Culprits of Lockerbie a treatise Concerning the Destruction
Interview of 10 September, 1990: the remarkable about face
Download 0.96 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Gauci now evinced a remarkable about face
- Memory implausibly jogged
- The suggestive effective of showing blast-damaged clothing fragments
- Gauci’s reasons for recalling the sale queried as implausible
- The purchasing of miscellaneous items would hardly be unusual
- Fanciful and contrived nature of Gauci’s professed reasons for remembering
- Purchase invested with no emotional impact or significance necessary to make it memorable
- Sale after 18 November 1988
- Various approximations in statements to the police
- Precognition: reason why Gauci remembered the date as 29 November discovered by the SCCRC
- 19 September
- Date the lights were switched on now known
- Pre-appeal inquiries discover probable dates when Christmas lights were being put up
- The meteorological evidence
Interview of 10 September, 1990: the remarkable about face Gauci was interviewed again on 10 September by which date PT35b had been positively identified as the fragment of an MST-13 PCB. The question of the possible purchase at Mary’s House of the shirts from which PI/995, the shirt neck in which PT35b was allegedly found, had therefore now attained crucial importance and Gauci now evinced a remarkable about face (Ashton, Megrahi, p.390): “About three weeks ago I was cleaning boxes out in the shop and I remember that they had contained a ‘SLALOM’ shirt and a blue and white light denim (texture) material shirt. I know that I sold you shirts like these and I now remember that the man who bought the clothing also bought a ‘SLALOM’ shirt and a blue and white striped shirt.” Thus, in spite of his very clear assertion in January 1990 that he remembered that in late 1988 he had not sold any shirts to the man, nine months later, in September 1990, and almost two years after the event in question he now remembered that the man who bought the clothing did, after all,buy a Slalom shirt and a blue and white striped shirt. (He reiterated this new assertion at trial eleven years later.) Ashton remarks that had it been “a suspect offer[ing] such an explanation for a dramatic U-turn, the police might well have rolled their eyes in disbelief (ibid) but instead they appear to have greeted with alacrity “his uncanny knack for changing his story in a way that fitted snugly” with their case (ibid, p.97). Even then, it seems the adjustment had to be massaged. In the handwritten original (obtained by the defence many years later) the word “beige” prefaced “Slalom shirt” but had been mysteriously crossed out and initialled by a police officer. The fragments of shirt found in the wreckage, and in particular the shirt neck PI/995, were of course blue. Overall price In his original statement Gauci said the man paid in total 76.50 Maltese pounds. On 30 January, 1990, he said the bill came to 77 pounds, paid with eight 10 pound notes, with change of three pounds. That difference was insignificant but curiously he said that he thought he had previously given the total as only 56 pounds. When on 10 September he stated that he had also sold two shirts he gave their prices as 5.25 pounds each (or one possibly only 3.75), which would have brought the total to 86 or 87.5 pounds (see Ashton, Megrahi, p.390). Memory implausibly jogged As Canter notes, Gauci seems to be implying in the second statement that “cleaning boxes out in the shop” (did he perhaps mean clearing them out?) “jogged” his memory, but while the boxes may have “reinstated” his memory for the shirts which they had contained it is difficult to see how this could “act as a prompt” to reinstate a memory of selling shirts to the man, where previously he had explicitly and distinctly remembered not selling him any (p.27). The suggestive effective of showing blast-damaged clothing fragments Canter argues (p.26) that showing the witness fragments of blast-damaged clothing was in effect to ask leading questions and constituted poor interview technique. According to modern best practice, involving the cognitive method of confining an interview to the asking of open questions, he should simply have been invited to provide a description of any