At 1903 hours on 21 December 1988 PanAm flight 103 fell out of the sky. The 259 passengers and crew members who were on board and 11 residents of Lockerbie where the debris fell were killed. The Crown case is that the cause of the disaster was that an explosive device had been introduced into the hold of the aircraft by the two accused whether acting alone or in concert with each other and others. This device exploded when the aircraft was in Scottish air space thus causing the aircraft to disintegrate. In these circumstances it was originally contended that the accused were guilty of conspiracy to murder, alternatively murder, alternatively a contravention of section 2(1) and (5) of the Aviation Security Act 1982. At the conclusion of the Crown's submissions, however, the libel was restricted to the charge of murder.
It is not disputed, and was amply proved, that the cause of the disaster was indeed the explosion of a device within the aircraft. Nor is it disputed that the person or persons who were responsible for the deliberate introduction of the explosive device would be guilty of the crime of murder. The matter at issue in this trial therefore is whether or not the Crown have proved beyond reasonable doubt that one or other or both of the accused was responsible, actor or art and part, for the deliberate introduction of the device.

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After the disaster a massive police operation was mounted to recover as much as possible of the debris in order to ascertain the cause of the crash. Tens of thousands of items were recovered, sifted and recorded, and any that appeared to be of particular interest as indicating a possible cause of the explosion were examined by the relevant specialists.
All the parts of the aircraft that were recovered were taken initially to a hangar in Longtown where they were examined by inspectors of the Air Accidents Investigation Board ("AAIB").

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From the nature of this damage the conclusion was reached, and it is one which we accept, that the cause of the damage was the detonation of an explosive device within the fuselage.

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The conclusion reached by the forensic scientists was that the nature of the fragments and their distribution left no doubt that the explosive charge was contained within the Toshiba radio, and we agree with that conclusion.

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The nature and extent of the damage to this clothing together with the items embedded therein confirmed, if confirmation were necessary, that the explosion had occurred within container AVE 4041, and also established beyond doubt that the explosive device was contained within a Toshiba RT-SF 16 radio cassette player which had been within a brown Samsonite suitcase which also contained the items of clothing enumerated above.

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In August 1989 police officers visited Malta in an attempt to trace the source of these items. After a visit to Yorkie Clothing, on 1 September they went to Mary's House, Tower Road, Sliema. This was a shop run by the Gauci family, Tony Gauci being one of the partners. Mr Gauci's evidence was that he was visited by police officers in September 1989. He was able to tell them that he recalled a particular sale about a fortnight before Christmas 1988, although he could not remember the exact date. He bought an assortment of clothing, but it did not appear to the witness that the nature of what he was buying was of importance. It may seem surprising that he was able to remember this particular sale in such detail some nine months afterwards, but he explained that the purchaser appeared to be taking little interest in the items he was buying. We are satisfied, however, that his recollection of these items is accurate. We are therefore entirely satisfied that the items of clothing in the primary suitcase were those described by Mr Gauci as having been purchased in Mary's House. We shall return to Mr Gauci's evidence in more detail in connection with the date of the sale and the identification of the purchaser.
We now turn to another crucial item that was found during the search of the debris, that it was found to be part of the neckband of a grey shirt. It was severely explosion damaged with localised penetration holes and blackening consistent with explosive involvement. Embedded within some of the penetration holes there were found nine fragments of black plastic, a small fragment of metal, a small fragment of wire. There was also found embedded a fragment of green coloured circuit board.
Over the ensuing months extensive investigations were carried out within the printed circuit board industry in an attempt to trace the origin of the fragment, but these were fruitless.

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Subsequent enquiries led to a commission rogatoire being obtained, which enabled judicial and police authorities in Switzerland to carry out enquiries on behalf of the Scottish police. In November 1990 and January 1991 there were judicial interviews of two persons, Edwin Bollier and Erwin Meister, the partners in the firm of MEBO, a firm which was engaged in the design and manufacture of various electronic items. During the course of these interviews, a number of items were handed over including a quantity of documentation.

