[What follows is an excerpt from the Embassy Row column of 3 March on the website of The Washington Times:]
The relatives of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing say they are still seeking justice, not more money, from the Libyan government, which admitted responsibility for the terrorist attack that killed 270 people.
The Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 wrote Friday to Libyan Ambassador Ali Suleiman Aujali to distance the group from a British news report that quoted Libyan Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani, who complained about British and U.S. requests to reopen the investigation into the bombing of the U.S. airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988.
“If they want to reopen the case they have to promise not to ask for more compensation,” he told the London Daily Telegraph.
Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi paid the families more than $2 billion in 2003. Gadhafi was overthrown and killed about eight years later.
Frank Duggan, president of the Pan Am relatives group, told the ambassador that the families want no more money.
“Justice is all that our victims’ families seek, and our efforts have never been about monetary compensation, which surely cannot replace lost lives,” he said.
The families support further investigation into the bombing, especially because only one Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was ever convicted of the attack. A Scottish court sentenced him to life in 2001, but the Scottish government released him in 2009, believing he had terminal cancer and only three months to live. He died last year in Libya.
Mr. Duggan told Mr. Aujali that the Pan Am families hope for the best in the Libyan government. “We hope that your new government can prosper as a democratic state with justice for all of your citizens,” he said.
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
Libyan trip is a ‘contrived distraction’
[This is the headline over a letter from Thomas Crooks published in Monday’s edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]
Informed bystanders would be justified in interpreting the pilgrimage of Crown Office prosecutors to Libya (...) as an exercise in contrived distraction.
Faced with considerable doubts as to the merits of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s conviction for the Lockerbie bombing, (including the findings of the Scottish Criminal [Cases] Review Commission), the Crown Office responded by ignoring the unpalatable evidence that undermines that validity of the conviction. This includes evidence withheld from Megrahi’s defence team and claims of a discrepancy in the metal analysis of a circuit board – a key piece of evidence in the case. These issues were underlined in John Ashton’s book, Megrahi, You are my Jury, (published in 2012).
The Crown Office, on red alert about the possibility of a miscarriage of justice, ignored the book and compounded that show of concern for the fundamental tenets of justice by failing to contact the scientists who carried out the tests on the circuit fragment.
To nurture a growing reputation for leaving every stone undisturbed in the pursuit of justice, the Crown Office responded to the contents of John Ashton’s book, to the work of the aforementioned scientists and the consequent concerns of the families of the Lockerbie victims, by unfurling the flag of evasive pomposity: “As we have stated repeatedly, the only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court.
“As the investigation remains live, it would not be appropriate to offer further comment.”
Clearly, although the “investigation remains live”, it is not “live enough” to inspire the Crown Office to contact the scientists whose work and tests on the circuit board appear to undermine the essence of the Crown’s case against Megrahi. Instead, Crown Office prosecutors preferred a pilgrimage to Libya, a country deep in the chaos of post-war tribal strife, in a desperate, and rather pathetic attempt, to uphold the “integrity” of the Scottish legal system.
Informed bystanders would be justified in interpreting the pilgrimage of Crown Office prosecutors to Libya (...) as an exercise in contrived distraction.
Faced with considerable doubts as to the merits of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s conviction for the Lockerbie bombing, (including the findings of the Scottish Criminal [Cases] Review Commission), the Crown Office responded by ignoring the unpalatable evidence that undermines that validity of the conviction. This includes evidence withheld from Megrahi’s defence team and claims of a discrepancy in the metal analysis of a circuit board – a key piece of evidence in the case. These issues were underlined in John Ashton’s book, Megrahi, You are my Jury, (published in 2012).
The Crown Office, on red alert about the possibility of a miscarriage of justice, ignored the book and compounded that show of concern for the fundamental tenets of justice by failing to contact the scientists who carried out the tests on the circuit fragment.
To nurture a growing reputation for leaving every stone undisturbed in the pursuit of justice, the Crown Office responded to the contents of John Ashton’s book, to the work of the aforementioned scientists and the consequent concerns of the families of the Lockerbie victims, by unfurling the flag of evasive pomposity: “As we have stated repeatedly, the only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court.
“As the investigation remains live, it would not be appropriate to offer further comment.”
Clearly, although the “investigation remains live”, it is not “live enough” to inspire the Crown Office to contact the scientists whose work and tests on the circuit board appear to undermine the essence of the Crown’s case against Megrahi. Instead, Crown Office prosecutors preferred a pilgrimage to Libya, a country deep in the chaos of post-war tribal strife, in a desperate, and rather pathetic attempt, to uphold the “integrity” of the Scottish legal system.
Monday, 4 March 2013
Should Lockerbie investigation continue?
[This is the headline over a short report, with accompanying video, on the ITV News website. It reads as follows:]
South of Scotland MP David Mundell has questioned how long the Lockerbie bombing investigation should continue. Mr Mundell, whose constituency includes Lockerbie, thinks that a decision needs to be made about 'the finality of the case'.
Last week officers from Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary were amongst a delegation that travelled to he Libyan capital of Tripoli. Whilst there they spoke to government officials, prompting the Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Police to say the investigation remains 'a very active' one.
[The same website’s report, with accompanying video, of its interview with Dumfries and Galloway Police's Chief Constable Patrick Shearer reads as follows:]
Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Police, says the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing 'has reached a new level' and that the force hopes to build on what was learnt by officers who travelled to Libya last week.
Patrick Shearer spoke exclusively to ITV News.
South of Scotland MP David Mundell has questioned how long the Lockerbie bombing investigation should continue. Mr Mundell, whose constituency includes Lockerbie, thinks that a decision needs to be made about 'the finality of the case'.
Last week officers from Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary were amongst a delegation that travelled to he Libyan capital of Tripoli. Whilst there they spoke to government officials, prompting the Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Police to say the investigation remains 'a very active' one.
[The same website’s report, with accompanying video, of its interview with Dumfries and Galloway Police's Chief Constable Patrick Shearer reads as follows:]
Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Police, says the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing 'has reached a new level' and that the force hopes to build on what was learnt by officers who travelled to Libya last week.
Patrick Shearer spoke exclusively to ITV News.
Abdelbaset Megrahi, Keith O'Brien and Kenneth Roy
[What follows is an excerpt from a special article published today on the Scottish Review website by the magazine’s editor, Kenneth Roy, under the headline The media assassination of Cardinal O'Brien:]
[T]here are many sound historical precedents for being instinctively suspicious of the sort of unholy consensus we have in the Scottish media today. I've never much liked the consensus: it so often tells a half-truth. So I intend to say a kind ungrudging word about Cardinal O'Brien, a man I've never met.
He and I shared a common interest in the case of Megrahi, who was convicted – probably wrongly – of the murder of 270 people at Lockerbie. We both signed a petition to the Scottish Parliament calling for the conviction to be re-visited and for a public inquiry to be instigated into the scandalous state of the evidence against Megrahi. It was not one of the more popular petitions ever submitted to the parliament. I seem to remember that it was signed by about 1,200 people, very few of whom were public figures. [RB: When the petition closed, having been offline for some considerable time, the number of signatures was 1646 -- one of the highest numbers achieved by any Scottish Parliament ePetition.]
