Fourth anniversary of death of Tony Gauci

[The death of Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper whose "identification" of Abdelbaset Megrahi was crucial to his wrongful conviction, was announced on this date four years ago. What follows is a report in the Maltese newspaper The Times:]

Tony Gauci's death means mystery might remain unresolved

Tony Gauci, the Maltese man who determined the outcome of the Lockerbie trial, has died,Times of Malta is informed. 

Mr Gauci, who lived in Swieqi, is believed to have died of natural causes. 

He had pointed at Abdelbaset al-Megrahi as the man who had bought the clothes from his Sliema shop, which were said to have been wrapped around aircraft which killed 270 people over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988. 

This evidence tied together the prosecution's thesis, that the bomb loaded on to the doomed Pan Am flight at Heathrow Airport had first left from Malta before being transferred via Frankfurt. But serious doubts were raised about Mr Gauci’s testimony over the years.

Libyan national Al-Megrahi died in 2012 with the tag 'the Lockerbie bomber’ despite the fact that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had described Mr Gauci as an “unreliable” witness, putting the onus of the responsibility of the UK’s worst terrorist attack in doubt.

The SCCRC said the Crown prosecution suppressed from Megrahi’s defence team statements showing how much Gauci changed his mind about crucial details over the years.

Documents published later had revealed that the lead investigator in the Lockerbie bombing personally lobbied US authorities to pay Mr Gauci and his brother Paul at least $3 million for their part in securing the conviction of Al-Megrahi.

Mr Gauci never spoke publicly about the case and maintained the media silence that characterised his role in the whole affair. He was last approached for comment for an edition of Times Talk in November 2013.

Mr Gauci's death signals the end of a key witness to a case which continues being fought legally by relatives of victims who believe Mr Al-Megrahi was innocent. 

[A report in The National two days later contained the following:]

...in 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) found six grounds where it was believed a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, paving the way for a second appeal.

The commission questioned evidence about the date on which the prosecution said the clothes were bought from Gauci’s shop.

The SCCRC also said evidence that cast doubt on Gauci’s identification of Megrahi had not been made available to the defence – in breach of rules designed to ensure a fair trial.

There was also evidence that four days before he identified Megrahi, Gauci had seen a picture of him in a magazine article about the bombing.

Megrahi dropped a second appeal in 2009 before being released due to his terminal prostate cancer.

In his last interview, he insisted he had “never seen” Gauci and had not bought clothes from him. (...)

Aamer Anwar, the Glasgow lawyer who acts for the Megrahi family, told The National: “Tony Gauci went to his grave knowing that he had always been accused of falsifying his evidence to convict al-Megrahi who until his dying breath maintained he was innocent.

“It is sad that we were unable to test his ‘unreliable identification’ evidence at appeal, however the Megrahi family remain determined to return to court one day to overturn the conviction of their father Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.”

George Thomson, who worked for Megrahi’s defence team, said the Libyan would look forward to meeting his accuser.

He told The Times of Malta: “When I last spoke to Baset on his deathbed he spoke of the day that he and Tony might meet in another place, where Tony would have to face him and answer for the lies he said against him.

“I personally hope that Tony is in a better place and that he is now at peace because he must have led a tortured life knowing that he had jailed an innocent man for money.”

[The role of Tony Gauci will feature prominently in the appeal by the Megrahi family that is due to commence in the High Court of Justiciary on 24 November 2020.]

Police officer identified by Bella Caledonia is not "the golfer"

[With his permission, I reproduce here an email that I received this afternoon from George Thomson:]

I follow your blog with keen interest.  Normally I remain on the sidelines which can be frustrating.  In relation to the allegation that [******] was the Golfer, I am in a position to refute that notion completely.
  

It was I who first approached the Golfer having been pointed in his direction by another officer.  I took the initial statements from the Golfer and was in contact with him for some time.

At our very first meeting I gave him my word that I would never reveal his identity and I have always stood by that promise. 
 

I think that it is fair however to break cover a wee bit in this instance and come to the recue of Mr [******].  I can state categorically that he was not the Golfer. 

[The relevant page appears now (after the appearance of this blog post) to have been removed from the Bella Caledonia website.]

The Lockerbie secret doc: Khreesat and the Swiss

[This is the headline over an article published today on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer’s PT35B website. It reads in part:]

“Marwan Khreesat is still wanted in connection with the bomb on the El Al flight. There can be little doubt that Khreesat is the bomb-maker for the PFLP-GC, that he was brought to West Germany for that purpose and there is a possibility that he prepared the IED which destroyed PA 103. As such he should not be at liberty but should be closely questioned regarding his activities with a view to tracking his associates in the attack.”                                                Supt Connor Report — June 1989

Swiss investigative journalist Otto Hostettler has uncovered a very interesting piece of information.

