Jailed Libyan bombmaker 'subject of fresh Lockerbie investigation'

[This is the headline over a report published this evening on the STV News website. It reads as follows:]

One of the original suspects in the Lockerbie bombing is the subject of a renewed police investigation 26 years after the atrocity, STV News understands.

Mohammed Abouagela Masud was named in the 1999 indictment against the only man convicted of the bombing, Abdelbasset Al Megrahi, but he remained a shadowy figure and never faced charges.

A documentary made by the brother of one of the American victims has now revealed that Masud is not only still alive, but serving a ten year sentence in Libya for bomb making.

The prosecution case at the Lockerbie trial alleged the downing of Pan Am 103 was an act of state sponsored terrorism carried out by members of the Libyan intelligence service.

They claimed the Libyans smuggled a bomb onto a flight from Malta to Frankfurt. The device was then transferred onto Pan Am 103 at Heathrow before exploding in the skies over the Scottish Borders, killing 270 people.

The indictment alleged that on the day of the bombing, December 21, 1988, Megrahi had left Malta accompanied by another Libyan agent, Masud.

Richard Marquise, who investigated Lockerbie for the FBI, told STV News: "We always suspected that Masud was the technical expert who armed the device, but we could never prove it."

A three-part documentary "My Brother’s Bomber" to be broadcast on American channel PBS claims to have unearthed fresh evidence against Masud. It has been made by Ken Dornstein, whose brother David was one of the passengers on Pan Am 103.

In advance publicity about the series in The New Yorker magazine, Masud is referred to as "Abu Agila Mas'ud".

It reports that Mr Dornstein traced a former Libyan agent in Germany, who told him that Masud was still alive. It’s claimed the agent has since told American officials that Masud was involved in bombing the airliner with Megrahi.

The programme reveals that in July 2015, Masud was sentenced to a ten year prison term in Libya for making bombs.

In response to the documentary, the Crown Office would only say that it has been aware of the contents of the programme for some time.

The Crown had hoped that the collapse of Colonel Gaddafi's regime would provide fresh opportunities to investigate the bombing, which remains the biggest mass murder in British legal history. The Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland visited Libya for talks with officials and two local prosecutors were appointed to liaise with Scottish and American investigators.

Libya has since descended into violent chaos, but senior figures at the Crown insist that the Lockerbie inquiry is very much alive.

STV News understands that Masud is one of those under investigation. The Crown will not say whether it hopes to bring charges against him.

Mr Marquise said: "We always thought Masud played a role in the Lockerbie bombing and if it could be proven, I would love to see him prosecuted."

British campaigner Dr Jim Swire lost his daughter Flora on Pan Am 103. He believes Megrahi was innocent, and that the bomb started its journey at Heathrow rather than Malta, but he also suspects that Gaddafi's regime may have had some kind of involvement in the bombing.

Speaking at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday, Dr Swire said: "Anybody who tries to get out more information that might be relevant should be congratulated I think.

"The only trouble is that information from these sources needs corroborated, and that’s the hard part."

Fight goes on for Justice for Megrahi campaign as MSPs keep petition open

[This is the headline over a report just published on the website of The Herald newspaper. It reads as follows:]

Campaigners who believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted for the Lockerbie bombing have said they will continue to fight for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to re-examine the case.

Members of the Justice for Megrahi campaign group, including Dr Jim Swire whose daughter Flora was among 270 victims of the 1988 atrocity, attended Holyrood today to see their petition to the Scottish Parliament discussed by MSPs on the Justice Committee.

Members of the committee opted to keep to petition open, pending the outcome of Operation Sandwood, Police Scotland's investigation of nine accusations of criminality levelled by the group at Crown, police and forensic officials who worked on the case. Allegations including perversion of the course of justice and perjury. It is hoped that the investigation and Police Scotland report will be finalised by the end of the year.

Members of the Megrahi family are also yet to lodge a formal appeal against his the conviction, with efforts constrained by the turmoil in Libya. Following the hearing, Dr Swire said he had been in touch with the Megrahi family and efforts to submit the paperwork were ongoing.

