Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland meets FBI over Lockerbie bombing probe

[This is the headline over a report published today in the Daily Record.  It reads in part:]

Scotland's top lawman has held talks with the FBI over plans to step up new inquiries into the Lockerbie bombing.

Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland met FBI director Robert Mueller and US Attorney Gereral Eric Holder in Washington last night.

It came as both countries prepare to send investigators to Libya to seek new evidence and speak to witnesses inthe hope of staging a second trial over the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

Mulholland said: “The meeting was to renew rapport over the joint inquiry into state-sponsored terrorism and explore the opportunities we have to bring others to justice.”

It is understood a number of potential witnesses have been identified. Negotiations are taking place to insure they are interviewed.

Hopes are high that vital evidence needed to convict those who acted along with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi will be uncovered.

One target is Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, who stood trial with Megrahi but was acquitted.

Mulholland has already set up a Lockerbie inquiry unit aimed at uncovering new evidence against Fhimah, 55.

The move came after Holyrood scrapped the double-jeopardy law which prevented people being tried twice for the same crime. (...)

Fhimah recently backed the Libyan rebels as the Gaddafi regime fell.

It was thought to be a desperate bid to persuade them not to hand him over for a re-trial.

Former justice minister Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, who claims to have evidence of Gaddafi’s involvement in Lockerbie, is a prominent figure in the new Libyan regime.

Scottish police have also questioned former foreign minister Moussa Koussa, who defected from the Gaddafi regime and is said to hold key information about the 1988 attack.

Other suspects include Gaddafi’s brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi, who headed Libya’s intelligence services, and Ibrahim Nayili, Libya’s former head of airline security.

[A report (behind the paywall) in today's edition of The Times contains the following paragraph:]

The US authorities were furious when Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, allowed al-Megrahi to be released on compassionate grounds more than two years ago, but, in a sign that relations are improving, the Lord Advocate has been working with the FBI in recent weeks on a detailed plan to find others who were involved in the attack.

[More public relations puffery from the Crown Office. There is not the slightest sign that the Crown Office or the FBI are pursuing the copious evidence that exonerates Abdelbaset Megrahi. On this of all days, the relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie disaster deserve better.]

The issue is public confidence in the administration of criminal justice

[Yesterday’s Justice for Megrahi press conference gets extensive coverage in the media today. Here are two samples:]

From The National:

Campaigners who believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 have said Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland and the Crown Office should play no part in considering a Police Scotland report into criminal allegations they have made over the case.

And Len Murray, a leading figure in Scottish legal circles, said Mulholland’s position was “untenable”, although any question of resignation was a matter for him. (...)

JfM made nine allegations of criminality in September 2012 against police, Crown Office officials and forensic scientists involved in the original investigation into the bombing and the subsequent trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. They included perjury and perverting the course of justice.

However, JfM said the Lord Advocate and Crown Office personnel subsequently described them as “conspiracy theorists” and dismissed the allegations as “defamatory and entirely unfounded”.

“We feel very strongly that in the light of the sometimes scandalous outbursts that have come from Crown Office and the office of the Lord Advocate, they have disqualified themselves from considering the report which Police Scotland will be making following their inquiry into the nine allegations,” said Murray.

“It is perfectly obvious from these outbursts… that both the Lord Advocate and Crown Office have already taken a view on the matter, and therefore there is no prospect of that police report being considered fairly and impartially.”

[Brian] McConnachie [QC], a former principal advocate depute, said: “We know that Crown Office and the Lord Advocate have expressed what would appear to be a concluded view about the matter and that perhaps is simply symptomatic of the fact that Crown Office these days seem to consider as part of their job to pronounce in relation to pretty much any case or any profile at all.

“But the difficulty here is that if the Lord Advocate has expressed what would appear to be a concluded view about a matter, it is very difficult to see any way in which justice can be done or be seen to be done if the person who is deciding whether or not there are to be proceedings is the person who has already told us that the allegations are defamatory, unfounded and false.”

[John] Finnie [MSP] added: “Justice for Megrahi have posed a series of questions about how the police inquiry will be responded to by Crown Office – eight entirely reasonable questions, and I suspect had there been replies to these questions that you wouldn’t be sitting here today.

