Federal investigation of Lockerbie continues, says US Attorney General

[What follows is taken from a report published today on the Syracuse.com website:]

US Attorney General Eric Holder says the federal investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 will continue despite the recent death of the Libyan agent convicted in the 1988 attack.

Holder, testifying today before a Senate committee, was asked by US Sen Charles Schumer if there was a renewed effort to hold accountable others who might have helped plan or execute the planting of a bomb on board the flight.

Holder said he met recently with the Libyan prime minister, who was visiting the United States, and pressed him for a full accounting of Libya's involvement.

"I think there is still a basis to believe that more investigation is warranted, and we are pressing the Libyan government in that regard," Holder said.

The bombing on Dec. 21, 1988 killed 270 people when a flight from London exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Among the dead were 35 Syracuse University students returning from a semester abroad and five others with ties to Central New York. (…)

Schumer, D-NY, told Holder that it's very likely al-Megrahi did not act alone, and that his accomplices have not been brought to justice. The senator said it's important for the families of the victims to continue the investigation.

"To know that other people are living freely, particularly when there is a different Libyan government now, is unfair" to the victims' families, Schumer said.

Lockerbie imbalance

[This is the heading over a letter from B Seymour of Victoria, Australia, in the current edition of the Guardian Weekly.  It reads as follows:]

With reference to the leader comment on the Lockerbie bombing (25 May), wasn't this about the same time that a US warship mistakenly shot down an Iranian commercial aircraft in the Persian Gulf? As I recall, hundreds of pilgrims to Mecca were killed. The US made a formal apology and that was the end of it.

We are angry about what is done to us, but not at what we do to others.

[The following paragraph is taken from the Wikipedia article Iran Air Flight 655:]

 In 1996, the United States and Iran reached "an agreement in full and final settlement of all disputes, differences, claims, counterclaims" relating to the incident at the International Court of Justice.^* As part of the settlement, the United States agreed to pay US$61.8 million, an average of $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims. However, the United States has never admitted responsibility, nor apologized to Iran.^**

^*Aerial Incident of 3 July 1988 (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America) — Settlement Agreement. International Court of Justice. 9 February 1996.

^**The Iran-Iraq War: The Politics of Aggression by Farhang Rajaee University Press of Florida

Lockerbie: 'We need the truth'

[This is the headline over an article published on 7 June in the Exeter Express and Echo.  It reads in part:]

The father of an Exeter schoolgirl killed in the Lockerbie disaster is continuing his fight for the full truth to come out after the death of the only man so far convicted of the bombing. (...)

[Melina Hudson] was flying home for the Christmas break after spending the term at Exeter School as part of an exchange programme. (...)

Melina's father Paul Hudson, who spoke exclusively to the Echo from his Florida home, has been a leading campaigner seeking justice for his daughter and the other victims.

Mr Hudson, who is the president of the Families of Pan Am 103 group, expressed hope that with Megrahi and former Libyan dictator Gaddafi both now dead, the authorities will reveal the truth behind the atrocity.

He said: "As the Lord Advocate (Frank Mulholland) and the FBI Director (Robert Mueller) have travelled to Libya and presented a letter requesting Libyan government co-operation, I am hopeful that, with appropriate pressure by the US and UK, the investigation can finally go forward.

"The Libyans have promised to co-operate on several occasions but have never followed through and until now have never been pressed.

"Megrahi has been implicated by new evidence after the trial but his defenders only mention the evidence they claim casts doubt on his conviction, and did not present sufficient evidence to reverse the guilty verdict according to two appeal decisions. [RB: I am not aware of any new evidence implicating Megrahi after his trial. Only one appeal decision in the case was ever issued. The limitations under which that appeal court operated are explained in this article, section headed “The Appeal”.]

"Without vigorous pursuit of the investigation now that Gaddafi is gone, not only will justice not be done and the truth not come out, but the integrity of the UK, Scottish and US justice systems will be sullied with allegations of corruption, manipulation and the manufacturing of evidence."

Hopes of finding the truth may now rest with a group of people in Libya previously close to the Gaddafi regime.

One is interim president, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, a former Gaddafi justice minister, who has claimed he has evidence Gaddafi ordered the bombing.

Another target could be Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, who stood trial with Megrahi but was acquitted.

Attention could also return to Abdullah Senussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law and security chief. Mr Senussi is currently under arrest in Mauritania, awaiting extradition proceedings – either to Libya, or The Hague, where he has been indicted on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court.

