Genuinely independent prosecutor needed for JFM criminality allegations

[At its meeting on 21 April 2015 the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee resolved to write to the Lord Advocate enquiring how the Crown Office proposed to deal with the forthcoming Police Scotland report on Justice for Megrahi’s allegations of criminal misconduct on the part of police officers, prosecutors and Crown forensic scientists in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial. This arose out of the suggestion made on this blog that a special prosecutor or independent counsel might be required, in the light of the Lord Advocate’s publicly expressed views about the merits of JFM’s allegations and the character of JFM members. 

The Lord Advocate replied to the committee’s inquiry in a letter dated 8 May: “I had anticipated this as a potential issue some time ago given my involvement in the investigation and the nature of the allegations which have been made.  Arrangements were therefore put in place for an independent Crown Counsel who has not been involved in the Lockerbie case to deal with this matter if and when the need arises.”

JFM’s response to the Lord Advocate’s letter has now been posted on the Justice Committee’s website. It reads as follows:]

Following the Lord Advocate’s 8th May response to the 28th April letter from the Convener of the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee, the Committee of Justice for Megrahi (JFM) wishes to make the following observations. 

If the Lord Advocate is proposing a Crown Office advocate depute as an independent prosecutor to consider any Police Scotland report stemming from the investigation of JFM’s 9 allegations of criminality, known as Operation Sandwood, such a proposal falls well short of JFM’s concept of an independent, unbiased and constitutionally sound approach. 

1. JFM has on several occasions drawn the attention of the Justice Committee to the unprecedented, highly irresponsible and prejudicial public outbursts in which both the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office as a whole have not only grossly distorted the content of our allegations but also vilified us for having had the temerity to level the allegations in the first instance. How can any representative of a body that has described, in the media, JFM’s allegations as being ‘without exception, defamatory and entirely unfounded’ and ‘false and deliberately misleading’ make a fair and unprejudiced consideration of any evidence presented by the police? We believe that by ‘going public’ these authorities, being fully aware of ‘Sandwood’, have destroyed their constitutional independence and have threatened the integrity of that enquiry.  

2. It appears inevitable that these public interventions will have had an effect on potential witnesses. Witnesses are now expected to give evidence against a background of this very public ‘interference’ by Scotland’s senior prosecution authorities. Those authorities have consistently sought to dismiss the ‘conspiracy theorists’ behind the ‘Sandwood’ criminal allegations and to underline their opinion that Mr Megrahi and his accomplices are the only guilty parties in the case. We fear that certain Crown, Police and both expert and ordinary witnesses, encouraged by these statements, might seek to withhold or alter legitimate evidence which they could otherwise give to Operation Sandwood. 

3. In his letter of 8 th May, the Lord Advocate gives the impression that he is disengaging from involvement in consideration of the final police report on the matter. However, if he is responsible for the appointment of the ‘independent Crown Counsel’, from the outset, he clearly plays a pivotal role in the outcome of the prosecutor’s consideration of the report. Any such counsel should be chosen by a person or body entirely outwith the Crown Office. 

4. It is naïve to expect that an advocate depute in the Crown Office, appointed by the Lord Advocate and subject to his instructions, and whose tenure of that office depends entirely upon his decision, is likely to instruct proceedings of any kind and thus effectively say that the Lord Advocate was so publicly wrong. It is also extremely unlikely that he/she will easily set themselves against their colleagues in the Crown Office who have already made their position clear on several occasions. Equally importantly it is certain, no matter the decision reached, that in the minds of the protagonists on either side of the Lockerbie debate, the general public, the media and other commentators, justice will not have been seen to be done. It should be made clear that both the final decision on prosecution and the conduct of any prosecution rest with the independent (and independently appointed) counsel not tainted by any association with the Lord Advocate or any member of the Crown Office. 

5. Moreover, given that the Lord Advocate is head of Scotland’s prosecution service, it would seem inevitable that any final conclusions arrived at by the ‘independent’ prosecutor he mentions would, by dint of his position, find their way onto the Lord Advocate’s desk for the ultimate stamp of approval.  

