Colin Boyd to speak about Lockerbie in New York

[There’s a treat in store for our US friends. Here is the text of a flyer announcing a forthcoming seminar at New York University:]

Thursday, April 16, 12:30–1:50 pm

Vanderbilt Hall, Room 216

CRIMINAL LAW SEMINAR:

Prosecuting the Pan Am Flight 103 Bombing Case

Colin Boyd, Lord Boyd of Duncansby, discusses his experience prosecuting this famously complex and controversial case when he was Scotland’s Lord Advocate.

Lord Boyd is a judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland, a Privy Councillor, and a Life Peer.

Lunch will be provided.

Please rsvp to monica.cortez@law.nyu.edu

[Here’s hoping that Lord Boyd’s address will be made available to the rest of us at some point.]

Megrahi and Fhimah committed for trial 16 years ago today

On this date in 1999 Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah were committed until liberated in due course of law (“full committal”) in separate brief hearings before Sheriff Principal Graham Cox QC sitting at Camp Zeist. No judicial examination was sought by the Crown.

What follows is taken from a long article on the Lockerbie case on the My Libya website:]

On 5 April 1999, after some months of discussions on concerns from the accused and their lawyers, al-Megrahi and Fhimah surrendered for trial in the Netherlands at the Dutch military airbase of Valkenburg, just outside The Hague. They were swiftly extradited to Scottish jurisdiction at Camp Zeist, just outside Utrecht. Camp Zeist, a former American airbase, had been agreed between the British and Dutch governments as the most suitable site for the trial. On the second of two appearances before Sheriff Principal Graham Cox QC, sitting at Camp Zeist, they were committed for trial on 14 April 1999. The normal period under Scots law within which the trial must commence, 110 days from the date of full committal, has been extended on application to the High Court, again sitting at Camp Zeist. The trial proper begins in early 2000 and is expected to last for at least a year.

"I wouldn’t want to be convicted on identification evidence of that quality”

[On this date in 1999, Abdelbaset Megrahi took part in an identification parade at Camp Zeist. The Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci picked him out with the words “Not exactly the man I saw in the shop 10 years ago, but the man who look a little bit like exactly is the number 5". The trial judges were satisfied on this evidence (and a somewhat similarly qualified courtroom identification) that Gauci had identified Megrahi as the purchaser of the clothes that accompanied the bomb in the brown Samsonite suitcase. This “identification” would have been seriously challenged had Megrahi’s second appeal not been abandoned. It will undoubtedly be challenged if the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission allows a further appeal.

What follows is excerpted from an article in the Scottish Sunday Express on 21 August 2011:]

A dossier for Megrahi’s appeal – which was dropped days before his release – claims the ID parade in April 1999 “fell short of what was fair”. Gauci, who sold clothing that was later packed in a suitcase with the bomb, said he could not be sure if any of the men were the same individual who had visited his shop a decade earlier.

Eventually, he picked out Megrahi as the one who “looked a little bit like exactly” the purchaser.

The report claims the parade was carried out after “an extraordinary length of time” using “stand-ins” who were not “sufficiently similar”.

It also points out that Megrahi’s photograph had been widely published. Police reports from the parade are described as “incomplete and confusing”.

Professor Steven Clark, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, states: “At no time did [Gauci] ever clearly and definitively assert that Mr. Megrahi was the man who came into his store.

“Rather, in each identification procedure, he stated that Mr. Megrahi was ‘similar’ or ‘resembled’ the man.” 

Another eyewitness identification expert, Professor Tim Valentine, of Goldsmiths University of London, said: “I do have concern of the quality of the identification evidence. I wouldn’t want to be convicted on identification evidence of that quality.”

Scottish campaigner Iain McKie, a member of the Justice for Megrahi committee,  added: “The identification process of Megrahi was totally and utterly flawed and wrong. Yet the conviction rests on that identification. The whole process was rotten.”

[Professor Steve Clark’s report on the “identification” of Megrahi can be read here (paragraphs 77 to 90 deal particularly with the ID parade).  Professor Tim Valentine’s report can be read here (paragraphs 8.18 to 8.30 and 9.2 are particularly relevant).]

