0:00:07 > 0:00:11At the end of Faith's regime a means that Libya is no longer a
0:00:11 > 0:00:19secret state. If that is why a George Thomson has come to Libya to
0:00:19 > 0:00:23say his last their well to a dying man. A man convicted of mass murder.
0:00:23 > 0:00:28The internationally notorious Lockerbie Bonner, Abdelbaset al-
0:00:28 > 0:00:38Megrahi. This could be George Thomson's last chance to uncover
0:00:38 > 0:01:01
0:01:01 > 0:01:07his secret, a secret that has been George Thomson is allowed into
0:01:07 > 0:01:11Megrahi's combined. A former detective, he previously went for
0:01:11 > 0:01:14Megrahi's defence team. Megrahi only agrees to talk to him as a
0:01:14 > 0:01:19personal friend, refusing to allow mainstream media in the tenth.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23George brings a small camera to record the first and only TV
0:01:23 > 0:01:29interview in English Megrahi will only give about his case. It will
0:01:29 > 0:01:32almost certainly be his last. In the final stages of terminal cancer,
0:01:32 > 0:01:42Megrahi believes there is evidence that will finally prove his
0:01:42 > 0:01:43
0:01:43 > 0:01:49innocence. It is from an expert's theory on criminal cases. It will
0:01:49 > 0:01:53be very good because it will clear my name. George's visit would last
0:01:53 > 0:02:00over 60 minutes. They talk as friends, not interviewer and
0:02:00 > 0:02:04interviewee. He is very sick. Anybody who tries
0:02:04 > 0:02:09to say that he is not dying just needs to go and see the man. I
0:02:09 > 0:02:16would say he is on his deathbed. I was shocked when I saw him. Quite
0:02:16 > 0:02:21upset. But after a wee while, he came around and he told me certain
0:02:21 > 0:02:31things. He showed me certain things. He has given me permission to
0:02:31 > 0:02:35
0:02:35 > 0:02:45It is an emotional experience for George, but he believes it is worth
0:02:45 > 0:02:57
0:02:57 > 0:03:01it. I can reveal that they have When Pan Am flight 103 was brought
0:03:01 > 0:03:08down by a terrorist bomb, 270 innocent people were killed in
0:03:08 > 0:03:13Scotland. John Ashton has been investigating the Lockerbie case
0:03:13 > 0:03:18for more than 20 years. Lockerbie disaster was Europe's
0:03:18 > 0:03:26worst terrorist attack. More American civilians died in that
0:03:26 > 0:03:32attack than in any other terrorist events before or 9/11. But John
0:03:32 > 0:03:37believes it is more than just a terrorist attack. It is also
0:03:37 > 0:03:47Britain's worst miscarriage of justice. The wrong man is convicted
0:03:47 > 0:03:52
0:03:52 > 0:03:56and the real killers are still out John there may be onto something.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission conducted a
0:03:59 > 0:04:03thorough investigation into Megrahi's conviction. But their
0:04:03 > 0:04:08full report has never seen the light of day. John is one of the
0:04:08 > 0:04:12few to have read it. That report has never been made
0:04:12 > 0:04:15public. It contains the evidence that should have overturned his
0:04:15 > 0:04:19conviction. In that the Scottish Parliament,
0:04:19 > 0:04:20the convenor of the just as committee and a member of the
0:04:21 > 0:04:26justice for 152-154 Marine Parade, Brighton campaign, Christine
0:04:26 > 0:04:30Grahame, is pushing to get the report public's -- published. --
0:04:30 > 0:04:35Christine Grahame. That report says there could very well have been a
0:04:35 > 0:04:40miscarriage of justice, but it has never seen the light of day. If we
0:04:40 > 0:04:46can see that, my committee and the public at large, then we could
0:04:46 > 0:04:50begin to understand what really happened that night at Lockerbie.
