Al Megrahi wins legal victory in Lockerbie appeal

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

The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing won a legal victory today in the latest stage of his bid to have his conviction overturned.

Judges ruled that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's appeal could have a wide-ranging focus, looking beyond the issues raised by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) when it suggested he might have suffered a miscarriage of justice.

The decision came after the Libyan's lawyers lodged full grounds of appeal earlier this year and argued that the full appeal should include all the points pertinent to the case.

The Crown had opposed the move, arguing that it would be "absurd", "illogical" and incompetent in law for Al Megrahi to be granted a hearing with such a broad focus.

Today, three judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh rejected the Crown's position.

Lord Hamilton, sitting with Lords Kingarth and Eassie, said the court "holds that the appellant (Al Megrahi) is entitled to have his stated grounds of appeal decided by the court on their respective merits".

Al Megrahi's lawyer welcomed the "important victory" for his client.

Solicitor Tony Kelly said afterwards: "It is a complete victory for the appellant's position before the court and a complete rejection of the Crown's argument.

"The Crown employed lots of resources to try to restrict the court and they have been stopped in their tracks.

"It is an important victory for Mr Al Megrahi."

Al Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, is serving a minimum of 27 years in prison after being convicted of bombing Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, killing 270 people.

He lost an appeal in 2002, but was given a fresh chance to clear his name in June last year when the SCCRC referred his case back to appeal judges for a second time.

In its 790-page report, the independent body identified five reasons which led it to believe that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

Al Megrahi's full appeal is unlikely to be heard until next year, but numerous procedural hearings in the case have already been held.

In June this year, the Crown argued that the grounds of Al Megrahi's appeal should be confined to the reasons given by the SCCRC for referring the case to the court.

At a special five-judge hearing, Advocate Depute Ronnie Clancy QC said the commission's inquiries had been wide-ranging, having been undertaken in the UK and as far afield as Malta, Libya and Italy.

Granting Al Megrahi a wide-ranging second attempt to overturn his conviction would be "absurd" and "illogical", he argued.

But judges dismissed those arguments today.

Scotland's top judge, Lord Hamilton, told a procedural hearing in Edinburgh: "The court's conclusion is that... it rejects the statutory construction urged by the Advocate Depute and holds that the appellant is entitled to have his stated grounds of appeal decided by the court on their respective merits."

He said the court was applying the law as it currently stands.

Lord Hamilton went on: "Whether it is desirable, having regard to, among other things, the use of judicial resources, that a reference appellant should have unrestricted scope in what he lays before the court for adjudication is a matter for Parliament, but this court must apply the statute as presently framed."

Al Megrahi was not in court for today's hearing.

r Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the disaster and is spokesman for the UK Families Flight 103 group, was in court for today's decision.

After the hearing, he said: "This is excellent news from the point of view of the relatives.

"The attempt was to limit what was submitted to the court for the second appeal and this is the criminal authorities saying they are not going to restrict the defence.

"Since our remit is to look for the truth, the more that comes out in court the happier we are.

"So I am really jubilant about today's hearing."

[RB: Regrettably, the law on this matter has now been altered by the Scottish Parliament. In any new appeal allowed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (eg in an application by Megrahi’s family) the appeal court would be limited to the specific grounds of referral allowed by the SCCRC unless the court was prepared, in the interests of justice, to permit additional grounds of appeal to be added: Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, section 194(D) (4A) and (4B), as inserted by Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 (asp 13), ss 83, 206(1).]

Preliminary stages of first Megrahi appeal

[What follows is the text of a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2001:]

Relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing are travelling to the Netherlands for the first stage of the appeal, which will determine the fate of the man convicted of the atrocity.

A preliminary hearing will take place in Camp Zeist, near Utrecht on Monday for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.

The 49-year-old Libyan was convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground.

The hearing before five Scottish judges - Lords Cullen, Kirkwood, MacFadyen, Nimmo Smith and McEwan - will consider various procedural and administrative matters.

Among those making the trip to the Netherlands are two British men who lost daughters in the atrocity.

Rev John Mosey, who lost his 19-year-old daughter Helga in the bombing said: "We feel it's important that someone from the families is there to see that justice is done.

