[The text of Peter Biddulph's letter, as published in The Sunday Times on 20 June, is as follows:]
You report that Libyan Semtex “was used in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 at Lockerbie, when 270 were killed, for which Libya has paid more than £5m to each family” (“Gadaffi to pay £2bn to victims of IRA bombs”, News, last week).
As a longtime researcher — jointly with Dr Jim Swire, among others — into the Lockerbie bombing, I have found no mention of the use of Libyan Semtex. Nor does one appear in any associated documents or even allegations by those involved in the inquiry (including the Scottish police, the FBI and the CIA).
The origins of the Semtex used and the explosive enhancer have never been proved or even guessed at. The critical evidence advanced at trial — that the timer that triggered the bomb came from a batch sold to Libya — is itself now subject to deep suspicions that it was manufactured and planted.
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Break in transmission
Because of commitments at Gannaga Lodge, which is a telecommunications-free zone, it is unlikely that I shall be in a position to post on this blog until Wednesday, 23 June.
In the meantime, readers may care to keep a look-out for a letter by Peter Biddulph that will probably be published in tomorrow's edition of The Sunday Times. This is in response to last Sunday's article in that newspaper that contained the statement: "It [Semtex supplied by Libya] was used in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 at Lockerbie, when 270 were killed, for which Libya has paid over £5m to each family."
In the meantime, readers may care to keep a look-out for a letter by Peter Biddulph that will probably be published in tomorrow's edition of The Sunday Times. This is in response to last Sunday's article in that newspaper that contained the statement: "It [Semtex supplied by Libya] was used in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 at Lockerbie, when 270 were killed, for which Libya has paid over £5m to each family."
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Britain and Libya become best of friends in business
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Independent. It reads as follows:]
Business ties between Britain and Libya have developed at great speed since the oil-rich North African nation came in from the diplomatic cold.
The thawing of relations has led to a surge in trade, with Libyan now considered a major business partner for a number of well-known British companies. Indeed, several families of the victims of the Lockerbie atrocity argued last year that the release of the bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, was linked to improving business ties, rather than because Megrahi was dying of cancer. He is still alive.
According to UK Trade and Investment, the government body that promotes trade between Britain and other countries, British exports to Libya were worth £423m in 2009 – 51 per cent more than in 2008. The organisation says "many well-known companies are active in the Libyan market", including Marks & Spencer and Rentokil. The Libya British Business Council, which encourages trade between the two nations, lists Barclays, HSBC, BP and the law firm Denton Wilde Sapte among its council members.
BP, for example, and its Libyan partner, Libya Investment Corp, signed a $900m deal to develop onshore and offshore projects in May 2007.
Michael Lacey, the managing partner in Denton Wilde Sapte's Cairo office, said many industries were looking to expand in Libya. "They are all there: construction, airlines, hotels, banks and oil and gas. If British companies are not already in Libya, they are certainly dipping their toes in the water," he added. "Over the past few years it has become clear this is an economy that people want to be associated with."
Business ties between Britain and Libya have developed at great speed since the oil-rich North African nation came in from the diplomatic cold.
The thawing of relations has led to a surge in trade, with Libyan now considered a major business partner for a number of well-known British companies. Indeed, several families of the victims of the Lockerbie atrocity argued last year that the release of the bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, was linked to improving business ties, rather than because Megrahi was dying of cancer. He is still alive.
According to UK Trade and Investment, the government body that promotes trade between Britain and other countries, British exports to Libya were worth £423m in 2009 – 51 per cent more than in 2008. The organisation says "many well-known companies are active in the Libyan market", including Marks & Spencer and Rentokil. The Libya British Business Council, which encourages trade between the two nations, lists Barclays, HSBC, BP and the law firm Denton Wilde Sapte among its council members.
BP, for example, and its Libyan partner, Libya Investment Corp, signed a $900m deal to develop onshore and offshore projects in May 2007.
Michael Lacey, the managing partner in Denton Wilde Sapte's Cairo office, said many industries were looking to expand in Libya. "They are all there: construction, airlines, hotels, banks and oil and gas. If British companies are not already in Libya, they are certainly dipping their toes in the water," he added. "Over the past few years it has become clear this is an economy that people want to be associated with."
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Megrahi appeal documents to remain secret
[This is the headline over a report by Lucy Adams in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Hundreds of pages of information pinpointing why the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing should be granted a fresh appeal will remain a secret.
The Crown Office, the Foreign Office and police have all failed to give their consent to an official request to disclose the material, as has Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.
The revelation that the official Lockerbie papers may never be published is likely to prove embarrassing for those who have not allowed disclosure and the ministers who suggested the papers would be published.
It will also fuel the frustration of the families of the 270 victims who have waited more than 21 years for answers. (...)
There was a clamour from politicians and relatives for the information to be released last year following the controversial early release of Megrahi on compassionate grounds. The Lybian had been sentenced to life imprisonment by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001.
The Scottish Government said it wanted to see as much information as possible made public.
But the information cannot be released without consent from the major parties.
The three-and-a-half-year investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) concluded that there were six grounds for believing Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice. (...)
Under the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Act 1997, which created the commission to investigate potential miscarriages of justice, material can be disclosed “in any circumstances – permitted by an order made by the Secretary of State” using a simple piece of legislation called a statutory instrument.
Since devolution, the power has passed to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and on December 21 he revealed that the statutory instrument would come into force on February 1.
At the time, MacAskill said: “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.”
The Herald made a Freedom of Information request for the papers to the commission on February 1 which was rejected and, on appeal, the FoI commissioner upheld the decision because permission has not been granted by the main parties.
It is not known why Megrahi has not given approval. (...)
A spokeswoman for the Crown Office said: “The Crown remains in discussion with the SCCRC and police on this matter, which raises a number of complex legal issues, and the suggestion that the Crown has refused permission is not true.”
[An editorial in the same newspaper reads:]
The questions over how Pan Am flight 103 came to be blown up over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 people, have multiplied over the past two decades, with no definitive answers.
Hopes that information gathered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in its investigation of grounds for appeal by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Libyan found guilty of the atrocity, would finally shed light on the murky background to the bombing have been dashed by a refusal to disclose the information.