Many who privately harboured doubts about the safety of the conviction preferred, in the Scottish manner, to keep their heads under the parapet. Keith O'Brien stuck his above it. I admired him for it. I thought it was the action of a brave and principled person. That does not make him any less of a hypocrite in his sexual conduct. But then we are all such a mass of contradictions. Only the journalists are squeaky clean. What's new?
[T]here are many sound historical precedents for being instinctively suspicious of the sort of unholy consensus we have in the Scottish media today. I've never much liked the consensus: it so often tells a half-truth. So I intend to say a kind ungrudging word about Cardinal O'Brien, a man I've never met.
He and I shared a common interest in the case of Megrahi, who was convicted – probably wrongly – of the murder of 270 people at Lockerbie. We both signed a petition to the Scottish Parliament calling for the conviction to be re-visited and for a public inquiry to be instigated into the scandalous state of the evidence against Megrahi. It was not one of the more popular petitions ever submitted to the parliament. I seem to remember that it was signed by about 1,200 people, very few of whom were public figures. [RB: When the petition closed, having been offline for some considerable time, the number of signatures was 1646 -- one of the highest numbers achieved by any Scottish Parliament ePetition.]
Many who privately harboured doubts about the safety of the conviction preferred, in the Scottish manner, to keep their heads under the parapet. Keith O'Brien stuck his above it. I admired him for it. I thought it was the action of a brave and principled person. That does not make him any less of a hypocrite in his sexual conduct. But then we are all such a mass of contradictions. Only the journalists are squeaky clean. What's new?
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Lockerbie revisited
A cartoon with this heading is published today on the website of Gulf News. It can be viewed here.
Lockerbie Revisited is also, of course, the title of Gideon Levy's documentary which won the 2009 Prix Europa for best television current affairs programme. It has still not been shown on a United Kingdom TV channel, but can be viewed here. (Thanks to Edwin Bollier for the link.)
Lockerbie Revisited is also, of course, the title of Gideon Levy's documentary which won the 2009 Prix Europa for best television current affairs programme. It has still not been shown on a United Kingdom TV channel, but can be viewed here. (Thanks to Edwin Bollier for the link.)
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Lockerbie case is still open, Britain says
[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph, following on from the story in the newspaper yesterday headlined Libya minister says Lockerbie case is 'closed'. Today’s report reads in part:]
Britain insisted that the investigation into the 1988 Lockerbie bombing remains open, after a Libyan minister told The Daily Telegraph that the government there regarded the inquiry as over.
On Friday this newspaper reported that British police were conducting inquiries in Libya for the first time in an attempt to restart the investigation into the 1988 bombing that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland, killing 270 people.
Last night the Foreign Office disclosed that members of the Lockerbie investigation team, including officers from Dumfries and Galloway Police, had in fact visited the north African state this week.
The Libyan justice minister, Salah al-Marghani, told the Telegraph the case had been "settled" with the former Gaddafi regime.
"I am trying to work on the current situation rather than dig into the past," he said.
In a statement Friday night, the Foreign Office said that it expected a follow-up to the investigation team's visit "very soon".
"The investigation into the Lockerbie case remains open and the Government continues to discuss cooperation on this case with the Libyan government," the statement said. (...)
One official said that the diplomats had sought permission to restart the Lockerbie investigation "from scratch". But these ambitions are likely to be frustrated by the lack of desire on the part of the Libyan authorities to reopen old wounds. (...)
Libya's government also faces pressure from its own people not to reopen the case. The payment of such a huge settlement at a time when many believed there was not conclusive evidence that Libya was responsible for the terrorist attack caused a public outpouring of anger.
The transfer of the financial settlement is one of the charges listed against at least two former regime officials who are now in jail accused of "wasting public funds".
"Even if the government did want to open it they would face opposition from the local people. There would be protests in the streets," said one official in the Libyan Supreme Court.
[A report in today’s edition of The Herald contains the following:]
Scottish police have secretly travelled to Libya with the FBI for talks with senior members of the country's government as part of their investigation into the Lockerbie bombing.
A four-person delegation from Dumfries and Galloway Police and the Crown Office, accompanied by an FBI delegation from Washington, had discussions with senior officials in Tripoli over the atrocity which claimed 270 lives on December 21, 1988. (...)
The news emerged a day after the Libyan Government said the Lockerbie case was closed. (...)
Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, is the only individual to have been convicted of the bombing. He died last year from cancer after being freed from prison to return to Tripoli on compassionate grounds.
Many of the families of the British victims are unconvinced of his guilt.
The architect of Megrahi's trial at Camp Zeist in 2000 warned the Libyan minister's comments could be a sign of growing tensions.
Robert Black, Emeritus Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: "It could be a setback for everyone, whether you're convinced Megrahi is innocent or not."
A UK Government source added: "The investigation into the Lockerbie case remains open."
However, Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the atrocity, said: "I think the police are almost certainly wasting their time and public money by going to Tripoli.
"If they are going to cement the case against Megrahi, then it is a wild goose chase."
[A report in The Scotsman starts with the following two sentences:]
Scottish police, prosecutors and FBI investigators have arrived in Libya, it emerged last night. They landed hours after the country’s justice minister insisted that the matter was “settled” and it was wrong to dwell on the past.
[I believe that The Scotsman’s chronology is wrong. The Scottish investigators met Libyan officials on 25 February, whereas the statements by the Libyan justice ministers about the case being closed were made (or, at least, were reported) on 28 February/1 March.]
Britain insisted that the investigation into the 1988 Lockerbie bombing remains open, after a Libyan minister told The Daily Telegraph that the government there regarded the inquiry as over.
On Friday this newspaper reported that British police were conducting inquiries in Libya for the first time in an attempt to restart the investigation into the 1988 bombing that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland, killing 270 people.
Last night the Foreign Office disclosed that members of the Lockerbie investigation team, including officers from Dumfries and Galloway Police, had in fact visited the north African state this week.
The Libyan justice minister, Salah al-Marghani, told the Telegraph the case had been "settled" with the former Gaddafi regime.
"I am trying to work on the current situation rather than dig into the past," he said.
In a statement Friday night, the Foreign Office said that it expected a follow-up to the investigation team's visit "very soon".
"The investigation into the Lockerbie case remains open and the Government continues to discuss cooperation on this case with the Libyan government," the statement said. (...)
One official said that the diplomats had sought permission to restart the Lockerbie investigation "from scratch". But these ambitions are likely to be frustrated by the lack of desire on the part of the Libyan authorities to reopen old wounds. (...)
Libya's government also faces pressure from its own people not to reopen the case. The payment of such a huge settlement at a time when many believed there was not conclusive evidence that Libya was responsible for the terrorist attack caused a public outpouring of anger.
The transfer of the financial settlement is one of the charges listed against at least two former regime officials who are now in jail accused of "wasting public funds".
