Lockerbie: Seven new Libyans named (by Sunday Express)

[This is the headline over an article by Ben Borland and Bob Smyth in today’s edition of the Sunday Express. It reads as follows:]

A new 'all-star' squad of Scottish detectives will take over the Lockerbie bombing investigation, with the pursuit now likely to focus on seven key Libyan fugitives from justice.

At least two of the men are now dead, killed during the 2011 uprising against Colonel Gaddafi, but the search for the remaining suspects is set to become an unprecedented international manhunt.

Prime Minister David Cameron announced last week that British police will conduct inquiries in Libya for the first time, in a bid to clear up the remaining questions surrounding the December 1988 atrocity.

When the new Police Scotland force is formed on April 1, the case will pass from Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary to a team of specialist officers gathered from every area of Scottish law enforcement working directly for Chief Constable Stephen House.

So far, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi - who died of cancer last year - remains the only man ever convicted of murdering the 270 people who died on board Pan Am Flight 103 and in Lockerbie.

His co-accused and fellow Libyan intelligence officer, Lamin Fhimah, was found not guilty after a historic trial under Scots Law at The Hague in 2000.

However, the prosecution also named seven other co-conspirators - at least two of whom are now dead - who were also involved in planning the attack.

These agents in Colonel Gaddafi's feared secret service, the JSO, can today be named as Nasser Ali Ashour, Mohammed Abouagela Masud, Said Rashid, Ezzadin Hinshiri, Badri Hussan, Mohamed Marzouk and Mansour Omran Saber.

In 2009, Stuart Henderson, a former detective chief superintendent who led the Lockerbie probe for four years, said his team had asked to interview eight other "strong suspects" but been blocked by the Gaddafi regime.

He said: "We submitted eight other names of people that we wished to interview that were strong suspects. Unfortunately, we never got that opportunity."

The eighth man is thought to be former spy chief Abdullah Senoussi, who is facing imminent trial and a possible death penalty in Libya alongside Saif Gaddafi.

In addition, now that the law on double jeopardy has been scrapped, the Crown Office could bring fresh charges against Fhimah, who is known to still be in Tripoli.

The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, has already travelled to Libya, along with US investigators, to meet members of the new Libyan regime.

Detectives from Dumfries and Galloway are expected to follow in March, before the case comes under the remit of the new nationwide force.

A Police Scotland spokesman said: "The Lockerbie investigation will clearly continue beyond the transition date of the current forces including Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary into the single service. The service is committed to the investigation.

"The experience and knowledge of officers who have been involved in the case as well as the expertise and specialisms from other parts of the wider service will continue to be applied to the inquiry as has always been the case."

Meanwhile, it has emerged that a series of secret court hearings in Malta were focused on gathering evidence about the additional bombing suspects.

The hearings, requested by Scottish prosecutors, were held in September behind closed doors, with security so tight that courtroom peepholes were covered over with envelopes.

A source close to the Maltese judicial authorities has now revealed the probes were focused on gathering evidence into a mystery "third man".

The most likely candidate is Masud, who worked with Megrahi and Fhimah in Malta - where prosecutors said the bomb that brought down Flight 103 was planted at Luqa Airport.

One Lockerbie expert said: "It's possible they are looking at Masud, who allegedly arrived in Malta with Megrahi and was said to have been with him when he flew out of the country on the day of the bombing.

"He was also accused of plotting with Megrahi to mount an operation in Africa.

"I don't think the police ever found him."

Masud and several of the other suspects were first linked to the Lockerbie case by controversial CIA informant Majid Giaka.

The junior Libyan intelligence officer, who was on secondment at Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), claimed he saw Masud arriving at the airport in Malta with Megrahi in December 1988.

He alleged they met Fhimah and collected a suitcase from baggage reclaim resembling the Samonsite case which contained the bomb.

Justice for Megrahi campaign member Professor Robert Black, a lawyer who was the architect of the original Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands, said:

"It looks like the Crown Office is trying to shore up the Malta connection, which is pretty weak."

A Crown Office spokeswoman said: "The investigation into the involvement of others with Megrahi in the Lockerbie bombing remains open and Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary continues to work with Crown Office and US authorities to pursue available lines of inquiry."

The seven agents:

- Nasser Ali Ashour, the 'Armourer'. A "smooth, cultured" spy who supplied Semtex and guns to the Provisional IRA for Gaddafi in the 1980s. Adrian Hopkins, the Irish skipper who helped smuggle the arms, told French police: "He spoke English with a very distinguished accent. He never looked you in the face, likes to parade, has small feet, wears Italian shoes, drinks whisky but does not smoke." He managed Libya's network of agents in the Mediterranean and hunted down Libyan dissidents throughout Europe. Now aged 68, his whereabouts are unknown.

