Looking in the wrong place

[What follows is the text of an article by Dr Morag Kerr that was published on Wings Over Scotland on this date in 2013:]

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie should be commended for starting 2013 with a legitimate request rather than a party-political attack. The Herald today reports his renewed call for a public inquiry into the events of the Lockerbie disaster.

The call was prompted by the new Libyan government’s pledge to release documents relating to the incident “as soon as time, security and stability permitted”. But what will such documents reveal beyond what we already know?

Tam Dalyell once said that the Lockerbie case is so complicated you’d need to be a Professor of Lockerbie Studies to understand it. In some ways that’s true, because there are interminable complications, wrinkles and what-ifs to consider. But there’s a simple way of looking at it too, and that is this: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted because the police firmly believed the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 began its journey at Malta airport around nine o’clock on the morning of the disaster. Megrahi, who was suggested as a potential suspect by the CIA, was discovered to have been catching a plane from Malta to Tripoli that was open for check-in at precisely that time.

If the bomb really did fly from Malta, then it might be reasonable to regard Megrahi with a suspicious eye. But the evidence for the bomb ever having been within a thousand miles of the island of Malta is beyond tenuous, and Megrahi was never shown to have done anything at the airport that morning apart from catch his flight home. If the bomb was introduced somewhere else, he actually has a rather good alibi.

The biggest mystery of the entire saga is why the police persisted in their absolute conviction that the bomb had travelled on an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, despite months and indeed years of investigation finding no evidence of anything untoward at the airport that morning, and in fact no way an unaccompanied suitcase could have been smuggled on board that plane. This is even more surprising when you realise that within only weeks of the disaster, the investigation had very strong evidence indicating that the bomb had actually been smuggled into a baggage container at Heathrow airport, an hour before the feeder flight from Frankfurt landed.

In early January 1989 a baggage handler at Heathrow described having seen a suitcase which he said had appeared mysteriously while he was away on a tea break, on the (previously bare) floor of the container in question, in the corner known by the investigators to be where the explosion had happened. He described the suitcase as a brown hardshell Samsonite. By mid-February, forensic examination had identified the suitcase containing the bomb as a brown plastic hardshell, and by March they knew it was a Samsonite.

The absence of any rejoicing at this point is positively spooky. Rather than pursuing this lead vigorously, the police more or less ignored it. Everyone seemed to be waiting for the forensic results to declare that the explosion had been in a suitcase on the second layer of luggage, and sure enough, the boffins concluded that’s probably how it was. There had been nothing on top of the mystery item before the Frankfurt luggage was added, therefore the bomb suitcase must have been one of the ones that came in on the feeder flight. The investigation remained stalled at this stage for months, until in August a tenuous lead was identified at Frankfurt which sent the police chasing off to Malta, and they never looked back.

The question that was never answered was this. Whose was the mystery suitcase loaded into the container while John Bedford was on his tea break, if it wasn’t the bomb?  The police seemed happy to leave that one hanging. That suitcase didn’t matter, because it was in the wrong place. By about two inches. That line of reasoning held up all through the initial stages of the investigation, and the Fatal Accident Inquiry in Dumfries in 1990-91. Bomb on second layer, no Heathrow-origin luggage on second layer, therefore bomb arrived from Frankfurt. This of course presupposed that the Heathrow-origin luggage had not been moved, but the baggage handler who loaded the suitcases from the feeder flight, Amarjit Sidhu, was adamant he hadn’t moved anything, so that was all right.

The problem with this is that it’s impossible. A suitcase under the bomb suitcase would inevitably have been pulverised. All six pieces of luggage identified as being legitimately placed in that container at Heathrow were recovered, and none of them sustained that sort of damage. Not only that, when the explosion ripped apart the bomb suitcase and the luggage in its immediate vicinity, it created a well-stirred mix of fragments which scattered across the countryside. The searchers combed the fields for these fragments, and the forensics team singled them out for special attention.

Numerous pieces of even the most severely damaged items were recovered in this way, and everything in that category (apart from the bomb suitcase itself) was known, legitimate Heathrow and Frankfurt passenger luggage. There was no sign of any innocent (even if unidentified) suitcase in the mix that might have been loaded at Heathrow and ended up below the bomb suitcase, brown Samsonite hardshell or not. So, if Sidhu hadn’t moved Bedford’s mystery suitcase, and the explosion had been in the case on top of Bedford’s case – well, the laws of physics look like they’re in a bit of trouble.