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The evidence which we have considered up to this stage satisfies us beyond reasonable doubt that the cause of the disaster was the explosion of an improvised explosive device, that that device was contained within a Toshiba radio cassette player in a brown Samsonite suitcase along with various items of clothing, that that clothing had been purchased in Mary's House, Sliema, Malta, and that the initiation of the explosion was triggered by the use of an MST-13 timer.

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The Crown case is that the primary suitcase was carried on an Air Malta flight KM180 from Luqa Airport in Malta to Frankfurt, that at Frankfurt it was transferred to PanAm flight PA103A, a feeder flight for PA103, which carried it to London Heathrow Airport, and that there, in turn, it was transferred to PA103. This case is largely dependent on oral and documentary evidence relating to the three airports. From this evidence, it is alleged, an inference can be drawn that an unidentified and unaccompanied item of baggage was carried on KM180 and transferred to PA103A at Frankfurt and PA103 at Heathrow.

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Luqa Airport was relatively small. The baggage area was restricted in size. As items of baggage passed along the conveyor belt they were checked for the presence of explosives by military personnel using a sniffer device. The device could detect the presence of many explosives but would not normally detect Semtex.

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Air Malta acted as handling agents for all airlines flying out of Luqa.

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The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 is a major difficulty for the Crown case, and one which has to be considered along with the rest of the circumstantial evidence in the case.

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We turn now to consider what evidence there is to establish any involvement on the part of either or both of the accused.
In relation to the first accused, there are three important witnesses, Abdul Majid, Edwin Bollier and Tony Gauci.
Abdul Majid in 1984 joined the Jamahariya Security Organisation ("JSO"), later named the External Security Organisation. In December 1985 he was appointed as assistant to the station manager (the second accused) of LAA at Luqa airport.

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At an early meeting with the CIA in October 1988 he was asked if he knew anything of weapons on Malta. He said that he was aware of eight kilos of explosives which had been stored for months at the LAA office.
Finally he said that at some stage the first accused told him to ‘look after' the second accused, and to take control of the explosives when the second accused left his post as station manager.
It is quite clear that the details of this story only emerged some two and a half years after the initial account, and contained a number of inconsistencies with the first account.
The next important issue is that relating to MST-13 timers. The evidence relating to this came essentially from Edwin Bollier. MEBO AG was formed in the early 1970s by Edwin Bollier and Erwin Meister. In 1985 it had its offices in the Novapark Hotel (now the Continental Hotel) in Zurich. By then it had for some years supplied electrical, electronic and surveillance equipment. At that time, according to Mr Bollier, its principal customer was the Libyan Government and in particular the Libyan military security.

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We also accept Mr Bollier's evidence, supported by documentation, that MEBO rented an office in their Zurich premises some time in 1988 to the firm ABH in which the first accused and one Badri Hassan were the principals. They explained to Mr Bollier that they might be interested in taking a share in MEBO or in having business dealings with MEBO.

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The third important witness is Mr Gauci. Mr Gauci picked out the first accused at an identification parade on 13 August 1999. (...)
We are nevertheless satisfied that his identification so far as it went of the first accused as the purchaser was reliable and should be treated as a highly important element in this case.

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Prior to the start of the trial each accused lodged a Notice, in identical terms, which was treated as a Special Defence of Incrimination. The persons incriminated in the Schedule to the Notice were members of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front and members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command.

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No member of that organisation gave evidence but it was clear from other evidence that we heard, in particular from officers of the German police force, the BKA, that a cell of the PFLP-GC was operating in what was then West Germany at least up until October 1988. The evidence which we accept showed that at least at that time the cell had both the means and the intention to manufacture bombs which could be used to destroy civil aircraft. On 26 October 1988, after a period of surveillance, the BKA made a series of raids and arrested a number of individuals. In these premises they found radio cassette players, explosives, detonators, timers, barometric pressure devices, arms, ammunition and other items, including a number of airline timetables and seven unused Lufthansa luggage tags. From other evidence it appeared that one of the airline timetables was a PanAm timetable.

