Libya jail swap deal clears way for BP project

The Financial Times of 31 January 2008 contains an article under this headline by Dino Mahtani in London and Andrew Bolger in Edinburgh asserting that Libya’s ratification of a $900m oil exploration contract with BP was delayed because of Libyan concerns over the position of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi under the prisoner transfer agreement negotiated with the UK government.

The exploration contract was apparently part of a package of agreements arranged by the former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on an official visit to Libya last year. But ratification of BP's deal had been left hanging for months, with Libyan negotiators saying they were angered that Mr Blair had left open the possibility of excluding Megrahi, the Libyan jailed for his part in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, from a deal to repatriate Libyan prisoners held in British jails. But, in spite of a request from the Scottish Government for the specific exclusion of Megrahi from its terms, the agreement as finally concluded does not make him an exception. This provoked anger in the Scottish Government and Parliament, politicians there accusing London of ignoring Scottish legal procedures in order to smooth relations with Libya.

However, the article refers to Westminster sources as insisting that safeguards were in place to give Scottish ministers a veto over whether Mr Megrahi would return. It also quotes Saad Djebbar, a London-based lawyer who has worked with the Libyans on the Lockerbie case as saying: "The matter of Megrahi had delayed matters, not just for BP but all other commercial arrangements." He said that Tripoli had been waiting for a sign of "goodwill". BP denied there were political reasons for the delay to ratification of the deal.

See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/703dc9e4-cfa0-11dc-854a-0000779fd2ac.html

Unfinished business -- Sir John Scarlett

I have received e-mails from (a) Patrick Haseldine and (b) Trowbridge Ford (to both of whom I express my thanks) about the post Sir John Scarlett, continued (see http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/01/sir-john-scarlett-continued.html). They are as follows:

(a)

Dear Robert,

The state-sponsored terrorism of apartheid South Africa

I am somewhat baffled by these remarks made by Trowbridge Ford: "what ruined Patrick Haseldine's career after he had revived them when MI6 had gone belatedly to such trouble to hush them up in the first place" (Sir John Scarlett, continued - 27 January 2008). If all that Professor Ford means is that it was my December 1988 accusation of state-sponsored terrorism against apartheid South Africa that brought my career in HM Diplomatic Service to an abrupt end, then I agree with him (see "A member of the Foreign Office was willing to go public with a criticism that would almost certainly lose him his job and career" James Rusbridger The Intelligence Game (1991) ISBN 0-370-31242-2 http://books.google.com/books?id=p62LN9EhsKYC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=patrick+haseldine&source=web&ots=mxcb2zX6R9&sig=IkihvG6TuKWldw-V1qtsisBAEVs).
Mine was not exactly a lone voice in the wilderness at the time since Governor Michael Dukakis, Democrat nominee in the 1988 presidential election campaign, would have declared apartheid South Africa to be a "terrorist state" had he won the November 1988 election (see http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDC133BF930A25755C0A96E948260).

In an article published on the now defunct Pan Am 103/Lockerbie crash website entitled Lockerbie Trial : A Better Defence Of Incrimination, I accused apartheid South Africa of responsibility for a number of terrorist incidents including the February 1986 Olof Palme assassination and the September 1986 Samora Machel aircrash, as well as the December 1988 Lockerbie bombing (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Patrick_Haseldine/Archive4, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E1DB103CF93AA1575AC0A960958260 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme_assassination#South_Africa_theory).

As can be seen from the last of the ten letters published in The Guardian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Patrick_Haseldine#Letters_to_The_Guardian), I do not subscribe to any complicated or convoluted conspiracy theories about the Lockerbie bombing. Instead, I simply apply the Occam's Razor principle to the problem:

Flight path (December 22, 1993)

"Now that the case against Libya has been undermined by Edwin Bollier's revised evidence (Guardian, December 20), it is time to cut through the mess of theory on the culpability for Lockerbie. Applying the scientific principle of Occam's Razor to the problem (look for the simplest solution), the first question to ask is: what was so special about Pan Am Flight 103 to make it the target of international terrorism?

