Tony Gauci and the mystery shopper

[pete2]

Some thoughts about the photographs.

It's true that Harry Bell's diary entry for 11th February, 1991 implies that the FBI has two different photographs of Megrahi:

Two photos of Abdelbaset one with collar/tie, one with open shirt.

On reconsidering, though, I think it becomes clear that Bell was initially mistaken: there was only one photograph. This was the one obtained, according to Marquise, from Czechoslovakian immigration records, which was a photocopy (presumably) taken from Megrahi's current passport. Bell justifies the Scots' indecent haste to show the photo to Gauci, despite its unknown age and bad quality, by the claim that no better one could be obtained. (Even with the CIA involved in the case.) SA Philip Reid records four photos of four individuals, and Marquise also mentions only the one photograph. FWIW Bollier also recalls only seeing the passport photograph.

We've speculated that the passport photo may have been chosen to show to Gauci, rather than a better one, because it looked more like the photo-fit. However, it does seem that Bell was pretty certain he'd got his man this time, and would have used the best and most recent photo he could get his hands on. I think he truly believed Megrahi to have been the purchaser of the clothes, and in that case the most accurate and up-to-date photograph would be the most likely to get a positive ID. I find it really hard to believe that Bell wouldn't have used the 'Abdusamad' photo if he'd had it.

As it was, he risked using the passport photo, but was concerned that Gauci wouldn't pick it out because he'd been led to believe it was 10-15 years out of date. Hence the 'three card trick' when Gauci declared all the men to be too young. (Aside: being as charitable to Bell as possible here, remember he had no idea what Megrahi actually looked like apart from that one bad copy of an old picture. So, from Bell's POV, it was possible that in 1988 Megrahi looked older than he actually was; also, the police thought Tony a bad judge of age for some reason. Of course, that doesn't justify asking Tony to look at the pictures a second time, or telling him that the suspect might be 10-15 years older than his picture - in other words, just look for a photo that looks older than the others. Or, for that matter, having DI Crawford sat opposite Tony, able to see which picture he was looking at, and in a heightened state of anticipation:

Wee Tony began to look carefully at each photograph in turn. I watched his eyes as he scanned each picture, his expressionless face moving from one to the other as he concentrated his thoughts on each...
When he was finished he looked again at number eight and I thought, he's gonna pick him! He looked carefully at all of them in turn once again and then said solemnly, pointing to number eight, 'that is the man', or words to that effect.

(Crawford, p219))

To be honest, the more you look at it, the more the whole thing looks more like cock-up than conspiracy, with the exception of that bloody timer fragment.

Pete

 

[pete2]

More about photographs.

Just to add to the general confusion, here, FWIW, is the dialogue CL and I had with Edwin Bollier on 'The Lockerbie Divide', prompted by Bell's reference to two photographs of Megrahi and the need for Bollier to indicate the best.

Herr Bollier:
When you were in America in February 1991, according to DCI Bell's diary you were shown some photos in the hope that you would be able to identify them. Mr Bell wrote that the Americans showed you two photos of Megrahi, and that you picked out one of them, No. 18, in which he wore a suit and tie, as a good likeness of Megrahi. Can you describe the second photo for us? I'm amazed that there could have been a worse picture of Megrahi than the one they used in the photo spread of 15.2.91.

During my visit to the FBI in Washington in 1991 a portrait photograph of Abdelbasset Al Megrahi was shown to me in the course of my questioning. I recognised Al Megrahi without a doubt. Parallel to that I was shown an identikit picture which was almost a 100% match for the first portrait!

I was astonished, and said to my American handler, FBI Attache Robert Fanning, that the identikit picture was practically a tracing of the original photograph...I wanted to hear what he said to that.

He could not answer; therefore I decided not to assume too much, and stated that the identikit picture was a 50% match for the original picture. The interviewer said, no more that that, as a percentage? On this I increased, being convinced myself, to 70%. The interviwer said ok and entered "70%" on a preprinted FBI document with attached identikit picture.


