Lockerbie.2023
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00:00The following program contains distressing scenes.
00:20They called me the Lebanese Texan.
00:23I spoke Arabic.
00:26First, they're surprised that an American would speak their language,
00:31but I still had my Texas accent at the time.
00:36I wish I had known the realities of the intelligence business
00:39back in 1980 when I came on board with the CIA.
00:43I was blind. I didn't really know what reality was.
00:46I knew it wasn't Hollywood.
00:48What I know now, if I knew it then,
00:51I would never have joined the intelligence business.
01:01If you're trying to protect your country,
01:03you have to play by the rules of the neighborhood.
01:06And those are dirty.
01:10The truth needs to be known about this case.
01:18Pan Am Flight 103 crashed into the Scottish village of Wackerby.
01:22Two hundred and sixty people were killed.
01:25It was a terrible accident.
01:27It was a terrible accident.
01:29It was a terrible accident.
01:31It was a terrible accident.
01:33It was a terrible accident.
01:35Pan Am Flight 103 crashed into the Scottish village of Wackerby.
01:38Two hundred and seventy lives lost.
01:40It was Britain's worst ever air crash.
01:42We have no knowledge of how this accident happened.
01:46We're trying to find out.
01:48It was an attack on America.
01:50The largest crime scene in history.
01:52200,000 pieces of evidence.
01:53My daughter hadn't just died in an accident,
01:55but had been brutally murdered.
01:57They killed our children.
01:58To be lied to for 30 years.
02:00I think the U.S. government had an agenda.
02:02Reagan is the biggest terrorist in the world.
02:05If it's up to our government,
02:07we might not ever know the truth.
02:12Nothing is what it seems in the Wackerby story.
02:26And as you guys know,
02:28I talk a lot about
02:31what questions we should be asking, right?
02:33When we are analyzing media messages.
02:35And I want to focus on this image.
02:41What if you knew someone that was on that plane?
02:45So I'm going to tell you my story.
02:48December 21st, 1988.
02:50So I was 17 years old.
02:53And my father was coming home from a business trip in London.
02:58When his plane, Pan Am 103,
03:00exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.
03:03Due to a bomb that had been placed on board by terrorists.
03:07This was a terrible tragedy
03:09for my family to endure.
03:11It was a life-defining moment.
03:13An incident that would absolutely forever
03:16change the person I was.
03:18It really changed the way I saw the world.
03:20The way I saw myself.
03:22Kind of the way I understood everything.
03:25We found out about the plane crash
03:27through a breaking news story.
03:29And I'm talking like TV on in the kitchen,
03:31soap opera on,
03:33newscaster comes on,
03:34and my mother hears the news, right?
03:41Oh, there we go.
03:42There's the...
03:43Oh my.
03:44I didn't even see these yet.
03:46This is...
03:48Frank.
03:51What a big thing.
03:52Yes, yes.
03:53He loves fishing.
03:54He's very proud of that moment.
03:56Yes.
03:57And, oh, these are old pictures
03:59of how young we were at one time.
04:03We met actually,
04:04we were born two days apart
04:06in the same hospital in the Bronx.
04:09Met when we were 15.
04:11We met at a church dance.
04:13And we ended up being dance partners.
04:17And we dated for almost seven years
04:20and then we were married.
04:23To me, he was perfect.
04:26He worked at Chase Manhattan Bank
04:29and he was serving in London.
04:33He was coming home for Christmas.
04:36And he was supposed to come home Wednesday morning.
04:40And they asked him to stay.
04:43And he actually called me, he said,
04:45would you mind if I came home that night?
04:48And I never told him when he could fly
04:52and when he couldn't fly.
04:53I said, of course,
04:54as long as you're coming home.
04:55But he wasn't supposed to be on that plane
04:57at the beginning.
05:04We didn't know anything for months and months, you know.
05:07We knew someone put something on the plane,
05:09but we didn't know who, where they came from,
05:12why they did it.
05:14We had no information.
05:16You know, when something like this happens,
05:18you want to know the truth.
05:21You want to know what happens.
05:22You want to know who's at fault, who's to blame.
05:24And why, yeah.
05:25Somebody literally did this purposely to these people.
05:40We understood that what we needed to do
05:43required a total commitment of our time.
05:47You don't, it's not solved in an hour
05:50with commercial breaks and things like that.
05:57I was with the case for three years,
05:59but assigned to Malta for almost two years.
