29 years later: How Lockerbie moved on from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

[This is the title of a moving and perceptive article published today on the website of The Daily Orange, the newspaper of Syracuse University, thirty-five of whose students died aboard Pan Am 103. It consists in part of the memories of the disaster and its aftermath of a young police officer whose son is this year one of Syracuse’s Lockerbie Scholars. The following are brief extracts:]

For Colin Dorrance, Dec 21, 1988, was supposed to be a night off. Then 18 years old, he had recently joined the police force and was driving to a Christmas party at home in Lockerbie. (...)

Then he saw the explosion. It burst behind a line of trees, silhouetting them in the darkness.

He thought a truck with a chemical load had crashed. Others thought it might have been a low-flying military plane, practicing a drill that went wrong. Yet he and other the Lockerbie residents soon realized this was no ordinary explosion. (...)

In the 29 years since the disaster, Lockerbie residents like Dorrance and neighbors rebuilt and repaired the damage from the plane crash that catapulted their town into the international spotlight. The bomb wasn’t meant to explode over Lockerbie, said John Gair, a long-time Lockerbie resident and chairman of the Dryfesdale Lodge Visitors’ Centre Trust, differentiating it from the sites of other deadly attacks, like 9/11 and the recent Las Vegas concert shooting.

Other than the five memorials around town, there are few reminders of the tragedy. No plaques or signs mark many of the wreckage locations, like the grassy fields at Tundergarth Church, where the plane’s nose cone landed.

The destruction varied. In Sherwood Crescent, where all the Lockerbie residents were killed, wreckage blasted a 26-foot deep crater in the ground. It destroyed some bungalows and set fire to others, yet some buildings suffered as little as one cracked window. The parents of one man whom Dorrance went to high school with still live in the same, unchanged bungalow today, Dorrance said.

Only different brickwork, an updated main road and a memorial for the Sherwood Crescent victims hint at more.

Residents say people from the United States and Scotland grieve differently: those from the U.S. do so publicly and the Scottish more privately.

“We don’t talk about things like that. The town … I have to warn people that come here, it’s not a disaster theme park. It’s not as if everyone is in on the plot, and we all know it, inside out,” Dorrance said.

For the month following the crash, Dorrance worked night shifts in Lockerbie. He left in January 1989 to go back to his regular duties in another town. He separated himself from his memories of the plane crash and only began to revisit them when his daughter, Claire, was chosen to study at Syracuse University as a Lockerbie Scholar. His son, Andrew, is a current Lockerbie Scholar.

“The sheer scale of it was new to everybody. The guys who were nearly retired had never seen anything like it, never mind someone who was just fresh to it, and in a way there was a bit of an advantage of being an 18-year-old because you’re young, free and single,” Dorrance said. “If I was to go into the same situation now, as a married father with two kids who had been the same age as many of the students, I think I would find it harder to deal with emotionally.”

Much of the physical landscape untouched by damage remains virtually unchanged. The High Street is still mostly the same as it was in the 1980s, Dorrance said. Lockerbie’s agricultural industry is still prolific. Buildings like the town hall and ice rink, which were temporarily used as mortuaries, were quietly converted back into their original purposes. (...)

David Wilson, treasurer of the Dryfesdale Lodge Visitors’ Center Trust and resident of Lockerbie since 1966, said people aren’t necessarily passing down their memories of the crash.

“There is something in the Scottish culture, that you dust yourself down and you know the sun is going to rise whether you want it to or not, so you might as well get on with it,” Wilson said. “I think there was a general sort of stiffening of the spine.” (...)

Some of Lockerbie’s finest hours were after the plane crash, Dorrance said. For weeks, people rallied together in the early mornings, providing soup and coffee for workers and washing the luggage and clothes of victims to return to families for free.

Today, the plane crash is no longer current affairs, but part of the town’s history. Often, Lockerbie residents share jokes or laugh when discussing Pan Am Flight 103, but it’s not out of disrespect, Dorrance insists, which can be hard for outsiders to understand. For a town forced to live with the aftermath forever, it’s a way to move on.

