Leaked US embassy cables reveal that Gordon Brown unsuccessfully put his reputation as prime minister on the line in a plea to Washington that the computer hacker Gary McKinnon be allowed to serve any sentence in the UK. (...)
Brown made his unsuccessful direct intervention in August 2009, according to a secret cable from the US ambassador in the UK, Louis Susman, to the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
Susman wrote: "PM Brown, in a one-on-one meeting with the ambassador, proposed a deal: that McKinnon plead guilty, make a statement of contrition, but serve any sentence of incarceration in the UK. Brown cited deep public concern that McKinnon, with his medical condition, would commit suicide or suffer injury if imprisoned in a US facility."
The ambassador says he sought to raise Brown's request in Washington with Obama's newly appointed attorney general, Eric Holder. But the plea got nowhere.
In October last year, the ambassador had to warn Clinton on a visit to the UK that the prime minister was likely to raise the McKinnon case again.
"McKinnon has gained enormous popular sympathy in his appeal against extradition; the UK's final decision is pending." he reported. "The case has also caused public criticism of the US-UK extradition treaty."
One reason for Brown's failure may have been barely contained US rage, spelled out in other secret cable traffic around the same time, that the UK was releasing the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Ali Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, to what turned out to be a hero's welcome in Libya.
[From a report published earlier today on The Guardian website. The "other secret cable traffic" relating to Megrahi's release does not seem to have yet been published.]
A commentary on the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the murder of 270 people in the Pan Am 103 disaster.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Another gripping snippet
American diplomats branded a Labour former minister a ‘hound dog where women are concerned’.
Political websites last night named him as Ivan Lewis, who served as the Foreign Office minister for Libya in the last Labour government.
The name, contained in a cable from the US embassy in London, was withheld by The Guardian newspaper, which obtained the full dispatch from WikiLeaks.
Mr Lewis – the Labour MP for Bury who is now his party’s culture spokesman – declined to comment last night. (...)
Mr Lewis would have angered the US because in 2009, when he was the Foreign Office minister responsible for Libya, he wrote to Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, giving him the green light to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi under the prisoner transfer agreement.
[From an article by Gerri Peev in today's edition of the Daily Mail.]
Political websites last night named him as Ivan Lewis, who served as the Foreign Office minister for Libya in the last Labour government.
The name, contained in a cable from the US embassy in London, was withheld by The Guardian newspaper, which obtained the full dispatch from WikiLeaks.
Mr Lewis – the Labour MP for Bury who is now his party’s culture spokesman – declined to comment last night. (...)
Mr Lewis would have angered the US because in 2009, when he was the Foreign Office minister responsible for Libya, he wrote to Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, giving him the green light to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi under the prisoner transfer agreement.
[From an article by Gerri Peev in today's edition of the Daily Mail.]
Monday, 29 November 2010
Isn't this exciting?
As far as I can discern from a preliminary trawl of The Guardian and The New York Times websites, the tranche of US State Department cables just released does not contain any Megrahi or Lockerbie material. However, this September 2009 assessment of Gaddafi by the US ambassador to Tripoli has some entertainent value.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Wikileaks data contains "significant Lockerbie material"
[This is the heading over a report just published on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads in part:]
The Firm has learned that "significant" case materials relating to the Pan Am 103 debacle are among the 3 million sensitive documents scheduled to be released by the Wikileaks site in the next 24 hours.
Sources close to the UK Government who have had access to the material have briefed The Firm ahead of their release, although the precise nature of the materials has not been disclosed.
On Friday the United States Government alerted its allies through diplomatic channels to forewarn them of the details of some of the materials that they anticipated would be amongst the leaked material. (...)
It is reported this morning that the UK government has issued a Defence Advisory Notice (DA-Notice) to editors not to publish or broadcast extracts from leaks of sensitive US cables that relate to issues of national security, and that David Cameron’s office has confirmed that the US ambassador Louis Susman has briefed the government on what might be contained in the files.
[Given the period covered by the US State Department cables, I remain of the view that the only material in the documents relevant to Lockerbie will be material relating to Abdelbaset Megrahi's repatriation to Libya. They will contain nothing relating to the circumstances of the investigation, prosecution and trial.
I like the following comment from the For Argyll website:]
And what will the coming Wikileaks revelations tell us about American conduct behind the scenes in the Al Megrahi affair? Will the pompous publicity hound, Senator Robert Menendez be discombobulated? We can’t wait.
The Firm has learned that "significant" case materials relating to the Pan Am 103 debacle are among the 3 million sensitive documents scheduled to be released by the Wikileaks site in the next 24 hours.
Sources close to the UK Government who have had access to the material have briefed The Firm ahead of their release, although the precise nature of the materials has not been disclosed.
On Friday the United States Government alerted its allies through diplomatic channels to forewarn them of the details of some of the materials that they anticipated would be amongst the leaked material. (...)
It is reported this morning that the UK government has issued a Defence Advisory Notice (DA-Notice) to editors not to publish or broadcast extracts from leaks of sensitive US cables that relate to issues of national security, and that David Cameron’s office has confirmed that the US ambassador Louis Susman has briefed the government on what might be contained in the files.
[Given the period covered by the US State Department cables, I remain of the view that the only material in the documents relevant to Lockerbie will be material relating to Abdelbaset Megrahi's repatriation to Libya. They will contain nothing relating to the circumstances of the investigation, prosecution and trial.
I like the following comment from the For Argyll website:]
And what will the coming Wikileaks revelations tell us about American conduct behind the scenes in the Al Megrahi affair? Will the pompous publicity hound, Senator Robert Menendez be discombobulated? We can’t wait.
Old wounds that need re-opened
This is the heading over a long post on Caustic Logic's blog The Lockerbie Divide. The post consists of a thoughtful discussion of Father Pat Keegans's recent letter to US Lockerbie families and of the reaction quoted in the original report in The Herald from one US relative, to the effect that an inquiry into the safety of the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi would "open old wounds".
The questions that Caustic Logic poses to the US relatives are questions that can equally be addressed to the Scottish Government which, notwithstanding the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, continues to parrot the mantra that it does "not doubt the safety of the verdict against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.”
The questions that Caustic Logic poses to the US relatives are questions that can equally be addressed to the Scottish Government which, notwithstanding the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, continues to parrot the mantra that it does "not doubt the safety of the verdict against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.”
Saturday, 27 November 2010
New WikiLeaks documents said to relate to Megrahi
[What follows is an excerpt from today's edition of The Sun.]
Defence chiefs last night warned national security will be put "at risk" by a devastating new leak of secret American files.
Controversial website WikiLeaks will this weekend publish more than two million US diplomatic messages. Senior defence official Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance urged the British media not to publish the classified documents.
He said: "Aspects of national security might be put at risk if a major UK news outlet brought such information into obvious public prominence."
The documents were issued by the White House, the CIA and US embassies to allied governments around the world. The messages to British diplomats contain highly sensitive conversations that could reap huge damage.
The most compromising are believed to contain secret intelligence sources, as well as information about Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
[A much longer article appears in the Daily Mail (and The Sun's story is probably taken from this) which indicates that the documents relating to Megrahi concern discussions about his return to Libya, rather than how he came to be accused, tried and convicted.
Scotland on Sunday runs a short piece which contains the following:]
With governments across the world bracing themselves for the release of hundreds of thousands of pages of classified papers and cables last night, there was growing expectation that some of the material will relate to the release of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi last year.
A Scottish Government spokesman said they had received no contact from the US Consul in Edinburgh about any information relating to their own actions. However, it is understood that among the millions of pages to be put up on the web over coming days is more information detailing US views on the bomber's return to Libya last August.
Defence chiefs last night warned national security will be put "at risk" by a devastating new leak of secret American files.
Controversial website WikiLeaks will this weekend publish more than two million US diplomatic messages. Senior defence official Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance urged the British media not to publish the classified documents.
He said: "Aspects of national security might be put at risk if a major UK news outlet brought such information into obvious public prominence."
The documents were issued by the White House, the CIA and US embassies to allied governments around the world. The messages to British diplomats contain highly sensitive conversations that could reap huge damage.
The most compromising are believed to contain secret intelligence sources, as well as information about Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
[A much longer article appears in the Daily Mail (and The Sun's story is probably taken from this) which indicates that the documents relating to Megrahi concern discussions about his return to Libya, rather than how he came to be accused, tried and convicted.
Scotland on Sunday runs a short piece which contains the following:]
With governments across the world bracing themselves for the release of hundreds of thousands of pages of classified papers and cables last night, there was growing expectation that some of the material will relate to the release of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi last year.
A Scottish Government spokesman said they had received no contact from the US Consul in Edinburgh about any information relating to their own actions. However, it is understood that among the millions of pages to be put up on the web over coming days is more information detailing US views on the bomber's return to Libya last August.
Friday, 26 November 2010
So now we know
Even if profiling could detect every terrorist, it could not detect every terrorist plot. Remember Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland? That was accomplished without any terrorists aboard. An unsuspecting passenger was turned into a weapon of mass destruction when she carried on a bomb disguised as a radio. Profiling would not have stopped that plot.
[From an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer supporting the enhanced passenger screening procedures for anyone boarding a plane in America by Louis Lombardi, an attorney and former New York City police captain.]
[From an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer supporting the enhanced passenger screening procedures for anyone boarding a plane in America by Louis Lombardi, an attorney and former New York City police captain.]
Thursday, 25 November 2010
False memories?
[What follow are excerpts from an article published today on The Guardian website.]
In fact, many hundreds of people have been wrongfully convicted in the UK because juries and those involved in the legal system relied upon "common sense" in considering issues relating to memory. Several thousand case histories have been referred to the British False Memory Society and at least 672 of these are known to have involved the police or higher legal authorities.
It is imperative that those working in the legal system are familiar, at least in general terms, with the way that memory works. Experimental psychologists, following the initial controversy over the veracity of recovered memories back in the 1980s, have developed several reliable techniques to study factors that influence the formation and maintenance of false memories. The studies have proved beyond doubt that false memories can be produced quite readily in susceptible individuals.
Of course, false memories do not only arise in the context of sexual abuse allegations. As Professor Tim Valentine, an expert in psychology and the law at Goldsmiths, University of London, informs me:
"Witnesses' recall can be influenced by information acquired during an investigation. Just repeatedly questioning a witness tends to increase their confidence in both correct and mistaken answers. A shopkeeper who was a key witness in the Lockerbie bomb case was interviewed 20 times by the police, during which he was shown fragments of burnt clothing. He recalled a Libyan customer who had been in the shop nine months previously. Initially he said he did not sell the man any shirts. In court he described selling two shirts to the customer that were similar to fragments of clothing found in the suitcase that contained the bomb. Might this be a false memory induced by questioning about the shirts?"
In fact, many hundreds of people have been wrongfully convicted in the UK because juries and those involved in the legal system relied upon "common sense" in considering issues relating to memory. Several thousand case histories have been referred to the British False Memory Society and at least 672 of these are known to have involved the police or higher legal authorities.
It is imperative that those working in the legal system are familiar, at least in general terms, with the way that memory works. Experimental psychologists, following the initial controversy over the veracity of recovered memories back in the 1980s, have developed several reliable techniques to study factors that influence the formation and maintenance of false memories. The studies have proved beyond doubt that false memories can be produced quite readily in susceptible individuals.
Of course, false memories do not only arise in the context of sexual abuse allegations. As Professor Tim Valentine, an expert in psychology and the law at Goldsmiths, University of London, informs me:
"Witnesses' recall can be influenced by information acquired during an investigation. Just repeatedly questioning a witness tends to increase their confidence in both correct and mistaken answers. A shopkeeper who was a key witness in the Lockerbie bomb case was interviewed 20 times by the police, during which he was shown fragments of burnt clothing. He recalled a Libyan customer who had been in the shop nine months previously. Initially he said he did not sell the man any shirts. In court he described selling two shirts to the customer that were similar to fragments of clothing found in the suitcase that contained the bomb. Might this be a false memory induced by questioning about the shirts?"
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Good news regarding the Cadder emergency legislation
[The following is taken from a report just published on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm.]
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has joined the growing clamour of concern about section 7 of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010, passed by the Scottish Parliament last month, with Commission chairman Jean Couper saying there is “no evidence” that the provisions in section 7 of the new Act were required.
She added that the new section was “a fundamental constitutional change in the role of the Commission and in its relationship with the appeal court in Scotland.”
She said the provision “risks undermining the role of the Commission as an independent arbiter of issues relating to alleged miscarriages of justice.”
However, Couper also said that following a meeting with Kenny MacAskill the new measures, which had been criticised for fundamentally changing the nature of SCCRC referrals, were temporary, and would be reviewed as part of Lord Carloway’s investigation into criminal procedure.
“Whilst the court has and will continue to refuse some appeals based upon a referral by the Commission and on occasion will comment upon our basis of referral, I have no evidence of any concern amongst the judiciary that the Commission is unable or unwilling to undertake its duties in a measured, considered and appropriate way,” she said.
“Section 7 of the new Act, and in particular the creation of a new section 194DA of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, creates a fundamental change in the relationship between the court and the Commission.
“The new legislative framework that gives authority to the High Court to reject a reference from the Commission at the outset risks undermining the role of the Commission as an independent arbiter of issues relating to alleged miscarriages of justice. The appropriate remedy for any aggrieved party, whether this be the applicant or the Crown, to challenge a decision made by the Commission, after it has considered the matter and reached a determination, is by way of judicial review. This, we feel, is the correct forum for the Commission’s application of our statutory test to be considered and tested, and not by the High Court in terms of the new section 194DA(2).”
She said that Justice Minster Kenny MacAskill had visited the Commission after concerns were raised.
“He assured me at our meeting that the new legislation was intended to provide interim measures which will now be subject to full consultation as part of Lord Carloway`s review. The Commission has been asked to play an active part in the forthcoming consultation and review process and is pleased to do so.”
[The Herald also has a shorter report on the subject.]
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has joined the growing clamour of concern about section 7 of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010, passed by the Scottish Parliament last month, with Commission chairman Jean Couper saying there is “no evidence” that the provisions in section 7 of the new Act were required.
She added that the new section was “a fundamental constitutional change in the role of the Commission and in its relationship with the appeal court in Scotland.”
She said the provision “risks undermining the role of the Commission as an independent arbiter of issues relating to alleged miscarriages of justice.”
However, Couper also said that following a meeting with Kenny MacAskill the new measures, which had been criticised for fundamentally changing the nature of SCCRC referrals, were temporary, and would be reviewed as part of Lord Carloway’s investigation into criminal procedure.
“Whilst the court has and will continue to refuse some appeals based upon a referral by the Commission and on occasion will comment upon our basis of referral, I have no evidence of any concern amongst the judiciary that the Commission is unable or unwilling to undertake its duties in a measured, considered and appropriate way,” she said.
“Section 7 of the new Act, and in particular the creation of a new section 194DA of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, creates a fundamental change in the relationship between the court and the Commission.
“The new legislative framework that gives authority to the High Court to reject a reference from the Commission at the outset risks undermining the role of the Commission as an independent arbiter of issues relating to alleged miscarriages of justice. The appropriate remedy for any aggrieved party, whether this be the applicant or the Crown, to challenge a decision made by the Commission, after it has considered the matter and reached a determination, is by way of judicial review. This, we feel, is the correct forum for the Commission’s application of our statutory test to be considered and tested, and not by the High Court in terms of the new section 194DA(2).”
She said that Justice Minster Kenny MacAskill had visited the Commission after concerns were raised.
“He assured me at our meeting that the new legislation was intended to provide interim measures which will now be subject to full consultation as part of Lord Carloway`s review. The Commission has been asked to play an active part in the forthcoming consultation and review process and is pleased to do so.”
[The Herald also has a shorter report on the subject.]
