Donald Macaulay QC and Lockerbie

Lord Macaulay of Bragar QC died on this date in 2014.

After charges were brought in November 1991 against Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah their Libyan lawyer, Dr Ibrahim Legwell, formed a team of lawyers from countries with an interest in the Lockerbie case, including Scotland and the United States, to advise and assist him. One of the Scottish lawyers on that team was Donald Macaulay QC. At a meeting held in Tripoli in October 1993 (referred to in the media as a "legal summit") this legal team advised Megrahi and Fhimah not to surrender themselves for trial in Scotland. It was in response to this decision (which came as a considerable shock to the Libyan Government) that I formulated a scheme for a non-jury Scottish court to sit in the Netherlands. The story is told in more detail here.

I remain of the view that the advice given by the international legal team to Megrahi and Fhimah was unfortunate.  I am convinced that if the pair had been tried by an ordinary Scottish jury conscientiously following the standard instructions that juries are given about how to approach their decision-making and the assessment of the evidence led before them (including burden and standard of proof), both accused would have been acquitted.

Donald Macaulay was not a brilliant lawyer, but he was a quite magnificent jury advocate. Had I ever been charged with a serious crime, I would have wanted him to defend me. Head and shoulders above all of today's High Court "stars".

Is there no end to inaccuracy?

On the website of the Sudanese daily newspaper Sudan Vision, the former Secretary General of the Arab Bar Association, Farouq Abu Issa is quoted as saying:

"In my capacity as the Secretary General to the Arab Bar Association, I used to urge the Arab rulers to join the ICC [International Criminal Court] with which I was totally convinced. But, the present international political environment within which the ICC is operating renders its moves against Sudan [ie the arrest warrant sought against President Ahmad al-Bashir] as risking the overall security and stability of the country, hence, the surrender of any national to this Court will escalate such risks. Therefore, I hereby, announce my rejection of any interaction with the ICC, given the double standard dealing that I had witnessed with my very eyes when I was a member to the Defense Board during Lockerbie case prosecution. So, I hereby, would like to advise not only the Sudan, rather, all the Arab States to refrain from dealing with the International Criminal Court."

The Lockerbie trial, of course, was not held in the ICC but in a Scottish court sitting in The Netherlands. Whether Mr Abu Issa was a member of the "Defence Board" (presumably the international group of lawyers convened by Dr Ibrahim Legwell, the then Libyan lawyer acting for Messrs Megrahi and Fhimah) I do not know.

The full article can be read here.

UK and US isolated in rejecting neutral venue trial proposal

[What follows is excerpted from a report by the Associated Press news agency published on this date in 1996:]

Lawyers representing the two Libyan men suspected of planting the Lockerbie bomb say they're ready to face trial -- but it must be in a neutral country.

And they say the suspects will appear voluntarily, without the need for extradition.

But so far it's a proposal which hasn't been taken up by any of the key players in the international investigation into Flight 103. (...)

The man leading the defence team for the two men is on a rare trip to London.

He says if the investigating countries -- the US, the UK and Scotland -- agree to a trial somewhere like The Hague, the suspects will turn up of their own free will.

Dr Ibrahim Legwell: “What we are proposing that the venue can be changed for a neutral country and that instead of the jury we have a panel of judges and what is going to come from our side is that I will come with them to stand for the trial voluntary, not as an extradition.”

Those representing the families of Lockerbie victims have backed the call for such a trial, saying at least the evidence would be brought out into the open.

The legal team acting for the men includes lawyers from each country involved in the events leading up to the explosion.

English lawyer Stephen Mitchell says the UK and the US are now isolated in rejecting the trial proposal.

Stephen Mitchell: “It will be accepted or rejected on the basis of political wills. When somebody wants to solve this problem it will be solved, is my view.”

Lockerbie lawyer dies

The death has been announced of Lord Macaulay of Bragar QC. 

After charges were brought in November 1991 against Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah their Libyan lawyer, Dr Ibrahim Legwell, formed a team of lawyers from countries with an interest in the Lockerbie case, including Scotland and the United States, to advise and assist him. One of the Scottish lawyers on that team was Donald Macaulay QC. At a meeting held in Tripoli in October 1993 (referred to in the media as a "legal summit") this legal team advised Megrahi and Fhimah not to surrender themselves for trial in Scotland. It was in response to this decision (which came as a considerable shock to the Libyan Government) that I formulated a scheme for a non-jury Scottish court to sit in the Netherlands. The story is told in more detail here. 

I remain of the view that the advice given by the international legal team to Megrahi and Fhimah was unfortunate.  I am convinced that if the pair had been tried by an ordinary Scottish jury conscientiously following the standard instructions that juries are given about how to approach their decision-making and the assessment of the evidence led before them (including burden and standard of proof), both accused would have been acquitted.

Donald Macaulay was not a brilliant lawyer, but he was a quite magnificent jury advocate. Had I ever been charged with a serious crime, I would have wanted him to defend me. Head and shoulders above all of today's High Court "stars".

