New blog devoted to dodgy timer fragment PT35(b)

[I am delighted to report the appearance of a new blog by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer. It is entitled PT35B and will be devoted to material about the dodgy timer fragment. Dr De Braeckeleer is the author of (amongst other Lockerbie-related pieces) the magisterial 174-part series on OhmyNews entitled Diary of a Vengeance Foretold. The first item on his new blog reads as follows (illustrations and references omitted):]

On 21 December 1988 Pan Am flight 103 fell out of the sky. All 259 passengers and crew members died. Eleven residents of Lockerbie were killed.

A strong westerly wind spread the debris over two trails stretching from the south of Scotland through the north of England and out into the North Sea.

On 28 December 1988, Michael Charles, Inspector of Accidents for the AAIB, announced that traces of high explosive had been found on two pieces of metal. On that date, a criminal investigation was officially launched. The crime scene covered about 845 square miles.

On 13 January 1989, Detective Constables Thomas Gilchrist and Thomas McColm found a fragment of charred clothing in search sector I, near Newcastleton. This piece of charred grey cloth was bagged, labelled “Charred Debris” and given a reference number: PI/995.

On 17 January 1989, it was registered in the Dexstar log.

On 6 February 1989, PI/995 was sent to the Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent for forensic examination.

On 12 May 1989, Dr Thomas Hayes examined PI/995. Inside the cloth, Dr Hayes found fragments of paper, fragments of black plastic and a tiny piece of circuitry. Dr Hayes gave to these items the reference number PT/35 as well as an alphabetical suffix to each one of them. The fragment of the circuit board was named PT/35(b).

In June 1990, with some help from the FBI, Allen Feraday of the Explosives Laboratory was able to match PT/35 (b) to the board of  a Swiss timer known as a MST-13 timer.

Two MST-13 timers had been seized in Togo in September 1986. BATF agent Richard Sherrow had brought one of these back to the US. Two Libyan citizens were caught in possession of an other MST-13 timer in Senegal in 1988.

An analysis of the Togo timer led the investigators to a small business named MEBO in Zurich. The owners of MEBO told the investigators that these timers had been manufactured to the order of two Libyans: Ezzadin Hinshiri, the director of the Central Security Organisation of the Libyan External Security Organisation and Said Rashid, the head of the Operations Administration of the ESO.

On 14 November 1991, the Lord Advocate and the acting United States Attorney General jointly announced that they had obtained warrants for the arrest of Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah.

On 27 November 1991, the British and United States Governments issued a joint statement calling on the Libyan government to surrender the two men for trial.

On 21 January 1992, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 731 calling on Libya to surrender Megrahi and Fhimah for trial either in the United States or in the United Kingdom.

On 31 March 1992, the Security Council passed resolution 748 imposing mandatory sanctions on Libya for failing to hand over Megrahi and Fhimah. On 11 November 1993, the Security Council passed resolution 883 that imposed further international sanctions on Libya.

On 31 January 2001, a Court found Megrahi guilty and Fhimah not guilty.

On 28 June 2007, the SCCRC announced that Megrahi may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Accordingly, the SCCRC decided to refer the case to the Court of Criminal Appeal.

On 25 July 2009, Megrahi applied to be released from jail on compassionate grounds. On 12 August 2009, Megrahi applied to have his second appeal dropped. Megrahi was granted compassionate release for his terminal prostate cancer. On 20 August 2009, Megrahi was released from prison and returned to Libya.

Today we know that PT/35(b) is a forgery. We also know that at least one witness was well aware that PT/35(b) could not have been part of the MST-13 timers delivered to Libya and that this witness deliberately withheld  this information from the court. At this point, one can reasonably infer that this so-called evidence was planted.

How do we know that PT/35(b) is a forgery? Who could possibly have committed such a crime and for what possible motives? Where, when and by whom was this forgery fabricated? These are some of the questions that this blog intends to discuss and will hopefully answer.

Our confidence in our innocence has no bounds

[What follows is the text of a CNN report from this date in 1999:]

Libya has handed over two suspects in the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland to representatives of the United Nations.

The suspects are now en route to the Netherlands, where their trial will take place.

Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported that UN representative Hans Corell was at the handover ceremony in Libya.

"In a historical moment awaited by the world, the two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie case were handed over to be flown to the Netherlands for trial before a Scottish court," MENA said.

With the handover, a decade-long manhunt neared its conclusion Monday, as Scottish legal officers prepared to take custody of the two Libyans.

In the Netherlands, preparations continued Monday for the long-awaited trial.

The Dutch Justice Ministry said it would hold a news conference on Monday in connection with the handover of two Libyans.

"The news conference will be today," a spokeswoman said, but gave no information on the timing or location of the arrival of the suspects in the Netherlands after a handover to the United Nations at Tripoli airport.

