After Megrahi’s release Richard Marquise, head of the FBI’s task force into the case, penned an article opposing “the view of much of the world” that there had been “a miscarriage of justice“. He’s claimed the mine of evidence against Megrahi is richer than that of any other case and thus the nuggets he drew out are quite revealing: so bitty and tarnished that they’re incidental evidence of just how poor the verdict was.

Marquise claims that “evidence was elicited that the Station manager…in Malta” – Lamin Khalifa Fhima, Megrahi’s co-accused – “kept explosives in his desk“. Yet the judge’s verdict ruled this allegation “sound[ed] improbable” and held themselves “unable to place any reliance on th[e] account“. Unsurprising as the source, one Abdul Majid Giaka, was exposed a thoroughly disreputable witness. (Do see Adam Larson’s blog for more on this character: the Libyans were indicted on the strength of his claims yet the Camp Zeist trial would expose him as a fantasist.) Thus, Marquise – head of the FBI’s inquiry; prime defendant of its case – used “evidence” dismissed eight years before by the very judgement that he was endorsing. Nice work, guy! Matt Berkley at JREF – to whom this post is indebted – notes several further contradictions.

This wasn’t a first for Marquise. Writing for the Sunday Times he’d been reliant upon the statements of Anthony Gauci. We’ve seen how unreliable this testimony was but – rather more importantly – so had the Scot’s Review Commission. Over a year before the piece was written they’d held that Gauci had been “undermine[d]” as a witness and that usage of his word had “no reasonable basis“. Marquise wrote inside the Times that he “believe[d] the evidence [h]e presented was sound“. Shame that courts and legal bodies had dismissed it years before.

As I’ve said, there’s no real evidence against Megrahi.