Megrahi petition on agenda for 2 May meeting of Justice Committee

[Justice for Megrahi’s petition (PE1370) calling for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi features on the agenda for the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee meeting to be held on Tuesday, 2 May 2017 at 10.00 in Holyrood Committee Room 2. JfM’s written submission to the committee reads as follows:]

INTRODUCTION
As you are aware the above petition has been kept open by the Justice Committee since 8 November 2011 to allow various developments related to the Lockerbie case to be monitored by the committee.

A full record of the relevant correspondence with the Justice Committee is reproduced on the Scottish Parliament website.

In this submission JfM wishes to bring the committee’s attention to developments since the petition was last considered on 17th January 2017.

Clarification: In our submission to the 17th January meeting of the Justice Committee, JfM requested that the Committee continue its review of our petition until the Operation Sandwood, ‘police report has been fully considered by Crown Office and its conclusions have been announced.’

In their contributions at this meeting, MSP’s Stewart Stevenson and Mary Fee stated that they agreed with our request for, ‘the petition to remain open until the conclusions of Operation Sandwood have been announced.’

In a letter informing us that the petition would be heard again by the committee on 2nd May, the Deputy Clerk to the committee informed us that it had been, ‘agreed to keep the petition open pending the completion of Operation Sandwood.’

It would be helpful to clarify that as requested in our last submission, and agreed by your committee, the petition will remain open until Crown Office consideration of the police report is complete and any related decisions are made.

Crown Office: As committee members will be aware, a series of Operation Sandwood related parliamentary questions to the Lord Advocate by MSP Alex Neil have been responded to and published.

Mr Neil thereafter wrote to the Lord Advocate and received a response on 20th April. Copies of Mr Neil’s questions and the Lord Advocates answers, his letter to the Lord Advocate and the LA’s response, are attached for member’s information.

Operation Sandwood: JfM continues to hold regular meetings with the Operation Sandwood police team providing mutual updates on the enquiry process and related matters, and continues to have faith in the integrity and completeness of the police enquiry.

The submission of the police report to Crown Office has been delayed and our latest understanding is that it should be submitted in the next few months.

Megrahi Family Appeal: JfM has noted the recent publicity suggesting that the family of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi will launch a bid to appeal against his conviction in the next few weeks.

If these reports are accurate then this is a significant development for those pursuing the truth about Lockerbie.

CONCLUSION
JfM appreciates the Justice Committee’s continuing oversight of the Operation Sandwood enquiry and report.

Given the central importance of the findings of Operation Sandwood to any future prosecutions, enquiries or appeals, JfM believes it is critical, and very much in the public interest, that the committee continues to monitor these findings until Crown Office has fully considered them and announced its conclusions.

We would respectfully urge the Committee to allow Petition PE1370 to remain on the table.

Why have Scottish authorities taken so long to realise their dreadful mistake?

[What follows is the text of an open letter from Dr Jim Swire that appears today on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer’s Intel Today website:]

The attempt by a group of UK relatives to initiate a further appeal against the Zeist verdict was rejected when the SCCRC requested guidance over our application from the Edinburgh High Court.

The High Court in the form of Lord Carloway ruled that we, a group of close relatives of some of the dead had no locus to request a further appeal.

We wanted the truth, that’s all.

Writing this in 2017, when there is thought to be widespread concern over the interests of victims in murder cases such as this, I find it astonishing that the highest lawyers in Scotland believe it right to exclude us in this way.

There has been profoundly coherent evidence readily and even publicly available for at least the last 18 years which seems to show not only that the late Mr Megrahi was not guilty, but that the whole prosecution case, alleging that the bomb was planted in Malta by Libyans, is not correct.

The totality of evidence now appears to show beyond reasonable doubt that the bomb was first put aboard at London Heathrow, and that its origins do not point even to the country of Libya.

These matters can only be resolved once and for all in a Scottish court of law. It should long have been obvious that without formal resolution they will not fade away.

The Scottish authorities have perhaps forgotten that even their own Criminal Cases Review Commission found six reasons why the Zeist trial might have been a miscarriage of justice.

Meanwhile the simple right of the relatives of the dead to know the truth as to all that is really known about the perpetrators and the failure to protect their loved ones, is blocked by the failure to re-examine the evidence used at Zeist, and its augmentation since.

Once it is confirmed that the prosecution case at Zeist was invalid, we shall all want to know why Scottish authorities took so long to realise their dreadful mistake, and how the prosecution case came to be built up in the face of so much knowledge pointing in a very different direction.