- Mohammed Abouagela Masud, the 'Technician'. Introduced to a CIA undercover agent as an airline technician, he worked with Megrahi and Fhimah in Malta where the bomb was allegedly planted on a feeder flight in an unaccompanied Samsonite suitcase. The evidence against Masud is thought to have been the subject of secret court hearings held behind closed doors in Valletta last year, at the request of the Crown Office. His whereabouts are unknown.

- Said Rashid, the 'Assassin'. A former head of JSO's operations section and close friend of Gaddafi who went on to become a powerful government figure. He was killed in a shoot-out with rebels in February 2011 following a speech by the dictator's son, Saif. In 1983, Rashid was arrested in France in connection with the murders of Libyan dissidents in London, Bonn and Rome, but later released.

- Ezzadin Hinshiri, the 'Diplomat'. Another senior JSO figure who became a top official and one of Gaddafi's most loyal lieutenants. He was killed along with 52 other regime supporters in an infamous massacre at a seafront hotel in Sirte in the final days of the uprising in April 2011.

- Badri Hussan, the 'Businessman'. Set up a front company with Megrahi and rented an office in Zurich from Mebo, the Swiss firm linked to the timers used in the bombing. The firm's co-founder, Edwin Bollier, told the Lockerbie trial that he delivered a suitcase from Hussan to Hinshiri in Tripoli on December 17, 1988 - just days before the terror strike. Whereabouts unknown.

- Mohamed Marzouk and Mansour Omran Saber, the 'Missing Links'. Arrested at Dakar airport in Senegal in February 1988 with Semtex, TNT and bomb triggers. They were released without charge. In 1991, a "brilliant, young" CIA analyst realised the triggers matched those used in the Lockerbie bombing, changing the entire course of the investigation. Whereabouts unknown.

[A long article entitled Lifting the lid on Libya's secrets by Eddie Barnes is to be found in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday.

An interesting addendum to the Sunday Express article is to be found on the Malta Today website.  The relevant paragraphs read as follows:]

Scottish detectives are said to be focusing their inquiries on seven key Libyan fugitives from justice, among whom a 'third man' who allegedly arrived in Malta with convicted terrorist Abdelbaset Megrahi, and was said to have been with him when he flew out of the country on the day of the bombing in 1988.

A series of secret court hearings in Malta were reportedly focused on gathering evidence about the additional bombing suspects.

The hearings - requested by Scottish prosecutors - were held last September behind closed doors, and was said to have been aimed at  gathering evidence into a mystery 'third man' connected to the bombing.

According to sources, the most likely candidate is Masud, who worked with Megrahi and Fhimah in Malta - where prosecutors still insist that the bomb that brought down Flight 103 was planted at the old Luqa Airport.

Known as 'the technician' after being introduced to a CIA undercover agent as an airline technician, Masud worked with Megrahi and Fhimah at the Libyan Arab Airlines offices in Malta, where the bomb was allegedly planted onto a feeder flight inside an unaccompanied suitcase.

One Lockerbie expert told a Scottish newspaper today that "it's possible they are looking at Masud, who allegedly arrived in Malta with Megrahi and was said to have been with him when he flew out of the country on the day of the bombing. He was also accused of plotting with Megrahi to mount an operation in Africa. I don't think the police ever found him."

Masud and several of the other suspects were first linked to the Lockerbie case by controversial CIA informant Majid Giaka. [RB: The Zeist judges held Giaka to be wholly unworthy of credit and excluded the whole of his evidence from consideration -- except his evidence relating to the structure and personnel of the Libyan intelligence services. The judges gave no reason for accepting his evidence on these matters.]

The junior Libyan intelligence officer, who was on secondment at Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), claimed he saw Masud arriving at the airport in Malta with Megrahi in December 1988.

He alleged they met Fhimah and collected a suitcase from baggage reclaim resembling the Samonsite case which contained the bomb.

[What follows is an excerpt from a report on the website of The Malta Independent:]

Former FBI assistant director Buck Revell, who oversaw that agency’s Lockerbie investigation until 1991, told The Scotsman newspaper this week: “The two individuals initially charged were not the only people involved. So there’s no doubt that this was approved by Gaddafi and everyone in the chain of command below him.

“There are documents, witnesses and other evidence that they can obtain in the intelligence service, or the military, or from other individuals involved in support organisations.

“I expect much, if not most, of it has been destroyed, but maybe some was saved.”

He added: “The crime itself is such that I don’t believe this case should ever be closed.”

However, British relatives of victims of the bombing of the Pan Am flight 103 who have protested that Megrahi was innocent are sceptical of what might be achieved in Libya.

