[This is the headline over a report just published on the STV News website. It reads as follows:]
Petition will be referred to Justice Committee as MSP demands 'truth must come out'.
MSPs have said further talks should take place on calls to hold an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing conviction.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted ten years ago of the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. The attack resulted in 270 deaths.
The Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee agreed to refer a petition calling for an inquiry, lodged by pressure group Justice for Megrahi, to Holyrood's Justice Committee for further consideration.
Committee member SNP MSP Bill Walker said it was important that "the truth" surrounding the issue is revealed.
He added: "I am desperate that the truth of this whole matter should come out. The truth must come out and we must do everything in our power to help it come out.
"This should go to the Justice Committee.
"This terrible thing happened a long time ago now and we must get to the truth sooner rather than later."
The petition, which was lodged by the group last year, calls on Holyrood to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 conviction.
Justice Committee convener Christine Grahame sat on the Public Petitions Committee in the last session.
During previous discussions on this issue, she said: "There are so many conspiracy theories around now that I think it's time that we had a clean, clear look at the role of Scottish justice in this.
"The issue is not whether Libya, or any other country, was guilty. The issue is, was Mr al-Megrahi rightly convicted, and we have not heard the answer to that yet."
The Scottish Government has already refused the petition's call for an inquiry into the conviction.
[A similar report has now appeared on the BBC News website. A report in Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.
This is a stunning victory for the Justice for Megrahi campaign and for all of those who have supported its petition, particularly since the committee clerk seemed in his agenda note to be gently hinting that the petition be kicked into touch.]
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Consideration of petition PE1370
[What follows is the text of the petitioners' submission to the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee in advance of today's resumed consideration of the Justice for Megrahi petition.]
On 15th February 2011, the ‘Justice for Megrahi Committee’ (JFM) delivered their latest submission to the Public Petitions Committee (PPC) in relation to the above petition. At their meeting of 1st of March 2011, the PPC voted to maintain the status of petition 1370 as open and carry it over to the new PPC in its ‘Legacy Paper’ inviting the new committee to give further consideration to the petition.
Over the past four months, there have been important developments in relation to the Lockerbie enquiry and matters related to the conviction, appeals and compassionate release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. We believe that these matters are relevant to the consideration of our petition and the related submission of 15th February 2011 and we wish to update the Petitions Committee members on them.
Civil War in Libya
Since mid February, 2011, Libya has degenerated into civil war. The rebel forces are currently represented by a body known as the ‘Transitional National Council’. Many commentators have suggested that this conflict could lead to the secrets of Lockerbie being revealed. Claims and counterclaims have proliferated.
Since becoming Chairman of the ‘Transitional National Council’, the former Libyan Justice Minister, Mr Abdel Jalil, has made numerous claims that he is in possession of proof that Colonel Gaddafi and Libya were behind the downing of Pan Am 103. He has, however, been unable to substantiate his claims.
The visit to London of the former Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Moussa Koussa (formerly also former head of the Libyan Intelligence Agency), on the 30th of March 2011 has also failed to deliver any additional insight into who was responsible for Lockerbie.
During his stay, he had discussions with representatives of the UK Government and others, including the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary. He departed the UK for Qatar on the 15th of April and the Scottish delegation have so far refused to divulge any information regarding their meeting on the grounds that to do so may compromise the on-going police investigation of the Lockerbie case. ‘JFM’ finds it quite extraordinary that the interviewers refused to offer even a general comment which might suggest that Mr Koussa had at least supplied information which could substantiate and justify the Crown case for Mr al-Megrahi’s conviction or open the way for further enquiry. Effectively, parliament and the people are being denied the opportunity to assess whether any information received from Mr Koussa supports or otherwise the Crown’s position over Lockerbie. Yet again, a curtain of secrecy is drawn over matters related to revealing the truth about Lockerbie and the subsequent events.
On the 6th April the Guardian reported:
‘Libya's rebel administration has said that it signed an apology for the Gaddafi regime's role in IRA attacks and the Lockerbie bombing under pressure from the British government, and that the document is the result of "misunderstanding"’.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/06/libya-rebels-lockerbie-apology.
It is alleged that following talks with a lawyer whom they believed represented the British Government, the ‘Transitional National Council’ signed a document offering an unequivocal apology from Libya for international crimes carried out by the Gaddafi regime, including
Lockerbie and deaths resultant from IRA activities where Libyan supplied Semtex was employed.
It is now alleged that the document might have been signed under duress and in the hope of alleviating their dire circumstances. If the claim that the lawyer has been operating at the behest of the UK government on this fishing expedition is true, it shows the lengths that the UK authorities will go to hide the truth.
Scottish Government Undertaking
According to recent media reports, the new SNP government intends to honour the commitment given by Alex Salmond before the election to seek a change in the law to allow the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to publish papers relating to their decision that a miscarriage of justice might have occurred in the conviction of Mr Megrahi. Currently the release of the SCCRC papers can be blocked by one or more of the parties who gave evidence to the review.
http://www.journalonline.co.uk/News/1009738.aspx
The Lord Advocate and Crown Office has remained implacably opposed to such release and, as we pointed out in our submission of 15th February, we totally refute the Lord Advocate’s argument for failing to disclose any matters related to Mr Megrahi’s appeal.
In our petition, we argue for the release of these papers and we believe it is important that Parliament monitors this government undertaking carefully.
Election of a Majority SNP Government
For the first time in the history of the Scottish Parliament one political party enjoys an absolute majority. The next 5 years therefore are uncharted waters and many commentators have warned about the need to ensure that this SNP majority government is subject to effective scrutiny and held to account.
‘For the first time in the parliament’s history, a single party is now in control of the Government, the legislature and its committees, and has supplied the Presiding Officer.’…...Most obviously, Holyrood is a unicameral parliament: there is no second chamber to fine tune legislation and force MSPs to think again. In theory, the committees should compensate for this, scrutinising and revising laws, as well as delivering unwelcome home truths to Ministers. But while committees aspire to cross-party ideals, they often split on partisan lines, as the health committee did last year when it rejected a minimum price for alcohol. The SNP majority means every committee can railroad through legislation if it chooses, and there is no risk of a comeback, no matter how infuriated the opposition might get.’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/news/politics/monarch-of-the-glens-1.1101477
While the ‘JFM’ committee believes that to date it has been well served by the Public Petitions Committee, this unprecedented centralisation of power concerns us greatly. Given the opposition to any further inquiry by the Lord Advocate, Crown Office and other establishment organisations, we fear Lockerbie will be further sidelined. The Petitions and Justice Committees have the power to prevent this happening and hold our government to account. Should the PPC allow our petition to fall, it will mean that the continuing disputes over the biggest terrorist outrage ever perpetrated on Scottish soil will no longer be subject to open and accountable scrutiny in any corner of the Scottish Parliament.
Salmond criticism of the Supreme Court
We feel that the current heated debate taking place about the place of the Supreme Court in dealing with Scottish Human Rights issues is extremely relevant to our petition. While not wishing to take sides in the dispute, we would observe that it is human rights issues like Lockerbie that are at the very heart of the dispute.
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Alex-Salmond-launches-scathing-attack.6785206.jp
What is of concern to us, and we would suggest to the people of Scotland, is that justice is served no matter the court. The Scottish Government is claiming that the human rights of the Scottish people are best served by Scottish courts sitting in Scotland.
We would argue that for nearly 23 years Scottish Courts and the Scottish Government have failed to deliver the truth about Lockerbie despite these claims of supremacy in human rights matters. We are at a loss to equate the current government’s refusal to hold a judicial inquiry into Lockerbie with this principle that Scotland and Scotland alone is capable of delivering justice to all of its people.
Media coverage
Media interest in Lockerbie and associated events has remained high across the world with the fall out from the Civil War in Libya being high on the agenda.
Of particular significance is a film, ‘The Pan Am Bomber’, commissioned by ‘Al Jazeera English’ which is being broadcast throughout June and July and can now be found on ‘You Tube’. This film casts even more doubt on the Megrahi conviction and makes a powerful case for an immediate inquiry.
We would recommend that committee members view this film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oVVmt1W-6U
Conclusion and recommendations
Much has occurred in the interim between the last Public Petition’s Committee meeting, which voted to carry petition 1370 forward in its ‘Legacy Paper’, and today. As ever, most of this information is shrouded in controversy and as a result the truth about Lockerbie becomes even more elusive.
Effectively year in and year out new information, rumour and supposition is released about the Lockerbie tragedy and the Megrahi conviction. Year after year the UK and US governments continue their conspiracy of silence. The whole affair has become a running sore and, despite having the power to do so, the Scottish Government continues to refuse to hold a public inquiry into the worst case of mass murder ever perpetrated on Scottish soil, a disaster which taints the Scottish Justice System across the world.