We all know the adage that ‘the law is an ass’, but the rigidity of the law, which strengthens that adage through commendable adherence to precedenct cannot be stretched beyond a certain point, even in Scotland, without inviting severe criticism. I believe we are now long past that point.

All of that might contribute to a better performance in the future, a hope close to the hearts of many relatives, along with their simple wish to know the truth about what still appears to have been a totally preventable disaster [initiated through lax security at Heathrow airport.]

Police coached Lockerbie witness to identify Libyan as bomber

[This is the headline over a report published in The Guardian on this date in 2009. It reads as follows:]

The key witness in the Lockerbie bombing trial was coached and steered by Scottish detectives into wrongly identifying a Libyan sanctions buster as the bomber, his appeal lawyers claim.

Lawyers acting for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi will tell an appeal court that Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper, was interviewed 23 times by Scottish police before giving the evidence that finally led to Megrahi's conviction for the bombing in 1991.

Their allegations are central to Megrahi's appeal, which begins in Edinburgh tomorrow, against his conviction for the murder of 270 passengers, crew and townspeople when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988.

The first stage of the Libyan's lengthy appeal, which may take until next year to complete, will focus on his claims that the original trial judges were wrong in law to convict him and wrong to discard crucial evidence which undermined their guilty verdict.

Gauci identified Megrahi as the purchaser of clothes at his shop on Malta which were later allegedly packed in the suitcase carrying the Lockerbie bomb. But the Libyan's lawyers will claim there is now substantial evidence undermining the credibility of Gauci's testimony.

Megrahi's lawyers now believe Gauci received a "substantial" reward from the US government after his conviction thought to be as much as $2m - a payment not disclosed at the trial. The case against Megrahi hinges on Gauci's claim that the clothes allegedly packed into the suitcase bomb were bought on 7 December - the only day when Megrahi was in the area. Megrahi's lawyers say they can now prove they were bought up to two weeks before then, when the Libyan was not in the country.

Megrahi's lawyers will claim that in nearly two dozen formal police interviews, Gauci gave contradictory dates of purchase, changed his account of the sale, and on one occasion appeared to identify the Palestinian terrorist leader Abu Talb as the purchaser. Gauci's evidence is made unreliable by "undisputed factors", the appeal court will hear. They include an "extraordinary" delay in Gauci recalling the events of December 1988 and naming Megrahi; the "extraordinary amount of post-event suggestion to which the witness was subjected"; and his exposure to photos of Megrahi.

The appeal, which Megrahi is expected to watch live on a video link from Greenock prison near Glasgow, is being contested by the Scottish prosecution service, and the British government.

Sputnik interview

Sputnik Radio's World in Focus programme today includes an interview with me on the projected application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission by the Megrahi family. The relevant segment begins 20 minutes 30 seconds into the programme.

Here is a photograph of the interviewer, Mark Hirst, and me taken in the studio.

Death of Lockerbie appeal judge Lord Kirkwood

[What follows is the text of an announcement issued today by the Faculty of Advocates:]

The death has been announced of the Rt Hon Lord Kirkwood, who served as a judge from 1987 until his retirement in 2005. He was 84.

Ian Candlish Kirkwood joined the Faculty of Advocates in 1957, after graduating at the universities of Edinburgh and Michigan. He took Silk in 1970. He was also a former international chess player.

Lord Kirkwood was one of five judges, headed by Lord Cullen, then Lord Justice General, who heard and dismissed the appeal of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing.

He had a reputation as a genial, diligent and scrupulously fair judge.

[RB: Here is something that I wrote during Megrahi’s Zeist appeal:]

During the week it has been abundantly clear that the appeal judges have absorbed the submissions made on behalf of the appellant Megrahi and appreciate the force of a number of the criticisms made in them of the reasoning in the written opinion of the trial Court.  Their Lordships have not been slow to draw their concerns to the attention of the Advocate-Depute.  In particular, Lord Osborne and Lord Kirkwood have asked some very pointed questions indeed and have subjected Advocate-Depute Turnbull and Advocate-Depute Campbell to rigorous cross-examination regarding the Crown's stance in supporting the trial Court's conclusions on certain crucial matters, such as the finding that the bomb was ingested at Luqa Airport in Malta; that Megrahi was the person who purchased the clothes from Mary's House in Sliema; and that the date of purchase was 7 December 1988.

