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as events in Libya loosen Colonel Gaddafi's grip on power an old accusation comes back to haunt him former henchmen accuse him of ordering a mass murder over Scotland more than 20 years ago in 2009 the only man ever convicted the bombing of Pan Am 103 climbed the steps of a commercial jet and flew to freedom doctors had certified that Abdul Basit mermaid Ali al Megrahi was dying of prostate cancer and the government of Scotland had released him on compassionate grounds having barely served a month in prison P each life lost many saw al Megrahi as a murderer who escaped scot-free I don't think it's right to show compassion to a mass murderer like that I think it was wrong we have been in contact with the Scottish government in indicating that we objected to this the small market town of Lockerbie lies on the southwest of the Scottish lowlands not far from the border with England in the towns cemetery a memorial garden records the names of 270 innocent people mostly Americans who were victims of a terrorist atrocity 4 George Thompson a former police detective the biggest mass murderer in British history remains an unsolved crime I feel sorry for the relatives there's been miscarriages of justice which have taken longer than 20 years to resolve umbrella Tufts this air of an explanation which is not been forthcoming today December the 21st 1988 the night of the winter solstice the longest night of the year at 6:30 p.m. Pan Am flight 103 took off from London Heathrow next stop JFK in the cargo hold was a brown Samsonite suitcase packed with new clothes and a Toshiba radio cassette player hidden in the Toshiba were more than 450 grams of high explosive and a detonator at three minutes past 7:30 1,000 feet over Scotland the bomb exploded 46 and a half seconds later 200,000 pounds of kerosene ignited as the wings and part of the fuselage crashed onto Lockerbie my son was the second police car on the scene they saw this explosion in the sky and bodies on roofs and chimneys he told me embodies having gone through gates and been sliced like through a mincer more than a hundred bodies landed three miles east of Lockerbie near the village church of Tunde goth where there's a small memorial chapel in any motive case the tentacle stretch out and touch people and the motive people who are affected by it is sometimes very surprising imagine the enormity of this case hello party we all made it here finally all of us wrapped in your spirit and beauty and splendor of this little spot of heaven love you bless you bless you you on the morning after the crash human remains and plane wreckage lay scattered over 400 square miles of Scottish landscape every shard of metal every scrap of flesh or bone was now a clue in a murder inquiry because an American plane had been brought down over Scotland on a flight which originated in Germany the Lockerbie investigation involved three police forces George Thompson has obtained copies of three forces investigative files but according to him they raised more questions than answers you know my heart goes out to the police as well having said that there is something very wrong at the heart of the investigation and I think that this has got to be resolved Sunday it took more than 10 years and the offer of a four million dollar reward to bring two of the alleged perpetrators to justice the 18-month trial took place in a specially built courthouse in Holland but only after a long legal standoff between Britain America and Libya had been resolved by Scotland's leading judicial expert I came up with a formula that would allow a trial to take place under Scottish Criminal Procedure with a Scottish prosecutor Scottish defense counsel and with a Scottish presiding judge and I also suggested that the trial should take place in the Netherlands the two accused were Abdel Basset al Megrahi and Lamine Khalifa for him both had worked for the government of Libya though our Megrahi always denied he was an intelligence officer he did travel on a coded government passport under an assumed name on one of his frequent trips to Malta he allegedly bought clothes that were packed in the same suitcase as the bomb his co-accused Mahima was the Libyan Airlines station manager in Malta according to a CIA informant al Megrahi arrived in water with a brown Samsonite suitcase which for hema carried through customs onto an Air Malta plane the bag and the bomb in it would check through to Pan Am flight 103 at the end of the trial the judges ruled of the CIA agent was completely unreliable and acquitted for hema despite this they found al-megrahi guilty and sentenced him to 27 years in prison when his prison in Scotland al Megrahi maintained his innocence and launched two Appeals George Thompson was hired by Al McGraw his legal team to investigate the case for more than two years he visited our Megrahi in jail almost daily but I first met Bassett he had just been given quite a that said n'd and he seems to lost lost heart very quite at the start very dismissive for anything that we were trying to do but actually got into the actual evidence and we were able to assure him that we could make some progress hizmet changed I can't possibly say he'll see that facet McGraw he is not guilty I don't know that but what I can't see is after a very careful examination of the evidence which convicted them there's