Saudi Arabia and South Africa intervene in Lockerbie impasse

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

The United Nations announced on Friday that Saudi Arabian and South African envoys will spend two days in Libya next week in another attempt to persuade Libyan leader Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi to surrender suspects in the 1988 of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said the envoys, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, his country's ambassador to Washington, and Jakes Gerwel, South African President Nelson Mandela's chief of staff, would leave for Libya from London on Tuesday. Their visit is considered key following talks in Pretoria between Mandela and British Prime Minister Tony Blair earlier this week. [Reuters]

[RB: The suspects surrendered for trial in April 1999.]

Lockerbie film is a tantalising prospect

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

There is no doubt over the quality of filmmakers like Ken Loach, Lynne Ramsay and Peter Mullan, who have been garlanded at some of the world’s leading film festivals for the work they have made in Scotland in the last 20 years or so. There have been numerous portrayals of working class Scots in films like Red Road, My Name is Joe, Ratcatcher, Small Faces and Orphans.

But it is hard to think of many films which have even touched upon the major events of modern-day Scotland.

While the playwrights of the day have regularly tackled the political upheaval in Scotland since the 1970s, filmmakers have been curiously reluctant to tackle some of the defining events that have shaped the country. That is perhaps why it is so intriguing to hear that a feature film exploring the conspiracy theories behind the Lockerbie disaster is being planned by one of the current crop of leading filmmakers.

Lockerbie has long been seen as an untouchable subject for writers and filmmakers to tackle. But the sensitive filmmaking deployed in Fire in the Night, the BAFTA Scotland-winning documentary about the Piper Alpha disaster, offered proof of the power of the real-life stories behind the tragedy and its enduring impact.

Kevin Macdonald, who made State of Play and The Last King of Scotland is perhaps best known for the Oscar-winning documentary One Day In September, which charted events at the 1972 Munich Olympic when a group of Israeli athletes were massacred.

With his Glasgow roots and strong track record over the last two decades it is hard to think of a British filmmaker more suited to attempting the unenviable task of distilling the Lockerbie story into a couple of hours. While expectations are already sky high about the forthcoming sequel to Trainspotting, the prospect about a feature film on the biggest conspiracy of modern times in Scotland is a tantalising one.

[RB: A report in today’s edition of The Times contains the following:]

The Lockerbie disaster, in which 270 aircrew, passengers and town residents died in a terrorist bombing, is to be made into a film by one of Scotland’s leading directors.

Kevin Macdonald, who won an Oscar for his documentary about the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, said he planned to shed light on the “unanswered conspiracy” behind Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity. (...)

The script is being developed by David Harrower, one of Scotland’s most acclaimed playwrights. The film will be produced by the dramatist Christopher Young. (...)

Film4 and the British Film Institute (BFI) are providing finance, with a possible release date at the end of next year to coincide with the disaster’s 30th anniversary. (...)

Young said: “We don’t believe al-Megrahi was responsible. There are a number of people in Scotland who feel very strongly that justice was ill-served. If we are to have any faith in our justice system we need to know the truth.”

Televising of Megrahi appeal

[What follows is the text of a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2002:]

The decision to allow the BBC to televise the Lockerbie bomber's appeal has been hailed as an "important step" by a Scottish legal expert.

However, Professor Jim Murdoch, of Glasgow University's law department, said the decision by Scotland's lord justice general should not be viewed as setting a precedent for the future.

Lord Cullen granted an application by the BBC to broadcast and provide an internet stream of the appeal proceedings, which are due to begin at Camp Zeist, near Utrecht, Holland, on 23 January.

Prof Murdoch said the decision was a crucial one for broadcasters in reinforcing the role of the media as a "watchdog" but he stressed that Scotland was still a long way from seeing the routine televising of trials.

He told BBC News Online: "This is an important step, but one which should not be seen necessarily as establishing a new precedent.

"We are - thankfully - still a great distance removed from American practice which readily allows the broadcasting of trials."

The focus on ensuring justice, he said, had rightly led to a refusal to allow broadcasting of the trial of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and his then co-accused Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, who was acquitted.

