Now that the appeal lodged by the convicted Lockerbie bomber has been dropped once and for all, the families of the 270 victims of what was the worst terrorist attack in history on British soil stand a very good chance of never knowing how, why and by whom their loved ones were taken from them so tragically just four days before Christmas in 1988.
Nor will Malta’s name ever be cleared by a court of law over its apparent role, as the bomb’s point of departure, in the tragedy. The country has been dogged over the last 21 years by the Lockerbie prosecution’s contention that the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland on 21 December 1988 began its deadly journey on an Air Malta flight out of Luqa Airport.
Indeed, the only hope of answers for the families on both sides of the Atlantic, which incidentally hold very different views on the guilt of the convicted bomber, of learning the truth lies in the possibility of a separate enquiry into the case.
Malta would also have much to gain from such an enquiry – having been branded as the place where the bomb began its travels, and with both underlying and outright implications of lax airport security and the country’s association, however distant, with such a heinous act of terrorism.
As one of the Lockerbie case’s leading authorities points out in today’s issue, the evidence presented during the trial that the bomb had originated at Luqa Airport was some of the weakest of the entire proceedings, and Malta has a good case to bring to the European Union for such an enquiry.
Malta also deserves some concrete answers about its role in the tragedy, and it should be lobbying at all levels for an investigation that would, albeit outside a court of law, at least hear out the new evidence and arguments that were to have been presented by the defence team at the appeal, which mainly dealt with the weaknesses in the Maltese testimony that led to the conviction.
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a former employee with Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta and the only person to have been found guilty of the terrorist attack, was convicted largely on the basis of evidence supplied by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci – of the now infamous Mary’s House on Tower Road, Sliema.
In his evidence, Mr Gauci identified Mr al-Megrahi as the purchaser of articles of clothing and an umbrella found in the suitcase containing the bomb – placed on an Air Malta flight and transferred to the ill-fated Pan Am flight in Frankfurt.
But in reviewing the request for an appeal, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found “there is no reasonable basis in the trial court’s judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary’s House, took place on 7 December 1988” – the very argument that had sealed the indictment against Mr al-Megrahi.
In recommending that the appeal be heard, the Commission found that although it had been proven that Mr al-Megrahi had been in Malta on several occasions during the month in question, it was determined through the new evidence submitted that 7 December 1988 was the only date on which he would have had the opportunity to make the purchases from Mary’s House.
The evidence that was not heard at the trial concerned the date on which Christmas lights had been illuminated in Sliema near Mary’s House which, taken together with Mr Gauci’s evidence at trial and the contents of his police statements, indicates the purchase of the incriminating items had taken place before 6 December 1988 – when no evidence had been presented at trial to the effect that Mr al-Megrahi was in Malta before 6 December.
Yet more new evidence indicated that, four days before the identification parade at which he picked out Mr al-Megrahi, Mr Gauci had seen a photograph of al-Megrahi in a magazine article linking him to the bombing.
The Commission found Mr Gauci’s exposure to the photograph, so close to the date of the identity parade, “undermines the reliability of his identification of the applicant at that time and at the trial itself”.
Mr al-Megrahi’s lawyers have also claimed that Mr Gauci had given contradictory evidence, including differing dates of purchase and his account of the sale itself, and that, on one occasion, he had even identified Palestinian terrorist leader Abu Talb as the purchaser.
And then there are the other allegation made by Mr al-Megrahi’s defence team that Scottish detectives had coached Mr Gauci on at least 23 occasions, sometimes over alleged fishing trips on the Scottish lochs, and that he also received up to US$2 million in return for his testimony.
A delegation from the Scottish Crown was also due to travel to Malta to seek consent for the disclosure of sensitive documents related to the case, specifically statements given to the police in September 1989 by a friend of Mr Gauci attesting the former’s concern that Mr Gauci had identified the wrong man – evidence the defence team had argued could have exonerated their client but which had never been presented in court or handed over to the defence team.
Mr Gauci’s friend had apparently raised concerns over the fact that he made a transaction at the shop that bore a remarkable resemblance to the sale to the two men Mr Gauci described in his testimony.
There are so many questions about the case that are still lingering or, rather, festering, that one questions whether the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing will ever be known.
Perhaps it is up to Malta, which has found itself right in the middle of the controversy for over two decades now and through no fault of its own, to find a way to force that truth to come out.