[This is the headline over a report on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]
A Scottish Parliament committee could [today] decide to close its inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
The justice committee has been investigating the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, on compassionate grounds.
It is due to decide whether the move by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has been adequately scrutinised.
The committee has already been told that medical advice on Megrahi's health was "quite clear".
MSPs must now decide whether there are further issues to pursue surrounding the release of the Libyan in August this year.
Last week the committee heard from Mr MacAskill, who insisted medical advice had been clear. (...)
Megrahi's release angered many US families of the victims of the bombing.
However, the committee inquiry is not considering whether the justice secretary was correct to conclude that compassionate release was justified.
[The above report has now been superseded by one which contains the following:
"The Scottish Parliament inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber is to be closed. (...)
"MSPs on the cross-party committee have decided not to take any further evidence, although they will still publish a report, due next year. (...)
"The inquiry has already heard from Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who insisted the medical advice surrounding the release which was given had been clear.
"MSPs, who were considering whether there were further issues to pursue surrounding the release of the Libyan in August this year, decided to bring the inquiry to an end."
The inquiry is, and always was, a complete waste of time and resources, given that among the other matters excluded from the scope of the committee's inquiry are:
• the circumstances surrounding the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988
• the trial and conviction of Mr al-Megrahi for murder, his subsequent appeals against conviction, or the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in relation to his case
• the circumstances surrounding the negotiation of the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement, or the content of that agreement.]
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Monday, 7 December 2009
Dr Swire on "Pan Am 103: what really happened?"
[What follows is a response by Dr Jim Swire to some of the comments made by readers on the Pan Am 103: what really happened? thread.]
I must congratulate 'Rolfe' and Patrick Haseldine on the interesting set of comments re Pik Botha, Carlsson and Pan Am 103. At the same time I hope they will forgive me for pointing out that to us the relatives, this all falls into the category of 'speculation'.
That is so due to the flat refusal of successive UK governments despite our lobbying of every single Prime Minister since 1988 to allow any meaningful inquiry into the events leading up to the disaster. Had they fulfilled their legal obligation to provide such an inquiry, then hopefully much of this speculation would have reached at least the level of confidence given to those aspects of the disaster which were the subject of the Zeist court and inquiries.
Personally I entered the Zeist courtroom expecting to see the murderers of my daughter condemned and punished. The effect was the opposite, the evidence and the way in which it was derived and used, convinced me that neither Megrahi nor Fhimah were guilty as charged. But I was left with some relatively reliable information, compared with that derived from the best efforts of those people, may of them so well meaning, who previously had had no access whatever to any means of penetrating the official wall of silence, being obliged to speculate as a result of their (and our) exclusion.
As 'Rolfe' says, if it is true that Botha's party had reached London early, enabling the embassy 'on the spur of the moment' to book them on the earlier PA101, I see nothing suspicious in that, but as 'Rolfe' points out, if it is true that they were rebooked onto PA101 at the last minute, 'but some of their retinue could not get seats on that flight and thereupon returned to South Africa' that would be very, very interesting.
The logical speculation from that point would be that they must have known that PA103 was unsafe, for PA103 was only 2/3 full that night. 'Rolfe''s conclusion that such a development would constitute support for knowledge of a much more specific warning than those provided in the 'Helsinki' warning and other warnings already known to have been received would be valid. Patrick correctly confirms that not a single member of the Botha team was on PA103.
Why was PA103 only 2/3 full just before Christmas?
Is 'Rolfe' able to provide chapter and verse for his comment that 'instead of taking up their existing bookings on PA103 [they] just turned round and went home'?
The Zeist court had little to say about any regime's involvement, nor about those who might have been involved in the run up to the massacre itself. The nearest it came to that, for me, was the detailed account provided by the Germans of the PFLP-GC's technology, and of their known workshop on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria's capital city. They were making IEDs which however long they had lain about in an airport before being put aboard an aircraft, were still obligated to explode around 40 minutes following take off, without anyone in the relevant airport having to touch them, or even to open any container which they might be hidden in. An irrefutable fact is that my daughter's death occurred 38 minutes after her plane had left the Heathrow tarmac, just as would have been inevitable had one of these IEDs been used.
The court did not in my view exclude the use of this technology, far from it, it believed the prosecution's speculation - for that was all it was - that Megrahi (whose identification as 'the clothes buyer' was blatantly inadequate) had somehow while passing through Luqa airport penetrated security there (not supported by any evidence), to enable a profoundly unwise route of attack through 2 changes of aircraft, using a digital timer perfectly capable of being set to explode over mid-Atlantic.
Their Lordships were however operating under a severe Handicap, due to the suppression of vitally significant evidence (see below under DC Crawford).
Possible motivation was covered in terms of the past experiences of both Libya and Iran, at the hands of US military forces, but motivation for the assassination of Botha, Carlsson or the US McKee intelligence team was not established. The court's (the defence's actually) interest in Syria was snubbed by that country, leading to the inexplicable abandonment of their 'defence of incrimination' by the Megrahi defence team.
Since Megrahi's second appeal was stopped, his defence team have started to put some very interesting material on the web at and this is where investigating policeman Harry Bell enters the scene. Harry recorded in a diary written while on the island of Malta, how US official(s) was/were suggesting the payment of '$10,000 up front' with' $2,000,000 to follow, to Tony Gauci plus a payment of $1,000,000 to Gauci's brother Paul.
It is not clear to me whether Bell passed this on to the Crown Office, nor what his response was to the US agent suggesting it.
The astoundingly amateurish attitude attributed to DC Crawford, as to the significance of Carlsson in all this supports my worst fears as to the competence of the police force involved to cope with so great a disaster and investigation. If DC Crawford or his force really was prepared to write off the possible significance of Carlsson on the hearsay evidence of a single librarian, that says a great deal about the confidence we should have in other aspects of the investigation. The agreement to this decision by Stuart Henderson does little to reassure either, for Henderson has publicly claimed in front of a crowd of US relatives that he 'would like to wring the neck of anyone who disagreed with the police findings.' Do not these sound rather like the words of someone trying to defend something he knows to be indefensible?
Nowhere are doubts about the calibre of the investigating police more worrying than in the case of the Heathrow break-in. That occurred in the very early morning of 21/12/88 through the appropriate sector of Heathrow security to give access to where the PanAm containers were being loaded that evening. It was known to Heathrow through the night security file records on the morning of 21/12/88, and to the Met's special branch, who interviewed Manley, the night security guard in January 1989.
Yet the information about this break-in 'disappeared' for 12 years, till after the Zeist court had convicted Megrahi.
I wrote to the Crown Office to ask them if they had known about the break-in during these 12 years, and they denied knowing. They then made the disingenuous comment that the break-in didn't matter because the first appeal did know but did not overturn the verdict.
Think about their Lordships in the trial who said that the absence of evidence as to how Megrahi penetrated security at Luqa was 'a difficulty for the Crown', and compare that with what they were denied knowing - a fully documented break-in appropriate in time and position to the spot from which the fatal aircraft was actually loaded with its cargo. It seems pretty obvious to me that had they known they would have had to have found Megrahi not guilty, since Heathrow was strongly supported by evidence, whereas Luqa was not.
But glossing over the Crown's outrageous misrepresentation of the likely effect of the missing evidence upon the court's verdict, and assuming that they really didn't know during those 12 years, then it looks most likely that since the Met would surely have told the investigating Scots about it, the Scottish police probably failed to pass it on to the Crown Office.
What would be their motive for that? Well again we speculate, but the Heathrow evidence was desperately dangerous to the hypothesis that the device had come from Malta, simply because the clothing had. The annals of police investigations are full of instances where the driving hypothesis has destroyed the objectivity of the investigating force, and caused a tunnel vision where only matters that fit that hypothesis are considered.
Owing to the refusal to launch a properly empowered inquiry, it has been impossible thus far to probe the work of the Dumfries and Galloway police, nor indeed the Thatcher government's decision to put them in charge rather than the more experienced teams available in London.
In speculating about how much was known beforehand about the impending disaster, and by whom, we are discussing the worst fear that we have about this cruel business, the real possibility that our families were allowed to march on board an aircraft known by some of those who should have protected it to be doomed. To resolve that issue really would be a huge help in advancing our recovery from the loss of those we loved. Even if it turned out to be true, we would rather know the truth than be left any longer in such doubt, through the absence of a properly endowed inquiry.
Lest there be any doubt about it by the way our Fatal Accident Inquiry, though also denied knowledge of the Heathrow break-in, concluded that the disaster was preventable and that the aircraft was under the 'Host State Protection of the United Kingdom'.
I am a signatory to the appeal put out by JFM (Justice for Megrahi) to the UN for a UN based inquiry. The silence from them thus far is as dense as that from Whitehall has been for 21 years. The issues about which we speculate here appear more appropriate for a UN inquiry than simply a UK one, but the latter at least is obligatory under UK law.
Fortunately current ECHR legislation in this country entitles us as next of kin of the dead, to a suitably empowered inquiry.
Absent a fully supportive reply from Gordon Brown to our request for such an inquiry, for which we are still waiting, we shall have to see what Gareth Peirce and the UK justice system can do for us.
I must congratulate 'Rolfe' and Patrick Haseldine on the interesting set of comments re Pik Botha, Carlsson and Pan Am 103. At the same time I hope they will forgive me for pointing out that to us the relatives, this all falls into the category of 'speculation'.
That is so due to the flat refusal of successive UK governments despite our lobbying of every single Prime Minister since 1988 to allow any meaningful inquiry into the events leading up to the disaster. Had they fulfilled their legal obligation to provide such an inquiry, then hopefully much of this speculation would have reached at least the level of confidence given to those aspects of the disaster which were the subject of the Zeist court and inquiries.
Personally I entered the Zeist courtroom expecting to see the murderers of my daughter condemned and punished. The effect was the opposite, the evidence and the way in which it was derived and used, convinced me that neither Megrahi nor Fhimah were guilty as charged. But I was left with some relatively reliable information, compared with that derived from the best efforts of those people, may of them so well meaning, who previously had had no access whatever to any means of penetrating the official wall of silence, being obliged to speculate as a result of their (and our) exclusion.
As 'Rolfe' says, if it is true that Botha's party had reached London early, enabling the embassy 'on the spur of the moment' to book them on the earlier PA101, I see nothing suspicious in that, but as 'Rolfe' points out, if it is true that they were rebooked onto PA101 at the last minute, 'but some of their retinue could not get seats on that flight and thereupon returned to South Africa' that would be very, very interesting.
The logical speculation from that point would be that they must have known that PA103 was unsafe, for PA103 was only 2/3 full that night. 'Rolfe''s conclusion that such a development would constitute support for knowledge of a much more specific warning than those provided in the 'Helsinki' warning and other warnings already known to have been received would be valid. Patrick correctly confirms that not a single member of the Botha team was on PA103.
Why was PA103 only 2/3 full just before Christmas?
Is 'Rolfe' able to provide chapter and verse for his comment that 'instead of taking up their existing bookings on PA103 [they] just turned round and went home'?
The Zeist court had little to say about any regime's involvement, nor about those who might have been involved in the run up to the massacre itself. The nearest it came to that, for me, was the detailed account provided by the Germans of the PFLP-GC's technology, and of their known workshop on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria's capital city. They were making IEDs which however long they had lain about in an airport before being put aboard an aircraft, were still obligated to explode around 40 minutes following take off, without anyone in the relevant airport having to touch them, or even to open any container which they might be hidden in. An irrefutable fact is that my daughter's death occurred 38 minutes after her plane had left the Heathrow tarmac, just as would have been inevitable had one of these IEDs been used.
The court did not in my view exclude the use of this technology, far from it, it believed the prosecution's speculation - for that was all it was - that Megrahi (whose identification as 'the clothes buyer' was blatantly inadequate) had somehow while passing through Luqa airport penetrated security there (not supported by any evidence), to enable a profoundly unwise route of attack through 2 changes of aircraft, using a digital timer perfectly capable of being set to explode over mid-Atlantic.
Their Lordships were however operating under a severe Handicap, due to the suppression of vitally significant evidence (see below under DC Crawford).
Possible motivation was covered in terms of the past experiences of both Libya and Iran, at the hands of US military forces, but motivation for the assassination of Botha, Carlsson or the US McKee intelligence team was not established. The court's (the defence's actually) interest in Syria was snubbed by that country, leading to the inexplicable abandonment of their 'defence of incrimination' by the Megrahi defence team.
Since Megrahi's second appeal was stopped, his defence team have started to put some very interesting material on the web at
It is not clear to me whether Bell passed this on to the Crown Office, nor what his response was to the US agent suggesting it.
The astoundingly amateurish attitude attributed to DC Crawford, as to the significance of Carlsson in all this supports my worst fears as to the competence of the police force involved to cope with so great a disaster and investigation. If DC Crawford or his force really was prepared to write off the possible significance of Carlsson on the hearsay evidence of a single librarian, that says a great deal about the confidence we should have in other aspects of the investigation. The agreement to this decision by Stuart Henderson does little to reassure either, for Henderson has publicly claimed in front of a crowd of US relatives that he 'would like to wring the neck of anyone who disagreed with the police findings.' Do not these sound rather like the words of someone trying to defend something he knows to be indefensible?