"We just feel it is right that we are there."

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora, 23, was killed, said: "We followed the whole of the trial so it makes sense to follow this stage as well."

Dr Swire also revealed how he and other members of the UK Families Flight 103 pressed Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for a full inquiry into the tragedy at a recent meeting.

He said: "We intimated that in our view it's extremely urgent to have an inquiry because Lockerbie was always an avoidable tragedy."

Monday's hearing at Camp Zeist is expected to last one day and set the date for the start of the appeal, which is likely to be next year.

Al Megrahi was jailed for life after being convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in January.

His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted by Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and Maclean at the end of the eight-month trial.

Al Megrahi's legal team, which includes American human rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz and high-profile British QC Michael Mansfield, lodged an appeal against his conviction in February. [RB: Dershowitz and Mansfield acted as consultants: they could not, of course, appear as counsel in a Scottish court.]

Although the full grounds of the appeal have not been made public it is thought that the defence will challenge evidence which came from Tony Gauci.

During the original trial the Maltese shopkeeper identified Al Megrahi as a man who bought clothing from his store shortly before the bombing.

Remnants of the same clothing were found around Lockerbie after the bombing and there was evidence that the garments may have been packed around the bomb.

Al Megrahi's Libyan lawyer has said he is confident his client will be freed after the appeal.

Lockerbie, luggage and lies

This is the title of a presentation to be given by Dr Morag Kerr on Friday, 18 November at 7pm in the town hall, Moffat. It should not be missed by anyone with an interest in the Lockerbie case who is within travelling distance of Moffat.

Do you know the truth about Lockerbie?

[This is the headline over an article by Robert Fisk that was published in The Independent on this date in 2007. It reads as follows:]

After writing about the "ravers" who regularly turn up at lectures to claim that President Bush/the CIA/the Pentagon/Mossad etc perpetrated the crimes against humanity of 11 September, I received a letter this week from Marion Irvine, who feared that members of her family run the risk of being just such "ravers" and "voices heard in the wilderness". Far from it.

For Mrs Irvine was writing about Lockerbie, and, like her, I believe there are many dark and sinister corners to this atrocity. I'm not at all certain that the CIA did not have a scam drugs heist on board and I am not at all sure that the diminutive Libyan agent Megrahi – ultimately convicted on the evidence of the memory of a Maltese tailor – really arranged to plant the bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

But I take Mrs Irvine's letter doubly seriously because her brother, Bill Cadman, was on board 103 and died in the night over Lockerbie 19 years ago. He was a sound engineer in London and Paris, travelling with his girlfriend Sophie – who, of course, was also killed – to spend Christmas with Sophie's aunt in the United States. Nothing, therefore, could be more eloquent than Mrs Irvine's own letter, which I must quote to you. She strongly doubts, she says, Libya's involvement in the bombing.

"We have felt since the first days in December 1988," she writes, "that something was being hidden from us ... the discrediting of the Helsinki (US embassy) warning, the presence of the CIA on Scottish soil before the work of identifying bodies was properly undertaken, the Teflon behaviour of ministers and government all contributed to a deep feeling of unease.

"This reached a peak when my father was told by a member of the American Presidential Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism that our government knew what had happened but that the truth would not come out. In the truth vacuum, the worst-case scenario – that lives were sacrificed in expiation for the Iranian lives lost in June 1988 – takes on a certain degree of credibility. The plane was brought down in the last dangerous moments of the Reagan presidency."

Now I should explain here that the Iranian lives to which Mrs Irvine refers were the Iranian passengers of an Airbus civilian airliner shot down over the Gulf by a US warship a few months before Lockerbie and before the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war.

The USS Vincennes – nicknamed Robocruiser by the crews of other American vessels – blasted its missiles at the Airbus on the assumption that it was a diving Iranian air force jet. It wasn't – and the Airbus was climbing – but Reagan, after a few cursory apologies, blamed Iran for the slaughter, because it had refused to accept a UN ceasefire in the war with Iraq in which we were backing our old friend Saddam Hussein (yes, the same!).