Parliamentary pressure to accept neutral venue trial

[On this date in 1998 Tam Dalyell MP secured his fourteenth adjournment debate on Lockerbie in the House of Commons. What follows is excerpted from his speech in that debate:]

Given the recent travels of Dr Jim Swire of the UK relatives group, accompanied by Professor Black, who had extensive meetings with the League of Arab States, the Organisation of African Unity, the Libyan leader and officials for the two accused, will the Government explain an almost total lack of willingness to communicate with the Libyan Government or to use some kind of communication to get out of the impasse?

I spoke last night to Robert Black, who is visiting Stellenbosch in South Africa. He said that the Libyan Government had stated previously that they would put “no obstacles in the way of their nationals going to trial”. The Libyan Government now say that they "positively welcome" their nationals going to trial in a third country. They have promised to

“facilitate those arrangements and to do everything to achieve that end”. I received a copy of a letter written today by Dr Swire to the Foreign Secretary—I have shown it to senior officials at the Foreign Office, and I apologise for the fact that I was not able to do so earlier. It states that present at the meetings were Mr Abdul Ati Obeidi, Secretary at the Foreign Office, Libya; Mr Zuwiy, Secretary of Justice, Libya; Mr Omar Dorda, the Libyan permanent representative at the United Nations; and, crucially, Dr Ibrahim Legwell, the lawyer representing the two Libyan suspects. The more important point is that they had an endorsing meeting with Colonel Gaddafi. Hitherto, it has been asked, "How do we know with what authority Libyan promises are made?" When the promise is made by Colonel Gaddafi himself, it is high time to accept Libya's assurances in good faith. (...)

Finally, I asked both Dr Swire and Professor Black, "Do you think in your heart of hearts that the Libyans did it or had anything to do with it?" Both replied separately and said, "In our heart of hearts, no, the Libyans were not involved." They are not naive people. That is also my view—and I do not think that I am being naive, either.

Being economical with the truth over a Lockerbie trial

[What follows is an exchange during Scottish questions in the House of Commons on this date in 1998:]

HC Deb 17 March 1998 vol 308 cc1081-2

4. Mr [Tam] Dalyell:  If he will make a statement on the recent findings of the international court relating to the (a) venue and (b) jurisdiction of the trial of those suspected of the Lockerbie bombing. [33158]

The Minister for Home Affairs and Devolution, Scottish Office (Mr Henry McLeish):  The International Court of Justice made no findings in relation to the venue or jurisdiction for the trial of those accused of the Lockerbie bombing, but has held that it cannot determine, as a preliminary issue, the effect of the Security Council's resolutions on Libya's claims under the Montreal convention.

Mr Dalyell:  Is it really more important that a trial should take place in Scotland than that any trial should take place at all?

Mr McLeish:  Those accused of acts of terrorism should not be able to dictate the venue or composition of the court before which they are to be tried. Scotland and the United States have exercised jurisdiction in that case, and Libya should now surrender the two accused persons for trial in either of those two countries, as it is required to do under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

Ms Roseanna Cunningham:  Does the Minister accept that, once a Scottish Parliament is up and running, given the devolution of powers over the legal system, a future Scottish Administration could decide to allow the Lockerbie trial to be held outwith Scotland? Does he accept that, if that happens, Westminster must not attempt to interfere with the decision?

Mr McLeish:  It is worth re-emphasising that both the United States and this country are sticking by an important principle: the solution to that problem lies in Libya, and it is vital that Libya abides by Security Council resolutions and delivers the two accused persons for a proper trial.

Mr Russell Brown:  I whole-heartedly agree with my hon Friend the Minister. There is great pressure on him to consider holding a trial in a neutral country, but, even if the Government were to consider doing so, must not the Libyan Government first give a clear guarantee that they would hand over the two suspects?

Mr McLeish:  Such a guarantee has not, to date, been forthcoming from the Libyans. It is important to repeat that the suspects should be given up. There must be a fair trial, and one has been offered within the jurisdiction of the United States or of Scotland. That is the best way forward. We expect the Libyans to abide by Security Council resolutions, and that is the simple matter on which the case rests at the moment.

[RB: On 12 January 1994 the chief defence lawyer for the two Libyan suspects, Dr Ibrahim Legwell, stated in writing (in response to a letter from me dated 10 January) that his clients were prepared to surrender themselves for trial before a tribunal operating under Scots law but sitting in a neutral country; on the same date, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Libya, Moussa Koussa, stated in writing that the Libyan Government approved of this solution. Further details can be found here.

In October 1997, during President Nelson Mandela’s stopover in Tripoli, en route to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh, Colonel Gaddafi confirmed that this remained the stance of the Libyan Government. On 15 January 1998 in the course of the television programme Words with Wark (in which I participated) Alistair Duff, the Scottish solicitor who represented the two accused men, reaffirmed that his clients wished to stand trial before a Scottish tribunal in a neutral venue, such as I had proposed in January 1994.