[RB: Why did these serious judicial concerns about the reasoning of the trial court not result in Megrahi’s conviction being overturned? Here is what I wrote shortly after the appeal was dismissed, beginning with a quote from the appeal court’s judgement:]

“When opening the case for the appellant before this court Mr Taylor stated that the appeal was not about sufficiency of evidence: he accepted that there was a sufficiency of evidence. He also stated that he was not seeking to found on section 106(3)(b) of the 1995 Act. His position was that the trial court had misdirected itself in various respects. Accordingly in this appeal we have not required to consider whether the evidence before the trial court, apart from the evidence which it rejected, was sufficient as a matter of law to entitle it to convict the appellant on the basis set out in its judgment. We have not had to consider whether the verdict of guilty was one which no reasonable trial court, properly directing itself, could have returned in the light of that evidence.”

The limitations under which the Appeal Court was thus constrained to operate effectively disabled it from considering the issues of (a) whether there was sufficient evidence in law to justify such absolutely crucial findings-in-fact by the trial court as (i) that the date of purchase in Malta of the clothes surrounding the bomb was 7 December 1988, (ii) that Megrahi was the purchaser and (iii) that the case containing the bomb started its progress from Malta’s Luqa Airport and (b) whether those findings or any of them (on the assumption that there was a legal sufficiency of evidence) were such as no reasonable trial court, properly directing itself, could have made, or been satisfied of beyond reasonable doubt, in the light of (i) justifiable criticisms of the evidence and witnesses supporting them and (ii) ex facie credible contrary evidence.

Not a snowball's chance in hell the prosecution case will survive

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

New witness casts doubt on Lockerbie bomb conviction

[The following are excerpts from an article under this headline in today's edition of The Independent on Sunday. The full article can be read here.]

A new witness is expected this week to undermine thoroughly the case against the only person to be convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. New testimony will call into question evidence linking the Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, his lawyers claim. (...)

[Note by RB: In the first session of the appeal, which starts on Tuesday and runs until 22 May, there will be no new witnesses, just legal argument. Any new witnesses, if the Appeal Court allows them to be heard -- and the rules about fresh evidence in appeals are very restrictive -- will only feature in later sessions.]

Appeal hearings are due to begin on Tuesday, and Megrahi's lawyers insisted this weekend they will go ahead as planned, despite speculation that he may be returned to Libya under the terms of a controversial prisoner transfer agreement, due to be ratified tomorrow.

"We are turning up next week," said Tony Kelly, his solicitor. "We are seeking that the court upholds his appeal, admit that there has been a miscarriage of justice, and grant him his liberty. Whatever remedies come after that is for after the appeal."

Appeal documents seen by The Independent on Sunday reveal that testimony from a new witness is expected to undermine the evidence of a key prosecution witness, Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper. His testimony was vital in connecting Megrahi to the bombing at the trial in 2001.

Mr Gauci identified Megrahi as the person who bought the tweed suit, baby sleepsuit and umbrella found among the remnants of the suitcase that contained the bomb on board.

The new witness, not named in the documents, will provide an account the defence claims is "startling in its consistency with Mr Gauci's account of the purchase, but adds considerable doubt to the date the key items were purchased and identification of Megrahi as the purchaser".

All of this may be academic, as 56-year-old Megrahi, who was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in October 2008, has been reported as having less than a year to live and the appeal could take two years.

Increasingly, however, it seems likely that the Lockerbie suspect will spend his last days in Libya. This month, officials wrote to the families of victims of the bombing explaining the prisoner transfer programme, interpreted as a tacit agreement that Megrahi may be returned to Libya. Under the terms of the deal, if Megrahi participates in the transfer scheme, he will forfeit his right to appeal.

"If he goes back to Libya, it will be a bitter pill to swallow, as an appeal would reveal the fallacies in the prosecution case," said Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed on Flight 103. Dr Swire is a member of UK Families Flight 103, which wants a public inquiry into the crash. "I've lost faith in the Scottish criminal justice system, but if the appeal is heard, there is not a snowball's chance in hell that the prosecution case will survive."

Lockerbie luggage returned

[This is the headline over a report that appeared on the BBC News website on this date in 2002. It reads in part:]

Police in Scotland are about to return to families the remaining luggage and personal effects of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing.

Baggage belonging to more than 100 people has been retained by investigators since 1988 in case it was needed as evidence.

The items are being handed back following the dismissal last month of the appeal by Abdelbaset ali Mohmed-al Megrahi against his murder conviction. (...)

Thousands of items of luggage and clothing were painstakingly recovered by police from miles of Scottish Borders countryside.

