Justice among the nations...

[I am grateful to Dr Jim Swire for permitting me to reproduce the following.]

These endured all and gave all, that Justice among the nations might prevail and that mankind might enjoy freedom and inherit peace.
Inscription on lintel of memorial chapel, US cemetery Omaha beach, Normandy.

It is difficult to extract a fair yet brief synopsis from more than 21 years of claim and counter claim over Lockerbie. (...)

In July 1988 the US missile cruiser USS Vincennes, while engaged in a skirmish with Iranian gunboats, within Iranian territorial waters in the Arabian Gulf, mistook an airbus climbing out of Bandar Abbas airfield nearby for an attacking military jet and destroyed it. 290 pilgrims bound for Mecca died and Iran swore revenge.

In December 1988 a US jumbo was destroyed over Lockerbie with the loss of 270 lives.

The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) of the UK Department of Transport published its findings in 1990. It found that an IED containing around 350 grams of explosive in the forward baggage hold of the plane had exploded 38 minutes after the plane had left the Heathrow tarmac, blasting a modest hole in the fuselage, and curious circumferential cracks, but causing the plane, no longer under any control, to execute a manoeuvre so extreme as to lead to its complete break-up.

All 259 on board and 11 in Lockerbie died.

In early 1991 a Fatal Accident Inquiry in Scotland found that the aircraft, though US registered, had been under the Host State protection of the UK while being loaded from empty at Heathrow airport prior to its last flight. The inquiry, seeking to avoid harming the ongoing criminal investigation, was instructed to assume that the IED had come into Heathrow on a feeder flight from Frankfurt. That was what the criminal investigation was postulating.

Rodney Wallis, former director of security to the International Air Transport Association in his book Combating Air Terrorism, published in 1993, wrote:

'Ever since the loss of the Iranian aircraft civil aviation security experts had expected some retaliatory action to be taken against a US target. The delay in a revenge attack was believed to hang on the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) report... [T]his established a time scenario that was to dovetail into the Lockerbie tragedy.'

Iran had longstanding links to a Syrian terrorist group called the PFLP-GC. The PFLP-GC had developed specialised IEDs exclusively for attacking aircraft in flight. Such technology was available to terrorists in 1988 and had certain characteristics which made it extraordinarily appropriate as having been used at Lockerbie. In October 1988 the British government had received a detailed description of this technology.

The response to this information was delayed and showed a failure to grasp its consequences. This failure was to resurface in the first appeal at Zeist, where the Lockerbie trial was held.

For the first 2 years of the criminal investigation into Lockerbie, Iran was the presumed culprit. After that, Libya became prime suspect. Douglas Hurd while foreign secretary later claimed in the House that there was no evidence of the involvement of any nation other than Libya.

British relatives of the dead and others spent great effort on encouraging Gaddafi to hand over the two intelligence agents indicted in 1991, for trial. Their hand-over for trial was strongly supported by Nelson Mandela, Professor Robert Black (Edinburgh law professor) and many others.

But also in 1993, two years after the indictments, Lady Thatcher published The Downing Street Years covering the years of her power. The Lockerbie disaster does not appear in the index, but she claims that her support for the USAF bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi in 1986 had the effect, inter alia, that 'Gaddafi had been humbled... there was a marked decline in Libyan sponsored terrorism in succeeding years... the much vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place'.

In 2000 the trial at Zeist was held. There was no jury, only a bench of senior and exclusively Scottish judges. It provided a rich tranche of material relevant to the disaster, but failed to convince a number of observers of the guilt of either of the accused.

It was the trial evidence, particularly that surrounding the PFLP-GC IEDs, which convinced me that the accused were innocent and led to partially informed speculation as to how the atrocity really had been carried out.

On the whole the media, particularly in the US, took the easy route of accepting the verdict and luxuriating in the consequences of the verdict.

