I saw the trial – and the verdict made no sense

[This is the headline over an article by Professor Hans Köchler that was published in The Independent on this date in 2009. It reads as follows:]

I am always surprised when people refer to Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi as the Lockerbie bomber. Even if he is guilty – something which, personally, I do not believe – he would only be a Lockerbie bomber, just one of many people who carried out a crime which would have taken a large network of people and lots of money to carry out. It amazes me that the British and American governments act as if the investigation into the bombing is somehow complete.

But I welcome the release of Megrahi, because I firmly believe that he is innocent of the charges made against him. Believe me, if I thought he was guilty I would not be pleased to see him released from jail.

His decision to drop his appeal, however, is deeply suspicious – I believe Megrahi made that decision under duress. Under Scottish law he did not need to abandon his appeal in order to be released on compassionate grounds. So why did he do it? It makes no sense that he would suddenly let it go.

In my time as the UN's observer at Megrahi's trial, I watched a case unfold that was based on circumstantial evidence. The indictment against him and al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah went to great lengths to explain how they supposedly planted a bomb on Flight 103, and yet Fhimah was acquitted of all the charges against him. It made no sense that Megrahi was guilty when Fhimah was acquitted.

The prosecution produced key witnesses that lacked credibility or had incentives to bear false witness against Megrahi. Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who supposedly sold him the clothes that went around the bomb, had been fêted by the Scottish police who took him fishing. The Americans paid him cash following his testimony. The weakness of that testimony would have been a key component of Megrahi's appeal.

We will probably never really know who caused the Lockerbie bombing. So much key information was withheld from the trial. A luggage storage room used by Pan Am at Heathrow was broken into on the night of the bombing, and yet this information was withheld. The British have yet satisfactorily to explain why.

I want to know when the bomb was placed on the plane and by whom. We have to look more closely into the "London theory" – that the bomb was placed on the plane at Heathrow and not in Malta.

It would be childish to be satisfied with the conviction of just one person for a crime that clearly involved a large number of people. I find it very difficult to understand why there seems to be so little pressure from the British and American public on their governments to investigate the bombing properly.

The UK regularly talks of the need to pursue all terrorist atrocities. Yet how can the Government assure the public they really believe that, when they have virtually abandoned their investigation into the worst terrorist attack in the country's history?

We have to know what happened and the only way is a full public inquiry, either mandated by the House of Commons or by an investigative commission voted for by the UN's General Assembly. Time is of the essence. This crime is already 21 years old. To find out the truth we must act now.

A selection of the Crown's misdeeds

[On this date in 2009 Abdelbaset Megrahi was released from HMP Greenock and flew back to Libya. The report on the BBC News website can be read here.

Two years later, on 20 August 2011, an article by Marcello Mega appeared in the Scottish edition of The Sun. It reads in part:]

The Scottish Sun today lifts the lid on a top-secret dossier that accuses Scots cops and prosecutors of suppressing seven key areas of evidence that cast doubt on the Lockerbie bomber's conviction. (...)

Seven key flaws

Denied fair trial

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission says Megrahi WAS denied a fair trial in their damning report.

They said the Crown suppressed from Megrahi's defence team statements showing how much key witness Tony Gauci changed his mind about crucial details over the years.

Maltese shopkeeper Gauci's evidence fingered Megrahi as the man who bought clothes in his shop on the Mediterranean isle that were linked to the suitcase carrying the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103.

The SCCRC report says Gauci was an "unreliable" witness but this was not shown to be the case in court.

They said: "The effect of all of these inconsistencies is powerful. The court was left with a distorted and different impression of the witness. In this way Megrahi was denied a fair trial."

Cop lies

The SCCRC found that police said in evidence they first showed Gauci photos of Megrahi on September 14, 1989 - when he had in fact also been shown them on September 8.

The report said: "This was not disclosed to the defence. There is no statement from Gauci produced, no police witness statements produced."

The SCCRC said if Gauci had been shown Megrahi's pic six days before he picked him out as resembling the buyer at his shop, then that ID was totally undermined.

Diary dispute

In its report, the SCCRC challenges the integrity of evidence given by retired Strathclyde DCI Harry Bell, who had a close bond with Gauci.

The commission found that events recorded in Bell's diaries didn't always match what he said in evidence.

The commission noted that Bell claimed the Megrahi photo shown to Gauci on September 14, 1989, was the first one. This was not true.

