MacAskill rejects Lockerbie claims

[This is the headline over a report published this afternoon on the heraldscotland.com website. It reads as follows:]

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill today rejected allegations that he urged the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing to drop his appeal to smooth the way for his compassionate release.

Mr MacAskill came under pressure from opposition parties to make an immediate statement to the Scottish Parliament following the publication of the semi-autobiographical book Megrahi: You Are My Jury on Monday.

In the book, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi claims Mr MacAskill held a "private" discussion with Libyan foreign minister Abdulati al-Obedi in which "he gave him to understand that it would be easier to grant compassionate release if I dropped my appeal".

But in a statement to MSPs, Mr MacAskill said "these claims are wrong", adding that he would be "entirely comfortable" with the appeal being reopened.

He also confirmed that there is a mechanism for the appeal to be reopened even after Megrahi's death.

Mr MacAskill said: "Scottish Government officials were present throughout my meeting with Mr al-Obedi.

"At no time did I or any other member of the Scottish Government suggest to Mr al-Obedi, to anyone connected with the Libyan government, or indeed to Mr al-Megrahi himself, that abandoning his appeal against conviction would in any way aid or affect his application for compassionate release."

He added: "The Scottish Government had no interest whatsoever in Mr al-Megrahi's appeal being abandoned.

"I had no involvement in Mr al-Megrahi's decision to drop his appeal against conviction - that was entirely a matter for him and his legal team."

He said MSPs would want to know whether there is a mechanism for an appeal still to be heard, even posthumously.

He said: "I can confirm to the Chamber that there is.

"It would involve an application being made for a further reference by the SCCRC (Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission), the Commission deciding to make a reference and for the High Court to accept such a reference.

"These, of course, are not matters for me as Justice Secretary to decide upon.

"These are decisions for others to make, but I think it is important that we as a Parliament are aware of the position.

"I neither sought the abandonment nor continuation of Mr al-Megrahi's appeal, it is not for me to either seek or oppose a potential appeal, posthumous or otherwise.

"That is correctly a matter for others, and I would have every confidence in the Scottish criminal justice system were there to be another appeal. That is a matter I would be entirely comfortable with."

[Another report can be found here on the BBC News website; here on the STV News website; and here on the Daily Record website.]

We should beware forensic evidence to secure convictions

[This is the headline over an article by Dr John Cameron, physicist and former Church of Scotland minister, in today’s edition of the Scottish Review.  It reads as follows:]

I first became involved in the Lockerbie case when Nelson Mandela asked the Church of Scotland to support his efforts to have Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction overturned. 

As an experienced lawyer, Mandela studied the transcripts and decided there had been a miscarriage of justice, pointing especially to serious problems with the forensic evidence. I was the only research physicist among the clergy and was the obvious person to review the evidence to produce a technical report which might be understood by the Kirk.

Scientists always select the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions to eliminate complicated constructions and keep theories grounded in the laws of science. This is 'Occam's razor' and from the outset the theory that the bomb entered the system in Malta as unaccompanied baggage and rattled around Europe seemed quite mad. I contacted everyone I knew in aviation and they all were of the opinion it was placed on board at the notoriously insecure Heathrow and that the trigger had to be barometric.

The Maltese link is so tenuous, complex and full of assumptions it depends almost totally upon the integrity of the three forensic scientists involved – and that was a big problem. Megrahi is the only person convicted on their evidence whose conviction was not reversed on appeal.

One of the UK's foremost criminal lawyers, Michael Mansfield, has long warned against our judiciary's gross over-reliance on forensic evidence to secure convictions. He said: 'Forensic science is not immutable and the biggest mistake anyone can make is to believe its practioners are somehow beyond reproach. Some of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history have come from cases in which the forensic science was later shown to have been grossly misleading.'

There is, in fact, a kind of 'canteen culture' in forensic science which encourages officers to see themselves as part of the prosecuting team rather than seekers after truth. The scientific evidence points to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [-General Command] whose chief bomb-maker, Marwen Khreesat, was arrested in Frankfurt in December 1988.

In the boot of his car was a Toshiba cassette recorder identical to the one found later at Lockerbie with Semtex moulded inside it, a simple time delay and a barometric switch.

[In the same issue there is a contribution by David Hill which reads in part:]

With John Ashton's book blowing to smithereens any shred of credibilty left clinging to the guilty verdict on Al Megrahi (despite the BBC's selective and timid account of it) [The Herald]  led today [Tuesday 28 February] with a minor distraction about how or why the appeal was abandoned.

