The Congressional Quarterly article

Here is the text of Jeff Stein’s recent article in Congressional Quarterly, as relayed to me by Richard Marquise, to whom I express my appreciation.

‘My Dec. 20 column warning that “Libya is close to getting off the hook” for millions of dollars due families who suffered the loss of loved ones in the Pan Am 103 and LaBelle discotheque bombings drew plenty of heat.

‘Some suggested that I had somehow taken Libya’s side by merely reporting on the conclusion of a Scottish criminal commission that a “miscarriage of justice” might have occurred in the Pan Am trial. Critics who support that view point to the early suspicions of U.S. intelligence that an Iranian-back terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, had really downed the airliner (in response to the accidental downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a U.S. Navy ship six months earlier).

‘Critics also denounced my reporting that at least two informants had received million-dollar rewards for providing evidence against the Libyans.

‘One of those who wrote me was the FBI agent in charge of the U.S. side of the PanAm 103 case, retired Special Agent Richard Marquise. After several e-mail exchanges, I invited him to write a critique for publication here. It is reproduced in its entirety below:

“We initially speculated it was the PFLP-GC based on events which had occurred in Germany in late 1988. We went with that premise until the painstaking evidence collection in Scotland (done by police officers not having any political agenda) turned the investigation in a different direction.

“By this time, we had reached an agreement with the CIA and other intelligence agencies to completely share information. With their assistance and the meticulous police investigation, this led to the eventual indictments.

“You quote several sources but Vince Cannistraro [the CIA official in charge of the agency’s investigation of PanAm 103] retired before the evidence began to lead to Libya.

“Your quote ‘more sinister factors were at work in the investigation’ which was attributed to Professor Black and other ‘authoritative sources close to the case’ is taken from people who only know what they believe but have no inside information.

“I can promise you as a 31-year FBI veteran who was proud of my service to America; no sinister forces were ever involved. If you (or anyone) were to speak with Stuart Henderson (the Scottish Senior Investigating Officer) or myself, we would tell you we followed the evidence, the way we were trained and no political or sinister forces were involved. Libya was implicated because of the evidence, not because we wanted to blame someone other than Syrian-backed terrorists.

“Edwin Bollier, the Swiss businessman who made the timer which blew up Pan Am Flight 103, seems to forget he went to a US Embassy in January 1989 after reading in the news that the ‘evidence’ pointed to the PFLP-GC cell in Germany (and therefore to Syria). He left an unsigned note implicating Libya — long before we knew anything about the timer, MEBO or Bollier, as that evidence was not developed until nearly two years would pass.

“Since 1992, Bollier’s story has changed. I would prefer to believe what he told a Swiss magistrate, the FBI and Scottish investigators in 1990 and 1991, not what he is now saying. I was the FBI official who met with Mr. Bollier in Washington, and I can assure you no one offered him (or any other witness for that matter) anything to implicate the Libyan Government.”

Note by RB: I simply wish to record my continuing conviction that the evidence led at the Lockerbie trial was insufficient to establish the guilt of Mr Megrahi (see the first posting on this blog in July 2007); that evidence that pointed in a different direction was suppressed and was not passed on to the defence; and that as a result of the forthcoming appeal necessitated by the (three-year long) investigation and findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, the unjustifiability of Mr Megrahi’s conviction will be clearly demonstrated.

[I eventually managed to maintain an internet connection for long enough to post this.]

Congressional Quarterly

On 20 December 2007, Congressional Quarterly published an article by Jeff Stein reporting the burgeoning doubts regarding the safety of the conviction of Abdel Baset Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing. This is referred to in a posting on this blog on 21 December. Richard A Marquise, who headed the FBI team that investigated the destruction of Pan Am 103 (and author of a book on the subject) has sent me a further article under Jeff Stein's byline in Congressional Quarterly, in which Mr Marquise is quoted expressing his confidence in the integrity of the investigation and the safety of the conviction of Mr Megrahi.

Because of the instability and slowness of my internet connection, I have been unable, in spite of valiant efforts, to post the full text of this new article on this blog. But I shall do so as soon as I find myself in a location which has an internet café with a broadband connection.

