Documents to accompany Dr Swire's EIBF contribution

The following documents accompany Dr Jim Swire’s contribution to today’s Edinburgh International Book Festival session Megrahi: A spectacular miscarriage of justice?

1.  Foreword by Tam Dalyell MP to Cover-up of Convenience by John Ashton and Ian Ferguson (2001)

Seldom can an act of terrorism have had so many layers of sinister intrigue as the Lockerbie bombing. It was ten days after the disaster, on the evening of 31 December 1988 – Hogmanay – that I first became aware something very odd was afoot. A constituent, who I knew was an off-duty Lothian and Borders Police officer, pulled me aside at a function. He told me in confidence about disturbing events he had witnessed in the preceding days, while assigned to the Lockerbie crash site helping the Dumfries and Galloway force search the site. He described how American agents were swarming around the area, openly removing items of debris. He was concerned, not only because they appeared to be riding roughshod over the rules of evidence gathering required of a criminal investigation, but also because the police were doing nothing to stop them. My initial reaction was, ‘Well, one can hardly deny the Americans, since they’ve lost 175 citizens.’ During the following weeks I talked to more officers, some of whom had been left seething by similar experiences with the mysterious Americans.

Five years later, because I had repeatedly raised Lockerbie issues in the Commons, I was introduced to Allan Francovich, a remarkable American film-maker who had just begun to make his landmark Lockerbie documentary The Maltese Double Cross. His dogged investigation suggested that the ‘official version’ of the bombing (which insisted it was, in the words of one US official, a ‘Libyan government operation from start to finish’) was a sham and that the real culprits lay outside of Libya. More worryingly, he presented compelling evidence that the CIA was complicit in the disaster and, in so doing, made sense of the troubling accounts of my police sources.  Although not the first investigator to advance this ‘alternative version’, he did so with a degree of detail that was too great to be ignored. The British and American governments’ extraordinary joint campaign to discredit the film was both an indicator of how close Francovich had got to the truth and a disturbing reminder of the lengths to which some of those in authority would go to keep the lid on the affair.

Francovich’s sudden death in 1997 came as a massive blow, but
thankfully his deputy John Ashton has kept alive his spirit of inquiry.

In 1999 I became aware of another earnest seeker after the truth, Ian Ferguson, who was at the time producing a documentary for US National Public Radio. He is one of those rare individuals who, like Francovich and Ashton, is prepared to ask the awkward questions and devote many long hours to the search for answers. His reporting of the events surrounding the trial, for Scotland’s Sunday Herald newspaper and on his website thelockerbietrial.com, has been unsurpassed and has frequently rattled the cages of authority. I was delighted to learn that he and Ashton had collaborated to produce this book.

As an MP, I have seen it as my role to complement the efforts of the various investigators and the equally remarkable work of the British Lockerbie victims’ relatives, by raising questions in Parliament, and to that end I have so far initiated 16 adjournment debates. The sixth of these, held on 1 February 1995, was answered by the then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. I am told it was the only occasion since the war that a senior cabinet minister had replied to a backbencher’s adjournment debate. I am a creature of instinct and I sensed that he and the other ministers who have replied over the years were uncomfortable with having to peddle the official line. Later that day, Douglas spotted me talking to his then shadow and eventual successor Robin Cook MP. My diary entry for the day reads:

“Douglas [Hurd] swooped down on Robin and myself in the corridor by the window opposite the clerk’s assistant’s office. He said, ‘I really do ask you two to believe that as Foreign Secretary I cannot tell the [Scottish] Crown Office [which was in charge of the Lockerbie case] what to do, nor does the Foreign Office have detailed access to evidence which they say they have. You must understand that law officers really are a law unto themselves.’ Robin and I agreed that Douglas Hurd was not unfriendly towards us, and was probably correct in outlining the rules. Robin said that he guessed that Hurd was being honest with us and did not know the full story. I shrugged my shoulders, and told Robin he was probably right.”

One of the most remarkable, but least reported, revelations in the recent trial of the two Libyans was that even the Crown Office did not know the ‘full story’ when it indicted the pair in 1991. Indeed, it was not until the trial was underway that it learned that its star witness was highly unreliable. The CIA had known this for well over a decade, yet had not seen fit to make available the crucial paperwork documenting this man’s failings. Evidence heard at the trial also confirmed the long-held suspicion that CIA agents were involved in the highly irregular activities at the crash site witnessed by my police sources.