massive holes in it there's something far wrong with it and I think had their peel been allowed to go ahead all that kind of evidence would have come out and I think he would have gone home anyway on appeal the case against al Megrahi was assembled from 10,000 tiny scraps of evidence found in and around the crash site under Scottish law every piece of evidence must be signed and countersigned by two policemen Scotland's chief law officer the Lord Advocate was Peter Fraser I think what reassured the Americans and the police forces in the FBI was when they really got their minds around the requirement under Scots law that everything has to be corroborated then they felt much more comfortable that there was going to be a thorough investigation undertaken by the police in in Scotland that every single item of evidence was going to be marked by two people but according to George Thompson the correct procedures for evidence forensics and identification were too often ignored he believes our Megrahi was falsely tried I rolled through the German fails and when you look closely at some of the stuff and compare it with the evidence that was given and caught it's quite revealing as we shall see a gray shirt found at the crash site was key evidence the bombs blast had torn it into four shreds and left a fragment of the detonator embedded in its collar I could maybe show you this is a photograph this is the pocket fragment of shirt and if you look at a pocket area it is badly damaged now if you go to the German copy it clearly shows that when this piece of material came into police custody it was not in that condition it was not damaged they'll see the ragged edges it's not good for the graph at all but clearly shows that it was attacked if that fragment had been altered for any reason whatsoever by forensic scientists or by the police then that would have been recorded in the forensic notebooks and hasn't been not only as the shirt shape changed but someone and we don't know who has altered one of the evidence tags well it sees debris that debris had originally been cloth but had been changed that there has been changed from cloth to debiting and that was drier in court and despite that the judges they say that defamed that there is nothing sinister about it however there is something sinister well Thompson sees a sinister is the order in which police have signed the tag no here's what concerns me if has claimed this officer here and now officer they're saying the label when it was found in the fields and the crash site how is it that that there we have a surface of saying his name and then underneath hood s stroke clade that short for Strathclyde that signature there over rates that of the officer who accepted it there's only one explanation for that and is that that officer there saying that label before he did despite appearances an expert advised the Scottish criminal case review commission that this signature does not overwrite the other that would be of concern it was proved that that was had been altered yes I would be troubled about it unless it was some inconsequential matter like the to correct the spelling or ORS or something like that in the course of the Lockerbie enquiry police officers asked at least a hundred and ninety three witnesses to sign 807 three evidence tags retrospectively if somebody comes on said I made a mistake okay accept that or somebody comes along and says well actually I had to change it because actually yeah I'd forgotten the date whatever I got the date wrong people you get dates from but here there are too many of those and I think it either shows an extraordinary lack of care in fact more in strongly than normal and that shouldn't be in a case of this gravity or there's something else going on early in 2011 this program took George Thompson to Malta to re-examine evidence and witnesses Thomson has come to believe that the police version of events is full of holes and he can prove it when I was brought into the case I found a lot of attention with new peds the actually who had done the law could be bombing if it wasn't exactly he was up I felt very strongly that if you're going to attack me conviction you had attacked evidence which convicted them so I took a very very close look at the clothing evidence straddling the trade route between Italy and Libya the Mediterranean island of Malta has for 5,000 years been a crossroads for rival the civilizations hello mr. Navarro hello it's George stencil gear Thompson checked into one of Malta as many tourist hotels and started to follow the trail of evidence that first brought the police to Malta the gray shirt was one of several items of clothing whose labels showed they were made in Malta and sold in a small clothes shop the co-owner of the shop was a certain Tony Gao Qi the most important single witness in the case we're now coming down into there Sliema area we have get you shoppers just up here on the left hand say does that your shop I don't think is there very much no the shops just on the left hand say T in fact is cause it's the one that sees maybes house to spray on life on September the 1st 1989 please visit attorney GAO cheese shop Mary's house the statement they took from Tony Gao Qi was to be the most significant in the entire case for the prosecution it was around 6:30 p.m. just before closing time a man had entered the shop and he started to look at