Prisoner transfer and UK Government chicanery

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2008:]

Scotland's first minister has asked for assurances that the Lockerbie bomber will be excluded from any prisoner transfer deal with Libya.

Alex Salmond raised concerns that the Westminster government's position on the issue had changed.

It was reported that the UK Government drafted a transfer agreement that could cover Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

But UK ministers have repeated that no transfer could go ahead without the agreement of the Scottish Government.

Mr Salmond spoke out on the issue after the Financial Times reported that Libya had just ratified a £450m contract with oil giant BP, after Westminster ministers drafted a prisoner transfer agreement that it claimed could cover al-Megrahi.

However BP has stressed that the £450m exploration contract, originally signed in May 2007, was a commercial one.

Mr Salmond described the report as "a very serious allegation", but said it was up to the UK Government to explain.

He pointed out al-Megrahi's case was under appeal and that the judicial process must be allowed to take its course. (...)

Mr Salmond told BBC Scotland: "My role, the role of the government is to defend the integrity of the judicial system in Scotland and that's exactly what we intend to do."

"We've made it quite clear that, in terms of prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, we thought it would be appropriate if anyone connected with the Lockerbie atrocity was excluded specifically from any prisoner transfer agreement.

"Until very recently, that was also the position of the UK Government."

Mr Salmond went on: "Now that seems to have changed and it's up to the UK government to explain why that position has changed and why that exclusion hasn't been gained."

The UK justice department said any decision on the transfer of al-Megrahi to Libya was a matter for the Scottish legal system and stressed that no transfer could go ahead without the agreement of the Scottish Government.

A BP spokesman added: "We are a commercial company and have signed a deal that has now been ratified by the Libyan Government.

"Any matters relating to political issues should be referred to the governments concerned."

A row previously broke out between UK and Scottish ministers after former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi signed a memorandum of understanding on prisoner transfer.

Downing Street said at the time that the agreement did not cover Megrahi, but UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw later said the fate of the bomber was a "matter for discussion" with Holyrood ministers.

[The following day, I commented on this blog as follows:]

The truth of the matter is this. The UK Foreign Office (and officials in the office of the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair) entered into negotiations with Libya for a reciprocal prisoner transfer agreement. Both sides were perfectly well aware that the only Libyan prisoner in a British jail about whom the Libyans had the slightest concern was Megrahi. The Libyan negotiators believed, rightly believed, and were known by the UK negotiators to believe that the agreement they were drafting would cover Megrahi. The London Government did not have the courtesy to inform the Scottish Government (which is responsible for prisons and prisoners in Scotland) that these negotiations were taking place. When the Scottish Government found out about them and complained to the UK Government, the latter announced that (a) the proposed agreement was not intended to cover Megrahi and (b) even if it were, the final decision on the transfer of any Libyan prisoner in a Scottish jail would rest with the Scottish Government. The latter proposition was and is correct.The former was not: it was at best disingenuous and at worst (and probably more accurately) an outright lie.

Contemporary critique of Megrahi conviction

[On 31 January 2001, Abdelbaset Megrahi was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. Here is something that I wrote on 1 February on the website edited by Ian Ferguson and me, TheLockerbieTrial.com:]

