[What follows is the text of a report by Ben Borland that appeared in yesterday's Scottish edition of the Sunday Express:]
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was convicted on the basis that he bought clothes from Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, including a grey men’s Slalom shirt. The clothing was then packed in a suitcase with the bomb that brought down Pan Am 103, killing 270 on December 21, 1988.
The charred remains of the shirt were crucial to the prosecution, as a forensic scientist found a piece of circuit board from the bomb embedded in the collar which first led investigators to Libya, and ultimately Megrahi.
However, it has now emerged that clothing manufacturers in Malta told Scottish police in January 1990 that the shirt recovered from the crash site was in fact a boy’s size.
Campaigners have stepped up calls for an inquiry after the claims surfaced in a documentary broadcast on Thursday by Arab TV network Al Jazeera but seen by only a handful of Scottish viewers. [RB: The programme can be watched on You Tube here.]
In it, Scotland’s former Lord Advocate also accepted that Gauci, the main prosecution witness, was paid $2million to give evidence against Megrahi. Scottish private investigator George Thomson tracked down shirt manufacturers Tonio Caruana and Godwin Navarro in Malta. They recalled being shown a fragment of shirt by DC John Crawford and telling him, independently of each other, that it was a boy’s shirt
Speaking to the Sunday Express yesterday, Mr Navarro, 76, said: “I stand by my statement. I believe it is a boy’s shirt because of the size of the pocket and the width of the placket, where the button holes are.”
Retired Strathclyde Police superintendent Iain McKie, now a campaigner against miscarriages of justice, said: “The fact that the witnesses say it was a boy’s shirt and not an adult shirt seems to me quite critical.”
He said that if it was a boy’s shirt, then it cannot be the same one purchased from Gauci by the man he later identified as Megrahi – destroying the “evidence chain”.
Supt McKie said the latest claims added weight to calls for the Scottish Government to set up an independent inquiry into Megrahi’s conviction.
He added: “The whole chain of evidence has been totally and utterly shattered. It is looking more and more like the police came to a conclusion and then looked for evidence.”
The programme, Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber, also alleged that a piece of the shirt had been altered, as it is clearly a different shape in two police photographs.
However a spokesman for the Crown Office said yesterday that the matter was easily explained. He said: “The fragment of cloth alleged to have been removed from the shirt was examined by the scientists and is referred to in the forensic science report. It is clearly a separate fragment.”
But Fife-based Mr Thomson stood by his claims. He said: “In January 1990 they realise that what they have is a fragment of a boy’s shirt, while Gauci is saying he sold a gents’ shirt.
“The reason for people saying this is mainly down to the size of the pocket and lo and behold the next thing a fragment of the pocket has been removed.”
The documentary is the latest foreign TV show to expose doubts in Scotland’s handling of the case.
Dutch filmmaker Gideon Levy won the Prix Europa for the best current affairs programme of 2009 for Lockerbie Revisited, which has never been broadcast in Britain.
Monday, 13 June 2011
Saturday, 11 June 2011
Calls for Gaddafi trial over Lockerbie bombing
[This is the headline over a report on the Herald Scotland website. It reads as follows:]
Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi could face trial over the Lockerbie bombing, Scotland’s top law officer has claimed.
Only Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was ever convicted, but Scotland’s new Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, has said if the Crown Office obtains “sufficient, credible and reliable evidence of other people’s involvement in the atrocity, we will seek to prosecute them” and that he would lobby for any trial to take place in Scotland.
Former Libyan justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil has claimed Gaddafi ordered the attack on Pan Am flight 103, killing 270 people, and that Megrahi had threatened to expose him unless his release from jail in Scotland was secured.
Mr Mulholland said: “There are opportunities arising from events in Libya and the Crown stands ready. We monitor closely events in Libya to see if anyone with information about the Lockerbie atrocity comes forth and we will act on that.”
He added that it would be “naive in the extreme” to think Megrahi acted alone.
Mr Mulholland said he had not discussed any possible trial location with American officials and his view that it should take place in Scotland puts him at odds with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who wants Gaddafi to appear before the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
A Labour Party spokesman said: “A realistic case should be built before any grandstanding from the Lord Advocate.”
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing and who wants the verdict against Megrahi re-examined, cast doubt on the value of a trial held under Scots Law.
He said after the mishandling of evidence involving one of the key witnesses in the case, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, he did not think “Scottish justice should claim that it is valid to be used for a trial of anybody in this case”.
A Crown Office spokeswoman said: “Given the current events in Libya the Crown stands ready to investigate any new leads.”
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Megrahi was convicted with others for the Lockerbie bombing and whoever those others are, they should not escape justice.”
[A similar report on The Scotsman website can be read here. Dr Jim Swire is quoted as follows:]
"In view of Scotland having tolerated knowledge, in the public domain for years, that there are very serious faults in the verdict against the one Libyan who was convicted of the atrocity, it would be extremely unwise to submit Colonel Gaddafi or anyone else to Scottish justice."
Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi could face trial over the Lockerbie bombing, Scotland’s top law officer has claimed.
Only Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was ever convicted, but Scotland’s new Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, has said if the Crown Office obtains “sufficient, credible and reliable evidence of other people’s involvement in the atrocity, we will seek to prosecute them” and that he would lobby for any trial to take place in Scotland.
Former Libyan justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil has claimed Gaddafi ordered the attack on Pan Am flight 103, killing 270 people, and that Megrahi had threatened to expose him unless his release from jail in Scotland was secured.
Mr Mulholland said: “There are opportunities arising from events in Libya and the Crown stands ready. We monitor closely events in Libya to see if anyone with information about the Lockerbie atrocity comes forth and we will act on that.”
He added that it would be “naive in the extreme” to think Megrahi acted alone.
Mr Mulholland said he had not discussed any possible trial location with American officials and his view that it should take place in Scotland puts him at odds with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who wants Gaddafi to appear before the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
A Labour Party spokesman said: “A realistic case should be built before any grandstanding from the Lord Advocate.”
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing and who wants the verdict against Megrahi re-examined, cast doubt on the value of a trial held under Scots Law.
He said after the mishandling of evidence involving one of the key witnesses in the case, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, he did not think “Scottish justice should claim that it is valid to be used for a trial of anybody in this case”.
A Crown Office spokeswoman said: “Given the current events in Libya the Crown stands ready to investigate any new leads.”
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Megrahi was convicted with others for the Lockerbie bombing and whoever those others are, they should not escape justice.”
[A similar report on The Scotsman website can be read here. Dr Jim Swire is quoted as follows:]
"In view of Scotland having tolerated knowledge, in the public domain for years, that there are very serious faults in the verdict against the one Libyan who was convicted of the atrocity, it would be extremely unwise to submit Colonel Gaddafi or anyone else to Scottish justice."
There is nothing like a Dame!
[The following is from a Scottish Government press release:]
Former Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini QC WS becomes a Dame in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.
Former Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini QC WS becomes a Dame in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.
Friday, 10 June 2011
Megrahi Lockerbie conviction inquiry pressure renewed
[This is the headline over a report published today on the BBC News website. It reads as follows:]
The Scottish government has come under renewed pressure to hold an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
It follows an Al Jazeera broadcast which claimed that a key witness in the trial was paid for his testimony.
The architect of the Lockerbie trial, Prof Robert Black, said an inquiry was vital for the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system.
He was writing in the legal affairs magazine The Firm.
Editor Steven Raeburn said that the Scottish government had the power to order an inquiry.
