The question of guilt has never been resolved

[What follows are excerpts from an article headlined Wat kunnen resten MH17 vertellen? (“What can the remains of MH17 disclose?”) published yesterday on the Dutch website Nieuwsuur website:]

Bijna vier maanden na de ramp liggen de brokstukken van rampvlucht MH17 nog verspreid op de crashsite in Oost-Oekraïne. De Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid wil op korte termijn met de berging beginnen en in Nederland een reconstructie maken van het vliegtuigwrak. Wat kan zo'n reconstructie zeggen over de oorzaak? (...)

Het is de vraag of een reconstructie nieuw licht kan schijnen op de oorzaak van het neerstorten van MH17. In het verleden zijn twee keer eerder reconstructies van vliegrampen gemaakt: de Lockerbie-ramp en het ongeluk met TWA-vlucht 800. Die konden in beide gevallen uitsluitsel geven over de oorzaak.

Bij het Schotse plaatsje Lockerbie kwam in 1988 een toestel van de Amerikaanse luchtvaartmaatschappij PanAm neer. Uit de reconstructie van het ongeluk bleek dat een bom in het bagageruim de oorzaak van de crash was. Maar de schuldvraag is nooit opgelost. De enige die voor de aanslag is veroordeeld is de Libische oud-spion Megrahi. Hij had geregeld dat er een koffer met een bom aan boord kwam.

Almost four months after the disaster the debris of disaster flight MH17 is still scattered at the crash site in eastern Ukraine. The [Dutch] Investigation Safety Board wants to start the recovery in the short term and make a reconstruction in the Netherlands of the wreck. What can such a reconstruction say about the cause? (...)

The question is whether a reconstruction can shed new light on the cause of the crash of MH17. Twice in the past reconstructions of aviation disasters have been made: the Lockerbie disaster and the accident involving TWA flight 800. In both cases they provided information about the cause.

In the Scottish town of Lockerbie a plane of the US airline Pan Am came down in 1988. The reconstruction of the accident revealed that a bomb in the luggage hold was the cause of the crash. But the question of guilt has never been resolved. The only person convicted of the attack was the Libyan former spy Megrahi. He had arranged that a suitcase with a bomb was on board.

[RB: It is interesting that the article states that the question of guilt has never been resolved. Perhaps Justice for Megrahi is getting somewhere, internationally at least.]

Will justice be served?

[On this date in 2008 the following item from The Tripoli Post appeared on this blog:]

Will Justice be Served? Will Al-Megrahi be Released from Prison Soon?

By Zainab Al-Arabi

Yes I know that this week the eyes and ears of the world are concentrated on America and the new President-elect, Barack Obama; that the United Nations and various human rights organisations are calling for help concerning the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But my thoughts are with Abdul Basit Al-Megarhi, the Libyan man wrongly convicted of mass murder in the Lockerbie case, who has been in prison since 1999.

The news that he has been diagnosed with advanced-stage prostate cancer has stunned many Libyans. For years his appeals for a re-examination of the evidence against him had been refused, and only last year was this even considered a possibility.

The case for a re-trial is strongly put forward by many experts in the field of law, perhaps the most eminent of whom is Professor Robert Black (born and raised in Lockerbie, Scotland). Often referred to as the architect of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, he has been sceptical of the grounds on which the court delivered its sentence for years.

Based on his assessment of the evidence and the witnesses, he is convinced that a gross miscarriage of justice has taken place. This seemed to be more evident when a British court ruled in early 2008, in answer to a request by the Appeals Court in October, 2007, that certain documents deliberately withheld from Al-Megarhi’s defence lawyers by the prosecution, could not be released due to reasons of ‘National Security’.

Finally in October 2008, the defence lawyers request for a hearing was approved. The next hearing in the High Court in Edinburgh is planned to take place on the 21st of November 2008. On the question of whether Al-Megarhi has the right to be released on bail while his case is under review by the Scottish court, Professor Black (on his website) answers,” yes.