Putting it simply, both planks of the 1989 police reasoning cannot simultaneously be true. If Sidhu didn’t move the Heathrow-origin luggage, as was believed in 1989, then the Bedford suitcase (on the floor of the container) must have been the bomb, because there’s nothing else for it to be. If there is absolutely no wiggle-room at all for the bomb suitcase to have been on the floor of the container, then Sidhu must have moved the Bedford case – which demolishes the argument used in 1989 to exclude that case from being in the second layer, and again leaves the possibility of its being the bomb wide open.

The only brown Samsonite hardshell suitcase seen by any witness, which had appeared mysteriously in almost the exact position of the explosion, and which the police knew about less than three weeks after the disaster, was ruled out on  the basis on an absolute logical impossibility.

Once this paradox is identified, the crucial dilemma is clear. Which is less credible?  Sidhu’s statement that he didn’t move the Heathrow-origin luggage, or the forensic conclusion that the bomb suitcase had been on the second layer?  Because one of these is simply wrong.

Sidhu was absolutely consistent over three separate police statements that he definitely didn’t move that luggage. Then in the witness box in Dumfries, under oath, he emphatically and specifically denied having lifted out one of the original items and replaced it on a different layer. And there’s no reason why he should have done anything like that. The feeder flight was late, leaving him only 15 minutes for a job he normally had half an hour to complete; it was dark, cold, raining and blowing a gale; and the original items were already well positioned. Why on earth would he have started heaving cases he didn’t need to heave?

In contrast, the best estimate for the height of the explosion was ten inches above the floor of the container. The bomb suitcase was nine inches deep, but what’s the margin of error in that estimate anyway?  It’s also far from impossible that the stacked luggage shifted a few inches due to in-flight turbulence or even banking, moving the bottom suitcase into the position indicated. There were other factors of course, including an examination of the bashed-up and fragmented aluminium base of the container somewhat akin to Mystic Meg reading a palm, but it was all subjective opinion. The bomb suitcase certainly must have been either the case on the bottom of the stack or the one on top of it, and on balance the forensics boffins thought it was the upper one of the two, but that’s as far as it goes.

So what was the court’s decision on this point? That’s a tricky one. In actual fact the court at Camp Zeist was never made aware just how crucial an issue this was, and the bench merely accepted, “for the purposes of this argument” that the bomb suitcase had been on the second layer. How that came about, and John Bedford’s extraordinarily suspicious brown Samsonite hardshell came to be wafted airily to “some more remote corner of the container”, is a whole other article in itself.

But now here we are, in 2012. Megrahi’s second appeal (begun in 2009) centred mainly on the undermining of the eye-witness evidence said to have identified him as the man who bought the clothes packed in the suitcase with the bomb. While that argument was likely to have succeeded if he hadn’t dropped the appeal, it didn’t address the question of the route of the bomb suitcase. Did it fly from Malta, or was it introduced directly at Heathrow?

The ongoing Lockerbie investigation, paid for from our taxes, has been convinced that the bomb flew in from Malta since September 1989. It’s still convinced that Megrahi was “the Lockerbie bomber”, even if there is doubt about his having been the purchaser of the clothes. Why not? He was at the airport when the bomb was smuggled on to the Air Malta flight. He must have been involved! The ongoing investigation believes he didn’t act alone, though, and is determined to track down his supposed accomplices.

We’ve been hearing about investigations in Libya almost since the day of Gaddafi’s death. More than one Libyan official, anxious to curry favour with the Western powers, has claimed to have evidence of Gadaffi having ordered Megrahi to carry out the atrocity. All this has come to nothing. Now the investigators have turned their attention to Malta in the quest for the elusive “accomplices”, though what they imagine they’re going to find there after 24 years that the original investigation didn’t find in 1989-91 is difficult to understand.

When they find absolutely nothing on Malta, as they found absolutely nothing in Libya, is it too much to hope that some young, smart, entirely reconstructed detective might sit down and consider: could the reason we haven’t been able to find anything possibly be because we’re looking in the wrong place?