“It’s life unfortunately. It’s something you have to get on with. It’s not disrespectful to those who died — they wouldn’t want that either,” Dorrance said. “But it just leads to these really surreal, weird kind of situations. And you do, you look back at it and laugh, because it’s either that or you cry.”

[RB: My own recollections of the disaster and its aftermath, which match surprisingly closely Colin Dorrance’s, can be found in the foreword that I wrote to Jill Haldane’s An’ Then the World Came Tae Oor Doorstep: Lockerbie Lives and Stories.]

How Pan Am Flight 103 shook up some professional fields

[This is the headline over an article published today on the website of The Daily Orange, the newspaper of Syracuse University, thirty-five of whose students died aboard Pan Am 103. It reads in part:]

As the deadliest terrorist attack on United States citizens before 9/11, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 shook up practices in professional fields including the airline security and public relations industries.

The flight was carrying 259 people — including 35 Syracuse University students — from London before a bomb in the cargo hold exploded on Dec 21, 1988. The terrorist attack killed all on board and 11 people on the ground.

Activism by the parents and families of the victims was instrumental in influencing national security practices. In 1990, Congress passed the Aviation Security Improvement Act lobbied by some of the victims’ families to strengthen airport security measures.

William Banks, founding director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, said there was little security specifically devoted to airlines before the passage of the act.

Air marshals would ride on flights with a suspected security risk, airline personnel would be screened and cargo would occasionally be inspected.

These personnel and cargo security measures were increased as a result of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, with special attention from the US aviation industry.

However, Banks said, making these practices effective required international cooperation.

“Not every nation has uniform or excellent security,” he said. “With global travel, your airline security is only as strong as your weakest link.”

Banks said was international cooperation between countries to implement screening procedures similar to ones in the US. He added many of the current practices were created in response to the Pan Am Flight 103 and 9/11 attacks.

The incident also showed how the public relations field was underprepared in crisis management.

Maria Russell, a public relations professor in the S I Newhouse School of Public Communications, said spokespeople from Pan American World Airways and the US State Department lacked the training needed the handle the attack.

In the wake of the bombing, Pan Am implemented a “buddy system” where each family was assigned a liaison for communication with the airline.

The liaisons were unprepared and untrained for interaction with families who had lost loved ones, she said.

“That ended up infuriating the families more than making the families appreciate the effort,” Russell said. (...)

Of the public relations strategies Russell examined, she said the spokespeople in Lockerbie were most prepared and professional. Briefings were held every morning and afternoon to disseminate information and keep the public up to date.

It’s been said that one positive point of Pan Am Flight 103 was the involvement of Superintendent Angus Kennedy, a policeman from the Scottish city of Glasgow who acted as a police spokesperson and guided families through media interaction.

“They were incredible in how they responded to the families, the media, with so much common sense,” Russell said. “Basically: How would you like to be treated if this were you?”

PT/35(b) — The most expensive forgery in history [Lockerbie]

This is the headline over a long article published yesterday on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer’s website Intel Today. It sets out Dr De Braeckeleer’s conclusions about the dodgy timer fragment and the evidence on which these conclusions are based. This is an important article which should be read by anyone with a serious interest in this aspect of the Lockerbie case.

Iran Air 655 and Pan Am 103

The Turkish website Kokpit.aero has just published a long article about attacks on aircraft that resulted in passenger deaths. The Iran Air 655 tragedy and the Lockerbie case feature extensively. The English language version produced by Google Translate is reasonably comprehensible.

Sir Brian Barder and Lockerbie

Today’s edition of The Times contains an obituary of retired British ambassador Sir Brian Barder KCMG who died on 19 September 2017 aged 83. Sir Brian in his retirement wrote extensively and perceptively about Lockerbie and the Megrahi case. Blogposts about, and links to, these writings can be found here.

