Legacy of Lockerbie: part 2

[The following is taken from an article by Kenneth Roy, the editor, published today in the Scottish Review:]

The empty auditorium

On the subject of Lockerbie, we are not short of bar-room philosophers. When someone from the Sun phoned me last week for a quote, he assured me that, down at his local, most people were convinced that Megrahi should never have gone to prison. I told my new friend from the Murdoch empire that I was interested to hear it. I was tempted to add that if only his newspaper had supported the opinion of the boozing classes, the world would be a marginally fairer place. 

But where (I have been asking myself for the last fortnight), were all these bar-room philosophers when the facts of the Lockerbie disaster were first examined? I put this question with the hindsight of one of the strangest experiences of my professional life.

In December 1990, close to the week of the second anniversary, I turned up one morning at a psychiatric hospital in Dumfries. Part of the grounds had been converted into a mini-village, with its own 400-seat auditorium, administrative block, media centre and restaurant. I reported to the media centre and was issued with a badge, a desk and a telephone. 'Where is everybody?', I asked. There was no one in this centre; only rows and rows of empty desks and a long corridor of empty cubicles, each reserved for some famous newspaper or broadcasting organisation. 'Oh, there's never anybody here,' the security man replied casually. 'We haven't bothered to connect most of the phones'. He suggested that I should put my feet up, have a smoke, and listen to an audio feed of the proceedings. It was, he assured me, warmer in here than in the room with the 400-seat auditorium. 

I went to the room anyway. I was frisked at the door, emerging through a metal archway into a large, gloomy hall with a stage and municipal-green curtains, tightly drawn to exclude the little natural light. A third of the floor space had been penned off for bewigged counsel and their assistants – 28 of them. A team of three shorthand writers worked in 15-minute rotas. On the stage sat the impassive sheriff who was hearing the evidence. In the press benches, a handful of reporters. 

But the auditorium was deserted. Not one of the 400 seats in the public benches was occupied. During a break I asked an official if this was unusual. He told me that the highest attendance had been 10, on one of the early days. There had been no one for weeks. 

This was the fatal accident inquiry into Britain's worst peacetime atrocity, a terrorist crime which claimed 270 lives. 

Some accident. 

Only one person in this oppressively dim room was of more than passing interest. She sat incongruously in the pen reserved for the lawyers, but it was clear that she was not one of that lot. She was a woman in early middle age, beautiful, stylishly dressed. I observed that her concentration never wavered and that she never stopped writing; writing; writing. 

I discovered that her name was Marina de Larracoechea, that she was 43 years old, Spanish, an interior designer, that her sister Nieves, four years her junior, had been a flight attendant on Pan Am flight 103, and that she was here to represent her sister, murdered at 39. Legal representation did not interest Marina. She had to be in this unfamiliar town in person, in the depth of winter, resting her head heaven knows where, week after week, listening, writing, head down, writing. 

The airline's head of security – even for him there was no audience – gave evidence. I remember 22 years later that he spoke of 'bouncing off the walls in frustration' at his employer's lack of interest in his plans to improve the inadequate security. We did not know then about the Heathrow possibility. We knew very little. Megrahi was a free man. Tony Gauci was an obscure Maltese shopkeeper. Peter Fraser was just another of those jolly affable chaps at the Scottish bar, no one suspecting that he thought in such sophisticated imagery as a witness being an apple short of a picnic.

It was an inquiry taking place in the dark. Almost literally.

As she listened to the security man's evidence, Marina stepped up the pace of her ferocious note-taking. I didn't appreciate at the time the nature of this phenomenon; it took a while for my slow head to work it out. It was someone bearing witness. I hadn't seen the like of it before and I haven't seen the like of it since. It was a deeply impressive spectacle. 

At every new turn in the Lockerbie saga, I wondered what had happened to Marina. Maybe it was all that bar-room philosophy – to say nothing of all that speaking for Scotland crap – which finally drove me to make inquiries. It seems she is still alive and living in New York. 'I don't care about work any more,' she said some years ago. 'I can't do it any more. Personally I don't think I will ever be able to get back to many things in my life. All the rest is very minor compared to the fact that she is not around any more'.

Marina rejected a £4m payoff offered to each of the families. She said the money meant nothing to her and that all she wanted was the truth.

Marina requested that Nieves' name should be excluded from the Lockerbie memorial because neither truth nor justice had prevailed. I don't know whether this request was respected. 

Marina attended part of the trial in the Netherlands and left it convinced of Megrahi's innocence. She said at the time of his detention in Scotland: 'The fact that he is languishing in a Scottish prison is a source of great sadness to me and to many other relatives I have spoken to. He is nothing more than a scapegoat'.

Marina appealed to the Scottish judges to conduct an independent review of the evidence on the grounds that the full truth behind the bombing had been deliberately withheld. They rejected this request. She applied for permission to intervene and ask questions during the hearing of Megrahi's appeal. They rejected this application.

The most recent reference I have been able to source appeared in a Spanish newspaper at the beginning of last year. It was in the form of a personal statement.