Nowhere are doubts about the calibre of the investigating police more worrying than in the case of the Heathrow break-in. That occurred in the very early morning of 21/12/88 through the appropriate sector of Heathrow security to give access to where the PanAm containers were being loaded that evening. It was known to Heathrow through the night security file records on the morning of 21/12/88, and to the Met's special branch, who interviewed Manley, the night security guard in January 1989.
Yet the information about this break-in 'disappeared' for 12 years, till after the Zeist court had convicted Megrahi.
I wrote to the Crown Office to ask them if they had known about the break-in during these 12 years, and they denied knowing. They then made the disingenuous comment that the break-in didn't matter because the first appeal did know but did not overturn the verdict.
Think about their Lordships in the trial who said that the absence of evidence as to how Megrahi penetrated security at Luqa was 'a difficulty for the Crown', and compare that with what they were denied knowing - a fully documented break-in appropriate in time and position to the spot from which the fatal aircraft was actually loaded with its cargo. It seems pretty obvious to me that had they known they would have had to have found Megrahi not guilty, since Heathrow was strongly supported by evidence, whereas Luqa was not.
But glossing over the Crown's outrageous misrepresentation of the likely effect of the missing evidence upon the court's verdict, and assuming that they really didn't know during those 12 years, then it looks most likely that since the Met would surely have told the investigating Scots about it, the Scottish police probably failed to pass it on to the Crown Office.
What would be their motive for that? Well again we speculate, but the Heathrow evidence was desperately dangerous to the hypothesis that the device had come from Malta, simply because the clothing had. The annals of police investigations are full of instances where the driving hypothesis has destroyed the objectivity of the investigating force, and caused a tunnel vision where only matters that fit that hypothesis are considered.
Owing to the refusal to launch a properly empowered inquiry, it has been impossible thus far to probe the work of the Dumfries and Galloway police, nor indeed the Thatcher government's decision to put them in charge rather than the more experienced teams available in London.
In speculating about how much was known beforehand about the impending disaster, and by whom, we are discussing the worst fear that we have about this cruel business, the real possibility that our families were allowed to march on board an aircraft known by some of those who should have protected it to be doomed. To resolve that issue really would be a huge help in advancing our recovery from the loss of those we loved. Even if it turned out to be true, we would rather know the truth than be left any longer in such doubt, through the absence of a properly endowed inquiry.
Lest there be any doubt about it by the way our Fatal Accident Inquiry, though also denied knowledge of the Heathrow break-in, concluded that the disaster was preventable and that the aircraft was under the 'Host State Protection of the United Kingdom'.
I am a signatory to the appeal put out by JFM (Justice for Megrahi) to the UN for a UN based inquiry. The silence from them thus far is as dense as that from Whitehall has been for 21 years. The issues about which we speculate here appear more appropriate for a UN inquiry than simply a UK one, but the latter at least is obligatory under UK law.
Fortunately current ECHR legislation in this country entitles us as next of kin of the dead, to a suitably empowered inquiry.
Absent a fully supportive reply from Gordon Brown to our request for such an inquiry, for which we are still waiting, we shall have to see what Gareth Peirce and the UK justice system can do for us.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Lockerbie doubters branded ‘Holocaust deniers’
[This is the headline over a report in today's Scottish edition of The Sunday Times. It reads as follows:]
A representative of families of American victims of the Lockerbie disaster has likened those questioning the guilt of the convicted Libyan bomber to “Holocaust deniers”.
Frank Duggan, an official spokesman for Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, described those who believe Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is innocent as a “shameless band of conspiracy mavens”.
Those criticised include Christine Grahame, the nationalist MSP, her researcher Mark Hirst, Robert Black, the Edinburgh-based legal expert who helped broker Megrahi’s trial in the Netherlands and Gareth Peirce, the London-based human rights lawyer.
In an email sent to Richard Marquise, a former FBI official who headed the investigation, Duggan said Grahame, Hirst, Black and Peirce were “no worse than Holocaust deniers who will not accept the facts before their faces”.
Grahame, who believes that Iran, not Libya, was behind the 1988 bombing, which claimed 270 lives, said Duggan’s comments were ludicrous. “My father and the fathers and grandfathers of many of the other people who are seeking the truth about who attacked Pan Am 103 were fighting the perpetrators of the Holocaust for three years before the US saw fit to get involved,” she said.
Hirst accused Duggan of a “highly personal” smear campaign against those who doubted the safety of Megrahi’s conviction.
The row reflects anger among the families of the American victims at the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, has outlived his three-month prognosis. Last week, MacAskill defended his decision to a Holyrood inquiry into the handling of Megrahi’s release, insisting that the medical advice was “quite clear”.
US intelligence files published last week claim Megrahi was involved in buying and developing chemical weapons for Libya.
Black declined to comment and Peirce was unavailable for comment.
[I declined to comment since I was unwilling to descend into the gutter with Mr Duggan.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which, on six grounds, found that Mr Megrahi's conviction may have amounted to a miscarriage of justice, no better than Holocaust deniers, forsooth!
According to The Chambers Dictionary "maven" or "mavin" is US slang, from Yiddish, for pundit or expert.
The full e-mail exchange between Mr Duggan, Richard Marquise and Mr Hirst can be read here.
An interesting commentary (in German) on The Sunday Times article can be found on the Austrian Wings website. A more general article on the Lockerbie affair on the same website by Editor in Chief Patrick Radosta can be read here.]
A representative of families of American victims of the Lockerbie disaster has likened those questioning the guilt of the convicted Libyan bomber to “Holocaust deniers”.
Frank Duggan, an official spokesman for Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, described those who believe Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is innocent as a “shameless band of conspiracy mavens”.
Those criticised include Christine Grahame, the nationalist MSP, her researcher Mark Hirst, Robert Black, the Edinburgh-based legal expert who helped broker Megrahi’s trial in the Netherlands and Gareth Peirce, the London-based human rights lawyer.
In an email sent to Richard Marquise, a former FBI official who headed the investigation, Duggan said Grahame, Hirst, Black and Peirce were “no worse than Holocaust deniers who will not accept the facts before their faces”.
Grahame, who believes that Iran, not Libya, was behind the 1988 bombing, which claimed 270 lives, said Duggan’s comments were ludicrous. “My father and the fathers and grandfathers of many of the other people who are seeking the truth about who attacked Pan Am 103 were fighting the perpetrators of the Holocaust for three years before the US saw fit to get involved,” she said.
Hirst accused Duggan of a “highly personal” smear campaign against those who doubted the safety of Megrahi’s conviction.
The row reflects anger among the families of the American victims at the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, has outlived his three-month prognosis. Last week, MacAskill defended his decision to a Holyrood inquiry into the handling of Megrahi’s release, insisting that the medical advice was “quite clear”.
US intelligence files published last week claim Megrahi was involved in buying and developing chemical weapons for Libya.
Black declined to comment and Peirce was unavailable for comment.
[I declined to comment since I was unwilling to descend into the gutter with Mr Duggan.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which, on six grounds, found that Mr Megrahi's conviction may have amounted to a miscarriage of justice, no better than Holocaust deniers, forsooth!
According to The Chambers Dictionary "maven" or "mavin" is US slang, from Yiddish, for pundit or expert.
The full e-mail exchange between Mr Duggan, Richard Marquise and Mr Hirst can be read here.
An interesting commentary (in German) on The Sunday Times article can be found on the Austrian Wings website. A more general article on the Lockerbie affair on the same website by Editor in Chief Patrick Radosta can be read here.]
Friday, 4 December 2009
From Prime Minister's Questions on 2 December 2009
Q2. [303209] Mr Ben Wallace (Lancaster and Wyre) (Con): Recently revealed figures show that, since 2001, 140 inmates have been allowed to die of cancer while serving their sentences in UK jails. In the light of the Business Secretary's recent country sports activity, is there, under this Government, one rule for British inmates and another one for Libyan mass murderers?
The Prime Minister: As the hon Gentleman knows, the decision on Libya was made by the Scottish Administration. It was their decision to make; it was not our decision to make.
[The above question and answer are taken from House of Commons Hansard for 2 December 2009. The Business Secretary is Lord Mandelson who was recently reported to have attended a country house shooting party at which one of the other guests was Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi.]
The Prime Minister: As the hon Gentleman knows, the decision on Libya was made by the Scottish Administration. It was their decision to make; it was not our decision to make.
[The above question and answer are taken from House of Commons Hansard for 2 December 2009. The Business Secretary is Lord Mandelson who was recently reported to have attended a country house shooting party at which one of the other guests was Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi.]
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Labour MSP criticised for not declaring he is brother of Lockerbie lawyer
[This is the headline over a report on the heraldscotland website. It reads in part:]
An MSP has been criticised for not declaring that he is related to the Lockerbie bomber's lawyer.
Labour's James Kelly is Tony Kelly's brother and sits on the Holyrood committee investigating the Scottish Government's handling of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's release from jail.
He was among those on the committee to question Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill as the inquiry got under way today.
The Glasgow Rutherglen MSP joined the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee on November 10 and told the convener he had no declarations of interest.
Mr Kelly insisted today the SNP criticism was "frankly ludicrous" and that his relationship was "well known".
But SNP committee member Stewart Maxwell said: "In the interests of transparency I am surprised that Mr Kelly did not see fit to declare his personal relationship to Mr Megrahi's lawyer.
"In a case which has caused such controversy, for any cloud to hang over today's hearing is deeply unfortunate.
"There is so far no suggestion that anything Mr Kelly asked was inappropriate, but without this potential conflict on the record, members and the public are unable to judge." (...)
Mr Kelly said: "The fact that Tony Kelly is my brother is well known and has been for years. It has certainly been reported in national newspapers.
"The fact is, myself and my brother have differing views and the idea that there was any conflict of interest is frankly ridiculous."
[Just how ridiculous the conflict of interest claim is, can be seen from Mr James Kelly's voting record on 2 September 2009 on the motions and amendments following the Scottish Parliament debate on the release of Abdelbaset Megrahi. In each one of these votes Mr Kelly supported the Labour Party's criticism of Kenny MacAskill for repatriating his brother's client.]
An MSP has been criticised for not declaring that he is related to the Lockerbie bomber's lawyer.
Labour's James Kelly is Tony Kelly's brother and sits on the Holyrood committee investigating the Scottish Government's handling of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's release from jail.
He was among those on the committee to question Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill as the inquiry got under way today.
The Glasgow Rutherglen MSP joined the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee on November 10 and told the convener he had no declarations of interest.
Mr Kelly insisted today the SNP criticism was "frankly ludicrous" and that his relationship was "well known".
But SNP committee member Stewart Maxwell said: "In the interests of transparency I am surprised that Mr Kelly did not see fit to declare his personal relationship to Mr Megrahi's lawyer.
"In a case which has caused such controversy, for any cloud to hang over today's hearing is deeply unfortunate.
"There is so far no suggestion that anything Mr Kelly asked was inappropriate, but without this potential conflict on the record, members and the public are unable to judge." (...)
Mr Kelly said: "The fact that Tony Kelly is my brother is well known and has been for years. It has certainly been reported in national newspapers.
"The fact is, myself and my brother have differing views and the idea that there was any conflict of interest is frankly ridiculous."
[Just how ridiculous the conflict of interest claim is, can be seen from Mr James Kelly's voting record on 2 September 2009 on the motions and amendments following the Scottish Parliament debate on the release of Abdelbaset Megrahi. In each one of these votes Mr Kelly supported the Labour Party's criticism of Kenny MacAskill for repatriating his brother's client.]
Justice Committee takes evidence from MacAskill and officials
[What follows is the agenda paper relating to today's hearing by the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee into the process that led to the repatriation of Abdelbaset Megrahi.]
Justice Committee
33rd Meeting, 2009 (Session 3), Tuesday 1 December 2009
Inquiry into decision on Abdelbaset al-Megrahi
The purpose of today's item is to take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary and officials [Robert Gordon and George Burgess] on the decision on Mr al-Megrahi on any issue falling within the remit that the Committee agreed for the inquiry (attached). At next week's meeting, there will be an opportunity for the Committee to decide whether it is now satisfied on the basis of the evidence heard, or whether it wishes to continue the inquiry. At that stage, the Committee will also have the opportunity to decide whether it wishes to report to the Parliament.
Remit
The Justice Committee has agreed to undertake a short inquiry into the Scottish Government’s handling of:
• the application by Mr Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for compassionate release under section 3 of the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993; and
• the application by the Libyan Government for the transfer of Mr al-Megrahi under the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement.
The inquiry will focus on the process followed by the Scottish Government in considering these applications and announcing the Cabinet Secretary’s decision. It will not consider the question of whether the Cabinet Secretary was right to conclude that compassionate release was justified in the circumstances.
Within this remit, the Committee may wish to consider:
• the timescale for consideration of the applications, and the advice and representations taken into account
• the form and timing of the announcement of the Cabinet Secretary’s decision
• the timing of Mr al-Megrahi’s release from prison and return to Libya, and the steps taken by the Scottish Government to ensure that his reception there was appropriate
• the conditions attached to the licence on which Mr al-Megrahi was released.
Among the issues excluded by the inquiry remit are, in particular:
• the circumstances surrounding the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988
• the trial and conviction of Mr al-Megrahi for murder, his subsequent appeals against conviction, or the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in relation to his case
• the circumstances surrounding the negotiation of the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement, or the content of that agreement.
