It is vital that the truth is exposed

What follows is the text of an item headed Justice, compassion, integrity that appeared on this blog on this date five years ago.

[What follows is the text of an article by Christine Grahame MSP in the Scottish edition of yesterday's Sunday Express. As far as I can discover, the article does not appear on the newspaper's website.]

He is the face of an atrocity which remains the worst act of terrorism ever perpetrated on UK soil, but soon, within a few months, the man convicted of the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 bombing will be dead. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi has advanced stage terminal prostate cancer. On the two occasions when I visited him at Greenock Prison his constant discomfort was clearly evident. For almost 10 years since his conviction he has fought relentlessly to clear his name, but his degenerative terminal illness has changed his focus. Now he is a man desperate to see his family before he dies.

When the UK Government learned of Megrahi’s imminent second appeal following a lengthy four year investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which concluded there may have been a miscarriage of justice, Tony Blair hastily put in place a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with the Libyan Government. It was two years before that appeal began.

Many in the UK Government and elsewhere who do not want this second appeal by Mr Megrahi to go ahead. Why?

The reputation of the Scottish legal system would be on the line if Mr Megrahi were successful, yet with every week that goes by another significant piece of new evidence undermines the Crown’s case. There are professional reputations in the Scottish legal establishment and in the US that are being challenged here.

Robert Black, the highly respected Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh who knows this case inside out has concluded: “I am satisfied that not only was there a wrongful conviction, but the victim of it was an innocent man. Lawyers, and I hope others, will appreciate this distinction.” That in itself is a serious indictment of the Scottish legal system.

Megrahi’s appeal has been plagued by delay and takes no account whatsoever of his terminal condition. Last Tuesday the Court of Appeal announced a further delay due to the ill health of one of the Appeal Judges, Lord Wheatley. This additional delay puts the process back a further four months at least. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” Megrahi’s defence lawyer said when the Court announcement was made. The latest hold-up ensures, beyond reasonable doubt that Megrahi will not live to see the end of the appeal process, regardless of what legal choices he makes in the next few weeks.

He has a very stark decision to make either continue with the appeal and at the point of his death a family member can take it forward to its conclusion on his behalf. This option means Megrahi will die in prison in an environment that senior prison officials have already told me are not suitable for a terminally ill man. Or alternatively he can abandon his appeal and hope that he is granted a Prisoner Transfer back to Libya, but this is by no means guaranteed.

There is however a third way; compassionate release to Libya which would allow him to die near to his close knit family, including his elderly parents and allow the appeal to proceed to a determination.

This can be granted unilaterally by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and would reflect the principles of Scots law based on justice and compassion. This option is supported by legal experts and relatives of victims such as the redoubtable Dr Jim Swire who has campaigned tirelessly to expose the truth behind the bombing which claimed the life of his daughter Flora. Many are opposed to such a compromise of course, including a significant number, but not all, of the US relatives of Pan Am 103 as are senior officials in the Scottish Justice Department, some of whom built their careers on the Lockerbie case.

A Prisoner Transfer may be seen as conveniently ending the matter. That would be naïve. Such is the weight of fresh evidence indicating Megrahi’s innocence combined with significant doubt over the original material used to convict in the first place, that calls for a public inquiry are likely to increase and denying one, indefensible. It is vital that the truth is exposed, for all involved, and most particularly victims families. Compassionate release offers the only compromise which would exhaust due legal process, demonstrate compassion and prove the integrity of the Scottish judicial system. Justice, compassion, integrity, three words engraved on the Scottish Parliament’s Mace. Let’s hope and trust this nation lives up to them.

[As we now know, the compassionate release of Abdelbaset Megrahi did not allow his appeal to continue and due process to be observed. Why not?  Because the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, wholly gratuitously and unnecessarily, insisted on dealing with Megrahi’s compassionate release application along with the Libyan Government’s earlier prisoner transfer application and the latter required abandonment of the ongoing appeal. Cunning, eh?]