It also reveals Bell, DC John Crawford, a retired Lothian and Borders cop, and an FBI agent all made statements claiming that Gauci had talked of a "striking similarity" between Megrahi and the buyer.

But Maltese officers revealed Gauci was unsure, was coached and told to age the photos by ten to 15 years.

The report says: "This is different to DCI Bell's evidence at trial. It also implies the witness is unclear."

Cash for answers

The commission obtained evidence from police memos that Gauci was made aware from his first contact with investigators that his testimony could be worth MILLIONS.

This contradicted evidence given by Scots and US investigators at Megrahi's trial.

One undisclosed memo reveals the FBI discussed with Scots cops an offer of unlimited cash to Gauci - with "$10,000 available immediately".

If a judge was made aware of this in another case, they'd tell a jury to discount the evidence.

Xmas lights lies

In court Gauci was vague about the exact date on which the clothes were bought.

The date was narrowed to either November 23, 1988, when Megrahi was not on Malta, or December 7, 1988, when he was.

Gauci said Christmas lights were NOT on yet in his hometown Sliema when the suspect visited his shop.

Cops said they could not find out when the lights were switched on.

But the SCCRC easily established it was December 6 - a day too early for Megrahi to have been the buyer.

The commission's report says: "It is clear that the police were in no doubt that Gauci was clear in his recollection." It adds "no reasonable court" could have concluded Megrahi bought the clothes from Gauci's shop.

Defence in the dark

It appears efforts were made to cover up key evidence that would have been useful for Megrahi's defence team.

The commission noted that early uncertainty on the part of Gauci was never passed over to the defence, nor was the fact that Scots detectives feared he was trying too hard to please them.

The fact a senior Maltese detective also considered Gauci to be an unreliable witness was never disclosed to lawyers representing Megrahi.

Evidence supressed

The SCCRC claims Colin Boyd QC, who was Lord Advocate at the time of Megrahi's trial and conviction in 2001, suppressed key evidence.

The trial judges maintained Gauci was "entirely reliable" on the list of clothing he claimed the buyer suspect purchased.

Yet a statement he made in 1999, and discovered by the SCCRC, saw him produce "a wholly different list of items and prices". This, along with many other files that could damage the Crown case, was suppressed. The report says Mr Boyd failed in his duty of disclosure to the defence.

Forensics and Feraday

[This is the headline over a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2005. It reads in part:]

Fresh doubts have emerged over the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber, BBC Scotland has learned.

The evidence of a major prosecution witness who testified during the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi has been called into question.

Three men who forensic scientist Allen Feraday gave evidence against have since had their convictions quashed.

BBC Scotland understands papers on one case have gone to the commission reviewing Megrahi's conviction.

Mr Feraday is now retired after 42 years' experience in explosives.

He told the Lockerbie trial he was in no doubt that a circuit board fragment found after the disaster was part of the detonator.

The trial judges accepted his conclusion.

However, in three separate cases men against whom Mr Feraday gave evidence have now had their convictions overturned.

After the first case, which took place seven years before the Lockerbie trial, the Lord Chief Justice said Mr Feraday should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in the field of electronics.

The latest case to be quashed happened just last month.

Papers relating to the most recent case have now been sent to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is looking at the Lockerbie bomber's conviction.

The commission will consider whether the Lockerbie trial judges should have given so much weight to Mr Feraday's evidence.

Gerry Brown, of the Law Society of Scotland, said expert witnesses were "essential" in cases like the Lockerbie trial.

"It is like a string of beads," he told BBC Radio Scotland.

"You have to have the beads held together by string, and if the string is weak at one point the beads fall to the ground.

"That is possibly the situation here, and that is probably what is being investigated now by the commission."

Solicitor Eddie McKechnie, who represents Megrahi, said the information raised "serious issues" about the conviction.

"It is a factor that I take very seriously into account on behalf of Mr Megrahi," he said.

"One would have thought that when a professional and a government forensic expert is impugned in a number of cases... then serious issues arise."

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, said: "I'm personally not satisfied of Mr Megrahi's guilt.

"I emerged (from the trial) riddled with doubts. This will of course augment them.

"If one finds that three cases have been overturned, it rather undermines one's confidence."

However, American lawyer Jody Flowers - who represents one woman whose husband died in the bombing - said she thought the latest claims were "much ado about nothing".