The US navy also awarded medals – god spare us – to the captain of the Vincennes and to his gunnery crew. Some weeks later the boss of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command – a pro-Iranian Palestinian outfit in Lebanon – suddenly called a press conference in Beirut to deny to astonished reporters that he was involved in Lockerbie.

Why? Was he being fingered? Was Iran? Only later did those familiar "official sources" who had initially pointed the finger at Iran start blaming Libya. By then we needed the support of Iran's ally Syria and Iranian quiescence in our attempt to liberate Kuwait after Saddam's 1990 invasion. Personally, I always thought that Lockerbie was revenge for the Airbus destruction – the PLP's strange press conference lends credence to this – which makes sense of Mrs Irvine's courageous letter.

Her parents, Martin and Rita Cadman, have, she says, had countless meetings with MPs, including Tam Dalyell and Henry Bellingham, Cecil Parkinson, Robin Cook and Tony Blair, and with Nelson Mandela (whose appeal for Megrahi to be transferred to a Libyan prison was supported by the Cadmans).

In a poignant sentence, Mrs Irvine adds that her parents "are ageing and in their anxiety that they will die with no one having taken real responsibility for their son's death are in danger of losing focus and feeling that they themselves are 'raving'. The (1980-88) war in Iraq meant that no lessons were being learned, and because my brother chanced to be on that plane we all now feel a heightened sense of responsibility for the world situation".

Then Mrs Irvine comes to the point. "What can we do? Now that my father is older and it is up to us, the next generation, to try to needle the government, but is there any hope? I am writing to ask if you think there is any reasonable action that we can take that has a slight prospect of success ... a refusal to understand and admit to the past is dangerous for the future."

I couldn't put it better myself – and I do have a very direct idea. If official untruths were told about Lockerbie – if skulduggery was covered up by the British and US governments and lies were told by those responsible for our security – then many in authority know about this.

I urge all those who may know of any such lies to write to me (snail mail or hand-delivered) at The Independent. They can address their letters to Mrs Irvine in an envelope with my name on it. In other words, this is an appeal for honest whistle-blowers to tell the truth.

I can hear already the rustle of the lads in blue. Are we encouraging civil servants to break the Official Secrets Act? Certainly not. If lies were told, then officials should let us know, since the Official Secrets Act – in this case – would have been shamefully misused to keep them silent. If the truth has indeed been told, then no one is going to break the Official Secrets Act.

So I await news. Ravers need not apply. But those who know truths which cannot be told can have the honour of revealing them all. It's the least Martin and Rita Cadman and Mrs Irvine – and Bill and Sophie – deserve. As for a constabulary which just might be tempted to threaten me – or Mrs Irvine – in a quest for truth, to hell with them.

“No pressure from Westminster”

[On this date in 2009 the Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, made a statement in the House of Commons about the UK Government’s rôle in the events that led up to the repatriation of Megrahi. It reads in part:]

In May 2007, Prime Minister Tony Blair made his second visit to Libya. His summit with Colonel Gaddafi at Sirte covered the full range of our interests with Libya. Mr. Blair signed a defence accord and witnessed the public signature of a major BP exploration contract. Also agreed was a memorandum of understanding on negotiations for a judicial co-operation package, including a prisoner transfer agreement and agreements on mutual legal assistance, extradition, and civil and commercial law.

The UK had a model agreement, based on Council of Europe arrangements, that was the starting point for negotiation on our prisoner transfer agreements with any country and that provided the starting point for negotiations with the Libyans. Four points are relevant. First, a PTA provides for prisoner transfer, not prisoner release. Secondly, it provides a framework for transfer, not a right to transfer. Thirdly, a PTA cannot be used when appeals, including by the prosecuting authority, are outstanding, as in this case. Fourthly, Ministers in the sentencing jurisdiction-in this case Scotland-have an absolute right to veto any transfer.

This standard draft had no provision for any carve-out for any named prisoner. However, the Scottish Executive made strong representations for us to seek to alter the standard PTA so as specifically to exclude Mr. Megrahi. The UK negotiation team, led by the Ministry of Justice, sought in good faith to achieve this goal.

