[This is the headline over a report on the Telegraph website. The following are excerpts.]
The terraced house just around the corner from the American embassy in London looks like most in the affluent street. Tall and elegant, only the shiny brass plaque gives a clue to what lies beyond the black front door.
The name reads Dalia Advisory Limited, a company established by Libyan businessmen just a week after the country's officials were told the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was being considered for release on compassionate grounds.
Dalia Advisory is in fact a "front" for the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), a sovereign wealth fund with £80 billion, to invest in Britain and beyond. The Georgian town house, bought for £6 million, is, ironically, only a few yards from the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Senior business sources have told The Sunday Telegraph that had Megrahi died in a British jail, the LIA would have taken its vast sums elsewhere. "If Megrahi had perished in Scotland, we would have become a pariah state as far as the Libyans were concerned," said one source.
Oliver Miles, a former ambassador to Libya and now deputy chairman of the Libyan British Business Council, said: "At the time of his release everyone knew that if he died in a Scottish jail, it would be bad for our relations." (...)
However long Megrahi now survives, the fact is business between Britain and Libya is currently booming. British exports to Libya are now double what they were a year ago while imports from Libya have risen three fold. In the first two months of this year alone, the UK exported £110 million of goods and services.
In Washington this week, the timing of the establishment of Dalia, run by an associate of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's favourite son Saif, will come under the scrutiny of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a wide-ranging hearing into the release.
Angry US politicians and victims' families are convinced that Megrahi – convicted of the murder of 270 people, 189 of them Americans, when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Dec 1988 – was allowed home to ease oil and business deals between Libya and Britain.
There is particular focus on the role of BP, already on America's most hated list because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In the US, the company is prime suspect in masterminding the release – although the British and Scottish governments and BP have all denied this.
And US-British relations are heading for a fresh crisis over the Megrahi affair as it appears that none of the five invited British witnesses will attend Thursday's hearing. (...)
BP is to expected to send a senior executive but not the two men requested by senators – Tony Hayward, the beleaguered chief executive who may be about to leave the company, and Sir Mark Allen, the former MI6 agent who acted as a go-between for British and Libyan authorities. (...)
Speaking in a personal capacity, Mr Miles believes the American senators are conducting a "kangaroo court". He said: "They have already decided BP are guilty but they haven't got any evidence to say that." (...)
American anger is only compounded by the tone from Tripoli. Megrahi's wife Aisha, a schoolteacher, said: "Abdelbaset was a political prisoner who paid with ten years of his life to support his country. Libyans are perfectly right to celebrate his return to his family." And his eldest brother Mohammed added: "The public response is not a political one, but a show of support for someone who is much loved." (...)
Dalia was incorporated, according to Companies House records, on July 14 last year. A week earlier, at a meeting between Scottish and Libyan officials, Mr MacAskill first discussed the possibility of Megrahi being released on compassionate grounds rather than under PTA. [Note by RB: This wording gives the impression that, out of the blue, Kenny MacAskill raised the possibility of compassionate release with Libyan officials. This is arrant nonsense. The compassionate release option had been discussed in the media and was familiar to Libyan officials long before their meeting with Mr MacAskill.] BP's lobbying for the PTA – which was holding up ratification of a Libyan oil exploration deal – is at the centre of the US senate hearing next week.
Saturday, 24 July 2010
Kenny MacAskill rejects Lockerbie plea
[This is the headline over a report on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]
Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has again refused to attend a US senate hearing over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Mr MacAskill said the only documents which the Scottish government had not already put in the public domain were correspondence with the US government.
A US senator has "pleaded" with the Scottish government to appear before the hearing next week. (...)
Mr MacAskill told the BBC the Scottish government had not yet received Mr Lautenberg's letter, but had received one from New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, a member of the Senate's foreign affairs committee, who had asked for further information.
He said: "The point has already been made quite clear by the First Minister of Scotland - I am the justice secretary of Scotland, I am elected by the people of Scotland and I am answerable to the parliament of Scotland.
"I have been made available and co-operated with enquiries both in the Scottish Parliament and in Westminster, and that is where jurisdiction lies."
Mr MacAskill said he would be happy to provide Mr Menendez with the information he had requested, which the Scottish government had already published on the internet.
He added: "The only matter that remains outstanding is communications between the American government and ourselves.
"The only reason that has not been published is that the American government has refused to give us consent to publish it.
"If Senator Menendez, and indeed Senator Lautenberg, wish to lobby or persuade the United States government to allow the release of that information, we will publish it forthwith."
[If the claim in the editorial in The Herald is correct that the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepts the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement, it is unlikely -- in a mid-term election year -- that the US government would consent to its release or that Democrat senators would seriously try to persuade it to do so.]
Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has again refused to attend a US senate hearing over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Mr MacAskill said the only documents which the Scottish government had not already put in the public domain were correspondence with the US government.
A US senator has "pleaded" with the Scottish government to appear before the hearing next week. (...)
Mr MacAskill told the BBC the Scottish government had not yet received Mr Lautenberg's letter, but had received one from New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, a member of the Senate's foreign affairs committee, who had asked for further information.
He said: "The point has already been made quite clear by the First Minister of Scotland - I am the justice secretary of Scotland, I am elected by the people of Scotland and I am answerable to the parliament of Scotland.
"I have been made available and co-operated with enquiries both in the Scottish Parliament and in Westminster, and that is where jurisdiction lies."
Mr MacAskill said he would be happy to provide Mr Menendez with the information he had requested, which the Scottish government had already published on the internet.
He added: "The only matter that remains outstanding is communications between the American government and ourselves.
"The only reason that has not been published is that the American government has refused to give us consent to publish it.
"If Senator Menendez, and indeed Senator Lautenberg, wish to lobby or persuade the United States government to allow the release of that information, we will publish it forthwith."
[If the claim in the editorial in The Herald is correct that the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepts the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement, it is unlikely -- in a mid-term election year -- that the US government would consent to its release or that Democrat senators would seriously try to persuade it to do so.]
MacAskill's meeting with Megrahi
[I am grateful to a reader of this blog who yesterday evening sent me the following message:]
You will be interested in tonight's Any Questions, if you didn't hear it. It's on the iPlayer here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t2y8r/Any_Questions_23_07_2010/
They begin with Megrahi, but you can go to 12 or 13 minutes in for the interesting bit. Magnus Linklater says he has seen a transcript of the meeting between Kenny MacAskill and Megrahi, and Kenny says "There is no question of you being released while there is still an appeal outstanding. The decsion as to whether you pursue that appeal is for you and your legal team."
Fergus Ewing has made it clear that the meeting was part of the provisions of the PTA and was about that application not compassionate release; however, that wording (if Magnus has remembered it correctly) seems very definite, if not threatening. One would need to know whether these were the exact words, and whether in context it was indeed referring purely to the PTA, but something smells very funny about this.
You will be interested in tonight's Any Questions, if you didn't hear it. It's on the iPlayer here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t2y8r/Any_Questions_23_07_2010/
They begin with Megrahi, but you can go to 12 or 13 minutes in for the interesting bit. Magnus Linklater says he has seen a transcript of the meeting between Kenny MacAskill and Megrahi, and Kenny says "There is no question of you being released while there is still an appeal outstanding. The decsion as to whether you pursue that appeal is for you and your legal team."
Fergus Ewing has made it clear that the meeting was part of the provisions of the PTA and was about that application not compassionate release; however, that wording (if Magnus has remembered it correctly) seems very definite, if not threatening. One would need to know whether these were the exact words, and whether in context it was indeed referring purely to the PTA, but something smells very funny about this.
US should examine its own conscience
[This is the headline over an editorial in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]
The decision by the Scottish Government that the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) director of health, Dr Andrew Fraser, should not give evidence at a United States Senate hearing into the release of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has brought claims they have something to hide.
But the charge should be directed at the US and the Senators should invite evidence from their own State Department. The letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepting the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) confirms the US condemnation of the Scottish Government as hypocrisy of the first order.
The Justice Secretary and the SPS health director are right to rebuff the US Senators’ invitation to attend the hearing into the release of Megrahi. Their actions have already been explained in a letter from Alex Salmond to Senators, along with an offer to answer further questions. It is therefore difficult to see what the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has to gain from the Justice Secretary appearing before them other than to bait him in a febrile political arena.
Wilful confusion has been stoked by US politicians who have deliberately ignored the inconvenient truth that a major obstacle to the PTA was that the only Libyan of any consequence in a British jail, Megrahi, was subject to the separate legal jurisdiction in Scotland.
His release last year was on the separate grounds of compassion due to a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer. Only its timing, which closely followed ratification of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK Government and Libya and the announcement of drilling rights for BP in Libya, has allowed conflation by those seeking to exploit outrage over the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Nevertheless the Scottish Government’s avowal of transparency is brought into focus by the refusal of the Justice Secretary to explain why he took the unprecedented step for a government minister of holding a private meeting with a prisoner before release. As long as that question remains unanswered, suspicion will continue that Megrahi’s withdrawal of his appeal was part of a deal. If MacAskill has nothing to hide, he should be open about the reason for that meeting, unless there is good cause to keep the matter under wraps. By the same token the US Senators should be honest and decouple Scotland’s compassionate release of Megrahi from BP’s interests in Libya.
The attack on PanAm flight 103 has been mired in the complexities of international politics from the beginning and, unfairly or not, Scottish justice has been found wanting in the international court of public opinion. The most glaring affront to justice, however, will always be that 270 people died on December 21, 1988 as the innocent victims of a terrorist crime. Their memories should be honoured by a quest for the truth, not the sordid continuation of political posturing based on misinformation on the other side of the Atlantic.
[I presume that The Herald also has an article describing in more detail the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government. Once that article appears online I shall add a reference to this post.
There is no further article on the document: I went so far as to buy a copy of the newspaper to make sure! What there is is a full page of readers' letters, nine out of the total of ten of which support the Scottish Government's stance. They can be read here.
An article by the paper's UK political editor Michael Settle contains the following:]
The US inquiry into release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was in danger of becoming an embarrassing no-show last night after Jack Straw announced he too had declined the offer to attend.
The former justice secretary said he could not help the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing because he had “absolutely nothing to do” with the decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, which he stressed was an “entirely separate decision for the Scottish Justice Secretary”.