"The answer is that Bernt Carlsson, UN Commissioner for Namibia, was on that flight to New York to attend the signing ceremony at UN headquarters of Namibia's Independence Agreement.

"The second question is: who would want to assassinate Mr Carlsson? Many whites in Southern Africa were openly hostile to granting independence to Namibia. By murdering 258 other passengers, those responsible must have hoped to throw suspicion elsewhere and disguise their motive. Then there is the circumstantial evidence involving South Africa's Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, who was to have accompanied Mr Carlsson but instead took an earlier flight.

"The third question is: why has it taken so long for the finger of suspicion to point towards South Africa?

"I posed an identical question in the Guardian on December 7, 1989. Only an international inquiry of the kind proposed by Dr Jim Swire is likely to reveal the answer."

It is not too late to institute a United Nations Inquiry into the so far uninvestigated state-sponsored terrorism of apartheid South Africa. Libya - currently in the chair of the UN Security Council - seems well placed to ensure that such a UN Inquiry takes place in the very near future (see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387992.html).

Yours sincerely,

Patrick Haseldine.

And (b)

Dear Robert Black,

Thanks for posting my e-mail.

I did notice in your posting of the three links, though, you actually linked my article about Lockerbie three times instead of all three once - what seems to have been mistakes that you might want to correct.

I shall be doing more about the tragedy, and will let you know when I do.

Sincerely,

Trowbridge.

[Note by RB: I posted Professor Ford's original e-mail in the form in which I received it, and without alteration.]

Rewards for Justice ... again

A lengthy posting on the unbossed.com website contains the following passage on the Lockerbie case:
‘An article in yesterday's Canada Free Press points out that rewards, no matter how large, are pretty ineffective in bringing terrorist suspects to justice. “The U.S. Department of Justice, even after posting rewards, setting up hotlines, and issuing BOLOs (“Be-on-the-Lookout” alerts) has failed to issue criminal warrants for their arrest...”
‘The State Department's Rewards for Justice program website includes a curious request for tips related to those responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. It doesn't explain why it's still looking for suspects. After all, Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi was sentenced to 27 years in prison after witnesses were offered money by the U.S. government to provide testimony needed for conviction.
‘A witness in the Lockerbie case has claimed he was offered $4 million (£2 million) by American investigators to lie to the trial judges.
‘Edwin Bollier, head of the Swiss company MEBO that was said to have manufactured the timer used to detonate the Pan Am bomb, claims he was offered the money by the FBI at its Washington HQ in exchange for making a statement that supported the main line of inquiry - that Libya was responsible for the bombing. "I rejected this and said this could not possibly be the case," he said. He added that there was a "loud dispute" after he rejected the offer. (The Scotsman)
‘Reportedly, the courts are poised to acknowledge that the conviction of Abdel Basit Ali Megrahi was a "miscarriage of justice," due in part to yet another offer of money - $2 million from the CIA - to a witness whose testimony was critical to the conviction of Megrahi, who maintains he is innocent.
‘Assuming that what appear to be the present facts are true and Megrahi is indeed freed means that Libya, which agreed to pay $10 million to each of the families of the Pan Am crash victims, is not guilty. That opens the possibility of a serious look for the real culprit who so criminally snuffed out 270 lives. Somebody is guilty of a heinous crime. But who? (WRMEA)
‘Who, indeed? Are Americans and others around the world safer because our government helps convict people who had little or nothing to do with terrorist attacks? Of course not. We are less safe because our watchdogs, under weak oversight, have grown fat and inept, unable to catch anything but the easiest prey. But, catch something they must. So, out come the checkbooks.
‘Whether the money buys truth or lies seemingly is irrelevant, and most Americans are never the wiser until another attack occurs. When one does, the bureaucrats and their enablers in Congress label it an "extraordinary" event; something that could happen to any mortal being, don't you know? And, then, it's business as usual until the next "failure of imagination" occurs. Are we a gullible people, or what?’
See http://unbossed.com/?p=1764

A regrettable anniversary

Seven years ago today the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist convicted Abdel Baset al-Megrahi of the murder of 270 people in the Lockerbie disaster. The unjustness of the conviction has been demonstrated in earlier postings on this blog. See eg
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/07/lockerbie-satisfactory-process-but.html
and
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/07/article-in-scotsman-on-23-july-2007.html.

