Knox deserved to go free – just like ‘Lockerbie Bomber’

[This is the heading over a section of conservative commentator Peter Hitchens's column in today's edition of the Mail on Sunday. The section reads as follows:]

As it happens, I don’t think the Italian state ever came close to proving beyond reasonable doubt that Amanda Knox was guilty of murder.  So, in a general way, I am pleased that she has been freed.

But compare the frenzy of interest over this rather unimportant case with the strange silence over the equally dubious – but far more important – conviction of the so-called Lockerbie Bomber, the Libyan Abdelbaset Al Megrahi.

One of the key witnesses against him has since admitted to lying in court.

Another, described by a  senior judge as ‘an apple short of a picnic’, shockingly received a $2 million (£1.28 million) reward after giving evidence that many experts regard as highly dubious.

I suspect Megrahi’s release had more to do with the fear of a  final, successful appeal revealing inconvenient facts than it did with ­ British oil interests. If the US had wanted to stop him being freed, they could have. After all, they made us surrender to the IRA.

Confusion over Megrahi interview

[This is the headline over a report by Lucy Adams published this evening on the HeraldScotland website. It reads as follows:]

The Crown Office has written to relatives of victims of the Lockerbie tragedy about allegations the man convicted of the bombing has somehow admitted his guilt.

According to a Reuters interview at the start of the week, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi said: “The West exaggerated my name.” However, newspapers around the globe have quoted this to say that the West exaggerated his role. 

The Crown Office letter to relatives states: “We are aware that Megrahi is reported as having said that his role in the Lockerbie bombing was exaggerated. 

“Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary have been instructed to obtain the whole interview. The translation will be checked for accuracy. As always, we will provide you with more information as soon as it is appropriate to do so and answer as many of your questions as we can.” 

Megrahi, released more than two years ago on compassionate grounds, has consistently denied involvement in the bombing. 

An academic from the University of St Andrews told The Herald yesterday that the translation was different to that reported.

Dina Al Afranji, a teaching fellow at the Arabic department in the School of Modern Languages at the university, said: “In this extract, Megrahi says: ‘I am a very simple man, and the West made a great deal more of me’.”

Reuters stood by its translation of the interview.

Trial by fury…

[This is the heading over an item posted late last night on bensix's Back Towards The Locus blog. It reads as follows:]

It always surprises me how poorly headlines can reflect the facts they purport to digest. I guess it shouldn’t, though. That’s not always their purpose. In yesterday’s Telegraph, for example, I saw the reader-seizing  headline…

Lockerbie bomber: my role in attack has been exaggerated

The Independent plumped for…

My role was exaggerated, says Lockerbie bomber

The implication is that Megrahi admitted to a role in the attack but not as large a one as has been claimed. In its editorial the Scotsman ran with this…

"…what he apparently said was the West 'exaggerated' his involvement – if so, hardly the ringing denial some of his apologists would have hoped for or expected. As has long been suspected, it seems to confirm his involvement at the very least as part of a team rather than a mastermind."

This, however, is the quote we’re given to support this theory…

"The West exaggerated my name."

This sounds ambiguous but the idea that it’s an admission of guilt is premised on a huge assumption. It asserts that he’s been made to seem like somebody he’s not – that, alone, isn’t an admission of anything; it’s merely a denial. The fact that he’s consistently maintained his innocence leads me to feel that if he’d own up to the crime he’d do it less vaguely. (And, besides, if he was complicit I doubt he’d have had a minor role – obviously I don’t know how the man’s brain works but then he could have surely owned up and received a shorter sentence.)

This quote may be relevant…

"In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced."

This might be a reference to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission report, which cast doubt on Megrahi’s prosecution and was set to be released last month.

I’m still drawing no conclusion as to what transpired in December 1988. Clearly, though, I’m a minority there.

'Labour connived to free Lockerbie bomber' says William Hague

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Scotsman.  It reads in part:]

William Hague has unleashed a fierce attack on the former Labour government, accusing it of "conniving" in the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

He also questioned its moral stance on the international stage, in an unusually harsh critique from a foreign secretary. (...)

Singling out the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, Mr Hague added: "They connived in the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Two years ago we said the decision to release al-Megrahi was wrong, and now the whole world can see that we were right." (...)