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
An inquiry into conviction of Megrahi should go ahead but is unlikely to win support in the US
[This is the heading over a letter by John M Wilson of Houston (presumably the Renfrewshire not the Texas one) in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]
The idea that American families will respond favourably to Father Pat Keegans’s letter in support of an inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (“US families urged to back new inquiry into Megrahi conviction”, The Herald, November 22) is as likely as the old adage about turkeys voting for Christmas.
The recent rejection of a review of the case by the Scottish Government will only give support to the theorists that Megrahi was wrongly convicted. Scotland should not be left in a situation similar to that which exists in the US, where theories still abound about who really shot John F Kennedy.
The verdict at Camp Zeist is considered [by the Scottish Government] to be a just one but, despite that, there are people who declare themselves dissatisfied with that. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is critical of the verdict but has no axe to grind other than to highlight what it considers deficiencies in the case which could have resulted in an incorrect verdict. Dr Jim Swire and his many supporters have declared similar views and should at least be granted some form of judicial review. The fact that Megrahi has survived beyond the estimated time following his release adds weight to the demands for a review and has created more suspicion that his release was more to do with politics than justice.
The idea that American families will respond favourably to Father Pat Keegans’s letter in support of an inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (“US families urged to back new inquiry into Megrahi conviction”, The Herald, November 22) is as likely as the old adage about turkeys voting for Christmas.
The recent rejection of a review of the case by the Scottish Government will only give support to the theorists that Megrahi was wrongly convicted. Scotland should not be left in a situation similar to that which exists in the US, where theories still abound about who really shot John F Kennedy.
The verdict at Camp Zeist is considered [by the Scottish Government] to be a just one but, despite that, there are people who declare themselves dissatisfied with that. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is critical of the verdict but has no axe to grind other than to highlight what it considers deficiencies in the case which could have resulted in an incorrect verdict. Dr Jim Swire and his many supporters have declared similar views and should at least be granted some form of judicial review. The fact that Megrahi has survived beyond the estimated time following his release adds weight to the demands for a review and has created more suspicion that his release was more to do with politics than justice.
Monday, 22 November 2010
US families urged to back new inquiry into Megrahi conviction
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
American families who lost loved ones in the Lockerbie bombing have nothing to fear from an inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s conviction, a long-standing campaigner has told them.
Lockerbie priest Father Pat Keegans has written an open letter to families of the US victims urging them to support a public inquiry into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Dumfries and Galloway town on December 21, 1988, which killed everyone on board and 11 people on the ground. (...)
However, [Megrahi's] conviction has been mired in controversy, splitting opinion on either side of the Atlantic. The rift has intensified amid mounting pressure from Scottish campaigners for an inquiry, after the Libyan had to drop his appeal as a condition of being sent home to die. [RB: Dropping the appeal was a condition of repatriation under the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement, not under compassionate release. But, of course, the Justice Secretary made clear that he would deal with both applications together and Megrahi had no way of knowing which -- if either -- the Justice Secretary would favour.]
Father Keegans’s letter asks the US families to “show your concern for the legitimate and sincere views consistently held by me and many others”, insisting the growing number of dissenting voices “cannot be discounted as the rantings and ravings of conspiracy theory fanatics”.
He said: “It is your strongly held view that the trial and verdict were valid … However, your certainty in the validity of the trial and conviction should allow you to accept that such an inquiry would vindicate your belief and you should have nothing to fear from it.”
He added: “Whatever our views, it is clear that the full truth has not emerged; people who murdered our family members and friends are still at large.
“There has been a conviction which is not universally accepted but has been questioned by many. A full, public, independent inquiry into all aspects of the bombing would assist us in finding truth and justice.”
Earlier this month, a petition by the Justice For Megrahi pressure group signed by 1500 people was handed in to MSPs, calling on Holyrood to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the Libyan’s conviction.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, was among the group.
Father Keegans – whose home in Lockerbie escaped virtually unscathed after flaming debris from the aircraft demolished neighbouring houses – has been a counsellor for bereaved relatives in Scotland and overseas as well as an outspoken critic of the investigation and trial which led to Megrahi’s conviction.
Father Keegans said he wrote to the families after receiving an e-mail from Frank Duggan, president of the US family group, criticising comments made by Cardinal Keith O’Brien earlier this month supporting an independent inquiry into the conviction of Megrahi. (...)
But Ted Reina, whose daughter Jocelyn was a flight attendant on the aeroplane, said an inquiry would reopen old wounds.
Mr Reina, from California, said: “I see no good from opening an inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing except for the lawyers lining their pockets. Megrahi has been sent home to a hero’s welcome and is alive and well … For the families who have had years of anguish I see only more pain. I wonder how many of those who call for an inquiry actually saw the trial or watched it on closed circuit TV as my wife and I did.”
[According to a report by The Press Association news agency, Dr Jim Swire commented on The Herald article as follows:]
'Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, asked MSPs on Holyrood's Petitions Committee to push for an inquiry earlier this month.
'He backed Father Pat Keegans' attempts, hoping for an "objective look" at the evidence.
'Dr Swire said: "I think in the long term, some degree of truth is going to come out. I agree with what Pat Keegans has been saying but there will be some risk. The longer the truth takes to come out, the harder it will be for some people."'
[The full text of Canon Keegans's letter is as follows:]
Dear USA Families of Pan Am Flight 103,
The President of the family group, Mr Frank Duggan, sent an email to me expressing his disappointment with the recent statements made by Cardinal O’Brien. Rather than simply reply to him as an individual I wish to use his comments as an opportunity to speak to all the families.
Dear Families,
We met through an horrendous act of murder. We lost family members and friends through this heinous crime. In all that has happened over the years I have never lost sight of the great suffering inflicted upon you and have sought where possible to be a source of solace, healing and comfort. At the same time I have also been a challenge. Before the trial of Mr Megrahi and Mr Fahima I was saying to many of the families and to the media that I did not believe that the real perpetrators had been arrested and put on trial. During the trial and afterwards I was saying that the trial and the verdict would not stand up to scrutiny; it has not stood up to serious scrutiny. What I was voicing before, during and after the trial has now been voiced by many people at an international level. In his statement Cardinal O’Brien said this: “From the moment the verdict was announced, voices have been raised in protest. Over the years the clamour has grown amongst lawyers, politicians, academics and a growing number of ordinary citizens that the verdict amounted to a miscarriage of justice.”
I for my part would affirm that such voices cannot be discounted as the rantings and ravings of conspiracy theory fanatics or deranged and misguided people. Their voices merit a full, independent and public enquiry into all aspects of what we in Scotland call the Lockerbie Bombing.
I am aware that this is not a view commonly held by you; however, I would ask you to give your support, individually and/or as a group to a full, independent public enquiry. It is your strongly held view that the trial and verdict were valid. After all that has happened since the trial I would have to wonder if such a view is tenable. However, your certainty in the validity of the trial and conviction should allow you to accept that such an enquiry would vindicate your belief and you should have nothing to fear from it. At the same time your support for an enquiry would show your concern for the legitimate and sincere views consistently held by me and many others.
From the beginning we have all sought justice and truth. Whatever our views, it is clear that the full truth has not emerged; people who murdered our family members and friends are still at large. There has been a conviction which is not universally accepted but has been questioned by many. A full, public, independent enquiry into all aspects of the bombing would assist us in finding truth and justice for ourselves and all who have died.
Finally, I will continue to offer to you unconditionally, wherever it is accepted, any support, solace and comfort that I can give.
You are never far from my thoughts and prayers.
Yours sincerely,
Pat Keegans
American families who lost loved ones in the Lockerbie bombing have nothing to fear from an inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s conviction, a long-standing campaigner has told them.
Lockerbie priest Father Pat Keegans has written an open letter to families of the US victims urging them to support a public inquiry into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Dumfries and Galloway town on December 21, 1988, which killed everyone on board and 11 people on the ground. (...)
However, [Megrahi's] conviction has been mired in controversy, splitting opinion on either side of the Atlantic. The rift has intensified amid mounting pressure from Scottish campaigners for an inquiry, after the Libyan had to drop his appeal as a condition of being sent home to die. [RB: Dropping the appeal was a condition of repatriation under the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement, not under compassionate release. But, of course, the Justice Secretary made clear that he would deal with both applications together and Megrahi had no way of knowing which -- if either -- the Justice Secretary would favour.]
Father Keegans’s letter asks the US families to “show your concern for the legitimate and sincere views consistently held by me and many others”, insisting the growing number of dissenting voices “cannot be discounted as the rantings and ravings of conspiracy theory fanatics”.
He said: “It is your strongly held view that the trial and verdict were valid … However, your certainty in the validity of the trial and conviction should allow you to accept that such an inquiry would vindicate your belief and you should have nothing to fear from it.”
He added: “Whatever our views, it is clear that the full truth has not emerged; people who murdered our family members and friends are still at large.
“There has been a conviction which is not universally accepted but has been questioned by many. A full, public, independent inquiry into all aspects of the bombing would assist us in finding truth and justice.”
Earlier this month, a petition by the Justice For Megrahi pressure group signed by 1500 people was handed in to MSPs, calling on Holyrood to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the Libyan’s conviction.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, was among the group.
Father Keegans – whose home in Lockerbie escaped virtually unscathed after flaming debris from the aircraft demolished neighbouring houses – has been a counsellor for bereaved relatives in Scotland and overseas as well as an outspoken critic of the investigation and trial which led to Megrahi’s conviction.
Father Keegans said he wrote to the families after receiving an e-mail from Frank Duggan, president of the US family group, criticising comments made by Cardinal Keith O’Brien earlier this month supporting an independent inquiry into the conviction of Megrahi. (...)
But Ted Reina, whose daughter Jocelyn was a flight attendant on the aeroplane, said an inquiry would reopen old wounds.
Mr Reina, from California, said: “I see no good from opening an inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing except for the lawyers lining their pockets. Megrahi has been sent home to a hero’s welcome and is alive and well … For the families who have had years of anguish I see only more pain. I wonder how many of those who call for an inquiry actually saw the trial or watched it on closed circuit TV as my wife and I did.”
[According to a report by The Press Association news agency, Dr Jim Swire commented on The Herald article as follows:]
'Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, asked MSPs on Holyrood's Petitions Committee to push for an inquiry earlier this month.
'He backed Father Pat Keegans' attempts, hoping for an "objective look" at the evidence.
'Dr Swire said: "I think in the long term, some degree of truth is going to come out. I agree with what Pat Keegans has been saying but there will be some risk. The longer the truth takes to come out, the harder it will be for some people."'
[The full text of Canon Keegans's letter is as follows:]
Dear USA Families of Pan Am Flight 103,
The President of the family group, Mr Frank Duggan, sent an email to me expressing his disappointment with the recent statements made by Cardinal O’Brien. Rather than simply reply to him as an individual I wish to use his comments as an opportunity to speak to all the families.
Dear Families,
We met through an horrendous act of murder. We lost family members and friends through this heinous crime. In all that has happened over the years I have never lost sight of the great suffering inflicted upon you and have sought where possible to be a source of solace, healing and comfort. At the same time I have also been a challenge. Before the trial of Mr Megrahi and Mr Fahima I was saying to many of the families and to the media that I did not believe that the real perpetrators had been arrested and put on trial. During the trial and afterwards I was saying that the trial and the verdict would not stand up to scrutiny; it has not stood up to serious scrutiny. What I was voicing before, during and after the trial has now been voiced by many people at an international level. In his statement Cardinal O’Brien said this: “From the moment the verdict was announced, voices have been raised in protest. Over the years the clamour has grown amongst lawyers, politicians, academics and a growing number of ordinary citizens that the verdict amounted to a miscarriage of justice.”
I for my part would affirm that such voices cannot be discounted as the rantings and ravings of conspiracy theory fanatics or deranged and misguided people. Their voices merit a full, independent and public enquiry into all aspects of what we in Scotland call the Lockerbie Bombing.
I am aware that this is not a view commonly held by you; however, I would ask you to give your support, individually and/or as a group to a full, independent public enquiry. It is your strongly held view that the trial and verdict were valid. After all that has happened since the trial I would have to wonder if such a view is tenable. However, your certainty in the validity of the trial and conviction should allow you to accept that such an enquiry would vindicate your belief and you should have nothing to fear from it. At the same time your support for an enquiry would show your concern for the legitimate and sincere views consistently held by me and many others.
From the beginning we have all sought justice and truth. Whatever our views, it is clear that the full truth has not emerged; people who murdered our family members and friends are still at large. There has been a conviction which is not universally accepted but has been questioned by many. A full, public, independent enquiry into all aspects of the bombing would assist us in finding truth and justice for ourselves and all who have died.
Finally, I will continue to offer to you unconditionally, wherever it is accepted, any support, solace and comfort that I can give.
You are never far from my thoughts and prayers.
Yours sincerely,
Pat Keegans
Megrahi expert aids appeal
This is the headline over an article (which does not appear on the newspaper's website) in yesterday's edition of The Sunday Post. It discloses that Professor Tim Valentine of the University of London has prepared a report in connection with the appeal of William Gage.
Professor Valentine also prepared a report on the eyewitness evidence accepted by the Zeist judges as constituting an identification of Abdelbaset Megrahi as the person who bought in Tony Gauci's shop the items that were in the same suitcase as the Pan Am 103 bomb. This report would have featured in Mr Megrahi's appeal had it not been abandoned prior to his compassionate release. The report can be read here.
Professor Valentine also prepared a report on the eyewitness evidence accepted by the Zeist judges as constituting an identification of Abdelbaset Megrahi as the person who bought in Tony Gauci's shop the items that were in the same suitcase as the Pan Am 103 bomb. This report would have featured in Mr Megrahi's appeal had it not been abandoned prior to his compassionate release. The report can be read here.
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Suffering is the lot of mankind
[The following are a few sentences from an extract in today's Irish Times from the book The Things I’ve Seen: Nine Lives of a Foreign Correspondent, by Lara Marlowe, the newspaper's Washington correspondent.]
Suffering is the lot of mankind; if my reporting sometimes strikes a chord in readers, I believe it is because I feel tied to the people whose pain I describe. As T S Eliot wrote:
“I am moved by ... The notion of some infinitely gentle/Infinitely suffering thing.” Some, like the parents of children who died violently in Ireland and France, became friends. Most have been swallowed up by distance and time. But I do not forget them.
There is Leila Behbehani, the three-year-old Iranian girl whose body I saw in a cold storage warehouse in Bandar Abbas, one of 290 civilians killed when the USS Vincennes guided-missile cruiser shot down an Iranian airliner in 1988. Leila was on her way to a wedding, and was wearing a turquoise party dress. She died with the contorted face of a child who is crying. Captain Will Rogers III, the commander of the Vincennes, was given a medal. (...)
I still believe that the Lockerbie bombing was retaliation for the downing of the Iran Air flight six months earlier.
Suffering is the lot of mankind; if my reporting sometimes strikes a chord in readers, I believe it is because I feel tied to the people whose pain I describe. As T S Eliot wrote:
“I am moved by ... The notion of some infinitely gentle/Infinitely suffering thing.” Some, like the parents of children who died violently in Ireland and France, became friends. Most have been swallowed up by distance and time. But I do not forget them.
There is Leila Behbehani, the three-year-old Iranian girl whose body I saw in a cold storage warehouse in Bandar Abbas, one of 290 civilians killed when the USS Vincennes guided-missile cruiser shot down an Iranian airliner in 1988. Leila was on her way to a wedding, and was wearing a turquoise party dress. She died with the contorted face of a child who is crying. Captain Will Rogers III, the commander of the Vincennes, was given a medal. (...)
I still believe that the Lockerbie bombing was retaliation for the downing of the Iran Air flight six months earlier.
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
What Justice for Megrahi seeks to achieve
[Following the appearance of Justice for Megrahi committee members before the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee last Tuesday, Dr Morag Kerr who had not been able to attend the hearing contacted me to express her congratulations on the team's performance. However, she felt that one point had not perhaps been adequately stressed. I agreed, and asked Dr Kerr to let me have a piece for posting on the blog. Here it is.]