Mr [Frank] Mulholland [the Lord Advocate] told the families that he intended to send police to the country in February last year, two months before he himself visited.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora, 23, died in the bombing, said: “He told us how he was going to send officers to Tripoli to try and find out more.

“Anyone who tries to gather evidence from modern day Libya should be careful. The interim government wishes to place every conceivable blame on the Gaddafi administration.”

Reverend John Mosey, who lost his daughter, Helga, 19, in the bombing, added: “I would be extremely sceptical about what could be found in those blasted and burned out offices.

“The former regime probably shredded anything it had.”

The campaign group Justice for Megrahi, which wants an independent inquiry into the conviction, was scathing about the continued focus on Libya.

“As far as I am concerned, the conviction was a gross miscarriage of justice and the efforts the police and Crown Office are making to locate other Libyans who may have colluded in the bringing down of Pan Am flight 103 amount to little more than eye-wash,” said group secretary Robert Forrester.

But the Crown Office remains convinced Libya is key to their investigation. One man widely believed to know the secrets of the Gaddafi government is Moussa Koussa, who briefly sought refuge in the UK, following the Libyan revolution.

John Ashton, author of Megrahi: You are my Jury, and former FBI agent Richard Marquise – two men with very different views on whether Megrahi was guilty – have both said investigations should focus on the former intelligence chief.

In his book, Mr Ashton argued Megrahi could not have been the bomber because the timer used in the explosion contained a different coating to circuit boards sold to Libya.

Abdallah Senussi, Gaddafi’s brother-in-law and head of the intelligence services, who was Megrahi’s immediate boss, is another man the FBI have looked at in connection with Lockerbie.

Other potential suspects include Saeed Rashid, whom an FBI report previously claimed “managed a sustained Libyan effort to conduct terrorist attacks against US interests since the early-1980s”, and Izz Aldin Hinshiri, who was suspected of buying the trigger for the Lockerbie bomb.

Lockerbie: Ex-FBI man upbeat about police inquiry

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

The FBI agent who was in charge of the Lockerbie case has said he is hopeful Scottish police will benefit from links forged between Libyan officers and the United States.

Reacting to the news that Dumfries and Galloway officers are to enter Libya to investigate the 1988 bombing that killed 259 on Pam Am flight 103 and 11 on the ground, Richard Marquise suggested they would get help from Libyan police trained at the FBI National Academy.

“I do know that five or six years ago, the FBI opened up its National Academy to Libyan police,” he said. “So there were some police officers who had been to the United States and if you could get hold of some of those folks, they might help locate those we are interested in.

“This was nothing to do with Lockerbie – it was some means to provide them with some training. Libyan police officers were asked to come, because it was thought that Libya would become a democratic country, even though Muammar Gaddafi was still in charge.

“I would hope that there would be some relationships built with Libyan police officers who would be able to help.”

Mr Marquise went on: “Clearly they will have their work cut out in terms of the records, but I know that in the past the FBI and the Scottish police compared documents and said, ‘This is what we want to get a look at if we ever get access to Libya’.

“So I am hopeful they will take those templates that we created years ago, even though many of these suspects are gone … I am hopeful they are going to find some good things that will help them.”

[Contrast this with the (I suggest, more realistic) view expressed by Justice for Megrahi's secretary Robert Forrester in The Herald:]

"As far as I am concerned, the conviction was a gross miscarriage of justice and the efforts the police and Crown Office are making to locate other Libyans who may have colluded in the bringing down of Pan Am flight 103 amount to little more than eye-wash.

"In other words, I think it's a thoroughly cynical attempt to deceive the public into thinking the conviction was justified."

"The best intelligence points to Iran" not Libya

[I am grateful to a reader of this blog for drawing my attention to an article by Robert F Worth in The New York Times of 30 January 2013.  It is a long profile of French novelist, journalist and editor Gérard de Villiers. The relevant paragraph, on page 5, reads as follows:]

I asked de Villiers about his next novel, and his eyes lighted up. “It goes back to an old story,” he said. “Lockerbie.” The book is based on the premise that it was Iran — not Libya — that carried out the notorious 1988 airliner bombing. The Iranians went to great lengths to persuade Muammar el-Qaddafi to take the fall for the attack, which was carried out in revenge for the downing of an Iranian passenger plane by American missiles six months earlier, de Villiers said. This has long been an unverified conspiracy theory, but when I returned to the United States, I learned that de Villiers was onto something. I spoke to a former CIA operative who told me that “the best intelligence” on the Lockerbie bombing points to an Iranian role. It is a subject of intense controversy at the CIA and the FBI, he said, in part because the evidence against Iran is classified and cannot be used in court, but many at the agency believe Iran directed the bombing.