What matters is whether the grounds of appeal (1) if successful, would lead to the conviction being quashed and (2) are arguable, ie not on the face of it doomed to failure. These tests are clearly satisfied in cases, such as Abdelbaset Megrahi’s, where an independent expert body (the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission) has referred the case to the Criminal Appeal Court on the ground that the conviction may have amounted to a miscarriage of justice.”

Al-Megarhi has requested that the privacy of his family be respected, and that he would prefer to undergo medical treatment in Scotland if exonerated. The Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs has reportedly also informed Libya on the 25th of October that it would welcome Al-Megarhi for medical treatment on his release.

The Swiss company, Mebo Ltd, the makers of the device allegedly used in the Lockerbie bombing, have their own ‘Lockerbie’ website in which they call Al-Megarhi the ‘271st Lockerbie victim’.

Their claim is that the evidence produced by the prosecution was misleading and false.

In his most recent comment on the subject, The Scotsman reported on 7 July 2007 that the United Nations observer Dr Hans Köchler has written to Mr Salmond and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary of Scotland, calling for experts from countries not involved in the case to investigate the way the investigation was conducted by UK and US authorities.

In his letter, Dr Köchler called for a full and independent public inquiry of the Lockerbie case and its handling by the Scottish judiciary as well as the British and US political and intelligence establishments.

He also called for the SCCRC’s full report to be made public. Although he was included in talks regarding prisoner exchange between Libya and Britain, Al-Megarhi has refused to leave his prison in Scotland until his innocence was proven.

According to Jim Swire, spokesman for the UK Family Group, whose daughter was among the victims of the Lockerbie tragedy, stated that the families of the UK victims agreed that Al-Megarhi should be released for compassionate reasons whatever the outcome of SCCRC hearing.

Even though they might not all be convinced of his innocence, they saw no reason to keep a dying man in prison far from his country and family.

Dr Swire has been to Libya on several occasions and has stated that he is not convinced of the court’s sentencing. He has continued to press the British government for a new investigation. Will justice be served?

The Lumpert affair

[In autumn 2007 the Ulrich Lumpert story was still bubbling quietly away. What follows is an article by Olivier Schmidt published on 7 November 2007 on the Nachrichten Heute website:]

On 21 December 1988, a MST-13 timer-switch manufactured by the Zurich-based company MEBO detonated the cassette bomb which destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people. In mid-August, Ulrich Lumpert, a Swiss engineer and former MEBO employee, walked into a Zurich police station and asked to swear an affidavit before a notary confessing that he had lied about the specific MST-13 timer, fragments of which the prosecution claimed had been found at the Lockerbie crash site. 

Lumpert's testimony was crucial to implicating Libya in the conspiracy, which is exactly what the intelligence and military establishment in Washington wanted. Gray-suited officials speaking on behalf of various branches of the Reagan administration claimed Lockerbie was "an act of revenge" for the USAF bombing of Tripoli two years earlier. And former Libyan agent Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was the "scapegoat", sentenced to life by a Scottish court during the 2001 trial at Camp Zeist in Holland. He is currently serving his sentence at Greenock Prison, near Glasgow, in Scotland.

Mr Lumpert's former boss, Swiss businessman Edwin Bollier, supports the allegation. He has admitted that his company, MEBO, had sold a batch of twenty MST-13 timers to Libya in 1986. When FBI and Scottish detectives showed him a "fuzzy photograph" of the timer, which they claimed was found on the hillside and used to detonate the bomb in the forward luggage hold of Flight 103 from Heathrow to JFK, he confirmed that the fragments "looked as though they came from one of our timers". 

Ten years after the incident, he travelled to Dumfries, in Scotland, after finally being given permission to actually see the pieces of the badly burned brown circuit board, which matched MEBO's prototype. However, when the MST-13 went into production, the color of the circuit boards was changed to green, and the batch sold to the Libyans had green circuit boards, not brown, according to Mr Bollier.