The question has been asked, would it not be fair to say that Megrahi had his chance, he had his appeal ongoing, but he chose to drop it. Why should he be given another bite at the cherry?
To ask such a question is to misunderstand profoundly the point of the petition. Despite its name, “Justice for Megrahi” is not and never has been concerned with giving Mr al-Megrahi “another bite at the cherry”. It is concerned with establishing the truth, which transcends the mere fact of a verdict against one individual.
Over a million pounds of public money was spent by the SCCRC on their 3½-year investigation, and the outcome was an 800-page report with 13 volumes of appendices, and no less than six grounds on which a miscarriage of justice was suspected. What has been revealed of that report suggests that the original investigation quite simply got the wrong man, which means that the real perpetrators of the Lockerbie atrocity have never been identified.
Mr al-Megrahi stated that he dropped the appeal in order to improve his chances of returning home to Libya before he died. It appears he was mistaken in that belief, and how he came to be under that misapprehension might in itself be an interesting question. Be that as it may, the dropping of the appeal left the SCCRC findings untested in court. It is the contention of JFM that this unfortunate development should not be allowed to bury the truth, if the truth is indeed contained in these 800 pages.
Taking a wider view, it cannot be overemphasised that the conviction as it stands is acting as an insuperable barrier to any further investigation of the Lockerbie disaster. While JFM is not asking the Scottish government to investigate the identity of the real perpetrators, which would indeed be outwith its remit, it is clear that if indeed the wrong man was convicted, this is the first error that must be addressed before any further steps can be taken to hold a more wide-ranging enquiry, or indeed to re-open the criminal investigation.
[Dr Kerr has also pointed out that in an answer I gave in the hearing I referred to Tony Gauci's having described in police statements the purchaser in his shop as being over six feet tall and over 50 years of age, whereas Mr Megrahi is 5 feet 8 inches tall and was at the time 38 years old. At the relevant time (November/December 1988) Mr Megrahi was in fact 36 years of age.]
The question has been asked, would it not be fair to say that Megrahi had his chance, he had his appeal ongoing, but he chose to drop it. Why should he be given another bite at the cherry?
To ask such a question is to misunderstand profoundly the point of the petition. Despite its name, “Justice for Megrahi” is not and never has been concerned with giving Mr al-Megrahi “another bite at the cherry”. It is concerned with establishing the truth, which transcends the mere fact of a verdict against one individual.
Over a million pounds of public money was spent by the SCCRC on their 3½-year investigation, and the outcome was an 800-page report with 13 volumes of appendices, and no less than six grounds on which a miscarriage of justice was suspected. What has been revealed of that report suggests that the original investigation quite simply got the wrong man, which means that the real perpetrators of the Lockerbie atrocity have never been identified.
Mr al-Megrahi stated that he dropped the appeal in order to improve his chances of returning home to Libya before he died. It appears he was mistaken in that belief, and how he came to be under that misapprehension might in itself be an interesting question. Be that as it may, the dropping of the appeal left the SCCRC findings untested in court. It is the contention of JFM that this unfortunate development should not be allowed to bury the truth, if the truth is indeed contained in these 800 pages.
Taking a wider view, it cannot be overemphasised that the conviction as it stands is acting as an insuperable barrier to any further investigation of the Lockerbie disaster. While JFM is not asking the Scottish government to investigate the identity of the real perpetrators, which would indeed be outwith its remit, it is clear that if indeed the wrong man was convicted, this is the first error that must be addressed before any further steps can be taken to hold a more wide-ranging enquiry, or indeed to re-open the criminal investigation.
[Dr Kerr has also pointed out that in an answer I gave in the hearing I referred to Tony Gauci's having described in police statements the purchaser in his shop as being over six feet tall and over 50 years of age, whereas Mr Megrahi is 5 feet 8 inches tall and was at the time 38 years old. At the relevant time (November/December 1988) Mr Megrahi was in fact 36 years of age.]
Monday, 15 November 2010
Lead Pan Am 103 investigator recalls search for suspect
[This is the headline over the report of Richard Marquise's recent talk at Syracuse University, NY in the university's newspaper The Daily Orange. It reads as follows:]
Richard Marquise searched the 845 square-mile crime scene for a piece of circuit board that would link Libyan terrorists to the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.
"The piece of evidence that cracked the case could fit on the tip of my finger," Marquise said. "I said, ‘If someone sneezes, we're going to need to do another crime scene search for evidence.'"
Marquise is a former FBI special agent and lead investigator of the task force assigned to the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 35 Syracuse University students. Marquise, who spoke Thursday in the Life Sciences Complex, worked in the FBI for more than 30 years.
Marquise walked the audience chronologically through what he called the "10-year odyssey" of the investigation. The tiny piece of circuit board evidence eventually led Marquise's task force to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was eventually convicted as a Libyan intelligence officer and the man behind the bombings. Al-Megrahi was tried before a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
"It was an electric moment. They don't have commercials in situations like this. The judge just stood up and said that they found Mr. Megrahi guilty on all accounts," Marquise said.
Al-Megrahi was released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds that terminal prostate cancer could end his life in three months. He remains alive today. New York senators and other U.S. leaders have called for al-Megrahi to be put back in prison after he survived nearly a year longer than expected and after questions arose about a possible backdoor deal between British Petroleum and the British government to have him released.
Marquise showed the audience a picture of a baby's shoe embedded in the ground after falling from the plane and another of the broken tail of the plane emblazoned with an American flag.
"It hits home here in Syracuse maybe more than in any other city in the United States," Marquise said.
Marquise finished the lecture with a short video that showed interviews with some family members of the victims of the tragedy.
In one video, the mother of a Syracuse student who died in the crash was directed to the imprint that her son's body had made in the ground after falling from the plane. She said she lay down in the imprint and was able to feel close to her son once again. Several audience members wiped their eyes at the end of the video.
Marquise retired from the FBI in 2002 but remains active in the intelligence community by teaching and consulting.
He said: "I'm going to keep doing this because I don't think man was meant to retire."
Richard Marquise searched the 845 square-mile crime scene for a piece of circuit board that would link Libyan terrorists to the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.
"The piece of evidence that cracked the case could fit on the tip of my finger," Marquise said. "I said, ‘If someone sneezes, we're going to need to do another crime scene search for evidence.'"
Marquise is a former FBI special agent and lead investigator of the task force assigned to the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 35 Syracuse University students. Marquise, who spoke Thursday in the Life Sciences Complex, worked in the FBI for more than 30 years.
Marquise walked the audience chronologically through what he called the "10-year odyssey" of the investigation. The tiny piece of circuit board evidence eventually led Marquise's task force to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was eventually convicted as a Libyan intelligence officer and the man behind the bombings. Al-Megrahi was tried before a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
"It was an electric moment. They don't have commercials in situations like this. The judge just stood up and said that they found Mr. Megrahi guilty on all accounts," Marquise said.
Al-Megrahi was released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds that terminal prostate cancer could end his life in three months. He remains alive today. New York senators and other U.S. leaders have called for al-Megrahi to be put back in prison after he survived nearly a year longer than expected and after questions arose about a possible backdoor deal between British Petroleum and the British government to have him released.
Marquise showed the audience a picture of a baby's shoe embedded in the ground after falling from the plane and another of the broken tail of the plane emblazoned with an American flag.
"It hits home here in Syracuse maybe more than in any other city in the United States," Marquise said.
Marquise finished the lecture with a short video that showed interviews with some family members of the victims of the tragedy.
In one video, the mother of a Syracuse student who died in the crash was directed to the imprint that her son's body had made in the ground after falling from the plane. She said she lay down in the imprint and was able to feel close to her son once again. Several audience members wiped their eyes at the end of the video.
Marquise retired from the FBI in 2002 but remains active in the intelligence community by teaching and consulting.
He said: "I'm going to keep doing this because I don't think man was meant to retire."
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Deal that freed bomber
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Scottish Sunday Express. It does not appear on the newspaper's website. The report reads as follows:]
FBI's top Lockerbie agent claims Tony Blair sold Megrahi
The former FBI agent who led the Lockerbie investigation has reignited the debate over the bomber's release by accusing Tony Blair of manufacturing Britain's controversial prisoner transfer agreement with Libya to make it happen.
Richard Marquise poured scorn on the UK government's official stance that the infamous "deal in the desert" with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2007 did not relate solely to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
And in a rare interview during a visit to New York's Syracuse University which lost 35 students in the 1988 atrocity, he admitted he believed Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill faced a "difficult decision" after Westminster's meddling.
Mr Marquise said: "When he was released it was not a total shock to those of us involved in the investigation because of the deal in the desert between the British government and the Libyan government about the exchange of prisoners.
"We know that the deal when it was signed only related to Megrahi, it didn't relate to any other prisoners. It talked about exchanging prisoners and he was the only one." He also insisted they had got the right man, despite claims on this side of the Atlantic that Megrahi, controversially freed on compassionate grounds, may be innocent.
Lockerbie campaigner Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: "As far as the Libyans were concerned the prisoner transfer agreement was always about Megrahi, there was no one else they were even slightly interested in."
However, he branded Mr Marquise's insistence that Megrahi was guilty, as "absolute and utter balderdash."
[I had much more to say to the reporter about Mr Marquise's views, which the Express, as a family newspaper, wisely did not print.
The Sunday Post has an article (again, not on the newspaper's website) about Karen Torley's support for the Justice for Megrahi petition. For twelve years Karen Torley campaigned for the release of Kenny Richey from death row in Ohio. Coincidentally, Kenny Richey was born in Zeist.]
FBI's top Lockerbie agent claims Tony Blair sold Megrahi
The former FBI agent who led the Lockerbie investigation has reignited the debate over the bomber's release by accusing Tony Blair of manufacturing Britain's controversial prisoner transfer agreement with Libya to make it happen.
Richard Marquise poured scorn on the UK government's official stance that the infamous "deal in the desert" with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2007 did not relate solely to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
And in a rare interview during a visit to New York's Syracuse University which lost 35 students in the 1988 atrocity, he admitted he believed Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill faced a "difficult decision" after Westminster's meddling.
Mr Marquise said: "When he was released it was not a total shock to those of us involved in the investigation because of the deal in the desert between the British government and the Libyan government about the exchange of prisoners.
"We know that the deal when it was signed only related to Megrahi, it didn't relate to any other prisoners. It talked about exchanging prisoners and he was the only one." He also insisted they had got the right man, despite claims on this side of the Atlantic that Megrahi, controversially freed on compassionate grounds, may be innocent.
Lockerbie campaigner Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: "As far as the Libyans were concerned the prisoner transfer agreement was always about Megrahi, there was no one else they were even slightly interested in."
However, he branded Mr Marquise's insistence that Megrahi was guilty, as "absolute and utter balderdash."
[I had much more to say to the reporter about Mr Marquise's views, which the Express, as a family newspaper, wisely did not print.
The Sunday Post has an article (again, not on the newspaper's website) about Karen Torley's support for the Justice for Megrahi petition. For twelve years Karen Torley campaigned for the release of Kenny Richey from death row in Ohio. Coincidentally, Kenny Richey was born in Zeist.]
Case made for fresh Lockerbie inquiry
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of the Maltese newspaper The Sunday Times. It reads as follows:]
The “flawed” evidence which secured the Maltese connection to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing became a central plank in the plea for a fresh independent inquiry into the atrocity last week.
Had it not been for this evidence, which implicated Malta in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, Libyan national Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi could not have been found guilty, said former judge Prof Robert Black.
He was speaking at a hearing of the petitions committee in the Scottish Parliament, which has been asked to consider a call for a fresh inquiry into the case on the strength of a list of serious concerns about the safety of Mr Al-Megrahi’s conviction.
A panel of three Scottish judges, sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands, had found the former Libyan intelligence officer guilty of the murder of 270 people.
However, Prof Black, the architect of the extraordinary trial, along with others of the Justice for Megrahi pressure group, which includes relatives of victims, believe Mr Al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted. They are now asking the Scottish petitions committee to call a fresh inquiry backed by a petition signed by 1,649 people, including 100 Maltese citizens.
The conviction, Prof Black told the committee, hinges on the premise that Mr Al-Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes from the shop Mary’s House in Sliema, and which were later said to have been wrapped around the suitcase bomb which destroyed the Boeing 747.
According to this theory, consistently rejected by the Maltese government and Air Malta, the bomb left from Malta and was transferred onto the Pan Am Flight in Germany.
But Prof Black pointed out to the committee that Tony Gauci, the Maltese star witness for the prosecution, had only ever said that Mr Al-Megrahi looked “a lot like the man” who bought the clothes from his shop in the days before the bombing.
“He also said in his first police statement that the man was more than six feet tall and over 50 years old. At the relevant time in 1988, Mr Al-Megrahi was 38. He was then, and remains now I presume, five foot, eight inches tall. Still, the court held that he had been positively identified,” Prof Black said.
He also highlighted serious weaknesses in the rest of the evidence which placed Mr Al-Megrahi at Mary’s House.
For instance, according to Mr Gauci’s testimony, the man bought the clothes either on November 23 or December 7, 1988 – the days in which two legs of an international football match were aired on Maltese TV.
On November 23, it had rained heavily according to undisputed meteorological records tallying with Mr Gauci’s further evidence that his customer returned just after leaving to buy an umbrella.
However, Mr Al-Megrahi was not in Malta on the day. He was on the island in December 7 but it did not rain that day, according to the same meteorological records.
No reasonable court could have upheld the view that Mr Al-Megrahi was the man at Mary’s House on the strength of this evidence, Prof Black insisted.
This, he told the committee, was one of six legal points which led the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007 to declare that the Libyan “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”.
The commission’s decree had set the ball rolling for Mr Al-Megrahi’s appeal, which was aborted when he was released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last year because he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Beyond clearing Mr Al-Megrahi’s name, according to Jim Swire, a leading figure of the pressure group and the father of a victim, an inquiry was necessary to expunge the stain on the Scottish justice system.
He also argued that an inquiry would deprive certain governments of the excuse not to keep pursuing the real plotters of the atrocity.
At the end of the hearing, the petitions committee wrote to the Scottish government asking if it will set up a new inquiry, and if not, asked to know why.
The “flawed” evidence which secured the Maltese connection to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing became a central plank in the plea for a fresh independent inquiry into the atrocity last week.
Had it not been for this evidence, which implicated Malta in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, Libyan national Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi could not have been found guilty, said former judge Prof Robert Black.
He was speaking at a hearing of the petitions committee in the Scottish Parliament, which has been asked to consider a call for a fresh inquiry into the case on the strength of a list of serious concerns about the safety of Mr Al-Megrahi’s conviction.
A panel of three Scottish judges, sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands, had found the former Libyan intelligence officer guilty of the murder of 270 people.
However, Prof Black, the architect of the extraordinary trial, along with others of the Justice for Megrahi pressure group, which includes relatives of victims, believe Mr Al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted. They are now asking the Scottish petitions committee to call a fresh inquiry backed by a petition signed by 1,649 people, including 100 Maltese citizens.
The conviction, Prof Black told the committee, hinges on the premise that Mr Al-Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes from the shop Mary’s House in Sliema, and which were later said to have been wrapped around the suitcase bomb which destroyed the Boeing 747.
According to this theory, consistently rejected by the Maltese government and Air Malta, the bomb left from Malta and was transferred onto the Pan Am Flight in Germany.
But Prof Black pointed out to the committee that Tony Gauci, the Maltese star witness for the prosecution, had only ever said that Mr Al-Megrahi looked “a lot like the man” who bought the clothes from his shop in the days before the bombing.
“He also said in his first police statement that the man was more than six feet tall and over 50 years old. At the relevant time in 1988, Mr Al-Megrahi was 38. He was then, and remains now I presume, five foot, eight inches tall. Still, the court held that he had been positively identified,” Prof Black said.
He also highlighted serious weaknesses in the rest of the evidence which placed Mr Al-Megrahi at Mary’s House.