“The case against him was just laughable”

[What follows is excerpted from an article published today on the website of the United Arab Emirates newspaper The National:]

Irish film director Jim Sheridan has a pointed message for aspiring Arab film makers: stop chasing Hollywood. “Every director I’ve met in the Arab cinema world wants to go to Hollywood and make a Hollywood movie, because that’s how you pass the test apparently,” he says when I catch him on the sidelines of this year’s Dublin Arabic Film Festival, where he acts as president and curator. “It’s nonsense. Every time I go to America to make a Hollywood movie, I realise I didn’t grow up in America. I didn’t go to school there. I don’t know their system.” (...)

The director, who was a judge at Dubai International Film Festival in 2013, speaks from a position of some experience when it comes to making films outside the Hollywood mainstream. While his European films, including the multi-Oscar-nominated, and winning, My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father, have gathered accolades that most directors can only dream of, his most famous Hollywood effort was the critically derided 50 Cent biopic Get Rich or Die Tryin’. (...)

Sheridan’s own next project looks set to have a regional theme too. He is currently in the early stages of developing a film about the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, the imprisoned Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

“Megrahi’s story is so interesting. If he’d been European, or even just a bit whiter, he’d have been out a long time ago. The case against him was just laughable, but three judges found him guilty. These were the same people that were involved in convicting the Guildford Four,” the director explains. Sheridan’s seven-time Oscar nominated 1994 film, In the Name of the Father, was a biopic of the four men who were wrongly imprisoned as IRA terrorists.

Lockerbie film in development

[What follows is excerpted from a report in today’s edition of The Scotsman:]

As Monday morning meetings go, the setting was hard to beat as the sun rose over the distant hills of Knoydart. It was my second visit in a year to the base of Young Films in Sleat, the “Garden of Skye,” as it is promoted. But in that time, the company masterminded by producer Chris Young has stepped up its activity. Perhaps most importantly, it has finally secured a production deal with BBC Alba to ensure the Gaelic drama Bannan will continue for the next four years.

Its creation was the catalyst for Young to base his company in Skye in 2012 after he had finished work on The Inbetweeners TV series and films. Young was keen for me to see how a new generation of actors, directors, writers, editors and technicians were being trained up while working on the drama series, which is based at Gaelic college Sabhal Mor Ostaig.

The funding for Bannan not only ensures future work for many of those involved in Bannan, but it also allows Young Films to accelerate a number of other projects. One of these is a feature film on the conspiracies surrounding the Lockerbie disaster, which Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald and award-winning playwright David Harrower are both working on, and a big-screen adaptation of The Silver Darlings, the classic Neil Gunn novel.

What would have been argued had Megrahi appeal not been abandoned

What follows is the text of an item published on this blog on this date in 2009:

More Megrahi materials released

A second batch of materials has been released on Abdelbaset Megrahi’s website. These take the form of Grounds of Appeal numbers 3.1 to 3.3 (which would have been argued at the second stage of the – now abandoned – appeal that had been due to start on 2 November 2009) along with two expert reports and the US Department of Justice publication Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement.

These materials relate principally to the evidence emanating from Malta.

1. The credibility and reliability of the evidence of “identification” of Megrahi by Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, is challenged by reference to (a) new evidence about the circumstances in which Gauci’s various “resemblance” statements came to be made, including improper conduct by investigators; (b) failure by the Crown to disclose to the defence statements by Gauci that undermined or contradicted his “identification”; (c) failure to disclose to the defence the existence of, and a police statement by, a witness who may have been present when the purchase of the clothes in Gauci’s shop took place; (d) the expectation of money from US official sources on the part of Tony Gauci and his brother, Paul, and its subsequent payment to them; (e) evidence from two leading psychologists and experts on facial recognition of the unreliability of Gauci’s “identification” of Megrahi.

2. The Lockerbie court’s acceptance of 7 December 1988 as the date of purchase of the clothes and other items in Tony Gauci’s shop is challenged. Even on the material before the court at Zeist, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had concluded that it was strongly arguable that no reasonable court could have reached the conclusion that this was the date. The materials released today disclose the existence of new evidence that confirms that the date of purchase was not 7 December 1988 (and hence that the purchaser was not Abdelbaset Megrahi).

