“Ludwig is probably the most experienced person I ever dealt with on the Lockerbie case. He is a nuclear scientist, and for years he has run a successful blog, IntelToday. I think that you should meet him.”
Email to Masud’s Defense Lawyers
George Thomson
Lockerbie Investigator
March 9, 2026
July 8, 2026 — Ten years ago, Intel Today did not yet exist. The blog was born on July 14, 2016. At the time, I was experimenting with WordPress and learning the tools. The precursor to Intel Today was an early project called PT35B — a reference to the infamous tiny fragment that played a key role in allowing the FBI to connect the Lockerbie case to Gaddafi. To mark this anniversary, I have decided to reproduce that post, together with the remarkable comment written by Lockerbie investigator George Thomson. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
RELATED POST : Lockerbie – Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…! [Chapter VIII : PT/35(b) — The Most Expensive Forgery in History]
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Lockerbie: The Metamorphosis
(Posted on PT35B – July 8, 2016)
The story of the Lockerbie “Primary Suitcase” is a good example of how the very same evidence was transformed to point the finger away from the initial suspects and towards the final ones.
Initially, Dr Hayes concluded that the “Primary luggage” had been sitting directly on the floor of the container.
However, the final report concluded that the “Primary Luggage” was actually on the second layer, as possibly indicated in the following picture.
This is not without consequence as the new location probably rules out the infamous “John Bedford luggage” seen about one hour prior to the arrival of the plane from Frankfurt. This fact was known — and debated — at the trial.
RELATED POST : The “STARGATE Project” : The CIA Psychic Spies [UPDATE — Project SUN STREAK — n°: 5269 (Pan Am 103)]
But there is more. On the very first page of his forensic notes (December 27 1988), Dr Hayes concluded from the location of the “pitting” that the locus of the explosion was well above and on the “right side” of the outboard pallet frame. (He estimated the angle was about 45°.)
In the final analysis, the locus had moved to the “left side” of the same pallet frame and 25 cm above the floor level!
Is this not AMAZING? And — just in case you wonder — no other parts of the container show any “pitting”, not even the inclined wall.
Really AMAZING. Remind me again: who is the genius who found this crucial evidence “sticking out from the ground”?
Response from Lockerbie Investigator George Thomson
Armed with the intelligence on the PFLP-GC’s activities in Neuss in October and the FAA Warning, the Scottish Investigators on the ground, assisted by their American friends, were in no doubt that they were looking for the remains of a copper Samsonite suitcase which would contain a semtex-based IED concealed within a Toshiba radio. The radio would be enclosed in a cardboard box along with an instruction manual. They even knew that the explosives within the radio would be wrapped in Toblerone-type wrapping foil.
In no time whatsoever they “found” what they were looking for.
The piece of pitted container metal (found by Thurman ?)
AG145 debris from the identification plate of the luggage container, which Feraday was satisfied was from a Toshiba 8016 or 8026, but then he changed his mind later on. At trial, however, the Air Accident Investigator Claiden testified that the fold in the identification plate which harboured the debris identified as originating from a Toshiba HAD NOT BEEN CAUSED AT THE TIME OF THE EXPLOSION.
A black explosion-damaged cardigan with Toblerone foil violently impacted into its fabric was found and initially was described as originating from the bomb suitcase, but later the classification was changed as the emphasis moved away from the PFLP-GC.
Then impacted into various items of clothing which Gauci later remembered selling to “a suspect”. Originally Talb, the scientists found pieces of the cardboard box, the instruction manual, and various pieces of plastics and mesh which Hayes claimed was from the IED radio.
In relation to the detonation device, a report was submitted from the Scottish Police to the Lord Advocate asking for the detention of various suspects who had been involved with the PFLP-GC in Neuss. In that report, the Police assert time and time after time that the bomb had been triggered by a barometric device.
The net was finally closing, and by a spectacular piece of detective work, a pair of trousers from the bomb suitcase was traced via the manufacturers on Malta to Tony Gauci’s shop where he remarkably remembered selling a variety of clothes to a suspect which had turned up in the bomb suitcase. To be fair to Tony, however, he did not make the whole thing up from nothing; he was shown a variety of photographs of items said to originate from the bomb suitcase, and he picked them out.
The slight fly in the ointment, however, is that the Police claimed to have been led to Gauci by a Manufacturer’s Label (Yorkie) attached to the trousers and by a Stamped Number 1705 on a pocket, which was an order number for Gauci’s shop. Unfortunately, we now have a Police Document which indicates that when the trousers first came into the possession of the Police, there was no such label attached, and the number 1705 apparently jumps from one fragment of trousers to another depending on what report or which police statement you chose to read.
Gauci went some way to identifying Talb as the purchaser of the clothing; however, Gauci’s identification would have been bolstered by the evidence of a witness with a shop nearby who made a definite identification of Talb being in his own shop at the relative time. This shopkeeper’s evidence has never been heard.
RELATED POST : Lockerbie — The Eyewitness Evidence Against Megrahi : Exclusive Q&A with Pr Elizabeth Loftus
So sure were the Police that Talb was their man that they even fabricated evidence of a piece of clothing found in his home in Sweden and originally described as a pair of child’s kick-trousers with a size and a manufacturer into being a Babygro with Penguins on the front, the same type, of course, as described in the shipment note lodged at Court to prove the evidence of Gauci and his lamb/sheep Babygro he claimed to have sold to the man.
I could go on and on with discrepancies in the case, but I want to make the point that Megrahi was, in my mind, convicted on evidence much of which was designed to prosecute Talb, and all they had to do was change the tentative identification by Gauci of Talb to Megrahi and introduce the small fragment of circuit board PT35b.
That’s what makes this case so different. Megrahi was convicted on false evidence originally intended to be used against someone else, and if any of that evidence was tested in Court by a Defence Team properly briefed by Defence Investigators, then Megrahi’s name would be cleared.
Baset would be pleased if that were to happen because, on his deathbed, he asked me to not only try to prove his innocence but prove that he was deliberately convicted on false evidence.
REFERENCES
PT35B blog. Lockerbie: The Metamorphosis (July 8, 2016)
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10 Years Ago Today — PT35B, Lockerbie, and a Kafkaesque Metamorphosis
“Cretton [Real name : Swiss Inspector Hans Knaus] expressed his concerns (…) The first was that the CIA had planted the chip [PT/35(b)] in the wreckage found at Lockerbie. [Detective Superintendant (SIO) Stuart] Henderson and I told him this thought had also crossed our minds. Neither of us believed the CIA or any government official would do such a thing, but we had discussed the possibility.”
FBI Agent Richard Marquise
Intel Today 