Whether the identikit picture did correspond to any known published FBI "artist rendition", I doubt it! By my recollection the identikit picture was a perfect tracing of the picture of Mr Al Megrahi.

Herr Bollier:
Just to be completely clear:
In the article "Gauci and the Czech photo" on this blog there are several photos, including an artist's sketch and a photofit. Can you say whether you recognise the pictures you were shown in Washington among them?


Before my visit to the FBI in 1991 I had already seen the photos, the photofit and the drawing of 13.9.89 with the Swiss police. I first saw the University of Wales pass photo this year on DIVIDE.

At the FBI I saw a good portrait photo of Al Megrahi, and at the same time a perfect tracing (not photofit). I have previously described this drawing wrongly as a photofit. The tracing of Al Megrahi corresponded almost 100% to the photographic image. I did not see this tracing later in photospreads with the Scottish police or the Swiss police.

The police-document I had to sign at the FBI was already filled in with text as far as the figure 70%. The tracing, in postcard size, was clipped to it, along with the photograph.

The photo was the one discussed here, the "Czech photo," correct? This "identikit" image sounds like the "photofit" or "composite face" image? Robotphoto? I'm confused what it is you're saying was such a suspicious match.

The photo was the one discussed here, the "Czech photo," correct? No, the "Czech photo" has nothing to do with the drawing in the FBI. The FBI was signed artist rendition of a photograph of Al Megrahi. Passport Porträt.
The Czech photo I have only seen on their website DIVIDE.

NB Bollier posted the 'Czech photo' on his own website in 2009, labelling it correctly as Megrahi's passport photograph.

Marquise, OTOH, has Bollier spontaneously identifying the sketch made with Gauci's help as Megrahi:

That morning [(February 15th, 1991), Bollier] was shown the drawing of the individual who had purchased the clothing at Mary's House in Malta over two years before. He said the drawing resembled a man he knew as Abdel Baset Ali al Megrahi. They had done business together and Megrahi rented office space at MEBO in Zurich. Bollier had been shown the drawing before but now said it had been a bad photocopy and he did not notice the resemblance then.

Given Bollier's relaxed attitude to veracity, I'm not sure what we can make of this. Reading between the lines, my best guess is that Bollier was shown the sketch when he had recently seen the photograph of Megrahi, or at the very least in the knowledge that the FBI was interested in Megrahi: I can't believe it was as spontaneous as RM makes it sound. No suggestion any where, though, that there was any other photograph available at that time.

PS An unrelated point re photos: the picture labelled 'zeist1999' is actually of Megrahi under arrest in Libya in 1992: check out the policemen's cap badges.

 

[Rolfe]

Hi Pete!

I understand what you're saying, but I don't think it's tenable that they only had one photo. I know Bell contradicts himself, but he's just too definite about there being two. Here's the extract from the HOLMES records I posted in the other thread.

Extract from DCI Bell Diary (22/1/91) (HOLMES version) "They, the FBI, have supplied photocopies of photographs of Abdelbaset [....] and in the margin the summary: "Reference to Americans having photocopies of Abdelbaset's photograph.”
The Manuscript Version suggests that 2 photographs of the appellant were supplied: “… they have supplied photocopies of photographs of Abdelbaset (2)”

Extract from DCI Bell Diary (11/2/91): “Attended US Embassy with McAdam. Met with SA Reid who produced a number of photos… Two photos of Abdelbaset one with collar/tie, one with open shirt. [....]

Memo M2618 from SIO to WMFO (11/2/91): [....] It is imperative to determine which photograph of Abdelbaset is the best reproduction of how he looked in December 1988 before the photograph selection is shown to Gauci. Is it the one with the collar and tie or the one with the open neck shirt? [....]

HOLMES Statement S609BG DC John Crawford (14/2/91): Compilation of photospread DC912 and covering portion of photographs to conceal fact that appellant’s photograph shows him wearing a tie.

