The unravelling of Kenny MacAskill ... and the case against Megrahi

[This is the headline over a review by John Ashton of Kenny MacAskill’s book in today’s edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]

It was supposed to be Scotland’s publishing event of the year, former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill’s long awaited account of his controversial decision to release the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

Serialised in the Murdoch press and endorsed by former First Minister Alex Salmond, The Lockerbie Bombing looked set to enhance the reputations of MacAskill and the criminal justice system he served.

In the event, the book has made an even bigger splash than expected, but not in the way that he intended. By the time it was published last week, it had plunged the Megrahi case into chaos and left MacAskill looking rattled, if not a little foolish.

The book gives the inside track on the grubby international power play that surrounded his decision to allow the terminally ill Libyan to return home. But it goes much further, answering, according to its dust jacket, “how and why [the bombing] happened – and who was really responsible”. It is here, in his efforts to play sleuth, judge and jury, that MacAskill has come unstuck.

He argues that Megrahi was guilty – a significant player in a much larger plot. One of the book’s few genuine revelations, however, details a secret document which implicates the terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) in the Lockerbie bombing carried out on December 21 1988.

MacAskill in his book identifies who sent the document and who received it - an act strictly forbidden by the law. As the Sunday Herald revealed last week, in publishing such details, MacAskill was in breach of a Whitehall gagging order and very likely, at least in the opinion of the Foreign Office, of the Official Secrets Act. The former Scottish Justice Secretary later admitted that he was ‘unsure’ whether he had broken the act.

MacAskill downplays the letter’s significance, claiming it was sent soon after Lockerbie, and before evidence had emerged to implicate Libya and Megrahi. This is one of the book’s many factual errors. At Megrahi’s second appeal it was revealed that the UK government had seen the letter in September 1996, five years after it had claimed that Lockerbie was a ‘Libyan operation from start to finish’.

Overshadowing these revelations, however, is a single sentence buried among the book’s 322 pages, which reads: “Clothes in the suitcase that carried the bomb were acquired in Malta, though not by Megrahi.”

Its significance rests on the reasoning of the three Law Lords who convicted Megrahi. They concluded that he had sent a bomb concealed within a suitcase on Air Malta flight KM180 from Malta to Frankfurt and that it was later transferred to Pan Am flight PA103 at Heathrow. The case was largely circumstantial, with only two points that directly incriminated Megrahi in the bombing. One was his presence at Malta’s Luqa airport when KM180 was loading and the other was the testimony of Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci that he resembled the man who bought the clothes packed in the suitcase.

The judgment was clear that the failure to explain how Megrahi had got the bomb on to KM180 was ‘a major difficulty for the Crown case’, however, it accepted that when taken together with other evidence – crucially Gauci’s – the inference that the bomb came from Malta was ‘irresistible.’ 

The most important link in the Crown case, Gauci’s evidence was also the weakest.

The clothes purchaser he described was much older and bigger than Megrahi and there is persuasive evidence that the purchase took place when Megrahi was not in Malta.

As the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission noted when it referred Megrahi’s conviction to the appeal court in 2007, the assumption that Megrahi was the clothes purchaser was critical. Without it, there was insufficient evidence to convict him.

By Monday evening MacAskill, had conceded in two TV interviews that Megrahi’s conviction was probably unsafe, a startling volte face, given that the Scottish government, which he served as justice minister, repeatedly stated that it did “not doubt the safety of the conviction.”

His concession was not lost on the Justice for Megrahi (JfM) campaign group, which believes the Libyan was wrongly convicted. By then they had written to Police Scotland’s Operation Sandwood team, which is investigating allegations of criminal misconduct made by JfM against some of the Crown servants responsible for the conviction.

JfM say MacAskill is an important and compellable witness, and that the police must establish the basis for his claim that Megrahi was not the clothes purchaser.

‘The weaknesses in the identification evidence were well known to the Scottish government when MacAskill, as Justice Secretary, was claiming that the conviction was safe,’ says JfM’s Iain McKie, a former police superintendent who spent 15 years battling the police and Crown Office to clear the name of his daughter Shirley McKie.