clothes he remembered selling the man. It may be observed that although initially when shown the fragments he emphatically remembered not selling the man any shirts the combination of the leading form of question and an undoubted unconscious desire to assist the police having regard to the gravity of the allegation may have worked a delayed impact on him so that nine months later he now had a contradictory memory. (g) Gauci’s remarkable claim to recall the sale and the sale details Reasons he gave for remembering the sale Gauci implied he remembered the sale – the items sold, the amounts paid the appearance of the customer and the course of the exchanges – because, unusually, the man had shown no particular interest in choosing the items he had selected. His behaviour was “very strange,” said Gauci, because, referring to the babygro displayed on a rack, the man asked “what age?” When told “one to two years,” he said he would take one and when asked the colour replied blue. When the man picked out one of the two pairs of trousers Gauci said he asked the man the size. He answered “more or less my size” without doing what Gauci said Libyans normally characteristically did, which is to put their elbow into both sides of the trousers. It was, he said, “as if anything” he suggested the man should buy he would take. Gauci’s reasons for recalling the sale queried as implausible Prof Canter characterises Gauci’s reasons for remembering the sale as an assertion which hardly bears close scrutiny, implying as it does that Gauci offered the man random or inappropriate goods (op. cit., p.38). Canter makes the compelling argument that in the context of numerous other sales both beforehand and during the intervening 10-month period, with purchases doubtless involving many different combinations of goods, and customers expressing many varying levels of overt interest in their purchases, the behaviour would need to have been remarkably unusual to be memorable (pp.43-44). With no focus in the interviews on these comparative factors no discernible reason had emerged as to why the particular sale could have stood out so starkly in either of these respects. No indication is given of the comprehensiveness of stock and sale records in the shop, which presents something of a handicap in determining the extent to which Gauci was relying on memory unassisted by documentation (Canter, p.44). The purchasing of miscellaneous items would hardly be unusual With some justice Canter observes that many tourists who know that goods are more available or cheaper than those back home may buy a selection of clothing thinking that they could be gifts for an extended family without being clear exactly for whom each gift would be intended (Canter, p.39). Fanciful and contrived nature of Gauci’s professed reasons for remembering Canter argues persuasively that in the absence of any clear and compelling explanation of why the reported combination of clothing would be remembered it is hardly plausible that Gauci would have a memory for a set of apparently random purchases acquired nine months previously (p.43). In short, Gauci’s reasons for professing to remember the episode seem utterly contrived, if not wholly fanciful. Purchase invested with no emotional impact or significance necessary to make it memorable Given that Gauci would have been unaware of the significance of that episode until nine months afterwards it would have been invested with no emotional impact of the degree necessary to render it memorable for him. Even to offer information on payments without any explanation of their significance raised questions as to how much the witness was trying to help by providing details of which he could hardly have been sure. Thus, his purported memory of the details was “incompatible with what we know about memory processes” (see Canter, pp.25 and 38). In the words of Prof Valentine, to like effect: “the original memory would have been relatively weak because it was an event of relatively low salience recalled after a long delay” (report, para. 9.1.1). But it hardly needed the psychologists’ take on the obvious to underline this point. It is difficult to understand why the investigators, the Crown Office and the judges completely failed to see it for themselves!