The importance of this is, of course, that if the court at Zeist had not decided that Mr Megrahi was the purchaser of the clothes in Malta, they would not in law have been entitled to convict him.

A further matter expected to be adverted to in today’s materials, but which does not seem to be, is the SCCRC ground of referral based on documents in respect of which the UK Foreign Secretary has claimed public interest immunity and to which Mr Megrahi’s legal team still have not had access. Had the appeal continued, Megrahi’s lawyers would have argued that, without the information on which the SCCRC had referred the case back to the appeal court, he could not exercise his right of appeal and would accordingly have been denied fairness, contrary to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Chuck McKee theory revived

[The following are two items posted yesterday on The Lifeboat News website:]

Lobster: Mentions new book about lockerbie

Posted by Sinister Burt on September 30, 2017, 8:52 pm

Few new bits in the latest Lobster. Quotes a new book about lockerbie that gives a version i hadn't heard before (i wasn't paying attention that closely): https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster74/lob74-view-from-the-bridge.pdf Quoting Dr. Roger Cottrell, 'Ashes in the Fall: Iran-Contra, the godfather of terror and the bombing of Pan Am 103' (forthcoming from Red Door) "In this book, we set out to prove that the actual target of the bombing was Green Beret Captain Charles “Chuck” McKee (attached to the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency), Martin Gannon, the Deputy Head of CIA Station in Beirut and a young Lebanese man called Khaled Jaafar, whom they had accompanied from Frankfurt on Pan Am 103A to place into witness protection in the United States. Two Security Officers from the US Embassy in Beirut were also part of the group. Jaafar, aged just 22, was a member of a powerful drug producing clan in the Be’eqa Valley, who wanted to be free to marry his cousin. He could provide supportive testimony to the 200 page dossier that McKee was also taking back to the US to present as testimony to the Kerry Commission. This was why he was killed The second purpose of the Lockerbie bombing was to destroy or recover McKee’s file." Pan Am 103 Why Did They Die? Posted by Gerardon September 30, 2017, 10:14 pm, in reply to "Lobster: Mentions new book about lockerbie" "FOR THREE YEARS, I've had a feeling that if Chuck hadn't been on that plane, it wouldn't have been bombed," says Beulah McKee, 75. Her bitterness has still not subsided. But seated in the parlor of her house in Trafford, Pennsylvania, the house where her son was born 43 years ago, she struggles to speak serenely. "I know that's not what our President wants me to say," she admits. George Bush's letter of condolence, written almost four months after the shattered remains of Pan Am Flight 103 fell on Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, expressed the usual "my heart goes out to you" sorrow. "No action by this government can restore the loss you have suffered," he concluded. But deep inside, Mrs. McKee suspects it was a government action gone horribly awry that indirectly led to her only son's death. "I've never been satisfied at ( all by what the people in Washington told me," she says. Today, as the U.S. spearheads the U.N.-sanctioned embargo against Libya for not handing over two suspects in the bombing, Mrs. McKee wonders if Chuck's background contains the secret of why this plane was targeted. If her suspicions are correct, Washington may not be telling the entire story. Major Charles Dennis McKee, called "Tiny" by his Army intelligence friends, was a burly giant and a superstar in just about every kind of commando training offered to American military personnel. He completed the rugged Airborne and Ranger schools, graduated first in his class from the Special Forces qualification course, and served with the Green Berets. In Beirut he was identified merely as a military attache assigned to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). But his hulking physique didn't fit such a low- profile diplomatic post. Friends there remember him as a "walking arsenal" of guns and knives. His real assignment reportedly was to work with the CIA in reconnoitering the American hostages in Lebanon and then, if feasible, to lead a daring raid that would rescue them. McKee's thick, 37-page Army dossier contains so many blacked-out words that it's hard to glean the danger he faced. Surviving the censor's ink was his title, "Team Chief." Under "Evaluation," it was written that he "performs constantly in the highest-stress environment with clear operational judgment and demeanor . . . Especially strong in accomplishing the mission with minimal guidance and supervision . . . Continues to perform one of the most hazardous and demanding jobs in the Army." For Beulah McKee the mystery deepened six months after Chuck's death, when she received a letter from another U.S. agent in Beirut. It was signed "John Carpenter," a name the Pentagon says it can't further identify. Although the letter claimed that Chuck's presence on the Pan Am plane was unrelated to the bombing, Carpenter's message only stirred her suspicions. "I cannot comment on Chuck's work," he wrote, "because his work lives on. God willing, in time his labors will bear fruit and you will learn the true story of his heroism and courage."" From: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,159523,00.html 2001...