The fact remains that while we might not be able to force the UK and American governments to the table, the Scottish Government has the power to launch a public inquiry that will ensure that we as a country have done everything in our power to reveal the truth about Lockerbie. Our conscience will at last be clear.
That public inquiry would be able to examine many important witnesses including representatives of the Crown Office, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, the SCCRC and the police. It will have the power to review the SCCRC papers and many other documents currently held in secret by the Crown Office, Government and police. It will be able to probe matters related to the Lockerbie investigation, all legal proceedings relating to Mr al-Megrahi’s 2001 conviction and his subsequent release, and any new information that has been obtained over the years.
We urge the committee to keep this petition live by carrying out further enquiry itself or referring it to the Justice Committee. Surely it cannot be right that the search for the truth about the worst terrorist outrage ever to be perpetrated on Scottish soil should not continue to be the subject of enquiry in our own Scottish parliament.
In closing, we would refer Petition’s Committee members to a recent article In the ‘The Firm’ magazine where editor Steven Raeburn interviews Gareth Pierce the lawyer who was instrumental in having the wrongful conviction of the ‘Birmingham Six’ and ‘Guildford Four’ overturned on appeal. This article (see link below*) offers a powerful review of the controversy surrounding Lockerbie and we believe will help members understand just why a public inquiry is urgently needed.
*Steven Raeburn, editor of The Firm, interviews Gareth Peirce.
http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/932/The_Quiet_Storm.html
On 15th February 2011, the ‘Justice for Megrahi Committee’ (JFM) delivered their latest submission to the Public Petitions Committee (PPC) in relation to the above petition. At their meeting of 1st of March 2011, the PPC voted to maintain the status of petition 1370 as open and carry it over to the new PPC in its ‘Legacy Paper’ inviting the new committee to give further consideration to the petition.
Over the past four months, there have been important developments in relation to the Lockerbie enquiry and matters related to the conviction, appeals and compassionate release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. We believe that these matters are relevant to the consideration of our petition and the related submission of 15th February 2011 and we wish to update the Petitions Committee members on them.
Civil War in Libya
Since mid February, 2011, Libya has degenerated into civil war. The rebel forces are currently represented by a body known as the ‘Transitional National Council’. Many commentators have suggested that this conflict could lead to the secrets of Lockerbie being revealed. Claims and counterclaims have proliferated.
Since becoming Chairman of the ‘Transitional National Council’, the former Libyan Justice Minister, Mr Abdel Jalil, has made numerous claims that he is in possession of proof that Colonel Gaddafi and Libya were behind the downing of Pan Am 103. He has, however, been unable to substantiate his claims.
The visit to London of the former Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Moussa Koussa (formerly also former head of the Libyan Intelligence Agency), on the 30th of March 2011 has also failed to deliver any additional insight into who was responsible for Lockerbie.
During his stay, he had discussions with representatives of the UK Government and others, including the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary. He departed the UK for Qatar on the 15th of April and the Scottish delegation have so far refused to divulge any information regarding their meeting on the grounds that to do so may compromise the on-going police investigation of the Lockerbie case. ‘JFM’ finds it quite extraordinary that the interviewers refused to offer even a general comment which might suggest that Mr Koussa had at least supplied information which could substantiate and justify the Crown case for Mr al-Megrahi’s conviction or open the way for further enquiry. Effectively, parliament and the people are being denied the opportunity to assess whether any information received from Mr Koussa supports or otherwise the Crown’s position over Lockerbie. Yet again, a curtain of secrecy is drawn over matters related to revealing the truth about Lockerbie and the subsequent events.
On the 6th April the Guardian reported:
‘Libya's rebel administration has said that it signed an apology for the Gaddafi regime's role in IRA attacks and the Lockerbie bombing under pressure from the British government, and that the document is the result of "misunderstanding"’.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/06/libya-rebels-lockerbie-apology.
It is alleged that following talks with a lawyer whom they believed represented the British Government, the ‘Transitional National Council’ signed a document offering an unequivocal apology from Libya for international crimes carried out by the Gaddafi regime, including
Lockerbie and deaths resultant from IRA activities where Libyan supplied Semtex was employed.
It is now alleged that the document might have been signed under duress and in the hope of alleviating their dire circumstances. If the claim that the lawyer has been operating at the behest of the UK government on this fishing expedition is true, it shows the lengths that the UK authorities will go to hide the truth.
Scottish Government Undertaking
According to recent media reports, the new SNP government intends to honour the commitment given by Alex Salmond before the election to seek a change in the law to allow the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to publish papers relating to their decision that a miscarriage of justice might have occurred in the conviction of Mr Megrahi. Currently the release of the SCCRC papers can be blocked by one or more of the parties who gave evidence to the review.
http://www.journalonline.co.uk/News/1009738.aspx
The Lord Advocate and Crown Office has remained implacably opposed to such release and, as we pointed out in our submission of 15th February, we totally refute the Lord Advocate’s argument for failing to disclose any matters related to Mr Megrahi’s appeal.
In our petition, we argue for the release of these papers and we believe it is important that Parliament monitors this government undertaking carefully.
Election of a Majority SNP Government
For the first time in the history of the Scottish Parliament one political party enjoys an absolute majority. The next 5 years therefore are uncharted waters and many commentators have warned about the need to ensure that this SNP majority government is subject to effective scrutiny and held to account.
‘For the first time in the parliament’s history, a single party is now in control of the Government, the legislature and its committees, and has supplied the Presiding Officer.’…...Most obviously, Holyrood is a unicameral parliament: there is no second chamber to fine tune legislation and force MSPs to think again. In theory, the committees should compensate for this, scrutinising and revising laws, as well as delivering unwelcome home truths to Ministers. But while committees aspire to cross-party ideals, they often split on partisan lines, as the health committee did last year when it rejected a minimum price for alcohol. The SNP majority means every committee can railroad through legislation if it chooses, and there is no risk of a comeback, no matter how infuriated the opposition might get.’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/news/politics/monarch-of-the-glens-1.1101477
While the ‘JFM’ committee believes that to date it has been well served by the Public Petitions Committee, this unprecedented centralisation of power concerns us greatly. Given the opposition to any further inquiry by the Lord Advocate, Crown Office and other establishment organisations, we fear Lockerbie will be further sidelined. The Petitions and Justice Committees have the power to prevent this happening and hold our government to account. Should the PPC allow our petition to fall, it will mean that the continuing disputes over the biggest terrorist outrage ever perpetrated on Scottish soil will no longer be subject to open and accountable scrutiny in any corner of the Scottish Parliament.
Salmond criticism of the Supreme Court
We feel that the current heated debate taking place about the place of the Supreme Court in dealing with Scottish Human Rights issues is extremely relevant to our petition. While not wishing to take sides in the dispute, we would observe that it is human rights issues like Lockerbie that are at the very heart of the dispute.
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Alex-Salmond-launches-scathing-attack.6785206.jp
What is of concern to us, and we would suggest to the people of Scotland, is that justice is served no matter the court. The Scottish Government is claiming that the human rights of the Scottish people are best served by Scottish courts sitting in Scotland.
We would argue that for nearly 23 years Scottish Courts and the Scottish Government have failed to deliver the truth about Lockerbie despite these claims of supremacy in human rights matters. We are at a loss to equate the current government’s refusal to hold a judicial inquiry into Lockerbie with this principle that Scotland and Scotland alone is capable of delivering justice to all of its people.
Media coverage
Media interest in Lockerbie and associated events has remained high across the world with the fall out from the Civil War in Libya being high on the agenda.
Of particular significance is a film, ‘The Pan Am Bomber’, commissioned by ‘Al Jazeera English’ which is being broadcast throughout June and July and can now be found on ‘You Tube’. This film casts even more doubt on the Megrahi conviction and makes a powerful case for an immediate inquiry.
We would recommend that committee members view this film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oVVmt1W-6U
Conclusion and recommendations
Much has occurred in the interim between the last Public Petition’s Committee meeting, which voted to carry petition 1370 forward in its ‘Legacy Paper’, and today. As ever, most of this information is shrouded in controversy and as a result the truth about Lockerbie becomes even more elusive.
Effectively year in and year out new information, rumour and supposition is released about the Lockerbie tragedy and the Megrahi conviction. Year after year the UK and US governments continue their conspiracy of silence. The whole affair has become a running sore and, despite having the power to do so, the Scottish Government continues to refuse to hold a public inquiry into the worst case of mass murder ever perpetrated on Scottish soil, a disaster which taints the Scottish Justice System across the world.
