Death announced of Dan Cohen

[What follows is the text of a death notice published today on the website of the Press of Atlantic City:]

Cohen, Daniel E, - 82, of Cape May Court House, NJ, died May 6, 2018. He was born in Chicago, IL and lived in New York City and Port Jervis, NY before moving to Cape May County in 1993. Dan worked as a freelance writer and wrote over 200 books including children's books on subjects such as the occult, mythology, ghosts, and dinosaurs. He and his wife Susan were founders of the Caper's Sherlock Holmes Society in Cape May County and active members of the Wodehouse Society, especially the Philadelphia Chapter. He loved his clumber spaniels, cats, bird watching, and walking on the beach. He is the father of Theodora Cohen, age 20, who was killed on Pan Am Flight 103 in the Lockerbie Bombing. He and his wife were very active in the fight for justice for the 243 victim's families. Daniel is survived by his wife Susan (formerly Handler); sister Jean Fuller of Lake Oswego, OR; and several nieces, nephews, and cousins. Services are private.

[RB: A longer obituary, with details of the views about the Lockerbie case held by Mr Cohen and his wife Susan, can be found here in The New York Times.]

Was the objective not a trial but sanctions?

[What follows is excerpted from an article headed Criminal Justice or "War by Other Means" that was published on The Masonic Verses website on this date in 2008:]

It is generally assumed that the object of the announcement of the indictment on the 14th November 1991 was the trial of the two suspects (who were eventually handed over on the 5th April 1999.) However the Western powers pursued the case not under the relevant international Law (the 1971 Montreal Convention) but by political means through the UN Security Council and the imposition of sanctions against Libya.

The Lockerbie incident was exploited in order to impose UN sanction upon Libya for political considerations that largely predated the bombing and a trial was actually unwelcome to the West, their primary objective being regime change in Libya. A study of the historical background is necessary to understanding why Libya was blamed, a background that was largely irrelevant to the criminal proceedings.

In February 1986 the United States had imposed unilateral sanctions on Libya and US plans to topple Gaddafi long predated this. The Europeans, far more dependent on Libyan oil failed to support these sanctions to the chagrin of American business interests. Unilateral sanctions were ineffectual if Libya could trade elsewhere and it was an objective of US policy to transform unilateral sanctions into UN sanctions, achieved through the Lockerbie indictment.

Crucial evidence that the objective of the indictment was sanctions not a trial lies in the movements of Lhamin Fhimah (who was indicted solely to give credence to the “Malta” scenario.) In November 1991 Fhimah was again employed by Libyan Arab Airlines and was living openly in Tunis, capital of pro-Western Tunisia. On the day of the indictment Fhimah had returned to Tripoli for a visit when he saw news of his indictment on TV. (2)(3).

Did the Western intelligence agencies not know where Fhimah was living and could they not have sought his arrest and extradition by the Tunisian authorities? Or was Fhimah’s residence outside Libya an embarrassment? According to the former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser he had been asked by the Americans to “hold off” on the indictment while new evidence was developed (4) (likely the testimony of Majid Giaka) but if the object of the indictment was a trial why did they wait until Fhimah was in Libya before announcing it? Indeed the public announcement of the indictment at all was bizarre if the objective was a trial not sanctions.

From the announcement of the indictment until the trial the authorities pretended that the case against Libya was cast iron while dismissing any conflicting evidence. The prospect of a trial laid open the prospect of an acquittal. The announcement of an indictment allowed the authorities to claim the case was “solved” and to a great extent mollified the families of the victims and created a constituency to keep the issue (and the sanctions) going.

Of course if Libyan responsibility was undoubted, as the Americans proclaimed, why were they pursuing sanctions at all? The Americans had bombed Tripoli in response to a relatively minor outrage. This was something many US relatives could not grasp. Following a meeting with the FBI Director Dan Cohen commented:

“As we were leaving I asked Sessions if indictments would really be of any use, whether Pan Am 103 was something for the judicial system at all. After all, this wasn’t a drive-by shooting, it was really a military attack on America and should properly be answered in political or military terms. He thought for a moment and said, “You may very well be right”. (5) Cohen had a good point.