The Libyans insisted that the only PTA that they would sign was a PTA without any exclusions. So the Government had a clear choice. We could agree to a standard PTA with no exclusions, retaining for Scottish Ministers an absolute veto over any request for prisoner transfer in the case of Megrahi-a veto which they used in August this year-or we could have ended the negotiations to prevent an application for prisoner transfer. This would have set back our wider national and commercial interests that flowed from normalised relations, as the Justice Secretary has made clear. Since the PTA involved no prejudice to the rights of the Scottish Executive, nor pressure on the Scottish Executive, the Government decided it was right to go ahead. The PTA finally took effect in April 2009.

In September 2008, a new factor came into play. Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The Libyans became increasingly concerned at the prospect of Mr. Megrahi dying in a Scottish prison. They communicated this to the Government and to the Scottish Executive. It was repeatedly made clear in reply, including in the Prime Minister's meeting with Colonel Gaddafi on 10 July this year, that the decision on Mr. Megrahi's fate was exclusively for Scottish Ministers and the Scottish judicial system.

Notwithstanding that any decision on release was for Scottish Ministers and the Scottish judicial system, the UK Government had a responsibility to consider the consequences of any Scottish decision. We assessed that although the decision was not one for the UK Government, British interests, including those of UK nationals, British businesses and possibly security co-operation, would be damaged-perhaps badly-if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison rather than in Libya. Given the risk of Libyan adverse reaction, we made it clear to them that as a matter of law and practice it was not a decision for the UK Government and that as a matter of policy we were not seeking Megrahi's death in Scottish custody.

In Scotland, compassionate release generally comes into play in the last three months of a prisoner's life. Scottish Justice Secretary MacAskill has set out the process by which he arrived at his decision in August this year to refuse the PTA transfer but to grant Megrahi compassionate release. He also set out the grounds on which he did so. As the Scottish Justice Secretary repeatedly stated in his announcement, this was a decision for him and him alone to take. The Government were clear that any attempt by us to pressure the Scottish Executive would have been wrong. At the press conference announcing his decision, the Scottish Justice Secretary confirmed that there was "no pressure from Westminster".

[RB: The full statement and the debate which followed can be read here.]

First preliminary hearing in second Megrahi appeal

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on this date in 2007 on the BBC News website on the first procedural hearing in the appeal allowed to Megrahi by the SCCRC:]

Lawyers for the man jailed for the Lockerbie bombing have asked the Crown to hand over documents which they said could help overturn his conviction.

A court was told their non-disclosure could indicate that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 55, was the victim of a "miscarriage of justice".

The Libyan's legal team said they needed the papers to prepare an appeal.

They were granted an extension until 21 December - the 19th anniversary of the disaster in which 270 people in 1988.

The hour-long hearing - which Megrahi did not attend - was the first time the case has come to court since he was granted the right to a second appeal earlier this year.

The full appeal - before a panel of five judges - is likely to be heard next year.

Speaking at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 who died when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, described it as "a very ominous date".

"We are getting near the 19th anniversary of the murder of our loved ones," he said.

Mr Swire said he was pleased that Scotland's top judge, Lord Justice General Lord Hamilton, seemed to want to speed things up as much as possible. [RB: The hope that progress would be swift soon turned out to be forlorn.]

However, he added that it would be wrong to put too much pressure on the defence.

Alongside the appeal for documents, Defence QC Margaret Scott said a new witness could discredit Maltese shop keeper Tony Gauci whose evidence was crucial in convicting Megrahi at a special court in the Netherlands in 2001.

Ms Scott also said defence forensic experts were working on reports to counter other evidence led at the trial.

The hour-long hearing followed recent speculation that US security services were blocking the handover of potentially crucial information about the timer which detonated the bomb on Pan Am flight 103.

However, Lord Hamilton, sitting with Lords Kingarth and Eassie, heard that the Americans were not involved.

"The documents don't come from that government or any of its agencies," said advocate depute Ronald Clancy QC, for the Crown.

He told the court: "The documents in question were passed to the UK Government on the basis that they were regarded as being confidential by the authorities that passed them over.

"That being so, the Crown has always taken the position that, if possible, confidentiality should always be respected."

Mr Clancy added: "The Crown has been actively pursuing the matter but today it remains unresolved."

Requests had been made to allow the Crown to hand over the documents and it was possible this might happen without the appeal judges having to rule on the issue, the court heard.