Allowing Moussa Koussa to leave UK "betrayal" by Government

What follows is part of an item that appeared on this blog on this date in 2011:

Lockerbie families attack UK over Moussa Koussa travel plans

[This is the headline over a report just published on The Guardian website. It reads in part:]

Families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have accused the British government of "betrayal" after it allowed Moussa Koussa, the former Libyan foreign minister, to leave the UK to attend an international conference.

Koussa, who defected to Britain at the end of last month, was en route to Doha in Qatar on Tuesday, where an international conference on the future of Libya is to be held with representatives from the Benghazi-based opposition.

He is expected to return to the UK after the conference, but is free to travel as he pleases.

Brian Flynn, the brother of JP Flynn, who died in the 1988 attack and now organises the Victims of Pan Am 103 Incorporated campaign group in New York, said the UK authorities had "crossed a line" by allowing Koussa to attend the conference and thereby suggest he is a peace negotiator rather than, as they believe, a key instigator of the bombing.

"I think the British are being played by him … he has convinced them he can be valuable in this process, but he is not the suave diplomat in the suit sitting on the sidelines, he is one of the key guys who masterminded [the bombing of] Pan Am flight 103," Flynn said.

"He is a stated enemy of the British government. Our feeling is that the British government gave a nod to Lockerbie by questioning him two days before this conference, but that feels disingenuous. The Scottish and American prosecutors on Lockerbie are being betrayed by the politicians and the diplomats. Cameron has been good on Libya, but this sounds an awful lot like Tony Blair is back in charge."

Flynn's organisation, the largest victims' group in the US, seeks to discover the truth behind the bombing and win justice for those who died. He said the families believed the decision to allow Koussa to travel to the meeting in Qatar was part of a British strategy to encourage other defectors to flee to Britain from Gaddafi's regime, as there was no way either the rebels or the regime would trust him as an intermediary.

"He blatantly betrayed the Libyan regime and for more than 25 years he betrayed the Libyan people, so why is this the guy we are sending [to the talks]?" said Flynn.

Koussa is said to be travelling to Doha in order to establish whether he has a role to play in the rebel movement along with other senior defectors from the Gaddafi regime – perhaps by brokering a deal between Tripoli and Benghazi. (...)

Jean Berkley, co-ordinator of the UK Families Flight 103 group, who lost her 29-year old son Alistair when the Pan Am flight was blown up in mid-air, said she was mystified by the decision to let Koussa travel.

"It is very unexpected," she said. "Is he the basis of a new Libyan opposition, or what? He doesn't seem a very suitable person. Our aim is always to get more of the truth and we want a full public inquiry. Koussa must have some interesting knowledge. It is hard to know what to make of it. We will wait and see and watch with interest."

[A report on the CBS News website reads in part:]

Libya's former Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa is traveling to Qatar to share his insight on the workings of Muammar Qaddafi's inner circle, a British government official said Tuesday.

Koussa has been asked to attend the conference on Libya being held in Doha as a valuable Qaddafi insider, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

MI6 agents stopped questioning Koussa last week, according to the official. Koussa had been staying in a safehouse until late Monday night, according to Noman Benotman, an ex-member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and relative of Koussa who has been in regular contact with the former foreign minister since he fled to Britain.

Although Koussa was provided with legal advice, Benotman said he believed he had "cleared most of the legal hurdles in the UK" surrounding his alleged involvement in the Lockerbie bombing and arming the IRA.

Britain's Foreign Office confirmed the trip in a statement Tuesday, saying that Koussa was "traveling today to Doha to meet with the Qatari government and a range of other Libyan representatives."

The statement added that Koussa was "a free individual, who can travel to and from the UK as he wishes."

Libya and Lockerbie compensation

[What follows is taken from a report headlined Diplomatic row threatens payout in Lockerbie compensation deal which was published in The Herald on this date in 2005:]

A lawyer representing relatives of victims of the Lockerbie bombing last night expressed optimism that they would receive a final compensation payment, despite a row between the US and Libyan governments which threatens the settlement.

The hopes expressed by Peter Watson, a Glasgow solicitor-advocate, followed news that the Libyan Central Bank had withdrawn a payment of £277m intended for relatives of 270 people killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

No reason was given for the withdrawal of the money, intended as a final instalment of £1.1m per family.

Libya, which has acknowledged responsibility for the bombing, is understood to have already paid each family £4.4m in compensation after the US and the United Nations agreed to lift sanctions. [RB: Libya has not “acknowledged responsibility for the bombing”; what it has done is “accept responsibility for the actions of its officials”.]