(2) The Maltese Double Cross, writer/director Alan Francovich

(3) Interview with Lhamin Fhimah (following his acquittal) featured

in Cover-up of Convenience by John Ashton & Ian Ferguson

Mainstream Publishing

(4) Ashton & Ferguson Interview with Lord Fraser

(5) Cohen, Susan and Daniel Pan Am 103 New American Library

2000 page 139

Moves towards normalization of relations between Libya and UK, US

In a letter dated 15 August 2003 addressed to the President of the UN Security Council, Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations wrote:

Libya as a sovereign State:

• Has facilitated the bringing to justice of the two suspects charged with the bombing of Pan Am 103 and accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials.

• Has cooperated with the Scottish investigating authorities before and during the trial and pledges to cooperate in good faith with any further requests for information in connection with the Pan Am 103 investigation. Such cooperation would be extended in good faith through the usual channels.

• Has arranged for the payment of appropriate compensation. To that end, a special fund has been established and instructions have already been issued to transmit the necessary sums to an agreed escrow account within a matter of days.

The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which during the last two decades has, on numerous occasions, condemned all acts of terrorism in its correspondence to the General Assembly and to the Security Council, reaffirms its commitment to that policy.

On the same date, Voice of America broadcast a news item of which the following is a transcript:

INTRO: Senior Bush administration officials say there will be no early end to US economic sanctions against Libya even though the Muammar Gadhafi government will shortly fulfill terms for the permanent lifting of U-N sanctions stemming from the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. The families of the 270 victims of the 1988 airliner attack were briefed on the status of the case Friday in Washington. V-O-A's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

TEXT: Secretary of State Colin Powell joined in the briefing for the families on fast-moving developments in the Pan Am 103 case that are likely to lead to a Security Council vote ending UN sanctions next week.

The UN sanctions were suspended in 1999 after Libya turned over two of its intelligence agents who were charged in the attack, one of whom was later convicted by a special court in the Netherlands and sentenced to life in prison.

Libya is now fulfilling terms for the permanent lifting of the sanctions, including acceptance of responsibility for the attack, a renunciation of terrorism, and creation of a two-point-seven billion dollar fund for the compensation of the victims families.

The Security Council vote, expected by mid-week, would trigger payment to the families of the first four million of what could eventually be ten million dollars in Libyan compensation for each person killed.

However, family spokesman Dan Cohen, whose 20-year-old college student daughter was killed in the terror attack, told reporters here after the briefing that the money will not bring closure for the still-grieving families:

“I hope you will not in reporting this say money, money, money. It's not money, money, money. Everyone of us, everyone of us, would have foregone every cent of that in a heartbeat, if this had never happened. And it's unfortunate the way the world is structured that this is one of the only ways that these terrible crimes are dealt with.”

Under terms of the deal worked out between the Libyan government and lawyers for the families, the remaining six million dollars for each victim would not be paid unless bilateral US sanctions against Libya are also lifted and that country is removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Mr Cohen said he personally opposed the lifting of the US sanctions, which among other things bar American investment in Libya's oil industry, as long as Mr Gadhafi remains the head of what he termed a "criminal" regime.

However the chairman of the families' organization, Glenn Johnson, who also lost a daughter in the bombing, took a less severe view, saying the Bush administration should examine each sanction on a case-by-case basis:

“At this point, providing the UN sanctions are lifted, our government should take a look at each and every US sanction that's involved, and see if the (Libyan) government's met it. If the Libyan government has completed it, we would like to see them lifted. If they have not, as a group, we feel they should not be lifted.”

A senior administration official who briefed reporters said Libya has made "significant progress" in getting out of the terrorism business since the mid-1990s.

