Release of Lockerbie bomber focused world’s attention on Holyrood

[This is the headline over a report published in The Scotsman today in its Scottish Parliament at 20 series. It reads in part:]

The controversial release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi saw Holyrood scrutinised like never before, writes Chris McCall

The decision to release from prison the only man ever convicted of the 1989 Lockerbie bombing remains perhaps the single most controversial moment in the Scottish Parliament’s first two decades.

Then justice minister Kenny MacAskill told MSPs on August 20, 2009, that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi would the next day be released on compassionate grounds from HM Prison Greenock after serving just eight-and-a-half-years of a life sentence.

The release prompted a furious response from many opposition politicians across the UK. David Mundell, then shadow Scottish secretary, described it as “a mistake of international proportions”.

But the biggest reaction came from the United States. Of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing, 190 were American citizens.

No decision taken by a Scottish minister had ever been scrutinised by the world’s media in such a way before. Events at Holyrood were not normally condemned by the US Government.

MacAskill informed the parliament that al-Megrahi would be freed on compassionate grounds and allowed to return home to Libya after being diagnosed the previous year with prostate cancer.

“I am conscious that there are deeply held feelings, and that many will disagree whatever my decision,” he said.

“However, Mr Al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power. It is one that no court, in any jurisdiction, in any land, could revoke or overrule. It is terminal, final and irrevocable. He is going to die.”

Many in Scotland and across the UK had long harboured doubts regarding al-Megrahi’s conviction in 2001 by a special Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. The decision to release him was only the latest chapter in a long-running legal battle which began on that fateful night in December 1989 [sic].

But those doubts were never shared by the majority of victims’ families in the US.

“I don’t know what his political future will be, but the name ‘MacAskill’ will go down in history for his role in a miscarriage of justice,” said Frank Duggan, a US lawyer who chaired the Victims of Flight 103 group.

There was considerable anger at the nature of al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds. The Libyan had always denied his involvement in the bombing, which some interpreted as a refusal to acknowledge his crimes.

Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora was one of many students killed on the flight, said: “This has been despicable. He was convicted of mass murder, but you’ve let him out on the most sickening grounds possible.”

Then US President Barack Obama condemned the decision at the time and doubled-down on his comments almost a year later when David Cameron first visited the White House as prime minister. (...)

Al-Megrahi was convicted following one of the most complex trials ever staged. He was sentenced to 27 years, while his co-accused was cleared. His lawyers then successfully applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the case was referred back to the Court of Appeal in 2007.

Over a year later he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. By the time his second appeal got under way, his condition had deteriorated.

A few weeks later an application to have him transferred to serve the rest of his sentence in Libya was lodged, and at the same time al-Megrahi applied to be freed on compassionate grounds because of his health.

He died in 2012, maintaining his innocence until the last.

Frank Duggan "not familiar with certain aspects of Lockerbie"

[What follows is excerpted from an obituary of Frank Duggan published in today’s edition of The Herald:]

Frank Duggan, who has died of cancer aged 79, was a combative and often controversial lawyer and campaigner for American victims of the 1998 PanAm/Lockerbie disaster four days before Christmas 1988. He headed the organisation Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc, representing families in the US who lost relatives in the terrorist bombing in which 270 people died.

Whether he represented all the families of the 190 American victims was never quite clear - he once told George Galloway MP he had "never really counted them" - but he was instrumental in the legal action that won $2.7 billion from the Libyan government for the bereaved families, minus a stunning 30 percent in American lawyers' fees. He reportedly worked for the families initially for no pay but is thought to have shared in those fees.

Mr Duggan was incensed when Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice minister at the time, decided to release the convicted bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, on humanitarian grounds in 2009. Describing the decision as obscene, Mr Duggan was vociferous in insisting the then Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi had ordered the PanAm bombing. This brought him into often bitter conflict with many of the Scottish and other UK victims' families, notably the most-outspoken UK relative, the GP Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora perished in the tragedy.

Dr Swire and many other families always believed al-Megrahi's conviction was a miscarriage of justice and that Iran may have been behind the terrorist bombing in retaliation for a less-publicized tragedy. That was when an American Navy guided-missile cruiser, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iran Air Airbus passenger aircraft over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew - more than the later total of the Lockerbie tragedy. The Americans said they thought the airliner was a fighter plane and the deaths received a fraction of the publicity worldwide that the Lockerbie deaths would receive nearly six months later.