In my view, these facts alone warrant the public inquiry that has always been the demand of the British victims’ relatives. I have no doubt that there is much else in this book that will add weight to that demand. My government colleagues promised such an inquiry when in opposition and I trust that, as men of honour, they will make good that pledge.


2.  Letter  to Jim Swire from Chief Constable, Dumfries & Galloway Police

Dear Dr Swire,                                                   2 April 2012                           

I refer to your recent correspondence headed ‘Apparent Suppression of Evidence’. This letter seeks to fulfil the undertaking I gave you to provide you with an unambiguous response to concerns you raised regarding the handling of statements and evidence in connection with the insecurity detected at Heathrow.

I can confirm the following:

1.    In January 1989 BAA security notified the Metropolitan police that an insecurity had been detected within terminal 3 at Heathrow during the early hours of 21 December 1988.

2.    The Metropolitan police passed this evidence to the Police Incident Room at Lockerbie and Actions were raised to investigate this matter.

3.    During the course of this investigation Mr Manly, the BAA Security Team Leader who discovered the insecurity, was interviewed by an officer from the Metropolitan Police and a statement was obtained from him. The interview took place on 31 January 1989. A number of other witnesses were also traced and interviewed regarding the insecurity.

4.    Mr Manly’s statement was passed to the police incident room at Lockerbie and was registered on the HOLMES system on 2 February 1989. This statement and those from other witnesses identified At Heathrow were considered by enquiry officers at the time in the context of a range of emerging strands of evidence.

5.    In 1991 the police report outlining the evidence against Mr Megrahi and Mr Fhima was submitted to the Crown Office. This report did not contain a reference to the insecurity at Heathrow and made no mention of Mr Manly's statement.

6.    The surrender of Mr Megrahi and Mr Fhima for trial in the Netherlands prompted a massive preparation exercise during the course of which over 14,000 witness statements were provided to Crown Office in 1999. Mr Manly's statement was included in the material supplied to Crown though again the police made no reference to it.

7.    In 2001, as a result of Mr Manly contacting defence representatives, the insecurity at Heathrow was subject to a fresh investigation, the Crown disclosed the relevant statements to the defence and as you know the matter was considered during Mr Megrahi's first appeal. The appeal judges, in rejecting the appeal, made it clear that their assessment of the significance of this additional evidence must be conducted in the context of the whole circumstantial evidence laid before the trial court and concluded that "it cannot be said that the verdict falls to be regarded as a miscarriage of justice on account of having been reached in ignorance of the additional evidence" As the Lord Advocate explained at the meeting in London it is not for the appeal court to look at the case "afresh", it has to consider the new evidence in the context of the whole case that the trial court had before it.

In summary I can categorically state that no suppression of evidence took place and I hope this information alleviates your concerns in that regard.

(Signed) Patrick Shearer, Chief Constable.


3.  The place of Lockerbie in world events, a review by Neil Berry of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury

Published by the plucky Scottish press Birlinn, John Ashton’s new book Megrahi: You are my Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence casts grave doubt on the validity of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi’s conviction as the Libyan terrorist responsible for blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 and murdering 259 mostly American people in December 1988. At the same time, it raises deeply disturbing questions about the United States and United Kingdom’s boasted commitment to truth and justice.

It is perhaps no surprise that the mainstream British media are fighting shy of according this bulky volume the attention it deserves. For to discuss its contents would mean re-visiting a vastly acrimonious episode that threatened to poison relations between Britain and the US: The early release in August 2009 from his Scottish prison — on grounds that he was dying of cancer — of a Muslim convict who was seen by many as the personification of evil.

A member of Megrahi’s legal team, John Ashton is liable to the charge that his familiarity with the Libyan has clouded his judgment, but his book — which intersperses an exhaustive examination of the evidence that led to his conviction with Megrahi’s own testimony — collates the work of several hands and is a model of forensic rigor. It is indeed hard to believe that any fair-minded person could read it without being persuaded that Megrahi was the victim of a grotesque miscarriage of justice. The powerful impression left by the book is that Megrahi, who had run security for Libyan Arab Airlines while engaging in clandestine trading, had the ill-luck to be in Malta, the putative point of origin of the Lockerbie bomb, at the wrong time, and that he was framed because the US found it convenient to point the finger of blame at Libya.