It is to be hoped that this miscarriage of justice will have been rectified before the eighth anniversary. But this is, at least in part, dependent upon the willingness of the Criminal Appeal Court in the new appeal to frustrate the delaying and obstructionist tactics that the Crown has so far been resorting to in its approach to the proceedings.

Resumption of service

I hope to be in a position to make substantive postings on this blog tomorrow (Thursday) evening, South African time (GMT +1). My internet connection problems have rendered posting impossible over the past few days.

Sir John Scarlett, continued

On 7 January 2008, I posted an excerpt from an article by Trowbridge Ford on the career of Sir John Scarlett, the current Director of SIS (see http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/01/sir-john-scarlett.html).

I have just received an e-mail from Professor Ford, which I am happy to reproduce here:

Dear Robert Black,

I see that you have posted part of my second article about SIS's director general Sir John Scarlett -one of four articles I am writing about the most misguided agent - but I notice that even in posting it, you left other parts of it which had caused him to cover up the assassination of Sweden's statsminister Olof Palme on February 28, 1986 here in Stockholm.

Instead of acting as if it were completely separated from the Lockerbie tragedy, you should have stressed it, including these other articles on mine:

http://www.skog.de/writers/e0408831.htm
http://codshit.blogspot.com/2004/02/nsc-s-lt-colonel-oliver-north-from-key.html
http://www.i-p-o.org/THFord-Lockerbie-why_only_silence-Sept05.htm

The Libyans were set up to take the fall for Palme's assassination, once it could not safely be pinned on the Soviets or any lone domestic nut, and once, the case against Gaddafi started to unravel, it was blamed on the South Africans.

Jan Bondeson recently revived SIS's original complaint against them in Blood on the Snow (pp. 171-3) - what ruined Patrick Haseldine's career after he had revived them when MI6 had gone belatedly to such trouble to hush them up in the first place.

In short, in dealing with Anglo-American conspiracies since Reagan stole the 1980 presidential election, one has to look at the whole, big picture rather than cutting it up into pieces which covert operators and academics can safely deal with.

Sincerely yours,

Trowbridge Ford

Police seek extra funding for Lockerbie appeal

The BBC reports that Dumfries and Galloway Police have requested additional funds from the Scottish Government to cover the costs incurred in respect of work generated by the new appeal in the Lockerbie case ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

Chief Constable Pat Shearer said it meant extra financial pressure on the force for some time to come.

"It is hard to just estimate how long that will continue for," he said.

"Quite clearly the defence team are exploring their options and building their case.

"We are very much acting and supporting the Crown Office in relation to their requests."

He said that effort meant there would be costs incurred for the foreseeable future.

"We need to have the resources in force to enable us to support that professionally," he said.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7205493.stm

Patrick Haseldine on Lockerbie

I am grateful to Patrick Haseldine for the following e-mail setting out his reasons for believing that apartheid South Africa may have been responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103:

Dear Robert,

Now that a "US court orders Libya to pay $6bn" in damages to the relatives of seven US victims of the September 1989 UTA Flight 772 bombing, and to the American owner of the DC-10 aircraft (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7191278.stm), the United Nations should investigate both Pan Am Flight 103 (http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387992.html) and UTA Flight 772.

The way that Libya was "fitted up" for both crimes is succinctly explained by French investigative journalist, Pierre Péan, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Péan#FBI_fabricated_evidence_against_Libya.