"The government initially said they had no such power," he said.
"There was a game of diplomatic tennis between the Scottish government and the Westminster government each claiming the other was the best forum and had the necessary powers and so on.
"The Scottish government maintained that position for about 18 months until it was demonstrated that they had the power all along under the Inquiries Act 2005 - the power is there."
Last year, Scotland's leading Roman Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, backed calls for an independent inquiry into the conviction.
Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the bombing, has also supported that move.
Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 atrocity in which 270 people died, was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds.
The Scottish government has come under renewed pressure to hold an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
It follows an Al Jazeera broadcast which claimed that a key witness in the trial was paid for his testimony.
The architect of the Lockerbie trial, Prof Robert Black, said an inquiry was vital for the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system.
He was writing in the legal affairs magazine The Firm.
Editor Steven Raeburn said that the Scottish government had the power to order an inquiry.
"The government initially said they had no such power," he said.
"There was a game of diplomatic tennis between the Scottish government and the Westminster government each claiming the other was the best forum and had the necessary powers and so on.
"The Scottish government maintained that position for about 18 months until it was demonstrated that they had the power all along under the Inquiries Act 2005 - the power is there."
Last year, Scotland's leading Roman Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, backed calls for an independent inquiry into the conviction.
Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the bombing, has also supported that move.
Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 atrocity in which 270 people died, was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds.
Editor of The Firm speaks on Radio Scotland about Megrahi inquiry
Steven Raeburn, editor of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm, was interviewed this morning on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme. The topic was the need for an inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi following the Aljazeera documentary and Marcello Mega's related article. The programme can be accessed here, through The Firm's website.
The Libyan myth
[This is the heading over a section of a long article entitled Three deadly war myths on the Consortium News website by American investigative journalist Robert Parry. The section reads as follows:]
Today’s third deadly myth is Washington’s certainty that Libyan dictator Gaddafi was responsible for the Pan Am 103 attack and thus must be removed from power by force and possibly by assassination.
The alternative option of taking Gaddafi up on his offers of a cease-fire and negotiations toward a political settlement has been rejected out of hand by both the Obama administration and by nearly all the influential pundits in Washington, in part, because of the Pan Am case.
Repeatedly citing Gaddafi’s killing of Americans over Lockerbie, the US debate has centered on the need to ratchet up military pressure on Gaddafi and even chuckle over NATO’s transparent efforts to murder the Libyan leader (and his family members) by bombing his homes and offices.
The Obama administration is sticking with this violent course of action even though Libyan civilians continue to die and the cutoff of Libyan oil from the international markets has exacerbated shortages in supplies, thus contributing to the higher gas prices that are damaging the US economic recovery.
But President Obama apparently sees no choice. After all, the conventional wisdom is that Gaddafi is guilty in the Pan Am 103 case. All the leading US news organizations, such as The New York Times, and prominent politicians, such as Sen John McCain, say so.
“The blood of Americans is on [Gaddafi’s] hands because he was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103,” declared Sen McCain, R-Arizona, after an early trip to rebel-held Benghazi.
However, the reality of the Pan Am case is much murkier – and some experts on the mystery believe that Libyans may have had nothing to do with it.
It is true that in 2001, a special Scottish court convicted Libyan agent Ali al-Megrahi for the bombing. But the judgment appears to have been more a political compromise than an act of justice. Another Libyan was found not guilty, and one of the Scottish judges told Dartmouth government professor Dirk Vandewalle about “enormous pressure put on the court to get a conviction." [RB: The High Court information officer, Elizabeth Cutting, has denied that this ever happened.]
Megrahi’s conviction assuaged the understandable human desire to see someone punished for such a heinous crime, albeit a possibly innocent man.
In 2007, after the testimony of a key witness against Megrahi was discredited, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission agreed to reconsider the conviction as a grave miscarriage of justice. However, that review was proceeding slowly in 2009 when Scottish authorities released Megrahi on humanitarian grounds, after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Megrahi dropped his appeal in order to gain the early release, but that doesn’t mean he was guilty. He has continued to assert his innocence and an objective press corps would reflect the doubts regarding his curious conviction.
The Scottish court’s purported reason for finding Megrahi guilty – while acquitting his co-defendant Lamin Khalifa Fhimah – was the testimony of Toni Gauci, owner of a clothing store in Malta who allegedly sold Megrahi a shirt, the remnants of which were found with the shards of the suitcase that contained the bomb.
The rest of the case rested on a theory that Megrahi put the luggage on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was transferred to a connecting flight to London, where it was transferred onto Pan Am 103 bound for New York, a decidedly unlikely way to undertake an act of terrorism given all the random variables involved.
Megrahi would have had to assume that three separate airport security systems – at Malta, Frankfort and London – would fail to give any serious scrutiny to an unaccompanied suitcase or to detect the bomb despite security officials being on the lookout for just such a threat.
As historian William Blum recounted in a Consortiumnews.com article after Megrahi’s 2001 conviction, “The case for the suitcase’s hypothetical travels must also deal with the fact that, according to Air Malta, all the documented luggage on KM180 was collected by passengers in Frankfurt and did not continue in transit to London, and that two Pan Am on-duty officials in Frankfurt testified that no unaccompanied luggage was introduced onto Pan Am 103A, the feeder flight to London.”
There also were problems with Gauci’s belated identification of Megrahi as the shirt-buyer a decade after the fact. Gauci had made contradictory IDs and had earlier given a physical description that didn’t match Megrahi. Gauci reportedly received a $2 million reward for his testimony and then moved to Australia, where he went into retirement.
In 2007, the Scottish review panel decided to reconsider Megrahi’s conviction after concluding that Gauci’s testimony was unbelievable. And without Gauci’s testimony, the case against Megrahi was virtually the same as the case against his co-defendant who was acquitted.
However, after Megrahi’s conviction in 2001, more international pressure was put on Libya, which was then regarded as the archetypal “rogue” state. Indeed, it was to get onerous economic sanctions lifted that Libya took “responsibility” for the Pan Am attack and paid reparations to the victims’ families even as Libyan officials continued to deny guilt.
In April, there was some excitement over the possibility that Gaddafi would be fingered personally as the Pan Am 103 mastermind when former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa defected. He was believed to be in charge of Libyan intelligence in 1988 and thus almost certainly in the know.
Moussa Koussa was questioned by Scottish authorities but apparently shed little new light on the case. He was allowed to go free after the interview. Very quickly the press interest over Moussa Koussa faded away, except for the recurring assumption in some Western press articles that he must have implicated Gaddafi.
Despite the doubts about the Pan Am 103 case — and the tragic human and economic toll from the Libyan war – the US news media and politicians continue to treat Libya’s guilt as a flat fact. It appears that no big-time journalist or important official has even bothered to read the Scottish court’s bizarre judgment regarding Megrahi’s 2001 conviction.
Instead, NATO’s bombing campaign against Libyan targets continues, including the recent leveling of tents where Gaddafi greets foreign dignitaries and the destruction of Libyan TV.
Rather than making war policies based on serious factual analysis, the United States and NATO continue to be guided by politically pleasing myths. It is a recipe for an even-greater disaster and unnecessary deaths.
Today’s third deadly myth is Washington’s certainty that Libyan dictator Gaddafi was responsible for the Pan Am 103 attack and thus must be removed from power by force and possibly by assassination.
The alternative option of taking Gaddafi up on his offers of a cease-fire and negotiations toward a political settlement has been rejected out of hand by both the Obama administration and by nearly all the influential pundits in Washington, in part, because of the Pan Am case.
