Setback in probe into truth behind Lockerbie

[This is the headline over a report published by The Herald on 10 February:]

Hopes of uncovering the full facts about the Lockerbie bombing have suffered a setback as the Libyan Government grapples with rebuilding the war torn country, it emerged yesterday.

It is understood files that could potentially reveal what the Gaddafi regime knew about the atrocity have yet to be opened up.

And the detailed process of going through the documents could even have to wait until after next year's General Elections.

The trial of Colonel Gaddafi's son, Saif, also faces delay amid wrangling between the new Libyan Government and the International Criminal Court.

And it is believed Libya's interim government has to repair the justice system before the Gaddafi officials in custody can be interrogated by UK police. This must be done to ensure any evidence obtained is admissable in future prosecutions.

Despite the problems, the UK expressed hopes yesterday that police investigating the Lockerbie bombing could visit the North African state soon.

There has been intense speculation about the secrets high-ranking officials in the Gaddafi regime could reveal.

The seizing of thousands of files from his Government's ministries has also raised hopes they contain crucial clues about what Colonel Gaddafi. who ruled Libya for almost three decades, knew about the bombing.

On a visit to the UK last week, Libya's Interior Minister assured the UK Government his administration was committed to doing all it could to help the investigation into the bombing. (…)

Diplomats said Mr Abdilal had been clear in his commitment to the inquiries during his visit.

"This is an issue we have raised at pretty much every high level meeting that we have had," said one senior diplomat.

"He said he was very happy for his ministry and others to co-operate with us on these issues. The commitment is there to work with us."

But he added: "They are just themselves working to overcome a violent conflict and grappling to sort out their ministries and archives and it might take them a little bit of time." (…)

The new ruling Government first announced it would co-operate with police investigating the Lockerbie bombing in the aftermath of victory in the uprising.

Dumfries and Galloway Police, which is leading the Lockerbie investigation, recently increased the number of officers on the case in anticipation of visiting Libya to collect more evidence. Last year officers from the force interviewed Moussa Koussa, the former foreign minister, when he was in briefly based in London following his defection.

Cabinet Secretary for Justice speaks in Dumfries

[What follows is a from a report in today's edition of the Dumfries & Galloway Standard about a visit to Dumfries by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill:]

Mr MacAskill was in Dumfries to meet with Chief Constable Patrick Shearer and also to see the work of probationary officers and those taking part in firearms training.

His visit came as further moves were being made in the inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing.

The Scottish Government is trying to get round data protection legislation so that a top secret document drawn up by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) can be released.

It was looking at the possibility of a miscarriage of justice in the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi but was never published after he dropped his appeal.

Mr MacAskill said: “The Lockerbie investigation remains and open file. Dumfries and Galloway (police) are acting under the instructions of the Lord Advocate because although Mr Megrahi is convicted by a Scottish court, no-one ever suggested that he acted alone, so the file has never been closed.

“Dumfries and Galloway and representatives of the Crown are working at that.

“In terms of the Scottish Criminal Case Review, we are committed to doing what we said as a government and that is to be as open as we can be.

“I accept, I’ve never seen the document and I’m not allowed to see the document, that there are difficulties in data protection. That is a matter that we have raised with Lord Clark, the Lord Chancellor south of the border, [sic: the Lord Chancellor is, of course, Mr Kenneth Clarke] and I am glad that he has engaged and is discussing with SCCRC.

“So, we are doing what we have to do to show wiling and to try and achieve the openness and transparency that we think is necessary.

“Where matters go after that is not a matter for me, it’s for the courts of law but I stand by the conviction that there is in the Scottish courts.

“If that has to change, then that it would be a matter respected by me.”


[What these last three sentences are intended by Mr MacAskill to convey is (at least to me) a mystery.]

Further Ashton-McLetchie correspondence

A further exchange of letters between Megrahi biographer John Ashton and Scottish Conservatives justice spokesman David McLetchie MSP can be read here.