At the trial in Camp Zeist, the 70-year-old businessman appeared for the defense, and claims the details about the circuit-board were ignored. [RB: Mr Bollier was in fact a prosecution witness.] The pieces which he asked to see again in court "were practically carbonized [and] they had been tampered with" since he had visited Dumfries. 

The pieces had been in the possession of FBI forensic laboratories which were later thoroughly discredited. Last June, this and other information resulted in the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) ruling that there was enough "new" evidence -- not including Lumpert's confession -- to suggest there had been a miscarriage of justice. Later this month, the Scottish Court of Appeal in Edinburgh will hear al-Megrahi's appeal against what is now regarded as a "deeply flawed" verdict.

MEBO went bankrupt after the Lockerbie incident. Threatened with a multi-million lawsuit by Pan Am, the company rapidly lost business, including a major contract to supply the German Kriminalpolizei (CID) and the Bundesgrenzshutz (Federal Border Police) with communications equipment.

COMMENT

It may finally be shown that the Libyan connection was part of a US/UK plot to demonize Kadaffi, which Intelligence has always maintained; see chapter 5, "The Trumped-Up Proof of Libyan Terrorism", in Olivier Schmidt, The Intelligence Files, 2005, Clarity Press. 

If this can be shown along with the fact that those responsible for the bombing were closer to the Syrian regime than Tripoli, Mr Bollier will expect to be financial compensated for the international, state-sponsored conspiracy. Unlike the financial compensation and apologies Abdulbaset al-Megrahi can expect if his appeal is successful, an unpublicized out-of-court settlement is likely in Mr Bollier's case. And he'll be satisfied with having cleared his name and that of the company he founded.

UKIP, Libya and Gaddafi

[The following are excerpts from a report published in today’s edition of the Daily Mail:]

Colonel Gaddafi was good for immigration control as he helped stop North Africans coming to Britain, Ukip candidate Mark Reckless has said.

The former MP, who defected from the Tories triggering the by-election in Rochester, said the former Libyan leader had stopped boats taking migrants across the Mediterranean to Italy.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage agreed with the comments and said the dictator, accused of killing hundreds of his own people, brought ‘stability’ to the country. He claimed helping remove Gaddafi was one of David Cameron’s biggest mistakes.

At a rally in the Kent constituency, Mr Reckless said: ‘Whatever people say about Gaddafi, one thing is he didn’t allow those boats to come across.

‘He had an agreement with Italy that stopped it. Since he’s gone we’ve no idea what’s going on in Libya, it’s too dangerous for anyone to go there.’

Asked if he agreed, Mr Farage replied: ‘Of course.’ The Ukip leader insisted that the ‘bad guys’ were being replaced by ‘even worse guys’ and said action in Libya had been Mr Cameron’s biggest mistakes.

He added: ‘We bombed them, that’s what we did. That’s how this government helped Libya. It got rid of somebody, albeit an Arab nationalist dictator, who actually gave a level of stability to the area.’ (...)

Colonel Gaddafi died after the UN security council approved bombing raids led by Britain, France and the U.S. designed to assist rebel militias battling against forces loyal to Gaddafi on the ground.

He was eventually captured and shot dead by the victorious rebels in 2011.

During his rule his government supplied weapons to the IRA and other terrorist groups, was behind the Lockerbie bombing – the biggest act of terrorism in Britain history, which killed 270 people in 1988 – and the 1984 murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher.

Justice for Megrahi secretary's report on Justice Committee meeting

[What follows is a message sent out today by Justice for Megrahi’s secretary, Robert Forrester, to JFM members and supporters:]

Some may well feel frustrated by what might seem to be a lack of progress regarding PE1370, however, bear in mind that it remains open with unanimous cross-party support. It took a matter of seconds, with no discussion or questioning from members of the Justice Committee to deal with our submission and supplement.