A subsequent appeal failed, but revealed new facts. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) after three years' work, ruled that the trial might have resulted in a miscarriage of justice and sanctioned a second appeal. This was stopped by the terminal illness of the one imprisoned Libyan (Megrahi). Throughout this time his defence was denied access to certain documents by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office using Public Interest Immunity certificates (PIIs), even though at least some of this hidden documentation had been available to the prosecution (and the investigating police) for a number of years, yet was denied to the defence.

Immediately prior to the agreement to set up the trial court at Zeist, Nelson Mandela publicly pronounced that "No one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge." Many observers felt that Anglo/US collaboration justified them as being considered 'one nation' over this matter.

'Envoy of death'

[This is the headline over an article in the Embassy Row section of the website of The Washington Times. It reads in part:]

The Libyan foreign minister — linked to the Lockerbie bombing and an attack on a disco in Berlin that killed American soldiers and expelled from Britain for plotting to kill Libyan dissidents — will be honored this week in Washington by US and Arab business executives.

Musa Kousa [or Mousa Kousa or Mousa Kusa or Musa Kusa] is scheduled to discuss a recent Commerce Department mission to Libya and the new US-Libyan trade framework agreement when he attends a reception in his honor sponsored by the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce on Thursday [3 June] at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel.

Mr Kousa's terrorist background extends to the 1980s when he was accused of sending hit men around the world to kill critics of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. In London, he was known as the "envoy of death" when he was the head of the Libyan diplomatic mission to Britain, according to reports in the London newspapers, The Times and The Independent.

After his expulsion from Britain in 1980, Mr Kousa went on to serve as Mr Gadhafi's top spymaster for 15 years. Mr Kousa was reportedly complicit in the 1986 Berlin disco bombing that led to President Reagan's decision to attack Mr. Gadhafi's residence in Tripoli. He was also accused of plotting the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. One hundred ninety victims were Americans. (...)

The refurbishment of Mr Kousa's image began with his appointment as Libya's envoy to talks that led to a $2.7 billion compensation fund for the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster.

The foreign intelligence chief is also reported to have given London information on spies operating in Britain. (...)

President Obama sent career Foreign Service officer Gene A Cretz to serve as US ambassador in Tripoli in December 2008. Libyan Ambassador Ali Suileiman Aujali presented his credentials to Mr Obama in January 2009.

Anniversary of announcement of Libyan settlement offer

It was on this day in May 2002 that Kreindler & Kreindler, the New York law firm representing many of the families of those who died in the Lockerbie disaster, disclosed that Libya had offered a $2.7 billion settlement of their compensation claims ($10 million per family). A contemporaneous report on the CNN website can be read here.

Gaddafi the younger looks to consign Libya's pariah status to the past

[This is the headline over an article published today on the website of The Guardian. It reads in part:]

Saif Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader, has engaged a New York PR firm to present the face of a modern reforming state

It looked, for a while, just like the bad old days: a handful of angry demonstrators on one side of a London street, shouting "Gaddafi is a murderer" and waving placards as a larger group of men on the other pavement lobbed back Arabic insults over the heads of the watching policemen. But the past was swiftly banished when Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, began to speak from the podium in a university lecture hall packed with businessmen, diplomats and students.

Saif, 37, is the face of modern, reforming Libya, emerging from its long years as a pariah state to become a dazzling mecca for western investment, with a reinvigorated energy industry, billions of dollars in cash reserves, a re-opened US embassy, and even plans for mass tourism.

Gaddafi junior has no formal position in the Jamihiriya – the "state of the masses" – but he is an energetic champion of change who has a finger in most pies in Libya, as well as jet-setting friends such as Britain's Lord Mandelson. It is widely assumed that he will one day succeed his father, although he insists he is a democrat for whom dynastic rule ended with the 1969 revolution.

Saif got all the difficult old issues out of the way at the start of his speech at the London School of Economics this week; a rare public appearance. He surveyed Libya's decision to dismantle its programme to develop nuclear and chemical weapons, the lifting of UN sanctions, the settlement of claims relating to the Lockerbie bombing and the end of a long row with Bulgaria over medics who were jailed for allegedly infecting children with the Aids virus.