The Committee intends to conduct the inquiry, in the first instance, by assessing the available documentation (which may include information that has not so far been published) and then taking evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, relevant officials and others who contributed to the advice on which his decision was based. At that point, which it expects to reach by the end of 2009, the Committee will consider whether it is satisfied, or whether to extend the inquiry further. It will also decide at that point whether to report its conclusions to the Parliament.
Given this approach, the Committee is not at this stage issuing a general call for evidence.
[The following are excerpts from the report on the STV News website of Mr MacAskill's evidence.]
The Justice Secretary has told a Holyrood Committee that medical advice given prior to the release of the Lockerbie bomber was "quite clear".
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was freed in August on compassionate grounds on the expectation that he had three months to live, however, that period expired last month. (...)
Convenor Bill Aitken questioned Mr MacAskill about the time prediction, saying: "We're beyond that now. What we need is supporting evidence that, in all circumstances, it was appropriate to assume that this three-month prognosis was accurate."
The Justice Secretary said he acted on the basis of a medical report provided to him by Dr Andrew Fraser, the Scottish Prison Service's Director of health and social care.
He said: "In the report it was quite clear, and this is not an exact science, but the prognosis was that Mr Al Megrahi fell within the three-month timescale.
"Thereafter it was concluded that he did qualify for the terms of compassionate release." (...)
Mr Aitken said it was not clear if an "unanimity of view" existed among all the doctors who treated Megrahi.
He asked: "Was there a firm consensus that this three-month prognosis was accurate?"
But Mr MacAskill insisted Dr Fraser's report was clear about the "deterioration" of Megrahi's condition and said a three-month prognosis was accurate.
The Justice Secretary added: "That was his advice and that was the advice I took."
[The full Hansard report of the committee session can be read here.]
Justice Committee
33rd Meeting, 2009 (Session 3), Tuesday 1 December 2009
Inquiry into decision on Abdelbaset al-Megrahi
The purpose of today's item is to take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary and officials [Robert Gordon and George Burgess] on the decision on Mr al-Megrahi on any issue falling within the remit that the Committee agreed for the inquiry (attached). At next week's meeting, there will be an opportunity for the Committee to decide whether it is now satisfied on the basis of the evidence heard, or whether it wishes to continue the inquiry. At that stage, the Committee will also have the opportunity to decide whether it wishes to report to the Parliament.
Remit
The Justice Committee has agreed to undertake a short inquiry into the Scottish Government’s handling of:
• the application by Mr Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for compassionate release under section 3 of the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993; and
• the application by the Libyan Government for the transfer of Mr al-Megrahi under the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement.
The inquiry will focus on the process followed by the Scottish Government in considering these applications and announcing the Cabinet Secretary’s decision. It will not consider the question of whether the Cabinet Secretary was right to conclude that compassionate release was justified in the circumstances.
Within this remit, the Committee may wish to consider:
• the timescale for consideration of the applications, and the advice and representations taken into account
• the form and timing of the announcement of the Cabinet Secretary’s decision
• the timing of Mr al-Megrahi’s release from prison and return to Libya, and the steps taken by the Scottish Government to ensure that his reception there was appropriate
• the conditions attached to the licence on which Mr al-Megrahi was released.
Among the issues excluded by the inquiry remit are, in particular:
• the circumstances surrounding the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988
• the trial and conviction of Mr al-Megrahi for murder, his subsequent appeals against conviction, or the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in relation to his case
• the circumstances surrounding the negotiation of the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement, or the content of that agreement.
The Committee intends to conduct the inquiry, in the first instance, by assessing the available documentation (which may include information that has not so far been published) and then taking evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, relevant officials and others who contributed to the advice on which his decision was based. At that point, which it expects to reach by the end of 2009, the Committee will consider whether it is satisfied, or whether to extend the inquiry further. It will also decide at that point whether to report its conclusions to the Parliament.
Given this approach, the Committee is not at this stage issuing a general call for evidence.
[The following are excerpts from the report on the STV News website of Mr MacAskill's evidence.]
The Justice Secretary has told a Holyrood Committee that medical advice given prior to the release of the Lockerbie bomber was "quite clear".
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was freed in August on compassionate grounds on the expectation that he had three months to live, however, that period expired last month. (...)
Convenor Bill Aitken questioned Mr MacAskill about the time prediction, saying: "We're beyond that now. What we need is supporting evidence that, in all circumstances, it was appropriate to assume that this three-month prognosis was accurate."
The Justice Secretary said he acted on the basis of a medical report provided to him by Dr Andrew Fraser, the Scottish Prison Service's Director of health and social care.
He said: "In the report it was quite clear, and this is not an exact science, but the prognosis was that Mr Al Megrahi fell within the three-month timescale.
"Thereafter it was concluded that he did qualify for the terms of compassionate release." (...)
Mr Aitken said it was not clear if an "unanimity of view" existed among all the doctors who treated Megrahi.
He asked: "Was there a firm consensus that this three-month prognosis was accurate?"
But Mr MacAskill insisted Dr Fraser's report was clear about the "deterioration" of Megrahi's condition and said a three-month prognosis was accurate.
The Justice Secretary added: "That was his advice and that was the advice I took."
[The full Hansard report of the committee session can be read here.]
Lockerbie relative's doubts over Megrahi release
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]
Fears have been raised that Kenny MacAskill unduly influenced the course of criminal proceedings by delaying key decisions over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
As Mr MacAskill faces MSPs today to answer questions about the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a Lockerbie relative said it was "unclear" whether the justice secretary acted responsibly.
In a submission to Holyrood's justice committee, Matt Berkley, who lost his brother in the bombing, highlighted delays he says put pressure on the bomber to drop his appeal.
These include a 43-day wait to contact the relatives after the transfer application was made and a three-week wait to respond to Megrahi's acceptance of Mr MacAskill's invitation for a meeting.
Mr Berkley also said it was not clear the Scottish Government had "provided accurate, fair and balanced information to the prisoner". He said Mr MacAskill appeared not to have told Megrahi the range of options he had in relation to the dropping of his appeal.
"Did the justice secretary take adequate care, through promptness of action and appropriate information to the appellant, to avoid influencing the court process?" asked Mr Berkley in his submission.
A spokesman for Mr MacAskill said: "Megrahi and his legal team chose to abandon their appeal … their decision bore no relation to the release."
[This comment is somewhat disingenuous. Mr Megrahi and his legal team did not know whether repatriation would be granted (if at all) under prisoner transfer or compassionate release. To keep the first possibility open, the appeal had to be abandoned. How, therefore, can it seriously be said that their decision bore no relation to the release?]
Fears have been raised that Kenny MacAskill unduly influenced the course of criminal proceedings by delaying key decisions over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
As Mr MacAskill faces MSPs today to answer questions about the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a Lockerbie relative said it was "unclear" whether the justice secretary acted responsibly.
In a submission to Holyrood's justice committee, Matt Berkley, who lost his brother in the bombing, highlighted delays he says put pressure on the bomber to drop his appeal.
These include a 43-day wait to contact the relatives after the transfer application was made and a three-week wait to respond to Megrahi's acceptance of Mr MacAskill's invitation for a meeting.
Mr Berkley also said it was not clear the Scottish Government had "provided accurate, fair and balanced information to the prisoner". He said Mr MacAskill appeared not to have told Megrahi the range of options he had in relation to the dropping of his appeal.
"Did the justice secretary take adequate care, through promptness of action and appropriate information to the appellant, to avoid influencing the court process?" asked Mr Berkley in his submission.
A spokesman for Mr MacAskill said: "Megrahi and his legal team chose to abandon their appeal … their decision bore no relation to the release."
[This comment is somewhat disingenuous. Mr Megrahi and his legal team did not know whether repatriation would be granted (if at all) under prisoner transfer or compassionate release. To keep the first possibility open, the appeal had to be abandoned. How, therefore, can it seriously be said that their decision bore no relation to the release?]
Monday, 30 November 2009
The Lockerbie bombing: facts, deception and misinformation
This is the heading over a long post on the Garry Crystal blog. It can be read here.
Sunday, 29 November 2009
British MPs, activist say Malta should defend itself on Lockerbie case
[This is the headline over an article by Caroline Muscat in today's edition of the Maltese newspaper The Sunday Times. It reads in part:]
Two former British Labour and Conservative MPs have joined American political activist Noam Chomsky in calling on the Maltese government to defend the country's reputation.
Prof Chomsky and the British MPs are signatories to a letter sent to the government calling on Malta to support a demand for an inquiry by the UN General Assembly into the 1988 Pan Am bombing that claimed 270 lives.
The letter sent by the 'Justice for Megrahi' campaign, which includes relatives of the victims in the bombing, is also signed by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for 43 years, and Teddy Taylor, MP for the Conservatives for 36 years, said they had doubts about the original verdict. They said if the Maltese government supported a UN inquiry, then it could clear the country's name and help the families of the victims establish the truth.
Prof Chomsky described the events surrounding the case of the convicted bomber Abdelbasset Al Megrahi as "a remarkable illustration of the conformism and obedience of intellectual opinion in the West".
He told The Sunday Times: "I think the trial was very seriously flawed, including crucially the alleged role of Malta. There is every reason to call for a very serious independent inquiry." (...)
The original conviction of Mr Al Megrahi had relied heavily on the testimony of Tony Gauci, the owner of a shop in Sliema who said the Libyan had bought clothes from his shop that were later found wrapped around the bomb.
But it has since emerged that Al Megrahi's defence team had argued in the recent appeal that the Maltese witness was paid "in excess of $2 million", while his brother Paul Gauci was paid "in excess of $1 million" for their co-operation. Neither has ever denied receiving payment.
The former British Conservative MP referred to Mr Gauci's testimony when speaking to The Sunday Times. He said if "our friends in Malta" were willing to pursue the issue at the UN and seek the truth that may have been flawed by "a statement of a resident of Malta who appears to have benefited enormously from his identification and who then moved to Australia", then the government would help relatives of the victims, and itself.
Mr Taylor recalled Malta's role in the Second World War, saying "British people my age have a very special regard for Malta as a centre of brave and trustworthy people who were willing to stand firm against fascism".
Mr Dalyell said: "I have believed since 1991 that the Crown Office in Edinburgh should have respected the stated view of the Maltese government, Air Malta, Luqa airport authorities and the Malta police that no unaccounted for luggage, let alone a bomb, was placed on the flight."
Although Malta has always denied any involvement in the act, it remains implicated by the government's refusal to take up the cause.
When Mr Gauci said in the original trial that he believed Mr Al Megrahi purchased clothes from his shop, it provided the prosecution with grounds to argue that the bomb had left from Malta and then transferred to the fateful flight.
Malta had provided ample evidence to support its contention that there was no unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta flight KM180 on December 21, 1988. But Malta's defence was trumped by Mr Gauci's testimony.
Two former British Labour and Conservative MPs have joined American political activist Noam Chomsky in calling on the Maltese government to defend the country's reputation.
Prof Chomsky and the British MPs are signatories to a letter sent to the government calling on Malta to support a demand for an inquiry by the UN General Assembly into the 1988 Pan Am bombing that claimed 270 lives.
The letter sent by the 'Justice for Megrahi' campaign, which includes relatives of the victims in the bombing, is also signed by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for 43 years, and Teddy Taylor, MP for the Conservatives for 36 years, said they had doubts about the original verdict. They said if the Maltese government supported a UN inquiry, then it could clear the country's name and help the families of the victims establish the truth.
Prof Chomsky described the events surrounding the case of the convicted bomber Abdelbasset Al Megrahi as "a remarkable illustration of the conformism and obedience of intellectual opinion in the West".
He told The Sunday Times: "I think the trial was very seriously flawed, including crucially the alleged role of Malta. There is every reason to call for a very serious independent inquiry." (...)
The original conviction of Mr Al Megrahi had relied heavily on the testimony of Tony Gauci, the owner of a shop in Sliema who said the Libyan had bought clothes from his shop that were later found wrapped around the bomb.
But it has since emerged that Al Megrahi's defence team had argued in the recent appeal that the Maltese witness was paid "in excess of $2 million", while his brother Paul Gauci was paid "in excess of $1 million" for their co-operation. Neither has ever denied receiving payment.
The former British Conservative MP referred to Mr Gauci's testimony when speaking to The Sunday Times. He said if "our friends in Malta" were willing to pursue the issue at the UN and seek the truth that may have been flawed by "a statement of a resident of Malta who appears to have benefited enormously from his identification and who then moved to Australia", then the government would help relatives of the victims, and itself.
Mr Taylor recalled Malta's role in the Second World War, saying "British people my age have a very special regard for Malta as a centre of brave and trustworthy people who were willing to stand firm against fascism".
Mr Dalyell said: "I have believed since 1991 that the Crown Office in Edinburgh should have respected the stated view of the Maltese government, Air Malta, Luqa airport authorities and the Malta police that no unaccounted for luggage, let alone a bomb, was placed on the flight."
Although Malta has always denied any involvement in the act, it remains implicated by the government's refusal to take up the cause.
When Mr Gauci said in the original trial that he believed Mr Al Megrahi purchased clothes from his shop, it provided the prosecution with grounds to argue that the bomb had left from Malta and then transferred to the fateful flight.
