News | Sunday, 01 November 2009

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Malta denies UK reports of Lockerbie witness investigation

Karl Stagno-Navarra
The Maltese government has categorically denied reports published in Britain by the Daily Telegraph and subsequent media wires, that it was to investigate the evidence of shopkeeper Tony Gauci, one of the key witnesses who helped convict the Lockerbie bomber.
According to the Daily Telegraph, a Maltese legal official was quoted as saying “Tony Gauci is an area we want to investigate more thoroughly and we are preparing for this.”
Gauci, who ran the clothes shop Mary’s House in Sliema, had identified Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi as the man who had bought clothing from him, of which pieces were found among the debris of Pan Am flight 103 that was downed over Lockerbie in December 1988.
In a statement issued by the Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs yesterday, it was claimed that the Daily Telegraph’s report – which states that the Maltese government is preparing to look into the testimony that Tony Gauci gave during the trial – was “untrue” and that the government “is not prepared to do such a thing.”
The statement stressed that since 1988 successive Maltese governments have always maintained that the bomb which downed Pan Am flight 103 had not departed from Malta, and ample proof of this was produced.
“The Maltese government hopes that this statement will put an end to this kind of speculation once and for all,” the statement said.
Tony Gauci’s evidence was crucial at the Camp Zeist Trial in The Netherlands in securing the 2001 conviction of the alleged Libyan intelligence officer, who worked as a security officer at the Malta branch of Libyan Arab Airlines.
Megrahi was jailed for life for carrying out the terrorist act in which 270 people died, including 11 people on the ground.
The 82-page trial judgment detailed how the three judges were satisfied Megrahi walked into Gauci’s shop one day in 1988 and bought random items of clothing.
These were packed around the bomb that exploded in a suitcase on board the Pan Am Boeing 747 two weeks later, and Gauci picked out the Libyan as the man who bought the clothes.
Megrahi was released from incarceration back in September on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government. Upon release, Megrahi dropped his appeal case, which he had just started after being granted a retrial by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Gauci remains one of the most controversial witnesses of all time, after former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie publicly described Gauci as being “an apple short of a picnic” and “not quite the full shilling”. Since Fraser had been responsible for the investigation into the Pan Am bombing, and for indicting Megrahi in November 1991, he was called upon to clarify his remarks about Gauci by Colin Boyd, the Lord Advocate who was chief prosecutor at the Lockerbie trial.
“Gauci was not quite the full shilling. I think even his family would say he was an apple short of a picnic. He 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,” Fraser had said.
The admission attracted grave reactions. William Taylor QC, the man who led Megrahi’s defence, said it was “scandalous” that Fraser had accepted to present a witness whose credibility he doubted.
New revelations in 2007 alleged that Gauci was offered a $2m reward in return for giving evidence. Megrahi’s defence team said they believed Gauci may have received payments and that they would be pressing for full disclosure of these payments.

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