Mr Hague's direct attack at Labour's stance on the Lockerbie bomber follows a report written by the country's most senior civil servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, which concluded that the Labour government did "all it could" to help facilitate the release of Megrahi in 2009.

While there was no evidence to show they had actively lobbied the Scottish Government to free him, Sir Gus concluded there was an "underlying desire" to see him return to Libya.

He said the information showed UK ministers had changed their position on the transfer of Libyan prisoners due to commercial considerations, including lobbying by oil firm BP.

The Libyans have subsequently claimed Megrahi's fate was "on the table" in the infamous "deal in the desert" conducted by Tony Blair and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2007.

In their defence, Mr Blair and former justice secretary Jack Straw have insisted that their dealings with the former Gaddafi regime helped to persuade him to end his weapons development programme.

He added: "As all the published documentation demonstrates, only the Scottish Government played with a straight bat on this matter."

Waite’s backing

[This is the headline over a short report published today on the HeraldScotland website.  It reads as follows:]

Terry Waite will put his name to Dr Jim Swire’s Justice for Megrahi petition calling for an inquiry into the Lockerbie case and Abdelbaset al Megrahi’s conviction.

The former hostage said the time is right for a case review. 

[The announcement was made in the course of Mr Waite's 2011 SACRO Lecture, delivered last night in Edinburgh.]

Lockerbie bomber’s confession ‘a translation error’

[This is the headline over a report published today (behind the paywall) on the website of The Times.  It reads in part:]

Scottish prosecutors are seeking a copy of an interview with the Lockerbie bomber, in which he appeared to admit that he had played a role in the atrocity.

A spokesman said last night: “We are aware of the interview with [Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi] which was partly broadcast on yesterday’s news. We are also aware that Megrahi is reported as having said in that interview that his role in the Lockerbie bombing was exaggerated.

“Dumfries and Galloway police have been instructed to obtain the whole interview. Once available the translation will be checked for accuracy.”

However, supporters of al-Megrahi claimed yesterday that his apparent admission was a mistranslation.

After the interview, conducted with Reuters news agency from his sickbed in Tripoli, al-Megrahi was widely quoted as saying that his role in the bombing had been “exaggerated”, a word that seemed to suggest that he had been involved in the atrocity. Hitherto he had always protested his innocence.

Robert Black, QC, Professor of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, maintained that the interview had not been translated correctly and that the Arabic word used by al-Megrahi was a different one, which meant to “invent or fabricate” rather than “exaggerate”. [RB: I myself speak no Arabic. I was informed by an Arabic speaker that the word used was "echtera" ( اخترع ) which means "invent, concoct, fabricate".]

Professor Black said: “Far from being a confession, this was actually a vehement denial of any involvement.”

The Reuters news agency, which carried out the interview at al-Megrahi’s home this week, stood by its translation.

The Times, which has studied the original Arabic quoted by Reuters, has established that al-Megrahi used the word “kabbirni” which literally means “made my name bigger” — that is, he meant that the West had made his role seem bigger than it was. Al-Megrahi’s Scottish-based lawyer, Tony Kelly, intervened to warn against interpreting the comments made in the interview as a confession. “He was clearly in some distress and he is on medication, therefore subjecting these comments to any great scrutiny is unfair,” Mr Kelly said.

Al-Megrahi used his first interview in two years to criticise his trial in The Hague, which ended with his conviction for the 1988 terrorist act. He described the proceedings held in the Dutch court under Scots law as a farce and branded prosecutors “liars”.

“The facts will become clear one day, and hopefully in the near future. In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced. The West exaggerated my name. Please leave me alone. I only have a few more days, weeks or months. All my work was administrative. I never harmed Libyans. I didn’t harm anyone. I’ve never harmed anyone in my life,” he said. [RB: Even if "exaggerated" is an accurate translation of the Arabic, this passage does not, on any fair reading, amount to a confession of involvement in the destruction of Pan Am 103.]

Al-Megrahi’s lawyer said that the revelations that al-Megrahi referred to in the interview would be contained in the Libyan’s memoirs, which are due to be published in the near future. The Lockerbie bomber’s autobiography will contain details of the appeal he was planning to make against his conviction. (...)

Al-Megrahi also revealed that one of the relatives of a Lockerbie victim is helping him to secure powerful new drugs that could help prolong his life.

Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, Flora, in the bombing, believes that al-Megrahi is innocent and has offered to help him locate medicine that could help his condition. Dr Swire said: “I don’t believe this man murdered my daughter so I’m happy to help, and as a doctor I can’t discriminate — if someone needs help I must give it.”

[A letter headed The truth must be fearlessly pursued from Dr John Cameron in today's edition of The Scotsman contains the following:]

The performance of the Italian forensic team [in the Amanda Knox case] was deplorable and on a par with that seen in the prosecutions of Detective Constable Shirley McKie and Megrahi. Yet Italy can be proud that its system is self-righting while our judiciary still struggles to admit culpability in the manifestly unsafe verdicts on McKie and Megrahi.

[A letter from David Flett in the same newspaper reads as follows:]

Mr Megrahi promises us fresh new facts in the coming months that will add to his claim of innocence.

Could he perhaps be referring to publication of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) report?

It's ironic that while we lambast Westminster, Libya and the USA for not revealing all information in their possession we here in Scotland keep hidden the findings of a four-year independent investigation into the case.

It's obvious to me that all our politicians and our own justice system lack the stomach to pursue the Lockerbie truth.

So it was therefore further disappointing to see our very own Scotsman newspaper appear to misquote Megrahi and suggest a "confession" had taken place, adding yet another untruth to the mountain of untruths.

Police ask for a copy of Megrahi's television interview

[This is the headline over a report by David Cowan just published on the STV News website.  It reads as follows:]

Dumfries and Galloway Police will carry out their own translation of the interview carried out by Reuters.

Dumfries and Galloway Police have been instructed to obtain a copy of the first television interview given by the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi since his release from a Scottish jail more than two years ago.

The Reuters news agency reported that Megrahi told them "his role in the Lockerbie bombing had been exaggerated."

If the agency's interpretation of what was said was correct, it would have been the Libyan's first ever acknowledgement that he played any part at all in the bombing of Pan Am 103 and the murder of 270 people.

In the 20 years since Megrahi was first named as a suspect he has consistently denied any involvement.

But according to Reuters' own translation, Megrahi's actual words were only: "The West exaggerated my name."

In the rest of the interview, he denies having ever harmed anyone, and says the "facts" about the bombing will become clear "hopefully in the near future."

Some of Megrahi's supporters have disputed the agency's translation of the interview.

The Crown Office has told STV News it is seeking a copy of the full interview to establish exactly what was said.

A spokesman commented: "We are aware of the interview of Megrahi which was partly broadcast on yesterday's news.

"We are also aware that Megrahi is reported as having said in that interview that his role in the Lockerbie bombing was exaggerated.

"Dumfries and Galloway police have been instructed to obtain the whole interview. Once available the translation will be checked for accuracy."

The process could take some time. It's standard practise for British television stations to decline to hand over their footage unless ordered to do so by the courts.

Megrahi's death bed 'confession'

[This is the headline (which at least puts "confession" within quotation marks) over the report in today's edition of The Scotsman on Abdelbaset Megrahi's Reuters interview. It reads in part:]

The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has for the first time appeared to admit that he did play some role in Britain's biggest mass murder.

After more than a decade protesting his innocence, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi said his role in the attack on Pan Am flight 103, which claimed 270 lives, had been "exaggerated". (...)

In his first public statement in more than two years, he indicated he knew more about the truth of the bombing when he said: "The facts will become clear one day, and hopefully in the near future. In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced."

The remarks were seized upon by politicians in Scotland who said the former Libyan intelligence agent's comments showed he now "did not deny playing a part" in the 1988 attack.

Megrahi had previously described his conviction as a "miscarriage of justice" and described himself as an "innocent man", in a series of outright denials. (...)

In the interview, Megrahi attacked the proceedings of the trial, held in a Dutch court under Scots law, as a "farce" and branded prosecutors "liars". (...)

 He said: "The facts [about the Lockerbie bombing] will become clear one day, and hopefully in the near future. In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced. The West exaggerated my name. Please leave me alone. I only have a few more days, weeks or months."

"All my work was administrative. I never harmed Libyans. I didn't harm anyone. I've never harmed anyone in my life."