However he said it "does not deserve a clean bill of health" and that the United States continues to have serious concerns about Libya's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, its poor human rights record, and meddling in the affairs of other countries, especially African states including Chad, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The official said the United States might abstain in the UN sanctions vote to underline its ongoing concerns.

He also said the Bush administration has strongly urged France not to veto the lifting of sanctions, which it has threatened to do in an effort to force Libya to increase compensation for victims of a French UTA jetliner downed over Niger in 1989.

Denial meant for domestic political consumption

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2002:]

Libya has denied suggestions by a New York law firm that it offered $2.7bn to compensate the families of the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie disaster as part of a deal to lift sanctions.

"Libya has nothing to do with this so-called agreement and is not a party to it," an official statement said.

However, it conceded that Libyan businessmen and lawyers had held talks with lawyers of the families, though it said it had not been informed officially.

The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says Libya's denial could be meant for domestic political consumption.

But he adds that it underlines the difficulties the world community has in dealing with Libya's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and the potential for any deal to fall apart.

A partner in Kreindler and Kreindler, the firm representing the victims' families, told the BBC earlier on Wednesday he expected Libya to admit responsibility for the bombing very soon - perhaps within a couple of weeks.

The British Foreign Office said the Libyan, British and American officials were due to meet in London on 6 June to discuss the question.

Under the alleged deal, each victim's family would receive $10m, but 40% of the total money would be disbursed when UN sanctions were lifted and another 40% when the US sanctions were removed.

The remaining 20% would be paid when Libya was removed from the US State Department's list of sponsors of international terrorism.

But the US rejected the offer, saying Libya had to accept responsibility for the bombing.

"The compensation is something that the families have to work out with the Libyans," a State Department official told the AFP news agency.

"The sanctions are a governmental matter," he added.

The UK Foreign Office welcomed the offer, if genuine, as "a sign that Libya wishes to respond to the requirements of the UN resolutions".

However, a Foreign Office spokesman also said Libya would need to comply with all UN resolutions for sanctions to be lifted.

The admission of responsibility is a particular sticking point with officials and relatives alike.

Charles Kreindler, from the company Kreindler and Kreindler, speaking on the BBC's The World Today programme, said the admission could come within weeks.

"We could see Libya accept responsibility in the near future - perhaps in the next couple of weeks," Mr Kreindler said. (...)

The relatives also want to see Libya confess its guilt in the affair. "If Libya is still not willing to acknowledge they planned and committed the mass murder of 270 people and issue and comply with all of the conditions of the US Government and UN security council - then everything given to the families would be blood money," said Vicky Cummock, whose husband was killed. Her views were echoed by Dan Cohen, whose daughter Theo was murdered in the bombing. "Libya's got to do something else too, they have got to come clean on this," Mr Cohen said. "I don't want Libya taken off the terrorism list in the United States, I'll be damned if I'm going to become a cheerleader to rehabilitate the person who murdered my daughter," he added.

US reaction to SCCRC permitting Megrahi appeal

[What follows is the text of a report that was published in The New York Times on this date in 2007:]

A Scottish judicial review body ruled Thursday that a former Libyan intelligence official jailed for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing might have been wrongfully convicted and was entitled to appeal the verdict against him.

After an investigation lasting nearly four years, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission delivered an 800-page report — much of it still secret — that identified several areas where “a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.”

The commission cast doubt on the testimony of a witness, who changed his story several times and had been shown a photograph of the Libyan official days before picking him out of a lineup. It also challenged evidence presented at the trial that the official had purchased the clothes found in the suitcase that held the bomb.

The ruling has potentially major ramifications both legally and emotionally for the victims’ relatives, reviving an array of questions and theories about the explosion on board Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec 21, 1988, that killed 270 people, including 179 Americans.

While the decision does not guarantee the success of the appeal, the commission’s findings are often upheld. Since its establishment in 1999, the commission says on its website, it has considered 887 cases and recommended 67 of them for appeal. Of those appeals, 39 have been heard, 25 of them successfully.

