[This is the headline over a story by Lucy Adams in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
American relatives of the victims of Pan Am 103 are expected to push for a judicial review if Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill agrees to transfer the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
The families have taken legal advice in both London and Scotland and will seek the move if Mr MacAskill agrees to a request already submitted by the Libyan government made under a Prisoner Transfer Agreement signed by Tony Blair in 2007.
It could significantly delay the return to Libya of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, 57, who is currently serving 27 years in HMP Greenock for the bombing and is receiving treatment for advanced stage prostate cancer.
SNP MSP Christine Grahame, who has visited Megrahi twice in prison recently, said this could effectively seal his fate, ensuring he dies here in prison. (...)
She is also to contact Mr MacAskill with concerns about the Crown Office signing a non-disclosure agreement with the US government in June 2000.
Frank Mulholland, the solicitor-general, recently wrote to Ms Grahame to explain that Norman McFadyen, the Crown Agent and now chief executive of the Crown Office, signed the document that allowed him to see certain documents but not share them with the defence. (...)
Ms Grahame believes that this failure to pass on the information poses very serious questions about the manner in which Crown officials conducted themselves.
Some redacted parts of the documents were later released to the court and subsequently discredited a Crown witness.
Senior Scottish Prison Service officials have said that there is nowhere within the prison estate properly suited to managing Megrahi's condition.
Ms Grahame said: "This makes the case for compassionate release absolutely imperative.
"That option is not subject to judicial review and is the only sensible compromise position in light of the fresh evidence and Mr Megrahi's deteriorating health.
"The weight of evidence which has emerged combined with the serious doubts raised over the original evidence that was led at the trial have left me in no doubt of Mr Megrahi's innocence.
"The likelihood of a drawn-out process resulting from a judicial review launched by US relatives would effectively condemn Mr Megrahi to die in prison. There has already been considerable delay which means he will not live to see the end of the appeal he has ongoing against his conviction.
"Senior officials in the Scottish Prison Service have already told me that there is nowhere within the prison estate suitable for Mr Megrahi as he undergoes his treatment.
"If he is allowed to die in prison and it is subsequently established he was innocent then many people will be looking at the reasons why the Scottish justice system failed so dramatically."
[An article by Tom Peterkin in today's edition of The Scotsman contains the following:]
Families of Lockerbie victims in the United States might apply for a judicial review if the Scottish Government decides Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi should be sent home to Libya.
The possibility will be raised by the US-based organisation Victims of Pan Am 103 Group when its board meets next week in New Jersey.
Its president, Frank Duggan, a Washington lawyer, said there would be "uproar" if justice secretary Kenny MacAskill let Megrahi return home under a prisoner transfer agreement between the UK and Libya. (...)
Mr Duggan confirmed that a judicial review would be on the agenda when the group's board meets on Monday.
He said families of the US victims were assuming that MacAskill would "do the right thing" and decide that Megrahi should serve out his life sentence in a Scottish jail.
But he added: "The board is going to meet next Monday in New Jersey, and we could take a vote at the board on this issue." (...)
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said it "would not be appropriate to comment" while Mr MacAskill was considering representations on the prisoner transfer agreement.
A spokesman for the Crown Office said: "The decision in relation to prison transfer application from the Libyan authorities is wholly a matter for the Scottish ministers. The Crown has no role in this process."
[The Times publishes an article focusing on the furious reaction by the Crown Office to Christine Grahame MSP's
criticism of the Crown's having accepted access to evidence in the course of the Lockerbie trial under conditions that disabled it from passing that material on to the defence without the consent of the United States authorities. The article reads in part:]
The Crown Office last night took the unprecedented step of issuing a statement slapping down a Nationalist politician for making “defamatory and entirely unfounded allegations of the most serious kind”.
The rebuke came in a strongly worded statement after Christine Grahame, the SNP MSP, made serious allegations against Crown Office agent Norman McFadyen in relation to the handling of evidence in the Lockerbie trial.