 

The Megrahi: You are my Jury website now contains downloadable versions of documents relevant to the appeal which was abandoned when Abdelbaset Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds. These were previously available only on the Megrahi: My Story website.  The advertisement for John Ashton's book on the publisher's website can be read here.

Official Report of Justice Committee evidence hearing

The Official Report (Hansard) of the session of the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee held on Tuesday, 7 February 2012, at which evidence was taken (from Justice for Megrahi representatives amongst others) has now been published and can be read here.

[Following the Justice Committee session, the Scottish Conservatives issued a press release which reads as follows:]

Evidence given to the Justice Committee this morning has raised doubts over the effectiveness of the SNP Government's planned legislation to release documents detailing the reasons behind the release of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi.

Sir Gerald Gordon QC, a member of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), said that the publication of details would be hampered by data protection laws. Meanwhile, founding member of the Justice for Megrahi campaign, Dr. Jim Swire, confirmed that Megrahi would not consent to the release of certain information during his lifetime.

Scottish Conservative Justice Spokesman, David McLetchie MSP said:

"Sir Gerald Gordon's comments underline that this Bill will prove ineffective and the SNP Government should stop wasting parliamentary time in pandering to the Megrahi lobbyists.

"The fact is that Megrahi himself would block the release of all the evidence by refusing his consent, as was acknowledged by Dr. Swire and other campaigners today.

"Accordingly, having dropped his appeal in order to get out of jail courtesy of Kenny MacAskill, it appears he now only wants a partial release of information at least so as long as he is still alive. That is not my idea of justice."

[On the issue of Megrahi’s consent to disclosure, here is the statement that he issued on 30 June 2010:]

It has recently been wrongly reported that Mr Al-Megrahi refused to give his consent for the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to release documents relating to him, referred to in the Commission’s Statement of Reasons on his case, and its appendices, that he and his lawyers provided, either directly or indirectly, to the Commission. 

The true position is that Mr Al Megrahi, through his Libyan lawyer, made it clear to the Commission in a meeting on April 12th 2010 that he 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. These bodies include the police, the Crown Office, the Foreign Office, and the intelligence service, or services, which provided the secret documents referred to in Chapter 25 sources of the Statement of Reasons. 

Mr Al Megrahi’s position has always been, and remains, that all information relating to the case should be made public.


[An exchange of correspondence on this issue between David McLetchie MSP and Megrahi's biographer John Ashton can be found here on the Megrahi: You are my Jury website.]

SCCRC disclosure Bill hearing

Media accounts of yesterday's appearance by Justice for Megrahi representatives before the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee can be found here in The Scotsman; here in The Courier (a newspaper with a wide circulation in Tayside and Fife); here from The Press Association news agency; and here (with a video of the proceedings) on the BBC Open Democracy website.

Justice Committee hearing on SCCRC disclosure Bill

The Scottish Parliament Justice Committee’s hearing of evidence on Part 2 of the Criminal Cases (Punishment  and Review) (Scotland) Bill will take place tomorrow (Tuesday, 7 February) at 10am in Holyrood’s Committee Room 1.  The agenda for the meeting can be read here and the written submissions to the committee here. 

Apart from representatives of the Justice for Megrahi campaign group, those scheduled to give evidence are Sir Gerald Gordon QC (the member of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission who was in charge of the investigation into the Megrahi conviction), Mr James Chalmers of the University of Edinburgh School of Law and two representatives from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

A press release issued by Justice for Megrahi  contains the following:

10.00 hrs    Dr Jim Swire, Len Murray, Robert Forrester and Iain McKie all members of the JFM committee give evidence to the Justice Committee.

11.00 hrs    Dr Swire and the above available for interview/photographs. 