Governmental Lockerbie obstructionism nothing new

[During the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist (and during the subsequent appeal there) Ian Ferguson and I maintained a website, The Lockerbie Trial, providing daily commentary and analysis. It received an enormous volume of traffic, which was perhaps unsurprising given the shocking lack of media coverage of the trial and the atrocious quality of such that there was. Until late September 2000, almost five months after the trial started, Ferguson (who attended every day) and I had no access to the daily transcripts of the court’s proceedings. As from late September we were supplied with copies by a mole at Zeist.  Our attempts to persuade the authorities to give us legitimate access to the transcripts failed.  Here is what we wrote at the time about this matter:]

On Thursday, 15 June 2000,  Ian Ferguson sent to Jim Wallace QC MSP,  the Minister for Justice in the Scottish Executive, an e-mail in the following terms:

  "Dear Minister,

  "As a matter of some urgency, I would like to ask you to examine some issues relating to the trial taking place in Kamp Zeist in the Netherlands.  I have made it is known to the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC that in the interests of "Justice being seen to be done", that the transcripts of the trial should be made available on the Scottish Courts Website or some other site accessible by the public.  As I am sure you are aware, the transcripts are being made available via secure Website to relatives.  I along with many other journalists, who are not part of major media organisations, find that the costs of transcripts which can be made available to us is absolutely cost prohibitive, at £30.00 per day.  Being based in the United States and having covered this case extensively for many years including a major documentary, I do believe that the restrictions being placed on the transcripts do nothing for our system of justice.  The media coverage of this trial or lack of it to be more precise, is abysmal in my opinion and those few journalists like myself who are anxious to cover it are being severely penalised in our attempts to properly explore the proceedings in Zeist.  The Lord Advocate's Press Office has informed me that your office is the appropriate place to submit this request and I do urge you consider making these transcripts available as soon as possible.  This trial is not like any other Scottish trial.  The ‘man in the street’ is not able to stroll into the public gallery and watch the proceedings and I believe it is patently unfair to restrict the record of the proceedings whether it is by financial hurdles or any other method.

  "I look forward to receiving a speedy reply."

  When, after a week, no substantive reply had been received, Professor Robert Black QC on 22 June 2000 sent the following fax to the Minister and to Hamish Hamill CB, the civil service Head of the Department of Justice:

  "A week ago my co-editor on the website TheLockerbieTrial.com
communicated with you by e-mail regarding the possibility of making available to the public the daily transcripts of proceedings at the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist.  The quality of recent reporting of these proceedings in the media seems to me to make it imperative that, if the public are not to be seriously misled, those transcripts should be in the public domain. I shall give only two very recent examples of misleading reporting.

  "1. The BBC has recently been broadcasting (both on the airwaves and on the BBC Online website) that a witness, Edwin Bollier, has admitted in his evidence that his company manufactured the timer used in the Lockerbie bomb.  No other news agency or media organisation appears to have published this, for the very good reason that Bollier's evidence in fact contained no such admission.  But in the absence of a publicly available transcript, it is somewhat difficult to challenge the accuracy of the BBC's report.

  "2. Most of the Scottish media, both print and broadcast, reported that Bollier had said in his evidence that on 21 December 1988 he returned from Tripoli to Zurich via Malta.  In fact what he said was that he returned on a direct flight from Tripoli to Zurich, having originally thought that it might be necessary to travel via Malta.  Reuters got this right, and I have confirmed what Bollier said directly with a spokesman for the witness.  Once again, however, in the absence of a publicly available transcript, organs of the media are reluctant to accept the inaccuracy of their reporting.

  "All of this simply serves to underline the service that would be provided to the cause of accurate understanding if you were to arrange for the daily transcripts to be made publicly available."

  Four weeks after this fax was sent and received, the Scottish Executive Justice Department has just communicated a decision (having earlier omitted to accord Professor Black the courtesy of an acknowledgement).  That decision is that the request that daily transcripts be made publicly available free of charge should be refused.  This is highly regrettable, since the standard of media reporting of evidence at the trial has, if anything, declined even further in the past month:  instances of gross inaccuracy are given in Accuracy and the Media and Accuracy and the BBC: At It Again

  The joint editors of this website fail to understand what conceivable objection there can be to making available online to the public generally transcripts which are already available to the relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie disaster.

  The reasons given for rejecting the suggestion are that the matter was the subject of careful discussion before the trial started; that the Justice Department is not anxious to make changes in those arrangements after the start of the trial; that the arrangements have been accepted and have settled down; and that some people have already taken advantage of the opportunity to obtain transcripts at a cost of £30 per day, which covers the cost of copying.

