Sincere thanks to all those commentators who have debated and disputed, informed and entertained on this blog in the course of 2009. Lang may your lums reek!
"A guid new year to ane an' a'
An' mony may ye see,
An' during a' the years to come,
O happy may ye be.
An' may ye ne'er hae cause to mourn,
To sigh or shed a tear;
To ane an' a' baith great an' sma'
A hearty guid New Year."
Thursday, 31 December 2009
On Libya's admission of "responsibility"
[This is the heading over the latest Lockerbie post by Adam "Caustic Logic" Larson on his blog The 12/7-9/11 Treadmill and Beyond. It begins as follows:]
I recently started an interesting discussion thread at the JREF forum, fishing for thoughts on why people believe the official line on the Lockerbie bombing so fervently. I hadn't yet encountered any serious questions in the course of previous brilliant and provocative discussions - just a few drive-by statements supporting Megrahi's and Col. Gaddafy's absolute guilt, but never accompanied by evidence of any real knowledge. Among the questions and counter-points I suggested people could offer, if they knew anything, was "Libya admitted responsibility and paid out billions of dollars!" And if they had asked, I would answer like this:
There is no doubt that the Libyan government did issue a statement admitting responsibility, and agreed to pay compensation, among other measures, in 2003. It was an explicit pre-condition, inssted by Washington, to having broad UN sanctions lifted. Triploi has always defended its innocence of Lockerbie, but to function in the global economy, they had to do something. Here they managed to not explicitly break the rule, and using careful (cynical?) wordplay, managed to accept responsibility without admitting guilt. Sanctions were lifted.
[The remainder of the post gives a convincing explanation of how the "admission of responsibility" came about and how it has been (wilfully?) misconstrued in the media.]
I recently started an interesting discussion thread at the JREF forum, fishing for thoughts on why people believe the official line on the Lockerbie bombing so fervently. I hadn't yet encountered any serious questions in the course of previous brilliant and provocative discussions - just a few drive-by statements supporting Megrahi's and Col. Gaddafy's absolute guilt, but never accompanied by evidence of any real knowledge. Among the questions and counter-points I suggested people could offer, if they knew anything, was "Libya admitted responsibility and paid out billions of dollars!" And if they had asked, I would answer like this:
There is no doubt that the Libyan government did issue a statement admitting responsibility, and agreed to pay compensation, among other measures, in 2003. It was an explicit pre-condition, inssted by Washington, to having broad UN sanctions lifted. Triploi has always defended its innocence of Lockerbie, but to function in the global economy, they had to do something. Here they managed to not explicitly break the rule, and using careful (cynical?) wordplay, managed to accept responsibility without admitting guilt. Sanctions were lifted.
[The remainder of the post gives a convincing explanation of how the "admission of responsibility" came about and how it has been (wilfully?) misconstrued in the media.]
Bruised and battered, but Salmond will bounce back
This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Times by the newspaper's virulently anti-SNP Scottish political editor, Angus Macleod. The two paragraphs relating to Lockerbie read as follows:
"But if there was one event that brought Mr Salmond face to face with the consequences of power, it was the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister, to free Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi on the grounds that he had only a limited time to live.
"Condemnation rained down as US relatives of Lockerbie victims expressed outrage. At one point it appeared as though Scotland, in US eyes, was to assume the same mantle as Cuba during the Cold War. The First Minister looked as if he had just emerged from a car crash."
As far as Scottish public opinion is concerned, the release of Mr Megrahi seems to have done the SNP no harm and may, indeed, have enhanced its standing.
"But if there was one event that brought Mr Salmond face to face with the consequences of power, it was the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister, to free Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi on the grounds that he had only a limited time to live.
"Condemnation rained down as US relatives of Lockerbie victims expressed outrage. At one point it appeared as though Scotland, in US eyes, was to assume the same mantle as Cuba during the Cold War. The First Minister looked as if he had just emerged from a car crash."
As far as Scottish public opinion is concerned, the release of Mr Megrahi seems to have done the SNP no harm and may, indeed, have enhanced its standing.
New Year honour for Lockerbie councillor
A councillor who became a spokeswoman for the people of Lockerbie in the wake of the 1988 aircraft bombing has become an MBE in the New Year Honours list.
Marjory McQueen, 63, was a Conservative councillor for Lockerbie on Dumfries and Galloway Council for 12 years.
Mrs McQueen became a public face for the town during the trial of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who was convicted of carrying out the atrocity.
She also co-ordinated the media during the 10th anniversary of the bombing. (...)
Mother-of-two Mrs McQueen, who served as a councillor from 1995 until 2007, said she was both "surprised" and "privileged" to be appointed an MBE. (...)
"Lockerbie moved on very quickly. I know it will always be synonymous with the disaster but Lockerbie has always been about community.
"My role was to liaise with the media for the 10th anniversary and make sure that the town and its people were disturbed as little as possible by the media."
[From a report on the BBC News website.
Mrs McQueen is wholly right in saying that Lockerbie moved on very quickly. Within a couple of years of the disaster, the town had returned to its wonted normality. The inhabitants view continued media interest in the town as an annoyance and an intrusion. Relatives of those who died are undemonstratively accepted when they visit. But even the most insensitive journalists quickly realise that their presence is unwelcome.]
Marjory McQueen, 63, was a Conservative councillor for Lockerbie on Dumfries and Galloway Council for 12 years.
Mrs McQueen became a public face for the town during the trial of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who was convicted of carrying out the atrocity.
She also co-ordinated the media during the 10th anniversary of the bombing. (...)
Mother-of-two Mrs McQueen, who served as a councillor from 1995 until 2007, said she was both "surprised" and "privileged" to be appointed an MBE. (...)
"Lockerbie moved on very quickly. I know it will always be synonymous with the disaster but Lockerbie has always been about community.
"My role was to liaise with the media for the 10th anniversary and make sure that the town and its people were disturbed as little as possible by the media."
[From a report on the BBC News website.
Mrs McQueen is wholly right in saying that Lockerbie moved on very quickly. Within a couple of years of the disaster, the town had returned to its wonted normality. The inhabitants view continued media interest in the town as an annoyance and an intrusion. Relatives of those who died are undemonstratively accepted when they visit. But even the most insensitive journalists quickly realise that their presence is unwelcome.]
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Forthcoming Lockerbie play
[The following are excerpts from an article in today's edition of the Nottingham Evening Post.]
After a few years working on dramas like Heartbeat, Nottingham writer Michael Eaton is returning to the topical territory where his heart lies. A new play commissioned by Nottingham Playhouse for June will revisit an emotional subject he pieced together with some success for ITV 20 years ago – Lockerbie. (...)
He was sitting in Nottingham Playhouse a few months ago, in talks with artistic director Giles Croft, when he picked up a copy of Private Eye.
Giles noticed he was absorbed in an article about the release of Al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of involvement in Lockerbie released on compassionate grounds.
Together, they decided Lockerbie remained a subject worthy of examination – this time for the theatre in a piece called The Families of Lockerbie.
Michael's original docu-drama Why Lockerbie? examined the build-up to the tragedy. "I did that film 20 years ago," he explains. It was written the year after the disaster. This time, I wanted to do something that caught up with what had happened in the past two decades but from a more emotional, reflective standpoint.
"I was very struck with the different responses of the American and British families to the release of Al Megrahi." (...)
The Families of Lockerbie has been scheduled for the Playhouse from June 10-19. (...)
"The TV work ended in an air traffic control office as the plane disappears from the screen. In a way, that's where this story starts," says Michael.
After a few years working on dramas like Heartbeat, Nottingham writer Michael Eaton is returning to the topical territory where his heart lies. A new play commissioned by Nottingham Playhouse for June will revisit an emotional subject he pieced together with some success for ITV 20 years ago – Lockerbie. (...)
He was sitting in Nottingham Playhouse a few months ago, in talks with artistic director Giles Croft, when he picked up a copy of Private Eye.
Giles noticed he was absorbed in an article about the release of Al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of involvement in Lockerbie released on compassionate grounds.
Together, they decided Lockerbie remained a subject worthy of examination – this time for the theatre in a piece called The Families of Lockerbie.
Michael's original docu-drama Why Lockerbie? examined the build-up to the tragedy. "I did that film 20 years ago," he explains. It was written the year after the disaster. This time, I wanted to do something that caught up with what had happened in the past two decades but from a more emotional, reflective standpoint.
"I was very struck with the different responses of the American and British families to the release of Al Megrahi." (...)
The Families of Lockerbie has been scheduled for the Playhouse from June 10-19. (...)
"The TV work ended in an air traffic control office as the plane disappears from the screen. In a way, that's where this story starts," says Michael.
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Ayr priest barred from Lockerbie memorial service in Virginia
[This is the headline over a report in the Ayrshire Post. 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.”
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.”
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Megrahi’s case was ‘wrongful conviction’
[This is the headline over a report by Lucy Adams in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Gareth Peirce, one of the UK’s most high-profile lawyers, has described the Lockerbie case as a shocking “wrongful conviction”.
Ms Peirce, who is famous for her involvement with cases such as those of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Tipton Three, is now working with relatives of some of the victims of the tragedy.
The Herald revealed yesterday that Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among 270 people who died in the 1988 tragedy, and relatives of 10 other British victims were working with Ms Peirce to use human rights legislation to force the UK Government to allow a public inquiry.
Speaking to The Herald yesterday, Ms Peirce said she believed the relatives had been “cheated” by being denied access to the details of what happened.
“I have looked at the case and the transcripts and was simply appalled at the echoes of classic wrongful convictions – including the same methodology and same personnel in terms of forensic scientists,” she said. “I was quite shocked at how much of the case seemed blatantly wrong.
“It blazes out that this is a wrongful conviction. That is not to say that addressing the conviction and addressing the need for an inquiry are an exact equation, but if this is the basis upon which he was convicted, in my view the relatives have never had the true picture placed before them.
“They have not had their right under international law, where there has been an unnatural death, to have a proper, independent inquiry into what happened. It seems to me they have been cheated.
“In other cases where evidence has been questioned or demolished, it has been deemed appropriate to have far-reaching public inquiries. At the very least that is what the relatives of the victims of Lockerbie deserve.” (...)
Lawyers say that under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which pertains to the right to life, there is also the right to an inquiry into how that life was taken.
Ms Peirce added: “If there was one unnatural death, particularly where the state may have had a role in adequately investigating the circumstances, they are responsible for correcting that and putting in place an adequate inquiry. The Fatal Accident Inquiry was completely circumscribed in what it felt it was allowed to look at. Its remit was very narrow because of the ongoing criminal investigation.”
Some of the British relatives believe a public inquiry offers the last realistic hope of finding out how and why their loved ones perished.
Gareth Peirce, one of the UK’s most high-profile lawyers, has described the Lockerbie case as a shocking “wrongful conviction”.
Ms Peirce, who is famous for her involvement with cases such as those of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Tipton Three, is now working with relatives of some of the victims of the tragedy.
The Herald revealed yesterday that Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among 270 people who died in the 1988 tragedy, and relatives of 10 other British victims were working with Ms Peirce to use human rights legislation to force the UK Government to allow a public inquiry.
Speaking to The Herald yesterday, Ms Peirce said she believed the relatives had been “cheated” by being denied access to the details of what happened.
“I have looked at the case and the transcripts and was simply appalled at the echoes of classic wrongful convictions – including the same methodology and same personnel in terms of forensic scientists,” she said. “I was quite shocked at how much of the case seemed blatantly wrong.