BACKGROUND TO EVIDENCE

Justice for Megrahi argue that the Criminal Cases (Punishment  and Review) (Scotland) Bill instead of making the publication of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s (SCCRC) report,  which  concluded a miscarriage of justice may have befallen Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, easier in reality effectively blocks such a release.  In its submission the committee state:

“A cynic might suspect that Part 2 of the Bill has been deliberately designed to ensure that no useful disclosure of SCCRC material is possible under its terms…….Whether or not that is its purpose that is its effect.”

“It is submitted that the Justice Committee should recommend to the Scottish Government that, if it genuinely wishes to see meaningful disclosure of SCCRC material in the Megrahi case, it should (a) reconsider the possibility of proceeding by statutory instrument and (b) formulate a scheme which, unlike the one set out in the Bill, is designed to achieve rather than impede this objective.”

All Change at Libya's London Embassy

[This is the headline over an article published yesterday on the website of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.  It reads in part:]

The Libyan embassy in London’s Knightsbridge area has had an unsettling history.

Its predecessor, the Libyan People’s Bureau in nearby St James Square, made global headlines in 1984 when an unidentified staffer opened fire on protestors outside and killed policewoman Yvonne Fletcher.

When the mission relocated to its current premises, its high-ceilinged rooms continued to be staffed by intelligence officials often close to Muammar Gaddafi’s family and tribe, and tasked with protecting the dictator’s UK interests as he and his sons snapped up prime London real estate.

Then, as the regime crumbled in August 2011, diplomats tried unsuccessfully to channel money out of embassy bank accounts, and to sell off the four-storey yellow brick building along with its fleet of cars before Britain expelled them.

A newly-arrived deputy head of mission, Ahmed Gebreel, has now taken their place. Along with the ambassador, he is waiting to be joined by a five-member diplomatic team from Tripoli.

Gebreel, a softly-spoken foreign policy expert experienced in talking to the media, does not represent a complete break with the past. A career diplomat, he was previously posted at the United Nations in New York, where he represented the Gaddafi government as second secretary before defecting from the regime. (…)

Britain, meanwhile, has been pushing the embassy and the NTC to take action on PC Fletcher’s killing and on the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people shortly before Christmas 1988.

Gebreel said the NTC was currently going through a difficult phase, as it prepared for an election for an assembly to draft a new constitution, and reorganised government ministries that used to be largely run according to Gaddafi’s personal whim.

“We will be open to discuss these issues [PC Fletcher and Lockerbie] in the future after we pass this difficult period,” Gebreel said, adding that the NTC takes both cases very seriously.

“They are not minor issues,” he added. “My personal feeling, [with] the Yvonne Fletcher issue, it’s time to find out who committed that crime,” and to hold them accountable.

On Lockerbie, he said the Libyan people had been secondary victims to the atrocity because they lived under sanctions for a crime for which they were not responsible.

“If Gaddafi was the one who committed that crime, then he did not suffer. The Libyan people were the ones who paid,” he said. “I personally wish Gaddafi was caught alive and was questioned about all the crimes and all the secrets he had.”

Megrahi biography is to be published

[This is the headline over an article by Lucy Adams in today’s edition of The Herald.  It reads as follows:]

The publication of the official biography of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was announced yesterday.

The 500-page paperback, Megrahi: You Are My Jury, will be published this spring by Edinburgh-based Birlinn.

The book is expected to reveal new evidence exculpating Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Libyan man convicted of the bombing.

Its summary states: "You know me as the Lockerbie bomber. I know that I'm innocent. Here, for the first time, is my true story: How I came to be blamed for Britain's worst mass murder, my nightmare decade in prison and the truth about my controversial release. Please read it and decide for yourself. You are now my jury."

Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of the bombing which killed 270 people in December 1988, but served just eight years of his 27-year sentence in Scottish prisons before being released in August 2009 on compassionate grounds. He has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and doctors predicted he had less then three months to live.

The book by writer, researcher and television producer John Ashton is expected to reveal swathes of new information.