For instance, according to Mr Gauci’s testimony, the man bought the clothes either on November 23 or December 7, 1988 – the days in which two legs of an international football match were aired on Maltese TV.
On November 23, it had rained heavily according to undisputed meteorological records tallying with Mr Gauci’s further evidence that his customer returned just after leaving to buy an umbrella.
However, Mr Al-Megrahi was not in Malta on the day. He was on the island in December 7 but it did not rain that day, according to the same meteorological records.
No reasonable court could have upheld the view that Mr Al-Megrahi was the man at Mary’s House on the strength of this evidence, Prof Black insisted.
This, he told the committee, was one of six legal points which led the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007 to declare that the Libyan “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”.
The commission’s decree had set the ball rolling for Mr Al-Megrahi’s appeal, which was aborted when he was released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last year because he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Beyond clearing Mr Al-Megrahi’s name, according to Jim Swire, a leading figure of the pressure group and the father of a victim, an inquiry was necessary to expunge the stain on the Scottish justice system.
He also argued that an inquiry would deprive certain governments of the excuse not to keep pursuing the real plotters of the atrocity.
At the end of the hearing, the petitions committee wrote to the Scottish government asking if it will set up a new inquiry, and if not, asked to know why.
Nineteenth anniversary of Megrahi accusation
It was on 14 November 1991 that the prosecution authorities in Scotland (the Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC) and the United States (acting US Attorney General, William Barr) simultaneously announced that they had brought criminal charges -- principally murder and conspiracy to murder -- arising out of the destruction of Pan Am 103 against two Libyan nationals, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, who were alleged to be members, and to have been acting throughout as agents, of the Libyan intelligence service.
According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.
[From a forthcoming book on the Lockerbie case.]
According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.
[From a forthcoming book on the Lockerbie case.]
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Dispatches from the Dark Side
[What follows is a short review of Gareth Peirce's Dispatches from the Dark Side (Verso, £9.99) by Steven Poole in The Guardian.]
When is a "miscarriage" of justice really a perversion of it? The answer is clear enough in the most compelling essay here, on the Lockerbie bombing, justifiably entitled "The Framing of al-Megrahi". Other subjects include British complicity in "rendition" and torture overseas; the indefinite "detention" without trial (or, as Peirce calls it, "internment") of British citizens after 9/11; and the American mania for imposing solitary confinement, both before trial and in its "SuperMax" prisons, which she argues persuasively is at least blatantly vindictive and probably constitutes torture.
Along the way there are illuminating detours into terminological history (Peirce is very good on the way "defence of the realm" became "national security"), and a consistent seething contempt for governmental mendacity and secrecy. Despite some occasionally opaque syntax (one often ends up reading a sentence twice in a dour hunt for the main verb), the writing has an attractive steeliness.
When is a "miscarriage" of justice really a perversion of it? The answer is clear enough in the most compelling essay here, on the Lockerbie bombing, justifiably entitled "The Framing of al-Megrahi". Other subjects include British complicity in "rendition" and torture overseas; the indefinite "detention" without trial (or, as Peirce calls it, "internment") of British citizens after 9/11; and the American mania for imposing solitary confinement, both before trial and in its "SuperMax" prisons, which she argues persuasively is at least blatantly vindictive and probably constitutes torture.
Along the way there are illuminating detours into terminological history (Peirce is very good on the way "defence of the realm" became "national security"), and a consistent seething contempt for governmental mendacity and secrecy. Despite some occasionally opaque syntax (one often ends up reading a sentence twice in a dour hunt for the main verb), the writing has an attractive steeliness.
Friday, 12 November 2010
"Kicked into the long grass"
[A letter from Iain A D Mann in today's edition of The Herald contains the following paragraph:]
On Tuesday, Dr Jim Swire’s strongly-supported appeal to the Public Petitions Committee for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing was casually kicked into the long grass, with the bare statement that “the Scottish Government has no doubt about the safety of Megrahi’s conviction”. The genuine concerns of about 75% of the Scottish people, the report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the doubts of many legal experts worldwide were brushed aside with contempt.
[It is, of course, disappointing that the immediate reaction of the Scottish Government to Tuesday's hearing should have been to parrot the usual tired pretexts for not instituting an independent inquiry. But the outcome of the hearing was that a letter should be written to the Scottish Government asking them to explain in detail their reasons for refusing to set up an inquiry, with chapter and verse cited for the legal objections that they have referred to in the past.
The questions that the Public Petitions Committee has addressed to the Scottish Government are:
• Will you open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988 as called for by the petitioner and for the reasons given in the petition?
• If not, will you provide a detailed explanation why not, specifying whether there is any legislation which would prevent you from holding such an inquiry, what this legislation is and how it prevents?
• Who would have the power to undertake an inquiry in the terms proposed in the petition?
The ball may have been kicked into the long grass. It is not going to be allowed to languish there.]
On Tuesday, Dr Jim Swire’s strongly-supported appeal to the Public Petitions Committee for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing was casually kicked into the long grass, with the bare statement that “the Scottish Government has no doubt about the safety of Megrahi’s conviction”. The genuine concerns of about 75% of the Scottish people, the report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the doubts of many legal experts worldwide were brushed aside with contempt.
[It is, of course, disappointing that the immediate reaction of the Scottish Government to Tuesday's hearing should have been to parrot the usual tired pretexts for not instituting an independent inquiry. But the outcome of the hearing was that a letter should be written to the Scottish Government asking them to explain in detail their reasons for refusing to set up an inquiry, with chapter and verse cited for the legal objections that they have referred to in the past.
The questions that the Public Petitions Committee has addressed to the Scottish Government are:
• Will you open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988 as called for by the petitioner and for the reasons given in the petition?
• If not, will you provide a detailed explanation why not, specifying whether there is any legislation which would prevent you from holding such an inquiry, what this legislation is and how it prevents?
• Who would have the power to undertake an inquiry in the terms proposed in the petition?
The ball may have been kicked into the long grass. It is not going to be allowed to languish there.]
Pan Am 103 investigator visits Syracuse, shares his memories
[This is the headline over a report on the website of WSYR TV, a television station based in Syracuse, NY. The report features an interview with Richard Marquise before his appearances at Syracuse University. The interview can be viewed, and the report read, here. The text of the report reads in part:]
For only the second time since Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie Scotland, the lead investigator is in Syracuse to talk about the disaster. Richard Marquise helped build the case that led to the only conviction in the bombing, and fought unsuccessfully to keep Abdul al-Megrahi in prison last year.
In an instant, the terrorist attack forever linked Syracuse, NY, and Lockerbie Scotland together. When Pan Am 103 blew up over the Scottish town, it killed 270 people on the plane. Among them were 35 Syracuse University students (...)
For years, lead investigator Richard Marquise sought justice. His crime scene was 845 square miles. "Its been part of my life for 22 years and you just can't discount something that has been that big a part of your life for such a long time," he said.
It took years for his team working with Scottish authorities to build a case that would lead to Abdul al-Megrahi's conviction 13 years after the bombing. "It was a circumstantial case and it took believing all the circumstances for the judges to convict."
Marquise says they got the right man, although he believes al-Megrahi wasn't the only one involved. al-Megrahi, Marquise says, was just the only one they could convict.
That is why Marquise and his Scottish counterpart fought so hard to keep al-Megrahi in prison before his 2009 release. "I think justice wasn't served because the only person convicted of this crime is home with his family, something the people who lost relatives on that plane will never have, their relatives home with them again," he said.
Marquise says he never has had a chance to speak to al-Megrahi, although he did say he was able to submit a question to Muammar Qaddafi during a lecture at Georgetown University in 2009. He says that through a translator the Libyan leader said Pan Am 103 was in the past. (...)
Marquise says his visit to the SU campus will not be easy for him, even though more than two decades have past since the bombing. "It's difficult just because the memories of the families and the people I've dealt with for over 20 years come back," he said.
For only the second time since Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie Scotland, the lead investigator is in Syracuse to talk about the disaster. Richard Marquise helped build the case that led to the only conviction in the bombing, and fought unsuccessfully to keep Abdul al-Megrahi in prison last year.
In an instant, the terrorist attack forever linked Syracuse, NY, and Lockerbie Scotland together. When Pan Am 103 blew up over the Scottish town, it killed 270 people on the plane. Among them were 35 Syracuse University students (...)
For years, lead investigator Richard Marquise sought justice. His crime scene was 845 square miles. "Its been part of my life for 22 years and you just can't discount something that has been that big a part of your life for such a long time," he said.
It took years for his team working with Scottish authorities to build a case that would lead to Abdul al-Megrahi's conviction 13 years after the bombing. "It was a circumstantial case and it took believing all the circumstances for the judges to convict."
Marquise says they got the right man, although he believes al-Megrahi wasn't the only one involved. al-Megrahi, Marquise says, was just the only one they could convict.
That is why Marquise and his Scottish counterpart fought so hard to keep al-Megrahi in prison before his 2009 release. "I think justice wasn't served because the only person convicted of this crime is home with his family, something the people who lost relatives on that plane will never have, their relatives home with them again," he said.
Marquise says he never has had a chance to speak to al-Megrahi, although he did say he was able to submit a question to Muammar Qaddafi during a lecture at Georgetown University in 2009. He says that through a translator the Libyan leader said Pan Am 103 was in the past. (...)
Marquise says his visit to the SU campus will not be easy for him, even though more than two decades have past since the bombing. "It's difficult just because the memories of the families and the people I've dealt with for over 20 years come back," he said.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Megrahi madness
[This is the heading over a letter by Robin MacCormick in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]
Now that the US mid-term elections have passed, will we hear any more from the electioneering politicians who alleged a link between the release of the "Lockerbie bomber" and the BP oil rig disaster?
And will those UK politicians who tagged along on their coat-tails in order to disparage the Scottish Government make sure this glorious episode is recorded in their memoirs?
Now that the US mid-term elections have passed, will we hear any more from the electioneering politicians who alleged a link between the release of the "Lockerbie bomber" and the BP oil rig disaster?
And will those UK politicians who tagged along on their coat-tails in order to disparage the Scottish Government make sure this glorious episode is recorded in their memoirs?
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Richard Marquise at Syracuse University
The FBI lead investigator on the Pan Am 103 bombing that killed 270 people in 1988 will speak at 7:30 pm Thursday as part of the 2010 Syracuse Symposium at Syracuse University.
Richard A Marquise, a retired special agent with the FBI, will speak on “Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation” in room 001 of the Life Science Complex. The event is cosponsored by SU’s Forensic and National Security Sciences program, and is free and open to the public.
Marquise will also take part Friday in an invitation-only seminar “International Terrorism: Threat in the U.S. and Proactive Measures.”
The bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec 21, 1988. The terror attack killed 270 people, including 35 SU students returning from a semester abroad and five others with ties to Central New York.
Marquise was involved with the Lockerbie bombing investigation from its inception through to the indictments and trial. He received the Attorney General’s award for Distinguished Service.
He is the author of Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation, Algora Publishing, 2006.
Marquise is an expert in counter terrorism and crisis management and is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research in Tallahassee, Fla.
[From a report on the Syracuse website. Further details can be found on the website of Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange.
Caustic Logic on his blog The Lockerbie Divide suggests a number of pertinent questions that members of his audience might care to raise with Mr Marquise.]
Richard A Marquise, a retired special agent with the FBI, will speak on “Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation” in room 001 of the Life Science Complex. The event is cosponsored by SU’s Forensic and National Security Sciences program, and is free and open to the public.
Marquise will also take part Friday in an invitation-only seminar “International Terrorism: Threat in the U.S. and Proactive Measures.”
The bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec 21, 1988. The terror attack killed 270 people, including 35 SU students returning from a semester abroad and five others with ties to Central New York.
Marquise was involved with the Lockerbie bombing investigation from its inception through to the indictments and trial. He received the Attorney General’s award for Distinguished Service.
He is the author of Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation, Algora Publishing, 2006.
Marquise is an expert in counter terrorism and crisis management and is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research in Tallahassee, Fla.
[From a report on the Syracuse website. Further details can be found on the website of Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange.
Caustic Logic on his blog The Lockerbie Divide suggests a number of pertinent questions that members of his audience might care to raise with Mr Marquise.]
Media coverage of Justice for Megrahi petition hearing
[The best coverage of yesterday's hearing before the Holyrood Public Petitions Committee is to be found in The Times. It can be read -- but only by subscribers -- here. The report reads in part:]
The Scottish legal establishment was accused at a Holyrood committee yesterday of putting obstacles in the way of an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber.
The claim was made by Canon Patrick Keegans, who was the local Catholic priest in Lockerbie at the time of the disaster in December 1988.
He was giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s petitions committee in support of a 1600-signature petition organised by the Justice for Megrahi (JFM) campaign calling on the Scottish government to set up an inquiry.
Members of the group told MSPs a full independent inquiry was the only way to restore the reputation of the Scottish legal system. (...)
Canon Keegans told MSPs on the committee: “People have never found a full answer to Lockerbie and this will always be a source of distress.”
Canon Keegans, who lived in Sherwood Crescent, part of which was obliterated by falling debris from the aircraft said the case was about the “redemption of the Scottish justice system”.
He added: “We have been denied justice from the very beginning. I am very doubtful about the conviction of al-Megrahi. While doubt remains the victims are denied justice. What we need is the truth about Lockerbie.
He added: “Obstacles have been put in our way by the Crown Office and by the judiciary. There seems to be a desire to put a lid on this and keep it there.
“We need truth and we need justice to be at peace. Otherwise we are back in December 1988 in the darkness.”
Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, said the reputation of Scottish justice had been “shot to pieces”.
He said only an impartial inquiry could rebuild that reputation. Swire said the original criminal investigation was run by Scottish police forces and involved Scottish lawyers.
They were, he added, two obvious groups who might be interested in protecting their reputations.
“Speaking as a relative who has been looking for the truth for 22 years I think it would be vital that any inquiry is seen to be led impartially. Such an inquiry would be of little value if it was deemed to be in any way limited by groups involved in the trial.”
Mr Swire said an inquiry was the only way “we will be able to heal the terrible wounds done to our justice system”.
Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: “The fact of the conviction is being used as an excuse for not holding a wide ranging inquiry.”
He added: “We are asking the Scottish government to set up an inquiry. The government cannot deny there is domestic and international concern. We are asking them to investigate these concerns.”
Both First Minister Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, have said they have confidence in the conviction of al-Megrahi.
After hearing from the campaigners, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish government asking them to respond to the request for an independent inquiry.
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
[Less detailed reports can be found in The Scotsman, The Herald, The Press and Journal, The Courier, the Daily Record, The Sun and, in the USA, Fox. The report in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, a twice-weekly newspaper circulating in the Lockerbie area, can be read here.]
The Scottish legal establishment was accused at a Holyrood committee yesterday of putting obstacles in the way of an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber.
The claim was made by Canon Patrick Keegans, who was the local Catholic priest in Lockerbie at the time of the disaster in December 1988.
He was giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s petitions committee in support of a 1600-signature petition organised by the Justice for Megrahi (JFM) campaign calling on the Scottish government to set up an inquiry.
Members of the group told MSPs a full independent inquiry was the only way to restore the reputation of the Scottish legal system. (...)
Canon Keegans told MSPs on the committee: “People have never found a full answer to Lockerbie and this will always be a source of distress.”
Canon Keegans, who lived in Sherwood Crescent, part of which was obliterated by falling debris from the aircraft said the case was about the “redemption of the Scottish justice system”.
He added: “We have been denied justice from the very beginning. I am very doubtful about the conviction of al-Megrahi. While doubt remains the victims are denied justice. What we need is the truth about Lockerbie.
He added: “Obstacles have been put in our way by the Crown Office and by the judiciary. There seems to be a desire to put a lid on this and keep it there.
“We need truth and we need justice to be at peace. Otherwise we are back in December 1988 in the darkness.”
Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, said the reputation of Scottish justice had been “shot to pieces”.