The fact remains that while we might not be able to force the UK and American governments to the table, the Scottish Government has the power to launch a public inquiry that will ensure that we as a country have done everything in our power to reveal the truth about Lockerbie. Our conscience will at last be clear.
That public inquiry would be able to examine many important witnesses including representatives of the Crown Office, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, the SCCRC and the police. It will have the power to review the SCCRC papers and many other documents currently held in secret by the Crown Office, Government and police. It will be able to probe matters related to the Lockerbie investigation, all legal proceedings relating to Mr al-Megrahi’s 2001 conviction and his subsequent release, and any new information that has been obtained over the years.
We urge the committee to keep this petition live by carrying out further enquiry itself or referring it to the Justice Committee. Surely it cannot be right that the search for the truth about the worst terrorist outrage ever to be perpetrated on Scottish soil should not continue to be the subject of enquiry in our own Scottish parliament.
In closing, we would refer Petition’s Committee members to a recent article In the ‘The Firm’ magazine where editor Steven Raeburn interviews Gareth Pierce the lawyer who was instrumental in having the wrongful conviction of the ‘Birmingham Six’ and ‘Guildford Four’ overturned on appeal. This article (see link below*) offers a powerful review of the controversy surrounding Lockerbie and we believe will help members understand just why a public inquiry is urgently needed.
*Steven Raeburn, editor of The Firm, interviews Gareth Peirce.
http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/932/The_Quiet_Storm.html
More on Moussa
[The following are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Telegraph:]
Moussa Koussa could help rebels in Libya from his five-star subsidised hotel in Qatar, Downing Street has suggested.
News of Mr Koussa's whereabouts came as the International Criminal Court yesterday issued arrest warrants for Col Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al–Islam and the intelligence chief Abdullah al–Senussi.
David Cameron's official spokesman said the Government wanted to see Mr Koussa help rebels in Libya from his base in Doha.
He said: "It is not for us to give a commentary on what Moussa Koussa is doing. We want to see him play his part in opposing the Libyan regime." (...)
The spokesman added: "We have also been clear that he will not be given any immunity from prosecution in this country."
Mr Koussa had "already been interviewed by Dumfries and Galloway police" over the Lockerbie bombing, he said.
In Parliament, a Conservative MP said he would be asking what level of financial support, if any, Britain had given Mr Koussa since he came to the UK after defecting from Col Gaddafi's regime.
Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow, said: "Allegedly this man has blood on his hands, and I hope very much that the British taxpayers are not subsidising him in any way."
Mr Koussa defected to Britain at the end of March but left for Qatar shortly afterwards to take part in a "Gulf contact group" meeting of countries hoping to resolve the Libya crisis.
He was expected to return to Britain, where he is facing calls for his prosecution over accusations ranging from the Lockerbie bombing to supplying arms to the IRA, but is currently showing no signs of doing so.
Moussa Koussa could help rebels in Libya from his five-star subsidised hotel in Qatar, Downing Street has suggested.
News of Mr Koussa's whereabouts came as the International Criminal Court yesterday issued arrest warrants for Col Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al–Islam and the intelligence chief Abdullah al–Senussi.
David Cameron's official spokesman said the Government wanted to see Mr Koussa help rebels in Libya from his base in Doha.
He said: "It is not for us to give a commentary on what Moussa Koussa is doing. We want to see him play his part in opposing the Libyan regime." (...)
The spokesman added: "We have also been clear that he will not be given any immunity from prosecution in this country."
Mr Koussa had "already been interviewed by Dumfries and Galloway police" over the Lockerbie bombing, he said.
In Parliament, a Conservative MP said he would be asking what level of financial support, if any, Britain had given Mr Koussa since he came to the UK after defecting from Col Gaddafi's regime.
Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow, said: "Allegedly this man has blood on his hands, and I hope very much that the British taxpayers are not subsidising him in any way."
Mr Koussa defected to Britain at the end of March but left for Qatar shortly afterwards to take part in a "Gulf contact group" meeting of countries hoping to resolve the Libya crisis.
He was expected to return to Britain, where he is facing calls for his prosecution over accusations ranging from the Lockerbie bombing to supplying arms to the IRA, but is currently showing no signs of doing so.
Monday, 27 June 2011
Moussa Koussa found in Qatar
[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of The Telegraph. It reads in part:]
The pianist a few feet away played “I Just Called to Say I love You". Men in traditional Qatari white kandouras – gowns – and headdresses sat scattered around the nearby café.
Yet, the man’s distinctive features were until recently one of the best-known faces of the regime of Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister who defected to Britain at the end of March, left for Qatar shortly afterwards to take part in a “Gulf contact group” meeting of countries with an interest in resolving the Libya crisis.
He was expected to return to Britain shortly afterwards, where he was facing calls for his prosecution over accusations ranging from the Lockerbie bombing to supplying arms to the IRA.
Ten weeks later, there is little sign of that at the Four Seasons, causing growing anger among Libyan exiles and others who want him to be put on trial at the International Criminal Court.
“I remain firmly of the view that he should face the ICC,” said Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow whose family are of Libyan-Italian-Jewish ancestry and fled after suffering during pogroms. “You can’t have people like that being given protection without any recourse to justice.”
Mr Koussa was one of Col Gaddafi’s longest serving aides. He first came to attention in Britain as ambassador in 1980, giving an interview announcing that two Libyan exiles in London were to be killed. He was expelled immediately.
He was deputy head of Libyan intelligence at the time of the Lockerbie bombing, and then head, before becoming foreign minister in 2009. The intelligence agency was responsible for tracking down and killing regime opponents outside the country.
When the uprising against Col Gaddafi’s rule began, he was still very much part of the inner circle. He gave angry press conferences in the Rixos Hotel, where journalists have been lodged in Tripoli, to denounce foreign interference. But just a few days later he negotiated safe passage to London with MI6. The British intelligence services had long regarded Mr Koussa as an “asset”.
Nevertheless, his presence in Britain led to demands for legal action. (...)
He eats regularly from the £35 all-you-can-eat buffet, though he is also said to have a liking for the expensive Il Teatro Italian restaurant. Both have views over the hotel’s swimming pools and private beach, and the yacht marina next door.
It is not clear who is paying. He was originally a guest of the Qatari government, but he also had his private assets unfrozen as a reward for defecting. He occasionally relaxes in the lobby, accompanied always by one of a number of men who are clearly intelligence minders – they are dressed in Western style in jeans and T-shirts, and work on iPads.
When The Daily Telegraph approached to request an interview, a minder snapped his fingers, and within seconds a group of kandoura-wearing Qataris on duty in the lobby formed a protective shield.
“I am a little too busy to talk now,” Mr Koussa said. He had previously been reading a newspaper. Mr Koussa’s life of luxury reflects a dilemma in how to treat renegades from the Gaddafi regime.
Whitehall officials privately express fears that other Libyans would be deterred from defecting if Mr Koussa faced charges for his past role.
Yet, many Libyan exiles and the families of Lockerbie victims are outraged to see corrupt members of the former regime freely taking up senior positions with the opposition.
In Mr Koussa’s case, the situation is complicated because of his relationship with MI6. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said he had not been given immunity from prosecution, yet the Foreign Office said as far as it was concerned Mr Koussa was free to come and go.
Political sources have said that the decision to allow him to leave was made “in the interests of national security”.
The pianist a few feet away played “I Just Called to Say I love You". Men in traditional Qatari white kandouras – gowns – and headdresses sat scattered around the nearby café.
Yet, the man’s distinctive features were until recently one of the best-known faces of the regime of Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister who defected to Britain at the end of March, left for Qatar shortly afterwards to take part in a “Gulf contact group” meeting of countries with an interest in resolving the Libya crisis.
He was expected to return to Britain shortly afterwards, where he was facing calls for his prosecution over accusations ranging from the Lockerbie bombing to supplying arms to the IRA.
Ten weeks later, there is little sign of that at the Four Seasons, causing growing anger among Libyan exiles and others who want him to be put on trial at the International Criminal Court.
“I remain firmly of the view that he should face the ICC,” said Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow whose family are of Libyan-Italian-Jewish ancestry and fled after suffering during pogroms. “You can’t have people like that being given protection without any recourse to justice.”
Mr Koussa was one of Col Gaddafi’s longest serving aides. He first came to attention in Britain as ambassador in 1980, giving an interview announcing that two Libyan exiles in London were to be killed. He was expelled immediately.
He was deputy head of Libyan intelligence at the time of the Lockerbie bombing, and then head, before becoming foreign minister in 2009. The intelligence agency was responsible for tracking down and killing regime opponents outside the country.