I therefore completely fail to comprehend what further “guarantee” the minister and those who supported him could have honestly expected from “the Libyans”.]

The winding path towards a Lockerbie trial

[On this date sixteen years ago a letter from me was published in The Scotsman. It read as follows:]

Your report ("Lockerbie suspects' lawyers sacked", 24 September [1998]) claims the new Libyan defence team had been appointed by the Libyan Government (or by Colonel Gaddafi).  What evidence is there for this?

I met five members of the team in Tripoli last Monday.  The chairman, Kamel Hassan Maghur, said he and his colleagues (who include the present President of the Tripoli Bar Association and the most senior past-President) had been appointed by the two suspects themselves; that their sole concern was with representing the interests of their clients;  that those interests did not necessarily coincide with the wishes or interests of the Libyan Government; and that if the Government sought to interfere in their work or to influence in any way the advice which the lawyers might render to their clients, they would not hesitate to publicise this fact in the international media.

Mr Maghur (who as well as being a former Foreign Minister, is also a retired Libyan Supreme Court judge) said nothing to indicate that his team wished to dispense with the services of Alistair Duff, the Edinburgh solicitor who for many years has represented the two suspects in Scotland: indeed, quite the reverse.

If, as you state, Dr Ibrahim Legwell is claiming (a) still to represent the suspects and (b) that the new team has been foisted on them without their consent, then this conflict should be speedily resolved by direct consultation with the accused themselves.  I was deeply impressed by the professionalism, commitment and independence of the Libyan lawyers. If they do indeed now represent the suspects, I am convinced that their interests are in capable hands.

[This letter appears no longer to feature in The Scotsman’s online archives. It, and other material relating to the change in Megrahi and Fhimah’s Libyan legal team, can be found here.]

Arab reaction to World Court Lockerbie judgement in favour of Libya

[The following are two items dated 1 March 1998, taken from The Pan Am 103 Crash Website which was edited by Safia Aoude:]

Cairo, 1 March 1998: The head of the Arab League on Saturday welcomed the International Court of Justice decision that it had jurisdiction in Libya's dispute with Britain and the United States over a 1988 airliner bombing. "This declaration from the court affirms the sound Arab position that calls for the trial to be in a neutral country,'' said a statement by Secretary-General Esmat Abdel-Meguid. Separately, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa told reporters that the procedural move was an "important step.''

The Libyan foreign minister, Umar Mustafa al-Muntassir, held talks in Cairo on Sunday with Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdel Meguid to discuss what action to take within the United Nations Security Council on the Lockerbie crisis after the International Court of Justice judgment that it could decide where the two Lockerbie suspects should be tried (...)

Meguid said the meeting would be followed "by intensive consultations and meetings until the type of future action towards the settlement of this international crisis is defined."

"Legally speaking, the ICJ ruling pronouncing its jurisdiction to hear Libyan complaints against Britain is a major development," Meguid was quoted as saying. "It means that the Libyan request was honoured, while the British and US rejection was turned down."

Al Muntasir said the meeting was aimed at coordinating the Arab League-Libya stand over recent developments. "A comprehensive Libyan plan was amended to conform to these developments," he said, adding that he had discussed the amendments with the secretary general. He expressed the hope that Libya's coordination with the Arab League, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) would help achieve a unified international stand against "the injustices Libya was suffering within the UN Security Council as well as outside it."

-----

Tripoli, 1 March 1998: The lawyer of the two Libyan suspects wanted in the Lockerbie bombing said Saturday he still backed a trial in a neutral country even though a ruling by the International Court of Justice was a step toward confirming Libya's jurisdiction. "It is a ruling in the right direction...and I am almost certain that the final ruling will be in line with the 1971 Montreal convention which means that Libya's judiciary is competent to hear the case and is right to refuse to hand over the suspects,'' Ibrahim Legwell, lawyer of the two suspects, told Reuters by telephone from Tripoli.

"It is our interest and that of the families of the bombing victims that there be a trial. That's why we support a neutral venue,'' he said. “We had rejected to hand over the two suspects to the United States or Britain because it was unlawful and also we were certain that they wouldn't get a fair trial there. We know that a trial in Libya would also be suspect. The reasonable solution is a trial in a neutral country,” he said.