0:04:50 > 0:04:57The report by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, also known
0:04:57 > 0:05:06as the SCCRC, was only ever given to a handful of people. One of them
0:05:06 > 0:05:13led the defence team. Have you seen the SCCRC report? Yes. The good you
0:05:13 > 0:05:18show it to us? Know. Could you explain why? I have no instructions
0:05:18 > 0:05:24to release that report, so I am not in a position to do so. This
0:05:24 > 0:05:30document has very limited circulation. Can I read it?
0:05:30 > 0:05:33simple answer is no, not at the moment. It is a criminal offence
0:05:33 > 0:05:35under the Criminal Procedure of Scotland Act, 1995, for any member
0:05:35 > 0:05:40of the Commission to publish or release information contained
0:05:40 > 0:05:44within the document. Could you make it a document of the report
0:05:44 > 0:05:49available to us? I have not seen the copy and I do
0:05:49 > 0:05:53not have it. It is with SCCRC. We are seeking to bring in legislation
0:05:53 > 0:05:57that will give them the authority to decide whether or not they can
0:05:57 > 0:06:00publish more information. We think it is in the interests of everybody
0:06:00 > 0:06:02that as much information as possible is out there in the public
0:06:02 > 0:06:07domain. Although the Government clearly
0:06:07 > 0:06:11want the report published, there is no guarantee that will ever happen.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16But as just a secretary Kenny MacAskill has a clear view of
0:06:16 > 0:06:19Megrahi's case. I stand behind the conviction in the Scottish court
0:06:19 > 0:06:22and a pay tribute to all those involved and the justice system in
0:06:22 > 0:06:29Scotland who still seek to bring to justice those who were involved in
0:06:29 > 0:06:36the atrocity. Working for Megrahi's legal team and as his biographer,
0:06:36 > 0:06:40John Ashton has given us rare access to the full 821 page report
0:06:40 > 0:06:44that casts serious doubt on the case against the Lockerbie bomber.
0:06:44 > 0:06:49And he has forensic evidence which questions whether Libya was even
0:06:49 > 0:06:53involved in the bombing. To fully comprehend the impact of the report
0:06:53 > 0:06:59and the forensic evidence, we first have to understand what happened on
0:06:59 > 0:07:05that fateful night. December 21, 1988. The night of the
0:07:06 > 0:07:14winter solstice. The longest night in the year. At 6:30 Pan Am flight
0:07:14 > 0:07:17103 took off from London Heathrow. Next stop - JFK, New York.
0:07:17 > 0:07:24In the cargo hold was a brown Samsonite suitcase, packed with new
0:07:24 > 0:07:32clothes and a Toshiba radio cassette player. Hidden in the
0:07:32 > 0:07:39Toshiba were some 450 grams of high explosive and a detonator. At three
0:07:39 > 0:07:41minutes past seven, 31,000 feet over Scotland, the bomb exploded.
0:07:41 > 0:07:5146.5 seconds later, 200,000 pounds of kerosene ignited as the wings
0:07:51 > 0:07:57
0:07:57 > 0:08:02and part of the fuselage crashed On the morning after the crash,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05human remains and plane wreckage lay scattered over 850 square miles.
0:08:05 > 0:08:13And every shard of metal, every scrap of flesh or bone was now a
0:08:13 > 0:08:18clue in a murder enquiry. For months, Scottish police
0:08:18 > 0:08:20conducted painstaking finger-tip searches for evidence. The
0:08:20 > 0:08:30breakthrough came when they found fragments of clothing that had been
0:08:30 > 0:08:34
0:08:34 > 0:08:37in the suitcase with the bomb. The labels read, "Made in Malta". Using
0:08:37 > 0:08:42the labels, police traced the damaged clothing back to a clothes
0:08:42 > 0:08:47shop in Malta called Mary's House. It is in the fashionable shopping
0:08:47 > 0:08:54area of Sliema, owned by a man called Tony Gauci.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57He was seen here last year going into a police station in Malta.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00On September 1, 1989, almost nine months after the Lockerbie atrocity,
0:09:00 > 0:09:06Tony Gauchi made a statement to the police about the man who bought the
0:09:06 > 0:09:11clothes packed with the bomb. It was around 6.30pm, just before
0:09:11 > 0:09:16closing time. A man had entered the shop and he started to look at
0:09:17 > 0:09:23various garments. The man's behaviour was strange, that is why
0:09:23 > 0:09:28I can now remember. He asked for a gent's jacket and when I asked him
0:09:29 > 0:09:33for his size he just said, "It's not for me". It was as if anything
0:09:33 > 0:09:37I suggested he buy, he would take it. I even showed him a black
0:09:37 > 0:09:43coloured umbrella and he bought it. He then walked out the shop with
0:09:43 > 0:09:45the umbrella, which he opened up as it was raining.