When the uprising against Col Gaddafi’s rule began, he was still very much part of the inner circle. He gave angry press conferences in the Rixos Hotel, where journalists have been lodged in Tripoli, to denounce foreign interference. But just a few days later he negotiated safe passage to London with MI6. The British intelligence services had long regarded Mr Koussa as an “asset”.
Nevertheless, his presence in Britain led to demands for legal action. (...)
He eats regularly from the £35 all-you-can-eat buffet, though he is also said to have a liking for the expensive Il Teatro Italian restaurant. Both have views over the hotel’s swimming pools and private beach, and the yacht marina next door.
It is not clear who is paying. He was originally a guest of the Qatari government, but he also had his private assets unfrozen as a reward for defecting. He occasionally relaxes in the lobby, accompanied always by one of a number of men who are clearly intelligence minders – they are dressed in Western style in jeans and T-shirts, and work on iPads.
When The Daily Telegraph approached to request an interview, a minder snapped his fingers, and within seconds a group of kandoura-wearing Qataris on duty in the lobby formed a protective shield.
“I am a little too busy to talk now,” Mr Koussa said. He had previously been reading a newspaper. Mr Koussa’s life of luxury reflects a dilemma in how to treat renegades from the Gaddafi regime.
Whitehall officials privately express fears that other Libyans would be deterred from defecting if Mr Koussa faced charges for his past role.
Yet, many Libyan exiles and the families of Lockerbie victims are outraged to see corrupt members of the former regime freely taking up senior positions with the opposition.
In Mr Koussa’s case, the situation is complicated because of his relationship with MI6. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said he had not been given immunity from prosecution, yet the Foreign Office said as far as it was concerned Mr Koussa was free to come and go.
Political sources have said that the decision to allow him to leave was made “in the interests of national security”.
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Acquitted Lockerbie bomber could be retried
[This is the headline over the lead story in today's edition of the Maltese newspaper The Independent on Sunday. It reads as follows:]
Just when Malta thought it may have been seeing the infamy attached to it by way of the Lockerbie disaster subsiding, Scottish prosecutors are looking into the prospect of retrying acquitted Lockerbie bomber Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah.
The prospect, if realised, would reopen an ugly chapter in recent Maltese history as having been alleged to be the place where the bomb, concealed in a suitcase, was first loaded. The bomb was eventually loaded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in Christmas 1988 killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.
But the Scottish authorities appear unwilling to let the matter die a natural death following the acquittal and the subsequent guilty verdict and release of the second accused person, and rightly so seeing that a new legal window has now opened up.
A change in double jeopardy laws now provides the possibility of an accused person to stand trial a second time if compelling new evidence surfaces, and a specialist unit at the Crown Office in Edinburgh is in the process of re-examining the evidence against Mr Fhimah to ascertain the potential strength of such a case.
Mr Fhimah, a former station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta, had been accused of helping Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi place the bomb into the luggage system at Malta International Airport, where it was claimed the bomb’s fateful journey had begun.
Mr Fhimah had been acquitted in the Lockerbie trial at The Hague in 2001 after his defence argued the case against him was nothing more than “inference upon inference upon inference upon inference leading to an inference”.
Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the co-accused, had been convicted and the rest of his story is by now well known. He was granted a compassionate release from a Scottish prison in August 2009 just before he was about to appeal his guilty verdict, on the grounds that he was suffering from prostate cancer and had only a short time left to live. He is still alive.
But more than merely seeking once again to bring Mr Fhimah to justice, the Crown Office believes that the collapse of Libya’s Gaddafi regime could provide evidence for still further Lockerbie prosecutions.
Scottish prosecutors recently interviewed Libyan defector Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi’s former foreign minister and intelligence chief, when he was on British soil, and it is believed a number of questions about Mr Fhimah had been raised during the interview.
In an interview with The Times of London, the new Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, QC, appealed for Koussa’s fellow high-ranking Libyan defector, former justice minister Mustafa Mohammed Abdul Jalil, to come forward with information on the bombing. Mr Abdul Jalil, who is now the head of the provisional Libyan government in Benghazi, had said in a number of interviews that he had evidence of Gaddafi’s involvement in the 1988 bombing.
In one interview, he had told Swedish newspaper Expressen that Gaddafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. “I have proof that Gaddafi gave the order about Lockerbie,” he said, but did not describe the proof.
“To hide it, he [Gaddafi] did everything in his power to get al-Megrahi back from Scotland,” Abdel-Jalil was quoted as saying.
Mr Mulholland meanwhile told The Times of London in the interview, “I cannot send our investigators into an unsafe place but he [Fhimah] could pick up the phone. [RB: Surely the "he" Mulholland is referring to is Abdel-Jalil.] If he has relevant information on Lockerbie we would be delighted to see it.
“If a meeting can be arranged we would be prepared to see him in another country. The interview with Moussa Koussa was easier to arrange because he was in UK jurisdiction so it was quicker.”
[As I have said before on this blog, there will be no re-trial of Lamin Fhimah or any trial of Colonel Gaddafi for the bombing of Pan Am 103. The Crown Office is perfectly well aware that the evidence simply does not exist to make a conviction a realistic prospect; and that the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi on the evidence led at Zeist was a travesty perpetrated by a credulous court which has long since been exposed, by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission amongst many others.]
Just when Malta thought it may have been seeing the infamy attached to it by way of the Lockerbie disaster subsiding, Scottish prosecutors are looking into the prospect of retrying acquitted Lockerbie bomber Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah.
The prospect, if realised, would reopen an ugly chapter in recent Maltese history as having been alleged to be the place where the bomb, concealed in a suitcase, was first loaded. The bomb was eventually loaded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in Christmas 1988 killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.
But the Scottish authorities appear unwilling to let the matter die a natural death following the acquittal and the subsequent guilty verdict and release of the second accused person, and rightly so seeing that a new legal window has now opened up.
A change in double jeopardy laws now provides the possibility of an accused person to stand trial a second time if compelling new evidence surfaces, and a specialist unit at the Crown Office in Edinburgh is in the process of re-examining the evidence against Mr Fhimah to ascertain the potential strength of such a case.
Mr Fhimah, a former station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta, had been accused of helping Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi place the bomb into the luggage system at Malta International Airport, where it was claimed the bomb’s fateful journey had begun.
Mr Fhimah had been acquitted in the Lockerbie trial at The Hague in 2001 after his defence argued the case against him was nothing more than “inference upon inference upon inference upon inference leading to an inference”.
Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the co-accused, had been convicted and the rest of his story is by now well known. He was granted a compassionate release from a Scottish prison in August 2009 just before he was about to appeal his guilty verdict, on the grounds that he was suffering from prostate cancer and had only a short time left to live. He is still alive.
But more than merely seeking once again to bring Mr Fhimah to justice, the Crown Office believes that the collapse of Libya’s Gaddafi regime could provide evidence for still further Lockerbie prosecutions.
Scottish prosecutors recently interviewed Libyan defector Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi’s former foreign minister and intelligence chief, when he was on British soil, and it is believed a number of questions about Mr Fhimah had been raised during the interview.
In an interview with The Times of London, the new Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, QC, appealed for Koussa’s fellow high-ranking Libyan defector, former justice minister Mustafa Mohammed Abdul Jalil, to come forward with information on the bombing. Mr Abdul Jalil, who is now the head of the provisional Libyan government in Benghazi, had said in a number of interviews that he had evidence of Gaddafi’s involvement in the 1988 bombing.
In one interview, he had told Swedish newspaper Expressen that Gaddafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. “I have proof that Gaddafi gave the order about Lockerbie,” he said, but did not describe the proof.
“To hide it, he [Gaddafi] did everything in his power to get al-Megrahi back from Scotland,” Abdel-Jalil was quoted as saying.
Mr Mulholland meanwhile told The Times of London in the interview, “I cannot send our investigators into an unsafe place but he [Fhimah] could pick up the phone. [RB: Surely the "he" Mulholland is referring to is Abdel-Jalil.] If he has relevant information on Lockerbie we would be delighted to see it.
“If a meeting can be arranged we would be prepared to see him in another country. The interview with Moussa Koussa was easier to arrange because he was in UK jurisdiction so it was quicker.”
[As I have said before on this blog, there will be no re-trial of Lamin Fhimah or any trial of Colonel Gaddafi for the bombing of Pan Am 103. The Crown Office is perfectly well aware that the evidence simply does not exist to make a conviction a realistic prospect; and that the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi on the evidence led at Zeist was a travesty perpetrated by a credulous court which has long since been exposed, by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission amongst many others.]
