So thie initial stages of this identification are that Tony describes a six-foot-plus, heavily-built Arab man of about 50 years of age. These features of his description are essentially ignored by the police, who proceed to show him face-only photos of men who could be any height or build at all.
Tony's best shot at a facial description was clean-shaven with quite a lot of hair. His artist's impression and his photofit look like two completely different people, suggesting his memory of the face was poor, and probably not sufficient to recognise the man again if he saw him - or at least, not from the face.
When examining the endless parade of mugshots put before him, Tony proved willing to pick out a variety of different photos of clean-shaven Arab men with rather frizzy hair, fingering about five different people as "resembling" the purchaser. One of these was a picture that is said to be of Megrahi, but is such a poor likeness that it can scarcely be called an identification.
That's how it was left for the next nine years. Tony only ever got to see that one picture of Megrahi, the one that didn't look like him. But it was enough, along with Giaka's fantasies, to get Libya blamed and the indictment issued, case solved, relax chaps.
Now, fast-forward to 1999.
Against everyone's expectations Megrahi surrendered himself for trial. This inevitably meant that Tony would be required to attend a live identity parade with the warm breathing Megrahi in person, as opposed to a blurry unrecognisable photo.
So what happened?
What happened was that every newspaper and glossy magazine in western Europe felt free to print recent, good-quality, recognisable photographs of Megrahi, identifying him as the man alleged to have bought the clothes from Tony Gauci.
This is completely outrageous, and in flagrant breach of Scots law to boot. If a Scottish publication had done that, they'd have been charged with contempt of court. But these were European papers, and not subject to Scots law. The pictures probably couldn't have been stopped.
They should have caused Tony's identification evidence to collapse. The defence did make this point, but the prosecution just brushed it aside and the judges let it happen. Did I mention this is outrageous?
It wasn't just theoretical, either. Paul was collecting these articles and made a scrap-book of them for Tony. When Inspector Scicluna went to brief Tony for his trip to Zeist in April 1999, Tony mentioned a particular article, with a photo, which he dug out on request and gave to Sgt. Bussuttil on 9th April. He pointed to Megrahi's picture in the magazine at that point, and said, "That's him."
What did Tony mean by "That's him"? That's the man who bought the clothes? Hardly, though that's what the prosecution would like it to mean. It's far more likely that he meant, that's the accused, that's the man in the cell at Zeist, that's the man I have to identify.
9th April, remember? He went to Zeist and picked Megrahi out of the identification parade on 13th April. Only
four days after having seen the photograph - a recent, recognisable, good-quality photograph of Megrahi - knowing that this was a photograph of the accused whom he would be asked to identify.
It wasn't the only photo either. Prof. Valentine gives details of 16 articles which published photographs of Megrahi up to August 1998, several more up to February 1999 and a positive flurry in the first week of April 1999.
Did I happen to mention that this is outrageous? And that Paul Gauci made a scrapbook for Tony, and that customers often came into the shop and showed Tony these articles?
Prof. Valentine said:
Viewing these articles afforded Anthony Gauci the opportunity to learn how to recognise Mr. al-Megrahi. [....] Anybody who viewed these pictures several times over the period of time that they were available to Anthony Gauci could have identified Mr. al-Megrahi from a subsequent lineup or photospread.
I don't think there's any doubt at all that Tony knew exactly which man in the lineup at Zeist was Megrahi. Anyone who had been following the case from the press reports would have known, even if they'd never seen him in their lives.
All he had to do was decide whether he would pick Megrahi out or not.
How must it really have been for Tony? He saw the purchaser once, for a short period of time (half an hour? less?) in 1988. He had no idea this incident was significant until September 1989. It seems he didn't have a clear memory of the man's face even then. Between then and February 1991 he was shown a very large number of photographs of vaguely similar men and asked to pick someone out. Knowing how memory works, how memories are re-recorded and change over time, especially when subjected to suggestion, it's highly likely Tony's memory of the original purchaser, such as it was, was completely gone by 1999.
What he did have was the knowledge of what Megrahi himself looked like, gained from all these magazine articles. And he knew he'd picked a photo of Megrahi out, once, as "resembling" the purchaser. So, big dilemma. He knows which man is the accused, and he knows he once picked out the accused as resembling the purchaser.
Tony Gauci said:
Not exactly the man I saw in the shop ten years ago I saw him but the man who look a little bit exactly like is [Megrahi].
So he decided to go for it. He may have genuinely believed that the police had good reason to think Megrahi was the purchaser, and reluctant to spoil their case. And then of course he was in financial difficulties, and he knew there was a good chance of becoming rich beyond his wildest dreams if he made an identification that was useful to the prosecution. Which was of course what Paul had been grooming him to do, with the scrapbook and the collection of photos of Megrahi-over-the-years.
If anything is surprising, it's just how tentative the identification really is. "Exactly" seems to be something of a punctuation word with the Maltese speakers - it can be seen in the speech of other Maltese witnesses too, and doesn't seem to mean anything much. Tony's more or less saying, this isn't really the man in the shop, but I identify him as the man who
looks like the man in the shop.
There's where we are by the time the court hearings actually start.
Rolfe.
Yes, I'd whup you. 
-scared that Tony would NOT pick out the Abdusamad photo, because actually the purchaser didn't look much like that photo (the recognisable photo of Megrahi, that is), so they didn't show it to him.