Gauci and the Czech Photo

24 November 2010
last edits 26 December

Just What was Identified
From the revived JREF discussion thread Tony Gauci and the Mystery Shopper comes a very interesting nexus of questions surrounding critical images of "Lockerbie bomber" Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. In later pages there, Rolfe, Buncrana, Pete2, and myself are re-considering the image by which shopkeeper Tony Gauci linked al-Megrahi to the wreckage of PA 103 with his "identification" of the Libyan as the buyer of a certain set of clothes.

Although Tony had been talking to the police since September 1989, this historic fingering only happened on 15 February 1991, when Mr. Gauci was shown another spread of 12 faces. According to his statement, he at first felt all were too young to be the buyer, and selected none of them. The police refused to take no for an answer, and asked him to again "look at all the photographs carefully and to try and allow for any age difference." [Gauci 15/2/91] On the second pass he pointed to picture number 8 from the left. This was an image of al-Megrahi obtained by investigators from Czechoslovakia. For those unfamiliar, the undated big-hair image used for the slot in question is shown below.


Now, what Tony said pointing at this notably low-quality image and its obscuring noise, is less than amazing. His police statement following the session records it as:

“...similar to the man who bought the clothing. The hair is perhaps a bit long. The eyebrows are the same. The nose is the same, and his chin and shape of face are the same. The man in the photograph is in my opinion, in his thirty years. He would perhaps have to look about ten years older, and he would look like the man who bought the clothes. It's been a long time now and I can only say that this photograph resembles the man who bought the clothing, but it is younger.”

Back in 1989 he had given the buyer as a burly six-foot-plus Libyan, aged approximately 50 years. Our 5'8" villain al-Megrahi was but 36 at the time of purchase. And instinctively, this photo looks to me quite young, taken perhaps a decade before the 1988 purchase. He looks almost too young, with the apparence of baby fat on those long al Megrahi cheeks... and with the cheeks and nose actually seeming shorter... the lips and nose look different...

In fact, the image used is highly unusual, bearing such little resemblance to Megrahi one could be excused for wondering, as I have, if this really is him. The Lockerbie case is so special, I can't see ruling out such a simple thing as a misattributed photograph. However, there's a certain logic to presuming the image is genuine - it would be a massive risk that the picture could be proven to be of some other person, or even altered.

I remain convinced by an earlier experiment I did with photo comparison that I don't think I documented. Even with the apparent facial differences, this could well be Megrahi, taken a bit "chin-up," showing nostrils, more upper lip, shortening the face and nose as seen. Nothing in the overall proportions ruled out the same face. The hair obviously is unlike anything else we've seen him wearing, which when long is more like in the photo shown below.

The image at left was taken for the false passport in the name "Abdusamad" issued by Libyan authorities in mid-1987, age 35. It was used on a few occasions, including a now-famous trip to Malta on 20-21 December 1988. As I've explained elsewhere, this is a legitimate clue - if not for Megrahi's guilt, then for why he was selected for framing.

The image itself is the most widely seen photo of the accused from the 1990s onward. It's not unlike the others taken since then as the man gained new fame as the accused - and then convicted - "Lockerbie bomber." This verifiable likeness is very unlike the photo Tony pointed to, and to which we now return.

The Hair
What Megrahi looked like before and after the Abdusamad photograph is unclear. Whether the raging afro seen in the Czech photo was chopped down before the above or grew in after it can't yet be established (but most clues point to some time before). However, one thing we know it does, among all images of al-Megrahi, is bring him close to matching the plumage style of Gauci's buyer. 

At left is the police artist's sketch based on Tony's description of the mystery shopper, 13 September 1989. The likeness is uncanny in its near-exclusion of Megrahi. It just doesn't look a lick like him, especially with this intense, angular, face, compared to Megrahi's soft features he later pointed to. And all this on a "large head" atop a 6-foot-plus frame to Meegrahi's 5'8" and Tony Gauci's 5'3".

One main feature to note is the dense afro-style haircut atop a clear expanse of forehead. The tightness of the curl is different by a long shot from any photo of Megrahi I've seen. His dangling ramen-wiggle expanses seem incapable of the tightly spherical sculpted look of the artist's sketch.

And here is the "Photofit" or "composite face" image compiled from Gauci's descriptions, given the same day as the above. They share the same basic hair, here a bit longer and fuzzier at the top. Otherwise, the two look drastically different from each other in the lips, chin, eyes, eyebrows, nose, and cheeks.

Tony did specify the sketch was a better likeness than the photo-thing, but agreed both resembled the buyer quite a bit. This almost seems to say "if you can find a photo of anyone with this kind of mid-sized 'fro that I think you guys want to prosecute, I will say it looks like the man." 

Prior to al-Megrahi, Tony had selected others as a match for the buyer, like Mohammed Abu Talb, famously in December 1989. Abu Talb didn't really fit by hair; his appeal was more from the word "bomber" across the corner of his face.  And Tony once pointed out  Mohamed Salam - a pretty good likeness of the sketch in both hair and face - on a less famous occasion. Like al-Megrahi, both of these men were at least a decade  too young. 

Perhaps Megrahi's undated fro was an earlier thing, from his 20s. But other than the Czech photo, we've only seen Megrahi with less hair and apparently more hair product. Buncrana found a photo of Megrahi at about age 19 - a student visa is from when he was studying in Wales, around 1971 (first revealed by the Sun back in August). We can here recognize al-Megrahi's longish features as a stylish young man. A little quiet-looking, but with a wild frontal swoop, almost a bouffant, coming halfway to his eyebrows. Quite unlike Tony's buyer, the Megrahi images show nary a clear forehead, especially in the questionable Czech photo.  And unlike that photo, this one actually looks like the guy it's supposed to be. 

