Lockerbie trial “not fair ... did not meet basic requirements of due process”

[What follows is the text of a press release issued on this date in 2001:]

Lockerbie Trial - Report of International Observer

Santiago de Chile,  4 February 2001/P/HK/17034c-is

In a comprehensive report forwarded yesterday to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr Hans Koechler stated that the Lockerbie Trial concluded earlier this week at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands was not fair and did not meet basic requirements of due process.

Dr Koechler is one of five international observers appointed by the United Nations to observe the trial. In the report consisting of twenty paragraphs specifically evaluating the legal quality of the trial in regard to generally accepted legal standards, Dr Koechler reached the conclusion that the verdict of the three judges was not comprehensible in view of the conflicting evidence, the series of vague inferences and conjectures on which it is based, and because of the lack of credibility of the key witnesses presented during the trial. The apodictic verdicts of "guilty" in the case of the first accused and "not guilty" in the case of the second accused are contradictory in view of the text of the indictment and in regard to the written Opinion of the Court.

Dr Koechler explained in his report that the verdict, in his analysis, is more of a political than of a legal nature. He expressed the hope that the search for the truth will continue and a Court of Appeals will correct the inconsistencies of the verdict passed by the three Scottish judges on 31 January 2001.

The full text of the report is available on the web site of the IPO Lockerbie Observer Mission: http://i-p-o.org/lockerbie_observer_mission.htm.

[RB: The full text of Professor Köchler’s report can be read here.]

Libyan link to Lockerbie blast

[This is the headline over a report that was published in The Herald on this date in 1989. It reads in part:]

Investigators believe that employees of Libyan Arab Airways in Frankfurt planted the bomb which destroyed a PanAm Jumbo jet four days before Christmas, killing 270 people in and around Lockerbie, according to the American television network CBS News.

In a follow-up to its report on Wednesday night that the Palestinian terrorist Ahmad Jibril, sponsored by Syria and Libya, was believed to have built the bomb, CBS said this morning that the sophisticated device was in a suitcase which did not belong to any passenger aboard PanAm flight 103.

The CBS version contradicts a Radio Forth report, which said that an American agent of the Central Intelligence Agency unwittingly had the bomb in his luggage. Mr David Johnston, of Radio Forth, said last night police had given him until today to name his sources for his report which blamed a Palestinian group for the bombing.

He said he was ''completely confident'' he had been told the truth, and was prepared to face court moves if necessary. Mr Johnston said he was told by official agencies ''in Britain and elsewhere'' that the bomb was planted at Helsinki in the luggage of an American CIA agent returning from an unsuccessful attempt to release US hostages in Beirut.

Police gave him until today to approach his sources to ask if he could divulge them, he added. The officers said that if he did not want to disclose his sources to them, they would make available ''anyone in Britain, including the Prime Minister, for him to disclose them to.''

Mr Johnston said the police ''have said that if I don't tell them tomorrow where the story came from, it would be open to them to put me before a sheriff under precognition.''

CBS said that at least 100 Libyan airline employees are intelligence operatives under the command of Abdullah Senoussi, who is related to the country's leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Senoussi reportedly has a printing plant which produces forged luggage tags, among other documents. The bomb, said by CBS to contain 20lbs of plastic explosives, was in a suitcase falsely labelled to fly to New York, via London, on flight 103. It was not searched, x-rayed, or even weighed-in at Frankfurt airport, where it was smuggled in through a ''back door,'' the TV report said, citing an American source.

CBS said the device was believed to be identical to a suitcase bomb found by West German police, in the days before the Lockerbie disaster, when they arrested 14 members of Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- General Command. The report said the PFLP-GC wished to upset the peace initiative of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Meanwhile, lawyers representing families bereaved in the Lockerbie disaster are to pursue their claims for compensation through the American courts. They will also press for a full accident inquiry to be held as soon as possible.

The first meeting of the lawyers' steering committee will be held in Glasgow today but its spokesman, solicitor Mr Michael Hughes, said last night it was virtually certain any compensation claims would be made to the American courts.

[RB: Caustic Logic has commented on this report on his blog The Lockerbie Divide. What follows is an excerpt:]

On February 3 1989, based on what someone had told them, CBS News reported that Libyans may have been behind the whole thing. The Herald (Scotland) reported on this, and I thank to JREF forum member Spitfire IX for the tip.