In paragraph 89 of the Opinion of the Court the judges say: “We are aware that in relation to certain aspects of the case there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications.  We are also aware that there is a danger that by selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of conflicting evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified.” The danger may have been recognised.  But it has not been avoided. i.    Who was the purchaser of the clothing and when did he do it? The judges held it proved (a) that it was Megrahi who bought from Mary’s House in Malta the clothes and umbrella which were in the suitcase with the bomb and (b) that the date of purchase was 7 December 1988 (when Megrahi was on Malta) and not 23 November 1988 (when he was not). As regards (a), the most that the Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, would say (either in his evidence in court or in a series of police statements) was that Megrahi “resembled a lot” the purchaser, a phrase which he equally used with reference to Abu Talb, one of those named in the special defence of incrimination lodged on behalf of Megrahi.  Gauci had also described the purchaser to the police as being six feet tall and over 50 years of age. The evidence at the trial established (i) that Megrahi is 5 feet 8 inches tall and (ii) that in late 1988 he was 36 years of age.  On this material the judges found in fact that Megrahi was the purchaser. As regards (b), the evidence of Tony Gauci was that when the purchaser left his shop it was raining (or at least drizzling) to such an extent that his customer thought it advisable to buy an umbrella  to protect himself while he went in search of a taxi. The unchallenged meteorological evidence established that while it had rained on 23 November at the relevant time, it was unlikely that it had rained at all on 7 December, and if it had it would have been only a few drops, insufficient to wet the street.  On this material, the judges found in fact that the clothes were purchased on 7 December. ii.    Did the bomb start from Malta? The judges held it proved that there was a piece of unaccompanied baggage on Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt on 21 December 1988 which was then carried on to Heathrow.  The evidence supporting that finding was a computer printout which could be interpreted to indicate that a piece of baggage went through the particular luggage coding station at Frankfurt used for baggage from KM 180 and was routed towards the feeder flight to Heathrow, at a time consistent with its having been offloaded from KM 180. Against this, the evidence from Malta Airport was to the effect that there was no unaccompanied bag on that flight to Frankfurt.  All luggage on that flight was accounted for.  The number of bags loaded into the hold matched the number of bags checked in (and subsequently collected) by the passengers on the aircraft.  The court nevertheless held it proved that there had been a piece of unaccompanied baggage on Flight KM 180. iii.   Where did the fragment of timer come from? An important link to Libya in the evidence was a fragment of circuit board from a MST-13 timer manufactured by MeBo. Timers of this model were supplied predominantly to Libya (though a few did go elsewhere, such as to the Stasi in East Germany).  This fragment is also important since it is the only piece of evidence that indicates that the Lockerbie bomb was detonated by a stand-alone timing mechanism, as distinct from a short-term timer triggered by a barometric device, of the type displayed in the bombs and equipment found at Neuss in the Autumn Leaves operation.  The provenance of this vitally important piece of evidence was challenged by the defence, and in their written Opinion the judges accept that in a number of respects this fragment, for reasons that were never satisfactorily explained, was not dealt with by the investigators and forensic scientists in the same way as other pieces of electronic circuit board (of which there were many).  The judges say that they are satisfied that there is no sinister reason for the differential treatment. But they do not find it necessary enlighten us regarding the reasons for their satisfaction. These are some of the many factors that lead me to be astonished that the court found itself able to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the guilt of Megrahi, and which equally convince me that his conviction is unsafe and unsatisfactory.

How long, O Lord, how long?

Sixteen years ago today the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist convicted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi of the murder of 270 people in the Lockerbie disaster (and acquitted Lamin Fhimah). The unjustness of the Megrahi conviction was demonstrated in two of the earliest postings on this blog: see Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result and The SCCRC Decision. The conviction has also since then been fatally undermined by John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury and Dr Morag Kerr’s Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Just how much longer are we going to have to wait until this shameful blot on the Scottish criminal justice system is expunged?

Fresh look at Lockerbie report 'would honour memory of Tam Dalyell’

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

The Crown Office has been urged to honour the memory of Tam Dalyell by ensuring that a police report into criminal allegations against those involved with the Lockerbie investigation and subsequent trial is given an “objective analysis”.

Iain McKie, a leading member of Justice for Megrahi (JfM), whose members believe Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was innocent of the bombing, was speaking to The National after our sister paper the Sunday Herald published details of Dalyell’s last interview.

In it, the former Labour MP said he would go to his grave believing Megrahi’s conviction was a “massive injustice”. (...)

Dalyell, who formerly represented Linlithgow, died last week, and was convinced Megrahi was innocent.

“I had great admiration for Tam Dalyell,” said McKie. “I really respected the way he stood up for his principles, and Lockerbie of course was one of the biggest he stood up for.

“It’s a major loss when you lose someone of the integrity and standing of Tam Dalyell.”

McKie said that while the MP’s death was a loss for JfM, it would also keep Lockerbie in the public eye, although he did not think it would affect the Operation Sandwood report on the group’s nine criminal allegations against police, Crown Office officials and forensic scientists involved in the Lockerbie investigation and trial.

He said: “It’s an awful thing to say in the tragedy of someone dying, but when something like this happens it keeps whole Lockerbie case open. It says that even in death he is speaking out to people and saying he believed in the innocence of Megrahi and he continued to believe in that until his dying day.

“It won’t directly affect the police report, but I think it affects the atmosphere in which it will be received and one would hope it would make the Crown Office open their eyes for once and realise that this is an issue which does matter to people; and when they receive the Operation Sandwood report that they give it an objective and fair look, because certainly the previous Lord Advocate had made up his mind that wasn’t going to happen.”