Malta had provided ample evidence to support its contention that there was no unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta flight KM180 on December 21, 1988. But Malta's defence was trumped by Mr Gauci's testimony.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Seventeen year old press release treated as news by Sunday Times
[What follows are excerpts from a report in The Sunday Times. The document in question is a US State Department press release dating from April 1992 which appeared on the State Department website for many years and is well known to all who have taken the trouble to follow the Lockerbie case. What motivated the newspaper to draw it again to our attention in November 2009 is a mystery.]
The Lockerbie bomber was implicated in the purchase and development of chemical weapons by Libya, according to documents produced by the American government.
The papers also claim that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi sought to sponsor Latin American terrorist groups and to buy 1,000 letter bombs from Greek arms dealers while working as a Libyan intelligence officer. The documents, which were prepared by the US State Department, reveal the extent of Megrahi’s alleged terrorist activities. (...)
In 1987, Megrahi was appointed director of Libya’s Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS), which served the Department of Military Procurement. In a section headed “Procurement of chemical weapons precursors”, the documents state: “An al-Megrahi subordinate operating in Germany in 1988 played an important role in acquiring and shipping chemical weapons precursors to Libya. Megrahi is also linked to a senior manager of Libya’s chemical weapons development program.” (...)
Bill Aitken, justice spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said the documents made a mockery of Britain’s ongoing trade links with Libya and the decision to release Megrahi. (...)
Tony Kelly, Megrahi’s lawyer in Scotland, said he was unaware of the existence of the State Department documents but was sure they were based on “unsubstantiated and unattributed intelligence rumours”.
“If there was any evidence backing any of this up I am absolutely certain it would have been introduced at trial, and it wasn’t,” he said.
The Lockerbie bomber was implicated in the purchase and development of chemical weapons by Libya, according to documents produced by the American government.
The papers also claim that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi sought to sponsor Latin American terrorist groups and to buy 1,000 letter bombs from Greek arms dealers while working as a Libyan intelligence officer. The documents, which were prepared by the US State Department, reveal the extent of Megrahi’s alleged terrorist activities. (...)
In 1987, Megrahi was appointed director of Libya’s Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS), which served the Department of Military Procurement. In a section headed “Procurement of chemical weapons precursors”, the documents state: “An al-Megrahi subordinate operating in Germany in 1988 played an important role in acquiring and shipping chemical weapons precursors to Libya. Megrahi is also linked to a senior manager of Libya’s chemical weapons development program.” (...)
Bill Aitken, justice spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said the documents made a mockery of Britain’s ongoing trade links with Libya and the decision to release Megrahi. (...)
Tony Kelly, Megrahi’s lawyer in Scotland, said he was unaware of the existence of the State Department documents but was sure they were based on “unsubstantiated and unattributed intelligence rumours”.
“If there was any evidence backing any of this up I am absolutely certain it would have been introduced at trial, and it wasn’t,” he said.
Pan Am 103: what really happened?
This is the headline over a three-part article by Scottish freelance journalist Stewart Nicol published today on the News With Views website. Part One can be read here, Part Two here and Part Three here.
The article contains a lot of interesting material, some of it not well known. However, it appears to have been written before Abdelbaset Megrahi abandoned his appeal and was returned to Libya and the Crown abandoned its appeal against the "punishment part" of his life sentence, since Part Three contains the following paragraph:
"So those who may have been behind the largest loss of life attack in Europe were certainly not Abdel Baset Al Megrahi of Libya. He became a scapegoat years later and one of the biggest victims as he spent over a decade in jail, his name ever linked with the atrocity. He sought to clear his name but due to a terminal illness and the unreal delaying tactics of the Crown Office under orders of the USA lawyers like [Brian] Murtagh and Dana Biehl the court only got started on the appeal. However five judges still have to rule on that section of the appeal and the Crown Office still have to drop their appeal of a stiffer sentence. That first phase of the appeal could exonerate Megrahi on the identification alone."
A supportive report on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.
The article contains a lot of interesting material, some of it not well known. However, it appears to have been written before Abdelbaset Megrahi abandoned his appeal and was returned to Libya and the Crown abandoned its appeal against the "punishment part" of his life sentence, since Part Three contains the following paragraph:
"So those who may have been behind the largest loss of life attack in Europe were certainly not Abdel Baset Al Megrahi of Libya. He became a scapegoat years later and one of the biggest victims as he spent over a decade in jail, his name ever linked with the atrocity. He sought to clear his name but due to a terminal illness and the unreal delaying tactics of the Crown Office under orders of the USA lawyers like [Brian] Murtagh and Dana Biehl the court only got started on the appeal. However five judges still have to rule on that section of the appeal and the Crown Office still have to drop their appeal of a stiffer sentence. That first phase of the appeal could exonerate Megrahi on the identification alone."
A supportive report on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.
Friday, 27 November 2009
Life to mean life for worst killers
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Scotsman. The following are excerpts.]
Killers could have to spend the rest of their lives behind bars after a landmark ruling by appeal court judges that increased prison terms for murder in Scotland.
Five judges ruled the current 12- year minimum sentence often imposed in murder cases was generally too lenient, while the top level of 30 years was too low.
The decision effectively paves the way for "life to mean life" in the worst murder cases. (...)
Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini was the architect of the changes. (...)
Lord [Justice General] Hamilton, sitting with Lords Reed, Clarke and Mackay and Lady Dorrian, agreed to all the Lord Advocate's requests.
Anyone convicted of murder receives a mandatory life sentence. Judges also have to impose a "punishment part" of the sentence – the period that must be served before an application for parole can be made.
In a 2002 judgment, the appeal court, then headed by Lord Cullen, reduced from 30 to 27 years the punishment part imposed on former Royal Scots corporal Andrew Walker, who shot dead three people in an army payroll robbery.
Following that ruling, judges began to apply a 30-year ceiling and used 12 years as the "norm" in murder cases, going up or down depending on the aggravating or mitigating features of an individual case.
It had been expected that 30 years would be reserved for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, but he was given 27 years. The judges in his case used 30 years as a maximum but reduced it because of Megrahi's age, then 51, and because he would, as they understood it, be serving his sentence in a foreign country in solitary confinement. In yesterday's judgment, Lord Hamilton said the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act prescribed no minimum or maximum punishment part, merely that it be a specified period, and it could be a period that exceeded the prisoner's likely lifespan.
He said the Walker judgment had not stated in terms that 30 years would be the maximum, but had been interpreted as such.
"In our view, there may well be cases, for example mass murders by terrorist action, for which a punishment part of more than 30 years may, subject to any mitigatory considerations, be appropriate. In so far as Walker and al-Megrahi may suggest that 30 years is a virtual maximum punishment part, that suggestion is disapproved," Lord Hamilton said.
Killers could have to spend the rest of their lives behind bars after a landmark ruling by appeal court judges that increased prison terms for murder in Scotland.
Five judges ruled the current 12- year minimum sentence often imposed in murder cases was generally too lenient, while the top level of 30 years was too low.
The decision effectively paves the way for "life to mean life" in the worst murder cases. (...)
Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini was the architect of the changes. (...)
Lord [Justice General] Hamilton, sitting with Lords Reed, Clarke and Mackay and Lady Dorrian, agreed to all the Lord Advocate's requests.
Anyone convicted of murder receives a mandatory life sentence. Judges also have to impose a "punishment part" of the sentence – the period that must be served before an application for parole can be made.
In a 2002 judgment, the appeal court, then headed by Lord Cullen, reduced from 30 to 27 years the punishment part imposed on former Royal Scots corporal Andrew Walker, who shot dead three people in an army payroll robbery.
Following that ruling, judges began to apply a 30-year ceiling and used 12 years as the "norm" in murder cases, going up or down depending on the aggravating or mitigating features of an individual case.
It had been expected that 30 years would be reserved for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, but he was given 27 years. The judges in his case used 30 years as a maximum but reduced it because of Megrahi's age, then 51, and because he would, as they understood it, be serving his sentence in a foreign country in solitary confinement. In yesterday's judgment, Lord Hamilton said the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act prescribed no minimum or maximum punishment part, merely that it be a specified period, and it could be a period that exceeded the prisoner's likely lifespan.
He said the Walker judgment had not stated in terms that 30 years would be the maximum, but had been interpreted as such.
"In our view, there may well be cases, for example mass murders by terrorist action, for which a punishment part of more than 30 years may, subject to any mitigatory considerations, be appropriate. In so far as Walker and al-Megrahi may suggest that 30 years is a virtual maximum punishment part, that suggestion is disapproved," Lord Hamilton said.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Convicted Lockerbie bomber probably not guilty—so who is the real criminal?
[This is the headline over an article in the current issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs by the magazine's publisher, Ambassador Andrew I Killgore. The following are excerpts.]
On Aug 21 Scotland freed Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi—convicted under Scottish law at a special court in The Netherlands of destroying Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on [December] 21, 1988. Killed were 259 persons, including 189 Americans on board and 11 people on the ground. The terminally ill Megrahi, after dropping his second appeal, was released on compassionate grounds. Back in Libya, he continues to protest his innocence. (...)
At the Lockerbie trial so-called “key witness” [Tony] Gauci would identify Megrahi as the purchaser of certain items of clothing found at the crash site that Gauci claimed were purchased at his shop in Valetta, Malta. But on the witness stand Gauci proved to be a flop at identification. An FBI officer, Harold Hendershot, called to the witness stand to bolster Gauci’s testimony, also appeared to lack credibility.
Another puzzling aspect of the Lockerbie trial was that, despite the prosecution’s insistence that the bombing could only have been a two-man job, Megrahi’s co-defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted. No explanation was ever forthcoming. A middle-aged American (judging by his accent) attending the trial was overheard by this writer on a BBC broadcast expressing uncertainty about the testimony: “I wonder who killed our relatives?”
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the crash, is sure that Gauci identified the wrong man. Swire is an unusual man. As an officer in the British army, he was trained in the use of plastic explosives. After completing his army national service, he worked for the BBC as an electronics engineer before studying medicine and becoming a practicing physician. Dr Swire cannot accept as credible the Lockerbie trial’s technical details about the explosives that brought down Pan Am 103. He became a spokesman for relatives of British nationals killed in the crash. Overwhelmingly these relatives do not believe that Megrahi is guilty.
Dr Swire is convinced that shopkeeper Gauci identified an innocent man as the bomber. In a Dec 27, 2007 e-mail from Swire to this writer, Swire quoted Gauci as saying that Megrahi was “like” the man who bought clothes in his shop, but that the age and height were “very different.” Nevertheless, the Scottish judges accepted Gauci’s testimony.
Gauci reportedly now lives in Australia with a $2 million (some reports say $4 million) reward from the American government. According to the State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” Web site, since its inception in 1984 the program has paid $77 million to more than 50 people.
But the biggest reason for questioning the validity of the “Libya-did-it” scenario is the sheer improbability of placing a bomb on a plane in Valetta, Malta, bound for Frankfurt, Germany, there to be offloaded on a second plane bound for London, where it would be offloaded on a third plane bound for New York, to explode 38 minutes later. Common sense would dictate a far more simple scheme: load the bomb aboard a plane in London with a simple pressure mechanism to go off when the plane was safely out to sea (...)
In the aforementioned e-mail, from which I am free to quote, Dr Swire said the Lockerbie court heard of a “specialized timer/baroceptor bomb mechanism” made by the PFLP-GC in the Damascus suburbs. This device would explode within 30 to 45 minutes after takeoff, but was stable indefinitely at ground level. The court heard that these devices could not be altered. “Yet the court believed,” Swire wrote, “that Megrahi ‘happened’ to set his Swiss timer in such a way that it went off in the middle of the time window for the Syrian device, surviving changes of planes at Frankfurt and London.”
Dr Swire told the BBC News of Aug 20, 2009 that the prosecution at the Lockerbie trial failed to take into consideration the reported break-in of the Pan Am baggage area at Heathrow in the early morning hours of the day of Pan Am 103’s doomed flight.
Many of the British relatives of Pan Am 103 victims have come to believe that the bomb was loaded in London, and thus that Megrahi could not be guilty. These relatives and Dr Swire were opposed to Megrahi’s withdrawing his second appeal on the grounds that further evidence would come out that might have pointed to the real culprit.
In a Jan 4, 2008 e-mail, Dr Swire warned that “there is some deep secret hidden in this tragedy which evokes virulent responses...when questions are raised.”
In an Aug 20, 2009 e-mail response to this writer’s inquiry, Dr Swire said “that it appears that the Iranians used the PFLP-GC as mercenaries in this ghastly business.” According to this theory, held by many who doubt Megrahi’s guilt, including CounterPunch’s Alexander Cockburn, Iran hired the PFLP-GC to avenge the July 3, 1988 shooting down by the USS Vincennes of an Iranian Airbus passenger plane, killing 290 passengers, including 66 children. The US ship’s officers later received medals for heroism in combat.
Having lost his daughter in the Pan Am crash, and as an expert in explosives, Dr Swire is uniquely qualified to examine the Pan Am tragedy. America and its mainstream media did not reflect credit on themselves by refusing to acknowledge questions about Megrahi’s guilt.
Dr Swire may well be right in blaming the PFLP-GC for the tragedy. But this writer still has his doubts — because the ineptness of the trial and Washington’s fanaticism in pushing such a flimsy case against Libya leave an impression that it must be covering up for the real criminals. Somehow it seems unlikely that the US would go to such lengths to protect Iran, much less the PFLP-GC.