Steps on the path towards Zeist

[What follows is a short excerpt from an article written by me some years ago:]

Although the British proposal [for a trial in the Netherlands] was announced in late August 1998, it was not until 5 April 1999 that the two suspects actually arrived in the Netherlands for trial before the Scottish court.  Why the delay?  The answer is that some of the fine print in the two documents* was capable of being interpreted, and was in fact interpreted, by the Libyan defence team (now chaired by Mr Kamel Hassan Maghur as successor to Dr [Ibrahim] Legwell) and the Libyan government as having been deliberately designed to create pitfalls to entrap them.  And since the governments of the United Kingdom and United States resolutely refused to have any direct contact with either the Libyan government or the Libyan defence lawyers -- their attitude being that the scheme had been advanced on a “take it or leave it basis” and that no negotiations would be entered in to -- these concerns could be dealt with only through an intermediary, namely the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan (or, in practice, the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and the Legal Counsel of the United Nations, Hans Corell).   This meant that issues that could have been thrashed out and settled in a matter of a few hours in a face-to-face meeting took weeks and months to resolve.  The US government, particularly the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, took every available opportunity to accuse the Libyan government and lawyers of stalling and trying to wriggle out of the assurances they had given over the years to support a “neutral venue” trial.  My own clear impression, however, through my continuing contacts with the Libyans, was that if anyone was looking for pretexts to avoid a trial ever taking place, it was the US and UK governments.

Between 20 and 22 September 1998, Dr Jim Swire and I were again in Tripoli and were able to provide to the Libyan government and the Libyan defence team a measure of reassurance regarding some of the points that concerned them.  However, it was we who had to inform the Libyan government that the chosen location in the Netherlands for trial was Kamp van Zeist, a former NATO base to which the air force of the United States still had extant treaty rights of access.  This information was faxed to me (in Dutch, which I can read  -- with difficulty -- through my knowledge of Afrikaans) at my hotel in Tripoli by a Dutch journalist who had developed an interest in Lockerbie and who had heard it from an official at The Hague.  Dr Swire and I discussed whether we should inform our Libyan government contacts of the intended venue and came to the conclusion that we should do so.  One compelling reason for doing so was to preserve the trust that the Libyan government appeared to have developed in us.  Another was our assumption – which may or may not have been justified -- that all our communications in Libya were monitored and that the Libyan authorities would have the information anyway as soon as they could arrange for a copy of the fax to be translated from Dutch into Arabic.

I anticipated that the news about the proposed location would cause the Libyans to renounce the "neutral venue" concept in high dudgeon and complain of the lack of good faith demonstrated by the British Government in selecting, or agreeing to, such a site.  But they did not do so.  When we raised the issue at our next meeting, the Libyan officials were remarkably relaxed about the matter.  This, more than anything else, convinced me that the Libyan government and the Libyan defence lawyers genuinely wished a trial to take place and that the concerns they had expressed regarding details of the scheme now on offer were genuine concerns, not merely a colourable pretext for evading their earlier commitment to such a solution.

*(1) Order in Council (SI 1998 No 2251), made on 16 September 1998, conferring the necessary legal authority for Scottish criminal proceedings against the two Libyan suspects to be conducted in the Netherlands, and (2) an international agreement between the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Government of the United Kingdom, concluded on 18 September 1998, making the diplomatic arrangements necessary for the "neutral venue" trial to take place.

Of Mandela, Shamuyarira and the Lockerbie affair

[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of the Zimbabwean newspaper The Herald.  It reads in part:]

Tributes to veteran nationalist, journalist and politician Nathan Shamuyarira who died on June 4 at the age of 85 underlined his diplomatic and political achievements at local, regional and international levels.

As tributes poured in, Shamuyarira was described as a remarkable and admirable politician who contributed immensely to the shaping and development of Zimbabwe’s media and foreign policy. (...)

In April, 1999, Nelson Mandela refused to take full credit for the Lockerbie breakthrough which resulted in Libya handing over two suspects of the PanAm bombing over Lockerbie in 1988 in which 270 people were killed.

Speaking to businessmen in Midrand, the anti-apartheid struggle leader said there were other people who played an important role in the negotiations, singling out former Zimbabwean Foreign Affairs Minister Nathan Shamuyarira.

“He is the person who came to me and said let’s talk and settle this issue,” Mandela was quoted as saying, adding that he then spoke to former American President George Bush and Saudi Arabia’s King Fahed.

“Without these two (Shamuyarira and King Fahed) I don’t think there would have been a breakthrough,” he said.

Mandela was not puffed up by the huge praise he got internationally for his role in the Lockerbie diplomatic effort.

He repeatedly shrugged off the praise.

Shamuyarira too, shrugged off the praise, only demonstrating his distinctive brilliance and unmatched determination to have the Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing tried in a neutral country.

In an interview in April 1999, Shamuyarira said there were a number of inconsistencies in the case that pointed to a political victimisation of Libya and if brought to court, such evidence would exonerate Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al–Amin Khalifa Fahima.

“I have evidence that convinced me and Presidents Mugabe and Nelson Mandela and other world leaders that the Libyans were not involved.

“It was on the basis of these inconsistencies that I asked the two presidents to seek a fair trial for the two men,” Shamuyarira was quoted saying then.

According to a news agency report, one of the factors Shamuyarira felt would work for the Libyans when their trial starts in the Netherlands was that some people scheduled to fly on the Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt to New York on December 20 1988 were apparently warned that the flight was doomed and should change.

The plane blew up over Lockerbie in Scotland and killed 259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground.