The obvious starter question for the UN Inquiry to address is: But if Libya didn't do it, who did?

There is no shortage of suspects but for my money apartheid South Africa is the clear favourite. This is why:

1. The Reagan/Gorbachev summit in Moscow in May 1988 decided that South Africa had to grant Namibia its independence, in return for Cuba's withdrawal of troops from Angola and the cutting off of military aid by the Soviet Union (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Accords)

2. It was US presidential election year in 1988, and Democrat nominee Michael Dukakis would have declared South Africa to be a "terrorist state" (along with Libya and Iran) if he were elected US president (see http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDC133BF930A25755C0A96E948260).

3. South Africa's nightmare was to have SWAPO take control of Namibia with more than 66% of the vote, since this would have allowed SWAPO to re-write the independence constitution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Namibia#Negotiations_and_transition). Measures were therefore taken for South Africa's Civil Cooperation Bureau to disrupt the election process, to harass the UN Special Representative Martti Ahtisaari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martti_Ahtisaari#Diplomatic_career) and to take out prominent SWAPO activists (eg Anton Lubowski). The Koevoet paramilitary force was also deployed to prevent SWAPO's military wing returning from overseas bases. And, according to The Guardian of July 26, 1991, Foreign Minister Pik Botha told a press conference that the South African government had paid more than £20 million to at least seven political parties in Namibia to oppose SWAPO in the run-up to the 1989 elections. He justified the expenditure on the grounds that South Africa was at war with SWAPO at the time.

4. UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was in an anomalous position. In theory, Carlsson was the UN's Governor of Namibia (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE4D9143EF931A15751C1A96E948260). But, United Nations authority over Namibia was never recognised by the South African Government, who administered the territory through an Administrator-General, Louis Pienaar, and it is unclear what role Bernt Carlsson would have played in the run-up to Namibia's independence. A UN Inquiry into Carlsson's death on Pan Am Flight 103 will doubtless help to resolve this anomaly.

The full text of ten letters I had published in The Guardian is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Patrick_Haseldine#Letters_to_The_Guardian. The first letter was published 14 days before the Lockerbie bombing. The nine subsequent letters all seek to incriminate the apartheid regime for Pan Am Flight 103, and one even suggests that South Africa was responsible for the UTA Flight 772 bombing (The bearer of strange tidings from Islamic Jihad)!

Yours sincerely,

Patrick.

The Congressional Quarterly article

Here is the text of Jeff Stein’s recent article in Congressional Quarterly, as relayed to me by Richard Marquise, to whom I express my appreciation.

‘My Dec. 20 column warning that “Libya is close to getting off the hook” for millions of dollars due families who suffered the loss of loved ones in the Pan Am 103 and LaBelle discotheque bombings drew plenty of heat.

‘Some suggested that I had somehow taken Libya’s side by merely reporting on the conclusion of a Scottish criminal commission that a “miscarriage of justice” might have occurred in the Pan Am trial. Critics who support that view point to the early suspicions of U.S. intelligence that an Iranian-back terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, had really downed the airliner (in response to the accidental downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a U.S. Navy ship six months earlier).

‘Critics also denounced my reporting that at least two informants had received million-dollar rewards for providing evidence against the Libyans.

‘One of those who wrote me was the FBI agent in charge of the U.S. side of the PanAm 103 case, retired Special Agent Richard Marquise. After several e-mail exchanges, I invited him to write a critique for publication here. It is reproduced in its entirety below:

“We initially speculated it was the PFLP-GC based on events which had occurred in Germany in late 1988. We went with that premise until the painstaking evidence collection in Scotland (done by police officers not having any political agenda) turned the investigation in a different direction.

“By this time, we had reached an agreement with the CIA and other intelligence agencies to completely share information. With their assistance and the meticulous police investigation, this led to the eventual indictments.

