After 21 years no end in sight to wrangles over Lockerbie

[This is the headline over an article by John Forsyth in today's edition of The Scotsman. It focusses on Frank Duggan, President of the US relatives' organisation, Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 Inc. Mr Duggan is not himself a relative of anyone killed in the disaster. The article reads in part:]

Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 has tended to win arguments in the US. Mr Duggan is proud to record that it has probably been the most effective congressional lobbying group of the last 20 years.

He says: "There are about 500 members of the group. Most are family members, now into the third generation – grandchildren of people who were killed. Security service and investigators keep in touch. This is the most important case in their professional careers and they don't want to lose touch."

Mr Duggan's connection with the families started when he was appointed "Liaison to the Families" on the 1989 President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism. (...)

Mr Duggan was appointed president of the group last year: "I could not say no to them. I told them I didn't think there was much more to do. Legally and politically the battle was over. Libya was recognised and compensation had been paid. Then they released Al Megrahi and a 20-year-old story was back on the front pages again."

Today's memorial service [at Arlington National Cemetery] will be addressed by John Brennan, currently assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism in the Obama administration. (...)

The spectre at the ceremony, of course, will be Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, convicted of the murder of the passengers and crew on the flight and of 11 men, women and children killed on the ground in Dumfries-shire by the wreckage falling out of the sky.

Al Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds because of his terminal illness in August. He remains the focus of the outrage expressed by the Victims of Pan Am 103 group and of the present US administration that he was shown compassion when he offered none to his victims.

But Al Megrahi is equally the focus of outrage on the part of campaigners in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK that he was wrongfully convicted in the first place. Christine Grahame MSP says she has moved from an initial disinterested lawyer's perception that the prosecution had not proven its case against him to a conviction that he is in fact innocent. She says: "I don't have the support of the First Minister or the Justice Secretary in this but this miscarriage of justice is a serious matter for Scotland and the Scottish legal system."

She does have the support of Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed that night, as well as Professor Robert Black, whose early diplomacy prepared the way for the trial of two accused, Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, in a Scottish criminal trial in 2000 relocated to Holland. Fhimah was acquitted.

The two sides – Mr Duggan and the campaigners in Scotland – have become bitter adversaries.

It is not uncommon for opponents in a long-running and infinitely complex dispute to develop something of a relationship. A connection can begin to develop through their common history of opposition in radio or TV discussions. Not in this case. They have never actually met face to face and neither side can think of a single instance in which they thought. "actually, that's a good point" made by the other and amended their position accordingly.

Ms Grahame and Prof Black refuse to comment at all on Mr Duggan, preferring general statements of regret that the manifest anger in the US following the release of Al Megrahi is rooted in a false narrative of events.

Mr Duggan tends to be less circumspect. He calls them "deniers" and can't understand why they continue to pick at a case that had as good a trial as Scotland could muster and had the conviction upheld on appeal. He is unimpressed by the issues raised by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

"Al Megrahi had the opportunity to clear up some of the questions but chose not to testify and then dropped his next appeal when he got sent home," he contends. (...)

"We still have friends in Congress who keep in touch with us. I was asked whether the families want a congressional committee to take hearings on the Scottish compassionate release. I would love to say this case is over, and it is over in court, but the bombing of Pan Am 103 will be fodder for lots of stories and theories. There doesn't seem much we can do about that, but I for one am through trying to reason with Prof Black or MSP Grahame," he says.

[For the record, Mr Duggan has made no attempt whatsoever to "reason" with me. What he does is to make bald, largely unsubstantiated, assertions and to flounce off in a fit of pique when those assertions are not immediately and uncritically accepted.

Many of today's Scottish and UK newspapers contain follow-up articles to the stories that broke yesterday about Abdelbaset Megrahi's bank account and his deteriorating health. The most interesting of these articles is to be found in The Herald. It ends with an abbreviated version of the address to be delivered later today at Arlington National Cemetery by Canon Pat Keegans, who was parish priest of Lockerbie at the time of the disaster. The full text of this address will be published on this blog after the ceremony has taken place.]