Lockerbie: the current status

[What follows is the text of an essay written on 1 January 2013 by Dr Jim Swire:]

On 21st  December 2012,  US relatives of those Americans who died aboard the PanAm 103 747 over Lockerbie chose to issue a petition to their government.

Their petition  majors on aspects of the relationship between their own country and Libya – the Libya of both before and after Colonel Gaddafi’s death. It can be read on The Lockerbie Case blog (http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2012/12/commemoration-of-pan-am-103-at.html). [RB: Note that the group which launched this petition is not Victims of Pan Am 103 Flight Inc, whose president is Frank Duggan.]

There can be no doubt that under the late Colonel, Libya was responsible for much mischief, murder and mayhem in the world. In the UK we cannot forget the supply of Libyan arms to IRA terrorists, providing weapons and explosives for the murder of both soldiers and civilians in both Northern Ireland and the UK mainland.

In 1984 the FBI had warned the Irish concerning a shipment of about 7 tons of arms and explosives from the USA heading for Ireland, which was intercepted. But In another major victory for intelligence in 1987 the ship the Eksund was stopped at sea and found to be loaded with Libyan guns and explosives intended for the Provisional IRA. These arms would have bolstered the weapons obtained from America in the previous decade which had included the deadly Armalite rifle, the image of which can still be seen depicted on Belfast gable ends.

For many Irish Americans the cause pursued by the IRA/Provos was seen as that of freedom fighters, a euphemism for those who clandestinely and indescrimately kill for their cause.

Not being an American nor claiming to understand the mindset of the ‘average American citizen’, nor having any access to their governmental or intelligence organisations, I feel I have no right to criticise the direction which the American relatives are now taking in their search for the truth about the tragedy of Lockerbie. All that can be said I think about the content of their petition is that to seek to draw together many different aspects of the relationships between Libya and America is to risk confounding the search for the true perpetrators of Lockerbie, for it starts from the assumption that Libya ‘must’ have been involved.

This presumption of Libyan guilt is founded of course upon the evidence led and the verdict reached at the Lockerbie trial in Zeist, 12 years ago. Apart from that there have been claims and counter claims about how others in the Gaddafi regime might have been involved. These claims belong in the hall of smoke and mirrors created by national and international intelligence and the politicians to whom they report. I certainly, and I suspect the American relatives, cannot be certain where the truth lies in such an arena.

The only apparent solid foundation for the notion of Libyan guilt is the Zeist verdict against the Libyan, Megrahi. That is now being used in this petition as a foundation for exploring multiple other aspects of Libyan/US relations over the decades. That in turn makes it all the more important to examine the legitimacy of that verdict.

Whether or not higher echelons of Gaddafi’s regime were involved in Lockerbie I do not know. The strange co-operation of the UK in assisting in Musa Kusa’s escape from Libya to the Middle East certainly suggests that he was seen as an intelligence asset in the West, but whether that included any aspect of Lockerbie we have of course no idea. When I met him in 1991 I found him an intimidating central figure in the Colonel’s regime, but was never faced with meeting Senoussi, widely known as a brutal killer on behalf of the dictator. Both men’s names have been  co-opted into this petition now created by American Lockerbie families. For me they remain denizens of the hall of mirrors too.

My sad task here is to question the one foundation which seems to me to underlie the US relatives’ petition; namely the conviction of Megrahi. I bitterly regret that in doing so I have to challenge the deeply held belief concerning the verdict against Megrahi among equally bereaved families in the US, for to do so must disturb the relative tranquillity (‘closure’) which many feel they have achieved in the lee of this verdict. Even closure however can be a false haven if the facts on which it is based are untrue. My fervent wish is that those who do shelter in the lee of this verdict will look objectively  at the facts now known to surround it. Tough but better to venture out of the shelter into the storm again if one wants to reach the real safe haven of provable truth.  Below is a brief summary of the story we heard at Zeist, together with sufficient of the reasons why it is unsafe, some of which emerged in the court, many of which have emerged later.

For those who wish to make their best effort to understand the discussion I recommend a book published in February of 2012. It is written by John Ashton, who spent years working on the legal aspects of the case. At Zeist there was no jury, and the book’s title invites the reader to assume that role. Megrahi: You are my jury is published by Birlinn of Edinburgh (ISBN-13: 978 1 78027 015 9) and is available from Amazon.com.

On the very day it was published, this book was described as ‘an insult to the (Lockerbie) relatives’, by the UK Prime Minister’s Office.

I hope that many will simply read it with an open mind. I do not believe that Downing Street can have done so.

In the hope of simplifying what some regard as an impenetrably complex story here is a simplified version of what seems to have happened. Please check it out against what is actually known to be true.