He said only an impartial inquiry could rebuild that reputation. Swire said the original criminal investigation was run by Scottish police forces and involved Scottish lawyers.
They were, he added, two obvious groups who might be interested in protecting their reputations.
“Speaking as a relative who has been looking for the truth for 22 years I think it would be vital that any inquiry is seen to be led impartially. Such an inquiry would be of little value if it was deemed to be in any way limited by groups involved in the trial.”
Mr Swire said an inquiry was the only way “we will be able to heal the terrible wounds done to our justice system”.
Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: “The fact of the conviction is being used as an excuse for not holding a wide ranging inquiry.”
He added: “We are asking the Scottish government to set up an inquiry. The government cannot deny there is domestic and international concern. We are asking them to investigate these concerns.”
Both First Minister Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, have said they have confidence in the conviction of al-Megrahi.
After hearing from the campaigners, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish government asking them to respond to the request for an independent inquiry.
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
[Less detailed reports can be found in The Scotsman, The Herald, The Press and Journal, The Courier, the Daily Record, The Sun and, in the USA, Fox. The report in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, a twice-weekly newspaper circulating in the Lockerbie area, can be read here.]
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
MSPs to press ministers for Lockerbie probe
[This is the heading over a report on the website of the Deadline Press & Picture Agency. It is the only detailed account that I have been able to find of this afternoon's hearing before the Holyrood Public Petitions Committee. It reads as follows:]
MSPs are to demand a detailed explanation from the Scottish Government of why they oppose an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber.
Leading campaigners today (Tue) presented the parliament’s petitions committee with more than 1,600 signatures backing the move.
Members of the Justice For Megrahi group (JFM) told MSPs a full, independent inquiry was the only way to restore the reputation of the Scottish legal system.
Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the December 1988 bombing, dropped his second appeal and returned to his homeland after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Members of JFM believe the unanswered questions about the case have left a dark shadow over the victims and Scottish legal system.
Canon Patrick Keegans, who was the local catholic priest in Lockerbie at the time of the disaster, said: “People have never found a full answer to Lockerbie and this will always be a source of distress.”
Keegans, who lived in Sherwood Crescent, part of which was obliterated by falling debris, said the case was about the “redemption of the Scottish justice system”.
He added: “We have been denied justice from the very beginning. I am very doubtful about the conviction of Megrahi. While doubt remains the victims are denied justice. What we need is the truth about Lockerbie.
Keegans, now the Canon in charge of St Margaret’s Cathedral, Ayr, said: “Obstacles have been put in our way by the Crown Office and by the judiciary. There seems to be a desire to put a lid on this and keep it there.”
“We need truth and we need justice to be at peace. Otherwise we are back in December 1988 in the darkness.”
Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, said “the reputation of Scottish justice has been shot to pieces”.
He said only an impartial inquiry could rebuild that reputation. Swire said the original criminal investigation was run by Scottish police forces and involved Scottish lawyers. They were two obvious groups who might be interested in protecting their reputation, he added.
“Speaking as a relative who has been looking for the truth for 22 years I think it would be vital that any inquiry is seen to be led impartially. Such an inquiry would be of little value if it was deemed to be in any way limited by groups involved in the trial.
Swire said an inquiry “is the only way we will be able to heal the terrible wounds done to our justice system”.
Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: “The fact of [Megrahi’s] conviction is being used as an excuse for not holding a wide ranging inquiry.”
Black refuted suggestions from one committee member that an inquiry would create a constitutional crisis by pitching government against judiciary.
He said: “We are asking the Scottish Government to set up an inquiry. The government cannot deny there is domestic and international concern. We are asking them to investigate these concerns.”
First Minister Alex Salmond has said he has confidence in the conviction of Megrahi.
After hearing today’s arguments, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government asking them to respond to the request for an independent inquiry.
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Have I Got News for You? TV star Ian Hislop.
[Today's proceedings before the Public Petitions Committee can be viewed here.]
MSPs are to demand a detailed explanation from the Scottish Government of why they oppose an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber.
Leading campaigners today (Tue) presented the parliament’s petitions committee with more than 1,600 signatures backing the move.
Members of the Justice For Megrahi group (JFM) told MSPs a full, independent inquiry was the only way to restore the reputation of the Scottish legal system.
Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the December 1988 bombing, dropped his second appeal and returned to his homeland after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Members of JFM believe the unanswered questions about the case have left a dark shadow over the victims and Scottish legal system.
Canon Patrick Keegans, who was the local catholic priest in Lockerbie at the time of the disaster, said: “People have never found a full answer to Lockerbie and this will always be a source of distress.”
Keegans, who lived in Sherwood Crescent, part of which was obliterated by falling debris, said the case was about the “redemption of the Scottish justice system”.
He added: “We have been denied justice from the very beginning. I am very doubtful about the conviction of Megrahi. While doubt remains the victims are denied justice. What we need is the truth about Lockerbie.
Keegans, now the Canon in charge of St Margaret’s Cathedral, Ayr, said: “Obstacles have been put in our way by the Crown Office and by the judiciary. There seems to be a desire to put a lid on this and keep it there.”
“We need truth and we need justice to be at peace. Otherwise we are back in December 1988 in the darkness.”
Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, said “the reputation of Scottish justice has been shot to pieces”.
He said only an impartial inquiry could rebuild that reputation. Swire said the original criminal investigation was run by Scottish police forces and involved Scottish lawyers. They were two obvious groups who might be interested in protecting their reputation, he added.
“Speaking as a relative who has been looking for the truth for 22 years I think it would be vital that any inquiry is seen to be led impartially. Such an inquiry would be of little value if it was deemed to be in any way limited by groups involved in the trial.
Swire said an inquiry “is the only way we will be able to heal the terrible wounds done to our justice system”.
Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: “The fact of [Megrahi’s] conviction is being used as an excuse for not holding a wide ranging inquiry.”
Black refuted suggestions from one committee member that an inquiry would create a constitutional crisis by pitching government against judiciary.
He said: “We are asking the Scottish Government to set up an inquiry. The government cannot deny there is domestic and international concern. We are asking them to investigate these concerns.”
First Minister Alex Salmond has said he has confidence in the conviction of Megrahi.
After hearing today’s arguments, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government asking them to respond to the request for an independent inquiry.
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Have I Got News for You? TV star Ian Hislop.
[Today's proceedings before the Public Petitions Committee can be viewed here.]
Lockerbie probe appeal at Holyrood
[This is the headline over a report on the Carrick Gazette website (and on the websites of a number of other local newspapers). It reads in part:]
Campaigners calling for an inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber are taking their case to the Scottish Parliament.
About 1,500 people have signed a petition by the Justice For Megrahi (JFM) pressure group calling on Holyrood to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's conviction. [RB: The actual number is 1646, from more than thirty countries, although the petition was actually available for signature online for only fifteen of the planned twenty days.]
Members of the group will appear before Holyrood's petitions committee on Tuesday,including Dr Jim Swire whose daughter Flora was killed in the disaster.
Dr Swire said: "It is imperative that the Scottish Government open an inquiry under its own auspices to deal with the corrosive and deeply damaging effects the Lockerbie case has had upon the Scottish criminal justice system." (...)
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O'Brien, head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Have I Got News for You? TV star Ian Hislop.
The witnesses appearing before MSPs will also include Edinburgh University Emeritus Scots Law Professor Robert Black, an architect of the the non-jury Lockerbie trial under Scots Law in the neutral Netherlands in 2000, who has since slammed the verdict as a "miscarriage of justice."
Megrahi dropped a second appeal against his conviction in the run-up to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to free him on compassionate grounds.
But campaigners say they could possibly try to pick up Megrahi's appeal against conviction if he died.
[A similar report appears on the Newsnet Scotland website; the BBC News website's report can be read here.
Anne McLaughlin MSP's Indygal Goes to Holyrood blog has a post headed Justice for Megrahi petition in Parliament Tuesday. It reads as follows:]
As a member of the Petitions Committee in Parliament I am particularly looking forward to tomorrow's meeting. We will hear evidence from Jim Swire, father of Flora who was one of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. He'll be presenting evidence in support of his petition calling for an enquiry into the conviction of Megrahi. He'll do so alongside Professor Robert Black and Iain McKie, father of Shirley.
I've met Iain McKie a couple of times through previous work and found him to be both charismatic and inspirational. And of course Jim Swire has to be one of the most compassionate people ever. I don't know if they have a point in claiming that Megrahi is innocent. What I do know is that it would be all too easy (and understandable) for Mr Swire to accept Megrahi's guilt and put all of his negativity energy in that direction.
But he didn't accept it. He has been outspoken in his condemnation of the conviction and as you can see is campaigning for an enquiry into it. I guess it's important to him that they get the right person but how tempting must it have been to turn a blind eye and blame the man with the conviction?
The other thing that occurs to me is that tomorrow, as I imagine is always the case, he will give evidence and in the recesses of his mind will be this image of his daughter, his flesh and blood, a young woman with a zest for life who only got to live for 24 years. That pain must never leave him and for that reason I am in awe of him and have nothing but the deepest respect.
You can watch the evidence session at 2pm [on Tuesday;] click here and scroll down to Petitions.
Campaigners calling for an inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber are taking their case to the Scottish Parliament.
About 1,500 people have signed a petition by the Justice For Megrahi (JFM) pressure group calling on Holyrood to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's conviction. [RB: The actual number is 1646, from more than thirty countries, although the petition was actually available for signature online for only fifteen of the planned twenty days.]
Members of the group will appear before Holyrood's petitions committee on Tuesday,including Dr Jim Swire whose daughter Flora was killed in the disaster.
Dr Swire said: "It is imperative that the Scottish Government open an inquiry under its own auspices to deal with the corrosive and deeply damaging effects the Lockerbie case has had upon the Scottish criminal justice system." (...)
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O'Brien, head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Have I Got News for You? TV star Ian Hislop.
The witnesses appearing before MSPs will also include Edinburgh University Emeritus Scots Law Professor Robert Black, an architect of the the non-jury Lockerbie trial under Scots Law in the neutral Netherlands in 2000, who has since slammed the verdict as a "miscarriage of justice."
Megrahi dropped a second appeal against his conviction in the run-up to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to free him on compassionate grounds.
But campaigners say they could possibly try to pick up Megrahi's appeal against conviction if he died.
[A similar report appears on the Newsnet Scotland website; the BBC News website's report can be read here.
Anne McLaughlin MSP's Indygal Goes to Holyrood blog has a post headed Justice for Megrahi petition in Parliament Tuesday. It reads as follows:]
As a member of the Petitions Committee in Parliament I am particularly looking forward to tomorrow's meeting. We will hear evidence from Jim Swire, father of Flora who was one of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. He'll be presenting evidence in support of his petition calling for an enquiry into the conviction of Megrahi. He'll do so alongside Professor Robert Black and Iain McKie, father of Shirley.
I've met Iain McKie a couple of times through previous work and found him to be both charismatic and inspirational. And of course Jim Swire has to be one of the most compassionate people ever. I don't know if they have a point in claiming that Megrahi is innocent. What I do know is that it would be all too easy (and understandable) for Mr Swire to accept Megrahi's guilt and put all of his negativity energy in that direction.
But he didn't accept it. He has been outspoken in his condemnation of the conviction and as you can see is campaigning for an enquiry into it. I guess it's important to him that they get the right person but how tempting must it have been to turn a blind eye and blame the man with the conviction?
The other thing that occurs to me is that tomorrow, as I imagine is always the case, he will give evidence and in the recesses of his mind will be this image of his daughter, his flesh and blood, a young woman with a zest for life who only got to live for 24 years. That pain must never leave him and for that reason I am in awe of him and have nothing but the deepest respect.
You can watch the evidence session at 2pm [on Tuesday;] click here and scroll down to Petitions.
Monday, 8 November 2010
No consultation with Scottish Human Rights Commission on emergency legislation
[This is the subject of a motion lodged in the Scottish Parliament by Robert Brown MSP, a member of the Justice Committee and a solicitor. So far it has been signed by four more Scottish Liberal Democrat MSPs and one Scottish Green Party MSP. The motion reads as follows:]
S3M-07333 Robert Brown (Glasgow) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): No Consultation with Scottish Human Rights Commission on Emergency Legislation— That the Parliament notes the views of Professor Alan Miller, Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, that there are serious concerns about both the human rights implications and the detailed terms of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010, which was drafted specifically to address a human rights issue; believes that the legislation may well leave Scottish criminal procedure relating to the detention and interrogation of suspects open to further challenge under the European Convention on Human Rights; feels that the speed with which the legislation was rushed through the Parliament was unnecessary and represented a constitutional outrage, and is appalled that the Scottish Government did not consult the Scottish Human Rights Commission, a body set up for advice on precisely this type of case, on what is considered the biggest human rights issue since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999.
[A related Press Association news agency report on the Driffield Times website reads in part:]
A Holyrood committee has been urged to scrutinise the impact of emergency legislation rushed through Parliament.
MSPs voted last month to amend Scots law by granting criminal suspects immediate access to a lawyer.
The Scottish Government said it was necessary because the Supreme Court had ruled that the law was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. The ruling was prompted after an appeal brought by Peter Cadder, who was convicted at Glasgow Sheriff Court of two assaults and breach of the peace on interview evidence.
Liberal Democrats opposed the changes, which also allow extensions to the time suspects can be held without charge.
MSP Robert Brown criticised the Government for not consulting the Scottish Human Rights Commission and demanded that the Justice Committee should investigate.
He said: "This, after all, is one of the most significant civil liberties issues in Scotland since the establishment of the Parliament. The law is almost certainly going to be challenged as soon as a suspect is interviewed without a solicitor. This will throw the whole process back in the air again."
Mr Brown, who is the party's justice spokesman, lodged a motion at Parliament outlining his concerns and said the speed of the legislation was a "constitutional outrage". (...)
Mr Brown said there are "major issues" over the interpretation of the legislation, adding: "My own substantial amendments to the emergency legislation only really scratched the surface of the problems that are likely to emerge.
"Professional bodies are right to warn about the impact on legal aid. I am worried that this could really damage the public's ability to access the legal system. This is just one of several unintended consequences of the rushed and problematic legislation."
S3M-07333 Robert Brown (Glasgow) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): No Consultation with Scottish Human Rights Commission on Emergency Legislation— That the Parliament notes the views of Professor Alan Miller, Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, that there are serious concerns about both the human rights implications and the detailed terms of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010, which was drafted specifically to address a human rights issue; believes that the legislation may well leave Scottish criminal procedure relating to the detention and interrogation of suspects open to further challenge under the European Convention on Human Rights; feels that the speed with which the legislation was rushed through the Parliament was unnecessary and represented a constitutional outrage, and is appalled that the Scottish Government did not consult the Scottish Human Rights Commission, a body set up for advice on precisely this type of case, on what is considered the biggest human rights issue since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999.
[A related Press Association news agency report on the Driffield Times website reads in part:]
A Holyrood committee has been urged to scrutinise the impact of emergency legislation rushed through Parliament.
MSPs voted last month to amend Scots law by granting criminal suspects immediate access to a lawyer.
The Scottish Government said it was necessary because the Supreme Court had ruled that the law was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. The ruling was prompted after an appeal brought by Peter Cadder, who was convicted at Glasgow Sheriff Court of two assaults and breach of the peace on interview evidence.
Liberal Democrats opposed the changes, which also allow extensions to the time suspects can be held without charge.
MSP Robert Brown criticised the Government for not consulting the Scottish Human Rights Commission and demanded that the Justice Committee should investigate.
He said: "This, after all, is one of the most significant civil liberties issues in Scotland since the establishment of the Parliament. The law is almost certainly going to be challenged as soon as a suspect is interviewed without a solicitor. This will throw the whole process back in the air again."
Mr Brown, who is the party's justice spokesman, lodged a motion at Parliament outlining his concerns and said the speed of the legislation was a "constitutional outrage". (...)
Mr Brown said there are "major issues" over the interpretation of the legislation, adding: "My own substantial amendments to the emergency legislation only really scratched the surface of the problems that are likely to emerge.