“You quote several sources but Vince Cannistraro [the CIA official in charge of the agency’s investigation of PanAm 103] retired before the evidence began to lead to Libya.

“Your quote ‘more sinister factors were at work in the investigation’ which was attributed to Professor Black and other ‘authoritative sources close to the case’ is taken from people who only know what they believe but have no inside information.

“I can promise you as a 31-year FBI veteran who was proud of my service to America; no sinister forces were ever involved. If you (or anyone) were to speak with Stuart Henderson (the Scottish Senior Investigating Officer) or myself, we would tell you we followed the evidence, the way we were trained and no political or sinister forces were involved. Libya was implicated because of the evidence, not because we wanted to blame someone other than Syrian-backed terrorists.

“Edwin Bollier, the Swiss businessman who made the timer which blew up Pan Am Flight 103, seems to forget he went to a US Embassy in January 1989 after reading in the news that the ‘evidence’ pointed to the PFLP-GC cell in Germany (and therefore to Syria). He left an unsigned note implicating Libya — long before we knew anything about the timer, MEBO or Bollier, as that evidence was not developed until nearly two years would pass.

“Since 1992, Bollier’s story has changed. I would prefer to believe what he told a Swiss magistrate, the FBI and Scottish investigators in 1990 and 1991, not what he is now saying. I was the FBI official who met with Mr. Bollier in Washington, and I can assure you no one offered him (or any other witness for that matter) anything to implicate the Libyan Government.”

Note by RB: I simply wish to record my continuing conviction that the evidence led at the Lockerbie trial was insufficient to establish the guilt of Mr Megrahi (see the first posting on this blog in July 2007); that evidence that pointed in a different direction was suppressed and was not passed on to the defence; and that as a result of the forthcoming appeal necessitated by the (three-year long) investigation and findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, the unjustifiability of Mr Megrahi’s conviction will be clearly demonstrated.

[I eventually managed to maintain an internet connection for long enough to post this.]

Congressional Quarterly

On 20 December 2007, Congressional Quarterly published an article by Jeff Stein reporting the burgeoning doubts regarding the safety of the conviction of Abdel Baset Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing. This is referred to in a posting on this blog on 21 December. Richard A Marquise, who headed the FBI team that investigated the destruction of Pan Am 103 (and author of a book on the subject) has sent me a further article under Jeff Stein's byline in Congressional Quarterly, in which Mr Marquise is quoted expressing his confidence in the integrity of the investigation and the safety of the conviction of Mr Megrahi.

Because of the instability and slowness of my internet connection, I have been unable, in spite of valiant efforts, to post the full text of this new article on this blog. But I shall do so as soon as I find myself in a location which has an internet café with a broadband connection.

Inquests and Fatal Accident Inquiries

The Herald of 17 January 2008 has a lengthy article by Anne Johnstone about the circus that is the Diana and Dodi inquest. In the course of it, she refers as follows to the Fatal Accident Inquiry that took place after the destruction of Pan Am 103:

"It's easy to be smug, but it's hard to believe that this nonsense would have been allowed to unfold in Scotland. Fatal accident inquiries under a sheriff are the Scottish equivalent of the coroner's inquest. As well as covering deaths at work or in custody, they can be called by the Lord Advocate on the grounds that the death was sudden, suspicious, unexplained or gives rise to public concern. The biggest in recent years was for the Lockerbie disaster in which 270 people lost their lives. It took 61 days and cost £3m. In the Diana inquest that sum will barely cover security."

See
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.1971389.0.The_show_that_makes_a_mockery_of_legal_process.php

Rewards for Justice

The Sunday Post, the Scottish Sunday newspaper with the largest readership, published the following article by Adam Docherty about payment to witnesses in the Lockerbie trial on 13 January 2008:

'THE US justice department paid for evidence that helped convict Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing.

'With the next hearing in Megrahi's High Court Appeal due to take place next month, the admission casts a dark shadow over testimony at the original trial -- and the safety of the conviction.