Mr Hudson added: "Libya should defer to the US criminal investigation. US support was key to Gaddafi being overthrown. Senussi now has every reason to co-operate with US investigators in naming names of those involved in the Lockerbie bombing and potentially avoiding extradition to Libya."

Cost of Scottish public inquiries

[Christine Grahame MSP has lodged two parliamentary questions seeking information on the cost of public inquiries in held Scotland since 1999.  The answers could be relevant to Justice for Megrahi’s petition (PE1370) for an inquiry into the prosecution and conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. Although the Scottish Government has not yet cited cost as a reason for opposing such an inquiry, some SNP supporters have done so.  The questions read as follows:]

Question S4W-07671: Christine Grahame, Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale, Scottish National Party, Date Lodged: 06/06/2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what consideration it has given to either a taxation process or fixed fee system in respect of public inquiries.

Current Status: Expected Answer date 20/06/2012

Question S4W-07672: Christine Grahame, Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale, Scottish National Party, Date Lodged: 06/06/2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what the cost of (a) administration and (b) legal fees has been for each public inquiry held since 1999.

Current Status: Expected Answer date 20/06/2012

Overall the al-Megrahi story is a disgraceful one

[A long review of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury appears in Lobster magazine written by regular contributor, Tom Easton.  It contains the following:]

Many were complicit in what amounted to a show trial and their careers continue to flourish.* But there were also those who swam against the tide of managed conformity. Al-Megrahi speaks well of his treatment by many individuals in the Scottish police and prison services, of families who wanted to know what  really happened to their murdered relatives,** of lawyers who battled the legal, political and intelligence establishments of the US and UK.***

The Scottish legal journal The Firm has kept constant vigil on Lockerbie. Its two-part archive is invaluable to those wishing to know more.**** Al-Jazeera has produced some good material, too, and the links to that are available through Ashton’s  website.***** And there a few journalists and politicians who emerge with credit for taking an independent approach to Lockerbie when career considerations might well have taken them into less controversial areas.

Yet overall the al-Megrahi story is a disgraceful one: the compounding of the grief of the Lockerbie bereaved by a corrupting, state-organised deception that identifies the wrong person as the cause of their anguish. It is a story told well here by a determined researcher and the man jailed for something he did not do.

The last words for now are those of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi:

‘It is ironic that three of Scotland’s best legal minds believed me to be guilty, yet the ordinary Scots who got to know me believed I was innocent. To them, and to all the others who have shown me kindness over the past decade, I offer my heartfelt thanks.  Almost certainly I will die with the weight of my conviction still on my shoulders. My conscience, however, will be clear, and until my last breath I shall pray that the real stories of Lockerbie will one day be known to all.’

* A  recent  example is  reported  at 

www.firmmagazine.com/news/2930/Boyd_makes_the_Bench_despite_

Pan_Am_103_stain.html

** www.lockerbietruth.com/

*** http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/

**** www.firmmagazine.com/features/1131/The_Pan_Am_103_ 

Archive%3A_Part_1.html  and  www.firmmagazine.com/features/1132/ 

The_Pan_Am_103_Archive_-_Part_2.html

***** www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net/

Leaving Lockerbie behind

[This is the headline over an article by Jason Pack published today on the Project Syndicate website.  It reads in part:]

Last month, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, died in his home in Tripoli. With his burial, the engrained mistrust between Libya and the West, epitomized by Lockerbie’s enduring political potency, should be interred as well. It is time to move on. (...)

In the wake of the Lockerbie bombing – at the time the deadliest terrorist attack in history, and still the deadliest on British soil – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan united in isolating Libya. They and their successors used Lockerbie as a pretext to press for the adoption of crippling UN sanctions. Indeed, from 1992-1999, Libya was literally cut off from the world: international flights to and from the country were banned. Meanwhile, GNP fell by more than a third; oil infrastructure rusted; and many Libyans grew up in a cocoon of Qaddafi’s anti-imperialist rhetoric.

Eventually, economic sanctions compelled Qaddafi to distance himself from international terror and to turn over Megrahi – as well as another suspect, Lamin Fhima, who was later acquitted – to face a Scottish tribunal at Camp Zeist in Holland. But there was never any conclusive evidence that Megrahi was involved in the Lockerbie bombing. In fact, most experts still believe that he was convicted using fraudulent evidence, and that the CIA bribed witnesses.

Furthermore, Libya formally accepted responsibility for the bombing, agreeing to pay more than $2 billion to victims’ families, and to abandon its weapons of mass destruction program. Yet, despite Qaddafi’s hope for a warmer embrace from Western leaders (and a flood of investment), the relationship remained plagued by mutual suspicion and frequent backsliding.