A Crown Office spokesman said: “Norman McFadyen is a man of the utmost integrity who is held in the highest regard by the law officers. Not only is the allegation false in itself but Ms Grahame appears to have misunderstood the process because she has referred to documents which were not part of it.” The Crown Office made it clear that it had made all the material it held available to the trial court and also the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
[Note by RB: Whether the Crown Office made available to the defence and to the court all the material that it held is a highly contentious issue and is a matter that will be explored in some depth in future tranches of the current appeal by Abdelbaset Megrahi, assuming that his state of health does not compel him to abandon that appeal in order to benefit from prisoner transfer. It is also noteworthy that, as reported by The Times, the Crown Office statement refers only to "material that it held" and does not address the issue of material which it did not hold, but to which it was given access under terms that prevented the Crown from disclosing it to the defence.]
Mission Lockerbie:
ReplyDeleteThe truth has a short way, the Lockerbie-Lie has thousand long ways why? The truth died before the Lockerbie-Tragedy...
Thus only the correct way remains that Mr. Al Megrahi can prove his innocence, is via a short decision from the Scottish Appeal Court at Edinburgh.
This is the real way (if Mr. Al Megrahi is cleared) to go back in his homeland Libya. Al-Megrahi has consistently maintained his innocence and has vowed to stay in Scotland and win his freedom through the appeal courts.
We know, the trial before was far from fair and proper and the
revised judgement of the Scottish Appeal can only end in: "not guilty, you are free to go"...
We wish Mr. Megrahi good health and Energy to hold on.
by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland
CIA chief Leon Panetta
ReplyDeleteyour next programme lines up: " PanAm 103/Lockerbie"
Whilst I sympathise deeply with the relatives and friends of the victims of the 103 atrocity, the approach of many across the Pond appears to be to throw good judicial practice after bad in an effort to gain what the Americans like to term 'closure'. This now coming across as the mentality of the lynch mob, and plays straight into the hands of those who seem to have something to hide. Not only that but through their demands, combined with the apparent delaying tactics being employed by the Crown and the refusal to grant the appellant compassionate/supervised release (putting to one side the serious shortcomings of the original trial), it looks increasingly likely that al-Megrahi will die behind bars. The death penalty in the UK will, therefore, effectively have been brought back by default. Something that many of our legislators have consistently tried and failed to achieve for decades.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it may be possible for al-Megrahi's family to keep the appeal going following his death, I feel sure every obstacle will be put in their way in order to minimise the opportunity for the public to identify exactly who has dirty hands in this affair. If the SCCRC has deemed this case worthy of appeal, they obviously suspect that there may have been a serious miscarriage of justice. In that respect, it is in all our interests, and especially that of the credibility of the Scottish judicial system, that ultimately a judgement is arrived at. In an adversarial judicial system, it is essential that the jury is ignorant of the facts and must reach its verdict according to which side has presented the most credible interpretation of what happened. The appeal exists to remedy any wrongs which may have been done at the trial. This is a vital 'backstop'.
We do not have the death penalty in part (although not in whole) to acknowledge that we are not perfect. I am a Scot and I believe in a free, fair, and just society. I admit that I am not flawless and have been brought up to accept that I may have made mistakes and to apologise for them. I demand my right to apologise if necessary. In what seems to be the increasingly unlikely event that the appeal will be heard to its natural conclusion, I will be denied that right and any possibility of knowing whether or not Scottish justice is worthy of my trust.
Al-Megrahi has already been classified as a 'low flight risk', it is within the remit of Scottish ministers to grant the appellant compassionate release whilst the appeal in on-going, furthermore the matter is in the hands of the judiciary. So why is MacKaskill conducting his consultation process on the sidelines? I really can't imagine.
Whilst some can sleep soundly at night in the knowledge that someone may have been convicted of a crime unjustly, I for one cannot.
I'd think that judicial review would put a spoke in the wheels for the UK government in their desperation to send Megrahi back to Libya.
ReplyDeleteI believe MacKaskill's consultations are to soften the clamour when Megrahi is released shortly and to make it look as if MacKaskill is having to make a hard/real decision.
I think the UK government has made itself different options: the prisoner exchange and clearing Megrahi at the first stage of the appeal which wouldn't reveal the role of UK/US governments in conspiring to frame Megrahi.
It may be now if judicial review, which could delay Megrahi's release, is sought then the UK government may free him on compassionate grounds and he continues his appeal.
But one thing I feel is for sure Megrhi must be released before 1 September.