Repeatedly citing Gaddafi’s killing of Americans over Lockerbie, the US debate has centered on the need to ratchet up military pressure on Gaddafi and even chuckle over NATO’s transparent efforts to murder the Libyan leader (and his family members) by bombing his homes and offices.
The Obama administration is sticking with this violent course of action even though Libyan civilians continue to die and the cutoff of Libyan oil from the international markets has exacerbated shortages in supplies, thus contributing to the higher gas prices that are damaging the US economic recovery.
But President Obama apparently sees no choice. After all, the conventional wisdom is that Gaddafi is guilty in the Pan Am 103 case. All the leading US news organizations, such as The New York Times, and prominent politicians, such as Sen John McCain, say so.
“The blood of Americans is on [Gaddafi’s] hands because he was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103,” declared Sen McCain, R-Arizona, after an early trip to rebel-held Benghazi.
However, the reality of the Pan Am case is much murkier – and some experts on the mystery believe that Libyans may have had nothing to do with it.
It is true that in 2001, a special Scottish court convicted Libyan agent Ali al-Megrahi for the bombing. But the judgment appears to have been more a political compromise than an act of justice. Another Libyan was found not guilty, and one of the Scottish judges told Dartmouth government professor Dirk Vandewalle about “enormous pressure put on the court to get a conviction." [RB: The High Court information officer, Elizabeth Cutting, has denied that this ever happened.]
Megrahi’s conviction assuaged the understandable human desire to see someone punished for such a heinous crime, albeit a possibly innocent man.
In 2007, after the testimony of a key witness against Megrahi was discredited, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission agreed to reconsider the conviction as a grave miscarriage of justice. However, that review was proceeding slowly in 2009 when Scottish authorities released Megrahi on humanitarian grounds, after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Megrahi dropped his appeal in order to gain the early release, but that doesn’t mean he was guilty. He has continued to assert his innocence and an objective press corps would reflect the doubts regarding his curious conviction.
The Scottish court’s purported reason for finding Megrahi guilty – while acquitting his co-defendant Lamin Khalifa Fhimah – was the testimony of Toni Gauci, owner of a clothing store in Malta who allegedly sold Megrahi a shirt, the remnants of which were found with the shards of the suitcase that contained the bomb.
The rest of the case rested on a theory that Megrahi put the luggage on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was transferred to a connecting flight to London, where it was transferred onto Pan Am 103 bound for New York, a decidedly unlikely way to undertake an act of terrorism given all the random variables involved.
Megrahi would have had to assume that three separate airport security systems – at Malta, Frankfort and London – would fail to give any serious scrutiny to an unaccompanied suitcase or to detect the bomb despite security officials being on the lookout for just such a threat.
As historian William Blum recounted in a Consortiumnews.com article after Megrahi’s 2001 conviction, “The case for the suitcase’s hypothetical travels must also deal with the fact that, according to Air Malta, all the documented luggage on KM180 was collected by passengers in Frankfurt and did not continue in transit to London, and that two Pan Am on-duty officials in Frankfurt testified that no unaccompanied luggage was introduced onto Pan Am 103A, the feeder flight to London.”
There also were problems with Gauci’s belated identification of Megrahi as the shirt-buyer a decade after the fact. Gauci had made contradictory IDs and had earlier given a physical description that didn’t match Megrahi. Gauci reportedly received a $2 million reward for his testimony and then moved to Australia, where he went into retirement.
In 2007, the Scottish review panel decided to reconsider Megrahi’s conviction after concluding that Gauci’s testimony was unbelievable. And without Gauci’s testimony, the case against Megrahi was virtually the same as the case against his co-defendant who was acquitted.
However, after Megrahi’s conviction in 2001, more international pressure was put on Libya, which was then regarded as the archetypal “rogue” state. Indeed, it was to get onerous economic sanctions lifted that Libya took “responsibility” for the Pan Am attack and paid reparations to the victims’ families even as Libyan officials continued to deny guilt.
In April, there was some excitement over the possibility that Gaddafi would be fingered personally as the Pan Am 103 mastermind when former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa defected. He was believed to be in charge of Libyan intelligence in 1988 and thus almost certainly in the know.
Moussa Koussa was questioned by Scottish authorities but apparently shed little new light on the case. He was allowed to go free after the interview. Very quickly the press interest over Moussa Koussa faded away, except for the recurring assumption in some Western press articles that he must have implicated Gaddafi.
Despite the doubts about the Pan Am 103 case — and the tragic human and economic toll from the Libyan war – the US news media and politicians continue to treat Libya’s guilt as a flat fact. It appears that no big-time journalist or important official has even bothered to read the Scottish court’s bizarre judgment regarding Megrahi’s 2001 conviction.
Instead, NATO’s bombing campaign against Libyan targets continues, including the recent leveling of tents where Gaddafi greets foreign dignitaries and the destruction of Libyan TV.
Rather than making war policies based on serious factual analysis, the United States and NATO continue to be guided by politically pleasing myths. It is a recipe for an even-greater disaster and unnecessary deaths.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
No excuse whatsoever
[This is the heading over an article by me just published on the website of the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads as follows:]
Writing exclusively for The Firm, Professor Robert Black QC argues that the latest revelations which strike at the heart of the safety of the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi leave no excuse left for the Government to avoid convening an inquiry in the Pan Am 103 affair.
This is a comment that I posted a few days ago on the Lallands Peat Worrier blog:
“In an ideal world, I would prefer there to be no Scottish recourse, civil or criminal, to a UK Supreme Court. But, at present, on human rights issues, Scottish prosecutors and courts are getting it wrong far too often for comfort. How this is to be remedied, I do not know (but having career Crown Office civil servants as our law officers certainly doesn't help).
“And it is tragic that two of the best Scottish judges of their generation (Lords Hope and Rodger) have to be transported to London (where most of their time is spent hearing English appeals) when they are so badly needed in Scotland.”
One way of showing that we do not in Scotland need a UK Supreme Court nanny would be to take rigorous steps domestically to investigate cases where there is clear evidence of the justice system having miscarried. The clearest and worst such case is the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing.
The Aljazeera documentary Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber? is just the latest in a series of hammer-blows, ranging from the published views of UN observer Dr Hans Koechler, the findings (to the extent that they have been released) of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, to the devastating critiques of Gareth Peirce, the most experienced and successful UK lawyer in overturning gross miscarriages of justice.
The outraged reaction of Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC (the Lord Advocate who brought the charges against Megrahi and Fhimah) to the evidence presented to him that the Crown’s principal witness was being offered monetary inducements will be shared by any lawyer who has the slightest concern for the probity of our criminal justice system. The acceptance by the Zeist court of that witness’s credibility and reliability was essential to their verdict of guilty and without his evidence there could have been no conviction. Had the judges known of the shady financial dealings going on behind the scenes, their assessment of the witness’s evidence must have been very different.
There is now no excuse whatsoever for the Scottish Government to deny an independent inquiry into the Megrahi conviction. If the career Crown Office civil servants who are currently Scotland’s law officers stand in the way, they must be sacked.
It is time that the Scottish criminal justice system regained its self-respect.
[A news item in the magazine on this article can be read here.]
Writing exclusively for The Firm, Professor Robert Black QC argues that the latest revelations which strike at the heart of the safety of the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi leave no excuse left for the Government to avoid convening an inquiry in the Pan Am 103 affair.