The group is pushing for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to assess the Police Scotland report, and is not satisfied with the suggestion from the Lord Advocate that a Crown Counsel who has not been involved in the Lockerbie case would deal with this matter if necessary.

It believes that they have effectively been labelled conspiracy theorists by the Crown Office, giving them no confidence that the police report will be looked at fairly.

In a submission to the Justice Committee ahead of the meeting, the group said: "JFM objects in the strongest possible terms to the Lord Advocate's proposal... Over past years a number of serious questions have been raised about the office of the Lord Advocate, the Crown Office and the Scottish Justice System in general. The collapse of the Andy Coulson trial, the hasty decision to take no proceedings in relation to the Bin Lorry accident are but two examples.

"This latest attempt by the Lord Advocate not to surrender his control, despite irrefutable evidence that he should, only serves to provide further focus to these concerns and throw serious doubt on the Crowns internal decision making processes."

Following the hearing, James Robertson, of the campaign group, said: "The petition has been maintained, which we're very happy about, because there are still ongoing issues to be addressed. They've held the petition open for the right reasons."

Recent correspondence had been submitted surrounding the case, regarding questions the campaign group would like to the Justice Committee to ask the Lord Advocate on its behalf.

The convenor of the Justice Committee and member of the Justice for Megrahi campaign, Christine Grahame, said that she would seek permission from the Lord Advocate to release the correspondence into the public domain.

[A draft of the Official Report of the Justice Committee’s discussion of the petition can be read here.

Interestingly, the Scottish Police Federation has provided a link to The Herald article on its website.]

22 September 1998 was quite eventful

[On this date in 1998, the prosecution team for the Lockerbie trial was announced. The press release reads as follows:]

The Lord Advocate, Lord Hardie has announced the composition of the team of counsel involved in the preparation for and conduct of the trial in the Netherlands of the accused in the Lockerbie case. The selection and appointments were made by the Lord Advocate in the course of the last few weeks and were confirmed yesterday when the team met for the first time at the Crown Office, Edinburgh.

The Lord Advocate will lead the prosecution team at the trial and will attend as required. Colin Boyd QC, the Solicitor General will be responsible for the overall supervision of the team during the preparation of the case.

The team members are: Alastair Campbell, QC (49), Home Advocate Depute; Alan Turnbull, QC (40); and Jonathan Lake (31), Advocate. A fourth advocate has also accepted the appointment but for professional reasons is not being named at present. [RB: The fourth member of the team was Morag Armstrong, Advocate.]

Alastair Campbell will lead the team in the absence of the Lord Advocate. Both Mr Campbell and Mr Turnbull who is a former Advocate Depute have considerable experience of preparing for and conducting major trials

The Lord Advocate said:

"In selecting the team of prosecution counsel for this trial, I considered the particular strengths of the counsel appointed by me. I am confident that the individual members of the team will complement each other and I am delighted that they were able to accept instructions to appear on behalf of the Crown in this case.

"A site has been identified for the trial and the prosecution team has now been appointed. All that remains is for Libya to comply with the United Nations Security Council Resolution and to deliver the accused for trial in the Netherlands.

"I hope that occurs soon so that the trial may commence at the earliest opportunity".

The team, which also includes senior Crown Office officials, has already commenced preparation for the trial. To enable Mr Cambell to concentrate on the case full time, he will resign as Home Advocate Depute with effect from 30 September 1998.

[On the same day, Dr Jim Swire and I were meeting Colonel Gaddafi. Here is what I wrote about this some years ago:]

On 22 September [1998] Dr Swire and I had a further meeting with the Leader of the Revolution.  On this occasion the meeting took place not in Tripoli but 400 kilometres to the east in a genuine (not reinforced concrete) Bedouin tent in a desert location inland from the town of Sirte.  We drove most of the way in the usual government black Mercedes, transferring into a 4 x 4 only for the last few off-road miles.  When at the tent nothing could be seen but sand and sky; but out of sight just beyond the nearest dunes was a lengthy convoy of communications vehicles, ambulances, canteen vehicles and troop carriers. 