Much of it was given back to the victims' relatives but some which was, or might have been, used as evidence was held back.

A team of nine officers and two support staff from Dumfries and Galloway Police is now preparing to return it to families in Britain, America and elsewhere.

Forty-three families have asked for their property to be delivered in person while 47 are happy to have it posted.

Twelve others have asked for their relatives' remaining effects to be destroyed.

Detective chief superintendent Tom McCulloch said the return of the property would be an emotional experience and all the officers involved had had advance counselling.

The process is expected to start next month and take up to eight weeks to complete.

Earlier this month, the Scottish Executive formally returned the site of the trial at Camp Zeist to the Dutch Government.

Lockerbie — Pan Am 103: the truth at last?

[This is the headline over an article about the Megrahi family’s forthcoming application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission posted today on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer’s Intel Today website. In the article he quotes an email that I sent to him earlier today. Here is what I wrote:]

I am optimistic about the outcome of the Megrahi family's forthcoming application to the SCCRC. In June 2007 the SCCRC decided, on six grounds, that there might have been a miscarriage of justice. Since then even more evidence has come to light casting doubt on the verdict (not least Dr Morag Kerr's masterly analysis of the bomb-damaged luggage, which demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that the bomb suitcase was ingested at Heathrow, not Luqa in Malta).

My only slight worry is how the SCCRC will apply the "interests of justice" requirement (ie not only must the Commission be satisfied that there might have been a miscarriage of justice, it must also be satisfied that it is in the interests of justice for there to be a fresh appeal). It is possible to envisage the SCCRC saying that there have already been two appeals (the first of which Megrahi lost and the second of which he abandoned) and that it is not in the interests of justice for there to be a third bite at the cherry. I am reasonably optimistic that the Commission will not adopt this approach -- the Megrahi conviction still casts a dark shadow over the Scottish criminal justice system and is far from being generally accepted as just by the public in Scotland and elsewhere. I would expect the SCCRC to take the view that it is in the interests of justice in Scotland that an appeal take place that can remove this dark shadow, one way or the other.

The world will say sorry one day

[Most of the UK print and broadcast media today carry reports of the Megrahi family’s bid to secure a fresh appeal against the conviction of Abdelbaset. None of the reports adds anything significant to the article in yesterday’s Sunday Mail that broke the story, with the exception perhaps of a piece in the Daily Mail from which the following is excerpted:]

The Lockerbie bomber’s widow has sparked outrage after claiming that the ‘world will say sorry to my husband and my family’ as she launches a legal bid to clear his name.

Relatives of the family of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi also want former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to be quizzed in court over Libyan’s release – and he has said he is happy to help.

Megrahi’s widow Aisha said: ‘I wish to pursue this appeal in my husband’s name to have his conviction overturned, to clear his name and to clear the name of my family.

‘The world will say sorry to my husband and my family one day.’ (...)

The grounds for a new appeal will formally be handed to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) by the Megrahi family’s lawyer, Aamer Anwar, this week.

An SCCRC decision to refer the case to the Appeal Court would prove a major humiliation for prosecutors and the Scottish Government.

Last night, American Susan Cohen, 79, who lost her daughter Theodora, 20, in the tragedy, said: ‘The world owes an apology to the families of the victims for allowing airline security to be so lax and in some cases for failing to voice their outrage over the atrocity.

‘The bombing destroyed my life and took away the only person I was prepared to die for.

‘The people who insist on Megrahi’s innocence are using alternative facts, they’re conspiracy theorists.

‘In terms of the appeal, a lot of the people involved are dead and probably by the time this is concluded some of the victims’ relatives will also be dead.’

The SCCRC has already ruled that the Libyan’s conviction was potentially a miscarriage of justice.

Relatives of victims, led by Dr Swire, tried to have the conviction overturned posthumously but the SCCRC ruled it could re-examine only if asked by the family. That barrier has now been overcome. (...)

The SCCRC has the power to refer the case to the Appeal Court if it feels there are grounds. The process is likely to take months.

Mr Anwar said: ‘A reversal of the verdict would mean that the governments of the United States and the UK would be accused of having lived a monumental lie for over a quarter of a century and having imprisoned a man they knew to be innocent for the worst mass murder on British soil.’

According to Megrahi’s deathbed memoirs, published in 2012, Mr MacAskill indirectly urged him to ditch an appeal in return for his freedom – dismissed by the SNP at the time as ‘hearsay’.

Mr MacAskill, Justice Secretary between 2007 and 2014 under Alex Salmond, promised to come forward if asked, saying: ‘If I am called to give evidence, I will give evidence.