Lockerbie bombing: story of a fake conviction

[This is the headline over an article published today on the Top Conspiracies website. It reads in part:]

Pan Am Flight 103 was a scheduled flight from Frankfurt to Detroit. In December 1988 the plane was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers.The explosion took place over Scotland after taking off from London, and thus Europe had jurisdiction over the explosion. In 1999 Two Lybian nationals were handed over by General Gadaffi (the then leader/dictator of Lybia) for trial in a Scottish court in the Netherlands. The bomb was said to have been made out of Semtex plastic. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was jailed for life in connection with the bombing, released by the Scottish government in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to a diagnosis of prostate cancer. There was a significant lack of protest in the wake of his release, suggesting that many of the family of the victims do not believe him to be behind the bombing. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi died in 2012.

Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, the other Libyan handed over for the case, was found not guilty. Gadaffi accepted responsibility for the bombings in 2003. The CIA and the FBI worked with intelligence officers in Europe when processing the case. Over 15,000 people were questioned in over 30 countries. The explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 is also known as the Lockerbie bombing.

It is almost certain that the Libyan convicted had little to do with the Lockerbie bombing and that the real players are unknown. Just about only thing that remains uncontested is that a bomb went off in a suitcase and killed 243 passengers and 16 crew members. In a Report on and evaluation of the Lockerbie trial conducted by the Special Scottish Court in the Netherlandat Kamp Van Zeist, Dr Hans Köchler, University Professor, International Observer of the International Progress Organization stated that:

“ It was a consistent pattern during the whole trial that – as an apparent result of political interests and considerations – efforts were undertaken to withhold substantial information from the Court. “

The Opinion of the Court is exclusively based on circumstantial evidence and on a series of highly problematic inferences. As to the undersigned knowledge, there is not one single piece of material evidence linking the two accused to the crime.

On the basis of the above observations and evaluation, the undersigned has – to his great dismay – reached the conclusion that the trial, seen in its entirety, was not fair and was not conducted in an objective manner. Indeed, there are many more questions and doubts at the end of the trial than there were at its beginning”

Conspiracy Theory #1 – Revenge

One theory contends that it was an act of revenge stemming from Iran. Over 290 passengers were killed when US forces shot down an Iran Airbus over the Strait of Hormuz, including over 66 children. This was less than 6 months before Pan Am Flight 103. Investigative reporter Paul Foot believes that this is the most likely scenario and that Libya was actually framed by the British and Americans, with political factors coming into play: Libya openly backed Saddam Hussein and Iran were needed during the first Gulf War. A number of journalists have drawn attention to the fact that Margaret Thatcher dismissed the idea in her memoirs that the Lockerbie bombing an act of Iranian revenge.

Conspiracy Theory #2 – CIA drug smuggling cover up

Not the first and most definitely not the last link between the U.S Central Intelligence Agency and illegal substances. This theory is backed up through Lester Coleman, a former member of the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Allegedly there was a route of drug smuggling between the US and Europe through Syrian drug dealers, who were allowed keep the ring going in return for CIA intelligence. The agency managed to ensure that the suitcases were not checked so the regime could continue; however, the scheme backfired when a bomb was put into the suitcase instead of the narcotics. In the 1994 film The Maltese Double Cross, it was suggested that the CIA agents were to blame for turning a blind eye to the drug smuggling ring between Europe and the US in return for information.