"Professional bodies are right to warn about the impact on legal aid. I am worried that this could really damage the public's ability to access the legal system. This is just one of several unintended consequences of the rushed and problematic legislation."
All those in favour of unfair trials, please stand up
[This is the heading over a robust article by Maggie Scott QC in today's edition of The Scotsman arising out of the reaction by the Scottish Government (and others) to the UK Supreme Court's decision in the Cadder case. While not directly concerned with the emergency legislation, the article has much to say that is relevant to the Megrahi case. I quote only a few paragraphs:]
The Supreme Court decision in Cadder was entirely predictable, if not inevitable, in view of the decisions on the issue by the European Court of Human Rights. What is called into question is not the decision of the Supreme Court, but the earlier decision of seven Scottish judges which failed to enforce the right to legal advice.
The decision of the Scottish Appeal Court in its interpretation of the requirements of the European Convention was simply, in the words of Lord Hope of Craighead, not tenable. The question that is raised here is how did the Scottish judges get it so wrong ?
The answer, in my view, is rooted in a repeated refusal by Scottish judges in criminal matters to engage with and accept the consequences of the application of convention rights. An example of this arose in Cadder where the Scottish Appeal Court refused to entertain an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. Leave was subsequently granted by the Supreme Court itself. (...)
The Justice Secretary also seeks to justify his criticism of "interference" by the Supreme Court, by reference to the proud and "admired" system of criminal justice in Scotland. Unfortunately in recent years, the Scottish criminal justice system, notwithstanding the requirement of corroboration, has lagged behind other comparable jurisdictions in both its development of the criminal law and in respect of procedural rights.
Examples include our failure to introduce proper disclosure of information to the defence; our narrow and restrictive approach to appeals; our failure to develop a proactive judicial role in the protection of the fairness of trials; our failures to provide adequate safeguards regarding identification evidence and, as evidenced in this case, our failure to fully embrace and properly implement convention rights in criminal cases. It is my experience that we are no longer so admired internationally.
The Justice Secretary further complains of a "small industry" of lawyers who take cases to London. I must, presumably, declare myself a member of same.
This is because I consider it my duty to pursue a client's constitutional right to appeal to the Supreme Court to enforce his/her human rights. I have regrettably found it necessary to take the long road to London on a number of occasions, because of the failure of the Scottish courts to secure those rights. The very fact of this complaint highlights the misplaced hostility involved here.
In fact, the decision in Cadder demonstrates the need to have Scottish access to the Supreme Court in order to properly protect human rights. If such access is denied then the Scottish people - alone within the UK - will be truly disadvantaged.
The Supreme Court decision in Cadder was entirely predictable, if not inevitable, in view of the decisions on the issue by the European Court of Human Rights. What is called into question is not the decision of the Supreme Court, but the earlier decision of seven Scottish judges which failed to enforce the right to legal advice.
The decision of the Scottish Appeal Court in its interpretation of the requirements of the European Convention was simply, in the words of Lord Hope of Craighead, not tenable. The question that is raised here is how did the Scottish judges get it so wrong ?
The answer, in my view, is rooted in a repeated refusal by Scottish judges in criminal matters to engage with and accept the consequences of the application of convention rights. An example of this arose in Cadder where the Scottish Appeal Court refused to entertain an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. Leave was subsequently granted by the Supreme Court itself. (...)
The Justice Secretary also seeks to justify his criticism of "interference" by the Supreme Court, by reference to the proud and "admired" system of criminal justice in Scotland. Unfortunately in recent years, the Scottish criminal justice system, notwithstanding the requirement of corroboration, has lagged behind other comparable jurisdictions in both its development of the criminal law and in respect of procedural rights.
Examples include our failure to introduce proper disclosure of information to the defence; our narrow and restrictive approach to appeals; our failure to develop a proactive judicial role in the protection of the fairness of trials; our failures to provide adequate safeguards regarding identification evidence and, as evidenced in this case, our failure to fully embrace and properly implement convention rights in criminal cases. It is my experience that we are no longer so admired internationally.
The Justice Secretary further complains of a "small industry" of lawyers who take cases to London. I must, presumably, declare myself a member of same.
This is because I consider it my duty to pursue a client's constitutional right to appeal to the Supreme Court to enforce his/her human rights. I have regrettably found it necessary to take the long road to London on a number of occasions, because of the failure of the Scottish courts to secure those rights. The very fact of this complaint highlights the misplaced hostility involved here.
In fact, the decision in Cadder demonstrates the need to have Scottish access to the Supreme Court in order to properly protect human rights. If such access is denied then the Scottish people - alone within the UK - will be truly disadvantaged.
Dr Swire has meeting with Moderator, Cardinal and Primus
[I am grateful to Dr Jim Swire for this account of a meeting that he had in Dunblane on 2 November 2010 with the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Right Rev John Christie), the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh (Cardinal Keith O'Brien) and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (Most Rev David Chillingworth, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane).]
This meeting was convened by Cardinal O'Brien, following his correspondence with Dr Jim Swire, which in turn had arisen in response to an article published by Cardinal O'Brien in Scotland on Sunday on 8th August 2010. This article had contrasted the position of the judicial systems and punishments of the United Sates with those of Scotland, including the provision for compassion, and discussed their respective relationships to justice and to revenge. The meeting also followed the presentation by Justice for Megrahi (JFM) to the Public Petitions Committee of the Holyrood Parliament, which the Cardinal had attended. My apologies (...) for so long a review of our meeting.
It is the belief of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi and the way in which the court at Zeist reached that verdict are insecure. In addition material released since the verdict by elements of his defence team, and by a UN official observer of the trial (Prof Hans Koechler), together with the limited findings of the SCCRC thus far made public, profoundly undermine confidence that justice has been delivered in this case. Since there were also aspects of the preparation of evidence for use in the court which might have been influenced by the political considerations of states outwith Scotland, the need to review the impartiality of our justice system in this case is greatly augmented.
JFM had therefore mounted the following petition to the Holyrood Parliament:
to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.
This commentary below represents only Dr Jim Swire’s personal comments concerning this meeting, which he felt very privileged to have attended. The meeting was chiefly concerned with Dr Swire attempting to define how he sees the current position over the Lockerbie trial, the trial’s origins and some of the events that followed it. He personally is convinced that the SCCRC were right to announce that they believed this case might have been a miscarriage of justice
Based on his own experiences of this case, Dr Swire himself is satisfied that Mr Megrahi could not have been involved as charged: this differs from the position of JFM, but of course we share the imperative that the whole trial process must be re-examined if we are to be sure what justice for Megrahi should be. Therefore this account is written partly as a personal assessment of the situation, and in the first person.
I hope that each of you three Church leaders may feel able to publish some comment upon the situation discussed here when you have had the opportunity to review the implications with your respective churches, and that whatever these comments may be, they may be made available to your respective congregations, and as widely as possible. Of course you are also at liberty to use all or any representative part of this account in any way you wish, and it is also my hope that you will not object to the publication of this account on The Lockerbie Case blog of Professor Robert Black. Over the question of how justice should serve our community, I believe that this case is best exposed to public view by any possible means, for its implications should concern all of us in Scotland.
The establishment and maintenance of an impartial justice system is fundamental to the health of any civilised community. If the confidence of a community in the impartiality of its justice system is undermined, or indeed is even significantly suspected of having been undermined, the entire community is disadvantaged. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
This disaster arose when a Boeing 747 containing 259 passengers and crew and baggage, all loaded at Heathrow and destined for New York, crossed into Scottish airspace over the Solway Firth, at about 7.02 pm on the 21st of December 1988 and exploded over Lockerbie about one minute later with the loss of 270 innocent lives, 11 of them among the people of Lockerbie below. There are therefore immediate questions over where the limits of Scottish legal authority should be set, since the loading of the bomb had occurred in London’s Heathrow airport. Those questions in turn bear upon matters relevant to the present state of devolution between Scotland and England. They also bear inexorably upon aspects of the accumulation and handling of evidence and forensic artefacts for use in the trial. For instance, the UK forensics officers appointed to this Scottish case by UK the authorities had already been very severely criticised by a Lord Chief Justice of England for the unreliability of their evidence in preceding IRA based murder trials in England.
Both the Lockerbie Fatal Accident Inquiry and the Zeist trial were held under Scots law, but their findings reach far over the border and beyond even European boundaries, as does the assembly of evidence and witnesses for their use. The greater the importance then of examining whether our legal performance was satisfactory, and the greater the importance that we ourselves ordain re-examination of our justice system, rather than allowing any entity outwith Scotland to do so. Then if errors are found we can at least be seen to be addressing them for ourselves.
However, within Scotland herself these factors themselves are also complex, for the relatively small enclaves of Scottish law and investigative police must act, and be seen to act objectively and not in any attempt at self-justification. We must not lose sight of one major criticism of the Zeist trial, namely that failures of the Crown Office as prosecuting authority in the sharing of material with the defence, was one of the major factors that seemed to make the trial unacceptable as a fair arena in which to try the case. We must also be aware that some of those directly involved in many of the processes required for this court to function, from the Lord Advocate of the day downwards, have by now evolved into major players in the Scottish legal system. The same applies in the police forces involved. The revelations from the McKie fingerprint case give great cause for concern about possible attempts at self-justification from both the legal and police communities in Scotland.
It is of paramount importance that any inquiry is seen to be outside the circles of individual and corporate influence within Scotland which might otherwise be accused of having invalidated the objectivity of such an inquiry. Meeting this requirement might mean the appointment by the Scottish Government of a chairman of inquiry of acknowledged impartiality from outside Scotland. As we shall see there are plenty of materials and personnel within Scotland upon which a meaningful inquiry could be based.
Back in 1989, the UK relatives of the dead (‘UK Families-Flight 103’) were soon in possession of a number of prior warnings which had been received by the British Government well before the disaster, but their requests to the Westminster Government to set up an immediate inquiry after protection of the aircraft had all too obviously failed, were ignored. Lady Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, refused even to meet to discuss an inquiry, and the pattern of rejecting any objective inquiry has been followed by every British Prime Minister since.
As was mandatory under Scots law, since the aircraft crew had ‘perished in their place of work’, a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) had been set up at Dumfries. In retrospect it was unfortunate, yet entirely proper, that (the late) Sheriff Principal Mowat who led that hearing instructed the FAI that it was to accept that ‘the bomb had arrived at Heathrow from Frankfurt'. This was to be the limit of the FAI’s remit in examining the origins of the disaster, and was in line with the current state of the police investigation at that time, which of course had to be protected, in view of hoped for impending prosecutions.
In spite of this arbitrary acceptance of whence the bomb 'must' have come, the FAI did however tell us relatives that the aircraft had been under the host state protection of the UK at all relevant times on the ground at Heathrow, and that the disaster had been preventable. It is very unfortunate that the question of how the bomb actually got into Heathrow and onto the plane is now seen by many observers as being misrepresented at Zeist. If that turns out to be the case, then a main instruction for the FAI would appear to have been unjustified itself, requiring review of some aspects of the FAI hearings. Much of the work of the FAI was centred upon how passenger baggage was handled within Heathrow airport, and upon the performance of the UK Department of Transport in securing baggage there. Should it emerge in an inquiry or further appeal that the bomb may not have been introduced via the Frankfurt flight after all, but through the Heathrow break-in (vide infra) then it would be necessary to re-examine the question of UK failure to prevent the tragedy in terms of Heathrow perimeter security, rather than in terms of internal baggage handling methods at the airport. The task of a Scottish FAI is to determine the factors contributing to the death(s)
There is well informed criticism now of the whole concept of the bomb having come from Malta. Worse, information concerning a break-in to highly relevant parts of Heathrow during the small hours of the night before Lockerbie was withheld from the Zeist trial court until after the verdict had been reached. How this came about would have to be included in any meaningful inquiry into the probity of the trial, and would also have implications for the findings of the FAI, specifically in terms of the UK's responsibility to protect flights loading at Heathrow airport. In this respect the interests of 'UK Families-Flight 103' are broader than the petition by JFM which centres specifically upon the Zeist verdict. The people of Scotland however should also have an interest as to how this aircraft with its loaded bomb came to enter Scottish airspace that night, and rain death upon 11 of them in their homes in Lockerbie. Since the role of the protection offered to Pan Am 103 at Heathrow were addressed by the Scottish FAI, they must also fall within the remit of a Scottish investigation of the disaster.
Told by a former British Foreign Secretary that there was excellent evidence against the accused and none against any other country than Libya, by the time I entered the Zeist court I was expecting to see two of the murderers brought to justice.
Meanwhile we, in 'UK Families-Flight 103', strengthened by the findings of Scotland’s FAI that the disaster had been preventable, are still waiting for explanations from the Westminster Government as to why they failed to protect the lives of our families. The bomb which crossed the Scottish border that night in the belly of the 747 appeared to conform to those described in such detail in the warnings received in good time by the UK Government beforehand. This issue of the failure of protection at Heathrow may lie outwith Scottish jurisdiction, but the performance and findings of the two Scottish Court proceedings at Dumfries and Zeist lie entirely within Scotland’s sphere of responsibility, the latter being central to the question of whether Mr Megrahi’s conviction was or was not justified. JFM’s petition therefore centres upon the Zeist court and its findings.
Following some 18 months of official investigation immediately after the disaster, the finger seemed to point to Iran, seeking revenge, by using a Syrian terror group as mercenaries. having lost an airbus containing some 290 individuals shot down by a US missile cruiser six months before Lockerbie, the captain of the cruiser being presented with a medal following his return to the USA.
Then suddenly in late 1991 indictments were issued simultaneously in Edinburgh and Washington against two of Libya’s citizens.
There followed for the relatives years of hard work attempting to persuade Libya to allow the two to be tried under Scots law. These efforts were strongly supported by the then Professor of Scots at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Black QC and by Nelson Mandela, and many others, but involved multiple trips to talk to Colonel Gaddafi. The first of these was made by myself alone and in great fear, but two others were made jointly with Professor Black, who was himself the originator of the ‘Scottish court in a neutral country' concept.
Together with one other UK relative, I watched the whole of the evidence unfold at Zeist, and though only a layman, to my amazement as the case unfolded it seemed to me that the evidence was failing to support the involvement of either of the accused in the atrocity, let alone the island of Malta as the point of origin of the bomb. The second Libyan suspect, Mr Khalifa Fahima, was accused of conspiring with Mr Megrahi to cause the disaster but was found Not Guilty: a remarkable finding in view of the availability of the Scottish verdict of Not Proven.
Then came the evidence of a German forensic officer who explained to the court the nature of bombs found in the hands of a terror group, but not all confiscated, in Germany, two months before Lockerbie. He explained that the bombs were of Syrian provenance, from an Iranian linked terror group, the PFLP-GC in Damascus. He also carefully explained how these bombs, specifically designed to destroy aircraft in flight, were capable of introduction to an airport well in advance of their actual use. He explained too that put into an aircraft they would always explode between 35 and 40 minutes after take-off, by sensing the drop in air pressure, but that they were inert on the ground indefinitely. They were not adjustable. They came predicated always to explode 35-40 minutes after take-off.
Yet these devices could not have arrived by air from Malta as they would have exploded en route. From that point on, and knowing that the flight time for the Lockerbie aircraft had been 38 minutes, I found it hard to believe that Mr Megrahi, allegedly using a sophisticated digital timer from Malta, had risked his device passing through an Air Malta flight, changing planes at Frankfurt and then changing planes again at Heathrow, only to have it explode 38 minutes after take-off from Heathrow as the Lockerbie flight did. Why would he not set it to explode over mid Atlantic since the timing of the device he was alleged to have used was fully under his control? Why risk this devious route those two changes of airplane and so short a flight time out of Heathrow?