Wikileaks: Lockerbie bomber released after Gaddafi’s threats against UK

[This is the headline over an article published on this date in 2011 on the Crethi Plethi website. It reads as follows:]

The British government’s deep fears that Libya would take “harsh and immediate” action against UK interests if the convicted Lockerbie bomber died in a Scottish prison are revealed in secret US embassy cables which show London’s full support for the early release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, made explicit and “thuggish” threats to halt all trade deals with Britain and harass embassy staff if Megrahi remained in jail, the cables show. At the same time “a parade of treats” was offered by Libya to the Scottish devolved administration if it agreed to let him go, though the cable says they were turned down.

Document 1: Britain ‘between a rock and a hard place’ over Megrahi.

Document 2: US ambassador to Tripoli says Libyan officials warned the UK of ‘dire consequences’ if Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset al-Megrahi died in a Scottish prison. Threats included commercial sanctions, severing of political ties and suggestions that the welfate of British diplomats and citizens would be at risk.

Document 3: Britain feared Libya would ‘cut us off at the knees’ if Megrahi was not released.

Document 4: Scottish government ‘shocked’ by Megrahi outcry.

Document 5: US diplomats voice ‘strong concerns’ over Qatar’s role in Megrahi release.

Document 6: US suspicion surrounds Tony Blair’s visit to Libya.

Document 7: UK feared hero’s funeral for Megrahi.

[RB: The relevant cables are reproduced in full in the article.]

An open, accountable and accessible system

1. From The Scotsman on this date in 2008:

Iain McKie, father of former detective Shirley McKie, from Ayr, warns the forensic foundation of our entire legal system is under threat.

For well over a century police, lawyers, judges and juries have accepted forensic evidence without question. But now as "light is being let in on the magic", fingerprinting, DNA, footwear, firearm and the other such evidence is being challenged and found wanting.

The Omagh bombing, the World's End Murders, the Templeton Woods murder and the SCRO fingerprint case have all shown that previously infallible evidence is indeed fallible and finally the prosecution system is being forced to review its whole forensic strategy.

While this is bad enough, Lockerbie and other cases have also revealed evidence of police and Crown Office incompetence, political intrigue and a court and legal system struggling to cope.

A system where justice takes forever and at a prohibitive cost. Slowly the realisation is dawning that we are faced with a justice system no longer fit for purpose. A system where there is very real danger of the innocent being found guilty and the guilty escaping punishment. Instead of the usual face saving "first aid" aimed at preserving the power and privilege of those within the system, the time is long overdue for broad ranging public and political debate aimed at creating an open, accountable and accessible system.

2. From The Guardian on this date in 2010:

Britain's special relationship with the United States is "stronger than ever" under Barack Obama, the American ambassador to London said today. (...)

Asked about US anger over the decision to allow Megrahi to return to Libya because of his terminal cancer, [Louis] Susman said: "The special relationship is very strong. It is like a strong marriage. Every once in a while you have a little spat.

"This was a spat. This was a case where friends can disagree."

He laughed off calls from some US figures for a boycott of Scottish products, saying he still drank Scotch whisky, visited Scottish golf courses and wore Scottish sweaters.

Did Megrahi release harm SNP?

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009:]

Bruised and battered, but Salmond will bounce back

This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Times by the newspaper's virulently anti-SNP Scottish political editor, Angus Macleod. The two paragraphs relating to Lockerbie read as follows:

"But if there was one event that brought Mr Salmond face to face with the consequences of power, it was the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister, to free Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi on the grounds that he had only a limited time to live.

"Condemnation rained down as US relatives of Lockerbie victims expressed outrage. At one point it appeared as though Scotland, in US eyes, was to assume the same mantle as Cuba during the Cold War. The First Minister looked as if he had just emerged from a car crash."

As far as Scottish public opinion is concerned, the release of Mr Megrahi seems to have done the SNP no harm and may, indeed, have enhanced its standing.

False convictions do more harm than good

What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2010:]

We must strive to restore the integrity of criminal justice process

[This is the heading over a letter from Glasgow Liberal Democrat councillor Christopher Mason in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]

There is a worrying contradiction between the standards being applied in the cases of Tommy Sheridan and Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi. Sheridan was prosecuted because perjury threatens the whole justice system; but the British and Scottish establishments are apparently indifferent to the doubts expressed about the integrity of Megrahi’s trial and, indeed, the second appeal process.

The crux of the criticisms is that neither the forensic evidence about the timer nor the identification evidence provided by the Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci should have been accepted as sound. These criticisms are contained, we are led to believe, in the unpublished report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which recommended in June 2007 that a second appeal should be heard. The second appeal process was stymied by the refusal of British and American authorities to allow some of the documents to be dealt with by the court in the normal manner; if it had been heard promptly it would have been disposed of one way or the other before Megrahi’s release on health grounds ever became an issue.