McKie said JfM hoped that Lord Advocate James Wolffe, QC, who replaced Frank Mulholland last summer, would ensure Sandwood was considered “objectively”.

“People like Tam Dalyell have held it close to their heart for many years – and there are others like him – and the Crown Office could honour him by ensuring that the police report gets an objective analysis,” said McKie.

Meanwhile, The National understands that Megrahi’s wife Aisha is likely to lead a new appeal by the family to clear his name, and is preparing to lodge a dossier of documents with the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

The commission had ruled in 2007 that there were several grounds that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

The Megrahis will be backed by British relatives of those who died in the bombing.

However, Glasgow lawyer Aamer Anwar, who has represented the Megrahi family, yesterday would not comment on the move.

He said: “I can only say that things are at a highly critical and sensitive stage and it would be inappropriate to comment at the moment.”`

Scottish media on 'new Megrahi appeal' story

The Scottish editions of two UK newspapers have today picked up yesterday’s Mail on Sunday story about steps being taken for a further appeal by the Megrahi family. The headline over the article in The Times reads Son of Lockerbie bomber to present new evidence to clear father’s name; and that over the article in The Sun reads ‘New evidence’ in secret files on Lockerbie bomber case could clear Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, his son claims.

Appeal court asked to hear Heathrow break-in evidence

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

The lawyer acting for the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has asked a special appeal court in the Netherlands to consider new evidence. (...)

[O]n Wednesday - the fifth day of the appeal - Bill Taylor QC said the new evidence concerned the forcing of a padlock at the secure baggage area at Heathrow Airport.

He told the five appeal court judges at Camp Zeist that if the evidence had been available at the original trial it would have supported defence claims that the bomb could have got on to the doomed Pan-Am jumbo jet in London.

The conviction was crucially based on arguments that the device had been planted at Malta before passengers, destined for New York, flew on to their next stop in London.

The court also heard that at least 14 unaccompanied bags travelled on a feeder flight for the Pan Am plane which exploded over Lockerbie.

Mr Taylor said his Libyan client had suffered a miscarriage of justice as a result of the judges' failure to deal with the issue of the 14 bags.

The bags were carried on board Pan Am flight 103A to Heathrow, where passengers were transferred to the New York-bound flight 103, Mr Taylor said.

The three judges who heard the original Lockerbie trial decided that Al Megrahi placed an unaccompanied bag containing a bomb on board a flight from Malta to Frankfurt.

The bag then travelled on flight 103A to London where it was loaded onto flight 103.

[RB: The court, over the objections of the Crown, allowed the evidence to be heard, but ultimately concluded that it could not be regarded as possessing such importance as to have been likely to have had a material bearing on the trial court’s determination of the critical issue of whether the suitcase containing the bomb was launched on its progress from Luqa Airport in Malta (an essential plank in the prosecution case) or from Heathrow. This ground of appeal was accordingly unsuccessful.]

Tam Dalyell’s last interview: Megrahi conviction “massive injustice”

[What follows is excerpted from an article by John Ashton (wrongly attributed originally to Neil Mackay) in today’s edition of the Sunday Herald:]

Tam Dalyell, the former campaigning MP who died on Thursday, said in a poignant final interview he would go to his grave believing that the conviction of the alleged Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was a “massive injustice.”

He recalled that after visiting Megrahi in prison, “I was absolutely convinced that he was not involved in Lockerbie.” (...)

The ex-Linlithgow MP, who inherited the Baronetcy of the Binns in 1972, spurned his title and was never known as Sir Tam. His interest in the Lockerbie case began 10 days after the bombing when he was approached by a police whistleblower who complained that American agents were wandering the crash site without police supervision.

The officer, a constituent, was among hundreds of Lothian and Borders police sent to Lockerbie the day after the crash to help the local Dumfries and Galloway force.

In his last interview Dalyell recalled, “[The officer] said he was very uncomfortable because Americans were allowed to go around where they liked in a way that would not be acceptable in any Scottish murder investigation and the normal police rules were absolutely being thrown to the wind.”

He said the officer had never wavered from his claims and had last repeated them only two years ago, but did not wish to go public. “I think this is partly about pensions and police etiquette, but he sticks absolutely to his story,” Dalyell said.