A predictable question about Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi, the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber who was freed from his Scottish prison and allowed to go home to die last summer, produced a response so terse it was almost non-existent: Saif is evidently well-advised by his New York PR company.

The trick is to focus on the country's new-found respectability and its future prospects.

"For young Libyans particularly, this shift has seemed like a dream come true, a dramatic change, and a very welcome one," he beamed.

"In this new phase, we began to look to find our own way, to develop our economy and reform our political system, and furthermore to adapt to a globalised, interdependent world."

Gadhafi's son: Freed Lockerbie bomber is very sick

[This is the headline over a short report from Associated Press just posted on the website of The Washington Post. It reads as follows:]

The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi says the Lockerbie bomber released from a British prison on compassionate grounds is alive but very sick.

Saif al-Islam Gadhafi said following a speech in London on Tuesday that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi has "very serious health troubles."

Al-Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, is the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am flight over Scotland, which killed 270 people. He was freed from a Scottish prison in August on compassionate grounds and returned to Libya.

Doctors gave him only three months to live when he was released.

Critics have accused British authorities of putting commercial interests in Libya ahead of concerns for the families of the victims - many of whom were American college students.

[A longer report giving more of the background has now (Thursday) been published on the African Press Agency website. It can be read here.]

Nottingham Playhouse Theatre presents "The Families of Lockerbie"

[What follows is from a report on the Guide2Nottingham website.]

It is now nine months since the release of the one man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi left Greenock Prison on the 20th August 2009, freed on compassionate grounds to die in his native Libya. There he received a hero’s welcome and remains manifestly alive, reportedly hard at work on a TV documentary putting his side of the story.

With each passing day the Scottish government’s decision to free al-Megrahi is called further into question. Now Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company presents a new play by award-winning writer and docudrama pioneer Michael Eaton which is set to cast dramatic new light on the families of the bombing’s 270 victims and their long quest for justice. ‘The Families Of Lockerbie’ pays tribute to their enduring love and fortitude, but also reflects the agonising rift between those who condemn al-Megrahi’s release as an outrage – and those who maintain that he should never have been found guilty at all. Featuring Robert Benfield, Joan Moon, Jennifer Woodward and David Beckford as a multitude of figures both real and fictional.

Over 21 years since Pan Am Flight 103 blew to pieces above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, the repercussions of the blast continue to make headlines. The freeing of the so-called Lockerbie bomber, based on medical advice that he had under three months left to live, has only intensified the controversy. The months since Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision have been marked by a damaging row between the UK and USA; a BBC Newsnight investigation casting fresh doubt on his trial; a general election in which First Minister Alex Salmond appeared compromised by the release; and continued allegations that it was motivated not by compassion but by the prospect of lucrative new contracts with Libya. Now the nine-month anniversary has brought reports that al-Megrahi is himself collaborating on a TV documentary designed to establish his innocence.

But above all, the moment he walked free opened a new chapter in the continuing ordeal of the relatives of the 270 who died. ‘The Families of Lockerbie’ dramatises their differing responses. On the day of al-Megrahi’s release, a television interviewer (David Beckford) gathers together in his studio three people bereaved by the bombing. Laura (Jennifer Woodward) is the widow of a US Marine; Maureen (Joan Moon) and Geoffrey (Robert Benfield) are the parents of a promising young musician who also lost his life over Lockerbie. It emerges that they are no strangers: back in December 1988 they forged a firm bond in the trauma and confusion of the immediate aftermath. However, that bond has been tested almost to destruction by the developments of the two decades since.

Maureen, Geoffrey and Laura are wholly fictional creations, but broadly representative of what are perhaps the dominant opinions on each side of the Atlantic. In the United States, the victims’ relatives largely view al-Megrahi’s release as a grievous insult to the memories of their loved ones; in the United Kingdom, many argue that his conviction was a gross miscarriage of justice. Some have even campaigned on al-Megrahi’s behalf. Charting the key developments since 1988 with scrupulous care and clarity, ‘The Families of Lockerbie’ explores all the drama of this division without seeking to condemn either point of view. Instead it powerfully documents the angry and anguished search for justice that unites all the families of Lockerbie to this day, wherever they may direct that anger.