“It blazes out that this is a wrongful conviction. That is not to say that addressing the conviction and addressing the need for an inquiry are an exact equation, but if this is the basis upon which he was convicted, in my view the relatives have never had the true picture placed before them.
“They have not had their right under international law, where there has been an unnatural death, to have a proper, independent inquiry into what happened. It seems to me they have been cheated.
“In other cases where evidence has been questioned or demolished, it has been deemed appropriate to have far-reaching public inquiries. At the very least that is what the relatives of the victims of Lockerbie deserve.” (...)
Lawyers say that under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which pertains to the right to life, there is also the right to an inquiry into how that life was taken.
Ms Peirce added: “If there was one unnatural death, particularly where the state may have had a role in adequately investigating the circumstances, they are responsible for correcting that and putting in place an adequate inquiry. The Fatal Accident Inquiry was completely circumscribed in what it felt it was allowed to look at. Its remit was very narrow because of the ongoing criminal investigation.”
Some of the British relatives believe a public inquiry offers the last realistic hope of finding out how and why their loved ones perished.
Compare and contrast
"Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. How did you get to be 'Chief Reporter?' I would be happy to give you the facts if you inquired. Fr Keegans was not invited to address the Pan Am 103 memorial service. In previous years, we have asked him if he would like us to read a statement from him, as a number of US families are very fond of him. He was not going to address the group, and we would have read his note this year except that it was deemed by the Board, not by me, to be inappropriate for a memorial service. We try to avoid any political statements or any discussions of the convicted bomber, so Fr Keegans' note was sent out to the families on our mailing list rather than read at the cemetery on December 21st.
"I hope you enjoyed your visit to Libya. I am sure they all took good care of you there. Have a blessed Christmas and a healthy New Year."
[The above is the text of an e-mail sent to Lucy Adams, Chief Reporter of The Herald, by Frank Duggan, President of the US relatives' group Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc.]
"You taught us to find the strength to carry on even when the world seems to make no sense at all, as it did again this past year. I will not recount those events here. But on behalf of President Obama, and on behalf of his administration, let me say this. The evidence was clear. The trial was fair. The guilt of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. His conviction stands. The sentence was just. And nothing — not his unjustified release and certainly not a deplorable scene on a tarmac in Tripoli — will ever change those facts or wash the guilt from his hands or from the hands of those who assisted him in carrying out this heinous crime."
[The above is an excerpt from the address delivered at the Arlington ceremony by John O Brennan who, a year before his Arlington address, withdrew his candidacy for the post of Director of the CIA in circumstances which are discussed here on the politics and government blog of The New York Times.
An excellent commentary by Adam "Caustic Logic" Larson entitled "Keeping the politics out of Arlington" can be read here on his blog The 12/7-9/11 Treadmill and Beyond.]
"I hope you enjoyed your visit to Libya. I am sure they all took good care of you there. Have a blessed Christmas and a healthy New Year."
[The above is the text of an e-mail sent to Lucy Adams, Chief Reporter of The Herald, by Frank Duggan, President of the US relatives' group Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc.]
"You taught us to find the strength to carry on even when the world seems to make no sense at all, as it did again this past year. I will not recount those events here. But on behalf of President Obama, and on behalf of his administration, let me say this. The evidence was clear. The trial was fair. The guilt of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. His conviction stands. The sentence was just. And nothing — not his unjustified release and certainly not a deplorable scene on a tarmac in Tripoli — will ever change those facts or wash the guilt from his hands or from the hands of those who assisted him in carrying out this heinous crime."
[The above is an excerpt from the address delivered at the Arlington ceremony by John O Brennan who, a year before his Arlington address, withdrew his candidacy for the post of Director of the CIA in circumstances which are discussed here on the politics and government blog of The New York Times.
An excellent commentary by Adam "Caustic Logic" Larson entitled "Keeping the politics out of Arlington" can be read here on his blog The 12/7-9/11 Treadmill and Beyond.]
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Arlington address by John O Brennan
Remarks of John O Brennan
Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Pan Am Flight 103 Memorial Service
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, Virginia
December 21, 2009
Thank you, Frank, for your introduction and for your stewardship of this incredible organization — this family of families — dedicated to the memory of those who were loved so much.
To Mary Kay Stratis and all the spouses and families and friends, I am deeply humbled to join you on a day that I know is still difficult for so many of you. For others, 21 years might seem like a lifetime. To you, I know it seems like just yesterday.
And so for you and your families, this is an intensely personal moment. At the same time, it is a day for our nation — to remember, to reflect and to reaffirm our commitment to spare others the pain and loss you have known.
It was an attack against the world — a vicious crime against humanity that took the lives of innocents from more than 20 nations; men and women and children; American and European, African and Asian; Christian, Jew, Hindu, and Muslim.
It was an attack against our country — until that time, it was the worst terrorist attack against American civilians… People simply going about their daily lives: pilots and crew doing their jobs; business travelers between meetings; students headed home; soldiers returning from deployment; families preparing for the holidays.
But most of all — most of all — it was an unspeakable loss for your families. Your husband or wife. Your son or daughter. Your brother or sister. Your parents. Your colleagues. Your friends. The love you gave them. The joy they gave you.
It takes less than 20 minutes to read their names. But it has taken more than 20 years of grieving and grace to bring us to this day. As one pastor in Lockerbie said last year: “This is a list of those who died. But it is not a list of the victims, because we can never list all those names.”
And yet, long ago, you decided not to simply be victims. Instead of going gently into that good night, you raised your voices and demanded justice.
As I do most days, I met with President Obama in the Oval Office this morning. I told him I’d be joining you here at Arlington. And he asked me to carry his best wishes to you and your families. And he asked that I express to you America’s gratitude for all that you have done.
For you came together to honor your loved ones, but you — the families and friends of Pan Am Flight 103 — have left a legacy all your own. Indeed, long before there was 9-11, there was 12-21. And your example over the past 21 years has been an inspiration to all of us.
You have taught us how important it is to keep alive the memory of those taken much too soon. In the stone of this memorial cairn which stands, rightly, among our nation’s heroes. In scholarships of remembrance, which will inspire future generations. And in this ceremony today, along with those in Syracuse and Lockerbie. Because what happened that terrible December day is not “history.” It is still very much a part of each and every one of us, and it always will be.
You taught us that families can turn their grief into action and become powerful voices for change. For stronger security that protects our citizens. For legislation that ensures families are compensated. For sanctions that hold state sponsors of terrorism accountable for their crimes. And in so doing, you have inspired others touched by tragedy, including our 9-11 families.
You taught us to never stop seeking the truth, which is why one of the most complex international law enforcement efforts the world has ever seen was undertaken. I know that members of that effort are here today, men and women who have devoted their careers to uncovering the truth. And I believe I speak for all of us when I say that your passion and your persistence made us all want to work as hard as we could to see justice served.
You taught us to find the strength to carry on even when the world seems to make no sense at all, as it did again this past year. I will not recount those events here. But on behalf of President Obama, and on behalf of his administration, let me say this. The evidence was clear. The trial was fair. The guilt of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. His conviction stands. The sentence was just. And nothing—not his unjustified release and certainly not a deplorable scene on a tarmac in Tripoli—will ever change those facts or wash the guilt from his hands or from the hands of those who assisted him in carrying out this heinous crime.
Indeed, for any who truly seek it, it is here, in Arlington, among this gathering of families and friends, where you will find “compassionate grounds.” And that is where your government will always be — here, with you and your families.
Finally, by the lives you have led, by your very presence here today, you have taught us that we can and must carry on; that from our pain we can grow stronger — as individuals, as a people, as a nation. Among you are widows and widowers who raised children on your own; children who have grown into adults; grandchildren who will be inspired by stories of men and women they never knew. And to all Americans, your strength and your example is an inspiration.
More than two decades later, our adversaries may have changed, but their murderous tactics have not. There are those who still seek to slaughter the innocent. There are those who seek to sow terror. But as the President has pledged, we will thwart their plans. We will defeat their agenda of hatred and murder. And we will do everything in our power to keep this country safe. We owe nothing less to those who perished 21 years ago today.
Thank you so much for letting me share this day with you. May God bless you and your families, and may the wonderful memories of your loved ones always give you comfort, and travel with you the rest of your days. And may those we remember today continue to rest peacefully in God’s warm embrace.
[The address by Canon Pat Keegans that was apparently too controversial to be delivered at the ceremony can be read here.]
Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Pan Am Flight 103 Memorial Service
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, Virginia
December 21, 2009
Thank you, Frank, for your introduction and for your stewardship of this incredible organization — this family of families — dedicated to the memory of those who were loved so much.
To Mary Kay Stratis and all the spouses and families and friends, I am deeply humbled to join you on a day that I know is still difficult for so many of you. For others, 21 years might seem like a lifetime. To you, I know it seems like just yesterday.
And so for you and your families, this is an intensely personal moment. At the same time, it is a day for our nation — to remember, to reflect and to reaffirm our commitment to spare others the pain and loss you have known.
It was an attack against the world — a vicious crime against humanity that took the lives of innocents from more than 20 nations; men and women and children; American and European, African and Asian; Christian, Jew, Hindu, and Muslim.
It was an attack against our country — until that time, it was the worst terrorist attack against American civilians… People simply going about their daily lives: pilots and crew doing their jobs; business travelers between meetings; students headed home; soldiers returning from deployment; families preparing for the holidays.
But most of all — most of all — it was an unspeakable loss for your families. Your husband or wife. Your son or daughter. Your brother or sister. Your parents. Your colleagues. Your friends. The love you gave them. The joy they gave you.
It takes less than 20 minutes to read their names. But it has taken more than 20 years of grieving and grace to bring us to this day. As one pastor in Lockerbie said last year: “This is a list of those who died. But it is not a list of the victims, because we can never list all those names.”
And yet, long ago, you decided not to simply be victims. Instead of going gently into that good night, you raised your voices and demanded justice.
As I do most days, I met with President Obama in the Oval Office this morning. I told him I’d be joining you here at Arlington. And he asked me to carry his best wishes to you and your families. And he asked that I express to you America’s gratitude for all that you have done.
For you came together to honor your loved ones, but you — the families and friends of Pan Am Flight 103 — have left a legacy all your own. Indeed, long before there was 9-11, there was 12-21. And your example over the past 21 years has been an inspiration to all of us.
You have taught us how important it is to keep alive the memory of those taken much too soon. In the stone of this memorial cairn which stands, rightly, among our nation’s heroes. In scholarships of remembrance, which will inspire future generations. And in this ceremony today, along with those in Syracuse and Lockerbie. Because what happened that terrible December day is not “history.” It is still very much a part of each and every one of us, and it always will be.
You taught us that families can turn their grief into action and become powerful voices for change. For stronger security that protects our citizens. For legislation that ensures families are compensated. For sanctions that hold state sponsors of terrorism accountable for their crimes. And in so doing, you have inspired others touched by tragedy, including our 9-11 families.
You taught us to never stop seeking the truth, which is why one of the most complex international law enforcement efforts the world has ever seen was undertaken. I know that members of that effort are here today, men and women who have devoted their careers to uncovering the truth. And I believe I speak for all of us when I say that your passion and your persistence made us all want to work as hard as we could to see justice served.