‘Due process will take place and I will fully co-operate.’

He strongly defended the decision to release Megrahi.

Dr Swire said: ‘Before Megrahi died, I met him in Tripoli and reassured him I would still do everything I could to clear his name.’

Can you believe it?

[What follows is Dr Jim Swire’s account of the showing of Gideon Levy’s Lockerbie Revisited in the Scottish Parliament the previous evening:]

I saw the film last night in the Scottish Parliament. Lord Fraser, Stuart Henderson, Richard Marquise, Fred Whitehurst, Tom Thurman, Prof Hans Koechler and Robert Baer all made contributions in it.

The subject was the famous 'timer circuit board fragment', called PT35B in the court records.

There was evidence of widespread confusion over what was supposed to have been the way in which PT35B was handled, some claimed it had been to the USA others that it had not. The impression was that at least some of these were trying to contribute to a story the truth of which they did not want us to know.

Their stories could not all be true, for they differ widely.

'Oh what a complex web we weave when first we practice to deceive'

For me Robert Baer of the CIA was the most significant. His view was basically that of course it was a Iranian/Syrian job, but that even the USA (and therefore the UK) could not confront Iran militarily over it. That would, without question, have been to strangle the straits of Hormuz and therefore US oil supplies for a start. That sounds common sense to me.

The interviewer of these men was Gideon Levy himself [the film-maker], who showed great skill in extracting a maximum of information from them.

There was one criticism and that was that the film did show the famous picture of a tiny piece of circuit board on someone's finger tip. This is a picture of a shattered piece from a domestic cct board such as a tape recorder. It carried the codes of the former components printed in white on the fragment which appeared to have been of 'Paxolin' (mid brown) and bore no resemblance to a piece of fibre-glass board.

Use of this image will cause some confusion and allow the critics to get their knives in.

Otherwise it gave excellent support to the idea that the PT35B fragment has a very suspicious history, lacking the confirmed freedom from interference required of any significant item of 'evidence' for use in a murder trial.

I was able to point out at the end that PT35B also appeared to be something that could hardly have survived such close proximity to the Semtex charge, and that at least two independent explosives firms have confirmed this. Also that its police evidence bag had had its label interfered with, while its entry into the UK forensic report appeared to have been a hasty afterthought, requiring renumbering of the subsequent pages.

There is also said to be evidence that PT35B was never tested prior to the trial, for explosives residues, but that this has now been done and shown no trace of such residues.

Incredibly one contributor to the film claimed that the failure to do this was 'for reasons of economy'. Can you believe it? PT35B was only the most important forensic item in the entire 'evidence' armoury.

Application to SCCRC by Megrahi family imminent

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in today’s edition of the Sunday Mail:]

A bid to clear the name of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing will be launched this week by his family.

Relatives of Abdelbaset al Megrahi will hand a dossier to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

They hope it will result in an appeal against Megrahi’s conviction. The details were finalised in talks with lawyer Aamer Anwar in Zurich.

Details of a planned appeal brought by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s widow and son, who want former justice ­secretary Kenny MacAskill to be quizzed in court over his release, are revealed by the Sunday Mail for the first time today. (...)

The grounds for a new appeal will formally be handed to Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission by the Megrahi family’s lawyer Aamer Anwar this week.

As justice secretary at the time, MacAskill took full responsibility for the decision to release the Libyan.

It’s understood Megrahi’s relatives want to question him on the ­circumstances surrounding the decision to release him and MacAskill said he would co-operate if called to give evidence.

Megrahi’s widow Aisha and son Ali Abdelbaset al-Megrahi agreed the terms of the appeal at a meeting in Zurich last November. (...)

Dr Swire and another relative, Rev John Mosey, are among 25 UK-based relatives of victims who are ­supporting the Megrahis’ appeal.

A source said: “There are too many ­unanswered ­questions and the best place for the truth to come out is in a courtroom.

“One of the main questions is why did Kenny MacAskill feel he had to meet Mr Megrahi in person on his own in prison?

“It is an extraordinary step for a justice ­secretary to meet a prisoner particularly if he is just about to release him on compassionate grounds.

“We need to know if he was ever given the impression overtly or implied that dropping his appeal would increase his chances of compassionate release.”

The new grounds for appeal include ­questions over the integrity of evidence ­produced by the Crown at the original trial, including circuit board fragments and clothes.

They also claim that crucial testimony given by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci was false and should have been ruled inadmissible.