Scottish prosecutors and journalists waited in Amsterdam while the two accused -- Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah -- began their journey to Europe.

A temporary detention unit at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands is ready for the suspects, Scottish officials said. The construction of bomb-proof cells below the base's former medical unit, which will serve as a courtroom, will take several months to complete.

Sheriff Graham Cox, the regional judge who will oversee pre-trial proceedings, was expected to arrive in the Netherlands on Monday. Scottish prosecutors Norman McFadyen and Jim Brisbane are already there.

Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdel-Meguid had said on Sunday that the handover would take place in "the next 24 or 48 hours."

When Tripoli transferred the men to the charge of the United Nations, that step paved the way for the lifting of punitive UN sanctions against Libya.

[Here is what Megrahi and Fhimah are reported to have said as they were transferred to UN custody in Tripoli:]

Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lameen Fhima, have both made a statement on Libyan TV, saying that the two are innocent and going willingly to court. This is Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi's statement:

"We want to reaffirm to everyone that we are two simple Libyan nationals. We do not practise politics. We support families and have children. We love our children and we love our families. This is our normal life.  

"We were employees until we found ourselves involved in this accusation. Our confidence in our innocence has no bounds. We are confident of our lawyers' ability to defend us.

"Through the facts they [the lawyers] have in their possession we are going to prove our innocence to the world. 

"On the occasion of leaving [Libya] we want to tell everyone that, after getting the permission from the investigating judge and the public prosecutor, we are leaving freely and willingly without any pressure in order to appear before the Scottish court in the Netherlands.

"We want everyone to know that we have a great deal of self-confidence.  

"Time will prove that we are telling the truth and you are present here and are witnesses [of what I am saying]. We thank you once again for coming. We are also sorry that you had a difficult journey [by land]; next time you will come directly [by air] to Tripoli, and we are going to welcome you happily. God bless you."

The second suspect, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, gave a V-for-Victory sign as he said: "I have nothing to add to what my friend has said. 

"I hope to see you on our return very soon, God willing. 

"Thank you. I wish for victory, God willing."

UK and US isolated in rejecting neutral venue trial proposal

[What follows is excerpted from a report by the Associated Press news agency published on this date in 1996:]

Lawyers representing the two Libyan men suspected of planting the Lockerbie bomb say they're ready to face trial -- but it must be in a neutral country.

And they say the suspects will appear voluntarily, without the need for extradition.

But so far it's a proposal which hasn't been taken up by any of the key players in the international investigation into Flight 103. (...)

The man leading the defence team for the two men is on a rare trip to London.

He says if the investigating countries -- the US, the UK and Scotland -- agree to a trial somewhere like The Hague, the suspects will turn up of their own free will.

Dr Ibrahim Legwell: “What we are proposing that the venue can be changed for a neutral country and that instead of the jury we have a panel of judges and what is going to come from our side is that I will come with them to stand for the trial voluntary, not as an extradition.”

Those representing the families of Lockerbie victims have backed the call for such a trial, saying at least the evidence would be brought out into the open.

The legal team acting for the men includes lawyers from each country involved in the events leading up to the explosion.

English lawyer Stephen Mitchell says the UK and the US are now isolated in rejecting the trial proposal.

Stephen Mitchell: “It will be accepted or rejected on the basis of political wills. When somebody wants to solve this problem it will be solved, is my view.”

Well, what do you know!

[What follows is taken from a report published on Wednesday on the website of the University of Michigan newspaper The Michigan Daily. Comment seems superfluous:]

The organization United for a Free Syria led a panel discussion on Wednesday to discuss the ongoing conflict in Syria. (...)

Wednesday’s event was co-sponsored by the History Department, the Muslim Students’ Association and the student group Students Allied for Freedom and Equality. (...)

[President and CEO of the Lebanese American Chamber of Commerce, John Akouri] described the Assad regime’s history of transgressions as not only against the Syrian people, but also directly against the United States.

“We know first-hand the wrath of this brutal dictatorial regime, that has murdered our ambassadors, our presidents of universities, that was directly responsible for the bombing of our American embassy in Beirut on more than one occasion, the hijacking of Pan-Am Flight 103 in Lebanon in 1985 … and the murder of the disabled American Leon Klinghoffer,” Akouri said.

Lockerbie judges misled over testing of timer fragment

[A police memorandum dated 3 April 1990 during the Lockerbie investigation disclosed that the circuit board fragment PT/35 that allegedly formed part of the timing mechanism of the bomb (and that linked Libya to the atrocity) bore no trace of explosive contamination. At the Zeist trial Crown forensic scientific experts testified that the fragment had not been tested for explosive residue. The details that follow are taken from a blogpost of 17 July 2011 reporting on an article in that day’s Sunday Herald:]

A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.