"The Families of Lockerbie" is at the Playhouse from Thursday 10 - Saturday 19 June.

[I am grateful to the Communications Officer of the Nottingham Playhouse for sending me the full text of the press release relating to this production. It reads as follows:]

LOCKERBIE PLAY DRAMATISES 21-YEAR BATTLE FOR JUSTICE

It is now nine months since the release of the one man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi left Greenock Prison on the 20th August 2009, freed on compassionate grounds to die in his native Libya. There he received a hero’s welcome and remains manifestly alive, reportedly hard at work on a TV documentary putting his side of the story.

With each passing day the Scottish government’s decision to free al-Megrahi is called further into question. Now Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company presents a new play by award-winning writer and docudrama pioneer Michael Eaton which is set to cast dramatic new light on the families of the bombing’s 270 victims and their long quest for justice. THE FAMILIES OF LOCKERBIE pays tribute to their enduring love and fortitude, but also reflects the agonising rift between those who condemn al-Megrahi’s release as an outrage – and those who maintain that he should never have been found guilty at all. Featuring Robert Benfield, Joan Moon, Jennifer Woodward and David Beckford as a multitude of figures both real and fictional, THE FAMILIES OF LOCKERBIE is directed by Nottingham Playhouse’s Artistic Director Giles Croft and runs from Thursday 10 to Saturday 19 June (Box Office: 0115 941 9419 or www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk).

Over 21 years since Pan Am Flight 103 blew to pieces above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, the repercussions of the blast continue to make headlines. The freeing of the so-called Lockerbie bomber, based on medical advice that he had under three months left to live, has only intensified the controversy. The months since Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision have been marked by a damaging row between the UK and USA; a BBC Newsnight investigation casting fresh doubt on his trial; a general election in which First Minister Alex Salmond appeared compromised by the release; and continued allegations that it was motivated not by compassion but by the prospect of lucrative new contracts with Libya. Now the nine-month anniversary has brought reports that al-Megrahi is himself collaborating on a TV documentary designed to establish his innocence.

But above all, the moment he walked free opened a new chapter in the continuing ordeal of the relatives of the 270 who died. THE FAMILIES OF LOCKERBIE dramatises their differing responses. On the day of al-Megrahi’s release, a television interviewer (David Beckford) gathers together in his studio three people bereaved by the bombing. Laura (Jennifer Woodward) is the widow of a US Marine; Maureen (Joan Moon) and Geoffrey (Robert Benfield) are the parents of a promising young musician who also lost his life over Lockerbie. It emerges that they are no strangers: back in December 1988 they forged a firm bond in the trauma and confusion of the immediate aftermath. However, that bond has been tested almost to destruction by the developments of the two decades since.

Maureen, Geoffrey and Laura are wholly fictional creations, but broadly representative of what are perhaps the dominant opinions on each side of the Atlantic. In the United States, the victims’ relatives largely view al-Megrahi’s release as a grievous insult to the memories of their loved ones; in the United Kingdom, many argue that his conviction was a gross miscarriage of justice. Some have even campaigned on al-Megrahi’s behalf. Charting the key developments since 1988 with scrupulous care and clarity, THE FAMILIES OF LOCKERBIE explores all the drama of this division without seeking to condemn either point of view. Instead it powerfully documents the angry and anguished search for justice that unites all the families of Lockerbie to this day, wherever they may direct that anger.

Renowned for his sensitive dramatisations of the human stories behind current headlines, writer Michael Eaton is no stranger to this particular atrocity. Twenty years ago he dramatised the lead-up to the bombing for television in Why Lockerbie? His TV script, based on the apparent certainty at that time that the bombers were Palestinian, ended at the moment the plane disappeared from an air traffic control screen. In his research then, Eaton met several of the victims’ families and was struck by the unity of purpose they shared. But as the focus of the investigation shifted to Libya and a contentious trial ensued, the dramatist observed that unity fracture, frequently along national lines, and a lid lift on the way the world works. Opening at the same fateful moment of Flight 103’s disappearance from the radar, THE FAMILIES OF LOCKERBIE takes up the story in the present.