However, the SNP’s Christine Grahame insisted Straw had no principled reason not to go, given his activities directly related to the committee’s central point of concern about oil.
She insisted his decision was deeply embarrassing for Scottish Labour, which had attacked Kenny MacAskill for declining the Senate’s invitation. (...)
Invitations to five foreign witnesses have gone out from the Senate committee and three have so far been rejected from Straw, MacAskill and Dr Andrew Fraser, the director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service, who drew up the final medical report on the Libyan.
It is not yet known if Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, will attend or Sir Mark Allen, a former lobbyist for the oil giant who helped broker the £590 million “deal in the desert” with Libya, but in light of the rejections, this is thought unlikely.
Confusion still surrounds the invitation written out for Tony Blair, the former prime minister, to attend but which was then swiftly withdrawn. The committee simply said it had been “an error”. (...)
Yesterday, there was a deal of support for Straw and MacAskill’s decision to decline to attend the Senate hearing. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, who was Scottish secretary at the time of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, said British ministers “should co-operate but not to the extent to give evidence in person”.
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to Washington, said: “As a matter of principle, a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee.”
Mike Gapes, Labour chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, accused the senators of political grandstanding while his colleague Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, claimed they were engaged in a witch-hunt against BP. (...)
Meantime, the Justice for Megrahi committee, which believes the Libyan to be innocent, called for the Scottish Government to launch its own inquiry, which would cover all aspects of the Lockerbie case. [Note by RB: The call for an inquiry is fully reported in an article on The Guardian website.]
The Senate committee’s hearing takes place at 7.30pm UK time on Thursday and is expected to last three hours.
[The Scotsman has an editorial on the subject. It is supportive of Kenny MacAskill -- perhaps a first for this virulently anti-SNP newspaper. It reads in part:]
In matters of international relations, protocol counts for much, diplomacy a great deal but integrity most of all.
The US senators who have sent out requests for Scotland's justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to appear before them in their inquiry into the Megrahi affair might usefully have borne this in mind.
Why expect Mr MacAskill to respond positively when the former UK prime minister Tony Blair has not been so summoned? It was Mr Blair who was in the tent with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi when a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) was discussed. It was Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi who was behind the plot to blow up the Pan Am jet with the callous slaughter of life over Lockerbie. It was both Col Gaddafi and Mr Blair that BP addressed in their lobbying over oil interests in Libya. As the First Minister Alex Salmond has made clear in his reply to the senators, "if your committee is concerned about BP's role or the PTA ,then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries". Quite.
The Scottish Government, publicly and by letter to the senators, has made clear the independent status of Scots law, the grounds under Scots law and the circumstances of Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds. It has also emphatically stated that at no time was it lobbied by BP on this matter.
Perhaps the senators felt that it would be unseemly to be seen to interrogate a former British prime minister who has been honoured by Congress. (...) Whatever the reason for the senators' actions, it is surely Mr Blair and Mr Straw, not Mr MacAskill, who are more central to the course of their inquiries. Requesting Mr MacAskill but not Mr Blair is at best asymmetric. But it smacks of an easy gesture to the gallery and also leaves the impression, unintended we are sure, that the Scottish justice secretary would be the easier to fry in the public pan.
While there is a wholly respectable case for Mr MacAskill to have accepted the senators' invitation and taken the opportunity to explain Scotland's legal system and put their concerns over its independence at rest, the senators have made it difficult for him to do so while not appearing to be a substitute for inquiries best addressed elsewhere.
In other circumstances Scottish ministers would have been happy to make their position plain to an American audience understandably outraged by an act of wanton terrorism and understandably appalled if Megrahi's release was the result of what has become widely known as "the deal in the desert".
The decision by the Scottish Government that the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) director of health, Dr Andrew Fraser, should not give evidence at a United States Senate hearing into the release of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has brought claims they have something to hide.
But the charge should be directed at the US and the Senators should invite evidence from their own State Department. The letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepting the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) confirms the US condemnation of the Scottish Government as hypocrisy of the first order.
The Justice Secretary and the SPS health director are right to rebuff the US Senators’ invitation to attend the hearing into the release of Megrahi. Their actions have already been explained in a letter from Alex Salmond to Senators, along with an offer to answer further questions. It is therefore difficult to see what the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has to gain from the Justice Secretary appearing before them other than to bait him in a febrile political arena.
Wilful confusion has been stoked by US politicians who have deliberately ignored the inconvenient truth that a major obstacle to the PTA was that the only Libyan of any consequence in a British jail, Megrahi, was subject to the separate legal jurisdiction in Scotland.
His release last year was on the separate grounds of compassion due to a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer. Only its timing, which closely followed ratification of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK Government and Libya and the announcement of drilling rights for BP in Libya, has allowed conflation by those seeking to exploit outrage over the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Nevertheless the Scottish Government’s avowal of transparency is brought into focus by the refusal of the Justice Secretary to explain why he took the unprecedented step for a government minister of holding a private meeting with a prisoner before release. As long as that question remains unanswered, suspicion will continue that Megrahi’s withdrawal of his appeal was part of a deal. If MacAskill has nothing to hide, he should be open about the reason for that meeting, unless there is good cause to keep the matter under wraps. By the same token the US Senators should be honest and decouple Scotland’s compassionate release of Megrahi from BP’s interests in Libya.
The attack on PanAm flight 103 has been mired in the complexities of international politics from the beginning and, unfairly or not, Scottish justice has been found wanting in the international court of public opinion. The most glaring affront to justice, however, will always be that 270 people died on December 21, 1988 as the innocent victims of a terrorist crime. Their memories should be honoured by a quest for the truth, not the sordid continuation of political posturing based on misinformation on the other side of the Atlantic.
[I presume that The Herald also has an article describing in more detail the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government. Once that article appears online I shall add a reference to this post.
There is no further article on the document: I went so far as to buy a copy of the newspaper to make sure! What there is is a full page of readers' letters, nine out of the total of ten of which support the Scottish Government's stance. They can be read here.
An article by the paper's UK political editor Michael Settle contains the following:]
The US inquiry into release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was in danger of becoming an embarrassing no-show last night after Jack Straw announced he too had declined the offer to attend.
The former justice secretary said he could not help the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing because he had “absolutely nothing to do” with the decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, which he stressed was an “entirely separate decision for the Scottish Justice Secretary”.
However, the SNP’s Christine Grahame insisted Straw had no principled reason not to go, given his activities directly related to the committee’s central point of concern about oil.
She insisted his decision was deeply embarrassing for Scottish Labour, which had attacked Kenny MacAskill for declining the Senate’s invitation. (...)
Invitations to five foreign witnesses have gone out from the Senate committee and three have so far been rejected from Straw, MacAskill and Dr Andrew Fraser, the director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service, who drew up the final medical report on the Libyan.
It is not yet known if Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, will attend or Sir Mark Allen, a former lobbyist for the oil giant who helped broker the £590 million “deal in the desert” with Libya, but in light of the rejections, this is thought unlikely.
Confusion still surrounds the invitation written out for Tony Blair, the former prime minister, to attend but which was then swiftly withdrawn. The committee simply said it had been “an error”. (...)
Yesterday, there was a deal of support for Straw and MacAskill’s decision to decline to attend the Senate hearing. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, who was Scottish secretary at the time of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, said British ministers “should co-operate but not to the extent to give evidence in person”.
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to Washington, said: “As a matter of principle, a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee.”
Mike Gapes, Labour chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, accused the senators of political grandstanding while his colleague Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, claimed they were engaged in a witch-hunt against BP. (...)
Meantime, the Justice for Megrahi committee, which believes the Libyan to be innocent, called for the Scottish Government to launch its own inquiry, which would cover all aspects of the Lockerbie case. [Note by RB: The call for an inquiry is fully reported in an article on The Guardian website.]
The Senate committee’s hearing takes place at 7.30pm UK time on Thursday and is expected to last three hours.
[The Scotsman has an editorial on the subject. It is supportive of Kenny MacAskill -- perhaps a first for this virulently anti-SNP newspaper. It reads in part:]
In matters of international relations, protocol counts for much, diplomacy a great deal but integrity most of all.
The US senators who have sent out requests for Scotland's justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to appear before them in their inquiry into the Megrahi affair might usefully have borne this in mind.
Why expect Mr MacAskill to respond positively when the former UK prime minister Tony Blair has not been so summoned? It was Mr Blair who was in the tent with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi when a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) was discussed. It was Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi who was behind the plot to blow up the Pan Am jet with the callous slaughter of life over Lockerbie. It was both Col Gaddafi and Mr Blair that BP addressed in their lobbying over oil interests in Libya. As the First Minister Alex Salmond has made clear in his reply to the senators, "if your committee is concerned about BP's role or the PTA ,then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries". Quite.
The Scottish Government, publicly and by letter to the senators, has made clear the independent status of Scots law, the grounds under Scots law and the circumstances of Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds. It has also emphatically stated that at no time was it lobbied by BP on this matter.
Perhaps the senators felt that it would be unseemly to be seen to interrogate a former British prime minister who has been honoured by Congress. (...) Whatever the reason for the senators' actions, it is surely Mr Blair and Mr Straw, not Mr MacAskill, who are more central to the course of their inquiries. Requesting Mr MacAskill but not Mr Blair is at best asymmetric. But it smacks of an easy gesture to the gallery and also leaves the impression, unintended we are sure, that the Scottish justice secretary would be the easier to fry in the public pan.
While there is a wholly respectable case for Mr MacAskill to have accepted the senators' invitation and taken the opportunity to explain Scotland's legal system and put their concerns over its independence at rest, the senators have made it difficult for him to do so while not appearing to be a substitute for inquiries best addressed elsewhere.
In other circumstances Scottish ministers would have been happy to make their position plain to an American audience understandably outraged by an act of wanton terrorism and understandably appalled if Megrahi's release was the result of what has become widely known as "the deal in the desert".
Lockerbie: Megrahi was framed
The Dprogram website has just republished an article by John Pilger with this title. I blogged on it in September 2009 when it first appeared.