On Aug 21 Scotland freed Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi—convicted under Scottish law at a special court in The Netherlands of destroying Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on [December] 21, 1988. Killed were 259 persons, including 189 Americans on board and 11 people on the ground. The terminally ill Megrahi, after dropping his second appeal, was released on compassionate grounds. Back in Libya, he continues to protest his innocence. (...)
At the Lockerbie trial so-called “key witness” [Tony] Gauci would identify Megrahi as the purchaser of certain items of clothing found at the crash site that Gauci claimed were purchased at his shop in Valetta, Malta. But on the witness stand Gauci proved to be a flop at identification. An FBI officer, Harold Hendershot, called to the witness stand to bolster Gauci’s testimony, also appeared to lack credibility.
Another puzzling aspect of the Lockerbie trial was that, despite the prosecution’s insistence that the bombing could only have been a two-man job, Megrahi’s co-defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted. No explanation was ever forthcoming. A middle-aged American (judging by his accent) attending the trial was overheard by this writer on a BBC broadcast expressing uncertainty about the testimony: “I wonder who killed our relatives?”
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the crash, is sure that Gauci identified the wrong man. Swire is an unusual man. As an officer in the British army, he was trained in the use of plastic explosives. After completing his army national service, he worked for the BBC as an electronics engineer before studying medicine and becoming a practicing physician. Dr Swire cannot accept as credible the Lockerbie trial’s technical details about the explosives that brought down Pan Am 103. He became a spokesman for relatives of British nationals killed in the crash. Overwhelmingly these relatives do not believe that Megrahi is guilty.
Dr Swire is convinced that shopkeeper Gauci identified an innocent man as the bomber. In a Dec 27, 2007 e-mail from Swire to this writer, Swire quoted Gauci as saying that Megrahi was “like” the man who bought clothes in his shop, but that the age and height were “very different.” Nevertheless, the Scottish judges accepted Gauci’s testimony.
Gauci reportedly now lives in Australia with a $2 million (some reports say $4 million) reward from the American government. According to the State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” Web site, since its inception in 1984 the program has paid $77 million to more than 50 people.
But the biggest reason for questioning the validity of the “Libya-did-it” scenario is the sheer improbability of placing a bomb on a plane in Valetta, Malta, bound for Frankfurt, Germany, there to be offloaded on a second plane bound for London, where it would be offloaded on a third plane bound for New York, to explode 38 minutes later. Common sense would dictate a far more simple scheme: load the bomb aboard a plane in London with a simple pressure mechanism to go off when the plane was safely out to sea (...)
In the aforementioned e-mail, from which I am free to quote, Dr Swire said the Lockerbie court heard of a “specialized timer/baroceptor bomb mechanism” made by the PFLP-GC in the Damascus suburbs. This device would explode within 30 to 45 minutes after takeoff, but was stable indefinitely at ground level. The court heard that these devices could not be altered. “Yet the court believed,” Swire wrote, “that Megrahi ‘happened’ to set his Swiss timer in such a way that it went off in the middle of the time window for the Syrian device, surviving changes of planes at Frankfurt and London.”
Dr Swire told the BBC News of Aug 20, 2009 that the prosecution at the Lockerbie trial failed to take into consideration the reported break-in of the Pan Am baggage area at Heathrow in the early morning hours of the day of Pan Am 103’s doomed flight.
Many of the British relatives of Pan Am 103 victims have come to believe that the bomb was loaded in London, and thus that Megrahi could not be guilty. These relatives and Dr Swire were opposed to Megrahi’s withdrawing his second appeal on the grounds that further evidence would come out that might have pointed to the real culprit.
In a Jan 4, 2008 e-mail, Dr Swire warned that “there is some deep secret hidden in this tragedy which evokes virulent responses...when questions are raised.”
In an Aug 20, 2009 e-mail response to this writer’s inquiry, Dr Swire said “that it appears that the Iranians used the PFLP-GC as mercenaries in this ghastly business.” According to this theory, held by many who doubt Megrahi’s guilt, including CounterPunch’s Alexander Cockburn, Iran hired the PFLP-GC to avenge the July 3, 1988 shooting down by the USS Vincennes of an Iranian Airbus passenger plane, killing 290 passengers, including 66 children. The US ship’s officers later received medals for heroism in combat.
Having lost his daughter in the Pan Am crash, and as an expert in explosives, Dr Swire is uniquely qualified to examine the Pan Am tragedy. America and its mainstream media did not reflect credit on themselves by refusing to acknowledge questions about Megrahi’s guilt.
Dr Swire may well be right in blaming the PFLP-GC for the tragedy. But this writer still has his doubts — because the ineptness of the trial and Washington’s fanaticism in pushing such a flimsy case against Libya leave an impression that it must be covering up for the real criminals. Somehow it seems unlikely that the US would go to such lengths to protect Iran, much less the PFLP-GC.
Lockerbie trial was an attempt to stop revenge attacks
[This is the heading over a letter from Dr Jim Swire in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph. A letter in the same terms appeared yesterday in The Malta Independent. The letter reads as follows:]
In demanding that Megrahi should now be removed from his family and returned to a Scottish jail, is not Senator Charles Schumer (report, November 21) revealing a lust for revenge?
If the senator looks at the context of the Lockerbie disaster, he must conclude that it was an act of revenge. Either by Iran, for the shooting down of her Airbus by the US missile cruiser Vincennes five months before Lockerbie, with the loss of 290 lives, or by Libya, for the bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi by the US Air Force in 1986 – an attack which led to the death of Gaddafi's daughter Hanna, aged 18 months, and around 30 other citizens.
If the senator goes to Tripoli and looks at the preserved remains of the bedroom in which Hanna died, he will see two pictures on the wall. One is of Hanna and one is of my daughter Flora (murdered at Lockerbie), taken when she too was 18 months old. Below these is a legend in Arabic and English, which says: "The consequence of the use of violence is the death of innocent people."
My own efforts to get the two accused Libyans to trial were specifically because I believed that was the best way of breaking the cycle of revenge attacks. Insistence on Scottish rather than US justice was specifically to avoid the death penalty.
I have had letters from America which have advocated the withholding of morphine from Megrahi "so that he would die in agony", I have heard one American call for the "nuking" of Tripoli.
Senator Schumer presumably still believes Megrahi to be guilty, despite the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's findings that there may have been a miscarriage of justice. Would the good senator, who cannot help representing a Christian country, like to consider whether he is acting in accordance with the words of a teacher who claimed that we should even (if we can) love our enemies?
Had the United States read the small print of Scottish law before agreeing that any sentence should be served in Scotland, it would have detected the precedent for compassionate release when death appeared likely within three months. Ask any doctor if he can predict the very day of a patient's death.
Adding to the suffering of the man found guilty of the Lockerbie disaster would risk increasing the motive for revenge by Libya again. Is that what the senator would like to see?
In demanding that Megrahi should now be removed from his family and returned to a Scottish jail, is not Senator Charles Schumer (report, November 21) revealing a lust for revenge?
If the senator looks at the context of the Lockerbie disaster, he must conclude that it was an act of revenge. Either by Iran, for the shooting down of her Airbus by the US missile cruiser Vincennes five months before Lockerbie, with the loss of 290 lives, or by Libya, for the bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi by the US Air Force in 1986 – an attack which led to the death of Gaddafi's daughter Hanna, aged 18 months, and around 30 other citizens.
If the senator goes to Tripoli and looks at the preserved remains of the bedroom in which Hanna died, he will see two pictures on the wall. One is of Hanna and one is of my daughter Flora (murdered at Lockerbie), taken when she too was 18 months old. Below these is a legend in Arabic and English, which says: "The consequence of the use of violence is the death of innocent people."
My own efforts to get the two accused Libyans to trial were specifically because I believed that was the best way of breaking the cycle of revenge attacks. Insistence on Scottish rather than US justice was specifically to avoid the death penalty.
I have had letters from America which have advocated the withholding of morphine from Megrahi "so that he would die in agony", I have heard one American call for the "nuking" of Tripoli.
Senator Schumer presumably still believes Megrahi to be guilty, despite the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's findings that there may have been a miscarriage of justice. Would the good senator, who cannot help representing a Christian country, like to consider whether he is acting in accordance with the words of a teacher who claimed that we should even (if we can) love our enemies?
Had the United States read the small print of Scottish law before agreeing that any sentence should be served in Scotland, it would have detected the precedent for compassionate release when death appeared likely within three months. Ask any doctor if he can predict the very day of a patient's death.
Adding to the suffering of the man found guilty of the Lockerbie disaster would risk increasing the motive for revenge by Libya again. Is that what the senator would like to see?
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Straw denies Megrahi interference
[What follows is the text of a report on the BBC News website. It replaces that which appears in the post immediately below.]
Jack Straw has denied a suggestion the UK government guided Scottish ministers to release the Lockerbie bomber from prison on compassionate grounds.
But ministers did tell the Scottish government prior to Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi's release the UK government was not seeking his death in custody.
Mr Straw, the UK Justice Secretary, has been giving evidence to the Commons Justice Committee.
Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, was released in August.
Tory MP Douglas Hogg challenged Mr Straw when he stated that in effect Westminster was guiding Scottish ministers to free the Libyan, but the justice secretary insisted it was entirely a matter for the Scottish government.
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill decided to grant Megrahi a compassionate release after seeking medical advice on his condition.
Mr Straw originally intended to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement signed with Tripoli by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, but he later changed his mind.
In documents published in the aftermath of the Libyan's release, Mr Straw told the Scottish government it was in the UK's overwhelming interests not to exclude Megrahi.
Mr Straw said strong relations with Libya were important and that it would not be sensible to risk damaging them.
Both the Holyrood and Westminster administrations deny any pressure was applied on Mr MacAskill over the decision.
Jack Straw has denied a suggestion the UK government guided Scottish ministers to release the Lockerbie bomber from prison on compassionate grounds.
But ministers did tell the Scottish government prior to Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi's release the UK government was not seeking his death in custody.
Mr Straw, the UK Justice Secretary, has been giving evidence to the Commons Justice Committee.
Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, was released in August.
Tory MP Douglas Hogg challenged Mr Straw when he stated that in effect Westminster was guiding Scottish ministers to free the Libyan, but the justice secretary insisted it was entirely a matter for the Scottish government.
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill decided to grant Megrahi a compassionate release after seeking medical advice on his condition.
Mr Straw originally intended to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement signed with Tripoli by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, but he later changed his mind.
In documents published in the aftermath of the Libyan's release, Mr Straw told the Scottish government it was in the UK's overwhelming interests not to exclude Megrahi.
Mr Straw said strong relations with Libya were important and that it would not be sensible to risk damaging them.
Both the Holyrood and Westminster administrations deny any pressure was applied on Mr MacAskill over the decision.
Straw to face MPs over Megrahi release role
Jack Straw is to face questions about his role in the run-up to the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
MPs on the [Westminster Parliament] Justice Committee will press the [UK] justice secretary on why he decided not to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement signed with Libya. (...)
Although Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds there have been many questions over the prisoner transfer agreement signed with Libya, which would also have allowed him to return home.
Sceptics like Liberal Democrat Alistair Carmichael have suggested pressure was put on the Scottish government to see Megrahi returned to Tripoli under the transfer scheme, which was originally signed by Tony Blair.
Mr Carmichael said: "I have absolutely no doubt that the pressure was there and I've absolutely no doubt that the pressure was intended to be there.
"It so happened that as things then developed the pressure may not have had the affect that those who originally applied would have intended, but the pressure was there."
After a political outcry, Mr Straw originally intended to exclude Megrahi from the transfer agreement, but later changed his mind.
In documents published in the aftermath of the Libyan's release, Mr Straw told the Scottish government it was in the UK's overwhelming interests not to exclude Megrahi.
Mr Straw said strong relations with Libya were important and that it would not be sensible to risk damaging them.
Both the Holyrood and Westminster administrations deny any pressure was applied on Mr MacAskill over the decision.
MPs will now have the opportunity to question Mr Straw about his role and whether ministers wanted Megrahi released to improve trade deals.
[From a report -- now deleted -- on the BBC News website.]
MPs on the [Westminster Parliament] Justice Committee will press the [UK] justice secretary on why he decided not to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement signed with Libya. (...)
Although Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds there have been many questions over the prisoner transfer agreement signed with Libya, which would also have allowed him to return home.
Sceptics like Liberal Democrat Alistair Carmichael have suggested pressure was put on the Scottish government to see Megrahi returned to Tripoli under the transfer scheme, which was originally signed by Tony Blair.
Mr Carmichael said: "I have absolutely no doubt that the pressure was there and I've absolutely no doubt that the pressure was intended to be there.
"It so happened that as things then developed the pressure may not have had the affect that those who originally applied would have intended, but the pressure was there."
After a political outcry, Mr Straw originally intended to exclude Megrahi from the transfer agreement, but later changed his mind.
In documents published in the aftermath of the Libyan's release, Mr Straw told the Scottish government it was in the UK's overwhelming interests not to exclude Megrahi.
Mr Straw said strong relations with Libya were important and that it would not be sensible to risk damaging them.
Both the Holyrood and Westminster administrations deny any pressure was applied on Mr MacAskill over the decision.