"Even if the government did want to open it they would face opposition from the local people. There would be protests in the streets," said one official in the Libyan Supreme Court.
[A report in today’s edition of The Herald contains the following:]
Scottish police have secretly travelled to Libya with the FBI for talks with senior members of the country's government as part of their investigation into the Lockerbie bombing.
A four-person delegation from Dumfries and Galloway Police and the Crown Office, accompanied by an FBI delegation from Washington, had discussions with senior officials in Tripoli over the atrocity which claimed 270 lives on December 21, 1988. (...)
The news emerged a day after the Libyan Government said the Lockerbie case was closed. (...)
Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, is the only individual to have been convicted of the bombing. He died last year from cancer after being freed from prison to return to Tripoli on compassionate grounds.
Many of the families of the British victims are unconvinced of his guilt.
The architect of Megrahi's trial at Camp Zeist in 2000 warned the Libyan minister's comments could be a sign of growing tensions.
Robert Black, Emeritus Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: "It could be a setback for everyone, whether you're convinced Megrahi is innocent or not."
A UK Government source added: "The investigation into the Lockerbie case remains open."
However, Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the atrocity, said: "I think the police are almost certainly wasting their time and public money by going to Tripoli.
"If they are going to cement the case against Megrahi, then it is a wild goose chase."
[A report in The Scotsman starts with the following two sentences:]
Scottish police, prosecutors and FBI investigators have arrived in Libya, it emerged last night. They landed hours after the country’s justice minister insisted that the matter was “settled” and it was wrong to dwell on the past.
[I believe that The Scotsman’s chronology is wrong. The Scottish investigators met Libyan officials on 25 February, whereas the statements by the Libyan justice ministers about the case being closed were made (or, at least, were reported) on 28 February/1 March.]
"If evidence which is exculpatory comes to light it will be disclosed"
[On 9 February Dr Jim Swire wrote to the Lord Advocate expressing concern that the three experts most involved in defining the significance of the discrepancy over the metallurgy of the alleged timer fragment PT35b had never been approached by the Crown Office or the Dumfries and Galloway police during the whole of the time since publication in 2012 of John Ashton’s book Megrahi: You are my Jury in which the discrepancy was made public. Here is the reply dated 19 February 2013 which Dr Swire received from the Crown Office:]
Thank you for your letter of 9th February to the Lord Advocate in relation to the provenance timer fragment PT-35. The Lord Advocate has asked me to reply on his behalf.
As you will be aware this is a live investigation and it is not appropriate to put into the public domain the nature and results of the inquiries. The nature of the inquiries are confidential. However I can assure you that if during the investigation any evidence which is exculpatory comes to light it will be disclosed in accordance with our disclosure obligations.
[It is perhaps comforting that the reply acknowledges the Crown’s disclosure obligations, particularly in the light of their apparent failure in the past to comply with them, as disclosed in the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s Statement of Reasons in the Megrahi case and in John Ashton’s book.]
Thank you for your letter of 9th February to the Lord Advocate in relation to the provenance timer fragment PT-35. The Lord Advocate has asked me to reply on his behalf.
As you will be aware this is a live investigation and it is not appropriate to put into the public domain the nature and results of the inquiries. The nature of the inquiries are confidential. However I can assure you that if during the investigation any evidence which is exculpatory comes to light it will be disclosed in accordance with our disclosure obligations.
[It is perhaps comforting that the reply acknowledges the Crown’s disclosure obligations, particularly in the light of their apparent failure in the past to comply with them, as disclosed in the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s Statement of Reasons in the Megrahi case and in John Ashton’s book.]
Friday, 1 March 2013
Lockerbie investigators visit Libya
[This is the heading on a press release issued this evening by the Crown Office. It reads as follows:]
Scottish police and prosecutors have visited Libya to discuss the furtherance of the Lockerbie investigation.
A four-person delegation from the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, accompanied by an FBI delegation from Washington, met with senior officials from the Libyan Government in Tripoli on 25 February. [RB: The press reports mentioned below in which Libyan justice ministers are quoted as saying that the Lockerbie case is closed are dated 28 February and 1 March.]
The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, said:
"As announced by the Prime Minister on 31 January, visas were granted for Scottish police and prosecutors to travel to Tripoli to meet with their counterparts in progressing the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing.
"Senior officials from Crown Office, Dumfries and Galloway Police and the FBI attended a series of meetings in Tripoli with Ministers and senior officials from the Libyan Government to discuss the ongoing investigation.
"The purpose of the meetings was to discuss US and Scottish requests for co-operation in the ongoing investigation and to agree how these would be progressed. The discussions were positive and it is hoped there will be further progress as a result.
The Libyan authorities did raise the issue of compensation, as today's press reports have indicated, and it was reiterated by the joint delegation that the investigation was focussed on identifying others involved in this act of state sponsored terrorism.
"As the investigation remains live, and in order to preserve the integrity of that investigation, it would not be appropriate to offer further comment".
[The STV News website reports this story under the perceptive headline Libya dismissive of efforts to reopen Lockerbie bombing inquiry.]
Scottish police and prosecutors have visited Libya to discuss the furtherance of the Lockerbie investigation.
A four-person delegation from the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, accompanied by an FBI delegation from Washington, met with senior officials from the Libyan Government in Tripoli on 25 February. [RB: The press reports mentioned below in which Libyan justice ministers are quoted as saying that the Lockerbie case is closed are dated 28 February and 1 March.]
The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, said:
"As announced by the Prime Minister on 31 January, visas were granted for Scottish police and prosecutors to travel to Tripoli to meet with their counterparts in progressing the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing.
"Senior officials from Crown Office, Dumfries and Galloway Police and the FBI attended a series of meetings in Tripoli with Ministers and senior officials from the Libyan Government to discuss the ongoing investigation.
"The purpose of the meetings was to discuss US and Scottish requests for co-operation in the ongoing investigation and to agree how these would be progressed. The discussions were positive and it is hoped there will be further progress as a result.
The Libyan authorities did raise the issue of compensation, as today's press reports have indicated, and it was reiterated by the joint delegation that the investigation was focussed on identifying others involved in this act of state sponsored terrorism.
"As the investigation remains live, and in order to preserve the integrity of that investigation, it would not be appropriate to offer further comment".
[The STV News website reports this story under the perceptive headline Libya dismissive of efforts to reopen Lockerbie bombing inquiry.]
Libya minister says Lockerbie case is 'closed'
[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph. It reads as follows:]
The new Libyan government has said that in its eyes the Lockerbie affair is a closed case and that now is not the time to dwell on the "past".
"The matter was settled with the Gaddafi regime. I am trying to work on the current situation rather than dig into the past," said Salah al-Marghani, the justice minister.
Hameda al-Magery, his deputy, said: "Britain and America are asking us to reopen this file. But this is something of the past. This is over. We want to move forward to build a new future and not to look back at Gaddafi's black history. This case was closed and both UK and US governments agreed to this. They had their compensation."