JFM has only been in existence for some six years, Others have been slogging away at this for twenty-five years.

I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to keep 1370 on the table before Holyrood's Justice Committee. It is a device which produces results. I may have differences of opinion with some; nevertheless, a man whom I regarded as a foe, David McLetchie MSP, came up trumps in the end and made a difference. That, I respect, as I do other brave supporters of the redemption of the Scottish criminal justice system on the JC.

I must formally say that I apologise for any embarrassment caused by my  spontaneous 'clapping' at the end of the brief hearing. The convener, quite rightfully, reprimanded me. Having said that though, I, in my defence, would like to say that I was applauding all members of the JC, not clapping.

This is going to take time. It's politics. But we are moving in the right direction.

[Robert clearly allowed his well-known enthusiasm to get the better of parliamentary decorum. However, he copied the above message to the Justice Committee clerk and received a response which included this:]

I was about to email you with formal notification that the Committee agreed to monitor the progress being made between JFM and Police Scotland and to consider the petition again at a future meeting.

Apologies that we didn’t have time to chat yesterday. As you saw, the Convener was keen to get through business as timeously as possible.

Regarding your very kind message, I shall show it to the Convener tomorrow and we shall endeavour to convey it to members as well. I can assure you that no embarrassment was caused!

We will be in touch, and every good wish.

A con trick that is still in effect today

[What follows is an article that I wrote for this blog on this date four years ago. It is of continuing relevance because of the new application made in June 2014 to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission jointly by members of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s family and relatives of persons killed on Pan Am 103:]

The section 7 con trick

The Scottish Government has stated that section 7 of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010 (2010 asp 15) was required in order to stem the potential flood of appeals that might have arisen after the Cadder decision through successful applications to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. This is not so. Section 7 goes much further than was necessary to avoid the floodgates opening.

What follows are the relevant provisions of section 7 as enacted by the Scottish Parliament, followed by a redraft showing all that would actually have been required.

What was enacted

In determining whether or not it is in the interests of justice that a reference should be made, the Commission must have regard to the need for finality and certainty in the determination of criminal proceedings.

All that was required

In determining whether a miscarriage of justice may have occurred the Commission shall not take into account the circumstance that the applicant was not allowed access to a solicitor before making to the police a statement subsequently used in evidence against him, provided that statement was made before 26 October 2010.

What was enacted

(1) Where the Commission has referred a case to the High Court under section 194B of this Act [the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995] , the High Court may, despite section 194B(1), reject the reference if the Court considers that it is not in the interests of justice that any appeal arising from the reference should proceed.

(2) In determining whether or not it is in the interests of justice that any appeal arising from the reference should proceed, the High Court must have regard to the need for finality and certainty in the determination of criminal proceedings.

All that was required

Where the Commission has referred a case to the High Court under section 194B of this Act, the High Court may, despite section 194B(1), reject the reference if the only reason given by the Commission for making the reference is that the applicant was not allowed access to a solicitor before making to the police a statement subsequently used in evidence against him and that statement was made before 26 October 2010.

Justice Committee to continue to monitor progress

What follows is an excerpt from the Minute of Proceedings of yesterday’s session of the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee:

“7. Public petitions: The Committee considered the following petitions and agreed in relation to—

“PE1370 by Dr Jim Swire, Professor Robert Black QC, Robert Forrester, Father Patrick Keegans and Iain McKie on behalf of Justice for Megrahi: to monitor the progress being made between Justice for Megrahi and Police Scotland and to consider the petition again at a future meeting”.

The Official Report (Hansard) for this meeting is due for publication at or before 6pm on Monday 10 November. A video recording of the committee meeting can be viewed here.