Extract from DCI Bell Diary (15/2/91): [....] Reid has been worried in case there is no identification made by the witness because [the photo] of Baset we have is too young. I explained that as we have no other and no indication that we will ever get one, then we can only proceed with what we have. If no identification is made and we later get a better photograph showing his true age and appearance in December '88, then the Lord Advocate may accept an argument for showing this to the witness.

The Memo M2618 is extremely clear on the subject. As far as I can see the open-necked shirt photo can only be the Abdusamad photo or the Cardiff one, and I really don't think they'd be playing around with a photo of Megrahi when he was barely out of his teens even if they had it. Why Bell later said they had only one photo I don't know.

I think there may be two reasons for not using the Abdusamad photo. One is what I said before, that the Czech photo looked more like Tony's photofit, but the other is that the diary suggests that they only had black-and-white photocopies of both pictures at that time. So it may be that the contrast in quality wasn't anything like so great, and so it wasn't so self-evident which one was the better pick.

I don't know what to make of the story that they asked Edwin which was the better likeness. Edwin, of course has a different tale. It appears that Edwin is trying to allege that the so-called photofit wasn't a photofit at all but was made by tracing the Czech photo of Megrahi. Which is of course rubbish, but par for the course as regards the green/brown board and other stories.

I also have never really got any feeling that Bell especially thought he had his man. He thought he had someone he could pin it on, which isn't quite the same thing. But if there wasn't a huge quality difference between the two pictures as he had them at the time, it could be that his choice of which picture to use was passably honest.

Your quote from Crawford, assuming it isn't mostly Crawford's imagination, is an absolutely classic scenario for a "Clever Hans" effect. He knows which photo is Megrahi's, and he's watching Tony look at the photospread and reacting when he can be seen to be looking at the right one. It's absolutely not on, and was known to be not on certainly by the time of the trial.

PS An unrelated point re photos: the picture labelled 'zeist1999' is actually of Megrahi under arrest in Libya in 1992: check out the policemen's cap badges.

The photo is a detail from a larger picture reproduced in Paul Foot's essay, Flight From Justice. There is a companion photo of Fhimah in a similar predicament, but surrounded by many more people including western-ethnicity press personnel. Both pictures are clearly captioned as depicting the arrival of the two Libyans at Zeist in April 1999 (which would be four days after Megrahi's 47th birthday as if happens). I assumed these were Dutch police officers, and I thought Megrahi looked more than five years older than the Abdusamad picture. (I did wonder about the style of Megrahi's specs though....)

On the other hand the accompanying text says that Fhimah was also wearing a suit, which he isn't in the companion picture, and I found a different photo (very low resolution unfortunately) on the BBC web site where both men do look older and are wearing clothes closer to the verbal description in the Foot essay. The BBC text also implies the men were escorted by Scottish police officers, which these goons certainly are not.

It doesn't make much difference to the argument in my little essay, except that I'd need a better picture of Megrahi in 1999 to show how he looked when Tony picked him out of the line-up, but I'd like to get the facts as correct as possible. Do you have any links to a definite identification of these photos Foot dates to 1999 as actually being from 1992?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Pete or anyone - the best image I can find which genuinely seems to be from the early stages of the Zeist process is this one, and indeed Megrahi looks older in it than he does in the Foot picture.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/715000/images/_717958_accusedone150.jpg

Unfortunately he has his hand over part of his face. Have you any idea if there is a clearer picture available from about the same time period?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

OK Pete, or anyone for that matter. New version of my essay now up, using Pete's date for the picture with the big specs. I've found two pictures from Zeist, though nothing usable from 1999. Neither is perfect, one having his hand partially covering his face and the other wearing a small hat, but together I think they'll do the job unless someone can find something better.

Comments welcome.

ETA: Heartfelt thanks to Pete. Although I thought the style of the specs was anachronistic, it wouldn't have occurred to me to question Foot's provenance of that photo. Another win for accuracy!