‘So what does Kenny know that we don’t that has caused him to change his mind? If any of it was previously secret, then the Crown Office has to explain why it wasn’t disclosed to the defence. Was Mr MacAskill aware of it when as government minister he was declaring the conviction safe and turning down JfM’s petition for an independent public inquiry? Was he in any way misleading or deceiving the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people?’

There is a still more important question: is MacAskill saying publicly what the Crown is saying privately? ‘The book reads,’ says McKie, ‘as if the Megrahi-wasn’t-the-clothes-purchaser-but-was-guilty-anyway line has been fed to him.

“If it was the Crown doing that, then the consequences are immense, because they have a duty to report that to the court, in which case the conviction falls.’

Publicly the Crown Office is sticking to the line that Megrahi’s conviction is safe, but it must be dismayed by MacAskill’s statements, not least, his barely veiled criticism of the secret $2 million reward payment made to Gauci, which the Crown Office tacitly sanctioned.  

MacAskill continues to insist that Megrahi was guilty, but his case is built largely on untested evidence and assertions, and he has sidestepped important exculpatory evidence that has emerged since Megrahi’s conviction. All rather surprising for a former defence lawyer.

This flags another intriguing question: how, given his legal background, could MacAskill have landed himself in such a mess? Did he not realise that revealing details of the document subject to a Whitehall gagging order might be illegal? And did he not foresee the consequences of conceding that Megrahi was not the clothes purchaser?

His book’s subtitle is ‘The Search for Justice’. Ironically, its unintended consequence may be to help achieve justice for Megrahi. 

John Ashton is the author of Megrahi: You are my Jury (Birlinn, 2011) and Scotland’s Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters (Birlinn, 2013). From 2006 to 2009 he worked with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s legal team.

Lockerbie deals

[29 May is an important date in the Lockerbie saga. Here are two BBC News reports relating to events on that date:]

Libya offers $2.7bn to Lockerbie families (29 May 2002)

Libya has offered $2.7 billion to compensate families of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie air disaster, a law firm representing the families said.

Each victim's family would receive $10m, but the money would only be handed over piecemeal, as sanctions on Libya were lifted. (...)

The UK Foreign Office welcomed the offer, if genuine, as "a sign that Libya wishes to respond to the requirements of the UN resolutions".

However, a Foreign Office spokesman said Libya had yet to meet all the UN's demands.

The New York law firm of Kriendler and Kriendler gave relatives details of the Libyan offer, which gives a breakdown of how the compensation would be paid.

When UN sanctions are lifted, 40% of the total will be disbursed, and another 40% when the US sanctions are removed.

The remaining 20% will be paid when Libya is removed from the US State Department's list of sponsors of international terrorism. (...)

Relatives said that compensation would close one chapter of the case, but they would still press for an independent inquiry.

'No deal' over Lockerbie bomber

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 [2007].

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. (...)

Addressing MSPs, [Alex Salmond] 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.

Pleas for prosecution of Lockerbie mastermind spotted alive and well in Syria

[This is the headline over an article by Ben Borland published this evening on the Express website and scheduled to appear in tomorrow’s Sunday Express. It reads in part:]

Ahmed Jibril, the leader of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), is blamed by former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is the only person ever convicted of Britain's worst terror attack, which claimed the lives of 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland in December 1988.

However, Mr MacAskill - who freed the dying Libyan from prison in 2009 - says in his controversial new book that Iran, Syria and the PFLP-GC were also involved.

He may now face prosecution for breaching the Official Secrets Act after revealing the King of Jordan wrote to John Major to implicate Jibril's group in the bombing. (...)

Now campaigners and relatives of those who died in the attack are calling for the Crown Office to take similar steps to pursue Jibril in his Syrian bolthole.

The PFLP-GC have been fighting for President Assad's regime and in August 2014 Islamist rebels claimed to have killed Jibril with a roadside bomb.