“One of these people is then South African foreign affairs minister Pik Botha who was scheduled to take that flight to New York. He and others were tipped off and changed flights.

“Whoever tipped them had prior knowledge of the bomb and if it were the Libyans, surely, the last person they would tip was Botha given the animosity between Libya and South Africa the,” said Shamuyarira who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1985 and 1995.

This earned Shamuyarira who initiated talks that the Libyan suspects be tried in a neutral country, wide acclaim and made him to become a true giant of Zimbabwean and African foreign policy. (...)

Late veteran politician Dr Stan Mudenge who was Foreign Affairs Minister in 1999 described the breakthough as an African Union triumph over western bullying.

“When you look back at the whole issue, one can rightly say Africa as a whole won a major battle over western bullying. Each one of us as Africans did their bit and we won,” Dr Mudenge said back then.

With the Lockerbie case, Shamuyarira showed that he was a formidable force of Pan African  diplomacy – an indefatigable champion in the cause of peace, who worked tirelessly for a better world through peaceful conflict resolution mechanism.

His energies devoted to finding a peaceful way forward for the Libyan case led to the suspension of the embargoes that had been put in place to force Tripoli to surrender the two men charged with blowing up Pan Am Flight 103.

Shamuyarira, who has been credited as the first person to initiate talks on the possibility of having the Libyans tried in a neutral country.

To some great measure, Shamuyarira’s pre-eminent role in the Lockerbie affair, forced Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya, who died on 20 October 2011, to ‘demote’ Pan Arabism as a plank of Libya’s foreign policy.

[I reproduce this because it pays tribute to an African politician who played a not insignificant part in resolving the Lockerbie impasse that existed in the late 1990s, not because it is in all respects accurate about the factual and political background, which it clearly is not. For example, the story about Pik Botha being warned off Pan Am 103 has been discredited. And the all-too common assumption that Gaddafi had the power to compel the two accused to surrender for trial whether they wanted to or not, is just simply false.  I was involved at the time in Lockerbie dealings with both the Libyan Government and the Libyan defence team headed by Dr Ibrahim Legwell. If the Libyan Government had had the power to deliver Megrahi and Fhimah to Zeist against their will, the pair would have been there long before April 1999. The Gaddafi regime had the power to prevent the suspects from voluntarily surrendering themselves for trial (eg by preventing them from leaving Libya). But that was as far as the regime’s power went. It had no power to compel them to stand trial at Zeist if they chose not to.  What impeded a resolution of the Lockerbie standoff for years was not the Libyan Government nor the Libyan defence team, but the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States. It was on these governments that Mandela, Shamuyarira and others had to exert diplomatic and moral pressure to accept the solution that had long before been accepted by the Libyan authorities and the Libyan defence team. All this is explained here, for those interested in the true position.]

Abu Nidal and Pan Am 103

[What follows is the text of an article published on the website of Al-Ahram Weekly on this date in 2002:]

Abu Nidal is reported to have said that his organisation was behind the Lockerbie bombing. The news emerged after a series of interviews with Atef Abu Bakr, a one-time aide to the terrorist mastermind, published by the Arabic-language Al-Hayat newspaper last week. Abu Nidal was found dead in Baghdad last week. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.

Abu Bakr is a former spokesman for the group and was one of Abu Nidal's closest aides between 1985 and 1989. He subsequently split with him over management of the organisation. "Abu Nidal said during an inner-circle meeting of the leadership of the Revolutionary Council, 'I will tell you something very important and serious, the reports which link the Lockerbie act to others are false reports. We are behind what happened,"' Abu Bakr was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Abu Nidal's organisation has been blamed for many terrorist attacks in the 70s and 80s, in which hundreds were killed or wounded.

Abu Nidal set up his organisation's headquarters in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, in 1987. He was put under house arrest when the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, came under pressure to crack down on militants after the Lockerbie bombing.

Abu Bakr's statements are shocking because, if true, they jeopardise the verdict given by a Scottish court, in the Netherlands, which sentenced Libyan Abdel-Basset Al-Megrahi to life in prison in 2000. Another Libyan suspect, Lamine Khalifa [Fhimah], was acquitted. In March this year, a Scottish appeals court upheld the murder conviction of Al- Megrahi.

Commenting on the new revelations, Tam Dalyell, the longest serving member of Britain's parliament, called on the government to investigate Abu Bakr's allegations "as a matter of the utmost urgency". He said that "if these allegations are true they blow everything relating to Lockerbie out of the water, including the trial in Holland."

If Abu Bakr's statements prove to be true, they would also demonstrate the unfairness of sanctions imposed on Libya, in 1992, for its failure to hand over its two suspects. The United Nations, supported by the US and Britain, imposed sanctions on air travel and arms sales to Libya in 1992. The sanctions were suspended, but not lifted, in 1999, when Gaddafi handed over Al-Megrahi and Khalifa.