Marina said:  I have worked hard with dedication and sacrifice, especially for truth and justice, in the case of the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 where my sister Nieves was murdered, along with 269 other equally precious and irreplaceable lives. This carnage, politically induced, announced and expected, occurred on 21 December 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Others, mainly government officials, diplomats and big businessmen had precise prior knowledge that helped them to change their flights and save their lives. Silence reigns over this and other important aspects.

In the same statement, Marina pleaded for health to continue fighting with even more determination 'and a little good fortune to help us bear with dignity the enormous burden of these 22 years'.

Her dignity was never in doubt. I experienced it for myself that long-ago December day in the tightly-curtained room. I'm reading it again through the lines I've just quoted. 

For 270 of those 400 vacant seats there was a victim. Yet it seems that the powerful have won. The powerful have kept their secrets. The powerful have always depended on the emptiness of the auditorium.

[Part 1 of Kenneth Roy’s article can be read here.]

Lockerbie questions

[This is the heading over two letters published today in The Daily Telegraph.  They read as follows:]

SIR – The survival of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al–Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, beyond the three months he was given to live does not make his prognosis or release from jail suspect (report, Issue 1,087).

Doctors can only assess prognosis on the basis of population data and instinct. For an individual to survive far beyond the prognosis is not surprising, especially when the patient accesses treatments that are deemed too expensive by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or which are not available in Britain.

I can attest to this because I am still alive five years after being diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma. This cancer, caused by exposure to asbestos, has a median survival of 12 to 14 months.

It may be the drugs or the experimental treatments I have had overseas, or it may be that I am just out on the far right of the survival curve. But the fact that I am alive does not make the initial prognosis wrong.

Dr Andrew D Lawson, Warborough, Oxfordshire

SIR – Huge doubts remain about Megrahi’s conviction. In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found prima facie evidence of a miscarriage of justice. English and Scottish prosecution services have a bad record of keeping essential evidence from the defence; this was an especially reprehensible example.

Cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses was so devastating that Megrahi’s subsequent conviction is beyond comprehension. Much of the forensic scientific evidence and the theory that a suitcase bomb entered the system in Malta and rattled around Europe before exploding over Lockerbie are absurd.

Most of the Scottish judiciary believes the fingerprints of Iran and Syria are all over this episode and that the guilty verdict against Megrahi is manifestly unsafe.

Dr John Cameron, St Andrews, Fife

Legacy of Lockerbie: part 1

[What follows is taken from an article by Kenneth Roy, the editor of the Scottish Review, in today’s issue. Part 2 of the article is due to be published tomorrow.]

Vacuous and semi-literate: the state of political language in Scotland

Political language is bad, often very bad, and a current illustration can be found in the Scottish Government's official statement on the death of Megrahi. The statement is in the name of Alex Salmond, but it is difficult to believe that the first minister, who used to write well and probably still does, is more than formally responsible for it. Even this busy man should check before he signs off the stuff. 

Look and squirm at the first sentence: Our first thoughts are with the families of the Lockerbie atrocity, whose pain and suffering has been ongoing now for over 23 years.

This is scarcely literate. Presumably it is a bureaucrat's way of conveying sympathy for personal grief, but the language is so stale that it feels ritualistic. The Scottish Government had months – years, as it turned out – to prepare for Megrahi's death. If it had any genuine concern for the families, it could have found a more sensitive way of expressing it. It could have started by respecting the English language. 

Pain and suffering has is bad enough. I don't fancy 'over 23 years' when 'more than' would have taken a second longer to type. But ongoing is horrible. The once-trendy 'ongoing' may be just about permissible in official documents – in the sense that any abuse of language seems to be permissible in official documents – but in a message of condolence it is inexcusable. Worse, we have ongoing now. When do the pain and suffering cease to be ongoing now? No doubt when all concerned are conveniently dead. 

It is open for relatives of Mr Megrahi to apply to the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission to seek a further appeal. 

'Open to' rather than 'open for' would have been better usage, but the real howler in this sentence is the incorrect reference to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. If the people responsible for this statement – we should remind ourselves that they had years to prepare it – can get the name of this organisation wrong, we're entitled to wonder how much else they get wrong; seriously wrong.

Mr Megrahi's death ends one chapter of the Lockerbie case, but it does not close the book conforms to one of the main rules of political language. It is not only a cliché, but a meaningless one. It is so vague that it could signify anything or nothing. It is probably also disingenuous. It implies some desire on the part of the Scottish Government to go on with this book which has caused successive administrations on both sides of the border so much trouble for so many years. How our masters must long for that liberating word 'Finis' to be written across the final page of the accursed tome. But, of course, it is expedient to convey some cloudy suggestion of activity, a hint of ongoing now.

The Scottish Government's statement is about to deteriorate sharply. But before it does, a background note from 1946, when George Orwell identified a number of dying metaphors in political language. He defined this language in general terms as a succession of phrases 'tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house'. The Megrahi statement is a perfect vision of the hen-house. Yet there is a reluctant word to be said in its favour, since it does not include any of the following dying metaphors:
     take up the cudgels
     toe the line (aka tow the line)
     ride roughshod over
     no axe to grind
     grist to the mill
     stand shoulder to shoulder

Orwell thought that the two most risible dying metaphors – exploring every avenue and leaving no stone unturned – had disappeared from common use. He was being over-optimistic. Sixty-six years later, pompous cops continue to explore the avenue and leave no stone unturned, often in search of a male person or persons as they do so. But the male person who thought of leaving no turn unstoned deserves our gratitude for helping to boo the original off the stage.