You taught us to find the strength to carry on even when the world seems to make no sense at all, as it did again this past year. I will not recount those events here. But on behalf of President Obama, and on behalf of his administration, let me say this. The evidence was clear. The trial was fair. The guilt of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. His conviction stands. The sentence was just. And nothing—not his unjustified release and certainly not a deplorable scene on a tarmac in Tripoli—will ever change those facts or wash the guilt from his hands or from the hands of those who assisted him in carrying out this heinous crime.
Indeed, for any who truly seek it, it is here, in Arlington, among this gathering of families and friends, where you will find “compassionate grounds.” And that is where your government will always be — here, with you and your families.
Finally, by the lives you have led, by your very presence here today, you have taught us that we can and must carry on; that from our pain we can grow stronger — as individuals, as a people, as a nation. Among you are widows and widowers who raised children on your own; children who have grown into adults; grandchildren who will be inspired by stories of men and women they never knew. And to all Americans, your strength and your example is an inspiration.
More than two decades later, our adversaries may have changed, but their murderous tactics have not. There are those who still seek to slaughter the innocent. There are those who seek to sow terror. But as the President has pledged, we will thwart their plans. We will defeat their agenda of hatred and murder. And we will do everything in our power to keep this country safe. We owe nothing less to those who perished 21 years ago today.
Thank you so much for letting me share this day with you. May God bless you and your families, and may the wonderful memories of your loved ones always give you comfort, and travel with you the rest of your days. And may those we remember today continue to rest peacefully in God’s warm embrace.
[The address by Canon Pat Keegans that was apparently too controversial to be delivered at the ceremony can be read here.]
Lockerbie families upset by SNP's 'crass' timing
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Times about the legal powers that have been granted to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to put into the public domain material relating to Abdelbaset Megrahi's successful application to it. It is worth noting that not a single Lockerbie relative is quoted in the article complaining about the timing of the announcement. The only such complaint comes from the Scottish Conservatives' legal rent-a-quote, Paul McBride QC.
The article reads in part:]
The Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC), which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice, had referred his case back to the courts in June 2007 after ruling that his conviction could have been unsafe.
Al-Megrahi claims that he was the victim of miscarriage of justice and has already published details of his appeal, including reports questioning the credibility of a key prosecution witness and suggestions that other witnesses were paid.
There had been pressure on the government to release the commission’s own documents relating to the appeal and yesterday Mr MacAskill announced that the SNP had passed an order allowing the commission to publish the documents in February. “The order laid today allows the SCCRC to disclose information it holds and it is now for them to decide what, if anything, they release.”
However, it is believed that the commission will not be able to reveal much detail, since those who submitted information must give consent to its release. Gerard Sinclair, the commission’s chief executive, indicated that human rights laws and data protection legislation could also prove a barrier to full disclosure.
Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was one of the 270 people who died when the flight 108 exploded over Lockerbie, welcomed the decision to release the appeal documents but was concerned about how much information would be published, and warned against a “drip feed” approach.
“I just find it immensely frustrating to have to sit here in the middle and not know,” she said.
She was also disappointed that the Scottish government had failed to contact her and the families of the other victims before making the announcement.
“I would have preferred to have heard from the Scottish government instead of the media,” she said. (...)
Robert Brown, the justice spokesman for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, added: “The last thing we want is for this to turn into a trial by media. If possible, a way must be found whereby the information held by the SCCRC, and the issues raised by them for the Appeal Court, can be properly and judicially tested.”
A spokesman for the Scottish government defended the decision, saying: “It is to everyone’s benefit to know if information can be put into the public domain regardless of their views, this was done as soon as practically possible.”
The article reads in part:]
The Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC), which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice, had referred his case back to the courts in June 2007 after ruling that his conviction could have been unsafe.
Al-Megrahi claims that he was the victim of miscarriage of justice and has already published details of his appeal, including reports questioning the credibility of a key prosecution witness and suggestions that other witnesses were paid.
There had been pressure on the government to release the commission’s own documents relating to the appeal and yesterday Mr MacAskill announced that the SNP had passed an order allowing the commission to publish the documents in February. “The order laid today allows the SCCRC to disclose information it holds and it is now for them to decide what, if anything, they release.”
However, it is believed that the commission will not be able to reveal much detail, since those who submitted information must give consent to its release. Gerard Sinclair, the commission’s chief executive, indicated that human rights laws and data protection legislation could also prove a barrier to full disclosure.
Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was one of the 270 people who died when the flight 108 exploded over Lockerbie, welcomed the decision to release the appeal documents but was concerned about how much information would be published, and warned against a “drip feed” approach.
“I just find it immensely frustrating to have to sit here in the middle and not know,” she said.
She was also disappointed that the Scottish government had failed to contact her and the families of the other victims before making the announcement.
“I would have preferred to have heard from the Scottish government instead of the media,” she said. (...)
Robert Brown, the justice spokesman for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, added: “The last thing we want is for this to turn into a trial by media. If possible, a way must be found whereby the information held by the SCCRC, and the issues raised by them for the Appeal Court, can be properly and judicially tested.”
A spokesman for the Scottish government defended the decision, saying: “It is to everyone’s benefit to know if information can be put into the public domain regardless of their views, this was done as soon as practically possible.”
Lockerbie families sign up leading lawyer in bid for public inquiry
[The following are excerpts from a report by Lucy Adams in today's edition of The Herald.]
The British relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have signed up one of the UK’s most high-profile human rights lawyers in a bid to bring about a full public inquiry into the disaster.
Dr Jim Swire and other relatives are working with Gareth Peirce to compel the UK Government under human rights legislation to allow an inquiry into the tragedy that killed 270 people 21 years ago.
Ms Peirce’s clients include the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the family of Jean Charles de Menezes.
Dr Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, said he was still waiting to hear from Gordon Brown after he and 10 other relatives delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street in October calling for a full public inquiry.
He wants the case to be taken in England as he says he has lost faith in the Scottish legal system.
“We are pestering him (Mr Brown) for a response,” said Dr Swire. “The next step will be a legal letter from Gareth Peirce explaining that they need to provide an inquiry under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
“There has been no public inquiry despite every Prime Minister in the past 21 years being asked for one. Lockerbie could have been prevented and we want to know why it wasn’t.”
Earlier this year Dr Swire received a letter from the Prime Minister saying he would not back an inquiry. (...)
Lawyers say that under Article 2 of the ECHR, which pertains to the right to life, there is also the right to an inquiry into how that life was taken.
“Although there was a Fatal Accident Inquiry in Dumfries, this was then undermined by new evidence including the break-in at Heathrow airport,” said Professor Robert Black, one of the architects of the original trial at Camp Zeist.
In a recent article in the London Review of Books, Ms Peirce wrote: “The devastation caused by the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, at the cost of 270 lives, deserved an investigation of utter integrity. Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights demands no less.
Where there has been a death any inquiry must be independent, effective and subject to public scrutiny, to provide the basis for an attribution of responsibility and to initiate criminal proceedings where appropriate. But, in the absence of this, a number of the bereaved Lockerbie families have of necessity themselves become investigators, asking probing questions for two decades without receiving answers.”
The Scottish Government has said it would back an inquiry but that it requires UK jurisdiction. (...)
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission yesterday announced that in February it can release some of the material involved in its three-and-a-half-year investigation into the case, which led to it being referred back for a fresh appeal on six different grounds in June 2007.
A spokesman for Downing Street, said: “There will not be a public inquiry.”
Father Pat Keegans, the priest in Lockerbie at the time of the bombing, had been invited to address the memorial service at Arlington cemetery yesterday. However, Frank Duggan, president of group [Victims of] Pan Am 103 [Inc], took offence at the extract published in yesterday’s Herald and stopped the address going ahead.
The British relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have signed up one of the UK’s most high-profile human rights lawyers in a bid to bring about a full public inquiry into the disaster.
Dr Jim Swire and other relatives are working with Gareth Peirce to compel the UK Government under human rights legislation to allow an inquiry into the tragedy that killed 270 people 21 years ago.
Ms Peirce’s clients include the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the family of Jean Charles de Menezes.
Dr Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, said he was still waiting to hear from Gordon Brown after he and 10 other relatives delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street in October calling for a full public inquiry.
He wants the case to be taken in England as he says he has lost faith in the Scottish legal system.
“We are pestering him (Mr Brown) for a response,” said Dr Swire. “The next step will be a legal letter from Gareth Peirce explaining that they need to provide an inquiry under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
“There has been no public inquiry despite every Prime Minister in the past 21 years being asked for one. Lockerbie could have been prevented and we want to know why it wasn’t.”
Earlier this year Dr Swire received a letter from the Prime Minister saying he would not back an inquiry. (...)
Lawyers say that under Article 2 of the ECHR, which pertains to the right to life, there is also the right to an inquiry into how that life was taken.
“Although there was a Fatal Accident Inquiry in Dumfries, this was then undermined by new evidence including the break-in at Heathrow airport,” said Professor Robert Black, one of the architects of the original trial at Camp Zeist.
In a recent article in the London Review of Books, Ms Peirce wrote: “The devastation caused by the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, at the cost of 270 lives, deserved an investigation of utter integrity. Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights demands no less.
Where there has been a death any inquiry must be independent, effective and subject to public scrutiny, to provide the basis for an attribution of responsibility and to initiate criminal proceedings where appropriate. But, in the absence of this, a number of the bereaved Lockerbie families have of necessity themselves become investigators, asking probing questions for two decades without receiving answers.”
The Scottish Government has said it would back an inquiry but that it requires UK jurisdiction. (...)
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission yesterday announced that in February it can release some of the material involved in its three-and-a-half-year investigation into the case, which led to it being referred back for a fresh appeal on six different grounds in June 2007.
A spokesman for Downing Street, said: “There will not be a public inquiry.”
Father Pat Keegans, the priest in Lockerbie at the time of the bombing, had been invited to address the memorial service at Arlington cemetery yesterday. However, Frank Duggan, president of group [Victims of] Pan Am 103 [Inc], took offence at the extract published in yesterday’s Herald and stopped the address going ahead.
Monday, 21 December 2009
Megrahi's reaction to Swiss bank account story
[What follows is the text of a statement issued last night on behalf of Abdelbaset Megrahi by his Scottish solicitor.]
Abdelbaset Al Megrahi in response to the report in today’s Sunday Times newspaper makes the following comment:
“It is wrong to say that in 2001 I had access to £1.8million in a Swiss bank account. There were investigations into the content of my account in Switzerland at the time of my trial in Zeist. This information was not gone into at trial.
When the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission looked at my case they reviewed, in full, the accounts held by me. There was no question of my 'hiding' any aspect of my financial affairs, as has been reported.
The Sunday Times reports that the Crown Office refused me bail in the course of my appeal because of the information. This is to misunderstand the position completely. The Court of Criminal Appeal is the only body empowered to grant or refuse me bail. It heard full submissions and did not refuse me bail on the basis of what has been reported. The Crown mentioned, in their Answers to my bail application, my bank accounts under the ground of opposition: Risk of Flight. The Court concluded that prosecutor’s argument about this were irrelevant. [Opinion, 14th November 2008, para 14]. The Court refused me bail because, it said, it: 'is not persuaded that the stage has been reached when early release is appropriate' [Opinion, 14th November 2008 para 15].
