VALLETTA, Malta -- Maltese businessman Tony Gauci was one of the most vital witnesses at the trial of the two men accused of involvement in the Lockerbie airliner bombing 12 years ago.
But his role in the long-running investigation and subsequent trial came only by chance when bomber Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi walked into his shop in December 1988, a few weeks before the fatal flight.
Al-Megrahi bought some clothes he later used to fill the suitcase containing the bomb from Gauci's shop.
Police investigating the blast traced charred shards of a sky blue baby romper suit, umbrella and adult clothes found in the plane's wreckage to Gauci's small family-run shop in the seaside suburb of Sliema, on the Mediterranean island of Malta.
The detective work meant Gauci was involved in the investigation almost immediately.
Sliema, once the focal point of Maltese high society, is still seen as one of the most prestigious addresses on the small island, and is popular all year round with British tourists.
Gauci still runs the shop, Mary's House, on Tower Street in the town's shopping district, selling children's, men's and women's clothes and beachwear.
The shop retains its traditional Maltese shop-front features, with a long tiled entrance leading to the main door, which is flanked by two sweeping display windows, packed with mannequins and a display of clothes to attract tourists.
One local shopkeeper, who asked not to be named, said Gauci still runs the shop that became a key element of the prosecution's case.
"Tony Gauci runs Mary's House. He lives locally and is single," she said. During the trial, Gauci said that Al-Megrahi "resembled" a man who bought garments from his shop a few weeks before the explosion, which destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 in the skies above Lockerbie.
Gauci also identified Al-Megrahi on several previous occasions as the man who bought the clothes.
He told the court that the man had shown no interest in the items he selected, and had left in a taxi.
Al-Megrahi was picked up at Malta's International airport, Luqa Airport, and driven the 25 minutes to Sliema by Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, a former station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines.
Fhimah was acquitted of the bombing by the trial at Camp Zeist in Holland on Wednesday.
Al-Megrahi checked in to the hotel, now with spectacular five star accommodation, under the false name Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamad and, as hotel records show, made a phone call, to Fhimah's flat, at 7am on the morning of the bombing.
The 189-room sandstone hotel, which has spectacular sea views, was built on the site of an 18th century fortress. Part of it occupies the Officers' Mess of the Royal Malta Artillery.
Fhimah's home was in St John's Flats, Spring Street, in the small town of Mosta, towards the centre of Malta.
The town is famous for its Parish Church of St Mary, better known as the Mosta Dome.
The airport, on the outskirts of the small town of Luqa, is a modern building of sandstone and dark glass, rebuilt in 1992 as part of expansion plans.
It was from here that Al-Megrahi smuggled the Samsonite suitcase containing the bomb on board an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt Airport in Germany.
He used Air Malta luggage tags to ensure that the suitcase was transferred to doomed Pan Am Flight 103 which was travelling from Frankfurt to New York via Heathrow, the court had been told.
Provincial-sized Luqa airport now sees daily flights arriving from Tripoli in Libya, Cantania in Sicily, Zurich, Rome, Frankfurt and London.
Flights only resumed to Malta from Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya in 1999, after United Nations sanctions against the country were suspended.
Al-Megrahi arrived in Malta from Tripoli on December 20, 1988, the day before the bombing.
Libyan double agent Abdul Majid Giaka said he had seen Fhimah taking a brown suitcase, matching the description of the one used to hold the bomb, from the airport's luggage carousel.
Malta was seen as a major part in the jigsaw puzzle pieced together following the explosion, and was a focal point for the prosecution's case.
The defence had labelled one trial witness, convicted terrorist Mohammed Abu Talb, who gave evidence for the prosecution, as one of the real perpetrators of the bombing by the defence.
Talb was also linked to Malta when he admitted at the trial that he was on the island, where the bomb began its journey, just two months before the outrage, but he maintained he was on a business trip.
Talb also denied he had sent a radio-cassette player - similar to the one which contained the bomb - to bakery owner Abdu Salem in Malta.
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