I do know for certain Megrahi never got a fair trial

[A letter from Tom Minogue headed Rough justice is published in today’s edition of The Scotsman.  It reads as follows:]

Thomas Crooks (Letters, 14 March) says the Scottish legal system is blind to justice and the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) is acting out of a desperate distraction by searching in the rubble of Libya for evidence of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s accomplices.

Given the lawless situation in Libya, which deteriorates by the day, I doubt the COPFS will have any further photo opportunities in that regard.

So I don’t expect we will see our Lord Advocate in the media again posing in front of that enormous bookcase, full of weighty, leather-bound, legal text books, announcing his latest initiative to bolster the Megrahi conviction by visiting Libya on the trail of his supposed accomplices. I don’t pretend to know if Megrahi is innocent of the crime or not, but I do know for certain he never got a fair trial by the Scottish Court in the Hague. [sic]

My certainty in this regard was confirmed when the UN-appointed observer to the trial reported that there were unidentified US Justice Department people in the dock of the court apparently supervising the COPFS prosecution team.

Independence gone.

Any lingering doubts I may have had were allayed when our then Lord Advocate stated that the main prosecution witness, Tony Gauci, was “an apple short of a picnic; not quite the full shilling”.

We now know Gauci was every penny in the shilling, because he received a reward for his testimony reported to be $2million (ex-diplomat Craig Murray says this was only the first instalment of $7m reward) and his brother got $1m too, making the prosecution totally flawed.

If the COPFS travels to Libya with promises of rewards in the region of those doled out at to the Gaucis, it may just manage to get a host of further witnesses to testify regarding Megrahi’s accomplices.

Just a thought: it couldn’t add to the damage already inflicted on the reputation of our legal system, could it?

World views Lockerbie verdicts as work of Uncle Sam via a puppet state

[Today’s edition of The Scotsman contains a letter from Tom Minogue.  It reads as follows:]

Lockerbie lies

Without wishing to detract from the merits of the fine contributions of Iain McKie and Thomas Crooks (Letters, 27 November) regarding the Lockerbie witness reward monies, I was convinced that the trial was a farce long before the reward information was made public.

My disgust at the trial proceedings came when the United Nations appointed observer, Professor Hans Koechler published his first report in 2003 and criticised the interference in the presentation of evidence to the court by representatives of foreign governments.

Reporting on the appeal, Prof Koechler was similarly critical, to which the Crown Office responded by stating that it is a matter for the court itself to regulate who should be present. Explaining that the High Court of Justiciary has, “for long accepted that it is a matter for the Lord Advocate and Crown Counsel whom they choose to have in court in their support”.

Of course, the Crown Office can do as they like, but they should not be surprised if by having anonymous United States ­officials supervising in the dock of a Scottish court they have abandoned any hope of appearing impartial in a political sense.

That was how Prof Koechler saw it and we shouldn’t be surprised if the world (excluding the US) views the Lockerbie trial and appeal verdicts as the work of Uncle Sam via a puppet state.

[I overlooked Thomas Crooks’s letter yesterday.  Here it now is:]

In the context of the Lockerbie trial, a Maltese newspaper has published extracts of police documents that said Mr Gauci had “a clear desire to gain financial benefit” from his evidence.

Documents released since the trial have repeatedly suggested the Gaucis expressed an interest in being paid for their testimony under the Reward for Justice programme controlled by the Department of Justice in the US.

A senior investigator in the inquiry has conceded that the brothers would have known about possible payments, but that nothing was offered before the trial and it had “never been discussed with them at any time prior to the trial – so it’s absolutely above board. There is no suggestion that there was anything underhand. It was all above board.”

After the trial, the senior investigator wrote to the US Department of Justice to recommend the pair receive a reward because he said the Gaucis fitted the criteria.

Last month the Crown Office stated: “No witness was offered any inducement by the Crown or the Scottish police before and during the trial and there is no evidence that any other law enforcement agency offered such an inducement.”

Arguably, no direct “inducement” was required. The Gaucis would have known they “fitted the criteria” for the reward. They had, before the trial, in the context of the justice programme, imbued their “evidence” with a monetary value.

The entire proceedings were scented with the aroma of reward – and it is arguable that the aroma scented the quality of the evidence provided by the brothers. Any jurisdiction with a reputation for the pursuit of justice would be concerned with the implications of such an aroma.

In this jurisdiction, the integrity of the proceedings reign supreme – irrespective of the objective material that points to the possibility of a colossal miscarriage of justice.