  It would be interesting to know just how many transcripts at £30 a shot have in fact been sold over the whole period of the trial to date, but we suspect that any attempt to find out would be met with the hoary old "commercial confidentiality" excuse.  In any event, if the £30 charge is intended to cover the cost of copying, it is impossible to understand what its relevance is when what is being asked for is not hard copy, but the posting of the daily transcripts on a website.  This is already done for the benefit of the families. What conceivable additional costs can there be in making the facility equally available to others?

  The coverage of the Lockerbie trial in the Scottish media has been abysmal. None of the Scottish newspapers has a reporter in attendance.  Nor does the BBC (though given the quality of their output on those rare occasions when one has been present, this may not be too regrettable).  The only western media organisation which always has a reporter present at Zeist is Reuters. The Scottish media predominantly rely on news agency copy from this source. It is nothing short of disgraceful that BBC Scotland and the Scottish daily broadsheets and tabloids do not have reporters present to cover what is, after all, the largest mass murder trial in Scottish, indeed British, legal history.

  In our small way, we on this website are seeking to compensate for the lamentable dereliction of duty on the part of the Scottish media.  We are doing so for no financial reward, and at considerable cost in time and money. The public service that we are providing is being impeded by the refusal of the Justice Department to permit access to the transcripts of proceedings, save at a charge of £30 per day.  Do they care?  Do they want the people of Scotland to be reliant on scanty and inaccurate media reports? Do they regard ignorance as being preferable to knowledge, and inaccuracy as preferable to accuracy?

  The people of Scotland, through their taxes, are paying for the bulk of the cost of the Lockerbie trial, including the state of the art Live Note transcription service which is being used for the first time in Scottish proceedings. But they are being denied access to what they have paid for, even though it could be made readily available on the Scottish Courts website at no additional cost to the taxpayer. Why?

Blushing with shame at the behaviour of the Crown Office

[This is the headline over a contribution by Len Murray, one of Scotland’s most distinguished solicitors, to today’s edition of the Scottish Review, written in response to an earlier article by the editor, Kenneth Roy. Len Murray’s piece reads as follows:]

Kenneth Roy's splendid article on the hapless Dr David Fieldhouse (11 June) makes a reader blush with shame at the behaviour of the Crown Office. That behaviour, however, should come as no surprise to any of us. 

I am member of Justice for Megrahi and indeed a member of the Committee of Justice for Megrahi. In September [2012] we wrote in confidence to the justice secretary Kenny MacAskill making certain allegations. Some 12 days later, before any reply had been forthcoming from the Justice Directorate, the Scotsman newspaper published a response from the Crown Office in which we were pilloried for having made 'defamatory and entirely unfounded... deliberately false and misleading allegations'.  The article went on to suggest that we had accused 'police officers [and] officials [of fabricating] evidence'.

That ill-tempered scandalous outburst has and had no foundation in fact whatsoever and it was made before any investigation had been made into what we said to the justice secretary.

To make matters worse – if that were possible – on 21 December [2012], the Times (Scotland edition) carried an interview given by the lord advocate to Magnus Linklater. Not only did the lord advocate, with a total disregard for the facts, repeat those scurrilous outpourings from the Crown Office, but he went on to add that we had levelled criminal accusations against the judges and/or the lord advocate of the day. We had done no such thing.

But that is not all. When the relatives of the victims – yes, the relatives of the victims, not Megrahi – lodged an application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission earlier last month, the Crown Office had the effrontery to say: 'The evidence upon which the conviction was based was rigorously scrutinised by the trial court and two appeal courts...'. Totally misleading. They know perfectly well that in the first appeal the court held that they were barred from considering the evidence in view of the grounds of appeal which had been submitted on behalf of Megrahi; whereas the second appeal never reached a hearing because Megrahi abandoned his appeal.

'Rigorously scrutinised'? Not even looked at as the Crown Office know perfectly well.

But even that is not all. It would appear that the application to SCCRC contains new evidence and new allegations which have never emerged before. One might expect, indeed one is entitled to expect from the Crown Office, a measured and considered response like: 'We shall investigate any new allegations thoroughly and put the result of our investigations before the Court'. Some of us might consider that their duty – but no, we get an outburst showing that closed mind which, it seems, is typical of our Crown Office when the name Megrahi is mentioned: 'We will rigorously defend this conviction when called upon to do so'. No mention of any investigation or even a look to see what is in the application, nothing but the closed mind.