Conspiracy Theory #3 – Abu Nidal on behalf of Gadaffi

Abu Nidal was an internationally renowned terrorist around the time of the Lockerbie bombing. US bombings in 1986 killed large numbers of Libyan civilians and Gadaffi’s response was to engage the services of Abu Nidal. Nidal moved his organization to Libya in 1987. It is also contended that Abu Nidal warned US intelligence that a flight on route to Detroit would be blown up. Abu Nidal allegedly confessed to the bombing on his deathbed. The former head of Iranian intelligence was reported to have told German intelligence that Iran asked Libya/Gaddafi and Abu Nidal for help in bombing the American airline. Part of that report states:

The mission was to blow up a Pan Am flight 103 that was to be almost entirely booked by US military personnel on Christmas leave. The flight was supposed to be a direct flight from Frankfurt, GE, to New York, not Pan Am Flight 103 which was routed through London, UK. The suitcase containing the bomb was labeled with the name of one of the US passengers on the plane and was inadvertently placed on the wrong plane possibly by airport ground crew members in Frankfurt. The terrorist who last handled the bomb was not a passenger on the flight.

Conspiracy Theory #4 – PFLP-GC & Pan Am Flight 103

In the aftermath of the bombing, the prime suspects in the Lockerbie bombing were the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command. These were a warlike revolutionary group led by a former Syrian military officer. Mohammed Abu Talb was the head of the Swedish cell of the PFLP-GC and was one of a number of suspects before the focus shifted to Al Megrahi. PFLP-GC had a bomb maker at their disposal who was meant to be investigated by Scottish police until the FBI persuaded them to call off the warrant for the purposes of intelligence information. Khreesat was a Jordanian intelligence officer unknown to the PFLP-GC and relayed intelligence back to HQ, which relayed it to Western Intelligence. Allegedly, Khreesat relayed information that there would be a bomb planted on a Pan Am flight in October 1988, around 6 months before the actual crash. German intelligence raided the PFLP-GC acting on this information but did not progress further with regard to the bombing. (...)

Conclusion to the Pan Am Flight 103 Explosion

It is certain at this stage that the official story of a lone Libyan civilian conducting the bombing is false. He did not bring down Pan Am Flight 103 alone. However, no-one is any the wiser to what actually happened. There are simply too many conflicting theories, too many intelligence agencies, too many countries involved and too many variables to construct a credible theory as to what went on. Even the theories listed above tend to blend and mix together with different variants. It is possible that the PFLP-GC, Gadaffi and Abu Nidal all had a role in some fashion, but separating what happened exactly and who is responsible is just impossible. One theory is that Iran asked Libya/Gadaffi and Abu Nidal to bomb Pan Am 103 in revenge, a mixing of two theories. It gets more complex the more that it is investigated with all the difference information from the intelligence agencies and reports from investigative journalists.

Editorial policy change

For just over three years now I have each day posted on this blog an item from the long history of the Lockerbie case, as well as noting any current developments, such as the progress of Justice for Megrahi’s petition in the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee and the state of play in Police Scotland’s Operation Sandwood investigation. Some readers have found the historical posts tiresome and, after three years, it has become increasingly difficult to find in the archives items that I have not previously resurrected. Therefore, on the occasion of my departure from Edinburgh for the wilds of the Roggeveld Karoo, I have decided that in future I shall normally post only items of current news, though I may continue to mark particularly significant anniversaries. Any reader who needs a daily Lockerbie fix can consult the blog’s entries for an equivalent day of the month between 1 August 2014 and 25 September 2017.

Criminality allegations submitted to Justice Secretary

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on the website of The Scotsman on this date in 2012:]

Lockerbie campaigners have lodged “fresh allegations” with justice secretary Kenny MacAskill about the conduct of the Scottish authorities at the trial 11 years ago.