What has never been widely recognized is that the blowing up of Pan Am 103 over the Scottish town ofLockerbie took place six months after the shooting down of an Iranian airbus over the Persian Gulf in July 1988 by the American battle cruiser, the USS Vincennes, with the deaths of 290 Iranians. It was an outrage Iran immediately vowed to avenge, and all the indications were that it was Iran, acting through the shadowy terrorist splinter group, the Palestine Popular Struggle Front, that mandated the Lockerbie operation. If, in the aftermath of Lockerbie, the US shrank from confrontation with Tehran, it was because, on top of seeking to negotiate the release of American hostages held by Iranian-backed terrorists, it was concerned to have a free hand in repelling Saddam Hussein’s attempt to annex Kuwait to Iraq.

Yet a scapegoat for Lockerbie was imperative and Libya, with an egregious leader, Col Qaddafi, whose image in the West was that of a deranged tribal savage, figured as the ideal candidate. John Ashton’s book underlines how readily the Western public accepted the case for imposing crippling sanctions on Libya as the culprit for Lockerbie. Few demurred when — even before he was sentenced by 3 Scottish judges at a special court in the Netherlands in 2001 — US President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright repeatedly described Megrahi not as a suspect but as a mass murderer.

All this would be chilling enough — even if the case against Megrahi were a more compelling one. In truth, his conviction relied on the testimony of a shopkeeper in Malta who had but the sketchiest memory of selling clothes to an Arab customer around the time when a suitcase containing the bomb was supposedly put on a feeder flight to London, there to be loaded onto Pan Am 103. It relied, too, on a circuit board, alleged to have been part of the bomb and to have derived from a batch of Swiss timing devices sold to Libya, though it was to transpire that this item of evidence — found far from the Lockerbie crash site — had nothing to do with the timers in question. What is particularly shocking is how much material evidence was withheld from Megrahi’s trial — including the striking circumstance that the night before Pan Am 103 flew from London Heathrow, the airport was broken into.

The assumption that the Lockerbie bomb originated in Malta may well have deflected attention from a far more productive line of inquiry.

Megrahi endured his 8-year Scottish incarceration in the bitter knowledge that he had been convicted on a basis that came nowhere near to satisfying the principle that guilt should be proved “beyond reasonable doubt.” Following 9/11, however, he felt that his chances of ever clearing his name had all but vanished. Certainly, the belief that he was the “Lockerbie bomber,” a malevolent Muslim who had carried out Britain’s worst ever terrorist atrocity, lodged deep in the public mind — so deep that when he was diagnosed as having only months to live and Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MackAskill, decreed he should be allowed to return to Libya to die, there was widespread outrage, not least in the United States.

In Britain and the US, many were of the opinion that Megrahi was the beneficiary of a squalid oil deal struck with Qaddafi by Britain’s sometime Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and that British and Scottish politicians were not only colluding with a vile regime but insulting the dead.

Outrage about the commutation of his sentence grew as Megrahi confounded Scottish medical expectations regarding his survival prospects, living on in Tripoli until May of this year. And though he remained desperately ill, there were to be vindictive demands, following the toppling of Col Qaddafi in 2011, that he be made to face justice in the United States.

Yet on the evidence of John Ashton’s book it is not his truncated sentence that ought to be on British and American consciences. It is the fact that Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was ever convicted at all.

John Ashton, Hans Köchler & Jim Swire at Edinburgh Book Festival: a reminder

MEGRAHI: A SPECTACULAR MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE?

Saturday 11 August, 11:30am - 12:30pm
Edinburgh Book Festival, RBS Main Theatre, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh
£10.00, £8.00

The explosive publication of John Ashton's book, Megrahi: You Are My Jury has raised new doubts about Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction for the bombing of the Pan Am bombing above Lockerbie in 1988. In this keynote discussion Ashton is joined by Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the tragedy, and by Hans Köchler, the UN's official observer at the Lockerbie trial. Chaired by Ruth Wishart.