Michael Eaton MBE is an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter and a leading figure in the establishment of the drama-documentary genre. As well as Why Lockerbie?, his actuality-based TV scripts include Shoot to Kill and Shipman. He won Best Screenplay in the 1990 Evening Standard British Film Awards for Fellow Traveller and has also written fictional screen dramas including Signs and Wonders and scripts for Heartbeat and New Street Law. Eaton lives in Nottingham and his theatre work includes two previous dramas for Nottingham Playhouse, The Leaves of Life and Angels Rave On.

True-life stories are also a frequent feature of the work of director Giles Croft, Nottingham Playhouse’s Artistic Director. His productions there include: To Reach the Clouds, a stage retelling by Nick Drake of high-wire walker Philippe Petit’s World Trade Centre exploits which preceded the Oscar-winning film Man on Wire; The White Album, Michael Pinchbeck’s kaleidoscopic play encompassing the creation of the Beatles album and the Manson Family killings; and Jonathan Holloway’s dramas Because It’s There, recounting the true story of Mallory & Irvine, and Angels Among the Trees, about the Donner Party.

THE FAMILIES OF LOCKERBIE marks the second time that real-life husband and wife Robert Benfield and Joan Moon have played a married couple at Nottingham Playhouse, after appearing as Dr & Mrs Bradman in Giles Croft’s production of Blithe Spirit last year. Separately, they have also acted there in Chicken Soup with Barley and The Burial at Thebes respectively. Based in nearby Ilkeston, David Beckford appeared at the Playhouse in To Reach the Clouds, while his many credits for Northern Broadsides include last year’s acclaimed West End transfer of Othello with Lenny Henry. Making her debut with Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company, Jennifer Woodward is an American-born actor and writer whose credits include the West End production of The Lady from Dubuque as well as an appearance in Sex & the City.

Designer Nathan Rose has designed a striking TV studio set which subtly incorporates a visual reminder of the downed plane. Head of the Playhouse’s Props department, Rose is joined on the production by an in-house team of Karl Bock as AV Designer and Drew Baumohl as Sound Designer. Music is composed by Jonathan Girling, lighting is by Alexandra Stafford, the Voice Coach is Sally Hague and additional research is by Gareth Morgan.

Megrahi release "a strategic error by London"

The heart of a Conservative-led foreign policy must be the Special Relationship, the most important and successful partnership of modern times. It is the beating heart of the free world and the engine that drives the global war against Islamist terrorism. Under Obama and Brown, the Anglo–American alliance has been weakened through a combination of Washington’s indifference and a series of strategic errors by London, including the appalling release last year of Libyan Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. Disappointingly, the US President has never even mentioned Britain in a single major speech, both before and since entering the White House.

The next Prime Minister should make the full restoration of the alliance with the United States a top priority. He should also ensure that Britain’s freedom to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with America is not constrained by the Treaty of Lisbon and the relentless drive toward ever-closer union in Europe.

[I am grateful to Caustic Logic for drawing my attention to the article entitled "Four Key Principles for a Conservative British Foreign Policy" by Nile Gardner, US right-wing pundit and Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation. What appears above is the first of his "key principles". It was, of course, the Edinburgh, not the London, Government that took the decision to release Mr Megrahi. But there can be little doubt that if the decision had rested with London, repatriation would have been accomplished considerably sooner than it was, albeit through prisoner transfer rather than compassionate release.

Mr Gardner also blogs on the website of the Conservative-supporting UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.]

US, Libya cement new friendship with trade deal

[This is the headline over a Reuters report on the XE website. It reads as follows:]

The United States and Libya signed a trade agreement on Thursday underlining their switch from decades-long hostility to lucrative business ties.

