It's pretty astonishing really. You often hear, or read about, suggested anomalies or contradictions in high profile investigations and court cases. Whether people then actually take an interest, for a variety of reasons, and commit themselves to the time to look thoroughly and examine the evidence produced by the investigation, not simply deduced from mainstream media reporting, which, on occasion can be itself obviously skewed towards particular viewpoint itself, is quite another matter.
However, all too often the apparent inconsistencies or contradictions alleged by some have been simply exaggerations, falsehoods or lacking any credible support from the hard facts and evidence established and available. Then again, some may draw questions around the facts and evidence presented itself.
The bombing of Pan Am 103 is a widely known tragedy, and the conviction of the sole Libyan Megrahi is relatively well documented throughout a wide range of media resources with the actual Kamp Zeist court determination and conclusion arrived at by the 3 Scottish judges in the trial of Megrahi is available for everyone to read. The critical details case itself against Megrahi are however not so well recognised by the wider public even allowing for most peoples acknowledgement of some of the lingering doubts that have surrounded the conviction since 2001. I don't really think anyone could however imagine that these doubts and anomalies are actually considerably underemphasized in this case and conviction.
Once again, even for those who are quite familiar with the difficulties and inconsistencies with the case, examining in closer detail the processes that these doubts emanated from, merely reveals further illogical conclusions, and more deeply concerning, highlights a raft of wholly improper procedures used by the investigators in an attempt to construct, no matter how absurd or tenuous, some form of case against a suspect. As a few of us, and no doubt many other readers on the Jref forums who have not commented, have discovered, the doubts, inconsistencies and questions that have surrounded some of the absolutely critical areas the investigation, evidence and trial; the MST timer fragment, the Toshiba manual, the Frankfurt records and the unaccompanied bag from Malta, when examined, are actually far more serious than just 'doubts'.
The provenance of evidence, standard documenting procedures significantly altered without plausible reason, statements and reports suppressed, testimony given that has altered significantly since first interviewed, financial rewards discussed and the credibility of those involved in many of these aspects should set alarm bells ringing in any rational person.
And once again, as with the other critical areas of the case against Megrahi mentioned above, this is precisely the case with the 'identification' of him by the Maltese shopkeeper, who allegedly sold him the clothes that were then packed around the bomb used to bring down the jumbo jet just before Christmas nearly 22 years.
The doubts often raised relate to the fact that the shopkeeper received substantial 'compensation' for his evidence provided and testimony given at Kamp Zeist. Of all the evidence produced by the investigators showing Megrahi's complicity in the bombing, it was perhaps the Maltese shopkeepers evidence and identification that was the primary foundation of the case and the most damning resulting in the Libyan's conviction. Other areas of importance alleging Megrahi's guilt, could perhaps falter, but not his identification as the buyer of the clothing. This was fundamental to the case built subsequently on inference upon inference stemming from the clothes purchase.
Megrahi was never shown to have done anything untoward at Luqa airport the morning the bag was said to be loaded, unaccompanied on the flight tagged for Pan Am 103, and no evidence was ever found at Malta by the US, UK, German or Maltese investigators to show how he, or anyone for that matter, managed to achieve this. There was no evidence produced directly linking him to the timers sold by the Swiss company allegedly used in bomb. There was no evidence of Megrahi with access to or using Semtex. No evidence of Megrahi with a Samonsite suitcase that he then packed his purchase of clothes into, took to Luqa airport and no evidence or suggestion presented by the investigation or court that he had ever been involved in past terror atrocities or activities.
However, if it could be shown he had indeed bought the clothing from the small shop in Malta, found scorched from it's proximity to the bomb, then the rest of the prosecutions case, where inference built upon inference leads to "a pattern" as the judges put it, then maybe, just maybe, the whole highly circumstantial and tenuous case could just about hold together. Enough for a conviction? Not in my opinion, and many others including highly respected legal observers, but astoundingly the court and judges saw differently. It's suggested, quite reasonably, for many other politically potent reasoning.
So, we have the Maltese shopkeeper, 9 months after the disaster, giving his first known statement to the investigation which suggested that he had indeed remembered in some quite remarkably detail, the purchase of the clothing, a possible description of the buyer and a rough date all this had occurred. "Too good to be true" as one investigator put it. Quite.