The months preceding Lockerbie
In July 1988 an American warship had accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus (Iran Air flight 655) killing 290 innocent people.

Iran swore revenge.

America awarded a medal to Captain Rogers, the ship’s captain.

In October 1988 the West German police broke up a cell of Palestinian terrorists operating in Neuss near Frankfurt, but really emanating from  Syria.

In doing so the BKA police recovered a number of IED bombs from the Neuss flat. Unfortunately they also missed some of them, which disappeared into the terrorist world. These IEDs were triggered by sensing the drop in air pressure when a plane takes off, they also had inbuilt timers, which were not adjustable and meant that such devices would always explode 30-45 minutes after take off. They were the leading design available to terrorists for destroying aircraft in flight. The Syrian group using them were closely allied to Iran.

The fatal Lockerbie flight lasted 38 minutes.

It was the hearing of this forensic evidence from the German expert, Herr Gobel in the court that first alerted the writer to the  improbability of the Malta story. Why launch a bomb from there with a long running and fully adjustable timer, and have it explode just 38 minutes into the flight when it could have been set for many hours after the target flight had left Heathrow?

Some  of the arrested conspirators were released promptly by the BKA, despite having been arrested with one of these IEDs actually in their possession at the time of arrest. This extraordinary decision seems another portal into the hall of mirrors.

According to CIA sources the terrorist group involved received significant funding from Iran immediately after Lockerbie.

The prosecution case at Zeist
The story was that Megrahi, aided and abetted by Fhima had put a suitcase containing the bomb aboard Air Malta flight KM180 as Megrahi passed through Luqa airport on 21st December 1988.

The suitcase, suitably labelled was then claimed to have passed through Frankfurt airport where it was transferred to a PanAm feeder flight (PA103A) to Heathrow, there it was transferred again, this time into a already partly loaded container , containing some bags which had been loaded into it at Heathrow before the arrival of PA103A from Frankfurt. The full container, now containing luggage from both Heathrow and Frankfurt was then placed in the hold of PA103 itself.

In order for all this to be confirmed it was necessary to link the two Libyans to the suitcase and explain how it might have survived the complex route proposed only to explode 38 minutes out of Heathrow. In order to have done so, their bomb would have had to have contained a long running timer.

There was not a scrap of evidence led in court that any such suitcase had been loaded onto the Air Malta flight. Their Lordships simply described this evidence deficit as ‘a difficulty for the prosecution’.

As for the long running timer required for a flight from Malta to Lockerbie via Frankfurt and Heathrow, the prosecution produced a fragment of timer circuit board, allegedly retrieved from the Lockerbie wreckage and found in a police evidence bag. It was claimed to have come from a circuit board in a timer bought by Libya from a Swiss firm, MEBO, well before Lockerbie. These timers , had one been used, could have been adjusted to explode over the Atlantic or even over New Jersey.

The fragment appeared to have been part of such a timer’s circuit board.

However what the court did not know was that the metal layers on the circuit elements of the fragment did not match those on the Libyan boards, although looking exactly like them to the naked eye.

This difference was known to the prosecution before the trial. its significance is explained in detail in Megrahi: you are my jury.

Although the prosecution forensic officer knew of this difference and recorded it in his notes, he told the court that the fragment was ‘similar in all respects’ to the Libyan circuit boards.

The manufacturer of the circuit boards sold to Libya before Lockerbie has confirmed  by affidavit that his firm did not use, nor even have the equipment necessary for manufacture of, circuit boards by the ‘pure tin’ process found on the curious and  apparently incriminating fragment.

Although the anomaly over the fragment was known to the prosecution well before the trial, its true significance did not come to the attention of Megrahi’s defence until his second appeal in Edinburgh.

It did however come to the attention of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC), who had investigated the case. Like the prosecution’s forensic officer, they failed to investigate the full significance of the difference between the fragment and the Libyan circuit boards. Yet they still found six reasons why the case might have been a miscarriage of justice and agreed its referral to a further appeal.

What is revealed in Megrahi: you are my jury is that the fragment has a coating which is essentially ‘pure tin’, not a tin/lead alloy like the Libyan-owned timer boards . Moreover further, objective scientific testing confirms that there is no possibility that this coating could be derived from that on the Libyan boards, not even by exposure in extreme proximity to a Semtex explosion...

Clothing originating from a Malta shop run by the Gauci brothers was found among the Lockerbie wreckage. The prosecution alleged that this clothing was bought on a certain day when Megrahi was on the island, circumstantial evidence has accumulated indicating that in fact it was bought on a  different date when he was not on Malta.