MPs will now have the opportunity to question Mr Straw about his role and whether ministers wanted Megrahi released to improve trade deals.
[From a report -- now deleted -- on the BBC News website.]
Monday, 23 November 2009
International probe call
International probe call into “linked” Lockerbie and Iranian passenger jet bombings
An SNP Member of the Scottish Parliament has called for an international inquiry to be established to examine the full circumstances that led to the blowing up of Pan Am 103 in December 1988 and the shooting down of Iranian Flight 655, by the US navy five months before the Lockerbie attack.
Christine Grahame MSP believes that the two incidents are “inextricably linked” and expressed a hope that an internationally backed inquiry would lead to the real perpetrators of both attacks being brought to justice. Ms Grahame said:
“Amongst all the furore surrounding Abdelbaset al Megrahi’s release from prison in August, the wider substantive issues have been left obscured.
“I and many others who have examined this case believe on the evidence we have seen that the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie in December 1988 was a revenge attack sponsored by the Iranians in response to the shooting down of one of their passenger jets, Flight 655, five months earlier by the US navy. That vessel, the USS Vincennes, entered Iranian waters in a deliberately provocative move, before firing a surface to air missile at a schedule passenger flight taking Iranian pilgrims [to] Mecca.
“The US claim that this incident was an ‘accident’ simply does not hold water. It was, like the attack on Pan Am 103 five months later, a crime against humanity that targeted civilians and in the Iranian incident led to the deaths of 290 passengers.
“I am today calling on an international inquiry to be established to consider and examine these two inter-related atrocities and I would hope that ultimately this may lead to some effort being made to bring to justice those responsible.
“I accept that the US failure to be a signatory to the International Court of Criminal Justice makes it unlikely that the officers of the USS Vincennes or their Commander in Chief at the time of the blowing up of Flight 655, will face any due legal process. That will also be the case for the Iranian Government officials who authorised and sponsored the attack on Pan Am 103. Nonetheless such an inquiry would help expose the reality of what took place and the hypocrisy of those who are arguing that justice has been served in the Pan Am 103 attack by the wrongful conviction of Abdelbaset al Megrahi.”
Ms Grahame has today (Monday) lodged a parliamentary motion at the Scottish Parliament which calls on an independent inquiry to be established and urges relevant Scottish public authorities, such as the Crown Office and police, to co-operate fully with it.
Text of parliamentary motion:
International Inquiry, Pan Am 103 and Flight 655
That the Parliament supports the establishment of an international inquiry into the circumstances that led to the blowing up of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988 that murdered 270 passengers and urges all relevant Scottish authorities to co-operate with it; further supports that such an inquiry should also consider the relationship of that atrocity to the shooting down of Iranian flight 655 over the Straits of Hormuz five months before by a US warship, which claimed the lives of 290 passengers, and urges the international community to pursue, investigate and bring to justice all those ultimately responsible for these two terrorist attacks, which it considers constitute crimes against humanity.
[The above is the text of a press release issued today by Christine Grahame MSP.]
An SNP Member of the Scottish Parliament has called for an international inquiry to be established to examine the full circumstances that led to the blowing up of Pan Am 103 in December 1988 and the shooting down of Iranian Flight 655, by the US navy five months before the Lockerbie attack.
Christine Grahame MSP believes that the two incidents are “inextricably linked” and expressed a hope that an internationally backed inquiry would lead to the real perpetrators of both attacks being brought to justice. Ms Grahame said:
“Amongst all the furore surrounding Abdelbaset al Megrahi’s release from prison in August, the wider substantive issues have been left obscured.
“I and many others who have examined this case believe on the evidence we have seen that the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie in December 1988 was a revenge attack sponsored by the Iranians in response to the shooting down of one of their passenger jets, Flight 655, five months earlier by the US navy. That vessel, the USS Vincennes, entered Iranian waters in a deliberately provocative move, before firing a surface to air missile at a schedule passenger flight taking Iranian pilgrims [to] Mecca.
“The US claim that this incident was an ‘accident’ simply does not hold water. It was, like the attack on Pan Am 103 five months later, a crime against humanity that targeted civilians and in the Iranian incident led to the deaths of 290 passengers.
“I am today calling on an international inquiry to be established to consider and examine these two inter-related atrocities and I would hope that ultimately this may lead to some effort being made to bring to justice those responsible.
“I accept that the US failure to be a signatory to the International Court of Criminal Justice makes it unlikely that the officers of the USS Vincennes or their Commander in Chief at the time of the blowing up of Flight 655, will face any due legal process. That will also be the case for the Iranian Government officials who authorised and sponsored the attack on Pan Am 103. Nonetheless such an inquiry would help expose the reality of what took place and the hypocrisy of those who are arguing that justice has been served in the Pan Am 103 attack by the wrongful conviction of Abdelbaset al Megrahi.”
Ms Grahame has today (Monday) lodged a parliamentary motion at the Scottish Parliament which calls on an independent inquiry to be established and urges relevant Scottish public authorities, such as the Crown Office and police, to co-operate fully with it.
Text of parliamentary motion:
International Inquiry, Pan Am 103 and Flight 655
That the Parliament supports the establishment of an international inquiry into the circumstances that led to the blowing up of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988 that murdered 270 passengers and urges all relevant Scottish authorities to co-operate with it; further supports that such an inquiry should also consider the relationship of that atrocity to the shooting down of Iranian flight 655 over the Straits of Hormuz five months before by a US warship, which claimed the lives of 290 passengers, and urges the international community to pursue, investigate and bring to justice all those ultimately responsible for these two terrorist attacks, which it considers constitute crimes against humanity.
[The above is the text of a press release issued today by Christine Grahame MSP.]
Fragments of truth, continued
[The following exchange of e-mails involving Richard Marquise, Frank Duggan and Mark Hirst took place following the appearance on 17 November of Mark Hirst's article "Fragments of truth".]
1. From Richard Marquise to Mark Hirst, copied to Frank Duggan, dated 22 November
I have read your recent Lockerbie article entitled "Fragments of Truth" and I will tell you, that I believe your article was aptly named.
I can appreciate that Mr. Megrahi "steadfastly maintains his innocence" but I am certain you weighed that claim with all the other lies he has told in the past--"I am not a member of Libyan intelligence," and "I was not in Malta on 20-21 December 1988, I was here in Tripoli with my family." Those lies were proven at trial but somehow, you want to believe what he tells you today. I am incredulous. Is it the truth now or was it last time he spoke??
Your statement alleges that "many professionals involved in this case including US intelligence officers,legal experts and police investigators" share Mr. Megrahi's view. Who are they??? Former CIA agent Robert Baer should not count since he never worked on the case and has no idea what the evidence was or how it was collected or shared. Who are these other people? I do not count Gareth Pearce or Robert Black--they too know only what they "think?" As we who have been law enforcement professionals know--"thinking" is not admissible in court--facts and evidence are--even circumstantial evidence.
You speak of "new evidence" in this case but I have read his postings to date and have seen nothing which would change my mind about the righteousness of his conviction.
You talk about the "cover up" of the weakness of the investigation-- there was never a cover up--the evidence was the evidence and the three judges convicted him. You might call their reading the the evidence "shameful" but I think they came to the correct conclusion--Mr. Megrahi was guilty of murder the Libyan Government was responsible for the attack.
You believe we had pressure to secure the indictment. Yes, we did believe that a "timescale" was in place to announce something but we also recognized that without someone in Libya providing us information, there would probably never be any new evidence developed. This proved to be the case until 1999 when the Libyan Government was compelled to "cooperate" and some additional evidence was collected (which proved that Mr. Megrahi and Abdusamad were one in the same and that Mr. Megrahi was a Libyan agent. To me, these findings corroborated some of the things Mr. Giaka told us.
While it is true that intelligence agencies did provide the name of Mr. Megrahi (one of many), it was through the investigation that Mr. Fhimah was brought into the case. His name did not come from intelligence agencies and was a complete byproduct of "detective" work.
You (and others) continue to claim that witnesses at trial were motivated by money. While I will not be able to say what motivates each and every person who testifies at any trial, I have said it before and will say it again--no witness--none-- was ever promised money or asked to say anything at any interview or at trial in exchange for money. None!! In fact, it was Mr. Bollier who came to the US Embassy in January 1989 and attempted to implicate the Libyans, long before there was one shred of real evidence collected at Lockerbie. It would be nearly two years before he could even be identified as that person.
You continue to make allegations about Mr. Thurman and that he has no credentials to do "forensic" examinations. Would it shock you to know that not only does he have extensive experience as an explosives expert in the US military (pre FBI), he also has a masters degree in Forensic Science? I am certain that will be made clear in your next attempt to criticize him.
With regard to the "travel" of PT-35-- once again-- it was the sharing of information which led to the solution of this case. If the fragment had remained behind in Scotland, never shared, it would possibly be unidentified today. No one would ever have discovered it was a piece of one of 20 timers given to Libyan intelligence. It is clear no one ever attempted to "cover" that up-- I freely admitted it in my book, Mr. Henderson stated such in his precognition and I again said so to Mr. Levy. My "confusion" at Arlington last December over whether it had come to the US or not, was due more to the tone of the question, the setting and the allegation I may have lied to him when he first interviewed me. Unlike Mr. Megrahi, I do not tell lies when it comes to the evidence in this case. I said it right when Mr. Levy first interviewed me. We had nothing to hide because we did the right thing and there has never, never, never been one scintilla of proof that PT-35 was altered or changed in any way.
I was a bit disappointed that you chose to end your "treatise" using the vulgar quote from Ian Ferguson. I guess I expected better from someone who is involved in politics.
I would hope that in the future you cover "all" the facts when you write concerning Lockerbie.
2. From Frank Duggan to Richard Marquise, copied to Mark Hirst and Robert Black, dated 22 November
We greatly appreciate your continuing to present the facts to Mr. Hirst, Ms. Grahame, Prof. Black, Gareth Pearce and the rest of the shameless band of conspiracy mavens. They are no worse than holocaust deniers, who will not accept the facts before their faces.
Thanks for your continued efforts on behalf of 270 innocent souls murdered by Mr. Megrahi and his state sponsors of terrorism.
3. From Mark Hirst to Richard Marquise and Frank Duggan, copied to Robert Black, dated 23 November
I am at somewhat of a loss as to know where to begin as it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is a huge intellectual void between us. You talk freely of "facts" yet seem utterly incapable of critically examining the facts that have come to light since the trial and indeed re-examine the supposed facts that were led during it.
I note, with some despondency, that US Governmental control of the doctrinal system may make it ultimately impossible for you to accept and consider the realities in this case and that American culture encourages an ideology that "hates" to lose and therefore it is extremely difficult for you to consider, even if you consciously knew it, that you may be entirely wrong.
Mr Duggan, it is apparent to me from your blatant right wing political agenda that your grasp of what facts there are is extremely limited. For information, unlike the United States of America, both my grandfathers fought for three consecutive the perpetrators of the holocaust before the US woke up to the danger of aggressive imperialist fascism, the same type of imperial cultural and political fascism which appears to be an integral part of US foreign policy today.
I suspect (although I have yet to see any evidence!) that at some base level both you and Mr Marquise are aware of the facts in this case, which is presumably why you have both consistently endeavoured to lower the arguments surrounding this case to concentrating on character assassination and failed to argue the substantive points in the case or answer the core questions at its heart.
Mr Duggan, despite what you may think, you clearly do not represent the 270 innocent souls who were murdered in December 1988, a fact that I fear has completely eluded you.
Turning to your comments Mr Marquise. I have been generous with you in the past and have stated to those I have met and discussed this with, including the Justice Minister at the time of the trial and others, that you may not have actively tried to deceive and that you simply reached the wrong conclusions on the limited evidence available and due to the enforced timescales imposed to secure an indictment. However it is clear that you have and are involved in a propaganda campaign to defend the conviction. I understand why on a personal level you would wish to do that. Your entire professional career and reputation and that of Henderson and other senior legal people here in Scotland depend on maintaining this unsafe conviction. That personal stake in this case has blinded you and those you have helped indoctrinate into ignoring the substantive pieces of information and evidence that has come to light since the kangaroo court proceedings in Holland.
I am willing to accept that there was a slackness in the investigation (in terms of failure to follow correct procedure), certainly in the Scottish police aspect of the case, because at that time no one seriously believed Libya would ever surrender the two accused. I can only imagine the sense of panic that ensued when it became evident that the Megrahi and Fhimah were prepared to come before what they were told, and believed would be a fair court process.
You seem to be trapped by the illusion that our certainty in Megrahi’s innocence is based solely on us meeting him in person and not by the conclusions of the SCCRC report, the discussions we have had with police officers involved in the case and very senior figures inside the Scottish legal system who are as appalled as us with the outcome of the investigation and conviction of an innocent man, whilst the real perpetrators go unpunished.
Regarding the cash reward received by witnesses I can only say if they were motivated by a civic or moral duty why would they need the money? In fact why would they actively seek financial reward, as you must know was the case? Another fact obscured by your visceral hatred of those who seek to objectively and critically examine the case you presented.
You claim that no money was ever offered or promised before trial. Presumably you mean "was never offered by the FBI" as you must know that money was discussed at length by US intelligence. I thought it was "us" who were the "deniers"?