06:02That's a big commitment.
06:04It is a big commitment.
06:07I really had to make a bargain with my wife.
06:12And we all understood why we were here.
06:20By 1990, we were all pretty convinced
06:24that Libya was behind the Pan Am 103 bombing.
06:30Based on baggage records,
06:32we determined that it was here in Malta
06:36that the suitcase containing the bomb was first planted.
06:41And at that point, we had two main potential suspects.
06:46Lamine Fema was the Libyan Arab Airlines manager
06:51here on Malta,
06:53and he owned a travel agency
06:56called Medtourist here on the island.
06:59His friend was Abdel Basit al-Megrahi,
07:03who apparently was an intelligence officer.
07:09Based on the artist's rendition,
07:12Megrahi looked like the person who had bought the clothing
07:16found in and around the suitcase containing the bomb.
07:23But we needed more evidence.
07:26You know, there's still more work to be done.
07:32189 Americans, an American airliner.
07:36Everybody in our government wanted to find out who did this.
07:39And as a result of that,
07:41they did something, the CIA did something,
07:43and I won't say it's never happened,
07:45but I will say it's a rarity.
07:48They offered up one of their sources to the FBI.
07:55We were told by the CIA
07:58that they had a source in Malta,
08:02Majid Jaka.
08:05They said that he was a double agent,
08:08he had worked at the airport,
08:10but he had left and gone back to Libya,
08:13and they were trying to find him.
08:17The FBI code name for him was Puzzle Piece
08:20because he became so critical,
08:22he was a piece of the puzzle.
08:41Jaka volunteered himself.
08:43He walked, we call them walk-ins.
08:45He walked into the embassy in Malta,
08:47claimed he was affiliated with the Libyan intelligence.
08:50And that is the biggest recruitment you can make in our business,
08:54is an intelligence officer from another hostile service.
09:01Most of them end up to be either kooks
09:04or they're directed by the local security service.
09:06They send in walk-ins to our offices
09:08to just see what we're up to, what we're interested in.
09:10Then every once in a while you get a gem who is legitimate.
09:17He worked for Libyan Arab Airlines,
09:19and we knew it was common practice
09:21for the Libyan intelligence service
09:23to use the Libyan Arab Airlines
09:25as a cover office for their operations.
09:29This is the old Luga Airport.
09:36Investigation determined that it was here
09:39that the bomb bag
09:42was actually put on the air Malta flight
09:46to Frankfurt
09:49and then was transferred to the airport.
09:55And then was transferred to the Pan Am 103 flight
09:59out of Heathrow.
10:01They blew up over Larkeby.
10:05Puzzle Piece was working here
10:08at Luga Airport in the luggage area.
10:13The agency had him doubled here
10:16because they wanted him to report
10:18who was coming and going from Libya.
10:21The CIA started looking at his reporting.
10:25His reporting was saying that
10:28around December of 1988,
10:32he actually saw both FEMA and Megrahi
10:36coming into this airport here
10:41with a suitcase.
10:44My next question to them was,
10:46well, where the hell is he?
10:48Because I'd like to talk to him.
10:50I get a phone call telling me that
10:53the CIA found Majid.
10:55He's on a boat and they're bringing him
10:57to a U.S. ship of some kind
11:00to be interviewed.
11:10I get the call and it said,
11:12we got a hold of Puzzle Piece.
11:16Pack up and head to Naples, Italy.
11:21♪♪♪
11:26Got on a helicopter.
11:28We were flown out to a ship
11:30in the Mediterranean,
11:32international waters.
11:35And I'm anticipating
11:37a very aggressive interview
11:39because they've been intelligence,
11:41you know, officer, double agent.
11:43But I found him credible,
11:48almost to a fault.
11:49He was so honest.
11:53He tells us he knows Megrahi.
11:55Megrahi was in the Libyan Intelligence Service.
11:59He tells us, I saw FEMA and Megrahi
12:03come to the airport with a suitcase.
12:06And we show him a photo spread of suitcases,
12:09including the Samsonite Silhouette 4000,
12:12antique copper.
12:13He picks that out as a suitcase,
12:15exactly the same as the one that carried the bomb.
12:19He said FEMA, because of his job here
12:23as the Libyan Arab Airlines manager,
12:27he was able to circumvent customs
12:30with that suitcase.