This is a comment that I posted a few days ago on the Lallands Peat Worrier blog:
“In an ideal world, I would prefer there to be no Scottish recourse, civil or criminal, to a UK Supreme Court. But, at present, on human rights issues, Scottish prosecutors and courts are getting it wrong far too often for comfort. How this is to be remedied, I do not know (but having career Crown Office civil servants as our law officers certainly doesn't help).
“And it is tragic that two of the best Scottish judges of their generation (Lords Hope and Rodger) have to be transported to London (where most of their time is spent hearing English appeals) when they are so badly needed in Scotland.”
One way of showing that we do not in Scotland need a UK Supreme Court nanny would be to take rigorous steps domestically to investigate cases where there is clear evidence of the justice system having miscarried. The clearest and worst such case is the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing.
The Aljazeera documentary Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber? is just the latest in a series of hammer-blows, ranging from the published views of UN observer Dr Hans Koechler, the findings (to the extent that they have been released) of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, to the devastating critiques of Gareth Peirce, the most experienced and successful UK lawyer in overturning gross miscarriages of justice.
The outraged reaction of Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC (the Lord Advocate who brought the charges against Megrahi and Fhimah) to the evidence presented to him that the Crown’s principal witness was being offered monetary inducements will be shared by any lawyer who has the slightest concern for the probity of our criminal justice system. The acceptance by the Zeist court of that witness’s credibility and reliability was essential to their verdict of guilty and without his evidence there could have been no conviction. Had the judges known of the shady financial dealings going on behind the scenes, their assessment of the witness’s evidence must have been very different.
There is now no excuse whatsoever for the Scottish Government to deny an independent inquiry into the Megrahi conviction. If the career Crown Office civil servants who are currently Scotland’s law officers stand in the way, they must be sacked.
It is time that the Scottish criminal justice system regained its self-respect.
[A news item in the magazine on this article can be read here.]
Prologue to Aljazeera Lockerbie documentary
[I am grateful to Marcello Mega for allowing me to reproduce the following article, versions of which appeared today in the Scottish editions of The Times, the Daily Mail and The Sun:]
The former Lord Advocate who issued the indictment against the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has accepted there is clear evidence that the key witness, a Maltese shopkeeper, was promised a fortune for his testimony.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC, who was Scotland’s most senior prosecutor until 1993, announced in November 1991 that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and his co-accused, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, were wanted for the murder of 270 people on 21 December 1988.
Presented with documents showing that Scottish police officers and FBI agents had discussed as early as September 1989, ‘an offer of unlimited money to Tony Gauci, with $10,000 being available immediately’, Lord Fraser said: “I have to accept that it happened. It shouldn’t have and I was unaware of it.”
The former law officer said: “I remember a time when things were warming up and there was talk from the US about sending a squad into Tripoli to seize the suspects, rather as they did with Noriega in Panama.
“I had to warn them that if that happened there would never be a trial in any Scottish or UK court. I also warned our investigators that the eyes of the world were on us, and everything had to be done by the book.
“It would be unacceptable to offer bribes, inducements or rewards to any witness in a routine murder trial in Glasgow or Dundee, and it is obviously unacceptable to have done it in the biggest case of mass murder ever carried out in Europe.”
Lord Fraser said he had been asked before about allegations of inducements offered to Gauci, but had never before been presented with evidence of it.
Gauci was absolutely central to Megrahi’s conviction because the clothes recovered from the suitcase that carried the bomb onto Pan Am 103 at Heathrow, bound for New York, were traced back to his shop.
Although he never stated that Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes, his numerous statements and testimony in court saying he resembled the buyer was accepted as proof of his guilt by the three Scottish judges who sentenced him to life in 2001.
Megrahi was diagnosed with prostate cancer and released on compassionate grounds to die at home in August 2009, but remains alive almost two years later.
Evidence of the inducements made to Gauci has emerged during an investigation by a team working for Network Features on a new documentary on the questions that still surround the bombing.
Among the material unearthed are records of diary entries made by retired Detective Chief Inspector Harry Bell of Strathclyde Police. He was the Scottish officer with regular close contact with Gauci after the bomb-damaged clothes were traced to his shop.
At Megrahi’s trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, Scottish detectives involved in the case were asked whether Gauci had ever been offered inducements for his testimony, and all denied it.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission conducted its own investigation into the case, which resulted in it being referred back for a second appeal - abandoned when Megrahi was freed. Unlike the trial court, it required police officers to produce notebooks and diaries.
Harry Bell’s diary reveals that reward money was discussed from September 1989 onwards, within days of Gauci being traced.
An extract quoted by the SCCRC from February 1991 reveals that Gauci was being treated to an expensive holiday. He wanted to invite his father along but was concerned about how to explain his ability to pay for it.
The diary extract says: “He was told to suggest the National Lotto as having won a prize.”
Also in February 1991, Bell told Det Chief Supt Jim Gilchrist, who was then the Senior Investigating Officer in the case, in a memo that ‘Tony Gauci has expressed interest in receiving money in recent meetings’.
The Commission also reported that Gauci’s brother, Paul, who made important witness statements, ‘had a clear desire to gain financial benefit’, and that ‘the US authorities offered to make substantial payments to Tony Gauci at an early stage’.
Its report confirms that after the trial, Tony Gauci received more than $2m and his brother more than $1m in reward money.
This contradicts assurances given publicly on many occasions by Richard Marquise, the lead FBI officer on Lockerbie, that ‘no witness in this case was ever promised or paid any money in return for their testimony’.
The Network Features investigation also reveals that key pieces of evidence originated in police laboratories and were introduced artificially to the chain of evidence, and that witness statements that interrupted the chain were altered or suppressed.
Gauci and Bell declined to be interviewed for the programme.
Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber? is broadcast tonight (Thursday 9th) on Al Jazeera English at 9pm.
[Today's Aljazeera English schedule can be viewed here.]
The former Lord Advocate who issued the indictment against the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has accepted there is clear evidence that the key witness, a Maltese shopkeeper, was promised a fortune for his testimony.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC, who was Scotland’s most senior prosecutor until 1993, announced in November 1991 that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and his co-accused, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, were wanted for the murder of 270 people on 21 December 1988.
Presented with documents showing that Scottish police officers and FBI agents had discussed as early as September 1989, ‘an offer of unlimited money to Tony Gauci, with $10,000 being available immediately’, Lord Fraser said: “I have to accept that it happened. It shouldn’t have and I was unaware of it.”
The former law officer said: “I remember a time when things were warming up and there was talk from the US about sending a squad into Tripoli to seize the suspects, rather as they did with Noriega in Panama.
“I had to warn them that if that happened there would never be a trial in any Scottish or UK court. I also warned our investigators that the eyes of the world were on us, and everything had to be done by the book.
“It would be unacceptable to offer bribes, inducements or rewards to any witness in a routine murder trial in Glasgow or Dundee, and it is obviously unacceptable to have done it in the biggest case of mass murder ever carried out in Europe.”
Lord Fraser said he had been asked before about allegations of inducements offered to Gauci, but had never before been presented with evidence of it.
Gauci was absolutely central to Megrahi’s conviction because the clothes recovered from the suitcase that carried the bomb onto Pan Am 103 at Heathrow, bound for New York, were traced back to his shop.
Although he never stated that Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes, his numerous statements and testimony in court saying he resembled the buyer was accepted as proof of his guilt by the three Scottish judges who sentenced him to life in 2001.