Anger over Scotland’s decision in 2009 to release Megrahi, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, ostensibly on humanitarian grounds, further poisoned Libya’s relations with the West. In Libyan diplomats’ eyes, Western countries had no right to chastise them; after all, they had paid reparations, and it was not their decision to release Megrahi. But skeptics claim that his release was intended to secure a favorable contract in Libya for British Petroleum, and Qaddafi’s erratic behavior, like declaring jihad against Switzerland in 2010, did little to build confidence.

If Megrahi was a powerful symbol of a century of mistrust between Libya and the West, his death can open the door to a new era of cooperation. In today’s Libya, French, American, and British flags abound, and young people dream of mastering a foreign language. Many members of the National Transitional Council were educated abroad and are eager for more Western capacity-building assistance. And Libya has officially requested that the UN monitor its elections next month.

But minor diplomatic breakdowns continue to threaten the relationship. To avoid reverting to old patterns, Western governments and companies must respect that there is a uniquely Libyan way of doing things, and understand that imposing Western norms simply will not work. At the same time, they should avoid grandstanding about Megrahi’s passing, and sensationalist Western media must not try to reinvigorate the controversy. Conversely, Libyans must stop seeing conspiracies behind every move in international diplomacy.

The Lockerbie tragedy is a dark chapter in Libya’s past, which all Libyans are eager to shake off. The West should let them.

Delay in reviewing Lockerbie verdict obstructs search for real perpetrators

[This is the headline over two letters in today’s edition of The Herald.  They read as follows:]

Unless relevant material available to the prosecution is also made available to the defence no trial can be considered fair.

Surely Westminster, David Miliband, the Advocate General and the Crown Office know that? They were certainly told it in no uncertain terms by Professor Hans Koechler, the UN special observer, to the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi after the verdict ("How UK Government hid secret Lockerbie report", The Herald, June 1).

If the failure of the Crown to disclose the Jordanian document was the only such failure, perhaps one could park much of the blame onto the UK Government and its supporters.

But we now know that the Crown Office was responsible also for the failure to pass the evidence of the Heathrow break-in to the defence until after the trial was over, despite having been in possession of it from the first month of 1989. There is the strongest of probable links between this break-in and the Jordanian's bombs.

The bombs which the Jordanian Marwhan Kreesat was making for the Syrian PFLP-GC group in 1988 were of the air-pressure-sensitive type. They were all made to explode after 35-45 minutes flight in an aircraft, but never on the ground.

They required access for the terrorist to the actual airport of origin of the plane being targeted. It was the Crown Office (or the police) which failed to pass on information that Heathrow airport had been broken into 16 hours before the Lockerbie plane was destroyed.

Kreesat, after being arrested by German police in possession of one such bomb, was allowed to return promptly to Jordan after a phone call to Amman.

The Crown Office's claim that the absence of the Heathrow evidence made no difference to the verdict is, in my opinion, a blatant attempt at self justification.

The delay in reviewing the verdict may be an obstruction to the search for the real perpetrators.

The Megrahi family is still denied the chance to clear his name posthumously.

When I went to see the late Colonel Gaddafi for the first time in 1991, I knew I was risking my life when the safety catches clicked off on the AK-47s of his female bodyguards.

I had risked it to explain to him that I believed his men would get the fairest of trials under Scottish criminal law.

I blush to think of that now. Even tyrants deserve to be told the truth. So do the relatives.

Dr Jim Swire

I should like to compliment Lucy Adams on her dogged persistence in regard to the Megrahi case.

After 25 years in Saudi Arabia I retired from the desert kingdom in 2005, although I still travel to the Middle East in a consultancy capacity.

I remember July 3, 1988, very well when the USS Vincennes downed an Iranian civil aircraft and the calamitous outrage in the predominately Shia-dominated eastern region of Saudi Arabia following the incident, appeased six months later in the aftermath of Lockerbie. From that time until now, Libya was never mentioned as a culprit although the Palestinians most certainly were in their capacity as mercenaries for Iran.

Roderick MacSween

Lockerbie: Steckte wirklich Libyen dahinter?

I am grateful to Edwin Bollier for drawing my attention to this long article in German in the current issue of the Swiss magazine Beobachter.  The title translates as "Lockerbie: was Libya really behind it?" It deals principally with the evidence relating to the (alleged) timer fragment PT35b that was presented by the Crown at Zeist (and accepted by the court) as showing a link between Libya and the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103. As metallurgical investigation has now demonstrated, however, PT35b did not come from one of the MST13 timers supplied by Mr Bollier's company MEBO to Libya. A reasonably good translation of the article is available through Google Translate.