However, the appeal circumstances would be different as there would be no witnesses giving evidence.

Prof Murdoch said: "The Scottish legal system rightly places the fair administration of justice as of paramount concern and the court's refusal to allow the broadcasting of the trial proceedings was understandable.

"There would have been real concerns whether witnesses giving evidence could have been affected by the knowledge that their words would have been broadcast around the globe; further the legal system recognises that witnesses in trials may often require to be protected against the possibility of identification.

"The broadcasting of appeal proceedings concerning legal argument does not give rise to such concerns, and the watchdog role of the media in helping scrutinise the administration of justice can thus be more readily acknowledged."

Prof Murdoch said the broadcast of the appeal proceedings on television and the internet would assist people around the world in giving their own judgements on the trial.

"The decision will allow a much wider audience more easily to observe the appeal court's determination of whether the trial court's conviction was a safe one," he said.

[RB: I had earlier argued against the televising of the trial proceedings: see Head to head: Cameras in court. I had no objections to the televising of the appeal. However, as I wrote later: “The [appeal] proceedings (except when the evidence of witnesses was being heard) were televised live over the internet on a website maintained by the BBC, the first occasion in Scotland (or elsewhere in the United Kingdom) that live public broadcasting of judicial proceedings has been permitted. The consensus of opinion was that the administration of justice was not impaired by the presence of the television cameras, but that the level of excitement and drama was such that there is unlikely to be much clamour in the foreseeable future from either broadcasters or the viewing public for the experiment to be repeated.”]

There is no excuse whatsoever for more time to pass

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of Scotland on Sunday. It reads in part:]

One of Scotland’s leading filmmakers is to tackle the Lockerbie disaster, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald plans to lift the lid on the “unanswered conspiracy” behind Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity.

It will chart events from the day of the 1988 tragedy, which claimed 270 lives, to the present day with relatives of the victims still campaigning for justice.

The script is being developed by one of Scotland’s most acclaimed playwrights, David Harrower. It will be produced by Christopher Young, who created the Gaelic drama Bannan for BBC Alba.

The film, casting for which is expected to get under way within months, will depict the only man convicted over Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity as innocent and raise fresh questions about his controversial release from behind bars in Scotland and his return to Libya. It is hoped the film, expected to have a budget of at least £10 million, will be shot in the UK, including Lockerbie itself.

Film4 and the BFI are funding the Lockerbie film, which had been under discussion between Macdonald and Young for several years before Harrower was signed up for the project in early 2016. Filming could begin this year, ahead of a possible release in 2018, coinciding with the disaster’s 30th anniversary.

Glasgow-born Macdonald won an Academy Award for One Day In September, a documentary about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Macdonald also directed The Last King Of Scotland, which saw Forest Whitaker win the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Ugandan president Idi Amin. (...)

News of the Lockerbie feature film has emerged less than a year after a controversial book by former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill. MacAskill decided to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds in 2009 – eight years after his conviction following a historic trial under Scottish law in the Netherlands. A co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty.

Megrahi launched a second appeal when he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer in 2008. He abandoned his appeal in August 2009, and two days later MacAskill ordered his release amid predictions he had three months to live. He died in May 2012. Relatives of victims failed in a bid to pursue an appeal two years ago, but have vowed to continue to “fight for justice”.

Macdonald said: “I’ve been thinking about a film on Lockerbie for around 10 years.

“It feels like one of those huge events that sort of casts a shadow over Scottish life. It seems like it is Britain’s JFK in some ways – a looming unanswered conspiracy. There has been so much speculation and it is fascinating that more than 25 years later nobody seems to know for certain the answers to a lot of questions. There are very few events like that.

“We’ll be telling the whole story in the sense we’ll going from the day of the bombing up to the present day. It’s very hard because there is just so much in there. That’s one of the things that’s flummoxed a lot of writers before.

“One of the things that JFK, Oliver Stone’s film, does very well is to have layer upon layer upon layer of characters and testimony to create this atmosphere of complexity and yet at the heart of it is a very straightforward emotional story.