By all accounts, Frank Duggan was a good man, a man who recovered from years of alcoholism and who sincerely fought for the American victims of PanAm 103. But he was perhaps rather naive when it came to the media, as demonstrated in a telling telephone interview with George Galloway MP for talkRADIO in 2009.

In the call, Mr Duggan admits he was not familiar with certain aspects of Lockerbie, notably the evidence of the Maltese witness Tony Gauci, who said he had sold the clothes later found to have been wrapped around the bomb which brought PanAm 103 down. Mr Galloway asked Mr Duggan why the US government had given Mr Gauci a $2million "reward,"to which Mr Duggan replied that there was no proof of such a payment and that he was "not that familiar" with Mr Gauci's evidence.

Mr Duggan then proceeded to call Jim Swire and others of being "all of these cranks." Again, Mr Galloway pulled him up for calling Dr Swire a crank. It was too much for Mr Duggan and in the end he told Mr Galloway: "I don't have time to waste with people like you. I've got to go. Bye bye." And he hung up. (...)

It was George H W Bush who in early 1989, prompted by the Lockerbie tragedy, appointed Mr Duggan to the Presidential Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST) where he became a liaison between the US administration and the American Lockerbie victims.

According to a colleague at PCAST, former FBI agent J Brian Hyland, whose desk was next to Mr Duggan's, the latter had a tendency to sing or hum the patriotic Battle Hymn of the Republic (Mine Eyes have seen the Glory) to keep his colleagues in a positive frame of mind.

Despite the fact that he did not have a relative on the PanAm 103, the families - or at least a majority of them - trusted him and appointed him president of the group they called Victims of PanAm 103 Inc, and he represented them until the day of his death. In return, the families supported Mr Duggan, notably after his daughter was hit by a drunk driver and went into a coma. She eventually awoke but with brain damage.

As family liaison, Mr Duggan lobbied for their interests and listened to them with patience and understanding. After being appointed to Presidcent Bush's PCAST, he continued lobbying for the families as the trail turned to Libya. During this time, he went to work for one of the legal teams representing the families, headed by Allan Gerson, whose 2001 book noted that “for six years Duggan had worked for the families and had earned nothing for it except their trust and gratitude.”

"He didn’t get it on the plane"

[What follows is excerpted from an obituary of Frank Duggan published today on the website of The Washington Post:]

Francis J “Frank” Duggan, a lawyer and federal official who spent years as a pro bono advocate on behalf of families of the victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, died Nov 1 at his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 79.

The cause was lung cancer, said his son, Tim Duggan.

On Dec 21, 1988, a bomb exploded, killing all 259 people aboard Flight 103, plus 11 people on the ground, when the disabled aircraft crashed into the town of Lockerbie. The victims came from more than 20 countries.

In 1989, Mr Duggan was named to the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, which examined the causes of the bombing. He was the commission’s liaison to the victims’ families and continued to act as their pro bono advocate until his death. He eventually was named president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, an organization composed mostly of victims’ families.

“He was always the linchpin that made things happen,” said the group’s board chairwoman, Mary Kay Stratis, whose husband was killed on Flight 103. “He made connections in Scotland and the UK with journalists who understood our plight and had his finger on the pulse of our organization.”

Mr Duggan helped lobby Congress and federal officials to improve airline security and called on law enforcement agencies to bring charges in the case.

In 2001, more than 12 years after the incident, a onetime Libyan intelligence officer, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, was convicted of 270 counts of murder for his role in placing the bomb on the airliner. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The Libyan government agreed to accept responsibility for the bombing and to pay a penalty of $2.7 billion to the victims’ families in 2003, in return for the easing of international sanctions on the country. [RB: The Libyan government did not “accept responsibility for the bombing”; it accepted “responsibility for the actions of its officials”. The relevant document can be read here.]

In 2009, al-Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland on grounds of “compassionate relief” because he was believed to be terminally ill. He returned to Libya, where he lived until his death in 2012.

Mr Duggan strongly opposed al-Megrahi’s release and maintained that as many as seven other co-conspirators were never brought to justice.

“Obviously it wasn’t just one guy,” Mr Duggan told the Syracuse Post-Standard in 2013. “One guy didn’t make the bomb and transport it . . . He didn’t put it on the [luggage conveyor] belt. He didn’t get it on the plane. There were other people that the investigation suspects, very strongly.” (...)