12:32♪♪♪
12:38And then he tells us that FEMA
12:41kept explosives in his desk.
12:43And, you know, why would an airport security manager
12:47keep explosives in his desk?
12:49You'd scratch your head.
12:50But he looks at photo spreads
12:52of various types of explosives,
12:54and he picks out Semtex,
12:56the explosive that was used to make the bomb.
12:59♪♪♪
13:02What we felt was that, at that moment,
13:05we had the people who actually facilitated,
13:09personally facilitated,
13:11that bomb into the airline system
13:16that eventually blew up Pan Am Flight 103,
13:20killing 270 people.
13:22♪♪♪
13:26We got the bastards.
13:28♪♪♪
13:40♪♪♪
13:45♪♪♪
13:51♪♪♪
13:58♪♪♪
14:01Aunt Orta Helga, she was 19.
14:04She'd got a place to study music
14:07at Lancaster University.
14:09She sang with the National Youth Choir,
14:12and the university professor said he had little doubt
14:15she would have made her mark on the music world.
14:18She wanted to sing professionally.
14:21She took a year out, went to the States,
14:24was working as a nanny,
14:27and came home for that week just before Christmas,
14:31was going back.
14:33We'd had a lovely week with her.
14:35I was the taxi driver.
14:36Dad, will you drop me off at Emma's,
14:38and this, that, and the other.
14:40I drove her down to Heathrow from Birmingham,
14:44kissed her goodbye.
14:45I remember her walking towards the exit to go to the plane,
14:49and she turned around, put her little bag down,
14:52and ran back and hugged me.
14:54I wish I could remember what she said, but I can't.
14:57But I've been rather stern father at times,
15:00and I can remember saying to her,
15:02and I can remember saying to her,
15:04Helga, I do love you.
15:05Doesn't always look like it, but I do.
15:08And off she went.
15:15All these fields, there were bodies.
15:18She was found.
15:19See the hedge that's running down the hillside there?
15:23Well, she was just this side of that.
15:29Just this side.
15:33Yeah.
15:40Britain and America accuse two Libyan intelligence officers
15:43of destroying Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
15:47They demand Colonel Gaddafi hands over the wanted men.
15:50President Bush says an international response
15:53is being considered.
15:55The men have been named as Abdel Basit Ali Mohamed Al-Mughrahi
15:59and Alamin Khalifa Fima.
16:02The Americans say they traveled from Libya to Malta...
16:09We were elated that finally two individuals were indicted
16:15and hopefully were going to be brought to justice.
16:19I don't know.
16:20I guess I was...
16:22I guess in a way I was happy
16:24that they found someone that did it to them.
16:27But I really, I can't explain it to you.
16:30I just, it didn't change anything for me.
16:33I didn't get a satisfaction out of,
16:35okay, you know, so now bring Frank back.
16:38Some of the relatives of Americans who died on Flight 103
16:42have made it clear they expect their government
16:44to take decisive action.
16:46There was a military strike against the American flag
16:49on Pan Am Flight 103,
16:51and these Libyan intelligence officers were used as soldiers.
16:55Abdel Basit Al-Mughrahi is accused of being the mastermind
16:58of the Pan Am 103 bombing,
17:00but he vigorously denies it.
17:13Fima, who also worked for the Libyan airline,
17:15also denies any role in the bombing.
17:18Warrants are out for the pair,
17:20but no one expects Libya's Qaddafi to give them up.
17:23It is considered unlikely that they will be arrested
17:27in the ordinary, normal way.
17:30We knew it was a waiting game.
17:32It was gonna be up to Qaddafi to decide to extradite them.
17:36Chances are we're not going to get anybody
17:39to come and stand trial.
17:41There was nothing else we could do in Malta,
17:44nothing else we could do in the United States or in Scotland.
17:47We're done.
17:49Colonel Qaddafi took a look at pictures of the two Libyan agents,
17:52which Britain and the United States say carried out the attack,
17:55and declared that the men weren't guilty.
17:58Even if they were, he said he wouldn't hand them over.
18:10I'm joined now by Dr Jim Swire in Birmingham,
18:13the spokesman of the UK families of Flight 103.
18:17Dr Swire, what's been your reaction to today's events?
18:21My reaction to hearing these two names and seeing them written down today
18:24is similar to how I felt when someone originally told me
18:27my daughter hadn't just died in an accident but been brutally murdered.