6. Whilst JFM is, quite correctly, not privy to the operational detail relating to ‘Sandwood’, we have been most impressed by the diligence and professionalism of the officers working on the allegations. In the course of their investigations, Police Scotland have been working in tandem with an independent QC: how then will the Lord Advocate’s proposal fit together with the role already being played by Police Scotland’s QC? 

It is plain to see from the unethical, prejudicial and ill-judged statements issued by the Crown Office that there is a straightforward conflict of interests with respect to any role which that body can play in this case. 

The UK is signed up to the United Nations International Association of Prosecutors (IAP). In its pronouncements, the Crown Office has displayed a flagrant contempt for and disregard of the IAP principles as laid out in the IAP document Standards of Professional Responsibilities and Statement of Essential Duties and Rights of Prosecutors. Particularly, but not exclusively, these responsibilities include the duty of a prosecutor not to act in their own interest but always to serve and protect the public interest, be free from political interference, and generally be consistent, independent, impartial and transparent (as outlined in articles 1 through 4). The Crown Office is clearly in breach of these principles, and, as previously mentioned, no person currently in Crown Office can be impartial. The Report must be made to a totally independent person. http://www.iap-association.org/getattachment/34e49dfe-d5db-4598-91da-16183bb12418/ Standards_English.aspx 

The UK is also signed up to the Council of Europe. In its document The Role of Public Prosecution in the Criminal Justice System, adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 6th October2000.

Article 1 states: ‘Public prosecutors’ are public authorities who, on behalf of society and in the public interest, ensure the application of the law where the breach of the law carries a criminal sanction, taking into account both the rights of the individual and the necessary effectiveness of the criminal justice system.’

Article 9 states: ‘With respect to the organisation and the internal operation of the Public Prosecution, in particular the assignment and re-assignment of cases, this should meet requirements of impartiality and independence and maximise the proper operation of the criminal justice system, in particular the level of legal qualification and specialisation devoted to each matter.’ 

Article 24 states: ‘In the performance of their duties, public prosecutors should in particular: a. carry out their functions fairly, impartially and objectively.’ 

Article 34 states: ‘Interested parties of recognised or identifiable status, in particular victims, should be able to challenge decisions of public prosecutors not to prosecute; such a challenge may be made, where appropriate after an hierarchical review, either by way of judicial review, or by authorising parties to engage private prosecution.’ http://www.procuracassazione.it/procuragenerale-resources/resources/cms/documents/ COE_CM_20001006_Recommendation_2000_19_en.pdf

The Crown Office has turned Scottish justice into an embarrassing, laughing stock and developed this case into a running sore. We strongly believe that in order to acquire a fair, unprejudiced and truly independent reading of the final police report a special prosecutor must be appointed by a process independent of the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office, and must be seen to exercise his/her decision-making and prosecutorial functions without reference to the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office. 

Since the Lord Advocate’s position and independence as head of the prosecution system in Scotland is enshrined in the Scotland Act, such a mechanism must be put in place by the Lord Advocate himself, failing which, the Scottish Government should seek from the UK Government a section 30 Order in Council to enable the Scottish Government to do so. 

On 28th February 2007 the then Lord Advocate, Dame Elish Angiolini, in giving the inaugural KPMG Annual Law Lecture highlighted the position of the Lord Advocate in the 21st century by stating:  

‘The fact that prosecution decisions are taken independently does not mean that they are taken unaccountably. It is for the Parliament to decide whether the Lord Advocate is carrying out that vital function to its satisfaction, not as a matter of party politics, but as a matter of sound administration. 

‘The result is that the present system leaves an inefficient Lord Advocate, or an irresponsible Scottish Executive, nowhere to hide. If the prosecution system fails, then Parliament can hold the Lord Advocate, and the administration of which she forms a part, accountable for that failure. 