Cable right to challenge Scots omerta

[This is the headline over a letter from Tom Minogue in today’s edition of The Scotsman.  It reads as follows:]

The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, has got a nerve suggesting that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable, may be attempting to interfere with the independent investigation and prosecutorial decision-making by the law officers of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) (“Scots law chief rebukes Cable over RBS legal bid”, 2 May).

All Mr Cable is guilty of is showing civic concern in the delay and apparent lack of interest shown by COPFS in what some might consider a national outrage: the loss of more than £40 billion from Royal Bank of Scotland and the loss of Scotland’s reputation as a prudent financial centre.

COPFS is a master of spin and not slow to set the news agenda, especially when it involves photo opportunities for Mr Mulholland, such as jetting off to Libya to look for more evidence in the Lockerbie bombing case.

Yet in this matter, an ­outrage that has seen people from John O’Groats to the Borders lose out on their life savings, there seems to be a Scots omerta. I have been interviewed by officers from Police Scotland’s Specialist Crime Division in connection with my complaint about possible fraud at Bank of Scotland and HBOS leading to a loss similar to that at RBS.

At the coming HBOS annual general meeting, I will also be asking the board to safeguard records of all past transactions by directors and to follow my example in ­inviting Police Scotland to investigate staff at Bank of Scotland/HBOS over what I believe amounts to criminal conduct.

If in time I see no visible evidence of progress in either complaint, then like Vince Cable I will be writing to the Advocate General, or anyone else who might help expedite the investigation into the outrage that has traduced Scotland’s reputation in the eyes of the world to that of a corrupt, banana republic. 

[Coincidentally, the Scottish Review today publishes a piece by editor Kenneth Roy on delays within the Scottish justice system (including COPFS).]

James Robertson on Megrahi book (and Peter Fraser)

[What follows is a review of Megrahi: You are my Jury on the Amazon website by ‘Ken Fyne’ who (I am reliably informed) is none other than Scotland’s most distinguished living novelist, James Robertson:]

For those who have long had severe doubts, if not downright disbelief, about the way the Lockerbie investigation and trial were conducted, John Ashton's book provides all the detailed analysis of what went wrong that one could wish for. Just about all the relevant information is gathered here, so it is an excellent handbook for anyone interested in this tragic affair.

Of course the purpose of the book is to put Megrahi's side of the story, and some will find that difficult or even offensive. But what emerges - whether or not you believe that he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice - is such a damning critique of the Scottish justice system that it is surely inconceivable that the legal and political establishment can hold out much longer against disclosure of all the facts. It is certainly unacceptable if the report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission into why Megrahi may have had an unfair trial is not soon published in full: that report is now leaking like a sieve and there is no longer any sensible reason not to let us see all of it.

Personally I believe that Megrahi is innocent. I am willing to be persuaded otherwise but the original trial judgment certainly failed in every way to convince me of his guilt. John Ashton's book scores particularly highly in describing all the information that came to light AFTER the trial - including much evidence that appears to have been deliberately withheld from the defence team by the Crown and the police. The incredible interference and control of American intelligence agencies in the affair is also well documented.

This book rightly concentrates on why Megrahi's conviction was wrong, and does not dwell on the question of his compassionate release, which is a secondary matter. Whether Scotland opts for independence in the next few years or stays within the United Kingdom, its justice system has a terrible stain on it, and will continue to have unless and until a full inquiry into the whole sorry business brings the facts out of the shadows.

[James Robertson also has a letter published in today’s edition of The Herald.  It reads as follows:]

Is the Lord Fraser of Carmyllie who envisages a future scenario in which English aircraft "bomb the hell" out of Glasgow and Edinburgh airports by any chance the same Lord Fraser of Carmyllie who last year was appointed by Alex Salmond as an adviser to the Scottish Government on standards of ministerial conduct ("English 'would bomb our airports'", The Herald, March 13 & Letters, March 14)?

And could he be the same Lord Fraser of Carmyllie who as Lord Advocate drew up the indictment against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing, was satisfied by the verdict against Megrahi, yet subsequently described the Crown's key witness, without whose evidence Megrahi could not have been found guilty, as "not quite the full shilling" and "an apple short of a picnic"?

And can we take anything said by Lord Fraser of Carmyllie with any degree of seriousness?