“What we maybe should do is tear the top of the paper off that says Justice for Megrahi and say ‘what does this mean for the ordinary citizen who makes serious and significant allegations against very senior people who are involved in our criminal justice system?’”

[Professor Alan] Page said the issue was about public confidence in the administration of criminal justice and that the allegations made by JfM had been dismissed “out of hand as unfounded, false and misleading”.

“This calls into question whether or not the Crown Office is capable of approaching them with the open mind that the administration of criminal justice, which in my view and I think in everyone else’s view, requires.”

From Sputnik International:

Lord Advocate of Scotland Frank Mulholland, the country’s most senior state prosecutor, will be deemed "unfit to hold office" if he does not pass a report into alleged criminality involving his office’s personnel to an independent prosecutor, spokesman for a justice campaign group considering the case told Sputnik on Wednesday.

After a three-year criminal investigation, Police Scotland are now set to pass a report to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), Scotland’s prosecution service. It follows allegations that senior prosecutors, police officers and prosecution witnesses acted with criminal intent during the trial of Libyan Abdelbaset Megrahi who was convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. The claims against prosecutor's office include perversion of the course of justice and perjury.

It is vital that Mulholland avoids a conflict of interest between himself and his duty to the Scottish public, Robert Black of the Justice for Megrahi committee said.

"If the Lord Advocate and COPFS do not recognize and appreciate this, then the Lord Advocate is unfit to hold office and COPFS has lost its moral compass," Black said.

Regime unchanged

[This is the headline over an article just published on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads in part:]

In a damning indictment of the failure of the criminal justice system, Robert Forrester, secretary of the Justice for Megrahi Committee lays bare the intent of a "rampant" Crown Office and a Government that is determined to prevent the most serious miscarriage of justice in Scots history being heard.

Whereas the former Labour administrations at Holyrood could be said to have been tainted by their links to HMG in Westminster, the SNP, under First Minister Alex Salmond, came to office in 2007 with clean hands on the Lockerbie/Zeist affair. Quite unaccountably however, it is now impossible to differentiate between the SNP’s conduct on this matter and that expected from parties that might be viewed as more likely to act at the behest of Westminster’s wishes than in the interests of the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system. Their record shows the following:

* On taking up the reins of power in 2007, the SNP government maintained the Labour appointed, Crown Office, career civil servant Elish Angiolini as Lord Advocate.

* Within a month of the SNP coming to office, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) released its Statement of Reasons, including its six grounds for appeal. At the end of their term, the Scottish Government had still not published this document, which had taken three years to produce and cost the tax payer in excess of £1,000,000.

* In 2009, the Scottish Government introduced secondary legislation in the form of a statutory instrument handing power to the suppliers of evidence given to the SCCRC, when drawing up the Statement of Reasons, to block publication of the document without the supplier’s consent.

* Following a flurry of activity in August 2009 during which Mr al-Megrahi was met separately by the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, and representatives of the Libyan government, the prisoner dropped his second appeal, when under no legal obligation to do so under the terms of compassionate release, and was duly repatriated. Question marks still persist over what may have transpired at these meetings in HM Prison Greenock, or on other occasions, that could have led to the dropping of what was promising to be a most revealing appeal.

* In 2010, the Scottish Government rushed the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detentions and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010 through parliament as emergency legislation. Not only was there no emergency but section 7 of the new Act, which places significant obstacles before anyone wishing to apply to the SCCRC and, if successful there, to appeal to the High Court in the interests of justice, was unnecessarily and inexplicably included.

* For over a year following Mr al-Megrahi’s release, the Scottish Government maintained that it lacked the power to open an inquiry into the Lockerbie/Zeist case. It finally admitted that it had had the power to do so all along after being backed into a corner by Justice for Megrahi (JFM). No apology for this has ever been forthcoming, either to JFM or to the Scottish people.

* Prior to seeking election for a second term, the SNP government promised to introduce primary legislation in order to facilitate the publication of the SCCRC’s Statement of Reasons. Not only is primary legislation not required to release the document for publication, the process involved would be extremely time consuming. All that is necessary is that the consent requirement in the present statutory instrument, introduced by the same SNP government in 2009, be removed by an amending statutory instrument. This, by contrast, could involve a process lasting little more than a month to complete.

