Memories of Moussa…

[This is the heading over an item posted yesterday on Ben Six’s blog Back Towards the Locus.  It reads as follows:]

Two years ago, Moussa Koussa, the Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs, did something interesting. He drove into Tunisia, boarded a private jet and flew to Farnborough Airfield in England. Libyan sources insisted that he had left the country on a diplomatic mission but the British authorities claimed that he was disenchanted with his employers and considering his resignation.

Few Britons would have known who he was the day before but now they knew him as a figure of tremendous evil. Politicians and commentators suggested that his defection was similar to that of Rudolf Hess. He was, Libyan rebels told us, with apparent justice, a crook whose hands were stained with the blood of his countrymen. British sources also alleged that he had masterminded the Lockerbie bombings, and had been involved in the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. It seemed that we had a man who was both big and bad. Boris Johnson summed up the feelings of the moment by going on Question Time and saying that if there was the slightest evidence against him, he should be arrested.

Koussa was interviewed by the intelligence services, and by Scottish investigators of the Pan Am bombing. Then the European Union, on the urgings of the British, lifted its travel and economic sanctions against the man and he promptly boarded a plane and flew to Qatar. There was a kind of dazed silence. Relatives of victims of the Lockerbie bombing complained bitterly but the press, having informed us that he was a murderer and probable terrorist, seemed to lose their interest in him. The Telegraph did track him down to a hotel in Doha, and found him swanning about under the protection of the Qataris; eating at expensive Italian restaurants and generally enjoying life.

We have heard almost nothing of the fellow since. The last that I heard, he was settling in Jordan.

Why Moussa Koussa was allowed in and out remains mysterious. He must have offered the government or its agencies something valuable. The Sunday Express alleged, while he was still in Britain, that he had a close working relationship with MI6, while theIndependent, noting the British and Libyan collaboration over “rendition” policies, suggested that he “held a ‘smoking gun’”. Neither they nor other papers pursued these accusations.

It seems very grubby that Koussa’s Libyan victims have been denied justice, especially if he won immunity through his work in some of the grubbiest episodes of the “War on Terror”. It seems very grubby that victims of Lockerbie were led to believe that he could answer the questions that have dogged them for almost a quarter of a century, only to see him disappear and leave more questions in his wake. Over eighteen months after the fall of Gadaffi, and with no evidence of Libyan guilt having emerged, the perpetrators of the bombings remain shrouded in mystery. If they could be found elsewhere, a chance to eliminate suspects has been thrown away. If they did come from the Maghreb it is quite possible that the state discarded not merely a chance to prove this to us but a chance to prosecute one of them. For what?

Who knows. What vexes me is not simply the fact that our government is engaged in such suspicious and discomfiting affairs but that the journalists whose task it is to explain such events have shown no interest in them. If, as they informed us, there were grounds on which to compare the man to Rudolf Hess it is as if Churchill, Eden and so on had let the one-time Deputy Führer sail off to Brazil, yet few of them complained and none of them seem to have made an effort to discover why they did it. How often, one has to ask, do they fail to make such efforts? As on other occasions, we are left with memory, and curiosity, and questions.

[The Lockerbie Case’s articles on the Moussa Koussa affair can be accessed by clicking here.]

Strathclyde Police and the Lockerbie disaster

[To mark the last days of Strathclyde Police before it is incorporated, along with the other seven Scottish forces, into Police Scotland, the Evening Times has today published an article recalling some of the most serious incidents in which the force was involved.  Here is what the article says about the Lockerbie disaster:]

John Boyd, chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway, was sitting at home in Dumfries on the night of Wednesday, December 21, 1988, when a television newsflash brought him the terrible news: an aircraft had crashed over Lockerbie.

At that very moment, his own HQ rang him.

Realising the magnitude of the task before him, Boyd immediately phoned for help, from the armed forces, from Lothian & Borders Police ... and from Strathclyde Police.

At the time that Pan Am Clipper Maid of the Seas exploded over Lockerbie, John Orr was joint head of CID in Strathclyde Police, with the rank of detective chief superintendent.

He arrived in Lockerbie in the early hours of the morning, having been seconded at the request of Dumfries and Galloway.