Four months after the Scottish Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, used a statutory instrument to allow the SCCRC to release the investigation documents, the commission has refused The Herald’s request for disclosure under Freedom of Information legislation because it does not have the consent of the main parties involved: Megrahi, the Crown Office, the police and the Foreign Office.
This latest impasse is all the more frustrating because the SCCRC is willing in principle to consider releasing the Statement of Reasons, and the accompanying 13 volumes of appen dices which were provided to determine whether Megrahi should be allowed to appeal against conviction.
It follows numerous delays to the appeal itself, the most significant one due to the refusal on grounds of national security to release a top secret document from an undisclosed third country thought to contain vital information about the timer that detonated the bomb. The mass of evidence gathered by the SCCRC during its three-and-a-half year investigation cannot now be subjected to examination and challenge in the Appeal Court because Megrahi dropped the case to improve his chances of returning home to Libya. With the commission finding six grounds for believing that Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice, that leaves far too many questions unanswered.
It is not known why Megrahi himself, having previously vowed to clear his name, has refused permission for disclosure. He has lived for longer than expected when released from prison last year and returned to Libya but remains terminally ill and, if he was wrongly convicted, that should be rectified sooner rather than later.
Despite the SCCRC’s continuing discussion on disclosure with the Crown Office, the Foreign Office and the police, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is keen to avoid re-opening the diplomatic and political issues surrounding the Lockerbie bombing. The UK relatives seeking a public inquiry were told that was not possible while a criminal investigation was continuing. When that concluded, the Scottish Government and Foreign Office each said only the other had power to call an inquiry.
Many of the relatives of the victims are plagued with doubt about whether justice was done at Camp Zeist. For their sake, and to remove the uncertainty that has clouded the case and damaged the reputation of the Scottish justice system, it is essential that the truth is established. After 12 long years, that is the vital lesson of the inquiry into Bloody Sunday which is published today. Lockerbie remains the worst terrorist attack suffered in Britain; it must not remain unfinished business.
Hundreds of pages of information pinpointing why the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing should be granted a fresh appeal will remain a secret.
The Crown Office, the Foreign Office and police have all failed to give their consent to an official request to disclose the material, as has Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.
The revelation that the official Lockerbie papers may never be published is likely to prove embarrassing for those who have not allowed disclosure and the ministers who suggested the papers would be published.
It will also fuel the frustration of the families of the 270 victims who have waited more than 21 years for answers. (...)
There was a clamour from politicians and relatives for the information to be released last year following the controversial early release of Megrahi on compassionate grounds. The Lybian had been sentenced to life imprisonment by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001.
The Scottish Government said it wanted to see as much information as possible made public.
But the information cannot be released without consent from the major parties.
The three-and-a-half-year investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) concluded that there were six grounds for believing Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice. (...)
Under the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Act 1997, which created the commission to investigate potential miscarriages of justice, material can be disclosed “in any circumstances – permitted by an order made by the Secretary of State” using a simple piece of legislation called a statutory instrument.
Since devolution, the power has passed to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and on December 21 he revealed that the statutory instrument would come into force on February 1.
At the time, MacAskill said: “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.”
The Herald made a Freedom of Information request for the papers to the commission on February 1 which was rejected and, on appeal, the FoI commissioner upheld the decision because permission has not been granted by the main parties.
It is not known why Megrahi has not given approval. (...)
A spokeswoman for the Crown Office said: “The Crown remains in discussion with the SCCRC and police on this matter, which raises a number of complex legal issues, and the suggestion that the Crown has refused permission is not true.”
[An editorial in the same newspaper reads:]
The questions over how Pan Am flight 103 came to be blown up over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 people, have multiplied over the past two decades, with no definitive answers.
Hopes that information gathered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in its investigation of grounds for appeal by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Libyan found guilty of the atrocity, would finally shed light on the murky background to the bombing have been dashed by a refusal to disclose the information.
Four months after the Scottish Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, used a statutory instrument to allow the SCCRC to release the investigation documents, the commission has refused The Herald’s request for disclosure under Freedom of Information legislation because it does not have the consent of the main parties involved: Megrahi, the Crown Office, the police and the Foreign Office.
This latest impasse is all the more frustrating because the SCCRC is willing in principle to consider releasing the Statement of Reasons, and the accompanying 13 volumes of appen dices which were provided to determine whether Megrahi should be allowed to appeal against conviction.
It follows numerous delays to the appeal itself, the most significant one due to the refusal on grounds of national security to release a top secret document from an undisclosed third country thought to contain vital information about the timer that detonated the bomb. The mass of evidence gathered by the SCCRC during its three-and-a-half year investigation cannot now be subjected to examination and challenge in the Appeal Court because Megrahi dropped the case to improve his chances of returning home to Libya. With the commission finding six grounds for believing that Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice, that leaves far too many questions unanswered.
It is not known why Megrahi himself, having previously vowed to clear his name, has refused permission for disclosure. He has lived for longer than expected when released from prison last year and returned to Libya but remains terminally ill and, if he was wrongly convicted, that should be rectified sooner rather than later.
Despite the SCCRC’s continuing discussion on disclosure with the Crown Office, the Foreign Office and the police, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is keen to avoid re-opening the diplomatic and political issues surrounding the Lockerbie bombing. The UK relatives seeking a public inquiry were told that was not possible while a criminal investigation was continuing. When that concluded, the Scottish Government and Foreign Office each said only the other had power to call an inquiry.
Many of the relatives of the victims are plagued with doubt about whether justice was done at Camp Zeist. For their sake, and to remove the uncertainty that has clouded the case and damaged the reputation of the Scottish justice system, it is essential that the truth is established. After 12 long years, that is the vital lesson of the inquiry into Bloody Sunday which is published today. Lockerbie remains the worst terrorist attack suffered in Britain; it must not remain unfinished business.
Monday, 14 June 2010
Reviews of "The Families of Lockerbie"
[The following is a review by Libby Purves in today's edition of The Times of the Nottingham Playhouse Theatre's production of The Families of Lockerbie:]
What do you most want from documentary theatre? Information, emotion, enlightenment? During Michael Eaton’s take on the fallout since Lockerbie, set on a bare stage framed in a faint suggestion of twisted metal shards, the question hung in the air like the fumes of aviation fuel remembered too graphically by the families in 1988.