Czech Photo Origin, Age, and Effects 
What was shown was not that Megrahi was or even actually resembled the buyer. All we learned on 15 February was that, among a selection of 12 pictures, Megrahi's could be made to be reported as the one most resembling the buyer, so long as you pick one that doesn't really look like him, while giving him something like the right hair.

This highly useful image was supplied to the investigation by intelligence from Czechoslovakia, says lead FBI investigator Richard Marquise. [see Sent Home to Die, Youtube posting 17:48] In his 2006 book he gave no explanation I could find about when the investigation got this picture, why it's of such poor quality, and what info came with it.  He acknowledge that "no one could positively date the photograph shown to Gauci." [SCOTBOM p. 127 - Google Books link] This may be of key importance below.

Marquise and his faux-witness Abdul Majid Giaka agree the photo Tony pointed to showed a young man, who was Meagrahi. "Giaka had looked at the Czech passport picture identified by Gauci. He said it was Megrahi when he was much younger." [p 142 ] Gauci's own feeling was of a man "in his thirty years," (30s) which Megrahi then was. But this could be chalked up to the lack of clarity and the fact that nearly all men Tony had been shown were in their 30s. DI Scicluna, Maltese police, gave his own account of the 15 February ID with slightly different details.

“.. Gauci started examining the photographs and the first thing he said was that they are all too young. It was explained to him to allow for age discrepancy as the man he saw could be 10-15 years older. [...] Gauci then looked through them and again stopped at Baset’s photo and indicating it he said ‘This is similar, but it is maybe 10-15 years younger.” [Grounds of Appeal doc]

Somewhere in his 30s, plus fifteen years is close enough to a match with the 50-year old man he described. But Marquise, Bell, and Scicluna and crew didn't know how old the photo was. All they had to do, and perhaps did,  was presume the picture itself was 10 years old, and add 10 years per what Gauci said, and you've got Megrahi's age, even though it's still 14 years below what Gauci first estimated.

Further, the quality of the Czech photo is worth wondering about. If the other 11 pictures he was shown that day were all normally clear and this one only looked strange, might that itself be leading? Might Gauci think it was included for some special reason? Might he think this is some super-elusive Mullah Omar character the cops can only get a crappy picture of? Might that make him feel it's more fruitful to point at then the others?

In fact, it seems the other images were altered to lessen the difference, but a professional who reviewed the effects in 2008 felt it was insufficient and the Czech photo still stands out as the gritty, mysterious one. [see Valentine report, page 40]

And There They Stopped
However exactly he was tricked into it, this was the final identification. Tony Gauci had been picking men out of photo lineups sporadically since September 1989, at different times having picked out at least three other men as similar to the buyer, but younger. But after 15 February the exercises abruptly stopped, and investigators were somehow sure they had their man. An identified buyer of the clothes, a Libyan agent comporting with the by-then identified timer, and there as Abdusamad on the day of the bombing. Never mind that he was about five inches too short, too slight of stature and light of skin, 14 years too young, and nowhere near the island of Malta on the day the clothes were purchased.

Marquise related how, at a mid-1991 conference, Senior Investigating Officer Stuart Henderson "discussed the photo spread leading to the Gauci identification of Megrahi. Although no one could positively date the photograph shown to Gauci, he was reluctant to show any more photos without fear of tainting what he had already provided." [127-8]

Something tells me it wasn't so much "tainting" as "spoiling the moment" Henderson was worried about.  As we've seen there was a special and delicate magic about how this supposed selection of al-Megrahi was materialized. It's also clear that the other photos available, with al-Megrahi's usual hair styles and better clarity, would show Tony how unlike the buyer this Libyan was. It could conceivably screw up the ID they had and wanted to keep.

So the big-hair Czech photo remained the only one of the chosen suspect that Tony saw until the better likenesses started appearing in the news a few months later as the "Lockerbie bomber." By then the whole world knew just what the guy looked like, removing all the cahallenge from arranging the later touted pointings-out in 1999 and 2000, just before Tony helped land a conviction and his $2 million prize.
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Updates 12/26: In fact, Harry Bell noted in his police diary the day of this charade that this was the only photo the Scottish police had of "Abdelbaset" and they had to use it for fear they could never find another.

"meeting with Special Agent Reid. He tried to imply that we were rushing showing the photograph spread. ....they were the ones that wanted it done before Bollier left the USA.  Also if Baset was identified, Bollier would be the last person to be told as we know he is still in contact with the Libyans. Reid has been worried in case there is no identification made by the witness because [the photo]of Baset we have is too young. I explained that as we have no other and no indication that we will ever get one, then we can only proceed with what we have. If no identification is made and we later get a better photograph showing his true age and appearance in December '88, then the Lord Advocate may
accept an argument for showing this to the witness.

The differences in any photos can be noted while accepting that to some degree it will weaken the identification at any trial."

Then, among the eight points why Megrahi was the buyer, he wrote:

(7) The SIO [Stuart Henderson] advises that Bollier has now been shown the photofit and he states that if the hair was shorter then it would indeed look like Abdelbaset, also if it was 10 to 15 years older.

They got the same response from Bollier, but apparently in reference to the Photofit, not the Czech photo, if it was older (??). Bollier claims in comments below that he was never shown the Czech photo, and had still never seen it for 20 years of highly public study, until this blog post.

(8) The SIO also advises that the photograph we have of Abdelbaset is in fact 12 years old.

This confirms the suspicion. A twelve year old photo of Megrahi would be of a man aged 26, circa 1979. Gauci thought it was of a man in his 30s, and never actually retracted his belief the man was "around 50." This looks a hell of a lot like a shell-game or three-card-trick, designed to fit Megrahi in. [See: Grounds of Appeal doc, page 42/43]
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Information continues in the excellent comments below.