Megrahi was diagnosed with prostate cancer and released on compassionate grounds to die at home in August 2009, but remains alive almost two years later.
Evidence of the inducements made to Gauci has emerged during an investigation by a team working for Network Features on a new documentary on the questions that still surround the bombing.
Among the material unearthed are records of diary entries made by retired Detective Chief Inspector Harry Bell of Strathclyde Police. He was the Scottish officer with regular close contact with Gauci after the bomb-damaged clothes were traced to his shop.
At Megrahi’s trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, Scottish detectives involved in the case were asked whether Gauci had ever been offered inducements for his testimony, and all denied it.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission conducted its own investigation into the case, which resulted in it being referred back for a second appeal - abandoned when Megrahi was freed. Unlike the trial court, it required police officers to produce notebooks and diaries.
Harry Bell’s diary reveals that reward money was discussed from September 1989 onwards, within days of Gauci being traced.
An extract quoted by the SCCRC from February 1991 reveals that Gauci was being treated to an expensive holiday. He wanted to invite his father along but was concerned about how to explain his ability to pay for it.
The diary extract says: “He was told to suggest the National Lotto as having won a prize.”
Also in February 1991, Bell told Det Chief Supt Jim Gilchrist, who was then the Senior Investigating Officer in the case, in a memo that ‘Tony Gauci has expressed interest in receiving money in recent meetings’.
The Commission also reported that Gauci’s brother, Paul, who made important witness statements, ‘had a clear desire to gain financial benefit’, and that ‘the US authorities offered to make substantial payments to Tony Gauci at an early stage’.
Its report confirms that after the trial, Tony Gauci received more than $2m and his brother more than $1m in reward money.
This contradicts assurances given publicly on many occasions by Richard Marquise, the lead FBI officer on Lockerbie, that ‘no witness in this case was ever promised or paid any money in return for their testimony’.
The Network Features investigation also reveals that key pieces of evidence originated in police laboratories and were introduced artificially to the chain of evidence, and that witness statements that interrupted the chain were altered or suppressed.
Gauci and Bell declined to be interviewed for the programme.
Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber? is broadcast tonight (Thursday 9th) on Al Jazeera English at 9pm.
[Today's Aljazeera English schedule can be viewed here.]
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber?
This is the title of a programme to be broadcast at 9pm BST tomorrow (and at various other times over the following days) on the Aljazeera English TV channel. Apart from the fact that I am interviewed on it, I do not know what the programme contains.
Here are the transmission times:
09 June, 20.00
10 June, 12.00
11 June, 01.00
12 June, 06.00
13 June, 20.00
14 June, 12.00
15 June, 01.00
16 June, 06.00
These times are all GMT, so British Summer Time is one hour ahead. To check Aljazeera where you are click on this:http://english.aljazeera.net/Services/Schedule/ProgramSchedule.aspx
Here are the transmission times:
09 June, 20.00
10 June, 12.00
11 June, 01.00
12 June, 06.00
13 June, 20.00
14 June, 12.00
15 June, 01.00
16 June, 06.00
These times are all GMT, so British Summer Time is one hour ahead. To check Aljazeera where you are click on this:http://english.aljazeera.net/Services/Schedule/ProgramSchedule.aspx
Marwan Khreesat, Swissair 330 and Pan Am 103
[The following is the text of an e-mail from Dr Jim Swire arising out of a discussion with Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer (author of the Diary of a Vengeance Foretold series of articles on Lockerbie) about the bombing of Swissair flight 330 in 1970.]
If Swissair was a Khreesat bomb, I think the flight time would be around 35-40 minutes from take-off. There is also a flight which flew for 7 minutes before an IED went off, that was in the 70s I believe. That was interesting because the baro-switches took about 7 minutes to switch 'on'. Presumably the PFLP-GC soon realised that they needed the Baro switch to start a timer going, to lengthen the flight time, instead of firing the detonator directly; so they started manufacturing their crude analogue 'ice cube' timers in Damascus, as explained to the court by Herr Gobel.
That then meant a total flight time of around 35-40 minutes as at Lockerbie, since all the ice cube timers that Gobel knew of ran for about 30 minutes. The court heard the report from Marshman of his interview with Khreesat, who declined to appear in person (or maybe was ordered not to). Marshman claimed that Khreesat told him that he had rendered all his devices inert, claiming that this meant it was unlikely that one of his IEDs had caused Lockerbie. In its summing up the court never commented on the evidence of Herr Gobel that the BKA explosives unit had lost an officer when a Khreesat bomb was being dismantled and exploded in his face.
Curious kind of harmlessness.
I was never convinced that their Lordships understood the mechanism of Khreesat's devices. Technology is not their thing perhaps. At the first appeal I think Lord Osborne suggested that the break-in was too long before Lockerbie to be likely to be relevant. In fact, such a delay was classic for the use of a Khreesat IED, which were perfectly fitted to the 'break-in-and-then-wait-a-bit' scenario. The use of the baro switch to start off the timer was designed with exactly that sort of scenario in mind: the latent period could be anything you liked, weeks or months if required, since no battery power at all was required until 7 minutes after take-off, when the timer was started by the baro switch.
As you know a fully armed Khreesat device could not have been flown in from Frankfurt, since there was no time to arm one if it had arrived on PA103A, which was late that night. Any terrorist worth his salt would be reluctant to fiddle with someone else's IED either.
It therefore seems to me that the IED was a Khreesat model and brought, fully armed and in its suitcase overland to Heathrow through the break-in the night before Lockerbie, and probably left with a message for the IranAir guys at Heathrow to slip into Bedford's baggage container, where he saw it, well before the Frankfurt flight had even landed at Heathrow.on the 21st.
Khreesat seems so central to what really happened: his unique IED was a perfect fit for Lockerbie.
Also don't forget that the BKA arrested him in 'Autumn Leaves' with a completed IED in the boot (=US trunk) of his car, yet after a phone call to Amman he was released, and never charged with plotting to blow up an aircraft.
To accept the interview hearsay evidence from a US officer (Marshman), knowing that Khreesat commanded such significance that he was fully protected from German law, (indicating his usefulness to Western intelligence services) was one of the more obvious naivities of the Zeist court.
Even the introduction of PT35B, the timer circuit board fragment into the chain of 'evidence' seemed directed at ensuring that no one would be so foolish as to imagine that a Khreesat device had been used.
The one thing they could not interfere with was the fact of the flight time.
How did they engineer that the break-in was concealed from the trial court till after the verdict? Even then the world only learned of it because of (the late) Manly's incredulity that his discovery had been ignored by the court.
The Scottish police working on the HOLMES computer system of the Met simply must have known about the break-in. It appears that the Crown Office did not know, since they have committed themselves in writing tp me that they did not know. Iain McKie has no difficulty believing that the break-in evidence was suppressed because it did not fit the favoured theory about Malta and Libya.
I don't understand why Khreesat had to be protected in this way, unless it was just that he was inconvenient to the Malta/Libya fable. Trouble is the 38 minute flight time makes no sense unless it was a Khreesat IED, which explains it so neatly.
If Swissair was a Khreesat bomb, I think the flight time would be around 35-40 minutes from take-off. There is also a flight which flew for 7 minutes before an IED went off, that was in the 70s I believe. That was interesting because the baro-switches took about 7 minutes to switch 'on'. Presumably the PFLP-GC soon realised that they needed the Baro switch to start a timer going, to lengthen the flight time, instead of firing the detonator directly; so they started manufacturing their crude analogue 'ice cube' timers in Damascus, as explained to the court by Herr Gobel.