[A letter from Tom Minogue in the 16 March edition of The Scotsman reads as follows:]

In a 2005 interview, Peter Lovat Fraser, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who as lord advocate set up the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeiss in the Netherlands – which resulted in the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi – said that the key prosecution witness, Tony Gauci, was “not quite the full shilling”, and “an apple short of a picnic”.

As we now know (...) on the contents of the 821-page Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission dossier, that Gauci received payment equivalent to £2 million, does it not raise questions about the former lord advocate’s judgment?

Surely if a man of modest means such as Mr Gauci can become a millionaire for giving evidence for a few days in a Scottish court case, he cannot be said to be anything other than very astute?

If he were to be the subject of analogy surely a more fitting example would be “as sharp as a tack”?

Libyan rebels deny offering Lockerbie compensation

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Guardian. It reads in part:]

Libya's revolutionary administration has denied a claim by a British lawyer representing victims of IRA attacks and the Lockerbie bombing that it has apologised for Libya's involvement and offered compensation.

Following a meeting with the rebel council's leadership in Benghazi, Jason McCue, head of the Libya Victims Initiative, read a statement which he said was an "unequivocal apology" for Libya's provision of Semtex used in IRA bombings and the blowing up of the Pan Am flight.

McCue said the revolutionary council had agreed to pay compensation along the lines paid out in a deal between Muammar Gaddafi and the US government which provided $10m for a death and $3m for a serious injury. He said there was also agreement to set up a trust for other victims.

McCue said the apology and offer of compensation was in the name of chairman of its interim governing council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil.

But Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, its deputy chairman, said McCue's claims were "not true".

"We didn't apologise ourselves. We regret what happened, the catastrophic event of Lockerbie, and we will do our best to reach the truth with the families of Lockerbie. Also for the IRA. We emphasised to the British government that we will work to overcome what has happened. But there was no apology. We are not responsible," he said.

Ghoga said that the council "didn't negotiate anything about compensation".

"We want to know the truth. We will help the families of the victims to get to the truth," he said.

However, separately, the council said that it would "co-operate fully" to establish what had happened in the Lockerbie attack "and the right of the victims' families for justice".

Mustafa Gheriani, a council spokesman, was equally clear in his denial that an apology was made. He said they council had expressed sorrow but that Gaddafi was responsible and that it is he who should apologise.

"When we say sorry it means we did it. But we did not do it. Gaddafi did it. It's sorrow not an apology," he said.

The council noted that if it wished to issue an apology in Jalil's name it would not ask a British lawyer to read it.

[A letter from Tom Minogue in today's edition of The Herald reads as follows:]

In Michael Settle’s article you quote Sir Menzies Campbell saying that, if any criminal proceedings in relation to the Lockerbie outrage are taken against any defectors, it must be clearly accepted that they are to be tried in the conventional court system, and there should be no repeat of the incongruities of Camp Zeist (“Scots police to question Koussa about Lockerbie”, The Herald, April 5).

This raises very important issues that have a bearing on the reputation of the Scottish legal system.

The previous incongruity of the special court at Camp Zeist in Holland to which Sir Menzies referred should not be repeated if there are further trials in this country. Some of the inappropriate events to emerge after the previous Lockerbie trial and appeals have been well documented, including:

l The US government promising and then rewarding a key witness and his brother with millions of dollars.

2 The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission being denied access to relevant documents protected by Public Interest Immunity Certificates, and Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi being denied his right to be in court to hear this evidence. [RB: The SCCRC did obtain access to the relevant documents, but only on condition that they would not be further disclosed. Indeed, at least one of the SCCRCs six grounds for holding that Megrahi's conviction might have been a miscarriage of justice related to the contents and non-disclosure of these documents. It was Megrahi and his legal team who were denied access to the documents for the purposes of the appeal that followed the SCCRC's report.]

I would agree with Sir Menzies that in the event of further Lockerbie trials a more conventional trial in Scotland according to normal legal practice would be desirable. It would perhaps help to restore the reputation of Scots justice.

[Posted on a flying visit to Middelpos from Gannaga Lodge.]

New probe into Lockerbie needed

[This is the heading over a letter from Tom Minogue in yesterday's edition of The Courier, a daily newspaper with a large circulation in Dundee and Fife. It reads as follows:]

Dr Jim Swire is right to petition the Scottish Parliament (...) with a view to initiating an independent investigation into the 2001 conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.

My Lockerbie concerns began within hours of the crash on hearing reports of US officials on the scene gathering evidence.

Later, the testing in the US of the timer fragment was in my view wrong. The investigation should have been a matter for Scottish police. The involvement of a foreign government politicised the investigation.