Justice for Megrahi petition further considered
The new Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament meets on Tuesday, 28 June at 10.00am in Committee Room 2. Amongst the items on the agenda is the Justice for Megrahi petition seeking an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. The committee clerk's note on the agenda item reads as follows:
Note by the Clerk
PE1370 – lodged November 2010
Petition by Dr Jim Swire, Professor Robert Black QC, Mr Robert Forrester, Father Patrick Keegans and Mr Iain McKie on behalf of ‘Justice for Megrahi’ calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.
Purpose
1. The Committee is invited to agree what action it wishes to take on this petition. This petition has been carried over from the previous session. At the meeting on 1 March 2011, the previous PPC discussed the petition and agreed to keep it open in order to let the incoming committee decide what it wishes to do. The option of passing it on to the Justice Committee was canvassed but given the proximity to dissolution was not acted upon.
Background
2. The previous PPC asked the then Scottish Government whether it would open an independent inquiry. By letter of 7 January 2011, the then Scottish Government responded, saying:
“The Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Mr AlMegrahi. He was tried and convicted by a Scottish court before three judges and his appeal against conviction, heard by a panel of five judges, was unsuccessful. A second appeal, following a referral from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, was abandoned by Mr Al-Megrahi. The conduct of his defence during his trial and the appeals, including his decision not to give evidence at trial and the decision to abandon the second appeal, was entirely a matter for Mr Al-Megrahi and his legal advisors. The Government’s view is that the petition is inviting the Scottish Government to do something which falls properly to the criminal justice system i.e. inquire into whether a miscarriage of justice has taken place. The criminal justice system already provides a mechanism for that to happen. The fact that Mr Al-Megrahi chose to abandon his second appeal rather than pursue it is entirely a matter for him and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to institute an inquiry as a result.”
In response to the question who would have the power to undertake an inquiry in the terms proposed in the petition, the Scottish Government responded in the same letter:
“The Inquiries Act 2005 provides that, to the extent that the matters dealt with are devolved, and criminal justice is devolved, the Scottish Government would have the power to conduct an inquiry. However, the wide ranging and international nature of the issues involved (even if the inquiry is confined to the trial and does not concern itself with wider matters) means that there is every likelihood of issues arising which are not devolved, which would require either a joint inquiry with or a separate inquiry by the UK government. Separately, the Scottish Government intends to bring forward legislation to allow the SCCRC to publish a statement of reasons in cases such as Mr Al-Megrahi's where an appeal is abandoned, subject of course to legal restrictions applying to the SCCRC such as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities.”
3. The previous Committee received written evidence from the following—
Scottish Government letter of 7 January 2011
Petitioner letter of 13 January 2011
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission letter of 7 February 2011
Scottish Government letter of 3 February 2011
Lord Advocate letter of 9 February 2011
Petitioner letter of 16 February 2011
4. More recently, the Petitioner submitted the following further evidence (enclosed with these papers):
• PE1370/G: Petitioner letter of 17 June 2001
• A copy of an article by Stephen Raeburn in The Independent Law Journal [The Firm]
Action
5. The Committee is invited to consider what action it wishes to take; there are three possible options:
(1) To continue the petition in order to seek an update from the Scottish Government on its plans for legislation regarding the SCCRC;
(2) To refer the petition on to another Committee (the Justice Committee) under Rule 15.6.2; or
(3) To close the petition under Rule 15.7. If the Committee decides to close the petition it must state publicly its reasons for doing so. On a strict reading of the petition the Parliament has done what was asked to do and the Scottish Government has responded to say that it does not intend to open an independent inquiry.
Note by the Clerk
PE1370 – lodged November 2010
Petition by Dr Jim Swire, Professor Robert Black QC, Mr Robert Forrester, Father Patrick Keegans and Mr Iain McKie on behalf of ‘Justice for Megrahi’ calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.
Purpose
1. The Committee is invited to agree what action it wishes to take on this petition. This petition has been carried over from the previous session. At the meeting on 1 March 2011, the previous PPC discussed the petition and agreed to keep it open in order to let the incoming committee decide what it wishes to do. The option of passing it on to the Justice Committee was canvassed but given the proximity to dissolution was not acted upon.
Background
2. The previous PPC asked the then Scottish Government whether it would open an independent inquiry. By letter of 7 January 2011, the then Scottish Government responded, saying:
“The Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Mr AlMegrahi. He was tried and convicted by a Scottish court before three judges and his appeal against conviction, heard by a panel of five judges, was unsuccessful. A second appeal, following a referral from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, was abandoned by Mr Al-Megrahi. The conduct of his defence during his trial and the appeals, including his decision not to give evidence at trial and the decision to abandon the second appeal, was entirely a matter for Mr Al-Megrahi and his legal advisors. The Government’s view is that the petition is inviting the Scottish Government to do something which falls properly to the criminal justice system i.e. inquire into whether a miscarriage of justice has taken place. The criminal justice system already provides a mechanism for that to happen. The fact that Mr Al-Megrahi chose to abandon his second appeal rather than pursue it is entirely a matter for him and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to institute an inquiry as a result.”
In response to the question who would have the power to undertake an inquiry in the terms proposed in the petition, the Scottish Government responded in the same letter:
“The Inquiries Act 2005 provides that, to the extent that the matters dealt with are devolved, and criminal justice is devolved, the Scottish Government would have the power to conduct an inquiry. However, the wide ranging and international nature of the issues involved (even if the inquiry is confined to the trial and does not concern itself with wider matters) means that there is every likelihood of issues arising which are not devolved, which would require either a joint inquiry with or a separate inquiry by the UK government. Separately, the Scottish Government intends to bring forward legislation to allow the SCCRC to publish a statement of reasons in cases such as Mr Al-Megrahi's where an appeal is abandoned, subject of course to legal restrictions applying to the SCCRC such as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities.”
3. The previous Committee received written evidence from the following—
Scottish Government letter of 7 January 2011
Petitioner letter of 13 January 2011
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission letter of 7 February 2011
Scottish Government letter of 3 February 2011
Lord Advocate letter of 9 February 2011
Petitioner letter of 16 February 2011
4. More recently, the Petitioner submitted the following further evidence (enclosed with these papers):
• PE1370/G: Petitioner letter of 17 June 2001
• A copy of an article by Stephen Raeburn in The Independent Law Journal [The Firm]
Action
5. The Committee is invited to consider what action it wishes to take; there are three possible options:
(1) To continue the petition in order to seek an update from the Scottish Government on its plans for legislation regarding the SCCRC;
(2) To refer the petition on to another Committee (the Justice Committee) under Rule 15.6.2; or
(3) To close the petition under Rule 15.7. If the Committee decides to close the petition it must state publicly its reasons for doing so. On a strict reading of the petition the Parliament has done what was asked to do and the Scottish Government has responded to say that it does not intend to open an independent inquiry.
Saturday, 25 June 2011
SCCRC Megrahi report discussed on Newsdrive
Steven Raeburn, editor of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm, was interviewed yesterday on BBC Radio Scotland's Newsdrive programme about the reasons for the non-disclosure of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's report on the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. The interview can be heard here, 45 minutes into the programme.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Moolah For Memories…
[This is the heading over a post published today on bensix's blog Back Towards The Locus. It reads as follows (full references and links in the original, but omitted here):]
Richard Marquise, the FBI investigator into the Pan Am bombing, is, as far as I’m aware, the only public figure who’s tried to defend the prosecution. It’s interesting, then, that he does it rather badly.
Anyway, in an interview with OhmyNews, back in 2009, Marquise addressed the evidence that crucial (if unconvincing) witness Tony Gauci was rewarded for his testimony in the form of loadsamoney…
"I can assure you that no witnesses were ever offered any money by anyone…"
When he was interviewed for Gideon Levy’s documentary Lockerbie Revisited Marquise seems to have been more equivocal…
"Richard Marquise states categorically that no money was paid to any of the witnesses before the trial. In relation to witness Tony Gauci, Marquise refuses to say whether any money was paid out after the trial."
After the Al Jazeera documentary – which provided a sceptical view of the investigation – Marquise popped up in the comments at Robert Black’s blog and gave an even weirder response…
"I believe that I and any of my Scottish colleagues could well have testified in Zeist that no witness asked for, was promised or paid money in exchange for saying anything anything."
Let’s all play a game where we answer the relevant question! Was money offered? Given? It seems so…
"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 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.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’."
Witness payments have typically been an issue when the media has offered witnesses moolah for their tales. It’s so controversial that the practice was nearly banned, and is subject to a host of regulations. (One of them, which might interest Lord Fraser, is that any payment or offer of payment must be disclosed to the prosecution and defence.) They’re concerned that the idea of cash might sway the witnesses’ judgements.
Hmm.
Seems like Mr Marquise has some ‘splaining to do.
