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Matthew Vella
Family relatives of the Lockerbie bombing victims will be voicing their doubts about the guilt of convicted Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, believing there may have been a miscarriage of justice.
Al-Megrahi was convicted of the murder of 270 people when Pan Am flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. His conviction was secured through the sole testimony of key witness Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who recognised al-Megrahi in a photo shown to him by detectives at Mary’s House, the clothes shop he runs in Sliema.
Gauci claimed he had sold al-Megrahi clothes that were later found wrapped around the bomb that exploded the airplane.
Relatives of the bombing victims are now claiming they have doubts over al-Megrahi’s guilt, who was sentenced for life following a trial held in Scottish court in the Netherlands. Co-accused Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah was acquitted.
The family relatives will be informing the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission of their concerns, which is reviewing al-Megrahi’s case.
Attracting nationwide coverage, Tony Gauci was described as a “an apple short of a picnic” and a “slightly simple chap” who could have been easily led by the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser, who advanced Gauci as the prosecution’s key witness.
Fraser, who issued the arrest warrant for al-Megrahi, told the Sunday Times of London that Gauci “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.”
Colin Boyd, Scotland’s Lord Advocate, has now issued an extraordinary demand to Fraser to clarify his comments. Boyd said the position of the Crown had been that Tony Gauci was “a credible witness. This was also the view formed by the court. The three High Court judges saw and heard Mr Gauci giving evidence and said in their judgment that they found him entirely credible.
“They said he was doing his best to tell the truth to the best of his recollection. They gave him particular credit for being always careful to express any reservations he had and for giving reasons why he thought there was a close resemblance between al-Megrahi and the man who purchased clothing in his shop.”
Al-Megrahi’s defence team are now claiming the evidence presented in court might have been tampered with. A retired senior Scottish police officer claims CIA agents planted one of the fragments of the cassette-player in order to implicate the Libyans.
In 1990, fragments of a Toshiba radio-cassette player hidden inside a Samsonite suitcase were found, and the clothing in which the cassette player had been wrapped was traced back to Gauci’s shop.
Al-Megrahi was a Libyan intelligence officer and the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines. Al-Megrahi and Fhimah, the Malta-based station manager for LAA, were indicted for murder in 1991.
Gauci had picked out al-Megrahi at a pre-trial identification parade, saying: “Not exactly the man I saw in the shop... ten years ago I saw him.” He pointed at al-Megrahi during the trial at the Scottish court set up in the Netherlands, saying: “He resembles him a lot.”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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