Gauci’s claim to be able to remember an episode which was palpably and intrinsically so wholly unmemorable is further highlighted by the changes in his account of the details of the customer’s departure from the boutique. The general account given was that after making his purchases the man left the shop saying he would return to collect his purchases. The following by date are the different accounts he gave. 1 September 1989 In this, Gauci’s original statement, it was raining when the customer initially left the shop, turning right down Tower Road. After returning and picking up his parcels, he turned left up Tower Road towards a parked taxi. Gauci assumed the taxi was waiting for the customer but he went back inside his shop and did not see the man actually getting into the taxi. 21 February, 1990 Returning to the shop from the right to collect his purchases, the man had his umbrella down because the rain had almost stopped. He said he had a taxi waiting and he then left the shop carrying the parcels in both hands, with his umbrella still down. He walked towards a Mercedes taxi parked about 20 yards away but Gauci did not say whether this was to the left up the hill or to the right downhill. In any event, Gauci did not see him get in. 5 March 1990 Gauci repeated that the man initially walked down Tower Road towards the sea front. About fifteen minutes later Gauci was standing outside the shop when a white Mercedes taxi came up Tower Road with the customer in the front passenger seat and pulled into the kerb about 20 yards up the street. (He had not mentioned seeing the arrival of the taxi in either of the earlier two statements.) The customer got out and started walking towards the shop. Both went into the shop and Gauci handed the two parcels to the customer who walked back up the street, put the parcels on the back seat, got in the front seat and was then driven off up Tower Road. Gauci stated that he did not mention this before because he had not been asked “directly” about it but the significance of that “explanation” remains unclear since in both previous accounts he had expressly said he did not see the customer get in the taxi. 10 September, 1990 This fourth statement was not significantly different from the third except Gauci said that he had been looking out from the front of the shop when he saw the taxi coming up the street and stopping at the top of Tower Road. He added that he offered to carry the parcels to the taxi but the man took them himself. He added that there had been a light shower just before the customer left the shop the first time, which is how he came to sell him the umbrella from those hanging up. Trial As mentioned later, at Zeist Gauci for the first time stated that his brother Paul had arrived back just in time for Gauci to ask him to look after the shop while he carried the parcels out to the taxi. (i) Evidence and inconsistencies as to the day and date of the clothes purchase Two competing dates for the sale: 23 November and 7 December The Zeist trial court focused on two possible dates for the purchase of the items in the bomb suitcase from Mary’s House. These were 7 December, 1988, when el-Megrahi was present on the island and staying at the local Holiday Inn, and 23 November, when he was not, but Mohamed Abu Talb may have been. Quite apart from the general point about the fundamental implausibility of Gauci’s assertion that nine months after what must have been a wholly unmemorable transaction he actually remembered the sale, its details and the purchaser, the prosecution faced the considerable problem of his inconsistency and apparent confusion over the approximate date of purchase of the clothing relative to Christmas 1988. That confusion and unreliability was underscored by various aspects of circumstantial evidence considered by the court. Sale after 18 November 1988 On whatever date the purchase of the clothes may have been taken place, it was established that it had to have been after 18 November, 1988, because a fragment of a pair of tartan Yorkie brand trousers found with the suitcase, bore an order number which showed delivery to Mary’s House on that date. However, beyond that nothing was certain. Various approximations in statements to the police In his dealings with the police Gauci gave various approximations for the date of the sale: some time in the winter of 1988 but could not remember the date (1.09.89); December, 1988 (13.09.89); “November or December” (14.09.89); “December” (19.09.89); “November and December” (2.10.89; see Ashton, Megrahi, p.388, noting the curious use of the conjunction); “December” (31.01.90);“November or December” (21.02.90; repeated 5.03.90); “November/December,” “November and December,” “end of November” (All three given in one statement, that of 10 September, 1990). Precognition: reason why Gauci remembered the date as 29 November discovered by the SCCRC When interviewed by the defence prior to the trial Gauci reiterated that he thought the date of the clothes sale was 29 November but when pressed to explain how and why he could remember he merely replied “all I can say is that is what I think”. However perusal by the SCCRC of his Crown precognition statements – which had been withheld from the defence - revealed the reason the date had stuck in his mind: a disagreement with his girlfriend. Clearly this would have been of significant value to the defence during the trial, a fact acknowledged by the