That then meant a total flight time of around 35-40 minutes as at Lockerbie, since all the ice cube timers that Gobel knew of ran for about 30 minutes. The court heard the report from Marshman of his interview with Khreesat, who declined to appear in person (or maybe was ordered not to). Marshman claimed that Khreesat told him that he had rendered all his devices inert, claiming that this meant it was unlikely that one of his IEDs had caused Lockerbie. In its summing up the court never commented on the evidence of Herr Gobel that the BKA explosives unit had lost an officer when a Khreesat bomb was being dismantled and exploded in his face.
Curious kind of harmlessness.
I was never convinced that their Lordships understood the mechanism of Khreesat's devices. Technology is not their thing perhaps. At the first appeal I think Lord Osborne suggested that the break-in was too long before Lockerbie to be likely to be relevant. In fact, such a delay was classic for the use of a Khreesat IED, which were perfectly fitted to the 'break-in-and-then-wait-a-bit' scenario. The use of the baro switch to start off the timer was designed with exactly that sort of scenario in mind: the latent period could be anything you liked, weeks or months if required, since no battery power at all was required until 7 minutes after take-off, when the timer was started by the baro switch.
As you know a fully armed Khreesat device could not have been flown in from Frankfurt, since there was no time to arm one if it had arrived on PA103A, which was late that night. Any terrorist worth his salt would be reluctant to fiddle with someone else's IED either.
It therefore seems to me that the IED was a Khreesat model and brought, fully armed and in its suitcase overland to Heathrow through the break-in the night before Lockerbie, and probably left with a message for the IranAir guys at Heathrow to slip into Bedford's baggage container, where he saw it, well before the Frankfurt flight had even landed at Heathrow.on the 21st.
Khreesat seems so central to what really happened: his unique IED was a perfect fit for Lockerbie.
Also don't forget that the BKA arrested him in 'Autumn Leaves' with a completed IED in the boot (=US trunk) of his car, yet after a phone call to Amman he was released, and never charged with plotting to blow up an aircraft.
To accept the interview hearsay evidence from a US officer (Marshman), knowing that Khreesat commanded such significance that he was fully protected from German law, (indicating his usefulness to Western intelligence services) was one of the more obvious naivities of the Zeist court.
Even the introduction of PT35B, the timer circuit board fragment into the chain of 'evidence' seemed directed at ensuring that no one would be so foolish as to imagine that a Khreesat device had been used.
The one thing they could not interfere with was the fact of the flight time.
How did they engineer that the break-in was concealed from the trial court till after the verdict? Even then the world only learned of it because of (the late) Manly's incredulity that his discovery had been ignored by the court.
The Scottish police working on the HOLMES computer system of the Met simply must have known about the break-in. It appears that the Crown Office did not know, since they have committed themselves in writing tp me that they did not know. Iain McKie has no difficulty believing that the break-in evidence was suppressed because it did not fit the favoured theory about Malta and Libya.
I don't understand why Khreesat had to be protected in this way, unless it was just that he was inconvenient to the Malta/Libya fable. Trouble is the 38 minute flight time makes no sense unless it was a Khreesat IED, which explains it so neatly.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Further expert professional support for Lockerbie enquiry
I agree entirely with Steven Raeburn's criticism of the Lockerbie conviction. Scotland has, unlike England, a poor record historically of putting right miscarriages of justice. There should now be a full enquiry.
"There's nane ever fear'd that the truth should be heard,
But they whom the truth would indite."
[A comment posted by George More on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. The Robert Burns poem from which the couplet is taken can be read here.]
"There's nane ever fear'd that the truth should be heard,
But they whom the truth would indite."
[A comment posted by George More on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. The Robert Burns poem from which the couplet is taken can be read here.]
Libya: connect the dots and you get a giant dollar sign
[I an grateful to a reader of this blog for drawing my attention to a long article with the above title by Russ Baker published yesterday on the Business Insider website. The following are extracts:]
This February, several days after Hosni Mubarak resigned in Egypt, civil protest began in neighboring Libya. Quickly, Muammar Qaddafi’s Justice Minister turned against him and became a rebel leader. And, he made the dramatic claim that his ex-boss was the culprit behind the bombing of Pan Am 103:
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, a former Libyan cabinet minister was quoted as saying by a Swedish newspaper on Wednesday.
Former Justice Minister Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil, reported to have resigned this week over the violence used by the government against protesters, told the tabloid Expressen he had evidence Gaddafi ordered the bombing that killed 270 people.
“I have proof that Gaddafi gave the order for (the) Lockerbie (bombing),” Expressen quoted Al Jeleil as saying in an interview at an undisclosed large town in Libya.
The newspaper did not say what the evidence of Gaddafi’s involvement in the bombing was.
A Libyan, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was tried and jailed in Scotland for the bombing, and Gaddafi, in power since 1969, was branded an international pariah for years.
In 2009, the Scottish government freed al-Megrahi on humanitarian grounds after doctors said he had terminal prostate cancer, a decision strongly criticized by the United States. He returned to Libya and is still alive.
“In order to conceal it (his role in ordering the bombing), he did everything in his power to get Megrahi back from Scotland,” al Jeleil was quoted as saying.
“He (Gaddafi) ordered Megrahi to do it.”
This story made it into major news media throughout the world, without anyone stopping to raise questions about the propaganda benefit of the statement, or of the timing. For example, the UK paper, The Telegraph, interviewed Jeleil/Jalil:
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the provisional rebel government in Benghazi and Libya’s former justice minister, said he had evidence of Gaddafi’s involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
“The orders were given by Gaddafi himself,” he told Rob Crilly.
Mr Abel Jalil claimed he had evidence that convicted bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi worked for Gaddafi.
“This evidence is in our hands and we have documents that prove what I have said and we are ready to hand them over to the international criminal court,” he added.
Since then, I haven’t seen any sign that Jalil’s evidence has been shown to anyone. So we don’t know that it actually exists, or that he was telling the truth. But the original headlines did the trick—anyone watching television or reading stories then would have been led to believe that Qaddafi was behind this dastardly deed.
A couple of days later, for the first time, President Obama called for Qaddafi to step down. And not long thereafter, the US, UK and their allies were getting ready to pitch military action against Qaddafi, originally characterized as solely humanitarian, “to protect civilians.” (Eventually, the top British military figure would indiscreetly admit that the relentless bombing was intended to remove the Libyan leader.)
We’ll get back to the propaganda machine and its effectiveness later, but let’s now examine the relationship between the Western governments and Qaddafi. Was it, as presented in the media, merely a case of doing the right thing against a brutal tyrant? One also accused of being behind the murder of those airline passengers? (...)
But the thing that turned much of the world against Qaddafi was the alleged role of Libya in blowing Pan Am 103 apart.
Most of us probably remember, vaguely, that Libya’s role in that is an established fact. If so, we’re off base. Let’s start with this 2001 BBC report, following the conviction of Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer:
Robert Black, the Scottish law professor who devised the format of the Netherlands-based trial, was quoted on Sunday as saying he was “absolutely astounded” that Al Megrahi had been found guilty.
Mr Black said he believed the prosecution had “a very, very weak circumstantial case” and he was reluctant to believe that Scottish judges would “convict anyone, even a Libyan” on such evidence.
The view, published in British newspapers, echoes that of some of the families of UK victims of the Lockerbie bombing, who are calling for a public inquiry to find “the truth of who was responsible and what the motive was”. (...)