Without the forensic evidence and Gauci’s evidence, Megrahi and Fahima could not have been prosecuted. There are allegations that this evidence was tainted. I do not understand why those who thought the Scottish justice system was seriously threatened by perjured evidence in Sheridan’s civil case against a newspaper, cannot find a way of looking into our criminal justice system in relation to the allegation that the most important criminal trial of the 20th century proceeded on the basis of false evidence.

Although 22 years have passed since 270 innocent people were murdered by whomever planted the Lockerbie bomb, this is not just a matter of historical interest or even of justice for the families of the victims. In the continuing campaign to deal with terrorism, the known integrity of our justice system will be essential to success. That is one of the lessons we are supposed to have learnt from Northern Ireland: false convictions do more harm than good.

One of the best defences against the crime of terrorism is the known integrity of the normal criminal justice process. To restore public confidence in the Scottish criminal justice system when dealing with terrorism, the Scottish Parliament should find some way of allowing the court to hear and dispose of the matters raised in the SCCRC 2007 report.

[RB: As far as I can see, the letter is no longer to be found on The Herald’s website.]

Was the objective not a trial but sanctions?

[What follows is excerpted from an article headed Criminal Justice or "War by Other Means" that was published on The Masonic Verses website on this date in 2008:]

It is generally assumed that the object of the announcement of the indictment on the 14th November 1991 was the trial of the two suspects (who were eventually handed over on the 5th April 1999.) However the Western powers pursued the case not under the relevant international Law (the 1971 Montreal Convention) but by political means through the UN Security Council and the imposition of sanctions against Libya.

The Lockerbie incident was exploited in order to impose UN sanction upon Libya for political considerations that largely predated the bombing and a trial was actually unwelcome to the West, their primary objective being regime change in Libya. A study of the historical background is necessary to understanding why Libya was blamed, a background that was largely irrelevant to the criminal proceedings.

In February 1986 the United States had imposed unilateral sanctions on Libya and US plans to topple Gaddafi long predated this. The Europeans, far more dependent on Libyan oil failed to support these sanctions to the chagrin of American business interests. Unilateral sanctions were ineffectual if Libya could trade elsewhere and it was an objective of US policy to transform unilateral sanctions into UN sanctions, achieved through the Lockerbie indictment.

Crucial evidence that the objective of the indictment was sanctions not a trial lies in the movements of Lhamin Fhimah (who was indicted solely to give credence to the “Malta” scenario.) In November 1991 Fhimah was again employed by Libyan Arab Airlines and was living openly in Tunis, capital of pro-Western Tunisia. On the day of the indictment Fhimah had returned to Tripoli for a visit when he saw news of his indictment on TV. (2)(3).

Did the Western intelligence agencies not know where Fhimah was living and could they not have sought his arrest and extradition by the Tunisian authorities? Or was Fhimah’s residence outside Libya an embarrassment? According to the former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser he had been asked by the Americans to “hold off” on the indictment while new evidence was developed (4) (likely the testimony of Majid Giaka) but if the object of the indictment was a trial why did they wait until Fhimah was in Libya before announcing it? Indeed the public announcement of the indictment at all was bizarre if the objective was a trial not sanctions.

From the announcement of the indictment until the trial the authorities pretended that the case against Libya was cast iron while dismissing any conflicting evidence. The prospect of a trial laid open the prospect of an acquittal. The announcement of an indictment allowed the authorities to claim the case was “solved” and to a great extent mollified the families of the victims and created a constituency to keep the issue (and the sanctions) going.

Of course if Libyan responsibility was undoubted, as the Americans proclaimed, why were they pursuing sanctions at all? The Americans had bombed Tripoli in response to a relatively minor outrage. This was something many US relatives could not grasp. Following a meeting with the FBI Director Dan Cohen commented:

“As we were leaving I asked Sessions if indictments would really be of any use, whether Pan Am 103 was something for the judicial system at all. After all, this wasn’t a drive-by shooting, it was really a military attack on America and should properly be answered in political or military terms. He thought for a moment and said, “You may very well be right”. (5) Cohen had a good point.