Commission. Date narrowed down at trial In evidence at the trial he could not initially remember the date of the sale but he then stated “slightly before Christmas it was. I don’t remember the exact date, but it must have been about a fortnight before Christmas, but I can’t remember the date.” (j) The Christmas lights issue Statements to the police When, on 10 September, 1989, Gauci put the sale at the end of November 1988, he was asked to try to pinpoint the day and date. In response he insisted that “there were no Christmas decorations up, as I have already said.” They were normally put up about fifteen days before Christmas, so the sale would have been more than fifteen days before the festival. A mere nine days later, on 19 September, he advanced the date by about a week, placing the sale “about 15 days before Christmas.” However, he still maintained that the Christmas lights “were not up”. Trial In bringing forward the date Gauci got himself into a tangle at the trial. On being asked how long before Christmas the lights were put up he initially contradicted his earlier statements, saying that the lights “were on already.” Having agreed that his recollection at the time of his statements was better than it was now and on being reminded that he had told the police that the sale was made before the decorations went up he replied that he did not know but, seeming to take refuge in some sort of perceived compromise, said he believed they were “putting up the lights.” This was an entirely new departure but he attempted to attribute his confusion to the possibility that the lights were on when police investigators came to collect him for interview. However, it was in September of 1989 that he first told police there had been no Christmas decorations up at the time of the purchase, so there could have been no question of Christmas lights being up when the police came to collect him for that interview and so no question of any confusion at that stage. Thus, when he was asked in cross-examination if when he made that statement he believed that there were no Christmas decorations up when the man bought the clothes, he conceded “Maybe.” The significance of that concession may have been lost on the court because there was at that stage no conclusive evidence s to when exactly the Sliema Christmas lights had officially been switched on. Date the lights were switched on now known During their investigations the police were supposedly unable to discover from local inquiries when precisely the Christmas lights went up in the neighbourhood. However, about a week after Gauci was shown the freeze frame photograph of Abu Talb (2 October, 1989) it was shown to Alfredo Frendo, another Tower Road tradesman. Claiming to be good at remembering faces he said he was sure it was the same man who had been into his shop before Christmas 1988 and moreover he was sure that the date was before 6 December, as that was the date he had put up the Christmas decorations. (He described the man as approximately 27 to 30 years old, around 5 feet 8 or 9 inches tall and possibly a Libyan, although he might not have been able to distinguish the various Arab nationalities.) It ought not to have been difficult to establish the date because the Christmas lights adorning all the local shops were customarily switched on ceremonially at the same time. In fact Frendo’s statement anticipated the discovery by defence solicitors after the trial of an entry in the diary of the veteran politician Dr Michael Refalo, then Mayor of Sliema and tourism minister, later Maltese High Commissioner to the UK, in which he referred to having switched on the Sliema lights on 6 December 1988. It was not used at al-Megrahi’s first appeal because it tended to cohere with Gauci’s evidence at trial that the lights were already on, but if Gauci’s original statements were correct and the lights were not in fact on at the time of the purchase, or even if the lights were only being put up at the time, the date could not have been 7 December, when al-Megrahi was on the island, but must have been earlier (see Ashton, Megrahi, p.305). Pre-appeal inquiries discover probable dates when Christmas lights were being put up In cross-examination at the trial Gauci, as we have seen, eventually asserted that the sale was made when they were “putting up the lights.” In preparation for the first appeal the inquiries which eventually revealed the date in the Mayor’s diary when the Christmas lights were ceremonially switched on uncovered the date when that the Tower Road Christmas lights were erected. The electricity company routinely supplied temporary meters to monitor illuminations across the island but applications for meters could only be made after erection, as the fitters had to test the installations. James Busuttil, the shopkeeper who had organised the Tower Road lights that year, was able to state that the meter was fitted on 30 November, the day after he submitted the application, and that the lights were almost certainly put up over the two nights before 30 November, an estimate which of course straddled the 29 November given by Gauci, matched his final assertion about the lights going up and exactly tallied with the later discovery about the row with his girlfriend. (k) Feast of the Immaculate Conception: 8 December On 8 December every year Malta celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with a public holiday when all the shops are shut. If