Robert Black, QC, a Professor of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said on a blog that part of the interview with Megrahi had not been translated correctly and that the Arabic word used translates not as "exaggerate", but as "invent, concoct, contrive, think up, manufacture, fabricate". Reuters, however, stood by its translation. [RB: This matter is easily resolved by any journalist with a measure of initiative. Was the Arabic word used by Megrahi in the sentence given in English as "The West exaggerated my name"  a form of

اخترع ? If so, is the correct translation of that word "exaggerate" as Reuters contend or "invent, concoct, contrive, think up, manufacture, fabricate" as I contend?]

Shadow justice minister Johann Lamont said Megrahi's statement that "the West exaggerated my name" was an admission of some involvement in the attack, as the interview re-opened the controversy over the SNP government's decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds in August 2009.

Ms Lamont insisted Megrahi "was guilty of playing a part in the bombing" and suggested he knew more than he claimed. (...)

Dr [Jim] Swire repeated his view that Megrahi had been "framed" and said that what were likely to be the Libyan's final public comments showed he was a "decent chap" who had been in the "wrong place at the wrong time".

He went on: "There's nothing to suggest that he was linked to the attack and the evidence never held water.."

SNP MSP Christine Grahame said: "He was put up as a fall guy, who perhaps was expected to get off, but didn't. He was put in a position that suited Libya and suited everybody."

[Further articles in The Scotsman based on the false premiss that Megrahi said that his role had been "exaggerated" can be read here and here.

The coverage of this issue in Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.]

"I didn't harm anyone. I've never harmed anyone..."

[The following are excerpts from a Reuters news agency report published this afternoon:]

Al-Megrahi, released from a Scottish prison two years ago because he was suffering from terminal cancer, spoke to Reuters from a bed at his home in Tripoli. Looking frail and his breathing laboured, he said he had only a few months, at most, left to live.

"The facts (about the Lockerbie bombing) will become clear one day and hopefully in the near future. In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced," he told Reuters Television over the pinging of medical monitors around his bed.

"The West exaggerated my name. Please leave me alone. I only have a few more days, weeks or months." (...)

Al-Megrahi, who had served as an intelligence agent during the rule of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, denied any role in the human rights abuses committed by Gaddafi's administration.

"All my work was administrative. I never harmed Libyans," he said." I didn't harm anyone. I've never harmed anyone in my life."

He called the trial that led to his conviction a farce. The proceedings were held in a Dutch court under Scottish jurisdiction.

"Camp Zeist Court is the smallest place on earth that contains the largest number of liars. I suffered from the liars at Camp Zeist Court more than you can imagine," he said.

Al-Megrahi lay propped at a slight angle in a hospital-style bed. An oxygen tank stood nearby, but he did not use an oxygen mask during the interview. Members of his family were in the room with him.

Unshaven, he wore a checked shirt and had a white headdress wrapped loosely around his head.

He said that Jim Swire, a father of one of the victims of the bombing who has disputed the court's findings, maintained contact with him.

"The day before yesterday, Dr Swire sent me an email to tell me that there is a new medicine. He is trying to help me. He told me how to get this medicine."

He said had little knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Gaddafi's overthrow and that the armed groups which toppled Gaddafi had invaded his home and mistreated him.

"I don't know anything about February 17th...that's not a question for a sick person," he said, using the term by which many Libyans describe the anti-Gaddafi rebellion. "I hear airplanes overhead every day," he said, referring to NATO planes which have bombed sites in Libya.

"My house has been violated. They smashed the main door and stole my cars."

He said he was being denied medical treatment which he said was stipulated in the deal that saw him returned from Scotland to Libya.

"I was treated badly when I came back. During the latest incidents, especially in the last month, I have a shortage of all my medicines. My doctor tells me to look for medicine like anyone else despite the agreement between us and Britain," he said. "I have four pills left (of one of the medications)."

"I want to die in my house, among my family. I hope to God that I will see my country united, with no fighting or war. I hope the bloodshed will stop in Libya. I wish all the best for my country."

[It is annoying that the summary that introduces this report states that Megrahi told Reuters "his role in the attack had been exaggerated". This is not, of course, what he said.  But such is the laziness of the media, it is undoubtedly what will be headlined, as in this report on the BBC News website. (I see that the headline over the BBC News report has now -- 17.15 -- been changed.)

I am informed that the Arabic word used by Mr Megrahi in the interview was اخترع

which translates, not as "exaggerate", but as "invent, concoct, contrive, think up, manufacture, fabricate".

This blog post has been picked up by Newsnet Scotland in a report headlined Leading QC attacks BBC over ‘misleading’ Megrahi headline.]