various garments the man's behavior was strange that is why I can now remember he asked for exams jacket and when I asked him for his size he just said it's not for me I'm picking out the trousers I asked him what size and he said more or less my size It was as if anything I suggested he buy he would take it Gao Qi statement includes a detailed list of what the customer had bought some nine months earlier and even the exact amount paid for each item it's remarkable and his memory just doesn't stop there he remembers how the mine paid him he says that he paid them with Maltese tenpo knows Thompson first crossed paths with Tony Gao Qi almost 10 years ago I came out to Malta in December 2001 and while I was here I got a call from the investigation teams who were looking at the defense of muscle Mecca rocky and they asked me if I would have a look at to the goichi Tony grouches testimony was crucial anything that we can gouge his credibility weakened the prosecution case so posing as a tourist Thompson paid a visit to marys house as soon as Thompson entered the shop Gao Qi noticed he had a Scottish accent Tony Gao Qi was in the back shot he came running out almost shouting he are you from Scotland and when they said yeah he says I'm very important person in Scotland how are you important the Lockerbie case wasn't a case in me trying to get him to talk to me I had a bigger job trying to get this stop and he went on and he he told us quite a lot to the extent that I reported back to the team in London and they asked me to take them improvising as best he could Thompson concealed an amateur video camera in a shoulder bag he pushed the record button before meeting Gao Qi at a pub called the lady died I went and the following day with tape equipment engaged in conversation again I did quite happily told me about all the places that police had taken them why they taking them there was a fire breathing fire what Thompson learned from his secret recording was the tourney Gao Qi had been on several all expenses paid trips to Scotland and one very important bet he said he says that they wanted me to go back in the car with them to make sure I was seeing the same things saying the right things so there was no doubt at all mr. Gogi was coached if he is offered trips all expenses paid trips to Scotland if he is put up in very expensive hotels if he is taken on salmon fishing expeditions this seems to me to go beyond the relationship that I would expect investigators of a crime and prosecutors of a crime to have with one of their witnesses George Thompson was not the only person whose conscience was troubled by the al-megrahi case a scientist by training John Cameron has for 35 years been the minister in the Church of Scotland Nelson Mandela decided to look at the evidence because he said there was a big problem with her forensic that this was this was a miscarriage of justice Mandela was a lawyer anyway and he approached the Scottish Church and they asked him to look into this and I wrote a four thousand word report on this the focus of dr. Cameron's report was the science the report said that the ear accident investigators I'd pretty much cracked the case within the first few months they knew from pretty early on that there was a bomb had been placed in the forward luggage hold they were able to find the remains of round Samsonite case in which the bomb was contained the even found fragments of the Toshiba cassette recorder in which the bomb had been housed Donn's concealed in a Toshiba and other electronic devices have been found in Germany two months before the crash that October police rounded up members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine general command these ingenious and deadly devices were activated by a barometric trigger pflp-gc extremists had already bombed three planes using barometric triggers say they were seen as the likeliest suspects but then the whole direction of the investigation changed government forensic scientists said they discovered this embedded in the collar of a gray shirt it was a fragment of circuit board and it suggested that the bomb was triggered not by a barometric views but by an electronic timer the fragment was part of a timer made by a Swiss firm called me bow it was the identification of this fragment of circuit board as belonging to a mobile timer the majority of which the vast majority of which were supplied to Libya battle according to the prosecution led them first to focus their attention on Libya before then the attention of the investigators the investigating team had been on Palestinian groups and not on the Libyans Libya had imported Toshiba radios for its domestic market so it was plausible that a Toshiba radio bomb with amiibo timer could also have been assembled by Libyans this tiny fragment of timer was the crucial evidence that were said to link Libya and ultimately al Megrahi to the Pan Am atrocity in 1999 the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration conducted a series of tests to replicate the explosion in the Pan Am jet any scientific test has got to be represented exploded different bombs like that to see what what happened experts were later able to establish that fragments of circuit board or a timer could survive an explosion and not be vaporized in the blast but the work of the British forensic scientist dr. Thomas Hayes left one huge question about the