When I was being interviewed more than 50 years ago by the court partner of the firm to which I would soon be indentured as a law apprentice, I remember being told: 'Find out the facts before you make up your mind'. What a pity that our lord advocate and his cohorts at the Crown Office apparently have still to learn that elementary lesson.

Not safe to be let out alone?

[What follows is taken from a report published today on the Mail Online website headlined £219,000 spent on foreign visits:]

Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland made two trips to America to mark the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing.

His trip to Syracuse University in New York last October cost £3,424.79 then in December he want to Washington, with the bill for that trip amounting to £2,119.00. On both occasions Mr Mulholland was accompanied by three officials.

Seven years' hard

This blog is seven years old today.

I started the blog just after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had referred Abdelbaset Megrahi’s conviction back to the High Court of Justiciary for a further appeal. It seemed to me that a commentary on the appeal process would be of some value. My expectation was that, even allowing for the law’s notorious delays, the blog would not be needed for longer than two years -- or two-and-a-half at the outside. Foolishly, of course, I gravely underestimated the Crown Office’s ingenuity in delaying proceedings (with the connivance or condonation of the appeal judges) and the obstructiveness of the then UK Government in the persons of the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and the Advocate General for Scotland, Lord Davidson of Glen Clova QC. The result was that the appeal hearing had only barely got into its stride when Megrahi’s illness led to his abandoning the appeal and being released on compassionate grounds in August 2009. So the Megrahi case lingers on, as does this blog. Perhaps the current SCCRC application will enable the case and this blog to be decently buried. But don’t expect it to be anytime soon.

Meanwhile, here is the second of two items published in the blog on the first day of its life:

The SCCRC Decision

On 28 June 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi’s conviction of the Lockerbie bombing back to the High Court of Justiciary for a further appeal. The case had been under consideration by the SCCRC since September 2003 and its statement of reasons (available only to Megrahi, to the Crown and to the High Court) extends to over 800 pages, accompanied by thirteen volumes of appendices. The Commission, in the published summary of its findings, rejected submissions on behalf of Megrahi to the effect that evidence led at the trial had been fabricated and that he had been inadequately represented by his then legal team, but went on to indicate that there were six grounds upon which it had concluded that a miscarriage of justice might have occurred. Strangely enough, however, only four of these grounds are enumerated in the summary. They are as follows:

“A number of the submissions made on behalf of the applicant challenged the reasonableness of the trial court's verdict, based on the legal test contained in section 106(3)(b) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. The Commission rejected the vast majority of those submissions. However, in examining one of the grounds, the Commission formed the view that there is no reasonable basis in the trial court's judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary's House, took place on 7 December 1988. Although it was proved that the applicant was in Malta on several occasions in December 1988, in terms of the evidence 7 December was the only date on which he would have had the opportunity to purchase the items. The finding as to the date of purchase was therefore important to the trial court's conclusion that the applicant was the purchaser. Likewise, the trial court's conclusion that the applicant was the purchaser was important to the verdict against him. Because of these factors the Commission has reached the view that the requirements of the legal test may be satisfied in the applicant's case.

“New evidence not heard at the trial concerned the date on which the Christmas lights were illuminated in thearea of Sliema in which Mary's House is situated. In the Commission's view,taken together with Mr Gauci's evidence at trial and the contents of his police statements, this additional evidence indicates that the purchase of the items took place prior to 6 December 1988. In other words, it indicates that the purchase took place at a time when there was no evidence at trial that the applicant was in Malta.

“Additional evidence, not made available to the defence, which indicates that four days prior to the identification parade at which Mr Gauci picked out the applicant, he saw a photograph of the applicant in a magazine article linking him to the bombing. In the Commission's view evidence of Mr Gauci's exposure to this photograph in such close proximity to the parade undermines the reliability of his identification of the applicant at that time and at the trial itself.

“Other evidence, not made available to the defence, which the Commission believes may further undermine Mr Gauci's identification of the applicant as the purchaser and the trial court's finding as to the date of purchase.”

The implications for the verdict of guilty

The reasons given by the Commission for finding that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in this case are not limited to the effect of new evidence which has become available since the date of the original trial and the non-disclosure by the police and prosecution of evidence helpful to the defence.    The prima facie miscarriage of justice identified by the Commission includes the trial court’s finding in fact on the evidence heard at the trial that the clothes which surrounded the bomb were purchased in Malta on 7 December 1988 and that Megrahi was the purchaser.  This was the very cornerstone of the Crown’s case against him.  If, as suggested by the Commission, that finding in fact had no reasonable basis in the evidence, then there is no legal justification whatsoever for his conviction by the trial court.