* Throughout the SNP’s first term in office, and still in force, HMG has held Public Interest Immunity Certificates over two of the SCCRC’s six grounds for appeal. This deny the tax payers, who footed the bill for the document, access to the Statement of Reasons, and additionally, not once has the SNP government protested at this interference by HMG in the power devolved to Holyrood over Scots Law. In fact, the SNP government has positively supported it through the consent arrangement.

[Robert Forrester's article is also the subject of a news item in The Firm headlined Committee claims Mulholland's appointment puts image before justice which contains the following:]

The Justice For Megrahi committee have said that the appointment of "career civil servant" Frank Mulholland to the post of Lord Advocate prioritises "the preservation of the Crown’s image might take priority over concerns about propriety in the dispensation of justice."

The Committee, founded by Dr. Jim Swire, Iain McKie, Fr Pat Keegans and Professor Robert Black QC said they anticipated Mulholland's tenure would lead to "years of delaying tactics, obfuscation, economies with the truth and hurriedly erected barricades."

"It would, of course, be unfair to criticise the new Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, before he has properly established his feet under the desk. However, one can be forgiven for thinking that for Mr Salmond to appoint someone who seems ostensibly to hail from the same Crown Office, career civil servant background as Elish Angiolini did indicates that we are very likely in for another four years of business as usual," said committee secretary Robert Forrester, on behalf of the group.

"Another four years of delaying tactics, obfuscation, economies with the truth and hurriedly erected barricades, all in the interest of defending the Crown’s reputation and to Hell with justice! Why?

"By appointing Lord Advocates whose experience is largely based upon life within the civil service structure of the Crown Office in preference to those who have worked their way up through the ranks in legal practice, it is hardly surprising if the preservation of the Crown’s image might take priority over concerns about propriety in the dispensation of justice – as the conflict between Zeist doubters and Elish Angiolini appears to attest."

Campaigners’ Lockerbie plea to government over Lord Advocate's comments

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The National. It reads in part:]

A campaign group whose members believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was innocent of the Lockerbie bombing has urged “political intervention” from the Scottish Government.

The call from Justice for Megrahi (JfM) comes after the outgoing Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland speculated about a possible new trial for the bombing – which JfM said showed he had “gone rogue”.

Investigators from Scotland and the US said last year that they had identified two Libyans as suspects over the 1988 atrocity.

Mulholland had previously indicated he would stand down after the Holyrood elections and, in an interview to mark the occasion he told STV there was a “realistic possibility” of a second trial over bombing, which killed 270 people.

JfM told The National: “The time has come for political intervention by the Scottish Government as the Lord Advocate appears to have gone rogue in relation to his speculation about Lockerbie. It is particularly difficult to understand his statements given that we are awaiting the result of a three-year Police Scotland investigation into criminal allegations related to Lockerbie which, if proved, will cast severe doubt not only on Mr Megrahi’s original conviction but by implication on the guilt of the other ‘suspects’ Mr Mulholland claims to be pursuing.

“It was only in March this year that leading legal commentators criticised Mr Mulholland in relation to this report and yet he continues to publicly undermine the police inquiry.

“This makes it quite clear that he has made his mind up and will not be diverted from making his views public at every opportunity.

“Given this unprecedented stance it is a constitutional disgrace that the Crown Office will have the final say in relation to any prosecutions resulting from the police inquiry.

“The time is long overdue for the Scottish Government to intervene on behalf of the Scottish people.”

In his interview, Mulholland said he had been to the Libyan capital Tripoli twice, and had established “good relations” with the country’s attorney general.

“We’re currently at a stage where there are a number of outstanding international letters of request, one of which is seeking the permission of the Libyan authorities to interview two named individuals as suspects,” he said. “I hope that the Libyans will grant permission for that to be done. I obviously can’t say too much publicly but a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to make that happen.”

Mulholland and the US Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced in October that there was “a proper basis in law” to treat the two Libyans as suspects. Authorities did not name the men, but they are known to be Colonel Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi, and Abouajela Masud.

Both are being held in Libyan jails, where Senussi is appealing against a death sentence and Masud is serving 10 years for bomb making.