But the FAI had told us to assume that the bomb had been flown in from Frankfurt. What were the chances of a simple time-bomb from Malta happening to explode at just the same time after take-off from Heathrow as one of those described by the German forensic officer to the court would have been obligated to do? The hearings seemed permeated with failures to assuage reasonable doubt: a prerequisite supposedly for reaching a guilty verdict under Scots criminal law
There were great difficulties particularly surrounding the evidence given by Toni Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper alleged to have sold a tranche of clothing later found at the crash site to Mr Megrahi, who he could only say ‘looked a lot like the buyer of the clothes’. The evidence of identification never looked to be of the standard required to incriminate the real perpetrator, yet it was the only supposedly secure proof of Mr Megrahi’s involvement in Malta, there being no evidence to lead as to how he was supposed to have breached security at Luqa airport on the island. Such difficulties and many others will be central to any inquiry into this trial.
It is significant that Professor Black has repeatedly stated that the events and evidence heard in the Zeist trial court itself present difficulties which should have ruled out a guilty verdict under Scottish criminal law, even without reference to events since the verdict was reached. Unlike my lay status, his is a powerful persuasive and professional voice claiming the need for the whole court process to be reviewed if we are to be certain whether justice was delivered for Mr Megrahi or not. Only a few others were prepared openly to express their doubts at first, but re-examination of the evidence and trial transcripts has increased doubts over the validity of the verdict for a number of highly qualified lawyers since. Gareth Peirce, one of Britain’s most respected human rights lawyers is an excellent example of this. Her article in the London Review of Books 'The framing of al-Megrahi' is well worth reading.
After three years of study the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) publicly stated that the trial might be a miscarriage of justice, massively increasing the doubts in the minds of many Scots both within and without our legal community.
Yet the current publicly expressed position of the Scottish Justice Minister and of our First Minister is that they have no doubts concerning the verdict. It is not apparent why they should be considered a more reliable source than the SCCRC, whose special task it is to decide such issues, and which spent so long in careful professional examination of this case.
I have made clear that the content of the Zeist court proceedings on their own are widely thought sufficient to require re-examination of the whole court process. However immediately after the verdict was reached, a night security guard complained to the Zeist defence team that his discovery of a break-in at Heathrow airport during the night preceding Lockerbie had been ignored by the court. It transpired that his discovery had been promptly reported to the Heathrow authorities, and that in January 1989 the security guard himself had been interviewed by the Metropolitan Police Special branch. Though the break-in had occurred close to where the bags for the Lockerbie flight were assembled and to where the facilities used by Iran Air were sited, neither the break-in itself nor the evidence from the interview of the night security guard were made known to the Zeist court, until after the verdict had been reached.
Although this startling new information seemed to fit perfectly as a route through which one of the Syrian automatic air pressure sensitive bombs described above might have been introduced, it did not dislodge the verdict. Paramount among reasons why this was so, revolved round the way that Mr Megrahi’s defence had approached the first appeal. The performance of Mr Megrahi’s defence team at Zeist must of course be re-evaluated by any inquiry.
The emergence of this evidence seemed to fit as if a vital piece of a jig saw into my own belief derived from the German forensic evidence heard in the Zeist court hearings themselves, that one of the Syrian automatic devices was most probably used, with their inevitable 35-40 minute flight time. Here at last was evidence of a credible route for the introduction of one of these devices to Heathrow. A reassuringly simple and satisfying alternative to the weird route allegedly chosen by Mr Megrahi and his bomb from Malta, accepted by the Zeist court.
Surely this was a ‘reasonable doubt’ contradicting the verdict, since if true, Mr Megrahi could not have been involved, having been shown in the court evidence to have been on Malta during the night of the break-in at Heathrow.
At this time there is no known explanation as to why this potentially vital information lay concealed from the trial court. It could be that the Met did not pass it on to the Scots; it could be that the investigating Scottish police chose to ignore it, but at least the Crown office has assured me in writing that they did not know of it prior to the verdict being reached. Here is another interface between UK responsibility and Scottish responsibility. We need to know where responsibility for this amazing lacuna in the main trial court's evidence arose, in pursuit of assessment of the competence or otherwise of the Scottish police investigation, for this investigation was central to the sufficiency of evidence led at Zeist.
I will mention one other development since the trial ended. Following the withdrawal of his appeal, Mr Megrahi’s defence team published a substantial amount of information which presumably would have been among that to be used had the appeal continued. This was not the work of some elusive conspiracy theorist, nor did it appear in one of the less well supported pages of Wikipedia. It was placed on the net by members of Mr Megrahi’s Scottish defence team, all no doubt available to any Scottish inquiry. Among their revelations was the information that the above mentioned Maltese shopkeeper Toni Gauci was observed by one of the investigating Scottish police officers, Harry Bell, to be showing increasing signs of desire to get his hands on a substantial sum in US dollars, to be provided from America ‘if he gave evidence leading to the conviction' of Mr Megrahi. The diary entry was made long before Toni Gauci did come to court to give his evidence. Evidence from other sources suggests that the amount was to be $2,000,000. That would be a life-changing fortune to the keeper of a small Maltese clothing store. The money appears to have come from Washington, from the US ‘Rewards for Justice’ programme, which listed Mr Megrahi’s name among those brought to ‘justice’ by the disbursements of its funds.
This policeman and his diary (which was not seen by the Zeist court, although its existence was known to it) should also be available for a suitably empowered inquiry to examine.
It seems to me therefore that there is no shortage of aspects to this case which lie within reach of an appropriately empowered Scottish inquiry. It is not the position of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi was wrong, simply that it is so set about with legitimate and accessible doubt that it must now be re-examined, if we in Scotland are to retain confidence in our judicial system and its impartiality, and if we are to be sure that Mr Megrahi has received justice at our hands.
None of the above, bears upon the decision of our Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to allow Mr Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds in 2009. I was privileged to meet with Kenny before he made his decision and urged him to use the established precedent in Scots law to allow the desperately sick man home. It did not even require the withdrawal of his appeal which we hoped would fully review the verdict. I believe Kenny’s decision was a brave one, and of course it has brought vile criticism upon him from the USA, where there is expression of a hope that Mr Megrahi will quickly die and even preferably in pain. These are voices baying for vengeance.
Personally I believe we should be proud of Kenny’s decision and of the capacity of our legal system to exhibit compassion. Speaking as a doctor for a moment, I would say that the relief of the misery of being segregated from his family and desperately sick in an alien prison cell, all because of a horrible slaughter for which he may bear no responsibility, was the major reason for his much prolonged survival thus far in Tripoli. That gave me the joy of meeting him once more with his loving family in his hospital room in Tripoli last month.
You will remember that I personally am satisfied that Mr Megrahi was simply not involved, and therefore what might have been a supremely difficult moment to test the Christian obligation to try to love one’s enemies, was no problem. I have nothing for which to forgive him. Indeed, the roles are reversed. I campaigned for several years to have this man and his fellow Libyan submit to Scottish law as being a fair system.
Mr Megrahi is a devout Muslim. Yet in his cell just before Christmas 2008 he bought a Christmas card from the prison shop and gave it to me: on it he had written “To doctor Swire and family, please pray for me and my family”. Was that the act of a mass murderer? Should either of us hate the other? I don't think so, but I do believe we should investigate whether or not we in Scotland provided justice for Mr Megrahi at Zeist. I would like to think that we could all pray for him and his family, but for those among us who still believe he may be guilty, that prayer would be so much easier if review of this trial showed him to have been innocent all along. So I think we may pray that justice may be done here and that it be seen to be done by us, the people of Scotland, whom that justice system must faithfully serve in the future.
This meeting was convened by Cardinal O'Brien, following his correspondence with Dr Jim Swire, which in turn had arisen in response to an article published by Cardinal O'Brien in Scotland on Sunday on 8th August 2010. This article had contrasted the position of the judicial systems and punishments of the United Sates with those of Scotland, including the provision for compassion, and discussed their respective relationships to justice and to revenge. The meeting also followed the presentation by Justice for Megrahi (JFM) to the Public Petitions Committee of the Holyrood Parliament, which the Cardinal had attended. My apologies (...) for so long a review of our meeting.
It is the belief of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi and the way in which the court at Zeist reached that verdict are insecure. In addition material released since the verdict by elements of his defence team, and by a UN official observer of the trial (Prof Hans Koechler), together with the limited findings of the SCCRC thus far made public, profoundly undermine confidence that justice has been delivered in this case. Since there were also aspects of the preparation of evidence for use in the court which might have been influenced by the political considerations of states outwith Scotland, the need to review the impartiality of our justice system in this case is greatly augmented.
JFM had therefore mounted the following petition to the Holyrood Parliament:
to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.
This commentary below represents only Dr Jim Swire’s personal comments concerning this meeting, which he felt very privileged to have attended. The meeting was chiefly concerned with Dr Swire attempting to define how he sees the current position over the Lockerbie trial, the trial’s origins and some of the events that followed it. He personally is convinced that the SCCRC were right to announce that they believed this case might have been a miscarriage of justice
Based on his own experiences of this case, Dr Swire himself is satisfied that Mr Megrahi could not have been involved as charged: this differs from the position of JFM, but of course we share the imperative that the whole trial process must be re-examined if we are to be sure what justice for Megrahi should be. Therefore this account is written partly as a personal assessment of the situation, and in the first person.
I hope that each of you three Church leaders may feel able to publish some comment upon the situation discussed here when you have had the opportunity to review the implications with your respective churches, and that whatever these comments may be, they may be made available to your respective congregations, and as widely as possible. Of course you are also at liberty to use all or any representative part of this account in any way you wish, and it is also my hope that you will not object to the publication of this account on The Lockerbie Case blog of Professor Robert Black. Over the question of how justice should serve our community, I believe that this case is best exposed to public view by any possible means, for its implications should concern all of us in Scotland.
The establishment and maintenance of an impartial justice system is fundamental to the health of any civilised community. If the confidence of a community in the impartiality of its justice system is undermined, or indeed is even significantly suspected of having been undermined, the entire community is disadvantaged. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
This disaster arose when a Boeing 747 containing 259 passengers and crew and baggage, all loaded at Heathrow and destined for New York, crossed into Scottish airspace over the Solway Firth, at about 7.02 pm on the 21st of December 1988 and exploded over Lockerbie about one minute later with the loss of 270 innocent lives, 11 of them among the people of Lockerbie below. There are therefore immediate questions over where the limits of Scottish legal authority should be set, since the loading of the bomb had occurred in London’s Heathrow airport. Those questions in turn bear upon matters relevant to the present state of devolution between Scotland and England. They also bear inexorably upon aspects of the accumulation and handling of evidence and forensic artefacts for use in the trial. For instance, the UK forensics officers appointed to this Scottish case by UK the authorities had already been very severely criticised by a Lord Chief Justice of England for the unreliability of their evidence in preceding IRA based murder trials in England.
Both the Lockerbie Fatal Accident Inquiry and the Zeist trial were held under Scots law, but their findings reach far over the border and beyond even European boundaries, as does the assembly of evidence and witnesses for their use. The greater the importance then of examining whether our legal performance was satisfactory, and the greater the importance that we ourselves ordain re-examination of our justice system, rather than allowing any entity outwith Scotland to do so. Then if errors are found we can at least be seen to be addressing them for ourselves.
However, within Scotland herself these factors themselves are also complex, for the relatively small enclaves of Scottish law and investigative police must act, and be seen to act objectively and not in any attempt at self-justification. We must not lose sight of one major criticism of the Zeist trial, namely that failures of the Crown Office as prosecuting authority in the sharing of material with the defence, was one of the major factors that seemed to make the trial unacceptable as a fair arena in which to try the case. We must also be aware that some of those directly involved in many of the processes required for this court to function, from the Lord Advocate of the day downwards, have by now evolved into major players in the Scottish legal system. The same applies in the police forces involved. The revelations from the McKie fingerprint case give great cause for concern about possible attempts at self-justification from both the legal and police communities in Scotland.
It is of paramount importance that any inquiry is seen to be outside the circles of individual and corporate influence within Scotland which might otherwise be accused of having invalidated the objectivity of such an inquiry. Meeting this requirement might mean the appointment by the Scottish Government of a chairman of inquiry of acknowledged impartiality from outside Scotland. As we shall see there are plenty of materials and personnel within Scotland upon which a meaningful inquiry could be based.
Back in 1989, the UK relatives of the dead (‘UK Families-Flight 103’) were soon in possession of a number of prior warnings which had been received by the British Government well before the disaster, but their requests to the Westminster Government to set up an immediate inquiry after protection of the aircraft had all too obviously failed, were ignored. Lady Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, refused even to meet to discuss an inquiry, and the pattern of rejecting any objective inquiry has been followed by every British Prime Minister since.
As was mandatory under Scots law, since the aircraft crew had ‘perished in their place of work’, a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) had been set up at Dumfries. In retrospect it was unfortunate, yet entirely proper, that (the late) Sheriff Principal Mowat who led that hearing instructed the FAI that it was to accept that ‘the bomb had arrived at Heathrow from Frankfurt'. This was to be the limit of the FAI’s remit in examining the origins of the disaster, and was in line with the current state of the police investigation at that time, which of course had to be protected, in view of hoped for impending prosecutions.
In spite of this arbitrary acceptance of whence the bomb 'must' have come, the FAI did however tell us relatives that the aircraft had been under the host state protection of the UK at all relevant times on the ground at Heathrow, and that the disaster had been preventable. It is very unfortunate that the question of how the bomb actually got into Heathrow and onto the plane is now seen by many observers as being misrepresented at Zeist. If that turns out to be the case, then a main instruction for the FAI would appear to have been unjustified itself, requiring review of some aspects of the FAI hearings. Much of the work of the FAI was centred upon how passenger baggage was handled within Heathrow airport, and upon the performance of the UK Department of Transport in securing baggage there. Should it emerge in an inquiry or further appeal that the bomb may not have been introduced via the Frankfurt flight after all, but through the Heathrow break-in (vide infra) then it would be necessary to re-examine the question of UK failure to prevent the tragedy in terms of Heathrow perimeter security, rather than in terms of internal baggage handling methods at the airport. The task of a Scottish FAI is to determine the factors contributing to the death(s)
There is well informed criticism now of the whole concept of the bomb having come from Malta. Worse, information concerning a break-in to highly relevant parts of Heathrow during the small hours of the night before Lockerbie was withheld from the Zeist trial court until after the verdict had been reached. How this came about would have to be included in any meaningful inquiry into the probity of the trial, and would also have implications for the findings of the FAI, specifically in terms of the UK's responsibility to protect flights loading at Heathrow airport. In this respect the interests of 'UK Families-Flight 103' are broader than the petition by JFM which centres specifically upon the Zeist verdict. The people of Scotland however should also have an interest as to how this aircraft with its loaded bomb came to enter Scottish airspace that night, and rain death upon 11 of them in their homes in Lockerbie. Since the role of the protection offered to Pan Am 103 at Heathrow were addressed by the Scottish FAI, they must also fall within the remit of a Scottish investigation of the disaster.
Told by a former British Foreign Secretary that there was excellent evidence against the accused and none against any other country than Libya, by the time I entered the Zeist court I was expecting to see two of the murderers brought to justice.
Meanwhile we, in 'UK Families-Flight 103', strengthened by the findings of Scotland’s FAI that the disaster had been preventable, are still waiting for explanations from the Westminster Government as to why they failed to protect the lives of our families. The bomb which crossed the Scottish border that night in the belly of the 747 appeared to conform to those described in such detail in the warnings received in good time by the UK Government beforehand. This issue of the failure of protection at Heathrow may lie outwith Scottish jurisdiction, but the performance and findings of the two Scottish Court proceedings at Dumfries and Zeist lie entirely within Scotland’s sphere of responsibility, the latter being central to the question of whether Mr Megrahi’s conviction was or was not justified. JFM’s petition therefore centres upon the Zeist court and its findings.
Following some 18 months of official investigation immediately after the disaster, the finger seemed to point to Iran, seeking revenge, by using a Syrian terror group as mercenaries. having lost an airbus containing some 290 individuals shot down by a US missile cruiser six months before Lockerbie, the captain of the cruiser being presented with a medal following his return to the USA.