The development comes as British police conduct inquiries in Libya for the first time in an attempt to restart the investigation into the 1988 bombing that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland, killing 270 people.
David Cameron said last month he was "delighted" that detectives from Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary were going to the Libyan capital. The American government has also shown renewed interest in the case. Senior officials in the Libyan government have told The Daily Telegraph that they had been receiving regular visits from US diplomats.
One official said that the diplomats had sought permission to restart the Lockerbie investigation "from scratch". But these ambitions are likely to be frustrated by the lack of desire on the part of the Libyan authorities to reopen old wounds.
In 2003 the Libyan government paid $2.16 billion (£1.43 billion) in compensation to the families of the Lockerbie victims [RB: Most other sources give the figure as $2.7 billion], and Ahmed Own, Libya's then ambassador to the United Nations, submitted a letter to the Security Council formally accepting "responsibility for the actions of its officials" over the Lockerbie bombing.
The settlement came as part of an exchange for the removal of UN sanctions.
Today, the Libyan government is reticent about the reopening of the case, a position that comes from a fear that Britain and the US will use any new investigation as a way to demand further financial compensation, though officials admit this issue has not yet been broached.
A well-placed Libyan official said: "The Americans want to sue our government directly over Lockerbie. But this case has been closed and Americans had their compensation on that. We know they want more money from Libya and that is why we are being very careful."
Only one person has been convicted for the Lockerbie bombing. In 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was jailed for the attack. In August 2009, the Scottish government released him on compassionate grounds after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Al-Megrahi proclaimed that he was innocent up to his death in May 2012.
Although Gaddafi accepted responsibility for the actions of his officials, he claimed he was not guilty of ordering the attack.
The man who may hold further answers to Lockerbie is Abdullah Senussi, a former Libyan intelligence chief now in a Tripoli jail.
Britain and America, as part of separate inquiries, are both likely to want access to the man often called the "black box" of Libya's dictatorship.
When asked if Lockerbie investigators would be given access to Mr Senussi, Mr Marghani said that Libya and Britain had a "good relationship", but that "it is all legal issues, when it comes to investigations and police and courts you don't just walk in and start investigating things".
Other government officials have privately said that there was "no way" they would be allowed to speak directly to Mr Senussi. They added that it was a matter of "national pride" and showing Libya's prowess as a sovereign state that they should not bow quickly to foreign demands.
Mr Marghani said: "Facts are important, so if there are any facts that someone wants to tell us about we will listen."
Mr Magery, added: "If they want to reopen the case, they have to agree to do it properly. For example, they have to promise not to ask for more compensation."
Libya's government also faces pressure from its own people not to reopen the case. The payment of such a huge settlement at a time when many believed there was not conclusive evidence that Libya was responsible for the terrorist attack caused a public outpouring of anger.
The transfer of the financial settlement is one of the charges listed against at least two former regime officials who are now in jail accused of "wasting public funds".
"Even if the government did want to open it they would face opposition from the local people. There would be protests in the streets," said one official in the Libyan Supreme Court.
[A shorter report in The Independent can be read here and one from the Daily Mail here.]
The new Libyan government has said that in its eyes the Lockerbie affair is a closed case and that now is not the time to dwell on the "past".
"The matter was settled with the Gaddafi regime. I am trying to work on the current situation rather than dig into the past," said Salah al-Marghani, the justice minister.
Hameda al-Magery, his deputy, said: "Britain and America are asking us to reopen this file. But this is something of the past. This is over. We want to move forward to build a new future and not to look back at Gaddafi's black history. This case was closed and both UK and US governments agreed to this. They had their compensation."
The development comes as British police conduct inquiries in Libya for the first time in an attempt to restart the investigation into the 1988 bombing that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland, killing 270 people.
David Cameron said last month he was "delighted" that detectives from Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary were going to the Libyan capital. The American government has also shown renewed interest in the case. Senior officials in the Libyan government have told The Daily Telegraph that they had been receiving regular visits from US diplomats.
One official said that the diplomats had sought permission to restart the Lockerbie investigation "from scratch". But these ambitions are likely to be frustrated by the lack of desire on the part of the Libyan authorities to reopen old wounds.
In 2003 the Libyan government paid $2.16 billion (£1.43 billion) in compensation to the families of the Lockerbie victims [RB: Most other sources give the figure as $2.7 billion], and Ahmed Own, Libya's then ambassador to the United Nations, submitted a letter to the Security Council formally accepting "responsibility for the actions of its officials" over the Lockerbie bombing.
The settlement came as part of an exchange for the removal of UN sanctions.
Today, the Libyan government is reticent about the reopening of the case, a position that comes from a fear that Britain and the US will use any new investigation as a way to demand further financial compensation, though officials admit this issue has not yet been broached.
A well-placed Libyan official said: "The Americans want to sue our government directly over Lockerbie. But this case has been closed and Americans had their compensation on that. We know they want more money from Libya and that is why we are being very careful."
Only one person has been convicted for the Lockerbie bombing. In 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was jailed for the attack. In August 2009, the Scottish government released him on compassionate grounds after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Al-Megrahi proclaimed that he was innocent up to his death in May 2012.
Although Gaddafi accepted responsibility for the actions of his officials, he claimed he was not guilty of ordering the attack.
The man who may hold further answers to Lockerbie is Abdullah Senussi, a former Libyan intelligence chief now in a Tripoli jail.
Britain and America, as part of separate inquiries, are both likely to want access to the man often called the "black box" of Libya's dictatorship.
When asked if Lockerbie investigators would be given access to Mr Senussi, Mr Marghani said that Libya and Britain had a "good relationship", but that "it is all legal issues, when it comes to investigations and police and courts you don't just walk in and start investigating things".
Other government officials have privately said that there was "no way" they would be allowed to speak directly to Mr Senussi. They added that it was a matter of "national pride" and showing Libya's prowess as a sovereign state that they should not bow quickly to foreign demands.
Mr Marghani said: "Facts are important, so if there are any facts that someone wants to tell us about we will listen."
Mr Magery, added: "If they want to reopen the case, they have to agree to do it properly. For example, they have to promise not to ask for more compensation."
Libya's government also faces pressure from its own people not to reopen the case. The payment of such a huge settlement at a time when many believed there was not conclusive evidence that Libya was responsible for the terrorist attack caused a public outpouring of anger.
The transfer of the financial settlement is one of the charges listed against at least two former regime officials who are now in jail accused of "wasting public funds".
"Even if the government did want to open it they would face opposition from the local people. There would be protests in the streets," said one official in the Libyan Supreme Court.
[A shorter report in The Independent can be read here and one from the Daily Mail here.]
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Another Haseldine lie
What follows is taken verbatim from a tweet by Patrick Haseldine yesterday: "Suppressing #Lockerbie Truth? 'I have always done that,' says #ProfessorRobertBlack". The quotation is a complete fabrication. But that is precisely what Patrick Haseldine does: he makes things up. He has been caught doing it so often that it is a mystery to me why anyone follows him on Twitter. Happily, very few do.