The investigating Scottish police bought improper pressure to bear on Mr Gauci to encourage him to identify Megrahi as the buyer: some of this they concealed from the court.

They also knew that Gauci was aware of, and keen to get his hands on, substantial US offered money, conditional on him giving evidence against Megrahi in court. Again the Scottish police did not declare this knowledge to the Court.

Thus the identification of Megrahi as the buyer of the clothing would certainly have been seen to have failed to reach the standards for an identification normally required in a Scottish criminal court, had all the facts been then known to the court.

The evidence against alleged co-conspirator Fhima failed to convince the court and he was found not guilty. In order to continue proceedings, the charges against Megrahi had then to be altered from conspiring with Fhima, to conspiring with others unknown. Changing the charge in mid stream seems hard to justify under Scots law.

If the prosecution case was a myth, how was it really done?
The above description is taken so far as possible from the evidence led at Zeist and knowledge accumulated since. It is astonishing that it seems to fail to implicate Megrahi and Malta in so many ways.

With one exception, not yet mentioned, the Zeist evidence, unlike the events leading up to the disaster itself,  helps little to tell us about the most likely true explanation. Only after the verdict did that piece of evidence  come to light.

It was that during the night of 20/21 December 1988 about 16 hours before the disaster somebody broke into Heathrow airside at a point close to where the Lockerbie bomb was loaded aboard PanAm103 the following evening.

Although the airport authorities were told immediately of the break-in they seem to have decided that they could afford to ignore it, not calling in Scotland Yard until long after the atrocity, and failing to halt outgoing flights until the identity and motive of the intruder had been identified, as one would surely expect at a time of known heightened terrorist risk, especially for US aircraft...

The bombs mentioned above being made in Neuss had key characteristics which were described to the Zeist court.

They were inert on the ground, but would sense falling air pressure in a climbing aircraft and explode 30-45 minutes after take off. The court heard that the delay was not adjustable.

This means that one of these devices when armed could not have been flown in from Frankfurt, let alone Malta: it would have exploded en route.

The user had to either bring one overland to the target airport or fly in with a disarmed one and arm it there. Once loaded in the target plane he could be sure that the device would explode between 30-45 minutes after takeoff, for no timer would start until the air pressure fell appropriately. Evidence that a suitcase similar to that containing the bomb was indeed loaded at Heathrow into the very container where the explosion occurred 38 minutes after take-off was heard in court but rejected.

The break-in was entirely concealed from the trial court, yet the evidence which was heard at Zeist as to the loading of the container at Heathrow in which the explosion did occur now needs to be reviewed in the light of the break-in. The opportunity for the introduction of such a device by an overland route at Heathrow did exist after all. So reviewed, the Heathrow evidence is seen strongly to support the loading of the bomb-containing suitcase there into the baggage container labelled as and destined for PA103.

The Scottish Crown Office and their investigating police force must answer as to why this break-in evidence was suppressed from January 1989 when the Scotland Yard police told them about it, until after the trial had ended and the verdict been reached.

The concept that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie seems to rest on the conviction of Megrahi, yet the timer fragment said to support the use of a long running timer by Megrahi could not have come from one of the Libyan timers proposed by the prosecution. They were profoundly incompatible.

If Megrahi and Malta were but a myth, was it incompetence that led the Crown Office and their investigators to get so much wrong or something more sinister still?

There is no evidence known to us that suggests any other point of origin for the mysterious fragment other than ‘the Libyan bomb from Malta’. Yet it was found inside a Scottish police evidence bag, the court was told, tucked inside a piece of shirt collar readily identifiable as having been bought in Gauci’s shop in Malta. And now we know, though it was hidden from the court and the first appeal that the fragment could not have come from one of the designated Libyan timers, so where could it have come from, and how on earth did it come to be found inside an official  police evidence bag?

Come to that why had someone altered the label on that very bag in such a way as to make it simpler for the investigating forensic officer to find the fragment, rather than just have him find the piece of cloth?

An even more sinister question is who could have carefully copied the circuitry of a corner of a Libyan owned circuit board, but let themselves down by carelessness over the plating technique? There is simply no known alternative circuit board nor electronic device associated with Lockerbie from which the fragment might have been derived.

I do hope that this attempt to review the situation will be criticised, but by people who have taken the trouble to check on the facts portrayed or hinted at in it. The self styled circumstantial case against Megrahi does not seem to survive such examination, and without it the huge bubble of the ‘Libya did it believers’ seems at least as circumstantial itself.

It was just before the evidence about the circuit board fragment and other exculpatory matters were to be led in Edinburgh in open court that the Megrahi appeal was cancelled. Only now has it become public knowldege.