If you want painstaking journalism, here it is. Eaton — who wrote a 1990 documentary when the theory of Syrian guilt prevailed — takes pains. The programme offers a statement of intent, a timeline, and list of the dead. Much is verbatim clipboard-and-lectern work, using evidence and speeches to chart processes and politics which led to the trial of two Libyans by Scottish judges in the Netherlands, acquitting one and convicting Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, who was released nine months ago with “three months to live”, fêted in Libya, and is now collaborating on a documentary affirming his innocence.
We knew all this. A dramatist’s question must be different: when does justice become mere revenge? When is mercy an insult to the victims? And when victims disagree, can they still stand together or is a fresh enmity born? We see two fictional families: British parents Geoffrey and Maureen (Robert Benfield and Joan Moon), and Laura (Jennifer Woodward), widow of a US Marine. They are brought together in a TV studio by a host (David Beckford). Other parts are taken by each with neat definition. At first they bond in grief; as years go by Laura becomes a shrill Republican militarist, Geoffrey forensically doubtful about al-Megrahi’s guilt, and Maureen gently grieves without her boy.
They are to some extent caricatures (surely some American families are liberal, some British victims angrier). Before any theatrical judgment I must record that some relatives object to the play. Even if it were an artistic triumph, it is their right to dislike it. This was mass murder. You can argue that such wickedness deserves no better than to die in prison in a strange land. The quandary of compassion and recovery, therefore, should be the engine of the play.
In the last eight of its unbroken 105 minutes, that finally happens. “My husband would want me to fight!” rages Laura. “My son would want the truth” says Geoffrey. And Maureen, “My son would want me to forgive.” Their final, antiphonal speeches are moving and right; the self-exculpatory statement of al-Megrahi a raw coda. But I would have liked more character, more philosophy, more imagined argument and less verbatim prose. A Hare or Frayn or Stoppard propels history into universality. This author remains too much the documentarist. But in the final moments, he showed what he could have done, and maybe will.
[The following is an excerpt from a review by Ian Charles Douglas on the Guide2Nottingham website:]
Some subjects defy criticism. And this act of mass murder is among them. For those of us old enough to remember, we remember it vividly. We remember where we were when we learned of the disaster, who told us, and the cold chill that slipped into our hearts.
Thankfully then, it’s in the safe hands of Michael Eaton, one of Nottingham’s most experienced scribes and well known for television works such as Shipman and Signs and Wonders.
Lockerbie, as he reminds us, was a turning point. The Cold War was ending and a new age of terrorism was upon us. And with it came a new style of international justice, or rather the lack of it. Worse, the ones left behind, the bereaved, became pawns in what Kipling called the Great Game, the struggle for control of the Middle East. (...)
The cast of four have to step into many shoes, not only the families, but journalists, politicians, judges, suspects and diplomats. Full credit then to the actors, jumping from accent to accent, juggling their roles with ease. David Beckford, as the interviewer, does a great job of holding together the threads of the story. Jennifer Woodward is Laura, the American wife who meets Geoffrey (Robert Benfield) and Maureen (Joan Moon) the English parents among the wrecked fuselage.
At first they become companions in sorrow. But as long years pass, a gulf as wide as the ocean separating our two countries opens between them. Anger erupts, following upon the heels of their great loss, numbing the pain and filling the void. Will they reconnect and together make some sort of sense to their loss, however heartrending?
But alongside this question there are so many more. Was there a conspiracy? Were the Iranians involved? Did our noble leaders give into the needs of the oil business? Was the convicted man an innocent scapegoat or a mass-murderer? Should he have faced the death penalty?
These very serious and never more relevant issues are brought to life in a kind of fictionalised docudrama. The production bravely confronts terrible truths, without a single drop of mawkishness or exploitation.
As I walked out of the Playhouse, into crowds happily looking forward to the weekend, I acknowledged a debt of thanks. The cast and crew have reminded me of the suffering of the families of Lockerbie, a suffering that has not yet ended.
What do you most want from documentary theatre? Information, emotion, enlightenment? During Michael Eaton’s take on the fallout since Lockerbie, set on a bare stage framed in a faint suggestion of twisted metal shards, the question hung in the air like the fumes of aviation fuel remembered too graphically by the families in 1988.
If you want painstaking journalism, here it is. Eaton — who wrote a 1990 documentary when the theory of Syrian guilt prevailed — takes pains. The programme offers a statement of intent, a timeline, and list of the dead. Much is verbatim clipboard-and-lectern work, using evidence and speeches to chart processes and politics which led to the trial of two Libyans by Scottish judges in the Netherlands, acquitting one and convicting Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, who was released nine months ago with “three months to live”, fêted in Libya, and is now collaborating on a documentary affirming his innocence.
We knew all this. A dramatist’s question must be different: when does justice become mere revenge? When is mercy an insult to the victims? And when victims disagree, can they still stand together or is a fresh enmity born? We see two fictional families: British parents Geoffrey and Maureen (Robert Benfield and Joan Moon), and Laura (Jennifer Woodward), widow of a US Marine. They are brought together in a TV studio by a host (David Beckford). Other parts are taken by each with neat definition. At first they bond in grief; as years go by Laura becomes a shrill Republican militarist, Geoffrey forensically doubtful about al-Megrahi’s guilt, and Maureen gently grieves without her boy.
They are to some extent caricatures (surely some American families are liberal, some British victims angrier). Before any theatrical judgment I must record that some relatives object to the play. Even if it were an artistic triumph, it is their right to dislike it. This was mass murder. You can argue that such wickedness deserves no better than to die in prison in a strange land. The quandary of compassion and recovery, therefore, should be the engine of the play.
In the last eight of its unbroken 105 minutes, that finally happens. “My husband would want me to fight!” rages Laura. “My son would want the truth” says Geoffrey. And Maureen, “My son would want me to forgive.” Their final, antiphonal speeches are moving and right; the self-exculpatory statement of al-Megrahi a raw coda. But I would have liked more character, more philosophy, more imagined argument and less verbatim prose. A Hare or Frayn or Stoppard propels history into universality. This author remains too much the documentarist. But in the final moments, he showed what he could have done, and maybe will.