I'm surprised that Orwell neglected to mention dying sporting metaphors. We are about to be drowned in them during the many weeks of the Greater London egg and spoon race. Surely, however, he would have savoured the following gem from the Megrahi statement: ...what emerged is that the Scottish Government were the only ones playing with a straight bat...

A straight bat, indeed. Think of this. At Lockerbie, 270 precious lives were lost. But that was a long time ago. More than – or over – 23 years later, it is safe to refer to the tragedy in terms of cricket, a jolly nice English sport, one of the few in which the first minister has expressed little if any interest. Put aside the circular ugliness of the sentence construction – 'what emerged is that' etc – and concentrate on the choice of this dying metaphor. Why cricket? Why bats? Straight in what way, exactly? Where do they keep their bent ones?

This metaphor, like most metaphors in political language, is designed to conceal. It is lacking in precision; it spares its author the effort of communicating plainly. The metaphor is a disgrace; the statement as a whole is a disgrace. It reveals only that we should not necessarily believe a word we are told about Lockerbie.

Tomorrow: Part 2 of Legacy of Lockerbie

A survivor of the London bombings writes about Lockerbie

[What follows is a contribution published in The Café section of today’s edition of the Scottish Review:]

The Death of a Man

I have been privileged to meet a wonderful man, Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed at Lockerbie when the plane was detonated destroying so many lives. When we met we both recognised that what we had in common was not just grief brought about by terrorism but a deep-rooted compassion for the truth to be told about our situations. Mine was as a survivor of the London bombings in 2005 and even seven years (nearly) later there are still facts emerging.

So why have I titled this 'The Death of a Man'? It is because over time the facts as presented by the courts relating to Megrahi have been found to be untrue in so many ways that to dare to celebrate nationally is a true disgrace and an insult to the hearts of so many people. I would never underestimate the grief suffered in Lockerbie and London, nor do I want to add to the hurt of so many, but this man was a father and a husband and it seems so barbaric to add to the persecution unless you have all of the facts to hand.

Please hold onto the truth for it is only by truth we truly learn and improve in all that we do in our lives. Along with Dr Jim Swire I share some grief for the family left behind in Libya.

Tim Coulson MBE 
Tim Coulson came to the assistance of the dying and injured on the Edgware Road underground train

Lockerbie: Fact and Fiction

[Dr Morag Kerr’s overview of the Lockerbie case has now been published as a booklet with the title Lockerbie: Fact and Fiction.  The booklet can be read online here.  A copy has already been delivered to every Member of the Scottish Parliament and further distribution is in hand.  A covering letter written by Justice for Megrahi’s secretary, Robert Forrester, reads as follows:]

As it seared itself into the collective consciousness of all Scots, the destruction of Pan Am 103 above Lockerbie on 21st December 1988 left in its wake not just a host of devastated bereaved families and friends of the 270 victims, but also a number of unanswered questions.

Unfortunately, the subsequent investigation and legal process which resulted in the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi have compounded the issue rather than provided any resolution. Some very serious question marks now hang over the investigation, the conduct of the casand the conviction. These relate to non-disclosure by the Crown of material evidence; thpayment by the US authorities to witnesses; possible planting of evidence crucial to the conviction; flawed forensic evidence and suspect identification procedures.

Justice for Megrahi has therefore produced the enclosed booklet, Lockerbie: Fact and Fiction, in the hope that it will act as a primer or synopsis of the case which will both inform by exploring some of the basic questions surrounding it and in turn inspire the reader on to studying Lockerbie/Zeist in greater depth.

We have attempted to present the facts as we know and understand them. We hope that you will find it informative and that it will assist you in appreciating why we, like the SCCRC, believe that Mr al-Megrahi may well have suffered a miscarriage of justice and why we are campaigning for an independent inquiry into the case. We believe that our criminal justice system has suffered as a result of Mr al-Megrahi's conviction and that the time has come to set the record straight.

In our campaign we have the support of many world-renowned figures, academics, prominent journalists and people from all walks of life, including the Law Faculties of the Scottish Universities, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, MPs, MSPs, and leading members of the Bar.

An open letter to Kenny MacAskill

[This is the headline over an item by Dr Jim Swire published in the current issue of the Scottish Review.  It reads as follows:]

I could not agree more with Judith Jaafar's telling comments (24 May). Show some independence now, if that's really what you are fighting for. Our proud history must not be blighted by allowing this case to remain unresolved.

You used the provision in our law for compassion for Megrahi, you know I applauded that: and the thanks you got? Curses from the US and Westminster, yet you started a process you cannot now stop. Review of the case could only help defuse the criticism of your brave decision in 2009.

Never mind what threats Cameron and the US may be dripping into your ears, like the Hamlet vial of poison.

Maybe US firms say they will only come here if we uphold the sanctity of the 'Libya did it' myth, but inactivity is now enraging the elite and the thinkers in our own country. Thatcher may have taught us to put monetary gain above all else, but she was English. Some of us still believe that truth and justice should be the bedrocks of our Scottish society.