Inquests and Fatal Accident Inquiries

The Herald of 17 January 2008 has a lengthy article by Anne Johnstone about the circus that is the Diana and Dodi inquest. In the course of it, she refers as follows to the Fatal Accident Inquiry that took place after the destruction of Pan Am 103:

"It's easy to be smug, but it's hard to believe that this nonsense would have been allowed to unfold in Scotland. Fatal accident inquiries under a sheriff are the Scottish equivalent of the coroner's inquest. As well as covering deaths at work or in custody, they can be called by the Lord Advocate on the grounds that the death was sudden, suspicious, unexplained or gives rise to public concern. The biggest in recent years was for the Lockerbie disaster in which 270 people lost their lives. It took 61 days and cost £3m. In the Diana inquest that sum will barely cover security."

See
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.1971389.0.The_show_that_makes_a_mockery_of_legal_process.php

Rewards for Justice

The Sunday Post, the Scottish Sunday newspaper with the largest readership, published the following article by Adam Docherty about payment to witnesses in the Lockerbie trial on 13 January 2008:

'THE US justice department paid for evidence that helped convict Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing.

'With the next hearing in Megrahi's High Court Appeal due to take place next month, the admission casts a dark shadow over testimony at the original trial -- and the safety of the conviction.

'The Washington DC-based 'Rewards for Justice' organisation boasts that it has paid out more than 72 million dollars to over 50 people who have provided information that prevented international terrorist attacks or have brought to justice those involved in prior acts. Included on its website, in a list of those brought to justice, is Megrahi. Due to a strict policy of confidentiality Rewards for Justice will not name the witnesses nor divulge the exact amount paid to them.

'In June last year the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi's case back to the Court of Appeal after a three-year inquiry. They found six areas of concern and are believed to have uncovered a £2-million reward paid by the CIA to key witness, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci.

'Gauci was the only witness to link Megrahi directly to the bomb, and was therefore instrumental in convicting him on 31 January 2001. Gauci told the trial that Megrahi bought clothes in his shop, which were later used to wrap the bomb.

'At the trial, Gauci appeared uncertain about the exact date he sold the clothes in question, and was not entirely sure that it was Megrahi to whom they were sold. Nonetheless, Megrahi's appeal against conviction was rejected by the Scottish Court in the Netherlands in March 2002. Five years after the trial, former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, publicly described Gauci as being "an apple short of a picnic" and "not quite the full shilling".

'Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the 1988 bombing, is convinced that Megrahi is innocent. Yesterday he said that such huge sums offered to witnesses could encourage them to perjury.

'"Many jurists would consider that promises of money to secure 'evidence' from any individual do not accord with the principles of justice," he explained.

'"It is the timing of such promises rather the payments themselves that determine whether the 'evidence' is likely to be degraded. To many such witnesses such sums would alter their lives.

'"And such promises of money, if concealed from court -- or perhaps divulged only to prosecution -- could be considered a deliberate perversion of justice.

'"Witnesses are supposed to serve the truth. But the old Scots adage holds firm here - 'He who pays the piper calls the tune'.

'"This document gives some idea of the scale of the payments. It also removes any doubt as to whether payments were, indeed, made in this case."

The newspaper also published an article containing Dr Swire's detailed reactions to the revelations. These included the following:

'I entered the Zeist trial believing (as the British Foreign secretary had told us) that there was conclusive evidence of Libya's guilt, and none concerning the guilt of any other nation.

'This was the reason that we, the UK relatives, had made every conceivable effort, including three visits to Colonel Gaddafi, to persuade him to allow his citizens to undergo trial under Scottish criminal justice.

'Within days of the start of the trial at Zeist it became clear that fundamental requirements for the collection of evidence for a criminal trial had been breached, when the court was told that a suitcase, belonging to one of the US passengers had been removed from the crash site, by persons unknown, cut open, and then returned for the Scottish searchers to find, with some of its contents put back and even labelled with the name of the owner.

'The court accepted that the rectangular cutting into that suitcase could not have been a result of the explosion, but appeared unfazed by the possible implications for other items allegedly recovered as evidence. This had intense relevance later in the case to the question of a fragment of timer circuit board, the key forensic 'link' to the credibility of the bomb ever having started from Malta.