Demands for a fresh inquiry into the bombing of the Pan Am jet in 1988 will come before MSPs on Holyrood’s justice committee today. The Justice for Megrahi (JfM) campaign has compared the “cover-up” surrounding the trial to the recent Hillsborough revelations. But the claims were branded “false and deliberately misleading” by Scotland’s Crown Office yesterday.

In a submission to the committee, the JfM group states: “The outcome of the Hillsborough inquiry has undoubtedly shone a light on the inner workings of a justice system that purported to keep its citizens safe and secure.

“Now we can see that protection of the system and the wrongdoers within it took precedence over protection of the individual citizen. If Hillsborough was England’s shame, then Lockerbie is Scotland’s, and much of the indifference and arrogance identified within the former can be identified in the latter.”

The campaign submitted a letter to Mr MacAskill which lodges “serious formal allegations” relating to the conduct of the investigation and the Kamp van Zeist trial.

[RB: JfM’s letter to Kenny MacAskill, with names of individuals removed, reads as follows:]

The Committee of Justice for Megrahi hereby formally lodge with you complaints alleging criminal wrongdoing in the investigation and prosecution of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah for the murder of 270 people in the downing of Pan Am 103 on 21 December 1988.

These complaints are directed against the persons and bodies named below whom, for the reasons given, we believe may be guilty of the criminal offences specified.

1.  On 22 August 2000 the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, communicated to the judges of the Scottish Court in the Netherlands information about the contents of CIA cables relating to the Crown witness Abdul Majid Giaka that was known to members of the prosecution team [A B and C D] who had scrutinised the cables, to be false. The Lord Advocate did so after consulting these members of the prosecution team. It is submitted that this constituted an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

2.  Members of the Lockerbie prosecution team, including but not limited to [C D], devised and presented or allowed to be presented to the trial court a scenario regarding the placement of items in luggage container AVE4041 which was known to be false, in order to obfuscate and conceal compelling evidence that the bomb suitcase was introduced by a terrorist infiltration at Heathrow airport. It is submitted that this constituted an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

3.  Dumfries and Galloway Police, and those individuals employed by that force responsible for the recording, prioritising and submission to the Crown Office of evidence gathered in the investigation into the downing of Pan Am Flight 103, and the Crown Office, and those individuals in that organisation responsible for the analysis of said evidence and identifying what material required to be passed on to those acting for Megrahi and Fhimah, concealed the witness statement relating to the break-in to Heathrow airside giving access to the luggage loading shed used by Pan Am 103 in the early hours of 21st December 1988 which was provided by Heathrow Security Officer Raymond Manly to the Metropolitan Police shortly after Mr Manly’s discovery of the break-in. It is submitted that the concealment of this witness statement, which was or ought to have been known to Dumfries and Galloway Police and the Crown Office to be of the highest possible significance to the defence, constituted an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

4.  [In the course of his testimony at Camp Zeist, witness E F] told the Court that the materials and tracking analysis of fragment PT/35b, the sliver of printed circuit board said to have originated from a circuit board contained in one of the 20 MST-13 digital timer instruments supplied by MEBO AG to Libya (the boards for all these timers having been custom-made for MEBO by Thuring AG), were “similar in all respects” to the control samples of MST-13 circuit boards. [E F] consistently used this form of words to describe analyses of items which were identical or of common origin. This statement was false. While the tracking pattern was indeed identical, [E F] was aware that the coating on the circuitry of the control boards was the standard alloy of 70% tin and 30% lead, while the coating on the circuitry of fragment PT/35b (most unusually) lacked the 30% lead content. It is submitted that his statement to the Court was a deliberate falsehood designed to conceal a significant and material difference between the evidential fragment and the control items, and thus constituted both perjury and an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