I fail to see how this information – either that reported or what was in actual fact the case regarding my account ‐ could amount to a conclusion that I was 'an international coordinator of terrorism for Libya'. This was not alleged against me, no evidence was led to form the basis of such a conclusion and the court did not make such a finding. If the information about my account could have formed the basis of such a finding one would have expected the trial court to have heard it and, more significantly, it would have influenced the Commission.
The Commission, having reviewed my case, including the material concerning my account, were not swayed from the conclusion that I may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice”
Abdelbaset Al Megrahi in response to the report in today’s Sunday Times newspaper makes the following comment:
“It is wrong to say that in 2001 I had access to £1.8million in a Swiss bank account. There were investigations into the content of my account in Switzerland at the time of my trial in Zeist. This information was not gone into at trial.
When the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission looked at my case they reviewed, in full, the accounts held by me. There was no question of my 'hiding' any aspect of my financial affairs, as has been reported.
The Sunday Times reports that the Crown Office refused me bail in the course of my appeal because of the information. This is to misunderstand the position completely. The Court of Criminal Appeal is the only body empowered to grant or refuse me bail. It heard full submissions and did not refuse me bail on the basis of what has been reported. The Crown mentioned, in their Answers to my bail application, my bank accounts under the ground of opposition: Risk of Flight. The Court concluded that prosecutor’s argument about this were irrelevant. [Opinion, 14th November 2008, para 14]. The Court refused me bail because, it said, it: 'is not persuaded that the stage has been reached when early release is appropriate' [Opinion, 14th November 2008 para 15].
I fail to see how this information – either that reported or what was in actual fact the case regarding my account ‐ could amount to a conclusion that I was 'an international coordinator of terrorism for Libya'. This was not alleged against me, no evidence was led to form the basis of such a conclusion and the court did not make such a finding. If the information about my account could have formed the basis of such a finding one would have expected the trial court to have heard it and, more significantly, it would have influenced the Commission.
The Commission, having reviewed my case, including the material concerning my account, were not swayed from the conclusion that I may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice”
Fr Keegan's remarks are NOT being delivered at Arlington memorial service
This is the subject heading (incidentally misspelling Pat Keegans's name) of an e-mail sent by Frank Duggan. The text reads:
"Fr Keegan's remarks, as printed in [The Herald] newspaper, were deemed to be very inappropriate for this memorial service. It is a day to remember 270 innocent souls murdered in an act of state sponsored terrorism. It is not a day for politics, a discussion of the bomber's trial and conviction or of his health. Fr Keegan's views are his own and are quite contrary to those held by the victims families in the US. It is unfortunate that he has chosen this day to publicly express those views in the press.
Frank Duggan, President
Victims of Pan Am 103, Inc."
Now that Canon Keegans's address has been barred from the Arlington service, I am reproducing the full text of it here:
They were lovely children, Paul and Lyndsey and Joanne. Lyndsey (10) and her brother Paul (13) called at my house in Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie, delivering Christmas cards for the Scouts and Guides. It was December 19th 1988. Just a few days to Christmas and they were telling me about presents under the tree, grandparents coming to visit, and as they left they said, “See you on Christmas Day, Father”. I never saw them again. At 7.04pm on December 21st 1988 they died. Their parents died. Their friend Joanne (10) and her parents also died. Pan Am 103 had exploded in Sherwood Crescent. Eleven people died in Sherwood Crescent. 259 people died on the plane. This was an odious act of terror and the murder of 270 innocent men, women and children.
I celebrated Requiem Mass for Joanne on January 10th 1989. Her parents were never found. Paul and Lyndsey were never found but the remains of their parents, Jack and Rosaleen, were found and as their coffins lay side by side in the church I thought of how they would have looked as they stood side by side on their wedding day.
We might imagine that a disaster happens and then people start a process of recovery; not a bit of it. Things get worse. It is like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion and the fall-out never seems to end. As you, the families from America, the UK and many other countries arrived in Lockerbie our grief and our sorrow for you could not be expressed in words but were clearly visible in our eyes. One look at us and was enough to tell you how deeply we felt for you.
In the mayhem and horror of Lockerbie I asked myself who would commit such a heinous crime and for what reason. I and many others were acutely aware of a bombing that had taken place earlier that year on July 3rd 1988 when in the Persian Gulf an Iranian civilian aircraft flight IR655 was blown out of the sky by the American warship USS Vincennes. 290 civilians died; 16 of the dead were children. The fact that this happened and that Iran was the main focus of the criminal investigation did not affect the response made by the people of Lockerbie; American families together with all other nationalities received un-questioning, total compassion and care. The whole of Scotland should be proud of the people of Lockerbie. The compassion they showed has passed the test of time and will never be withdrawn.
21 years have passed and this year has been a very difficult and controversial one. The Cabinet Minister of Justice in the Scottish Parliament, Mr Kenny MacAskill, made a decision to release on compassionate grounds Abdelbasset al-Megrahi. I hold that it was the right decision to make and it took great courage. The doubts concerning the conviction, the evidence and the reliability of witnesses have been well documented and led to an appeal.
I know that this is not the view generally held within the United States of America; however it a belief held by me and many others in Scotland who have been closely and personally involved since that dark day of December 21st 1988. I do believe that he is an innocent man and that in time the truth of that will emerge. But he was not released because of doubt concerning his conviction. He was released on strict legal grounds and because of the important element of Christian compassion which has influenced the legal systems of Scotland and Europe.
In my letter of August 28th of this year 2009 which I sent to all the American Families of Pan Am Flight 103 I included the words of Archbishop Mario Conti of the Archdiocese of Glasgow
In The Herald newspaper he wrote:
“I personally and many others in the Catholic community admired the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on grounds of compassion which is, after all, one of the principles inscribed on the mace of the Scottish Parliament by which Scotland’s Government should operate. The showing of mercy in any situation is not a sign of weakness. Indeed in this situation, with the pressures and circumstances of the case, it seemed to me a sign of manifest strength.
"Despite contrary voices I believe it is a decision which will be a source of satisfaction for many Scots and one which will be respected in the international community. I have been impressed by the expressions of understanding and insight from Dr Jim Swire and other relatives who lost loved ones on the Pan Am flight who have acknowledged the rightness of the gesture of compassion and their doubts as to the safety of the original conviction.
"I would welcome any move which would try to find clearer answers as to what happened and why”.
Archbishop Mario Conti, 24th August 2009, Glasgow, Scotland
In my letter of August 28th to all the families of Pan Am Flight 103, I expressed my own satisfaction at the decision reached by Mr Kenny MacKaskill. At the same time I stated very strongly that my satisfaction is not in-compatible with the affection, compassion and support that I have consistently offered to you for many years; I have had the honour of sharing in your lives and have in turn received from you great friendship, love and support. In my letter I concluded by saying that whatever lies ahead in the years to come that my love, support and affection would always be there for you.
I want to say very clearly that I believe, irrespective of guilt or innocence, the release of Abdelbasset al-Megrahi on the grounds of compassion was the right decision. My life and my thinking and response to people and situations have been formed by Christ and his His gospel; so, I must try to have the gospel at the heart of all my decisions great and small in this life. On the first anniversary I said that we should live our lives joyfully because that is how those who have died would want us to live.
In 21 years we have made great progress. However, if I keep bitterness, anger, hatred and a desire for revenge in my heart I would find it difficult to live my life joyfully. Getting rid of bitterness, anger, hatred and a desire for revenge in my heart is beyond me. I cannot do it by myself as a human being. Only God can give that gift. It is a divine gift and it takes an enormous effort even to reach out to accept that gift; but if we do so we find great peace. The words of Christ that lead to that gift are very challenging. He says to us: “You have learnt how it was said you must love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who hate you.” (Matthew 5, 43) “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (Matthew 6,13) “Blessed are the merciful, they shall have mercy shown them”. (Matthew 5, 7) Easy to read, but difficult to live. And from St Paul: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”. (Rom. 12: 21)
Today and the years ahead; I started by reflecting on the lovely children who died in Sherwood Crescent on the night of December 21st 1988. You will be thinking of your own child, husband, wife, father, mother, relative or friend who died at the same time as Paul and Lyndsey and Joanne. They deserve the best from us. They deserve justice. They deserve that we as human beings on this earth do all that we can to promote justice, peace and goodwill. On this 21st anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 I thank you for asking me to speak today; I offer you my prayers and my love. And I pray that all of us will be instruments of peace in this world and that we remember the words of St Paul: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good”. (Rom. 12: 21)
Patrick Keegans
"Fr Keegan's remarks, as printed in [The Herald] newspaper, were deemed to be very inappropriate for this memorial service. It is a day to remember 270 innocent souls murdered in an act of state sponsored terrorism. It is not a day for politics, a discussion of the bomber's trial and conviction or of his health. Fr Keegan's views are his own and are quite contrary to those held by the victims families in the US. It is unfortunate that he has chosen this day to publicly express those views in the press.
Frank Duggan, President
Victims of Pan Am 103, Inc."
Now that Canon Keegans's address has been barred from the Arlington service, I am reproducing the full text of it here:
They were lovely children, Paul and Lyndsey and Joanne. Lyndsey (10) and her brother Paul (13) called at my house in Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie, delivering Christmas cards for the Scouts and Guides. It was December 19th 1988. Just a few days to Christmas and they were telling me about presents under the tree, grandparents coming to visit, and as they left they said, “See you on Christmas Day, Father”. I never saw them again. At 7.04pm on December 21st 1988 they died. Their parents died. Their friend Joanne (10) and her parents also died. Pan Am 103 had exploded in Sherwood Crescent. Eleven people died in Sherwood Crescent. 259 people died on the plane. This was an odious act of terror and the murder of 270 innocent men, women and children.
I celebrated Requiem Mass for Joanne on January 10th 1989. Her parents were never found. Paul and Lyndsey were never found but the remains of their parents, Jack and Rosaleen, were found and as their coffins lay side by side in the church I thought of how they would have looked as they stood side by side on their wedding day.
We might imagine that a disaster happens and then people start a process of recovery; not a bit of it. Things get worse. It is like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion and the fall-out never seems to end. As you, the families from America, the UK and many other countries arrived in Lockerbie our grief and our sorrow for you could not be expressed in words but were clearly visible in our eyes. One look at us and was enough to tell you how deeply we felt for you.
In the mayhem and horror of Lockerbie I asked myself who would commit such a heinous crime and for what reason. I and many others were acutely aware of a bombing that had taken place earlier that year on July 3rd 1988 when in the Persian Gulf an Iranian civilian aircraft flight IR655 was blown out of the sky by the American warship USS Vincennes. 290 civilians died; 16 of the dead were children. The fact that this happened and that Iran was the main focus of the criminal investigation did not affect the response made by the people of Lockerbie; American families together with all other nationalities received un-questioning, total compassion and care. The whole of Scotland should be proud of the people of Lockerbie. The compassion they showed has passed the test of time and will never be withdrawn.
21 years have passed and this year has been a very difficult and controversial one. The Cabinet Minister of Justice in the Scottish Parliament, Mr Kenny MacAskill, made a decision to release on compassionate grounds Abdelbasset al-Megrahi. I hold that it was the right decision to make and it took great courage. The doubts concerning the conviction, the evidence and the reliability of witnesses have been well documented and led to an appeal.
I know that this is not the view generally held within the United States of America; however it a belief held by me and many others in Scotland who have been closely and personally involved since that dark day of December 21st 1988. I do believe that he is an innocent man and that in time the truth of that will emerge. But he was not released because of doubt concerning his conviction. He was released on strict legal grounds and because of the important element of Christian compassion which has influenced the legal systems of Scotland and Europe.