‘As Lord Advocate, I exercise considerable powers, and carry great responsibilities. And no sensible Minister ever takes Parliament lightly. I note, in passing, that the Justice Committees of the Scottish Parliament routinely scrutinise the work of the Law Officers. That notion is also now being discussed at Westminster. I would like to make one further point, touching on accountability. The prosecutor's judgement in starting a prosecution is clearly justiciable in the courts. That is as it should be.’ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/ cmconst/ 306/306we13.htm  

This seems to be pertinent and timely advice to the present holder of this historic office.

Throughout all of this, it appears that the Crown Office, in pursuit of obtaining and maintaining convictions above any other principle, has lost sight of its most fundamental raison d’être: the service of justice.

Is Libya being framed?

[This is part of the headline over an article by Gary C Gambill that was published on this date in 2000 in the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. It reads as follows:]

Scotland's Sunday Herald reported last week that the US government placed a gag order on a former CIA agent to prevent him from testifying in the trial of two Libyans accused of carrying out the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people.

Dr. Richard Fuisz, a wealthy businessman and pharmaceutical researcher who was a major CIA operative in Damascus during the 1980s, told a congressional staffer in 1994 that the perpetrators of the bombing were based in Syria. "If the government would let me, I could identify the men behind this attack . . . I can tell you their home addresses . . . you won't find [them] anywhere in Libya. You will only find [them] in Damascus," Fuisz told congressional aide Susan Lindauer, who has submitted a sworn affidavit describing this conversation to the Scottish court that is trying the two suspects.

One month after their meeting, a Washington DC court issued a ruling that prohibits Fuisz from discussing the Lockerbie bombing on national security grounds. When a reporter called Fuisz last month with questions about Lindauer's affidavit, he replied: "That is not an issue I can confirm or deny. I am not allowed to speak about these issues. In fact, I can't even explain to you why I can't speak about these issues." The report quoted a senior UN official who has seen the affidavit as saying that "in the interests of natural justice, Dr. Fuisz should be released from any order which prevents him telling what he knows of the PanAm bombing."1

The investigation into the bombing by Scottish police and the FBI initially focused exclusively on evidence linking the blast to the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), a radical Palestinian group closely allied with Syrian President Hafez Assad and other senior officials. However, the investigation suddenly changed courses after Syria joined the US-led coalition against Iraq in 1991 and Iran stayed neutral. In November of that year, US investigators issued indictments against two alleged Libyan intelligence agents and President George Bush declared that Syria had taken a "bum rap" on Lockerbie.

Fuisz is not the first to run afoul of the U.S. government for speaking about Syrian and Iranian complicity in the Lockerbie bombing. Juval Aviv, the president of Interfor, a New York corporate investigative company hired by Pan Am to conduct an inquiry into the bombing, was indicted for mail fraud after Interfor announced its conclusion that the PFLP-GC had been responsible.2 A former agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lester Coleman, was charged by the FBI with "falsely procuring a passport" while he was researching a book entitled Trail of the Octopus which fingered the PFLP-GC (Coleman left the country and published the book in Britain).3 William Casey, a lobbyist who made similar claims about PFLP-GC involvement, said in 1995 that the US Justice Department had frozen his bank accounts and federal agents scoured through his garbage cans.4

The Case Against Libya

The prosecution's claim is that two Libyan intelligence agents, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, planted Semtex plastic explosives inside a Toshiba radio-cassette recorder in an unaccompanied suitcase on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was transferred onto Pan Am flight 103, bound for New York via London's Heathrow airport.

The first important chain of evidence links the bomb-laden suitcase on Flight 103 to Air Malta Flight KM180. Fragments of the Toshiba radio-cassette recorder were found inside a brown Samsonite suitcase, the only piece of luggage on the Flight 103 that was not checked by a passenger. The suitcase had entered the baggage system at Frankfurt at the same time and location as the Air Malta flight was unloading. According to prosecutors, a tattered shirt with a Maltese label containing fragments of the timing device was found by a Scottish man walking his dog 18 months after the explosion (fabric samples from the shirt were said to indicate that it was inside the brown suitcase).