Friday, 23 July 2010
Jack Straw dismisses US invitation to answer Lockerbie questions
[This is the headline over a recent report on The Guardian website. It reads in part:]
Jack Straw, the former justice secretary, has rejected a demand from a US senate committee to appear in Washington next week to answer questions about the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
As Labour MPs accused the senators of "grandstanding", Straw wrote to the chairman of the senate committee to decline his "kind invitation" on the grounds that he played no role in the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. (...)
"I had absolutely nothing to do with [the] decision," Straw wrote. "Indeed I was on holiday at the time and only learned about it from an item on the BBC News website. It follows that I do not see how I could help your committee 'understand several questions still lingering from this decision' … You will therefore excuse me if I do not accept your kind invitation." (...)
Mike Gapes, the Labour chairman of the foreign affairs select committee in the last parliament, attacked the decision to invite Straw. "We, in our parliament, have never tried to summon Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice. I think it is political grandstanding by some US senators."
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, endorsed the decisions by Straw and MacAskill. "As a matter of principle a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee," Meyer told Radio 4.
"That does not mean that they can't in some way co-operate with the committee's enquiry, either privately or in correspondence. It is what the Americans would do if the boot was on the other foot. They have done it already. A number of them were approached to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. They declined to do so. But they have co-operated in private. I just don't think it is right for members of a sovereign government, albeit a very close ally, to be required in public under oath to give evidence to an American congressional inquiry."
Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, said: "The senate committee clearly is on a witch-hunt against BP. They would be highly annoyed if one of our select committees demanded to see an American politician put before us. They need to be careful because they are trying the patience of good friends of the US. I include myself as one."
[What, I wonder, will Richard Baker MSP, Scottish Labour's intellectually-challenged justice spokesman, say now? Watch this space.]
Jack Straw, the former justice secretary, has rejected a demand from a US senate committee to appear in Washington next week to answer questions about the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
As Labour MPs accused the senators of "grandstanding", Straw wrote to the chairman of the senate committee to decline his "kind invitation" on the grounds that he played no role in the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. (...)
"I had absolutely nothing to do with [the] decision," Straw wrote. "Indeed I was on holiday at the time and only learned about it from an item on the BBC News website. It follows that I do not see how I could help your committee 'understand several questions still lingering from this decision' … You will therefore excuse me if I do not accept your kind invitation." (...)
Mike Gapes, the Labour chairman of the foreign affairs select committee in the last parliament, attacked the decision to invite Straw. "We, in our parliament, have never tried to summon Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice. I think it is political grandstanding by some US senators."
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, endorsed the decisions by Straw and MacAskill. "As a matter of principle a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee," Meyer told Radio 4.
"That does not mean that they can't in some way co-operate with the committee's enquiry, either privately or in correspondence. It is what the Americans would do if the boot was on the other foot. They have done it already. A number of them were approached to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. They declined to do so. But they have co-operated in private. I just don't think it is right for members of a sovereign government, albeit a very close ally, to be required in public under oath to give evidence to an American congressional inquiry."
Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, said: "The senate committee clearly is on a witch-hunt against BP. They would be highly annoyed if one of our select committees demanded to see an American politician put before us. They need to be careful because they are trying the patience of good friends of the US. I include myself as one."
[What, I wonder, will Richard Baker MSP, Scottish Labour's intellectually-challenged justice spokesman, say now? Watch this space.]
Statement by Scottish Government on refusal to attend Senate hearing
[What follows is the text of a statement issued by the Scottish Government.]
First Minister Alex Salmond has written to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations again today following the Scottish Government's decision to formally decline the invitation for Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, and Director of Health and Care of the Scottish Prison Service Dr Andrew Fraser to attend a hearing in person.
The FM, in addition to information already provided, has offered to answer any additional questions in advance of the hearing, and any more that may arise from the hearing itself.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said:
"The First Minister wrote to Senator Kerry on Wednesday providing comprehensive information and assistance, which is the appropriate nature of Scottish Government involvement in the Senate Committee's hearing next week.
"Since the Lockerbie atrocity in 1988, all matters regarding the investigation, prosecution and compassionate release decision have been conducted according to the jurisdiction and laws of Scotland. Clearly, the Senate Committee has responsibility to scrutinise decisions taken within the US system, and Scottish Ministers and public officials are accountable within the Scottish Parliament system. That is the constitutional basis of our democracies.
"The Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee has already undertaken a full inquiry into the decision on compassionate release, and the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee has also examined the issue in terms of the formal inter-governmental relations that exist within the UK. That is right and proper.
"The focus of the Senators' concern has been any role played by BP in decisions on Al-Megrahi, and we have stated categorically to Senator Kerry that there was no contact of any kind between the Scottish Government and BP.
"In addition to the extensive information already provided, we have written to Senator Kerry again today and offered to answer any additional questions in advance of the hearing, and we would also be very happy to answer formally and in writing any more questions that may arise from the hearing itself.
"In that constructive spirit, we have also given the Committee permission to have the First Minister's initial letter to Senator Kerry, containing substantive information, entered into the hearing's record."
"If any matters emerge concerning the Scottish Government from the UK Cabinet Secretary's upcoming trawl of papers, we would also be happy to respond as necessary.
"We reiterate, however, that the only relevant material held by us and not yet published is information provided by or concerning the US and UK administrations - which we would like to publish in the interests of openness and full disclosure."
First Minister Alex Salmond has written to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations again today following the Scottish Government's decision to formally decline the invitation for Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, and Director of Health and Care of the Scottish Prison Service Dr Andrew Fraser to attend a hearing in person.
The FM, in addition to information already provided, has offered to answer any additional questions in advance of the hearing, and any more that may arise from the hearing itself.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said:
"The First Minister wrote to Senator Kerry on Wednesday providing comprehensive information and assistance, which is the appropriate nature of Scottish Government involvement in the Senate Committee's hearing next week.
"Since the Lockerbie atrocity in 1988, all matters regarding the investigation, prosecution and compassionate release decision have been conducted according to the jurisdiction and laws of Scotland. Clearly, the Senate Committee has responsibility to scrutinise decisions taken within the US system, and Scottish Ministers and public officials are accountable within the Scottish Parliament system. That is the constitutional basis of our democracies.
"The Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee has already undertaken a full inquiry into the decision on compassionate release, and the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee has also examined the issue in terms of the formal inter-governmental relations that exist within the UK. That is right and proper.
"The focus of the Senators' concern has been any role played by BP in decisions on Al-Megrahi, and we have stated categorically to Senator Kerry that there was no contact of any kind between the Scottish Government and BP.
"In addition to the extensive information already provided, we have written to Senator Kerry again today and offered to answer any additional questions in advance of the hearing, and we would also be very happy to answer formally and in writing any more questions that may arise from the hearing itself.
"In that constructive spirit, we have also given the Committee permission to have the First Minister's initial letter to Senator Kerry, containing substantive information, entered into the hearing's record."
"If any matters emerge concerning the Scottish Government from the UK Cabinet Secretary's upcoming trawl of papers, we would also be happy to respond as necessary.
"We reiterate, however, that the only relevant material held by us and not yet published is information provided by or concerning the US and UK administrations - which we would like to publish in the interests of openness and full disclosure."
US Senate committee backs down over plans to call Tony Blair over Lockerbie bomber release
[This is the headline over a report on the Telegraph website. It reads in part:]
The US Senate committee investigating the release of the Lockerbie bomber appears to have mysteriously backed down over plans to call Tony Blair to testify.
The committee seemingly drafted a letter to ask the former Prime Minister to appear before it but this was never sent.
It remains unclear if a genuine error was made somewhere in the Senate. The committee may have decided that it was too controversial to ask him
Frederick Jones, communications director for the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “Mr Blair was not and will not be an invitee.”
He added: “I deeply regret any confusion this may have caused. We still have to get to the bottom of this.”
Jack Straw, the former Justice and Foreign Secretary, has been asked to appear next week before a US Senate committee investigating the possible role of BP in the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Senators have written to Mr Straw asking him to the hearing next week along with BP executives and members of the Scottish devolved administration.
BP, which has won contracts in Libya, has admitted it lobbied Mr Straw in 2007 to introduce a prisoner transfer agreement with the North African state.
Senators are focusing on the relationship between Mr Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 official who helped BP to win the valuable contracts. Sir Mark has also been asked to appear.
He became a special adviser to BP and had at least two telephone conversations with Mr Straw to discuss the prisoner transfer deal. He also had meetings with Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Mr Straw said last night: “I have no objection in principle to explaining the background to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Indeed, I have done so on a number of occasions before the United Kingdom Parliament.
“However, before coming to any decision as to whether to accept this invitation I shall be consulting Gordon Brown, as prime minister at the time, and seeking the advice of the Foreign Office.
“It is, in my experience, highly unusual for the legislature of one sovereign state to conduct an inquiry into decisions of another sovereign state, including, as in this case, decisions by a devolved administration on the release of a prisoner.”
[An amusing piece on the "phoney letter to Tony" appears on the Sky News website.
For the current state of play on who will attend the Senate committee's hearing, see "Will anybody attend the US Lockerbie hearing?" on The First Post website.]
The US Senate committee investigating the release of the Lockerbie bomber appears to have mysteriously backed down over plans to call Tony Blair to testify.
The committee seemingly drafted a letter to ask the former Prime Minister to appear before it but this was never sent.
It remains unclear if a genuine error was made somewhere in the Senate. The committee may have decided that it was too controversial to ask him
Frederick Jones, communications director for the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “Mr Blair was not and will not be an invitee.”
He added: “I deeply regret any confusion this may have caused. We still have to get to the bottom of this.”
Jack Straw, the former Justice and Foreign Secretary, has been asked to appear next week before a US Senate committee investigating the possible role of BP in the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Senators have written to Mr Straw asking him to the hearing next week along with BP executives and members of the Scottish devolved administration.
BP, which has won contracts in Libya, has admitted it lobbied Mr Straw in 2007 to introduce a prisoner transfer agreement with the North African state.
Senators are focusing on the relationship between Mr Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 official who helped BP to win the valuable contracts. Sir Mark has also been asked to appear.
He became a special adviser to BP and had at least two telephone conversations with Mr Straw to discuss the prisoner transfer deal. He also had meetings with Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Mr Straw said last night: “I have no objection in principle to explaining the background to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Indeed, I have done so on a number of occasions before the United Kingdom Parliament.
