Abdul Majid Giaka
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abdul Majid Giaka gave evidence for the prosecution in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial in September 2000.
Contents |
[edit] Prosecution witness
By the start of the trial Giaka had been in a U.S. federal witness protection program for nearly a decade, and had acquired American citizenship. He claimed to have worked for Libyan intelligence in the early 1980s before becoming a paid informant for the CIA in the late 1980s. He was billed as the "star" prosecution witness against the two accused Libyans.
[edit] Lying in the witness box
Defence lawyers were quick to pull his evidence apart. William Taylor QC called Giaka a liar no less than 30 times, without any objection from the prosecution. And Richard Keen QC ended each line of questioning with:
- "That's a complete lie," or,
- "Either now you're lying or you lied before. Which is it?"
[edit] Judgment
The three trial Judges rejected most of Giaka's testimony as unreliable. However, they accepted his evidence that defendant Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was a Libyan intelligence agent, which led to Megrahi's conviction for the Lockerbie bombing. The other defendant, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.