fragment of the timer unanswered this is a slight problem for the prosecution because he's had they hadn't tested the fragment to see the if it had if it was had any residue from the explosion he hadn't thought this is important apparent alterations to the evidence tag raised major questions about who found the timer fragment and when the labeling was very weird and they his name appears that in various positions and police names seem to overwrite it or underwrite it and it looks as if he did some experimental work on this fabulous fragment before it was actually ever discovered which was really pretty amazing dr. Thomas Hayes also altered the forensic logbook in which he recorded the days he discovered the time of fragment it was obvious from his log when he presented this log to the court to sure that they was done in the 12th of May the looks as if that he didn't set at a page in his log because all the pages right after it had to be remembered now this is from a scientific point of view highly unsatisfactory there's no conclusive proof that Hayes inserted the page but to John Cameron it's the inevitable conclusion at evidence log is supposed to be an evidence log it's supposed to go straight through you can't go adding pages wouldn't work when you feel it might be helpful and this is what he's it done the mystery thickens Hayes swore on oath that the date on which he dissected the collar and discovered the timer fragment was May the 12th 1989 Thompson's evidence contradicts their claim we have recovered from the German fellows documentation which shows that the Germans were being told that this piece of fragment here was a cover from a slalom shot on the 22nd of January 1990 not only that but the United States Department of Justice wrote our letter and in that letter and the statement of facts they tell the Swiss authorities that that was found an Islamic chart on the 22nd of January 1990 the finding of the fragment a circuit board is a major problem because the Germans say it was found at one time I think it was say in January of 1990 but Hayes was the claim at the trial that it that he had found it and had done working on in May of 1989 so the whole thing kind of stinks I mean is there something going on here it's an unheard-of situation I've never had a case where you've had one side of saying what it was found in and nine months before others say it was found somebody still in lies either they're telling lies about they've been found on the 12th of May 1980 main order telling lies I've ever been found on the 22nd of January 1990 it can't be thrown twice it's the fragment of timer found in the collar of the gray shirt that's supposed to link our Megrahi to the bomb this is the same gray shirt for which one of the evidence labels has been altered the same gray shirt that unaccountably changes shape in the Scottish and German police files in his first statement of the police Tony Gao Qi lists the clothes he says he sold to the mysterious customer in Mary's house two pairs of trousers three pairs of pajamas one umbrella one bagel and one cardigan now there's a problem there because not included and that bless the clothing they claims to have sold as a gray slalom shirt in fact couches first please statement makes no mention of any shirt gray or otherwise in January 1990 Gao Qi was questioned again about the shirt by Detective Chief Inspector Henry woods Bell and by Detective Constable John Crawford both declined to be interviewed for this program he's showing this fragment yet I will show you that but then he says a very interesting thing he sees that time when the man came I am sure I bet time when the man came I am sure I did not sell him a shirt and it repeats out later on it reinforces that he says that man didn't buy any shirts for sure that man didn't buy any shirts for sure on the 10th of September 1990 Tony Gao Qi made another statement to DCI Bell and to Detective Sergeant Pat Bern Bern hasn't responded to approaches from this program by now something had jogged Tony gouges memory and listen to what he says here about three weeks ago I was cleaning boxes out in the shop and I know remember that the man who bought the clothing also bought a beach slalom shirt and a blue and white stripe shoved in the original handwritten statement please sergeant Byrne has crossed out the word beige a transcript shows that the word beige has disappeared from the text fed into the police computer but this is contradicted by the Maltese police statement which keeps the word beige the shirt of course was supposed to be a grey man shirt new research raises even more profound questions about the evidence that links al-megrahi to the gray shirt what he does see in his evidence to the court was that the green slalom shot which he sold was a size 16 and a half 42 shut has a 16 and a half collar also known as a size 42 if the collar size of the gray shirt was 16 and a half it could only be an adult man's shirt but Thompson has discovered a witness who contradicts this smaller we're going to try and face a man called 20 Khurana was one of the shocked manufacturers way back in 1990 we think we're going to be able to track us unknown to a shoe shop and the later and that's what were heading just there you in 1990 the man Thompson has come to see made a statement of Detective Constable John Crawford which was not introduced at the trial as a car alarm