Those reports have now proved unfounded after the 77-year-old terror warlord broke cover earlier this month to attend a memorial service for a Hezbollah commander in Damascus.

Video footage shows Jibril looking hale and hearty as he pays tribute to Mustafa Badreddine, who had a place alongside him on the list of the world's most wanted men.

Iran is alleged to have paid Jibril $10million to carry out the bombing, which sources say he has used to fund "the good life" including luxurious homes in Damascus and the Mediterranean city of Tartous.

Dr Jim Swire - whose daughter Flora died in the bombing - said: "I would very warmly applaud anybody trying to bring Jibril to justice because I'm certain that he and his group were used by the Iranians as their mercenaries.

"Jibril would probably say he was fighting for the cause of a free Palestine and it was his paymasters in Iran who were ultimately behind Lockerbie, but the PFLP-GC were the executors.

"I hold Jibril pre-eminently responsible for the murder of my daughter so I would warmly welcome any attempt to bring him to justice."

Professor Robert Black QC, a member of the Justice for Megrahi campaign, said there were "strong reasons" why Jibril should be "very closely investigated".

"Those reasons have always been there," he added. "The fact that Kenny MacAskill is now saying it doesn't have anything to do with it.

"The hypocrisy of the man is unbelievable. He is now suggesting there should be a new investigation into Lockerbie, which is exactly what people like me have been saying for years while he was the bloody cabinet secretary and in a position to make it happen."

In his book, Mr MacAskill endorses the theory that Lockerbie was ordered in revenge for the US Navy mistakenly shooting down an Iranian passenger jet earlier in 1988. (...)

However, according to his version of events, the PFLP-GC plan was thwarted by police raids in Germany and Gaddafi's Libya "picked it up from there".

Last night, a Crown spokesman said: "The suggestion that the PFLP-GC was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing was fully considered by the trial court following the incrimination of this terrorist group by Megrahi during his trial and does nothing to undermine the Crown's case that Megrahi acted with others in the bombing of flight Pan Am 103."

MacAskill demolishes findings of Zeist court

[What follows is the text of a review by James Robertson of Kenny MacAskill’s The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search for Justice that appears in today’s edition of The Herald:]

In May 2000, two Libyan citizens, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, went on trial before a specially convened Scottish court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. They were accused of acting in concert to place a suitcase containing a bomb on a plane flying from Malta to Frankfurt; it was transferred as unaccompanied luggage to another flight going to London Heathrow, and there transferred again to Pan Am flight 103, the target, which was blown up, en route to New York, over Lockerbie on the evening of 21 December 1988. All 259 passengers and crew, and 11 people on the ground, were killed.

In January 2001, Fhimah was acquitted, but Megrahi found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. To many people, the verdict made no sense. Subsequent revelations have only reinforced a widespread belief that Megrahi was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

This book is former Cabinet Secretary for Justice (and Herald columnist) Kenny MacAskill’s account of the crime, investigation and trial, and his own part in what followed. In 2009, it was his decision to grant Megrahi, by then suffering from terminal prostate cancer, compassionate release from prison. That decision forms the centrepiece, but not the most revealing part, of Mr MacAskill’s narrative.

The book suffers from Mr MacAskill’s inflated and syntactically-challenged writing style: "The investigation, meanwhile, marched meticulously on. The dynamics of both tension and camaraderie between various agencies continued, though in the main all well worked with each other." The narrative is scattered with words like "literally" (bodies were "literally destroyed, smashed to smithereens"), and "doubtless"’ (a prop for assertions unsupported by any evidence). Mr MacAskill deprives many of his sentences of verbs, and fattens others with clichés. Readers who might reasonably expect a full set of references to back up his account will be disappointed: there is no index, no bibliography and, of the 93 footnotes, 67 come from just four sources.

None of this would matter if Mr MacAskill were writing about UFOs or his favourite movies. His subject, however, is the biggest criminal case in Scottish legal history. It matters greatly that a trained lawyer should use imprecise and careless language to discuss complicated questions of evidence.