He spent two years as the chief investigating officer, heading a multi-force team of officers that succeeded in the face of huge odds in amassing crucial evidence in what was the biggest mass murder – there were 270 victims (259 on the plane and 11 in Lockerbie) – in Scottish history.

Strathclyde Superintendent Angus Kennedy headed daily Press briefings after the tragedy. The force also provided a Holmes computer system, because the manual systems operated by Dumfries and Galloway could not cope.

When he retired, in 1992, as Strathclyde's Assistant Chief Constable, Hugh Paton spoke of one memory that would never leave him – of arriving at the scene in Lockerbie the morning after the tragedy, as daytime incident commander.

He was involved in the traumatic first 10 days. "In 32 years of policing," he said, "these were my worst moments."

Credibility and Thurman, Gauci, Feraday

Posted on Oh No! Not another Lockerbie Blog... today is an item headed The Credible Witnesses of the Lockerbie Trial. It considers the evidence of Thomas Thurman [RB: Thurman was not, of course, a witness at Zeist but he it was who “identified” the dodgy circuit board fragment PT/35(b) as supposedly coming from a MST-13 timer]; Tony Gauci; and Alan Feraday. Further witnesses are to be dealt with in subsequent posts.

Note for those of impaired judgment: the description of these witnesses as “credible” in the post’s title is ironical.

President Reagan's air strikes against Libya

[An interesting article headlined Congress Shouldn’t Give the President New Power to Fight Terrorists appeared yesterday on the US news, politics and law website Slate. It argues against a projected new law according the President further power to take action against terrorist groups.  The following are excerpts:]

The search for meaningful constraints on power is indeed the central challenge of our constitutional system. But Congress has an abysmal track record of successfully reining in presidential uses of force overseas. And there is little cause for hope it will succeed here. (...)

This is hardly to say the president’s decision to use force operates under no constraint at all. Using force is expensive, it is alienating, it is provocative, and it may create greater threats to the American people than it prevents. Presidents have to convince the American public that war is worth fighting. This has even been true when they respond to acts of terror in self-defense. When President Reagan ordered strikes against Libya following the bombing of the civilian airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, he made a speech from the Oval Office. (...)

Today, it is this lack of transparency—not Congress’ relative apathy—that has boosted executive power and threatened the legitimacy of current drone operations. If Congress wants to do something about this, it should start by beefing up its own oversight efforts.

[President Reagan did not order air strikes against Libya following the destruction of Pan Am 103 in December 1988.  He ordered such strikes in April 1986 following the La Belle nightclub bombing in Berlin earlier that month.  Those who maintain, against the weight of the evidence, that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie regard revenge for the 1986 Reagan air strikes against Tripoli and Benghazi as providing the motive.]

Forensic experts have much to prove

[This is the heading over a letter in today's edition of The Scotsman from Iain McKie, retired senior police officer, father of Shirley and staunch supporter of Justice for Megrahi.  It reads as follows:]

Professor Fiona Raitt’s comments (...) about the recent Forensic Science Society conference in Edinburgh serve as a timely reminder to the decision-makers in our ­justice system that all is not well in relation to the quality of ­expert forensic ­evidence being presented in our courts.

As a result of this, miscarriages of justice are a real and present danger.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that, in respect of expert evidence, many decision-makers within our justice system refuse to admit that “the emperor has no clothes on”.  Fortunately, there are those like Professor Raitt who are speaking out and challenging the fiction that nothing is wrong.

My daughter, Shirley McKie, was nearly committed to prison because of false fingerprint evidence and, sadly, many of the lessons learned in the subsequent inquiry are in danger of being forgotten or ignored.

The innocent are being deemed guilty and the guilty deemed innocent, because of a failure to properly collect, examine, evaluate, and present forensic and other expert evidence.


In the “theatre” of our adversarial system, prosecution and defence lawyers often fail to ensure that only the best expert evidence is ­presented and effectively challenged in court. Many judges remain implacably opposed to acting as “gatekeepers” in respect of complex scientific testimony, preferring to leave often uncomprehending juries to work it out for themselves.


At the conference, both the justice secretary Kenny Mac­Askill and Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland expressed their wish that Scotland leads the way in matters forensic. Let’s hope this signals action within our justice system.