(2) The Maltese Double Cross, writer/director Alan Francovich

(3) Interview with Lhamin Fhimah (following his acquittal) featured

in Cover-up of Convenience by John Ashton & Ian Ferguson

Mainstream Publishing

(4) Ashton & Ferguson Interview with Lord Fraser

(5) Cohen, Susan and Daniel Pan Am 103 New American Library

2000 page 139

Concerned about the quality, reliability and fairness of the Scottish justice system

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2010:]

We should stop distracting ourselves from finding out the real truth about Lockerbie

[This is the heading over three letters in today's edition of The Herald. They read as follows:]

How well Jim Swire’s dignified search for truth contrasts with the bloodthirsty baying of some American politicians. Make no mistake, the central objection to the Megrahi affair in the United States is that he was tried in a justice system where the end result was not a lethal injection; everything else is just an attempt to build on that.

The modus operandi of the Senate inquiry was to reach a conclusion and then look for evidence that might support it, exactly what an American trial of Megrahi would likely have been. For some Scottish politicians to attempt to lend credibility to this circus for some short-term political gain is extremely unedifying and something that they should be ashamed of.

The question should not be whether Megrahi’s family should be able to be with him for his last days but whether he was guilty at all and if so who his accomplices were. To simply accept what now seems to be a rather shaky conviction is one thing, to not bother to ask whether one man could do all of this on his own is quite another. It is no conspiracy theory to point out that atrocities like Lockerbie are carefully planned and executed and not just the work of one rogue security agent. We should stop distracting ourselves from this central question.

Iain Paterson

Jim Swire has written a moving and passionate letter in which he continues to plead eloquently for some way to be found to re-examine the evidence and the decision of the Camp Zeist trial. After more than 20 years, the tragedy of the PanAm 103 bombing has still not been resolved satisfactorily, and the latest pathetic attempt by a group of ill-informed and prejudiced US senators, with little knowledge or appreciation of the points at issue, will not help.

We in Scotland should be much more concerned about the quality, reliability and fairness of the Scottish justice system. As pointed out by Nigel Dewar Gibb, comments such as those from John Lamont, the Tory MSP shadow spokesman, are unhelpful, as are the constant refusals of the UK government and the Scottish legal authorities to allow further investigation.

I learned my Scots Law, and my pride and confidence in the Scottish justice system, at the feet of Andrew Dewar Gibb, Professor of Scots Law at Glasgow University (coincidentally the father of Nigel Dewar Gibb). If he were alive today I am sure Professor Dewar Gibb would be adding his voice to those demanding a full public inquiry or a re-opening of the second appeal abandoned by Mr Megrahi so abruptly. Nothing less will satisfy those of us who wish justice to be done and seen to be done.

Iain A D Mann

Once again the consistently impressive and humbling Jim Swire hits on the salient point about the Lockerbie atrocity. It is a disgrace that we do not know for certain who carried out this crime, or why. We have been given serious doubts by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to question the truth surrounding the conviction of Mr Megrahi. The vacuous critical noises from politicians in this country and the US regarding the release of Megrahi are opportunistic political point scoring or, worse, an attempt to create a smoke screen around the real issues of guilt and responsibility.

Iain Carmichael

We must have Lockerbie inquiry, no matter the cost

[This is the headline over an editorial that was published in The Herald on this date in 2011. It reads as follows:]

As Pamela Dix, whose brother died in the Lockerbie bombing, says: "It is unfinished business." Now one more step has been taken towards unravelling the uncertainty that has hung over this case ever since that awful December night 23 years ago.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has revealed that he has the go-ahead under the Data Protection Act from Kenneth Clarke, his opposite number in the UK Government, to publish the 800-page Statement of Reasons from the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC). This document explains the grounds for appealing the conviction of the Libyan Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only person convicted of the atrocity. It was never published because the appeal itself was dropped when he was released on compassionate grounds in August 2009.

It emerged earlier this year that legislation going through Holyrood could not guarantee publication because the material would continue to be subject to UK data protection legislation. Now that potential hurdle appears to have been removed.

If, as the Scottish Government maintains, it supports the maximum possible transparency in this case, it is apposite to ask why it took some time to make an official approach to the Westminster Justice Department regarding this matter. For years the UK and Scottish governments have played a slow-motion version of pass the parcel with this case, with neither seemingly prepared to increase the snail's pace progress and the prospect of political advantage (or damage) playing its part.