US companies lagged their European rivals in entering the Libyan market after international sanctions on Tripoli were lifted in 2004. Washington is now striving to catch up.

Under the agreement, a joint council will be set up to handle issues including market access and intellectual property, and Washington will help Libya with its application to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), officials said.

'The importance of this agreement is to build trust,' Libyan Trade Minister Mohamed Hweji told Reuters.

Christopher Wilson, Assistant US Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East, was in the Libyan capital to sign the agreement.

'We want to see the numbers grow in terms of both trade and investment,' he told reporters. 'We are looking forward to creating the best conditions to do that.'

US aircraft bombed oil exporter Libya in 1986, killing more than 40 people. Washington accused Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi of supporting armed militants and trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Relations were restored after Gaddafi renounced banned weapons programmes and agreed to pay compensation to the families of those killed in the 1988 bombing of a US airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

In 2003, the United States exported $200,000 worth of goods to Libya and imported nothing. By 2009, exports to Libya had surged to $666 million and imports to $1.9 billion.

Diplomatic relations between Tripoli and Washington hit a set-back earlier this year when a State Department official made caustic comments about a speech in which Gaddafi had called for a 'jihad' against Switzerland.

US energy companies operating in Libya, including Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips were warned their interests could suffer as a result. The row was resolved when the State Department official apologised.

Lockerbie bomber 'lives longest'

[This is the headline over a report just published on the website of the Belfast Telegraph. It reads in part:]

The Lockerbie bomber has lived longer than other convicted murderers who have been granted compassionate release, it has been disclosed.

Conservative justice spokesman [in the Scottish Parliament] Bill Aitken said that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi "now surpasses the record for the longest amount of time a convicted murderer has been free after being granted compassionate release".

The Libyan, who has terminal prostate cancer, was controversially released from jail on August 20 last year.

Details published on the Scottish Government website showed 38 prisoners have been granted compassionate release since 1993.

Megrahi has now lived longer than the other convicted murderers who have been freed over this period - prompting fresh calls for Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to release medical reports on the bomber.

At the same time it was reported Megrahi has been working on a television documentary, which could be released later this year.

[A similar report is to be found on the STV News website. It can be read here.

The issue, as might have been expected, has been picked up by some of Thursday's daily newspapers. The report in The Times can be read here and that in The Sun here.]

UK and US politicians' attitudes on Lockerbie

The most recent post on Caustic Logic's blog The Lockerbie Divide compares and contrasts the stance taken by elected politicians in the United Kingdom and the United States in relation to the Lockerbie case and the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. This interesting piece can be read here.

"Lockerbie Revisited" to be broadcast again

I am grateful to Bo Adam for informing me that Gideon Levy's documentary Lockerbie Revisited is to be broadcast on Saturday 22 May on the French-German TV channel ARTE. Further details are available here, here and here.

There has still, as far as I am aware, been no broadcast on any UK or US channel. The film can be viewed here, through the ARTE website. I am grateful to Ursula Funke, the sister of one of the Pan Am 103 victims, for this information.

Twentieth anniversary of report of Presidential Commission

[The following account is taken from the Wikipedia article Pan Am Flight 103.]

On 29 September 1989, President [George H W] Bush appointed Ann McLaughlin Korologos, former Secretary of Labor, as chairwoman of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST) to review and report on aviation security policy in the light of the sabotage of flight PA103. Oliver "Buck" Revell, the FBI's Executive Assistant Director, was assigned to advise and assist PCAST in their task. Mrs Korologos and the PCAST team (Senator Alfonse D'Amato, Senator Frank Lautenberg, Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt, Representative James Oberstar, General Thomas Richards, deputy commander of US forces in West Germany, and Edward Hidalgo, former Secretary of the US Navy) submitted their report, with its 64 recommendations, on 15 May 1990. The PCAST chairman also handed a sealed envelope to the President which was widely believed to apportion blame for the PA103 bombing. Extensively covered in The Guardian the next day, the PCAST report concluded:

"National will and the moral courage to exercise it are the ultimate means of defeating terrorism. The Commission recommends a more vigorous policy that not only pursues and punishes terrorists, but also makes state sponsors of terrorism pay a price for their actions."