I know no sensible or well-informed person who believes the 'evidence' presented at the travesty at Camp Zeist would have got through a sheriff court.

I know no sensible or well-informed person who is now confident that Al Megrahi was guilty. And I recognise a growing conviction on the part of most of these preople that the sentence passed on Al Megrahi was the result of a pre-ordained and absolutely disgusting stitch between the US and the UK governments and the government of Libya to send, for whatever reasons, an innocent man to jail.

As the revelations have trickled out over the years it has become more and more probable that some in authority in Scotland were involved and I remain puzzled as to why the present Scottish Government, not in power at the the time of the trial, is dragging its feet.

I have assumed for some time that the UK, the US and particularly the Libyans have had every reason to fear an inquiry, whether a public inquiry or an Al Megrahi appeal, but once our newspapers see it as their obligation to cover up for those in power these newspapers are beyond any respect.

...the media and the Scottish Parliament totally miss the point...

[What follows is from an item headed The Transatlantic relationship posted today on the website Lockerbietruth.com maintained by Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph:]

 

With the launch of John Ashton's book Megrahi: You are my Jury, once again we see a furor about what Kenny McKaskill said  to whom about the compassionate release of Al-Megrahi.  And once again the media and the entire Scottish Parliament totally miss the point.

In a closely argued section, Ashton highlights a serious discrepancy in the evidence of British forensic scientist Alan Feraday.  Feraday's own hand-written notes prove that the electronic print on the alleged fragment of timer board found by Dr Thomas Hayes is not the same metal printed on the control MST-13 timer board supplied by Swiss manufacturers MEBO. 

Feraday wrote that the Hayes fragment printing was 100% pure tin, but that the MEBO control sample printing was an alloy composed of 70% tin and 30% lead.  He explained the difference by saying that the heat of the explosion had evaporated all - yes, 100% - of the lead content.  A highly doubtful theory indeed.  No tests were carried out at any stage to back up his theory.

In other words, Feraday's own notes provide strong evidence that the Hayes fragment might be a manufactured plant, designed to point the finger at Libya, and divert attention from Iran in America's strategic interests during the mid and late 1980's. 

This information was supplied to Al-Megrahi's defence team in 2009 only during the course of the second appeal, abandoned at an early stage to enable Al-Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds.  It should, under rules of natural Scottish justice, have been available prior to the trial which took place in 2000. But it was concealed by the police, forensic services and the Crown Office for more than ten years. 

If Iran - who paid $11m to the Jibril terrorist group only two days after the attack - was responsible, then the bomb which brought down Pan Am 103 was constructed by Marwan Khreesat, career master bomb maker for the PFLP-GC. Khreesat was a double agent working for Jordanian security, and rumoured to be a CIA asset. 

In a set of hearsay notes recorded by the FBI and repeated during the Lockerbie trial, Khreesat claimed "He did not think he made the Lockerbie bomb". As a career mass-murderer and double and possibly triple agent, can we trust his word?  We doubt it. 

But the Lockerbie trial judges did trust his word.  Then let us ask for a moment what would have happened if they had not. If they had expressed doubt concerning the timer fragment, their verdict would have suggested that the bomb which killed 270 people at Lockerbie was made by an asset working for America.  

Could the relationship between Britain and America have survived the shock?  And is this question not of far more import than a ministerial statement in a Scottish parliament?

Lockerbie reward claim

[This is the headline over an article by Lucy Adams in today’s edition of The Herald, in which she expands upon the “Lockerbie reward” revelations made yesterday in John Ashton’s article in the Scottish Review. It reads as follows:]

A letter, seen for the first time, claims the Crown Office was aware of an application for reward money paid out to key Lockerbie witnesses.

The letter, from Detective Chief Superintendent Tom McCulloch – the senior investigating officer in the later stages of the case – to the US Justice Department, asks for a reward of $2 million for Tony Gauci and $1m for his brother Paul.

Most significantly, though, it states the Crown Office was aware of the plan to pay two of its key witnesses and had been consulted about it.

The revelation comes after an official biography of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi alleged Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill encouraged the Libyan to drop his appeal.

Mr MacAskill has denied the claims and will today mount a strong rebuttal before MSPs at Holyrood.

The letter was sent on April 19, 2002, after Megrahi's unsuccessful first appeal, but documents unearthed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission discovered financial rewards had been discussed with the Gauci brothers even before they gave their first statements. [RB: my italics]

However, the Crown Office has denied that they were complicit in any payments to witnesses.