[As I commented on this blog on Monday: “The Lockerbie case provides textbook examples of unreliable forensic science and unreliable forensic scientists. Here are a few relevant names: Thurman, Hayes, Feraday.”]

Crown Office's Lockerbie shame revisited

[One year ago today, two items were published on this blog.  The first was headed Former Lord Advocate ... seriously misled the Megrahi Court claims book author and dealt with the disgraceful episode of the redacted CIA cables relating to "star" Crown witness Abdul Majid Giaka.  The item merits perusal in full, but here is a taster:]

[Lord Advocate Colin] Boyd explained that according to Crown QC Alan Turnbull: “that there was nothing within the cables which bore on the defence case, either by undermining the Crown case or by advancing a positive case which was being made or may be made, having regard to the special case.”

Mr Boyd also explained that he had no control over the documents that they resided in the USA under the control of US authorities.

Boyd ended by stating categorically: “there is nothing within these documents which relates to Lockerbie or the bombing of Pan Am 103 which could in any way impinge on the credibility of Mr Majid [Giaka] on these matters.”

Mr Ashton’s book though now reveals that the reason the Lord Advocate had no control over the documents was that Norman McFadyen had signed a non-disclosure agreement before viewing them.

According to Mr Ashton, the Crown had “secretly, ceded to the CIA the right to determine what information should, or should not, be disclosed in a Scottish Court”.

Also, further revelations contained in Mr Ashton’s book show that far from being of no significance to the case, the redacted sections of the cables were in fact highly significant.

[The second item is headed A clear signal... It is a blistering piece from the pen of Steven Raeburn, editor of Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm.  Again, it merits perusal in full.  Here is just one paragraph:]

The Crown Office persistently and desperately clings to the manufactured fantasy of Megrahi’s guilt, a fabrication specifically designed to implicate Libya as a matter of geopolitical convenience. It has steadfastly opposed every opportunity to undertake its duty and apply justice in this case. The Crown has been conducting an elaborate charade almost from the outset, with the explicit, curiously coordinated support of the Scottish Government, and tacit consent of the Westminster Government, whose own malfeasance from Thatcher downwards is transparent and warrants investigation.

Unreliable forensic science and scientists

[The following are excerpts from an article in today’s edition of The Scotsman by Professor Fiona Raitt of Dundee University:]

… anyone attending the Forensic Society conference in Edinburgh last week was left in no doubt that there are serious concerns about the use and admissibility of expert scientific evidence in the Scottish courts. The main problem identified was the lack of a clear rule on reliability.

The desire to ensure that only reliable science is admissible is obvious – but how can you tell it is reliable, and whose job is it to find out? It is also vital that it is communicated effectively to the fact finder, whether that is a judge or jury. Miscarriages of justice have occurred due to unreliable science, unreliable interpretation of science and unreliable practices of “experts”.

Our history and the problems faced in other jurisdictions tell us that Scotland is not uniquely protected from bad science or dubious experts. We are, though, unique in the common law world in failing to review our systems to proof them against weak practice.

While the fingerprint inquiry set up in the wake of the Shirley McKie case was an important start, it had a very specific remit. That degree of investigation and rigorous analysis is what is required for the practices surrounding the rules for the collection, management and admissibility of forensic science.

The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, told the conference: “Expert evidence used to be rare in criminal trials. Now it is the norm.” It is his aim, he said, to avoid miscarriages of justice arising from errors in expert evidence. (...)

Unlike other countries, Scottish judges have no role to act as gatekeepers to prevent unreliable evidence being admitted. We let the adversarial process, ie the opposing parties, choose the experts and determine what is admitted. But lawyers rarely have a higher educational background in science and some, we heard, are anxious about examining witnesses in areas of expertise with which they are unfamiliar. That serves no-one well.

[The Lockerbie case provides textbook examples of unreliable forensic science and unreliable forensic scientists. Here are a few relevant names: Thurman, Hayes, Feraday.]