'There was evidence of the presence of numerous unidentified US agents roaming the site at a very early stage - a situation which the resources of the Scottish police could never have been expected to anticipate or control.

'From this unhappy start, the picture grew of how certain intelligence agencies had contributed to the assembly of much of the evidence. Intelligence services act in support of the perceived advantage of the countries for which they work: this may or may not be consistent with seeking the truth.

'Remember that for this trial there was no jury.

'Now, as you report, we have the proud exhibition by 'Rewards for Justice' in Washington DC of their use of 'more than 72 million dollars' in persuading witnesses to give evidence in terror-related cases. Former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie's, post trial assessment of the key witness, Mr Gauci, as being 'one apple short of a picnic' was not vouchsafed to the court, but can only serve now to emphasize the possibility that an offer of cash might have affected the evidence that Mr Gauci was willing to give.

'As a layman, I emerged from the Zeist hearings convinced that the verdict should never have been reached.'

Round-up from 9 to 15 January 2008

Now that I have had an opportunity to trawl the internet and the blogosphere, here are references to what I regard as the most interesting and/or significant contributions to Lockerbie knowledge over the past week.

1. Libyaonline and Mathaba on 12 January 2008 both run the same article saying that Libya's first action as President of the United Nations Security Council should be to institute a UN inquiry into the circumstances of the destruction of Pan Am 103, under the chairmanship of Professor Hans Koechler, with particular reference to the death of Bernt Carlsson, the UN Commissioner for Namibia, in the disaster. From internal evidence, I would guess that the author of the article, or a principal source, is Patrick Haseldine. My own view is that it would be embarrassing, and involve a conflict of interest, for Libya to institute, or press for the institution of, such a UN inquiry, given that it is a Libyan state servant who currently stands convicted (wrongly, in my view) of the bombing. See
http://www.libyaonline.com/news/details.php?id=1637
and
http://mathaba.net/rss/?x=577588

2. Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer has an article on 11 January 2008 in OhMyNews International entitled "Confession of an Iranian Terror Czar" in which he contends that Iranian Brigadier General Ahmad Beladi Behbahani confessed to Iran's responsibility for the destruction of Pan Am 103. Further circumstantial evidence is rehearsed. See
http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=381443&rel_no=1&back_url

3. A commentary on, and expansion of some of the supporting evidence in, Dr De Braeckeleer's article is to be found on the Angirfan blog on 12 January. See
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2008/01/lockerbie-behbahani-and-arrest-of-al.html

4. The following letter from Kathleen Flynn, mother of one of those killed on Pan An 103, appears in The New York Times of 12 January:

'Re “Rehabilitating Libya” (editorial, Jan. 5), which says President Bush and leaders of other countries should keep pressing Tripoli for change:

'As the mother of J. P. Flynn, who was blown out of the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland, in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, I hope that this administration makes your editorial required reading for all State Department employees.

'Any rehabilitation of Libya must start at the top with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the same supreme Libyan leader who ruled on Dec. 21, 1988, when a bomb brought down the Pan Am jet. I have a hard time justifying “business as usual” with a terrorist nation and find it even sadder that the call from the United States has not been for regime change.'

See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/opinion/l12libya.html?ref=opinion

The editorial to which Mrs Flynn refers appears at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/opinion/05sat3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

5. The Bulgarian news agency Focus on 12 January published an article entitled "Wanted: Home For Lockerbie Jumbo" which considers various proposals for the final disposal of the wreckage of the aircraft. See
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n131303