[The following is an excerpt from a review by Ian Charles Douglas on the Guide2Nottingham website:]
Some subjects defy criticism. And this act of mass murder is among them. For those of us old enough to remember, we remember it vividly. We remember where we were when we learned of the disaster, who told us, and the cold chill that slipped into our hearts.
Thankfully then, it’s in the safe hands of Michael Eaton, one of Nottingham’s most experienced scribes and well known for television works such as Shipman and Signs and Wonders.
Lockerbie, as he reminds us, was a turning point. The Cold War was ending and a new age of terrorism was upon us. And with it came a new style of international justice, or rather the lack of it. Worse, the ones left behind, the bereaved, became pawns in what Kipling called the Great Game, the struggle for control of the Middle East. (...)
The cast of four have to step into many shoes, not only the families, but journalists, politicians, judges, suspects and diplomats. Full credit then to the actors, jumping from accent to accent, juggling their roles with ease. David Beckford, as the interviewer, does a great job of holding together the threads of the story. Jennifer Woodward is Laura, the American wife who meets Geoffrey (Robert Benfield) and Maureen (Joan Moon) the English parents among the wrecked fuselage.
At first they become companions in sorrow. But as long years pass, a gulf as wide as the ocean separating our two countries opens between them. Anger erupts, following upon the heels of their great loss, numbing the pain and filling the void. Will they reconnect and together make some sort of sense to their loss, however heartrending?
But alongside this question there are so many more. Was there a conspiracy? Were the Iranians involved? Did our noble leaders give into the needs of the oil business? Was the convicted man an innocent scapegoat or a mass-murderer? Should he have faced the death penalty?
These very serious and never more relevant issues are brought to life in a kind of fictionalised docudrama. The production bravely confronts terrible truths, without a single drop of mawkishness or exploitation.
As I walked out of the Playhouse, into crowds happily looking forward to the weekend, I acknowledged a debt of thanks. The cast and crew have reminded me of the suffering of the families of Lockerbie, a suffering that has not yet ended.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Gadaffi to pay £2bn to victims of IRA bombs
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Sunday Times. It reads in part:]
The Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi is to pay up to £2 billion to victims of Irish terrorism for his role in supplying shiploads of explosives to the IRA.
About £800m will go directly to victims of the violence. First in line will be the 147 families of those caught in atrocities in which Semtex, the plastic explosive supplied by Libya, was used. (...)
A trade deal between Britain and Libya is also expected to be part of the historic settlement. Gadaffi is seeking to present the payment as a goodwill gesture and is not expected to admit liability.
Semtex supplied by Gadaffi’s regime was used by the IRA in at least 10 atrocities, including the bombing of Harrods in 1983 and Enniskillen in 1987. The Real IRA used it at Omagh in 1998, killing 29 people and injuring 220. It was used in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 at Lockerbie, when 270 were killed, for which Libya has paid over £5m to each family.
The negotiations were given new impetus last September when The Sunday Times revealed that Gordon Brown was refusing to put Britain’s diplomatic muscle behind the victims’ claim against Libya for fear of harming trade.
A source close to the talks said: “Gadaffi can now make a major humanitarian gesture which will end the legal actions and build diplomatic and business relations with the UK.” (...)
An additional £314m could be added if the US government agrees to co-operate. This money is left over from an earlier $1.5 billion compensation package for American victims of Libyan-sponsored terrorism, including the Lockerbie bombing. Families received more than £5m each and it is suggested that similar amounts can be paid to American victims of IRA terrorism, or Irish-born casualties who moved to America.
Politicians will be briefed on Wednesday about progress in the talks. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We believe success can be achieved through the direct contacts which we have helped establish between the campaign and the Libyan authorities.”
The Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi is to pay up to £2 billion to victims of Irish terrorism for his role in supplying shiploads of explosives to the IRA.
About £800m will go directly to victims of the violence. First in line will be the 147 families of those caught in atrocities in which Semtex, the plastic explosive supplied by Libya, was used. (...)
A trade deal between Britain and Libya is also expected to be part of the historic settlement. Gadaffi is seeking to present the payment as a goodwill gesture and is not expected to admit liability.
Semtex supplied by Gadaffi’s regime was used by the IRA in at least 10 atrocities, including the bombing of Harrods in 1983 and Enniskillen in 1987. The Real IRA used it at Omagh in 1998, killing 29 people and injuring 220. It was used in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 at Lockerbie, when 270 were killed, for which Libya has paid over £5m to each family.
The negotiations were given new impetus last September when The Sunday Times revealed that Gordon Brown was refusing to put Britain’s diplomatic muscle behind the victims’ claim against Libya for fear of harming trade.
A source close to the talks said: “Gadaffi can now make a major humanitarian gesture which will end the legal actions and build diplomatic and business relations with the UK.” (...)
An additional £314m could be added if the US government agrees to co-operate. This money is left over from an earlier $1.5 billion compensation package for American victims of Libyan-sponsored terrorism, including the Lockerbie bombing. Families received more than £5m each and it is suggested that similar amounts can be paid to American victims of IRA terrorism, or Irish-born casualties who moved to America.
Politicians will be briefed on Wednesday about progress in the talks. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We believe success can be achieved through the direct contacts which we have helped establish between the campaign and the Libyan authorities.”
Friday, 11 June 2010
BP, the UK Government and Megrahi
[The following is an excerpt from an article in today's edition of The Guardian:]
Lord Jones, a government trade ambassador and former trade minister, has accused David Cameron of failing to stand up for Britain after the prime minister said he understood the US government's frustration over the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster.
BP's shares tumbled almost 7% to a 13-year low on fears that the US department of justice could block the company's dividend due next month.
Speaking to the Guardian, Jones said Cameron should have been more forthright in defending British interests, particularly pension funds, since BP's dividend traditionally makes up more than a 10th of all payouts by UK companies.
"This is not about trying to come to BP's defence but for the US to understand there are more people to blame," he said. "Pension fund beneficiaries will be saying 'Are you standing up for us Mr Cameron?' It's not 'We are hoping for a favour for BP' but '[Are you] standing up for Britain?'" (...)
BP has traditionally had a close relationship with the government. Last year it emerged that ministers had supported the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, following lobbying by BP which was concerned a £500m oil deal with the Libyan government was at risk.