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Supplementary thought. I remember finding a black-and-white version of the Abdusamad photo online, some time ago, and wondering what that was all about. Was someone trying to make the Abdusamad picture resemble the Czech one?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NE-72ZXux-g/R2pFFJrP34I/AAAAAAAACJc/EO3yR9Ic2Ic/s320/megrahi.jpg

Now I've realised that the investigators were given photocopies of both mugshots in 1991, I wonder if in fact this version of the Abdusamad picture is actually the version the police were looking at when they were trying to decide which to put in their photospread.

If that's the case, the quality difference isn't nearly so marked as when one has access to the colour original, and it makes it a bit more likely the choice was at least semi-honest. The Abdusamad picture still looks a lot more like a real person though.

Rolfe.

 

[Buncrana]

I think this is a slightly better capture of Megrahi in his 1999 interview and it's the best I can find from around the trial.




I hate to be a total pendant but I think that the picture with Megrahi and the black chechia hat is from his first appeal in 2002.

 

[Rolfe]

That is certainly better. Do you have a link to the provenance? You say 1999 interview, and it looks as if it was taken on the same occasion as the picture I captioned as 2000 (because I got it from a BBC report dated 2000 on the beginning of the trial). I'm not aware of this 1999 interview, did it happen before or after he travelled to Zeist? Either way, if the year is 1999 it's the best fit for the person Tony Gauci picked out of the identity parade.

You know, with the right pictures, this argument is getting even more compelling.

I know the second picture is from the appeal, but the appeal started in 2001 and I thought it was from that period. If you think it's from the end, I can change it. In fact, with the better picture you provide above, I think dumping the one with the hat would be better. Again, I've never felt that picture was a particularly good likeness of him in the context of all the other pictures we have, including the interview in TMDC and the later pictures when he was in Greenock.

Rolfe.

 

[Buncrana]

Actually Rolfe, I'm wrong, it's earlier. According to this article it appears these caps of Megrahi being interviewed are from late 1998. October to be exact. The whole interview is actually before they had even agreed to the trial at the Netherlands.

Interestingly though, contained on that article are two b&w, what appear photocopies, photographs of Megrahi and Fhimah.

Here is a link to the video of that interview (unfortunately the whole thing is in Arabic) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rLEydIXNkk


I've had a look at the photos taken during the first appeal with Megrahi wearing the black cap, and the only references I can find are ones attributed to Jan 2002 and some later in March 2002 during the verdict. Both photo's suggest he wore that same outfit throughout the appeal. So it's quite plausibly either late 2001 or early 2002.

 

[Rolfe]

That's an interesting article, I hadn't seen it. I see it's hosted by the same site as has the transcript of the Shadow Over Lockerbie documentary, but I didn't spot it before.

The black and white pics are first a photocopy of the Abdusamad picture, which I think is the alternative image the cops had in 1991 that they didn't show to Tony, and secondly what appears to be a photocopy of a passport photo of Fhimah's.

I read that Megrahi brought the Abdusamad passport with him to Zeist, voluntarily, so it's possible the colour version of that photo wasn't available until then.

If that series of pictures with Megrahi in the black shirt and often gesturing so that his hand is over his face is October 1998 then it's close enough to April 1999 to serve as a decent image of the person Tony identified at Zeist, which is the main thing.

Echoing something said in the article, it's quite striking how much Megrahi appears to have aged between 1992 and 1998, taking into account what we now know to be the correct dating of the photos. Booth separately remarked that he aged a great deal during the Zeist trial. The most recent pictures of him (from 2009 I think) show someone who looks like an elderly man, although he's only 59 - though I suppose cancer does that to people as well as stress.

If he really did only go to Malta that day to buy a carpet and find a joiner to fit a bannister rail, these photos are quite an indictment of our criminal justice system.

ETA: Surely someone could subtitle that video!

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I've re-done the article again, now using both website stills from the interview rather than a screen cap because the screen caps seem to have poorer definition and are very red-toned.