According to his research:

Khreesat Marwan Abdel-Razzaq Mufdi applied on 6.9.1988 at the Swiss Embassy in Amman for a visa to travel to Switzerland.

Despite being a “person of interest” in Switzerland [unexplained Swissair-Crash from 1970 (Würenlingen)] and being wanted in Italy (El Al Flight August 1972), he was indeed granted a 15 days visa from Switzerland on 12.9.1988. (...)

We know that the secret doc alleges that MST-13 timers had been provided to the PFLP-GC organization.

Nothing more is known at this point. But this trip – if it indeed occurred — could very well be the source of the story covered in the secret doc sent from the King of Jordan to John Major in 1996.

A particularly interesting aspect of this visa is the fact that the paperwork at the Federal Police was handled by Inspector Fluckiger.

Does that name ring a bell?

Inspector Fluckiger met with a MEBO employee (Lumpert) on June 22 1989.

On June 6, 2008, Lumpert told me that he gave a MST-13 timer prototype to Swiss Commissioner Peter Fluckiger

According to Lumpert, Fluckiger requested this device and other material at the demand of a “friendly Intelligence Agency.”

Last night, George Thomson wrote the following comment on this blog:

“During a recent investigation in Switzerland our team managed to get our hands on an official government document which confirms that in June 1989 Swiss Police did receive from a MEBO–source documents and materials in relation to MST timers. THE DOCUMENT GOES ON TO CONFIRM THAT THIS MATERIAL WAS THEN HANDED OVER TO THE AMERICANS.”

REMEMBER: This is one full year BEFORE super FBI genius Tom Thurman identified the link between PT/35(b) and MEBO (June 15 1990). Things are looking up!

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.

British friend of Megrahi: he deserved better

[This is the headline over an article by George Thomson published today on the LBC 97.3FM website.  It reads as follows:]

Abdelbaset al Megrahi was a good friend of mine.

The last time I saw him was at his house in Tripoli last December. I'm no doctor, but I could see he had only a short time to live.

He lay on his bed in very poor health and, while he was conscious, struggled to speak.

He gave me a ceremonial waistcoat as a gift, a gesture of kindness that was typical of the man.

But the waistcoat wasn't all. Megrahi left me with his dying wish that I help to continue the campaign that consumed him until his final breath - the fight to clear his name.

He asked me to make contact with Dr Jim Swire, the father of a girl who died in the Lockerbie bombing, who believes in Megrahi's innocence.

He wanted us to work together, with like-minded supporters, to try to overturn his conviction. He insisted, as do we, that the whole case against him was based on conjecture and planted evidence.

I gave this innocent man my assurance that I would everything I possibly could to pursue a posthumous pardon.

The Megrahi I saw last December was entirely different from the man I first met in 2003, a couple of years after he'd been convicted and sent to jail in Scotland.

I am a criminal investigator and had joined his defence team as we worked on his appeal.

At that time, Megrahi was barely interested. He was down and, generally, had no hope that he would ever prove his innocence.

That changed, however, as we began to gather the evidence that cast doubt on his conviction. He soon became an interested, demanding client.

He had 24-hour access to a phone in jail, which he'd use to contact the Libyan consulate in Glasgow, that would, in turn, patch him through to any number in the world.

He would call my number on a daily basis, hungry for information. I'm a keen fisherman and soon had to start taking a mobile out on the boat with me to take Megrahi's calls as he became consumed by the effort to clear his name.

The campaign energised him. It gave him a focus behind bars and improved his mood, generally.

Over time, he also began to engage with his surroundings, making the best of the life he had in jail.

One of the conditions of the treaty drawn up before his handover by the Libyans was that he would have access to Arabic TV channels whilst in jail.

That meant that he could watch British football on the television in his cell which, in turn, meant that he was Mr Popular anytime there was a Rangers or Celtic game on TV.

Fellow inmates were able to enjoy live football coverage courtesy of their Libyan neighbour. He was a Rangers supporter, incidentally.

Not that he wasn't tuned into the potential hazards of prison life. He was given a visiting room to himself whenever I, or my colleagues, went to see him.

One day there was the sound of a commotion outside the door. We didn't know what was happening and, quick as a flash, Megrahi jumped out of his seat and stood behind me, for protection.

The panic soon ended, however, when it turned out to be a scuffle between two wardens who had argued over who should close the door to the visiting area.

It was around 2005 that he began to complain of pains in his stomach and of acid. He put it down to a poor prison diet.

Looking back, that was probably the initial symptoms of the prostate cancer that eventually killed him.

The subsequent demise of an old friend saddens me greatly. His conviction and sentence angers me, as it does others who firmly believe in his innocence.

Abdelbaset al Megrahi was a good man who deserved better, much better.

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).

"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.