Cameron's refusal to defend BP contrasts with calls from British business leaders and London's mayor Boris Johnson for the White House to tone down its attacks. Johnson accused President Obama's government of "anti-British rhetoric", warning that the near 50% slump in BP's share price since the spill was bad news for UK pensioners.
Lord Jones, a government trade ambassador and former trade minister, has accused David Cameron of failing to stand up for Britain after the prime minister said he understood the US government's frustration over the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster.
BP's shares tumbled almost 7% to a 13-year low on fears that the US department of justice could block the company's dividend due next month.
Speaking to the Guardian, Jones said Cameron should have been more forthright in defending British interests, particularly pension funds, since BP's dividend traditionally makes up more than a 10th of all payouts by UK companies.
"This is not about trying to come to BP's defence but for the US to understand there are more people to blame," he said. "Pension fund beneficiaries will be saying 'Are you standing up for us Mr Cameron?' It's not 'We are hoping for a favour for BP' but '[Are you] standing up for Britain?'" (...)
BP has traditionally had a close relationship with the government. Last year it emerged that ministers had supported the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, following lobbying by BP which was concerned a £500m oil deal with the Libyan government was at risk.
Cameron's refusal to defend BP contrasts with calls from British business leaders and London's mayor Boris Johnson for the White House to tone down its attacks. Johnson accused President Obama's government of "anti-British rhetoric", warning that the near 50% slump in BP's share price since the spill was bad news for UK pensioners.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Lockerbie dramas
[The following is from an article in The Independent on Monday, 7 June:]
A controversial new play exploring a "rift" between the families of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie aircraft bombing has been condemned as "exploitative and irresponsible".
The Families of Lockerbie, which opens this week in Nottingham, portrays how three characters left bereaved by the bombing respond to the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the only person to be convicted of the attack. (...)
Michael Eaton, the play's author, claims its characters are "wholly fictional creations" who represent the dominant opinions of families on either side of the Atlantic.
In the 20 years since the tragedy, bereaved families have expressed differing views on the case. While some British relatives have claimed that Megrahi was wrongly convicted, many American families are convinced of his guilt and have voiced their disgust over his early release.
Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter, Flora, died in the disaster, said: "I don't want to be dramatised. I think it is exploitative, and a responsible producer of the play would have taken the trouble to speak to the families. I suppose he might have found things which ran contrary to his theories." (...)
Eaton said: "What I'm interested in is the very different responses from the US and Scottish families. Twenty years ago they were unified. At the end of every report about Lockerbie we read a quote from the families, and I watched those comments get further and further apart.
"There were three responses: the first was about revenge; he did it and was found guilty and so should never be released. The second is people who thought that the prosecution didn't really have a case. And the third is: 'We weren't allowed to have our loved ones die in the bosom of our family, but that is no reason to deny this man that'."
The playwright is hoping that the production will tour the UK, and even the US. A spokesman for the US families voiced their fears about how an American character – Laura, the widow of a US Marine killed in the bombing – may be portrayed.
"The families are not full of anger or desperate for revenge," said Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103. "We are certainly not united in our view of his guilt, but no US family has said anything negative about another family."
A video posted on the internet featuring interviews with the actors has also sparked anger among the victims' families, after they referred to the bombing as a "crash".
Mary Kay Stratis, whose husband Elia G Stratis died in the bombing, said: "I would strongly suggest that the actors inform themselves and consequently their speech, and their acting portrayals, by understanding that they are portraying the family members of the victims of a mass murder."
[The following is from an article in today's edition of The Scotsman:]
The bombing of a passenger jet in the skies over Lockerbie killed 270 people and was the worst terrorist atrocity in the UK.
Now the tragedy is to be brought to the stage in a hard-hitting show at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Scotsman can reveal.
The efforts of leading Scottish campaigner Jim Swire to find the truth about the bombing of the Boeing 747 will be the focus of a one-man play at one of the biggest venues, Gilded Balloon.
The show is based on an unpublished book that Mr Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the disaster, has worked on for years with author and Lockerbie researcher Peter Biddulph.
Written and performed by multi-award winning Fringe veteran David Benson, Lockerbie: Unfinished Business is billed as "a hard-hitting piece of political theatre with international relevance".
It will explore the conspiracy theories behind the blowing up of Pan Am flight 103 over the Dumfriesshire town on 21 December 1988, the impact of the disaster on Mr Swire's life and the continuing search for justice for the 270 victims. (...)
Mr Benson, previously best known for his portrayals of Kenneth Williams and Noel Coward, said he would not be attempting to impersonate Mr Swire, although the show would be told from his point of view.
He said: "I've had an interest in Lockerbie for some time and came across the website Jim and Peter have set up to try to get their manuscript for the book published, and contacted them through it.
"Peter had already been looking at getting some kind of play off the ground, but it's now a one-man show, which is really about Jim's dogged pursuit of truth and justice since 1988, and where that has taken him."
Mr Swire admitted he had had little involvement in the development of the play, and was concerned it could increase tensions between the families of the victims in Scotland and the US.
He added: "The book, which we're still hoping to get published, is a full account of the campaign, which is obviously being updated all the time.
"We are still trying to secure a public inquiry after all this time and that campaign is still going on with the new government at Westminster."
Mr Biddulph said: "Publishers are just too scared to take on the book for fear of being pursued by lawyers, so it's great that the play will be at the Fringe."
A controversial new play exploring a "rift" between the families of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie aircraft bombing has been condemned as "exploitative and irresponsible".
The Families of Lockerbie, which opens this week in Nottingham, portrays how three characters left bereaved by the bombing respond to the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the only person to be convicted of the attack. (...)
Michael Eaton, the play's author, claims its characters are "wholly fictional creations" who represent the dominant opinions of families on either side of the Atlantic.
In the 20 years since the tragedy, bereaved families have expressed differing views on the case. While some British relatives have claimed that Megrahi was wrongly convicted, many American families are convinced of his guilt and have voiced their disgust over his early release.
Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter, Flora, died in the disaster, said: "I don't want to be dramatised. I think it is exploitative, and a responsible producer of the play would have taken the trouble to speak to the families. I suppose he might have found things which ran contrary to his theories." (...)