The implications for the Scottish criminal justice system

The present writer has always contended that no reasonable tribunal could have convicted Megrahi on the evidence led at the trial.  Here is just one example of the trial court’s idiosyncratic approach to the evidence.  Many more could be provided.

A vitally important issue was the date on which the goods that surrounded the bomb were purchased in a shop in Malta.  There were only two live possibilities:  7 December 1988, a date when Megrahi was proved to be on Malta and 23 November 1988 when he was not. In an attempt to establish just which of these dates was the correct one, the weather conditions in Sliema on these two days were explored. The shopkeeper’s evidence was that when the purchaser left his shop it was raining so heavily that his customer thought it advisable to buy an umbrella to protect himself while he went in search of a taxi.  The unchallenged meteorological evidence led by the defence established that while it had rained on 23 November at the relevant time, it was unlikely that it had rained at all on 7 December; and if there had been any rain, it would have been at most a few drops, insufficient to wet the ground.  On this material, the judges found in fact that the clothes were purchased on 7 December.

On evidence as weak as this how was it possible for the trial court to find him guilty?  And how was it possible for the Criminal Appeal Court to fail to overturn that conviction?  The Criminal Appeal Court dismissed Megrahi’s appeal on the most technical of technical legal grounds: it did not consider the justifiability of the trial court’s factual findings at all (though it is clear from their interventions during the Crown submissions in the appeal that at least some of the judges were only too well aware of how shaky certain crucial findings were and how contrary to the weight of the evidence).

It is submitted that at least part of the answer lies in the history of the Scottish legal and judicial system.  For centuries judges have accorded a specially privileged status to the Lord Advocate.  It has been unquestioningly accepted that, though a political appointee and the government’s (now the Scottish Executive’s) chief legal adviser, he (now, of course, she) would at all times, in his capacity as head of the prosecution system, act independently and without concern for political considerations and would always place the public interest in a fair trial above the narrow interest of the prosecution in gaining a conviction.  This judicial vision of the role of the Lord Advocate was reinforced by the fact that, until the Scottish Judicial Appointments Board commenced operations in 2002, all Scottish High Court Judges (and sheriffs) were nominated for appointment to the Bench by the Lord Advocate of the day.  This meant that, in all criminal proceedings, the presiding judge owed his position to the person (or one of his predecessors in office) who was ultimately responsible for bringing the case before him, and for its conduct while in his court.

The behaviour of the Crown in the Lockerbie trial was certainly not beyond criticism -- indeed casts grave doubt on the extent to which the Lord Advocate and Crown Office staff can be relied on always to place the interest of securing a fair trial for the accused above any perceived institutional imperative to obtain a conviction. To illustrate this in the context of the Lockerbie trial it is enough to refer to the saga of CIA cables relating to the star Crown witness, Abdul Majid Giaka, who had been a long-standing CIA asset in Libya and, by the time of the trial, was living in the United States under a witness protection programme.

Giaka’s evidence was ultimately found by the court to be utterly unworthy of belief. This was largely due to the devastating effectiveness of the cross-examination by defence counsel. Their ability to destroy completely the credibility of the witness stemmed from the contents of cables in which his CIA handlers communicated to headquarters the information that Giaka had provided to them in the course of their secret meetings. Discrepancies between Giaka's evidence-in-chief to the Advocate Depute and the contents of these contemporaneous cables enabled the defence to mount a formidable challenge to the truthfulness and accuracy, or credibility and reliability, of Giaka's testimony.  Had the information contained in these cables not been available to them, the task of attempting to demonstrate to the court that Giaka was an incredible or unreliable witness would have been immensely more difficult and perhaps impossible.

Yet the Crown strove valiantly to prevent the defence obtaining access to these cables.

At the trial, on 22 August 2000, when he was seeking to persuade the Court to deny the defence access to those cables in their unedited or uncensored form, the then Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC,  stated that the members of the prosecution team who were given access to the uncensored CIA cables on 1 June 2000 were fully aware of the obligation incumbent upon them as prosecutors to make available to the defence material relevant to the defence of the accused and, to that end, approached the contents of those cables with certain considerations in mind.