An interview with Megrahi

“On February 27, a Scottish court is expected to re-examine the Lockerbie case and hear the appeal submitted by Abd-al-Basit al-Miqrahi, the Libyan national convicted of involvement in the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over this Scottish district. Al-Miqrahi has been serving a life sentence in a prison in Glasgow -the largest city in Scotland -since being convicted of the bombing by an international court that was set up in the Netherlands. “Many observers believe that Al-Miqrahi could soon leave prison and return to Libya now that Britain and Libya have signed an extradition treaty by which he would serve the rest of his sentence in his country. This is a known practice between countries, with the most prominent example being Chad's consent to allow the French nationals convicted of abducting some 100 children from Chad and Darfur to return to Paris and serve the rest of their sentences in a French prison. “Al-Quds al-Arabi visited Al-Miqrahi in his Scottish prison, located 40 kilometres from Glasgow. Entry procedures to the prison were normal and the guards were extremely gentle -we were not even physically searched. We were accompanied by Abd-al-Rahman al-Suwaysi, Libyan general consul in Scotland, and Algerian attorney Sa'd Jabbar. Al-Miqrahi entered the visitation room wearing a thick wool hat, jeans trousers, and a wool jersey, and he had clearly gained weight due to lack of activity. “The words Al-Miqrahi kept repeating all the time were: ‘I did not receive a fair trial’ and that ‘several documents were withheld from the court.’ He laid out on the counter a file filled with paragraphs that had been suppressed, rather, entire pages had been blackened out to conceal information from the judge under the pretext of security considerations. “Anyone visiting Al-Miqrahi will note his extremely high spirits, his unusual sturdiness, and his strong belief in his innocence of all the charges he was convicted of. He would smile every now an then, especially when talking about the letters he had received from Scots who wished him happy holidays, believed in his innocence, and expressed solidarity with him. Al-Miqrahi said: ‘A victim's family wrote to me, saying that on behalf of the citizens of Scotland, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.’ “I asked Al-Miqrahi: ‘What about the Arabs?’ He replied sadly: ‘I have not received a single letter from an Arab, but I have received 27 letters from Scots …’ “He went on to say that Dr Swire, dean of the families of the victims, visited him in prison, as did Reverend John Reef [sic; probably means Rev John Mosey, father of one of the victims] and a number of other people, not to mention the Libyan consul, who visits him on a regular basis. Al-Miqrahi follows events in the Arab world through the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya channels, which he has been allowed to watch in his small cell, measuring no more than 2 by 1.5 meters. One day, a Scottish inmate visited him as he watched Opposite Direction in which the argument was in full swing; the inmate asked if he could understand what was being said, to which Al-Miqrahi said: ‘I can if you can.’ “Al-Miqrahi said that what touched him the most was the martyrdom of child Muhammad al-Durah and his father's desperate attempts to protect him, and added that the image of Muhammad and his father never leave him. Asked about his own children, he said that what pains him the most is that the Scottish Government refused to let them reside near his prison. He went on to say that he longs for them, and that he is especially saddened when his young son asks: ‘When are you coming back dad? You promised us many times that you would return soon.’ “He spoke affectionately and admiringly of South African leader Nelson Mandela, who had visited him in prison, saying that Mandela refused to be accompanied by any British official when he visited him in his prison in Scotland. He added that Mandela also called him when he was visiting the Netherlands because his Dutch hosts had told him that he cannot visit him in prison as it would be a breach of protocol. Al-Miqrahi said that he wrote to many Arab leaders telling them that he wants a free trial, but that none of them replied, not even to humour him. “We asked Consul Abd-al-Rahman if he would remain in his post if Al-Miqrahi is transferred to Libya as expected, to which he said that he would not stay a single day because the consulate was originally opened in order to care for Al-Miqrahi and provide him with all means of comfort. For his part, attorney Sa'd Jabbar, who sat in on the visit, said that the Libyan Government exerted immense pressures on the British Government to retry or deport Al-Miqrahi - pressures that included a suspension of trade agreements. He expected Al-Miqrahi to return very soon. “Al-Miqrahi said that he would return to Libya because he misses his homeland and family, but that he wants to return an innocent man, not a convicted one, adding that he is confident that any free trial would exonerate him of the charges brought against him. His eyes filled with tears of anguish. Asked about food and whether he misses Bazin, Mabkakah, Isban, and Kuskusi, and he said: ‘I miss a lot of these foods even though the consulate supplied me with daily meals throughout the month of Ramadan, but food is not important, freedom and innocence, however, are.’ - Al-Quds al-Arabi, United Kingdom, 6 January 2008

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Service -- of a sort -- resumed

I have arrived at my base in the Northern Cape, where I discover that my internet connection is even slower and less reliable than I had anticipated through previous experience here. Sending and receiving e-mails is problematical, and performing an internet search is virtually impossible. It therefore looks as if updating this blog will have to be largely confined to such research as I can do during my weekly trips (over eighty kilometres of dirt roads) to the nearest centre of population where there is an internet café with a broadband connection. May I therefore repeat my plea to readers of the blog to e-mail me with Lockerbie-related material that they have found.