'The Washington DC-based 'Rewards for Justice' organisation boasts that it has paid out more than 72 million dollars to over 50 people who have provided information that prevented international terrorist attacks or have brought to justice those involved in prior acts. Included on its website, in a list of those brought to justice, is Megrahi. Due to a strict policy of confidentiality Rewards for Justice will not name the witnesses nor divulge the exact amount paid to them.

'In June last year the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi's case back to the Court of Appeal after a three-year inquiry. They found six areas of concern and are believed to have uncovered a £2-million reward paid by the CIA to key witness, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci.

'Gauci was the only witness to link Megrahi directly to the bomb, and was therefore instrumental in convicting him on 31 January 2001. Gauci told the trial that Megrahi bought clothes in his shop, which were later used to wrap the bomb.

'At the trial, Gauci appeared uncertain about the exact date he sold the clothes in question, and was not entirely sure that it was Megrahi to whom they were sold. Nonetheless, Megrahi's appeal against conviction was rejected by the Scottish Court in the Netherlands in March 2002. Five years after the trial, former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, publicly described Gauci as being "an apple short of a picnic" and "not quite the full shilling".

'Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the 1988 bombing, is convinced that Megrahi is innocent. Yesterday he said that such huge sums offered to witnesses could encourage them to perjury.

'"Many jurists would consider that promises of money to secure 'evidence' from any individual do not accord with the principles of justice," he explained.

'"It is the timing of such promises rather the payments themselves that determine whether the 'evidence' is likely to be degraded. To many such witnesses such sums would alter their lives.

'"And such promises of money, if concealed from court -- or perhaps divulged only to prosecution -- could be considered a deliberate perversion of justice.

'"Witnesses are supposed to serve the truth. But the old Scots adage holds firm here - 'He who pays the piper calls the tune'.

'"This document gives some idea of the scale of the payments. It also removes any doubt as to whether payments were, indeed, made in this case."

The newspaper also published an article containing Dr Swire's detailed reactions to the revelations. These included the following:

'I entered the Zeist trial believing (as the British Foreign secretary had told us) that there was conclusive evidence of Libya's guilt, and none concerning the guilt of any other nation.

'This was the reason that we, the UK relatives, had made every conceivable effort, including three visits to Colonel Gaddafi, to persuade him to allow his citizens to undergo trial under Scottish criminal justice.

'Within days of the start of the trial at Zeist it became clear that fundamental requirements for the collection of evidence for a criminal trial had been breached, when the court was told that a suitcase, belonging to one of the US passengers had been removed from the crash site, by persons unknown, cut open, and then returned for the Scottish searchers to find, with some of its contents put back and even labelled with the name of the owner.

'The court accepted that the rectangular cutting into that suitcase could not have been a result of the explosion, but appeared unfazed by the possible implications for other items allegedly recovered as evidence. This had intense relevance later in the case to the question of a fragment of timer circuit board, the key forensic 'link' to the credibility of the bomb ever having started from Malta.

'There was evidence of the presence of numerous unidentified US agents roaming the site at a very early stage - a situation which the resources of the Scottish police could never have been expected to anticipate or control.

'From this unhappy start, the picture grew of how certain intelligence agencies had contributed to the assembly of much of the evidence. Intelligence services act in support of the perceived advantage of the countries for which they work: this may or may not be consistent with seeking the truth.

'Remember that for this trial there was no jury.

'Now, as you report, we have the proud exhibition by 'Rewards for Justice' in Washington DC of their use of 'more than 72 million dollars' in persuading witnesses to give evidence in terror-related cases. Former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie's, post trial assessment of the key witness, Mr Gauci, as being 'one apple short of a picnic' was not vouchsafed to the court, but can only serve now to emphasize the possibility that an offer of cash might have affected the evidence that Mr Gauci was willing to give.

'As a layman, I emerged from the Zeist hearings convinced that the verdict should never have been reached.'