The four elephants in the room which suggest the Lord Advocate is wrong

[This is the headline over an article by John Ashton published in today’s edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]

The Crown Office has used the 26th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing to proclaim the safety of the conviction of Abdelbaset al Megrahi, the only man so far convicted of the bombing.

The department briefed yesterday that a review of the case had "confirmed beyond doubt" the Libyan's guilt, while today its head, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC, has personally reaffirmed that guilt.

Mulholland has been unusually vigorous in denouncing Megrahi's supporters, who include relatives of the Lockerbie dead, branding them "conspiracy theorists" two years ago. It is hard to imagine his opposite number in England and Wales, the director of public prosecutions, taking to the media to defend a conviction and take on critics. But while this strident tone has raised eyebrows, Mulholland's statements are more notable for ignoring four large elephants in the middle of his legal chambers.

The first is the ongoing review of the case by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), the statutory body that has the power to refer convictions to the appeal court. As Mulholland well knows, a previous review by the commission referred the case on no fewer than six grounds. The terminally ill Megrahi abandoned the resulting appeal to improve his chances of being granted compassionate release, but was confident that his name would one day be cleared. Remarkably, one of the six grounds was that the three Scottish law lords who convicted him had made a fundamental error of judgment when they found that the clothes incriminating Megrahi had been bought on December 7. In doing so, the commission, in the eyes of some, came as close as it legally could to saying that the guilty verdict was itself wrong.

More seriously for the Crown Office, four of the other grounds concerned its failure to disclose important evidence to Megrahi's defence team. This included evidence that the Crown's star witness, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, had expressed an interest in receiving a substantial reward and was under the strong influence of his brother Paul, who regularly nagged the police about being rewarded. The SCCRC discovered Gauci was later secretly paid $2 million by the US Department of Justice, and his brother Paul $1m.

When, in 2012, this ­newspaper published a leaked copy of the SCCRC's 800-page review, the Crown Office went into panic mode, anonymously briefing a Scottish tabloid that Megrahi's case had "more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese" then issuing a press statement that significantly downplayed the commission's findings.

The second elephant is the two-year-old police investigation, led by Police Scotland's Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone, into criminal allegations made against some of those originally involved in the inquiry by the committee of the Justice for Megrahi group.

When the allegations were first made to the then Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, the Crown Office immediately denounced them as groundless, despite not having seen the detailed dossier of evidence assembled by the committee. Many were shocked by the intervention, believing it might compromise the police inquiry and that it raised serious questions about Mulholland's independence as the chief public prosecutor. Unfortunately for the Crown Office, the police clearly do not share its contempt for the allegations. If the investigation concludes there was no criminal misconduct, the Crown Office still has to explain why it failed to disclose so much important evidence. In the view of its critics, notably Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the bombing, the matter must be addressed in a public inquiry - something successive Scottish governments have been reluctant to grant.

The third elephant is forensic evidence concerning a small fragment of electronic circuit board, recovered from an item of clothing that was supposedly in the same suitcase as the bomb. According to the prosecution, it matched boards in timers supplied to Libya by a Swiss firm called Mebo, which shared offices with a Libyan company part-owned by Megrahi.

Evidence uncovered prior to Megrahi's abandoned appeal demonstrated that the fragment could not have originated from one of the Libyan timer boards. The discovery has fuelled claims the fragment was a plant, which has in turn encouraged the Crown Office to call its opponents conspiracy theorists. However, as Mulholland must be aware, the breaking of the link between the fragment and the Libyan timers leaves the prosecution case in shreds, regardless of whether it was planted.

The fourth elephant is the lack of evidence from Libya to implicate either Megrahi or the Gaddafi regime in the bombing. During the country's 2011 revolution, senior officials, keen to curry favour with the West, lined up to accuse the regime of sponsoring the attack.

The best known of them, the head of the National Transitional Council and former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, claimed to have proof that Gaddafi ordered the bombing.

All this must have been music to the Crown Office's ears, but, when pushed to reveal his proof of the regime's guilt, the best Jalil could offer was that it had funded ­Megrahi's legal case.

Sadly, Libya has become too dangerous for the Scottish police to conduct investigations there. Even if it were not, they would likely find the cupboard was bare. In the four years since the revolution, ­nothing has emerged publicly from the ruins of the old regime to affirm Megrahi's guilt, let alone Libya's.