In my letter of August 28th of this year 2009 which I sent to all the American Families of Pan Am Flight 103 I included the words of Archbishop Mario Conti of the Archdiocese of Glasgow
In The Herald newspaper he wrote:
“I personally and many others in the Catholic community admired the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on grounds of compassion which is, after all, one of the principles inscribed on the mace of the Scottish Parliament by which Scotland’s Government should operate. The showing of mercy in any situation is not a sign of weakness. Indeed in this situation, with the pressures and circumstances of the case, it seemed to me a sign of manifest strength.
"Despite contrary voices I believe it is a decision which will be a source of satisfaction for many Scots and one which will be respected in the international community. I have been impressed by the expressions of understanding and insight from Dr Jim Swire and other relatives who lost loved ones on the Pan Am flight who have acknowledged the rightness of the gesture of compassion and their doubts as to the safety of the original conviction.
"I would welcome any move which would try to find clearer answers as to what happened and why”.
Archbishop Mario Conti, 24th August 2009, Glasgow, Scotland
In my letter of August 28th to all the families of Pan Am Flight 103, I expressed my own satisfaction at the decision reached by Mr Kenny MacKaskill. At the same time I stated very strongly that my satisfaction is not in-compatible with the affection, compassion and support that I have consistently offered to you for many years; I have had the honour of sharing in your lives and have in turn received from you great friendship, love and support. In my letter I concluded by saying that whatever lies ahead in the years to come that my love, support and affection would always be there for you.
I want to say very clearly that I believe, irrespective of guilt or innocence, the release of Abdelbasset al-Megrahi on the grounds of compassion was the right decision. My life and my thinking and response to people and situations have been formed by Christ and his His gospel; so, I must try to have the gospel at the heart of all my decisions great and small in this life. On the first anniversary I said that we should live our lives joyfully because that is how those who have died would want us to live.
In 21 years we have made great progress. However, if I keep bitterness, anger, hatred and a desire for revenge in my heart I would find it difficult to live my life joyfully. Getting rid of bitterness, anger, hatred and a desire for revenge in my heart is beyond me. I cannot do it by myself as a human being. Only God can give that gift. It is a divine gift and it takes an enormous effort even to reach out to accept that gift; but if we do so we find great peace. The words of Christ that lead to that gift are very challenging. He says to us: “You have learnt how it was said you must love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who hate you.” (Matthew 5, 43) “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (Matthew 6,13) “Blessed are the merciful, they shall have mercy shown them”. (Matthew 5, 7) Easy to read, but difficult to live. And from St Paul: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”. (Rom. 12: 21)
Today and the years ahead; I started by reflecting on the lovely children who died in Sherwood Crescent on the night of December 21st 1988. You will be thinking of your own child, husband, wife, father, mother, relative or friend who died at the same time as Paul and Lyndsey and Joanne. They deserve the best from us. They deserve justice. They deserve that we as human beings on this earth do all that we can to promote justice, peace and goodwill. On this 21st anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 I thank you for asking me to speak today; I offer you my prayers and my love. And I pray that all of us will be instruments of peace in this world and that we remember the words of St Paul: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good”. (Rom. 12: 21)
Patrick Keegans
Parts of SCCRC report likely to be published
Some details of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's review into the case of the Lockerbie bomber may be made public next year.
The commission investigation concluded Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction may have been unsafe.
The Scottish government has passed an order through the Criminal Procedure Act 1995 that would allow information to be released in February 2010. (...)
It is thought the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) will not be able to reveal much of the detail of its considerable research, since those who provided the information must give their consent.
Gerard Sinclair, the SCCRC chief executive, said: "The Statutory Instrument permits the commission to disclose information only with the consent of those who have provided the information.
"In considering whether it is entitled to disclose information, the commission will also have to have regard to other relevant matters, including the European Court of Human Rights, and data protection legislation and all other relevant law."
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "The Scottish government has always been clear that as much information as possible in this case is published where relevant and where appropriate consents are given.
"The order laid today allows the SCCRC to disclose information it holds and it is now for them to decide what, if anything, they release." (...)
A Lockerbie relative, Pamela Dix, said the reports of Megrahi's worsening condition added to the continuing ordeal of relatives still seeking answers.
Ms Dix, whose brother Peter was among the dead, said: "It really builds the extreme sense of frustration that this whole year has brought.
"The lack of resolution around the criminal aspect of Lockerbie is almost now complete."
She told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland: "With Megrahi's death we will never know whether if he is truly innocent as he protests and as the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Board considered he might be, or guilty as a Scottish court convicted him."
And she said: "I just find it immensely frustrating to have to sit here in the middle and not know."
[From a report on the BBC News website.]
The commission investigation concluded Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction may have been unsafe.
The Scottish government has passed an order through the Criminal Procedure Act 1995 that would allow information to be released in February 2010. (...)
It is thought the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) will not be able to reveal much of the detail of its considerable research, since those who provided the information must give their consent.
Gerard Sinclair, the SCCRC chief executive, said: "The Statutory Instrument permits the commission to disclose information only with the consent of those who have provided the information.
"In considering whether it is entitled to disclose information, the commission will also have to have regard to other relevant matters, including the European Court of Human Rights, and data protection legislation and all other relevant law."
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "The Scottish government has always been clear that as much information as possible in this case is published where relevant and where appropriate consents are given.
"The order laid today allows the SCCRC to disclose information it holds and it is now for them to decide what, if anything, they release." (...)
A Lockerbie relative, Pamela Dix, said the reports of Megrahi's worsening condition added to the continuing ordeal of relatives still seeking answers.
Ms Dix, whose brother Peter was among the dead, said: "It really builds the extreme sense of frustration that this whole year has brought.
"The lack of resolution around the criminal aspect of Lockerbie is almost now complete."
She told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland: "With Megrahi's death we will never know whether if he is truly innocent as he protests and as the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Board considered he might be, or guilty as a Scottish court convicted him."
And she said: "I just find it immensely frustrating to have to sit here in the middle and not know."
[From a report on the BBC News website.]
Open letter from Dr Swire to President Obama
In a speech in Cairo in June 2009 you said:
"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world. One based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition."
"No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust," you said, and speaking of the Palestinians you went on: "For more than 60 years, they have endured the pain of dislocation," but "It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus," ..... "That's not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered."
The piece below is written by the father of one of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster of 1988 in which 270 died including children, students, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters and old women, all of them deeply missed, as a result not of a bus, but of an aircraft bombing now widely believed to have been engineered by a group claiming to pursue the interests of those same Palestinians, though centered itself in Syria.
In a recent YouGov poll in the Muslim world in October 2009, following a debate on Lockerbie held under the auspices of the Qatar foundation, over half the 1047 respondents thought Megrahi (the alleged Lockerbie bomber) innocent, and in a grim reminder of how the US is perceived in the Arab World, whereas 12% thought that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie, 21% thought that the US was 'directly or indirectly responsible'.
So as you Mr President predicted, the impact of your dramatic Cairo speech has not been able to dispel the hatreds and distrust of 60 years. But for 20 of those years a group of families bereaved at Lockerbie have laboured towards obtaining the truth as to why the slaughter happened and who was responsible for it, by default or by commission.
That is why the piece below has been written. The hope is that recognising that some of us wish to see some benefit to the world come out of the horror of the Lockerbie slaughter, may empower a new effort to reach the truth. Maybe disclosing the truth behind the atrocity can actually be turned around to improve relations between the West and the Muslim world, and earn the USA a new respect.
That requires prior certainty as to what the truth actually was.
Those who put their hand up and admit that they previously made mistakes gain respect, those who acquiesce in allowing the truth to remain hidden may come to be despised at the bar of history.
As John Donne wrote : "On a huge hill, cragged and steep, truth stands, and he that will reach her, about must, and about must go." (John Donne 1571? - 1631). The piece below is distilled from 20 years of 'going about' in search of the truth, and the path is indeed cragged. On that path we have met with Presidents and dictators, Prime Ministers, a Secretary General of the UN and his foremost legal advisers, and more of the great and the good than can be named here. Perhaps it is worth reading on. I am confident that you want to stand on that hilltop, and that you have the humility to find the path that leads to it.
Dr Jim Swire, father of Flora, age 23 murdered at Lockerbie, 21/12/88
The audacity to hope for change.
President Obama and the Lockerbie case
The truth has a positive contribution to make to US Middle East problems.
When President Obama assumed office a year ago, many thought that the American attitude to those who she regarded as her enemies would become more careful and knowledge based. His compelling writings and oratory supported this hope, as have many of his actions since election. His Nobel prize is a magnificent endorsement of the hope for change which he has brought to office with him.
A new administration, particularly when based on an entirely distinct support base in its own community from that enjoyed by its predecessors, may find it difficult to resolve issues they left over for it to solve. To ease this difficulty a new leader will often co-opt supporters of his preceding administration; at the same time such individuals may make it harder to break with previous ethical norms. The new President's refusal publicly to attack the record of his predecessors can only be admired.
In no field will his task be more difficult than in the conduct of foreign relations, where the support bases of interacting nations will usually not have changed simultaneously, so that previous problems tend to persist. The solution must be for the incoming President to apply a logical re-analysis of how these difficult issues may have arisen, based on the objective re-assessment of the available evidence. This process requires both time and resources, and is finely shown by President Obama's evident careful assessment of the decisions necessary over Afghanistan. But as evidenced by his visit to Cairo in June 2009 and his speech there, nowhere is this more difficult than in relations with the Muslim world.
This re-evaluation process requires even more caution where the work of a nation's intelligence services have been involved, they need to have strong allegiance to the mindset of their current President. This allegiance can lead those intelligence services, in the interests of serving what was their current administration at the time, to overstep the limits which their citizens and their new President would approve, were they aware of them.
True justice should be the great bulwark of citizens the world over against wrongful intrusion into their lives by politicians of their own or any other nation, whether expressed through force or other misuse of power. The Lockerbie trial was of two Libyan individuals, not of the Libyan regime. National justice should protect the rights of its individual citizens, irrespective of the wishes of the politicians and intelligence services of any other nations however relevant to the cases involved, its effectiveness is a measure of the quality of the community it should protect.
For protection at an international level, there are increasing moves towards empowered international justice, such as the International Criminal Court. The US in the past has not pulled her weight there, maybe President Obama will change that. The seeming past belief that US law should run right across the planet causes great resentment.
Almost unnoticed at the time that President Clinton, backed by UK Foreign Secretary (the late) Robin Cook gave the go ahead for the Lockerbie court in Holland, Nelson Mandela issued an urgent warning; speaking from a CHOGM* meeting in Edinburgh he said "No one country should be complainant prosecutor and judge".
The time has now come for the new President to assess whether ignoring the warning from this wise man over this terrible case has led to very unfortunate consequences internationally.
Where several states are all involved in the same case, the danger arises that if one such state is much more powerful than the others, then the protection provided by their own legal systems to those who live in the lesser involved states may be overridden by that power. Intelligence is a form of power. In the Lockerbie case, those who attended the Zeist trial were treated to repeated demonstrations of how some individuals in the Scottish prosecuting authority had developed a sychophantic relationship towards US sources of investigation and technical expertise. Such a relationship gave real meaning to the concept that the UK and the US were indeed to be considered 'one nation' as in Mandela's warning on this matter.