You know, this whole thing is ridiculous. I just don't see how anyone could maintain there was any case to be made that Tony genuinely identified Megrahi.

I can see now why the expert witnesses (I think it's Valentine who brings up this point) don't seem to have noticed that the photo Tony picked out was nothing like Megrahi. Valentine merely mentioned another photo which was "similar" to the one used in the photospread, without saying anything about colour or quality or whether either of them was recognisable. Of course, if he, and the police in 1991, were working with the black-and-white photocopy of the Abdusamad picture, then these considerations wouldn't arise - particularly if they had no other pictures to allow them to gauge which was the truer likeness.

Here's the two photocopies side by side.

The Abdusamad one still looks the better bet to me, but the quality is badly degraded and it's much less obvious which one is the more lifelike. And perhaps my perception is coloured by having looked at the colour original, and so many other pictures of Megrahi.

Of course the original of the Czech photo has never been made available. I genuinely wonder what it would look like, if it was ever recognisable as the man himself.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Pete2 - could I ask you again for a link that confirms the provenance of the picture where Megrahi is wearing the big specs and being escorted by a couple of Arab-looking cops to 1992? I've incorporated that information, because it fits the rest of the data, but I could do with confirmation.

The reason is, I'm thinking (in fact have suspected for some time) that the "Abdusamad" photo may have been taken some time before the issue date of the passport, that is 1987. He really doesn't look 36 in that picture. I thought appearances might be deceptive, because some people do look younger than their years, but with the big-specs picture now dated to 1992 rather than 1999, that moves the whole time-line back.

What I am considering is whether we should in fact be looking at the big-specs picture as being the one most comparable to Megrahi's age as he would have been in December 1988. If that picture was taken early in 1992, as I suspect it was if it followed soon after the indictments which were November 1991, then it would be barely three years older than Megrahi was at the time of the alleged clothes purchase.

If some some reason Megrahi was using a stock of old "passport" photos taken some years before when getting new documents, rather than having contemporary pictures taken, the "Abdusamad" image might date as much as 5 or 6 years before the actual purchase. It would thus be more realistic to use for comparison a picture we know was taken only about 3 years after it.

One really ridiculous feature of the prosecution's argument was thet Gauci could ever have assessed the age of the man in the Abdusamad photo as being anywhere near 50. We lose that point slightly, if we use the big-specs picture, which would actually show Megrahi at 39 if it was taken in say January 1992 (which is why I would be really grateful for a precise date of the Libyan arrest). He still doesn't look 50 though, in that picture, and it's three years post-purchase.

However, although the point about the age is weakened slightly, the general comparison argument becomes even sillier. If what actually walked into Tony's shop was approximately the man we see in the big-specs picture, then what on earth are we to make of his identification of the Czech picture in the photospread?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

It's OK, I found the date of the picture. February 1992. Megrahi was 39.

With all this new information, I've re-done my little article yet again, and it now has an appendix page with all the photos (and a few more) shown together.

Any further comment welcome.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Pete2 - could I ask you again for a link that confirms the provenance of the picture where Megrahi is wearing the big specs and being escorted by a couple of Arab-looking cops to 1992? I've incorporated that information, because it fits the rest of the data, but I could do with confirmation.

I'd say it was around that time, just by the Libyan guards' leather jackets. They look like members of Public Enemy.

And perhaps my perception is coloured by having looked at the colour original, and so many other pictures of Megrahi.

No, it definitely is. Right?

Again, sorry I'm not adding anything lately. It is a thing I'm a little sorrowful about ... eventually it'll motivate me at the right time ...

Hey, is it worth mentioning that someone out there might think Tony is living in St. John, Netherlands? It's actually a possession in the Bahamas ... intriguing. Evidence is a hit on my blog following a search for "Tony Gauci, St. John, NL." Not much, maybe just someone's odd hunch ... ?? He lives on islands, was last seen in the Netherlands, had a reported location of Australia, suggestiing he's anywhere but there ...