Justice: Chicago and Lockerbie

[The greatest poem written in English about justice is, in my view, Carl Hamblin, from Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology.  It reads as follows:]

The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked,

And I was tarred and feathered,
For publishing this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago:
“I saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes
Standing on the steps of a marble temple.
Great multitudes passed in front of her,
Lifting their faces to her imploringly.
In her left hand she held a sword.
She was brandishing the sword,
Sometimes striking a child, again a laborer,
Again a slinking woman, again a lunatic.
In her right hand she held a scale;
Into the scale pieces of gold were tossed
By those who dodged the strokes of the sword.
A man in a black gown read from a manuscript:
'She is no respecter of persons.'
Then a youth wearing a red cap
Leaped to her side and snatched away the bandage.
And lo, the lashes had been eaten away
From the oozy eye-lids;
The eye-balls were seared with a milky mucus;
The madness of a dying soul
Was written on her face—
But the multitude saw why she wore the bandage.”

[Perhaps, one day, the multitude (and the Scottish Government) will recognise the affront to justice that the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi constitutes.]

Lockerbie update

[This is the headline over an article just published on the website of Private Eye.  It reads in part:]

For 19 years prosecutors and investigators kept secret a detailed report about the most important forensic evidence from the debris of Pan Am 103 at Lockerbie – a fragment of timing device circuit board – which completely undermined their own case against Abdelbasset al-Megrahi.

That such crucial material, obtained by the Eye, was never disclosed before the Libyan was convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity on UK soil, should in itself be sufficient grounds for a public inquiry. Added to the wealth of evidence concealed from his trial, the deeply flawed identification evidence “linking” Megrahi to the bombing, the use of a discredited Walter Mitty-type CIA informer as a “star witness”, and the fact that other material in the case is still secret, protected by “public interest immunity”, the stench of a cover-up becomes overwhelming.

A significant lead
The 11-page report details the forensic analysis of the circuit board. It reveals that police and experts were aware, relatively early in the investigation, that there was something “very unusual” about the board. They had found that tracks on it were coated with pure tin, whereas the vast majority in manufacture have a tin/lead mix. This was a significant lead.

“Without exception it is the view of all experts involved in the PCB [printed circuit board] industry who have assisted with this enquiry that the tin application on the tracks of the circuit was by far the most interesting feature,” said the police report.

Scandalously this was never revealed at Megrahi’s trial and not disclosed to his defence lawyers until 2009 – a month before he was freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds to return to Libya where he recently died. The Crown’s case against Megrahi regarding the circuit board was always the opposite: namely, that the fragment was identical to circuit boards used in timers that were supplied to Libya by a Swiss company, Mebo. But these were not remotely “unusual” as they had the common tin/lead mix.

Buried evidence
Earlier this year writer and researcher John Ashton, in his book Megrahi: You are my Jury, revealed how government forensic scientist Allen Feraday, who had told the trial that the circuit fragment was “similar in all respects” to the Mebo devices, had in fact overseen tests on the fragment and a control sample circuit board (revealed in recently disclosed notebooks) which pointed up the differences between the two. As this new document shows, the significance of such findings was known more widely. This raises serious questions about why the evidence remained buried for years and who exactly knew the Mebo timers were different.

The piece of board was found among parts of a man’s shirt recovered from the crash site. The shirt was in turn traced to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who put Megrahi in the frame three years after the bombing, saying he resembled the man who had bought the clothing. (As longstanding Eye readers will know, Megrahi bore no resemblance to the man first described by Gauci, and it later emerged that the shopkeeper and his brother had been handsomely “rewarded” by the FBI.)

Hallmarks of a Syrian-backed Palestinian cell
The new material and the doubts about the veracity of the Gauci evidence undermine the two main pillars of Megrahi’s conviction. And while the Libyans were not averse to state-sponsored terrorism at the time of the bombing in 1988, it remains the case – as the late Paul Foot pointed out in the Eye’s special report, Lockerbie: The Flight from Justice, in 2001 – that the attack bore the hallmarks of a Syrian-backed Palestinian terrorist cell which had been caught red-handed with devices equipped to bring down planes.

The excuse given for not holding a public inquiry into Megrahi’s conviction is that the criminal investigation is continuing. So far investigators only seem to have travelled to Libya – no doubt to see if they can obtain new evidence that might somehow prop up the crumbling conviction.