He has been involved with the Lockerbie case for the past 18 years and was previously a researcher with Megrahi's defence team.


[A facebook page for the book can be found here and a Twitter account    @MegrahiURmyJury.]

"Arise, Sir Jim"?

[The Caledonian Mercury today has a feature in which Dave Hewitt suggests six possible candidates for the knighthood going begging now that Fred Goodwin no longer has it.  One suggestion reads as follows:]

Jim Swire already has a title – doctor – but he deserves a bigger one. He is the father of Flora, one of the on-the-plane victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing in 1988, and has worked tirelessly – and one fears fruitlessly – to try and establish the truth of what happened in that terrible event.

Lockerbie and everything after is more obscured by governmental deceit and political smokescreening than almost any incident of terrorism – and, whatever one thinks about Dr Swire’s belief that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is not the guilty party, he deserves great credit for remaining the honest and humble man amid a sea of criminal dissembling and murky geopolitics.

Against Dr Swire, in the current political climate, is that he was schooled at Eton – but his having been born in Windsor ought to make the investiture side of things go smoothly, in satnav terms at least. By rights he should get something with the word Nobel written across it – but Goodwin’s knighthood would do pretty well to be going on with. It would, at the very least, restore some credibility to a tarnished award.

US 1998 Lockerbie freedom of information request still outstanding

[The following is an excerpt from a report headlined Slow Responses Cloud a Window Into Washington published in The New York Times on 29 January 2012.  It reads in part:]

Is a FOIA delayed a FOIA denied? (...)

On Jan 4, The New York Times received a final response from the Defense Department to a FOIA request made on June 1, 1997. The department sent it by Federal Express, Priority Overnight.

The courts have ruled that government agencies must respond to FOIA requests in 20 days. But The Times’s case was hardly a record; some requests are approaching 20 years old. (...)

The National Security Archive, a nonprofit group based in Washington that is a heavy user of the Freedom of Information Act, reported last July 4, on the 45th anniversary of President Lyndon B Johnson’s signing of the law, on some older cases that were still open. Those included a 1995 request for information on Pakistani surface-to-air missiles and a 1998 request to the George Bush Presidential Library for documents relating to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The bombing happened in 1988.

Eleven years of injustice

It was eleven years ago today that the judges of the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist delivered their verdict of Guilty against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (and Not Guilty against Lamin Fhima) for the murder of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie. The Opinion of the Court justifying the verdicts can be read here. In the version originally issued on 31 January 2001, in the very first sentence, their Lordships mis-stated the date of the disaster. This is indicative of the quality of the Opinion as a whole. [RB: This is a modified excerpt from the post that appeared on this blog on the tenth anniversary of the Zeist verdict.]

Tory justice spokesman David McLetchie MSP on Megrahi

[Holyrood magazine today publishes a long article about the views of recently-appointed Scottish Conservative Party justice spokesman (and former leader) David McLetchie MSP.  It reads in part:]


The government last month published a bill that could permit publication of information about the case against the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. It has been said the Criminal Cases Bill would let the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission decide whether information it gathered and referred to the Appeal Court should be published.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi abandoned his second appeal days before he was sent home to Libya on compassionate grounds.

Campaigners want case papers released, but that has so far been prohibited by law. For the documents to be released, the SCCRC needed the consent of the main parties involved, which include the Crown Office, the police and the Foreign Office.

McLetchie said: “I think it is interesting that the Scottish Government’s official position is that it doesn’t doubt the safety of Megrahi’s conviction. We have this obsession about Megrahi and although they say they don’t doubt the conviction, clearly they do as they are playing to that gallery.

“It would appear there are barriers in terms of the release of statements of reasons to do with data protection, which is reserved, and also issues over official secrets, so there are quite a lot of barriers over which the Scottish Parliament can do nothing.