Round-up from 9 to 15 January 2008

Now that I have had an opportunity to trawl the internet and the blogosphere, here are references to what I regard as the most interesting and/or significant contributions to Lockerbie knowledge over the past week.

1. Libyaonline and Mathaba on 12 January 2008 both run the same article saying that Libya's first action as President of the United Nations Security Council should be to institute a UN inquiry into the circumstances of the destruction of Pan Am 103, under the chairmanship of Professor Hans Koechler, with particular reference to the death of Bernt Carlsson, the UN Commissioner for Namibia, in the disaster. From internal evidence, I would guess that the author of the article, or a principal source, is Patrick Haseldine. My own view is that it would be embarrassing, and involve a conflict of interest, for Libya to institute, or press for the institution of, such a UN inquiry, given that it is a Libyan state servant who currently stands convicted (wrongly, in my view) of the bombing. See
http://www.libyaonline.com/news/details.php?id=1637
and
http://mathaba.net/rss/?x=577588

2. Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer has an article on 11 January 2008 in OhMyNews International entitled "Confession of an Iranian Terror Czar" in which he contends that Iranian Brigadier General Ahmad Beladi Behbahani confessed to Iran's responsibility for the destruction of Pan Am 103. Further circumstantial evidence is rehearsed. See
http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=381443&rel_no=1&back_url

3. A commentary on, and expansion of some of the supporting evidence in, Dr De Braeckeleer's article is to be found on the Angirfan blog on 12 January. See
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2008/01/lockerbie-behbahani-and-arrest-of-al.html

4. The following letter from Kathleen Flynn, mother of one of those killed on Pan An 103, appears in The New York Times of 12 January:

'Re “Rehabilitating Libya” (editorial, Jan. 5), which says President Bush and leaders of other countries should keep pressing Tripoli for change:

'As the mother of J. P. Flynn, who was blown out of the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland, in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, I hope that this administration makes your editorial required reading for all State Department employees.

'Any rehabilitation of Libya must start at the top with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the same supreme Libyan leader who ruled on Dec. 21, 1988, when a bomb brought down the Pan Am jet. I have a hard time justifying “business as usual” with a terrorist nation and find it even sadder that the call from the United States has not been for regime change.'

See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/opinion/l12libya.html?ref=opinion

The editorial to which Mrs Flynn refers appears at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/opinion/05sat3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

5. The Bulgarian news agency Focus on 12 January published an article entitled "Wanted: Home For Lockerbie Jumbo" which considers various proposals for the final disposal of the wreckage of the aircraft. See
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n131303

