identify Megrahi in nineteen separate pre-trial statements to the police. In court, Gauci was asked five times if he recognised anyone in the courtroom, without replying. Only when the prosecutor pointed to Megrahi did Gauci say that "he resembles him". On a previous occasion Gauci had identified Abu Talb (who the defence contended was the real bomber) saying that Talb resembled the customer "a lot". Gauci's police statements identified the customer as over 6 feet tall and over 50 years of age; Megrahi is 5 feet 8 inches, and in late 1988 was 36. The clothes purchase took place on either 23 November or 7 December 1988; Megrahi was only in Malta on 7 December. Gauci recalled the customer also buying an umbrella due to the rain. The defence argued, using meteorological records, that it rained all day on 23 November, but only briefly or not at all on 7 December. In its closing arguments, the prosecution stressed that Megrahi could not have planted the bomb without the assistance of Fhimah – both defendants were equally guilty, and should stand or fall together. Proceedings (May 2000 – January 2001) Court proceedings started on 3 May 2000 with the prosecution outlining the case against the accused and previewing the evidence which they expected would satisfy the judges beyond reasonable doubt that the sabotage of PA 103 was caused by: the explosion of an improvised explosive device (IED); an IED that was contained within a Toshiba radio cassette player in a hard-shell Samsonite suitcase along with various items of clothing which had been bought in Mary's House, Sliema, Malta; an IED triggered by the use of an MST-13 timer, manufactured by Mebo Ag in Switzerland; and, the so-called primary suitcase being introduced as unaccompanied baggage at Luqa Airport in Malta, conveyed by Air Malta flight KM180 to Frankfurt International Airport, transferred there onto feeder flight PA 103A to Heathrow Airport, loaded into the interline baggage container AVE 4041PA at Heathrow, and put on board PA 103 in the forward cargo hold. In the trial's second week, Detective Constable Gilchrist was asked about the piece of charred material that he and DC McColm had found three weeks after the PA 103 crash. DC Gilchrist attached a label to the material and wrote "Cloth (charred)" on it. The word 'cloth' was overwritten by the word 'debris'. DC Gilchrist's attempts to explain the overwriting were