“However, before coming to any decision as to whether to accept this invitation I shall be consulting Gordon Brown, as prime minister at the time, and seeking the advice of the Foreign Office.
“It is, in my experience, highly unusual for the legislature of one sovereign state to conduct an inquiry into decisions of another sovereign state, including, as in this case, decisions by a devolved administration on the release of a prisoner.”
[An amusing piece on the "phoney letter to Tony" appears on the Sky News website.
For the current state of play on who will attend the Senate committee's hearing, see "Will anybody attend the US Lockerbie hearing?" on The First Post website.]
Scots defend Lockerbie convict’s release
[This is the heading over a post by Robert Mackey on The Lede, the news blog of The New York Times. It reads in part:]
Scotland’s government will not be providing any new documents on the release of the Libyan man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 to a Senate panel investigating the matter, it said in a statement on Wednesday night.
The Scottish government also declined a request from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to have Scotland’s justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, appear next week at a hearing that will look into allegations that BP might have lobbied for the return of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to Libya in order to secure an oil contract with the Libyan government. BP denies that it lobbied for Mr Megrahi’s release but said that it did press for a prisoner transfer agreement to be completed.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond wrote in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his government, which has authority over justice matters and made the decision to release Mr Megrahi last year, had already published all of the relevant documents under its control. He added: “The only significant documents that we have not published are US government representations and some correspondence from the UK government, where permission was declined. The Scottish government is, and has always been, willing to publish these remaining documents if the US and UK governments are willing to give permission for that to be done.”
Mr. Salmond also insisted that even if BP might have lobbied the government of the United Kingdom to complete a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, his regional authority was not involved in those discussions and eventually decided to release Mr Megrahi on compassionate grounds because of a terminal illness rather than transfer him to Libyan custody. He wrote:
"My understanding is that the recent interest from the Committee and from other Senators stems mainly from concerns over any role played by BP in al-Megrahi’s release. I can say unequivocally that the Scottish government has never, at any point, received any representations from BP in relation to al-Megrahi. That is to say we had no submissions or lobbying of any kind from BP, either oral or written, and, to my knowledge, the subject of al-Megrahi was never raised by any BP representative to any Scottish Government Minister. That includes the Justice Minister to whom it fell to make the decisions on prisoner transfer and compassionate release on a quasi-judicial basis. [...]
"If your Committee is concerned about BP’s role or the [prisoner transfer agreement] then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries. There is nothing the Scottish Government can add to this since we have had no contact with BP at any point in the process of considering al-Megrahi’s position."
While outrage over the release of Mr. Megrahi in the United States has returned to the headlines with the new focus on BP, continued doubts about his guilt by some legal experts and family members of the victims of the bombing in Britain have led them to call for “an inquiry into the atrocity itself.” Pamela Dix, whose brother, Peter Dix, was killed in the bombing wrote on the Guardian’s Web site that an inquiry was needed because, “The families have faced years of denials and obfuscation, as we have painstakingly sought answers to the many unanswered questions about Lockerbie. The BP issue is just another element in the shameful way in which the truth behind Britain’s biggest mass murder has been hidden.”
[The post ends with a reprise of concerns about the soundness of Mr Megrahi's conviction that had been outlined in a post on The Lede in August 2009 and quotations from Gareth Peirce's article in London Review of Books.]
Scotland’s government will not be providing any new documents on the release of the Libyan man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 to a Senate panel investigating the matter, it said in a statement on Wednesday night.
The Scottish government also declined a request from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to have Scotland’s justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, appear next week at a hearing that will look into allegations that BP might have lobbied for the return of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to Libya in order to secure an oil contract with the Libyan government. BP denies that it lobbied for Mr Megrahi’s release but said that it did press for a prisoner transfer agreement to be completed.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond wrote in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his government, which has authority over justice matters and made the decision to release Mr Megrahi last year, had already published all of the relevant documents under its control. He added: “The only significant documents that we have not published are US government representations and some correspondence from the UK government, where permission was declined. The Scottish government is, and has always been, willing to publish these remaining documents if the US and UK governments are willing to give permission for that to be done.”
Mr. Salmond also insisted that even if BP might have lobbied the government of the United Kingdom to complete a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, his regional authority was not involved in those discussions and eventually decided to release Mr Megrahi on compassionate grounds because of a terminal illness rather than transfer him to Libyan custody. He wrote:
"My understanding is that the recent interest from the Committee and from other Senators stems mainly from concerns over any role played by BP in al-Megrahi’s release. I can say unequivocally that the Scottish government has never, at any point, received any representations from BP in relation to al-Megrahi. That is to say we had no submissions or lobbying of any kind from BP, either oral or written, and, to my knowledge, the subject of al-Megrahi was never raised by any BP representative to any Scottish Government Minister. That includes the Justice Minister to whom it fell to make the decisions on prisoner transfer and compassionate release on a quasi-judicial basis. [...]
"If your Committee is concerned about BP’s role or the [prisoner transfer agreement] then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries. There is nothing the Scottish Government can add to this since we have had no contact with BP at any point in the process of considering al-Megrahi’s position."
While outrage over the release of Mr. Megrahi in the United States has returned to the headlines with the new focus on BP, continued doubts about his guilt by some legal experts and family members of the victims of the bombing in Britain have led them to call for “an inquiry into the atrocity itself.” Pamela Dix, whose brother, Peter Dix, was killed in the bombing wrote on the Guardian’s Web site that an inquiry was needed because, “The families have faced years of denials and obfuscation, as we have painstakingly sought answers to the many unanswered questions about Lockerbie. The BP issue is just another element in the shameful way in which the truth behind Britain’s biggest mass murder has been hidden.”
[The post ends with a reprise of concerns about the soundness of Mr Megrahi's conviction that had been outlined in a post on The Lede in August 2009 and quotations from Gareth Peirce's article in London Review of Books.]
Questions remain over Lockerbie
[The following are excerpts from letters published in today's edition of The Guardian. There are no letters taking a contrary view.]
(a) I support President Obama's call for "all the facts to be laid out" regarding the Lockerbie affair ... He should be reminded that the Montreal convention of 1971, enacted under the UN-linked International Civil Aviation Organisation, was the proper legal instrument to address the terrorist bombing of flight PA 103 over Lockerbie. The US, resenting the convention provision that the two suspects could be tried in Libya, orchestrated UN sanctions in an attempt to force their surrender to an American or British court... The conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was a farce. Even Lord Sutherland, presiding over the arbitrarily contrived Scottish court in Holland, emphasised the "uncertainties and qualifications" in the case, referred to parts of the "conflicting" evidence "which might not fit" and to a conclusion "which is not really justified". The US ignored international law, imposed sanctions on Libya which resulted in 16,000 deaths, and orchestrated a blatant miscarriage of justice.
(b) As politicians in both Britain and the US queue up to comment on the release of Megrahi, they remain silent about the need for an inquiry into the atrocity itself. To deny the families of the 270 victims of Lockerbie an investigation into this gross act of terrorism is an international disgrace, and the failure to seek to identify those responsible encourages more acts of terrorism... David Cameron should call for an independent inquiry led by the UN to find out the truth about Pan Am Flight 103.
(c) However appalling the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 was, and if Libya were responsible, at worst Megrahi was following orders. That doesn't excuse his putative actions, but it is then hard to identify a moral distinction between his behaviour and eg that of the USAF aircrews attempting Gaddafi's assassination in the US bombing raid on Tripoli that killed 59 people, including Gaddafi's adopted daughter, or the behaviour of the (subsequently decorated) captain of the USS Vincennes when he shot down Iran Air flight 655 in 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew. David Cameron has no business trying to curry favour with the US administration by criticising the lawful and probably just decision of the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
(d) In all the hype about releasing Megrahi, one crucial fact seems to have got submerged. He was about to appeal with new evidence, and very likely win, when "persuaded" to abandon the appeal and be sent home "on compassionate grounds". Cynics might think this was to avoid the embarrassment of the court deciding that all along they had the wrong man. A case where two wrongs make a right?
(a) I support President Obama's call for "all the facts to be laid out" regarding the Lockerbie affair ... He should be reminded that the Montreal convention of 1971, enacted under the UN-linked International Civil Aviation Organisation, was the proper legal instrument to address the terrorist bombing of flight PA 103 over Lockerbie. The US, resenting the convention provision that the two suspects could be tried in Libya, orchestrated UN sanctions in an attempt to force their surrender to an American or British court... The conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was a farce. Even Lord Sutherland, presiding over the arbitrarily contrived Scottish court in Holland, emphasised the "uncertainties and qualifications" in the case, referred to parts of the "conflicting" evidence "which might not fit" and to a conclusion "which is not really justified". The US ignored international law, imposed sanctions on Libya which resulted in 16,000 deaths, and orchestrated a blatant miscarriage of justice.
(b) As politicians in both Britain and the US queue up to comment on the release of Megrahi, they remain silent about the need for an inquiry into the atrocity itself. To deny the families of the 270 victims of Lockerbie an investigation into this gross act of terrorism is an international disgrace, and the failure to seek to identify those responsible encourages more acts of terrorism... David Cameron should call for an independent inquiry led by the UN to find out the truth about Pan Am Flight 103.
(c) However appalling the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 was, and if Libya were responsible, at worst Megrahi was following orders. That doesn't excuse his putative actions, but it is then hard to identify a moral distinction between his behaviour and eg that of the USAF aircrews attempting Gaddafi's assassination in the US bombing raid on Tripoli that killed 59 people, including Gaddafi's adopted daughter, or the behaviour of the (subsequently decorated) captain of the USS Vincennes when he shot down Iran Air flight 655 in 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew. David Cameron has no business trying to curry favour with the US administration by criticising the lawful and probably just decision of the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
(d) In all the hype about releasing Megrahi, one crucial fact seems to have got submerged. He was about to appeal with new evidence, and very likely win, when "persuaded" to abandon the appeal and be sent home "on compassionate grounds". Cynics might think this was to avoid the embarrassment of the court deciding that all along they had the wrong man. A case where two wrongs make a right?