Megrahi release sees trade treble

[This is the headline over a report (behind the paywall) published today on the website of The Sunday Times.  It reads in part:]

A significant growth in trade between the UK and Libya, following the Lockerbie bomber Megrahi’s release, suggest a government bargain

Politicians are facing fresh claims of a “trade for terrorist” deal over the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi after it emerged that the value of business between Scotland and Libya trebled in the year following his release.

Official government figures show the value of deals with Libya, which threatened to terminate energy and defence contracts with Britain unless Megrahi was freed, rose from £33m in 2008 to £104m in 2010.

The value of imports and exports with Qatar, which also lobbied Scottish ministers to free Megrahi on behalf of the 22 member states of the Arab League, more than doubled from £60m to £137m over the same period.

Britain’s trade with Qatar increased four-fold, from £802m to £3.2 billion, while the value of its deals with Libya rose 34% to £1.66 billion.

Declassified documents have previously shown that Gordon Brown’s government tried to help secure Megrahi’s release to safeguard trade with Libya.

The Scottish government insists its decision was based on compassionate grounds after Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Megrahi is still alive, more than two years after his release. (...)

 A Labour spokesman said the trade figures were “extremely surprising” and raised questions for Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister. [RB: If the trade figures -- which relate to Britain, not Scotland -- raise questions, they are surely questions for the then Labour Government of the UK.  Perhaps realisation of this is the reason why the "Labour spokesman" hides behind a cloak of anonymity.

Addendum 
The print version of this report on page 5 of the Scottish edition of The Sunday Times identifies the Labour spokesman as James Kelly MSP. It ends with the following sentence: "Qatar officials denied offering the Scottish government any inducement to release Megrahi."]

Freeing Megrahi deepened mistrust of politicians, says Terry Waite

[This is part of the headline over a report in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday.  It reads in part:]

Kenny MacAskill's decision to free the Lockerbie bomber has deepened the public's mistrust of politicians, Terry Waite will say when he gives a lecture in Scotland this week.

 

The former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury will suggest that the public outcry over the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi has undermined the credibility of politicians.

Speaking before he travels north of the Border, Waite, who spent five years in captivity at the hands of Islamic Jihad, said he believed in compassionate release for terminally ill prisoners. (...)

Yesterday, Waite said he will address the Megrahi issue this week when he talks on "Compassion and Justice" at the annual SACRO lecture at Edinburgh University's Playfair Library.

"I don't believe in being soft on crime or criminals, but I hold to the principle of compassion," Waite told Scotland on Sunday.

"But the public outcry (over Megrahi] reveals a couple of things: what a complex and miserable issue it is, and it reveals a certain lack of confidence or trust by the general public in those who have been in a position to make decisions on these matters. Generally the public are not terribly trustful that they are being told the truth - that politicians are necessarily telling the truth."

An epistolary exchange (continued)

[On 6 September 2011 this blog featured a three-item correspondence between barrister and author David Wolchover and the Scottish Government under the heading An epistolary exchange. Here are two further items:]

4.  28 September 2011

Dear Mr Wolchover
‘Thank you for your further e-mails of 2 September and 12 September regarding earlier correspondence on the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

As we made clear in our earlier reply and you quoted in yours, "An independent judiciary is a cornerstone of Scottish justice. It would not be appropriate for Government to cast doubt on the decisions taken by judges who have listened to all the evidence and reached a decision in a case."

This should be taken to mean exactly what it says. The Scottish Government does not doubt the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi.

Insofar as Ministers have ever had a duty in respect of possible miscarriages of justice, that responsibility passed in 1999 to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. This development has been widely welcomed both for further removing Ministers from involvement in the decisions of the criminal courts and for allowing greater scrutiny of cases than was formerly possible. Since its inception the SCCRC has referred over 100 cases, including that of Mr al-Megrahi, to the High Court.

Thank you for writing to us with your views.’

Lockerbie Team
Scottish Government

5.  29 September 2011

Dear Mr [...]

I thank you for your message. It is gratifying to discover that it took a feature article by me in that internationally renowned weekly, the Jewish Chronicle - an article which has "gone viral" on the internet - to elicit a response to letters which I was led to suspect were deliberately and therefore discourteously going unanswered in the belief that I would not bother to pursue the correspondence. How wrong you would have been! In fact I was in the process of drafting a further chaser (by way of capitalising on the article) when your message came in and I note with some surprise that you make no mention of the article, as if your response was a pure coincidence.