More on the dodgy timer fragment

A further item has been posted on Oh No! Not another Lockerbie Blog…  It is headed A tale of contradiction Part 2 and deals with some of the problems surrounding trial production PT/35(b), the circuit board fragment allegedly from a MST13 timer manufactured by MEBO.  The article does not deal with the recently uncovered evidence that the metallurgical composition of the tracks on PT/35(b) was entirely different from the metallurgical composition of the tracks on the circuit boards of the MEBO timers supplied to Libya; and that this was known to the Crown before the Lockerbie trial but was concealed from the defence team and the court.

"Outstanding dedicated work"!

On the website of the Dumfries & Galloway Standard I have just discovered a report on a visit by Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, to Dumfries on 18 March.  It contains the following gem:]

... he refused to comment on the Lockerbie bombing investigation.

“That is a live case and it would be inappropriate for me to go into that. All I can say is that the outstanding dedicated work will continue by the police and the crown, who are doing everything they can to bring closure to it.”

New Lockerbie blog

A warm welcome to a new Lockerbie blog that I have just discovered.  It is called Oh No! Not another Lockerbie Blog… and at present there are three items posted on it: The beginning…; Death and Life; and A tale of contradiction Part 1.

Connection problems

Serious internet connection problems are being experienced today in the Roggeveld Karoo and elsewhere in South Africa. I am unable therefore at present to service the blog and to post comments from ebol and from Grendal.

The problems appear now (Saturday) to have been resolved.

Further postponement of Lockerbie trial of Zwai and Obeidi

[The following report appeared on 19 March on the English language website of Libya TV:]

The Tripoli Court of Appeal have deferred prosecution of the former regime’s officials, Mohamed Abu Al-Quasim al-Zwai and Abdul Ati al-Obeidi until Monday 6th May.

The accused both face charges including of causing damage to public property, granting compensation to the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims, a total of US$2.7 billion.

The Head of Court called the adjournment to allow counsel for the accused of the defence submission, within 15 days of Monday’s meeting. [RB: I do not know what this means, but it may possibly refer to an opportunity being accorded to the defence to file a motion to dismiss the charges, something hinted at in some earlier reports.]

Relatives of both defendants attended the hearing, as did human rights experts, along with local and international media.

[Earlier items on this blog about the proceedings against Messrs Zwai and Obeidi can be found here.]

Libyan Prime Minister on status of Lockerbie case

[I am most grateful to Mohamed Eljarh who has supplied this account of Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan’s remarks about the Lockerbie case at a press conference on 17 March:]

The Prime Minister made only very brief remarks when he was asked about the re-opening of the Lockerbie case and the fact that Scottish police and Scotland Yard are set to continue investigations in Libya.  The Prime Minister said the following:

- Libya is very committed and interested in knowing exactly what happened. We'll collaborate fully with any investigation that would help determine the truth of what happened and who was really behind the Lockerbie bombing.

- Libya made it clear that the country would never pay any more compensations or damages to victims or countries with regard to the Lockerbie case.

The Prime Minister was asked if the investigations proved Libya to not be responsible, especially after new evidence that has emerged, would Libya ask for compensation for suffering at the hands of the international community and especially the UK and the US?  He was very diplomatic in giving his answer and said: If the investigations conclude that Libya wasn't responsible and we were wrongfully convicted, we will deal with that situation there and then.

[An Aljazeera English Inside Story programme on Lockerbie in which Mohamed Eljarh took part can be viewed here.]

Geoffrey Robertson QC on Megrahi’s right to silence

This is the heading over an item posted yesterday on John Ashton’s website Megrahi: You are my Jury.  Mr Ashton’s comments on Geoffrey Robertson’s views are worth reading, even if Mr Robertson’s views are not. The eccentricity of Geoffrey Robertson’s stated position on Lockerbie and Megrahi can be readily seen by inserting his name into this blog’s search facility.

An opportunity shamefully missed

[Eleven years ago today, Abdelbaset Megrahi’s appeal against conviction was dismissed. The following are excerpts from an article that I wrote a short time later for an American law journal:]

The only ground upon which a criminal appeal can succeed in Scotland is that there has been a miscarriage of justice. In the Note of Appeal lodged on behalf of Megrahi there were set out in 21 paragraphs (many of them subdivided) the grounds upon which, individually or in combination, it was contended that a miscarriage had occurred. (...)