The American press on the death of the "Lockerbie bomber"

[This is the heading over an article by Ambassador Andrew I Killgore just published on the website of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.  It reads as follows:]

The Washington Post, New York Times and the US edition of the Financial Times all carried articles on the May 20 death in Tripoli, Libya of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted of bombing Pan American Flight 103 on Dec 21, 1988.

The Post, whose pro-Israel sympathies cause its Middle East coverage to be unreliable at best, had a straight one-column article. It expressed no doubts that the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 was transported from Valletta, Malta to Frankfurt, Germany to London, where it was loaded onto the doomed plane.

Determined to publish as little as possible on the Lockerbie tragedy, the news of Megrahi's death was published in the Post's little-read obituary section—alongside the death of singer Robin Gibb of the disco group the Bee Gees. In a stunning example of the paper's priorities, the Post devoted nearly twice as much space to Gibb's obituary as it did to Megrahi's.

The Financial Times article is better, and much less linear. "Discrepancies at the trial led many to believe in Megrahi's innocence," it informs its readers. The former Scottish lord advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, in expressing his doubts about Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci's identification of Megrahi as having bought certain clothes from his shop in Valletta, remarked that Gauci was "an apple short of a picnic." The Financial Times also notes that "there were reports that Gauci received at least $2 million from the US, possibly via the CIA."

As a result, the paper concludes, "we may never know who placed the bomb that brought down terror and death to a planeload of passengers, to the crew that served them, and civilians in a sleepy Scottish town [Lockerbie] below."

The New York Times carried two articles on Megrahi's death, one by John F Burns and the other by Robert D McFadden. Neither is bad, given the American media's strange silence on the Lockerbie issue. Burns writes, "Even Megrahi's death may not end the saga of Flight 103."

Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the Pan Am 103 crash, is mentioned by name, but Dr Robert Black is not. It was Black, professor emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, who originated the idea of holding the Lockerbie trial in The Netherlands with Scottish judges under Scottish law. Nor is any mention made of the Justice for Megrahi Committee (of which this writer is a member).

Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, noted in a television interview that the Scottish police investigation of the bombing had never been closed, and that Libya's new government had "promised to cooperate" in an effort to settle who was responsible.

Dr Swire, whom Burns describes as "the most persistent—and most controversial—of Megrahi's defenders in Britain," fainted in court when Megrahi was convicted and his indicted co-defendant Lamen Khalifa Fhimah acquitted. Swire is a vigorous advocate of an independent inquiry into the bombing, Burns writes, and was reported to have said in broadcast interviews on May 20 that there were two false pieces of evidence in Megrahi's conviction. According to Swire, shopowner Gauci had been paid "millions of dollars" by Western intelligence agencies. Also, the bomb's circuit board was one used by Iranian—not Libyan—intelligence.

McFadden provides much evidence on doubts about Megrahi's guilt. The Lockerbie court "found the case circumstantial, the evidence incomplete and some witnesses unreliable," he writes, but nevertheless left "no reasonable doubt" on Megrahi's guilt. He quotes Hans Koechler, a United Nations observer at the trial, as calling it "a spectacular miscarriage of justice." McFadden continues: "Many legal experts and investigative journalists challenged the evidence, calling Megrahi a scapegoat for a Libyan government long identified with terrorism." While denying involvement, he writes, Libya paid $2.7 million to the victims' families in 2003 in a bid to end years of diplomatic isolation.

Join the queue, Tommy

[The following are excerpts from an article in today's edition of The Scotsman headlined MP calls for Sheridan trial probe in light of hacking scandal:]

Labour MP Tom Watson, who helped uncover the News of the World phone hacking scandal, is to write to Mr Salmond asking him to order the Scottish Government's law officers to investigate why the case against Mr Sheridan came to court.

Mr Watson said Mr Sheridan's perjury conviction was a "travesty of justice" as he claimed that the allegations about the News of the World's phone-hacking operation cast doubt on the credibility of key trial witnesses from the defunct newspaper who were called to give evidence by the Crown Office.