An interview with Megrahi

“On February 27, a Scottish court is expected to re-examine the Lockerbie case and hear the appeal submitted by Abd-al-Basit al-Miqrahi, the Libyan national convicted of involvement in the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over this Scottish district. Al-Miqrahi has been serving a life sentence in a prison in Glasgow -the largest city in Scotland -since being convicted of the bombing by an international court that was set up in the Netherlands. “Many observers believe that Al-Miqrahi could soon leave prison and return to Libya now that Britain and Libya have signed an extradition treaty by which he would serve the rest of his sentence in his country. This is a known practice between countries, with the most prominent example being Chad's consent to allow the French nationals convicted of abducting some 100 children from Chad and Darfur to return to Paris and serve the rest of their sentences in a French prison. “Al-Quds al-Arabi visited Al-Miqrahi in his Scottish prison, located 40 kilometres from Glasgow. Entry procedures to the prison were normal and the guards were extremely gentle -we were not even physically searched. We were accompanied by Abd-al-Rahman al-Suwaysi, Libyan general consul in Scotland, and Algerian attorney Sa'd Jabbar. Al-Miqrahi entered the visitation room wearing a thick wool hat, jeans trousers, and a wool jersey, and he had clearly gained weight due to lack of activity. “The words Al-Miqrahi kept repeating all the time were: ‘I did not receive a fair trial’ and that ‘several documents were withheld from the court.’ He laid out on the counter a file filled with paragraphs that had been suppressed, rather, entire pages had been blackened out to conceal information from the judge under the pretext of security considerations. “Anyone visiting Al-Miqrahi will note his extremely high spirits, his unusual sturdiness, and his strong belief in his innocence of all the charges he was convicted of. He would smile every now an then, especially when talking about the letters he had received from Scots who wished him happy holidays, believed in his innocence, and expressed solidarity with him. Al-Miqrahi said: ‘A victim's family wrote to me, saying that on behalf of the citizens of Scotland, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.’ “I asked Al-Miqrahi: ‘What about the Arabs?’ He replied sadly: ‘I have not received a single letter from an Arab, but I have received 27 letters from Scots …’ “He went on to say that Dr Swire, dean of the families of the victims, visited him in prison, as did Reverend John Reef [sic; probably means Rev John Mosey, father of one of the victims] and a number of other people, not to mention the Libyan consul, who visits him on a regular basis. Al-Miqrahi follows events in the Arab world through the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya channels, which he has been allowed to watch in his small cell, measuring no more than 2 by 1.5 meters. One day, a Scottish inmate visited him as he watched Opposite Direction in which the argument was in full swing; the inmate asked if he could understand what was being said, to which Al-Miqrahi said: ‘I can if you can.’ “Al-Miqrahi said that what touched him the most was the martyrdom of child Muhammad al-Durah and his father's desperate attempts to protect him, and added that the image of Muhammad and his father never leave him. Asked about his own children, he said that what pains him the most is that the Scottish Government refused to let them reside near his prison. He went on to say that he longs for them, and that he is especially saddened when his young son asks: ‘When are you coming back dad? You promised us many times that you would return soon.’ “He spoke affectionately and admiringly of South African leader Nelson Mandela, who had visited him in prison, saying that Mandela refused to be accompanied by any British official when he visited him in his prison in Scotland. He added that Mandela also called him when he was visiting the Netherlands because his Dutch hosts had told him that he cannot visit him in prison as it would be a breach of protocol. Al-Miqrahi said that he wrote to many Arab leaders telling them that he wants a free trial, but that none of them replied, not even to humour him. “We asked Consul Abd-al-Rahman if he would remain in his post if Al-Miqrahi is transferred to Libya as expected, to which he said that he would not stay a single day because the consulate was originally opened in order to care for Al-Miqrahi and provide him with all means of comfort. For his part, attorney Sa'd Jabbar, who sat in on the visit, said that the Libyan Government exerted immense pressures on the British Government to retry or deport Al-Miqrahi - pressures that included a suspension of trade agreements. He expected Al-Miqrahi to return very soon. “Al-Miqrahi said that he would return to Libya because he misses his homeland and family, but that he wants to return an innocent man, not a convicted one, adding that he is confident that any free trial would exonerate him of the charges brought against him. His eyes filled with tears of anguish. Asked about food and whether he misses Bazin, Mabkakah, Isban, and Kuskusi, and he said: ‘I miss a lot of these foods even though the consulate supplied me with daily meals throughout the month of Ramadan, but food is not important, freedom and innocence, however, are.’ - Al-Quds al-Arabi, United Kingdom, 6 January 2008

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Service -- of a sort -- resumed

I have arrived at my base in the Northern Cape, where I discover that my internet connection is even slower and less reliable than I had anticipated through previous experience here. Sending and receiving e-mails is problematical, and performing an internet search is virtually impossible. It therefore looks as if updating this blog will have to be largely confined to such research as I can do during my weekly trips (over eighty kilometres of dirt roads) to the nearest centre of population where there is an internet café with a broadband connection. May I therefore repeat my plea to readers of the blog to e-mail me with Lockerbie-related material that they have found.

I am very grateful to Pierre Prier of Le Figaro for sending me the English version of the article from al-Quds al-Arabi, a slightly shortened version of which will appear as the next post.