[The] failure [of the appeal] appears to have been rendered virtually inevitable by two concessions made in the course of argument by the appellant’s counsel. (...)

The importance of these concessions is emphasised by the Appeal Court in the penultimate paragraph of its Opinion (paragraph 369):

“When opening the case for the appellant before this court Mr Taylor stated that the appeal was not about sufficiency of evidence: he accepted that there was a sufficiency of evidence. He also stated that he was not seeking to found on section 106(3)(b) of the 1995 Act [Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995]. His position was that the trial court had misdirected itself in various respects. Accordingly in this appeal we have not required to consider whether the evidence before the trial court, apart from the evidence which it rejected, was sufficient as a matter of law to entitle it to convict the appellant on the basis set out in its judgment. We have not had to consider whether the verdict of guilty was one which no reasonable trial court, properly directing itself, could have returned in the light of that evidence.”

The limitations under which the Appeal Court was thus constrained to operate effectively disabled it from considering the issues of (a) whether there was sufficient evidence in law to justify such absolutely crucial findings-in-fact by the trial court as (i) that the date of purchase in Malta of the clothes surrounding the bomb was 7 December 1988, (ii) that Megrahi was the purchaser and (iii) that the case containing the bomb started its progress from Malta’s Luqa Airport and (b) whether those findings or any of them (on the assumption that there was a legal sufficiency of evidence) were such as no reasonable trial court, properly directing itself, could have made, or been satisfied of beyond reasonable doubt, in the light of (i) justifiable criticisms of the evidence and witnesses supporting them and (ii) ex facie credible contrary evidence. (...)

Before the verdicts in the original trial were delivered, I expressed the view (...) that for the judges to return verdicts of guilty they would require (i) to accept every incriminating inference that the Crown invited them to draw from evidence that was on the face of it neutral and capable of supporting quite innocent inferences, (ii) to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, positively identified Megrahi as the person who bought from his shop in Sliema the clothes and umbrella contained in the suitcase that held the bomb and (iii) to accept that the date of purchase of these items was proved to be 7 December 1988 (as distinct from 23 November 1988 when Megrahi was not present on Malta). I went on rashly to express the opinion that, for the judges to be satisfied of all these matters on the evidence led at the trial, they would require to adopt the posture of the White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, when she informed Alice "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." In convicting Megrahi, it is submitted that this is precisely what the trial judges did.

As far as the outcome of the appeal is concerned, some commentators have confidently opined that, in dismissing Megrahi’s appeal, the Appeal Court endorsed the findings of the trial court. This is not so. The Appeal Court repeatedly stresses that it is not its function to approve or disapprove of the trial court’s findings-in-fact, given that it was not contended on behalf of the appellant that there was insufficient evidence to warrant them or that no reasonable court could have made them. These findings-in-fact accordingly continue, as before the appeal, to have the authority only of the court which, and the three judges who, made them.

Until such time as an appellate court (perhaps on a reference from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission) is required to address the fundamental issues of (i) whether there was sufficient evidence to warrant the incriminating findings, (ii) whether any reasonable trial court could have made those findings (and could have been satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the guilt of Megrahi) on the evidence led at Camp Zeist and (iii) whether Megrahi’s representation at the trial and the appeal was adequate, I will continue to maintain that a shameful miscarriage of justice has been perpetrated and that the Scottish criminal justice system has been gravely sullied.

Lockerbie bomb families say 'no' to more compensation cash from Libya

[This is the headline over an article published yesterday (Sunday) on the Daily Record/Sunday Mail website, following on from an item featured on this blog on Tuesday.  The article reads as follows:]

The families of those who died in the bombing say they aren't interested in the cash as all they want is justice for the victims.

Their announcement comes after reports that Libya wanted to end the investigation into the 1988 disaster which killed 270 people amid fears that the country would have to pay out extra cash to relatives.

Scottish police officers and prosecutors travelled to Libya last month to probe the bombing.

Libyan Abdelbaset al Megrahi was the only person convicted of the terrorist attack but Scottish authorities believe others were involved.

He died last year, three years after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and freed from jail in Scotland on compassionate grounds.

US-based Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 have written to Ali Suleiman Aujali, Libya’s ambassador to the States, to insist they are not looking for fresh pay-outs.