Surrounded by the sand dunes and by noisily ruminating camels, Colonel Gaddafi, Dr Swire and I discussed the details of the British scheme.  He accepted my assurance that at least some of the concerns that Libyan government lawyers had raised were unwarranted and that it would be worthwhile to continue to seek clarifications and reassurances through the office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations regarding the remaining issues. 

Incidentally, this meeting with Gaddafi was held on the day that President Clinton's videotaped grand jury testimony regarding his relationship with Monica Lewinsky was televised.  In the course of the pleasantries that took place before we all got down to business, Gaddafi informed us that he had spent the morning watching the President's performance on CNN television.  What most shocked him, he said, was the revelation that on some occasions while Miss Lewinsky was dutifully serving her President, the latter was speaking to foreign Heads of State on the telephone. 

The Avenger

A long article entitled The Avenger has been published today on the website of The New Yorker, to accompany Ken Dornstein’s forthcoming three-part PBS Frontline series My Brother’s Bomber. The article in The New Yorker has the subheading After three decades, has the brother of a victim of the Lockerbie bombing solved the case? I regret to say that the answer to that question must be “No”. Mr Dornstein accepts the Malta ingestion scenario and concludes that Megrahi was guilty. However, he fails to address, amongst other things, (a) the incontrovertible evidence produced by Dr Morag Kerr demonstrating that Heathrow was the point of ingestion (see Adequately Explained by Stupidity?: Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies); and (b) the metallurgical evidence that establishes that the fragment PT35b was not from one of the MST-13 timers supplied by MEBO to Libya.

"The time has come to move on"

[On this date in 1997 conflicting signals were emanating from United Kingdom Government circles about the prospects for a Lockerbie trial:]

Reuters 1: Britain has given up hope of bringing to trial two Libyans suspected of the bombing of a United States airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988, British government sources said on Saturday. A senior British government source said there was no prospect of the two Libyans being brought to trial. “We have to be realistic. It was so long ago. The time has come to move on,” a senior British government source told The Times newspaper in a report also echoed by BBC Radio.

Reuters 2: The British government on Saturday insisted it had not given up hope of bringing to trial two Libyans suspected of the bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie in 1988, in which 270 people died. “Lockerbie is an issue of the highest importance to the British government. We are determined to secure justice for the victims of this monstrous crime,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

Steps on the path towards Zeist

[What follows is a short excerpt from an article written by me some years ago:]

Although the British proposal [for a trial in the Netherlands] was announced in late August 1998, it was not until 5 April 1999 that the two suspects actually arrived in the Netherlands for trial before the Scottish court.  Why the delay?  The answer is that some of the fine print in the two documents* was capable of being interpreted, and was in fact interpreted, by the Libyan defence team (now chaired by Mr Kamel Hassan Maghur as successor to Dr [Ibrahim] Legwell) and the Libyan government as having been deliberately designed to create pitfalls to entrap them.  And since the governments of the United Kingdom and United States resolutely refused to have any direct contact with either the Libyan government or the Libyan defence lawyers -- their attitude being that the scheme had been advanced on a “take it or leave it basis” and that no negotiations would be entered in to -- these concerns could be dealt with only through an intermediary, namely the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan (or, in practice, the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and the Legal Counsel of the United Nations, Hans Corell).   This meant that issues that could have been thrashed out and settled in a matter of a few hours in a face-to-face meeting took weeks and months to resolve.  The US government, particularly the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, took every available opportunity to accuse the Libyan government and lawyers of stalling and trying to wriggle out of the assurances they had given over the years to support a “neutral venue” trial.  My own clear impression, however, through my continuing contacts with the Libyans, was that if anyone was looking for pretexts to avoid a trial ever taking place, it was the US and UK governments.