Mr Duggan was instrumental in arranging for a memorial cairn, consisting of 270 stones quarried near Lockerbie, which was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery in 1995.

Death of Frank Duggan reported

Today’s edition of The Times reports the death at the age of 79 of Frank Duggan, President of the US Lockerbie relatives’ organisation Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc.

References to Frank Duggan on this blog can be found here. He was not himself a relative of a Lockerbie victim but was on the staff of the Presidential Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST) set up after the disaster, in charge of family liaison.

The death notice in The Washington Post can be read here.

George Galloway’s interview with Frank Duggan

On this date in 2009, George Galloway conducted an interview on TalkRADIO with Frank Duggan, president of the US Lockerbie relatives’ organization Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc. Duggan cut the interview short but, unluckily for him, there is more than enough to demonstrate just how shaky is (or at least was) his grasp on the facts of the Lockerbie disaster. You can listen to the interview here.

CIA Director John Brennan and Lockerbie

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2013:]

John Brennan to be nominated as new CIA director

[A report published today on the BBC News website contains the following:]

US President Barack Obama is to nominate John Brennan as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, White House officials have said.

If confirmed, Mr Brennan will replace Gen David Petraeus, who resigned last year after admitting to an affair. (...)

Mr Brennan, a CIA veteran, is currently Mr Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser. He was heavily involved in the planning of the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Although put forward for the role in 2008, Mr Brennan withdrew his name amid questions about his connection to interrogation techniques used during the administration of George W Bush.

"Brennan has the full trust and confidence of the president," a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP news agency.

"Over the past four years, he has been involved in virtually all major national security issues and will be able to hit the ground running at CIA."

[Mr Brennan has on occasion commented on Lockerbie during his CIA career.  Here are a few of his interventions:]

‘President Obama's top counterterrorism aide denounced Scotland's decision last year to release the Lockerbie bomber as a "travesty" and categorically denied a widespread report that the United States secretly endorsed the decision to free the Libyan terrorist, who was sentenced to life in prison. (...)

‘John Brennan, deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, this week wrote Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, in response to a major British newspaper's report Sunday that the Obama administration "secretly" agreed to al-Megrahi's release. (...)’

28 July 2010

‘The White House has told Scottish Ministers that they should return the Lockerbie bomber to jail in Scotland, amid fresh calls for a full public inquiry into his conviction and subsequent release.

‘John Brennan, counter-terrorism adviser to President Barack Obama, said Washington had expressed "strong conviction" to officials in Edinburgh over what he described as the "unfortunate and inappropriate and wrong decision" to free Abdelbaset Al Megrahi. (...)’

22 August 2010

‘John Brennan, President Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, stated that the United States has "expressed our strong conviction" to Scottish officials that Megrahi should not remain free. Brennan criticized what he termed the "unfortunate and inappropriate and wrong decision" to allow Megrahi's return to Libya on compassionate grounds on Aug 20, 2009 because he had cancer and was not expected to live more than about three months.’

1 September 2010

[Addendum from The Guardian of Tuesday, 8 January:]

The appointment of Brennan to replace disgraced general David Petraeus as head of the CIA has also been criticised because of Brennan's involvement with the Bush administration's backing for harsh interrogation techniques that many have described as torture, although Brennan denies he supported their use. (...)

The nomination of Brennan, while less controversial, has also come in for criticism from liberal Democrats unhappy at his previous record at the CIA.

Brennan had been a candidate to lead the agency in Obama's first term but withdrew his name from consideration. In doing so, Brennan told Obama that he was "a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration, such as the pre-emptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include waterboarding".

Father Pat Keegans censored

[What follows is from an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009:]

Ayr priest barred from Lockerbie memorial service in Virginia

[This is the headline over a report in the [Daily Record]. It reads in part:]

An Ayr priest’s words were this week censored from a memorial service in the USA for the victims of the Lockerbie terror attack.

Canon Patrick Keegans was parish priest at Lockerbie when the attack occurred.

And he has spoken at previous services at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where there is a memorial cairn.

Canon Keegans had sent over an address to be read on Monday – the 21st anniversary of the atrocity.

But it wasn’t read out, after the leader of the American victims’ group took exception to part of it.

Canon Keegan proclaimed the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi took ‘courage’ and was the ‘right decision’.