0:09:45 > 0:09:50Gauci's evidence was crucial to Megrahi's conviction as the
0:09:50 > 0:10:00Lockerbie bomber. But the dying man Megrahi, who has
0:10:00 > 0:10:16
0:10:16 > 0:10:22always protested his innocence, When the Megrahi talks about black
0:10:22 > 0:10:25and white, this is what he means. We got disclosure of some documents,
0:10:25 > 0:10:31but you just wait so that are blacked out. We do not know what
0:10:31 > 0:10:36lies under these black sections. The SCCRC had access to all the
0:10:36 > 0:10:42same evidence as the defence. They also had access to some of the
0:10:42 > 0:10:49unprotected documents. Once the commission had investigated, they
0:10:49 > 0:10:53referred the case based on six grounds of review.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55According to the report, the six grounds point to a possible
0:10:55 > 0:10:58miscarriage of justice. Three of them stand out.
0:10:58 > 0:11:03One ground for a possible miscarriage of justice for the
0:11:03 > 0:11:06SCCRC is in Chapter 21 and focuses on the weather on December 7, 1988.
0:11:06 > 0:11:11As a former head of security for Libyan airlines, Megrahi had been a
0:11:11 > 0:11:21frequent visitor to the island. He had flown in on December 7, 1988,
0:11:21 > 0:11:25
0:11:25 > 0:11:29and stayed at The Holiday Inn. At trial, Megrahi was meant to have
0:11:29 > 0:11:33bought the clothes on seventh December. But according to the
0:11:33 > 0:11:43report, proving that could all depend on whether it rained on that
0:11:43 > 0:11:45
0:11:45 > 0:11:49day. Tony Gauci said it did. He picked up the umbrella and said
0:11:49 > 0:11:54he would come back shortly. He then walked out with the umbrella, which
0:11:54 > 0:12:02he opened, because it was raining. In the debris, the police believe
0:12:02 > 0:12:06they discovered the umbrella in Tony Gauci's statement. On Ashton's
0:12:06 > 0:12:12drive across the Scottish lowlands, he looks for all the places were
0:12:12 > 0:12:15key evidence was blind. One of the consistent elements of Tony Gauci's
0:12:15 > 0:12:19account was that as the customer who bought the clothes left the
0:12:19 > 0:12:24shop, it started to rain and the customer bought an umbrella. Back
0:12:24 > 0:12:29in Malta, having worked on the Megrahi's defence, George Thomson
0:12:29 > 0:12:32knows how important the weather is improving Megrahi's innocence.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35Hiring out his services to people interested in his case, he is
0:12:35 > 0:12:44looking for the meteorologist quoted in the report to could tell
0:12:44 > 0:12:50us whether it had rained on December 7th, 1988.
0:12:50 > 0:12:56I want to trace the meteorologist at the time the plane went down.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59Find him. Flat 3. Major Misfud. How certain can you
0:12:59 > 0:13:09be about rainfall on Malta, say, between 5pm and 7pm on the night of
0:13:09 > 0:13:127 December, 1988? Between 5pm and 7pm... Well, the
0:13:12 > 0:13:17records that I have here on the seventh of December, no rain fell
0:13:17 > 0:13:21at Luqa. And how far away from Luqa is
0:13:21 > 0:13:24Sliema? About roughly about five km as the
0:13:24 > 0:13:33crow flies. And if you asked now about the
0:13:33 > 0:13:36rainfall on the 7 December, 1988, what could you say?