Between 20 and 22 September 1998, Dr Jim Swire and I were again in Tripoli and were able to provide to the Libyan government and the Libyan defence team a measure of reassurance regarding some of the points that concerned them.  However, it was we who had to inform the Libyan government that the chosen location in the Netherlands for trial was Kamp van Zeist, a former NATO base to which the air force of the United States still had extant treaty rights of access.  This information was faxed to me (in Dutch, which I can read  -- with difficulty -- through my knowledge of Afrikaans) at my hotel in Tripoli by a Dutch journalist who had developed an interest in Lockerbie and who had heard it from an official at The Hague.  Dr Swire and I discussed whether we should inform our Libyan government contacts of the intended venue and came to the conclusion that we should do so.  One compelling reason for doing so was to preserve the trust that the Libyan government appeared to have developed in us.  Another was our assumption – which may or may not have been justified -- that all our communications in Libya were monitored and that the Libyan authorities would have the information anyway as soon as they could arrange for a copy of the fax to be translated from Dutch into Arabic.

I anticipated that the news about the proposed location would cause the Libyans to renounce the "neutral venue" concept in high dudgeon and complain of the lack of good faith demonstrated by the British Government in selecting, or agreeing to, such a site.  But they did not do so.  When we raised the issue at our next meeting, the Libyan officials were remarkably relaxed about the matter.  This, more than anything else, convinced me that the Libyan government and the Libyan defence lawyers genuinely wished a trial to take place and that the concerns they had expressed regarding details of the scheme now on offer were genuine concerns, not merely a colourable pretext for evading their earlier commitment to such a solution.

*(1) Order in Council (SI 1998 No 2251), made on 16 September 1998, conferring the necessary legal authority for Scottish criminal proceedings against the two Libyan suspects to be conducted in the Netherlands, and (2) an international agreement between the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Government of the United Kingdom, concluded on 18 September 1998, making the diplomatic arrangements necessary for the "neutral venue" trial to take place.

Megrahi campaigners ‘concerned’ about Crown Office

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The Scotsman.  It reads as follows:]

Campaigners for the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing have raised “serious concerns” about the Crown Office’s ability to examine their case.

The group Justice For Megrahi (JFM) said it had no faith in Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, citing the recent failed prosecution of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson and the “hasty” decision not to take action against the driver of the bin lorry which crashed, killing six people in Glasgow last year.

Police Scotland is currently investigating allegations made by the group against the Crown, police and forensic officials leading up to the prosecution of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi at Camp Zeist in 2001.

The allegations range from perverting of the course of justice to perjury.

Megrahi, who died in 2012 after being controversially released from prison three years earlier, is the only man to have been convicted over the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

Campaigners want a special independent prosecutor to examine the results of the ongoing police investigation, which is known as Operation Sandwood. Police expect to send a report to prosecutors by the end of year.

In a submission to the Scottish Parliament’s justice committee, the campaign group said: “Over past years a number of serious questions have been raised about the office of the Lord Advocate, the Crown Office and the Scottish justice system in general.

“The collapse of the Andy Coulson trial, the hasty decision to take no proceedings in relation to the bin lorry accident are but two examples.”

In a letter to the convener of the justice committee earlier this year, the Lord Advocate said arrangements had been put in place for “independent Crown counsel who has not been involved in Lockerbie case” to deal with the police report, should the need arise.

But in its submission, JFM said the Lord Advocate’s solution was unacceptable.

“This latest attempt by the Lord Advocate not to surrender his control, despite irrefutable evidence that he should, only serves to provide further focus to these concerns and throw serious doubt on the Crown’s internal decision-making processes,” the submission said.

“We feel it is important to emphasise that while we have highlighted the actions of the current Lord Advocate and Crown Office, this only serves to highlight a much more central concern about the general constitutional and political position of the office of the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office.”

Robert Forrester, secretary of JFM, said campaigners hoped the police report could be passed to an overseas prosecutor. He said: “It’s the Lord Advocate’s position that he wants to hand it over to an advocate depute who works for the Crown Office.

“Clearly that doesn’t fall into any concept of independence from our point of view, given that the Crown is implicated in our allegations. We’re lobbying for a constitutional change whereby an independent appointer appoints an independent prosecutor for circumstances as exceptional as this.”

Asked about whether a prosecutor could come from the Crown Prosecution Service in England, he said: “That wouldn’t really cut it for us because England has had a role to play in the whole Lockerbie affair.

“It would have to be from a locale that has had no association with the affair.”