Coming clean might mean the loss of our current lord advocate who told me only in February that he didn't know why the Heathrow information was hidden from the Megrahi trial. A simple inquiry to the Dumfries and Galloway chief constable Patrick Shearer soon produced an admirably frank answer to the lord advocate: Dumfries and Galloway knew of the break-in (described by Shearer as 'the Heathrow insecurity' incidentally) from January 1989 and suppressed it even from the Crown Office till 1999 and then it was still suppressed and kept from the defence and the court. 

The police were the agents of the Crown Office, and both entities were Scottish, 'Crown' or no 'Crown'.

Then the Crown Office actually dared to presume to know that the information wouldn't have made any difference to the court's verdict. That is the attitude of a cornered suspect who will take any measure, adopt any policy to try to save his life. 

Does the SNP really wish to continue to associate with such attitudes? We are not going away. We look to you for leadership with honesty. Go for it, go for it now, before this descends into bitter legal action.

There is right and there is wrong, and many believe we have gone terribly wrong over this case, and only we in Scotland can put it right.

This also goes to Alex Salmond and Bob Black, together with the editor of the Scottish Review.

Lockerbie: The movie

[This is the headline over a report published today in the Scottish edition of The Sun.  It reads in part:]

A dramatic movie about the Lockerbie disaster is set to be made.

Producers have signed up campaigner Dr Jim Swire, who lost 23-year-old daughter Flora in the terror atrocity.

Lockerbie Productions Inc are also said to have won agreement from Peter Biddulph, who runs the Lockerbie Truth website with Dr Swire, 75.

Last night an insider said: “It’s possible Dr Swire will be portrayed in the film.

“There are plans for a moving scene with him laying flowers at his daughter’s grave.”

Producers are said to have travelled to the Cannes Film Festival to stir interest in the project at the same time as Libyan bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi died from cancer. (…)

New Yorker Peter Lowenstein, 78, who lost son Alexander, said: “People who make films about events like Lockerbie are often wackos but if this is a carefully considered look I think there would be a place for that.”

In 1998 ex-Lockerbie councillor Marjory McQueen slammed the idea but yesterday said: “If someone wants to make a film let them.”

In whose name: Political reputations are fleeting

[This is the headline over an article published today on the website of Holyrood magazine by the editor, Mandy Rhodes.  It reads in part:]

What strikes me this last week is how ephemeral political reputations can be.

Only last issue I was praising Johann Lamont for her gracious humility in the wake of the better than expected council election results for the Labour Party and this week, I remain stung by her crass intervention following the death of Megrahi.

Let me, on behalf of the people of Scotland, apologise to the families of all the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, for his [Megrahi’s] early release.

On behalf of the people of Scotland? How dare she? I found Lamont’s presumption that she could speak for me offensive in the extreme.

I have my own voice and I have used it to be vocal and supportive of the release of that dying man from prison no matter what evil he represented in some people’s minds.

Johann Lamont is leader of the opposition, of Scottish Labour whose vote collapsed in Scotland at the last election. She was elected to lead a party that has just over 13,000 members, most of whom did not vote for her, so for her to take on the mantle of Scotland’s shame, grates.

And I am not alone. Many Scots believe that the decision by our Justice Secretary to release a man dying of prostate cancer was taken for the right reasons and at the right time. The inconvenient fact that the Lockerbie bomber outlived original medical predictions – something normally celebrated in relation to cancer patients – was principally down to his access to an expensive drug in Libya that is not yet available in Scotland. That is a truth tacitly acknowledged by those that are now so vigorous in their efforts to get that same life-prolonging drug available to Scots, using Megrahi as the poster boy for its use.

But here is a simple fact; if Megrahi had stayed in Scotland, his death would have been considerably more premature. That may be some cause for consternation for some, including it would seem, Ms Lamont, but for others with a bit of humanity and a sense of compassion, like Dr Jim Swire whose daughter, Flora, was killed in the atrocity, there is no solace in that argument and still no justice has been fully seen to be done.

So, amid conflicting emotions, wild accusations and extreme scales of belief about guilt or otherwise, Lamont takes it upon herself to speak for a nation and in doing so, unravels all the goodwill she may have recently won.

There’s a paradox there, in that a woman who decries a country’s leader for having the nerve to go out into the world and talk up Scotland, is the same woman who has taken it upon herself to talk for Scotland.

Your assumption of Megrahi’s guilt is based on no more than the fact that he was convicted

[What follows is the text of a letter dated 21 May sent by David Wolchover to Prime Minister David Cameron:]

The Destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988

I am a practising barrister, Head of Chambers Emeritus at 7 Bell Yard and an established legal author. Over the last year I have contributed a number of articles to Criminal Law and Justice Weekly on the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, and I also maintain an on-line monograph on the issue, hosted at www.DavidWolchover.co.uk. The monograph is an expansion of the material set out in the CL&JW articles. I am enclosing herewith a bundle of the CL&JW articles, a print out of the current edition of the monograph, and a copy of an article I contributed last year to the Jewish Chronicle entitled “Lockerbie: time for us to reveal the true culprits”. All are commended for your attention. [RB: these documents can be found on David Wolchover's website, or through this blog's search facility.]