Mr Swire said that if the secret documents did not come from the US then it was "pure speculation" which government they belonged to. [RB: Years later it emerged that the the government in question was that of Jordan.]

In 2002, five judges heard an appeal against Megrahi's conviction but decided that the guilty verdict should stand.

[RB: My own report on the procedural hearing reads as follows:]

The hearing at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh this morning lasted just under one hour. The judges were the Lord Justice General (Lord Hamilton), Lord Kingarth and Lord Eassie. (For brief biographies, see http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/session/judges.asp.) Mr Megrahi was represented by a team headed by Maggie Scott QC and the Crown by a team headed by Ronnie Clancy QC. For technical reasons of no particular interest in the overall scheme of the Lockerbie case, the Advocate General for Scotland was also represented; as also was the Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway (because copies of the documents that Megrahi's lawyers are seeking to have disclosed to them are in that police force's possession).

The principal subject of debate was Megrahi's application to have disclosed a document relating to timers that is in the possession of the Crown and that was seen by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, and the non-disclosure of which to the defence was one of the Commission's reasons for holding that a miscarriage of justice might have occurred. The only major surprise in the hearing was the Crown's revelation that the foreign country from which the document in question emanated was not the United States of America. The general assumption amongst commentators (myself included) had been that the source of the document was the CIA or the FBI. Mr Clancy indicated that the Crown was seeking the consent of the foreign country in question for the release of the document to the appellant's legal team He asked for, and was granted, a six week period to lodge written answers to Megrahi's application for an order for the document to be disclosed. His hope was that within that period the foreign country would agree to its release and that the court would not therefore have to consider whether to make a formal ruling on the matter.

The other issue ventilated at the hearing was the timetable for Megrahi's legal team to lodge his Grounds of Appeal (as distinct from the "outline of proposed grounds of appeal" that had already been provided to the court). Ms Scott indicated that a vast amount of new material had become available to Megrahi's team from the SCCRC and also from the Maltese authorities and that this had to be considered and assessed before grounds of appeal could be finalised. The court ordered that the Grounds of Appeal be lodged before the end of the legal term on 21 December 2007, but on the understanding that additions and amendments might be required thereafter. A separate set of grounds of appeal on the issue of inadequate representation by Megrahi's original legal team was ordered to be lodged in advance, so that the lawyers criticised in them should have the opportunity of commenting on the allegations without further delay to the proceedings as a whole.

The appeal proceedings will be held in Edinburgh, but Ms Scott indicated concerns about arrangements for Mr Megrahi's repatriation to Libya in the event of his release. It is to be expected that satisfactory arrangements will be evolved, perhaps involving the United Nations (as happened in respect of Mr Fhima, the co-accused who was acquitted at the original trial).

The public benches of the courtroom were by no means full, though a number of Lockerbie relatives did attend, along with a substantial contingent of representatives of the media. The most common complaint from those attending was the difficulty in hearing what was being said. The acoustics were appalling and this was not helped by the tendency of the speaking participants (with the honourable exceptions of Ms Scott and Mr Clancy) to whisper or mumble.

Lockerbie accused 'given false passport'

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

The Lockerbie trial has heard that one of the accused was issued with a false passport after security service chiefs sent an urgent request to the relevant authorities.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 48, was given a "coded" passport in the name of Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamed, the Scottish Court in the Netherlands was told.

Maloud Mohamed Omar El Gharour, of the general passport and nationality department in Libya, said that in June 1987 his department received a letter from the external security services asking for a new "coded" passport for Al Megrahi.

Prosecuting counsel Alan Turnbull QC asked the witness: "What would you understand by a coded passport?"

Mr El Gharour said: "It means simply that the passport does not carry the original name of its holder."

He told the court that the letter requesting the passport asked for the matter to be dealt with "very urgently".

It said the name of the holder of the coded passport was Al Megrahi who was described as having the job of "collaborator civil".

However the profession listed for his false passport was to be "employee".

The false passport was issued on the same day as the urgent letter was received, Mr El Gharour said.

The Lockerbie indictment accuses Al Megrahi of travelling to Malta, where the bomb which blew up Pan Am Flight 103 is alleged to have originated, on various occasions in 1987 and 1988 using the false identity of Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamed.