A spokesman for the Crown Office said a prosecutor independent of Crown counsel had already been appointed to handle the case. He said: “The Lord Advocate can confirm that he has had no involvement in the appointment of counsel undertaking this work. The independent counsel who is undertaking this work is not under the direction of the Lord Advocate.”

[RB:  A leader in the same newspaper is headed New Lockerbie inquiry musn’t be pre-judged.

JFM’s reason for seeking the appointment of a prosecutor entirely independent of, and with no present or prior connection with, the Crown Office, is not the quality of recent Crown Office decision-making but the fact that Crown Office sources, just after JFM’s criminality allegations were made and before the police investigation had got properly off the ground, stated that these allegations were “defamatory” and “without foundation”. In these circumstances there can be no public confidence in an assessment of Police Scotland’s forthcoming report that involves in any capacity whatsoever the Crown Office.]

Al-Megrahi Publishes Lockerbie appeal documents

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

In a bid to clear his name before his death, terminally-ill convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi yesterday began publishing documents that were to have featured in the appeal case he dropped days before he was granted a release from Scottish prison on compassionate grounds.

The papers, he insists, provided enough grounds to have secured his release on appeal, if the appeal had not been dropped.

The first 300-odd pages of documents were published online yesterday on www.megrahimystory.net, and Malta and the testimony of Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, not unexpectedly, play a central role in al-Megrahi’s arguments in support of his alleged innocence.

The documents challenge three “crucial inferences” reached by the court: that al-Megrahi was the purchaser of the clothing that was found wrapped around the bomb that exploded Pan Am flight 103; that the date of purchase was 7 December 1988; and that the suitcase containing the IED was ingested into the airline baggage system in Malta.

The documents charge that the overall case against al-Megrahi was “inherently weak”, that it had relied upon “circumstantial evidence… made up of various strands which did not fit together sufficiently coherently and were not substantial enough to carry the weight of a guilty verdict” and that there were “yawning gaps in the picture painted by the trial court”.

While more papers are to be released by al-Megrahi on Monday and over the coming weeks, yesterday’s batch, which were to have been presented at appeal, claims his identification by Gauci, fundamental to al-Megrahi’s conviction, was erroneous, that there was insufficient evidence to prove the date of the purchase of clothing from Mary’s House, Sliema and they also question the claim that the bomb had been first planted on an Air Malta flight out of Malta.

In a statement yesterday, al-Megrahi said, “I have returned to Tripoli with my unjust conviction still in place. As a result of the abandonment of my appeal, I have been deprived of the opportunity to clear my name through the formal appeal process. I have vowed to continue my attempts to clear my name.”

Documents published by al-Megrahi claim Gauci had at first failed to identify him as the purchaser of the clothing items, but did so only after he was urged to look again.

The documents also claim that Gauci had picked him out of an identification parade on the basis that he merely resembled the shopper, although somewhat younger, while also underscoring that Gauci had even been shown a photo of al-Megrahi before he identified him in the dock.

Moreover, in addition to complaining of pre-trial press publicity and irregularities during the identification process, the al-Megrahi documents observe that 27 months has passed between the purchase and the identification, which was in itself 12 years before the actual trial and the second identification.

The dossier describes the court’s finding that the purchase of the clothes took place on 7 December 1988 was “hopelessly confused” and attempt to cast doubt on the date of purchase as established by the court.

The documents observe how, “Various and unrelated pieces of evidence and circumstances were looked at in order to conclude that the date of purchase was Wednesday 7th December 1988 – this included evidence about football matches, Christmas lights and the weather.

“The Trial Court relied on dates of football matches watched by Tony Gauci’s brother, Paul, at the time - but it was not properly established that he was in fact watching football at the time. Paul Gauci did not give evidence. The evidence about whether the Christmas lights were up or on at the time [on Tower Road, Sliema in the vicinity of Mary’s House], was hopelessly confused and no reasonable jury could draw conclusions from this evidence.

The papers also cite “significant problems” with the inference that the suitcase containing the bomb was loaded in Malta, pointing out that there were opportunities to do so during transit at both the Frankfurt and Heathrow airports.