Richard Marquise, the FBI investigator into the Pan Am bombing, is, as far as I’m aware, the only public figure who’s tried to defend the prosecution. It’s interesting, then, that he does it rather badly.
Anyway, in an interview with OhmyNews, back in 2009, Marquise addressed the evidence that crucial (if unconvincing) witness Tony Gauci was rewarded for his testimony in the form of loadsamoney…
"I can assure you that no witnesses were ever offered any money by anyone…"
When he was interviewed for Gideon Levy’s documentary Lockerbie Revisited Marquise seems to have been more equivocal…
"Richard Marquise states categorically that no money was paid to any of the witnesses before the trial. In relation to witness Tony Gauci, Marquise refuses to say whether any money was paid out after the trial."
After the Al Jazeera documentary – which provided a sceptical view of the investigation – Marquise popped up in the comments at Robert Black’s blog and gave an even weirder response…
"I believe that I and any of my Scottish colleagues could well have testified in Zeist that no witness asked for, was promised or paid money in exchange for saying anything anything."
Let’s all play a game where we answer the relevant question! Was money offered? Given? It seems so…
"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 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.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’."
Witness payments have typically been an issue when the media has offered witnesses moolah for their tales. It’s so controversial that the practice was nearly banned, and is subject to a host of regulations. (One of them, which might interest Lord Fraser, is that any payment or offer of payment must be disclosed to the prosecution and defence.) They’re concerned that the idea of cash might sway the witnesses’ judgements.
Hmm.
Seems like Mr Marquise has some ‘splaining to do.
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Chicken and egg as SCCRC state that no Pan Am 103 documents can be released without “unqualified” consent of all
[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads as follows:]
The full report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which concluded that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi will not be published, the Commission says, because the parties who gave information to it have not all given “unqualified” consent.
However, the only qualification that the board said applied [in the case of Abdelbaset Megrahi himself] was that the other parties had to each consent too.
The First Minister confirmed that the Government would introduce primary legislation to allow the report to be published. The current requirement that the consent of all parties be obtained before publication was however introduced under secondary delegated legislation only.
Campaigners have argued that the restriction could be removed swiftly and easily without recourse to a complex primary legislative process.
In a Freedom of Information request from campaigner William Beck, the Commission was asked which of the named parties who provided information to the Commission had provided their consent, and which had not.
A senior legal officer at the SCCRC said:
“The Commission wrote to a number of the main parties who were responsible, either directly or indirectly, for providing information to the Commission, asking them if they were prepared to provide their consent, in writing, to the disclosure of the information they provided which was contained within the statement of reasons it issued in the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.
“Those parties were the Crown Office, Dumfries and Galloway Police, the Foreign Office, Mr Megrahi and his legal representatives, and Mr Fhimah and his legal representatives. None of those parties gave their unqualified consent to the disclosure of the information.
“Mr Megrahi did not give his unqualified consent to the disclosure of the information he provided which was contained within the statement of reasons the Commission issued in his case.”
The Commissioner referred to a statement placed on the Megrahi: My Story website, which said that in a meeting on April 12th 2010, Megrahi ‘was happy for the documents to be released, providing all the official bodies that provided documents to the Commission agreed to the release of all of those documents.’
“In other words, he consented to the disclosure of all information only if others do so too,” the Commissioner concluded.
No timeframe has been provided from the First Minister for the introduction of the primary legislation he referred to.
[So we know what the only qualification was that Mr Megrahi attached to his consent. It would be interesting to discover what the qualifications were that the other persons and bodies attached. An expansion and clarification by the SCCRC to The Firm of Megrahi's attitude towards disclosure can be read here.]
The full report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which concluded that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi will not be published, the Commission says, because the parties who gave information to it have not all given “unqualified” consent.
However, the only qualification that the board said applied [in the case of Abdelbaset Megrahi himself] was that the other parties had to each consent too.
The First Minister confirmed that the Government would introduce primary legislation to allow the report to be published. The current requirement that the consent of all parties be obtained before publication was however introduced under secondary delegated legislation only.
Campaigners have argued that the restriction could be removed swiftly and easily without recourse to a complex primary legislative process.
In a Freedom of Information request from campaigner William Beck, the Commission was asked which of the named parties who provided information to the Commission had provided their consent, and which had not.
A senior legal officer at the SCCRC said:
“The Commission wrote to a number of the main parties who were responsible, either directly or indirectly, for providing information to the Commission, asking them if they were prepared to provide their consent, in writing, to the disclosure of the information they provided which was contained within the statement of reasons it issued in the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.
“Those parties were the Crown Office, Dumfries and Galloway Police, the Foreign Office, Mr Megrahi and his legal representatives, and Mr Fhimah and his legal representatives. None of those parties gave their unqualified consent to the disclosure of the information.
“Mr Megrahi did not give his unqualified consent to the disclosure of the information he provided which was contained within the statement of reasons the Commission issued in his case.”
The Commissioner referred to a statement placed on the Megrahi: My Story website, which said that in a meeting on April 12th 2010, Megrahi ‘was happy for the documents to be released, providing all the official bodies that provided documents to the Commission agreed to the release of all of those documents.’
“In other words, he consented to the disclosure of all information only if others do so too,” the Commissioner concluded.
No timeframe has been provided from the First Minister for the introduction of the primary legislation he referred to.
[So we know what the only qualification was that Mr Megrahi attached to his consent. It would be interesting to discover what the qualifications were that the other persons and bodies attached. An expansion and clarification by the SCCRC to The Firm of Megrahi's attitude towards disclosure can be read here.]
Megrahi conviction inquiry "can of worms"
[What follows is taken from an article entitled Ideology trumps sovereignty? by Stuart Winton published yesterday on the Better Nation website.]
But the stink over the Supreme Court itself reveals a pro-independence split between the more obvious rights-oriented psyche which supports the court’s intervention on the human rights convention’s right to a fair trial, as opposed to the undercurrent of a more illiberal stance from Mr Salmond and Mr MacAskill.
This is perhaps neatly encapsulated in a Scotsman article by Nationalist historian Michael Fry, who arguably displays little appreciation of the impact of ECHR jurisprudence on Scots law irrespective of the Supreme Court aspect – and instead highlights the dangers of British/English law to Scottish legal independence – but who in any case seems to demonstrates a distinctly anti-rights ethos:
“Till a year or two ago, there were no appeals in criminal proceedings beyond the High Court in Edinburgh. Today there is the possibility of or even the invitation to one for cases somehow involving human rights, and such an appeal will go to the Supreme Court in London. So a back door has been left ajar that could be hard to push to: there may be many cases in which clever and unscrupulous Scots defence lawyers will look for, indeed delight in finding, some aspect of human rights. The vaunted independence of the Scottish judiciary could in this area face the fatal risk of absorption into a British system of justice. And here, as in other areas, British may mean in reality English.”
By the same token, it may also be the case that the first minister and justice secretary are more concerned about the reputation of Scotland’s justice system than justice per se, thus their reaction to the Fraser and Cadder cases are perhaps less about the Supreme Court and the procedural and sovereignty aspects than how its decisions are perceived to reflect badly on the efficacy of an independent Scottish nation. Hence this all may represent a continuation of the misgivings regarding the Lockerbie bomber’s conviction, with al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds reflecting more positively on the SNP’s desired perception of Scotland than the can of worms that an inquiry into the whole affair could represent, as dissenting Nationalist voices demonstrate.
But the stink over the Supreme Court itself reveals a pro-independence split between the more obvious rights-oriented psyche which supports the court’s intervention on the human rights convention’s right to a fair trial, as opposed to the undercurrent of a more illiberal stance from Mr Salmond and Mr MacAskill.
This is perhaps neatly encapsulated in a Scotsman article by Nationalist historian Michael Fry, who arguably displays little appreciation of the impact of ECHR jurisprudence on Scots law irrespective of the Supreme Court aspect – and instead highlights the dangers of British/English law to Scottish legal independence – but who in any case seems to demonstrates a distinctly anti-rights ethos:
“Till a year or two ago, there were no appeals in criminal proceedings beyond the High Court in Edinburgh. Today there is the possibility of or even the invitation to one for cases somehow involving human rights, and such an appeal will go to the Supreme Court in London. So a back door has been left ajar that could be hard to push to: there may be many cases in which clever and unscrupulous Scots defence lawyers will look for, indeed delight in finding, some aspect of human rights. The vaunted independence of the Scottish judiciary could in this area face the fatal risk of absorption into a British system of justice. And here, as in other areas, British may mean in reality English.”