However, Air Malta's computer records show no indication that a brown Samsonite suitcase was on board Flight KT180, and the notion that an old man walking his dog would stumble across a key piece of evidence a year and a half after the explosion is a bit far-fetched. Moreover, according to a forensic report which the defense will present during the trial, a bomb in a suitcase stored in the aluminum luggage containers could not have created the dinner plate-sized hole in the fuselage that brought down the plane--the bomb would have had to be directly next to the plane's fuselage. If this true, then the prosecution's entire explanation of how the bomb arrived on the aircraft in Malta falls apart.

A second chain of evidence links the two Libyan suspects to Malta. Detectives traced the charred remains of clothing tattered shirt to a clothing shop in Sliema, Malta, whose owner, Tony Gauci, said that he recalled selling the clothes to a tall Arab male, about 50 years old, in the fall of 1988. Investigators say he later identified the man who bought the clothes as Megrahi. However, Megrahi was only 36 at the time, and Gauci greatly overestimated his height. Moreover, a member of the PFLP-GC, Muhammed Abu Talb, was originally identified as the man who bought the clothes during the early stages of the investigation.5

A third primary piece of evidence said to implicate Libya are two fragments of an electronic circuit board from the the timing device that detonated the explosives on board the airliner. Investigators traced the fragments to a Swiss company which manufactures electronic timers, Mebo Telecommunications. The head of Mebo Communications, Edwin Bollier, told investigators that the fragments came from an MST-13 timer he had sold to the Libyan government. However, Bollier recently said he had made the identification solely from looking at photographs of the fragments. When he was shown one of the actual fragments in September 1999, he concluded that "the fragment does not come from one of the timers we sold to Libya." Bollier says that it appears to come from one of the three prototypes built by his company--two of which were sold to the Institute of Technical Research in East Germany (a front for the Stasi intelligence service), while the third was stolen. He intends to testify to this at the trial, as will Owen Lewis, a British forensic expert.6

A fourth important piece of evidence is the testimony of a former Libyan intelligence officer who will identify the two suspects as members of Libya's intelligence service. While details of what he told investigators are scarce, sources close to the defense have said that it is highly questionable.

A number of irregularities in the investigation also detract from the plausibility of the prosecution's claims. The American FBI agent who was instrumental in pushing the Libya hypothesis, J. Thomas Thurman, was later suspended for manipulating evidence to favor the prosecution in subsequent cases.7

The Case Against Syria/Iran

The primary hypothesis guiding the investigation for the first year was that the bombing was perpetrated by the Syria-based PFLP-GC, presumably acting on behalf of Iran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had vowed to retaliate for the US Navy's July 1988 downing of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf, saying that the skies would "rain blood" and offering a $10 million reward to anyone who "obtained justice" for Iran. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, Teheran's envoy in Damascus in 1988, was believed to have recruited the financially-strapped group for the task.

Two months before the disaster, German police arrested 15 terrorist suspects, all connected to the PFLP-GC, and confiscated three explosive devices consisting of Semtex hidden inside Toshiba cassette recorders--nearly identical to the one used in the Lockerbie bombing (the only major difference being that they had barometric triggers, rather than electronic timers of the type that investigators claim detonated the explosives on board Pan Am flight 103). Moreover, US officials reportedly had received advance warnings that a flight to New York would be targeted around the time of the Lockerbie bombing. In fact, Stephen Green, a senior Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) administrator, John McCarthy, the U.S. Ambassador to Beirut, and several other US officials were originally scheduled to fly on the ill-fated airliner on December 21, but rescheduled at the last minute.