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Scots won't testify to Congress about Lockerbie bomber's release
[This is the headline over a report just published on the ABC News website. It reads in part:]
Top Scottish officials have declined an invitation to appear before a Senate panel investigating allegations of fraud and corporate pressure that may have led to the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdulbaset al Megrahi, ABC News has learned.
In a letter sent yesterday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass, formally invited Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill to appear before a July 29 hearing on the topic, chaired by New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez.
In response to Kerry's letter, Salmond denied the allegations levied by a group of US senators and said his letter explaining his government's position would suffice.
"I believe that I have offered all assistance that could reasonably be expected of an overseas government and respectfully decline your invitation for Scottish ministers to appear at the hearing," Salmond wrote in a letter dated today.
[A report on the Telegraph website contains the following:]
Susan Cohen lost her only daughter, Theodora, in the bombing. Speaking from her home in New Jersey, she said: “This is just the sort of stonewalling governments do.
“He doesn’t want to be asked any tough questions and see his lies unravelling. I think they want it to go away. How can they believe BP had nothing to do with it?”
Annabel Goldie, Scottish Tory leader, said: “A no-show would only fuel suspicion that they have something to hide. We need clarity, not confusion.”
Richard Baker, Scottish Labour justice spokesman, said: “Kenny MacAskill is running away from criticism as fast as Alex Salmond is running away from responsibility for the decision.
“Only Kenny MacAskill can explain his decision to release the man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity committed on Scottish soil.”
[The report on the refusal to attend on the BBC News website also contains comments from Dr Hans Koechler.]
Top Scottish officials have declined an invitation to appear before a Senate panel investigating allegations of fraud and corporate pressure that may have led to the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdulbaset al Megrahi, ABC News has learned.
In a letter sent yesterday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass, formally invited Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill to appear before a July 29 hearing on the topic, chaired by New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez.
In response to Kerry's letter, Salmond denied the allegations levied by a group of US senators and said his letter explaining his government's position would suffice.
"I believe that I have offered all assistance that could reasonably be expected of an overseas government and respectfully decline your invitation for Scottish ministers to appear at the hearing," Salmond wrote in a letter dated today.
[A report on the Telegraph website contains the following:]
Susan Cohen lost her only daughter, Theodora, in the bombing. Speaking from her home in New Jersey, she said: “This is just the sort of stonewalling governments do.
“He doesn’t want to be asked any tough questions and see his lies unravelling. I think they want it to go away. How can they believe BP had nothing to do with it?”
Annabel Goldie, Scottish Tory leader, said: “A no-show would only fuel suspicion that they have something to hide. We need clarity, not confusion.”
Richard Baker, Scottish Labour justice spokesman, said: “Kenny MacAskill is running away from criticism as fast as Alex Salmond is running away from responsibility for the decision.
“Only Kenny MacAskill can explain his decision to release the man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity committed on Scottish soil.”
[The report on the refusal to attend on the BBC News website also contains comments from Dr Hans Koechler.]
Salmond pressed to instigate inquiry into Pan Am 103 by international coalition ...
[This is the headline over a report on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads as follows:]
First Minister Alex Salmond has been called upon by an international coalition of signatories including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, academic Professor Noam Chomsky, former Father of the House Tam Dalyell and Professor Robert Black QC to institute a "full, open and public inquiry into the investigation of the Pan Am flight 103 tragedy."
The call comes amidst growing international clamour for an investigation, triggered initially by US Senators who wished to probe the connections between the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmad Al Megrahi and oil company BP. A letter endorsed by all the signatories, including relatives groups and the Justice for Megrahi campaign, calls on Salmond to initiate an inquiry "to encompass all aspects of the Lockerbie affair from December 1988 to the present day."
Others, such as Dr Hans Koechler and MSP Christine Grahame, as well as newspaper Leaders across the UK, have called separately for a wider analysis of the circumstances surrounding the Pan Am 103 affair and the discredited conviction against Al Megrahi.
"In response to the current attacks from both the USA and within the UK, it is now being suggested that an inquiry might be opened under the auspices of the Scottish Government into the circumstances of Mr Al-Megrahi's release. In our view, it is vital that the scope of any such inquiry ought also to encompass all aspects of the Lockerbie affair from December 1988 to the present day, including the investigation of the disaster and the Zeist trial itself (as laid out in the UN petition)" the letter to Salmond says.
"Clearly, it is our belief that Mr Al-Megrahi may have been a victim of a gross miscarriage of justice, and in that regard, simply to focus on the questions arising from his release is of secondary import. It goes without saying, therefore, that we would be fully supportive of a full, public inquiry of this type should Edinburgh wish to open one.
"From a political standpoint, such a course of action might succeed in fanning the existing flames, however, we feel that to institute a more wide-ranging inquiry could well serve to silence some of the critics, or at least make them more circumspect before going public. A step of this nature may also go some way towards restoring faith in Scotland's once justifiably envied system of criminal justice, which is now internationally derided as a result of our continuing failure to tackle the problems created and sustained by the Lockerbie affair."
The Firm's Editor Steven Raeburn was also asked to sign the original petition in September 2009, in addition to tonight's letter to Salmond, and has done so.
"Given the international nature of the incident and the fact that there seemed to be little appetite to open an inquiry in the either Westminster or Holyrood at the time, it was the appropriate route to follow," the letter adds.
"We hope that Holyrood will now take up the gauntlet and attempt to lift the fog that many feel has obscured aspects of this case from the very start."
The letter marks one of the the final public acts of Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu, who announced his retirement from public life today.
[The full text of the letter to the First Minister can be read here.]
First Minister Alex Salmond has been called upon by an international coalition of signatories including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, academic Professor Noam Chomsky, former Father of the House Tam Dalyell and Professor Robert Black QC to institute a "full, open and public inquiry into the investigation of the Pan Am flight 103 tragedy."
The call comes amidst growing international clamour for an investigation, triggered initially by US Senators who wished to probe the connections between the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmad Al Megrahi and oil company BP. A letter endorsed by all the signatories, including relatives groups and the Justice for Megrahi campaign, calls on Salmond to initiate an inquiry "to encompass all aspects of the Lockerbie affair from December 1988 to the present day."
Others, such as Dr Hans Koechler and MSP Christine Grahame, as well as newspaper Leaders across the UK, have called separately for a wider analysis of the circumstances surrounding the Pan Am 103 affair and the discredited conviction against Al Megrahi.
"In response to the current attacks from both the USA and within the UK, it is now being suggested that an inquiry might be opened under the auspices of the Scottish Government into the circumstances of Mr Al-Megrahi's release. In our view, it is vital that the scope of any such inquiry ought also to encompass all aspects of the Lockerbie affair from December 1988 to the present day, including the investigation of the disaster and the Zeist trial itself (as laid out in the UN petition)" the letter to Salmond says.
"Clearly, it is our belief that Mr Al-Megrahi may have been a victim of a gross miscarriage of justice, and in that regard, simply to focus on the questions arising from his release is of secondary import. It goes without saying, therefore, that we would be fully supportive of a full, public inquiry of this type should Edinburgh wish to open one.
"From a political standpoint, such a course of action might succeed in fanning the existing flames, however, we feel that to institute a more wide-ranging inquiry could well serve to silence some of the critics, or at least make them more circumspect before going public. A step of this nature may also go some way towards restoring faith in Scotland's once justifiably envied system of criminal justice, which is now internationally derided as a result of our continuing failure to tackle the problems created and sustained by the Lockerbie affair."
The Firm's Editor Steven Raeburn was also asked to sign the original petition in September 2009, in addition to tonight's letter to Salmond, and has done so.
"Given the international nature of the incident and the fact that there seemed to be little appetite to open an inquiry in the either Westminster or Holyrood at the time, it was the appropriate route to follow," the letter adds.
"We hope that Holyrood will now take up the gauntlet and attempt to lift the fog that many feel has obscured aspects of this case from the very start."
The letter marks one of the the final public acts of Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu, who announced his retirement from public life today.
[The full text of the letter to the First Minister can be read here.]
We need a full Lockerbie inquiry
[This is the headline over an editorial in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]
It is unfortunate for David Cameron that his first official visit to the US as Prime Minister coincides with BP’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Doubly so that a deal over drilling rights for BP in Libya has been conflated with the freeing on compassionate grounds of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. As a result the Prime Minister has been caught up in a wave of anti-British sentiment founded on a massive misunderstanding of the circumstances leading to his release.
Ever since PanAm flight 103 was blown apart over Lockerbie killing 270 people nearly 22 years ago the complex background to the terror attack has spawned multiple conspiracy theories. It is therefore not surprising that Americans shocked at the release of a Libyan convicted of mass murder should link his release with an agreement over the transfer of prisoners concluded between the UK and Libyan governments a few months earlier.
Even the most cynical, however, ought to be convinced [of] the genuine anger of the Scottish Government over the “deal in the desert” between Col Muammar Gadafi and Tony Blair. The decision by the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to release Megrahi was not made under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) but entirely on compassionate grounds on the basis of medical advice that he was not likely to live for more than around three months. The fact that he has survived for much longer than expected, although remaining terminally ill, does not negate the basis on which the decision was made, which was in accordance with a legal process that has been applied to other prisoners in similar circumstances. There was never any question of trading justice for oil and Alex Salmond’s hard-hitting letter to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations outlining the Scottish Government’s opposition to the PTA is a necessary clarification of the basis for Megrahi’s release.
It is essential that as much documentation as possible relating to the decision to release him is made available. So far the Scottish Government has published those for which they have permission. Cameron’s decision to ask the Cabinet Secretary to review the documentation and publish what is available is welcome.
The PTA agreement, howevwer, is a different matter. BP has already acknowledged that it lobbied for an agreement but some obscurity remains over the details of the negotiations between the UK and Libyan governments. Any US senators who are not reassured by Salmond’s letter should direct their questions there.
Cameron has indicated that if any fresh concerns arise over the release he would consider an inquiry. But it is not the release of Megrahi which is at issue.
The basis of conviction is an entirely different matter. Lockerbie is unfinished business that will not end with Megrahi’s death. That can only be achieved by a wide-ranging, independent inquiry with the power to demand all the available documentation. That is what should be assessed.