"I don't think it has much impact at all. I think it is a bit of a belated and half-hearted attempt," she said.

"Any serious challenge to Mr Feraday's credibility or the specifics of his testimony would have been raised at the trial or the appeal, and they were not.

"The court accepted his testimony as reliable."

Six years ago today Megrahi abandoned his appeal

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2009:]

Judges have accepted an application by the Lockerbie bomber to drop his second appeal against conviction.

The permission of the High Court in Edinburgh was required before the proceedings by Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi could be formally abandoned.

It comes as the Scottish Government considers his requests for either release or transfer to a Libyan jail. (...)

The Libyan's legal team outlined his current state of health to the appeal hearing.

QC Margaret Scott said: "The court is aware of Mr Megrahi's medical condition in that he has progressive prostate cancer.

"This has now reached the terminal stage and my client's condition has recently worsened very considerably.

"Up-to-date medical reports from three eminent experts also concurred in the view that he has a very aggressive cancer, that his condition is grave and that the prognosis is extremely limited."

By dropping his appeal, Megrahi has removed one potential obstacle to his transfer to a jail in his homeland.

However, a Crown appeal against the length of his sentence is still ongoing.

Scotland's senior law officer, Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini QC, will now have to consider whether that should also be dropped.

A Crown Office statement said its appeal was "entirely separate" from Megrahi's appeal.

It said the lord advocate had not received any request to indicate whether the appeal would continue.

"The lord advocate has always been prepared to give any request her full and prompt consideration," it stressed.

It added that no information had been received about Megrahi's current medical situation which might need to be taken into account in handling the appeal.

Scotland's senior judge, the Lord Justice General, Lord Hamilton, said it was important the Crown appeal issue was resolved quickly.

"It appears to the court to be of the utmost importance that an early decision be made by the lord advocate as to whether she is to insist or not to insist on that appeal," he said.

He added: "The court urges her to reach a decision on that matter without undue delay."

Some relatives of the victims said the dropping of the appeal meant that many questions would now go unanswered.

The Reverend John Mosey, who lost his daughter in the bombing, described it as a "very sad day for Scottish justice".

"My feeling is that I would be happier if he was going home after the hearing of his appeal, either as an innocent man or as a guilty man," he said.

"Either way, my personal feeling is 85% that he is an innocent man - of this crime anyway - having sat through the whole of the trial in Holland."

It emerged last week that the Libyan had applied to withdraw his second appeal against conviction.

It prompted claims he had been put under pressure to make the move - a suggestion the Scottish Government has strenuously denied.

The Justice Secretary is currently considering whether or not to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds or to allow his transfer to a prison in Libya.

He is expected to announce his decision within the next two weeks.

The British, American and Scottish governments appear shifty

[What follows is the text of an article by Lesley Riddoch published in The Scotsman on this date in 2009:]

Kenny MacAskill is now facing an almost impossible situation over the man convicted in 2001 of the Lockerbie bombing.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi wants early release from his 27-year minimum sentence on compassionate grounds – he's expected to die within three months of prostate cancer. Such compassion has recently been shown to Ronnie Biggs and in Scotland, of the 30 such requests made since 2000, only seven have been denied. Even though there's every prospect he will arrive in Libya like a returning hero, that must have nothing to do with the medical and legal decision here.

But Megrahi's surprise decision to end his appeal has queered the pitch, raising suspicions that a prison transfer has been agreed instead to temper American anger that a convicted mass killer should be shown any compassion at all. The fate of Megrahi is emotive and urgent, but it is not actually the most important issue at stake.

Trust in government and faith in the law also hang in the balance, partly because faith in Scotland's ability to do big things well is easily dented – and Megrahi's conviction by Scottish judges under Scottish law at Camp Zeist was perhaps the biggest ever moment for our distinctive legal system – but mostly because the official explanation for the Lockerbie bombing is at least as unconvincing as the most compellingly argued rivals.

Conspiracy theories abounded in 1994 when the London Film Festival dropped its planned screening of The Maltese Double Cross – a documentary blaming Iran not Libya – and this newspaper took the decision to screen it.

As assistant editor, I sat with a reporter for a full week, checking claims made by American film-maker Allan Francovich.