Abu Bakr's accounts were surprising but not new. After the bombing took place on 21 December 1988, the US State Department said that an unidentified person had telephoned the US Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, on 5 December, saying there would be a bombing attempt within two weeks against a Pan Am aircraft flying from Frankfurt to the United States. The caller claimed to belong to the Abu Nidal group, the State Department said at the time.

Also in 1995, Youssef Shaaban, a Palestinian member of Abu Nidal's group confessed responsibility for the bombing before judicial authorities in Lebanon, where he stood trial for the assassination of a Jordanian diplomat in Beirut.

However, Shaaban's words were not taken seriously. The investigating magistrates did not document his confession. The US and Britain reacted by saying that they had clear evidence against the Libyan suspects. Even the Libyan suspects' defence team never made use of Shaaban's statements or the State Department's Helsinki evidence.

British MP, Dalyell, has long argued that the Libyans were not behind the attack and that it was carried out by Abu Nidal.

Accordingly, relatives of the Lockerbie victims have renewed their calls on Friday for an independent inquiry into the attack.

Indeed, many of the relatives and legal observers who attended the trial, echoed their dissatisfaction with its outcome. They claim that many questions remain unanswered.

Jim Swire, a spokesman for the families of British victims, said the reports bolstered calls for an independent inquiry into the bombing, lapses in airport security and why Britain had not acted on warnings that an attack might occur.

Swire added that Palestinian militant Abu Nidal's possible involvement was "one more of the many questions which we feel absolutely demand an independent inquiry into Lockerbie". Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, has long demanded an independent inquiry into Lockerbie to uncover how much British intelligence services knew about the attacks.

"We certainly have part, or all, of at least eight intelligence warnings, all of which were received in good time, some of them incredibly detailed. I think we have a right to know why these didn't lead to any form of special protection for our loved ones," he said.

The same view was echoed by Hans Koechler, one of five UN observers who followed the trial as part of the deal with Libya. He believes that Abu Bakr's comments underline the urgency of calls he has made for an independent public inquiry into the entire Lockerbie case.

"The fact that Libya had hired a defence team that grossly neglected its professional duties and chose not to use most of the legal means available to Al-Megrahi's defence requires an explanation," Koechler said in a statement released in Vienna this week.

Koechler also criticised the legal proceedings and documented his remarks. He argued in his report that in the aftermath of the original verdict, the trial did not proceed fairly and was not conducted in an objective manner.

Ibrahim Legwell, former head of the Libyan consortium of jurists, acknowledged the poor performance of the defence team. However, he urged them not to ignore the new evidence. "Al- Megrahi's defence team should investigate claims [by any member of Abu Nidal's group]. If they find new evidence they should demand that the Scottish crown refer the case to the Scottish case review commission."

However, Al-Megrahi's lawyer, Eddie MacKechnie, has a different view. He said he was applying to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge Al-Megrahi's life sentence.

According to him, the allegations about Abu Nidal's involvement offered little new evidence for his client's legal battle.

"I'm not aware of there being any usable evidence arising from this second-hand confession, although I do know that Abu Nidal was thought to have links to the Lockerbie bombing right from the very beginning," MacKechnie said.

An' then the world came tae oor doorstep

[What follows is taken from an item published on this blog on this date in 2008:]

An' then the world came tae oor doorstep: Lockerbie Lives and Stories

by Jill S Haldane, with a foreword by Robert Black.

Product Description

The Lockerbie Stories tell of the absolute incomprehension of something as alien as hunks of aeroplane and associated detritus falling through the roof of the home from aerospace above, penetrating the security of the family and exposing the self to chaos and despair, inverting life's experience from relatively familiar to discrete. The grief and trauma that followed, dealing with veil of death and destruction as victims and their belongings rained on homes, gardens and streets, together with the shock and upset involved in evacuation from your home and disruption of your routine. The frustrating inability to communicate with family and friends out with the community; the violation of all pre-conceived representations of Christmas and the descending swarm of strangers. To see your wee space on the planet, on the screen and beamed to innumerable other homes across the world. The silence then the noise: the sound of people and busyness was deafening to the quietude of the town and the echo reverberated for a few years. This is not a comparative study of how the Lockerbie bombing compares to any other disaster, natural or premeditated. By nature, disasters are variously horrific for the people directly and indirectly involved.

The book consists of accounts by Lockerbie indwellers of their experiences on 21 December 1988 and the years that followed.

Product Details

Paperback: 332 pages

Publisher: The Grimsay Press (December 19, 2008)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1845300637

ISBN-13: 978-1845300630

List price: £16.95/US$32.50

[RB: My foreword reads as follows:]

The only previous book of which I am aware which is devoted to recording something of the social life of the town of Lockerbie is Lockerbie: A narrative of village life in bygone days (Lockerbie: Herald Press, 1937) by Thomas Henderson, Solicitor, of the law firm Henderson & Mackay (which exists to this day). The author’s intention was to record with historical accuracy (albeit in a loose, fictionalised narrative form) what was known about life in the town at the time of the Napoleonic wars, while there were still people around who had heard first-hand accounts from parents and others who were alive at the time. My copy contains a clipping of a lengthy and laudatory review (probably from the local newspaper, The Annandale Herald) by the then minister of Dryfesdale Parish Kirk, Rev John Charlton Steen MA (who, incidentally, some ten years later, baptised me).