the purchase had been made on the eve of the holiday arguably it should have been memorable enough to be mentioned at least once but in not one of his 19 statements to the police did Gauci refer to it. He was not asked in cross-examination on behalf of al-Megrahi whether the shop was open on the day after the sale because although a positive reply would have ruled out 7 December it was feared that equally Gauci might have said it was shut, which would have supported 7 December. Gauci’s consistent and persistent silence as to the holiday of the 8th by way of a potential reference point for the 7th was relied on in closing submissions by the defence but was dismissed by the judges because it had not been put to Gauci in terms. It is unclear why depriving the witness of the opportunity to come up with a belated reference to the public holiday erased all significance of his consistent omission to refer to it previously. (l) “Midweek” In his statement of 1.9.89 Gauci said he could not remember the day of the week but thought it would have been a weekday. On 19.9.89 he said he was “sure it was midweek.” On 10.9.90 he repeated he could only say it was a weekday. In evidence-in-chief at the trial he clearly stated he had no idea what day of the week it was but in cross-examination when asked by reference to his statement what he meant by “midweek” he replied it was not a Saturday and he did not want to say it was a Friday, an answer which suggests he was probably thinking of Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, given that he had previously used the term interchangeably with “weekday.” However, after further prodding as to what he had in mind by the term he only then replied “Wednesday, I think” and stayed with it when asked if the term could be applied to the three middle weekdays. (It has already been mentioned that 7 December fell on a Wednesday.) It is almost a truism that witnesses often feel the need, when pressed, to appear to be more certain than they are. One wonders also if Wednesday might have been planted in his mind during one of his many interviews and unconsciously retained. (n) Rainfall Gauci’s assertions In his original statement of 1 September, 1989, Gauci said that it was raining when the man first left the shop and he opened the umbrella he had purchased there. In his statement of 21 February, 1990, he said that when the man returned the umbrella was down because the rain had almost stopped and it was just drops falling. At the trial he adopted these assertions. On 5 March, 1990, he repeated that it was raining. In his statement of 10 September, 1990 (which he does not appear specifically to have adopted at trial) he asserted that a light shower was just beginning as the man left the shop, that the man looked at umbrellas on display (which was “how I came to sell him one”) and that he opened it as he left. He added that there was little rain on the ground, no running water, just damp. The meteorological evidence Meteorological evidence as to precipitation at Sliema on the two possible dates in question, 23 November and 7 December, 1988, proved to be highly cogent. Major Joseph Mifsud, Chief Meteorologist of the Malta Civil Aviation Authority’s Meteorological Office, provided two sets of island rainfall data: daily summaries between 17 November and 21 December, 1988, based on readings taken at Luqa airport Meteorological Office; and daily rainfall totals for November and December recorded at 20 locations across the island, including one at Sliema police station. The Sliema total covering the evening of 23 November was 5.2 mm while that covering the evening of 7 December was 3.3 mm. According to the daily summaries sporadic light rain had fallen on 23 November but none at all on 7 December. Luqa is only a few kilometres from Sliema and there was no reason to believe that the weather was substantially different between the two locations. Indeed, there were no 24-hour periods in November and December when rain was recorded at Sliema and none at Luqa. Mifsud cited his daily log to show a light one-minute shower at 8.40am on 7 December but no rain in Sliema between 6 and 7pm. (On Gauci’s evidence the sale had probably taken place at about 6.30 pm.) Although Mifsud could not exclude a few drops of rain “here and there . . . a ten per cent probability” he thought it would be insufficient to wet the ground. On the other hand, the records for Wednesday, 23 November, 1988, showed light intermittent rain in Sliema from noon onwards with rain at 6pm. The evidence of Gauci’s account of the rain at the time of the sale and Mifsud’s evidence of rainfall on the two dates were alone enough to exclude 7 December. Certainly as between the two dates the 23 November was the clear winner. Directory: docs docs -> Application for acem docs -> Observational Assessment of Teaching Practices Teaching Assessment Initiative Proposal Submitted to The Teachers for a New Era project docs -> Traditional British values docs -> From Warfighters to Crimefighters: The Origins of Domestic Police Militarization docs -> Borzoi Club of America Register of Merit Program I. What is a Register Of Merit docs -> Protecting the rights of the child in the context of migration docs -> United Nations E/C. 12/Esp/5 docs -> 9th May 1950 the schuman declaration docs -> Getting To Outcomes® in Services for Homeless Veterans 10 Steps for Achieving Accountability Download 0.96 Mb. Share with your friends:
|