“We’re trying to be faithful to the complexity of Lockerbie by telling a simple story.

“It’s a very delicate thing trying to make a film based on real events. A lot of people out there were affected by Lockerbie and lost loved ones. There is a great sense of responsibility and of wanting to contribute in a positive way rather than doing anything that’s going to cause any more pain.”

Young added: “As far as we’re concerned we don’t believe Megrahi was responsible. To me, it is as clear as day, but I suspect the general public assume Megrahi did it.

“We’re interested in telling a story about what we think really happened and also the extent to which people who want to know the truth have been, in all kinds of ways, blocked from that, most obviously by governments. It suited everybody really well that Megrahi went home and died.

“There are a number of people in Scotland who feel very strongly that justice was ill-served. If we are to have any faith in our justice system we need to know the truth.

“Given that is the largest mainland terrorist attack in our history, given it was also the prelude to 9/11 and everything that followed, and given the incredible mess we are in now, it seems to us that there is no excuse whatsoever for more time to pass.

“Any miscarriage of justice on this scale is an urgent matter. If the only way of bringing these things to light is to make a film then so be it.”

A wafer-thin pretext for inaction

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2011:]

Government is criticised over delay in reply to Megrahi queries

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

Campaigners calling for an inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing have criticised the Scottish Government for a delay in responding to a request for information from one of Holyrood’s own committees.

The Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee wrote to the Government in November after hearing evidence from the Justice for Megrahi group, which submitted a petition bearing the signatures of 1646 people backing an independent inquiry.

Ministers were asked to respond by December 10, but the committee only received a response to its questions last night, a month after the deadline.

In it, the Government restates its position that any inquiry would be beyond the jurisdiction of Scots law and its own remit.

Robert Forrester, secretary of Justice for Megrahi, who stressed that he was speaking personally because the committee had yet to convene to discuss the response, said it was “inadequate.”

He said: “Clearly it has taken an extremely long time for them to put together, so far as I can see, a rather inadequate response. The Government has been saying repeatedly that they don’t have the power to open an inqury by saying it is beyond the power and remit of the Scottish Parliament.

“I personally don’t see why an inquiry cannot be opened.” (...)

The committee, led by convener Rhona Brankin, asked the Government whether it would open an independent inquiry or if it would provide detailed reasons for not doing so, including citing any legislation that prevents the Scottish Government from holding an inquiry.

The Petitions Committee has also received submissions from Professor Robert Black QC, the architect of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, which suggest there are previous examples of inquiries into judicial decisions. (...)

AL Kennedy, James Robertson, Len Murray and Ian Hamilton QC signed the petition calling for an inquiry into the conviction of Megrahi, who was found guilty of causing the deaths of 270 people when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie in December 1988. A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Following the announcement last month that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has been unable to secure the necessary consents to release its statement of reasons in the Megrahi case due to the constraints of the current legislation, we are now considering legislation to overcome the problems presented by the current consent provisions.”

[The Scottish Government does not and cannot contend that it lacks the powers to set up an inquiry into the Lockerbie invesigation and prosecution and Abdelbaset Megrahi's conviction. These are all matters within devolved jurisdiction. What it says is this:

"The Inquiries Act 2005 provides that, to the extent that the matters dealt with are devolved, and criminal justice is devolved, the Scottish Government would have the power to conduct an inquiry. However, the wide ranging and international nature of the issues involved (even if the inquiry is confined to the trial and does not concern itself with wider matters) means that there is every likelihood of issues arising which are not devolved, which would require either a joint inquiry with or a separate inquiry by the UK government."

This is nothing more that a wafer-thin pretext for inaction. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has no jurisdiction and powers outwith Scotland. Yet it managed to conduct an investigation into the Megrahi conviction that enabled it to reach the conclusion that, on six separate grounds, that conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of justice. There is no conceivable reason why a Scottish inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 should have less success in obtaining and uncovering evidence.]