No doubt Mulholland's public declarations will continue to ignore the four elephants in his legal chambers, but he must knows that their ever-fiercer stamping may one day bring Megrahi's conviction crashing around his ears.

John Ashton is the author of the authorised ­biography of Abdelbaset al Megrahi, Megrahi: You are my Jury, (Birlinn, 2012) and Scotland's Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters (Birlinn, 2014). From 2006-09, he worked as a researcher with Megrahi's legal team. 

[Here are links to some other reports in the media:

Megrahi was innocent of Lockerbie bombing, insists victim's father
Lockerbie victim's father criticises prosecutor's comments
Lockerbie bombing: Prosecutor's comments about al-Megrahi 'unfortunate'
Remember Lockerbie as crimes of intelligence services are exposed
Lockerbie: Lord Advocate to track down accomplices

And here is a moving reminiscence from someone engaged in the rescue operations on 21 December 1988:
Lockerbie -- 26 years on.]

Operation Sandwood Report: Public Statements by Lord Advocate and Crown Office

[In the item The Crown Office - cause for serious concern? posted earlier today on this blog, mention is made of statements by the Crown Office and the Lord Advocate that, in the view of Justice for Megrahi, disqualify them from playing any part in assessing Police Scotland’s forthcoming Operation Sandwood report into JfM’s allegations of criminal misconduct in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial. What follows is the text of a document released today by JfM on the Crown Office’s and Lord Advocate’s statements:]

Introduction

In relation to the forthcoming police Operation Sandwood report into Justice For Megrahi’s (JfM’s) 9 criminal allegations which is due to be submitted to the Crown Office early in 2016 we have consistently argued that this authority and the Lord Advocate have disqualified themselves from receiving, considering and making any prosecutorial or other decisions flowing from this report because of related public statements made by them.

Public Statements

In September 2012, following JfM’s letter to the then Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill laying out the allegations and seeking an independent investigation into them, and before they had been reported to the police, the Crown Office authorities publicly dismissed them as being without foundation in an article in The Scotsman:

‘But the Crown Office yesterday branded the allegations “defamatory and entirely unfounded”. A spokesman added that one of the allegations had been investigated by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) which found no basis for appeal, while it was also found there was “no basis” for claims that any police officers or officials fabricated evidence.

“It is a matter of the greatest concern that deliberately false and misleading allegations have been made in this way,” he added. The Lockerbie conviction has already been upheld by five appeal court judges, while Megrahi abandoned a second appeal.’ http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/deliberately-false-and-misleading.html

In December 2012 shortly after the allegations were officially delivered to Dumfries and Galloway Police, in widely reported statements, the Lord Advocate went public calling the JfM members who has made the allegations, “conspiracy theorists” and labelling the allegations, ‘defamatory and entirely unfounded ....... deliberately false and misleading.’

‘Scotland’s Lord Advocate has launched a powerful and stinging attack against “conspiracy theorists” who claim that the Lockerbie bomber was wrongly convicted.

In the most detailed rebuttal yet made to the case mounted by campaigners who argue that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was innocent and that Libya was not involved in the terrorist bomb plot that brought Pan Am 103 down over Lockerbie 24 years ago today, Frank Mulholland, QC, calls the allegations “without foundation” ‘.

He goes on to accuse those making them of uttering “defamatory” comments against High Court judges who are unable to respond. http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/pro-megrahi-backers-flayed-by-new-lord.html

It is against this background of unprecedented public vilification of JfM’s legitimate allegations and those who made them that the subsequent behaviour of Lord Advocate/ Crown Office must be judged.

Having set themselves firmly against JfM and its claims their subsequent behaviour can clearly be seen as a consistent pattern of behaviour proactively supporting this totally unjustified bias and prejudice.

In June 2014 the BBC reported that the Megrahi family had instructed a Scottish lawyer to apply to have his conviction reviewed by the SCCRC and published a Crown Office response to the application.