The drafting of this letter was already well advanced when news came through of the death of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. In substance his death changes nothing, save that large numbers of ill-informed people will be saying to themselves “not a moment too soon.”

On the 29 February this year, immediately prior to the launch of John Ashton’s book Megrahi: You are my Jury, 10 Downing Street issued a statement characterising the book as “an insult to the Lockerbie relatives.” It is understood that your office had not at that stage been treated to sight of the work. Then, on Monday, 14 May, referring to Abdelbaset al Megrahi’s release in 2009 by the Scottish authorities, you stated:

“One thousand days on, this is yet another reminder that Alex Salmond’s Government’s decision to free the biggest mass murderer in British history was wrong and an insult to the families of the 270 people who were murdered.”

Contrary to the supposition of some observers I do not believe that this was grandstanding inspired primarily by the perception of an opportunity to upstage Mr Salmond. The passionate tones of your statement demonstrate that you were (characteristically, if I may respectfully say so) speaking from the heart.

Today it is reported that in Chicago yesterday you dismissed the possibility of a new UK Lockerbie inquiry, stating that Megrahi’s trial was

“properly conducted . . . This has been thoroughly gone through. There was a proper process, a proper court proceeding and all the rest of it.”

With the greatest of respect, the fact that the trial may have been conducted with all due decorum and with all the niceties attendant upon safeguarding the defendant’s right to legal representation, strict observance of the rules of evidence and procedure, and with an apparent attention to detail, does not mean that the judges “got it right.” 

The fact is that not only did they not “get it right” but that, amazing as it might seem and notwithstanding their enormous authority and professional distinction, they made an utter hash of the evidence and accepted as reality a quite ludicrous series of propositions, as any sensible scrutiny of the evidence plainly reveals. As far as the Malta end of the story is concerned, their finding was based on nothing short of petitio principii, assuming what is to be proved as a component of the would-be proof, as you will see from my analysis. As to what is supposed to have taken place in Frankfurt they were actually led to overlook one vital piece of evidence which of itself and even if the rest of the evidence had been coherent and logical would have brought down the whole edifice like a house of cards (see Vol 175 CL&JW, Aug 27/Sept 3, p.510, enclosed). So even there it was not all “thoroughly gone through.”

Sadly, the verdict has become the king’s new clothes, a comforting illusion for those, including many bereaved relatives, who would rather seek refuge in apparent certainty than face the terrible realisation that the trail to the true culprits will long have gone cold, with the scent never likely to be picked up again by even the most dogged bloodhound.

In subscribing to the validity of Megrahi’s conviction you take a position which is opposed by what has now grown into a substantial body of authoritative and informed individuals of diverse shades of political opinion from the worlds of politics, journalism, medicine, the law and other professions. Importantly also, a great many if not most of the bereaved British families – tenaciously led of course by Dr Swire – and many of the American relatives now utterly reject the case for upholding Megrahi’s conviction.

In the face of that weight of opinion and having regard to the details of the case your outspoken position at first blush seems puzzling. But I feel convinced that your assumption of Megrahi’s guilt is based on no more than the fact that he was convicted at Zeist and that his conviction was upheld at the original appeal. It is hardly surprising that you would have had little time to assimilate for yourself the details of the case to a degree necessary to form a fully informed view, though it is perhaps unfortunate (as I assume to be the case) that someone at least among your staff was not briefed to make a detailed study of the details and to report back to you.

However, were you to get to grips with those details it is inconceivable that as a rational and independent thinker, if I may say so, you would not fail to come to appreciate that the Crown’s case quite simply flies in the face of common sense and is fundamentally and utterly unsustainable.

Libya was not involved. The true culprits were almost certainly the PFLP-GC led by the arch terrorist Ahmed Jibril. Such pointers to that proposition as are available are thoroughly analysed in the enclosed texts.

But my purpose in writing is not to take on the challenge of trying to squeeze into a page or two the essence of the argument disavowing Megrahi’s conviction, though I am sure that others more qualified than I might well succeed in making a powerful case in a few sentences.

My particular purpose in writing is to pose the following questions, the specific answers to which I feel sure a suitable official can answer.

1. In making your pronouncement were you expressing a purely personal opinion or were you articulating the coalition’s collective standpoint?

2. If you were expressing no more than a personal opinion, what was the depth of your study of the case? What materials did you consult?

3. If you were speaking for HM Government, rather than in a purely personal capacity, was it with the express approval of cabinet colleagues?

4. If you did not have their express approval, were you nonetheless purporting to speak for the Government using some form special authority as Prime Minister akin to an exercise of the royal prerogative?

5. If you did have the express approval of colleagues, please identify the forum in which that approval was registered.

6. If approval was given in cabinet please state

(a) whether approval was by majority or unanimous;

(b) whether cabinet members voted on the matter on the basis of being required to deliberate of the facts in the case,

(c) if so, what protocols were adopted for ensuring that they were briefed on the evidence and issues in the case to a level sufficient for them to make an informed and rational judgment, and

(d) whether the members were expected to acquaint themselves with the facts before voting on whether to give approval to your statement, to a degree sufficient to make a rational judgment,

7. If approval was given in cabinet but not on the basis of deliberation on the detailed facts by individual members please state whether it was given on the basis of a vote taken in cabinet to adopt the judgment of the Scottish trial and appeal court judges on the assumption that having respectively tried the case and heard the first appeal their view could not properly be gainsaid by lay politicans.

