Maltese man who determined Lockerbie bombing trial dies

Updated 5.45pm with investigator's reaction Tony Gauci, the Maltese man who determined the outcome of the Lockerbie trial, has died, Times of Malta is informed.  Mr Gauci, who lived in Swieqi, is believed to have died of natural causes.  He had pointed at Abdelbaset al-Megrahi as the man who had bought the clothes from his Sliema shop, which were said to have been wrapped around the bomb which killed 270 people over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988.  This evidence tied together the prosecution's thesis, that the bomb loaded on to the doomed Pan Am flight at Heathrow Airport had first left from Malta before being transferred via Frankfurt. But serious doubts were raised about Mr Gauci’s testimony over the years. Libyan national Al-Megrahi died in 2012 with the tag 'the Lockerbie bomber’ despite the fact that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had described Mr Gauci as an “unreliable” witness, putting the onus of the responsibility of the UK’s worst terrorist attack in doubt. The SCCRC said the Crown prosecution suppressed from Megrahi’s defence team statements showing how much Gauci changed his mind about crucial details over the years. Documents...