Swire hits out at authorities for ignoring Lockerbie book
[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The Herald, picking up on an item that appeared on this blog on Saturday. The report reads as follows:]
The father of a victim of the Lockerbie bombing has hit out at Scottish authorities over their lack of action, one year on from the publication of a damning book on the case.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, claims the Scottish Government and the Crown Office have completely ignored John Ashton's book, Megrahi: You are my Jury, since its publication on February 28 last year.
The book raises a number of questions about the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi. It also includes details of evidence being withheld from his defence team and claims of a discrepancy in the metal analysis of a fragment of circuit board: a key piece of evidence in the case.
Mr Swire has written to the Lord Advocate, First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, calling for them to take action and accusing them of "intolerable lethargy". He said: "They have completely ignored this book and the evidence it contains. I was horrified to learn the Crown hasn't even approached the scientists who carried out the tests on the circuit fragment.
"It basically means a year's gone by with them doing absolutely nothing."
Mr Swire also repeated his calls for a full inquiry into the alleged failings of the Crown.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said it is open to the relatives of Megrahi or others with a direct interest in the case to ask for it to be referred back to court for appeal on a posthumous basis."
A Crown Office spokesman said: "As we have stated repeatedly the only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. As the investigation remains live, it would not be appropriate to offer further comment."
The father of a victim of the Lockerbie bombing has hit out at Scottish authorities over their lack of action, one year on from the publication of a damning book on the case.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, claims the Scottish Government and the Crown Office have completely ignored John Ashton's book, Megrahi: You are my Jury, since its publication on February 28 last year.
The book raises a number of questions about the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi. It also includes details of evidence being withheld from his defence team and claims of a discrepancy in the metal analysis of a fragment of circuit board: a key piece of evidence in the case.
Mr Swire has written to the Lord Advocate, First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, calling for them to take action and accusing them of "intolerable lethargy". He said: "They have completely ignored this book and the evidence it contains. I was horrified to learn the Crown hasn't even approached the scientists who carried out the tests on the circuit fragment.
"It basically means a year's gone by with them doing absolutely nothing."
Mr Swire also repeated his calls for a full inquiry into the alleged failings of the Crown.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said it is open to the relatives of Megrahi or others with a direct interest in the case to ask for it to be referred back to court for appeal on a posthumous basis."
A Crown Office spokesman said: "As we have stated repeatedly the only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. As the investigation remains live, it would not be appropriate to offer further comment."
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Incompetent people making a complete pig's ear of the investigation
[What follows is a comment by Rolfe on Saturday’s blogpost Dr Jim Swire calls on Scottish Government to institute inquiry into Crown Office Lockerbie failings. In my view it merits stand-alone status.]
The information about the [Heathrow] break-in was buried at the beginning of February 1989, two years before Megrahi's name even entered the frame for Lockerbie. The information was passed to the investigators at Lockerbie, who said ho hum so what, and filed it. It was never looked at again. When the other Heathrow witnesses were being re-interviewed and re-re-interviewed, nobody said another word to Ray Manly. His evidence was never part of the narrative of the case and it would have remained unknown if he himself had not approached Megrahi's defence team after the verdict in 2001.
It's tempting to read all sorts of conspiracies into this, and there's certainly a case to be made that in early 1989 someone was distinctly unkeen for Heathrow to take the blame for the disaster, but the more I see of the primary evidence, the more it looks to me like nothing more than the most monumental cock-up of the second millennium.
Some pretty underhand and reprehensible things were done as part of this inquiry and prosecution, there's no doubt about that. But whether they were done as part of a grand, over-arching, machiavellian plan is an entirely different matter.
I see incompetent people who were far from being the sharpest knives in the drawer, but who had a very puffed-up sense of their own importance, making a complete pig's ear of the investigation. The recovery and examination of the evidence was absolutely stellar. World class. But then the evidence had to be analysed, and deductions and conclusions drawn. That's where it fell apart.
Lack of communication, personal egos, premature jumping to conclusions and sheer lack of analytical skills are there in abundance. Then the more you get it wrong the more you have to fudge and manipulate in order to defend what is becoming an indefensible position.
I'm not even sure they realise they got it wrong. Maybe some of them do. But some of them are so enamoured of their own cleverness in pinning the atrocity on Libya and Megrahi they can't see beyond that.
There is so much evidence to show that much of this debacle was caused by people in positions of responsibility simply not having the intellectual capacity to work through the inferences from A to B to C. Which makes it quite hard to believe that these same people were running an incredibly clever and complicated conspiracy.
The information about the [Heathrow] break-in was buried at the beginning of February 1989, two years before Megrahi's name even entered the frame for Lockerbie. The information was passed to the investigators at Lockerbie, who said ho hum so what, and filed it. It was never looked at again. When the other Heathrow witnesses were being re-interviewed and re-re-interviewed, nobody said another word to Ray Manly. His evidence was never part of the narrative of the case and it would have remained unknown if he himself had not approached Megrahi's defence team after the verdict in 2001.
It's tempting to read all sorts of conspiracies into this, and there's certainly a case to be made that in early 1989 someone was distinctly unkeen for Heathrow to take the blame for the disaster, but the more I see of the primary evidence, the more it looks to me like nothing more than the most monumental cock-up of the second millennium.
Some pretty underhand and reprehensible things were done as part of this inquiry and prosecution, there's no doubt about that. But whether they were done as part of a grand, over-arching, machiavellian plan is an entirely different matter.
I see incompetent people who were far from being the sharpest knives in the drawer, but who had a very puffed-up sense of their own importance, making a complete pig's ear of the investigation. The recovery and examination of the evidence was absolutely stellar. World class. But then the evidence had to be analysed, and deductions and conclusions drawn. That's where it fell apart.
Lack of communication, personal egos, premature jumping to conclusions and sheer lack of analytical skills are there in abundance. Then the more you get it wrong the more you have to fudge and manipulate in order to defend what is becoming an indefensible position.
I'm not even sure they realise they got it wrong. Maybe some of them do. But some of them are so enamoured of their own cleverness in pinning the atrocity on Libya and Megrahi they can't see beyond that.
There is so much evidence to show that much of this debacle was caused by people in positions of responsibility simply not having the intellectual capacity to work through the inferences from A to B to C. Which makes it quite hard to believe that these same people were running an incredibly clever and complicated conspiracy.
Monday, 25 February 2013
Libya "had nothing whatsoever to do with ... Pan Am 103"
[What follows is an excerpt from the transcript of a radio interview conducted by John Robles with Dr Edward S Herman, published yesterday on the website of The Voice of Russia:]
Herman: (...) The standard procedure of the United States and the NATO powers is to demonize whoever they are going to go after. So, Milosevic was made into a devil and the Serbs were made into an evil population. And of course the Bosnian Muslims loved that and latched onto that and they are still using it to achieve some of their aims. Countries finds it extremely difficult to throw off the burden of demonization and hatred by the West.