The most astonishing passages occur when Mr MacAskill offers his opinion as to who planted the bomb. Syntax purists, look away now: "Megrahi had been to Malta the month before, which was probably preparatory for the scheme and involved discussions on the logistics of clothes, the suitcase and the bomb equipment. He may even have brought the timers in with him." Here Mr MacAskill ratchets up his use of the conditional tense – always a handy tool when indulging in pure speculation: "He [Megrahi] would meet with others in the [Libyan] embassy…he would not be the bomb maker. That would have been prepared in the Libyan People’s Bureau…" There is no attempt to substantiate these wild surmises.

Mr MacAskill proceeds to demolish the findings of the Camp Zeist court. Of the items bought in Tony Gauci’s shop in Malta which were packed in the bomb suitcase, he writes: "The clothes were acquired in Malta, though not by Megrahi." Correctly describing as "rather implausible" the evidence produced by the prosecution that Megrahi was the purchaser, MacAskill continues, "But, if Megrahi didn’t buy the clothes, he was certainly involved." Really? How?

Megrahi’s role, it seems, was to fly from Tripoli into Luqa Airport in Malta on 20 December 1988 bringing with him the brown Samsonite suitcase that was to transport the bomb. This claim relies solely on the testimony of a CIA-paid informer, whom the judges dismissed as an utterly unreliable witness. "There is no evidence," they concluded, ‘that either [Megrahi or Fhimah] had any luggage, let alone a brown Samsonite suitcase.’

Further undermining the Camp Zeist judgement, Mr MacAskill writes that, on the morning of 21 December, Megrahi took the suitcase (now apparently loaded with the bomb) to the airport, but it was Fhimah, as station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines, who would "get it airside and beyond security.…Placing a bag behind and into the system was a relatively simple task given the accreditation and access Fhimah had." The trial judges determined that this proposition was, at best, in the realm of speculation. "Furthermore," they said, "there is the formidable objection that there is no evidence at all to suggest that the second accused was even at Luqa airport on 21 December." Fhimah was consequently acquitted.

The judges also observed that "the absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 [at Luqa] is a major difficulty for the Crown case." In just a few bold sentences, Mr MacAskill has completely overcome this difficulty.

Mr MacAskill finds it "hard to imagine how there could have been any other verdict in the circumstances", and continues: "In many ways, as with Megrahi and Fhimah, Scots law and its judges were simply actors in the theatre that had been created to circumvent and solve both a diplomatic impasse and political problem. Scots law convened the trial, and yet found itself on trial."

Read those sentences carefully: the former Justice Secretary is effectively saying that, at Camp Zeist, diplomacy and politics trumped justice. For how many years have critics of the proceedings been saying this, while Mr MacAskill, the Scottish Government and the Crown Office have maintained that justice prevailed?

By ‘solving’ the problem of how the bomb was placed on flight KM180 Mr MacAskill relieves himself of the need to address with any seriousness the post-trial discrediting of the infamous timer circuit-board fragment linking Libya to the bomb; the accumulated mass of evidence pointing to the more convincing explanation that the bomb was loaded directly onto Pan Am flight 103 at Heathrow; or the most comprehensive analysis of the Lockerbie saga to date, John Ashton’s 2012 book Megrahi: You Are My Jury. He skims so lightly over the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s 2007 report, which indicated six grounds on which Megrahi’s conviction might be unsafe, that one suspects he sees the thin ice beneath him.

To summarise: Mr MacAskill asserts that Fhimah, acquitted by the court, planted the bomb, and that Megrahi, found guilty by the court, did not buy the clothes from Tony Gauci’s shop. Yet, as he also acknowledges, without Gauci’s identification of Megrahi as the purchaser, the case would have collapsed. This, then, is the new position of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice who, while in office, repeatedly articulated the Scottish Government’s view that it "did not doubt the safety of Megrahi’s conviction"’. So, too, did the then First Minister Alex Salmond, who nevertheless endorses Mr MacAskill’s book as "the most credible explanation yet published of who was really responsible for the downing of Pan Am flight 103". They cannot have it both ways: either they think the judges got it right, or they think they got it wrong.