Paying witnesses is not considered acceptable practice in Scotland – although it is common in the US.

If a witness was paid for giving evidence, the Crown would be expected to disclose the fact to allow for cross-examination by the defence.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission report says Mr Gauci's "alleged interest in financial payment" was capable of "affecting the course of the evidence and the eventual outcome of the trial".

The Crown denies payments were made before the outcome of the appeal, but arguably any information on Mr Gauci's alleged interest in financial payment should have been made available to the defence.

In the letter, Mr McCulloch states: "I am writing to confirm the submission by Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary for payment of a reward to Anthony and Paul Gauci.

"At the meeting on April 9, I proposed that $2m should be paid to Anthony Gauci and $1m to his brother Paul.

"Given the exceptional circumstances of this case, which involved the destruction of a United States aircraft with the loss of 270 innocent lives and the subsequent conviction of a Libyan intelligence agent for this crime, I would invite those charged with approving the reward to ensure the payments made to Anthony and Paul Gauci properly reflect not only the importance of their evidence, but also their integrity and courage.

"I have consulted with Crown Office about this application for payment of a reward.

"The prosecution in Scotland cannot become involved in such an application.

"It would therefore be improper for the Crown Office to offer a view on the application, although they fully recognise the importance of the evidence of Tony and Paul Gauci to the case."

A spokesman for the Crown Office said: "It is nonsense to suggest the Crown was complicit in the payment of rewards to witnesses or that it turned a blind eye to such matters.

"The letter from DCS McCulloch was sent to the US authorities after the conclusion of appeal process in 2002 and sets out clearly the Crown's position. No witness was offered any inducement by the Crown or the Scottish police before and during the trial and there is no evidence that any other law enforcement agency offered such an inducement."

A Government spokesman said Mr MacAskill was "extremely happy" to make a parliamentary statement to MSPs. 


[In an article headlined Big question that needs answered on Abdalbaset al-Megrahi in today's edition of The Scotsman, columnist Brian Wilson writes:]

What everyone should be seeking in this matter is the truth and not its concealment. Elected parliamentarians should be the spearhead of that ambition, rather than acting as a political shield against it.

As a society, we owe it to the victims of Lockerbie to get as close to that truth as possible – an obligation that is not diminished by the passage of time. The Court of Appeal would have been by far the best place for the completion of that process. We were denied that outcome. The questions are – why and by whom?

Why was Megrahi's defence team kept in dark about vital evidence?

[This is the headline over a letter from Dr Jim Swire published in today’s edition of The Herald.  It reads as follows:]

I hope the launch of the book Megrahi: You Are My Jury will make a lot of people aware of just how compromised the Lockerbie case at Camp Zeist was, and what the implications are ("MacAskill under pressure over Megrahi appeal claim", The Herald, February 28).

The question of whether or not Muammar Gaddafi's awful clique was involved should now be seen as a tactic by those powerful entities who wished to divert attention from the awful truth; a tactic which the unfortunate Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi found himself involved in.

The picture that now emerges is that neither Megrahi nor Malta was involved, there was no evidence of the use of a long-running timer from Malta and that the real improvised explosive device (IED) was probably delivered through a break-in at Heathrow and triggered by falling air pressure in the aircraft. The IED was one of a series manufactured in Damascus and (West) Germany by bomb-maker Marwhan Khreesat, a Jordanian probably in the pay of the Americans, but ostensibly working within the Palestinian terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), led by Ahmed Jibril, a relative of Basher al Assad's father. All Khreesat's IEDs in 1988 exploded after about 38 minutes in the air. It was 38 minutes from the Heathrow tarmac when Pan Am flight 103 was over Lockerbie.

This was avoidable. Frank Mulholland, the Lord Advocate, told me last Thursday that the Crown Office had tried all it could to discover why it was that evidence about the Heathrow break-in "disappeared" until after the verdict against Megrahi had been reached. It tried but it failed.

Since the Khreesat-type bombs could not be flown into Heathrow (they would explode en route) the question of the break-in looks rather central to the question of how this atrocity was perpetrated.

This Heathrow material would probably have stopped the trial had it been available, yet despite staff at Heathrow having been interviewed by the Metropolitan police in January 1989 about the break-in, the Lord Advocate accepts he is unable to discover why the Met files "disappeared".

It is time for a fully empowered inquiry in which the investigating Scottish police and the Crown Office should be required to answer as to why so much vital material, on both the alleged timer fragment and the Heathrow break-in, was not provided for the defence's use at appropriate times.