The justice system which President Obama has inherited appears to many observers to be flawed. The mindset of the US Department of Justice, when it boasts of its use of financial inducement to obtain evidence is risky. The US DoJ sports on its website a list of named individuals, allegedly terrorists, who have been brought to 'justice' by the application of financial inducements. There is a fine line between innocent inducement and bribery leading to the perversion of justice. The role of certain Scottish entities in a similar use of 'inducements' also needs investigation.
Megrahi, the alleged Lockerbie bomber is on the DoJ's list of those whose convictions have been assisted by financial inducements to witnesses. It is now known, from records kept by one of the Scottish police force visiting Malta (Harry Bell) that the DoJ wanted to offer $10,000 'up front' with $2,000,000 to follow, to a key prosecution witness, the Maltese clothing-shop keeper, Tony Gauci. This long before he had given his evidence in court. It has not increased faith in the DoJ's probity that Megrahi's name was removed from their front page some time ago after attention was drawn to it by those seeking the truth over Lockerbie.
During the years since Lockerbie, the writer has had the privilege of meeting with Hans Corell, one time under Secretary General and legal Counsel to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, with Nelson Mandela, and with Kofi Annan himself. In addition I have the firm friendship of Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots law in Edinburgh, whose idea the neutral country Lockerbie trial was, and who, like the writer is convinced that Megrahi should never have been found guilty. There could have been no better tutorial in teaching the need for a better way of resolving international criminal cases based on terrorism and the guilt of individuals.
In the case of the Lockerbie disaster there are compelling reasons for fearing that international political expediency, aided by a litany of pre-existing established patterns of hatred, and serviced by national intelligence services, may have overcome Scotland's hope that she would be able to display to the US and the world an independent but impartial judicial process. International terrorism cases carry a great risk of 'conflict of interest' for national authorities attempting to bring them to justice, for it is the policies of national governments which often decide a terrorist's target, and a nation may well not wish those policies questioned by her own or any other citizens.
Instead it seems inevitable that the truth will out, sooner or later, namely that the Lockerbie trial has deeply undermined the previously high reputation of Scotland's independent criminal justice system, and convicted an individual innocent of the crime with which he had been charged, further bedevilling relations between the West and the Muslim world in the process.
The doubts that exist about the use of the Scottish criminal system in this case keep growing. A number of respected legal authorities, particularly in the UK, such as Scotland's Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) have come to the conclusion that the verdict against the Libyan, Megrahi, may be unjustified and was politically/economically influenced. Some of these doubts are cogently set out in an article by one of the UK's most prominent champions of true justice and the overturning of improper verdicts, Gareth Peirce.
Any unbiased reader of her article published in the London Review of Books will see some of the reasons why the Megrahi verdict is being increasingly criticised. Her article does not bear a title dwelling on passive failure of justice but reads 'The framing of Al-Megrahi'.
This title bears witness to the widespread belief that not only was there serious blocking of some material arising from the Scottish investigation, which should certainly have been made known to the defence, but also a naive amateurishness about the acquisition of information concerning at least one potential source of motivation for the crime. There is also deep suspicion that weaknesses were not confined to being so passive as this, for a key piece of the forensic evidence seemed to bear the stamp of deliberate fabrication, aspects of this are discussed below, and need to be set in the context of the quality of the forensic staff involved, both in the UK and in the US.
A few of the reasons for questioning the findings and verdict in the Lockerbie trial.
Unfortunately there appears to be a very grave risk that a key piece of forensic evidence, a piece of timer circuit board designated PT35B was fraudulently introduced into the evidence chain and accepted by the British forensic 'experts' who described it to the court. Among all the evidence led, the doubts about the story of this item's alleged recovery and subsequent treatment are unique and gather like vultures round a corpse.
Also unique is the significance that this item would have, if genuine. There was no other physical evidence led capable of giving such support to the prosecution's extraordinary and circumstantial story that the IED had originated from the island of Malta. If true, this story would have required the use of just such a long-running timer as the one from which the fragment called PT35B was alleged to have come, and there simply was no other item which seemed to show that such a timer had been used. The timing of the explosion so early in the Lockerbie aircraft's flight would have been a phenomenal error by any terrorist having complete control over the timing of the explosion. Anyone using a timer such as that from which 'PT35B' was alleged to have come would have had such complete control.
What of involved American intelligence or forensic 'experts'? An agent of the FBI, Thomas Thurman held up in front of public TV cameras in the US a photograph of a pristine timer circuit board through which, he claimed to have linked the crime irrefutably to Libya. It was instantly clear that his photograph was of a circuit board which had not been involved in proximity to any explosion. It was also clearly not the circuit board from which PT35B was said to have come, but was of a separate daughter board adjacent to the PT35B board within such timers.
Before long it became clear (and later confirmed in court evidence) that the CIA had already been in possession of timers containing such circuit boards. The FBI agent Thurman was subsequently cited by a more senior FBI officer for the deliberate distortion of prosecution evidence in other criminal cases, in order to assist the prosecution. He was hastily removed from his position. His Lockerbie related contribution remains in place.
As for his UK counterparts, one was Alan Feraday from RARDE# the comment below on his prior performance in an IRA case cannot be ignored:
"The Crown's chief forensic scientist ... Mr Alan Feraday, upon whom so much depended as to the integrity of his theories and the integrity of himself as an expert witness, has since been severely criticised by the Lord Chief Justice in the case of R v Berry (1991). Mr. Feraday was brought forward as an expert in electronics. He is only qualified to a Higher National Certificate level. The Lord Chief Justice declared that the nature of his evidence was 'dogmatic in the extreme ' and that he should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in this field. In a recent development the Home Office has agreed to pay out compensation from the public purse to Mr. Berry because he was jailed on the erroneous evidence of Feraday."
The comment of the Lord Chief Justice above was available to those who selected Feraday to handle forensics for the Lockerbie case well before the case opened. Indeed the R v Berry case cited above occurred in 1991, and it was in December of that year that indictments against the two Libyans were first issued, and the Lockerbie trial did not start till May 2000. At least the FBI did not discover their problems over Thomas Thurman until after he had spoken out over his interpretation of the Lockerbie forensic position.
The problems over Feraday were known to the UK authorities well before they decided to give him a critical role in the Lockerbie forensic determinations. That the above quotation centres on electronics is particularly crucial to the Lockerbie case in view of the unique position of 'PT35B' within it.
Then in an amazing prequel to the Lockerbie case - that of Danny McNamee we see:
"In the course of the investigation [into the McNamee case] documents were discovered which prove that the police and prosecution knew of the existence of Desmond Ellis and that the evidence pointed to him fully 4 years before Mr. McNamee's arrest. They had matched prints in the arms caches to Ellis. In clear breach of their legal responsibilities they deliberately did not disclose this to Mr. McNamee's defence at the 1987 trial or the appeal in 1991.
"During the McNamee case Mr.Alan Feraday, the Crown's main scientific witness, said that 'the two (circuit boards, one found at the bomb site, the other contained in an IRA arms cache) were matched in design 'artwork' and were therefore made by the same master bombmaker.' The circuit board fragment put forward by the Crown as the link between McNamee and an actual explosion was never forensically tested for explosive contamination although other items from the scene of the explosion were subjected to such tests."
The circuit board fragment known as PT35B in the Lockerbie case was never tested by Feraday for explosives residues either.
The writer knows of no evidence that Mr Feraday received any further education in electronics, or the ethics of forensic presentation in criminal trials between 1987 (the McNamee case) and 2000 when he took such a crucial role in the Lockerbie case.
So who authorised the employment of Feraday in the Lockerbie case, and why? Was this really the best our nation could offer in attempting honestly to reach the truth about the worst terrorist outrage ever to occur in the UK?
Why was the Lord Chief Justice's warning about Feraday following the R v Berry case of 1991 ignored, despite our Home Office having had to make compensation payments because of the findings over Feraday's incompetence at that time?
We now also know that evidence (the Heathrow break-in) supportive of a totally different explanation for the atrocity, and which might have excluded both Megrahi and Malta from the case, was known to the Metropolitan police by January 1989, as Mr Manly of Heathrow security told the appeal court, and recorded in the trial transcripts as follows:
"In January 1989 I was called in for an interview by the anti-terrorist squad. I was interviewed by a Mr. Robson ..."
The prosecuting authorities (Crown Office) have claimed in writing to me that they were unaware of the break-in till after the verdict against Megrahi had been reached 12 years after this 'preventable' disaster. The question here must be whether the prosecuting authorities are correct and whether the break-in was or was not known to the police force (Dumfries and Galloway) charged by the Westminster government of the day with conducting the case, and if not, why did the 'anti terrorist squad', 'Mr Robson' and the Heathrow authorities themselves not pass it on to the investigation?
Remember the words of the Lord Chief justice from 1991? "Mr Feraday was brought forward as an expert in electronics. He is only qualified to a Higher National Certificate level. The Lord Chief Justice declared that the nature of his evidence was 'dogmatic in the extreme ' and that he should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in this field."
Why should the Lockerbie case still be important to President Obama in 2009?
President Obama has inherited so many problems, but resolution of the Lockerbie question is not the least of them, despite the many years since the disaster itself.
In a recent YouGov poll in the Arab world, fieldwork was conducted from the 21st to 25th of October 2009. Over half the 1047 respondents thought Megrahi innocent, and in a grim reminder of how the US is perceived in the Arab World, whereas 12% thought that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie, 21% thought that the US was 'directly or indirectly responsible'.
President Obama will recall no doubt that a previous holder of his office (Ronald Reagan), strongly supported by Lady Thatcher, used the USAF to bomb Tripoli and Bengazi in 1986. Thus it may be that Arab belief in America's responsibility for Lockerbie lies partly in the motivation given to Libya to get revenge for that bombing, which had killed Gaddafi's adopted daughter.
Alternatively a few may also be remembering the destruction of an Iranian airbus with 290 pilgrims on board over the Gulf in July 1988, five months before Lockerbie by a US missile cruiser.
Against this background it would seem logical for the new President to set up a new inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster and particularly into how the verdict against a Libyan came to be reached. It would seem that contributors to such an inquiry would have to be required to give evidence under oath, and that it would be necessary to exercise extreme caution as to how members of the FBI, the CIA and the US Department of Justice should be handled.
In any event if the Lockerbie trial was indeed fatally flawed by the intrusion of international politics then that will be known in the Muslim world, particularly in those nations in which the actual perpetrators and their collaborators are domiciled. These are believed to include Iran and Syria.
If President Obama fails to take all reasonable steps to resolve the doubts surrounding the trial verdict, then he and his country will find it much harder to make progress in reducing tensions in the Middle East, since his country is already suspected of foul play over this case.
If he decides to investigate the case objectively and if that investigation confirms the worst, namely that this was a gross miscarriage of justice, he and his country would surely gain in reputation for integrity and honesty by admitting past mistakes and apologising.
In respect of apologising for miscarriages of justice, there is of course precedent, again provided by the UK.
In February 2005 Prime Minister Tony Blair officially apologised to the families and friends of those falsely convicted over the Guildford and Woolwich IRA bombings. By a twist of fate these tragic miscarriages of justice directly affected America too, for one of those falsely convicted, Paul Hill, had married Caroline Kennedy, daughter of another of President Obama's predecessors in office, President John F Kennedy.