18:30It gives you a shiver down the spine to know that human beings
18:33could sink to this level, and obviously the next step
18:36is the question of how to bring these two men to justice.
18:52Following the naming of the two suspects,
18:55essentially in the West it was confidently said,
18:59of course Qaddafi will never hand them over.
19:02And that was where the idea dawned in my mind
19:05that perhaps I could help to go and see him
19:08and see if I could persuade him to allow these two to be handed over for trial.
19:14As powerful as the grief was the determination
19:18to see that the manner of her death was dealt with justly and properly and truthfully,
19:25I still of course felt extremely nervous about going to see Qaddafi
19:30who I thought might either take me prisoner or have me shot or something like that.
19:37Qaddafi hadn't got an extremely good reputation for being a good man
19:45and so we were worried whether he would come back in one piece.
19:51You didn't ever say to him, I don't think you should be going?
19:55I didn't think it would make any difference if I said that, no.
20:01I think she thought I was absolutely crazy to go anywhere near him.
20:04As indeed perhaps I was, but then I was pretty crazy at that time
20:08because of the freshness of the bereavement.
20:10I'd have done anything I could.
20:16Qaddafi definitely suffered from grandiose delusions.
20:21He believed that he was not an ordinary man.
20:24He was like a political messiah.
20:30He started to crack down on all types of dissent.
20:36Libya was a country ruled by fear where people could not criticise or dare to be against him.
20:46Qaddafi was a man of his word.
20:53That was an interesting journey.
20:56I told nobody but Jane what I was up to
21:00because I thought our intelligence people would stop me going if they knew.
21:06To start with, it all seemed quite normal.
21:10Then we go straight along this road, dead end.
21:13Wall about 12, 15 feet high, no apparent way through.
21:17Car stops, the centre section of the wall moves vertically upwards.
21:22And what we see under the lower end, there were steel teeth
21:25which were about three or four feet long pointing downwards
21:30so that if they'd changed their mind when your car was halfway through the gap,
21:33chonk would have come down and impaled the car on the teeth.
21:38I was so determined that I wasn't scared.
21:42Nervous, yes, but not scared.
21:47So I went in, getting nearer to Qaddafi now,
21:50and we were parked in a waiting area in the desert.
21:53Then a message came over his radio saying,
21:55OK now, so I started off up these flagstones through the desert.
22:01Pitch black.
22:03And I said, Colonel, I'm very pleased to see you
22:06because I'm very keen to talk to you.
22:09And I had a briefcase.
22:13Round the edge of this space was a ring of female soldiers.
22:19And each of them had an AK-47.
22:22And as I opened the case, you could hear click, click, click, click.
22:27As the safety catches came off, they weren't trusting me one inch.
22:33But Qaddafi had decided he was going to trust me.
22:35I suppose he was brave, you would say,
22:37because a lot of people tried to kill him at one time or another.
22:44In the briefcase was a file full of pictures of flora of various ages.
22:50The man asked me why I'd come, and I said to him,
22:53well, look, two of your men have been accused of the Lockerbie disaster,
22:57and I think the only way to find out if that's true or not
23:00is to have them tried in a proper court of law.
23:03Is there anything you could do to ease the situation?
23:09After about 40 minutes, I felt it was time to go.
23:14And I took one more thing out of my briefcase,
23:16and that was a little badge.
23:20And it said on it, Lockerbie, the truth must be known.
23:24I went up to him, and I pinned that badge on his lapel.
23:28And again, you could hear click, click, click.
23:31And when I left his presence that time,
23:33he was wearing that badge on the lapel.
23:35I thought it was a good thing for him to acknowledge the truth must be known.
23:44Libya has again denied any involvement
23:46in the bombing of the Pan Am jet over Lockerbie three years ago.
23:50US and British authorities have charged the two men.
23:53The UN has imposed sanctions on Tripoli for refusing to hand them over.
23:57Well, a number of years went past
23:59before it became clear that the Libyans weren't going to surrender.
24:03The Iran and Libya sanctions bill I signed today
24:06will help to deny those countries the money they need
24:09to finance international terrorism.
24:11American companies and many European companies
24:15were not allowed to export anything to Libya,
24:18including medicines and vital things for human life.
24:22So those sanctions hurt the Libyan population.
24:26We urge Libya to end its ten years of evasion now.
24:31The suspects should be surrendered for trial promptly.
24:40At a service in Lockerbie and a ceremony in London,
24:46bereaved relatives and local people offered their own respects.