The imminent publication of John Ashton's biography of Megrahi may force the pace as, once the material is public, SCCRC will be free to publish it themselves. It is not clear how much further it will take us. The document dates from 2007. Fresh material and new forensic techniques have appeared in the interim. Also, in the interests of national security, some items and passages will be redacted.

Regardless of whether or not the man convicted of this crime is guilty as charged, others must have been involved. There are still many unanswered questions. Only a full and wide-ranging independent public inquiry can tackle these issues. This case may show the quality of Scottish justice in a poor light but ultimately getting at the truth is more important. It is also what the relatives of those who died desire and deserve.

First clue to Lockerbie crash found

[This is the headline over a report from this date in 1988 on the BBC News website. It reads as follows:]

Crash investigators have uncovered wreckage from Pan Am flight 103 which may hold the key to the Lockerbie air disaster.

A suitcase discovered in the wreckage of the Boeing 747 has been sent for testing at a government research centre amid speculation it may contain evidence the crash was caused by sabotage.

Bomb experts at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment in Fort Halstead, Kent, will be looking for particles which may have penetrated the suitcase and show evidence of an explosive.

It is being seen as a significant development in the investigation as it is the first piece from the wreckage to be sent for testing.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, which runs the research unit, said: "This is the first wreckage to be sent to us. The police have chosen what they want to be examined."

Results of the study are expected to be available by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, police have announced the search for clues may mean the process of retrieving bodies could take some time.

This is because the bodies may also contain particles which show if a bomb was planted, and could shed light on the investigation.

Michael Charles, who is heading the investigation said it is not known yet if the crash was caused by structural failure or a bomb.

Investigators cannot establish if the plane disintegrated before it came to ground, suggesting a bomb, or if it was destroyed by impact on the ground after severe structural failure led to its descent.

Aviation experts have said they believe the most likely cause is structural failure after an initial inspection of the black box flight recorders did not disclose anything.

Only a split second before radar contact was lost there was a 'faint unquantified noise'.

Rescue teams are continuing their search for bodies and the death toll currently remains at 240.

Divers are searching lochs and reservoirs for one wing of the plane which is still missing.

Relations between US and Libya improving

[What follows is a snippet from the Libya News and Views website from this date in 1999:]

After years of condemning Libya as a rogue state, the Clinton administration has recently taken steps toward better relations with the government of leader Mu'ammar al-Qadhafy, citing evidence of growing moderation on the part of a leader long demonized as a patron of international terror. Since Qadhafy agreed in April to the extradition of two men suspected of blowing up a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, the administration has permitted four US oil companies to visit Libya on reconnaissance missions and last month, publicly welcomed the expulsion from Libya of the infamous Abu Nidal terrorist group. Although unilateral US sanctions still bar most trade between American companies and Libya, the administration approved last spring the de facto lifting of international UN sanctions against the oil-rich North African country and -- according to a senior official -- is considering whether to lift a passport restriction that bars US citizens from traveling to Libya without a special State Department exemption. [Washington Post]

[RB: I wish a happy Christmas to all readers of this blog.]

Father Pat Keegans censored

[What follows is from an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009:]

Ayr priest barred from Lockerbie memorial service in Virginia

[This is the headline over a report in the [Daily Record]. It reads in part:]

An Ayr priest’s words were this week censored from a memorial service in the USA for the victims of the Lockerbie terror attack.

Canon Patrick Keegans was parish priest at Lockerbie when the attack occurred.

And he has spoken at previous services at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where there is a memorial cairn.

Canon Keegans had sent over an address to be read on Monday – the 21st anniversary of the atrocity.

But it wasn’t read out, after the leader of the American victims’ group took exception to part of it.

Canon Keegan proclaimed the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi took ‘courage’ and was the ‘right decision’.

And he further said that although few in America believe Megrahi to be innocent, the victims of the bombing ‘deserve’ justice.

But Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am 103, saw the excerpt of Canon Keegans’ address, printed by The Herald newspaper.

And he said: “Fr Keegans’ remarks, as printed in the newspaper, were deemed to be very inappropriate for this memorial service." (...)

Canon Keegans’ address also included moving and poignant tributes to victims on the ground and in the air.

And he told the Post this week: “I felt that in view of what has happened this year, I should say the things I did.

“I thought it right to present my view, and the view of many in Scotland.

“I believe in freedom of speech, but Mr Duggan’s censorship of my words has given them greater impact.”