It's possible that the PFLP smuggled the bomb on board Pan Am flight 103 from Malta. Abu Talb was sighted in Malta just weeks before the bombing. When he was later arrested in Sweden, police found the date of the Lockerbie explosion (December 21) circled on his calender.8

This and most other evidence linking the Lockerbie bombing to the PFLP-GC is largely circumstantial and difficult to substantiate, if only because the results of the FBI's early investigation into its involvement were not made public. The question is: Given the weaknesses in the case against Libya, why was the investigation into PFLP-GC involvement suspended and should it be reactivated if the two Libyan defendants are acquitted?

------

 1 The Sunday Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), 28 May 2000.

 2 The Guardian (London) July 29, 1995.

 3 Ibid.

 4 IPS Newsire, 3 May 1995.

 5 The Daily Telegraph (London), 22 December 1998.

 6 The Independent (London), 14 December 1998.

 7 The Daily Telegraph (London), 22 December 1998.

 8 AP Newswire, 29 April 2000.

Downing Street disinformation

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2007:]

The UK Government has published details of a deal struck with Libya on prisoner exchange, which it insists does not cover the Lockerbie bomber's case.

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond had voiced concern at Holyrood that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi could be transferred back to a jail in Libya.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said no deal had been signed over the future of al-Megrahi. (...)

The memorandum of understanding with Libya was signed last week by Mr Blair during a trip to the country. It was created on 29 May.

It states that the two sides will shortly "commence negotiations" on prisoner transfer, extradition and mutual assistance in criminal law, with a final deal signed within 12 months.

It will be based on a "model agreement" that, according to the document, has already been hammered out.

Mr Salmond had demanded clarification from the UK Government about al-Megrahi's case and made an emergency statement at Holyrood on Thursday.

He said that "at no stage" was the Scottish government made aware of the memorandum, despite the deal being struck on 29 May.

Addressing MSPs, he said: "I have today written to the prime minister expressing my concern that it was felt appropriate for the UK government to sign such a memorandum on matters clearly devolved to Scotland, without any opportunity for this government and indeed this parliament to contribute." (...)

He added that while the Scottish Executive supported the UK Government's desire for better relations with Libya, the lack of consultation with Holyrood over the memorandum was "clearly unacceptable".

"This government is determined that decisions on any individual case will continue to be made following the due process of Scots law," the first minister said.

A Downing Street statement said: "There is a legal process currently under way in Scotland reviewing this case which is not expected to conclude until later this summer.

"Given that, it is totally wrong to suggest the we have reached any agreement with the Libyan Government in this case.

"The memorandum of understanding agreed with the Libyan Government last week does not cover this case." (...)

Opposition politicians in Scotland condemned the lack of consultation with the Scottish government.

Labour leader Jack McConnell said: "As former first minister I would have expected and demanded no less than prior consultation on such a memorandum.

"Scottish ministers, as far as I understand the letter of the law, have an absolute veto over prison transfers. I want to know if this memorandum contradicts that in any way."

[RB: Here is something previously written by me on this matter:]

It was on this date in 2007 that the “deal in the desert” was concluded between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi at a meeting in Sirte. This was embodied in a “memorandum of understanding” that provided, amongst other things, for a prisoner transfer agreement to be drawn up. In later years UK Government ministers, particularly Justice Secretary Jack Straw, sought to argue either (i) that the prisoner transfer element of the deal was not intended to apply to Abdelbaset Megrahi or (ii) that if it was intended to cover him, all parties appreciated that the decision on transfer would be one for the Scottish Government not the UK Government. Here is what I wrote about that on this blog:

According to Jack Straw "the Libyans understood that the discretion in respect of any PTA application rested with the Scottish Executive." This is not so. In meetings that I had with Libyan officials at the highest level shortly after the "deal in the desert" it was abundantly clear that the Libyans believed that the UK Government could order the transfer of Mr Megrahi and that they were prepared to do so. When I told them that the relevant powers rested with the Scottish -- not the UK -- Government, they simply did not believe me. When they eventually realised that I had been correct, their anger and disgust with the UK Government was palpable. As I have said elsewhere:

"The memorandum of understanding regarding prisoner transfer that Tony Blair entered into in the course of the "deal in the desert" in May 2007, and which paved the way for the formal prisoner transfer agreement, was intended by both sides to lead to the rapid return of Mr Megrahi to his homeland. This was the clear understanding of Libyan officials involved in the negotiations and to whom I have spoken.