They furthermore allege that records and witnesses contradicted computer records that suggest an unaccompanied bag was on the flight between Luqa and Frankfurt. “Finally, there was an inconsistency in the evidence about whether there was an unaccompanied bag on the flight from Luqa to Frankfurt,” the documents allege. “While there were computer records from Frankfurt which could be interpreted as suggesting that an unaccompanied bag was loaded at Luqa, there was unchallenged evidence from records and witnesses from Luqa which suggested that this did not happen. Both cannot be correct.”

Megrahi petition before Justice Committee on 22 September

A reminder that Justice for Megrahi’s petition (PE1370) calling upon the Scottish Government to institute an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing is on the agenda for the meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee to be held on Tuesday, 22 September 2015 in Holyrood’s Committee Room 1 beginning at 10.00. The papers for this meeting can be read here. The committee clerk’s note on the petition and the options open to the committee can be found at pages 10 and 11; and the various written submissions at pages 18 to 23. Justice for Megrahi’s submission to the committee can be read here.

All Lockerbie theories, in context

[This is the heading over an item published on this date in 2010 in Caustic Logic’s blog The Lockerbie Divide. It reads as follows:]

Broadly speaking, there are five classes of explanation for the fall of Pan Am 103.

1) Libya did it

 a) via Megrahi, as determined at Camp Zeist

 b) by some other agent

2) Iran did it

 a) via the PFLP-GC using a Khreesat bomb

 b) via some more direct method

3) Someone else did it (CIA, Israel, South Africa)

4) No one did it - the whole thing was an accident

5) It's not clear who or what caused the bombing, but it wasn't Megrahi

The first class is worth discussing, at least in that subset a) is the legally established, officially accepted, and culturally real version (within the US anyway) and b) follows from a) mixed with the doubts of the intelligent over the case against Megrahi. It's what we're debunking here, so of course it gets mentioned a lot and in detail. Tellingly, most proponents of the official 1a) conspiracy theory are less enthuusiastic about discussing the details in depth. They'd rather just point to some judges twice acting as if they believed it all. We know this, and just aren't impressed with their reasoning.

The second category is the most widely accepted alternate to Libya. The circumstantial evidence is strong, and anchored by Iran's epic grievance over Iran Air-655. This all but necessitated they do something like PA103 around the time it was done, and there's reasons to believe the German PFLP-GC cell making altimeter bombs was on this job. I'm all about informing or reminding people about this. To be sure there are many versions that aren't quite correct, like the drug swap theory. But the clues for a London infiltration of the bomb fit superbly with the Iran's desire to actually succeed, and with the known PFLP-GC technology.

Subset b) of "Iran did it" is occupied, to my knowledge, by Charles Norrie only. He also falls into group three, suggesting a joint Iranian-CIA operation. His theory is discussed in this post. Continuing with the scant category three, Patrick Haseldine has proposed - widely, loudly - the notion that apartheid South Africa carried out the bombing. At the Divide, that's discussed here and nowhere else. Andrew Killgore of WRMEA has hinted that - perhaps - Israel was to blame. That's covered here and nowhere else (no need).  

It's the last two categories that I have yet to address. On #4, the sparse allegations that a tragic accident was to blame for those 270 deaths, are - so far as I've seen - too irrational to bother discussing. To the extent I may be wrong, I've just created a post and invite full commentary on such issue there - and nowhere else on my blog, if you please.  For some reason, I've also lumped in different explosion theories in the same post - allegations the blast was too powerful, too far this way or that, a second bomb elsewhere, etc. In short, if your problem is what caused the plane to break up (and there is some room for legit questions), that is where I'd like to have it discussed.

Of these four, only "Iran did it" account for the obvious grievance Iran held in latter 1988. The others, proposing that Libya, or the South Africans, or happenstance, happened to blow up a mostly American plane within six months of its mirror image, while the Iranians apparently decided to let it slide at about the same time raises the question why?What amazing evidence compels you to propose such an amazing coincidence?

