Letter: Judge of character

IN A 2005 interview, Peter Lovat Fraser, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who as lord advocate set up the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeiss in the Netherlands – which resulted in the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi – said that the key prosecution witness, Tony Gauci, was “not quite the full shilling”, and “an apple short of a picnic”.

As we now know (your report, 14 March) on the contents of the 821-page Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission dossier, that Gauci received payment equivalent to £2 million, does it not raise questions about the former lord advocate’s judgment?

Surely if a man of modest means such as Mr Gauci can become a millionaire for giving evidence for a few days in a Scottish court case, he cannot be said to be anything other than very astute?

If he were to be the subject of analogy surely a more fitting example would be “as sharp as a tack”?

Tom Minogue

Victoria Terrace

Dunfermline

Fife