‘A Crown Office spokesman said they "do not fear scrutiny of the conviction by the SCCRC." The spokesman added: "The evidence upon which the conviction was based was rigorously scrutinised by the trial court and two appeal courts after which Megrahi stands convicted of the terrorist murder of 270 people. We will rigorously defend this conviction when called upon to do so. In the meantime, we will continue the investigation with US and Scottish police and law enforcement.” ‘ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-27698626

In December 2014, at the Lockerbie commemoration ceremony in America, the Lord Advocate once again re-emphasised Mr Megrahi’s guilt and stated the only remaining question was, ’who were his accomplices’? These comments were made in the full knowledge that Operation Sandwood was ongoing and that if any one of the criminal allegations was upheld this would call Mr Megrahi’s guilt into question and could point to Crown Office and police culpability.

The Daily Telegraph reported: ‘Frank Mulholland, the Lord Advocate, used the 26th anniversary of the bombing to reaffirm his belief in the guilt of the only man convicted of the attack, and said Scottish prosecutors would never give up the fight to find his accomplices.’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11306609/Lockerbie-bombing-senior-law-officer-vows-to-track-down-Megrahi-accomplices.html

The BBC reported: ‘Mr Mulholland said: "During the 26-year long inquiry not one Crown Office investigator or prosecutor has raised a concern about the evidence in this case. "We remain committed to this investigation and our focus remains on the evidence, and not on speculation and supposition. "Our prosecutors and police officers, working with UK government and US colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing to justice those who acted along with al-Megrahi.” ‘

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-30560364

In October 2015 the BBC reported: ‘A Crown Office spokesman said: "The Lord Advocate and the US Attorney General have recently agreed that there is a proper basis in law in Scotland and the United States to entitle Scottish and US investigators to treat two Libyans as suspects in the continuing investigation into the bombing of flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-34543983

Unfortunately these public statements by the Lord Advocate and Crown Office, highlighting and reinforcing Mr Megrahi’s guilt, fail to acknowledge, what they well knew, that there are two ongoing major investigations.

The first of them, to which the above quotations refer, is being conducted by a Crown Office/Police Scotland ‘Lockerbie Investigation Team’, in close liaison with the American FBI, and has been ongoing for a number of years. Its enquiries are based on the clear assumption that Megrahi did not act alone and his accomplices have still to be identified. The Lord Advocate has recently confirmed that as part of this investigation he is applying to interview two further Libyan suspects incarcerated in Libya.

The second investigation, mounted in 2012, followed JfM's nine allegations of criminality relating to the actions of Crown Office and police personnel and persons who were cited as Crown witnesses in the trial of the two Libyans. This investigation is now being carried out by a dedicated team of Police Scotland officers under the codename Operation Sandwood and a report is expected early next year.

As the Crown well knows the two investigations referred to above are potentially in direct conflict in that the first is predicated on the assumption that Mr. Megrahi is guilty. The Operation Sandwood enquiry however is into allegations that, if proved, point to his innocence and that there may have been malfeasance by some associated with the prosecution including Crown office personnel.

Conclusion

In publicly condemning the JfM allegations and the individuals who made them and by continuing to give such open public support to their own investigation the Lord Advocate and Crown Office have prejudiced and prejudged the outcome of Operation Sandwood.

In 2012 as soon as they were aware of our allegations, the resultant police investigation and the fact that if proved they could challenge the previous assumptions so actively being promoted by the Crown, these authorities should have taken immediate action to protect its integrity and made no further public comment which could be in any way related too that investigation.

As far as we can judge the Lord Advocate/Crown Office have taken absolutely no action to protect the ongoing Police Scotland major investigation and in fact have actively acted against it.

JfM believes that this consistent pattern of biased public statements, in addition to being completely inappropriate, has had the clear potential to influence and prejudice Operation Sandwood witnesses who have been required to provide statements against a background of this very public interference by Scotland’s senior prosecution authorities. We also fear that certain Crown, Police and expert witness, encouraged by the Crown statements, might seek to withhold from or alter legitimate evidence to Operation Sandwood.

Such blatant publicity also serves of course to set the whole of the Crown Office against any contradictory findings from Operation Sandwood thus making it entirely inappropriate for anyone associated with the Crown Office to receive, assess and decide on any action resulting from this report.

Since we made these allegations JfM has become increasingly concerned about the capability of the Lord Advocate/Crown Office to make objective and impartial decisions on any report emanating from the Operation Sandwood investigations. We believe that they have comprehensively disqualified themselves from such decisions and make it essential that a prosecutor completely independent of the Crown Office receives the report, assesses it and makes decisions arising from it without any Crown Office input.