I have tried but failed to discover anything that could be called proof of Libyan involvement at a higher level than Megrahi. That failure is to be expected for a private citizen seeking to probe State security.

However I wonder whether those who drew up the accusatory petition against their own country over its relationship with Libya have ever asked themselves whether the perceived refusal of their government(s) to obtain any answers might be because there simply isn’t any genuine evidence of Libyan involvement at any level.

Hatred and desire for revenge are always corrosive to those who harbour them. What a further tragedy for the bereaved of Lockerbie if we have been deliberately misled by those who should care for us, their citizens.

Then there is the Christian tenet of forgiveness, how can one forgive someone if his identity is being officially concealed? Such aspects of this terrible case complicate and prolong the grieving process, and in the end will only harm those involved in the deception and the reputation of their nations.

Lockerbie: Gaddafi's son Saif holds the cards

[This is the headline over a report from Lisa Holland published yesterday on the Sky News website.  It reads in part:]

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son was sitting opposite me. I met him on several occasions during the months I travelled in and out of Libya before the fall of his father.

Every time we met after asking about the uprising and his father I would enquire about Lockerbie.

He was confident and the response was always the same. He would grin and shrug his shoulders and smile widely at me.

"I've told you," he would say. "You always ask me this."

He always refused to link the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al Megrahi to BP oil deals in the Libyan desert.

But he made one thing clear: Saif Gaddafi chose his words very carefully when he said Libya "accepted responsibility" for the Lockerbie bomb. But he never said Libya admitted guilt.

After the fall of Colonel Gaddafi, countless journalists like me wanted to get the real story from the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al Megrahi.

Many - including some of the families of the Lockerbie victims - do not believe he did it. They believe it was a political fix by the all-powerful Gaddafis to bring about Libya's return to the international fold.

Saif al Islam told me Libya had "accepted" responsibility for the bomb simply to end crippling sanctions which were Libya's punishment.

It was a political deal - and he was a master at brokering them.

Al Megrahi was found guilty and compensation to the Lockerbie victims was paid by Libya.

Supposedly, in Libya's new-found era of democracy, al Megrahi - despite his ill health and deep fragility - should have been able to speak out during his dying days to reveal the truth.

But it was always clear that even after Gaddafi's fall the climate of fear he engendered remained.

Libyans would not suddenly feel able to bare their souls overnight. People believed somehow Gaddafi's brutality could still get them.

And people like al Megrahi kept their secrets. (...)

But in reality the truth is no nearer. Al Megrahi has taken many secrets to his grave.

Various people I spoke to over a period of time whilst Gaddafi was still in power often implied the whole thing had been a set up and looked to other countries in the Middle East and Gulf for a part in the tragedy. (...)

The secrets of Lockerbie are still to be revealed but so too are the gritty details of Libya's rehabilitation from the cold during the cosiness and the negotiations between the Gaddafis and the Blair government.

Under Libya's current state of insecurity the chances of the British police getting anywhere near seem very remote.

But then there is always wheeling and dealing to be done.

Lockerbie bombing: Scottish police to visit Libya

[This is the headline over a report on the BBC News website.  It reads in part:]

Police officers investigating the 1988 Lockerbie bombing are to visit Libya, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced.

The new Libyan government indicated in December it was prepared to open all files relating to the bombing. (...)

Megrahi was released by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds, suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

He remains the only person ever convicted of the bombing, but Scottish police hope to pursue other suspects in Libya following the country's revolution and downfall of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

Mr Cameron announced at a joint news conference in Tripoli with his Libyan counterpart Ali Zeidan that officers from Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary had been granted permission to visit the country.

He said: "I am delighted that the Dumfries and Galloway police team will be able to visit your country to look into the issues around the Lockerbie bombing."

The officers are expected to travel to Libya in March.

A spokesman for the police force said: "Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary welcomes the support of the Libyan authorities for the ongoing investigation.

"Travel details and dates cannot be released for security reasons, and to protect the integrity of the investigation."

The father of one of the victims of the bombing welcomed the news but said officers must travel "with an open mind".

Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, believes that Megrahi was wrongly convicted.

Scotland's top prosecutor had previously written to the new Libyan prime minister for help and the UK government had said it was pressing Tripoli "for swift progress and co-operation" on the Lockerbie case.

In April last year, Scotland's Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland travelled to Tripoli with the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, requesting co-operation after the fall of Gaddafi.

This was followed in May by a meeting with Libya's interim prime minister in London to discuss further inquires into the bombing.

A statement from the Crown Office in Scotland said it welcomed Libyan support for the ongoing investigation.

A Crown Office spokesperson said: "The investigation into the involvement of others with Megrahi in the Lockerbie bombing remains open and Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary continues to work with Crown Office and US authorities to pursue available lines of enquiry."