For more on doubts about Libya’s role in the bombing, see the excellent summary of powerful evidence that the Libyans may have been framed, evidence not presented at trial, on Wikipedia. (While Wikipedia should not be considered a definitive source, it is often a good roundup of what may be found elsewhere and thus a starting point for further inquiry.) The troubling elements, which constitute a very long list, include an alleged offer from the FBI of $4 million for certain incriminating testimony, the subsequent admission by a key witness that he had lied, details of strange goings-on in the FBI’s crime lab, and indications that the bomb may have been introduced at an airport where the defendant was not present.
Nevertheless, Megrahi’s conviction, and the media’s dutiful reporting of it as justice done, meant that Libya, and Qaddafi, would continue under sanctions that had already isolated the country for a decade from the international community.
This February, several days after Hosni Mubarak resigned in Egypt, civil protest began in neighboring Libya. Quickly, Muammar Qaddafi’s Justice Minister turned against him and became a rebel leader. And, he made the dramatic claim that his ex-boss was the culprit behind the bombing of Pan Am 103:
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, a former Libyan cabinet minister was quoted as saying by a Swedish newspaper on Wednesday.
Former Justice Minister Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil, reported to have resigned this week over the violence used by the government against protesters, told the tabloid Expressen he had evidence Gaddafi ordered the bombing that killed 270 people.
“I have proof that Gaddafi gave the order for (the) Lockerbie (bombing),” Expressen quoted Al Jeleil as saying in an interview at an undisclosed large town in Libya.
The newspaper did not say what the evidence of Gaddafi’s involvement in the bombing was.
A Libyan, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was tried and jailed in Scotland for the bombing, and Gaddafi, in power since 1969, was branded an international pariah for years.
In 2009, the Scottish government freed al-Megrahi on humanitarian grounds after doctors said he had terminal prostate cancer, a decision strongly criticized by the United States. He returned to Libya and is still alive.
“In order to conceal it (his role in ordering the bombing), he did everything in his power to get Megrahi back from Scotland,” al Jeleil was quoted as saying.
“He (Gaddafi) ordered Megrahi to do it.”
This story made it into major news media throughout the world, without anyone stopping to raise questions about the propaganda benefit of the statement, or of the timing. For example, the UK paper, The Telegraph, interviewed Jeleil/Jalil:
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the provisional rebel government in Benghazi and Libya’s former justice minister, said he had evidence of Gaddafi’s involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
“The orders were given by Gaddafi himself,” he told Rob Crilly.
Mr Abel Jalil claimed he had evidence that convicted bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi worked for Gaddafi.
“This evidence is in our hands and we have documents that prove what I have said and we are ready to hand them over to the international criminal court,” he added.
Since then, I haven’t seen any sign that Jalil’s evidence has been shown to anyone. So we don’t know that it actually exists, or that he was telling the truth. But the original headlines did the trick—anyone watching television or reading stories then would have been led to believe that Qaddafi was behind this dastardly deed.
A couple of days later, for the first time, President Obama called for Qaddafi to step down. And not long thereafter, the US, UK and their allies were getting ready to pitch military action against Qaddafi, originally characterized as solely humanitarian, “to protect civilians.” (Eventually, the top British military figure would indiscreetly admit that the relentless bombing was intended to remove the Libyan leader.)
We’ll get back to the propaganda machine and its effectiveness later, but let’s now examine the relationship between the Western governments and Qaddafi. Was it, as presented in the media, merely a case of doing the right thing against a brutal tyrant? One also accused of being behind the murder of those airline passengers? (...)
But the thing that turned much of the world against Qaddafi was the alleged role of Libya in blowing Pan Am 103 apart.
Most of us probably remember, vaguely, that Libya’s role in that is an established fact. If so, we’re off base. Let’s start with this 2001 BBC report, following the conviction of Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer:
Robert Black, the Scottish law professor who devised the format of the Netherlands-based trial, was quoted on Sunday as saying he was “absolutely astounded” that Al Megrahi had been found guilty.
Mr Black said he believed the prosecution had “a very, very weak circumstantial case” and he was reluctant to believe that Scottish judges would “convict anyone, even a Libyan” on such evidence.
The view, published in British newspapers, echoes that of some of the families of UK victims of the Lockerbie bombing, who are calling for a public inquiry to find “the truth of who was responsible and what the motive was”. (...)
For more on doubts about Libya’s role in the bombing, see the excellent summary of powerful evidence that the Libyans may have been framed, evidence not presented at trial, on Wikipedia. (While Wikipedia should not be considered a definitive source, it is often a good roundup of what may be found elsewhere and thus a starting point for further inquiry.) The troubling elements, which constitute a very long list, include an alleged offer from the FBI of $4 million for certain incriminating testimony, the subsequent admission by a key witness that he had lied, details of strange goings-on in the FBI’s crime lab, and indications that the bomb may have been introduced at an airport where the defendant was not present.
Nevertheless, Megrahi’s conviction, and the media’s dutiful reporting of it as justice done, meant that Libya, and Qaddafi, would continue under sanctions that had already isolated the country for a decade from the international community.
Monday, 6 June 2011
WikiLeaks Megrahi cables in The Scotsman
[The Scotsman newspaper today runs a series of stories based on WikiLeaks cables covering US anticipation of and reaction to the compassionate release of Abdelbaset Megrahi in August 2009. The principal report, headlined Wikileaks: Inside story of Megrahi's return home, contains the following:]
Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi's motive for giving a hero's welcome to freed Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is revealed today in secret US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and seen by The Scotsman.
The cables reveal that the regime's handling of the homecoming was heavily influenced by Col Gaddafi's simmering resentment towards the West over the case of six Bulgarian nurses freed from a Libyan jail in 2007.
The nurses had been jailed for life for allegedly infecting 400 Libyan children with the HIV virus. European Union diplomats negotiated their release - but then reneged on a deal that the nurses should serve the rest of their sentences in jail in Bulgaria.
Col Gaddafi's lingering anger at this diplomatic "insult" is revealed in a cable, written by a diplomat, describing a meeting in Tripoli between the colonel and US senator John McCain, shortly before Megrahi's release. The Libyan leader refused to give any guarantees about the tenor of Megrahi's homecoming, the cable reports, despite Mr McCain's warning that a hero's welcome could severely damage Libya's new friendship with the United States.
Col Gaddafi cited the celebrations that met the nurses in Bulgaria after their release. (...)
The US government has criticised The Scotsman for its tie-up with WikiLeaks, saying: "Any unauthorised disclosure of classified material is regrettable as it has the potential to harm individuals as well as efforts to advance foreign policy goals."
But the cables provide valuable new insights into one of the most iconic moments in recent Scottish history. They reveal:
* The United States tried to add conditions to the Scottish terms of Megrahi's release, demanding he be imprisoned for the rest of his life in Libya following his compassionate release.
* Megrahi's homecoming and how to handle it became a tussle within the Libyan regime, between reformers who favoured friendlier ties with the West and hardliners who saw such moves as a weakening of Libya's strongman status.
* Western diplomats who urged a low-key return for Megrahi believed they had an ally in Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister who subsequently defected to the West shortly after Nato sided by the rebels in the Libyan uprising this spring.
* The triumphant return of Megrahi to Libya was in fact a much lower-key welcome than some hardliners planned, with a crowd of many thousands scaled down to a few hundred at the last minute.