Mr Boyd said: "First of all, they considered whether or not there was any information behind the redactions which would undermine the Crown case in any way.  Secondly, they considered whether there was anything which would appear to reflect on the credibility of Mr Majid… On all of these matters, the learned Advocate Depute reached the conclusion that there was nothing within the cables which bore on the defence case, either by undermining the Crown case or by advancing a positive case which was being made or may be made, having regard to the special defence... I emphasise that the redactions have been made on the basis of what is in the interests of the security of a friendly power... Crown counsel was satisfied that there was nothing within the documents which bore upon the defence case in any way."

One of the judges, Lord Coulsfield, then intervened: "Does that include, Lord Advocate ... that Crown counsel, having considered the documents, can say to the Court that there is nothing concealed which could possibly bear on the credibility of this witness?"

The Lord Advocate replied:  “Well, I'm just checking with the counsel who made that...  there is nothing within the -- -- there is nothing within these documents which relates to Lockerbie or the bombing of Pan Am 103 which could in any way impinge on the credibility of Mr Majid on these matters."

Notwithstanding the opposition of the Lord Advocate, the court ordered the unedited cables to be made available to the defence, who went on to use their contents to such devastating effect in questioning Giaka that the court held that his evidence had to be disregarded in its entirety.  Yet, strangely enough, the judges did not see fit publicly to censure the Crown for its inaccurate assurances that the cables contained nothing that could assist the defence.

Beyond the Lockerbie trial, the failure of the Crown to place the public interest in a fair trial above the interest of the prosecution in obtaining convictions is illustrated by the extent to which the Lord Advocate has recently had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, through the Privy Council in London before making available to the defence material in the prosecution’s possession that no-one could conceivably deny was of relevance and assistance in the accused person’s defence: see Holland v HMA 2005 SCCR 417;  Sinclair v HMA 2005 SCCR 446. So much for the fairness of the trial being the Crown’s primary and predominant motivation!

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” I Corinthians xiii.11. It is high time for all involved in the Scottish criminal justice system to put away childish things. All of us, judges included, are surely too old to believe any longer in fairy tales. Fairy tales can be convenient and comforting and can bolster our self esteem. But, as in the case of the belief that the Crown can uniformly be relied upon always to act selflessly in the public interest, they can be dangerous and, if acted upon, work terrible injustice.

It is submitted that the Lockerbie case demonstrates just how necessary it is, if public confidence is to be maintained, for the Scottish Executive to institute a high-powered, independent, investigation into all three aspects – investigation, prosecution and adjudication -- of the Scottish criminal justice system.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

[Six years ago today, I posted on this blog an item headed Scottish newspapers accused of shirking investigative duties. It reads as follows:]

Today's issue of the Sunday Herald contains an article about a letter written by Professor Hans Köchler complaining about the supine attitude of the Scottish press over the Lockerbie miscarriage of justice. The article reads in part:

'When readers are asked what they want more of in newspapers the answer is often great, jaw-dropping scoops. Yet investigative reporting - the discipline behind many such stories - is increasingly seen by many newspaper executives as too expensive to bother with.

'This is certainly the view of Professor Hans Kochler [sic], the former UN monitor of the Lockerbie trial, who has attacked the Scottish media for its coverage of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's continuing appeals against his conviction.

'Kochler believes Scottish journalists are becoming unwilling to question the establishment version of events and work under editors and executives who refuse to finance proper reporting. He says he has a list of publications and journalists he believes have failed to do their jobs properly, which he may seek to publish at a later date.

'Says Kochler: "As far as Lockerbie is concerned I can't understand why more isn't being done by the European country that was most concerned with it. There is a lot at stake: the rule of law, security, the role of international terrorism. Why isn't somebody trying to find out why the authorities are now trying to withhold evidence and delaying everything?"

'In an earlier letter to veteran campaigner Robbie the Pict nee [sic] Brian Robertson, in which Kochler raised the issue of a potential media blackout, he simply wrote: "Where are Scotland's investigative journalists?"

'Kochler claims that editors reduced coverage under establishment pressure. Some journalists closely related to the story argue that the real reason why Lockerbie is off the agenda is because people are tired of it, but Kochler claims it is a symptom of a wider problem that cuts across the profession.'

The comments from members of the public which follow the article are well worth reading and are extremely well-informed.

[With a shamefully few honourable exceptions, the same can be said of the Scottish press today. The original article now appears here on the newspaper's website, but the readers' comments are no longer available.]

