Fragments of truth
[This is the heading over an article in the current issue of the magazine Scottish Left Review by Mark Hirst (...) The full article can (and should) be read here. The following are excerpts.]
Earlier this year I met with the man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in British history. Now back in Libya to await a verdict from a ‘higher court’, terminally ill Abdelbaset al Megrahi steadfastly maintains his innocence in the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie in December 1988. Many professionals involved in the case including US intelligence officers, legal experts and police investigators also share his view, in spite of the concerted propaganda efforts by vested interests in the Crown Office, FBI and US Justice and State Departments. Yet for reasons still to be fully explained by Megrahi, his defence or the Scottish Government, in August this year he dropped his second appeal and a week later Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill released him on compassionate grounds. That decision resulted in a hysterical reaction from representatives of some of the US relatives and somewhat half-hearted condemnatory slogans from the Obama led US Government.
Megrahi was not required to drop his appeal in order to qualify for compassionate release. He subsequently claimed in a newspaper interview after his return to Libya that no pressure was placed on him to do so. So why did he? When I, along with MSP Christine Grahame, met with him his focus had been very much on the detail of the case and the new evidence that would be led during his second appeal. But he made it clear that his priorities had changed since discovering he was terminally ill last year. His over-riding objective was to return to Libya and to see his family before he died. He understood fully why some, mostly UK victim’s relatives, were keen to see the appeal continue, but told us it would not take them any closer to the truth and who was ultimately responsible for the deaths of their relatives.
Megrahi literally was running out of time and was deeply concerned that he would, as he put it very directly, return to Libya in a wooden box in the hold of a cargo plane. I believe he was genuinely supportive of the need of relatives of victims to get to the ‘truth’, but those efforts were not going to bring him any closer to his family in Libya before he died. His faith in Scottish justice and the legal process he had been subjected to was understandably low. “If they have a brave judge who looks and says ‘good or bad’, ‘yes or no’, but I doubt that the chair of the judges, who chairs all the other judges in Scotland, will turn around and say that all the other judges [at the trial and the first appeal] before got it wrong.” Megrahi said, before adding, “They will want to show, to keep the integrity of the system, that they don’t care if they have to keep an innocent man in prison to do that.”
The integrity in the Scottish legal system, whether it deserves it or not, is right at the heart of this issue, because that is what is at stake if the complete truth behind this case emerges and that is why very prominent vested interests are even now working hard to close the case down. The latest spurious police investigation being just one example that will ensure no independent inquiry takes place any time soon. (…)
The message to Megrahi, whether made explicitly or not, appears to have persuaded him to drop his 18-year fight to clear his name. That view was confirmed when his defence counsel Maggie Scott QC addressed the High Court in August to confirm Megrahi was indeed dropping his appeal. Scott stated that her client believed that this action would “assist in the early determination of those applications”. Applications, plural. The link was made explicitly. Ultimately Megrahi was led to believe by vested interests in our own legal establishment that his only chance of returning home was by dropping his second appeal and to leave his family name forever associated with the bombing of Pan Am 103. That outcome is a scandal that will haunt the Scottish legal system in particular, for decades to come.
So was there a conspiracy? Perhaps, but there certainly has been a cover-up which is very much ongoing. A cover-up of the weakness of the evidence, the weakness of the criminal investigation and a cover-up of the shameful conclusions reached by three Scottish judges at the trial. (…)
Earlier this year Dutch filmmaker Gideon Levy completed an award-winning documentary, still to be shown in the UK, that proves that the then-Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of [Carmyllie] was unaware that the crucial fragment used to link Libya to the attack went to the United States FBI lab for examination. It now transpires it also went to West Germany, although despite recent Crown Office claims that movement was not explicitly made during the trial. Levy’s film includes interviews with the chief prosecutor in the case, Lord Fraser, the FBI’s Senior Investigating Officer Richard Marquise and Robert Baer who for 30 years worked in the Middle East Directorate of the CIA and was a senior US intelligence operative. What emerges during the course of Levy’s film is the staggering revelation that this crucial evidence was not properly secured by Scottish police and should never have gone to the US. The importance of this piece of evidence cannot be [overstated]. Marquise states that without the fragment, known as PT-35, there would have been no indictment, let along conviction of Megrahi.
Lord Fraser, who brought the original indictments against Megrahi is then asked if he was aware that PT-35 had ever been to the US. “Not to my knowledge... I would not have permitted this as it was important evidence that could have been lost in transit, or tampered with or lost,” He is then shown the interview with Marquise, who confirms the fragment did go to the US before the trial. Fraser responds; “Well this is all news to me”. Later in the film Levy challenges Marquise to clarify whether PT-35 was taken to the US without the knowledge of the Lord Advocate. Standing next to him is retired Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson, the senior Scottish investigating officer in the case. Marquise initially seems confused over whether PT-35 was taken to Washington, contradicting his earlier on-camera interview, before Henderson interrupts and states categorically that the fragment was never in the US. “It was too important to be waved around”, Henderson states. “It was never in the US, it was never out of Scottish control. They [The FBI] came to the UK to see it, but it was never in the US.” After filming Marquise emailed Levy to “clarify” and confirm that PT-35 was indeed in the US and apologised for the earlier confusion. It is clear that if Marquise did not understand the significance of PT-35s foreign movements then Stuart Henderson clearly did.