24:50On the memorial, which names all who died,
24:54families touched their loved one.
24:57Our thoughts and prayers today are with the families and friends
25:01of those 270 people from so many countries
25:06whose lives were tragically taken in the Lockerbie bombing ten years ago.
25:12Turn back the clock.
25:15Let it be seven o'clock on the evening of December the 21st, 1988.
25:23The pressures of personal grief have been compounded for many
25:28by the frustrations of the fight for answers.
25:32Why is it taking so long to find answers?
25:53So the years of diplomatic efforts have finally paid off
25:56with the handover of the two Libyan suspects.
25:58Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed Al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fima
26:03have been arrested by officers from Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary.
26:14This unique trial is expected to be the longest and costliest one
26:18in British legal history.
26:20Two alleged Libyan intelligence agents facing charges of murder, conspiracy
26:25and intentionally destroying a plane
26:27handed over for trial by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi
26:30after years of harsh economic sanctions.
26:33Gaddafi felt that the Libyan population was suffering
26:36and they might rebel against him.
26:39So he had a motive.
26:41He handed over the two suspects to lift those sanctions
26:45for his own survival and his own regime stability.
26:50There have been a lot of backdoor discussions.
26:54Gaddafi, I'm sure, was led to believe there was no real case.
26:59At stake here is charge one, really, on the indictment.
27:02At stake is the conspiracy to murder charge.
27:05And that's the question, the main question before the court.
27:09When the agreement was finally reached
27:11that Fima and McGrathie would be surrendered for trial,
27:15the agreement was that the trial would be before a judge-only court
27:21and in a neutral territory.
27:24In terms of jurisdiction, because the bomb exploded above Scotland,
27:29Scottish judges were trying the case.
27:33And so Camp Zeist had to be declared as part of Scotland.
27:40The Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit was established
27:43to assist the international press and news agencies
27:46in understanding the trial
27:48and the peculiarities of the Scottish legal system.
27:5911 years they have fought for justice.
28:02But the relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing,
28:05this was a day they had prayed for and yet were dreading.
28:09I am not looking forward to today.
28:12I am very, very...
28:16..frightened and very anxious.
28:18This is why we're here. This is my daughter. This is Theo Cohen.
28:21She was 20 years old when she was flown up over Lockerbie, Scotland,
28:25over 11 years ago.
28:27We'll be sitting through. We've been at this 11.5 years.
28:30They killed our children. We're not going away.
28:33I think most of the Americans were stunned that it was agreed
28:39that they were going to be turned over to a neutral place
28:44to stand trial under Scottish law.
28:48And there's quite a bit of difference
28:50between Scottish law and American law.
28:52Under Scottish law, there is no death penalty,
28:56there's no life imprisonment without parole.
29:00So we were horrified that this was supposed to be, you know,
29:04the trial of the century that was going to bring justice to our loved ones.
29:11Call me obsessed or what you like,
29:13I was determined to extract all the information I could from the trial.
29:16We arranged to live in Holland and we set up a flat there.
29:21It's always wise to look for some good things,
29:24even in the darkest events.
29:26You can't change it, you can't turn the clock back and make it unhappen.
29:30We've become very, very good friends with Jim and Jane.
29:34I took an apartment in Holland with Dr Swire.
29:37We went together and we stayed for the whole of the trial.
29:41We feel very relieved that today we actually see this court
29:44which has been the target of so much effort on our part
29:47about to commence sitting.
29:49The two accused were taken from their prison to court
29:52in a bulletproof vehicle.
29:54Their relatives had flown in from Libya,
29:57arriving at court under the watchful eye of a massive media presence.
30:01I want them to see my daughter's picture.
30:07I'm going to say, this is what you did.
30:11I lost four on that plane, my daughter was pregnant.
30:14I'd like to see them get executed, I'm sorry, that's how I feel about it.
30:19I had been exposed, as all of us had been,
30:23to the publicity, the negative publicity about Libya,
30:27about Gaddafi supplying the IRA,
30:30supporting terrorism allegedly, the mad dog of Africa.
30:34There was an assumption abroad, generally,
30:38that these two Libyans were clearly guilty
30:40and they were just two intelligence agents that had been caught
30:44and there must be a lot of evidence against them.
30:47So, you're a human, you may be a lawyer,
30:50and I went there, I admit, thinking,
30:53what on earth am I going to confront?