Scotsman lawyers needed sight of relevant documents and sworn affidavits from interviewees – including one from a witness living in hiding in Sweden. After three small edits, the film was "legalled" and ready, but our booked venue in Edinburgh suddenly discovered a double-booking. The Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) stepped in – though it received phone calls threatening legal action from men purporting to be lawyers for one of the American Drug Enforcement Agency officials named in the film.

Cuts were still being made in London the night before the GFT screening – so Lockerbie relative Dr Jim Swire was asked to bring the final version north with him the following morning. Jim had attended the first private screening of the film by Tam Dalyell in the House of Commons – protected from possible libel claims by parliamentary privilege – and apparently sat with a blanket at the open front door all night to make sure he didn't miss the dispatch rider who arrived at 3am with the completed film.

That morning, we got news that the only other copy of the film, held by a human rights group in Birmingham, had been destroyed in a mysterious overnight fire. I travelled with the large Beta cassettes of the film in a rucksack, reckoning that a casual appearance was the safest strategy.

The audience settled, the film was shown, there was a question-and-answer session with Jim Swire, and we held our collective breath. Would The Scotsman, as one prominent journalist had warned, find itself frozen out of Crown Office briefings for a decade? Would we be sued, contradicted, even disappeared?

In fact, next to nothing happened. The Edinburgh Film Festival awarded Best Documentary prize to the Double Cross and, bizarrely, Francovich died of a heart attack three years later at the relatively young age of 56. The "unsayable" had been said: that Palestinians, backed by Iran, may have been responsible for Lockerbie. Like all well-formed conspiracy theories, it shook faith in the conventional explanation but didn't offer a foolproof alternative. And, despite the emergence of key bits of information since then, there still is none.

There doesn't have to be. Our legal system works on the basis of reasonable doubt, and even if judges in Camp Zeist had none, key politicians, relatives and lawyers still do. And that matters, especially now.

The public was sold a pup on the existence of WMD in Iraq, and another on the 45-minute warning. We were sold a pup on the health of our banks and an almighty pup on the promise that bankers' bonuses would never reach those judgment- distorting, greedy, heady heights ever again. Governments lie. Bankers lie. And people lie – even under oath.

The stitch-up exists, but the cock-up is infinitely more common. Conspiracies appeal to the anti-authoritarian streak in the Scottish psyche. Yet most are compelling nonsense. So what is the public to believe?

Scottish philosopher David Hume suggested a miracle occurs when believing witnesses are lying is more incredible than believing their claims. That observation describes perfectly the flawed business of human judgment. In the absence of all the facts, the public doesn't suspend judgment; it bases opinion on the demeanour of the parties involved.

The American relatives are still angry and punitive. The British, American and now Scottish governments appear shifty. Jim Swire alone has demonstrated dignity and tenacity, and he wants a public inquiry: even though no public inquiry – from Holyrood to Cullen, from Butler to Bloody Sunday – has ever completely answered the big questions.

And he's right. A public inquiry, or a de facto inquiry based on a court case triggered by human rights legislation, must now take place, and for one simple reason – the same reason that prompted The Scotsman to show The Maltese Double Cross film 15 years ago – 270 people were murdered on Scottish soil. Reasonable doubt about the full circumstances of their murder remains. So we must hear it.

Never mind what Hillary Clinton thinks, and never mind what ultimately happens to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

US spies blamed Iran for Lockerbie bomb

[This is the headline over a report published in The Sunday Times on this date in 2009. It reads as follows:]

American intelligence documents blaming Iran for the Lockerbie bombing would have been produced in court if the Libyan convicted of Britain's worst terrorist attack had not dropped his appeal.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer expected to be freed this week, had instructed his lawyers to produce internal US intelligence communications unavailable to his defence team at his trial in 2000.

The cables, from the American Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), suggest that Iran was behind the attack on Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people in 1988, in response to the shooting down of an Iranian commercial airliner by the USS Vincennes, an American warship, five months earlier.

One document that the defence team had planned to produce was a memo from the DIA dated September 24, 1989. It states: "The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar (Mohtashemi-Pur), the former Iranian minister of interior.

"The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad (Jabril), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) leader, for a sum of 1,000,000 US dollars.

"One hundred thousand dollars of this money was given to Jabril up front in Damascus by the Iranian ambassador to Sy [ie Syria], Muhammad Hussan (Akhari) for initial expenses. The remainder of the money was to be paid after successful completion of the mission."

The document is included in an unpublished report by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, a public body that considers miscarriage of justice claims and which had cast doubt in 2007 on the safety of Megrahi's conviction.