The Justice Committee and the Megrahi petition

A reminder that at its meeting today at 09.30 in Holyrood’s Committee Room 1, the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee will again consider Justice for Megrahi’s petition (PE1370) calling on the Scottish Government to institute an independent inquiry into the prosecution, trial and conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (agenda item 7).  The proceedings can be watched on Parliament TV (http://www.scottishparliament.tv/). In respect of timings, the committee staff inform us that the petitions item is likely to be reached at around 11.45.

[I am delighted to see that my second home, South Africa, has now notched up 2000 unique visitors on Flag Counter. Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika!]

Final performances of Lockerbie play

A reminder that the last three performances in the autumn tour of Lee Gershuny’s play Lockerbie - Lost Voices will take place at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High St, Edinburgh EH1 1SR, on Friday 7 November at 7.30pm and Saturday 8 November at 3pm and 7.30pm.

Here, from last year, is a review of the production.

New US radio programme on the Lockerbie case

[What follows is from a programme summary on the US radio4all.net website:]

26 years on, was the Lockerbie airliner bomb planted at Heathrow Airport? Were British intelligence services involved? New revelations about 1988 Lockerbie Pan Am Flight 103 bombing with Jim Swire, father of victim Flora. Discussion and clips from Allan Francovich's documentary financed by Tiny Rowland The Maltese Double Cross. Film blocked. Break-in at Heathrow airside the night before Lockerbie bombing. "Your government and mine know exactly what happened at Lockerbie, but they're never going to tell". Oliver North ordered Oswald DeWinter to lay a false drug trail to implicate Libya. Drugs cocaine and heroin on the aircraft. Dr Bill Chasey, Dr William Chasey persecuted in the US by the CIA for trying to get justice. Vincent Cannistraro detailed by Regan to run PR against Libya then appointed to be chief investigation of the Lockerbie bombing. Dr David Fieldhouse found a body that then 'disappeared' and was smeared by the police. 

[The programme can be downloaded here.]

Joe Mifsud on Malta and terrorism, including Lockerbie

[What follows is an article that appeared in today’s edition of the Malta Independent:]

Beyond the EgyptAir hijack, Lockerbie, and the killing of Shqaqi: Terror’s footprints, by Joe Mifsud

Terror's footprints - Shadows of International Terrorism over Malta was officially launched yesterday. The book, authored by lawyer and veteran journalist Joe Mifsud sheds new light not only on three of the most well-known terroristic events related to Malta - the 1985 Egypt Air hijacking, the assassination of Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shqaqi and the Lockerbie boming - but also delves on other possible terrorism attempts with a Malta connection.

It is loaded with key information, supported by documents and photographs, about events which all left their mark on Malta. The publication delves beyond the headlines and the published stories bringing facts from out of the shadows into the light.

Dr Mifsud recollects the time he visited the Islamic Jihad headquarters in Syria after his request to interview Fathi Shqaqi's family was accepted. He was the first foreign journalist to be allowed in the camp.

He also travelled to Libya and spoke to the family of one of the two men accused of carrying out the Lockerie bombing and was the the only Maltese journalist to follow the trial at The Hague.

Apart from the three prominent cases, the author speaks about "other shadows, indicating the possibility and even probability of other occasions when Malta was shamelessly used by other countries, even so called friends, for their nefarious ends."

The book was edited by Martin Bugelli and published by Kite Group. A book signing event will be held on 14 November at MCC in Valletta.

[Further references to Dr Joe Mifsud on this blog can be found here.]

Prime Minister Gordon Brown accused of gross political cowardice over Lockerbie

The following are two items posted on this blog on this date in 2007 and 2009 respectively:

1.  A prison visit

Today I had a two-hour meeting in Her Majesty's Prison Greenock with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, at his invitation (my first). Since the date of the trial court's verdict against him, my position has been a clear one: on the evidence led at the trial his conviction was simply an outrageous miscarriage of justice, about which the Scottish criminal justice system should feel nothing but shame. As a result of today's meeting 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.

I will not be disclosing the content of my discussions with Mr Megrahi, but I can say that he now speaks English with a fine Scottish accent (his first words to me were "Thank you for visiting me on such a dreich day") and that his taste in mints is impeccable.