[A report in the same newspaper headed "Cameron says public inquiry over Megrahi still on the table" reads in part:]
David Cameron has not ruled out a UK public inquiry into the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as pressure mounts on both sides of the Atlantic for a full investigation.
Last night, the Prime Minister insisted that while “we should not leap to an inquiry”, he acknowledged that if the forthcoming trawl of documents by Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, throws up new evidence about the circumstances surrounding Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s release, then “yes, we might have to look again” at holding one. (...)
Calls for an independent inquiry have been mounting over the past 24 hours.
Hans Koechler, the UN-nominated international observer at the Lockerbie trial, said: “The families of the victims deserve better and the rule of law requires more.
“The full truth of the Lockerbie tragedy must be known; the possible role of BP in the release of the only person convicted is only one of many aspects that would have to be investigated.”
He added the “real motives” of Kenny MacAskill had to be revealed and an inquiry should address why the Scottish Justice Secretary took the “unprecedented step” of visiting Megrahi in jail.
Asked about the criticism he was receiving from Obama and Cameron, MacAskill told Sky News: “It was a decision that they did not have to take and therefore they have the luxury of criticising it from the sidelines. I respect their judgments on a variety of matters but I had to deal with this matter holding true to the values of the people of Scotland, and that is why I stand by it.”
Professor Robert Black, Emeritus Professor in Law at Edinburgh University and an expert on the Megrahi case, called for a joint inquiry by the UK and Scottish Government.
He added that there should be a “broader inquiry into the whole circumstances, his conviction as well as his release”.
Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the 1988 bombing, has written to Senator John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will next week hold a hearing on the Megrahi case. Swire tells Kerry: “Please do not allow your determination to investigate this tragedy be thwarted by any one, it will be a tough call but we relatives have a right to the whole truth.”
In his letter to the committee chairman, Alex Salmond stresses how the Scottish Government would be willing to co-operate with any inquiry. He says: “The questions to be asked and answered in any such inquiry would be beyond the jurisdiction of Scots law and the remit of the Scottish Government and such an inquiry would therefore need to be initiated by those with the required power and authority to deal with an issue, international in its nature.”
[Yet another report in the same newspaper contains the following paragraphs:]
However, Megrahi dropped his appeal in August as he attempted to clear the way for his return home. Release under the PTA cannot be considered if there are any outstanding legal issues. However, the appeal had no bearing on his application for compassionate release, which was approved.
Jim Swire, whose daughter died in the Lockerbie bombing, said on Megrahi’s release that he would continue with the appeal on his behalf, if possible.
However, it is unlikely the appeal could move forward while Megrahi is still alive. The SCCRC would be unlikely to agree that it was in the interests of justice to proceed, when Megrahi gave up his chance to prove his innocence.
It is thought that relatives of those who died in the bombing would be well placed to take the appeal forward once Megrahi dies.
[The seven readers' letters in The Herald on the subject are well worth reading.]
It is unfortunate for David Cameron that his first official visit to the US as Prime Minister coincides with BP’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Doubly so that a deal over drilling rights for BP in Libya has been conflated with the freeing on compassionate grounds of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. As a result the Prime Minister has been caught up in a wave of anti-British sentiment founded on a massive misunderstanding of the circumstances leading to his release.
Ever since PanAm flight 103 was blown apart over Lockerbie killing 270 people nearly 22 years ago the complex background to the terror attack has spawned multiple conspiracy theories. It is therefore not surprising that Americans shocked at the release of a Libyan convicted of mass murder should link his release with an agreement over the transfer of prisoners concluded between the UK and Libyan governments a few months earlier.
Even the most cynical, however, ought to be convinced [of] the genuine anger of the Scottish Government over the “deal in the desert” between Col Muammar Gadafi and Tony Blair. The decision by the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to release Megrahi was not made under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) but entirely on compassionate grounds on the basis of medical advice that he was not likely to live for more than around three months. The fact that he has survived for much longer than expected, although remaining terminally ill, does not negate the basis on which the decision was made, which was in accordance with a legal process that has been applied to other prisoners in similar circumstances. There was never any question of trading justice for oil and Alex Salmond’s hard-hitting letter to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations outlining the Scottish Government’s opposition to the PTA is a necessary clarification of the basis for Megrahi’s release.
It is essential that as much documentation as possible relating to the decision to release him is made available. So far the Scottish Government has published those for which they have permission. Cameron’s decision to ask the Cabinet Secretary to review the documentation and publish what is available is welcome.
The PTA agreement, howevwer, is a different matter. BP has already acknowledged that it lobbied for an agreement but some obscurity remains over the details of the negotiations between the UK and Libyan governments. Any US senators who are not reassured by Salmond’s letter should direct their questions there.
Cameron has indicated that if any fresh concerns arise over the release he would consider an inquiry. But it is not the release of Megrahi which is at issue.
The basis of conviction is an entirely different matter. Lockerbie is unfinished business that will not end with Megrahi’s death. That can only be achieved by a wide-ranging, independent inquiry with the power to demand all the available documentation. That is what should be assessed.
[A report in the same newspaper headed "Cameron says public inquiry over Megrahi still on the table" reads in part:]
David Cameron has not ruled out a UK public inquiry into the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as pressure mounts on both sides of the Atlantic for a full investigation.
Last night, the Prime Minister insisted that while “we should not leap to an inquiry”, he acknowledged that if the forthcoming trawl of documents by Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, throws up new evidence about the circumstances surrounding Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s release, then “yes, we might have to look again” at holding one. (...)
Calls for an independent inquiry have been mounting over the past 24 hours.
Hans Koechler, the UN-nominated international observer at the Lockerbie trial, said: “The families of the victims deserve better and the rule of law requires more.
“The full truth of the Lockerbie tragedy must be known; the possible role of BP in the release of the only person convicted is only one of many aspects that would have to be investigated.”
He added the “real motives” of Kenny MacAskill had to be revealed and an inquiry should address why the Scottish Justice Secretary took the “unprecedented step” of visiting Megrahi in jail.
Asked about the criticism he was receiving from Obama and Cameron, MacAskill told Sky News: “It was a decision that they did not have to take and therefore they have the luxury of criticising it from the sidelines. I respect their judgments on a variety of matters but I had to deal with this matter holding true to the values of the people of Scotland, and that is why I stand by it.”
Professor Robert Black, Emeritus Professor in Law at Edinburgh University and an expert on the Megrahi case, called for a joint inquiry by the UK and Scottish Government.
He added that there should be a “broader inquiry into the whole circumstances, his conviction as well as his release”.
Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the 1988 bombing, has written to Senator John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will next week hold a hearing on the Megrahi case. Swire tells Kerry: “Please do not allow your determination to investigate this tragedy be thwarted by any one, it will be a tough call but we relatives have a right to the whole truth.”
In his letter to the committee chairman, Alex Salmond stresses how the Scottish Government would be willing to co-operate with any inquiry. He says: “The questions to be asked and answered in any such inquiry would be beyond the jurisdiction of Scots law and the remit of the Scottish Government and such an inquiry would therefore need to be initiated by those with the required power and authority to deal with an issue, international in its nature.”
[Yet another report in the same newspaper contains the following paragraphs:]
However, Megrahi dropped his appeal in August as he attempted to clear the way for his return home. Release under the PTA cannot be considered if there are any outstanding legal issues. However, the appeal had no bearing on his application for compassionate release, which was approved.
Jim Swire, whose daughter died in the Lockerbie bombing, said on Megrahi’s release that he would continue with the appeal on his behalf, if possible.
However, it is unlikely the appeal could move forward while Megrahi is still alive. The SCCRC would be unlikely to agree that it was in the interests of justice to proceed, when Megrahi gave up his chance to prove his innocence.
It is thought that relatives of those who died in the bombing would be well placed to take the appeal forward once Megrahi dies.
[The seven readers' letters in The Herald on the subject are well worth reading.]
How Megrahi and Libya were framed for Lockerbie
[This is the headline over an article by Alexander Cockburn on The First Post website. It reads in part:]
Amid all the bellowing about the release on compassionate grounds of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted of the bombing of PanAm flight 103 in 1988, all current commentary ignores the hippo in the room - which is the powerful evidence that Megrahi was innocent, framed by the US and British security services and originally found guilty because Scottish judges had their arms brutally twisted by Westminster. The conviction was one of the great judicial scandals of the 20th Century.
The original Lockerbie trial took place in 2000, in Zeist, Holland. It was presided over by three Scottish judges who travelled to the Netherlands courthouse, convicting Megrahi and acquitting his colleague, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah.
In a trenchant early criticism of the verdict, Hans Koechler, a distinguished Austrian philosopher appointed as one of five international observers at the trial by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, issued a well-merited denunciation of the judges' bizarre conclusion.
"In my opinion," Koechler said, "there seemed to be considerable political influence on the judges and the verdict." Koechler queried the active involvement of senior US Justice Department officials as part of the Scotch prosecution team "in a supervisory role".
In essence, the case was based (a) on the presumption that the bomb timer on the PanAm plane was from a batch sold by a Swiss firm to Libya; (b) that fragments of clothing retrieved from the crash site and identified as having been in the suitcase that contained the bomb had been bought by the accused Megrahi from a shop in Malta; and (c) that a "secret witness," Abdulmajid Gialka, a former colleague of the accused pair in the Libyan Airlines office in Malta, would testify that he had observed them either constructing the bomb or at least seen them loading it onto the plane in Frankfurt.
The prosecution was unable to produce evidence to substantiate any of these points or to encourage any confidence in Gialka's reliability as a witness. The Swiss manufacturer of the timer, Edwin Bollier, testified that he had sold timers of a similar type to the East Germans and conceded, under cross-examination by defence lawyers, that he had connections to many intelligence agencies, including not only the Libyans but also the CIA.
By the time of the trial, Gialka had been living under witness protection in the US. He had received $320,000 from his American hosts and, in the event of conviction of the accused, stood to collect up to $4 million in reward money. (...)
The prosecution's case absolutely depended on proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes, traced by police to a Maltese clothes shop. In 19 separate statements to police prior to the trial, the shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, had failed to make a positive identification of Megrahi.
In the witness box, Gauci was asked five times if he recognised anyone in the courtroom. No answer. Finally, the exasperated prosecutor pointed to the dock and asked if the man sitting on the left was the customer in question. The best Gauci could do was mumble that "he resembles him".