I am very grateful to Pierre Prier of Le Figaro for sending me the English version of the article from al-Quds al-Arabi, a slightly shortened version of which will appear as the next post.

Normal service ...

... will be resumed as soon as possible. But probably not before 11th January. For the next six months I'll be in a very remote spot in the Northern Cape where I'm constrained by a painfully slow internet connection, which will make trawling the web for Lockerbie material much more of a chore than hitherto. I will therefore be very grateful to anyone who draws my attention to such items (though please not by means of lengthy e-mail attachments, which would take aeons to download there).

Paying for evidence is contrary to justice

Dr Jim Swire has a letter in today's issue of The Herald in which he draws attention to the fact that the US authorities have disclosed that payments were made to witnesses for information in the Lockerbie case. [It is thought that one of those who received a substantial payment was Tony Gauci, who was treated by the trial judges as having identified Megrahi as the purchaser of the clothes that surrounded the bomb -- though he, in fact, never made an unqualified positive identification.] Dr Swire enquires whether such payments to witnesses might taint their evidence. [It is believed that the -- at the time, undisclosed -- payment to Gauci will feature as one of the Grounds of Appeal in the forthcoming proceedings.] For the full text of Dr Swire's letter, see:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.1948469.0.Paying_for_evidence_is_contrary_to_justice.php

Sir John Scarlett

Trowbridge H Ford, author, amongst other things, of a biography of Lord Chancellor Brougham, has produced an assessment of the career of Sir John Scarlett, current Director of SIS (often referred to as MI6). In the second part of the series (entitled 'MI6' s Sir John Scarlett: A Career of Increasingly Dangerous Failure') Ford refers to Scarlett's rôle in the aftermath of the destruction of Pan Am 103 as follows:

'By this time [December 1990], Scarlett was busily arranging the set up of Libya for more terrorism. On December 21,1988, Pan Am Flight 103 had blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including Charles McKee's CIA investigative team returning from Beirut where it had been uncovering the deepest secrets of the Iran-Contra scandal - apparently Syrian Monzar Al-Kassar's efforts to free hostages there, and in Africa for the French in return for continued protection of his drug-smuggling operations. While this was going on, Al-Kassar's people learned everything they needed to know about how to stop it from returning to the States. When CIA's handlers of Al-Kassar in Washington learned of this, they allowed a suspicious suitcase on the plane despite a NSA warning of an attack on an airliner, thinking, it seems, that it was just more of his drug operations when, in fact, his associates slipped a Semtex device on the flight originating from Frankfurt.

Uncovering the real cause of the Lockerbie tragedy was most politically inexpedient as London and Washington were increasingly focusing on a showdown with Iraq's Saddam Hussein. In any confrontation with the dictator, it was essential to have both Syria and Iran at least on the sidelines, something impossible if Al-Kassar, brother-in-law of Syria's intelligence chief, and lover of its despot Hafez Al-Assad's niece, were ever indicted for the crime. As in the Palme assassination, the failure to find some apparent culprit for the mass murder - what could increasingly not be simply blamed on unknown terrorists - was putting more and more pressure on West Germany's counterterrorists for apparently allowing it to happen. The real story had to be buried, as Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen wrote in The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, "in the graveyard of geopolitics." (p. 286)

Scarlett, it seems, was the grave digger. On September 19, 1989, a Union des Transport Aériens (UTA) flight exploded over the Sahara in Niger while on its way from Brazzaville to Paris, via N'Djamena in Chad, killing all 171 passengers, including American Ambassador to Chad Robert Pugh's wife Bonnie, leaving "...a scene all too reminiscent of Lockerbie, Scotland." (Ted Gup, The Book of Honor, p. 310) The similarity was not missed by France's DST, and Scarlett, the SIS resident in Paris, either, and they soon started connecting together the two bombings at Libya's expense.