Bob Bird, former editor of the News of the World's Scottish edition, and former news editor Douglas Wight were both called by the Crown Office as witnesses in Mr Sheridan's trial, which led to the former MSP being handed a three-year jail term. Both men deny being part of any phone-tapping activities. (...)

Mr Watson will argue that the Crown Office was wrong to pursue the case against Mr Sheridan and in particular should not have relied on evidence from News of the World employees.

He said: "It's now absolutely certain that the judgment is unsound and if Alex Salmond had a shred of decency he would use all the power he has to ensure that this is urgently dealt with. (...)" 

A Crown Office spokeswoman said: "The majority of the evidence led by the Crown against Tommy Sheridan was from witnesses who were his former friends and colleagues and who had no relationship whatsoever with the News of the World.

"Any appeal against conviction or sentence would be a matter for Mr Sheridan and his legal team."

The Scottish Government said ministers would not personally intervene over Mr Sheridan's conviction, but added that any concerns about a case could be taken up with the administration's top law officer, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland.

[Much more urgent, of course, is an inquiry into the prosecution and conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi.  The SCCRC found six grounds for concluding that his conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of justice, one of them being that, on a matter absolutely central to conviction, no reasonable court on the evidence led could have reached the conclusion that the trial court arrived at. Since the SCCRC reported, much more evidence has become available -- much of it relating to misconduct in the conduct of the investigation and the prosecution -- and is set out in detail in John Ashton's Megrahi: You are my Jury and elsewhere.  For the Scottish Government to suggest to concerned citizens that their remedy is to ask the Crown Office to conduct an investigation into misconduct in a criminal investigation and prosecution when the Crown Office is now headed, not by independent lawyers brought in from private practice, but by career civil servants from that very office, is nothing short of risible.
Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm's account of this issue can be seen here.]

More on Maggie Scott QC's elevation

[What follows is taken from a report published yesterday on the Scottish Law Reporter website:]

Maggie Scott QC, well known as a criminal defence specialist and for her role in the appeal of the late Abdelbaset al Megrahi, the man who most agree was unjustly convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988, has been appointed as a judge to Scotland’s Court of Session. She is expected to take up the post later in the year.

An announcement of Ms Scott’s appointment to the Court of Session, reported as far back as April of this year by The Herald’s Lucy Adams, was expected to have been made in early June, at the same time as the announcement of Scotland’s new Lord President, Lord Gill and the appointments of Lord Colin Boyd QC, Michael Jones QC, and David Burns QC as Senators of the College of Justice (...).

There is no ‘official’ explanation for the delay in announcing Ms Scott’s elevation to the bench, however the delay did enable the famous QC to give a robust defence for the retention of corroboration in Scots Law in the printed media and on television.

Megrahi's QC Maggie Scott appointed High Court judge

[A report published today on the BBC News website reads in part:]

One of Scotland's top lawyers has been appointed as a High Court judge.

Maggie Scott QC, who led the Lockerbie bomber's abandoned appeal case, was chosen as a Senator of the College of Justice by the Queen, following a recommendation from First Minister Alex Salmond.

It means she will sit as a judge in the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary.

She is expected to take up the post later this year.

Mr Salmond is said to have nominated the high-profile QC on the basis of a report by the independent Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland. (...)

The 52-year-old became a solicitor in 1989 and was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1991, before becoming a QC in 2002.

Since 1991 she has been involved mainly in criminal defence work, specialising in appeals, and was appointed a part-time sheriff in 2002.

All MPs supplied with copies of "Lockerbie: Fact and Fiction"

Dr Morag Kerr’s overview of the Lockerbie case as contained in the booklet Lockerbie: Fact and Fiction has now been delivered to all 650 members of the House of Commons.  The booklet can be read online here.  A copy has already been delivered to every Member of the Scottish Parliament.

Pan Am flight 103 and Libyan Arab Airlines flight 1103

Last week the Sunday Express ran a story to the effect that Libyan NTC head Mustafa Abdul Jalil was accusing Colonel Gaddafi of destroying a Libyan passenger aircraft (Libyan Arab Airlines flight 1103) on an internal flight in December 1992 (four years after the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 and shortly after it became known that Lockerbie investigators were now blaming Libya) in a tit-for-tat attempt to blame the West. Today's edition of the newspaper contains a follow-up article based on an interview with the widow of a British oil worker killed on the flight.