Pro-Megrahi backers flayed by new Lord Advocate

[This is the headline over an article by Magnus Linklater (whose views on Lockerbie are well-known) in today’s edition of The Times.  It reads as follows:]

Scotland’s Lord Advocate has launched a powerful and stinging attack against “conspiracy theorists” who claim that the Lockerbie bomber was wrongly convicted.

In the most detailed rebuttal yet made to the case mounted by campaigners who argue that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was innocent and that Libya was not involved in the terrorist bomb plot that brought Pan Am 103 down over Lockerbie 24 years ago today, Frank Mulholland, QC, calls the allegations “without foundation”.

He goes on to accuse those making them of uttering “defamatory” comments against High Court judges who are unable to respond. [RB: Justice for Megrahi has made no defamatory comments against any High Court judge.  It is not defamatory of the Zeist judges to say that they were wrong in finding Megrahi guilty. Lawyers all the time say that judges got things wrong (and almost every time an appeal is allowed, other judges say so too). And in the Lockerbie case even the SCCRC concluded that, on an absolutely crucial point, no reasonable court could have reached the conclusion that the Zeist judges reached.  JFM in its recent allegations of criminality was very careful not to say that then Lord Advocate (and now High Court judge) Colin Boyd had attempted to pervert the course of justice.]

Mr Mulholland, who has relaunched an investigation into what he calls an act of “state-sponsored terrorism” by the former Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, says that he has been through all the evidence and is convinced that al-Megrahi’s conviction was “safe”.

An outside counsel invited by the Lord Advocate to conduct an independent review of the evidence has also concluded that the conviction was sound. [RB: It would be interesting to know the identity of this outside counsel.  Here, by contrast, is a short list of eminent lawyers who have concluded that the conviction was not sound: Benedict Birnberg, Gareth Peirce, Michael Mansfield QC, David Wolchover, Len Murray, Ian Hamilton QC, Jock Thomson QC, John Scott QC.  There are many more.]

“I am hugely frustrated that there is an unfounded attack on the integrity of the judges involved in the process,” Mr Mulholland said. “I saw a report on the BBC that [claimed] a high court judge — Colin Boyd, Lord Advocate at the time — perverted the course of justice. And it frustrates me that they’re not in a position to answer these allegations, these can be made without being challenged and without any real foundation.” [RB: At least Mr Mulholland does not here make the error of accusing JFM of responsibility for the BBC’s egregious misinterpretation of the English language.]

He compared the allegations to the uncontrolled media attempts to blacken the name of Lord MacAlpine, the former Conservative Party treasurer, over child abuse.

“I deplore any of that,” he said. “The appropriate place for voicing any concerns about the evidence is before a court of law, not in the court of public opinion, or the media. I haven’t spoken to the people who are affected by this, but I would imagine that they are frustrated that their reputations can be so easily attacked, and they can’t do anything about it.”

Mr Mulholland, who has been to Libya to make contact with the new regime, is hopeful that permission will be given soon to send Scottish police officials to Tripoli to gather evidence that would not only buttress the case against al-Megrahi, but reopen the wider plot to down the US airliner.

He believes that a criminal investigation rather than a public inquiry is the best way to resolve the 1988 Lockerbie case.

“I take the view that the calls for a public inquiry are essentially to set up a vehicle which would be a surrogate criminal court, he said. “I believe that the guilt or innocence of al-Megrahi is entirely a matter for the courts.”

He issued a challenge to the al-Megrahi apologists: “If you don’t like the set-up of the justice system, then what you do is you change it, through the democratic vehicle of parliament. You change the law.”

Mr Mulholland says he has studied all the claims advanced in the book Megrahi: You are my Jury by the writer John Ashton, and finds no evidence to support them. He urged those arguing that al-Megrahi was innocent to put any additional evidence to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

“Mr Megrahi stood trial before a Scottish court and was convicted by three judges unanimously, then an appeal, where five judges unanimously upheld the conviction, hearing additional evidence about the Heathrow break-in [the claim that the bomb went aboard there],” he said. “Having heard all the arguments presented to them, they upheld the conviction. Part of our justice system is the [commission] for which I have the highest regard. Anyone who is concerned about a conviction can make an application to the commission.”