0:13:36 > 0:13:45Well, at that particular time in the evening on the seventh, I am
0:13:45 > 0:13:49100% certain of the records that I have. Sliema being only about five
0:13:49 > 0:13:59km away from Luqa, I would actually again say that the percentage for
0:13:59 > 0:14:04
0:14:04 > 0:14:08no rain would be very high. Say, about 90%.
0:14:08 > 0:14:14If it was dry on seventh December, but could not have been the day the
0:14:14 > 0:14:18clothes were bought. The one-day the prosecution says Megrahi
0:14:18 > 0:14:22visited the shop. They do it is crucial, but for December seventh,
0:14:22 > 0:14:27there was no evidence Megrahi was even in Malta. Does that prove his
0:14:27 > 0:14:37innocence? The SCCRC report says the evidence that it did not rain
0:14:37 > 0:14:38
0:14:38 > 0:14:42raises serious doubts on the safety A second key finding of the
0:14:42 > 0:14:47commission's report revealed a previously unheard evidence a. It
0:14:47 > 0:14:52casts even more doubt on whether December 7th could have been the
0:14:52 > 0:14:57day the clothes or were sold and whether Megrahi is guilty. The clue
0:14:57 > 0:15:01was to be fought in the Christmas lights. Tony Gauci said he liked so
0:15:01 > 0:15:07were not switched on the day he sold the clothes. At Christmas time,
0:15:07 > 0:15:13we put up the decorations about 15 time it -- 15 days before Christmas.
0:15:13 > 0:15:18The decorations were not up. The Christmas decorations were not up.
0:15:18 > 0:15:25Also contradicting himself at other times, the commission felt Tony
0:15:25 > 0:15:28Gauci's earlier statement was the more reliable. George Thomson has
0:15:28 > 0:15:35tracked down the man who should know exactly when the Christmas
0:15:35 > 0:15:39lights were on. These are the Christmas lights. It is practically
0:15:39 > 0:15:465:30pm now, the same time as I remember turning them on that all
0:15:46 > 0:15:55those years ago. 23 years ago, he was down here at the ferry terminal.
0:15:55 > 0:16:05He was then the local MP and minister for tourism. Wendy's which
0:16:05 > 0:16:13these lights on? I switch them on 6th December 1988. If I was to tell
0:16:13 > 0:16:18you that a prosecution case was focused on 7th December, you would
0:16:18 > 0:16:26say that time he had already performed their switching on of the
0:16:26 > 0:16:33likes? Yes. The lights were switched on the 6th. I have no
0:16:33 > 0:16:40doubt. This is my diary. It says Tuesday December 6th and then here,
0:16:40 > 0:16:445:30pm, Christmas lights. The SCCRC report concluded that the date to
0:16:44 > 0:16:50the Christmas lights were turned on casts serious doubts on the safety
0:16:50 > 0:16:54of Megrahi's conviction. So, if Tony Gauci does it sell clothes to
0:16:54 > 0:16:58the Lockerbie bomber, he sold them on a day that it was raining and
0:16:58 > 0:17:06when the Christmas lights were not let, not 7th December when Megrahi
0:17:06 > 0:17:13was there. The date of purchase is crucial to the whole case and as
0:17:13 > 0:17:18soon as you place doubt upon that, you basically remove really the
0:17:18 > 0:17:21whole underpaying of the case against Megrahi. The report
0:17:21 > 0:17:26revealed that Megrahi had previously said he was able to
0:17:26 > 0:17:30enter a Malta without a passport. The prosecution focused on the 7th