The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.

However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative. (...)

Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.

According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.

Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.

Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.

He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.

A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.

It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly. (...)

Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”

The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.

Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.

The most blatant Scottish miscarriage of justice for 100 years

[What follows is an excerpt from an interview with me published in Lockerbie’s local weekly newspaper, the Annandale Herald, on this date in 2009:]

Q. You are credited with being one of the “architects” of the first trial at Camp Zeist. What was your involvement at that time?

A. My personal involvement in the aftermath of the destruction of Pan Am 103 began in early 1993. I was approached by representatives of a group of British businessmen whose desire to participate in major engineering works in Libya was being impeded by the UN sanctions that had been imposed on Libya in an attempt to compel the surrender for trial in Scotland or the United States of America of their two accused citizens. They asked if I would be prepared to provide independent advice to Libya with a view (it was hoped) to persuading them their citizens would obtain a fair trial if they were to surrender to the Scottish authorities. I submitted material setting out the essentials of Scottish solemn criminal procedure and the various protections embodied in it for accused persons. It was indicated to me that the Libyan government was satisfied regarding the fairness of a criminal trial in Scotland but, since Libyan law prevented the extradition of nationals for trial overseas, the ultimate decision would have to be one taken voluntarily by the accused persons themselves.

For this purpose a meeting was convened in Tripoli in October 1993 of the international team of lawyers appointed to represent the accused. I am able personally to testify to how much of a surprise and embarrassment it was to the Libyan government when the outcome of the meeting of the defence team was an announcement that the accused were not prepared to surrender themselves for trial in Scotland. At a private meeting I had in Tripoli a day later it was explained to me the primary reason for the unwillingness of the accused to stand trial in Scotland was their belief that, because of unprecedented pre-trial publicity over the years, a Scottish jury could not possibly bring to their consideration of the evidence the impartiality and open-mindedness accused persons are entitled to expect and that a fair trial demands.

I returned to Tripoli and in 1994 and presented a detailed proposal that a trial be held outside Scotland, ideally in the Netherlands, in which the governing law and procedure would be that followed in Scottish criminal trials on indictment but with the jury of 15 persons replaced by a panel of judges. In a letter to me it was stated the suspects would voluntarily surrender themselves for trial before a tribunal so constituted. The Deputy Foreign Minister of Libya stated his government approved of the proposal. I submitted the relevant documents to the Foreign Office in London and the Crown Office in Edinburgh. Their immediate response was that this scheme was impossible, impracticable and inherently undesirable, with the clear implication that I had taken leave of what few senses nature had endowed me with. However, from about late July 1998, following interventions supporting my “neutral venue” scheme from, amongst others, President Nelson Mandela, there began to be leaks from UK government sources to the effect that a policy change over Lockerbie was imminent; and on 24 August 1998 the governments of the United Kingdom and United States announced they had reversed their stance on the matter of a “neutral venue” trial. And after a number pitfalls were avoided, the suspects surrendered themselves for trial.

Q. What is your view of the legal process involving the case since then?
A. The outcome of the trial was a real shock. Since the day of the verdict I have consistently maintained the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi was contrary to the weight of the evidence and that the finding of guilt against him was a conclusion no reasonable tribunal could have reached on that evidence. I am glad to say my view appears to be shared by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, for this is one of the grounds on which it referred Megrahi’s case back to the High Court for a further appeal. As someone who has practised, taught and (as a part-time judge) administered the criminal law of Scotland for 35 years, I can confidently say that, in my opinion, the conviction of Megrahi is the worst and most blatant miscarriage of justice to have occurred in Scotland for a hundred years.

Q. What is your experience of meeting and working with victims’ families?

A. One of the great privileges accorded to me through my involvement in the Lockerbie case has been meeting, and forming friendships with, relatives of individuals killed aboard Pan Am 103: delightful people like Jim and Jane Swire, John and Lisa Mosey and Marina Larracoechea. My contacts with other relatives, particularly some American ones, have been less pleasurable. For some of them, anyone who expresses anything less than absolutely uncritical acceptance of the trial verdict and of Libyan culpability is a rogue and a scoundrel. How they will cope with the quashing of Megrahi’s conviction (which I believe to be inevitable if the current appeal goes the full distance) I hesitate to think.

"A witness, not a suspect"

[On this date in 2011 the media in the UK were still salivating over the arrival of Moussa Koussa. What follows is taken from a report in the Daily Mirror:]

Outraged relatives of Lockerbie victims yesterday called for Libyan “monster” Musa Kusa to be put on trial for mass murder.

They fear the former head of Colonel Gaddafi’s brutal secret service is trying to cheat justice and save his own skin in exchange for helping to topple the tyrant’s crumbling regime.

