Around this time in October 2009 the Crown Office announced that there would be a review of the evidence in the Lockerbie case with a view to ascertainining whether persons in addition to Abdelbaset Megrahi should stand trial. On 25 October 2009 the following item was published on this blog:
Dr Swire doubts sincerity of Crown Office announcement
[In an article written for Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm, Dr Jim Swire casts doubt on the sincerity of the Crown Office's announcement of a review of the evidence in the Lockerbie case. He writes:]
Naturally the UK Lockerbie relatives would love to see a fully enabled objective criminal investigation re-examining all the currently available Lockerbie evidence.
But how can an objective criminal investigation not impinge on the verdict against Megrahi? The Crown Office's case against Megrahi depended on the evidence of identification by Gauci.
Yet we now know that when the clothing was in fact bought from Gauci's shop, Megrahi was not even on the island of Malta, but Abu Talb was. We also now know that Harry Bell of the investigating Scots police recorded that the Americans wanted to give Gauci $10,000 'up front' with $2,000,000 to follow if conviction was successful. Clearly they must have thought the identification evidence critical.
It was in Talb's flat in Sweden that the Swedish police found further items of clothing from Gauci's shop. The Crown currently has no known explanation for this.
Yet if Talb, not Megrahi, bought the clothing, the verdict against Megrahi would have to be quashed. Are those currently and previously forming the Crown Office, as well as Colin Boyd, (the most implicated Lord Advocate), prepared to see their 'new investigative directions' lead to such an outcome? There is of course no evidence that any of them offered any inducements to Gauci or anyone else, but surely their careers and reputations depend on their past conduct of this case? So would the new criminal investigation be objective, I ask myself?
I cannot free my mind of the words of Prof Hans Koechler, the UN's appointed special International Observer at the court: he thought the verdict so incomprehensible that it could only have been reached through (his words) 'deliberate malpractice’ by Scotland's Crown Office.
So what to do? Observers should remember that under current Human Rights legislation and the Inquiries Act 2005, we the relatives have a right to a full and objective enquiry.
Meanwhile those who swear by the Megrahi verdict might like to visit the London Review of Books website and search for 'Megrahi' they will find a devastating analysis as to the conduct of the trial written by Gareth Peirce, one of England's most noted miscarriage of justice and human rights lawyers.
Further, if the Crown Office are really to refer matters as alleged (for I personally have no communication from them) to 'forensic experts' it is to be hoped that they will never again try to use the thoroughly discredited Hayes and Feraday.
[In another article in the magazine, headed 'Cynicism and doubt over latest Crown Office “spoiler”', the following paragraph appears:
"Dr Jim Swire told the Firm that - contrary to their usual practice - the Crown Office have not even contacted him to advise that any new investigation was planned. He said the coincidental timing of the Crown’s announcement had unavoidably distracted attention from the same day announcement by UK Families [Flight] 103 that they had delivered a letter to the Prime Minister asking him to instigate a full independent inquiry into the Lockerbie event under the Inquiries Act 2005. He described the Crown’s act as a “spoiler,” pointing out that any investigation would be useless as long as the Crown refused to quash the outstanding guilty verdict against Megrahi."]
Abu Talb is as poor a fit as Megrahi to Tony Gauci's description of the clothes purchaser. However, even if Talb's stash of Maltese clothing is unconnected to Lockerbie, it has some significance. A while back it was claimed it was inherently unlikely that a terrorist based in northern Europe would travel as far as Malta to obtain clothes to pack around the bomb, and that this made it unlikely that the bomb was introduced in London. Talb provides a counterexample to this hypothesis.
ReplyDeleteThere is no evidence Talb's Malta clothing came from Gauci's shop or that he was on Malta when the purchase was made (even if you accept it was the 23/11/88). Abu Talb left Malta on the day of the Autumn Leaves arrests 26/10/88. Did Gauci really sell it prior to the bombing? There is no till roll or ROC. As I have demonstrated RARDE scientists had mastered time-travel.
ReplyDeleteIs there any hope for this, Mr Black? It looks increasingly like the murder of Dr David Kelly, or the US self-mutilation of 9/11. Doubts, doubts, doubts - but let time pass and it will grow cold and people will forget.
ReplyDeleteIf Megrahi's conviction is overturned by the High Court as a result of the application by his family and by some victims' families that is currently before the SCCRC (and I accept that this is a big "if") then I think that it will be impossible for the Scottish Government (perhaps along with the UK Government) to avoid setting up an independent inquiry.
ReplyDeleteHave to say I'm no longer convinced the Gauci clothing was even on board Pan Am 103. Probably purchased after the 21/12/88 and most likely imho by someone in the pay of our cousins over the Atlantic.
ReplyDelete