The US State Department, however, has not removed Libya from its list of states that sponsor terrorism - the condition Libya set for the final payment. The State Department has refused to comment.

In September, George W Bush signed an order removing a ban on commercial air services to Libya and released £720m in Libyan assets in recognition of steps it had taken to eliminate its programme for weapons of mass destruction. The move was seen as the trigger for the release of more than £560m in compensation to relatives of victims of the bombing.

Under the terms of a compensation deal involving the US, British and Libyan governments, each victim's family was to receive pounds £7m - 40 per cent to be paid when UN sanctions were lifted, and a further 40 per cent once US sanctions were ended.

The final 20 per cent was to have been paid when Libya was removed from the State Department's list of countries that sponsor international terrorism.

Before the weekend, Libya had paid 80 per cent of the agreed compensation. The final 20-per cent (£277m), which was held in the Bank of International Settlements in Geneva, was due to have been paid at the end of February.

However, Mr Watson explained last night: "In terms of the agreement that was reached, the money was due to go back to Libya in the absence of all of the requirements of the agreement being satisfied.

"The US, for the moment, has not removed Libya from the list of states that sponsor terrorism.

"As a result, the final part of the payment has not been paid.

The parties involved continue to meet and hope that a mechanism will be found to complete the payment and reach a settlement."

Jim Swire, a spokesman for the UK Families Flight 103 Group, said: "Libya appears to have stuck to its part of the agreement. We need an answer from the US as to why Libya's name remains on its list of countries that sponsor international terrorism."

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: "The UK families remain a priority. We hope the compensation paid allows the families some comfort on Lockerbie, although we recognise they remain committed to finding the truth about the bombing."

[RB: The final tranche was eventually paid over by Libya at the end of October 2008, Libya having been removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism in mid-2006.]

UK Government "game plan" on Megrahi release

[What follows is excerpted from a report that appeared on The Telegraph website on this date in 2011:]

The British ambassador to the US told America it should not intervene to stop the release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison, according to leaked diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to the Daily Telegraph.

Nigel Sheinwald told James Steinberg, the US Deputy Secretary of State, that he was "concerned" that the demands of victims' families were unduly influencing US policy.

His comments came during critical negotiations over whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the murder of 270 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103, should be switched to a Libyan jail to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Sir Nigel was Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser between 2003 and 2007 and played a key role, alongside the Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, in bringing Colonel Muammar Gaddafi back into the international fold. He was at Mr Blair's side for the first meeting with Colonel Gaddafi in 2007 that resulted in a substantial BP oil contract. [RB: Sheinwald was at Blair's side throughout the negotiations that resulted in the "deal in the desert".]

The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to the Daily Telegraph, is dated February 2009. It states: "Sheinwald asked that the US continue to consult with the UK in the possible transfer of ailing Pan Am bomber Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi from the UK to Libya. Specifically, he said HMG supported the discussions this week between UK and US officials to define a common strategy.

"Sheinwald cited concern that the Pan Am victims' families were asking for direct US intervention to stop the transfer. He asked that the United States delay "for a few days" any intervention with the Scottish authorities, who will ultimately decide on the transfer." [RB: At this stage, only repatriation under the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement was in issue. No application for compassionate release was made by Megrahi until several months later.]

He was firmly rebuffed by Deputy Secretary Steinberg. The cable states: "The Deputy said the UK government needed to understand the sensitivities in this case, and noted he was acutely aware of the concerns of Lockerbie victim's groups from his previous time in government."

Mr Megrahi was controversially released on compassionate grounds seven months later after being diagnosed with cancer.

Last night the victim's families were furious that British diplomats actively lobbied to stop the US intervening in Megrahi's release.

Kathleen Flynn, whose son John Patrick died in the bombing, said: "It is disgraceful that the British were complicit in his release. This man was a killer who took 270 innocent lives but was allowed go free and live the life of riley in Tripoli."

Sir Nigel Sheinwald also reportedly gave Gaddafi's son, Saif, help with his PhD thesis. The doctorate awarded him by the London School of Economics was already thought suspect because he followed it with a £1.5 million donation. Mr Sheinwald denied the allegation, saying he met Saif Gaddafi while he was writing his thesis but had not helped him. (...)

Senior Labour Cabinet ministers always denied being involved in any backstairs deals over the release in August 2009, yet a secret Foreign Office memo referred to a "game plan" to facilitate Megrahi's move to Libya.

Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, said in an analysis of the papers: "Once Megrahi had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in September 2008, (government) policy was based upon an assessment that UK interests would be damaged if Megrahi were to die in a UK jail."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We do not comment on leaked documents."

[The following is taken from an item posted on this blog on 15 July 2010:]

The government believes that the decision by Scotland to free the Lockerbie bomber was a mistake, London's envoy to the United States said Thursday.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US Pan Am jumbo jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which left 270 people dead.

"The new British government is clear that Megrahi's release was a mistake," ambassador Nigel Sheinwald said, stressing that under the country's laws power over justice issues have been devolved to Scotland.

[I commented as follows:]

The ambassador to Washington DC, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, was Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the prime minister, Tony Blair, from 2003 to 2007. It is a matter for mild cynical amusement that Sheinwald was present at, and intimately involved in, the negotiation of the deal in the desert which was intended to pave the way for Abdelbaset Megrahi's early repatriation under a prisoner transfer agreement. The UK negotiators did not realise that the power to allow transfer would rest, not with the UK but with the Scottish, Government. Or if the negotiators did realise this, they signally failed to inform their Libyan counterparts, to the disgust of the latter when they discovered [RB: from me] what the true position was.

“At the meeting on 9 April, I proposed that US $2m should be paid to Anthony Gauci"

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in the the Maltese newspaper The Sunday Times on 24 November 2013:]

The lead investigator in the Lockerbie bombing personally lobbied US authorities to pay two Maltese witnesses at least $3 million for their part in securing the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, documents published today in The Sunday Times of Malta reveal. (...)

In one of the documents, Detective Superintendent Tom McCulloch, from the Scottish Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, wrote to the US Department of Justice on April 19, 2002, making the case for Maltese witness Tony Gauci and his brother Paul to be compensated for their role in the trial from the US Rewards for Justice programme.

McCulloch wrote: “At the meeting on 9 April, I proposed that US 2 million dollars should be paid to Anthony Gauci and US 1 million dollars to his brother Paul. However, following further informal discussions I was encouraged to learn that those responsible for making the final decision retain a large degree of flexibility to increase this figure.”

The letter followed on from a meeting with the Justice Department and the FBI and another letter sent a year earlier in which Mr McCulloch first made his plea on behalf of the Gaucis.

In this first letter, he wrote: “There is little doubt that (Tony Gauci’s) evidence was the key to the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohammed Al Megrahi. I therefore feel that he is a worthy of nominee for the reward...”

Mr McCulloch said he had discussed the reward with the Crown Office (the prosecution) but they would not offer an opinion on whether the Gaucis should be paid as this was deemed “improper”.

“The prosecution in Scotland cannot become involved in such an application,” Mr McCulloch wrote. (...)

Mr Gauci himself gave evidence before the commission and stressed that he had never shown any interest in receiving payment. To sustain his point, he underlined the fact that he had turned down various offers for payment by journalists, who had been hounding him and his brother for an exclusive, over the years.

He had also turned down an offer made by an unidentified Libyan man for compensation from the Libyan regime.

However, extracts from a diary kept by Dumfries and Galloway Inspector Harry Bell give a different picture. In a note dated September 29, 1989, early into the investigation, Mr Bell noted that FBI Agent Chris Murray had told him he had “the authority to arrange unlimited money for Tony Gauci” and that he could arrange for “$10,000 immediately”.

Moreover, there are also various entries in the classified documents in which Scottish police describe Paul Gauci as being very forceful about seeking some sort of financial gain and also that he influenced his brother greatly.

“It is apparent from speaking to him for any length of time that he has a desire to gain financial benefit from the position he and his brother are in relative to the case. As a consequence he exaggerates his own importance as a witness and clearly inflates the fears that he and his brother have...” (...)

Robert Black, an emeritus professor of Scots law, who is widely credited as having been the architect of the non-jury trial at the neutral location of Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, said he found one of the documents shocking.

In this document, dated January 12, 2001, the officer, whose name was redacted, writes: “(the Gauci brothers) will maintain their current position and not seek to make adverse comment regarding any perceived lack of recognition of their position. Nor is it anticipated would they ever seek to highlight any remuneration perceived”.

Reacting to this passage, Prof Black said: “It is no part of an investigator’s or prosecutor’s function to seek to secure that a witness maintains his current position.