Kusa was being given the kid-gloves treatment last night as he was questioned by MI5 at a safe house in London after defecting to Britain.

And MI6, which operates abroad, is talking to at least six others about making the same move after David Cameron urged them to bail out while they still can.

But there is growing fury at the prospect of Kusa being let off the hook.

He is believed to have masterminded the 1988 strike on Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 259 passengers and another 11 people on the ground.

The ex-intelligence chief is also suspected of involvement in arming the IRA and holds vital information on the 1984 shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher outside Libya’s London Embassy.

Frank Duggan, who represents relatives of Lockerbie victims said: “This man is a monster, a murderer. He was no longer inside Gaddafi’s inner circle and had nowhere else to go so he jumped ship.”

He said Britain already had a “dirty bib” for allowing Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to return home to a life of luxury in Libya.

And he warned that the same must not happen to Kusa, adding: “This guy has a lot of blood on his hands. Once they have pumped him for information they should put him on trial either in Scotland or the US.” [RB: Rather naughty of the Daily Mirror not to specify that the only relatives that Frank Duggan -- not himself a relative -- represented were US, not UK, relatives. A report in The Herald, as might be expected from a serious newspaper, does make this clear.]

Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, said last night he had asked his lawyers to try to fix a meeting for him with Kusa. He added: “Kusa knows everything about it.

“He was clearly running things. If Libya was involved in Lockerbie, he can tell us how they carried out the atrocity and why.” ­Scottish prosecutors and police yesterday confirmed they want to quiz Kusa over the bombing.

David Cameron insisted officers would get the chance – and claimed no deal had been done over the defector’s future.

He said: “The decision by the former Libyan Foreign Minister to come to London and resign his position is a decision by someone right at the very top. It tells a compelling story of the desperation and fear right at the top of the crumbling and rotten Gaddafi regime.” But he added: “Let me be clear, Musa Kusa is not being granted immunity, there’s no deal. Police should follow their evidence wherever it leads.”

Whitehall sources say it will be some time before police get to see Kusa and suggest that even then he could be treated as a witness, not a suspect.

[RB: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi would have been 63 today.]

UN sanctions imposed on Libya 23 years ago today

On this date in 1992 the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 748 imposing sanctions (including trade and air transport embargoes) on Libya for failing to hand over Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah for trial in the United Kingdom or the United States (as had been required by Security Council Resolution 731 of 21 January 1992). Of the fifteen members of the Security Council, ten voted in favour and five abstained. 

The UN sanctions were eventually lifted on 12 September 2003 by Security Council Resolution 1506. Of the fifteen members of the Security Council, thirteen voted in favour and two (France and the United States) abstained. 

Separate US economic sanctions against Libya had been in force since March 1982. These remained until September 2004.

Memories of Moussa Koussa

[On this date in 2011, Moussa Koussa arrived in Britain. The following are excerpts from his Wikipedia entry (footnotes omitted):]

Moussa Muhammad Koussa (Arabic: موسى كوسا‎, Arabic pronunciation: [ˈmusaˌkosa]; born c. 1947) is a Libyan political figure and diplomat, who served in the Libyan government as Minister of Foreign Affairs from March 2009, into the Libyan Civil War, when he resigned his position from the Gaddafi regime on 30 March 2011.

Koussa previously headed the Libyan intelligence agency from 1994 to 2009, and was considered one of the country's most powerful figures. He arrived in the United Kingdom on 30 March 2011. Later the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office released an official statement saying that Koussa no longer wished to represent the Libyan government and intended to resign. He now lives in a small house in a suburb of Doha, Qatar, after being asked to leave his suite in Doha's luxurious Four Seasons hotel. He was a member of Gaddafi's inner circle. (...)

After departing Tripoli by car and arriving in Tunis, Tunisia, on 28 March 2011, via the Ras Ajdir border crossing, a Tunisian Government spokesman stated via Tunis Afrique Presse that Koussa had arrived on a "private visit." On 30 March 2011, he departed from Djerba on a Swiss-registered private jet, arriving at Farnborough Airfield, England, according to Libyan sources on a diplomatic mission. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office later released an official press statement, stating that Koussa no longer wished to represent the Libyan government and intended to resign, unhappy with Libyan Army attacks on civilians.

Scottish prosecutors interviewed Koussa about the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people. At the time, Koussa was a leading member of al Mathaba.

Koussa left the United Kingdom and moved to Qatar following a European Union decision to lift sanctions against him, meaning he no longer faces travel restrictions or an asset freeze.

Moussa Koussa's role in the torture and deaths of Libyan people was alleged by the BBC television Panorama programme (broadcast on 24/10/2011). Koussa issued a statement to the press through his lawyer, strongly refuting the allegations.

[Items on this blog relating to Moussa Koussa can be found here.]