CIA Director John Brennan and Lockerbie

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2013:]

John Brennan to be nominated as new CIA director

[A report published today on the BBC News website contains the following:]

US President Barack Obama is to nominate John Brennan as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, White House officials have said.

If confirmed, Mr Brennan will replace Gen David Petraeus, who resigned last year after admitting to an affair. (...)

Mr Brennan, a CIA veteran, is currently Mr Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser. He was heavily involved in the planning of the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Although put forward for the role in 2008, Mr Brennan withdrew his name amid questions about his connection to interrogation techniques used during the administration of George W Bush.

"Brennan has the full trust and confidence of the president," a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP news agency.

"Over the past four years, he has been involved in virtually all major national security issues and will be able to hit the ground running at CIA."

[Mr Brennan has on occasion commented on Lockerbie during his CIA career.  Here are a few of his interventions:]

‘President Obama's top counterterrorism aide denounced Scotland's decision last year to release the Lockerbie bomber as a "travesty" and categorically denied a widespread report that the United States secretly endorsed the decision to free the Libyan terrorist, who was sentenced to life in prison. (...)

‘John Brennan, deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, this week wrote Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, in response to a major British newspaper's report Sunday that the Obama administration "secretly" agreed to al-Megrahi's release. (...)’

28 July 2010

‘The White House has told Scottish Ministers that they should return the Lockerbie bomber to jail in Scotland, amid fresh calls for a full public inquiry into his conviction and subsequent release.

‘John Brennan, counter-terrorism adviser to President Barack Obama, said Washington had expressed "strong conviction" to officials in Edinburgh over what he described as the "unfortunate and inappropriate and wrong decision" to free Abdelbaset Al Megrahi. (...)’

22 August 2010

‘John Brennan, President Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, stated that the United States has "expressed our strong conviction" to Scottish officials that Megrahi should not remain free. Brennan criticized what he termed the "unfortunate and inappropriate and wrong decision" to allow Megrahi's return to Libya on compassionate grounds on Aug 20, 2009 because he had cancer and was not expected to live more than about three months.’

1 September 2010

[Addendum from The Guardian of Tuesday, 8 January:]

The appointment of Brennan to replace disgraced general David Petraeus as head of the CIA has also been criticised because of Brennan's involvement with the Bush administration's backing for harsh interrogation techniques that many have described as torture, although Brennan denies he supported their use. (...)

The nomination of Brennan, while less controversial, has also come in for criticism from liberal Democrats unhappy at his previous record at the CIA.

Brennan had been a candidate to lead the agency in Obama's first term but withdrew his name from consideration. In doing so, Brennan told Obama that he was "a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration, such as the pre-emptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include waterboarding".

“Charges are now possible”

[On this date in 1994 the London Review of Books published a review by Paul Foot of Donald Goddard and Lester Coleman’s Trail of the Octopus: From Beirut to Lockerbie. It reads in part:]

The American investigative columnist Jack Anderson has had some scoops in his time but none more significant than his revelation – in January 1990 – that in mid-March 1989, three months after Lockerbie, George Bush rang Margaret Thatcher to warn her to ‘cool it’ on the subject. On what seems to have been the very same day, perhaps a few hours earlier, Thatcher’s Secretary of State for Transport, Paul Channon, was the guest of five prominent political correspondents at a lunch at the Garrick Club. It was agreed that anything said at the lunch was ‘on strict lobby terms’ – that is, for the journalists only, not their readers. Channon then announced that the Dumfries and Galloway Police – the smallest police force in Britain – had concluded a brilliant criminal investigation into the Lockerbie crash. They had found who was responsible and arrests were expected before long. The Minister could not conceal his delight at the speed and efficiency of the PC McPlods from Dumfries, and was unstinting in his praise of the European intelligence.

So sensational was the revelation that at least one of the five journalists broke ranks; and the news that the Lockerbie villains would soon he behind bars in Scotland was divulged to the public. Channon, still playing the lobby game, promptly denied that he was the source of the story. Denounced by the Daily Mirror’s front page as a ‘liar’, he did not sue or complain. A few months later he was quietly sacked. Thatcher, of course, could not blame her loyal minister for his indiscretion, which coincided so unluckily with her instructions from the White House.