“To try to influence a witness, or secure benefits for him, to achieve this result is grossly improper. The passage also recognises that it is important that the remuneration arrangement should not be ‘highlighted’. This manifests a clear, and correct, understanding that the arrangement is not one that would meet with legal or public approbation.”

The act itself of paying out money to a witness is no longer illegal under Scottish law, although it once was. However, Prof Black insisted, it is something that should always be disclosed to the defence.

“In this case, the authorities did everything in their power to conceal it, including ‘mislaying’ Harry Bell’s diary until it was eventually unearthed by the SCCRC in the course of their investigation of the Megrahi conviction.”

"Unfair, incomprehensible, irrational and arbitrary"

[This is the headline over an article by William Paul published in Scotland on Sunday on this date in 2001. It reads as follows:]

There was always an undercurrent of disquiet when the Lockerbie trial ended in Holland earlier this year. The unanimous guilty verdict on Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi unexpected, the not guilty verdict on Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah apparently inconsistent, the loose logic adopted in the written judgement seemingly open to challenge.

Yet criticism was largely muted, even among some relatives of the 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103 who had fought so hard and for so long to have the case brought to court and were mostly convinced that if the Libyans were involved at all they were, at best, minor players in a greater conspiracy that would only be exposed with the trial over.

Once the shock of the court's findings had sunk in, a consensus quickly arose among those with reservations about the verdicts. After all, due process of law had been followed and evidence had been heard in open court as promised. This had the effect of more or less suppressing the widespread sense of dissatisfaction.

Into this comparative vacuum stepped the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, with a series of "roadshows" for relatives in Britain and America which were said to have a distinctly triumphalist tone. The reputation of Robert Black, the Edinburgh University law professor who had been a constant critic of the way the case was handled, was subjected to "vicious and acidic" attack, according to one relative present at the briefings. It was also suggested that had Megrahi given evidence Fhimah would have been convicted too.

Trial judge Lord Sutherland agreed that such personal briefings were unusual but added in reference to Black who was adamant there was insufficient evidence for a guilty verdict: "If the Crown were getting their own back I'm not entirely surprised ... I suppose pointing out that he wasn't necessarily right might be a useful counterblast."

Now the authorities are facing a different kind of counterblast, this time from an independent observer who cannot be easily ignored. Dr Hans Koechler, president of the Vienna-based International Progress Organisation and a world -renowned expert on law and human rights, was personally appointed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to ensure fair play and high standards. Koechler, who sat through every day of the trial at Camp Zeist, not only supports Black's argument that there was insufficient evidence to convict Megrahi, but goes much further in condemning what went on in the special court as hopelessly contaminated by political considerations to the detriment of the rule of law. The conduct of the judges, previously regarded as beyond reproach, is also criticised for allowing a political dimension to be present in the courtroom and therefore to influence the final outcome.

This is a monumental embarrassment to the judges, the Crown prosecution team, and to the UN, an organisation that was pivotal in brokering the diplomatic understanding that allowed the Lockerbie trial to go ahead in a neutral venue after so many years of the British and American governments refusing to compromise.

On the day, January 31, Fhimah was set free and Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment, Annan said: "Justice has taken its course and the authority and legitimacy of the legal process must be respected."

Within days, Annan had received a report from Koechler telling him exactly what he didn't want to hear; the trial had been tainted by political interference and the verdicts were contradictory and irrational.

Yesterday a spokesman for Annan attempted to distance the UN from Koechler's report, saying it amounted to one person's personal opinion and could not be regarded as an official UN document. And the Crown Office pointed out that Koechler seemed not to understand the adversarial nature of criminal procedures in Scots law, nor how it was for the prosecution and defence to decide what evidence was presented in court, not the judges.

Koechler's report, does not pull any punches in its forthright condemnation of the way politics was allowed to dictate the course of the Lockerbie trial.

The problems began on the first day with two representatives of the US Justice Department sitting with the Crown prosecution team and seemingly acting as "supervisors" of strategy and presentation of evidence.

Soon after the start of the trial in May last year, Scotland on Sunday revealed concern over the presence of American lawyers Dana Biehl and Brian Murtaugh, members of the Office for the Victims of Crime, an offshoot of the Department of Justice. It was said their presence gave the court "an unfortunate US v Libya flavour".