The late Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi paid families more than $2billion 10 years ago, although his regime insisted it was a political move and continued to deny being behind the bombing.

Frank Duggan, president of the relatives’ group, told the ambassador that the families aren’t interested in cash.

He said: “Justice is all that our victims’ families seek and our efforts have never been about monetary compensation, which surely cannot replace lost lives.

“We hope that your new government can prosper as a democratic state with justice for all of your citizens.”

The Crown Office said they could not comment as the Lockerbie case is a live investigation.

Advice to Crown Office: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging

[Following the recent media disagreement over whether the Libyan government regarded the Lockerbie case as closed or not closed, a Scottish Crown Office official emailed Lockerbie relatives in the following terms:]

Following my e-mail on Friday many of you have contacted us to ask about the apparent disparity between the terms of that message and the terms of the article in the Daily Telegraph and other media outlets on 1 March.

I can confirm that the Libyan Ministry of Justice issued a statement of clarification on 1 March which reads as follows:

"Sighting a report published at the Telegraph on February 28th 2013 by Ruth Sherlock in Tripoli, the Ministry of Justice confirms that no Ministry of Justice official other than the Minister Salah Marghani is or was authorized to speak on behalf of the Ministry or indeed the Libyan Government.  Mr Hameda Al-Magery has not been authorized to speak and any thing he has said or may be said on this subject should only be considered as personal views of the concerned person not be substantiated and may not be taken in any official context.

"The Ministry position on the subject remains as stated by the Libyan Government during the recent valuable visit paid to Libya by his excellency the prime Mr David Cameron and Libya shall always value the friendship and cooperation between UK and the new Libya."

We continue to work with US, UK and Libyan colleagues to progress the investigation and will continue to keep you all updated where possible.

We hope that offers you all a degree of reassurance.

[RB: Here is what the minister himself, Salah Marghani, is quoted in the Telegraph article as saying: “The matter was settled with the Gaddafi regime. I am trying to work on the current situation rather than dig into the past.”

Dr Jim Swire has replied to the Crown Office official in the following terms:]

I know that in writing you are simply doing your job as a mouthpiece for the Lord Advocate, and none of what follows should be taken personally.

It would be more likely that your statement [above] would reassure us if it included some defined reference as to what the Crown Office et al are actually doing in real time to discover how it came about that the one forensic link supposedly pointing to a bomb powered by a Libyan-provided timer from Malta, has turned out to be false. Particularly as the prosecution's own documents show that your forensic officer Mr Feraday knew, and recorded, long before the trial, that that alleged forensic link was not a true match from the alleged Libyan owned timer boards, and yet had signed up to say that the two 'were similar in all respects'.

Feraday was employed by the Crown Office to provide accurate forensic reports, was he not?

However the continuing activity in Malta and Libya, based on an apparently fatally flawed investigation and unfair trial appears to be fulfilling the role of protecting the terrorists who were really responsible for the murder of our families. Any contribution to that protection is intolerable and in the end will become unsustainable.

The expenditure of public monies on searching in Malta and Libya would be justified, and indeed hugely welcome to all relatives, were there a sound foundation on which to base it. There are now  valid reasons, within the reach of all interested parties if they will only look, for believing that not only the relatives, but their Lordships themselves and the people of Scotland deserved much better from the prosecuting authorities in this case than was actually delivered.

Not once, except for the self evidently honest letter I received from Patrick Shearer has there been any sign visible that serious attention was being paid to these allegations. Even in his letter to me, for which I remain very grateful, the Chief Constable concluded that there had been no suppression of the Heathrow evidence, despite the unequivocal evidence he had produced earlier in the same letter that the force had known about the break-in, courtesy of the Metropolitan police, from January 1989.

It is insufficient to hint as you seem to in your previous letter on behalf of the Lord Advocate, replying to mine to him, that the Crown Office may be prepared to consider 'exculpatory evidence'. There needs to be belated but immediate, urgent action to investigate such evidence.

It is not so much that public money may be being wasted, or even lives put at risk on repeated forays into the Middle East. What matters to us is that the real perpetrators of this terrible crime be identified and publicly exposed, whether or not they can now be brought before a court.