Questions remain

[What follows is the text of an article that appeared yesterday on the website of the San Francisco Chronicle:]

When the bomb went off, it was the deadliest act of terrorism against the United States in history.

The Chronicle’s front page from Dec 22, 1988, covers the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

“A Pan American World Airways jumbo jet carrying 258 passengers and crew members from London to New York crashed in a huge fireball at a village just north of the Scottish border last evening, killing everyone on board and at least 15 people on the ground,” the story read.

Once the bodies were counted, 243 passengers and 16 crew members were dead, along with 11 people on the ground. One hundred and eighty-nine of the dead were American; 43 were British. It was the greatest loss of American life in a terrorist act until Sept 11, 2001.

In the bombing’s immediate aftermath, however, terrorism’s role wasn’t certain.

“The cause of the disaster was not clear, with speculation centering on structural failure or sabotage,” the story read.

“Among the kinds of things that might suddenly cut all power would be a bomb or an explosive decompression caused by a structural weakness.”

It was soon obvious that terrorists were to blame, but the culprit wasn’t identified.

Libya and leader Muammar Gaddafi would accept responsibility in the late 1990s, and a Libyan intelligence officer would be imprisoned for murder in 2001. Questions remain as to whether Gaddafi ordered the attack and who carried it out.

Still more questions than answers

[This is part of the headline over an article that appeared in the Malta Independent on this date in 2010. It reads as follows:]

The 22nd anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing – the worst terrorist attack in history on British soil, and the worst terrorist attack that Malta can claim any sort of relation to – was commemorated on Tuesday.

But whether that relation is one of fact or fiction is quite another story, and one which is hotly disputed between victims’ families, former investigators and legal experts on both sides of the Atlantic.

Twenty-two years of anguish for the victims’ families, 22 years in which Malta’s name has been inextricably, and arguably erroneously, linked to the heinous crime and 22 years of questionable investigations, trials, a conviction and a compassionate release of the one person to have been found guilty.

The one fundamental question still lingering is whether the truth of who ordered and carried out the Lockerbie bombing will ever be known.

With the only convicted party, Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, having dropped a highly anticipated appeal when was ‘compassionately’ released from Scottish custody, the possibility of more of the truth ever coming out appears faint. Nor will Malta’s name ever be cleared by a court of law over its apparent role as the bomb’s point of departure.

The country has been dogged for more than two decades years by the prosecution’s contention that the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland on 21 December 1988 began its deadly journey on an Air Malta flight out of Luqa Airport.

Indeed, the only hope of answers for the families on both sides of the Atlantic, which hold very different views on the guilt of the convicted bomber, of learning the truth lies in the possibility of a separate enquiry into the case. Calls for that too, however, have been brushed aside.

Experts such as Prof Robert Black – a former Scottish judge and the architect of the original Lockerbie trial – insist that the evidence presented during the trial that the bomb had originated at Luqa Airport was some of the weakest of the entire proceedings.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a former employee at Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta and the only person to have been found guilty of the terrorist attack, had been convicted largely on the basis of evidence supplied by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci – of Mary’s House on Tower Road, Sliema.

In his evidence Mr Gauci had identified Mr al-Megrahi as the purchaser of articles of clothing and an umbrella found in the suitcase containing the bomb – placed on an Air Malta flight and transferred to the ill-fated Pan Am flight in Frankfurt.

But in reviewing the request for an appeal, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found, for numerous reasons, that “there is no reasonable basis in the trial court’s judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary’s House, took place on 7 December 1988” – the very argument that had sealed the indictment against Mr al-Megrahi.

That appeal, however, never came to fruition, with al-Megrahi having been released and returned to Libya, on compassionate medical grounds in that he apparently only had three months to live.

There are so many questions about the case that are still lingering, or, rather, festering that one questions whether the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing will ever be known.

The Lockerbie tragedy has left an indelible stain on Malta’s reputation – a stain that will remain, irrespective of whether an inquiry into the Lockerbie case and the evidence that was to be heard at appeal is undertaken, and regardless of what the outcome of such an inquiry would be.

Malta, for many, will always be the place from where the Lockerbie bomb started its fateful journey. An international petition has been handed in to to the Scottish Parliament urging the Scottish government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction.

Such an inquiry would go a long way to bringing a sense of justice to the victims’ families, irrespective of the outcome, and would also help to settle the score insofar as Malta is concerned.