Libyan link to Lockerbie blast

“INVESTIGATORS believe that employees of Libyan Arab Airways in Frankfurt planted the bomb which destroyed a PanAm Jumbo jet four days before Christmas, killing 270 people in and around Lockerbie, according to the American television network CBS News.”

This is far too early for any of the bogus clues against Megrahi to have emerged. It’s also far too early to be motivated by Gulf War alliances mandating a blind eye to Syria, as some assess the motive. It doesn’t appear to be based on any evidence (see below), but it must have been based on something or it wouldn’t have been said.

“CBS said that at least 100 Libyan airline employees are intelligence operatives under the command of Abdullah Senoussi, who is related to the country's leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Senoussie reportedly has a printing plant which produces forged luggage tags, among other documents.”

That certainly would not explain accused Fhimah’s later plot to flat steal Air Malta tags for the bombing, a "clue" that wouldn’t emerge for over two years. In fact, these sounds like hollow points of speculation, maybe just a handy occasion to again draw attention to Frankfurt while floating a novel solution to the embarrassing truth. Of course, only a few people would know this soon just how embarrassing that would be.

“The bomb, said by CBS to contain 20lbs of plastic explosives, was in a suitcase falsely labelled to fly to New York, via London, on flight 103. It was not searched, x-rayed, or even weighed-in at Frankfurt airport, where it was smuggled in through a ''back door,'' the TV report said, citing an American source.

CBS said the device was believed to be identical to a suitcase bomb found by West German police, in the days before the Lockerbie disaster, when they arrested 14 members of Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command.”

There is no likeness, "identical" or otherwise, implied in the given description. Mot obviously, the ones seized were designed to blow up within 30-45 minutes or an hour (it's complicated) of leaving the ground, which has never fitted with an origin at Frankfurt or further out. Not with the blast 38 minutes after leaving London. Further, the only one of the PFLP-GC devices known of at the time contained 312 grams of Semtex-H, or well under one pound. Three found later were comparable, and the bomb used on 103 was at least that weight, and perhaps as high as 680 grams, based on the container damage. Again nowhere near this alleged 20 pound Libyan monster.

In fact, such small amounts of explosive could only work as fatally as happened on Soltice ’88 with the choicest placement within the luggage container - against the sloping outboard floor panel just two feet from the plane's skin. This is entirely possible by random baggage loading, but far less than a 50/50 shot. There’s still no guarantee, but at least a good 50/50, if the luggage is actually arranged by a terrorists who knows of the sweet spot. Someone else could then move it, or not move it. And of course that could only happen at Heathrow where the container was loaded, hundreds of miles from those dastardly Libyans at Frankfurt and their "back door" antics that still have never been elaborated.

That unspecified “American source” would have presumably been someone involved in an investigation. And we know the CIA’s probe into 103 was headed by Vincent Cannistraro, head of Agency’s counter-terrorism center. Previously, Cannistraro was one of Reagan’s make-s***-up-about-Libya men (See Maltese Double Cross – 42:40 mark). Along with Ollie North and Howard Teicher at the NSC, he used input from CIA and Deprtment of Defense to seed disinformation in the media to justify a policy of covert US harassment of Col Gaddafi up to coup plans and attempted assassination by Cruise missile, in 1986.

I’d bet money that Vincent Cannistraro was the source for this allegation. He’s friendly with the press, and always eager to tell them whatever’s convenient at the moment with some flair and no compunctions. The story had Libyan intel agents working through LAA at an airport connected to the Lockerbie bombing. The CIA at that time had Abdul Majid Giaka’s stories on file, mentioning both Megrahi and Fhimah as just such agents, but attached to LAA at Luqa airport on Malta.

Of course, no further moves were made for quite a while, as investigators spent all of 1989 and 1990 at least publicly pushing the PFLP-GC leads - and increasingly Malta leads. Even the suspicious, possibly backdated evidence pointing at Libya was dated around May ’89 and not generally understood for around a year. If this is indeed an early stirring of Vince’s Libya solution, it was too early after waking from the haze of no leads that can be pursued. Libyan guilt rather than PFLP-GC/Syria/Iran probably did look nice and comforting passing through the national news, but just six weeks after the bombing, it was clearly something to come back to after a cup of coffee and a fistful of planted clues.

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.