President Obama may consider that the use of those who contributed to the above debacles over IRA cases were again employed in reaching the Lockerbie verdict, dictates a need to re-examine how the Lockerbie verdict came to be reached, even if that process casts painful doubt upon the ethics of involved Americans also.
Why is the Lockerbie trial at Zeist important to the Lockerbie relatives?
Since 1989 we have been requesting a full and objective inquiry into the failure to protect the flight, from every single UK Prime MInister, and have been as often rebuffed, usually with the excuse that there was 'an ongoing criminal investigation which must not be compromised', then by the mantra that 'the trial and appeal must take precedence'.
During those long years a Scottish Fatal Accident Inquiry (=inquest) was held. It knew nothing of the Heathrow break-in mentioned above, but nevertheless concluded that the disaster was preventable and that the aircraft had been under the Host State protection of the UK while being loaded with its deadly cargo at Heathrow airport.
President Obama will understand at once that we have a need to know why no effective steps were taken by either the US or UK authorities to save those 270 lives. He will find that many of his own country's families who lost loved ones then (but not all of them) believe that justice was done at Zeist. Their sincerity cannot be doubted.
He will find that most of those active in US intelligence in 1988 will swear that they worked with integrity to reach the trial verdict in 2001. No doubt most of them did. But for those of us who cannot believe that more should not have been done to provide protection, and those who believe that the Zeist verdict was a disgrace, there seems a poisonous miasma of deceit choking the truth over just why and by whom our beloved families were left innocent, vulnerable and then were brutally slaughtered. It is a dilemma which embraces both our nations, so the new President will need to approach our current Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, also, if a comprehensive inquiry is to be realised.
This we have of course done, both individually and as a group, but without even a reply to the group's request at the time of writing.
Yes it is hard to question the 'closure' obtained for many by the Zeist verdict, but eventually the truth will come out, and then what will those who have contributed to this terrible deception have to say to us?
We should all remember that 'it is only necessary for good men to do nothing, for evil to triumph'. Some of us believe that honest re-appraisal of this dreadful case could be a force for integrity and the benefit of humanity, whereas the present deceit poisons international relations and makes the work of the great, such as President Obama, all the more difficult.
In the interests of integrity, truth and the healing of past mistakes Mr President I believe you should give this tragedy your attention.
In the name of human love and family rejoice that it did not afflict you or your lovely family, may terrorism never do so. But surely at this time of year especially we know in our hearts that the way to defeat terrorism is by handling perpetrators with firmness, yes, but also with fairness and true justice and eschewing the natural human urge to seek revenge? It is sometimes possible to wrest something good even out of something profoundly evil. Surely this case now offers just that.
Dr Jim Swire, father of Flora, murdered at Lockerbie, and a seeker after truth. 20th December 2009
* CHOGM Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
# RARDE Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment.
~ The research was conducted using YouGovSiraj’s regional online panel of 200,000+ respondents. Respondents from across the region (Arab world) were invited to participate in the survey. Fieldwork was conducted from the 21st to 25th of October 2009. The poll was completed during the third week of October by more than 1,000 respondents from 18 Arab countries.Over half – 55 percent - of those interviewed cast doubt on Al Megrahi's conviction for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world. One based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition."
"No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust," you said, and speaking of the Palestinians you went on: "For more than 60 years, they have endured the pain of dislocation," but "It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus," ..... "That's not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered."
The piece below is written by the father of one of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster of 1988 in which 270 died including children, students, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters and old women, all of them deeply missed, as a result not of a bus, but of an aircraft bombing now widely believed to have been engineered by a group claiming to pursue the interests of those same Palestinians, though centered itself in Syria.
In a recent YouGov poll in the Muslim world in October 2009, following a debate on Lockerbie held under the auspices of the Qatar foundation, over half the 1047 respondents thought Megrahi (the alleged Lockerbie bomber) innocent, and in a grim reminder of how the US is perceived in the Arab World, whereas 12% thought that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie, 21% thought that the US was 'directly or indirectly responsible'.
So as you Mr President predicted, the impact of your dramatic Cairo speech has not been able to dispel the hatreds and distrust of 60 years. But for 20 of those years a group of families bereaved at Lockerbie have laboured towards obtaining the truth as to why the slaughter happened and who was responsible for it, by default or by commission.
That is why the piece below has been written. The hope is that recognising that some of us wish to see some benefit to the world come out of the horror of the Lockerbie slaughter, may empower a new effort to reach the truth. Maybe disclosing the truth behind the atrocity can actually be turned around to improve relations between the West and the Muslim world, and earn the USA a new respect.
That requires prior certainty as to what the truth actually was.
Those who put their hand up and admit that they previously made mistakes gain respect, those who acquiesce in allowing the truth to remain hidden may come to be despised at the bar of history.
As John Donne wrote : "On a huge hill, cragged and steep, truth stands, and he that will reach her, about must, and about must go." (John Donne 1571? - 1631). The piece below is distilled from 20 years of 'going about' in search of the truth, and the path is indeed cragged. On that path we have met with Presidents and dictators, Prime Ministers, a Secretary General of the UN and his foremost legal advisers, and more of the great and the good than can be named here. Perhaps it is worth reading on. I am confident that you want to stand on that hilltop, and that you have the humility to find the path that leads to it.
Dr Jim Swire, father of Flora, age 23 murdered at Lockerbie, 21/12/88
The audacity to hope for change.
President Obama and the Lockerbie case
The truth has a positive contribution to make to US Middle East problems.
When President Obama assumed office a year ago, many thought that the American attitude to those who she regarded as her enemies would become more careful and knowledge based. His compelling writings and oratory supported this hope, as have many of his actions since election. His Nobel prize is a magnificent endorsement of the hope for change which he has brought to office with him.
A new administration, particularly when based on an entirely distinct support base in its own community from that enjoyed by its predecessors, may find it difficult to resolve issues they left over for it to solve. To ease this difficulty a new leader will often co-opt supporters of his preceding administration; at the same time such individuals may make it harder to break with previous ethical norms. The new President's refusal publicly to attack the record of his predecessors can only be admired.
In no field will his task be more difficult than in the conduct of foreign relations, where the support bases of interacting nations will usually not have changed simultaneously, so that previous problems tend to persist. The solution must be for the incoming President to apply a logical re-analysis of how these difficult issues may have arisen, based on the objective re-assessment of the available evidence. This process requires both time and resources, and is finely shown by President Obama's evident careful assessment of the decisions necessary over Afghanistan. But as evidenced by his visit to Cairo in June 2009 and his speech there, nowhere is this more difficult than in relations with the Muslim world.
This re-evaluation process requires even more caution where the work of a nation's intelligence services have been involved, they need to have strong allegiance to the mindset of their current President. This allegiance can lead those intelligence services, in the interests of serving what was their current administration at the time, to overstep the limits which their citizens and their new President would approve, were they aware of them.
True justice should be the great bulwark of citizens the world over against wrongful intrusion into their lives by politicians of their own or any other nation, whether expressed through force or other misuse of power. The Lockerbie trial was of two Libyan individuals, not of the Libyan regime. National justice should protect the rights of its individual citizens, irrespective of the wishes of the politicians and intelligence services of any other nations however relevant to the cases involved, its effectiveness is a measure of the quality of the community it should protect.
For protection at an international level, there are increasing moves towards empowered international justice, such as the International Criminal Court. The US in the past has not pulled her weight there, maybe President Obama will change that. The seeming past belief that US law should run right across the planet causes great resentment.
Almost unnoticed at the time that President Clinton, backed by UK Foreign Secretary (the late) Robin Cook gave the go ahead for the Lockerbie court in Holland, Nelson Mandela issued an urgent warning; speaking from a CHOGM* meeting in Edinburgh he said "No one country should be complainant prosecutor and judge".
The time has now come for the new President to assess whether ignoring the warning from this wise man over this terrible case has led to very unfortunate consequences internationally.
Where several states are all involved in the same case, the danger arises that if one such state is much more powerful than the others, then the protection provided by their own legal systems to those who live in the lesser involved states may be overridden by that power. Intelligence is a form of power. In the Lockerbie case, those who attended the Zeist trial were treated to repeated demonstrations of how some individuals in the Scottish prosecuting authority had developed a sychophantic relationship towards US sources of investigation and technical expertise. Such a relationship gave real meaning to the concept that the UK and the US were indeed to be considered 'one nation' as in Mandela's warning on this matter.
The justice system which President Obama has inherited appears to many observers to be flawed. The mindset of the US Department of Justice, when it boasts of its use of financial inducement to obtain evidence is risky. The US DoJ sports on its website a list of named individuals, allegedly terrorists, who have been brought to 'justice' by the application of financial inducements. There is a fine line between innocent inducement and bribery leading to the perversion of justice. The role of certain Scottish entities in a similar use of 'inducements' also needs investigation.
Megrahi, the alleged Lockerbie bomber is on the DoJ's list of those whose convictions have been assisted by financial inducements to witnesses. It is now known, from records kept by one of the Scottish police force visiting Malta (Harry Bell) that the DoJ wanted to offer $10,000 'up front' with $2,000,000 to follow, to a key prosecution witness, the Maltese clothing-shop keeper, Tony Gauci. This long before he had given his evidence in court. It has not increased faith in the DoJ's probity that Megrahi's name was removed from their front page some time ago after attention was drawn to it by those seeking the truth over Lockerbie.
During the years since Lockerbie, the writer has had the privilege of meeting with Hans Corell, one time under Secretary General and legal Counsel to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, with Nelson Mandela, and with Kofi Annan himself. In addition I have the firm friendship of Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots law in Edinburgh, whose idea the neutral country Lockerbie trial was, and who, like the writer is convinced that Megrahi should never have been found guilty. There could have been no better tutorial in teaching the need for a better way of resolving international criminal cases based on terrorism and the guilt of individuals.
In the case of the Lockerbie disaster there are compelling reasons for fearing that international political expediency, aided by a litany of pre-existing established patterns of hatred, and serviced by national intelligence services, may have overcome Scotland's hope that she would be able to display to the US and the world an independent but impartial judicial process. International terrorism cases carry a great risk of 'conflict of interest' for national authorities attempting to bring them to justice, for it is the policies of national governments which often decide a terrorist's target, and a nation may well not wish those policies questioned by her own or any other citizens.
Instead it seems inevitable that the truth will out, sooner or later, namely that the Lockerbie trial has deeply undermined the previously high reputation of Scotland's independent criminal justice system, and convicted an individual innocent of the crime with which he had been charged, further bedevilling relations between the West and the Muslim world in the process.
The doubts that exist about the use of the Scottish criminal system in this case keep growing. A number of respected legal authorities, particularly in the UK, such as Scotland's Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) have come to the conclusion that the verdict against the Libyan, Megrahi, may be unjustified and was politically/economically influenced. Some of these doubts are cogently set out in an article by one of the UK's most prominent champions of true justice and the overturning of improper verdicts, Gareth Peirce.
Any unbiased reader of her article published in the London Review of Books will see some of the reasons why the Megrahi verdict is being increasingly criticised. Her article does not bear a title dwelling on passive failure of justice but reads 'The framing of Al-Megrahi'.
This title bears witness to the widespread belief that not only was there serious blocking of some material arising from the Scottish investigation, which should certainly have been made known to the defence, but also a naive amateurishness about the acquisition of information concerning at least one potential source of motivation for the crime. There is also deep suspicion that weaknesses were not confined to being so passive as this, for a key piece of the forensic evidence seemed to bear the stamp of deliberate fabrication, aspects of this are discussed below, and need to be set in the context of the quality of the forensic staff involved, both in the UK and in the US.