30:55I'm going to confront two evil murderers, mass murderers.
31:00But very soon I became much more happy
31:06with my role and my belief in my client.
31:12The prosecution will seek to prove
31:14that the two Libyans hatched their bombing plot in Malta,
31:18that they put together a Semtex device inside a Toshiba cassette recorder,
31:22wrapped it in clothes bought from this shop in Malta,
31:26then hid it inside a Samsonite suitcase.
31:29It's alleged that then, using stolen airline tags,
31:32they put the suitcase unaccompanied on an Air Malta flight
31:36that was routed through Frankfurt and on to Heathrow,
31:39where it was placed on Pan Am Flight 103.
31:43It's a case which has to be proved beyond reasonable doubts.
31:49Evan Bolley...
31:51I remember his physical appearance being quite striking.
31:55He looked quite unusual.
32:05Mr Bolley...
32:07He was a young man.
32:09He was a young man.
32:11He was a young man.
32:13He was a young man.
32:16Mr Bolley owned a company called Meebo Limited,
32:20which was in Zurich...
32:24..who, the court concluded,
32:27had manufactured the timing device that detonated the bomb.
32:34And a fragment of the timing device was found in Lockerbie.
32:40And Mr Bolley had provided a number of statements
32:44wherein he said that he was the producer of MST-13 timers
32:50and that the majority of those had been supplied to Libya.
32:54Mr McGrathie had very close connections with Edwin Bolley
32:58and the Libyan authorities had close connections with Meebo Limited.
33:04We just assume he's a Westerner,
33:07he's a Westerner,
33:09he is not connected to the Libyan government other than through business,
33:13and we assume that he would get on the stand
33:16and tell the same story that he told us in 1991.
33:22I was kind of amazed at what he said.
33:37And it was here, at my witness stand,
33:40that these two fragments were brought to my table.
34:07And the resulting of the information that was available was
34:11that he realised after giving initial statements
34:14that he's spoken against the interests of Libya
34:17and there was an element of backtracking perhaps going on.
34:22But when the police first came here in 1990,
34:25did you not confirm that the fragment was from one of the timers you sold to the Libyans?
34:37We were told that we had sold the fragment to the Libyans
34:42and that we had brought the timers to Libya.
34:46But it was only then that it became clear
34:50that they wanted the fragment to be from a timer
34:54that we had brought to Libya.
35:00I should make it clear that I consider the evidence about PT35B
35:07produced to the court to be a falsehood from beginning to end.
35:12From the very beginning, it seemed to me quite remarkable
35:17that a very telling, tiny, tiny fragment
35:22should miraculously be found
35:27in the wilds outside Lockerbie.
35:33And there was a lot of doubt, first of all, about where this was found,
35:38by whom it was found,
35:41how it was labelled by the police.
35:44It was not examined, that was the evidence in court,
35:47for any explosive residue.
35:50Now, any forensic scientist you ever speak to
35:53would regard it as absolutely the first thing that you would do.
35:57Because this was the fragment, let's remember,
36:00that was used to link Libya to the timer and to the bomb.
36:18So do you think that the Scottish police tampered with the evidence?
36:22Yes, yes, absolutely.
36:29If somebody was going to manufacture evidence,
36:32I just, I don't believe that.
36:35I just, it's beyond my comprehension.
36:38Because it's one thing if the fragment just shows up,
36:41oh, look what I found on the street corner.
36:43But I know the origins of where it came from
36:46and how the Scottish cops got it.
36:49Nobody was going to get into that place
36:52and put it in the evidence chain. It couldn't happen.
37:01Now, the Lockerbie trial has heard crucial evidence
37:04linking the two Libyan accused
37:06to the place where it's claimed the bomb was originally planted.
37:09The court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands was told
37:12that items bought by one of the men in Malta
37:15were in the same suitcase as the device
37:17which blew up Flight Pan Am 103.
37:19Giving evidence, the shop owner, Tony Gauci, said
37:22a Libyan man resembling McGrathie had been in his shop
37:25about a fortnight before Christmas 1988.
37:33Tony Gauci was built up that he was a smoking gun.
37:39The clothing fragments from the case that contained the bomb
37:44were traced through their labels back to the shop
37:47that was owned by Tony Gauci.
37:50And Tony Gauci gave evidence, no equivocal evidence,
37:55that the man he'd sold the clothing to was Mr McGrathie.