Mr MacAskill admits that, had Megrahi’s second appeal reached court, his conviction might well have been overturned. He then makes this shameful comment: "But, this account of how the bombing was carried out and by whom is based on information gathered meticulously by police and prosecutors from the US, Scotland and elsewhere. It’s also founded on intelligence and sources not available for a court or that have only come to light thereafter."

So, Megrahi didn’t buy the clothes, the grounds of his conviction were shaky at best, but we know from other sources that he was involved and anyway he’s dead now, and that’s good enough for Scottish justice.

If Mr MacAskill does have information pertinent to the case, he should share it with Police Scotland, who are currently concluding a major investigation, Operation Sandwood, into allegations of possible criminality on the part of police officers and Crown representatives during the original investigation and trial. These allegations were made by the organisation Justice for Megrahi (of which I am a member) and were first drawn directly to Mr MacAskill’s attention, in strict confidence, on September 13, 2012. Some of them relate to the very aspects of the case that Mr MacAskill now says the court got wrong.

The Lockerbie case has long been a stain on the Scottish justice system. Kenny MacAskill rubs and rubs at that stain. Whatever his intent, the effect is not to make it vanish but to make it look far worse.

CIA witness gagged by US government

[This is the headline over a report published in the Sunday Herald on this date in 2000. It reads in part:]

A former CIA agent who claims Libya is not responsible for the Lockerbie bombing is being gagged by the US government under state secrecy laws and faces 10 years in prison if he reveals any information about the terrorist attack.

United Nations diplomats are outraged that the US government is apparently suppressing a potential key trial witness. Diplomats are now demanding that the CIA agent, Dr Richard Fuisz, be released from the gagging order. Fuisz, a multi-millionaire businessman and pharmaceutical researcher, was, according to US intelligence sources, the CIA's key operative in the Syrian capital Damascus during the 1980s where he also had business interests.

One month before a court order was served on him by the US government gagging him from speaking on the grounds of national security, he spoke to US congressional aide Susan Lindauer, telling her he knew the identities of the Lockerbie bombers and claiming they were not Libyan.

Lindauer, shocked by Fuisz's claims, immediately compiled notes on the meeting which formed the basis of a later sworn affidavit detailing Fuisz's claims. One month after their conversation, in October 1994, a court in Washington DC issued an order barring him from revealing any information on the grounds of "military and state secrets privilege".

When contacted by the Sunday Herald last night, Fuisz said when asked if he was a CIA agent in Syria in the 1980s: "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." Fuisz did, however, say that he would not take any action against a newspaper which named him as a CIA agent.

Congressional aide Lindauer, who was involved in early negotiations over the Lockerbie trial, claims Fuisz made "unequivocal statements to me that he has first-hand knowledge about the Lockerbie case". In her affidavit, she goes on: "Dr Fuisz has told me that he can identify who orchestrated and executed the bombing. Dr Fuisz has said that he can confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or executing the bombing of Pan Am 103, either in any technical or advisory capacity whatsoever."

Fuisz's statements to Lindauer support the claims of the two Libyan accused who are to incriminate a number of terrorist organisations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which had strong links to Syria and Iran.

Lindauer said Fuisz told her he could provide information on Middle Eastern terrorists, and referred to Lockerbie as an “example of an unsolved bombing case that he said he has the immediate capability to resolve”.

Lindauer says Fuisz told her CIA staff had destroyed reports he sent them on Lockerbie. Lindauer also refers in her affidavit to speculation that the USA shifted any connection to Lockerbie away from Syria to Libya in return for its support during the Gulf war.

She added that Fuisz told her: “If the [US] government would let me, I could identify the men behind this attack today. I could do the right thing … I could go into any crowded restaurant and pick out these men … I can tell you their home addresses … You won’t find [them] anywhere in Libya. You will only find [them] in Damascus. I was investigating on the ground and I know.”