[In the same newspaper is a letter from Iain A D Mann which contains the following:]

Your leader article ("Lockerbie and the pursuit of truth", February 28) is right to conclude that an independent public inquiry is the only way of finally getting the whole truth and bringing an end to this long drawn out affair which has caused so much heartache to relatives of the victims.

Have Mr MacAskill's department, the Crown Office and the legal establishment closed ranks, in a misguided attempt to protect the reputation of the Scottish justice system and the Camp Zeist trial process? I am afraid that reputations have already been badly tarnished by the public perception of secrecy, delay and obfuscation.

MacAskill’s statement to parliament – the key issues

[This is the heading over an item posted today by John Ashton on his website Megrahi: You are my Jury.  It reads as follows:]

The Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, will later today (29 February) make a statement to the Scottish Parliament. [RB: Mr MacAskill's statement is due very shortly after the commencement of today's session at 1430 GMT.]  The move is in response to – or, more accurately, in response to media reports and political statements relating to – the following passage of Megrahi: You are my Jury (which appears on p354):

On 10 August, MacAskill and his senior civil servants met a delegation of Libyan officials, including Minister Al-Obedi, the Libyan Supreme Court Judge Azzam Eddeeb, and the London Chargé d’Affaires Omar Jelban. By this time I was desperate. The 90-day limit for considering the prisoner transfer application had passed and, although I had some vocal public supporters, MacAskill was coming under considerable pressure to reject both applications. After the meeting the Libyan delegation came to the prison to visit me. Obedi said that towards the end of the meeting, MacAskill had asked to speak to him in private. Once the others had withdrawn, he stated that MacAskill gave him to understand that it would be easier to grant compassionate release if I dropped my appeal. He said he was not demanding that I do so, but the message seemed to me clear. I was legally entitled to continue the appeal, but I could not risk doing so. It meant abandoning my quest for justice.

It’s clear from this passage that Abdelbaset does NOT allege either that MacAskill said anything along those lines to him directly, or that MacAskill offered to grant compassionate release in return for Abdelbaset dropping his appeal.  It’s a common trick of politicians to deny allegations that have not been made. Let’s hope that MacAskill’s statement doesn’t.

MacAskill will also be facing questions from MSPs. There is only one question that he must answer: did he at any point indicate to Obedi that it would be easier for him to grant Abdelbaset’s compassionate release application if he dropped his appeal?

If the answer is a categorical no, then it is Obedi’s word against his and there, perhaps, the matter will rest. If it is anything less than a flat denial, then the question is unlikely to go away.

The Scottish Government has, of course, already made a statement about the matter.  Yesterday a spokesman claimed that the book is “third-hand hearsay” and stated:

These claims are wrong – and officials were present at all meetings the Justice Secretary had on this matter at all times. The minutes of this meeting and indeed all other meetings, including with Mr Megrahi in Greenock Prison, were published by the Scottish Government and have been in the public domain since September 2009.  We can say categorically that neither did the Scottish Government have any involvement of any kind in Mr Megrahi dropping his appeal, or indeed any interest in it. That was entirely a matter for Mr Megrahi and his legal team.

MacAskill himself said: It was always a decision for Mr al-Megrahi whether he maintained or abandoned his appeal, the decision I made was not predicated in any case on that, but that was a matter for him and his legal team.

I’ll deal with these points in turn.

Third-hand hearsay. Abdelbaset is clear in this section of the book that the conversation was hearsay, albeit not third-hand.

These claims are wrong. It’s not clear exactly what claims the Government was responding to. It’s very unlikely that they had a copy of the book, so it’s probable that the spokesman was responding to a report – possibly an inaccurate one – of its contents. (A number of media reports claimed, wrongly, that the book alleges that a deal was done.)

 … officials were present at all meetings the Justice Secretary had on this matter at all times” If this is true, the question remains: did Mr MacAskill at any point, whether out of the earshot of others or not, say to Mr Obedi that it would be easier for him to grant Abdelbaset compassionate release if Abdelbaset dropped his appeal?

The minutes of this meeting and indeed all other meetings, including with Mr Megrahi in Greenock Prison, were published by the Scottish Government and have been in the public domain since September 2009. This is hardly relevant. If MacAskill asked to have a conversation in private, we might infer that he meant, inter alia, that it would not be minuted. It also raises the question, were the minutes contemporaneous?