Channon had been right, however, about the confidence of the Dumfries and Galloway Police. They did reckon they knew who had done the bombing. Indeed, they had discovered almost at once that a terrorist bombing of an American airliner, probably owned by Pan-Am, had been widely signalled and even expected by the authorities in different European countries. The point was, as German police and intelligence rather shamefacedly admitted, that a gang of suspected terrorists had been rumbled in Germany in the months before the bombing. They were members of a faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by Ahmed Jibril. The aim of the gang was to bomb an American airliner in revenge for the shooting down by an American warship of an Iranian civil airliner in the Gulf earlier in the year. On 26 October 1988, less than two months before the bombing, two of the suspects – Hafez Dalkomini and Marwan Abdel Khreesat – were arrested in their car outside a flat at Neuss near Frankfurt. In the car was a bomb, moulded into the workings of a black Toshiba cassette recorder. In the ensuing weeks other raids were carried out on alleged terrorist hideaways in Germany, and 16 suspects arrested. One of them was Mohammad Abu Talb, another member of the PFLP, who was almost instantly released. Even more curious was the equally prompt release of Khreesat, who was suspected of making the bomb found in Dalkomini’s car.

The finding of the bomb led to a flurry of intelligence activity. It was discovered that the bomb had been specifically made to blow up an aircraft; and that the gang had made at least five bombs, four of which had not been found. At once, a warning went out on the European intelligence network to watch out for bombs masked in radio cassette recorders, especially at airports. There were more specific warnings. On 5 December 1988 the US Embassy in Helsinki got a telephone warning that 'within the next few weeks' an attempt would be made to bomb a Pan-Am flight from Frankfurt to New York. On 8 December, Israeli forces attacked a PFLP base in the Lebanon and found papers about a planned attack on a Pan-Am flight from Frankfurt. This information, too, was passed on. On 18 December the German police got another warning about a bomb plot against a Pan-American flight. This message was passed to American embassies, including the embassy in Moscow, and as a result of it 80 per cent of the Americans in Moscow who had booked to fly home for Christmas on Pan-Am flights canceled their reservations. (...)

Though the German police dragged their feet and were singularly reluctant to disclose any documents, the facts about the Jibril gang were known to the Scottish police by March 1989. All the ingredients of a solution were in place. The motive was clear: revenge for a similar atrocity. The Lockerbie bomb, forensic experts discovered, had been concealed in a black Toshiba cassette recorder exactly like the one found in Dalkomini's car two months earlier. The German connection was impossible to ignore: the flight had started in Frankfurt. The identity of the bombers seemed certain, and surely it was only a matter of time before they could be charged. But, like Channon, the police were unaware of the telephone conversation between Bush and Thatcher. When Thatcher sacked Channon a few decent months later, she appointed Cecil Parkinson in his place. Shaken by the grief of the Lockerbie victims' families, Parkinson promised them a full public inquiry. Alas, when he put the idea to the Prime Minister she slapped him down at once. There was no judicial or public inquiry with full powers—just a very limited fatal accident inquiry, which found that the disaster could have been prevented by security precautions which are still not in place.