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There was no evidence that the cell had the materials necessary to manufacture an explosive device of the type that destroyed PA103.

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From the evidence which we have discussed so far, we are satisfied that it has been proved that the primary suitcase containing the explosive device was dispatched from Malta, passed through Frankfurt and was loaded onto PA103 at Heathrow. It is, as we have said, clear that with one exception the clothing in the primary suitcase was the clothing purchased in Mr Gauci's shop on 7 December 1988. The purchaser was, on Mr Gauci's evidence, a Libyan. The trigger for the explosion was an MST-13 timer. A substantial quantity of such timers had been supplied to Libya. We cannot say that it is impossible that the clothing might have been taken from Malta, united somewhere with a timer from some source other than Libya and introduced into the airline baggage system at Frankfurt or Heathrow. When, however, the evidence regarding the clothing, the purchaser and the timer is taken with the evidence that an unaccompanied bag was taken from KM180 to PA103A, the inference that that was the primary suitcase becomes, in our view, irresistible. As we have also said, the absence of an explanation as to how the suitcase was taken into the system at Luqa is a major difficulty for the Crown case but after taking full account of that difficulty, we remain of the view that the primary suitcase began its journey at Luqa. The clear inference which we draw from this evidence is that the conception, planning and execution of the plot which led to the planting of the explosive device was of Libyan origin. While no doubt organisations such as the PFLP-GC and the PPSF were also engaged in terrorist activities during the same period, we are satisfied that there was no evidence from which we could infer that they were involved in this particular act of terrorism, and the evidence relating to their activities does not create a reasonable doubt in our minds about the Libyan origin of this crime.
In that context we turn to consider the evidence which could be regarded as implicating either or both of the accused, bearing in mind that the evidence against each of them has to be considered separately, and that before either could be convicted we would have to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt as to his guilt and that evidence from a single source would be insufficient.
We deal first with the second accused. The principal piece of evidence against him comes from two entries in his 1988 diary. This was recovered in April 1991 from the offices of Medtours, a company which had been set up by the second accused and Mr Vassallo. At the back of the diary there were two pages of numbered notes. The fourteenth item on one page is translated as "Take/collect tags from the airport (Abdulbaset/Abdussalam)". The word ‘tags' was written in English, the remainder in Arabic. On the diary page for 15 December there was an entry, preceded by an asterisk, "Take taggs from Air Malta", and at the end of that entry in a different coloured ink "OK". Again the word ‘taggs' (sic) was in English. The Crown maintained that the inference to be drawn from these entries was that the second accused had obtained Air Malta interline tags for the first accused, and that as an airline employee he must have known that the only purpose for which they would be required was to enable an unaccompanied bag to be placed on an aircraft. From another entry on 15 December (translated as "Abdel-baset arriving from Zurich") it appears that the second accused expected the first accused to pass through Malta on that day. In fact the first accused passed through on 17 December and missed seeing the second accused. On 18 December the second accused travelled to Tripoli. He returned on 20 December on the same flight as the first accused. The Crown maintained that the inference to be drawn from this was that on that date the first accused was bringing component parts of the explosive device into Malta, and required the company of the second accused to carry the suitcase through Customs as the second accused was well known to the customs officers who would be unlikely to stop him and search the case. This would be consistent with the evidence of Abdul Majid. Finally the Crown maintained that in order for the suitcase to get past the security checks at Luqa on 21 December and find its way on board KM180, someone would have to organise this who was very well acquainted with the security controls at Luqa and would know how these controls could be circumvented. As someone who had been a station manager for some years, the second accused was ideally fitted for this role.

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Counsel for the second accused argued that even if it be accepted that the second accused did obtain tags and did supply them to the first accused, it would be going too far to infer that he was necessarily aware that they were to be used for the purpose of blowing up an aircraft, bearing in mind that the Crown no longer suggest that the second accused was a member of the Libyan Intelligence Service.