"It was only after the memorandum of understanding was concluded that [it belatedly sunk in] that the decision on repatriation of this particular prisoner was a matter not for Westminster and Whitehall but for the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh, and that government had just come into the hands of the Scottish National Party and so could no longer be expected supinely to follow the UK Labour Government's wishes. That was when the understanding between the UK Government and the Libyan Government started to unravel, to the considerable annoyance and distress of the Libyans, who had been led to believe that repatriation under the PTA was only months away.

“Among the Libyan officials with whom I discussed this matter at the time were Abdulati al-Obeidi, Moussa Koussa and Abdel Rahman Shalgam.”

Kenny MacAskill will not stand for Scottish Parliament in 2016

[What follows is excerpted from a report in today’s edition of The National:]

Kenny MacAskill – one of the leading figures in the SNP for the past three decades – is to stand down at the Holyrood election next May.

The former Justice Secretary was replaced by Michael Matheson in Nicola Sturgeon’s new administration, following the independence referendum last September.

He was first elected to the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh in 1999 and held on to the seat at subsequent elections through boundary changes.

A former solicitor, MacAskill said he had to fight for 25 years before he was elected during a period when the SNP was regarded as a minority party and struggled to have a public profile.

But forming the first SNP Government in 2007, Alex Salmond appointed MacAskill to the key Cabinet post and he became the longest serving Justice Secretary since devolution.

Last night MacAskill wrote to his Edinburgh Eastern constituency members to tell them he will not be seeking nomination again and will be drawing a line under his career in frontline politics. (...)

MacAskill’s most controversial decision as Justice Secretary was the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, from Greenock Prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds after he had been diagnosed with cancer. He died in Tripoli protesting his innocence in 2012. “It was the decision with the most pressures internationally, but we followed the laws and guidance and we ignored the external pressures to change,” he said. “The pressures went with the job but I had a great team around me in the justice department, the police and the prison service and for that I am humble. I stand by the decision now, as I did then.”

Mandela plans visit to Megrahi

[On this date in 2002, The Herald published a report headlined Mandela wants to visit Lockerbie bomber. (Not long afterwards The Herald wisely adopted the practice of referring to “the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing” rather than “the Lockerbie bomber”.) The report reads as follows:]

Nelson Mandela wants to visit Barlinnie next week to see the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

Zelda la Grange, spokeswoman for the former South African president, said that Mr Mandela was speaking to government officials to arrange details of a visit to see Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi. She said: ''We are in the process of planning to go there early next week.''

Mr Mandela played a crucial role in persuading Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to hand over two men suspected of involvement in the 1988 bombing. A total of 270 people were killed when PanAm flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie.

Al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 20 years. The second Libyan was acquitted.

Libyan television said that Mr Mandela had telephoned Colonel Gaddafi to tell him of his plans to visit al-Megrahi and check his health and detention conditions. Ms la Grange said: ''He's had a personal involvement in this case throughout, so it would only be expected of him to go there and see the prisoner and see the conditions in the prison.''

The Scottish Prison Service said it had not received any confirmation of Mr Mandela's visit.

Government officials from Britain, the US, and Libya are to meet in London tomorrow to discuss the £1.86 billion compensation offer to relatives of the Lockerbie bombing victims. It is part of tripartite discussions which have taken place since the Libyan intelligence agent was convicted.

Kriendler and Kriendler, the New York law firm which has been negotiating on behalf of some of the families last week said Libya was prepared to pay compensation. It said Libya had offered to pay £1.86 billion - or almost £7m per family - as compensation for the 270 people killed in the bombing, with payments linked to the lifting of sanctions.