We can say categorically that neither did the Scottish Government have any involvement of any kind in Mr Megrahi dropping his appeal, or indeed any interest in it.  This falls well short of a denial that the conversation reported by Obedi took place. It is disingenuous to claim that the Government had no interest in Abdelbaset’s decision. Had the appeal gone ahead, it would have cast the Scottish criminal justice, and the Crown Office in particular, in a very poor light.

That was entirely a matter for Mr Megrahi and his legal team. In fact it was entirely a matter for Abdelbaset. His legal team made clear to him that he was under no obligation to drop his appeal and did not advise him that it might help his application for compassionate release.

It was always a decision for Mr al-Megrahi whether he maintained or abandoned his appeal No one has claimed otherwise.

 … the decision I made was not predicated in any case on that, but that was a matter for him and his legal team. Abdelbaset quite clearly does not claim that MacAskill’s decision was predicated on whether or not he dropped the appeal.

Aljazeera's "Lockerbie: Case closed"

The final broadcast of this documentary is on Aljazeera English tomorrow (Thursday, 1 March) at 0600 GMT. However, it can now also be seen here on You Tube.

Kenny MacAskill to make statement on claims he advised Megrahi to drop appeal

[This is the headline over a report published this evening on the STV News website.  It reads in part:]

Kenny MacAskill is to make a statement to Holyrood in the wake of claims he advised the Lockerbie bomber to drop his appeal to smooth the way for his release.

The allegations, strongly denied by the Scottish Government, are contained in a new book about the bomber which was published on Monday.

In the wake of the allegations, the Justice Secretary, who controversially freed Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in August 2009 on compassionate grounds, faced calls from opposition politicians to make a statement to Holyrood.

He will now do that, and answer questions from MSPs on the matter, on Wednesday afternoon.

On Monday, a spokesman for the Scottish Government categorically denied that it "had any involvement of any kind in Mr Al-Megrahi dropping his appeal".

The spokesman insisted that had been "entirely a matter for Mr Al-Megrahi and his legal team".

He also branded the book Megrahi: You Are My Jury, by writer, researcher and TV producer John Ashton, as being "third-hand hearsay".

Mr MacAskill decided to free the Libyan - the only person convicted of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988 which killed 270 people - on compassionate grounds. (…)

Mr Ashton's book claims Mr MacAskill met a delegation of Libyan officials ten days before announcing his decision, including foreign minister Abdulati al-Obedi.

In the book, Megrahi said: "Obedi said that towards the end of the meeting, MacAskill had asked to speak to him in private. Once the others had withdrawn, he stated that MacAskill gave him to understand that it would be easier to grant compassionate release if I dropped my appeal."

Mr Ashton, who studied the Lockerbie case for 18 years and spent three years as a researcher with the bomber's legal team, said yesterday: "Mr Megrahi makes clear in the book that it was made clear to him by the Libyan official who met with Mr MacAskill that it would help his case for compassionate release if he dropped his appeal."

The author added that Megrahi "felt very strongly that dropping the appeal would help his application for compassionate release".

Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats all called on Mr MacAskill to make a statement to the Scottish Parliament in the wake of the book's allegations.

However the spokesman for the Scottish Government said on Monday the claims in the book were "wrong".

They added: "Officials were present at all meetings the Justice Secretary had on this matter at all times."

[A shorter report can be read here on the BBC News website.

Abdelbaset Megrahi does not claim in the book that Kenny MacAskill directly advised or pressurised him to drop his appeal.  The advice is said to have been conveyed through Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, then the Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister with special responsibility for European relations.  Of all the Libyan officials with whom I had dealings over the years, Obeidi was the most trustworthy and transparent. However, he was very keen indeed to secure the repatriation of Megrahi in time for the fortieth anniversary of the Gaddafi revolution. My suspicion (for which I have no evidence whatsoever) is that Obeidi may have misunderstood something that MacAskill said to him or have interpreted something neutral through the prism of his desire to achieve Megrahi's return to Libya. I also know that Obeidi still had a lingering feeling that repatriation would ultimately be achieved through prisoner transfer, which he was under the impression (not unjustifiably) had been agreed to by Tony Blair in the "deal in the desert". For prisoner transfer, of course, abandonment of the appeal was essential.  I had on several occasions informed Obeidi that Tony Blair was not in a position to secure transfer of a prisoner in a Scottish prison; but I was never wholly confident that he actually got the message. "But Tony told us!" was a frequent refrain.]