Carol Butler, of the British Immigration Services, told the court that stamps in the Abdusamad passport showed the user arriving in Malta on 20 December 1988 and flying back to Libya the following day.

The passport was not used again after 20 December.

The trial is to be delayed again after "sensitive" information was given to the prosecution by a government.

In an unexpected development, Scotland's Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC told the judges on Monday it was impossible to proceed without further enquiries.

Sensitive information from a foreign government

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on this date in 2000 on the BBC News website:]

The Lockerbie trial is to be delayed again after "sensitive" information was given to the prosecution by a government.

In an unexpected development, Scotland's Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC told the judges on Monday it was impossible to proceed without further enquiries.

He gave few details to the court but confirmed that the information was related to the defence case and did not come from the United States.

Although some witnesses will be heard on Tuesday, the judges, with defence agreement, agreed then to adjourn the trial until Tuesday, 17 October.

On Monday the court at Camp Zeist in Holland was due to hear more evidence relating to the special defences of incrimination put forward by the two accused men.

They have denied all charges against them, blaming others for the atrocity including Mohamed Abo Talb, a former commander in the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front.

Talb, who was jailed for life in 1989 for bombing an airline's office in Copenhagen, was expected to give evidence as a prosecution witness on Monday.

The prosecution declined to comment further on the delay and a Crown Office spokesman said: "We can give no further information other than that given to the court by the lord advocate."

Mr Boyd told the court he had received the new information on Thursday and enquiries were carried out on Friday.

He said: "The matters raised by this information are of some complexity and considerable sensitivity. They relate not to the Crown case but to the defence case.

"Enquiries are continuing but it is likely, though not certain, that I will conclude that the information ought to be disclosed to the defence.

"However there are a number of difficult issues which require to be resolved before any disclosure is possible.

"The sensitivity of the enquiries is such that I am unable to give any further explanation at this stage."

Mr Boyd said it would be "inappropriate" to lead further Crown evidence relating to the special defences as the new information could have a bearing on the cross examination of witnesses.

William Taylor QC, defence counsel for Al Megrahi, told the judges he was "as much in the dark" as them about the reasons for the adjournment and therefore in no position to object to it.

However he added: "I am conscious that my client has now been in custody for some considerable time and any delay further extends that period."

Richard Keen QC, defending Fhimah, said: "It's obviously unfortunate the accused should have been in custody for one and a half years while 57 days of a trial has taken place.

"But the lord advocate was good enough to speak to myself and Mr Taylor before and I fully accept he has obligations incumbent on him in the public interest."

Presiding judge Lord Sutherland said that while a disruption to the proceedings was "unfortunate" the judges accepted the adjournment motion.

He said: "We will adjourn until next Tuesday for enquiries to be made. All we can do is express the hope that there will be sufficient time to resolve the difficulties."

[RB: I suspect that the document referred to above was not in fact provided to the defence at the Zeist trial and is the same document that was only disclosed six years later to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, and in respect of which the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, signed a Public Interest Immunity certificate to prevent its being revealed to Megrahi’s legal team for the subsequent appeal. The contents of the document were made public in a report in The Herald in June 2012. Kenny MacAskill made reference to it in his recent Lockerbie book: see Lockerbie: The bid to suppress evidence on this blog on 27 May 2016.]

Onus now on Scottish government to establish a judicial inquiry

[The letter from Benedict Birnberg that follows was published in The London Review of Books on this date in 2009:]

As a partner of Gareth Peirce until my retirement may I add a sequel to her penetrating analysis of the al-Megrahi case (LRB, 24 Sepember). First, to point out that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) after an investigation lasting over three years referred his conviction to the Scottish court of appeal in June 2007; its statement of referral extended to more than 800 pages with 13 volumes of appendices. It is that appeal which, as Gareth Peirce says, al-Megrahi abandoned before his release and repatriation to Libya, thus denying the court the opportunity to consider the case, even though the SCCRC stated in its press release: ‘based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court ... the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.’ Why did al-Megrahi withdraw his appeal? Was it because he was put under pressure to secure his release on compassionate grounds? Or was it voluntarily done because he lacked confidence in the impartiality of the court? Whatever the truth may be, the onus now rests on the Scottish government to establish a public judicial inquiry, so that the case so painstakingly prepared by the SCCRC does not go by default.