He added: “The commission had access to all the Crown’s papers, and they took the view that in relation to a very limited number of grounds, the case should be referred back to the appeal court, which they did. The defence were entitled to expand the appeal beyond the grounds of referral, and they included a number of grounds which had been rejected by the commission, and the court was in the process of hearing that appeal when al-Megrahi abandoned his appeal.

“Now, whatever you think, and everyone is entitled to their view as to whether he is guilty or not, the courts took the view that following a trial and an appeal and a subsequent appeal, which was abandoned, al-Megrahi’s conviction still stands and that is the application of the rule of law.”

Mr Mulholland believes the evidence shows that the previous Libyan regime under Colonel Gaddafi was involved in “an act of state-sponsored terrorism”.

He is working with the FBI, the US Attorney-General and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to pursue investigations. “We are applying the rule of law,” he said. “If you follow the evidence, it leads to Libya.”

US and UK living "a monumental lie for 26 years"

[The following are excerpts from a report published yesterday evening on the BBC News website:]

Scotland's top law officer has met the director of the FBI to discuss progress in the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing.

Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC described Friday's talks with James Comey as "very useful".

Mr Mulholland also revealed he recently met the Libyan ambassador to the UK. (...)

On Saturday, Mr Mulholland said he continued to believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was guilty of carrying out the bombing, and pledged to continue tracking down his accomplices. (...)

But his involvement in the bombing of the flight from London to New York has been called into question by campaigners who believe evidence in the case was manipulated to implicate Libya and divert attention away from Iran and Syria. (...)

The Lord Advocate said he was also keeping in close contact with the UK ambassador to Libya, who is currently based in Tunis, to get regular updates on what is happening.

The ambassador has been "able to get information for us which has been helpful in shaping our approach going forward." Mr Mulholland said.

Turning his attention to work with officials in the US, the Lord Advocate added: "I met with Director Comey of the FBI on Friday to discuss progress in the inquiry. It was a very useful meeting and the avenues of enquiry currently under investigation were discussed in detail.

"Despite the difficulties we remain hopeful that progress will be made. We reiterated our commitment to work closely together to make progress in Libya and elsewhere; wherever there is an opportunity we will be there. We will follow the evidence relentlessly."

Details of the ongoing investigation have not and will not be made public, the Lord Advocate said.

But he added: "What I can say however is that in addition to the lines of enquiry in Libya there are other lines currently being pursued outwith Libya.

"We remain cautiously optimistic that these lines of enquiry will bear fruit." (...)

An investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) led to a finding in 2007 of six grounds where it believed a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, paving the way for a second appeal.

But Megrahi dropped that appeal in 2009 before being released from prison by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds in light of his diagnosis with terminal prostate cancer. (...)

But earlier this year, Megrahi's relatives embarked on a legal bid to clear his name amid claims that his case is the "worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history".

Six immediate members of his family joined forces with 24 British relatives of those who died in the atrocity to seek, ultimately, a third appeal against his conviction in the Scottish courts.

They united to submit an application to the SCCRC for a review of the conviction, a move which could see the case referred back to the High Court. (...)

Solicitor Aamer Anwar, who is co-ordinating efforts to quash Mr Megrahi's conviction, said: "The Lord Advocate's speech in Washington makes for great sound bites with an American audience but lacks analysis of the essential facts."

He accused the Crown Office of repeating "an age old mantra of the Crown of never doubting the safety of the conviction", despite "many miscarriages of justice over the years".

Mr Anwar added: "The case of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi is described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history for a reason.

"A reversal of the verdict would mean that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom stand exposed as having lived a monumental lie for 26 years, by imprisoning a man they knew to be innocent."

In a statement, the Megrahi family said it would "keep fighting for justice to find out who was responsible for 271 victims of the Lockerbie disaster."

Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the bombing, has also expressed his disappointment at Mr Mulholland's latest comments.

Dr Swire said: "For me this case is about two families, mine and Abdelbaset's, but behind them now are seen to lie the needs of 25 other families in applying for a further appeal 26 years after the event itself.

"We need the truth and Scotland's management of this case produced a verdict perfectly tailored for use by those who would seek to ensure that the full truth remains hidden."