By the same token, it may also be the case that the first minister and justice secretary are more concerned about the reputation of Scotland’s justice system than justice per se, thus their reaction to the Fraser and Cadder cases are perhaps less about the Supreme Court and the procedural and sovereignty aspects than how its decisions are perceived to reflect badly on the efficacy of an independent Scottish nation. Hence this all may represent a continuation of the misgivings regarding the Lockerbie bomber’s conviction, with al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds reflecting more positively on the SNP’s desired perception of Scotland than the can of worms that an inquiry into the whole affair could represent, as dissenting Nationalist voices demonstrate.
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
A legal fable
This is the title of an article just published on the website of the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. Though the article is not on the face of it about Lockerbie, the moral of the story has everything to do with the sort of prosecutorial attitude that resulted in the shocking conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Some Gaddafi regime Lockerbie myths
[What follows is an excerpt from a long report published yesterday on the Libyan (Gaddafi regime supporting) Mathaba news agency website. It is instructive to see the Libyan media peddling myths about Lockerbie that are just as fanciful as those peddled by the Western media (though, of course, very different).]
During the 1990's when Libya was unjustly subjected to a decade of sanctions and no-fly zone by the same colonial powers and the USA, it was African countries that broke the deadlock by refusing to recognise the UN resolutions because those who sponsored them, the usual culprits, had not taken up any initiatives to resolve the issues.
By flying to Libya in violation of the British-American UNSC resolutions, a long-standing plan of Nelson Mandela and Muammar Qaddafi to allow the trial of two Libyans to take place at The Hague in Holland, was finally accepted by the British and Americans, who attempted to pass it off as their own plan.
The Americans paid a Libyan $4 million in order to give false testimony which led to the conviction of one and the release of the other accused, even though both had been charged on the same charges and evidence, and lawyers around the world were stunned. The accused remained in jail for decades, after being transferred to Scotland, and released to die, without compensation.
The initial judges at what was called the "Lockerbie Trial" had resigned ahead of the start of the trial, because of "political pressure exerted upon them to reach a guilty verdict even before the trial had begun", and the trial only started after judges who were willing to go along with the promise to reach a guilty verdict, had been found.
Libya had paid billions of dollars to the families of the victims of the Israeli attack against Pan Am 103, which occurred because of a bomb placed in the skin of the aircraft some weeks earlier with a timer, during a major maintenance overhaul of the Boeing 747 in New York.
As the airliner had been delayed, it blew up over Lockerbie, instead of, as planned, over the Atlantic Ocean where wreckage would not have been found. All VIP, including racist Apartheid South Africa's senior official, various senior American officials, and other VIP's had been taken off the plane before it took off, and mainly students who had been on standby, waiting at the airport to return home to the US for Christmas, took up the seats.
Libya in a deal reached with the US and Britain in order to have the unjust sanctions lifted, gave a statement that "Libya claims responsibility for the actions of its officials", but not at all in reference to any terrorism nor Lockerbie, so that the British and American media could claim that Libya had "claimed responsibility" but adding "for Lockerbie."
To this day many western media, who have not followed the Lockerbie Trial nor developments since, nor bothered to check the facts of the historical record on what statements had been given, continue to wrongly attribute the bombing of Pan Am 103 to Libya, instead of to Israel's MOSSAD.
As the air craft had not meant to be downed over land but far out to sea, within hours of the timer-bomb exploding, the CIA including with helicopters, were on the scene in Scotland, removing evidence, as witnessed by Scottish police and British explosives experts. They could not have arrived so fast, had they not already realised with the delay of take-off, that the plane may crash on land rather than out to sea. The CIA, MOSSAD and Britain's SIS (MI6) work closely together.
During the Lockerbie Trial there was uproar when it was found that the person responsible for briefing the international media during the trial, was exposed as being a senior MI6 officer.
[For the first time in two weeks, the blog yesterday had a visit from within Libya.]
During the 1990's when Libya was unjustly subjected to a decade of sanctions and no-fly zone by the same colonial powers and the USA, it was African countries that broke the deadlock by refusing to recognise the UN resolutions because those who sponsored them, the usual culprits, had not taken up any initiatives to resolve the issues.
By flying to Libya in violation of the British-American UNSC resolutions, a long-standing plan of Nelson Mandela and Muammar Qaddafi to allow the trial of two Libyans to take place at The Hague in Holland, was finally accepted by the British and Americans, who attempted to pass it off as their own plan.
The Americans paid a Libyan $4 million in order to give false testimony which led to the conviction of one and the release of the other accused, even though both had been charged on the same charges and evidence, and lawyers around the world were stunned. The accused remained in jail for decades, after being transferred to Scotland, and released to die, without compensation.
The initial judges at what was called the "Lockerbie Trial" had resigned ahead of the start of the trial, because of "political pressure exerted upon them to reach a guilty verdict even before the trial had begun", and the trial only started after judges who were willing to go along with the promise to reach a guilty verdict, had been found.
Libya had paid billions of dollars to the families of the victims of the Israeli attack against Pan Am 103, which occurred because of a bomb placed in the skin of the aircraft some weeks earlier with a timer, during a major maintenance overhaul of the Boeing 747 in New York.
As the airliner had been delayed, it blew up over Lockerbie, instead of, as planned, over the Atlantic Ocean where wreckage would not have been found. All VIP, including racist Apartheid South Africa's senior official, various senior American officials, and other VIP's had been taken off the plane before it took off, and mainly students who had been on standby, waiting at the airport to return home to the US for Christmas, took up the seats.
Libya in a deal reached with the US and Britain in order to have the unjust sanctions lifted, gave a statement that "Libya claims responsibility for the actions of its officials", but not at all in reference to any terrorism nor Lockerbie, so that the British and American media could claim that Libya had "claimed responsibility" but adding "for Lockerbie."
To this day many western media, who have not followed the Lockerbie Trial nor developments since, nor bothered to check the facts of the historical record on what statements had been given, continue to wrongly attribute the bombing of Pan Am 103 to Libya, instead of to Israel's MOSSAD.
As the air craft had not meant to be downed over land but far out to sea, within hours of the timer-bomb exploding, the CIA including with helicopters, were on the scene in Scotland, removing evidence, as witnessed by Scottish police and British explosives experts. They could not have arrived so fast, had they not already realised with the delay of take-off, that the plane may crash on land rather than out to sea. The CIA, MOSSAD and Britain's SIS (MI6) work closely together.
During the Lockerbie Trial there was uproar when it was found that the person responsible for briefing the international media during the trial, was exposed as being a senior MI6 officer.
[For the first time in two weeks, the blog yesterday had a visit from within Libya.]
Monday, 20 June 2011
Ex Lord Advocate challenged over Pan Am 103 bribery
[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads as follows:]
The former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser of Carmyllie has been challenged by Dr Jim Swire to explain his position after he told an Al Jazeera documentary film crew that he accepted a key witness in the Pan Am 103 trial was bribed by Scottish Police.
Fraser, who was Lord Advocate at the time proceedings were raised against Abdelbaset Al Megrahi and acquitted co-accused Lhamin Khalifa Fhimah, acknowledged that Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci appeared to have been offered financial inducements for his testimony, which ultimately placed Megrahi in Malta, purchasing clothes linked to an explosive device.
Dr Swire said he had watched the documentary, which disclosed the revelations contained in police diaries, in "astonishment", and said that it added to "defects evident in the trial itself, which indicate a dire need for reappraisal of the trial verdict."
"The Al Jazeera programme used material from the diary of Detective Chief Inspector Harry Bell, who had performed a key role in the Scottish police inquiries in Malta. The documentary also highlighted the astonishing provision of 'all expenses paid' holidays in Scotland for the shopkeeper, before he gave his evidence," Swire said.
"During this documentary Lord Peter Fraser, who was Lord Advocate at the relevant times, explained that he was unaware of this offer of money to this key witness, at the time of the trial, but now that it seemed to have been shown to have been the case, he did not believe that the bribe, for such it surely was, had affected Gauci's evidence given under oath in court.
"It would appear to a layman that a bribed witness's evidence should be of little value in a criminal court where 'reasonable doubt' has to be excluded.
"Perhaps initially Lord Fraser would care to explain the position he took 'on camera'," Swire concluded.
Lord Fraser has not made any comment following the broadcast.
The Parliament's petitions committee will hear the fourth presentation from the Justice for Megrahi committee of their application for a full inquiry into the debacle on 28 June.
Swire's letter can be read in full, here.
The former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser of Carmyllie has been challenged by Dr Jim Swire to explain his position after he told an Al Jazeera documentary film crew that he accepted a key witness in the Pan Am 103 trial was bribed by Scottish Police.
Fraser, who was Lord Advocate at the time proceedings were raised against Abdelbaset Al Megrahi and acquitted co-accused Lhamin Khalifa Fhimah, acknowledged that Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci appeared to have been offered financial inducements for his testimony, which ultimately placed Megrahi in Malta, purchasing clothes linked to an explosive device.