Robert Pugh was the deputy chief of mission in Beirut who had had to clean up the mess when the American Embassy was bombed in April 1983, and the resulting CIA Counterterrorist Center (CTC) to stop such atrocities required a no-holds-barred solution to the Lockerbie bombing. Inter-agency cooperation of the highest degree, both domestic and foreign, was required if any culprits were ever to be caught, given the new legal restraints on how intelligence operations were to be conducted.

The task was to link Libya as having "...been ultimately responsible for both Pan Am 103 and UTA 772." (Ibid.) While authorities were searching the desert for the wreckage of the French airliner, they apparently found the circuit board which was responsible for the IED explosion - what reminded investigators of what had happened to the same UTA flight back on March 10, 1984 when it exploded without loss of life while parked on the tarmac in Brazzaville - and now Anglo-American authorities worked together to create the same scene in the Scotland wreckage. A CIA agent planted parts from the same kind of detonator in the wreckage area of the Lockerbie crash while looking for belongings of its deceased personnel which was found by Bureau agents in early 1990 while they were searching for evidence of what caused the crash.

As in the Palme fiasco, Scarlett worked with the former SIS agent in Oslo, Robert Andrew Fulton apparently aka Mack Falkirk, who became its chief agent in Washington. While Scarlett was persuading his superiors to allow the CIA and FBI complete access to the Lockerbie crash site, Fulton was priming their superiors back in Washington to make the most of the opportunity. Scarlett put the icing on the cake, it seems, by persuading Abd Al-majid Jaaka, a Libyan intelligence officer who had defected to the British embassy in Tunis, to tell his story to the Americans in Rome, and claim that two former colleagues had prepared the bomb which blew up the airliner in revenge for the UK/USA bombing of Tripoli after the Palme assassination. The ruse was so successful that by the time Libya finally handed over the two fallguys for trial in Holland, Anglo-American covert operators were completely in charge of the prosecution.

Scarlett's particular contribution to their conviction, as MI6's Director of Security and Public Affairs, was to persuade disgruntled MI5 whistleblower Daivd Shayler to join SIS, and to claim that Gaddafi's destruction of Pan Am flight 103 had so angered SIS that it had plotted to assassinate him, with Al-Qaeda's help, in 1995/6. As Shayler and his former mistress Annie Machon have written in Spies, Lies & Whistleblowers: while there was no credible evidence that the Iranians were behind the Lockerbie bombing there was no question that Gaddafi was. With everyone fixed on the alleged SIS assassination of the Libyan leader, it helped make their claim about Lockerbie tragedy a foregone conclusion.

To add injury to injury, Machon and Shayler made it sound as if Scarlett was the victim of some kind of British Stalinism where intelligence service chiefs were obliged to go along with what their political bosses demanded. As Dame Stella Rimington had explained her appointment to head the Security Service in her autobiography, Open Secrets, as learning to go along with her superiors, so Scarlett became SIS director general after his time as head of the Joint Intelligence Committee where he supinely agreed to the doctoring of the 'dodgy dossier' on Iraq's alleged WMD to suit the demands of Downing Street. They added:

"David has always said that the intelligence services are anything but meritocratic, with those not rocking the boat more likely to be promoted than those who stand up for what is right. Scarlett's appointment has provided more than ample proof of that." (p. 357)

To show that this was anything but the truth, Scarlett then arranged for his buddy Andrew Fulton to officially resign from SIS, and take up a visiting professorship at Glasgow's School of Law, though he had had no legal training, much less any legal degrees. In 2000, he volunteered his services as legal advisor to the Lockerbie Commission on briefing the press about the trial [sic; a reference to Glasgow University's Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit], and his handiwork became so notorious that he was forced to resign, once his background became known. For a sample of it, see what Machon and Shayler did with the British media's attempts to exonerate Qaddafi for Lockerbie.'

For the full text, with supporting references, see
http://codshit.blogspot.com/2008/01/mi6s-sir-john-scarlett-career-of.html

The happy new year?