Some families expressed dismay at the ruling. But other people have long harbored misgivings about the official version of events, with some directing suspicions at a militant Palestinian group with ties to Iran, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer, was jailed in 2001 for the bombing after a trial under Scottish law at a special court in the Netherlands. He was the only person convicted in connection with the terrorist attack, Britain’s bloodiest. Mr Megrahi, who has always proclaimed his innocence, lost an initial appeal in 2002 and is serving a 27-year sentence in a Scottish prison.

Graham Forbes, the chairman of the Scottish commission, said the panel was “of the view, based upon our lengthy investigations, new evidence we have found and new evidence that was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.”

A spokesman for the commission, who spoke in return for anonymity under the organization’s rules, said the next stage was for Mr Megrahi’s lawyers to present their case to the Appeal Court for a hearing date to be set. “It will be heard,” the spokesman said in response to a reporter’s question about the possibility of the court refusing to hear the case.

The section of the commission’s findings made public centered on evidence relating to purchases of clothing at a shop called Mary’s House in Sliema, Malta, on Dec 7, 1988; the clothing was said to have been wrapped around the bomb. The bomb was said to have been put on board a plane in Malta and then transferred to a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt to London before it was loaded onto Flight 103 at Heathrow Airport.

The original trial found that the bomb was hidden in a Toshiba radio cassette player placed inside a brown, hard-shell Samsonite suitcase with clothing traced to Mary’s House. The trial court found that Mr Megrahi bought the clothing at the shop on Dec 7, 1988. But, the Scottish commission ruled, new evidence relating to the dates when Christmas lights were switched on in Malta suggested that the clothes had been bought before Dec 6, 1988, before the time when there was evidence that Mr Megrahi was on Malta.

Additionally, the commission questioned the reliability of evidence by the shop’s proprietor, Tony Gauci, who singled out Mr Megrahi in a lineup. It said that additional evidence, not available to Mr Megrahi’s defense in the original trial, indicated that four days before the lineup “at which Mr Gauci picked out the applicant, he saw a photograph of the applicant in a magazine article linking him to the bombing.”

“In the commission’s view, evidence of Mr Gauci’s exposure to this photograph in such close proximity” to the lineup “undermines the reliability of his identification of the applicant at that time and at the trial itself,” the commission said.

In Scotland, Mr Megrahi’s lawyer, Tony Kelly, read a statement from his client: “I was never in any doubt that a truly independent review of my case would have this outcome. I reiterate today what I have been saying since I was first indicted in 1991: I was not involved in the Lockerbie bombing in any way whatsoever.”

Some of the victims’ families in the United States questioned the timing of the commission’s findings and whether it was linked to a recently announced agreement between Britain and Libya that could permit the extradition of Libyans serving prison terms in Britain. Some families say they are worried that the agreement may allow Mr Megrahi to be repatriated, ostensibly to serve out his term in Libya, or to be sent there for the duration of the appeal.

“It’s nonsense,” said Dan Cohen, whose only child, Theodora, a student at Syracuse University, was killed in the bombing. If Mr Megrahi is sent back to Libya, Mr Cohen said, “he’ll go back a hero, and a rich hero, I would assume.”

“It’s very depressing, ” he added.

The spokesman for the commission said the probable date for the publication of its findings had been made known last February. Any move to free Mr Megrahi from a Scottish prison, the spokesman said, would depend on whether his lawyers applied for “interim liberation” while his appeal was heard. The spokesman said it would be “normal practice” for Mr Megrahi to remain in prison in Scotland while his appeal was being heard. Mr Megrahi’s lawyer, Mr Kelly, said it was “premature” for his client to seek release on bail. “That’s something that will take a few months to determine,” he said.