Eaton said: "What I'm interested in is the very different responses from the US and Scottish families. Twenty years ago they were unified. At the end of every report about Lockerbie we read a quote from the families, and I watched those comments get further and further apart.
"There were three responses: the first was about revenge; he did it and was found guilty and so should never be released. The second is people who thought that the prosecution didn't really have a case. And the third is: 'We weren't allowed to have our loved ones die in the bosom of our family, but that is no reason to deny this man that'."
The playwright is hoping that the production will tour the UK, and even the US. A spokesman for the US families voiced their fears about how an American character – Laura, the widow of a US Marine killed in the bombing – may be portrayed.
"The families are not full of anger or desperate for revenge," said Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103. "We are certainly not united in our view of his guilt, but no US family has said anything negative about another family."
A video posted on the internet featuring interviews with the actors has also sparked anger among the victims' families, after they referred to the bombing as a "crash".
Mary Kay Stratis, whose husband Elia G Stratis died in the bombing, said: "I would strongly suggest that the actors inform themselves and consequently their speech, and their acting portrayals, by understanding that they are portraying the family members of the victims of a mass murder."
[The following is from an article in today's edition of The Scotsman:]
The bombing of a passenger jet in the skies over Lockerbie killed 270 people and was the worst terrorist atrocity in the UK.
Now the tragedy is to be brought to the stage in a hard-hitting show at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Scotsman can reveal.
The efforts of leading Scottish campaigner Jim Swire to find the truth about the bombing of the Boeing 747 will be the focus of a one-man play at one of the biggest venues, Gilded Balloon.
The show is based on an unpublished book that Mr Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the disaster, has worked on for years with author and Lockerbie researcher Peter Biddulph.
Written and performed by multi-award winning Fringe veteran David Benson, Lockerbie: Unfinished Business is billed as "a hard-hitting piece of political theatre with international relevance".
It will explore the conspiracy theories behind the blowing up of Pan Am flight 103 over the Dumfriesshire town on 21 December 1988, the impact of the disaster on Mr Swire's life and the continuing search for justice for the 270 victims. (...)
Mr Benson, previously best known for his portrayals of Kenneth Williams and Noel Coward, said he would not be attempting to impersonate Mr Swire, although the show would be told from his point of view.
He said: "I've had an interest in Lockerbie for some time and came across the website Jim and Peter have set up to try to get their manuscript for the book published, and contacted them through it.
"Peter had already been looking at getting some kind of play off the ground, but it's now a one-man show, which is really about Jim's dogged pursuit of truth and justice since 1988, and where that has taken him."
Mr Swire admitted he had had little involvement in the development of the play, and was concerned it could increase tensions between the families of the victims in Scotland and the US.
He added: "The book, which we're still hoping to get published, is a full account of the campaign, which is obviously being updated all the time.
"We are still trying to secure a public inquiry after all this time and that campaign is still going on with the new government at Westminster."
Mr Biddulph said: "Publishers are just too scared to take on the book for fear of being pursued by lawyers, so it's great that the play will be at the Fringe."
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Labour MP calls for Tony Blair to be sacked
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Sunday Express. It reads in part:]
One of Tony Blair’s former ministers has called on David Cameron to put a stop to the former PM’s globetrotting role as Middle East peace envoy.
Labour MP Kate Hoey said he was not achieving anything in the region and questioned why public money was being spent on subsidising his sun- tanning trips.
Former sports minister Ms Hoey, 63, made her comments during a debate about Gaza on [BBC] Radio 4’s Any Questions programme on Friday.
She said: “I probably shouldn’t say this as a Labour MP, but it does raise the question why we are still paying my previous leader, Tony Blair, to be some kind of peace envoy because I’m not quite sure what he’s doing.
“I remember the razzmatazz when he left being Prime Minister and he became this great peace envoy. I imagine he’s paid for it and I imagine one of the things the new coalition government is going to do is sack him.”
When told that Mr Blair is not paid for the position, she said: “Well, I don’t think he travels there in economy or with easyJet.” (...)
Ms Hoey’s comments came as a spokesman strongly denied claims made in a newspaper yesterday that Mr Blair had become a “consultant” to Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi. The spokesman said: “Tony Blair does not have any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the government of Libya.”
He was responding to claims made by the dictator’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who reportedly said Mr Blair was an adviser to the Libyan Investment Authority, which manages the country’s £65billion of oil wealth.
As prime minister, Mr Blair famously shook the dictator’s hand during a meeting in a Bedouin tent outside Tripoli in 2004. Britain severed relations with Libya after the Lockerbie airline bombing in 1989. The convicted bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, was released on compassionate grounds last August.
One of Tony Blair’s former ministers has called on David Cameron to put a stop to the former PM’s globetrotting role as Middle East peace envoy.
Labour MP Kate Hoey said he was not achieving anything in the region and questioned why public money was being spent on subsidising his sun- tanning trips.
Former sports minister Ms Hoey, 63, made her comments during a debate about Gaza on [BBC] Radio 4’s Any Questions programme on Friday.
She said: “I probably shouldn’t say this as a Labour MP, but it does raise the question why we are still paying my previous leader, Tony Blair, to be some kind of peace envoy because I’m not quite sure what he’s doing.
“I remember the razzmatazz when he left being Prime Minister and he became this great peace envoy. I imagine he’s paid for it and I imagine one of the things the new coalition government is going to do is sack him.”
When told that Mr Blair is not paid for the position, she said: “Well, I don’t think he travels there in economy or with easyJet.” (...)
Ms Hoey’s comments came as a spokesman strongly denied claims made in a newspaper yesterday that Mr Blair had become a “consultant” to Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi. The spokesman said: “Tony Blair does not have any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the government of Libya.”
He was responding to claims made by the dictator’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who reportedly said Mr Blair was an adviser to the Libyan Investment Authority, which manages the country’s £65billion of oil wealth.
As prime minister, Mr Blair famously shook the dictator’s hand during a meeting in a Bedouin tent outside Tripoli in 2004. Britain severed relations with Libya after the Lockerbie airline bombing in 1989. The convicted bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, was released on compassionate grounds last August.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Tony Blair, Libya and Megrahi's repatriation
[What follow are excerpts from an article in today's edition of the Daily Mail headlined "Tony Blair our very special adviser by dictator Gaddafi's son".]