Reinforcing my concerns were the reports of the UN-appointed trial observer, Professor Hans Koechler who reported that for the entire period of the trial in The Hague, two state prosecutors from the US Department of Justice sat next to the Crown Office prosecution team who they passed documents to, and talked to, as if they were supervising them. None of these US officials were listed or mentioned in any of the official trial documents.

I don't claim to know if Megrahi is guilty or not but I do know for certain that he didn't get a fair trial .

It's no joke

[This is the heading over a letter from Tom Minogue in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]

Andy Parsons' show on BBC2 last Sunday night was hilarious. He had the audience rolling in the aisles as he drily dissected the quirks of British life: bankers, the teaching profession, politicians, the environment and traffic wardens, they all got it in the neck.

There was also a gag about the possibility the Lockerbie bomber was innocent, because, said Andy, the chief prosecution witness was paid $2 million by the FBI to testify, was then shown a photo of the suspect Megrahi, and was able to identify him at an identity parade in order to collect his millions.

This, said Andy, "was not justice, but more like a high-stakes version of the board game Guess Who?" Oh, how we laughed. But hold on: this was not scripted comedy material, this was fact.

So the Lockerbie trial, which until very recently took pride of place on the Crown Office website, is now right up there with the mother-in-law, traffic wardens and bankers as material for a stand-up comedian. World famous in a way, I suppose.

Megrahi motives

[This is the heading over a letter from Tom Minogue published in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]

Like Tam Dalyell (Letters, 27 August), Dr Jim Swire believes Kenny MacAskill's decision was corrupted by self-interest and he is supporting an inexplicable verdict to protect some of his judges/prosecutors from criticism. [Note by RB: I have no recollection, and certainly no record, of Dr Swire having ever made such a crticism of Kenny MacAskill.] He may well be right in this.

Likewise Megrahi's inexplicable decision to abandon the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission appeal may have been the result of a nod and a wink from those dealing with his compassionate release and if so would have been welcomed by those in the justice establishment. If Megrahi had died waiting for his appeal to be heard there would have been an outcry that the Crown Office had procrastinated for years while this appellant's health faded.

And if Megrahi survived long enough to attend his appeal the prospect of Tony Gauci and his brother being called (from wherever they are now) to explain the millions of dollars gifted them by the US government would have been a disaster for Scotland's reputation for independent justice.

So many political factors have dictated events in the Megrahi saga, but for those who believe that MacAskill acted purely on compassionate grounds I would ask them to listen again to his monotone 20-minute statement to the Scottish Parliament.

Invoking the Almighty was pure political theatre pitched at the Bible Belt rather than his constituents in the Central Belt.

Whole Lockerbie case must be reviewed

[This is the heading over three letters published in today's edition of The Scotsman. They read as follows:]

W Robert Durward (Letters, 10 August) points out that Megrahi's trial has never been officially acknowledged as a "travesty of justice". However, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) stated: "The commission is of the view that based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."

If we take into consideration that this was the biggest mass murder committed in Scotland in modern times, many are rightly of the belief we should rigorously review the whole case and investigate fully the glaring fragility of the evidence used in the Camp Zeist trial.

If the Scottish criminal justice system made a mistake and jailed an innocent man, then it needs to be open and honest if it ever hopes to retain the confidence of the concerned Scottish public.
David Flett

Monday's STV documentary on Lockerbie was interesting in that Tony Kelly, Megrahi's lawyer, seemed bullish about the new evidence for the SCCRC appeal and especially the fact that Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper had been given £2 million for giving the evidence that was pivotal to Megrahi's conviction. The US government official would not comment on this, but it does raise some questions as to Gauci's impartiality.

Surely former lord advocate Lord Fraser was mistaken when he told the Sunday Times that "Gauci was not quite the full shilling. I think even his family would say (that he] was an apple short of a picnic". It would seem to me that Tony Gauci is very much "all there, and a wee bit mair", as they say in Fife. But whether justice was best served by this witness is another matter.
Tom Minogue

A year ago, at the height of the furore over the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Scotland was subjected to a barrage of (mostly ill-informed) hostile criticism from the United States.

At that time, you published a letter from me in which I suggested that, with Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition as examples of US justice at work, it ill-suited Hillary Clinton, amongst others, to lecture Scotland on the operation of any justice system, let alone a compassionate one. I have waited in vain for someone of influence in Scotland to express similar views in public. At last, Cardinal Keith O'Brien has spoken out.