You imply that I am behind the allegations that Mr Thurman is not properly qualified. That is not the case. It was the FBI’s Fred Whitehurst who makes that assertion although I appreciate it will not be a comforting experience to have fellow Americans undermine the determined indoctrination process you are involved with.
As I have previously stated I coincidentally worked as a Quality Inspector for the world’s biggest PCB manufacturer in the world, ironically a US owned company. I therefore happen to know a little about circuit boards. Having recently read the court transcript the identification of PT35 was done purely on a visual comparison of a complete board which the CIA happened to have and which Thurman acquired. As I have previously stated the board was NOT manufactured by MEBO, but by Thuring AG and then sold to MEBO to be "populated". I have made the point before, and this is evident in the court transcript, that there are design characteristics on PT35 which yes, could be present on a complete MST13 timer, but, which the Court failed to consider, equally present on any number of other circuits produced by Thuring. That is not just my view but a view shared by people I know who still work in the industry and presumably why none of the 55 PCB companies visited by investigators was able to give a categorical identification of the fragment before Thurman’s "miraculous" (I am being generous) ID in Washington.
As you have stated Mr Marquise, without PT35 there would be no indictment, let alone a conviction so this and the other serious questions regarding PT35 are significant. Incidentally you previously took me to task over whether the MST13 timers were sold or simply "given" to Libya and stated, as "fact", that they were "given" and not sold. If you would like I am happy to send you a recorded interview conducted in 2000 with your associate Robert Muller, who I believe runs the FBI today. He makes it clear then that the timers were "sold". Perhaps a conference call may be required to get your stories straight before you begin lecturing others on what constitutes "fact" and what does not.
I am sorry you took offence at the "vulgar" quote I used from Ian Ferguson. It seemed to fit the vulgar outcome of the manner in which this investigation and trial were conducted and underscore the sheer scale of the huge miscarriage of justice that has taken place. In that context I believe there are other more substantive and relevant apologies to be made.
As you are aware, I and many others (including those inside the US and UK intelligence services) hold the view that Iran was responsible for this attack. Our narrative of the crime which led to the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie is based on our belief that Iran carried out the attack in revenge for the terrorist atrocity which the US carried out against Iran when they shot down Flight 655, five months before Lockerbie.
As you will see later today, we are now calling for an international inquiry to be established to examine the broader context that led to the Pan Am 103 attack and which, if we lived in a non-hypocritical, fair and just world, would hopefully lead to the conviction of those who are really responsible for Pan Am 103 and those officers and crew who illegally entered Iranian waters and blew up 290 innocent victims on the Iranian flight five months before. These are two interrelated terrorist acts in which the perpetrators, on both sides, have yet to face justice.
I appreciate the real sense of angst that many US families will have regarding the Megrahi release and those who believe, as I do, that he is innocent of this crime. They have been, as one US family member told me "lied to from the outset by our own government and others". I understand too that the American sense of "justice" is very much based on the concept of an eye for an eye and why, therefore, it would be very difficult for Americans to accept the revenge attack which Iran sponsored in retaliation for the murder of 290 of their citizens. I also understand why, Mr Marquise, you are so passionate to defend your reputation in the face of facts that existed during the investigation and which have emerged subsequently. That is an entirely understandable human reaction.
As you must surely appreciate by now, this is not an issue that is going to slip away quietly. Because the real perpetrators have yet to face justice, it shouldn’t be allowed to.
It may be comforting for you, Mr Duggan in particular, to hide behind his metaphoric redoubt and sling entirely inappropriate comment at those who are challenging the official version of events that has been fed to you over the years. The holocaust comparison you make directed at me is presumably an attempt to align those of us who believe Iran was responsible for the attack on Pan Am 103 to the abhorrent comments of the current President of Iran who is on record as a holocaust denier. What a vulgar irony that truly is.
Given, Mr Marquise, you are blind copying in other people to your correspondence between us you will have no particular objection to Professor Black reporting this exchange on his blog?
4. From Frank Duggan to Mark Hirst, copied to Richard Marquise and Robert Black, dated 24 November
There is no intellectual void. It would be helpful to your advocacy if you would explain Mr. Megrahi's actions in Malta and elsewhere, as brought out in the court's decision concerning his guilt. Stating that there were other reasonable, legal explanations for his carrying a false passport and lying about it is not helpful. These are facts that you "seem utterly incapable of critically examining."
5. From Mark Hirst to Frank Duggan, copied to Richard Marquise and Robert Black, dated 25 November
I suspect this exchange could continue forever and with no resolution between our differing views. I think this issue has been debated many times, but I don't see how inverting the burden of proof really assists the case being made against Megrahi. There are any number of unrelated reasons (unrelated to the crime) that would explain why Megrahi could have been carrying a diplomatic coded passport and these are already in the public domain. It was for the Crown to demonstrate these issues were directly connected to the crime, not for Megrahi or anyone else to explain what other possible reasons he may have had for carrying such a passport or other business he may, or may not have had in Malta. I understand that some of Megrahi's own children were also carrying coded diplomatic passports. Were these children involved in the crime also?
The independent SCCRC has concluded that there are very serious issues around the identification by Gauci, not just the millions of dollars he and his brother solicited and received from the CIA. Without the identification there is no case against Megrahi. The fact that the three judges appear to have misdirected themselves by coming up with their own narrative of the crime, which differed significantly from the one the Crown presented, is somewhat of a red herring in terms of defending the conviction being the "considered conclusion of a Scottish court", with the implication that they did not make a monumental legal error in doing so. You must at least know that.
Yourself and Mr Marquise continually attempt to dismiss critical examination of the case as the work of "conspiracy theorists" and appear to believe, without foundation, there is some kind of active conspiracy between myself, Ms Grahame, Professor Black, Dr Swire, John Pilger, Professor Chomsky, Nelson Mandela, Hans Kochler, Ian Ferguson, Gareth Pierce, Gideon Levy, Bob Baer, Fred Whitehurst and many others (including, most likely the SCCRC) who have looked at this case. Clearly the wide range of individuals, most, if not all, with exemplary professional credentials (despite your attempts at character assassination) demonstrates that beyond the three trial judges there remains, and is likely to remain, very serious doubts over the safety of this conviction and the manner in which the investigation was conducted.
That is one fact that I am confident we can both agree on.
1. From Richard Marquise to Mark Hirst, copied to Frank Duggan, dated 22 November
I have read your recent Lockerbie article entitled "Fragments of Truth" and I will tell you, that I believe your article was aptly named.
I can appreciate that Mr. Megrahi "steadfastly maintains his innocence" but I am certain you weighed that claim with all the other lies he has told in the past--"I am not a member of Libyan intelligence," and "I was not in Malta on 20-21 December 1988, I was here in Tripoli with my family." Those lies were proven at trial but somehow, you want to believe what he tells you today. I am incredulous. Is it the truth now or was it last time he spoke??
Your statement alleges that "many professionals involved in this case including US intelligence officers,legal experts and police investigators" share Mr. Megrahi's view. Who are they??? Former CIA agent Robert Baer should not count since he never worked on the case and has no idea what the evidence was or how it was collected or shared. Who are these other people? I do not count Gareth Pearce or Robert Black--they too know only what they "think?" As we who have been law enforcement professionals know--"thinking" is not admissible in court--facts and evidence are--even circumstantial evidence.
You speak of "new evidence" in this case but I have read his postings to date and have seen nothing which would change my mind about the righteousness of his conviction.
You talk about the "cover up" of the weakness of the investigation-- there was never a cover up--the evidence was the evidence and the three judges convicted him. You might call their reading the the evidence "shameful" but I think they came to the correct conclusion--Mr. Megrahi was guilty of murder the Libyan Government was responsible for the attack.
You believe we had pressure to secure the indictment. Yes, we did believe that a "timescale" was in place to announce something but we also recognized that without someone in Libya providing us information, there would probably never be any new evidence developed. This proved to be the case until 1999 when the Libyan Government was compelled to "cooperate" and some additional evidence was collected (which proved that Mr. Megrahi and Abdusamad were one in the same and that Mr. Megrahi was a Libyan agent. To me, these findings corroborated some of the things Mr. Giaka told us.
While it is true that intelligence agencies did provide the name of Mr. Megrahi (one of many), it was through the investigation that Mr. Fhimah was brought into the case. His name did not come from intelligence agencies and was a complete byproduct of "detective" work.
You (and others) continue to claim that witnesses at trial were motivated by money. While I will not be able to say what motivates each and every person who testifies at any trial, I have said it before and will say it again--no witness--none-- was ever promised money or asked to say anything at any interview or at trial in exchange for money. None!! In fact, it was Mr. Bollier who came to the US Embassy in January 1989 and attempted to implicate the Libyans, long before there was one shred of real evidence collected at Lockerbie. It would be nearly two years before he could even be identified as that person.
You continue to make allegations about Mr. Thurman and that he has no credentials to do "forensic" examinations. Would it shock you to know that not only does he have extensive experience as an explosives expert in the US military (pre FBI), he also has a masters degree in Forensic Science? I am certain that will be made clear in your next attempt to criticize him.
With regard to the "travel" of PT-35-- once again-- it was the sharing of information which led to the solution of this case. If the fragment had remained behind in Scotland, never shared, it would possibly be unidentified today. No one would ever have discovered it was a piece of one of 20 timers given to Libyan intelligence. It is clear no one ever attempted to "cover" that up-- I freely admitted it in my book, Mr. Henderson stated such in his precognition and I again said so to Mr. Levy. My "confusion" at Arlington last December over whether it had come to the US or not, was due more to the tone of the question, the setting and the allegation I may have lied to him when he first interviewed me. Unlike Mr. Megrahi, I do not tell lies when it comes to the evidence in this case. I said it right when Mr. Levy first interviewed me. We had nothing to hide because we did the right thing and there has never, never, never been one scintilla of proof that PT-35 was altered or changed in any way.
I was a bit disappointed that you chose to end your "treatise" using the vulgar quote from Ian Ferguson. I guess I expected better from someone who is involved in politics.
I would hope that in the future you cover "all" the facts when you write concerning Lockerbie.
2. From Frank Duggan to Richard Marquise, copied to Mark Hirst and Robert Black, dated 22 November
We greatly appreciate your continuing to present the facts to Mr. Hirst, Ms. Grahame, Prof. Black, Gareth Pearce and the rest of the shameless band of conspiracy mavens. They are no worse than holocaust deniers, who will not accept the facts before their faces.
Thanks for your continued efforts on behalf of 270 innocent souls murdered by Mr. Megrahi and his state sponsors of terrorism.
3. From Mark Hirst to Richard Marquise and Frank Duggan, copied to Robert Black, dated 23 November
I am at somewhat of a loss as to know where to begin as it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is a huge intellectual void between us. You talk freely of "facts" yet seem utterly incapable of critically examining the facts that have come to light since the trial and indeed re-examine the supposed facts that were led during it.
I note, with some despondency, that US Governmental control of the doctrinal system may make it ultimately impossible for you to accept and consider the realities in this case and that American culture encourages an ideology that "hates" to lose and therefore it is extremely difficult for you to consider, even if you consciously knew it, that you may be entirely wrong.
Mr Duggan, it is apparent to me from your blatant right wing political agenda that your grasp of what facts there are is extremely limited. For information, unlike the United States of America, both my grandfathers fought for three consecutive the perpetrators of the holocaust before the US woke up to the danger of aggressive imperialist fascism, the same type of imperial cultural and political fascism which appears to be an integral part of US foreign policy today.
I suspect (although I have yet to see any evidence!) that at some base level both you and Mr Marquise are aware of the facts in this case, which is presumably why you have both consistently endeavoured to lower the arguments surrounding this case to concentrating on character assassination and failed to argue the substantive points in the case or answer the core questions at its heart.
Mr Duggan, despite what you may think, you clearly do not represent the 270 innocent souls who were murdered in December 1988, a fact that I fear has completely eluded you.
Turning to your comments Mr Marquise. I have been generous with you in the past and have stated to those I have met and discussed this with, including the Justice Minister at the time of the trial and others, that you may not have actively tried to deceive and that you simply reached the wrong conclusions on the limited evidence available and due to the enforced timescales imposed to secure an indictment. However it is clear that you have and are involved in a propaganda campaign to defend the conviction. I understand why on a personal level you would wish to do that. Your entire professional career and reputation and that of Henderson and other senior legal people here in Scotland depend on maintaining this unsafe conviction. That personal stake in this case has blinded you and those you have helped indoctrinate into ignoring the substantive pieces of information and evidence that has come to light since the kangaroo court proceedings in Holland.
I am willing to accept that there was a slackness in the investigation (in terms of failure to follow correct procedure), certainly in the Scottish police aspect of the case, because at that time no one seriously believed Libya would ever surrender the two accused. I can only imagine the sense of panic that ensued when it became evident that the Megrahi and Fhimah were prepared to come before what they were told, and believed would be a fair court process.
You seem to be trapped by the illusion that our certainty in Megrahi’s innocence is based solely on us meeting him in person and not by the conclusions of the SCCRC report, the discussions we have had with police officers involved in the case and very senior figures inside the Scottish legal system who are as appalled as us with the outcome of the investigation and conviction of an innocent man, whilst the real perpetrators go unpunished.