Intolerable lethargy

[The current edition of Private Eye (issue 1335) contains the following article, which I have copied from John Ashton’s website Megrahi: You are my Jury since it does not yet appear on the magazine’s own website:]

David Cameron and Scottish police and prosecutors hoping to unearth material relating to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing have all left Tripoli empty-handed. Libyan justice minister Salah al-Marghani told the Telegraph last week: “The matter was settled with the Gaddafi regime. I am trying to work on the current situation rather than dig into the past.”

While the Scottish authorities are, by contrast, trying to put an upbeat spin on last month’s meetings with Libyan ministers and officials, saying they hoped for further progress, the apparent break should give Dumfries and Galloway detectives time to follow up more tangible leads. It is more than a year since new forensic evidence came to light which in effect destroyed not only the prosecution case against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, but also any positive links to Libya itself. Police have still not been to see the two UK scientists whose findings come from a re-examination of crash debris. Dr Jim Swire, who has campaigned tirelessly find out exactly how his daughter, Flora, came to die in the bombing, and who was responsible, is now preparing a case for a full independent inquiry, calling the police, Crown and government failure to properly investigate the new evidence a ‘dereliction of duty’.

Eye readers may remember two experts, Dr Chris McArdle and Dr Jess Cawley, showed that the most important forensic evidence recovered from the debris of Pan Am 103 – a fragment of timing device circuit board said to match those known to have been supplied to Libya – was in fact fundamentally different. The plating metal on the two boards was different. On the debris fragment, it was pure tin and on the boards used in the Libyan timers, it was a tin/lead mix.

The new evidence would have formed a major part of Megrahi’s appeal, had he not – because of his advanced cancer - abandoned it in order to return to Libya to die with his family. Instead it was detailed in the book, Megrahi: You are my Jury, by John Ashton, a researcher, writer and one of the Libyan’s defence team. But if the blast fragment was no match for Libyan timers, where or who did it come from?

Cameron will no doubt continue to avoid calls for an inquiry by maintaining that Scottish police are “looking further into the issues around the Lockerbie bomb”, and protracted wranglings with the Libyans buys more time. It is, of course, always possible that detectives could unearth some material in Libya that provides a link to Gaddafi and the sophisticated plot to blow up a passenger aircraft – he was, after all, no stranger to state-sponsored terrorism.

Ever since the dictator’s overthrow, various Libyan defectors and politicians, including Mustafa Abdel Jalil, Gaddafi’s former justice minister who later headed of Libya’s National Transitional Council, have promised “proof” of Gaddafi’s involvement. And yet it has still not been forthcoming.

Another was Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi’s intelligence chief at the time of Lockerbie and the man who London and Washington always claimed was behind the atrocity. After his defection he was interviewed in London by Scottish police. But curiously for a man, once thought to be a mass murderer, his assets were unfrozen and he was allowed to leave the country.  Newspaper reports suggested that Koussa had in fact long been a useful MI6 asset, which if true, just raises more questions about the government’s approach to Lockerbie.

The only Lockerbie-related document confirmed to have come out of Tripoli since the revolution is a private letter from Megrahi himself, written while he was in jail, to Libya’s then intelligence chief and Gaddafi’s right hand man, Abdullah al-Senussi.  It was found by Wall Street Journal staff among other “apparently untouched” papers in Senussi’s ransacked office. In it Megrahi maintains his innocence, claiming fraudulent information had been passed to investigators by “Libyan collaborators” and saying British and American investigators ignored “foul play” and irregularity.  He gives details of his lawyers’ efforts to prove his innocence.

That Megrahi should seek to convince of his innocence, the very hit man who should have known all about the bombing and who carried it out, (if the Crown’s case is correct) again raises fundamental questions about the conviction.

As Jim Swire says in the latest of a series of letters to David Cameron, the Crown Office and the Scottish government, last month:  “There is thus now no remaining credible link between the take off of the Lockerbie flight from Heathrow airport with the bomb on board, and the island of Malta, or the hand of Megrahi. It is now over 24 years since my daughter Flora was murdered at Lockerbie. As her father I have a right to know who murdered her and why her life was not protected. Such lethargy as this is intolerable”.

[The relevant Private Eye page can now be viewed here.]