The SCCRC have already ruled that ­Megrahi’s conviction was potentially a miscarriage of justice.

Victims’ relatives, led by Dr Swire, tried to have the conviction overturned posthumously but the SCCRC ruled they could only re-examine if asked by the family. That barrier has been overcome following the summit in Zurich.

Aisha al-Megrahi said: “I wish to pursue this appeal in my husband’s name to have his ­conviction overturned, to clear his name and to clear the name of my family. The world will say sorry to my husband and my family one day. That’s all I wish to say.”

Ali, 22, added: “I still feel bad that my father was innocent and locked up in prison for so many years.

“I lost my father and although nobody can bring him back, I still want justice for him. I’m sure that, with the new appeal, my father’s name will be cleared from all ­allegations.

“The Lockerbie affair hit my family very, very hard and we’re looking forward to the day that Scottish justice prevails and that we can live in peace again.

“We hope the authorities of Scotland will make it possible to correct the controversial verdict and give all the families who lost loved ones, including ours, real justice.”

Also in attendance in Zurich was Edwin Bollier, a Swiss businessman who was a witness at the original trial at Camp Zeist in Holland.

He is a former director of Swiss firm Mebo, who prosecutors claimed made the Lockerbie bomb’s timer. He believes Megrahi’s conviction wrongly implicated him in the atrocity.

The SCCRC have the power to refer the case to the Court of Appeal if they believe there are enough grounds. The process is likely to take months.

Anwar has received thousands of pages of documents from the original trial which had been held by Megrahi’s previous legal team Taylor & Kelly.

Megrahi’s Scottish lawyer while alive was Tony Kelly, a partner in that firm.

Anwar, installed last week as rector of Glasgow University, said: “The Lockerbie case has often been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal ­history.

“A reversal of the verdict would mean that the governments of the United States and the UK would be accused of having lived a monumental lie for over a quarter of a century and having imprisoned a man they knew to be innocent for the worst mass murder on British soil.

“The reputation of our criminal ­justice system has suffered at home and internationally because of the widespread doubts over the conviction of al-Megrahi.

“The only place those doubts can truly be addressed are in the Court of Appeal and nowhere else.”

MacAskill, who served as the SNP ­government’s justice secretary between 2007 and 2014 under Alex Salmond, promised to come forward if asked.

He said: “If I am called to give evidence, I will give evidence. Due ­process will take place and I will fully co-operate.”

He added: “This is a matter for the courts. It would be wrong of me to interfere. I am no longer involved in any aspect of it. I am happy to contribute but I will leave the due process of law to work its way.” (...)

Dr Swire backed plans for a new appeal. He said: “Shortly before Megrahi died, I met him in Tripoli and reassured him I would still do everything I could to clear his name.

“I am delighted that this request for an appeal is now being placed before the SCCRC.”

Documentary Lockerbie Revisited shown in Scottish Parliament

[On this date in 2009 a private showing of Gideon Levy’s documentary Lockerbie Revisited was held in the Scottish Parliament. What follows is from the background note supplied to those who attended:]

Dutch Public TV network VPRO, in conjunction with German TV, ZDF and Arte, commissioned a documentary investigation into aspects of the bombing of Pan Am 103 in December 1988.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, following a three year investigation has stated there may have been a miscarriage of justice and that Mr Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of this atrocity should have a fresh appeal. This appeal is scheduled to start on April 28th 2009. If there has been, as many believe, a miscarriage of justice, the implications for the Scottish Judicial system will be immense and could result in charges of perverting the course of justice.

The film focuses mainly on a crucial piece of circuit board fragment alleged to have been found at Lockerbie. Investigations carried out by Scottish police and the United Sates of America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that this fragment came from a timer mechanism sold only to Libya.

Statements made on camera to the documentary film makers by some of the most senior personnel involved in the investigation in Scotland and the USA cast even more doubt specifically on this piece of circuit board. The FBI agent who headed the USA’s part of the investigation has stated that without this fragment of circuit board there would not have been an indictment let alone a trial. Clearly, from filmed interviews, it can be seen that the FBI and Scottish police tell completely different stories about this fragment. They cannot both be correct.

The shocking new evidence gathered in this film will, it is believed, impact greatly on the forthcoming appeal and the producers intend to make this material available to the Crown Office and to Mr Megrahi’s defence team.

The screening will be by invitation only and it is hoped that a wide ranging audience will attend from elected representatives to relatives of those died on Pan Am 103.

[RB: The documentary can be viewed here.]