After we crushed Vietnam, we allegedly lost that war, but we damaged Vietnam horribly, we actually succeeded in maintaining an 18 year boycott of this victim to whom we ought to have been paying huge reparations. We actually should be paying gigantic reparations to Serbia for the illegal bombing war. But the West does this demonization and the demon charge hangs on.
So, each successful target you find this demonization process at work and the hypocrisy involved here is absolutely mindboggling because sometimes you have us changing our mind in mid-stream as with Saddam Hussein, when he was warring against Iran in the 1980s, he was a friend of the United States and they actually provided him with weapons of mass destruction. And then he became worse than Hitler. But the media doesn’t stress this and avoid it, they ignore the fact that he was our ally and then the next day he is a demon.
Robles: Same thing with Muammar Gaddafi, I mean he became a friend, again, what you were saying. Disarm! Disarm! Ok, he disarmed. The same with Hussein, he disarmed.
Herman: I don’t think we ever really loved Gaddafi or Assad but we did get along with them at least for a while. But Gaddafi was always a handy villain we could turn to, like in a Lockerbie case, that was really an amazing business, because after Pan Am 103 was shot down.
Robles: Sure! Do you think he was behind that? Do you believe that?
Herman: No, absolutely not! Right off the bat. The shoot down of Pan Am 103 followed by six months the United States shooting down an Iranian airliner killing 290 people. And six months after that there was Lockerbie, the Pan Am 103, so everybody knew. And in fact the CIA claimed for two years it was clear fact that Iran and Syria had been behind that bombing.
But the geopolitics changed and suddenly we were having to deal with Saddam Hussein, we needed Iran and Syria to be our temporary friends and Gaddafi was brought into the picture. The convenient villain. I’m totally sure, I’ve studied that Lockerbie case and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the shooting down of Pan Am 103.
But it is like the Srebrenica massacre. The capability of the West and the media to manipulate facts, and the CIA to manipulate facts and demonize, and have an effective case against whomever we have demonized, it is amazing how the West does this.
Herman: (...) The standard procedure of the United States and the NATO powers is to demonize whoever they are going to go after. So, Milosevic was made into a devil and the Serbs were made into an evil population. And of course the Bosnian Muslims loved that and latched onto that and they are still using it to achieve some of their aims. Countries finds it extremely difficult to throw off the burden of demonization and hatred by the West.
After we crushed Vietnam, we allegedly lost that war, but we damaged Vietnam horribly, we actually succeeded in maintaining an 18 year boycott of this victim to whom we ought to have been paying huge reparations. We actually should be paying gigantic reparations to Serbia for the illegal bombing war. But the West does this demonization and the demon charge hangs on.
So, each successful target you find this demonization process at work and the hypocrisy involved here is absolutely mindboggling because sometimes you have us changing our mind in mid-stream as with Saddam Hussein, when he was warring against Iran in the 1980s, he was a friend of the United States and they actually provided him with weapons of mass destruction. And then he became worse than Hitler. But the media doesn’t stress this and avoid it, they ignore the fact that he was our ally and then the next day he is a demon.
Robles: Same thing with Muammar Gaddafi, I mean he became a friend, again, what you were saying. Disarm! Disarm! Ok, he disarmed. The same with Hussein, he disarmed.
Herman: I don’t think we ever really loved Gaddafi or Assad but we did get along with them at least for a while. But Gaddafi was always a handy villain we could turn to, like in a Lockerbie case, that was really an amazing business, because after Pan Am 103 was shot down.
Robles: Sure! Do you think he was behind that? Do you believe that?
Herman: No, absolutely not! Right off the bat. The shoot down of Pan Am 103 followed by six months the United States shooting down an Iranian airliner killing 290 people. And six months after that there was Lockerbie, the Pan Am 103, so everybody knew. And in fact the CIA claimed for two years it was clear fact that Iran and Syria had been behind that bombing.
But the geopolitics changed and suddenly we were having to deal with Saddam Hussein, we needed Iran and Syria to be our temporary friends and Gaddafi was brought into the picture. The convenient villain. I’m totally sure, I’ve studied that Lockerbie case and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the shooting down of Pan Am 103.
But it is like the Srebrenica massacre. The capability of the West and the media to manipulate facts, and the CIA to manipulate facts and demonize, and have an effective case against whomever we have demonized, it is amazing how the West does this.
Libya and Lockerbie: the imperfect match
[The following are excerpts from an article headed Libya and Lockerbie: The Imperfect Match - Part 1 published on 22 February on Robert Exley’s blog The London Upstart Web:]
To summarise why the Lockerbie disaster still remains relevant over 24 years on, in terms of death toll it is still the worst single terrorist atrocity and act of mass murder to have ever been perpetrated in the UK. Even the heinous acts perpetrated upon London’s transport network on 7/7 back in 2005 or any single act during the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign - which carried on for over two decades - have not surpassed it in this respect. On December 21st 1988 all 259 passengers on board Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York perished, along with a further eleven killed as the plane crash-landed on Sherwood Crescent in the small town of Lockerbie in South West Scotland. In subsequent years there were two further known deaths in relation to the disaster - both from the Flannigan family, whose house disappeared within the 30ft crater caused by the plane crashing to earth, that led to the deaths of the two parents Tom and Kathleen Flannigan and their daughter, 10 year old Joanne.
David Flannigan, 19 years old at the time of Lockerbie, had been living in Blackpool as a result of a family argument but was due to return home for a Christmas reconciliation. His younger brother Steven, aged 14, had also survived as he had taken his sister's Christmas present - a new bicycle - to be checked over by a neighbour, just minutes prior to the Pan Am jet landing on and destroying his family home. David was to die just five years later as a result of heart failure from drink and drug abuse. Steven – who also spent the following years struggling to come to terms with his loss - was to pass away at the age of just 26, due to falling asleep on a railway track after consuming 14 pints of alcohol after a night’s heavy drinking back in 2000. (...)
To summarise why the Lockerbie disaster still remains relevant over 24 years on, in terms of death toll it is still the worst single terrorist atrocity and act of mass murder to have ever been perpetrated in the UK. Even the heinous acts perpetrated upon London’s transport network on 7/7 back in 2005 or any single act during the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign - which carried on for over two decades - have not surpassed it in this respect. On December 21st 1988 all 259 passengers on board Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York perished, along with a further eleven killed as the plane crash-landed on Sherwood Crescent in the small town of Lockerbie in South West Scotland. In subsequent years there were two further known deaths in relation to the disaster - both from the Flannigan family, whose house disappeared within the 30ft crater caused by the plane crashing to earth, that led to the deaths of the two parents Tom and Kathleen Flannigan and their daughter, 10 year old Joanne.
David Flannigan, 19 years old at the time of Lockerbie, had been living in Blackpool as a result of a family argument but was due to return home for a Christmas reconciliation. His younger brother Steven, aged 14, had also survived as he had taken his sister's Christmas present - a new bicycle - to be checked over by a neighbour, just minutes prior to the Pan Am jet landing on and destroying his family home. David was to die just five years later as a result of heart failure from drink and drug abuse. Steven – who also spent the following years struggling to come to terms with his loss - was to pass away at the age of just 26, due to falling asleep on a railway track after consuming 14 pints of alcohol after a night’s heavy drinking back in 2000. (...)
