EVIDENCE-US Bought Lockerbie Conviction For $2 Million +

kpete

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Sun Oct-04-09 11:27 AM
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EVIDENCE-US Bought Lockerbie Conviction For $2 Million +

Edited on Sun Oct-04-09 11:28 AM by kpete

Evidence The US Bought The Megrahi Conviction
By: bmaz Saturday October 3, 2009 11:46 pm

The case against convicted Lockerbie/Pan Am 103 bombing suspect Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi was always thin, at best. Despite all the commotion over his trial and conviction, the entire prosecution case was founded upon the testimony of a single clothing shopkeeper from Malta, Tony Gauci, that supposedly sold the clothes that were believed to be in the suitcase containing the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103. Long after the unremarkable alleged sale, Gauci somewhat incredibly remembered selling the clothes to Megrahi. Megrahi has consistently maintained his innocence.

Megrahi's trial was held in a Scottish court that was constituted in the Netherlands by agreement in order to obtain the extradition of Megrahi for trial. Since the conviction at trial, Megrahi has appealed unsuccessfully, but the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, had taken jurisdiction of the case and referred it back to court for appeal, which is the posture the case was in when the Scottish Justice Ministry cut a deal to release him to his home country of Libya on compassionate grounds (Megrahi has terminal cancer) in return for Megrahi giving up his appeal.

With no appeal available to press his case, Megrahi has taken to releasing material and briefs that were to constitute the foundation of the appeal, and in that regard has opened a website where the material is posted. One of the filings disclosed yesterday on the website documents a blockbuster finding and allegation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) on collusion of the Scottish Crown prosecution team and US authorities to effectively buy Shopkeeper Gauci's testimony against Megrahi by paying Gauci two million dollars and Gauci's brother, Paul Gauci, a million dollars:

The SCCRC has recovered undisclosed material which indicates that:

(a) The witness Tony Gauci had, at an early stage, expressed an interest in receiving payment or compensation for his co-operation in giving evidence, and that this interest persisted until after the trial

(b) that the witness Paul Gauci had " a clear desire to gain financial benefit" from his and his brothers co-operation and that Paul Gauci exercised considerable influence over his brother

(c) that the U.S. authorities offered to make substantial payments to the witness Tony Gauci from an early stage

(d) that an application for reward monies was made on behalf of the SIO of the investigation team of the Scottish police to the U.S. Department of Justice, after the trial, and that substantial payments were received by both Tony (in excess of $2m) and Paul Gauci (in excess of $1m) after the appeal.

The Scottish Crown prosecution team concealed both the early discussion prior to the trial of financial reward to Gauci for his testimony and the big payoff by the US Government after his testimony and the trial concluded. The prosecution did not reveal the clearly material and exculpatory (in that it gutted the credibility of the sole direct witness against Megrahi) evidence to either the defense or the court. In fact, the investigation and prosecution team put numerous entries into their reports and records that "Tony Gauci has never at any stage sought to benefit" from his testimony, statements that appear to have been designed to mislead.

more:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/10/03/evidence-the-us-bought-the-megrahi-conviction/