I would be most grateful to receive a substantive answer to these questions from your office.

Review by Vronsky of "The Lockerbie Bomber"

I went to see Falkirk Tryst Theatre’s production, “The Lockerbie Bomber” last night (26th May). This was the premiere of a script by Kenneth Ross, pseudonym of Alan Clark, a member of the theatre company. The audience of around one hundred in Falkirk Town Hall included Dr Jim Swire, who briefly addressed the audience after the performance. I don’t know what opportunity there will be for others to see this play, but see it if you can. The atmosphere is intense, and at no stage did I feel I was watching amateur players.

The play examines the events and aftermath of the bombing through the eyes of a couple who lost a young child in the disaster, a pair of investigative journalists, and two spooks – one British, one CIA.

Scottish art from the fifteenth century makars up to Irvine Welsh has tended to look at the world through more unflinching eyes than our southern neighbours, and Ross’s play follows in that tradition. The stage set is a litter of aeroplane wreckage which the actors continuously wander through, adopting as furniture for the scene in progress so that all action takes place among this debris of disaster. 

Ross seems to have worked on the assumption that the audience knows nothing of the detail of the Camp Zeist trial – a defensible assumption, but it leads to some lengthy exposition in dialogue. However as journalist Maggie McInnes, played with fine conviction by Rhona Law, sits down to write her exposé, dark forces are already at work and the dramatic pace rises. When an attempt by the British intelligence officer to silence the journalists by leaking a little of the truth fails, the CIA agent resorts to more traditional methods. Maggie is abducted and tortured, in one of the most chilling pieces of theatre I have seen, and I go to a lot of theatre. Of course in the real world it is quite unnecessary to torture journalists in order to have them ‘toe the line’ – their willing self-censorship is almost as horrifying as the breaking of fingers.

As the journalists and the bereaved family try to piece together what has happened, the secret agents meet in the background and arrange events and outcomes as they are instructed. The CIA man is a straightforward thug who enjoys his work, while the British agent recognises the human damage they are doing but wearily accepts the ‘realpolitik’. He expresses the only note of optimism in the play: he expects that the Scottish government, for its own survival, must at some point cut its support for the Crown Service and allow the truth to emerge. The play ends with the cast all on stage, simply standing and staring in silence at the audience for a long moment. There are no bows or curtain calls - Lockerbie is unfinished business. 

Bàs Megrahi: ceistean [Death of Megrahi: issues]

[This is the headline over an article in Gaelic by Seonaidh Caimbeul in yesterday’s edition of The Scotsman.  Regrettably, Scots Gaelic is not one of the language options offered by Google Translate.   Babylon claims to do so, but I have been unable to get the download to work. The article reads as follows:]

Tha bàs Abdelbasat Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 60, Di-Dòmhnaich sa chaidh air ceist na coireachd air son là dubh Logarbaidh [Lockerbie] 21.12.88 a thogail ás ùr agus iomagain ann gu bheil an gnothach a’ tarraing aire nàireil do dh’Alba air adhbharan eadar-dhealaichte.

Air an dàrna làimh tha feadhainn den bheachd gur e uilebheist a bh’ anns an Libianach a mharbh 270 le boma a phlantaig e air bòrd PanAm 103 a thuit air Logarbaidh. Tha iad ag ràdh gur e mearachd a rinn Ministear a’ Cheartais, Coinneach MacAsgaill [Kenny MacAskill], le bhith a’ leigeil le al-Megrahi a dhol dhachaigh gu Tripoli seach bàsachadh sa phrìosan. Thuirt ceannard nan Làbarach, Johann NicLadhmainn [Johann Lamont], ’s i a’ bruidhinn “ás leth muinntir na h-Alba”, nach robh an co-dhùnadh sin ach “a’ dèanamh tàir air na h-ìobairtich agus an teaghlaichean”.

Air an làimh eile tha cuid de luchd-dàimh nam marbh agus sàr-eòlaich lagh cinnteach nach robh al-Megrahi neo Libia an sàs sa mhort ’s gu bheil fianais nas earbsaich a’ comharrachadh Iran. Tha litir fhosgailte le taic bho dhaoine cliùiteach ann am beatha phoblach a’ fàgail air Riaghaltas na h-Alba gun deach ceuman a ghabhail “a tha a’ cur bacadh air adhartas sam bith a dh’ionnsaigh togail a’ cheò a tha ’na laighe air na thachair”.

Tha am bàrd Aonghas Dubh MacNeacail a’ toirt taic ris an iomairt air son sgrùdadh poblach. Thuirt e: “Chan eil mi a’ tuigsinn car son a tha daoine a’ dùnadh an sùilean ri fianais a tha a’ cur teagamh anns a’ bhinn a chaidh a chur air Mgr Megrahi. Bha na breitheamhan eisimeileach air an fhianais agus an fhiosrachadh a bha romhpa sa chùirt agus tha sinn uile an urra ris na leugh sinn mun chùis lagh. Ge-tà, tha fianais ùr air nochdadh bhon uair sin agus tha sàr-eòlaich air ceistean a thogail air a’ bhuaidh a bh’ aig riaghaltasan Ameireaga ’s Breatainn air cùis lagha Albannach.”