Dr Jim Swire on Radio Scotland's "Sunday Morning with..."

One of the guests on tomorrow's edition of the BBC Radio Scotland programme Sunday Morning with... (07.05 to 09.00) is Dr Jim Swire. The advertisement for the programme contains the following:


"This Sunday morning Cathy [Macdonald]'s special guest is Dr Jim Swire. His later life has been defined by the death of his daughter Flora in the Lockerbie bombing, but this morning Cathy also discovers Jim's deep love of the Isle of Skye where he grew up, as well as his connection with one of Scotland's greatest heroines." 


The programme is now available on the BBC iPlayer.  The interview with Dr Swire starts 10 minutes into the programme.

Swissair 330, Pan Am 103 and Marwan Khreesat

I am grateful to Edwin Bollier for drawing my attention to an article headed Den Bombenbauer ignorierten sie ("They ignored the bomb maker") in the 4 July 2012 edition of the Swiss newspaper Beobachter. The article discloses (with supporting documentation) that, as early as May 1989, Lockerbie investigators linked both the 1970 Swissair tragedy and the Lockerbie disaster to bombs made by the PFLP-GC's Marwan Khreesat. 


Wikipedia, citing Steven Emerson and Brian Duffy, The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation (1990) ISBN 0-399-13521-9, states:  "Indeed, Scottish police actually wrote up an arrest warrant for Marwan Khreesat in the spring of 1989, but were persuaded by the FBI not to issue it because of his value as an intelligence source."

The bitter knowledge of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi

Saudi Arabia's Arab News website today publishes Neil Berry's review of Megrahi: You are my Jury under this headline, as does the website of MENA-FN ( Middle East North Africa - Financial Network).  The review was first published in Dubai's Khaleej Times.

Mandela Day: a missed Scottish opportunity

The Scottish Government's press release on events to mark Mandela Day can be read here. The last paragraph states: "Last month Archbishop Desmond Tutu sent a video message to the people of Scotland welcoming plans to mark Mandela Day and he said he was delighted that First Minister Alex Salmond, the Scottish Government and the people of Scotland were marking the day."


At the time of Archbishop Tutu's message, I wrote on this blog: "Given that Archbishop Tutu is a Justice for Megrahi signatory, and given the role that Nelson Mandela played in facilitating a Lockerbie trial (and the interest he took in Abdelbaset Megrahi's fate thereafter) would it not be entirely appropriate and gracious for the Scottish Government to mark Mandela Day by announcing the independent inquiry into the Megrahi prosecution and conviction that the Archbishop, along with the other signatories, has called for?"


The Scottish Government press release does not list this as one of the Mandela Day events. What a surprise and disappointment!

From an American conservative commentator

[The following are excerpts from an editorial that recently appeared on the The Free Library website, written by Seth Lipsky, founding editor of The New York Sun:]

As Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi settles in on the far side of the river Styx, let us reflect on the scandal of his final years. It will always be a mark on the administration of President Obama that the Libyan died a free man. He had been convicted in the downing of Pan American World Airways flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. There had been opportunity aplenty to act once a Scottish judge gave him his freedom in 2009. [RB: It was not, of course, a judge, but a Scottish Government minister.] But the American government failed to lift so much as a finger.

The administration may--or may not--have had the power to prevent al-Megrahi's release from a Scottish prison or his flight back home to Libya, where he was greeted by adoring throngs. The judge who freed him supposedly did so on "humanitarian" grounds, because, even though al-Megrahi killed 270 people, he was suffering from the indignities of prostate cancer. If the terrorist's release caught Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by surprise, as they suggested at the time, it's all the more shocking that there was no attempt to seize the mass murderer after he got to Libya.

Let those who believe that such a mission would have been piratical take a look at the precedents established by our courts. It strikes me as an important point, given the twilight nature of the war in which our country has found itself. The record is clear that if, in a lawless world, the violators of our laws are brought back to our shores to face the music, our own be-robed justices won't be overly particular about the methods used to get them here. (...)