And he further said that although few in America believe Megrahi to be innocent, the victims of the bombing ‘deserve’ justice.

But Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am 103, saw the excerpt of Canon Keegans’ address, printed by The Herald newspaper.

And he said: “Fr Keegans’ remarks, as printed in the newspaper, were deemed to be very inappropriate for this memorial service." (...)

Canon Keegans’ address also included moving and poignant tributes to victims on the ground and in the air.

And he told the Post this week: “I felt that in view of what has happened this year, I should say the things I did.

“I thought it right to present my view, and the view of many in Scotland.

“I believe in freedom of speech, but Mr Duggan’s censorship of my words has given them greater impact.”

Unsubstantiated and unattributed intelligence rumours

[The following are excerpts from a report in The Sunday Times of 29 November 2009. The document referred to is a US State Department press release dating from April 1992 which appeared on the State Department website for many years and is well known to all who have taken the trouble to follow the Lockerbie case. What motivated the newspaper to draw  attention to it again in November 2009 remains a mystery.]

The Lockerbie bomber was implicated in the purchase and development of chemical weapons by Libya, according to documents produced by the American government.

The papers also claim that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi sought to sponsor Latin American terrorist groups and to buy 1,000 letter bombs from Greek arms dealers while working as a Libyan intelligence officer. The documents, which were prepared by the US State Department, reveal the extent of Megrahi’s alleged terrorist activities. (...)

In 1987, Megrahi was appointed director of Libya’s Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS), which served the Department of Military Procurement. In a section headed “Procurement of chemical weapons precursors”, the documents state: “An al-Megrahi subordinate operating in Germany in 1988 played an important role in acquiring and shipping chemical weapons precursors to Libya. Megrahi is also linked to a senior manager of Libya’s chemical weapons development program.” (...)

Bill Aitken, justice spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said the documents made a mockery of Britain’s ongoing trade links with Libya and the decision to release Megrahi. (...)

Frank Duggan, president of Washington-based Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, said that the documents shed further light on Megrahi's terrorist activities.

"It was pretty clear that investigators from the US and Scotland knew they had a bad penny with Megrahi. I had never heard of Megrahi being linked with chemical weapons but his involvement doesn't surprise me. This strengthens the case against Megrahi as being the Lockerbie bomber."

Tony Kelly, Megrahi’s lawyer in Scotland, said he was unaware of the existence of the State Department documents but was sure they were based on “unsubstantiated and unattributed intelligence rumours”.

“If there was any evidence backing any of this up I am absolutely certain it would have been introduced at trial, and it wasn’t,” he said.

Stumbling along

[What follows is excerpted from an article headlined Stretched to the limits by John Forsyth that was published in The Scotsman on this date in 2009:]

In the courts, the second appeal by the man convicted of planting the bomb on Pan Am 103, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, appeared to stumble earlier this month. A decision was expected on grounds 1 and 2 of Megrahi's appeal on 7 July. Instead the Lord President, Lord Hamilton, stunned everyone present when he announced that one of the five judges, Lord Wheatley, had undergone heart surgery and would not be able to participate further until September.

Lord Hamilton was asked by defence counsel Maggie Scott, QC, to consider appointing a "shadow" judge to the bench in consideration of Megrahi's deteriorating health. It is understood he will nominate a "shadow" shortly.

The problem has been that even with 36 Senators of the College of Justice, its highest-ever membership, it is difficult to find another judge who has not been "cup tied" by participation in a previous Lockerbie-related case – the original Camp Zeist trial, the five-judge bench that rejected Megrahi's first appeal, a role in the original prosecution or involvement in the 1990-91 fatal accident inquiry.

Professor Robert Black says there is an alternative solution available to the Lord President founded in normal Scots law: "The statutory quorum of judges for hearing criminal appeals is normally three. There was never any technical reason why Megrahi's new appeal had to be heard before five judges. They obviously chose to do so because the original trial was before three judges and the first appeal before a bench of five. That was in itself unusual because the number was specified in terms of a special Order in Council. But that Order in Council no longer applies. It expired at the end of the first appeal."

Prof Black's solution is to nominate the junior of the remaining four judges on the bench as the "shadow" in case of further misfortune, allowing the original schedule to be resumed. In parallel to the appeal, there is a separate process initiated by the application lodged by the government of Libya under the prisoner transfer agreement signed with the UK government in November 2008.