The Sunday Herald asked a number of Scots prominent in different fields for their views on what 2008 holds. Here is what Edinburgh-based human rights lawyer John Scott had to say about law and the legal system:

"Things are overwhelmingly pessimistic for 2008. Although Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has made it clear there are on-going consultations with the profession over the government's plans to reform legal aid, which could see accused people invited to represent themselves in court, there are going to be significant income reductions in legal aid for lawyers, and fewer young people coming into the profession at a time when few are already taking up jobs.

The number of cases going to be dealt with by the police and the fiscal, rather than going to court, is also worrying.

This is not a golden age for the law, particularly in relation to appeals and maintaining the principles of Scots law. We have some major appeals - including Luke Mitchell, William Beggs, and the Lockerbie appeal - that could determine what the law looks like. The system doesn't appear to have the fairness it used to have."

Shalgam's visit to the US, continued

Further coverage by The Washington Post of Libyan Foreign Minister Shalgam's visit to the United States:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/01/03/ST2008010303302.html

And here is a slightly different perspective from Middle East Online:
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=23761

Shalgam's visit to the United States

Here is a link to The Washington Post's coverage of the visit of Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam to the United States:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/02/AR2008010202832.html

As regards Lockerbie, the article states:

'Not all the old issues have been resolved, however, which limited Shalqam's White House visit to a sightseeing tour -- without any meetings with White House or National Security Council staff members, U.S. officials said. The Libyan delegation was hoping for a meeting with Vice President Cheney.

Libya has yet to pay $2 million per victim for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, for which two of Libyan intelligence agents were convicted. Families have been paid $8 million per victim, but the final installment was contingent on Libya being removed by a certain date from the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism. When the date passed, Libya withdrew the money.

The families have been pressing the Bush administration to pressure Gaddafi's regime to pay up. "The State Department betrayed us by not protesting the Libyan withdrawal of money from escrow in February 2005," said Rosemary Wolfe, a spokeswoman for the victims' families. "Their feet should be held to the fire."

The families had planned to protest outside the State Department today but decided that their actions would be lost in the focus on the Iowa caucuses, said Wolfe, who charged that the visit was deliberately timed to coincide with another major news event.

"There's still a lot to be done with respect to instituting basic freedoms within Libya. There's still some outstanding issues with respect to claims by U.S. citizens. Those need to be resolved," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is unlikely to visit Tripoli until the compensation issue has been resolved, U.S. officials said, despite her public statement that she was looking forward to a trip to Libya this year.'

Iain McKie on criminal justice

In The Scotsman today, Iain McKie (former police officer and father of Shirley) has an op-ed piece expressing grave concern about criminal justice in the United Kingdom, with particular reference to forensic scientific evidence. He writes:

“The Omagh bombing, the World's End Murders, the Templeton Woods murder and the SCRO fingerprint case have all shown that previously infallible evidence is indeed fallible and finally the prosecution system is being forced to review its whole forensic strategy.

While this is bad enough, Lockerbie and other cases have also revealed evidence of police and Crown Office incompetence, political intrigue and a court and legal system struggling to cope.

A system where justice takes forever and at a prohibitive cost. Slowly the realisation is dawning that we are faced with a justice system no longer fit for purpose. A system where there is very real danger of the innocent being found guilty and the guilty escaping punishment. Instead of the usual face saving 'first aid' aimed at preserving the power and privilege of those within the system, the time is long overdue for broad ranging public and political debate aimed at creating an open, accountable and accessible system.”

See http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/opinion/Alternative-take.3631585.jp

Rice to meet Shalgam

The following is from today's issue of The Scotsman:

'Thursday: Condoleezza Rice is due to meet Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalqam [sic; normally "Shalgam"] in Washington "to discuss unresolved issues concerning the bombing of Flight 103 on 21 December, 1988, over Lockerbie" among other issues. It will be the first time a Libyan foreign minister has been in Washington for 35 years.'

See
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Tense-forecast-for-Hogmanay-weather.3628798.jp

The "unresolved issues" presumably relate to the last tranche of the relatives' compensation, which did not fall to be paid over since the United States failed to remove Libya from its list of "state sponsors of terrorism" by the date prescribed in the compensation agreement.