5.  The Lockerbie investigation, and in particular [police officer G H], knew by 1990 that the coating on the circuitry of fragment PT/35b was composed of pure tin, and that this composition was highly unusual, being described as “by far the most interesting feature” of the fragment by all the experts who were consulted, “without exception”. By early 1992 [G H]  and those in the Crown Office to whom he reported also knew that the metallurgy testing on the control MST-13 circuit boards showed the circuitry on these boards to be coated with the standard 70% tin / 30% lead alloy. [G H] and those in the Crown Office to whom he reported

either failed to inquire with the manufacturer Thuring AG whether they had supplied any MST-13 timer boards with the unusual lead-free coating, or did make such inquiries and failed to disclose the results of these inquiries to the defence. It was discovered by the defence team in 2008 that Thuring AG did not manufacture printed circuit boards with a lead-free coating, and indeed lacked the manufacturing capacity to do so. If [G H] and/or those in the Crown Office to whom he reported failed to make the relevant inquiries with Thuring AG, it is submitted that this omission was grossly negligent. If [G H] and/or those in the Crown Office to whom he reported made such inquiries and failed to disclose the results to the defence, it is submitted that this failure constitutes an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

6.  From our assessment of the ‘SCCRC Statement of Reasons’, relating to its referral of Mr Megrahi’s case to the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2007, and the ‘Grounds of Appeal 1 and 2' documents prepared by his legal team in furtherance of that appeal, it is clear that a number of questions have been raised in relation to the process which led to the identification of Mr Megrahi by witness Mr Anthony Gauci. These include doubts about the legitimacy of the process by which Mr Gauci’s identification evidence was obtained, assessed and delivered, and what prompted significant failures by the Crown to disclose related material information. From these documents it appears that [police officer I J] and other police officers who were involved in this identification process might well have been aware that a number of the aspects of the process they were following were flawed and did not accord with guidelines extant at the time or with any general principles of fairness to the accused. It is submitted that the omissions and failings referred to in the relevant reports indicate that [I J] and others have important questions to answer in connection with the identification process, and we believe, taken as a whole, that their conduct constitutes an attempt to pervert the course of justice and a breach of section 44 (2) of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967 (violation of duty by a constable).

The above numbered complaints simply constitute the basic allegations. Documents containing detailed supporting material have been prepared and will be made available to the investigating authorities as and when requested by them.

You above all will realise the seriousness of these allegations which strike at the very heart of the Lockerbie investigation past and present. Effectively, we are complaining about the actions of Crown Office officials, the prosecution and investigating authorities including the police, and certain other agencies and individuals. Given the controversy surrounding this whole affair we request that you give serious thought to the independence of any investigating authority you appoint. As a group we believe that you should appoint someone outwith Scotland who has no previous direct or indirect association with Lockerbie or its ramifications.

You will be aware of the disquiet we feel about the delay and obfuscation which have surrounded this whole affair since 1988. Nevertheless we understand you will require reasonable time to inquire into these allegations and decide how you wish to proceed. We therefore propose to keep these matters private and confidential for a period of thirty days from the date of this letter to allow you to carry out the necessary enquiries, decide how you wish the matter to be investigated, and respond to us. We thereafter reserve the right to make the above matters public as and when we feel appropriate and reasonable. Furthermore, on the grounds that PE1370 is due for consideration on 25th September, we also reserve the right to inform the Justice Committee of the fact that we have lodged this document with yourself, making reference (in general terms only) to the fact that it contains serious allegations relating to the Lockerbie/Zeist case.

In passing we would also note the recent publicity given to the perceived lack of independence in Scotland between the Lord Advocate and the Scottish Government by Mr Andrew Tickell. (http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-unpolitical-snps-pied-lord-advocate.html)

We also share this concern and would hope, for reasons that must be obvious from the foregoing, that your response to this letter will be free from Crown Office influence of any kind.

We thank you for your time and attention in this matter and look forward to an acknowledgment of receipt by return.

[RB: Three additional allegations were added by JfM at a later date. These nine allegations remain under investigation in Police Scotland’s Operation Sandwood.]