On option 5, proclaiming no good guess just always seems to me like a cop-out. Really, after all this time to consider the facts, you still don't have a best guess who or what caused such a historic event? Alright, well I suggest you read up a little more and try to at least narrow it down.

Other than links and some elaborations I may add, that pretty well sums up the allegedly confused field of "whodunnit" conspiracy theories. Five groups, four of which have something concrete to say. One dominates with the collusion of political power, one solidly challenges with the legitimacy of dethroned reality, and two are appear to be just wacky ideas supported by a small handful of persistent wingnuts.

Please do not allow yourselves to be too confused by all this.

[The comments that follow the article are also well worth reading.]

The legal warrant for the Lockerbie trial

[It was on this date in 1998 that the legal instrument that allowed the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist to take place was laid before the UK Parliament. What follows is excerpted from an article by me entitled The Lockerbie Disaster that was published in the Edinburgh Law Review in January 1999:]

For four years and seven months the Government of the United Kingdom (and that of the United States) consistently maintained that the "neutral venue" scheme proposed by the writer and accepted by the Libyan Government and defence lawyers in January 1994 was impossible, impracticable and inherently undesirable. For a flavour of the strength and vehemence of the Government's opposition, the interested reader is referred to "The Lockerbie Trial" 1998 SLT (News) 9 by Lord Hardie, a response by the Lord Advocate to the present writer's "The Lockerbie Proposal" 1997 SLT (News) 304.

However, on 24 August 1998 the Governments of the United Kingdom and United States announced that they had reversed their stance on the matter. In a letter of that date to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, the Acting Permanent Representatives of the UK and the USA stated:

".... in the interest of resolving this situation in a way which will allow justice to be done, our Governments are prepared, as an exceptional measure, to arrange for the two accused to be tried before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. After close consultation with the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, we are pleased to confirm that the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands has agreed to facilitate arrangements for such a court. It would be a Scottish court and would follow normal Scots law and procedure in every respect except for the replacement of the jury by a panel of three Scottish High Court judges. The Scottish rules of evidence and procedure, and all the guarantees of fair trial provided by the law of Scotland, would apply."

In order to give effect to this change in policy, an Agreement was concluded on 18 September 1998 between the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Government of the United Kingdom regulating the sitting of the Scottish Court in the Netherlands; and an Order in Council (The High Court of Justiciary (Proceedings in the Netherlands) (United Nations) Order 1998, SI 1998 No 2251) was made on 16 September 1998 and laid before Parliament on 17 September, to confer the necessary legal authority for Scottish criminal proceedings against the two Libyan suspects to be conducted in the Netherlands. The scheme set out in these two documents differs from the January 1994 proposal in only two respects. First, the court is to consist of a bench of three Lords Commissioners of Justiciary (with a fourth who is to sit with the court, participate in all its deliberations, but to have no vote in any decision required to be taken unless one of the three dies or is absent for a prolonged period) as distinct from an international panel of judges chaired by a Lord Commissioner of Justiciary. Secondly, any appeal arising out of the proceedings is (where either of the accused is entitled to attend the appeal and intimates that he wishes to do so) to be heard in the Netherlands by a bench of five Lords Commissioners of Justiciary and not (as provided for in the January 1994 proposal) by three judges sitting in the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh in the usual way.

In the weeks since the announcement of the British and American change of heart there have been conflicting signals from Libyan sources regarding the acceptability or otherwise of the scheme. However, at meetings which the writer had between 20 and 22 September 1998 with Libyan government ministers (including Colonel Gaddafi) and with the new team of Libyan lawyers representing the suspects, he formed the clear impression that, provided certain clarifications of the details of the scheme were provided and reassurances as to its meaning and implications supplied, the suspects would surrender themselves for trial. But it may take some considerable time for these clarifications and reassurances to be obtained, largely because the Governments of the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands refuse to negotiate or communicate directly with either the Libyan Government or the Libyan defence lawyers. They insist that all communications be channelled through the office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. As far as the Libyans are concerned, however, what remain to be resolved are modalities or practicalities: the principle has been accepted, as have all but a few of the details. The odds in favour of the trial actually happening are good.