you expressed an opinion at the came up both the side of the shuttle without pinion wars yes I still remember vividly my personal view is that front of the shirt happens to be a boy's shirt yes it's literally what about the pocket size did that mean anything to you it was a very tight pocket small pocket which go which fits a boy's shirt if with a men's shirt the pocket would be wider you can put in a pack of cigarettes or I think you mentioned out yelling because yes maybe and I still confirmed and I spoke inferring that so there's no doubt and you remained what's it ever and what you told the police are way back in 1990 was that in your opinion and then what they'll show you and what you're shown a photograph of to be and more is in fact a boy shirt yes I still I'm still of that opinion that happens to be a boy shirt okay thank you I'd be clear of land like it Thompson has found the name of another witness who was also interviewed about the shirt by Detective Constable Crawford hi there general we have told Reuters please okay that's the hops the next witness used to supply shirts to the GAO cheese shop never got his 1990 please statement was not introduced at the trial when I came the last time we showed you a photograph of a fragment of shaft and you say the rather interesting thing and that you thought it was a boy shirt can you tell me why you thought it was a boy shop well I thought it was a voice shared mainly for two things one because of the size of the pocket of the pocket here and the placket was also very narrow it was almost the width of a lady's blouse can you point in her pocket or not the placket is the piece in front generally it's interlined not as narrow generally a standard men's shirt is about 34 millimeters when that was about to enter five and that would be on this fragment piece here yes it is so same thing here I'm going to way back to 1990 can you remember a Scottish police detective coming to see it maybe along with Maltese officers and they would show you but the actual piece of shirt yes I remember I remember seeing the fabric and at that time you told them that you thought it was a boy shot yes that that's good okay as you can see the f.2d we start right by the story and that he can save her some certainty that what he has there is a voice shot and you know the risk of boring you you can't describe just how important that is it's crucial to the case that breaks the chain completely Michael Mansfield is one of the great English defense lawyers and he said that if there's a miscarriage of justice it will be in two areas fortunately witness identification and the other on corrupt forensic evidence and one of the main issues in Lockerbie in fact for me the main issue in Lockerbie and it's the only basis really upon which the the remaining conviction stood was identification Ian McKee has long experience of Scottish police procedures he served for 30 years in the force rising to the rank of Superintendent I could not tell you how worried I am about the identification evidence and the Lockerbie case it's central to the success of their prosecution and it's totally fraud for beginning to end the evidence that convicted al Megrahi goes back to Mary's house and to Tony gouges description of the mysterious Libyan who came shopping one evening gouges statement was taken on September the 1st 1989 by Detective Chief Inspector Henry woods Bell in the first statement he displayed lung has been 6 foot or more and hate goichi went on to see he had a big chest and a large head his hair was very black he was speaking Libyan to me he was speaking Libyan to me he was from Libya according to Thompson an unknown hand has altered gouges statement the phrase about the customer being from Libya has been added later in smaller handwriting and darker ink 12 days later Gao Qi went to a Maltese police station to help with a photo fit of the suspect Gao Qi added new detail to his description he said the man was about fifty years of age and about 16 and a half or 17 inch collar I think the easiest thing to do is to show you the result of the artists impression and that Kimo it's made to me mr. Megrahi yeah and what are the differences one simple difference it looks nothing like them the broad-shouldered six feet tall dark-skinned 50 year old man bears little resemblance to the five feet eight inch light skinned 37 year old al Megrahi in the course of the next few months Gao Qi was asked to view photographs of suspects a number of times going back to witnesses time and time again should not be allowed and the court should not allow the fasiq she should not allow it because what happens is that trash has put on the pressure to identify someone pressure to if you like solve a crime and eventually I think most witnesses will crumble under light it was not until fifteen months after his first police statement when Gao Qi was showing this photo array that he finally made a positive identification but the procedure followed by detectives Bell and Crawford has been criticized what is alleged have happened is that Gao Qi and said the all Luke younger and if you see his statement here this would appear to be where it comes in he says the first impression I had was that all the photographs were of Maine younger than the man who bought the clothing I told mr. rebellious I was asked to look at all the photographs carefully and to try and allow for