["dreich" in relation to weather means dreary, cheerless, bleak. See http://www.dsl.ac.uk/]

2.  Lockerbie inquiry ruled out by Gordon Brown

[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Sunday Times about the letter recently received by Dr Jim Swire from the Prime Minister. The article reads as follows:]

Gordon Brown has ruled out holding a public inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster. In a letter to representatives of victims’ families, the prime minister said it would be “inappropriate” for the UK government to hold such an investigation.

His decision was criticised by relatives who said it has left them with little hope of learning the truth about who was behind the attack and the government’s handling of case.

UK ministers say it is now up to the Scottish government to decide if it wants to hold its own, more limited, inquiry into the worst terrorist attack on British soil. The SNP government has ruled out an independent inquiry, saying Holyrood lacks the constitutional power to examine the international dimensions of the case.

Supporters of a UK-led inquiry into the 1988 attack that killed 270 people believe it could involve sensitive Foreign Office files explaining why ministers named Libya as the state which sponsored the attack.

In a letter to Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora, 24, died in the attack, Brown said: “I understand your desire to understand the events surrounding the bombing of Pan Am flight 103.” But he added: “I do not think it would be appropriate for the UK government to open an inquiry of this sort.”

Brown rejected Swire’s claim that a break-in at Heathrow airport shortly before the plane carrying the bomb took off rendered the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi unsafe.

“I understand the Court of Criminal Appeal in Scotland did consider whether the incident at Heathrow made the conviction of Mr Megrahi unsafe, and concluded that it did not,” the prime minister added.

Jean Berkley, whose son Alistair, 29, was killed in the bombing, said Brown had let down relatives of the victims.

“By handing it back to Scotland it looks like they are trying to push it into the long grass,” she said.

Professor Robert Black, a QC campaigning for an inquiry, accused Brown of “gross political cowardice”. He suspected the government did not want further scrutiny of sensitive aspects of the case which led the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to report in 2007 that the conviction against Megrahi may be unsafe.

Black pointed out the Inquiries Act 2005 allows the UK government to hold a joint inquiry with Holyrood on matters straddling both parliaments. “The security of the United Kingdom and foreign relations are non-devolved issues and if Gordon Brown is saying these are not areas that would be involved in a Lockerbie inquiry then the man is insane,” he said.

[This story has now been picked up on the Telegraph website and can be read here. The Sunday Telegraph publishes a very moving article about Rev John Mosey whose daughter, Helga, was one of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster. The last three paragraphs read:]

The Moseys know that they cannot "move on" from the terrorist attack that took their daughter's life until they know the truth about who killed her.

Megrahi's decision to drop his appeal denied them the chance to hear new evidence in court that might have given clues about the killers. They, and the other Lockerbie families, will continue to fight for an independent public inquiry.

"I don't know if we will ever get the truth about what happened," Mr Mosey says. "But we will never give up trying. We owe it to Helga."

Justice for Megrahi petition once more on Justice Committee agenda

At its meeting on Tuesday, 4 November 2014 at 09.30 in Holyrood’s Committee Room 1, the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee will again consider Justice for Megrahi’s petition (PE1370) calling on the Scottish Government to institute an independent inquiry into the prosecution, trial and conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (agenda item 7).  The papers for the meeting can be read here (this is a document of 66 pages, which are not numbered consecutively internally; however, the pages relevant to JFM’s petition are pages 33, 34 and 39 to 42 as indicated by your computer). The papers consist of two letters to the Committee from Justice for Megrahi and a report on a meeting between representatives of JFM and the Police Scotland team investigating JFM's complaints of criminal misconduct in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial. 

The proceedings can be watched on Parliament TV (http://www.scottishparliament.tv/). In respect of timings, the committee staff inform us that the petitions item is likely to be reached at around 11.45