Spy 'saw' Lockerbie suspects

Mr Giaka appeared amid tight security

A former Libyan spy has told the Lockerbie trial he saw the accused with a suitcase similar to the one alleged to have contained the bomb.

Abdul Majid Giaka, a key prosecution witness, has been giving details of his role as a Libyan secret service officer at Luqa Airport in Malta.

The prosecution alleges that the two Libyans placed a bomb in a brown Samsonite suitcase and routed it onto Pan Am Flight 103 from Malta.

Trial details

The two accused are Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 48, and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, 44

Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988, killing all 259 people on board and another 11 on the ground

The two men deny three charges - murder, conspiracy to murder and a breach of the 1982 Aviation Security Act

The trial is taking place in a Scottish courtroom at Camp Zeist, in the Netherlands

The case is being heard by three Scottish judges

Giaka told the court he saw Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah with such a suitcase shortly before the bombing in December 1988.

Mr Giaka has been living in the US for 10 years under CIA protection after defecting from Libya.

He was escorted to the special Scottish court at Camp Zeist, Holland, by 30 US marshals.

Speaking in Arabic from behind a screen and with his voice distorted to protect his identity, Mr Giaka told the court he was recruited to the JSO (the Libyan security service) after graduating from university.

He told prosecutor Alastair Campbell QC that he started working for the Libyan security service in 1984 and in 1986 he moved to become assistant station manager in Malta.

Identified in court

This posting, based at Luqa Airport, was part of the intelligence service's airline security section, to protect aircraft, passengers and crew of Libyan Arab Airlines.

The two defendants also worked at the airport for the Libyan airline and were also allegedly members of the Libyan security service.

In court he identified Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi as the head of the airline security section and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima as the station boss.

Luqa Airport, Malta

BBC Scotland correspondent Reevel Alderson, who is in court, said this was the first time in the trial that Fhima had been identified by a witness.

Giaka described how, shortly before the bombing in 1988, he saw the two accused arrive from Tripoli. They were carrying a brown Samsonite suitcase.

He also said that, two years before the bombing, Fahima had showed him two bricks of what he said was the explosive TNT.

The TNT was in the drawer of a desk in the office they shared.

He said: "Fahima told me he had had 10 kg of TNT delivered by Abdel Basset (Megrahi).

"He opened the drawer and there were two boxes which contained a yellowish material."

Mr Giaka went on to outline the role of the JSO in terrorism and assassinating dissidents outside Libya and said his concerns led him in 1988 to contact the American Embassy.

He became a double agent, providing information about Libyan intelligence and people suspected of involvement in terrorism.

'Mere tittle-tattle'

Defence lawyer Bill Taylor QC complained that much of what he had to say was "mere tittle-tattle and gossip," and reminded the court that hearsay can be inadmissible in a Scottish murder trial.

Giaka's appearance in court came after weeks of wrangling between the prosecution and defence.

At the heart of the objections has been the issue of the availability of notes of interviews held between Mr Giaka and his CIA handlers in America.

These papers - or cables - have been trickling out with varying degrees of censorship.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that very few relatives of the victims are watching the trial on closed-circuit TV at four sites in the US and Britain.

Virtually no-one has been to the site in Dumfries, while even in New York there is usually only eight to 10 people watching.