Tony Blair has become an adviser to Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator's son has sensationally claimed.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said the former prime minister has secured a consultancy role with a state fund that manages the country's £65billion of oil wealth.
In an exclusive interview, Saif described Mr Blair as a 'personal family friend' of the Libyan leader and said he had visited the country 'many, many times' since leaving Downing Street three years ago. (...)
Last night, families of the 270 Lockerbie victims accused Mr Blair of breaking bread with people who 'have blood on their hands'.
They have in the past raised questions about Mr Blair's relationship with Colonel Gaddafi especially over a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya that paved the way for the return of the Lockerbie bomber last year.
Saif made clear that the agreement - drawn up when Mr Blair was prime minister - was key to creating a 'special relationship' between Britain and Libya.
Saif suggested Mr Blair was involved in 'Africa projects' with his father, alleging: 'He also has some consultancy role with the Libyan Investment Authority.'
Mr Blair was adamant last night he had no relationship whatsoever with the LIA. However he is advising several firms seeking a slice of the massive revenues from Libya's oil reserves.
Last night, Mr Blair's spokesman said: 'Tony Blair does not have any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the government of Libya.
'He has no commercial relationship with any Libyan companies or any Libyan projects in Africa.'
But sources close to the Gaddafi family said Saif - tipped to succeed his father as leader of his country - stands by his comments.
Colonel Gaddafi is understood to be on first name terms with Mr Blair, who saw his work in Libya as one of the great foreign policy successes of his premiership.
Mr Blair has always insisted he played no role in the return of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi, who was sent home last August by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds after doctors wrongly said he had only three months to live.
But Saif said Megrahi's release was 'always on the negotiating table' in discussions about 'commercial contracts for oil and gas with Britain'.
Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, told the Mail: 'If this is true, I guess this is Tony Blair's reward from the Libyan government for what he has done.
'It's important for world peace that Libya is brought back into the community of nations but that doesn't mean that you have to honour people with blood on their hands.'
[The Mail's editorial comment on the issue headed "Peace or money?" can be read here.
Tony Blair's part in the moves which ultimately led to the repatriation of Abdelbaset Megrahi is accurately described in the following excerpt from an earlier post on this blog:]
The memorandum of understanding regarding prisoner transfer that Tony Blair entered into in the course of the "deal in the desert" in May 2007, and which paved the way for the formal prisoner transfer agreement, was intended by both sides to lead to the rapid return of Mr Megrahi to his homeland. This was the clear understanding of Libyan officials involved in the negotiations and to whom I have spoken.
It was only after the memorandum of understanding was concluded that [it belatedly sunk in] that the decision on repatriation of this particular prisoner was a matter not for Westminster and Whitehall but for the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh, and that government had just come into the hands of the Scottish National Party and so could no longer be expected supinely to follow the UK Labour Government's wishes. That was when the understanding between the UK Government and the Libyan Government started to unravel, to the considerable annoyance and distress of the Libyans, who had been led to believe that repatriation under the PTA was only months away.
Tony Blair has become an adviser to Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator's son has sensationally claimed.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said the former prime minister has secured a consultancy role with a state fund that manages the country's £65billion of oil wealth.
In an exclusive interview, Saif described Mr Blair as a 'personal family friend' of the Libyan leader and said he had visited the country 'many, many times' since leaving Downing Street three years ago. (...)
Last night, families of the 270 Lockerbie victims accused Mr Blair of breaking bread with people who 'have blood on their hands'.
They have in the past raised questions about Mr Blair's relationship with Colonel Gaddafi especially over a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya that paved the way for the return of the Lockerbie bomber last year.
Saif made clear that the agreement - drawn up when Mr Blair was prime minister - was key to creating a 'special relationship' between Britain and Libya.
Saif suggested Mr Blair was involved in 'Africa projects' with his father, alleging: 'He also has some consultancy role with the Libyan Investment Authority.'
Mr Blair was adamant last night he had no relationship whatsoever with the LIA. However he is advising several firms seeking a slice of the massive revenues from Libya's oil reserves.
Last night, Mr Blair's spokesman said: 'Tony Blair does not have any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the government of Libya.
'He has no commercial relationship with any Libyan companies or any Libyan projects in Africa.'
But sources close to the Gaddafi family said Saif - tipped to succeed his father as leader of his country - stands by his comments.
Colonel Gaddafi is understood to be on first name terms with Mr Blair, who saw his work in Libya as one of the great foreign policy successes of his premiership.
Mr Blair has always insisted he played no role in the return of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi, who was sent home last August by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds after doctors wrongly said he had only three months to live.
But Saif said Megrahi's release was 'always on the negotiating table' in discussions about 'commercial contracts for oil and gas with Britain'.
Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, told the Mail: 'If this is true, I guess this is Tony Blair's reward from the Libyan government for what he has done.
'It's important for world peace that Libya is brought back into the community of nations but that doesn't mean that you have to honour people with blood on their hands.'
[The Mail's editorial comment on the issue headed "Peace or money?" can be read here.
Tony Blair's part in the moves which ultimately led to the repatriation of Abdelbaset Megrahi is accurately described in the following excerpt from an earlier post on this blog:]
The memorandum of understanding regarding prisoner transfer that Tony Blair entered into in the course of the "deal in the desert" in May 2007, and which paved the way for the formal prisoner transfer agreement, was intended by both sides to lead to the rapid return of Mr Megrahi to his homeland. This was the clear understanding of Libyan officials involved in the negotiations and to whom I have spoken.
It was only after the memorandum of understanding was concluded that [it belatedly sunk in] that the decision on repatriation of this particular prisoner was a matter not for Westminster and Whitehall but for the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh, and that government had just come into the hands of the Scottish National Party and so could no longer be expected supinely to follow the UK Labour Government's wishes. That was when the understanding between the UK Government and the Libyan Government started to unravel, to the considerable annoyance and distress of the Libyans, who had been led to believe that repatriation under the PTA was only months away.
Friday, 4 June 2010
Close-knit communities may cope better with tragedy
Close-knit is one of those glib expressions about communities that you have to hope is true of the Cumbrian villages and towns that Derrick Bird has despoiled with his obscene guns. They will need to be. (...)