Before submitting their report, the PCAST members met a group of British PA103 relatives at the US embassy in London on 12 February 1990. Twelve years later, on 11 July 2002, Scottish MP Tam Dalyell reminded the House of Commons of a controversial statement made at that 1990 embassy meeting by a PCAST member to one of the British relatives, Martin Cadman: "Your government and ours know exactly what happened. But they're never going to tell." The statement first came to public attention in the 1994 documentary film The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie and was published in both The Guardian of 29 July 1995, and a special report from Private Eye magazine entitled "Lockerbie, the flight from justice" May/June 2001. Dalyell asserted in Parliament that the statement had never been refuted.

[And the following account is from the Canadian Attic blog.]

A US presidential commission issued a report on the December 1988 of a Pan American jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland that had killed all 259 people aboard and 11 more on the ground. The commission said that it was not certain how the bomb was smuggled aboard the plane, but cited evidence that it was an unaccompanied suitcase loaded in Frankfurt, West Germany. The report said that the security system for US civil aviation "is seriously flawed and has failed to provide the proper level of protection to the traveling public." The commission called for greatly increased security at US airports, the creation of the post of assistant secretary of transportation for security and intelligence, and establishment of a national system for warning passengers of credible threats against airlines or flights.

A soldier's account of the immediate aftermath

One soldier's moving account of his experiences at Lockerbie in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of Pan Am 103 has just been published on The Tartan Hippie blog. It can be read here.

Management buy-out of The Firm

Today - May 6 2010 - Steven Raeburn, the editor of Scottish legal magazine, The Firm, announced he had led a management buyout of the title from The Carnyx Group, publishers of The Drum media and marketing magazine.

1. Is this your first venture into publishing? Have you previously worked only as a journalist?

I worked in residential and commercial conveyancing for nine years first, and drifted into journalism as a freelancer for a few years, before making the switch full-time. So my background was in law. Journalism happened gradually, but quickly took over. I've been doing it now for seven years. It seems to be what suits me best. (...)

6. The Firm attracted its own headlines recently, for an article which the Lord Advocate appeared to take exception to, including complaining to the Press Complaints Commission (complaint not upheld). To what extent was that a factor in your decision to proceed with a buy-out?

It had no connection. I was delighted at the time (the issue arose in November last year) to have been backed and supported so fully by Carnyx, and I was proud of them for having the conviction to maintain their principled position against a pretty intimidating situation. But Carnyx and I stood united in that particular challenge, and I had full confidence in the stance of The Firm. The Firm will continue to probe the difficult issues when they arise.

7. So, you will remain editing the magazine. Any other recognisable names involved in the buy-out?

I am staying in post as editor, and I am lucky to be able to have a team supporting me in the key production, advertising and printing roles, as well as the other areas, but I am the sole participant in the MBO itself. (...)

9. Proudest journalistic moment?

It's hard to say. In many ways, the things I am proudest of in this job don't get published. The Firm has taken a solid stance to back trainees in law firms if they are vulnerable, for example, and I have been humbled by some of the private feedback we have had from that. Journalism is only words, but words can change things. That kind of response tells you that you've done something right. Recently, the UN Lockerbie observer singled out The Firm's coverage of the ongoing Pan Am 103 issues for praise, which is certainly something.

[From a report on the allmediascotland website.]

"We have solved this."

SPIEGEL: How are your relations with the US?

Gadhafi: Outstanding.

SPIEGEL: What exactly prompted you to make your surprising turnaround with the Americans?

Gadhafi: The big problem between us was Lockerbie …

SPIEGEL: The bomb attack on an American Boeing 747, which a former agent of the Libyan intelligence service was found guilty of carrying out.

Gadhafi: … but we have solved this.

SPIEGEL: That was back under former US President George W. Bush.

[From an interview with Colonel Gaddafi published on the website of Der Spiegel.]