Lockerbie: Case closed

[The description of the Lockerbie: Case closed documentary on the Aljazeera website reads as follows:]

Wednesday, December 21, 1988 was the longest night of the year, the night of the winter solstice. At 6.30pm that evening Pan Am Flight 103 took off from London Heathrow airport en route to JFK New York. On board Clipper Maid of the Skies, as it was called, were 16 crew members and 243 passengers, many of whom were carrying Christmas gifts in their luggage for family and friends.

But also in the baggage hold was a brown Samsonite suitcase, packed with new clothes and a Toshiba radio cassette player. Investigators later determined that hidden in the Toshiba were some 450 grammes of high explosive and an electronic timer. At 7.03pm as the plane was 31,000 feet over Scotland, the device exploded. A little under a minute later, 200,000 pounds of Kerosene ignited as the wings and part of the fuselage fell onto the small Scottish town of Lockerbie. All on board were killed, so too were 11 residents of Lockerbie - 270 innocent people murdered by a terrorist bomb.

Twenty-three years later, the scene changes to a small house on the outskirts of Tripoli in Libya, where the only man found guilty of causing those events lies helpless in bed. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, whom the world knows as the Lockerbie bomber, is dying of prostate cancer. For the first, last and only time he is about to give a television interview about his case - and he is to tell Al Jazeera that new evidence will prove that he was wrongly convicted. 

The Lockerbie disaster was Europe's worst terrorist outrage - more civilians died than in any other attack before 9/11. It has also become the most infamous. The events of that night, the painstaking police forensic investigation that followed, the identification of al-Megrahi and Libya as the likely culprits, his eventual trial and conviction in Holland, the overwhelming sense of relief that justice had been done felt by many relatives of the victims, and the controversy surrounding his subsequent return to Libya on compassionate grounds - all of these things have been the subject of intense scrutiny over the years.

As has been the growing concern, felt by some, that al-Megrahi may have been wrongly accused. 

This film, Lockerbie: Case Closed, will give hope to all those who believe that the Libyan is an innocent man and not the mass murderer that the prosecution claimed at his trial.

It reveals the hitherto secret assessment of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) - a quasi-public body in Scotland that is independent from the courts and the government - which has examined the case against al-Megrahi in detail. Its report, which has never been published, raises numerous reasons for concern about a possible miscarriage of justice - especially the status of the testimony given by one Tony Gauci, a Maltese shop owner and the prosecution's main witness. He identified al-Megrahi as a man who had bought clothing and an umbrella from him on December 7, 1988 - remnants of which were later recovered from among debris from the disaster scene and which, according to investigators, had been in the same suitcase as the bomb.

As the film shows, the SCCRC found a number of reasons to seriously question this identification and Gauci's account about events on December 7 - the only date that al-Megrahi could have been in Malta to make such purchases. The report also raises concerns about the legitimacy of the formal identification process, in which Gauci picked al-Megrahi out from a line-up. The commission found that Gauci had seen al-Megrahi's photo in a magazine article identifying him as a possible suspect before the parade took place. The SCCRC also found that Scottish police knew that Gauci was interested in financial rewards, despite maintaining that Gauci had shown no such interest. Gauci reportedly picked up a $2m US government reward for his role in the case. Under Scottish law, witnesses cannot be paid for their testimony.

Prior to his return home, al-Megrahi had been seeking an appeal against his conviction. Had that hearing ever taken place then the SCCRC's conclusions and their evidence would have come to light. 

On that basis alone, the Libyan would have almost certainly walked from court a free man. However, the film also reveals the results of new scientific tests that comprehensively undermine the validity of the most crucial piece of forensic evidence linking the bombing to Libya - a fragment of electronic timer found embedded in the shredded remains of a shirt that was supposedly bought from Gauci's shop by al-Megrahi. The timer, said the prosecution, was identical to ones sold to Libyan intelligence by Swiss manufacturers. But as the new tests show, it was not identical and it now seems that British government scientists knew this all along.

John Ashton, who has been investigating the case for nearly 20 years, including time spent as part of al-Megrahi's defence team, has written a book on the affair with al-Megrahi. In the Al Jazeera film he says: "The Lockerbie disaster was Europe's worst terrorist attack. More Americans died in that attack than in any other terrorist event before 9/11. It's also Britain's worst miscarriage of justice, the wrong man was convicted and the real killers are still out there."

Lockerbie: Case Closed was produced and directed by William Cran and Christopher Jeans and is a Network Features production for Al Jazeera. It is narrated by Sean Barrett.

[The Sydney Morning Herald today publishes a report headlined Lockerbie evidence is in doubt; and on the website of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism there appears a long article entitled Lockerbie: was Megrahi innocent?]