It is impossible [to overestimate] the pain and human misery caused by this incident which occurred nearly a quarter of a century ago. On 31st January 2001, over a dozen years on from the incident, Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi – a former head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines was convicted in relation to the Lockerbie bombing. Originally sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation he serve at least twenty seven years, he ended up serving eight in total and was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, of which he was to die from last year, around the same time as when Gaddafi’s regime collapsed. His co-accused, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah however was found not guilty in light of evidence that he was in Sweden at the time of the sabotage and could not have been a participant. [RB: There was no such evidence. Fhima was acquitted largely because the judges were not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that, even if he assisted Megrahi to launch the suitcase containing the bomb which destroyed Pan Am 103 on its progress from Luqa Airport in Malta, he knew that the suitcase contained a bomb. See Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result, paragraph 1.]
Despite only one man ever having been convicted, there are very who few believe that an operation such as the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 could ever have been carried out alone, hence why the International Criminal Court would be anxious that Abdullah Al-Sennusi be in their custody rather than face summary execution at the hands of the new regime in Libya. Also important is that the Scots police are now granted access to Libyan files. There are however serious questions as to whether the authorities are actually looking in the right place to find the answers that will finally prove who was behind the Lockerbie bombing.
It’s true that every tragedy, from the mass murder of 9/11 to Princess Diana’s untimely death, has several conspiracy theories that have subsequently sprung up around them. It is however odd that the number of people who do not fully believe either the official explanation for how the tragedy came about, or the validity of the conviction against Al-Megrahi be not just so extensive but number among them people with a considerable degree of credibility about them. For instance, among those who have put their names to a 2010 petition put before the Scottish Parliament for a wide ranging inquiry into Pan Am 103 and its aftermath include the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Professor Noam Chomsky, former Father of the House of Commons Tam Dalyell MP, Professor Robert Black QC, journalists Paul Foot, John Pilger and Ian Hislop, veteran Tory MP Sir Teddy Taylor and BBC reporter Kate Adie – a list of petitioners who would not usually be considered as David Icke-esque ‘cranks’ or ‘wackos’.
A considerable number of the relatives of the deceased have even held that Al-Megrahi was innocent of all charges levelled at him. In particular, the Reverend John Mosey, who lost his nineteen year old daughter Helga in the disaster, was quoted as stating that ‘I came away (from the trial) 80 to 90 per cent convinced that this man was not guilty. It was very clear that there was political interference’. Mosey, along with several other of the victims’ relatives such as Dr Jim Swire - whose daughter Flora perished in the disaster – have even formed the Justice for Megrahi (JFM) Group with the specific purpose of clearing his name with regard to Lockerbie.
The series of articles that will follow on Lockerbie do not purport to provide answers as to who was actually behind the bombing itself. They do however intend to highlight and raise perfectly valid questions into what we know about events surrounding that night in the hope that one day answers will finally be forthcoming, particularly in the form of an independent enquiry that the relatives – and it might be added the general public of the UK and US – have been denied by the powers that be for far too long. The second part will critically assess the allegations against Libya in relation to Lockerbie, as well as the arguments that have been put about in several quarters that have long contested Libyan involvement in the atrocity.
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Dr Jim Swire calls on Scottish Government to institute inquiry into Crown Office Lockerbie failings
[What follows is the text of a letter sent on 21 February by Dr Jim Swire to Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill:]
Almost a year ago, the book Megrahi: You are my Jury was published in Edinburgh. Much of the key evidence it contains derives from the prosecution’s own documents, some of them only shared with the defence a few weeks before Mr Megrahi withdrew his appeal. The book and other sources contain material which demonstrates that the Crown Office and their agents behaved in ways contrary to the proper prosecution of a case under Scottish Criminal law. Two outstanding examples amongst many others are the emergence, and reliance upon, the circuit board fragment known as PT35b with its ‘pure tin’ plating, and the concealment of the break-in evidence from Heathrow airport.
This letter is not an attack upon the verdict. It is a request to you to investigate what errors were made by the prosecution during the conduct of the investigation, the trial and in the subsequent years, and also in the SCCRC investigation.
It was claimed by the prosecution that PT35b had been found within a police evidence bag, and that it had come from the crash site. Yet we now know that this fragment simply could not have come from the timer circuitry of the Lockerbie bomb, if that bomb had been driven by a Libyan timer as cited. The plating metallurgy is simply irreconcilably different.
Even the Crown’s forensic officer Feraday’s marginal notes show he was aware of the plating discrepancy long before the trial, by 1991 in fact, before the indictments had even been issued. Yet he signed a forensic document claiming that the fragment was ‘similar in all respects’ to the Libyan boards.
The work initiated by Feraday on PT35b, showed the plating discrepancy and was available to the prosecution long before the trial. The police did not pursue this matter with Thüring, who have confirmed that their sole plating process was with the tin/lead alloy as on DP347a, a sample Libyan type board. Finally the scientific evidence provided to the defence by Dr Chris McArdle and Dr Jess Cawley just before Mr Megrahi went home, confirmed the ‘pure tin’ plating of PT35b but also proved that proximity to exploding Semtex could not alter tin/lead plating to resemble ‘pure tin’ plating. This was work the prosecution had failed to initiate.
The court was thus misled into believing that PT35b could have been part of one of the Libyan timers which the prosecution had cited. The adoption of this belief was due to the failure of the prosecution to share all relevant evidence with the defence or the court, and to initiate all the appropriate testing. That belief is now demonstrably false.
As you are aware, Kenny, since you have had access to their materials, the SCCRC also knew that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the defence, but did not seem to realise that Thüring simply had no equipment capable of manufacturing circuit boards using the ‘pure tin’ process, failing to understand that in the industry ‘tinning’ refers equally to tin/lead as to ‘pure tin’ plating.
No other origin for PT35b other than the wreckage was ever suggested in court. PT35b was an optically perfect copy of circuitry demonstrated by the prosecution to have been present on the cited Libyan boards. The Crown Office and its agents were responsible for the sanctity of the evidence chain and the evidence bags. No one knows whence PT35b could have come, where it was made nor how it came to be found in the police evidence bag. All we know is that PT35b’s origin could not have been from a Libyan owned timer as cited by the prosecution.
I found that two weeks ago neither the Crown Office nor the police had even bothered to contact the Thüring firm’s Urs Bonfadelli, nor the scientists responsible for the discovery that PT35b’s plating could not have been changed even by a Semtex explosion, in all the more than eleven months since the book was published. Why not?
The concealment of the PT35b plating discrepancy by the Crown’s chief forensics officer, Feraday, the police and the Crown Office, allowed the court to presume that PT35b must have been part of a cited Libyan owned timer, when it clearly could not have been. The relevant documents were available to the prosecution long before the trial, but only discovered by the defence after the trial was over.