Second, to add to the suspicions Peirce’s article exposes, it needs to be said that the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision has unleashed a hysterical torrent of vilification, not least in the US where many of the relatives of the Lockerbie victims are convinced of al-Megrahi’s guilt. We have witnessed a campaign of denigration on which even Obama, Hillary Clinton and the late Edward Kennedy have bestowed their benediction. On this side of the Atlantic too the irrational commentators abound. The overwhelming weight of media comment has been hostile to al-Megrahi. On 3 September the Guardian carried a long article by Malcolm Rifkind, the former foreign secretary and a prominent Scottish lawyer, headed ‘Megrahi’s return has been a sorry, cocked-up conspiracy’: it failed even to mention the SCCRC reference. Even pillars of the human rights establishment, such as Geoffrey Robertson, have shouted themselves hoarse: ‘We should be ashamed that this has happened’ (Guardian, 22 August) and ‘Megrahi should never have been freed: the result is a triumph for state terrorism and a worldwide boost for the death penalty’ (Independent, 2 September).

Yet, when al-Megrahi releases part of the SCCRC case on the internet, his declared aim being to clear his name and ostensibly to prove his innocence, pat comes the Scottish lord advocate (Scotland’s chief prosecutor) joining relatives of the victims convinced of his guilt to denounce him for his ‘media campaign’. Meanwhile pleas from those who, like Dr Jim Swire, believe justice has not been done and who, for the sake of the memory of the victims as much as al-Megrahi, wish there to be a genuine and far-reaching inquiry, fall on deaf ears.

Libyan linked to Lockerbie welcome in UK

[This is the headline over a report published in The Guardian on this date in 2001. It reads as follows:]

A senior Libyan official accused of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing and branded 'the master of terror' has been welcomed by the Foreign Office as part of a charm offensive in the wake of the 11 September attacks.

Musa Kusa, head of Libya's external security organisation - which masterminded the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the worst mass murder in Britain - arrived in London last month for talks with MI6, the secret intelligence service, and members of the CIA.

The invitation is a measure of how seriously the Foreign Office regards the Islamic threat. The move will infuriate British relatives of the 270 Lockerbie victims, many of whom believe that justice was not done when a Dutch court convicted a low-ranking member of the Libyan intelligence service for the bombing.

Kusa is known in Libyan dissident circles as the master of terror. He was behind the liquidation of Libyan dissidents in Britain and was expelled from London in 1980 for orchestrating the killing of a BBC World Service journalist, Mohamed Mustafa Ramadan, outside Regent's Park mosque.

He is also wanted in France in connection with the downing of a French DC-10 of the UTA airline in 1989 with 170 passengers aboard, an attack similar to the 1988 bombing of Flight 103.

The rehabilitation of Kusa - who was visiting Britain for the first time in 20 years without an alias - is seen as a reward for Tripoli's backing for the US coalition against terrorism. On his visit, which ended last week, Kusa is understood to have met William Burns, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, in what is thought to be the highest-level official contact between the United States and Libya since the US aerial bombardment of Tripoli in 1986.

'We welcome all attempts at close coordination and assistance whatever the source,' said a US official. 'I'm not aware we've ruled out anyone speaking on behalf of the Libyan government.'

The Foreign Office confirmed a Libyan delegation had been in Britain but refused to disclose its members. But Mohamed Azwai, the Libyan ambassador in London confirmed that Kusa had met British and American officials and provided a list of more than a dozen Libyans in the UK suspected of links to Osama bin Laden.

The list included members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (IFG), which Libya claims is active in Britain. Azwai appeared to accede to Washington's demands to admit responsibility for acts of its officials convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

'Mr Kusa came to Britain and met with his MI6 and the CIA counterparts,' Azwai said. 'Libya will not have difficulty accepting responsibility [for the Lockerbie bombing]. Under international law, the state must accept responsibility for the wrongdoing of its officials.'

[RB: Lots more about Musa Kusa can be read here.]