In its statement, the commission also played down many conspiracy theories that had surfaced over the years. The commission, for instance, said it had “serious misgivings” about claims by a Scottish police officer, identified only as “The Golfer,” that the authorities had manipulated evidence. It also rejected claims of involvement by the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

The Scottish panel insisted that it had “found no basis for concluding that evidence in the case was fabricated by the police, the Crown, forensic scientists or any other representatives of official bodies or government agencies.”

The reaction among victims’ families was mixed. Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, said the commission’s decision was a “new chapter in our 18-and-a-half-year search for the truth.” In a television interview he alluded to speculation that Iran had orchestrated the bombing. Five months before the Lockerbie attack, he noted, the United States Navy mistakenly shot down an Iranian passenger jet over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people.

Other families of Lockerbie victims in the United States said they were disappointed by the ruling, but several sought to minimize its importance.

“I think it’s just a review commission that’s covering all their bases,” said Kara Weipz, president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, a family group. “From my understanding, it’s much like the Supreme Court of the United States. I don’t think that they even have to take the case.”

The spokesman for the Scottish panel, however, said it was “incumbent” on the Appeal Court to permit Mr Megrahi a further hearing.

Agreement reached on damages for Lockerbie victims’ families

[What follows is excerpted from an Agence France Presse news agency report published on the Arab News website on this date in 2003:]

Libya will pay $10 million to each of the 270 victims of the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing after accepting civil responsibility for the blast, Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgham told AFP yesterday. “My country has accepted civil responsibility for the actions of its officials in the Lockerbie affair, in conformity with international civil law and the agreement reached in London in March by Libyan, American and British officials,” he said.

Shalgham said full payment was conditional on UN sanctions against Libya being lifted after payment of an initial installment of four million dollars to each victim, and US sanctions after a similar payment.

After payment of the final installment of two million dollars, Libya would ask to be removed from the US list of countries supporting terrorism, he added. Saying that Libyan businessmen had already set up a fund, Shalgham went on, “I hope that the damages will be paid as quickly as possible, perhaps in the coming weeks.”

The total sum of $2.7 billion was the same as US officials said on March 12 Libya had offered as compensation in talks with the United States and Britain. They also said Tripoli was prepared to assume limited responsibility for the downing of Pan Am flight 103, something it has previously refused to do.

Dan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora died in the crash, stressed after a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns that Washington was insisting that a statement of responsibility came from the Libyan government itself.

He said Libya’s payment was also contingent on individual lawsuits filed against the Libyan government by the families of the victims being dropped, as well as the United Nations and the United States ending sanctions. (...)

United Nations sanctions against Libya were suspended but not lifted after Tripoli handed over the two suspects in the case. The United States has said that UN sanctions cannot be lifted until Libya satisfies all of its requirements under UN Security Council resolutions, including the payment of compensation, an admission of responsibility for the bombing, the disclosure of all relevant information about it and a renunciation of terrorism.

US sanctions, imposed under different terms, would require those steps in addition to moves from Tripoli.

[RB: The Libyan letter acknowledging responsibility (which I played a part in drafting) can be read here.]

London talks on acknowledgment of Lockerbie responsibility

[What follows is the text of a report by David Leppard that was published in The Sunday Times on this date in 2003:]

Ambassador William Burns, head of the US state department’s Middle East section, is expected to meet Libyan and British officials for talks in London this Tuesday. A formal announcement is expected soon afterwards.

Sources close to the talks disclosed yesterday that officials may be close to finalising a deal in which Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi finally admits responsibility for Lockerbie.

In exchange for a formal statement of admission, the United Nations Security Council is expected to permanently lift crippling sanctions against Tripoli.

Discussions have been going on for years about compensating relatives of the 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland in December 1988.

Libya has previously denied reports that it was prepared to pay £7m to each Lockerbie victim, provided sanctions were lifted. It is currently on the US state department’s list of countries that sponsor international terrorism.

This week’s London meeting will involve Burns, a US assistant secretary of state, and a senior Libyan official, probably Mohammed Abdul Quasim al-Zwai, Gadaffi’s ambassador in London. A senior Foreign Office official will also attend.