the any age differences what we sensed them was consider if they're maybe 15 years older how would they look that's a clear breach of identification procedures it was only after he'd been asked to imagine these men were 15 years older that Gao Qi went through the pictures face by face until he picked out photo number 8 Abdel Basset al Megrahi he was obviously caught by the police and no one has denying that I mean it was quite obviously he'd been spoken to by detectors and a number of times before he the identification it seems obvious as well he wasn't sure and he certainly all the increases it came towards at the time for Court that evidence is totally valueless and unfortunately it's critical it's a long time since the locals have seen Gao Qi and his favorite hangout on water it's widely believed that in return for the evidence he gave in court Gao Qi has backed his share of the reward money and moved abroad yeah I usually come here a lot this lad here told me off-camera that only was Sam he'd gone to Australia but we wouldn't see anything in camera you may have the money if it was lost I think he's lost her today when Thompson drove past gotchas last-known address there was no sign of the man but an expensive sports car was parked in the drive under Scottish law witnesses can't be offered reward money Lester taint their evidence but the American government had posted a four million dollar reward for information leading to an arrest next time Thompson drove past he glimpsed a gray-haired man in a red polo shirt he certainly looked like out you on the third drive pass Thompson spotted the same man being driven off in a green car there's him Thompson tailed the car because he wanted Gao Qi to confirm or deny reports that the US Department of Justice paid him two million dollars but then the green car spotted our camera and the next stop was a police station as he climbed the stairs Thompson got a good look at him George was that him definitely yes I'm no 200% sure because I've just been questioned by the police last why I'm interested to Noguchi mr. Gao Qi declines to be interviewed for this program Scottish police maintained that Gao Qi showed no interest in any reward money before the trial but Scotland's criminal case Review Commission found that extracts from Detective Chief Inspector Bell's diary cast a new light on that claim the Diaries appear to suggest that mr. Gao Qi was interested in monetary compensation and that indications were given to him that money was available it was flawed from top to bottom it seems as if goichi was coached and his evidence and he was given money for his errors identification 11 flight has got no value at all all I can say is I had made it very clear I was tried to express earlier that we were very conscious that the eyes of the world would be on us and it would not look good if there was any suggestion that there was any reward money or any further he certainly wasn't motivated by that George Thompson's dogged detective work has raised many new questions about the prosecution of Abdel Basset al Megrahi dear Tony Gauci sell any shirts at all to the mysterious shopper if he sold a shirt was it beige I was it great was it a man's shirt or a boy's shirt when was the time of fragment found in the shirts collar was it January 1990 or May 1989 why did the forensic scientists who swore it was May change the page numbers in his log why did the policeman who should have signed the evidence label first seemed to sign it last why was the word on the evidence label change and when the debris was found to contain the fragment of the timer why was it never tested for explosive residue from prison sailors in Holland and Scotland al-megrahi spent eight years trying to win the right to appeal against his conviction he bettered letters entered the fact that people thought that he could have carried out a crime like the doning of that aircraft particularly v children working to them and I've seen him sitting crying and the visit and just desperation how could you do this to me why people will think I am a mud better al-megrahi did finally win the right to appeal but his case was never heard diagnosed with cancer and given months to live al Megrahi dropped his appeal the next week he was released from prison on compassionate grounds at the airport prison officer shook how McGraw his hand he'd been well liked in jail and no one there believed he was really guilty al-megrahi flew home to libya and a hero's welcome Scottish authorities denied they'd made dropping his appeal a condition of his release but when he did abandon his appeal it meant that the full story of how al Megrahi case was conducted may never be heard in court all exposed to public scrutiny the criminal justice system in Scotland has lost its honour because of McGraw his conviction personally I think the case will go on and on and on as cases do the truth will always come out in the end sometimes we have to wait a rather long time so many of the Americans seem outraged that he didn't die within three months I'm glad he didn't I'm glad he had time with his family because it was clearly innocent it was clearly a miscarriage of justice what still haunts George Thompson about the Lockerbie case is this if his evidence is right then those who bombed Pan Am 103 and killed 270 innocent victims still walk free 14 years old they never forget never forgive you