Gauci had also told the police that the man who bought the clothes was 6ft tall and over 50 years of age. Megrahi is5ft 8in tall, and in late 1988 he was 36. The clothes were bought either on November 23 or December 7, 1988. (...)
Megrahi was in Malta on December 7 but not on the November date. The shopkeeper recalled that the man who bought the clothes also bought an umbrella because it was raining heavily outside. Maltese meteorological records introduced by the defence showed clearly that while it did rain all day on November 23, there was almost certainly no rain on December 7. If it did rain on that date, the shower would have been barely enough to wet the pavement. Nevertheless, the judges held it proven that Megrahi had bought the clothes on December 7.
No less vital to the prosecution's case was its contention that the bomb that destroyed PanAm flight 103 had been loaded as unaccompanied baggage onto an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, flown on to London, and thence onto the ill-fated flight to New York. In support of this, prosecutors produced a document from Frankfurt airport indicating that a bag had gone from the baggage-handling station, at which the Air Malta bags (along with those from other flights) had been unloaded, and had been sent to the handling station for the relevant flight to London.
But there was firm evidence from the defence that all the bags on the Air Malta flight were accompanied and were collected at the other end. Nevertheless, the judges held it proven that the lethal suitcase had indeed come from Malta. (...)
The most likely explanation of the judges' decision to convict Megrahi despite the evidence, or lack of it, must be that either they panicked at the thought of the uproar that would ensue at the US end if they let both the Libyans off, or they were simply given their marching orders by high authority in London. English judges are used to doing their duty in this manner.
Back in 2000 a former CIA official told my brother, Andrew Cockburn, who undertook an investigation of the case for our newsletter CounterPunch – the factual substrate of these observations - that he had taken part in the original investigation of the PanAm bombing. He said that if the original CIA report was ever to be made public, it would provide "damning evidence" that "the Libyans were never directly involved in the Lockerbie bombing." In fact, the evidence in the CIA's possession pointed more clearly in the direction of the original suspects in the case, members of a group known as the PFLP-GC, closely linked to Iran.
The Iranians had a clear motive for an attack on an American airliner, following the destruction of an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf carrying 290 passengers, including 66 children, on July 3, 1988.
The initial US and British investigations pointed clearly to a case against the Iranians as having contracted with the Lebanon-based PFLP-GC, or a section thereof, to exact retribution.
Two months before Lockerbie, the West Germans arrested members of this group outside Dusseldorf as they were preparing bombs specifically designed to bring down airliners. US intelligence had traced a payment of $500,000 into the account of a professional bomber, Abu Talb, in April 1989.
A British journalist showed the Maltese shop owner who sold the clothes found in the PanAm bomb-suitcase a photo of Talb, and he declared that the man in the photo "most resembled" the purchaser. At one point, the Scottish police were about to charge Talb who had, since 1989, been serving time in a Swedish jail for a series of bomb attacks in Sweden and Denmark.
In March 1989, however, Margaret Thatcher called President GWH Bush to discuss the case. The two leaders agreed it was important to "cool it" on the Iranian angle, since they were in no position to punish the Tehran regime, which had just survived the eight-year war with US/UK-sponsored Iraq.
Amid all the bellowing about the release on compassionate grounds of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted of the bombing of PanAm flight 103 in 1988, all current commentary ignores the hippo in the room - which is the powerful evidence that Megrahi was innocent, framed by the US and British security services and originally found guilty because Scottish judges had their arms brutally twisted by Westminster. The conviction was one of the great judicial scandals of the 20th Century.
The original Lockerbie trial took place in 2000, in Zeist, Holland. It was presided over by three Scottish judges who travelled to the Netherlands courthouse, convicting Megrahi and acquitting his colleague, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah.
In a trenchant early criticism of the verdict, Hans Koechler, a distinguished Austrian philosopher appointed as one of five international observers at the trial by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, issued a well-merited denunciation of the judges' bizarre conclusion.
"In my opinion," Koechler said, "there seemed to be considerable political influence on the judges and the verdict." Koechler queried the active involvement of senior US Justice Department officials as part of the Scotch prosecution team "in a supervisory role".
In essence, the case was based (a) on the presumption that the bomb timer on the PanAm plane was from a batch sold by a Swiss firm to Libya; (b) that fragments of clothing retrieved from the crash site and identified as having been in the suitcase that contained the bomb had been bought by the accused Megrahi from a shop in Malta; and (c) that a "secret witness," Abdulmajid Gialka, a former colleague of the accused pair in the Libyan Airlines office in Malta, would testify that he had observed them either constructing the bomb or at least seen them loading it onto the plane in Frankfurt.
The prosecution was unable to produce evidence to substantiate any of these points or to encourage any confidence in Gialka's reliability as a witness. The Swiss manufacturer of the timer, Edwin Bollier, testified that he had sold timers of a similar type to the East Germans and conceded, under cross-examination by defence lawyers, that he had connections to many intelligence agencies, including not only the Libyans but also the CIA.
By the time of the trial, Gialka had been living under witness protection in the US. He had received $320,000 from his American hosts and, in the event of conviction of the accused, stood to collect up to $4 million in reward money. (...)
The prosecution's case absolutely depended on proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes, traced by police to a Maltese clothes shop. In 19 separate statements to police prior to the trial, the shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, had failed to make a positive identification of Megrahi.
In the witness box, Gauci was asked five times if he recognised anyone in the courtroom. No answer. Finally, the exasperated prosecutor pointed to the dock and asked if the man sitting on the left was the customer in question. The best Gauci could do was mumble that "he resembles him".
Gauci had also told the police that the man who bought the clothes was 6ft tall and over 50 years of age. Megrahi is5ft 8in tall, and in late 1988 he was 36. The clothes were bought either on November 23 or December 7, 1988. (...)
Megrahi was in Malta on December 7 but not on the November date. The shopkeeper recalled that the man who bought the clothes also bought an umbrella because it was raining heavily outside. Maltese meteorological records introduced by the defence showed clearly that while it did rain all day on November 23, there was almost certainly no rain on December 7. If it did rain on that date, the shower would have been barely enough to wet the pavement. Nevertheless, the judges held it proven that Megrahi had bought the clothes on December 7.
No less vital to the prosecution's case was its contention that the bomb that destroyed PanAm flight 103 had been loaded as unaccompanied baggage onto an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, flown on to London, and thence onto the ill-fated flight to New York. In support of this, prosecutors produced a document from Frankfurt airport indicating that a bag had gone from the baggage-handling station, at which the Air Malta bags (along with those from other flights) had been unloaded, and had been sent to the handling station for the relevant flight to London.
But there was firm evidence from the defence that all the bags on the Air Malta flight were accompanied and were collected at the other end. Nevertheless, the judges held it proven that the lethal suitcase had indeed come from Malta. (...)
The most likely explanation of the judges' decision to convict Megrahi despite the evidence, or lack of it, must be that either they panicked at the thought of the uproar that would ensue at the US end if they let both the Libyans off, or they were simply given their marching orders by high authority in London. English judges are used to doing their duty in this manner.
Back in 2000 a former CIA official told my brother, Andrew Cockburn, who undertook an investigation of the case for our newsletter CounterPunch – the factual substrate of these observations - that he had taken part in the original investigation of the PanAm bombing. He said that if the original CIA report was ever to be made public, it would provide "damning evidence" that "the Libyans were never directly involved in the Lockerbie bombing." In fact, the evidence in the CIA's possession pointed more clearly in the direction of the original suspects in the case, members of a group known as the PFLP-GC, closely linked to Iran.
The Iranians had a clear motive for an attack on an American airliner, following the destruction of an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf carrying 290 passengers, including 66 children, on July 3, 1988.
The initial US and British investigations pointed clearly to a case against the Iranians as having contracted with the Lebanon-based PFLP-GC, or a section thereof, to exact retribution.
Two months before Lockerbie, the West Germans arrested members of this group outside Dusseldorf as they were preparing bombs specifically designed to bring down airliners. US intelligence had traced a payment of $500,000 into the account of a professional bomber, Abu Talb, in April 1989.
A British journalist showed the Maltese shop owner who sold the clothes found in the PanAm bomb-suitcase a photo of Talb, and he declared that the man in the photo "most resembled" the purchaser. At one point, the Scottish police were about to charge Talb who had, since 1989, been serving time in a Swedish jail for a series of bomb attacks in Sweden and Denmark.
In March 1989, however, Margaret Thatcher called President GWH Bush to discuss the case. The two leaders agreed it was important to "cool it" on the Iranian angle, since they were in no position to punish the Tehran regime, which had just survived the eight-year war with US/UK-sponsored Iraq.
Don’t limit Lockerbie probe to BP claims, campaigners urge US senators
[This is the headline over an article on the CNS News website by international editor Patrick Goodenough. It reads in part:]
If the US Senate wants to get to the bottom of the early release of the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie bombing, it should look beyond allegations of links to an oil deal and ask whether the prisoner was sent home to preempt an appeal that could have overturned the trial verdict, campaigners said Wednesday.
Twenty-two years after Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, close observers of the drawn-out affair have many unanswered questions about the attack, the subsequent trial and conviction in 2001 of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.
The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee plans a hearing next Thursday on the “circumstances surrounding” Megrahi’s release last August. The Libyan was serving a life sentence in a Scottish prison for murdering 270 people, but after contracting terminal cancer was freed “on compassionate grounds,” with Scottish officials citing medical advice that he likely had three months to live.
Megrahi remains alive almost a year later, and a group of US Senators have called for answers, focused particularly on suspicions that British officials did a deal to safeguard a lucrative BP oil exploration contract in Libya.
BP acknowledges having lobbied the British government during negotiations between London and Tripoli in 2007 over a “prisoner transfer agreement” (PTA), concerned that delays in finalizing the deal could jeopardize its contract.
Scotland’s devolved government last summer rejected a Libyan request to send Megrahi home under the PTA (which would have seen him serve out his sentence in a Libyan jail) but then in late August released him on compassionate grounds, “to return to Libya to die.”
Two men who have long campaigned for the truth – the father of one of the victims, and a UN-nominated international observer at the 84-day Lockerbie trial – called Wednesday for any new inquiry to dig deep.