It is with some justice therefore that I described the Scottish Government's position as "stonewalling." 

I do not wish to get caught up in semantics but I am afraid that I am bound to disagree with the implications of your reasoning.

With respect, contrary to what you aver the admittedly defensible (if pusillanimous) position that "[i]t would not be appropriate for Government to cast doubt on the decisions taken by judges who have listened to all the evidence and reached a decision in a case" does not equate to the statement that the Government "does not doubt the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi." 

Incidentally, I think you meant "the safety of Mr al-Megrahi's conviction." Few doubt he was convicted.

As I pointed out in my previous letter, there is a principled difference between on the one hand the executive studiously regarding itself as constitutionally debarred from making a public judgment on a judicial decision (whether to agree or disagree) and on the other hand collectively making a positive avowal of agreement with it. The statement "I do not doubt" a certain proposition unequivocally expresses a value judgment. 

However, I concede the possibility that such judgment may be arrived at either by a personal consideration of the facts or vicariously. Thus, you (and the unidentified earlier spokesperson/correspondent) may have been meaning to imply that the government have adopted the following position: "We as a cabinet implicitly trust the opinion of the judges on this matter. They have asserted such and such is the case, and by reason of our absolute confidence in their authority, expertise and wisdom we do not doubt they are right though we have not studied the facts ourselves."

So I modify my original questions to you. 

1. Have the cabinet considered the facts of the case in depth?

2. If not, have they collectively resolved to express a vicarious confidence in the judges' decision?

3. If the latter, when was that determination made?

4. If they have not made such a resolution was the decision to pronounce confidence in the verdict made on behalf of the government by certain cabinet members (eg the First Minister, the Minister of Justice, the Lord Advocate) without consulting the rest of the cabinet? 

5. Was there any discussion over the question whether to go beyond simply stating that it was not the cabinet's place to make a value judgment on the merits?

6. If the decision to pronounce confidence in the verdict was made by the cabinet collectively was there nonetheless any dissent?

Please forgive my inquisitiveness, but the destruction of Pan Am 103 is a matter of such considerable international importance and the trial verdict now so controversial, if not widely discredited, that it is surely right to seek an account of the process by which the Government of Scotland came to make a pronouncement of confidence in the verdict.
 

Perhaps when the Libyan National Transitional Council becomes a little more confident it will no longer feel the need to kowtow to official Scottish amour propre and may begin to apply the sort of pressures to which I referred in my article.

David Wolchover

Lockerbie: CIA made US State Department attorney ‘lie’ to UN Security Council

This is the headline over an article by Patrick Haseldine published today on Dr Christof Lehmann's NSNBC website.  It deals with the published views of Michael Sharf, the US State Department lawyer who drafted the UN Security Council resolutions that imposed economic sanctions on Libya following the refusal to extradite Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah after they were accused by the United States and the United Kingdom of being responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103. Mr Sharf (now a professor at Case Western Reserve Law School in Cleveland, Ohio) is reported as saying that the case was “so full of holes it was like Swiss cheese” and should never have gone to trial. The article can be read here.

Libya ready to probe possible other Lockerbie suspects

[This is the headline over a report published yesterday by the Reuters news agency.  It reads in part:]

Libya's interim justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi said on Wednesday he was ready to work with Scottish authorities to probe the possible involvement of others in the Lockerbie bombing apart from the sole Libyan convicted for the attack.

His remark at news conference reversed a position he took only on Monday, when he said that as far as Libya was concerned the case of the bombing of the U.S.-bound airliner over the Scottish village of Lockerbie with the loss of 270 lives was closed.

Scottish prosecutors had asked Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) to give them access to papers or witnesses that could implicate more suspects in the attack, possibly including deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Asked on Wednesday about his response to this request, he said through an interpreter: "I'd like to confirm that we are accepting any facts that might arise in this regard, if there is any suspicion about any other person." 

He added: "We will cooperate in this regard with whoever has any other facts, according to international treaties." (...)

Alagi added on Wednesday that he welcomed the possibility of an investigation into the possibility of others' culpability because "this will lead to the acquittal of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who has been unjustly convicted in this case". 