[Further related reports in the same newspaper can be accessed here, as can the cables themselves, including one headed Demarche delivered, in which US diplomats in Tripoli are to be found urging Moussa Koussa to secure that Megrahi is imprisoned in Libya, notwithstanding the fact that his return was under compassionate release, not prisoner transfer. Moussa is reported to have "raised his eyebrows" at this point.]
Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi's motive for giving a hero's welcome to freed Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is revealed today in secret US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and seen by The Scotsman.
The cables reveal that the regime's handling of the homecoming was heavily influenced by Col Gaddafi's simmering resentment towards the West over the case of six Bulgarian nurses freed from a Libyan jail in 2007.
The nurses had been jailed for life for allegedly infecting 400 Libyan children with the HIV virus. European Union diplomats negotiated their release - but then reneged on a deal that the nurses should serve the rest of their sentences in jail in Bulgaria.
Col Gaddafi's lingering anger at this diplomatic "insult" is revealed in a cable, written by a diplomat, describing a meeting in Tripoli between the colonel and US senator John McCain, shortly before Megrahi's release. The Libyan leader refused to give any guarantees about the tenor of Megrahi's homecoming, the cable reports, despite Mr McCain's warning that a hero's welcome could severely damage Libya's new friendship with the United States.
Col Gaddafi cited the celebrations that met the nurses in Bulgaria after their release. (...)
The US government has criticised The Scotsman for its tie-up with WikiLeaks, saying: "Any unauthorised disclosure of classified material is regrettable as it has the potential to harm individuals as well as efforts to advance foreign policy goals."
But the cables provide valuable new insights into one of the most iconic moments in recent Scottish history. They reveal:
* The United States tried to add conditions to the Scottish terms of Megrahi's release, demanding he be imprisoned for the rest of his life in Libya following his compassionate release.
* Megrahi's homecoming and how to handle it became a tussle within the Libyan regime, between reformers who favoured friendlier ties with the West and hardliners who saw such moves as a weakening of Libya's strongman status.
* Western diplomats who urged a low-key return for Megrahi believed they had an ally in Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister who subsequently defected to the West shortly after Nato sided by the rebels in the Libyan uprising this spring.
* The triumphant return of Megrahi to Libya was in fact a much lower-key welcome than some hardliners planned, with a crowd of many thousands scaled down to a few hundred at the last minute.
[Further related reports in the same newspaper can be accessed here, as can the cables themselves, including one headed Demarche delivered, in which US diplomats in Tripoli are to be found urging Moussa Koussa to secure that Megrahi is imprisoned in Libya, notwithstanding the fact that his return was under compassionate release, not prisoner transfer. Moussa is reported to have "raised his eyebrows" at this point.]
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Megrahi in Skype contact with Scottish social workers
[The following is taken from a report just published on the News of the World website:]
Scots social workers are having weekly video chats with the Lockerbie bomber on Skype, we can reveal.
Mass murderer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is using the internet system to stay in touch with council staff as part of his release conditions.
The East Renfrewshire team get updates on his condition and make sure he is still at his home in Tripoli, Libya, by monitoring his computer's IP address. (...)
Since [his repatriation] he's been with his family in the Libyan capital - but sources say he's living in fear as the country's civil war rages.
[An] insider added: "Megrahi is terrified but he can't set foot outside Libya as he fears he'd be arrested. He has to stay home as part of his release conditions.
"It doesn't matter how bad things get there - he has to stay put."
An East Renfrewshire Council spokesman confirmed the video link last night. He said: "We are in direct contact with Mr Megrahi."
Scots social workers are having weekly video chats with the Lockerbie bomber on Skype, we can reveal.
Mass murderer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is using the internet system to stay in touch with council staff as part of his release conditions.
The East Renfrewshire team get updates on his condition and make sure he is still at his home in Tripoli, Libya, by monitoring his computer's IP address. (...)
Since [his repatriation] he's been with his family in the Libyan capital - but sources say he's living in fear as the country's civil war rages.
[An] insider added: "Megrahi is terrified but he can't set foot outside Libya as he fears he'd be arrested. He has to stay home as part of his release conditions.
"It doesn't matter how bad things get there - he has to stay put."
An East Renfrewshire Council spokesman confirmed the video link last night. He said: "We are in direct contact with Mr Megrahi."
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Message from Saif al-Islam
From: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi iamgood@voila.fr
My name is Saif Al Islam Gaddafi, the son of the present president of Libya. I am contacting you for an urgent assistance.
As you can read and see in the media, my family is presently undergoing tough time in the hand of the masses due to his long stay in power as the president of Libya for over 40 years now. Although there is no way you can satisfy human being, my father has done so many things to better the life of our people unfortunately they never appreciated his effort instead it resulted in calling my family bad names.
The International community has reached a resolution for immediate seizure of our assets both in US and the UK which the have already done and many other sanctions but it can’t affect our financial statue in the world. But as you can not predict tomorrow the say that is while I decided to reach you for this assistant hoping it will be top secret and you should avoid the media.
I want to request your humble assistance to receive a total sum of €22m.
I will not give you details of the fund now because of security reasons but just have in mind that the fund exit in one of the African countries.
You will receive this fund directly and keep it safe or invest it in any business of yours till this saga is over then I will get back to you on how the fund or profit will be shared. By the special grace of Allah nothing will happen to me.
If you are ready and will keep it top secret and avoid the media contact this email address (aarifqasif@hotmail.com) the details of where the fund exit and how it will be transferred will be made known to you through this email.
I know you may have little fear on you but it is risk free.
I know you will be in hurry to reply me but due to what my family is facing now and security reasons I will not be responding!!!!!!!.
All you need to do is to contact my representative with the email given to you and tell him that you received an email from Saif Al Islam Gaddafi and that you are willing to receive the fund.
Assalamu 'alaikum
Saif Al Islam Gaddafi
[I am terribly surprised and disappointed that Saif is offering considerably less than Moussa Koussa.]
My name is Saif Al Islam Gaddafi, the son of the present president of Libya. I am contacting you for an urgent assistance.
As you can read and see in the media, my family is presently undergoing tough time in the hand of the masses due to his long stay in power as the president of Libya for over 40 years now. Although there is no way you can satisfy human being, my father has done so many things to better the life of our people unfortunately they never appreciated his effort instead it resulted in calling my family bad names.
The International community has reached a resolution for immediate seizure of our assets both in US and the UK which the have already done and many other sanctions but it can’t affect our financial statue in the world. But as you can not predict tomorrow the say that is while I decided to reach you for this assistant hoping it will be top secret and you should avoid the media.
I want to request your humble assistance to receive a total sum of €22m.
I will not give you details of the fund now because of security reasons but just have in mind that the fund exit in one of the African countries.
You will receive this fund directly and keep it safe or invest it in any business of yours till this saga is over then I will get back to you on how the fund or profit will be shared. By the special grace of Allah nothing will happen to me.
If you are ready and will keep it top secret and avoid the media contact this email address (aarifqasif@hotmail.com) the details of where the fund exit and how it will be transferred will be made known to you through this email.
I know you may have little fear on you but it is risk free.
I know you will be in hurry to reply me but due to what my family is facing now and security reasons I will not be responding!!!!!!!.
All you need to do is to contact my representative with the email given to you and tell him that you received an email from Saif Al Islam Gaddafi and that you are willing to receive the fund.
Assalamu 'alaikum
Saif Al Islam Gaddafi
[I am terribly surprised and disappointed that Saif is offering considerably less than Moussa Koussa.]
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