Jim Swire, whose daughter died on Flight 103, wrote a letter to the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Sen John Kerry. Hans Kochler, the Austrian academic who observed the 84-day trial, issued a statement.
Both men are among those who believe justice was not done in the trial.
In his letter, Swire said it would be wise if the inquiry looked beyond Megrahi’s release, and examined whether he should have been convicted in the first place.
Why was the appeal dropped?
Something that has puzzled Swire, Kochler and many others was Megrahi’s abrupt decision just days before his release to abandon a second appeal against his conviction and sentence. (A first appeal failed in 2002).
The Libyan had throughout insisted he was not guilty and had for years been pushing for a second appeal. In 2007, the independent Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which had been investigating the case since 2003, concluded that there “may have been a miscarriage of justice” and recommended that he be allowed to go ahead with the appeal.
After lengthy procedural delays, the appeal process finally got underway in mid-2009 and the case was set down for a substantive court session starting November 2.
On Aug 12, however, Megrahi applied to the High Court in Edinburgh to drop his appeal, and on Aug 18 the court agreed. Two days later he was freed and flew home.
Legal experts have pointed out that dropping the legal case was not a prerequisite for being released on compassionate grounds (although it would have been a requirement for a transfer under the PTA.)
“Was pressure put upon him to do so?” Swire asked in his letter to Kerry. “Maybe a proper inquiry would answer that question too.”
Hans Koechler, who served as a UN-nominated international observer at the Lockerbie trial.
Koechler in his statement also raised questions about Megrahi’s decision to drop the appeal he had been fighting for for so long. (...)
At the time of Megrahi’s application to drop the appeal Christine Grahame, a Scottish lawmaker whose electoral region includes Lockerbie and who had met with the convict in prison, also voiced doubts.
“I know from the lengthy discussions I had with him that he was desperate to clear his name, so I believe that the decision is not entirely his own,” she said.
The Scottish government at the time denied that any pressure had been placed on Megrahi to drop his appeal.
Questions
The prosecution case was that Megrahi, who was based in Malta, planted the bomb in a suitcase there which was loaded onto a flight to Frankfurt. There it was transferred as unaccompanied baggage to a feeder flight for Pan Am 103, the London Heathrow to New York flight.
Swire and others believe that Megrahi’s appeal, had it gone ahead, would have heard evidence calling into question the testimony of a key prosecution witness, Maltese store owner Tony Gauci, who supposedly sold Megrahi clothing that was packed in the suitcase containing the bomb. In its review of the case, the SCCRC questioned the reliability of Gauci’s evidence.
Also unclear is the significance, if any, of an unusual break-in at a baggage area at Heathrow Airport used by Pan Am 18 hours before the Lockerbie bomb exploded.
A security guard’s report to anti-terror police about the break-in was not presented during the trial but in a later sworn affidavit he said it could have been possible for an unauthorized person to have obtained tags for a particular flight and then placed a tagged bag at a baggage collection point.
News of the Heathrow break-in contributed to conjecture that the bombers may have introduced the device in London, rather than Malta, thus calling into question the Megrahi link altogether.
Koechler said the families of the Lockerbie victims deserve to know the truth, and any alleged BP role in Megrahi’s release was only one of many aspects that need investigating. (...)
Libyan ‘admission’
Libya’s agreement in 1999 to surrender for trial Megrahi and a co-accused – later acquitted – and its payment of compensation to families of the Pan Am victims resulted in a lifting of U.N. sanctions and improving relations with Western governments.
Key to the ending of sanctions was a letter Libya sent to the UN Security Council in August 2003, widely interpreted as Libya’s admission of responsibility for the bombing.
What the letter actually said was that Libya “has facilitated the bringing to justice of the two suspects charged with the bombing of Pan Am 103, and accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials.”
In 2004 Libyan Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem caused a stir when he told the BBC that Libya had only agreed to the admission and compensation to “buy peace.”
“After the sanctions and after the problems we faced because of the sanctions, the loss of money, we thought it was easier for us to buy peace and this is why we agreed on compensation,” he said.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi later rebutted the remarks but his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi – who played a key role in Libya’s return to diplomatic respectability – made similar comments four years later.
“Yes, we wrote a letter to the Security Council saying we are responsible for the acts of our employees, or people,” he told the BBC. “But it doesn’t mean that we did it in fact.”
“I admit that we played with words – we had to,” he said. “What can you do? Without writing that letter we would not be able to get rid of sanctions.”
If the US Senate wants to get to the bottom of the early release of the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie bombing, it should look beyond allegations of links to an oil deal and ask whether the prisoner was sent home to preempt an appeal that could have overturned the trial verdict, campaigners said Wednesday.
Twenty-two years after Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, close observers of the drawn-out affair have many unanswered questions about the attack, the subsequent trial and conviction in 2001 of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.
The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee plans a hearing next Thursday on the “circumstances surrounding” Megrahi’s release last August. The Libyan was serving a life sentence in a Scottish prison for murdering 270 people, but after contracting terminal cancer was freed “on compassionate grounds,” with Scottish officials citing medical advice that he likely had three months to live.
Megrahi remains alive almost a year later, and a group of US Senators have called for answers, focused particularly on suspicions that British officials did a deal to safeguard a lucrative BP oil exploration contract in Libya.
BP acknowledges having lobbied the British government during negotiations between London and Tripoli in 2007 over a “prisoner transfer agreement” (PTA), concerned that delays in finalizing the deal could jeopardize its contract.
Scotland’s devolved government last summer rejected a Libyan request to send Megrahi home under the PTA (which would have seen him serve out his sentence in a Libyan jail) but then in late August released him on compassionate grounds, “to return to Libya to die.”
Two men who have long campaigned for the truth – the father of one of the victims, and a UN-nominated international observer at the 84-day Lockerbie trial – called Wednesday for any new inquiry to dig deep.
Jim Swire, whose daughter died on Flight 103, wrote a letter to the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Sen John Kerry. Hans Kochler, the Austrian academic who observed the 84-day trial, issued a statement.
Both men are among those who believe justice was not done in the trial.
In his letter, Swire said it would be wise if the inquiry looked beyond Megrahi’s release, and examined whether he should have been convicted in the first place.
Why was the appeal dropped?
Something that has puzzled Swire, Kochler and many others was Megrahi’s abrupt decision just days before his release to abandon a second appeal against his conviction and sentence. (A first appeal failed in 2002).
The Libyan had throughout insisted he was not guilty and had for years been pushing for a second appeal. In 2007, the independent Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which had been investigating the case since 2003, concluded that there “may have been a miscarriage of justice” and recommended that he be allowed to go ahead with the appeal.
After lengthy procedural delays, the appeal process finally got underway in mid-2009 and the case was set down for a substantive court session starting November 2.
On Aug 12, however, Megrahi applied to the High Court in Edinburgh to drop his appeal, and on Aug 18 the court agreed. Two days later he was freed and flew home.
Legal experts have pointed out that dropping the legal case was not a prerequisite for being released on compassionate grounds (although it would have been a requirement for a transfer under the PTA.)
“Was pressure put upon him to do so?” Swire asked in his letter to Kerry. “Maybe a proper inquiry would answer that question too.”
Hans Koechler, who served as a UN-nominated international observer at the Lockerbie trial.
Koechler in his statement also raised questions about Megrahi’s decision to drop the appeal he had been fighting for for so long. (...)
At the time of Megrahi’s application to drop the appeal Christine Grahame, a Scottish lawmaker whose electoral region includes Lockerbie and who had met with the convict in prison, also voiced doubts.
“I know from the lengthy discussions I had with him that he was desperate to clear his name, so I believe that the decision is not entirely his own,” she said.
The Scottish government at the time denied that any pressure had been placed on Megrahi to drop his appeal.
Questions
The prosecution case was that Megrahi, who was based in Malta, planted the bomb in a suitcase there which was loaded onto a flight to Frankfurt. There it was transferred as unaccompanied baggage to a feeder flight for Pan Am 103, the London Heathrow to New York flight.
Swire and others believe that Megrahi’s appeal, had it gone ahead, would have heard evidence calling into question the testimony of a key prosecution witness, Maltese store owner Tony Gauci, who supposedly sold Megrahi clothing that was packed in the suitcase containing the bomb. In its review of the case, the SCCRC questioned the reliability of Gauci’s evidence.
Also unclear is the significance, if any, of an unusual break-in at a baggage area at Heathrow Airport used by Pan Am 18 hours before the Lockerbie bomb exploded.
A security guard’s report to anti-terror police about the break-in was not presented during the trial but in a later sworn affidavit he said it could have been possible for an unauthorized person to have obtained tags for a particular flight and then placed a tagged bag at a baggage collection point.
News of the Heathrow break-in contributed to conjecture that the bombers may have introduced the device in London, rather than Malta, thus calling into question the Megrahi link altogether.
Koechler said the families of the Lockerbie victims deserve to know the truth, and any alleged BP role in Megrahi’s release was only one of many aspects that need investigating. (...)
Libyan ‘admission’
Libya’s agreement in 1999 to surrender for trial Megrahi and a co-accused – later acquitted – and its payment of compensation to families of the Pan Am victims resulted in a lifting of U.N. sanctions and improving relations with Western governments.
Key to the ending of sanctions was a letter Libya sent to the UN Security Council in August 2003, widely interpreted as Libya’s admission of responsibility for the bombing.
What the letter actually said was that Libya “has facilitated the bringing to justice of the two suspects charged with the bombing of Pan Am 103, and accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials.”
In 2004 Libyan Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem caused a stir when he told the BBC that Libya had only agreed to the admission and compensation to “buy peace.”
“After the sanctions and after the problems we faced because of the sanctions, the loss of money, we thought it was easier for us to buy peace and this is why we agreed on compensation,” he said.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi later rebutted the remarks but his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi – who played a key role in Libya’s return to diplomatic respectability – made similar comments four years later.
“Yes, we wrote a letter to the Security Council saying we are responsible for the acts of our employees, or people,” he told the BBC. “But it doesn’t mean that we did it in fact.”
“I admit that we played with words – we had to,” he said. “What can you do? Without writing that letter we would not be able to get rid of sanctions.”
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