There are longstanding claims that large quantities of drugs and cash were removed by Americans agents from the crash site. The agents were also said to be concerned about items belonging to a US intelligence team who died on Pan Am 103 while returning from an aborted hostage rescue mission in Lebanon.

Some of Megrahi’s supporters suspect that American intelligence agents manipulated evidence in order to frame Megrahi and conceal the truth about the bombing. Initial indications suggested that the bombing had been commissioned by the Iranian government and carried out by a Syrian-based group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC).

Two months before Lockerbie the German police caught members of the group with a bomb designed to detonate at altitude, built in to a Toshiba radio-cassette player. Forensic evidence suggested that the Lockerbie bomb was also contained within a Toshiba radio-cassette player, although a different model.

Three months after the bombing the UK government’s transport secretary Paul Channon privately briefed lobby journalists that the PFLP-GC was behind the attack He later lost his job after being named as the source of the story. Dalyell, who was a close friend, revealed that Channon was angry at his treatment by the government.

Many were surprised when, in 1991, the then Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, and US Department of justice announced charges against Megrahi and another Libyan, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah. The UK and US governments both made clear that Iran and the PFLP-GC had been exonerated.

Dalyell condemned Fraser as being a “quite unsatisfactory Lord Advocate [who] just went along with the Crown Office line.” He added, “[He] was absolutely beholden to Mrs Thatcher because he had lost a blue chip seat in Angus so had no job and was made a law officer by the generosity of the Prime Minister.”

During the nineties Dalyell frequently urged the Conservative government to agree to Libyan proposals to try the two suspects before a Scottish court in a neutral venue. He also tabled numerous parliamentary questions about events at the crash site and other facts that challenged the official narrative. He initiated sixteen adjournment debates on Lockerbie, which he said was four times as many as anyone had ever had on a single subject.

In 1997 the new Labour government signaled that it was prepared to accept a neutral venue trial and in 2000 Megrahi and Fhimah were tried before three law lords at a specially-convened Scottish court at Kamp Zeist in The Netherlands. Fhimah was acquitted and Megrahi was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with a minimum 20-year tariff, later increased to 27 years.

Dalyell believed the guilty verdict was built on unreliable evidence and flawed reasoning. The judges accepted the prosecution claim that two weeks before the bombing Megrahi bought the clothes that were later packed in a suitcase with the bomb from Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci. However, evidence suggested that the clothes were bought when Megrahi was not in Malta and Gauci described the purchaser as being considerable older and larger than Megrahi.

Visits to Megrahi in Barlinnie and Greenock prisons convinced him that the Libyan was innocent. “With 43 years in the House of Commons one develops an instinct as to whether one is being told the truth or spun a yarn,” he recalled, “My whole body reacted to the fact that I was being told the truth.”

Following a failed first appeal, in 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission granted Megrahi a second appeal on six grounds including flawed reasoning by the trial court judges. In 2009, following a diagnosis of terminal cancer, Megrahi abandoned the second appeal in the belief that it would aid an application to Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill for compassionate release. MacAskill controversially granted the application a few days later and Megrahi was allowed to return to Libya, where he died three years later.

'The world will know he's innocent'

[This is part of the headline over an article (with pictures) by Marcello Mega in today’s Scottish edition of The Mail on Sunday. It reads in part:]

The son of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is launching a fresh appeal to clear his father's name and has declared: 'The world will know he is innocent.'

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 of planting the bomb which destroyed a Pan-Am jumbo jet over southern Scotland in 1988 – killing 270 people in the worst act of mass murder ever carried out on British soil.

Now his son Ali, backed by his family and the British relatives of those who died in the atrocity, is to ask Scottish authorities to declare his father's conviction a miscarriage of justice.

Within weeks, the son of the man who came to be known as the Lockerbie Bomber, will present a dossier of documents and new evidence to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC).

He said: 'We believe as a family that my father is innocent. My father knew he would die one day, so he gave us all the evidence for his case and it is with me right now.

'Injustice is there to see, because there is new evidence that has never been handed to the court of Scotland or any other place.

'I want the opening of the case again, and we are ready to give all the new evidence from start to finish and the world will know that my father is innocent.

I want to tell the victims of the massacre and the people living in Lockerbie: 'I want you to give him a chance so that you will know the truth.'

‘The evidence that will be put forward to the court will show the innocence of my father.”

Megrahi's son added that the case would be re-opened 'pretty soon'.