Rather than simply "welcoming" his views (your report, 9 August), is it not time for Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill to reiterate the words of Cardinal O'Brien on every possible occasion?
Alan R Irons

[The following is a letter published in today's edition of The Herald.]

Jim Swire’s is one of the most uplifting letters I have ever read in your columns (The Herald, August 10). It is a privilege to share the planet with him.

He has suffered as great a blow as anyone can – the loss of a very close relative through personal malicious violence – and yet no rancour is there.

Although he acknowledges that in American culture there is some aspect of vengeance, he does not brand them all so. He says US Lockerbie relatives are the same kind of people he has encountered here and have the same desires as he has. I think we are too ready to assign national attributes. I have many American relatives and friends, and when asked how I find Americans, I reply, some I like, a few I dislike but the great majority I do not know well enough either to like or dislike. That answer would also apply to other nationals I know well: Indians, English and Scots. I imagine it would also apply to those whom I only know in small numbers or have not yet met. Perceived national stereotypes are poor guides to behaviour.

The problem of determining the truth is a persistent one, but I feel a chimera. I have spent my working life in science where hypotheses are tested in the laboratory. Having observed the most plausible hypotheses turn out to be defective, I have little faith in any inquiry yielding the truth. If a well-equipped laboratory cannot be absolutely certain of its results, what chance is there of a committee coming to an ultimately valid conclusion when its evidence is not only volatile but dependent on human observation, not of the directed kind as in the laboratory, but rather of a casual view of an event not recognised as important at the time? Human memory, even at the best of times, is frail.

Perhaps the best we can do is, as Dr Swire suggests, have the incident looked at by a group in whom we can trust, but that will lead to a never-ending regress if we look for faults in its findings. As Dr Swire says, the relatives want closure.
Chris Parton

[As someone who yesterday spent over four hours in the company of Dr Swire and Rev John Mosey, I wish to record how wholeheartedly, in respect of each, I endorse the second sentence of Mr Parton's letter.]

American influence on Lockerbie trial

[This is the heading over a letter from Marion Woolfson in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]

I was very interested in the letter from Tom Minogue because, like him, I have serious doubts about Lockerbie (19 July)

I am a retired journalist (and former Scotsman columnist) and, although I was born and educated in Edinburgh, I wrote on the Middle East for 30 years.

As Mr Minogue has pointed out, the United Nations-appointed independent observer to the trial at the Scots court in the [Netherlands], Prof Hans Koechler, voiced his serious concerns that senior US Justice Department officials were in the body of the court and appeared to be directing the Crown Office prosecution staff.

This seems to confirm Lord Sutherland's judicial summation, for he pointed out that "there are undoubtedly problems. In relation to certain aspects of the case, there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications. In selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified."

It was also revealed by Geoff Simons, author of Libya and the West, that before the trial Tony Gauci was feted by the police, taken to Aviemore, taken fishing for salmon and put up at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow.

The judges were not told that, on the day of the bombing, there had been an unexplained break-in in the Heathrow baggage area.

Tony Gauci was the Maltese shopkeeper who became the chief witness in the case because a suitcase containing goods he stocked was suddenly "found" among the debris and, although as Gauci could not identify some of the clothing in the suitcase nor could he remember the "owner's" appearance it was decided that the clothing had been wrapped round the bomb (surely if that were true, it would have been destroyed) and so the owner of the suitcase was the bomber.

Megrahi had been about to appeal but was unable to because of being released on compassionate grounds. Gauci has apparently gone to Australia, "assisted" by the gift of a million dollars.

I could have understood all the pathetic lies if they had come from an American source, but surely the Scots have more sense than to believe the rubbish that we have heard.

Miliband: Lockerbie bomber release was clearly wrong

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]

Labour leadership contender David Miliband has condemned the decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as clearly wrong.

His comments in an exclusive interview in The Herald today represent a dramatic change in his previous position on Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s release on medical grounds.

They were made as criticism of the decision by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill intensified on both sides of the Atlantic.

The SNP last night hit back at the shadow foreign secretary’s comments. A source said: “This ludicrous about-turn by Miliband will damage his credibility and do him absolutely no good, either in his party or anywhere else.” (...)

When Labour was in government Miliband avoided commenting on the rights or wrongs of MacAskill’s ruling, but he now suggests the medical evidence, which said Megrahi had only three months to live, was flawed.