Se an t-Oll. Raibeart MacilleDhuibh [Robert Black] a chuir cùis-lagha Mhegrahi air bhonn fo lagh na h-Alba aig cùirt shònraichte anns na Dùthchannan Ìsle. Thuirt e: “Tha mi toilichte faicinn gu bheil na meadhanan naidheachd an-seo agus anns na Stàitean Aonaichte ag aithneachadh a-nis gu bheil fìor dhuilgheadasan ann an dìteadh Megrahi. Se tha dhìth a-nis gun aithnich Riaghaltas na h-Alba cho riatanach ’s a tha sgrùdadh poblach neo-eisimeileach.”

Ghabhadh tagradh a chur a-steach an aghaidh na binne le teaghlach al-Megrahi, ged a tha ughdarrasan Albannach agus Ameireaganach fhathast a’ rannsachadh ceanglan Libianach ri uabhas Logarbaidh.


[Here is the full text of the quotation that I supplied to the journalist for use in the article:]


I am very pleased at the coverage that the open letter has had, both in the UK and around the world.  In particular it is gratifying to see influential mainstream news media in the United States for the first time recognising that there are real problems with the Megrahi conviction -- see eg http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2012/05/nyt-admits-lockerbie-case-flaws.html and  http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2012/05/cnn-did-someone-else-bomb-pan-am-103.html. What we need now is recognition from the Scottish Government that there is here a matter of real public concern and that an independent inquiry into the investigation, prosecution and conviction is necessary. People like Kate Adie, Benedict Birnberg, Ian Hislop, A L Kennedy, Len Murray, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, John Pilger, Tessa Ransford, James Robertson, Kenneth Roy, Desmond Tutu and Terry Waite cannot simply be contemptuously dismissed as "conspiracy theorists" -- the lazy slur used by people who refuse to address the manifest flaws in the Lockerbie prosecution.

Blind justice

[This is the heading over a letter from Thomas Crooks published in today’s edition of The Scotsman.  It reads as follows:]

Brian Wilson’s robust defence of the Scottish legal system in the context of the Lockerbie verdict reflects a heady mixture of novel, curious and ultimately untenable theories as to why the verdict is “unassailable”:

Firstly he posits the “Universal Respect and Emulation” theory of justice. Fortunately, many people do not share Mr Wilson’s swooning admiration for our legal system. If they were still around, I’m sure Oscar Slater and Paddy Meehan would be among them.

Furthermore, a perceived “respect and emulation” for the Scottish legal system does not mean that the judiciary is always optimally impartial, or that its assessment of the evidence is infallible, or that their assessment of the credibility of the witnesses is unassailable. And it does not mean that their judgments cannot be questioned.

Secondly, Mr Wilson proposes what I would style the arithmetical theory of justice.

He argues that those who argue for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s innocence allege “the Scottish legal system messed up on every available count”. This he says it would have to have done twice, involving nine judges, five Lord Advocates, and umpteen prosecutors, forensic scientists, policemen etc.

Clearly his disbelief derives from the headcount (and the eminence) of those involved. The logic implicit in Mr Wilson’s reliance on the “umpteen” composition of the Scottish legal posse involved suggest that miscarriages of justice are technically impossible.

I regret to say the Peter Cadder case involved more than nine eminent judges, more than a few prosecutors and at least “umpteen” policemen.

Thirdly, he argues what I would term the blind faith theory of justice.

Mr Wilson, perhaps aware of the weaknesses in the headcount approach, takes a leap of faith regarding his belief in the integrity of the conviction of Megrahi: “I don’t believe it” he declares. Perhaps he would believe it if he carefully studied the Cadder case and in particular, the Supreme Court’s dissection of it.

Finally he offers the “I Know my Place” theory of justice.

He simply does not believe that the courts could have got it wrong because, he writes: “I feel utterly unqualified to disparage the judges who heard the evidence in the High Court of Justiciary in Camp Zeist”.

If everyone followed the “I know my place” approach, the Birmingham six, the Guildford four, the Maguire three, Barry George and many others, would still be squirming in the squalor of a British jail vainly protesting their innocence.

Despite the novelty of Mr Wilson’s theories, and the quality of his admiration for the Scottish legal system, the Megrahi conviction remains where it has always been – deep in the depths of justified doubt.

Current fiction protecting those who carried out attack

[The following is a transcript of an item broadcast today on the AM radio programme of Australia’s ABC News:]

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The death of the Lockerbie Bomber, Abdel Basset Megrahi last Sunday from cancer could result in the truth finally coming out about the terrorist attack that killed 270 people in the skies over Scotland.

The judge who set up special court that convicted Megrahi back in 2001 has told AM the case was deeply flawed and he wants an immediate retrial. 

British prime minister, David Cameron, has rejected the push, saying the original court case was properly conducted.