After being found guilty of the bombing, Megrahi served his sentence in a Scottish jail.

From prison he referred his case to the SCCRC – which ruled in 2007 that there were several grounds for considering there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

But despite the apparent vindication he had received from the SCCRC, Megrahi – who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer – dropped his appeal. Soon afterwards he was controversially freed from jail on compassionate grounds and flown back to his native Libya, where he died in May 2012.

Campaigners including Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the passengers killed when the Pan-Am flight was blown out of the sky, tried to persuade the SCCRC to re-open the case in a bid to overturn Megrahi's conviction posthumously.

But the SCCRC ruled it could only look at the case again if Megrahi's family formally became part of the appeal process – which is now happening, the Scottish Mail on Sunday can reveal.

In November, Scottish lawyer Aamer Anwar flew to Zurich with Dr Swire to meet Megrahi's son Ali and widow Aisha to collect documents relating to the appeal and to Megrahi's estate.

Last night Mr Anwar declined to discuss the case, saying only that it was at 'a sensitive stage'.

But Dr Swire confirmed the case is progressing. He said: 'I'm starting to believe that by the 30th anniversary in December 2018, we must have progress. With Baset's family now able to prove it is on board, I really believe the justice system has nowhere to hide.

'The commission cannot go back on its findings of a decade ago that there may have been a miscarriage of justice, and there is an absolute avalanche of fresh forensic information that will destroy a case already picked apart ten years ago.'

Megrahi's oldest son, Khaled, said: 'I know that one day the truth must go out. The last words my dad said were that one day God will show the truth.' (...)

For the past three years Police Scotland has also been running an Operation Sandwood investigation into claims that Crown officials, police officers and expert witnesses acted illegally to secure Megrahi's conviction.

Yesterday the SCCRC said: 'We do not currently have an application in this case.' The Crown Office said that as papers had not yet been lodged it had nothing to say.

CIA put psychics to the test to ‘replicate the Lockerbie bomb’

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

Newly available declassified documents appear to reveal US Central Intelligence Agency tests to see if a psychic could replicate key aspects of the Lockerbie bombing.

The Scotsman reported last week how some 13 million pages of files were released online for the first time – including CIA interest in Edinburgh paranormal research.

Now it has emerged the 930,000 files also include asking a subject to describe a photo of the reconstructed baggage carrier which held the plane’s bomb.

Filed under “special access required”, the notes are headed: “Warning notice: Intelligence sources and methods involved.”

Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down by the device on 21 December, 1988, killing all 259 passengers and crew on board and a further 11 on the ground. The CIA’s psychic tests relating to Lockerbie were carried out on 7 June, 1990 at an unknown location and filed under Project Sun Streak, successor to the controversial Stargate project.

Another released CIA document outlines Sun Streak’s mission as “dealing with the use of psychoenergetics in the collection of intelligence information”.

It describes “Psychoenergetics” as psychokinesis – physical actions performed by mental powers – and perceptions which cannot be explained by non-sensory means, such as telepathy. Parameters of the Lockerbie test outline using “tangibles and intangibles of more than one word”, as well as “probing sketches”.

What follows is 22 pages of photocopied scrawled notes and drawings together with a typed account of the session.

The subject first describes the “target” as a “cylindrical shape that is clear and see-through” with “something inside it that seems to be moving through it and out the other end”.

Included in the test papers is a newspaper article with a photo of the reconstructed baggage container. The article refers to the cassette player in which Semtex explosive was hidden. “The stuff inside it is light, smooth, stringy, air, and it is moving down, making a ‘whoosh’ sound,” continue the typed notes from the session kept by the CIA. “It is speeding up as it goes down and out. It makes me want to throw up.” Describing the cylindrical shape in a box, the account goes on: “There is a bomb in the box and it explodes. It makes me think of a bomb blowing up a person. I can see red, fire and jagged flames. “Something about the target makes my eyes burn.”

[RB: This is not a new story: the documents have been in the public domain since 2003 and were referred to on this blog in  July 2015.]

On the side of the angels

[What follows is the text of a letter from the Rev Dr John Cameron published in today’s edition of The Herald:]

For a dyed-in-the-wool old Tory like me, Tam Dalyell represented the Labour Party at its very best and he was an asset not only to his own party but to the nation as a whole. His importance as a voice crying in the wilderness of Westminster was beyond measure for so often he was spot on – Scottish devolution, Suez, Iraq, Porton Down, Diego Garcia, etc.