What has not yet been made public, until now, is that Stuart Henderson states in his precognition statement that he gave to the Crown, ahead of Megrahi’s second appeal, that the fragment, PT-35 definitely did go the US. Henderson states that on the 22nd of June 1990 he travelled to the US with the fragment accompanied by Chief Inspector McLean, DI Williamson and Alan Feraday of RARDE, the forensic explosives laboratory in Kent. According to Henderson’s statement to the Crown they met with Metropolitan Field Officers of the FBI and Thomas Thurman, the FBI official who, it is claimed later ‘identified’ the origin of the fragment. Thurman has a degree in political science and has no relevant formal qualifications in electronics or any other scientific field.
I have also seen one of the crucial productions that was to be led during Megrahi’s second appeal which is the official log that accompanied PT-35 and is meant to record each movement of the evidence in order to protect the evidential chain. At each point it is signed for by the relevant police officer. This is an extremely important process and is meant to ensure the chain of evidence is not broken. There is no entry in this log recording that PT-35 ever went to the US, at any point. That has to cast serious doubts over its integrity in light of Henderson’s precognition statement and the confirmation from the FBI’s Dick Marquise that the fragment was in the US prior to the trial.
I've never quite understood the point of all this stuff about the travelling PCB chip. There seem to be two issues.
ReplyDelete1. The unreliable memories of old men as regards events that happened over 20 years ago. It's very easy to be mistaken, and dogmatically so, about timings and detail of things that happened so long ago. I've done it myself, and only realised later after checking written records of what happened. Marquise and Henderson were ambushed by Levy, and forced to pontificate on the hoof. They were also angry, which never helps. (Fraser was quite frankly more than a little inebriated in that interview, let's face it.)
2. The apparent fact that the fragment did travel to the USA, but the paperwork does not document this occurrence. This is no doubt reprehensible, but what precisely is Mr. Levy implying when he points this out? It smacks very much of an attempt to have the conviction quashed on a technicality of poor record-keeping, rather than actually showing good reason for believing that it is factually untenable.
There are numerous photographs of the timer fragment. The earliest of these is purportedly of the entire shirt collar and its contents when first dissected by Hayes in May 1989. There is fairly good evidence to suggest that photo really does date back to that period of time, but that's not really the point. That is certainly the first picture of the fragment, when it was first introduced into the chain of evidence, and before it was sawn up in ealry 1990. The resolution isn't fantastic, but it's not bad, and it's quite clear that it is the same item as is pictured in much better photos of the uncut fragment taken later in 1989 and again in early 1990, the same fragment as appears cut up in many later photos, and the same fragment as was actually exhibited in court.
So what is supposed to have been done to it during this clandestine trip to the USA? If the chain of custody has been broken, what does that imply? If Mr. Levy is trying to suggest that the item was substituted during this excursion, the photographic evidence is most certainly against him.
There are sound reasons for being suspicious about the provenance of that fragment of PCB. What there is not, is any evidence that it was substituted or illegitimately tampered with after its first appearance in the chain of evidence. Handwaving about poor documentation of its whereabouts only muddies the water and distracts attention from the real concerns.
“If they have a brave judge who looks and says ‘good or bad’, ‘yes or no’, but I doubt that the chair of the judges, who chairs all the other judges in Scotland, will turn around and say that all the other judges [at the trial and the first appeal] before got it wrong.” Megrahi said, before adding, “They will want to show, to keep the integrity of the system, that they don’t care if they have to keep an innocent man in prison to do that.”
ReplyDeleteMr. Megrahi had a very shrewd idea of what he was up against, it seems. These considerations still apply, and perhaps all the more so now that no innocent man is languishing in prison.
This takes us back to the point of the article above this one. Is the quality of the Scottish criminal justice system up to the challenge of addressing this scandal, or is it going to try to sweep the whole thing under the carpet indefinitely?
Thank you, Rolfe, for addressing the question of the timer fragment whereabouts. I have been wondering whether knowledge about its traveling supported some theory that I had missed. That seems not to be the case.
ReplyDeleteOf course, evidence needs to be handled in ways that prevents reducing its trustworthiness. The more hands it goes through, the worse. Not the least if it passes by people with conflicts of interests.
"If Mr. Levy is trying to suggest that the item was substituted during this excursion, the photographic evidence is most certainly against him."
And the prosecution seems to have made no claims that would be related to falsification during such a trip.
Like e.g. a positive test for explosives, Megrahi´s DNA(!) or similar.
Levy most likely did simply not fully understand the context.
The pure-Sn issue was probably not known at the time, but that would have been an interesting question instead.
- - -
"Is the quality of the Scottish criminal justice system up to the challenge of addressing this scandal, or is it going to try to sweep the whole thing under the carpet indefinitely?"
The answer is blowing in the wind. Fooling enough of the people enough of the time was always what it is all about.
There is so much to lose for anyone touching this case. Full self respect is too highly priced.