0:17:30 > 0:17:36December as that was the date the could prove that Megrahi was in the
0:17:36 > 0:17:40country. Another key finding in Chapter 22 of the report went to
0:17:40 > 0:17:48the heart of the case. The report said that the identification of
0:17:48 > 0:17:55Megrahi was flawed. On 5th April 1999, Megrahi was arrested here in
0:17:55 > 0:17:59Holland. We have the actual footing -- footage of where Tony Gauci
0:17:59 > 0:18:04identified Megrahi as the person he sold close to, in affect condemning
0:18:04 > 0:18:09him as the Lockerbie bomber. Shortly after he arrived in Holland,
0:18:10 > 0:18:19at there was an identification proved a -- parade to which Tony
0:18:20 > 0:18:25
0:18:25 > 0:18:30From a separate room, Tony Gauci picked out Megrahi. What the
0:18:30 > 0:18:38British does not show you is that Tony Gauci already had a picture of
0:18:38 > 0:18:43Megrahi. At trial, it emerged that he had a copy of this magazine. It
0:18:43 > 0:18:48had a small photograph of Megrahi in that, under the caption, who
0:18:48 > 0:18:52planted the bomb? The impression given at trial was that he had had
0:18:52 > 0:18:57this magazine for a short period, but what of the Review Commission
0:18:57 > 0:19:02established is that he had this a magazine for many months before the
0:19:02 > 0:19:08trial and the Commission concluded that it rendered the picking out of
0:19:08 > 0:19:14Megrahi unsound. We could all the pounds raised in our programme to
0:19:14 > 0:19:18Tony Gauci, but he refused to talk to us. On the point of the
0:19:18 > 0:19:23identification he had previously said he did not believe the
0:19:23 > 0:19:28photograph affected his ability to identify the purchaser. So do the
0:19:28 > 0:19:33Crown Office believed the SCCRC undermine their case? Our request
0:19:33 > 0:19:43was -- for an interview was declined, however they gave us the
0:19:43 > 0:20:02
0:20:02 > 0:20:06There will never be an appeal testing the commission's report
0:20:06 > 0:20:11findings and whether Megrahi was a victim of a miscarriage of justice
0:20:11 > 0:20:14and that is because his appeal was dropped before he was released --
0:20:14 > 0:20:19release from prison on compassionate count --
0:20:19 > 0:20:29compassionate grounds. At his home in Tripoli, Megrahi talks about the
0:20:29 > 0:20:57
0:20:57 > 0:21:02SCCRC report. But did it go far Megrahi could be referring to fresh
0:21:02 > 0:21:12evidence that could not only clear his name but raises questions about
0:21:12 > 0:21:14
0:21:14 > 0:21:19Lippiett's involvement. -- Libya. This evidence came in a series of
0:21:19 > 0:21:22documents from the UK Government centre for a forensic science.
0:21:22 > 0:21:29Buried in those files was information that has never been
0:21:29 > 0:21:35disclosed for four. The clue was discovered in the beautiful hills
0:21:35 > 0:21:40around Lockerbie. The case against Libya can be summed up like this.
0:21:40 > 0:21:46The bomb that exploded over Lockerbie was supposedly set off by
0:21:46 > 0:21:52a timer. A tiny fragment of that timing device survived. It is that
0:21:52 > 0:21:56fragment that links the bomb to Libya. During the original trial,
0:21:56 > 0:22:02prosecution lawyers persuaded the court that the fragment matched the
0:22:02 > 0:22:07circuit board in this time. The time I was made by a Swiss company.