A few of the reasons for questioning the findings and verdict in the Lockerbie trial.
Unfortunately there appears to be a very grave risk that a key piece of forensic evidence, a piece of timer circuit board designated PT35B was fraudulently introduced into the evidence chain and accepted by the British forensic 'experts' who described it to the court. Among all the evidence led, the doubts about the story of this item's alleged recovery and subsequent treatment are unique and gather like vultures round a corpse.
Also unique is the significance that this item would have, if genuine. There was no other physical evidence led capable of giving such support to the prosecution's extraordinary and circumstantial story that the IED had originated from the island of Malta. If true, this story would have required the use of just such a long-running timer as the one from which the fragment called PT35B was alleged to have come, and there simply was no other item which seemed to show that such a timer had been used. The timing of the explosion so early in the Lockerbie aircraft's flight would have been a phenomenal error by any terrorist having complete control over the timing of the explosion. Anyone using a timer such as that from which 'PT35B' was alleged to have come would have had such complete control.
What of involved American intelligence or forensic 'experts'? An agent of the FBI, Thomas Thurman held up in front of public TV cameras in the US a photograph of a pristine timer circuit board through which, he claimed to have linked the crime irrefutably to Libya. It was instantly clear that his photograph was of a circuit board which had not been involved in proximity to any explosion. It was also clearly not the circuit board from which PT35B was said to have come, but was of a separate daughter board adjacent to the PT35B board within such timers.
Before long it became clear (and later confirmed in court evidence) that the CIA had already been in possession of timers containing such circuit boards. The FBI agent Thurman was subsequently cited by a more senior FBI officer for the deliberate distortion of prosecution evidence in other criminal cases, in order to assist the prosecution. He was hastily removed from his position. His Lockerbie related contribution remains in place.
As for his UK counterparts, one was Alan Feraday from RARDE# the comment below on his prior performance in an IRA case cannot be ignored:
"The Crown's chief forensic scientist ... Mr Alan Feraday, upon whom so much depended as to the integrity of his theories and the integrity of himself as an expert witness, has since been severely criticised by the Lord Chief Justice in the case of R v Berry (1991). Mr. Feraday was brought forward as an expert in electronics. He is only qualified to a Higher National Certificate level. The Lord Chief Justice declared that the nature of his evidence was 'dogmatic in the extreme ' and that he should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in this field. In a recent development the Home Office has agreed to pay out compensation from the public purse to Mr. Berry because he was jailed on the erroneous evidence of Feraday."
The comment of the Lord Chief Justice above was available to those who selected Feraday to handle forensics for the Lockerbie case well before the case opened. Indeed the R v Berry case cited above occurred in 1991, and it was in December of that year that indictments against the two Libyans were first issued, and the Lockerbie trial did not start till May 2000. At least the FBI did not discover their problems over Thomas Thurman until after he had spoken out over his interpretation of the Lockerbie forensic position.
The problems over Feraday were known to the UK authorities well before they decided to give him a critical role in the Lockerbie forensic determinations. That the above quotation centres on electronics is particularly crucial to the Lockerbie case in view of the unique position of 'PT35B' within it.
Then in an amazing prequel to the Lockerbie case - that of Danny McNamee we see:
"In the course of the investigation [into the McNamee case] documents were discovered which prove that the police and prosecution knew of the existence of Desmond Ellis and that the evidence pointed to him fully 4 years before Mr. McNamee's arrest. They had matched prints in the arms caches to Ellis. In clear breach of their legal responsibilities they deliberately did not disclose this to Mr. McNamee's defence at the 1987 trial or the appeal in 1991.
"During the McNamee case Mr.Alan Feraday, the Crown's main scientific witness, said that 'the two (circuit boards, one found at the bomb site, the other contained in an IRA arms cache) were matched in design 'artwork' and were therefore made by the same master bombmaker.' The circuit board fragment put forward by the Crown as the link between McNamee and an actual explosion was never forensically tested for explosive contamination although other items from the scene of the explosion were subjected to such tests."
The circuit board fragment known as PT35B in the Lockerbie case was never tested by Feraday for explosives residues either.
The writer knows of no evidence that Mr Feraday received any further education in electronics, or the ethics of forensic presentation in criminal trials between 1987 (the McNamee case) and 2000 when he took such a crucial role in the Lockerbie case.
So who authorised the employment of Feraday in the Lockerbie case, and why? Was this really the best our nation could offer in attempting honestly to reach the truth about the worst terrorist outrage ever to occur in the UK?
Why was the Lord Chief Justice's warning about Feraday following the R v Berry case of 1991 ignored, despite our Home Office having had to make compensation payments because of the findings over Feraday's incompetence at that time?
We now also know that evidence (the Heathrow break-in) supportive of a totally different explanation for the atrocity, and which might have excluded both Megrahi and Malta from the case, was known to the Metropolitan police by January 1989, as Mr Manly of Heathrow security told the appeal court, and recorded in the trial transcripts as follows:
"In January 1989 I was called in for an interview by the anti-terrorist squad. I was interviewed by a Mr. Robson ..."
The prosecuting authorities (Crown Office) have claimed in writing to me that they were unaware of the break-in till after the verdict against Megrahi had been reached 12 years after this 'preventable' disaster. The question here must be whether the prosecuting authorities are correct and whether the break-in was or was not known to the police force (Dumfries and Galloway) charged by the Westminster government of the day with conducting the case, and if not, why did the 'anti terrorist squad', 'Mr Robson' and the Heathrow authorities themselves not pass it on to the investigation?
Remember the words of the Lord Chief justice from 1991? "Mr Feraday was brought forward as an expert in electronics. He is only qualified to a Higher National Certificate level. The Lord Chief Justice declared that the nature of his evidence was 'dogmatic in the extreme ' and that he should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in this field."
Why should the Lockerbie case still be important to President Obama in 2009?
President Obama has inherited so many problems, but resolution of the Lockerbie question is not the least of them, despite the many years since the disaster itself.
In a recent YouGov poll in the Arab world, fieldwork was conducted from the 21st to 25th of October 2009. Over half the 1047 respondents thought Megrahi innocent, and in a grim reminder of how the US is perceived in the Arab World, whereas 12% thought that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie, 21% thought that the US was 'directly or indirectly responsible'.
President Obama will recall no doubt that a previous holder of his office (Ronald Reagan), strongly supported by Lady Thatcher, used the USAF to bomb Tripoli and Bengazi in 1986. Thus it may be that Arab belief in America's responsibility for Lockerbie lies partly in the motivation given to Libya to get revenge for that bombing, which had killed Gaddafi's adopted daughter.
Alternatively a few may also be remembering the destruction of an Iranian airbus with 290 pilgrims on board over the Gulf in July 1988, five months before Lockerbie by a US missile cruiser.
Against this background it would seem logical for the new President to set up a new inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster and particularly into how the verdict against a Libyan came to be reached. It would seem that contributors to such an inquiry would have to be required to give evidence under oath, and that it would be necessary to exercise extreme caution as to how members of the FBI, the CIA and the US Department of Justice should be handled.
In any event if the Lockerbie trial was indeed fatally flawed by the intrusion of international politics then that will be known in the Muslim world, particularly in those nations in which the actual perpetrators and their collaborators are domiciled. These are believed to include Iran and Syria.
If President Obama fails to take all reasonable steps to resolve the doubts surrounding the trial verdict, then he and his country will find it much harder to make progress in reducing tensions in the Middle East, since his country is already suspected of foul play over this case.
If he decides to investigate the case objectively and if that investigation confirms the worst, namely that this was a gross miscarriage of justice, he and his country would surely gain in reputation for integrity and honesty by admitting past mistakes and apologising.
In respect of apologising for miscarriages of justice, there is of course precedent, again provided by the UK.
In February 2005 Prime Minister Tony Blair officially apologised to the families and friends of those falsely convicted over the Guildford and Woolwich IRA bombings. By a twist of fate these tragic miscarriages of justice directly affected America too, for one of those falsely convicted, Paul Hill, had married Caroline Kennedy, daughter of another of President Obama's predecessors in office, President John F Kennedy.
President Obama may consider that the use of those who contributed to the above debacles over IRA cases were again employed in reaching the Lockerbie verdict, dictates a need to re-examine how the Lockerbie verdict came to be reached, even if that process casts painful doubt upon the ethics of involved Americans also.
Why is the Lockerbie trial at Zeist important to the Lockerbie relatives?
Since 1989 we have been requesting a full and objective inquiry into the failure to protect the flight, from every single UK Prime MInister, and have been as often rebuffed, usually with the excuse that there was 'an ongoing criminal investigation which must not be compromised', then by the mantra that 'the trial and appeal must take precedence'.
During those long years a Scottish Fatal Accident Inquiry (=inquest) was held. It knew nothing of the Heathrow break-in mentioned above, but nevertheless concluded that the disaster was preventable and that the aircraft had been under the Host State protection of the UK while being loaded with its deadly cargo at Heathrow airport.
President Obama will understand at once that we have a need to know why no effective steps were taken by either the US or UK authorities to save those 270 lives. He will find that many of his own country's families who lost loved ones then (but not all of them) believe that justice was done at Zeist. Their sincerity cannot be doubted.
He will find that most of those active in US intelligence in 1988 will swear that they worked with integrity to reach the trial verdict in 2001. No doubt most of them did. But for those of us who cannot believe that more should not have been done to provide protection, and those who believe that the Zeist verdict was a disgrace, there seems a poisonous miasma of deceit choking the truth over just why and by whom our beloved families were left innocent, vulnerable and then were brutally slaughtered. It is a dilemma which embraces both our nations, so the new President will need to approach our current Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, also, if a comprehensive inquiry is to be realised.
This we have of course done, both individually and as a group, but without even a reply to the group's request at the time of writing.
Yes it is hard to question the 'closure' obtained for many by the Zeist verdict, but eventually the truth will come out, and then what will those who have contributed to this terrible deception have to say to us?
We should all remember that 'it is only necessary for good men to do nothing, for evil to triumph'. Some of us believe that honest re-appraisal of this dreadful case could be a force for integrity and the benefit of humanity, whereas the present deceit poisons international relations and makes the work of the great, such as President Obama, all the more difficult.
In the interests of integrity, truth and the healing of past mistakes Mr President I believe you should give this tragedy your attention.
In the name of human love and family rejoice that it did not afflict you or your lovely family, may terrorism never do so. But surely at this time of year especially we know in our hearts that the way to defeat terrorism is by handling perpetrators with firmness, yes, but also with fairness and true justice and eschewing the natural human urge to seek revenge? It is sometimes possible to wrest something good even out of something profoundly evil. Surely this case now offers just that.
Dr Jim Swire, father of Flora, murdered at Lockerbie, and a seeker after truth. 20th December 2009
* CHOGM Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
# RARDE Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment.
~ The research was conducted using YouGovSiraj’s regional online panel of 200,000+ respondents. Respondents from across the region (Arab world) were invited to participate in the survey. Fieldwork was conducted from the 21st to 25th of October 2009. The poll was completed during the third week of October by more than 1,000 respondents from 18 Arab countries.Over half – 55 percent - of those interviewed cast doubt on Al Megrahi's conviction for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
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