“To my mind it is quite simply grandstanding, it is pandering to a view that Megrahi is innocent, it is pandering to all the conspiracy theorists and if they [the Government] really don’t doubt the safety of the conviction then what are they wasting our time for?

“I would be surprised if all of this ends up being released into the public domain at the end of the day and I think it’s time to draw a line under this but suspect it won’t be until Megrahi passes away.” It is not a view that will deter Megrahi campaigners. In recent years, there has been growing support for the idea that the Libyan may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. It is one of several issues that convince McLetchie his new job will be far from dull.

He added: “We are at a time when the police is about to go through major reform and there is some important legislation coming through the parliament. As we’ve seen in the last few years, the justice brief plays a significant role in terms of politics and policy and I expect that very much to continue throughout this parliament too.”

S7 in the firing line as Justice Committee defend the role of the SCCRC and recommend repeal

[This is the headline over a news item published today on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm.  It reads as follows:]

The Justice Committee has issued a strongly worded defence of the Scottish Criminal Cases review Commission and rejected two recent legislative attempts to interfere with its remit contained in the much maligned “emergency” legislation in the wake of the Cadder decision, and Lord Carloway’s review of criminal law.

The committee challenged whether introducing additional hurdles into the role of the Commission was in the interests of justice or warranted by its volume of business.

It said that the committee was “surprised” that Lord Carloway had sought to restrict access to the SCCRC by introducing a further test for cases.

“Emergency legislation passed in the wake of the Cadder case gave the High Court of Justiciary the power to reject a reference from the SCCRC if the Court, having regard to the need for finality and certainty in criminal proceedings, considered that it was not in the interests of justice to accept the reference,” the committee said.

“The Committee appreciates that the main purpose of this provision was to prevent a possible flood of references in the wake of the Cadder judgment involving individuals convicted mainly on the basis of information volunteered during detention, without access to a solicitor having been offered.

“However, as Lord Carloway’s report noted, the legislation gave the High Court a “gate-keeping role” relating to the interest of justice, that formerly rested only with the SCCRC, and which applied to all cases, not just those raising Cadder points. Lord Carloway further noted that that anticipated flood has not, in fact, materialised, and recommended that the relevant provisions in the emergency legislation be repealed. In doing so, he noted that the gate-keeping role assigned to the High Court was in principle inconsistent with the functions originally vested by Parliament in the SCCRC.

“Given the overall thrust of Lord Carloway’s argument, the Committee was surprised to note that, alongside this recommendation, Lord Carloway recommended restating the test for the High Court in determining whether to allow an appeal arising from an SCCRC reference as follows: (a) that there has been a miscarriage of justice, and (b) that it is in the interests of justice that the appeal be allowed.

“Whilst the first leg of the test, being a restatement of the current position, is unobjectionable, practically all witnesses to express a view, queried the purpose of the second leg.”

The letter said that the recommendation amounted to dismantling the gates at the bottom of the driveway only in order to reassemble them at the entrance to the front door.

Justice Committee Convener Christine Grahame MSP said the Committee had seen no evidence to suggest that this is a problem.

The vexed s7, introduced to the surprise of the legal community, was also challenged, and its repeal urged on the basis that it gave “undue prominence” to the need to reflect finality in court cases.

The section had been perceived as an attempt to target the ongoing Abdelbaset Al Megrahi case, and stymie any further possible appeal that may be lodged by his family or campaigners upon his death.

“Another point to arise in evidence was that the opportunity should be taken to repeal a second element of the emergency legislation; provision requiring the Commission itself to take into account finality and certainty in deciding whether to make a reference to the High Court,” she said.

“The SCCRC witness argued that the SCCRC did, in practice, consider these matters in deciding whether to make a reference, but said that the statutory test imposed by the emergency legislation gave these criteria undue prominence, especially given that the very existence of the SCCRC is an exception to the general principle that there should be finality and certainty in the judicial process.”