Dr Swire said he had watched the documentary, which disclosed the revelations contained in police diaries, in "astonishment", and said that it added to "defects evident in the trial itself, which indicate a dire need for reappraisal of the trial verdict."
"The Al Jazeera programme used material from the diary of Detective Chief Inspector Harry Bell, who had performed a key role in the Scottish police inquiries in Malta. The documentary also highlighted the astonishing provision of 'all expenses paid' holidays in Scotland for the shopkeeper, before he gave his evidence," Swire said.
"During this documentary Lord Peter Fraser, who was Lord Advocate at the relevant times, explained that he was unaware of this offer of money to this key witness, at the time of the trial, but now that it seemed to have been shown to have been the case, he did not believe that the bribe, for such it surely was, had affected Gauci's evidence given under oath in court.
"It would appear to a layman that a bribed witness's evidence should be of little value in a criminal court where 'reasonable doubt' has to be excluded.
"Perhaps initially Lord Fraser would care to explain the position he took 'on camera'," Swire concluded.
Lord Fraser has not made any comment following the broadcast.
The Parliament's petitions committee will hear the fourth presentation from the Justice for Megrahi committee of their application for a full inquiry into the debacle on 28 June.
Swire's letter can be read in full, here.
As Megrahi passes 600-day landmark, was he guilty?
[This is the headline over an article published today on The First Post website. It reads in part:]
The only man ever convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, passes an extraordinary landmark today: assuming he has not been killed by a Nato missile, then he has now survived 600 days beyond the time limit he was given by medical experts in 2009.
A team of doctors who visited him in Greenock prison on July 28, 2009 gave him three months to live because of his worsening prostate cancer. Based on that prognosis, the Scottish government agreed to free him on compassionate grounds and sent him home to Tripoli so that he might die in the bosom of his family. (...)
Families on both sides of the Atlantic who lost loved ones when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in December 1988 were furious that a man found guilty of such a monumental crime should be set free, however ill he might have been. [RB: I saw no sign of such fury from UK relatives of Pan Am 103 victims.]
The fact that he has conspicuously not died from his cancer - and that he was apparently not as ill as the medics believed - has only compounded their fury.
It was hardly surprising that in March this year President Obama announced that if Gaddafi is ousted from power, it will be a condition of the United States working with the Benghazi-based rebels that they find and hand over Megrahi.
Intriguingly, Obama did not say the White House wanted to throw Megrahi back into a prison cell based on his conviction at the 2000-01 trial in the Netherlands. Instead, Obama wants a re-trial under American law. And such a re-trial could exonerate Megrahi.
There is little doubt as the 600 days landmark is reached - and there'll be another 'anniversary' in a few weeks' time when it will be two years since Megrahi was flown home - that the long-rumbling argument that Megrahi was never guilty of the Lockerbie bombing is gaining ground. (...)
Those seeking the truth are now hoping for a legal breakthrough as a result of Scotland scrapping the double jeopardy law which for 800 years prevented a person standing trial twice for the same crime.
Scotland's recently appointed chief prosecutor, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, has set up a double-jeopardy unit to look at recent failed prosecutions. And according to a report last week by the Scotsman, top of his list of potential re-trials is that of Lamin Khalifa Fhimah.
Fhimah, a former station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines, was Megrahi's co-defendant in the 2000-2001 trial, held under Scots law at Camp Zeist, a disused US airbase in the Netherlands. While Megrahi was convicted of murder, Fhimah was acquitted. Gaddafi duly greeted Fhimah on his return to Tripoli in 2001, just as he would welcome Megrahi home eight years later.
According to The Scotsman, Frank Mulholland is examining new evidence against Fhimah. He has also said he would be willing to launch a prosecution against Gaddafi should he be captured alive. And he is eager to speak to Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the former Libyan justice minister who claimed in February to have proof linking Gaddafi to Lockerbie.
Although some victims' families are not sure whether Fhimah was any more guilty than Megrahi, they welcome the chance to throw new light on what they see as an unsatisfactory outcome of the Camp Zeist trial.
Jean Berkley, co-ordinator of the UK Families Flight 103 group, who lost her son in the Lockerbie bombing, told the Scotsman: "We've always been told the investigation remains open, but it never occurred to us they would be coming back for Fhimah.
"Anything that sheds any light we would be interested in. Our concern has been that we were unconvinced by the trial or that the evidence was sufficient to find Megrahi guilty."
A Cumbrian priest, the Rev John Mosey, who lost his 19-year-old daughter at Lockerbie, said: "Having sat through the trial, the first appeal and the second appeal - until it was aborted - I am 95 per cent certain that Megrahi was innocent. There was even less evidence against Fhimah.
"However, the more they look at it, the more possibility they will see that there's something very, very wrong here." [RB: John Mosey, a Protestant pastor, will, I think, be greatly amused to be described as a "priest".]
The only man ever convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, passes an extraordinary landmark today: assuming he has not been killed by a Nato missile, then he has now survived 600 days beyond the time limit he was given by medical experts in 2009.
A team of doctors who visited him in Greenock prison on July 28, 2009 gave him three months to live because of his worsening prostate cancer. Based on that prognosis, the Scottish government agreed to free him on compassionate grounds and sent him home to Tripoli so that he might die in the bosom of his family. (...)
Families on both sides of the Atlantic who lost loved ones when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in December 1988 were furious that a man found guilty of such a monumental crime should be set free, however ill he might have been. [RB: I saw no sign of such fury from UK relatives of Pan Am 103 victims.]
The fact that he has conspicuously not died from his cancer - and that he was apparently not as ill as the medics believed - has only compounded their fury.
It was hardly surprising that in March this year President Obama announced that if Gaddafi is ousted from power, it will be a condition of the United States working with the Benghazi-based rebels that they find and hand over Megrahi.
Intriguingly, Obama did not say the White House wanted to throw Megrahi back into a prison cell based on his conviction at the 2000-01 trial in the Netherlands. Instead, Obama wants a re-trial under American law. And such a re-trial could exonerate Megrahi.
There is little doubt as the 600 days landmark is reached - and there'll be another 'anniversary' in a few weeks' time when it will be two years since Megrahi was flown home - that the long-rumbling argument that Megrahi was never guilty of the Lockerbie bombing is gaining ground. (...)
Those seeking the truth are now hoping for a legal breakthrough as a result of Scotland scrapping the double jeopardy law which for 800 years prevented a person standing trial twice for the same crime.
Scotland's recently appointed chief prosecutor, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, has set up a double-jeopardy unit to look at recent failed prosecutions. And according to a report last week by the Scotsman, top of his list of potential re-trials is that of Lamin Khalifa Fhimah.
Fhimah, a former station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines, was Megrahi's co-defendant in the 2000-2001 trial, held under Scots law at Camp Zeist, a disused US airbase in the Netherlands. While Megrahi was convicted of murder, Fhimah was acquitted. Gaddafi duly greeted Fhimah on his return to Tripoli in 2001, just as he would welcome Megrahi home eight years later.
According to The Scotsman, Frank Mulholland is examining new evidence against Fhimah. He has also said he would be willing to launch a prosecution against Gaddafi should he be captured alive. And he is eager to speak to Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the former Libyan justice minister who claimed in February to have proof linking Gaddafi to Lockerbie.
Although some victims' families are not sure whether Fhimah was any more guilty than Megrahi, they welcome the chance to throw new light on what they see as an unsatisfactory outcome of the Camp Zeist trial.
Jean Berkley, co-ordinator of the UK Families Flight 103 group, who lost her son in the Lockerbie bombing, told the Scotsman: "We've always been told the investigation remains open, but it never occurred to us they would be coming back for Fhimah.
"Anything that sheds any light we would be interested in. Our concern has been that we were unconvinced by the trial or that the evidence was sufficient to find Megrahi guilty."
A Cumbrian priest, the Rev John Mosey, who lost his 19-year-old daughter at Lockerbie, said: "Having sat through the trial, the first appeal and the second appeal - until it was aborted - I am 95 per cent certain that Megrahi was innocent. There was even less evidence against Fhimah.
"However, the more they look at it, the more possibility they will see that there's something very, very wrong here." [RB: John Mosey, a Protestant pastor, will, I think, be greatly amused to be described as a "priest".]
Sunday, 19 June 2011
The photographic identification of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi
This is the title of a paper prepared by Dr Morag Kerr which can be accessed here. It demonstrates, with illustrations, just how suspect was the alleged identification of Abdelbaset Megrahi as the purchaser from Mary’s House in Sliema, Malta, of the items which were in the suitcase with the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.
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