The problem was however that the Maltese shopkeeper and his recollection of the clothing sold was evidently quite accurate and thus the same reliability show be given to his description of the buyer and circumstances of sale, and none of these provide an identification of Megrahi, or to have occurred when Megrahi was even on Malta. Megrahi was 36 at the time, 5' 8" and was not well built. The Maltese shopkeeper's recollection was of a man of 6' or over, 50years+ and well built. Together with the sale happening when the Christmas decoration were not yet up, it was raining slightly and his brother was absent from the shop. Megrahi was on Malta on December 7th, but no rain was recorded that day, the Christmas decorations went up the day before on the 6th and his brother was likely to have been in the shop on the 7th. Could it have been another day?
Yes, the 23rd November, the shopkeepers brother was away watching football, slight rainfall was recorded and, of course, the decorations weren't put up for nearly another 2 weeks. The slight problem with this was that Megrahi wasn't on Malta on the 23rd November.
Worse still, when the Maltese shopkeeper finally did pick Megrahi's picture tentatively out of a photo spread more than 2 years after the sale had occurred as a 'resemblance' but 'too young' of the buyer of clothing, it was from a photograph of Megrahi which bore no semblance to his actual appearance in 1988 at the time of the incident.
By the time Kamp Zeist came around, Gauci had already also identified no less than 4 other men in the interviews and years since 1989, and was allowed to make an initial identification just before Kamp Zeist during a line-up when Megrahi's contemporary photo (although quite distinctly different from the photo the shopkeeper had originally picked out in 1991) had been plastered all over the media in all the years since the indictment had been issued by the US and UK govt officials and anyone, even with just a passing interest in the case, would have known Megrahi.
The shopkeepers testimony and recollection in the courtroom then either utterly contradicted his initial description of the buyer and the probable date of purchase, or became increasingly vague. The buyer was now "under 60", "not more than 6ft" and the circumstances that the purchase occurred became confusing with the rain becoming lighter and lighter while the Christmas decorations were likely "up" now but "can't remember"..
So, in actuality there was no independent identification of Megrahi, and in fact the description given by the Maltese clothing shopkeeper all but completely excluded any possibility of it being Megrahi. The date of sale was, given the evidence known, was also most likely on a day Megrahi wasn't even on the Mediterranean island, and no one need ever consider the values and merit of possible financial inducement or subsequent rewards paid to witnesses for testimony at trials, and therefore the credibility of such a witness.
The facts and evidence from the shopkeepers earliest recollection can not in any sense be attributed to be Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi.
So, if he did not buy the clothes and there wasn't a shred of evidence uncovered throughout the 11 years of investigation from Malta to show the bag was actually introduced there, then who really bought the clothing and where was the bag inserted into the system?.
Well, there's certainly stronger evidence suggesting a Samsonite was surreptitiously introduced at Heathrow which would also help explain away the peculiar and irregular provenance of the timer found to be allegedly used in the bomb if it had been loaded at Luqa - as we're supposed to believe, without evidence, it was. Because, 38mins after 103 left the Heathrow tarmac, it disintegrated 6 miles above Lockerbie, and which fits snugly in the precise timeframe of the barometric devices found just 6 weeks before in Germany, and not the digital timer Megrahi was said to have set from Malta.
The SCCRC ultimately found the Maltese shopkeepers evidence in identifying Megrahi as inconsistent, while many of the Police notes and statements regarding his evidence had also been withheld from Megrahi's defence at the original trial. They did however, in recommending the case back to appeal, dismiss many of the allegations and questions surrounding much of the forensic evidence presented at Kamp Zeist.
As many experts, commentators and writers have continually noted there are a great many mysterious anomalies and doubts which persist regarding the calibre of this evidence and the 'experts' who were assigned to carry out the forensic analysis and documentation on the case. An unholy trinity of experts, Hayes, Feraday and Thurman were used by the UK and US authorities respectively when all three had already been utterly discredited and criticised by the own peers and associates, and even in previous court cases that had resulted in high profile miscarriages of justice.
One apparent whistleblower from within the Scottish police investigation had alleged manipulation and misconduct in the forensic evidence supposedly found around Lockerbie and presented at Kamp Zeist. The fragment of microchip, the Toshiba manual and an item of clothing it was claimed had been either fabricated or manipulated in order to steer the investigation towards an entirely different set of culprits as oppose to that the investigation had been following since the fall of Pan Am 103.
One of the additional claims made by the whistleblower in 2007, which is interesting and relevant given what has been discussed in this thread, was that before the Maltese shopkeeper had, in Feb 1991, cautiously picked out an old black and white photo of Megrahi, he had been presented with the more contemporary colour photo of Megrahi available to the investigators in other photospreads and had failed to identify it as the buyer of the clothing.
