Crown Office accused of a cruel and cynical strategy of delay

[What follows is the text of an item posted earlier this week on the Lockerbie Truth website of Dr Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph:]

It is now two years and two months since Gaddafi was slaughtered by Libyan rebel forces.

Since that day, formerly secret files held in Gaddafi's compound and state security offices have been pored over by the CIA, FBI and British MI6.

All were, and still are, studying the actions of Gaddafi's regime and his state security services headed by Moussa Koussa.

Focusing on Lockerbie, retiring FBI Chief Robert Mueller confirmed yesterday: "We have FBI agents working full-time to track down every lead, as we have since it occurred 25 years ago."  

Gaddafi's files were readily available at the end of the Libyan conflict. For example, Human Rights Watch trawled through them more than a year ago to reveal Gaddafi's brutal regime of imprisonment and torture.

We might also ask what, throughout these two years, has emerged by way of evidence regarding the Lockerbie bombing of December 21st 1988?

If evidence had been found to add to the prosecution case surely the intelligence services would have made it public by one means or another?

And yet they have remained silent. It is therefore a fair conclusion that they have so far found nothing.

For the Scottish Crown Office, however, this is not enough. They persist in pure hope, hope that something, just something, might possibly, hopefully emerge to justify their denial of the truth:-

Namely:

1. The key forensic witness in the Lockerbie trial, Allen Feraday, gave false evidence about the fragment of bomb timer said to have been found at Lockerbie, and

2. The only identification witness, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, had secretly badgered the US and Scottish police throughout a two year investigation, for the US offer of "unlimited monies" in exchange for his evidence.

Whatever might be discovered by further searches in Libya, one thing is clear: it is not enough to record "witness statements". The Lockerbie trial record is littered with dozens of such, all regarded by the judges as mere hearsay.

What justice requires is hard facts.  And these, in the conviction of Al-Megrahi, have proved to be non-existent.  

The Scottish Crown tactics are now clear. They possess a cruel and cynical strategy of delay. And by such delay a belief that campaigners who wish to find the truth of Lockerbie will soon be dead or infirm.

They have pursued this strategy over the thirteen years that have elapsed since the trial. A further five or ten years would be an easy achievement.

Their latest move is to negotiate with Libya for the appointment of "two Lockerbie investigators", in the hope that something might turn up.

We quote: "Scottish investigators have said they hoped the Libyan revolution, which deposed Col Muammar Gaddafi in August 2011, would open up new lines of inquiry."

So, for the Americans and the Scottish Crown Office it's all a matter of hope. Or is it, as many are now beginning to believe, a cynical attempt to kick the ball once again into the green green grass of Libya?