Relatives of the only man ever convicted of the Lockerbie bombing have hit out at what appears to be a glaring discrepancy in the evidence against him.
Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was found guilty of 270 counts of murder largely on the basis of eyewitness testimony from Maltese shopkeeper called Tony Gauci. He testified that Megrahi bought clothes packed in the suitcase containing the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.
The former Libyan agent died of cancer in 2012 after being released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds. However, now that his fellow Libyan Abu Agila Masud is in US custody, it has emerged prosecutors in the States will allege that he bought the clothes.
Megrahi’s family released a statement today through their lawyer Aamer Anwar and said: “The US criminal complaint against Masud, states that he bought the clothes to put into the Samsonite suitcase that is claimed went on to blow up Pan Am Flight 103. The problem for the US Department of Justice is that the case against Megrahi is still based on the eye-witness testimony of Toni Gauci, stating that Megrahi bought the clothes. How can both Megrahi and Masud now be held responsible?”
They add: “We find it astonishing that the US now claims that Masud was given $500 by Megrahi to buy clothes to fill the suitcase but Megrahi then also bought the clothes too.
“We are now trying to imagine the ridiculous situation that Masud will say ‘I bought the clothes’ (presumably from Mary’s House, Malta) which would fundamentally undermine Megrahi’s case. What will the Scottish Crown Office say ‘No you didn’t’ especially as it played a key role in their case against Al-Megrahi.”
The family’s long-running campaign to have Megrahi’s conviction overturned was rejected by the UK Supreme Court in July. However, they now believe this offers them a further opportunity to challenge the court’s verdict.
They added: “Our legal team is in touch with the Libyan authorities but will also now consider what this means for the potential of any further miscarriage of justice appeal for Al-Megrahi.”
Masud – who is believed to have been a “bomb maker” for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime – is said to have confessed to his involvement in the plot to blow up the passenger jet while in a Libyan prison in 2012.
The family statement goes on: “What the US should have said was that Masud was actually in the custody of a ‘War Lord’, widely condemned for human rights abuses and the circumstances in which such a confession was extracted would be strongly opposed in any US/Scottish court.”
In addition, the US case states that FBI agents and Police Scotland officers interviewed the “Libyan law enforcement officer who obtained the statement from Masud” in March 2020.
The statement adds: “During the course of the Megrahi Appeal no information was given to our Legal team by the Scottish authorities that Libya had Masud available or we would have precognosed him.”
It concludes: “For the Megrahi family this just another piece in the jigsaw of monumental lies, built on the back of the Libyan people, the victims of Lockerbie and the incarceration of an innocent man Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi.”