.

Gauci continues to live on Malta and to run Mary’s House with his brother, Paul, a situation that hardly suggests his life is in danger. He is known to locals as Tony Lockerbie.

Aljazeera Lockerbie documentary broadcast times

The new documentary Lockerbie: What really happened? is to be broadcast on Aljazeera English on Tuesday 11 March at 8 pm GMT, Wednesday 12 March at 12 noon, Thursday 13 March at 1 am and Friday 14 March at 6 am.  The premiere showing is in Holyrood’s Committee Room 1 at 1pm on Tuesday 11th.  

[Here is what Aljazeera says about the programme:]

In late December 1988 a terrorist bomb destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie and killed 270 people.

Only one man, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan citizen, was tried and found guilty of causing the explosion. But he protested his innocence at the time of his trial in Camp Zeist in Holland in May 2000, and continued to do so up until his death in Tripoli in May 2012.

For three years filmmakers working for Al Jazeera have been investigating the prosecution of al-Megrahi.

Two award-winning documentaries, screened on Al Jazeera in 2011 and 2012, demonstrated that the case against him was deeply flawed and argued that a serious miscarriage of justice may have taken place.

In the first episode, Lockerbie: The Pan Am bomber, we followed defence investigator George Thomson as he revealed how forensic evidence presented at al-Megrahi's trial was not only inaccurate but appears to have been deliberately tampered with.

Then in Lockerbie: Case Closed, we revealed the hitherto secret assessment of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) - an independent public body in Scotland - which had re-examined the case in detail and had recommended that it be referred back to the courts for possible dismissal.

Crucially, our film also showed how new scientific tests comprehensively undermined the validity of the most significant piece of evidence linking the bombing to al-Megrahi and Libya - a fragment of electronic timer found embedded in the shredded remains of a shirt, supposedly bought by the convicted man in Malta.

The timer, the prosecution had claimed, was identical to ones sold to Libyan intelligence by a Swiss manufacturer. But as our investigation proved, it was not identical - a fact that must have been known to British government scientists all along.

Now, in our third and most disturbing investigation, we answer the question left hanging at the end of our last programme: if al-Megrahi was not guilty of the Lockerbie bombing, then who was?

RIP Chris Jeans, Lockerbie documentary producer

[What follows is a short excerpt from The Guardian’s obituary of Chris Jeans, published on Monday:]

Christopher Jeans abandoned the constraints of a BBC suit for the riskier freedom of an independent television producer. He has died of cancer aged 68, two weeks after finishing his final programme, the third part in a trilogy for Al Jazeera about the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie 25 years ago. Chris worked until days before his death, showing his customary exuberance and unyielding persistence, chasing down facts and negotiating his way though complex challenges with a combination of shrewd guile and disarming laughter.

[Two of Chris Jeans’s Aljazeera documentaries have aready been broadcast, Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber  and Lockerbie: Case Closed.  The third, provisionally entitled If not Megrahi, then who?, has yet to be shown. 

I am grateful to George Thomson, who was associated with Chris Jeans in all three of Aljazeera’s Lockerbie documentaries, for allowing me to publish this tribute:]

I only met Chris for the first time three years ago when he and Bill Cran approached me to ask for my assistance in producing what was to be one documentary film on Lockerbie.  We went on to make three and I can assure anyone waiting to view the third film that, it will be broadcast.

I agree with Morag [Kerr] it should be broadcast if for nothing else, in honour of one of the kindest, most jovial men I have ever met.

Chris could act the clown, he was great fun to work with but he got the best out of all the people he interviewed.  I was there during the filming of Morag's piece and I can vouch for everything she has so kindly said.

Jim Swire has described him as perhaps the best informed interviewer to have interviewed him on the case.

Bill and Chris were a great double act and I christened them "The Last of the Summer Wine", but they were brilliant and prolific documentary makers who made hard work fun.

When we were on location in Malta Chris would have us up and in the sea before 7am every morning, he loved swimming.  I got my own back by getting him arrested by the local police for hunting down Tony Gauci.

I was with him the day before he died at his home in London, he was very, very ill, but miraculously he managed a smile and squeezed my hand. He could not have been better looked after, his son and new daughter-in-law are both doctors and they assisted his lovely Wife Jessica to care for him right to the very end.  

The world of television documentaries has lost a star, I have lost a very good pal.

Lockerbie: 25 years on - a message from Justice for Megrahi

[What follows is the text of a message sent yesterday to Justice for Megrahi  signatory members and supporters by JFM’s secretary, Robert Forrester:]

On 21 December 1988, Europe was subject to its most notorious peacetime assault. In a matter of moments, the Lockerbie atrocity took 270 lives. All our hearts go out in love and comradeship to those the victims left behind as they remember their losses of a quarter of a century ago.

At Kamp van Zeist in 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted for the villainy behind Pan Am 103. In 2009, his second appeal supported by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was dropped against a background of arguably dubious political double dealing which secured his repatriation to Libya and his family due to his terminal medical condition. He died in 2012, without having succeeded in clearing his name.