Koechler writes: "This serious problem of due process became evident in the matter of the CIA cables concerning one of the Crown's key witnesses, Mr Giaka. Those cables were initially dismissed by the prosecution as not relevant but proved to be highly relevant when finally (but only partially) released."

The cables eventually showed that Abdul Majid Giaka, a Libyan defector, had been paid by the CIA for information which was regarded as of minimal worth. He had not mentioned any knowledge of Lockerbie until months after the bombing and only after being threatened with having his payments stopped. Then he implicated the accused by claiming to have seen them at Luqa airport in Malta with a suspicious suitcase.

"It has become obvious that the presence of foreign governments in a Scottish courtroom (in any courtroom for that matter) jeopardises the independence and integrity of legal procedures and is not in conformity with the general standards of fairness," Koechler wrote.

Relatives of the victims also complained about the two, sometimes three, Americans who sat with the prosecution team. In response, the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, said it was up to him who was invited to join him in the court.

Koechler's criticism extended to the defence, and the presence of Kamal Maghour, a former foreign affairs minister in the Libyan government . Again, Maghour was not listed in any official records as being present. The two Libyan accused lodged a special defence blaming named Palestinian terrorists for the bombing.

"It was a consistent pattern during the whole trial that - as an apparent result of political interests and considerations - efforts were undertaken to withhold substantial information from the court. It may never be fully known to which extent relevant information was hidden from the court. The most serious case... is related to the special defence. The alternative theory of the defence - leading to conclusions contradictory to those of the prosecution - was never seriously investigated... although it was officially declared as being of major importance to the defence. By not having pursued... an alternative theory, the court seems to have accepted that the whole legal process was seriously flawed in regard to the requirements of objectivity and due process. As a result the undersigned (Koechler) has reached the conclusion that foreign governments or governmental agencies may have been allowed, albeit indirectly, to determine to a considerable extent, which evidence was made available to the court."

Koechler says it was "highly arbitrary and irrational" to take witnesses like Giaka and Edwin Bollier, whose electronics firm supplied the fatal timing device, and rely on parts of their evidence when other parts were dismissed as riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions.

"In spite of the reservations explaining the verdict itself, the guilty verdict in the case of Megrahi is particularly incomprehensible in view of the admission by the judges themselves that identification was 'not absolute' and that there was a mass of conflicting evidence," the report says. Furthermore, the Opinion of the Court seems to be inconsistent in a basic respect: while the first accused was found guilty, the second accused was found not guilty. This is totally incomprehensible when one considers that the indictment in its very essence was based on the joint action of the two accused in Malta."

Koechler asserts, "The guilty verdict in regard to the first accused appears to be arbitrary, even irrational. This leads the undersigned to the suspicion that political considerations may have been over-riding a strictly judicial evaluation of the case thus may have adversely affected the outcome of the trial. This may have a profound impact on the evaluation of the professional reputation and integrity of the panel of three Scottish judges. Seen from the final outcome, a certain co-ordination of the strategies of prosecution, of defence, and of the judges' considerations during the later period of the trial is not totally unlikely. This, however, when actually proven, would have a devastating effect on the whole legal process of the Scottish Court in the Netherlands and on the legal quality of its findings.

"In the above context, the undersigned has reached the general conclusion that the outcome of the trial may well have been determined by political considerations and may to a considerable extent have been the result of more or less openly exercised influence from the part of actors outside the judicial framework - facts which are not compatible with the basic principle of the division of powers and with the independence of the judiciary, and which put in jeopardy the very rule of law and the confidence citizens must have in the legitimacy of state power and the functioning of the state's organs - whether on the traditional national level or in the framework of international justice."

Koechler's ultimate conclusion is that the Lockerbie trial had done a disservice to the cause of international criminal justice. It was neither fair, nor conducted in an objective manner.

Koechler's final message to Kofi Annan is to express the hope that Megrahi's appeal will "correct the deficiencies" of the trial and that will depend on the integrity and independence of the five judges who will hear it.

The appeal against conviction is likely to be heard in September.

[A further article by William Paul in the same newspaper contains the following:]

The Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga, 19, was killed at Lockerbie, said Koechler’s report touched on many of the issues he had raised with the Lord Advocate during the trial without receiving satisfactory answers. “It expresses more eloquently than I managed to do all of the major concerns that many of the relatives had identified,” he said.