Lockerbie documentary to raise more questions about Maltese witness

New forensic evidence claiming to destroy key pillars of the case against the Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, 59, convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, will be revealed in a UK documentary tonight.

Yesterday MaltaToday reported that the BBC Scotland documentary will feature Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer based in Malta in the 1980s with the Libyan Arab Airlines, "forgiving" Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci - the key witness who identified him as purchasing clothes which were found packed around the bomb.

"Forgiving him, I am facing my God very soon," Megrahi says. "I swear I have never been in his shop or buy any clothing from his shop. I swear with my God, which is my God and his God as well, I swear I have never been in his shop or buy any clothing from his shop.

"He has to believe this, because when we meet together before the God, I want him to know that before I die. This is the truth."

Asked by his interviewer what he would say to Tony Gauci if he were in the room, he says: "I'd say he dealt with me very wrongly. I have never seen him in my life before he came to the court. But I do forgive him."

The BBC Scotland documentary will claim that gorensic examination of a small fragment of circuit board, cited as critical evidence linking Libya to the atrocity that claimed 270 lives on 21 December, 1988, does not originate from the source identified by prosecutors.

The same documentary will be screened on Al Jazeera.

The circuit board, found at the crash site, was linked to the bombing because the fragment, labelled PT35b by investigators, was identified as coming from an MST-13 timer made by the Swiss firm Mebo. Megrahi had regular dealings with the firm.

Megrahi's defence team was not able to secure access to the fragment to conduct its own expert analysis before the trial, or his first unsuccessful appeal, the documentary is said to claim.

But in preparation for the second appeal - granted to him by the Scottish criminal cases review commission - which Megrahi abandoned when he was released on compassionate grounds after a cancer diagnosis, his defence team was able to examine the fragment and other key pieces of evidence.

Their experts claimed it contained no trace of explosive residue, and that it did not originate with the Mebo device.

Megrahi is the only man convicted in the Lockerbie bombing. His co-accused Ali Fhimah was not convicted on the charges.

Megrahi is said to be three months from death when he was released from a Scottish prison in August 2009 following a decision by justice secretary Kenny MacAskill. He remains alive in Libya.

Many believe convicted killer Mohammed Abu Talb, the original suspect for the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 until 1990, is the real Lockerbie bomber. Talb was freed from prison in Sweden in 2010. He was serving a life sentence for terrorist attacks in Copenhagen and Amsterdam using explosive devices.