At least part of Jill Haldane’s aim in the present book is not entirely dissimilar: to record accounts by inhabitants of Lockerbie of the recent event with which the name of the town has become indissolubly linked and to reflect on how that seminal event may have changed, for good or ill, the life of the town and its indwellers.

Here, in brief, is my, and my family’s, story.

In 1988, both of my parents were still alive and living in the town’s Hillview Street. I was due to join them there on 23 December to spend Christmas and the New Year.

The first news of the Lockerbie disaster came to me through BBC radio. I was at my home in Edinburgh preparing my evening meal with, as usual, my wireless tuned to Radio Four. The first reports were, inevitably, sketchy and, I remember, suggested that Langholm too had been affected. But as soon as it was indicated that a plane had crashed on the town, my immediate thought was that it must have been one of the RAF jets that used the locality for low-flying exercises, to the great concern of the local inhabitants who often predicted that there would one day be a tragedy.

I immediately tried to telephone my mother, but all the lines were down and I could not get through. Shortly after 8pm a university colleague phoned me. Her first words were: “Bob, are you sitting down?” When I said that I wasn’t, she said “I think you should.” She then said that television programmes had been interrupted to announce that a plane had crashed on Lockerbie. Knowing that I did not have a television set (and twenty years later I still don’t) she assumed that I would not have received the news.

As the gravity of the incident became clearer, so my concern for the safety of my mother and father increased. However, at around 8.15, I received a phone call from my niece, at that time a nurse in a hospital in Glasgow. It transpired that she had actually been on the phone to my mother when the plane came down and, because the line was not cut until a few minutes thereafter, was able to confirm that her grandmother and grandfather had not been killed or injured. At the actual moment of impact, my father had been outside the house, posting a letter in the pillar box just across the road. He rushed to the alleyway between the houses and sheltered there while small items of debris rained down on the street.

When I drove in to Lockerbie on 23rd December, I was asked by the police what my business there was and, having convinced them that it was legitimate, was instructed to take a circuitous route to Hillview Street because the direct route was closed. That route would have led through Park Place which, of course, was one of the locations (other than Sherwood Crescent) most affected by debris from the plane.

Hillview Street itself had not been damaged. But a short distance away, just beyond Lambhill Terrace, the local golf course was one of the main sites from which bodies were recovered. Indeed, the main immediate impact that the disaster had on my family’s daily life was that it prevented my father from taking his daily walks over the golf course with his elderly next-door neighbour’s equally elderly dog.

The most obvious signs to me over the next few days that all was not normal were: the presence of multitudes of strangers in the town; the prevalence of baseball caps (not at that time a common item of headgear in Scotland) among the (presumably American) incomers; and the constant noise of helicopters.

My parents – typically, I think – did not then, or in the years that followed, talk a great deal about the event. Nor did their friends and neighbours. These were not people who wore their emotions on their sleeves. Scorn and distaste were, of course, expressed for the disaster groupies who felt compelled to visit the principal sites of destruction and gawk. But apart from that, reticence was the keynote of local reaction. And while there may well have been some citizens of the town who made use of the counselling services provided, on the whole the denizens of Lockerbie did not provide fertile ground for trauma counsellors.

My personal involvement in the aftermath of the destruction of Pan Am 103 began in early 1993. I was approached by representatives of a group of British businessmen whose desire to participate in major engineering works in Libya was being impeded by the UN sanctions that had been imposed on Libya in attempt to compel the surrender for trial in Scotland or the United States of America of their two accused citizens. They asked if I would be prepared to provide (on an unpaid basis) independent advice to the government of Libya on matters of Scottish criminal law, procedure and evidence with a view (it was hoped) to persuading them that their citizens would obtain a fair trial if they were to surrender themselves to the Scottish authorities. This I agreed to do, and submitted material setting out the essentials of Scottish solemn criminal procedure and the various protections embodied in it for accused persons.

In the light of this material, it was indicated to me that the Libyan government was satisfied regarding the fairness of a criminal trial in Scotland but that since Libyan law prevented the extradition of nationals for trial overseas, the ultimate decision on surrender for trial would have to be one taken voluntarily by the accused persons themselves, in consultation with their independent legal advisers. For this purpose a meeting was convened in Tripoli in October 1993 of the international team of lawyers which had already been appointed to represent the accused. This team consisted of lawyers from Scotland, England, Malta, Switzerland and the United States and was chaired by the principal Libyan lawyer for the accused, Dr Ibrahim Legwell. The Libyan government asked me to be present in Tripoli while the team was meeting so that the government itself would have access to independent Scottish legal advice should the need arise. However, the Libyan government expectation was clearly that the outcome of the meeting of the defence team would be a decision by the two accused voluntarily to agree to stand trial in Scotland.