37:59Now, out of all of that, the most controversial,
38:02but even at the time of the trial,
38:04was Mr Gauci's identification.
38:08An advance of the trial starting an identity parade takes place
38:12where a couple of days before,
38:14Tony Gauci is flying over to do the identification.
38:19He is in possession of a magazine with a picture of McGrathie on it.
38:26He's also told that McGrathie's going to be in the line-up.
38:35Apparently, they couldn't find any other Libyans.
38:38McGrathie's the only Libyan in that line-up.
38:40Well, it's that kind of, you know, that ridiculous.
38:43The idea is you get people that look like the person
38:47that the witness has described.
38:51Even with all of that, he doesn't say it's definitely him.
38:58Tony Gauci, the impression I got,
39:01was that he and his brother were under some pressure
39:05to accommodate the police inquiry.
39:11It was quite difficult to establish
39:13just how many statements this man had given,
39:15but what is clear is that his recollection
39:19of critical matters varied hugely.
39:24Tony Gauci was a simple, decent businessman,
39:30eking out a living in this shop.
39:33I think he had a couple of shops with his brother and his father.
39:36The police show up in the biggest case in the history of Malta
39:40and start asking him questions.
39:42I honestly think he was just a man that was trying to be honest
39:46and tell the truth to the best of his recollection.
39:50What the judges say about Tony Gauci is,
39:54we thought he was credible.
39:57His uncertainty almost added to his credibility
40:05because it was 12 years after the event.
40:08But of course, we found out subsequently a lot of things
40:12that weren't known at the time of the trial,
40:14and if they were, would have completely demolished
40:17any credibility that he had,
40:20such as him being paid a lot of money after the trial.
40:26And not only was Tony Gauci paid money,
40:29but his brother Paul Gauci was also paid money.
40:32We didn't know what the threat to Tony Gauci was,
40:36and I believe that an FBI agent said we can get some money
40:39to help relocate him for his safety and protection.
40:43How much money are we talking here?
40:45They got millions.
40:47I think a million dollars, two million dollars,
40:49I think, for Tony Gauci, a million for Paul.
40:53He was never called as a witness,
40:55so what was he getting one million dollars for?
40:58He didn't say anything at the trial.
41:01You can't have people being paid.
41:05It is totally contrary to the interests of justice.
41:13The trial period was a very difficult one for me
41:15because at the beginning of it, I still believed
41:17that our government had been telling us the truth
41:20as best they knew it.
41:23But it seemed the intelligence services of Britain and America
41:26had other things in mind than truth and justice.
41:31In one of these cars, we haven't been told which,
41:34is a witness from Libya who could beside the outcome
41:37of Britain's biggest murder trial.
41:39Abdelmajid was once a Libyan secret agent
41:42and now fears that his former Libyan colleagues want to kill him.
41:54Before daybreak, the high-security transfer
41:57of the prosecution's precious cargo.
42:00Abdelmajid Jaka is the supergrass
42:02billed as the Lockerbie trial's star witness.
42:06On the day he finally came to court,
42:08he told how, as a Libyan intelligence agent,
42:11he worked with the two Lockerbie suspects.
42:15From behind a screen, with his voice disguised electronically,
42:19Abdelmajid told the court
42:21how Libyan intelligence planned the bombing.
42:24He claimed that the two accused were fully involved.
42:28It was at Malta airport, Abdelmajid said,
42:31that he was shown high explosives
42:33and that they were being used to bomb the airport.
42:37He told the court,
42:39It was at Malta airport, Abdelmajid said,
42:42that he was shown high explosives
42:44stored in the Libyan Airlines office.
42:46Now he saw the two accused handling a brown suitcase,
42:49like the one placed on board Pan Am 103.
42:52Abdelmajid claimed that before the bombing,
42:55he passed all this on to his CIA handlers.
43:02So you're Jaka's handler? Yes, I became Jaka's handler.
43:05And what did you make of him, you know, in your first few meetings?
43:09Did you think, you know, this guy could be the real deal?
43:12No. No, I think he was a manipulator and a shyster.
43:17He was looking for a payout for himself.
43:23I had spent most of my life in the Middle East.
43:25I started out in the Navy in the mid-'70s.
43:30I had gone to the University of Texas for my graduate degree,
43:33which is where the CIA had recruited me.