The security council has demanded that Libya pay “appropriate compensation” and accept general responsibility for the bombing. As well as renouncing terrorism, it must also undertake to comply with any future inquiry.

If those demands are fully met, UN sanctions — imposed in 1992 but suspended at the moment — will be scrapped.

America imposed its own separate sanctions after the Libyans bombed a disco used by American soldiers in Germany in 1986. Libya is desperate to get rid of the sanctions so it can sell oil.

Dan Cohen, who lost his daughter at Lockerbie, said he believed the wording of a statement admitting Libya’s responsibility had already been agreed.

At an international court in the Hague two years ago, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a senior Libyan intelligence official, was convicted of the bombing. He is now serving a life sentence at Barlinnie high security prison in Glasgow. [RB: The only evidence that Megrahi was an intelligence official came from the defector Abdul Majid Giaka whose evidence on every other issue was dismissed by the court as wholly lacking in credibility. The court gave no reasons for their acceptance of Giaka’s testimony on this single topic.]

Gadaffi has always denied responsibility for the attack. But evidence uncovered during the Scottish police investigation revealed that it had been sanctioned by the head of his own intelligence service. [RB: I have no idea what “evidence” this refers to. Certainly no such evidence was produced at the Zeist trial.]

The Libyans are said to have wanted revenge for the bombing of their country by American planes, in which Gadaffi’s six-year-old adopted daughter had been killed.

[RB: The Libyan letter acknowledging responsibility (which I played a part in drafting) can be read here.]

Lockerbie bomber wants to stay in Scotland if freed

This is the headline over an article by Charlene Sweeney on the website of The Times and which will presumably appear in the print edition of the newspaper on Saturday, 1 November. It reads in part:

'Al-Megrahi's desire to stay in Scotland raises the prospect that taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill for his treatment, which is likely to include radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

'Tony Kelly, al-Megrahi's lawyer, denied that he could become a drain on public finances. “I don't think there would be any bar to him accessing the health service, but he would probably take care of it himself,” he said. “There wouldn't be an incursion on the public purse.”

'Al-Megrahi could be released immediately if he is granted bail at a hearing in the High Court. His defence team are seeking interim liberation after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case back to court in June last year.

'Other factors they may ask judges to take into consideration are his deteriorating health and the delay in the appeal process since the commission ruled 17 months ago his conviction could have constituted a miscarriage of justice. Al-Megrahi lost a previous appeal in 2002.

'The Crown Office would not comment on the hearing ahead of next Thursday, but it is thought that it will vigorously contest the attempt. (...)

'Professor Black said yesterday that he could see no legal argument for refusing bail to al-Megrahi.

'“If the court follows standard procedure they simply look to see if this person has put forward grounds of appeal that could lead to the quashing of a conviction. His grounds are not nonsense, they were decided by the commission. According to the standard norms that apply to convicted prisoners pending appeal he satisfies the criteria, in my view.”

'Dan Cohen, who lost his daughter Theodora in the tragedy, said: “I want to see al-Megrahi die in jail.”'

The full article can be read here.

Gadaffi ‘ready to admit guilt’ for Lockerbie

[This is the headline over an article by David Leppard that appeared in The Sunday Times on this date in 2003. It reads as follows:]

Ambassador William Burns, head of the US state department’s Middle East section, is expected to meet Libyan and British officials for talks in London this Tuesday. A formal announcement is expected soon afterwards.

Sources close to the talks disclosed yesterday that officials may be close to finalising a deal in which Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi finally admits responsibility for Lockerbie.

In exchange for a formal statement of admission, the United Nations Security Council is expected to permanently lift crippling sanctions against Tripoli.

Discussions have been going on for years about compensating relatives of the 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland in December 1988.

Libya has previously denied reports that it was prepared to pay £7m to each Lockerbie victim, provided sanctions were lifted. It is currently on the US state department’s list of countries that sponsor international terrorism.