In February 2012 the Lord Advocate himself invited us relatives to a meeting in London to explain new moves being made in the criminal investigation. I chose to ask him for an explanation as to why the Heathrow break-in evidence had not been passed to the defence and the court as part of the relevant evidence. He claimed he had also wondered why, but did not know the answer. I then asked the current Chief Constable of the Dumfries and Galloway police, to see if he could discover the answer on our behalf. He did so most courteously and promptly. His letter is enclosed. It shows that the Dumfries and Galloway police of the day knew of the break-in from January 1989, kept this to themselves for a full decade, passed it to the Crown Office only in 1999 and then, together with the Crown Office, kept it hidden from the defence and the court until after the trial was over. Why?
The evidence concerning the break-in only surfaced in 2001 after the trial had finished. Even then the only reason it did so was that the Heathrow guard who had discovered the break-in was bold enough to ask publicly why his evidence had been ignored by the court.
The prosecution appears to have failed us all in this case, the Heathrow break-in and the PT35b plating are but two of many other examples. There is a special obligation upon Governments to make available the evidence to the families of victims of murder. There is also an obligation upon our prosecution service to bring fair and prompt justice upon murderers. Thanks to the failures of the Crown Office, and their searchers as your prosecuting authority, it falls to your Government to investigate all these failures. I therefore request that you immediately arrange for the creation of a properly endowed and objectively led inquiry into the apparent failings of the Crown Office in prosecuting this dreadful case, selecting as members and chairperson individuals acceptable as impartial to the relatives and to the people of Scotland.
I will make this letter available to the Scottish public also. They too deserve to know whether steps are now to be taken by their Government to explore the performance of the Crown Office prosecution in this case and to enact legislation to curtail any future such deviation from their duty, as may be found by such an inquiry.
Almost a year ago, the book Megrahi: You are my Jury was published in Edinburgh. Much of the key evidence it contains derives from the prosecution’s own documents, some of them only shared with the defence a few weeks before Mr Megrahi withdrew his appeal. The book and other sources contain material which demonstrates that the Crown Office and their agents behaved in ways contrary to the proper prosecution of a case under Scottish Criminal law. Two outstanding examples amongst many others are the emergence, and reliance upon, the circuit board fragment known as PT35b with its ‘pure tin’ plating, and the concealment of the break-in evidence from Heathrow airport.
This letter is not an attack upon the verdict. It is a request to you to investigate what errors were made by the prosecution during the conduct of the investigation, the trial and in the subsequent years, and also in the SCCRC investigation.
It was claimed by the prosecution that PT35b had been found within a police evidence bag, and that it had come from the crash site. Yet we now know that this fragment simply could not have come from the timer circuitry of the Lockerbie bomb, if that bomb had been driven by a Libyan timer as cited. The plating metallurgy is simply irreconcilably different.
Even the Crown’s forensic officer Feraday’s marginal notes show he was aware of the plating discrepancy long before the trial, by 1991 in fact, before the indictments had even been issued. Yet he signed a forensic document claiming that the fragment was ‘similar in all respects’ to the Libyan boards.
The work initiated by Feraday on PT35b, showed the plating discrepancy and was available to the prosecution long before the trial. The police did not pursue this matter with Thüring, who have confirmed that their sole plating process was with the tin/lead alloy as on DP347a, a sample Libyan type board. Finally the scientific evidence provided to the defence by Dr Chris McArdle and Dr Jess Cawley just before Mr Megrahi went home, confirmed the ‘pure tin’ plating of PT35b but also proved that proximity to exploding Semtex could not alter tin/lead plating to resemble ‘pure tin’ plating. This was work the prosecution had failed to initiate.
The court was thus misled into believing that PT35b could have been part of one of the Libyan timers which the prosecution had cited. The adoption of this belief was due to the failure of the prosecution to share all relevant evidence with the defence or the court, and to initiate all the appropriate testing. That belief is now demonstrably false.
As you are aware, Kenny, since you have had access to their materials, the SCCRC also knew that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the defence, but did not seem to realise that Thüring simply had no equipment capable of manufacturing circuit boards using the ‘pure tin’ process, failing to understand that in the industry ‘tinning’ refers equally to tin/lead as to ‘pure tin’ plating.
No other origin for PT35b other than the wreckage was ever suggested in court. PT35b was an optically perfect copy of circuitry demonstrated by the prosecution to have been present on the cited Libyan boards. The Crown Office and its agents were responsible for the sanctity of the evidence chain and the evidence bags. No one knows whence PT35b could have come, where it was made nor how it came to be found in the police evidence bag. All we know is that PT35b’s origin could not have been from a Libyan owned timer as cited by the prosecution.
I found that two weeks ago neither the Crown Office nor the police had even bothered to contact the Thüring firm’s Urs Bonfadelli, nor the scientists responsible for the discovery that PT35b’s plating could not have been changed even by a Semtex explosion, in all the more than eleven months since the book was published. Why not?
The concealment of the PT35b plating discrepancy by the Crown’s chief forensics officer, Feraday, the police and the Crown Office, allowed the court to presume that PT35b must have been part of a cited Libyan owned timer, when it clearly could not have been. The relevant documents were available to the prosecution long before the trial, but only discovered by the defence after the trial was over.
In February 2012 the Lord Advocate himself invited us relatives to a meeting in London to explain new moves being made in the criminal investigation. I chose to ask him for an explanation as to why the Heathrow break-in evidence had not been passed to the defence and the court as part of the relevant evidence. He claimed he had also wondered why, but did not know the answer. I then asked the current Chief Constable of the Dumfries and Galloway police, to see if he could discover the answer on our behalf. He did so most courteously and promptly. His letter is enclosed. It shows that the Dumfries and Galloway police of the day knew of the break-in from January 1989, kept this to themselves for a full decade, passed it to the Crown Office only in 1999 and then, together with the Crown Office, kept it hidden from the defence and the court until after the trial was over. Why?
The evidence concerning the break-in only surfaced in 2001 after the trial had finished. Even then the only reason it did so was that the Heathrow guard who had discovered the break-in was bold enough to ask publicly why his evidence had been ignored by the court.
The prosecution appears to have failed us all in this case, the Heathrow break-in and the PT35b plating are but two of many other examples. There is a special obligation upon Governments to make available the evidence to the families of victims of murder. There is also an obligation upon our prosecution service to bring fair and prompt justice upon murderers. Thanks to the failures of the Crown Office, and their searchers as your prosecuting authority, it falls to your Government to investigate all these failures. I therefore request that you immediately arrange for the creation of a properly endowed and objectively led inquiry into the apparent failings of the Crown Office in prosecuting this dreadful case, selecting as members and chairperson individuals acceptable as impartial to the relatives and to the people of Scotland.
I will make this letter available to the Scottish public also. They too deserve to know whether steps are now to be taken by their Government to explore the performance of the Crown Office prosecution in this case and to enact legislation to curtail any future such deviation from their duty, as may be found by such an inquiry.
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