Regarding the cash reward received by witnesses I can only say if they were motivated by a civic or moral duty why would they need the money? In fact why would they actively seek financial reward, as you must know was the case? Another fact obscured by your visceral hatred of those who seek to objectively and critically examine the case you presented.
You claim that no money was ever offered or promised before trial. Presumably you mean "was never offered by the FBI" as you must know that money was discussed at length by US intelligence. I thought it was "us" who were the "deniers"?
You imply that I am behind the allegations that Mr Thurman is not properly qualified. That is not the case. It was the FBI’s Fred Whitehurst who makes that assertion although I appreciate it will not be a comforting experience to have fellow Americans undermine the determined indoctrination process you are involved with.
As I have previously stated I coincidentally worked as a Quality Inspector for the world’s biggest PCB manufacturer in the world, ironically a US owned company. I therefore happen to know a little about circuit boards. Having recently read the court transcript the identification of PT35 was done purely on a visual comparison of a complete board which the CIA happened to have and which Thurman acquired. As I have previously stated the board was NOT manufactured by MEBO, but by Thuring AG and then sold to MEBO to be "populated". I have made the point before, and this is evident in the court transcript, that there are design characteristics on PT35 which yes, could be present on a complete MST13 timer, but, which the Court failed to consider, equally present on any number of other circuits produced by Thuring. That is not just my view but a view shared by people I know who still work in the industry and presumably why none of the 55 PCB companies visited by investigators was able to give a categorical identification of the fragment before Thurman’s "miraculous" (I am being generous) ID in Washington.
As you have stated Mr Marquise, without PT35 there would be no indictment, let alone a conviction so this and the other serious questions regarding PT35 are significant. Incidentally you previously took me to task over whether the MST13 timers were sold or simply "given" to Libya and stated, as "fact", that they were "given" and not sold. If you would like I am happy to send you a recorded interview conducted in 2000 with your associate Robert Muller, who I believe runs the FBI today. He makes it clear then that the timers were "sold". Perhaps a conference call may be required to get your stories straight before you begin lecturing others on what constitutes "fact" and what does not.
I am sorry you took offence at the "vulgar" quote I used from Ian Ferguson. It seemed to fit the vulgar outcome of the manner in which this investigation and trial were conducted and underscore the sheer scale of the huge miscarriage of justice that has taken place. In that context I believe there are other more substantive and relevant apologies to be made.
As you are aware, I and many others (including those inside the US and UK intelligence services) hold the view that Iran was responsible for this attack. Our narrative of the crime which led to the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie is based on our belief that Iran carried out the attack in revenge for the terrorist atrocity which the US carried out against Iran when they shot down Flight 655, five months before Lockerbie.
As you will see later today, we are now calling for an international inquiry to be established to examine the broader context that led to the Pan Am 103 attack and which, if we lived in a non-hypocritical, fair and just world, would hopefully lead to the conviction of those who are really responsible for Pan Am 103 and those officers and crew who illegally entered Iranian waters and blew up 290 innocent victims on the Iranian flight five months before. These are two interrelated terrorist acts in which the perpetrators, on both sides, have yet to face justice.
I appreciate the real sense of angst that many US families will have regarding the Megrahi release and those who believe, as I do, that he is innocent of this crime. They have been, as one US family member told me "lied to from the outset by our own government and others". I understand too that the American sense of "justice" is very much based on the concept of an eye for an eye and why, therefore, it would be very difficult for Americans to accept the revenge attack which Iran sponsored in retaliation for the murder of 290 of their citizens. I also understand why, Mr Marquise, you are so passionate to defend your reputation in the face of facts that existed during the investigation and which have emerged subsequently. That is an entirely understandable human reaction.
As you must surely appreciate by now, this is not an issue that is going to slip away quietly. Because the real perpetrators have yet to face justice, it shouldn’t be allowed to.
It may be comforting for you, Mr Duggan in particular, to hide behind his metaphoric redoubt and sling entirely inappropriate comment at those who are challenging the official version of events that has been fed to you over the years. The holocaust comparison you make directed at me is presumably an attempt to align those of us who believe Iran was responsible for the attack on Pan Am 103 to the abhorrent comments of the current President of Iran who is on record as a holocaust denier. What a vulgar irony that truly is.
Given, Mr Marquise, you are blind copying in other people to your correspondence between us you will have no particular objection to Professor Black reporting this exchange on his blog?
4. From Frank Duggan to Mark Hirst, copied to Richard Marquise and Robert Black, dated 24 November
There is no intellectual void. It would be helpful to your advocacy if you would explain Mr. Megrahi's actions in Malta and elsewhere, as brought out in the court's decision concerning his guilt. Stating that there were other reasonable, legal explanations for his carrying a false passport and lying about it is not helpful. These are facts that you "seem utterly incapable of critically examining."
5. From Mark Hirst to Frank Duggan, copied to Richard Marquise and Robert Black, dated 25 November
I suspect this exchange could continue forever and with no resolution between our differing views. I think this issue has been debated many times, but I don't see how inverting the burden of proof really assists the case being made against Megrahi. There are any number of unrelated reasons (unrelated to the crime) that would explain why Megrahi could have been carrying a diplomatic coded passport and these are already in the public domain. It was for the Crown to demonstrate these issues were directly connected to the crime, not for Megrahi or anyone else to explain what other possible reasons he may have had for carrying such a passport or other business he may, or may not have had in Malta. I understand that some of Megrahi's own children were also carrying coded diplomatic passports. Were these children involved in the crime also?
The independent SCCRC has concluded that there are very serious issues around the identification by Gauci, not just the millions of dollars he and his brother solicited and received from the CIA. Without the identification there is no case against Megrahi. The fact that the three judges appear to have misdirected themselves by coming up with their own narrative of the crime, which differed significantly from the one the Crown presented, is somewhat of a red herring in terms of defending the conviction being the "considered conclusion of a Scottish court", with the implication that they did not make a monumental legal error in doing so. You must at least know that.
Yourself and Mr Marquise continually attempt to dismiss critical examination of the case as the work of "conspiracy theorists" and appear to believe, without foundation, there is some kind of active conspiracy between myself, Ms Grahame, Professor Black, Dr Swire, John Pilger, Professor Chomsky, Nelson Mandela, Hans Kochler, Ian Ferguson, Gareth Pierce, Gideon Levy, Bob Baer, Fred Whitehurst and many others (including, most likely the SCCRC) who have looked at this case. Clearly the wide range of individuals, most, if not all, with exemplary professional credentials (despite your attempts at character assassination) demonstrates that beyond the three trial judges there remains, and is likely to remain, very serious doubts over the safety of this conviction and the manner in which the investigation was conducted.
That is one fact that I am confident we can both agree on.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
The weekend news media
Over the weekend the only Lockerbie-related stories in the UK press have related to US Senator Chuck Schumer's letter to Gordon Brown calling on the Prime Minister to demand Abdelbaset Megrahi's return from Tripoli to prison in Scotland because he has survived longer that three months since his release. What is vaguely surprising is the respectful tone of the accounts that I have seen. None of them takes Sen Schumer to task for (a) spouting hot air since there is no chance whatsoever that Britain would seek or Libya would consent to Megrahi's return and (b) addressing his self-publicising letter to the wrong branch of government -- the UK Prime Minister rather than the Scottish Government.
For a more sensible account of the senator's intervention than any to be found in the UK media, resort may be had to an article on the Maltese website di-ve. It reads in part:
"A US senator has written to Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling for the Lockerbie bomber to be returned to prison since Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi has outlived the 3-month forecast that justified his early release. (...)
"The Libyan served 8 years in prison before being granted compassionate release in August after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Compassionate release is an established feature of the Scottish judicial system when a prisoner is near death and 23 of the 30 for release on compassionate grounds have been approved in Scotland over the last decade.
"However, many believe Mr Al-Megrahi was the victim of a miscarriage of justice and his release came just days after he had dropped the appeal against his conviction, which had been granted by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
"The decision to release him is the most controversial in the 10-year history of the Scottish parliament and has provoked bitter criticism from US relatives, and senior US political figures including, Hillary Clinton who argued that Mr Al-Megrahi should serve out his term in Scotland."
A perceptive Scottish commentary on the STV website by Bruce Fummey entitled "Why do Americans think they rule the world?" can be read here.
For a more sensible account of the senator's intervention than any to be found in the UK media, resort may be had to an article on the Maltese website di-ve. It reads in part:
"A US senator has written to Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling for the Lockerbie bomber to be returned to prison since Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi has outlived the 3-month forecast that justified his early release. (...)
"The Libyan served 8 years in prison before being granted compassionate release in August after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Compassionate release is an established feature of the Scottish judicial system when a prisoner is near death and 23 of the 30 for release on compassionate grounds have been approved in Scotland over the last decade.
"However, many believe Mr Al-Megrahi was the victim of a miscarriage of justice and his release came just days after he had dropped the appeal against his conviction, which had been granted by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
"The decision to release him is the most controversial in the 10-year history of the Scottish parliament and has provoked bitter criticism from US relatives, and senior US political figures including, Hillary Clinton who argued that Mr Al-Megrahi should serve out his term in Scotland."
A perceptive Scottish commentary on the STV website by Bruce Fummey entitled "Why do Americans think they rule the world?" can be read here.
Friday, 20 November 2009
'MacAskill had nothing to gain yet he chose compassion'
[This is the headline over an article by Chief Reporter Lucy Adams on The Herald's new Scotland Now blog. It reads as follows:]
A man is dying in Libya. 270 people have already died in the most horrendous circumstances. Their relatives are seeking answers.
Officials in Westminster and the Crown Office are still arguing about what information should or should not be shared with the public and politicians are fighting over each other to say I told you so.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is still alive. The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is still sharing in the world’s oxygen supply and there are many who wish he were not. Later this week or this month those politicians are bound to call for the resignation of the minister who released Megrahi exactly three months ago.
Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, released Megrahi on August 20 on compassionate grounds because he is dying. The guidelines suggest that those prisoners with a life expectancy of three months or less should be considered for such a move.
Mr MacAskill had nothing to gain and much to lose yet he chose compassion over retribution. The UK Government had a great deal to gain from the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) signed off between Westminster and Libya earlier this year. When I interviewed Saif Gaddafi in August he made clear that the deal was all about oil and money.
Although Mr MacAskill rejected the PTA, scores of people in the US threatened to boycott Scotland and its exports.
Those with a sense of perspective praised the decision of Scotland in the face of condemnation from the US and a chilling silence from Westminster.
Even they may now question the decision of Mr MacAskill, but where is the consistency in praising compassion for a man with only three months to live, and criticising compassion for a man who lives for three months and two weeks?
Megrahi is desperately ill but he is still alive. Imagine that now he is back with family in Tripoli he may live for four or five months. Should our patience with compassion run out so quickly that we begin to wish him dead?
Would it not be more constructive at this stage to support the living in finding answers to what happened to their loved ones?
Rather than calling for the resignation of the Justice Secretary, should we not focus on the way forward. Without knowing the truth about the past the path forward will always seem uncertain.
We must allow the relatives a public inquiry to deal with the questions from the past and leave the ghoulish spectacle of a man dying in Libya alone to allow him to spend his few remaining days in peace.
Vying to be the most outspoken, punitive, secretive or draconian does nothing for Scotland’s international reputation. We need to show that compassion is not just for Christmas and that openness and transparency from those still refusing to share vital information, will not be tolerated.
A man is dying in Libya. 270 people have already died in the most horrendous circumstances. Their relatives are seeking answers.
Officials in Westminster and the Crown Office are still arguing about what information should or should not be shared with the public and politicians are fighting over each other to say I told you so.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is still alive. The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is still sharing in the world’s oxygen supply and there are many who wish he were not. Later this week or this month those politicians are bound to call for the resignation of the minister who released Megrahi exactly three months ago.
Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, released Megrahi on August 20 on compassionate grounds because he is dying. The guidelines suggest that those prisoners with a life expectancy of three months or less should be considered for such a move.
Mr MacAskill had nothing to gain and much to lose yet he chose compassion over retribution. The UK Government had a great deal to gain from the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) signed off between Westminster and Libya earlier this year. When I interviewed Saif Gaddafi in August he made clear that the deal was all about oil and money.
Although Mr MacAskill rejected the PTA, scores of people in the US threatened to boycott Scotland and its exports.
Those with a sense of perspective praised the decision of Scotland in the face of condemnation from the US and a chilling silence from Westminster.
Even they may now question the decision of Mr MacAskill, but where is the consistency in praising compassion for a man with only three months to live, and criticising compassion for a man who lives for three months and two weeks?
Megrahi is desperately ill but he is still alive. Imagine that now he is back with family in Tripoli he may live for four or five months. Should our patience with compassion run out so quickly that we begin to wish him dead?
Would it not be more constructive at this stage to support the living in finding answers to what happened to their loved ones?
Rather than calling for the resignation of the Justice Secretary, should we not focus on the way forward. Without knowing the truth about the past the path forward will always seem uncertain.
We must allow the relatives a public inquiry to deal with the questions from the past and leave the ghoulish spectacle of a man dying in Libya alone to allow him to spend his few remaining days in peace.
Vying to be the most outspoken, punitive, secretive or draconian does nothing for Scotland’s international reputation. We need to show that compassion is not just for Christmas and that openness and transparency from those still refusing to share vital information, will not be tolerated.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)