The Foreign Office yesterday confirmed a meeting with US and Libyan officials would take place tomorrow. A spokesman said: ''It is about Libya's response to the requirements of the UN resolutions, which cover not just compensation.''

Later, Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP, said:''Nelson Mandela and I, separately, were as responsible as anybody for persuading the two Libyans to have a trial in a third country and to persuade them as well to submit themselves to trial. ''I feel an obligation to make sure, in any way I can, that justice has been done. I believe there has been a catastrophic miscarriage of justice.''

Mr Dalyell, MP for Linlithgow, went on: ''I went a fortnight ago to see Mr Megrahi for more than two hours in Barlinnie. ''He explained to me in detail that he was for 10 years a sanctions buster for Libyan-Arab Airlines. This is very different from being a mass murderer.''

[RB: Nelson Mandela’s visit took place a few days later, on 10 June 2002.]

Another claim of Iranian responsibility

[This is the headline over a report published on this date in 2000 on the BBC News website. It reads as follows:]

A man claiming to be a senior Iranian intelligence service defector has said that Iran, not Libya, masterminded the Lockerbie bombing.

But legal experts in Scotland have said that the allegations are unlikely to affect the trial currently under way of two Libyans accused of being behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

Ahmad Behbahani also said that Iran was responsible for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires.

Mr Behbahani - who was interviewed in Turkey - told CBS's 60 Minutes programme that until recently he had been responsible for all "terrorist" operations carried out by the Iranian Government beyond its borders.

CBS quoted him as saying that these operations included the bombing which downed Pan Am Flight 103 above Lockerbie in December 1988, killing all 259 aboard and 11 people on the ground.

Prosecutors in the trial in the Netherlands allege that two Libyans were intelligence agents who planted a bomb in a suitcase on Pan Am Flight 103.

Edinburgh University law professor Robert Black said: "This trial is not a trial of the various competing theories of what happened at Lockerbie.

"It is a trial into one theory - namely the prosecution theory that these two Libyans were responsible."

Mr Behbahani did not appear in the programme in person, because the CBS producers were prevented by the Turkish authorities from recording an interview.

However, he told them that he himself had first suggested the plan to bomb the Pan Am flight to Ahmad Jibril, who heads a Syrian-backed armed group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

He also said Iran spent 90 days training a group of Libyans for the operation.

CBS says Iran's motive for the attack was revenge after a US warship shot down a commercial Iranian airliner, killing all 290 passengers aboard.

Iran vowed the skies would "rain blood" after the USS Vincennes shot down an Iran Air flight in July 1988, killing 290.

It was widely assumed at first that Tehran ordered the destruction of the Pan Am airliner with Syrian-sponsored help.

The two Libyans currently on trial have consistently maintained that Syrian-backed Palestinian extremists were responsible for the attack.

CBS said Aboul-Hassan Bani-Sadr, the former Iranian president who has lived for many years in exile in Paris, first alerted the programme makers to what the former intelligence operative had to say.

Mr Bani-Sadr also has a recording of a telephone conversation claiming that the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing was co-ordinated by Ahmad Jibril under direction of Iran.

Officers from the US Central Intelligence Agency spent several hours debriefing Mr Behbahani on Friday and Saturday, 60 Minutes said.

A US official in Washington told CBS: "The government wants to get to the truth of all terrorist incidents, and we do not turn a deaf ear when people offer credible information."

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said it was obviously an interesting report, but that she did not want to comment on the specifics because a trial was already in process.

A CBS producer said that Mr Behbahani might be motivated by revenge.

"I traced the tone of someone who was extremely bitter... He had fallen out of favour with the Iranian officials, with the government of Iran, and he just wanted to get back at them, at any cost."

Mr Behbahani said he had lost a power struggle in Tehran before being arrested and escaping.

[A long article about Behbahani by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer can be read here.  Material about the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing can be found here. The special prosecutor investigating the bombing, Alberto Nisman, died in suspicious circumstances in January 2015.]