Asked if it was a mistake to release Megrahi, Miliband told The Herald: “It was clearly wrong because it was done on the basis he had less than three months to live and it’s now 11 months on.”

The frontrunner to succeed Gordon Brown as Labour leader added: “The decision was made in accordance with our constitution and so it was a decision for the Scottish minister to make.

“Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds and, as I understand it, that depends on him having less than three months to live, so something has gone badly wrong.”

Miliband acknowledges MacAskill made his decision in good faith but stresses he understands the anger felt by families of the American victims. This is in sharp contrast to his earlier reaction to the Libyan’s release in August last year.

In a Commons statement in October, Miliband pointed out that British interests “would be damaged, perhaps badly, if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison rather than Libya”. (...)

Last night, a Scottish Government source said: “It was David Miliband’s own government that did the deal in the desert and Miliband was Foreign Secretary when the UK signed the PTA with Libya with the clear intention of sending Megrahi back to Libya.

“It was tawdry and Kenny MacAskill rightly rejected the PTA application. This ludicrous about-turn by Miliband will damage his credibility.”

[For an interesting comment on the politics of Miliband's change of heart, see this article on The First Post website.

The letters page of today's edition of The Herald contains two interesting contributions. The first, from Colin Chilton reads:

"So the Americans and the UK Conservative Party want a full public inquiry into the release of Abdelbaset Mohmed Al Megrahi ...

"After almost 22 years is it not time we had a full public inquiry into the events of that terrible night when PanAm flight 103 crashed near Lockerbie? All we had in the aftermath was a Fatal Accident Inquiry which is obviously more limited in its scope than a full inquiry. Surely if the Westminster and US Governments are so keen to see justice is done that they will release all information pertaining to this matter and not just the evidence that suits them.

"So many unanswered questions remain from the Lockerbie disaster, from the Americans who were at the scene within two hours poring through the debris, to the sudden switch of investigation from Syria to Libya which happened rather conveniently when Libya was the only country on Iraq’s side in 1991 during the Gulf War of that year where the Americans needed Syrian support. If the Americans and UK Conservatives are so keen to see justice is done, let’s see them open the files after all what do they have to hide?"

The second, from Tom Minogue, echoes his earlier letter in The Scotsman. The three letters in that newspaper -- and the readers' comments -- are also of interest.]

Government must block US interference

[This is the heading over a letter by Tom Minogue published in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads in part:]

Many of the huge number of online commentators on Eddie Barnes' article (17 July) were incensed by the possibility that Scotland's justice minister might be summoned to Washington to explain his decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

I was dismayed, but not surprised at the stance taken by the US as it is in keeping with the history of the Lockerbie trial.

Back in 2001 the United Nations-appointed independent observer to the trial at the Scots court in [the Netherlands], Professor Hans Koechler, voiced his serious concerns that senior US Justice Department officials were in the body of the court and appeared to be directing the Crown Office prosecution staff. (...)

Scotland has a history of subservient over-eagerness to do our American cousin's bidding - Alex Salmond's fawning over Donald Trump, for example - and if the Yanks were allowed to run the show at the Lockerbie trial, then it shouldn't surprise anyone if they attempt to interfere further in that saga by summoning our justice minister as if they were ordering a taxi.

If our legal system and officials have been tarnished by Lockerbie, then there is one redeeming aspect of the sorry affair and that is the fact that at long last one Scots lawyer, MSP Christine Grahame, has had the courage to point out that the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) found that there was serious doubt as to the safety of Megrahi's conviction - something that Salmond, McAskill, and Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini have studiously avoided mentioning.

Mrs Grahame is also calling for the US to take part in a full inquiry into all of the circumstances surrounding the Lockerbie trial. Good for her. She typifies the best qualities of our nation: independent and brave; telling it like it is, without fear of our powerful neighbour across the pond, or of her bosses at Holyrood.

I fear that her doubts about Megrahi's trial and conviction, like those of the UN observer and the SCCRC, will not be taken seriously by the powers that be.

[The four readers' letters on the subject published in today's edition of The Herald are also worth reading.]

Reaction to the High Court of Justiciary decision

There are two letters in today's issue of The Herald, welcoming the decision of the High Court on the issue of the appellant's access to productions used at the Zeist trial, and the speed with which that decision was arrived at. They are from Dr Jim Swire and Tom Minogue, a long-standing campaigner against injustices perpetrated by the Scottish court system. The letters can be read here. The comments from members of the public which follow the letters are also well worth reading.