Rolfe
Adult human female
Yes. The story about the $3 million was around for most of the summer, but didn't seem to be corroborated. If it's in the Appeal papers, though, it's corroborated. I had also read that Tony and Paul are now living in Australia - I hadn't heard the "in luxury" part before, but I thought that must be the case.
The interest in these new papers is largely in the illumination of the Gauci family. Tony Gauci was described (by Peter Fraser) as "an apple short of a picnic". It's fairly clear he remembered something, but exactly what isn't as clear as I thought it was. (I thought his first statement was reliable, but even that is a bit dubious in places.) Paul Gauci and the father seem to have been the controlling influences, but unfortunately it was the rather simple one who actually made the sale and had to make the identification without direct prompting.
So we have a picture of Tony having some idea of the circumstances of the sale, and a description of the purchaser. This is followed by a dozen or so more interviews where the police try to get him to remember more - specifically, to remember stuff about items they want him to remember about. Oh, and they want him to identify the purchaser. Specifically, they want him to identify Megrahi, so they downplay the age and height differences between Megrahi and his original description. Gauci does think the purchaser was Abu Talb, but doesn't pick him out when given the chance. When he identified Megrahi, he actually seems to have thought he was identifying a picture of Abu Talb.
Mainly, Gauci is trying to please the police. He wants to give them what they want. So he didn't sell the man a shirt. Then he remembered selling him a shirt. He was over 50 and over 6 feet and heavy-set. Or maybe not. I'm not so good on ages (or heights? this from a man who reputedly could pick the right size out for a customer just by looking at him). The Christmas lights weren't up. Oh, they were just putting the Christmas lights up. No, didn't I say the Christmas lights were up when this happened? Does he really know what he remembers after this lot? I doubt it.
And as for him picking out Megrahi in court, well, really. You'd have to be dimmer even than Tony not to know you're supposed to pick out the guy in the dock, and Fhimah looked quite different from all the descriptions he'd been rehearsing. Even then, he apparently had to be prompted a bit. And in any case, as a couple of people said, there had been so much publicity by this time, with a number of pictures of Megrahi in circulation, that anyone who had never clapped eyes on the guy could have picked him out by that time.
A moderately bright person who wanted the reward would have been a lot clearer, and eventually given a much more confident identification. But a rather dim, slow, apple-short-of-a-picnic guy who was being pressurised by Big Brother to get it right for the money might come over exactly like that. I love the way they decided to give Paul $1 million of his very own for supporting Tony and getting him to step up to the mark.
The Herald ran with this one day this week, on the front page and an inside page (I think it was Monday but I'd have to check the paper recycling basket). No letters (or maybe one short one) and no follow-up. It's not buzzing enormously.
But I totally fail to see how that can be described as a reliable identification, given the contradictions, the changing of the story, the passage of time, and the uncertainty. Gauci never did say, that's the guy. He only ever said he resembled the guy. It looks as if Megrahi did look a bit like the purchaser, except he was younger, not so tall, and not so heavily built.
That case should have been thrown out ten years ago.
Rolfe.
The interest in these new papers is largely in the illumination of the Gauci family. Tony Gauci was described (by Peter Fraser) as "an apple short of a picnic". It's fairly clear he remembered something, but exactly what isn't as clear as I thought it was. (I thought his first statement was reliable, but even that is a bit dubious in places.) Paul Gauci and the father seem to have been the controlling influences, but unfortunately it was the rather simple one who actually made the sale and had to make the identification without direct prompting.
So we have a picture of Tony having some idea of the circumstances of the sale, and a description of the purchaser. This is followed by a dozen or so more interviews where the police try to get him to remember more - specifically, to remember stuff about items they want him to remember about. Oh, and they want him to identify the purchaser. Specifically, they want him to identify Megrahi, so they downplay the age and height differences between Megrahi and his original description. Gauci does think the purchaser was Abu Talb, but doesn't pick him out when given the chance. When he identified Megrahi, he actually seems to have thought he was identifying a picture of Abu Talb.
Mainly, Gauci is trying to please the police. He wants to give them what they want. So he didn't sell the man a shirt. Then he remembered selling him a shirt. He was over 50 and over 6 feet and heavy-set. Or maybe not. I'm not so good on ages (or heights? this from a man who reputedly could pick the right size out for a customer just by looking at him). The Christmas lights weren't up. Oh, they were just putting the Christmas lights up. No, didn't I say the Christmas lights were up when this happened? Does he really know what he remembers after this lot? I doubt it.
And as for him picking out Megrahi in court, well, really. You'd have to be dimmer even than Tony not to know you're supposed to pick out the guy in the dock, and Fhimah looked quite different from all the descriptions he'd been rehearsing. Even then, he apparently had to be prompted a bit. And in any case, as a couple of people said, there had been so much publicity by this time, with a number of pictures of Megrahi in circulation, that anyone who had never clapped eyes on the guy could have picked him out by that time.
A moderately bright person who wanted the reward would have been a lot clearer, and eventually given a much more confident identification. But a rather dim, slow, apple-short-of-a-picnic guy who was being pressurised by Big Brother to get it right for the money might come over exactly like that. I love the way they decided to give Paul $1 million of his very own for supporting Tony and getting him to step up to the mark.
The Herald ran with this one day this week, on the front page and an inside page (I think it was Monday but I'd have to check the paper recycling basket). No letters (or maybe one short one) and no follow-up. It's not buzzing enormously.
But I totally fail to see how that can be described as a reliable identification, given the contradictions, the changing of the story, the passage of time, and the uncertainty. Gauci never did say, that's the guy. He only ever said he resembled the guy. It looks as if Megrahi did look a bit like the purchaser, except he was younger, not so tall, and not so heavily built.
That case should have been thrown out ten years ago.
Rolfe.