I treasured his phone call when I was being rubbished for having produced a highly critical report for the Kirk on the forensic evidence presented at the Lockerbie trial. He told me to "hang in there"; that he too believed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was innocent and that I was “on the side of such angels as Nelson Mandela, Jim Swire and the UN observer”.

Treats for Crown witnesses interfere with course of justice

[What follows is the text of a report that was published in The Guardian on this date in 2002:]

An investigation has been demanded following a claim that a witness in the Lockerbie trial enjoyed police hospitality in Scotland.

Evidence given by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopowner, helped to convict the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. It is alleged that Mr Gauci was brought to Scotland five or six times, taken salmon fishing and hill walking, and put up in an expensive hotel.

He is also said to have been taken to Lockerbie, to see where the wreckage of the bombed Pan Am airliner landed in 1988, before last year's trial got under way.

Yesterday the Labour MP Tam Dalyell said he would raise the issue as a matter of urgency with the prime minister and foreign secretary.

The claim comes days after the start of al-Megrahi's appeal. Last January the Libyan former intelligence officer was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the bombing, which killed 259 on flight 103 and 11 on the ground.

Last week his legal team said a rebuttal of Mr Gauci's evidence would form a plank of its case.

Mr Gauci was the sole witness to link al-Megrahi directly to the bombing of Pan Am 103. He told the trial that al-Megrahi "resembled a lot" a man who bought clothes from Mr Gauci's shop that were later discovered to have been packed around the bomb.

Yesterday the Scottish Mail on Sunday reported that an undercover investigator had travelled to Malta and secretly taped conversations with Mr Gauci, owner of Mary's House clothes shop in Sliema.

Mr Gauci claimed that police had flown him to Scotland on five or six occasions, and taken him to Lockerbie to be shown the damage. He also claimed that the hospitality of the Scottish police had been extended to four others in his family.

He talked in the tape of being taken into the mountains, visiting Aviemore ski resort, fly-fishing for salmon, and bird-watching. On at least one occasion he stayed at the Hilton in Glasgow.

Dumfries and Galloway police and Strathclyde police refused to discuss the claim yesterday, saying only they could not comment on issues concerning witness protection.

Mr Dalyell said that the reports, if true, would have profound implications for al-Megrahi's appeal. "If Gauci was brought to Scotland before the trial at Zeist, why were the defence and the judges not told? If Gauci came after the trial, what is the purpose of the ongoing relationship?"

Robert Black, professor of law at Edinburgh University, said that Mr Gauci's trips needed to be investigated during al-Megrahi's appeal, adding that he knew of no other Scottish murder trial witness being taken on fishing trips by police.

[RB: The previous day a long article on the subject had been published in The Mail on Sunday. It contained the following:]

Robert Black, Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said the matter of Gauci’s trips had to be fully investigated during the course of Megrahi’s appeal.

Prof Black added: “As far as I am aware, this is not normal practice. I do not know of any other witness in a Scottish murder trial to have been taken on holidays and fishing trips by the police.”

He said that if a witness in a trial had been offered “treats” by one side, the other side ought to have the opportunity to cross-examine him to establish whether he might have been motivated to “improve” his evidence in favour of those giving the “treats”.

He added: “If it transpires that Gauci was being treated in this way before or during the trial, or indeed understood that he would be given trips after the trial, it would require his credibility as a witness to be re-examined and could alter the outcome of the case.

“Senior police officers and prosecutors worked very closely on this case.  If the prosecution was aware of the arrangement, it ought to have alerted the defence.”

One of Britain's most senior retired judges said he regarded the matter as “wholly improper”.

The judge, who refused to be named because he feared it would seem “impudent” to criticise the conduct of a Scottish trial, said: “If I learned that a crown witness had been treated and spoiled by the police or prosecution, I would be very concerned that it might have interfered with the course of justice.

“The defence would be entitled to know and to question the credibility of the witness. If such a matter emerged after a guilty verdict, it would be a valid point of appeal. Whether it succeeded would be determined by the weight of other evidence.”

[RB: I can now at last reveal that the retired judge in question was the Rt Hon Lord Murray (amongst other things a former Lord Advocate and lecturer in Evidence Honours at the University of Edinburgh). Lord Murray died on 27 September 2016 at the age of 94. The Herald’s obituary can be read here.]