The broader point, though, is one to mark, particularly in the midst of the kind of war in which America finds itself. When a crime has been committed under our laws, and our country is being mocked from the safety of a foreign shore the way it was mocked by Scotland and Libya and Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the government of America can act. And when it does, the Supreme Court will not stand in its way.

Unauthorised blogpost

Overnight a post, consisting merely of a hypertext link, was made to this blog from a source other than myself. How it happened, I do not know and I deleted the post as soon as I became aware of it.  Other Lockerbie campaigners have recently been subjected to attacks on their computers.  Perhaps it is now my turn.

Jalil and the Sunday Express debunked

[This is the headline over an item posted today on the website Megrahi: You are my Jury.  It contains John Ashton’s reaction to today’s Scottish Sunday Express article and reads as follows:]

The following article appears on the front of today’s Scottish Sunday Express under the ludicrously overblown headline Lockerbie: the truth at last. It reports on the latest claims of the leaders of Libya’s National Transitional Council and interim head of state Mustafa Abdul Jalil. As so often with the Sunday Express, the article recycles claims that are already in the public domain (the interview and was first reported last month) and when analysed in detail, is really thin stuff. My comments are in normal typeface.

The head of the Libyan government has revealed his country’s true role in the Lockerbie bomber’s release in a sensational television interview.  Mustafa Abdul Jalil, who has been running the war-torn North African state since the downfall of Colonel Gaddafi last year, broke his silence to expose the contents of secret government files in Tripoli.

He revealed that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi – the only man convicted of Britain’s worst ever terror atrocity – and his family were paid up to £15million in monthly installments to “buy his silence”.

Jalil also disclosed that Megrahi was ordered to drop his appeal by Gaddafi, who was terrified he would “release critical and confidential information” and have his conviction overturned.

In addition, Jalil said the new regime would continue to work with Scottish and American investigators to “reopen past files that can deliver the truth”.

And, in a further astonishing claim, he suggested that Gaddafi deliberately blew up a Libyan passenger jet in 1992 in a ruthless tit-for-tat bid to frame the West.

Speaking to Dubai-based TV station Al Arabiya, Jalil – the head of the ruling National Transitional Council – said Megrahi was paid 150,000 Euros per month “to keep him quiet”.

If the payments ran from when he was handed over to Scottish police, in April 1999, to his release in August 2009, they would total 18.6million Euros – or £14.6million at today’s exchange rates.

The fact that Abdelbaset’s family were paid by the government is no secret and hardly surprising. He was the main breadwinner of a family of five who, by the time he gave himself up for trial in 1999, had endured seven and a half very difficult years. In agreeing to stand trial, Abdelbaset and Lamin Fhimah helped free the country from years of crippling sanctions. In that context, the figures cited are paltry, especially when compared to the billions spent by the Libyan government to settle the case. There is absolutely no evidence that the payments were to keep Abdelbaset quiet. If that was Gadafy’s aim, then surely Fhimah would also have been paid (in a newspaper interview last year he claimed that he had had to sell his farm because the government had left him financially high and dry). Alternatively, Gadafy could have had them both killed well before the trial was mooted.

In the interview, Jalil – who was also Gaddafi’s Justice Minister from 2007 to 2011 – said he had been “advised to keep away from cases linked to external affairs, and this includes the Lockerbie case”.

This is hardly surprising. As justice minister, he had responsibility for the domestic justice system, rather than international relations. Furthermore, Abdelbaset’s return to Libya in August 2009 effectively closed the case. It’s worth noting that Jalil’s successor as justice minister, Mohamed al-Alagi, who is now head of Libya’s human rights commission, has publicly stated that Abdelbaset is innocent.

He added: “However, I witnessed two things. First, the insistence of both Saif [al-Islam Gaddafi, the dictator's son] and his father that I get back [Megrahi] by whatever means necessary…

“Meanwhile, the sentence was not completed and the appeal was getting closer.

“But the insistence of the country for Abdelbaset to waive his appeal and his fast return indicates the country was in a crisis, considering that the late Abdelbaset wanted to release critical and confidential information about Lockerbie.”

It’s not clear here whether the country referred to is Libya or Scotland. The only critical and confidential information that Abdelbaset sought the release of was held by the Crown Office and the UK authorities.