The 1994 gagging order was issued following disclosures by Fuisz during other legal proceedings about alleged illegal exports of military equipment to Iraq. The order claims that the information held by Fuisz is vital to the “nation’s security or diplomatic relations” and can not be revealed “no matter how compelling the need for, and relevance of, the information”. The submission also makes clear that the government is empowered to “protect its interests in this case in the future”, thereby gagging Fuisz permanently.

Details of Fuisz’s gagging have been passed to the United Nations, including UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Russia’s UN ambassador Sergey Lavrov and the Libyan UN ambassador, as well as representatives of France and China. The report on the Fuisz gagging, containing Lindauer’s affidavit, refers to “the history of US interference … [and] … sabotage by the United States”.

One senior UN diplomat said: “In the interests of natural justice, Dr Fuisz should be released from any order which prevents him telling what he knows of the Pan Am bombing.” With Fuisz prohibited from speaking, neither the defence nor prosecution can call him as a witness.

A legal source close to Fuisz said: “We want the truth out. The naming of knowledgeable witnesses who can’t be called would utterly change the face of this trial. Dr Fuisz obviously cannot claim he has any knowledge because of national security issues and he could face 10 years in jail. However, if he is not allowed to talk the entire case should be dropped.

“Apart from the US government freeing him from the gag, the only way to allow him to speak would be to subpoena him to the Scottish Court, but the court has no power of subpoena in America.”

The Sunday Herald will make the Lindauer affadvit and Fuisz gagging order available to both the Crown and defence if they require the documents.

Lockerbie: The bid to suppress evidence

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

It would have been an action unheard of in the Scottish press - the UK Government pulling an entire edition of a newspaper in a bid to suppress a secret document.

But that's exactly what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) threatened to do to The Herald in 2012 when it sought to publish details of a report implicating a Palestinian terror group in the Lockerbie bombing.

The full details of what happened were published yesterday in Kenny MacAskill's new book on the atrocity - and the FCO is again taking action.

The government department has said it is "considering the contents" of the book, The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search for Justice, amid claims it may breach of Official Secrets Act.

Mr MacAskill reveals that at the time the Herald was seeking to publish the information, he took a call from Tory MP Alistair Burt, who was working with the FCO.

"He threatened not just to pull The Herald's story, but to pull the whole edition of the newspaper," he said.

"I was incredulous. I told him that the people of Scotland would definitely notice if there was no Herald the next day.

"It really showed the extremes the UK Government was prepared to go to to stop the publication of something fundamental to Scotland's leading criminal case."

The document was subject to Public Interest Immunity, which prevented its release to the defence in the trial of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing.

After taking legal advice, The Herald ran the story detailing the main points of the document, including that it came from Jordan and implicated the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) in the December 1988 attack.

Certain information was not available to The Herald at that time, however it has all now been revealed in Mr MacAskill's book.

It is understood that the FCO requested a copy of the book on Sunday ahead of Thursday's publication, but were not provided with one as officials refused to rule out seeking an injunction.

The PFLP-GC were the original suspects in the investigation into Lockerbie, however by 1991 police and prosecutors were entirely focused on Libya.

This document naming the terror group was repeatedly suppressed at a high-level, despite sources claiming it presented little risk to national security.

In 2012, a source told The Herald: "The contents are very important but what makes them so much more significant is the lengths the UK Government and others have gone to in order to prevent anyone from seeing the document.

"This is the most remarkable piece of evidence. It does not rule out the Libyans but it does indicate that others were involved."

Mr MacAskill, who claimed the suppression of the document had more to with keeping the Jordanians happy so that radical cleric Abu Qatada could be deported from the UK, admits in his book that he believes the PFLP-GC were involved in the plot which killed 270 people.

The former politician, who made the controversial decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds in 2009, also raises doubts over the identification of Megrahi buying clothes from a shop in Malta that were found wrapped around the bomb.