0:22:07 > 0:22:16According to the CA, the company had supplied 20 of this specially
0:22:16 > 0:22:21made timers to Libya. -- CIA. So when it came to trial, what we had
0:22:21 > 0:22:26was a country which supported terrorists, a country which ordered
0:22:26 > 0:22:30timers that could be used to set off bombs, and a fragment that
0:22:30 > 0:22:34appeared to match these timers. The evidence linking Libya to the
0:22:34 > 0:22:39timers and therefore to the bomb may have been circumstantial, but
0:22:39 > 0:22:46it was highly persuasive. One man who was not persuaded was John
0:22:46 > 0:22:50Ashton. As he read Government files, he stumbled across to documents and
0:22:50 > 0:22:54a puzzling discrepancy. The handwriting belonged to Alan
0:22:54 > 0:23:00Fereday, one of the British Government's chief forensic
0:23:00 > 0:23:07scientists. In these notes, Alan Fereday describes the plating as
0:23:07 > 0:23:13pure tin. Alan Fereday was given several and damage to timers of the
0:23:13 > 0:23:18type cent to two Libya. He tested one of these and came up with a
0:23:18 > 0:23:27different result from the fragment. Here he describes the plating as an
0:23:27 > 0:23:35alloy of 70% tin and 30% lead. This difference could be important.
0:23:35 > 0:23:45Megrahi's defence team enlisted the help of Dr Jess colleague. -- Dr
0:23:45 > 0:23:46
0:23:46 > 0:23:54Cawley. I also deal with ceramics and polymers as well as metals.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58am a materials scientist. We are going to the Advanced Manufacturing
0:23:58 > 0:24:05Research Centre at Sheffield University. With respect to some
0:24:05 > 0:24:10work credit on a fragments and samples that relate to the
0:24:11 > 0:24:14Lockerbie bombing -- some work I did. Dr Cawley used the same sample
0:24:15 > 0:24:21that Alan Fereday used and confirmed that the fat -- that the
0:24:21 > 0:24:27sample was 30% tin and 70% lead. But the fragment had been in an
0:24:27 > 0:24:30explosion and the sample had not. So Dr Cawley also tested the
0:24:31 > 0:24:34possibility that the explosion could have melted off the lead and
0:24:34 > 0:24:43therefore account for the difference. For this experiment, he
0:24:43 > 0:24:47used samples made up to the same specification. I exposed to the
0:24:47 > 0:24:51circuit board's to very high temperatures. Around 1000 degrees
0:24:51 > 0:24:58Celsius or so. A great deal more energy than would have been caused
0:24:58 > 0:25:04by an explosion. When I came to analyse those samples, there was no
0:25:04 > 0:25:10loss of any alloy content, at no loss of lead. The hypothesis that
0:25:10 > 0:25:16because of the explosion in, let had evaporated from this alloy, it
0:25:16 > 0:25:23was not substantiated by the experiment. Let had evaporated.
0:25:23 > 0:25:30these tests raided doubt -- raise doubts? This led me to conclude
0:25:30 > 0:25:35that this control sample was manufactured by a different process
0:25:35 > 0:25:39to the original fragment but I analysed. Megrahi's solicitor asked
0:25:39 > 0:25:45the company Thuring that made it their circuit board about the
0:25:45 > 0:25:48difference between lead and tin. They said there was no way it had
0:25:48 > 0:25:54come from the same production process. The set at the time it
0:25:54 > 0:25:58could not have been manufactured by them. We asked the defence, Science
0:25:58 > 0:26:08and Technology Laboratory of the could explain the difference in
0:26:08 > 0:26:34
0:26:34 > 0:26:38that the samples. In a statement, Colonel Gaddafi accepted
0:26:38 > 0:26:42responsibility for Lockerbie. Many thought this was a cynical move to
0:26:42 > 0:26:48get Britain and America to lift economic sanctions against Libya.
0:26:48 > 0:26:54There are still unanswered questions about Gaddafi's role in
0:26:54 > 0:26:58the Government and -- Megrahi role in the Government. Who now that
0:26:58 > 0:27:02Gaddafi has gone, is it time to re- examine all the evidence
0:27:02 > 0:27:08surrounding Lockerbie? In Tripoli, a dying man still wants his name
0:27:08 > 0:27:18cleared. But he had this to say to Tony Gauci, the person who
0:27:18 > 0:27:18
0:27:18 > 0:28:22Apology for the loss of subtitles for 63 seconds
0:28:22 > 0:28:26It is doubtful Megrahi will live to see the evidence raised in this