Scottish ministers are bound by the agreement and required to consider transfer applications made under it. Megrahi is the only known Libyan presently in jail in the UK. The Scottish Government received an application from the Libyan government in respect of Megrahi on 5 May. Responsibility for considering the application has fallen to justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, who has to carry out a quasi-judicial role in assessing the merits of the competing arguments.

As part of the exercise, MacAskill invited families of the US victims to take part in a video link consultation last week. The president of US Victims of Pan Am 103, retired lawyer Frank Duggan, says about eight family representatives were present in Washington and a similar number in New York. (...)

[Mr Duggan said] "It was very, very difficult and we were all blubbering. I got the impression Mr MacAskill was listening very carefully. Of course, he couldn't make comments, as that would compromise his role, but he was clearly going about his job properly."

Stephanie Bernstein, a recently-ordained Rabbi in Washington, says: "This decision for Mr MacAskill is very difficult, but very important."

Mr Duggan dismisses stories that said the US families had taken legal advice that would underpin an application for immediate judicial review should Mr MacAskill decided to grant the Libyan government application. "That is completely wrong," he says. "We haven't sought such legal opinion, nor do we intend to. There's no suggestion of us raising judicial review – as a group we don't have standing in the Scots jurisdiction. It's not an option.

"Don't get me wrong: if Megrahi is sent back, we will raise hell. It was clear in all the correspondence between the US, UK and the United Nations, if anyone was convicted (at Camp Zeist], they would serve the whole sentence in Scotland. That was the deal."

In terms of the prisoner transfer agreement, Mr MacAskill has 90 days from the date of the Libyan application, 5 May, to reach a decision. The application cannot proceed while legal proceedings continue; Megrahi would have to abandon his appeal to activate the transfer.

The key decision might not be a legal one, however. Megrahi's medical condition might cut across both the appeal and prisoner transfer agreement. If medical opinion were to establish that he is seriously ill and close to death, Mr MacAskill could order his release on compassionate grounds. On that basis, Megrahi would be deemed to have served his sentence in terms of Scots law.

Mr Duggan says: "There are thousands of prisoners in US jails with cancer who serve many years with it. We don't want a horrible death in jail for anyone, but at his bail hearing, it was said he could live for another five years. I think we have more faith in the Scottish legal system than you appear to over there."

Ex-minister's "blood money" book insult

This is the headline over a long article in the Scottish edition of today’s Daily Mail. It can be read here. It deals, of course, with Kenny MacAskill’s forthcoming Lockerbie book. As the headline suggests, most of the article consists of outraged comments by relatives of US victims (and also by Frank Duggan -- president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc -- who is not a victim’s relative). Some UK relatives of Lockerbie victims were also approached by the Daily Mail, but none of their comments is published, presumably because they did not fit in with Mail’s preferred slant on the story.

Q: If Libya, then Megrahi? A: No

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2010:]

Gadhafi admitted it!

This is the subject-heading of an e-mail sent by Arnaud de Borchgrave to Frank Duggan and copied by the latter to me. It reads as follows:

"As Gaddafi explained it to me, which you are familiar with, it was indeed Iran's decision to retaliate for the Iran Air Airbus shot down by the USS Vincennes on its daily flight from Bandar Abbas to Dubai that led to a first subcontracting deal to Syrian intel, which, in turn, led to the 2nd subcontract to Libyan intel. As he himself said if they had been first at this terrorist bat, they would not have put Malta in the mix; Cyprus would have made more sense to draw attention away from Libya."

According to Arnaud de Borchgrave, Gaddafi made the admission, off the record, in the course of an interview in 1993. His published account reads:

"Megrahi was a small cog in a much larger conspiracy. After a long interview with Gaddafi in 1993, this editor at large of The Washington Times asked Libya's supreme leader to explain, off the record, his precise involvement in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec 21, 1988, and for which Libya paid $2.7 billion in reparations. He dismissed all the aides in his tent (located that evening in the desert about 100 kilometers south of Tripoli) and began in halting English without benefit of an interpreter, as was the case in the on-the-record part of the interview.