This week’s London meeting will involve Burns, a US assistant secretary of state, and a senior Libyan official, probably Mohammed Abdul Quasim al-Zwai, Gadaffi’s ambassador in London. A senior Foreign Office official will also attend.

The security council has demanded that Libya pay “appropriate compensation” and accept general responsibility for the bombing. As well as renouncing terrorism, it must also undertake to comply with any future inquiry.

If those demands are fully met, UN sanctions — imposed in 1992 but suspended at the moment — will be scrapped.

America imposed its own separate sanctions after the Libyans bombed a disco used by American soldiers in Germany in 1986. Libya is desperate to get rid of the sanctions so it can sell oil.

Dan Cohen, who lost his daughter at Lockerbie, said he believed the wording of a statement admitting Libya’s responsibility had already been agreed.

At an international court in the Hague two years ago, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a senior Libyan intelligence official, was convicted of the bombing. He is now serving a life sentence at Barlinnie high security prison in Glasgow. [RB: The only evidence that Megrahi was an intelligence official came from the defector Abdul Majid Giaka whose evidence on every other issue was dismissed by the court as wholly lacking in credibility. The court gave no reasons for their acceptance of Giaka’s testimony on this single topic.]

Gadaffi has always denied responsibility for the attack. But evidence uncovered during the Scottish police investigation revealed that it had been sanctioned by the head of his own intelligence service. [RB: No such evidence was presented at the trial, nor has any such evidence come into the public domain since.]

The Libyans are said to have wanted revenge for the bombing of their country by American planes, in which Gadaffi’s six-year-old adopted daughter had been killed.

Last days of the lockerbie trial

[This is the headline over an article by Neil Mackay that appeared in the Sunday Herald on this date in 2001. It reads in part:]

When the Lockerbie trial finally limps towards its end this week it will be with a whimper rather than a bang. Somehow or other, the dying days of a court case about mass murder and international terrorism have been muted to the point of anti-climax.

In the opening months of 2000 this was being hailed as the trial of the century. Just over six months later, the courtroom at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands is less than a quarter full. Only a handful of reporters from agencies such as Associated Press and Reuters are present to watch the proceedings.

On Wednesday there was a farcical moment of excitement among the press when two unknown faces walked into the court. They turned out to be a local mother and her teenage son from the town of Soesterberg who had nothing to do so decided to spend a day rubbernecking at alleged terrorists.

Even the defence team last week sent the trial into its endgame by deciding to put forward no defence as they believed there was nothing really to defend or disprove. There are few insiders and Lockerbie watchers who believe the two accused, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, will be found guilty of the murder of 270 people over Scotland in December 1988.

That is hardly a criticism of the prosecution team, led by Colin Boyd, Scotland's Lord Advocate. They are, after all, trying to shine a light into a world that even British and American intelligence find impenetrable. (...)

The rumour mill also got a little over-heated earlier in the week when two of the three charges against the Libyans were dropped by the prosecution. The Crown abandoned charges of conspiracy and a breach of aviation laws to concentrate solely on the murder charge. There were claims that this showed just how confident the prosecution was in securing a guilty verdict on the murder charge.

In fact it shows nothing of the sort. Even in the most anodyne of murder cases it is a recognised tactic of prosecutors to add additional charges in order to be able to present as much damaging evidence as possible to the court. These additional charges are often dropped at the last moment so a jury can concentrate on convicting a defendant on the most serious charge before them - murder.

There is a feeling of despair and inevitability around the court. On Thursday there were little more than 10 British and American relatives of the Lockerbie dead in the court. On the first day of the trial there were probably more than 100 family members there. Many have lost heart. Few of the American relatives see the case as more than a show trial. Many never wanted to see Megrahi and Fhimah on trial by themselves. They wanted their bosses, and their bosses' bosses, and everyone in the chain of command right up to Colonel Gadaffi himself in the dock.