43:37I had already worked the Libyan op specifically for over a year,
43:40so I had handled a lot of true Libyan intelligence officers.
43:44It was very clear from the beginning in my meetings with him
43:47that he wasn't an officer of the Libyan Intelligence Service.
43:50He did provide services to them,
43:52but he was not the Libyan case officer.
43:55He would tell us the comings and goings, who was coming and going.
43:58He talked about Fahima and Megrahi coming in and out of Malta.
44:03That was routine for them.
44:05But at the time of the bombing,
44:07he never mentioned to us anything about any knowledge at all
44:11about Pan Am bombing.
44:15He was asked that question.
44:17Now, at that time, we were focused on Iran, not Libya.
44:21But, of course, Libya could have been a suspect.
44:24We had to eliminate that as a possibility,
44:26but he knew nothing about it.
44:29He would have told us if he knew anything.
44:32It doesn't make logical sense that he would hide it then,
44:35but now, all of a sudden, later, know everything.
44:37He was looking for more money.
44:39He was looking for possible resettlement.
44:41He's a smart enough guy. He's a cagey enough guy to know,
44:44oh, this is my end. Yes, I know everything.
44:46I know everything. I was there. I saw them do it.
44:50And so, of course, the FBI was brought in
44:53to take over the handling of him.
44:58And were you surprised at how seriously the FBI took him?
45:02No.
45:05The FBI are primarily cops.
45:08They're cops.
45:09They look at it from a cop's perspective,
45:12and they're put in charge of the Lockerbie investigation.
45:15They're going after Libya now. They've made the decision.
45:18So, you've got this guy walking in, a former CIA agent,
45:22who was initially claimed to be a true Libyan intelligence officer.
45:26They grabbed him immediately. This can make their case.
45:29This will make the FBI look good.
45:32We did speak to one former CIA who handled Jacker for a while,
45:38and he questions Jacker's credibility as a suspect.
45:42I know who that is, and I've never met him,
45:45and I have my own private thoughts,
45:47but I'm just going to leave it at that.
45:52Two Libyans are on trial at a court set up in the Netherlands.
45:55They've always insisted they are innocent.
45:57The prosecution has hung much of its case on the man who was on the stand today.
46:02The former double agent is now facing cross-examination by a defense,
46:06seeking to undermine the credibility of a man
46:09who stands to collect a $4 million reward if the two suspects are convicted.
46:17He was such a dreadful witness.
46:19He actually did a lot more good for the defense than you could ever imagine.
46:24I mean, for a start, the judges made it clear they didn't believe really anything he said,
46:28except for one thing.
46:29They chose to believe what he said about McGrathie
46:32and his links to the intelligence service in Libya.
46:35Rightly or wrongly, they accepted that bit,
46:38but the rest of his evidence they totally discounted.
46:41Totally discounted.
46:44None of my testimony was ever provided to the court.
46:48Giacca's testimony, I thought, this is BS.
46:52This is the government, you know, manipulating the evidence
46:56to get whatever outcome that they wanted.
47:01It was confusing for us to understand what was going on,
47:04even to understand the admissibility or inadmissibility and everything else
47:09and who was being put on,
47:11and this person is being put on as an expert witness
47:15or, I mean, to us, it was quite a sham.
47:22I certainly have never had any reason to question his honesty.
47:26Everything that he said, we were able to substantiate.
47:30We proved a lot of the things that he told the CIA.
47:42I never believed that Libya did it.
47:45Our government and U.S. presidents have hated Gaddafi
47:49since he took over in 1969.
47:52He kicked all the American oil companies out of Libya.
47:56He confiscated our biggest air base anywhere in the world.
48:00I think the U.S. government had an agenda.
48:06The court that has heard 84 days and 3 million words of evidence
48:12is ready for the final day of Britain's biggest mass murder trial.
48:19It wasn't until near the end of the trial
48:22that I realised I could not continue to believe
48:25that there was a cogent body of evidence
48:28that justified the finding of either of these two men guilty.
48:33There was another flight nine months after.
48:36Same perpetrators, same state, same method.
48:39These two flights are completely connected.
48:42We developed quite a love for our boy who called him.
48:46Yes. He desperately wanted to know who he was
48:50and if it's possible to contact a family.
48:54Some people call you a conspiracy theorist.
48:57The evidence that was used in the court was, in fact, false.
49:27.
49:32.
49:37.
49:42.
49:47.
49:52.
49:57.