Then suddenly in late 1991 indictments were issued simultaneously in Edinburgh and Washington against two of Libya’s citizens.
There followed for the relatives years of hard work attempting to persuade Libya to allow the two to be tried under Scots law. These efforts were strongly supported by the then Professor of Scots at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Black QC and by Nelson Mandela, and many others, but involved multiple trips to talk to Colonel Gaddafi. The first of these was made by myself alone and in great fear, but two others were made jointly with Professor Black, who was himself the originator of the ‘Scottish court in a neutral country' concept.
Together with one other UK relative, I watched the whole of the evidence unfold at Zeist, and though only a layman, to my amazement as the case unfolded it seemed to me that the evidence was failing to support the involvement of either of the accused in the atrocity, let alone the island of Malta as the point of origin of the bomb. The second Libyan suspect, Mr Khalifa Fahima, was accused of conspiring with Mr Megrahi to cause the disaster but was found Not Guilty: a remarkable finding in view of the availability of the Scottish verdict of Not Proven.
Then came the evidence of a German forensic officer who explained to the court the nature of bombs found in the hands of a terror group, but not all confiscated, in Germany, two months before Lockerbie. He explained that the bombs were of Syrian provenance, from an Iranian linked terror group, the PFLP-GC in Damascus. He also carefully explained how these bombs, specifically designed to destroy aircraft in flight, were capable of introduction to an airport well in advance of their actual use. He explained too that put into an aircraft they would always explode between 35 and 40 minutes after take-off, by sensing the drop in air pressure, but that they were inert on the ground indefinitely. They were not adjustable. They came predicated always to explode 35-40 minutes after take-off.
Yet these devices could not have arrived by air from Malta as they would have exploded en route. From that point on, and knowing that the flight time for the Lockerbie aircraft had been 38 minutes, I found it hard to believe that Mr Megrahi, allegedly using a sophisticated digital timer from Malta, had risked his device passing through an Air Malta flight, changing planes at Frankfurt and then changing planes again at Heathrow, only to have it explode 38 minutes after take-off from Heathrow as the Lockerbie flight did. Why would he not set it to explode over mid Atlantic since the timing of the device he was alleged to have used was fully under his control? Why risk this devious route those two changes of airplane and so short a flight time out of Heathrow?
But the FAI had told us to assume that the bomb had been flown in from Frankfurt. What were the chances of a simple time-bomb from Malta happening to explode at just the same time after take-off from Heathrow as one of those described by the German forensic officer to the court would have been obligated to do? The hearings seemed permeated with failures to assuage reasonable doubt: a prerequisite supposedly for reaching a guilty verdict under Scots criminal law
There were great difficulties particularly surrounding the evidence given by Toni Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper alleged to have sold a tranche of clothing later found at the crash site to Mr Megrahi, who he could only say ‘looked a lot like the buyer of the clothes’. The evidence of identification never looked to be of the standard required to incriminate the real perpetrator, yet it was the only supposedly secure proof of Mr Megrahi’s involvement in Malta, there being no evidence to lead as to how he was supposed to have breached security at Luqa airport on the island. Such difficulties and many others will be central to any inquiry into this trial.
It is significant that Professor Black has repeatedly stated that the events and evidence heard in the Zeist trial court itself present difficulties which should have ruled out a guilty verdict under Scottish criminal law, even without reference to events since the verdict was reached. Unlike my lay status, his is a powerful persuasive and professional voice claiming the need for the whole court process to be reviewed if we are to be certain whether justice was delivered for Mr Megrahi or not. Only a few others were prepared openly to express their doubts at first, but re-examination of the evidence and trial transcripts has increased doubts over the validity of the verdict for a number of highly qualified lawyers since. Gareth Peirce, one of Britain’s most respected human rights lawyers is an excellent example of this. Her article in the London Review of Books 'The framing of al-Megrahi' is well worth reading.
After three years of study the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) publicly stated that the trial might be a miscarriage of justice, massively increasing the doubts in the minds of many Scots both within and without our legal community.
Yet the current publicly expressed position of the Scottish Justice Minister and of our First Minister is that they have no doubts concerning the verdict. It is not apparent why they should be considered a more reliable source than the SCCRC, whose special task it is to decide such issues, and which spent so long in careful professional examination of this case.
I have made clear that the content of the Zeist court proceedings on their own are widely thought sufficient to require re-examination of the whole court process. However immediately after the verdict was reached, a night security guard complained to the Zeist defence team that his discovery of a break-in at Heathrow airport during the night preceding Lockerbie had been ignored by the court. It transpired that his discovery had been promptly reported to the Heathrow authorities, and that in January 1989 the security guard himself had been interviewed by the Metropolitan Police Special branch. Though the break-in had occurred close to where the bags for the Lockerbie flight were assembled and to where the facilities used by Iran Air were sited, neither the break-in itself nor the evidence from the interview of the night security guard were made known to the Zeist court, until after the verdict had been reached.
Although this startling new information seemed to fit perfectly as a route through which one of the Syrian automatic air pressure sensitive bombs described above might have been introduced, it did not dislodge the verdict. Paramount among reasons why this was so, revolved round the way that Mr Megrahi’s defence had approached the first appeal. The performance of Mr Megrahi’s defence team at Zeist must of course be re-evaluated by any inquiry.
The emergence of this evidence seemed to fit as if a vital piece of a jig saw into my own belief derived from the German forensic evidence heard in the Zeist court hearings themselves, that one of the Syrian automatic devices was most probably used, with their inevitable 35-40 minute flight time. Here at last was evidence of a credible route for the introduction of one of these devices to Heathrow. A reassuringly simple and satisfying alternative to the weird route allegedly chosen by Mr Megrahi and his bomb from Malta, accepted by the Zeist court.
Surely this was a ‘reasonable doubt’ contradicting the verdict, since if true, Mr Megrahi could not have been involved, having been shown in the court evidence to have been on Malta during the night of the break-in at Heathrow.
At this time there is no known explanation as to why this potentially vital information lay concealed from the trial court. It could be that the Met did not pass it on to the Scots; it could be that the investigating Scottish police chose to ignore it, but at least the Crown office has assured me in writing that they did not know of it prior to the verdict being reached. Here is another interface between UK responsibility and Scottish responsibility. We need to know where responsibility for this amazing lacuna in the main trial court's evidence arose, in pursuit of assessment of the competence or otherwise of the Scottish police investigation, for this investigation was central to the sufficiency of evidence led at Zeist.
I will mention one other development since the trial ended. Following the withdrawal of his appeal, Mr Megrahi’s defence team published a substantial amount of information which presumably would have been among that to be used had the appeal continued. This was not the work of some elusive conspiracy theorist, nor did it appear in one of the less well supported pages of Wikipedia. It was placed on the net by members of Mr Megrahi’s Scottish defence team, all no doubt available to any Scottish inquiry. Among their revelations was the information that the above mentioned Maltese shopkeeper Toni Gauci was observed by one of the investigating Scottish police officers, Harry Bell, to be showing increasing signs of desire to get his hands on a substantial sum in US dollars, to be provided from America ‘if he gave evidence leading to the conviction' of Mr Megrahi. The diary entry was made long before Toni Gauci did come to court to give his evidence. Evidence from other sources suggests that the amount was to be $2,000,000. That would be a life-changing fortune to the keeper of a small Maltese clothing store. The money appears to have come from Washington, from the US ‘Rewards for Justice’ programme, which listed Mr Megrahi’s name among those brought to ‘justice’ by the disbursements of its funds.
This policeman and his diary (which was not seen by the Zeist court, although its existence was known to it) should also be available for a suitably empowered inquiry to examine.
It seems to me therefore that there is no shortage of aspects to this case which lie within reach of an appropriately empowered Scottish inquiry. It is not the position of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi was wrong, simply that it is so set about with legitimate and accessible doubt that it must now be re-examined, if we in Scotland are to retain confidence in our judicial system and its impartiality, and if we are to be sure that Mr Megrahi has received justice at our hands.
None of the above, bears upon the decision of our Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to allow Mr Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds in 2009. I was privileged to meet with Kenny before he made his decision and urged him to use the established precedent in Scots law to allow the desperately sick man home. It did not even require the withdrawal of his appeal which we hoped would fully review the verdict. I believe Kenny’s decision was a brave one, and of course it has brought vile criticism upon him from the USA, where there is expression of a hope that Mr Megrahi will quickly die and even preferably in pain. These are voices baying for vengeance.
Personally I believe we should be proud of Kenny’s decision and of the capacity of our legal system to exhibit compassion. Speaking as a doctor for a moment, I would say that the relief of the misery of being segregated from his family and desperately sick in an alien prison cell, all because of a horrible slaughter for which he may bear no responsibility, was the major reason for his much prolonged survival thus far in Tripoli. That gave me the joy of meeting him once more with his loving family in his hospital room in Tripoli last month.
You will remember that I personally am satisfied that Mr Megrahi was simply not involved, and therefore what might have been a supremely difficult moment to test the Christian obligation to try to love one’s enemies, was no problem. I have nothing for which to forgive him. Indeed, the roles are reversed. I campaigned for several years to have this man and his fellow Libyan submit to Scottish law as being a fair system.
Mr Megrahi is a devout Muslim. Yet in his cell just before Christmas 2008 he bought a Christmas card from the prison shop and gave it to me: on it he had written “To doctor Swire and family, please pray for me and my family”. Was that the act of a mass murderer? Should either of us hate the other? I don't think so, but I do believe we should investigate whether or not we in Scotland provided justice for Mr Megrahi at Zeist. I would like to think that we could all pray for him and his family, but for those among us who still believe he may be guilty, that prayer would be so much easier if review of this trial showed him to have been innocent all along. So I think we may pray that justice may be done here and that it be seen to be done by us, the people of Scotland, whom that justice system must faithfully serve in the future.
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Public Petitions Committee hearing on Megrahi petition
[On Tuesday 9 November, the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee will hold a hearing on the Justice for Megrahi petition. Dr Jim Swire, Mr Iain McKie, Mr Robert Forrester and I have been invited to attend to make a brief presentation and to respond to MSPs' questions.
The Scottish Sunday Express today runs an article on the forthcoming committee hearing. It reads in part:]
Shocking unseen evidence from the Lockerbie bomber’s abandoned appeal is to be presented to Holyrood this week in a bid to prove his innocence.
Campaigners including Professor Robert Black and Dr Jim Swire will use the documents to try and force a Scottish Government inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s conviction.
Dr Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 killed in the 1988 atrocity, will introduce previously unseen diaries which could cast doubt on one of the trial’s key witnesses and show he was offered cash for evidence. [RB: The journalist is in error. This material will not be introduced at the committee hearing, which will be concerned simply with what action, if any, should be taken on the petition, NOT with the merits of Abdelbaset Megrahi's conviction. That would be a matter for any inquiry set up as a result of the petition.]
Written by a Scottish detective they reveal police knew from an early stage that Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, whose identification of the bomber was pivotal in the conviction, had been promised an “unlimited” reward by the US.
Dr Swire, who will deliver a plea to ministers on Tuesday, said: “The diaries kept by Detective Inspector Harry Bell show he knew when he was interviewing Tony Gauci he was getting excited about the possibility of a reward.
“This information alone would ordinarily be enough to overturn the conviction. Both Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond have made public statements saying they have full confidence in the verdict against Megrahi.
“That is an extraordinary situation given the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has ruled there may have been a miscarriage of justice.” He added: “How can politicians say they have total faith in the verdict when the one organisation that Scotland possesses to look into these matters says otherwise? It is an untenable position.”
DI Bell was the Dumfries and Galloway detective who traced a scrap of material which had been wrapped around the bomb to Gauci’s clothes shop in Malta. When Megrahi was finally brought to trial, Gauci identified the Libyan in court as the man who had bought the clothing.
It has since emerged that Gauci received $2million and his brother, Paul, received $1million from the US Department of Justice. DI Bell kept a diary during the investigation, although this was not presented to the three judges at the Lockerbie trial in 2001.
On September 28, 1989, he recorded that the FBI had discussed with the Scottish police an offer of unlimited money to Gauci, with $10,000 being available immediately. On March 5, 1990, he recorded a meeting with the FBI and a Maltese detective to discuss “reward money as a last resort”.
And on January 8, 1992, he said Dana Biehl from the US Department of Justice had offered a $2million reward to Libyan double agent Majid Giaka, who also gave evidence against Megrahi. DI Bell wrote: “He was immediately advised of our concern regarding this. I also clarified with him about the Gauci reward and the response was only if he gave evidence.”
It contradicts police sources who have always insisted the rewards were only “engineered” after the trial to help the Gaucis leave Malta. (...)
At Tuesday’s Holyrood hearing, MSPs will consider for the first time a 1,646-signature petition calling for an independent Lockerbie inquiry. Previously, ministers have maintained such a wide-ranging probe could only be called by Westminster or the United Nations. However, Prof Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: “The reasons the Scottish Government has given for not holding an inquiry are simply not correct.”
The Scottish Sunday Express today runs an article on the forthcoming committee hearing. It reads in part:]
Shocking unseen evidence from the Lockerbie bomber’s abandoned appeal is to be presented to Holyrood this week in a bid to prove his innocence.
Campaigners including Professor Robert Black and Dr Jim Swire will use the documents to try and force a Scottish Government inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s conviction.
Dr Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 killed in the 1988 atrocity, will introduce previously unseen diaries which could cast doubt on one of the trial’s key witnesses and show he was offered cash for evidence. [RB: The journalist is in error. This material will not be introduced at the committee hearing, which will be concerned simply with what action, if any, should be taken on the petition, NOT with the merits of Abdelbaset Megrahi's conviction. That would be a matter for any inquiry set up as a result of the petition.]
Written by a Scottish detective they reveal police knew from an early stage that Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, whose identification of the bomber was pivotal in the conviction, had been promised an “unlimited” reward by the US.
Dr Swire, who will deliver a plea to ministers on Tuesday, said: “The diaries kept by Detective Inspector Harry Bell show he knew when he was interviewing Tony Gauci he was getting excited about the possibility of a reward.
“This information alone would ordinarily be enough to overturn the conviction. Both Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond have made public statements saying they have full confidence in the verdict against Megrahi.
“That is an extraordinary situation given the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has ruled there may have been a miscarriage of justice.” He added: “How can politicians say they have total faith in the verdict when the one organisation that Scotland possesses to look into these matters says otherwise? It is an untenable position.”
DI Bell was the Dumfries and Galloway detective who traced a scrap of material which had been wrapped around the bomb to Gauci’s clothes shop in Malta. When Megrahi was finally brought to trial, Gauci identified the Libyan in court as the man who had bought the clothing.
It has since emerged that Gauci received $2million and his brother, Paul, received $1million from the US Department of Justice. DI Bell kept a diary during the investigation, although this was not presented to the three judges at the Lockerbie trial in 2001.
On September 28, 1989, he recorded that the FBI had discussed with the Scottish police an offer of unlimited money to Gauci, with $10,000 being available immediately. On March 5, 1990, he recorded a meeting with the FBI and a Maltese detective to discuss “reward money as a last resort”.
And on January 8, 1992, he said Dana Biehl from the US Department of Justice had offered a $2million reward to Libyan double agent Majid Giaka, who also gave evidence against Megrahi. DI Bell wrote: “He was immediately advised of our concern regarding this. I also clarified with him about the Gauci reward and the response was only if he gave evidence.”
It contradicts police sources who have always insisted the rewards were only “engineered” after the trial to help the Gaucis leave Malta. (...)
At Tuesday’s Holyrood hearing, MSPs will consider for the first time a 1,646-signature petition calling for an independent Lockerbie inquiry. Previously, ministers have maintained such a wide-ranging probe could only be called by Westminster or the United Nations. However, Prof Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: “The reasons the Scottish Government has given for not holding an inquiry are simply not correct.”
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