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While therefore there may well be a sinister inference to be drawn from the diary entries, we have come to the conclusion that there is insufficient other acceptable evidence to support or confirm such an inference, in particular an inference that the second accused was aware that any assistance he was giving to the first accused was in connection with a plan to destroy an aircraft by the planting of an explosive device. There is therefore in our opinion insufficient corroboration for any adverse inference that might be drawn from the diary entries. In these circumstances the second accused falls to be acquitted.
We now turn to the case against the first accused. We should make it clear at the outset that the entries in the second accused's diary can form no part of any case against the first accused. We therefore put that matter entirely out of our minds.
On 15 June 1987 the first accused was issued with a passport with an expiry date of 14 June 1991 by the Libyan passport authority. The name on the passport was Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamad. It was used by the first accused on a visit to Nigeria in August 1987. It was also used during 1987 for visits to Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Cyprus. The only use of this passport in 1988 was for an overnight visit to Malta on 20/21 December, and it was never used again. The first accused travelled on his own passport in his own name on a number of occasions in 1988, particularly to Malta on 7 December where he stayed until 9 December.

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A major factor in the case against the first accused is the identification evidence of Mr Gauci. For the reasons we have already given, we accept the reliability of Mr Gauci on this matter, while recognising that this is not an unequivocal identification. From his evidence it could be inferred that the first accused was the person who bought the clothing which surrounded the explosive device. We have already accepted that the date of purchase of the clothing was 7 December 1988, and on that day the first accused arrived in Malta where he stayed until 9 December. He was staying at the Holiday Inn, Sliema, which is close to Mary's House. If he was the purchaser of this miscellaneous collection of garments, it is not difficult to infer that he must have been aware of the purpose for which they were being bought. We accept the evidence that he was a member of the JSO, occupying posts of fairly high rank. One of these posts was head of airline security, from which it could be inferred that he would be aware at least in general terms of the nature of security precautions at airports from or to which LAA operated. He also appears to have been involved in military procurement. He was involved with Mr Bollier, albeit not specifically in connection with MST timers, and had along with Badri Hassan formed a company which leased premises from MEBO and intended to do business with MEBO. In his interview with Mr Salinger he denied any connection with MEBO, but we do not accept his denial. On 20 December 1988 he entered Malta using his passport in the name of Abdusamad. There is no apparent reason for this visit, so far as the evidence discloses. All that was revealed by acceptable evidence was that the first accused and the second accused together paid a brief visit to the house of Mr Vassallo at some time in the evening, and that the first accused made or attempted to make a phone call to the second accused at 7.11am the following morning. It is possible to infer that this visit under a false name the night before the explosive device was planted at Luqa, followed by his departure for Tripoli the following morning at or about the time the device must have been planted, was a visit connected with the planting of the device. Had there been any innocent explanation for this visit, obviously this inference could not be drawn. The only explanation that appeared in the evidence was contained in his interview with Mr Salinger, when he denied visiting Malta at that time and denied using the name Abdusamad or having had a passport in that name. Again, we do not accept his denial.
We are aware that in relation to certain aspects of the case there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications. We are also aware that there is a danger that by selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of conflicting evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified. However, having considered the whole evidence in the case, including the uncertainties and qualifications, and the submissions of counsel, we are satisfied that the evidence as to the purchase of clothing in Malta, the presence of that clothing in the primary suitcase, the transmission of an item of baggage from Malta to London, the identification of the first accused (albeit not absolute), his movements under a false name at or around the material time, and the other background circumstances such as his association with Mr Bollier and with members of the JSO or Libyan military who purchased MST-13 timers, does fit together to form a real and convincing pattern. There is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the first accused, and accordingly we find him guilty of the remaining charge in the Indictment as amended.
The verdicts returned were by a unanimous decision of the three judges of the Court.