"Gaddafi candidly admitted that Lockerbie was retaliation for the July 3, 1988, downing of an Iranian Airbus. Air Iran Flight 655, on a 28-minute daily hop from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in the Strait of Hormuz to the port city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates on the other side of the Gulf, was shot down by a guided missile from the Aegis cruiser USS Vincennes. The Vincennes radar mistook it for an F-14 Tomcat fighter (which Iran still flies); 290 were killed, including 66 children. A year before, in 1987, the USS Stark was attacked by an Iraqi Mirage, killing 37 sailors. The Vincennes skipper, Capt William Rogers, received the Legion of Merit, and the entire crew was awarded combat-action ribbons. The United States paid compensation of $61.8 million to the families of those killed on IR 655.

"Gaddafi told me, 'The most powerful navy in the world does not make such mistakes. Nobody in our part of the world believed it was an error.' And retaliation, he said, was clearly called for. Iranian intelligence subcontracted retaliation to one of the Syrian intelligence services (there are 14 of them), which, in turn, subcontracted part of the retaliatory action to Libyan intelligence (at that time run by Abdullah Senoussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law). 'Did we know specifically what we were asked to do?' said Gaddafi. 'We knew it would be comparable retaliation for the Iranian Airbus, but we were not told what the specific objective was,' Gaddafi added.

"As he got up to take his leave, he said, 'Please tell the CIA that I wish to cooperate with America. I am just as much threatened by Islamist extremists as you are.'

"When we got back to Washington, we called Director of Central Intelligence Jim Woolsey to tell him what we had been told off the record. Woolsey asked me if I would mind being debriefed by the CIA. I agreed. And the rest is history."

On the assumption that this account of an off-the-record conversation in 1993 is accurate, it in no way affects the wrongfulness of the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. As I have tried (without success) to explain to US zealots in the past, the fact -- if it be the fact -- that Libya was in some way involved in Lockerbie does not entail as a consequence that any particular Libyan citizen was implicated. The evidence led at the Zeist trial did not justify the guilty verdict against Megrahi. On that basis alone his conviction should have been quashed had the recently-abandoned appeal gone the full distance. That conclusion is reinforced (a) by the material uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and (b) by the material released on Mr Megrahi's website.

A highly personal smear campaign

[What follows is the text of an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009:]

Lockerbie doubters branded ‘Holocaust deniers’

[This is the headline over a report in today's Scottish edition of The Sunday Times. It reads as follows:]

A representative of families of American victims of the Lockerbie disaster has likened those questioning the guilt of the convicted Libyan bomber to “Holocaust deniers”.

Frank Duggan, an official spokesman for Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, described those who believe Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is innocent as a “shameless band of conspiracy mavens”.

Those criticised include Christine Grahame, the nationalist MSP, her researcher Mark Hirst, Robert Black, the Edinburgh-based legal expert who helped broker Megrahi’s trial in the Netherlands and Gareth Peirce, the London-based human rights lawyer.

In an email sent to Richard Marquise, a former FBI official who headed the investigation, Duggan said Grahame, Hirst, Black and Peirce were “no worse than Holocaust deniers who will not accept the facts before their faces”.

Grahame, who believes that Iran, not Libya, was behind the 1988 bombing, which claimed 270 lives, said Duggan’s comments were ludicrous. “My father and the fathers and grandfathers of many of the other people who are seeking the truth about who attacked Pan Am 103 were fighting the perpetrators of the Holocaust for three years before the US saw fit to get involved,” she said.

Hirst accused Duggan of a “highly personal” smear campaign against those who doubted the safety of Megrahi’s conviction.

The row reflects anger among the families of the American victims at the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, has outlived his three-month prognosis. Last week, MacAskill defended his decision to a Holyrood inquiry into the handling of Megrahi’s release, insisting that the medical advice was “quite clear”.

US intelligence files published last week claim Megrahi was involved in buying and developing chemical weapons for Libya.

Black declined to comment and Peirce was unavailable for comment.

[I declined to comment since I was unwilling to descend into the gutter with Mr Duggan.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which, on six grounds, found that Mr Megrahi's conviction may have amounted to a miscarriage of justice, no better than Holocaust deniers, forsooth!

According to The Chambers Dictionary "maven" or "mavin" is US slang, from Yiddish, for pundit or expert.

The full e-mail exchange between Mr Duggan, Richard Marquise and Mr Hirst can be read here.

An interesting commentary (in German) on The Sunday Times article can be found on the Austrian Wings website. A more general article on the Lockerbie affair on the same website by Editor in Chief Patrick Radosta can be read here.]