All through the rest of 1989 the Scottish police beavered away. In May they found more clues. A group of Palestinian terrorists were arrested in Sweden, among them Abu Talb. Talb's German flat was raided. It was full of clothing bought in Malta. The forensic evidence showed that the Lockerbie cassette-bomb had been wrapped, inside its suitcase, in clothes with Maltese tags. Talb was known to have visited Malta some weeks before the bombing. Off flew the Scottish police to: Malta, where a boutique-owner remembered selling a suspicious-looking man some clothes—similar to those found in the fatal suitcase. Closely questioned by FBI video-fit (or identikit) experts, the boutique-owner's answers produced a picture which looked very like Abu Talb. When a computer print-out of baggage on the fatal airliner appeared to show an unaccompanied suitcase transferred to PanAm 103 from a flight from Malta, the jigsaw seemed complete. Jibril had agreed to bomb an airliner, probably in exchange for a huge reward from the Iranian Government. The task was taken on by a PFLP team in Germany, led by Dalkomini. It was joined by Khreesat, who made several bombs, only three of which were ever discovered. One of the other two found its way, probably via Talb, to the hold of the airliner. The culprits were obvious. But the authorities still dragged their feet. The initial determination to identify the conspirators and bring them to justice seemed to have waned. The Scottish police were exasperated. They made more and more of the information available. Much of it appeared in the Sunday Times in a series of articles leading up to the first anniversary of the bombing. No one who read them could doubt that the bombers were Syrians and Palestinians. The series, mainly written by David Leppard, who worked closely with the Scottish police team, ended with a scoop: white plastic residue found at Lockerbie was traced back to alarm clocks bought by the Dalkomini gang. There seemed no more room for argument. 'The Sunday Times understands,' Leppard wrote, 'that officers heading the investigation — despite a cautious attitude in public — have told their counterparts abroad that under Scottish law "charges are now possible against certain persons."'

There were no charges, however — not for a long time.

[RB: And when they came, the charges were -- surprise, surprise! -- against two Libyans.]

Let a full public inquiry be held

[What follows was originally posted on this blog on this date in 2013:]

Lockerbie appeal grounds show that the Scottish judiciary is not infallible

[This is the heading over two letters published today in The Herald.  They read as follows:]

You allude to the fact that grave disquiet about the handling of the Megrahi case continues ("New plea by LibDems for Lockerbie public inquiry", The Herald, January 3).

The concerns that Britain's worst terrorist atrocity may additionally have become Scotland's greatest miscarriage of justice are now so deep-seated that a full public inquiry is required to establish the truth and restore faith in the justice system.

That view is not shared by the legal establishment. Last month, Frank Mulholland, the Lord Advocate, went on public record and stigmatised those who question the validity of the Lockerbie verdict as "conspiracy theorists".

In support of his contention, he alluded to the number of judges (the trial judges and the appeal court judges) involved in the case and, in effect, concluded that the verdict was therefore unassailable.

Others, with perhaps a more sophisticated grasp of elementary logic, could point to the number of grounds which were used by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to justify the case being referred back to the Court of Criminal Appeal and conclude that Scotland's judges are not necessarily deities.

Thomas Crooks

Edinburgh

I cannot agree with Christopher Frew, who is opposed to the holding of a public inquiry into the Lockerbie case because it would upset US public opinion (Letters, January 4). Far too many questions hang over the conviction of the late Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the horrific bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, and these questions will not go away.

If Megrahi was innocent, justice demands that his name must be cleared for the sake of his family, for all the bereaved families, and for the reputation of the Scottish justice system.

Anything less than the truth should be unacceptable to the public on both sides of the Atlantic. Let a full public inquiry be held and the true facts be known.

Ruth Marr

Stirling

Blair appeals to Mandela over Lockerbie

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

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in an interview published on Sunday he would appeal to South African President Nelson Mandela to persuade Libya to hand over two men suspected of the Lockerbie bombing for trial in the Netherlands. Blair, who starts a four day visit to South Africa on Tuesday, said negotiations between Britain, the United States and Libya over the 1988 airline bombing had reached an impasse. In the interview with the Sunday Business newspaper, he said Mandela had already played a “unique and important” role in trying to resolve the controversy and he would ask the South African leader to intervene again. “I will explain that we have done all that we reasonably can to resolve the impasse over the trial. The UK-US initiative for a trial in the Netherlands has been on the table for four months,” said Blair. “I will appeal to President Mandela to convince the Libyan government that a third country trial should now proceed,” he added. [Reuters]

[RB: My proposal for a neutral venue trial, agreed to by the Libyan government and defence team, had been on the table for four years and seven months before the UK and US proposal was launched. For Tony Blair to complain that Libya had taken four months to consider the UK/US initiative seems somewhat crass.]