However, he is now facing claims it is "dumbfounding" and "hypocritical" for a former justice minister to make such assertions that the case against Megrahi was flawed.

Robert Black QC, one of the architects behind Megrahi's trial who now heads up the Justice for Megrahi campaign, said: "Many of the things that Kenny is saying are the things that we've been saying for years.

"He said on the radio that there should be a new inquiry into Lockerbie - we've been asking for that for years, and it was him we were asking.

"It's only now that he doesn't actually have any power to do something that he's agreeing with us."

Mr Black added that it could be open to the FCO to try to secure a prosecution against Mr MacAskill for breaching the Officials Secrets Act, but he believes it would be highly unlikely.

He said: "Given that The Herald already published much of the detail in 2012, and they got away with it, I can't see how a case could be brought against him."

[RB: The above should be read along with the immediately preceding blogpost.]

Lockerbie documents security plea

[This is the headline over a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2008. It reads as follows:]

A plea has been made to Lockerbie bombing appeal judges to hold a hearing to discuss a confidential document behind closed doors.

The Advocate General has suggested a security-vetted advocate could represent Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi in place of his usual legal team.

The UK Government claims releasing the document would harm national security.

However, Al Megrahi's lawyers have said it could assist his appeal against his conviction for the 1988 atrocity.

The Advocate General - who represents the UK Government - has lodged a public interest immunity plea to keep the document secret.

A three-day procedural hearing at the Appeal Court in Edinburgh is now meeting to decide how to address the issue.

The court previously heard Foreign Secretary David Miliband had signed the public interest immunity certificate.

Judges were told he believes releasing the secret document would cause "real harm" to the national interest.

Advocate General Lord Davidson QC told the court there should be a public interest immunity hearing, and he suggested judges should have access to the document in advance of that hearing.

He said a special representative, if appointed, would be able to represent Al Megrahi's interests.

The Libyan's defence team have not yet given their views in the hearing but Lord Davidson said it appeared that they contest the use of a special representative in this case.

Al Megrahi was not present at the hearing in Edinburgh.

[RB: This is the document referred to in Kenny MacAskill’s book and in respect of which it has been suggested that Mr MacAskill may have contravened the Official Secrets Act.]

"The most credible explanation yet"

Today is the official publication date of Kenny MacAskill’s The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search For Justice. Here is how the book is described on website of the publisher, Biteback:]

On 21 December 1988, Pan Am flight 103 departed London Heathrow for New York. Shortly after take-off, a bomb detonated, killing all aboard and devastating the small Scottish town of Lockerbie below. Only one man has ever been convicted of the crime: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, though few believe that he acted alone.

In 2009, a request was made by Libya for al-Megrahi’s release from prison on compassionate grounds after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The decision to grant or deny that request fell squarely and exclusively on the shoulders of one man: Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary from 2007 to 2014.

Detailing the build-up to the atrocity and the carnage left in its wake, MacAskill narrates the international investigation that followed and the diplomatic intrigue that saw a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. He describes the controversial release of al-Megrahi, explains the international dimensions involved and lays bare the commercial and security interests that ran in the background throughout the investigation and trial. Finally, he answers how and why it happened – and who was really responsible for the worst terrorist attack to have occurred on British soil before or since.

“Kenny MacAskill was a hero of principle surrounding the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, who was then dying of cancer. Now he has written a gripping and revealing account of the bombing, telling the whole story with honesty and compassion, as well as a forensic attention to detail. Essential reading for anyone with unanswered questions about the worst terrorist attack ever to be perpetrated in Britain.” Clive Stafford Smith

“This book details the duplicity of UK and US governments who condemned the release while negotiating commercial deals with the Gaddafi regime. It tells of the pressures on the judicial system of Scotland from the global controversy and a Justice Secretary’s search for justice. It ends with the most credible explanation yet published of who was really responsible for the downing of Pan Am flight 103. A must-read book by the man in the eye of the storm.”    Alex Salmond