Adrian Skinner, a Harrogate psychologist with special knowledge of disaster counselling, believes that the natural cohesion and fellow-feeling in small communities, left to heal themselves in their own time in their own ways, can be more effective than psychopathology. "Research into the effectiveness of debriefing," he says, "suggests that communities traditionally regarded as close-knit are more resilient than great amorphous cities. People share a history. Everyone knows everyone else and they look at practical ways to help one another."
After the Lockerbie disaster in 1988, an army of American psychologists bearing briefcases descended on the Scottish town where 270 died. They were not welcome. Locals retreated into themselves, as they did at Hungerford and were to do in Dunblane, for mutual comfort. Post-disaster counselling has a mixed track record, says Skinner. "Although it seems daft to say people should not have someone to talk to, all-round counselling is not appropriate for everyone. Only a percentage of people subjected to violence or natural disaster will suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome, and in others the symptom may actually be potentiated by counselling. (...)"
[From an article on the Cumbria shootings in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph.]
Adrian Skinner, a Harrogate psychologist with special knowledge of disaster counselling, believes that the natural cohesion and fellow-feeling in small communities, left to heal themselves in their own time in their own ways, can be more effective than psychopathology. "Research into the effectiveness of debriefing," he says, "suggests that communities traditionally regarded as close-knit are more resilient than great amorphous cities. People share a history. Everyone knows everyone else and they look at practical ways to help one another."
After the Lockerbie disaster in 1988, an army of American psychologists bearing briefcases descended on the Scottish town where 270 died. They were not welcome. Locals retreated into themselves, as they did at Hungerford and were to do in Dunblane, for mutual comfort. Post-disaster counselling has a mixed track record, says Skinner. "Although it seems daft to say people should not have someone to talk to, all-round counselling is not appropriate for everyone. Only a percentage of people subjected to violence or natural disaster will suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome, and in others the symptom may actually be potentiated by counselling. (...)"
[From an article on the Cumbria shootings in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph.]
Thursday, 3 June 2010
'Cowardly terrorist'
[This is the headline over an article published late yesterday (Washington DC time) in the Embassy Row section of the website of The Washington Times. It reads in part:]
The Libyan foreign minister is a "cowardly terrorist" who should never be honored in Washington, the president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 said Wednesday as he questioned why a prominent Arab-American business association would hold a reception to salute the man linked to the bombing of the airliner.
"Why would anyone want to honor someone with as much blood on his hands as [Foreign Minister] Musa Kousa?" asked Frank Duggan, who represents relatives of the 270 people killed when the flight exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The victims included 190 Americans.
The National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce and the Libyan Embassy are the co-sponsors of the Thursday evening reception, which also will celebrate recent US-Libyan trade deals. The chamber did not respond to an e-mail seeking a comment.
Libyan Ambassador Ali Suileiman Aujali, however, expressed outrage over an Embassy Row column on Tuesday that included references to news reports that linked Mr Kousa to the Pan Am bombing, as well as to the 1986 La Belle discotheque attack in Berlin that killed three US soldiers and injured 230 others, including 50 American soldiers.
Mr Kousa was expelled from Britain in 1980 after London accused him of using his position as head of the Libyan diplomatic mission to order hit men to kill Libyan dissidents. Mr Kousa has never been charged with any act of terrorism and has denied any link to the attacks.
"Libya and the United States have entered a new era in relations, and editorials such as yours devoid of fact and accompanied by slander only allow for the set back of improvements with respect to the emerging bilateral relationship between our two countries," Mr Aujali said in an e-mail.
"I would also like to note, that I strongly object to the slanderous remarks used to describe Secretary Kousa. It is important to note that Secretary Kousa holds the position of Libyan Foreign Minister. He is recognized by his peers, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, from whom he received this invitation to visit Washington, and is therefore deserving of the same respect consummate with other ministers of foreign affairs and persons of his rank."
Mr Aujali noted that Libya paid $2.7 billion in compensation to the relatives of the victims of the Pan Am flight and has established normal diplomatic relations with the United States.
"Having closed this chapter, neither Libya nor the United States will accept to live in the shadow of Lockerbie, as we continue to move forward with the future of our bilateral relationship," Mr Aujali said.
The Libyan foreign minister is a "cowardly terrorist" who should never be honored in Washington, the president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 said Wednesday as he questioned why a prominent Arab-American business association would hold a reception to salute the man linked to the bombing of the airliner.
"Why would anyone want to honor someone with as much blood on his hands as [Foreign Minister] Musa Kousa?" asked Frank Duggan, who represents relatives of the 270 people killed when the flight exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The victims included 190 Americans.
The National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce and the Libyan Embassy are the co-sponsors of the Thursday evening reception, which also will celebrate recent US-Libyan trade deals. The chamber did not respond to an e-mail seeking a comment.
Libyan Ambassador Ali Suileiman Aujali, however, expressed outrage over an Embassy Row column on Tuesday that included references to news reports that linked Mr Kousa to the Pan Am bombing, as well as to the 1986 La Belle discotheque attack in Berlin that killed three US soldiers and injured 230 others, including 50 American soldiers.
Mr Kousa was expelled from Britain in 1980 after London accused him of using his position as head of the Libyan diplomatic mission to order hit men to kill Libyan dissidents. Mr Kousa has never been charged with any act of terrorism and has denied any link to the attacks.
"Libya and the United States have entered a new era in relations, and editorials such as yours devoid of fact and accompanied by slander only allow for the set back of improvements with respect to the emerging bilateral relationship between our two countries," Mr Aujali said in an e-mail.
"I would also like to note, that I strongly object to the slanderous remarks used to describe Secretary Kousa. It is important to note that Secretary Kousa holds the position of Libyan Foreign Minister. He is recognized by his peers, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, from whom he received this invitation to visit Washington, and is therefore deserving of the same respect consummate with other ministers of foreign affairs and persons of his rank."
Mr Aujali noted that Libya paid $2.7 billion in compensation to the relatives of the victims of the Pan Am flight and has established normal diplomatic relations with the United States.
"Having closed this chapter, neither Libya nor the United States will accept to live in the shadow of Lockerbie, as we continue to move forward with the future of our bilateral relationship," Mr Aujali said.
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
'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.
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.
Friday, 28 May 2010
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.
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