[Today's edition of The Scotsman contains a related report, as does The Herald which, for some reason, does not see fit in its report to mention the portion of Mr Alagi's statement that I have italicised above. This aspect is, however, stressed in the news item in Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm.]

Lockerbie: time for us to reveal the true culprits

[This is the headline over an article by David Wolchover published today on the website of The Jewish Chronicle.  It reads as follows:]

The Arab Spring may have heightened tensions between Egypt and Israel but, on the upside, it also achieved Colonel Gaddafi's overthrow. Strangely, this could actually benefit the Jewish state - but only if Libya takes the initiative.

With Gaddafi gone, the world could recognise, finally, that the perpetrators of the Lockerbie bomb were not from the Libyan secret service, did not include the man who was ultimately convicted, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, and indeed had nothing to do with Libya. The world could learn that the culprits were the original suspects, a gang of Palestinian terrorists. 

As it takes its first steps, the new Libyan leadership will likely want to remove the stigma of Libya's association with the atrocity of December 1988 and seek international acceptance of al-Megrahi's innocence. A democratic Libya could wield a good deal of clout if it applied the sort of economic and diplomatic pressures Gaddafi used to secure al-Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds to urging the Scottish and British governments to declare him innocent. And they may be pushing at an open door. 

It is no conspiracy theory to claim that the case against al-Megrahi and Libya was manifestly absurd, or that the government knows that. Any study of the details of his trial, a decade ago at Camp van Zeist in Holland, will reveal that, unbelievable as it seems, the Scottish judges who convicted him and rejected his appeal made an utter hash of the evidence. Moreover, they actually missed a key piece of evidence which, alone, would have been enough to sink the prosecution.

The Scottish government say they "do not doubt the safety" of al-Megrahi's conviction, a statement which implies a rational consideration of the evidence. Yet they have stonewalled on revealing whether the cabinet ever actually deliberated on the issue. 

They know they are on weak ground. A little prodding from a powerful, influential, oil-rich country looking to restock its armoury and they will admit the obvious.

How do we know the true culprits were Palestinian terrorists? In July 1988, the battle cruiser USS Vincennes shot down IranAir flight 655 over the Straits of Hormuz. The Americans were steeled for a terrorist response and the Western intelligence community was tipped off, probably by Mossad, that a deal to carry out such an attack had been struck between Iran and Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, "General Command". This was a Syrian-based ultra-extremist splinter group of the PFLP, with an active cell in West Germany. The deal was that Iran would pay them a bounty to destroy an American civil airliner departing from a European airport. 

As a result, the West German police set up the "Autumn Leaves" surveillance operation, whereby a CIA proxy double-agent named Marwen Khreesat, an expert bomb-maker from Jordan, was infiltrated into the cell. He built a number of similar improvised explosive devices (IEDs) one of which was virtually identical to that which brought down Pan Am flight 103 a mere two months later. 

The device was removed from under his nose and delivered to the cell's airport security expert, Abu Elias. Khreesat tipped off his control in Jordan and the police immediately swooped, rounding up members of the cell and seizing a second device, also virtually identical to the Lockerbie bomb.

"Abu Elias was never seized and the missing IED was never recovered, two facts enough in themselves to prompt the strongest suspicion. Combined with other compelling circumstantial evidence they plainly connected the cell with the bombing."

This is not conspiracy theory. It is non-contentious stuff, most of it given in evidence at Camp Zeist. Yet the judges turned a blind eye to the obvious and based their decision on a series of weak findings. What the Scottish judges did not appreciate was the utter horror Khreesat's CIA controllers must have felt in the aftermath of the Lockerbie tragedy: that a bomb made by their proxy in pursuance of his cover on their behalf was almost certainly used to bring down the Pan Am jet. 

Therein lies the clue to why attention was drawn away from Iran and the PFLP-GC and why Libya became the scapegoat. But Israel has no need to defer to the embarrassed sensibilities of a handful of long-retired CIA staffers. Nor need it wait for pressure to build up from the new Libyan leadership.

Benjamin Netanyahu's government might not want to be seen too openly pressing for al-Megrahi's vindication and the corresponding condemnation of Palestinian extremists. Yet behind the scenes they ought to be attempting to secure that outcome. It can do Israel no harm for the world to learn that her enemies were paid $4.5 million to murder 11 residents of Lockerbie, and 259 innocent passengers, of all religions.