 

[pete2]

Just to add to the ever-growing collection, here are a couple of vidcaps from Pierre Salinger's ABC interview with Megrahi in November 1991.



Notice he's had that floppy hair tidied up for the interview. On the subject of the Megrahi barnet, have you noticed that in all the photos, aged 19 to 57, he wore it off his ears, even when he had that big afro. The 1989 sketch has the hair covering the ears. I'm just mentioning that because it must have been one of the details the police artist asked Gauci about in order to produce the sketch. Ditto the photofit.

 

[Rolfe]

I wondered about that film, and also there's TMDC from 1993-4, except the quality of the prints of that is appalling. And there's that pic from the appeal, but that's another photo that doesn't actually show a good resemblance.

The Salinger interview must be the closest we actually have to how he looked in late 1988 though, so I should maybe try to work it in. Are there any stills without the subtitles?

You know, after having a Saudi PhD student for several years, every time an Arab says, "believe me" to me, I KNOW he's lying.

Rolfe.

 

[Buncrana]

Well, well. Here's a PA photo dated 14 Nov 1991. It's a copy of the Abdusamad photo, with staples, as noted earlier by Rolfe, and is part of an information sheet produced for the investigation complete with aliases etc.




So, remind me again, was it Marquise who was claiming that he never saw the colour Abdusamad until just before the trial?? Given the rest of his 'facts' this would seem about right. And yet we're to believe that they wouldn't have presented Gauci with this far more contemporary photo of Megrahi for fear of 'confusing' poor Tony? Confusing and muddying their own investigation more like!

Of course all this equivocation by the investigators with Gauci's "identification" of Megrahi allowed them to press on with the fantastic Malta-Frankfurt-Heathrow theory, initially prompted by the clothing discovery, reinforced by the B8849 revelation, and shortly afterwards addtionally supported with the miraculous fragment identification.

.

 

[Rolfe]

Wow, where did you get that??? Srsly? Is there a copy with the rest of the information that's cut off the side?

What Marquise is said to have stated is that the investigation never saw the Abdusamad passport before Megrahi brought it with him to Zeist. (Sorry, I haven't got that far in his book myself, but I think that's what pete2 said he said.) Fair enough, that's possible. However the photo that was in that passport is a photo they quite obviously had in the early 1990s, from a different print.

Whatever that document shown above by Buncrana is, it is not the original document that the staples were attaching the photo to, because the staples are part of the image there and are cut off at the edge of the image. I want to know where they got that photo and what document it was stapled to.

This puts their possession of that photo right back to November 1991 according to Buncrana's information, but it's still not quite far enough. What I would like to prove is that the photo with the "open neck shirt" referred to by Bell in his February 1991 diary entries is this photo. I would also like to know whether he had a colour version available.

Realistically, I can't see what else the "open neck shirt" photo can possibly be other than this one. Bell initially refers to being supplied with photocopies of two pictures of Megrahi, which would imply black-and-white, but surely to God if they had a colour print that (or a good colour reproduction) would be made available for a photospread if required?

As far as I can make out, the "Czech" photo is a routine photocopy made by the Czech immigration authorities of Megrahi's own passport, when he passed through there. Which would explain why the quality is diabolical, and no better version was available. Funnily enough, no image of that original passport photo has ever surfaced. It would be interesting to know what it looked like and if it ever bore any seious resemblance to its subject. On the basis of the photocopy, I'm surprised he was allowed to travel on it!

I had thought, at one point, that the provenance of the "open neck shirt" picture in 1991 was similar - that in fact they had a routine photocopy from somewhere taken from the Abdusamad passport. Which might have meant that it too was black-and-white, and possibly not quite so obviously a better image than the Czech one.

However, that does not seem to be the case. At the time they had the "open neck shirt" picture, they were still (ostensibly) unaware that Megrahi was Abdusamad. Which suggests that wherever the stapled copy of the photo came from, it was a document with Megrahi's own name on it. Given that they had an extremely similar photo of Fhimah too, staples and all, I wonder about LAA identity passes.