Clean-up crew soldier suffers PTSD 25 years after Lockerbie

An article headlined Former soldier admits he's still coming to terms with Lockerbie bombing horror scene has been published this morning on the Daily Record website.  It reads in part:]

For former soldier Bob Taylor, the Lockerbie bombing was something he thought he’d dealt with 25 years ago.

But as media coverage mounted about the quarter-century anniversary, Bob found the memories of his time as part of the clean-up crew too difficult to cope with.

The 52-year-old, who lives in Catterick, North Yorkshire, but grew up in Kilmarnock, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and had to be signed off sick from his job. He had been Pertemps manager for Northallerton, Harrogate and Skipton.

He is now coming to terms with his condition through the support of the Help for Heroes Phoenix House Recovery Centre, also in Catterick.

“As part of the clean-up crew I had to walk the area and identify evidence. If it was clothing, we had to bag it. If it was a body part, we called the police over and they would deal with it,” Bob said.

At the time of the bombing, on December 21, 1988, Bob, who has been married to Daniella for 32 years and has two children, was stationed in Inverness with the Gordon Highlanders.

“The Royal Highland Fusiliers were deployed first but, on Christmas Eve, I was packing the car to go home on leave to Glasgow with my wife and children when we were told to attend a briefing on Christmas Day to go to Lockerbie. We were deployed on Boxing Day,” Bob said.

After two days as clean-up crew, Bob , who has served in Northern Ireland, Germany, Kenya, Portugal, Canada and America, was moved into the communication centre, where he had to maintain contact with crews on the ground, the civilian team and mark finds on a map of the area.

He said: “At the time we were angry to be missing Christmas and angry someone had decided to do that because it affected those on the aircraft, the town of Lockerbie and the wider community.

“I didn’t think much about what we were doing. It was just a job but then, 25 years later, when I was watching the anniversary coverage, it triggered something off.”

Bob made contact with the charity Vulnerable Veterans and Adult Dependants (VVADS), a bespoke Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service based at Catterick Garrison and he began eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) – a relatively new treatment that has been found to reduce the symptoms of PTSD.

The charity also put him in touch with Help for Heroes and Phoenix House.

He said: “The PTSD has really surprised me. I just thought I was a bit depressed but when the anniversary coverage started in the media, it just came flooding back and I was quite floored with it all.

“When I was serving I had the support of the guys in my battalion, but when you leave you lose all that.”

Scottish lawyers support Lockerbie inquiry

Five years ago an item headed Poll of Scottish lawyers finds 86% back inquiry into Lockerbie was posted on this blog.  I suspect that a poll conducted today would disclose a similar result. The July 2009 article reads as follows:

[The following is the text of a press release issued by the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. The magazine's website can be accessed here.]

A poll of solicitors in Scotland calling for a full public inquiry into the Lockerbie incident has received Parliamentary backing and international support.

86% of respondents to the poll which ran during Abdelbaset Ali Mohmad al-Megrahi’s appeal called for the inquiry, which has been blocked since Labour took office in 1997, despite their pledge to hold one whilst in opposition.

Christine Grahame MSP, who has met Mr Megrahi several times in jail said there were many unanswered questions.

"I have said that if the appeal by Mr Megrahi is dropped then I would want to see a full public inquiry. That remains my position. I believe that Mr Megrahi should not have been convicted on the evidence that was led against him and that there appears to have been a miscarriage of justice. A public inquiry would go a considerable way towards resolving that if Mr Megrahi drops his appeal to make himself eligible for transfer back to Libya under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement signed by the UK Government.”

The UN appointed special observer Hans Kochler said the poll result was “encouraging,” and accused authorities of a scandalous cover up.

"A full public inquiry is long overdue. Since April 2002 I have repeatedly called for such a measure,” he said.

“So far, neither the British nor Scottish political and judicial establishment has shown any genuine interest in finding out the real causes of the Lockerbie tragedy. To the contrary, the course of justice has been obstructed in numerous instances. It is high time that the public demands its right to full and uncensored disclosure of all the evidence of the Lockerbie case and all facts of the scandalous cover-up and delaying tactics we have seen since the first appeal decision.”

Professor Robert Black, instrumental in brokering the Zeist trial said he “wholeheartedly supports the call for a public enquiry into the Lockerbie case.

“There are so many grave concerns about the trial and the verdict that it is difficult to see how the Scottish criminal justice system can have its legitimacy restored without one,” he added.