American influence on Lockerbie trial

[This is the heading over a letter from Marion Woolfson in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]

I was very interested in the letter from Tom Minogue because, like him, I have serious doubts about Lockerbie (19 July)

I am a retired journalist (and former Scotsman columnist) and, although I was born and educated in Edinburgh, I wrote on the Middle East for 30 years.

As Mr Minogue has pointed out, the United Nations-appointed independent observer to the trial at the Scots court in the [Netherlands], Prof Hans Koechler, voiced his serious concerns that senior US Justice Department officials were in the body of the court and appeared to be directing the Crown Office prosecution staff.

This seems to confirm Lord Sutherland's judicial summation, for he pointed out that "there are undoubtedly problems. In relation to certain aspects of the case, there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications. In selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified."

It was also revealed by Geoff Simons, author of Libya and the West, that before the trial Tony Gauci was feted by the police, taken to Aviemore, taken fishing for salmon and put up at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow.

The judges were not told that, on the day of the bombing, there had been an unexplained break-in in the Heathrow baggage area.

Tony Gauci was the Maltese shopkeeper who became the chief witness in the case because a suitcase containing goods he stocked was suddenly "found" among the debris and, although as Gauci could not identify some of the clothing in the suitcase nor could he remember the "owner's" appearance it was decided that the clothing had been wrapped round the bomb (surely if that were true, it would have been destroyed) and so the owner of the suitcase was the bomber.

Megrahi had been about to appeal but was unable to because of being released on compassionate grounds. Gauci has apparently gone to Australia, "assisted" by the gift of a million dollars.

I could have understood all the pathetic lies if they had come from an American source, but surely the Scots have more sense than to believe the rubbish that we have heard.