[A similar report on the STV News website can be read here.

The Herald’s report on David Cameron’s statement contains the following perceptive comment from Justice for Megrahi‘s secretary:]

Robert Forrester, secretary of the Justice for Megrahi campaign group, which wants an independent inquiry to look again at the conviction, said: "As far as I am concerned, the conviction was a gross miscarriage of justice and the efforts the police and Crown Office are making to locate other Libyans who may have colluded in the bringing down of Pan Am flight 103 amount to little more than eye-wash.

"In other words, I think it's a thoroughly cynical attempt to deceive the public into thinking the conviction was justified."

A twelve-year travesty

It was twelve years ago today that the judges of the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist delivered their verdict of Guilty against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (and Not Guilty against Lamin Fhima) for the murder of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie. The Opinion of the Court justifying the verdicts can be read here. In the version originally issued on 31 January 2001, in the very first sentence, their Lordships mis-stated the date of the disaster. This is indicative of the quality of the Opinion as a whole.

"Justice was never done"

[Destroying Libya and World Order: The Three-Decade US Campaign to Reverse the Qaddafi Revolution is the title of a book by Professor Francis A Boyle which is due to be published on 28 February 2013.  A blurb on the Amazon website reads as follows:]

It took three decades for the United States government -- spanning and working assiduously over five different presidential administrations (Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama) -- to overthrow and reverse the 1969 Qaddafi Revolution in order to resubjugate Libya, seize control over its oil fields, and dismantle its Jamahiriya system. This book tells the story of what happened, why it happened, and what was both wrong and illegal with what happened from the perspective of an international law professor and lawyer who tried for over three decades to stop it. Francis Boyle, who served as Qaddafi's lawyer at the World Court, provides a comprehensive history and critique of American foreign policy toward Libya from when the Reagan administration came to power in January of 1981 up to the NATO war on Libya that ultimately achieved the US goal of regime change. He deals with the repeated series of military conflicts and crises between the United States and Libya over the Gulf of Sidra and the fraudulent US claims of Libyan instigation of international terrorism during the eight years of the neoconservative Reagan administration. He reveals the flimsy factual basis and legal machinations behind the Lockerbie bombing allegations against Libya initiated by the Bush administrations I and II. In 2011, under the guise of the UN R2P "responsibility to protect” doctrine newly-contrived to provide legal cover for Western intervention into third world countries, and override the UN Charter commitment to prevention of aggression and state sovereignty, the NATO assault led to 50,000 Libyan casualties and the complete breakdown of law and order. Boyle analyzes and debunks the doctrines of R2P and its immediate predecessor, "humanitarian intervention”, in accordance with the standard recognized criteria of international law. This book provides an excellent case study of the conduct of US foreign policy as it relations to international law.

[An excerpt from the book on the same website reads as follows:]

After the Bush Senior administration came to power, in late 1991 they opportunistically accused Libya of somehow being behind the 1988 bombing of the Pan American jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. I advised Libya on this matter from the very outset. Indeed, prior thereto I had predicted to Libya that they were going to be used by the United States government as a convenient scapegoat over Lockerbie for geopolitical reasons. Publicly sensationalizing these allegations,in early 1992 President Bush Senior then mobilized the US Sixth Fleet off the coast of Libya on hostile aerial and naval maneuvers in preparation for yet another military attack exactly as the Reagan administration had done repeatedly throughout the 1980s. I convinced Colonel Qaddafi to let us sue the United States and the United Kingdom at the International Court of Justice in The Hague over the Lockerbie bombing allegations; to convene an emergency meeting of the World Court; and to request the Court to issue the international equivalent of temporary restraining orders against the United States and the United Kingdom that they not attack Libya again as they had done before. After we had filed these two World Court lawsuits, President Bush Senior ordered the Sixth Fleet to stand down. There was no military conflict between the United States and Libya. There was no war. No one died. A tribute to international law, the World Court, and their capacity for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. Pursuant to our World Court lawsuits, in February of 1998 the International Court of Justice rendered two Judgments against the United States and the United Kingdom that were overwhelmingly in favor of Libya on the technical jurisdictional and procedural elements involved in these two cases. It was obvious from reading these Judgments that at the end of the day Libya was going to win its World Court lawsuits against the United States and the United Kingdom over the substance of their Lockerbie bombing allegations. These drastically unfavorable World Court Judgments convinced the United States and the United Kingdom to offer a compromise proposal to Libya whereby the two Libyan nationals accused by the US and the UK of perpetrating the Lockerbie bombing would be tried before a Scottish Court sitting in The Hague, the seat of the World Court. Justice was never done. This book tells the inside story of why not.