As one of the country’s most renowned political and legal figures has put it: “There is not a lawyer in Scotland who believes he was guilty.” In 2011, a leading Scottish newspaper’s poll found that 52% of Scots agreed there should be an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing while 34% disagreed and 14% were unsure. A petition for an inquiry has been before the Scottish Parliament for three years now calling for such an inquiry. The petition continues to receive unanimous parliamentarian support.  Allegations of criminality against police, forensic and Crown officials have been sidelined by the Scottish police and the Crown Office since August of this year because it is claimed that the allegations conflict with the Crown’s attempts to shore up the indefensible. Would the Crown Office, Police Scotland and the FBI be going on trips to Libya and Malta in their futile and secretive attempts to maintain the charade of implicating further Libyan nationals 25 years after the event were it not for the pressure they have found themselves under due to the overwhelming evidence presented by activists? Doubtful. What seems to be being presented is a cynical blind for public consumption.

Precisely how is justice being served by such intransigence as is being displayed by both the Crown Office and the Scottish Government? What kind of justice is it that produces more victims than it started with? Many good and honest folk firmly believe that justice has not been either done or seen to be done in this tragic case. There has been no completion, nor has there been any finality. A resolution is required.  The hearts and minds of the bereaved, the al-Megrahi family and all who invest their trust and faith in our justice system must be satisfied.

In the last few weeks another flood of information further undermines the Crown Office and Scottish Government position. The Foreign Minister of Malta has declared his profound doubts over the conviction. Documentary evidence has been revealed which proves that a key witness in the case against Mr. Megrahi was paid $2 million by the American authorities. This mounting evidence, on top of the evidence the SCCRC relied on for the basis of the second appeal, only serves to prove that our justice system has failed.

A third appeal must be referred. Methodical and persistent pressure can rectify the mistakes of dubious forensics, a bungled investigation and a misguided judgement. Something is seriously wrong in this case. Something seems deeply rotten in a state when public officials attempt to bluster their way out of having to deal with mass murder and a deranged court process to preserve a fantasy of reputation and as a result risk allowing those who may have committed this gross act to escape justice.

As the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy approaches and the legacy of Nelson Mandela unfolds we demand no retribution or vengeance, we do not even seek to attribute blame, we simply ask that those who profess to serve justice do so without fear, favour or prejudice.

Signatory members of Justice for Megrahi

Ms Kate Adie (Former Chief News Correspondent for BBC News).

Mr John Ashton (Author of Scotland’s Shame and Megrahi: You are my Jury and Co- author of Cover Up of Convenience).

Mr Mikhail Basmadjian (Actor, Malta).

Mr David Benson (Actor/author of the play Lockerbie: Unfinished Business).

Mrs Jean Berkley (Mother of Alistair Berkley: victim of Pan Am 103).

Mr Peter Biddulph (Lockerbie tragedy researcher).

Mr Benedict Birnberg (Retired senior partner Birnberg Peirce & Partners).

Professor Robert Black QC (‘Architect’ of the Kamp van Zeist Trial).

Mr Christopher Brookmyre (Novelist).

Mr Paul Bull (Close friend of Bill Cadman: killed on Pan Am 103).

Ms Julia Calvert (Actress and creative director, Malta).

Mr Manuel Cauchi (Actor, Malta).

Professor Noam Chomsky (Human rights, social and political commentator).

Mr Tam Dalyell (UK MP: 1962-2005. Father of the House: 2001-2005).

Christina Dunwoodie (Soprano and opera director).

Mr Ian Ferguson (Co-author of: Cover Up of Convenience).

Dr David Fieldhouse (Police surgeon present at the Pan Am 103 crash site).

Mr Robert Forrester (Justice for Megrahi Committee).

Ms Christine Grahame MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).

Mr Ian Hamilton QC (Advocate, author and former university rector).

Mr Ian Hislop (Editor of Private Eye).

Fr Pat Keegans (Lockerbie parish priest on 21st December 1988).

Ms A L Kennedy (Author).

Dr Morag Kerr (Justice for Megrahi Committee and author of Adequately Explained by Stupidity?).

Mr Andrew Killgore (Former US Ambassador to Qatar).

Mr Adam Larson (Editor and proprietor of The Lockerbie Divide).

Mr Aonghas MacNeacail (Poet and journalist).

Mr Eddie McDaid (Lockerbie commentator).

Mr Rik McHarg (Communications hub coordinator: Lockerbie crash sites).

Mr Iain McKie (Retired Superintendent of Police).

Mr Marcello Mega (Journalist covering the Lockerbie incident).

Ms Heather Mills (Reporter for Private Eye).

Mr Alan Montanaro (Actor and drama school principal, Malta).

Rev’d John F Mosey (Father of Helga Mosey: victim of Pan Am 103).

Ms Denise Mulholland (Actress, Malta).

Mr Len Murray (Retired solicitor).

Mr Alan Paris (Actor and creative director, Malta).

Mr Denis Phipps (Aviation security expert).

Mr John Pilger (Campaigning human rights journalist).

Mr Steven Raeburn (Former editor of The Firm).

Dr Tessa Ransford OBE  (Poetry Practitioner and Adviser).

Mr James Robertson (Author).

Mr Mike Ross (Photographer and designer, Malta).

Dr David Stevenson (Retired medical specialist and Lockerbie commentator).

Dr Jim Swire (Father of Flora Swire: victim of Pan Am 103).

Sir Teddy Taylor (UK MP: 1964-2005. Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland).

Mr George Thomson (Private investigator).

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize Winner).

Mr Terry Waite CBE (Former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury and hostage negotiator).

Mr Simon Walker (Close friend of Joyce Dimauro: victim of 103).

Deceased members of Justice for Megrahi

Mr Moses Kungu (Lockerbie Councillor in 1988).

Mr Jock Thomson QC (Former police officer and senior prosecutor. Latterly criminal defence advocate).