The report also cites a DIA briefing in December 1989 entitled Pan Am 103, Deadly Co-operation, which named Iran as the probable state sponsor of the bombing.

Robert Baer, a retired senior CIA agent who claims that Iran was behind the attack, has alleged that the Americans were wary of pursuing the country in case it disrupted oil supplies and damaged the economy.

And so it begins...

"I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy." - Vice-President George H W Bush on the presidential campaign trail, quoted in Newsweek on 15 August 1988, six weeks after the USS Vincennes had shot down Iran Air flight 655 in the Persian Gulf killing all 290 on board.

Moves towards normalization of relations between Libya and UK, US

In a letter dated 15 August 2003 addressed to the President of the UN Security Council, Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations wrote:

Libya as a sovereign State:

• Has facilitated the bringing to justice of the two suspects charged with the bombing of Pan Am 103 and accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials.

• Has cooperated with the Scottish investigating authorities before and during the trial and pledges to cooperate in good faith with any further requests for information in connection with the Pan Am 103 investigation. Such cooperation would be extended in good faith through the usual channels.

• Has arranged for the payment of appropriate compensation. To that end, a special fund has been established and instructions have already been issued to transmit the necessary sums to an agreed escrow account within a matter of days.

The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which during the last two decades has, on numerous occasions, condemned all acts of terrorism in its correspondence to the General Assembly and to the Security Council, reaffirms its commitment to that policy.

On the same date, Voice of America broadcast a news item of which the following is a transcript:

INTRO: Senior Bush administration officials say there will be no early end to US economic sanctions against Libya even though the Muammar Gadhafi government will shortly fulfill terms for the permanent lifting of U-N sanctions stemming from the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. The families of the 270 victims of the 1988 airliner attack were briefed on the status of the case Friday in Washington. V-O-A's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

TEXT: Secretary of State Colin Powell joined in the briefing for the families on fast-moving developments in the Pan Am 103 case that are likely to lead to a Security Council vote ending UN sanctions next week.

The UN sanctions were suspended in 1999 after Libya turned over two of its intelligence agents who were charged in the attack, one of whom was later convicted by a special court in the Netherlands and sentenced to life in prison.

Libya is now fulfilling terms for the permanent lifting of the sanctions, including acceptance of responsibility for the attack, a renunciation of terrorism, and creation of a two-point-seven billion dollar fund for the compensation of the victims families.

The Security Council vote, expected by mid-week, would trigger payment to the families of the first four million of what could eventually be ten million dollars in Libyan compensation for each person killed.

However, family spokesman Dan Cohen, whose 20-year-old college student daughter was killed in the terror attack, told reporters here after the briefing that the money will not bring closure for the still-grieving families:

“I hope you will not in reporting this say money, money, money. It's not money, money, money. Everyone of us, everyone of us, would have foregone every cent of that in a heartbeat, if this had never happened. And it's unfortunate the way the world is structured that this is one of the only ways that these terrible crimes are dealt with.”

Under terms of the deal worked out between the Libyan government and lawyers for the families, the remaining six million dollars for each victim would not be paid unless bilateral US sanctions against Libya are also lifted and that country is removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Mr Cohen said he personally opposed the lifting of the US sanctions, which among other things bar American investment in Libya's oil industry, as long as Mr Gadhafi remains the head of what he termed a "criminal" regime.

However the chairman of the families' organization, Glenn Johnson, who also lost a daughter in the bombing, took a less severe view, saying the Bush administration should examine each sanction on a case-by-case basis:

“At this point, providing the UN sanctions are lifted, our government should take a look at each and every US sanction that's involved, and see if the (Libyan) government's met it. If the Libyan government has completed it, we would like to see them lifted. If they have not, as a group, we feel they should not be lifted.”

A senior administration official who briefed reporters said Libya has made "significant progress" in getting out of the terrorism business since the mid-1990s.

However he said it "does not deserve a clean bill of health" and that the United States continues to have serious concerns about Libya's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, its poor human rights record, and meddling in the affairs of other countries, especially African states including Chad, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The official said the United States might abstain in the UN sanctions vote to underline its ongoing concerns.

He also said the Bush administration has strongly urged France not to veto the lifting of sanctions, which it has threatened to do in an effort to force Libya to increase compensation for victims of a French UTA jetliner downed over Niger in 1989.