But momentum is building for a new trial or a public inquiry.

Matthew Carney reports.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Abdel Basset Megrahi returned home to Libya in 2009 to a hero's welcome. 

Many in the west were outraged that he was released early only serving eight years of a 27 year sentence for mass murder.

Megrahi had always insisted he was innocent.

And now Robert Black, the judge that set up the special court in The Netherlands that convicted him in 2001, agrees. [RB: I was only a part-time judge in the sheriff court. I did not set up the court: after the Libyan defence team refused to contemplate a trial under normal Scottish procedure, I suggested a non-jury court sitting in the Netherlands. Megrahi and Fhimah’s Libyan lawyers immediately agreed, as did the then Libyan Government, in a letter signed by Moussa Koussa. It was another four years and seven months before the UK and US governments, under strong international pressure, also agreed.]

ROBERT BLACK: It's an absolute and utter disgrace that Megrahi was convicted on the evidence that was laid against him. 

The main planks of the Megrahi conviction have now crumbled.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The key witness to Megrahi's conviction was the Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci. 

He identified Megrahi as the man that bought a shirt that was later found wrapped around fragments of the bomb at the crash site.

ROBERT BLACK: Megrahi did not fit the description that Gauci had given to the police of the purchaser. That description was of a man over six feet tall, over 50 years of age and with dark skin. Now Megrahi is light skinned, he is five feet-eight inches tall, or was before he died [and he was at the time 36 years old]. 

MATTHEW CARNEY: Black says new evidence shows Tony Gauci gave 19 wildly conflicting police statements, and that the prosecution's star witness had to be coached.

ROBERT BLACK: Before the court appearance at Zeist when (...) he pointed to Megrahi and said he looks a lot like the person who bought the clothes, he had been shown photographs of Megrahi by the prosecution. 

MATTHEW CARNEY: Black believes the other critical piece of evidence to the prosecution's case has also been discredited. It's a fragment of the bomb's timer found at the crash site that had been tracked to a Swiss manufacturer that sold the device to Libya.

ROBERT BLACK: It has now become clear, in the past few days that that [sliver] of circuit board that formed virtually the only link between the bomb and Libya, does not in fact come from one of these Swiss circuit boards. It is metallurgical[ly] different from the circuit boards used in the Mebo, the Swiss company's, timers. 

MATTHEW CARNEY: Momentum is building for an appeal to go ahead or an independent inquiry to held. 

Many victims' families are supporting the move, like Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, in the disaster.

JIM SWIRE: What the current maintained fiction is doing is to protect those monsters who actually did carry out the attack; who I believed to have been originally people in Iran using a particular terrorist group in Syria. 

ELIZABETH JACKSON: That's Dr Jim Swire ending that report from Matthew Carney.

‘Chained until we know the truth’

[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of the Scottish Catholic Observer.  It reads as follows:]

The priest who served Lockerbie when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up in 1988 said that, though the man convicted of the incident had been ‘released from his torment’ by his death, those affected by the tragedy would remain ‘chained until we know the truth’ behind the bombing.

Mgr Patrick Keegans, now the administrator of St Margaret’s Cathedral in Ayr, told the SCO this week that he believes the Scottish Government’s decision to release Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds two years ago had now been vindicated, but his and other people’s pursuit of the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing would continue.

He received support in his stance from Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow, who said the decision to release Mr Megrahi had shown the ‘maturity and civilisation of the Scottish legal system,’ and from Cardinal Keith O’Brien who, like Mgr Keegans, has signed a declaration published on Sunday calling for a fully independent inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing.

Mr Megrahi died at his home in Libya on Sunday after a long struggle with cancer and Mgr Keegans said it was important to remember that any death was ‘a time of deep grief for the family’ and his ‘prayers and sympathy’ were with Mrs Megrahi and her family.

“However, the horrendous deaths of those who died at Lockerbie, and the suffering of their families are never out of mind,” he said. “And compassion for them is ongoing and unfailing.”

Mgr Keegans said that was why he, along with many others, would continue to pursue the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing.

“Serious doubt over the conviction shared by many people throughout the world,” he said. “This death is a release for him and his family but for the families of those who died, for all of us involved with Lockerbie in many ways we are not released. We are still chained and will be until we know the truth.

Mgr Keegan has joined Cardinal O’Brien, and many high-profile politicians, lawyers and clergymen in signing a statement by the Justice for Megrahi campaign which calls on the Scottish Government to endorse ‘an independent inquiry into this entire affair’ due to what they say are the large number of unanswered questions over the conviction of Mr Megrahi, whom Scottish Secretary of Justice Kenny MacAskill released on compassionate grounds after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

“I do think his release on compassionate grounds was a good thing,” Mgr Keegans said. “It was the right thing for him and I think he would have died a long time ago if he had remained in prison. So I am glad he got to go home, write his book and spend time with his family.”

Archbishop Conti joined the monsignor in praising for decision of the Scottish Government to release Mr Megrahi.

“Irrespective of whether time will confirm or exonerate him from involvement in the atrocity which happened over the skies of Lockerbie, I was supportive of the decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi when it was made on compassionate grounds, and I remain sure that it was the right decision,” the archbishop said.