Megrahi’s decision to drop his appeal, just days before his release from prison, has always been shrouded in mystery – especially because he continued to protest his innocence right up until his death in May.

Jalil added: “The Libyans wanted him back as soon as possible, in return for the waiver of the appeal. If the appeal had persisted maybe some critical evidence that proved his innocence would have surfaced.


“And perhaps evidence that convicted him would have resurfaced as well. So, they preferred that he returns to Libya at this point to ensure that he does not reveal confidential information.”

Again, it’s unclear exactly what Jalil means (perhaps owing to poor translation). The Libyan government had no power to make abandonment of the appeal a condition of his release and had no interest in doing so. The appeal would not have produced any evidence of Libyan government involvement, because it was focused on the narrow issue of the safety of Abdelbaset’s conviction. There was no prospect of Abdelbaset revealing confidential information concerning Libyan government involvement in the bombing, firstly, because he almost certainly had none and, secondly, because, if he had, he would have both undermined his own appeal and jeopardised the safety of his family in Libya.

However, he insisted he had been misquoted by a Swedish newspaper last year which claimed he had evidence that Gaddafi personally ordered the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which claimed 270 lives.

He said: “All I said then is what I say right now, which is that the regime was involved in this case, evident by insisting he returns and that they spent a lot of money on him while he was in jail.”

Really? Sounds like backpedalling to me.

Jalil also hinted at the existence of government files which could finally establish once and for all whether the bombing was the work of Megrahi and other Libyan agents, under orders from Gaddafi – or was in fact an Iranian-backed plot, as many campaigners believe.

He said: “We sympathize with the families of the innocent victims and we are willing to reopen past files that can deliver the truth.”

Megrahi, who developed terminal prostate cancer during eight years behind bars in Scotland, is known to have had a number of Swiss bank accounts, including one which allegedly held £1.8million at the time of his trial in 2000.

The £1.8 million claim originates from a Sunday Times article of 20 December 2009. In fact there is only evidence of one Swiss bank account, which was dormant from 1993 onwards, and had a balance of only $23,000. Had Abdelbaset given evidence at trial, he could have accounted for all the payments in and out of the account.

But the full extent of the fortune paid to ensure his silence will appal many of those who lost loved ones in December 1988.

However, campaigners calling for a public inquiry into Lockerbie said the new evidence supports claims that Megrahi was simply a well-paid “fall guy”.

Robert Black, Professor of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: “He was getting a lot of money because he had taken the fall for something he didn’t do.

“By surrendering himself for trial in Scotland he brought Libya under Gaddafi back into world commerce. That was something the Libyans thought worth paying for.”

This wrongly implies that Abdelbaset’s supporters believe that he took the rap for Gadafy. I’m not aware of any of his prominent supporters, including Prof Black, who believe that to be the case. [RB: John Ashton is correct. On the evidence currently available, I do not believe Gaddafi or Libya to have been responsible for the destruction of Pan Am 103.]

Gaddafi ordered 1992 bombing
COLONEL Gaddafi may have deliberately blown up a passenger jet, killing 157, in a bizarre bid to frame the American and British governments and sue for compensation.

Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103 was involved in a mid-air collision with a Libyan MiG 23 fighter jet as it was approaching Tripoli Airport on December 22, 1992.

The fighter pilot and navigator safely ejected, but all of the Boeing 727′s passengers or crew were killed – including oil worker Victor Prazak, from London.

At the time, Gaddafi was under growing pressure to hand over the Lockerbie suspects and facing severe UN sanctions.

In his TV interview, current Libyan leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil said: “This trip was chosen on a day that coincides with the Lockerbie bombings and the flight number was almost identical.

“It was confirmed that the plane, going from Benghazi to Tripoli, was stuffed with explosives. It was given a new route deep into the sea, that no other plane has taken before.

“It was in the landing stages at Tripoli when, some say, it was intersected by another plane that bombed it.

“Nothing was left intact from the bombing.”

I have not studied the case of LAA flight 1103, but find Jalil’s suggestion bizarre.


[RB: As far as I can see from an internet trawl, the only UK newspaper to have featured on Monday this Sunday Express story is the Daily Record, whose report can be read here. A typically ill-informed and wrong-headed comment from the moribund Scottish Conservatives can be read here.]