Justice for Megrahi's written evidence to Justice Committee

[The Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm has this evening published the following report about the written evidence submitted by the Justice for Megrahi campaign group to the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee:]

The Justice for Megrahi group have lodged a written submission to the Scottish Government outlining why it believes the Scottish Government should amend its position and move to lift the block preventing publication of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s report, which concluded a miscarriage of justice may have befallen Abdelbaset Al Megrahi.

The group had been invited to participate in the parliamentary consultation process on the Criminal Cases (Punishment and Review) (Scotland) Bill.

The group argue that the bill manufactures a block on the release of the paper, which could be removed by a statutory instrument.

“A cynic might suspect that Part 2 of the Bill has been deliberately designed to ensure that no useful disclosure of SCCRC material is possible under its terms,” the group said in its submission.

“Whether or not that is its purpose, that is its effect,” it adds.

“The reasons for proceeding by primary legislation rather than statutory instrument which are given in paragraphs 63 to 65 of the Policy Memorandum are wholly unconvincing: they completely fail to address the issue that a statutory instrument would override common law and statutory obligations of secrecy and confidentiality whereas Part 2 of the Bill does not and cannot.

“It is submitted that the Justice Committee should recommend to the Scottish Government that, if it genuinely wishes to see meaningful disclosure of SCCRC material in the Megrahi case, it should (a) reconsider the possibility of proceeding by statutory instrument and (b) formulate a scheme which, unlike the one set out in the Bill, is designed to achieve rather than impede this objective.”

The group argue that the Bill removes the requirement of obtaining the consent of the person who supplied information to the SCCRC, but conversely also requires the SCCRC to notify and seek the views of the person who supplied the information and also “of any person directly affected by it".

“It provides a detailed (and cumbersome) mechanism to permit such persons to object to disclosure and (if the SCCRC rejects the objections) to permit them to take legal action to try to block the disclosure,” the group says.

“Under the Bill, common law and statutory obligations of secrecy or confidentiality could be founded upon by the suppliers of the information, or any persons directly affected by it, in any legal action taken by them to block disclosure. But if a statutory instrument were used by the Scottish Ministers to remove the restriction on disclosure -- the mechanism which is specifically mandated in section 194K(1)(f) -- these common law and statutory obligations of secrecy or confidentiality would be overridden.”

The full submission can be read here.

Lockerbie bombing inquiry police officer numbers raised

[This is the headline over a report published today on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]

Additional police officers have been drafted into the Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary team investigating the Lockerbie bombing in 1988.

The inquiry has been scaled up following regime change in Libya.

Chief Constable Patrick Shearer said that the extra resources required for the probe had been supplied by the Scottish government. (...)

The overthrow and death of Col Muammar Gaddafi last year opened up a possible opportunity for investigators to explore the role of others in the bombing.

The Crown Office has already asked the new authorities in Libya for help with the inquiry.

As a result, Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, which has led the Lockerbie investigation from the start, has increased staffing levels within its inquiry team.

Detectives from the local force have already questioned Libya's former Foreign Minister Musa Kusa who fled to London when Col Gaddafi's regime started to fall.A spokesman for Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary said that for operational reasons it could not reveal the number of officers it had added to its inquiry team.

[Unless the police inquiry is prepared to investigate conscientiously the material that has come to light casting grave doubt on the Zeist trial's verdict against Abdelbaset Megrahi (including material uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission) the new staffing and resources will be a complete waste of time and money and will achieve no more than the "one man with a feather duster" that has been the pretext over the years for the police and Crown Office claim that the Lockerbie investigation was still live. 


The treatment of this issue by Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be found here.  The coverage of the story in the edition of The Herald for Wednesday 25 January contains the following: 'The Crown Office said: "The transitional Government of Libya has agreed to allow officers from Dumfries and Galloway police to travel to Libya for inquiries into the involvement of others with Mr Megrahi."'  So here we have confirmation from the horse's mouth of the scope of this "investigation".]