RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: Lockerbie witnesses paid up to $3.5m to give evidence  Mon Oct 05, 2009 2:59 am | |
| LONDON: Two key figures in the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber were secretly given rewards of up to $US3 million ($3.5 million) in a deal discussed by Scottish detectives and the US government, according to newly released legal papers.
The claims about the payments were revealed in a dossier of evidence intended to be used in an appeal by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of murdering 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988.
Megrahi abandoned his appeal last month after the Libyan and Scottish governments struck a deal to free him on compassionate grounds, because he is terminally ill with prostate cancer. Now in hospital in Tripoli, Megrahi said he wanted the public to see the evidence which he claims would have cleared him.
''I continue to protest my innocence - how could I fail to do so?'' he said. ''I have no desire to add to the upset of many people I know are profoundly affected by what happened in Lockerbie. My intention is only for the truth to be made known.''
The documents published by Megrahi's lawyers on Friday show that the US Justice Department was asked to pay $US2 million to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who gave evidence suggesting Megrahi had bought clothes found in the suitcase that allegedly held the bomb.
The Justice Department was also asked to pay a further $US1 million to his brother, Paul, who did not give evidence but played an important role in identifying the clothing and in ''maintaining the resolve of his brother''. Their rewards could be increased, the Justice Department said, and they were also eligible for the US witness protection program, the documents said.
The previously secret payments were uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which returned Megrahi's conviction to the court of appeal in 2007 as a suspected miscarriage of justice. Many references were in private diaries kept by the detectives involved, Megrahi's lawyers said, but not their official notebooks.
The commission was unable to establish exactly how much the brothers received under the Justice Department's ''reward for justice'' program, but found it was after Megrahi's trial and his first appeal in 1992 was thrown out.
A memo written by ''[Detective Inspector] Dalgleish'' to ''ACC Graham'' in 2007 confirms the brothers received ''substantial payments from the American authorities''.
The evidence, which was due to be heard by the appeal court next month, also discloses that Mr Gauci was visited 50 times by Scottish detectives before the trial. In 23 police interviews, Mr Gauci gave contradictory evidence about who he believed bought the clothes, the person's age, appearance and the date of purchase.
LNK
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