Looking at that photo in the context of the other images of Megrahi we have available, I seriously doubt that he was over 30 when it was taken. Which of course would make it a bit problematic to show Tony as regards someone Tony said was about 50 when he saw him. But then the investigators were making the same objection about the Czech picture, that it was (they hypothesised) as much as 12 years old. Frankly, the quality of that picture is so bad that I don't think it's possible to make a serious estimate of the age of the subject.

Where I'm going with this is to suggest that they did indeed have a colour print of the open neck shirt photo, the one with the staples in it, in February 1991. And that instead they chose to show Tony the low-resolution black-and-white Czech print. They specifically decided against showing him the colour photo, and again that was explicitly because they were concerned that it might muddy the water - in other words, that Tony might not heplfully agree that this man resembled the clothes buyer "a lot".

But then they ditched the Czech photo for the purposes of the investigation, and it never seems to have surfaced again. When they needed a picture for a Wanted poster, they chose the staple-photo.

Something about this stinks to high heaven. I dearly want to know where and when they got that staple-photo.

Rolfe.

 

[pete2]

For the complete document in Buncrana's image, see http://www.justice.gov/nsd/foia/reading_room/PanAm103-documents.pdf pp 47-48

The staple to the right of Megrahi's head is clearly part of the photograph, but it's possible that the staples above the suspects' heads are attaching the photographs to this document.

In the absence of any definite proof to the contrary, the most likely source of this photo must be McCulloch's visit to the Libyan passport office in early November 1991. It's normal for a reference copy of one's passport photo to be kept by the issuing office, and McCulloch would have taken or at least photographed the documentation, as it proved that the JSO had asked for the Abdusamad passport to be issued to Megrahi.

Clearly, it's possible that the FBI had two photographs of Megrahi in February 1991 and, once the Czech photo was decided on, the second was for some reason 'forgotten', in the same way that the 23rd November was 'forgotten' as a possible date for the clothes purchase. But although Bell is clear about a second photograph, he only seems to be so on February 11th. By the 15th he's saying they only have the one. And Reid is equally clear that he has four photographs of four individuals. So I can't help feeling that there's a strong possibility that Bell was mistaken about that second picture, but never admitted it explicitly.

Pete

 

[Rolfe]

Ah, it's the US indictment. That year's main nomination for the Booker Prize.... I see that's a black-and-white version. Does anyone know where Buncrana got his colour version from? Buncrana?

I have to say that I think both staples are from a prior incarnation of the photo. The normal place to put a first staple attaching any photo to the document it was originally intended for would be at the top. I would have expected one at the bottom too, but perhaps these were cropped off as the top ones were by some publishers.

Passport office. Indeed. That was my thought too. But that wasn't the photo on Megrahi's passport, was it? The Czech photo was that. I'd have expected a visit to the passport office to yield a decent copy of the Czech photo, and yet no such thing has materialised. Instead, we have the photo that was on the Abdusamad passport.

Very strange. Particularly strange when we consider that Marquise is still dementing on about needing proof that Megrahi is Abdusamad in November 1999, after Megrahi was at Zeist. He says that only then was a document found on file from the Libyan passport office, requesting a passport for Megrahi in the name of Abdusamad, and they couldn't believe it had been overlooked all these years while they were still wondering if the two men were really one and the same!

So they cannot have got the staple-photo from the Libyan passport office. Any photo of Megrahi they got from there would have been a print of the Czech photo. If they'd got the staple-picture from the passport office it would have been attached to the name Abdusamad, and they'd hardly have been using it on wanted posters and indictments as an image of Megrahi if they weren't sure the two men were one and the same.

I think it's unarguable that the staple-photo was from some other identity document with Megrahi's own name on it.

Keep digging.

Rolfe. Sitting looking at six books on Lockerbie, tossing Booth as rubbish, wondering whether to read Marquise or Ashton/Ferguson first, and settling for Johnston as being less heavy going....