Then there is Dr Jim Swire, the most prominent of the British family members, who never really believed that Libya was behind the bombing in the first place. Since the beginning of the trial he has been a daily fixture in the court and now, ever the diplomat, he is hinting heavily that the Libyan theory was far from rock-solid. While the defence insisted in its summing up that a Palestinian terrorist organisation, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), was actually behind the Lockerbie bombing, Swire said: "Everything that has been said in court until now pales into insignificance in comparison to these claims. If what is being put forward is true, it would have the gravest of consequences for the prosecution."

Another member of the delegation of British families, the Rev John Mosey, said: "I think we are just hearing now that there is more to this case than meets the eye."

The only frustrating problem is that the defence decision to put on no defence robs us of the detail of why the PFLP-GC may have been the bombers. Defence now believes it has only to destroy the prosecution's case to get the two defendants off the hook, so the legal team didn't take the gamble of calling witnesses to the stand who, although they may have proved the PFLP-GC theory, might also have been damaging to Fhimah and Megrahi.

There was nobody in court during the week who had not reached the conclusion that the Lockerbie trial is serving a purpose beyond that of attempting to seek justice. Throughout the week Hamed El Houden, Libya's ambassador to the Benelux countries, sat at the back of the courtroom in one of the boxed-off VIP and observer areas. He hinted, during a short recess, that the trial's real success was bringing Libya, that one-time rogue state and haven for the West's bogeymen, in from the cold, opening the way for lots of rich oil investment in his country by the UK and USA.

"Without question, this trial has significantly improved relations between my country and yours - and America," said El Houden. "I do not envisage these relations deteriorating again. One should also say that there has been nothing said in this court that confirms that my country had anything to do with the bombing. I have every confidence in this court in recognising that fact." (...)

The fear is that if the relatives of the dead do not get the verdict they want they will need a whipping boy on whom to vent their anger - and that whipping boy comes in the shape of Scottish justice. For those who believe the Libyans did it - and that is nearly all the American families - Scottish justice will be seen as failing them, of being inadequate and cowardly, if Megrahi and Fhimah walk free from court. The fall-out will be even worse should the not proven verdict be called into play. In that case the US families will say that the law in Scotland is indeed an ass. In their eyes the country will have spent tens of millions of pounds on this case in order to reach no conclusion.

Families like the Cohens are already beginning to sharpen their knives for the assault on Scots law. Dan and Susan Cohen, who lost their young daughter Theo in the bombing, are starting to remind those who will listen that America helped finance the trial. They have also begun claiming that Britain was without the money or investigative ability to either stage such a murder inquiry or prosecute the case. (...)

Bob Black says: "If we do get a not guilty verdict, the outburst of fury from the US families will be spectacular - but their pain will have been made worse if the Department of Justice is currently preparing them for success."

Many of Scotland's best lawyers are already saying that if a guilty verdict does come in then there is no way it will stand up under appeal. This is fuelling the guessing game. Some reckon that the chance of the appeal succeeding will play heavily on the judges' minds. No judge wants their finding overturned in the appeal court.

Perhaps one indicator of whether this tortuous case will reach a guilty or not guilty verdict comes from a man with so much to lose - Megrahi's brother, Mohammed. There is something of an acceptance around the court that Fhimah will be freed, as little of substance has been said about him at all throughout the trial, but no-one is making a firm call on Megrahi.

Last May, his brother Mohammed was a nervous wreck. As he smoked tar-packed Arabian cigarette after cigarette, he constantly wiped tears from his eyes. There was a real and desperate fear in him that his baby brother - as he calls Megrahi - was going to go to jail in Scotland forever. This time around, he is not so despondent. "There is a God in the world, and God is just. Justice is part of God," he says. "Only the devil can now keep my brother in jail. I see in my mind's eye a month from now, my brother beside me and both of us beside our mother. That will be justice - and I know it is coming."