I am able personally to testify to how much of a surprise and embarrassment it was to the Libyan government when the outcome of the meeting of the defence team was an announcement that the accused were not prepared to surrender themselves for trial in Scotland. In the course of a private meeting that I had a day later with Dr Legwell, he explained to me that the primary reason for the unwillingness of the accused to stand trial in Scotland was their belief that, because of unprecedented pre-trial publicity over the years, a Scottish jury could not possibly bring to their consideration of the evidence in this case the degree of impartiality and open-mindedness that accused persons are entitled to expect and that a fair trial demands. A secondary consideration was the issue of the physical security of the accused if the trial were to be held in Scotland. Not that it was being contended that ravening mobs of enraged Scottish citizens would storm Barlinnie prison, seize the accused and string them up from the nearest lamp posts. Rather, the fear was that they might be snatched by special forces of the United States, removed to America and put on trial there (or, like Lee Harvey Oswald, suffer an unfortunate accident before being put on trial).

The Libyan government attitude remained, as it always had been, that they had no constitutional authority to hand their citizens over to the Scottish authorities for trial. The question of voluntary surrender for trial was one for the accused and their legal advisers, and while the Libyan government would place no obstacles in the path of, and indeed would welcome, such a course of action, there was nothing that it could lawfully do to achieve it.

Having mulled over the concerns expressed to me by Dr Legwell in October 1993, I returned to Tripoli and on 10 January 1994 presented a letter to him suggesting a means of resolving the impasse created by the insistence of the governments of the United Kingdom and United States that the accused be surrendered for trial in Scotland or America and the adamant refusal of the accused to submit themselves for trial by jury in either of these countries. This was a detailed proposal, but in essence its principal elements were: that a trial be held outside Scotland, ideally in the Netherlands, in which the governing law and procedure would be that followed in Scottish criminal trials on indictment but with this major alteration, namely that the jury of 15 persons which is a feature of that procedure be replaced by a panel of judges who would have the responsibility of deciding not only questions of law but also the ultimate question of whether the guilt of the accused had been established on the evidence beyond reasonable doubt.

In a letter to me dated 12 January 1994, Dr Legwell stated that he had consulted his clients, that this scheme was wholly acceptable to them and that if it were implemented by the government of the United Kingdom the suspects would voluntarily surrender themselves for trial before a tribunal so constituted. By a letter of the same date the Deputy Foreign Minister of Libya stated that his government approved of the proposal and would place no obstacles in the path of its two citizens should they elect to submit to trial under this scheme.

On my return to the United Kingdom I submitted the relevant documents to the Foreign Office in London and the Crown Office (the headquarters of the Scottish prosecution service) in Edinburgh. Their immediate response was that this scheme was impossible, impracticable and inherently undesirable, with the clear implication that I had taken leave of what few senses nature had endowed me with. That remained the attitude of successive Lord Advocates and Foreign Secretaries for four years and seven months. During this period the British government's stance remained consistent: United Nations Security Council Resolutions placed upon the government of Libya a binding international legal obligation to hand over the accused for trial to the UK or the US authorities. Nothing else would do. If Libyan law did not currently permit the extradition of its own nationals to stand trial overseas, then Libya should simply alter its law (and, if necessary, its Constitution) to enable it to fulfil its international duty.

However, from about late July 1998, following interventions supporting my “neutral venue” scheme from, amongst others, President Nelson Mandela, there began to be leaks from UK government sources to the effect that a policy change over Lockerbie was imminent; and on 24 August 1998 the governments of the United Kingdom and United States announced that they had reversed their stance on the matter of a "neutral venue" trial.

Although many within the governments of Britain and the United States and within the media were sceptical, the suspects did eventually, on 5 April 1999, surrender themselves for trial before the Scottish court at Camp Zeist. That trial, after lengthy delays necessitated by the defence's need for adequate time to prepare, started on 3 May 2000 and a verdict of guilty was returned against one of the accused, and of not guilty against the other, on 31 January 2001.

I feel a measure of pride in the part that I, a Lockerbie boy born and bred, played in resolving an international impasse and in bringing the trial about. I have reason to suspect, however, that the United Kingdom government feels no sense of gratitude towards me. And I feel no pride whatsoever in the outcome of the proceedings. The conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on the evidence led at the trial constitutes, in my view, a flagrant miscarriage of justice, and one that I hope to live to see rectified as a result of the reference of the case back for a further appeal by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in June 2007.

Many in Lockerbie hoped, I think, that the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy would signal an end to the town’s exposure to the eyes of the world. Regrettably, because of the Crown’s delaying tactics, it looks as if the new appeal will not be concluded before 21 December 2008. But the town’s wish will surely be fulfilled before the twenty-first anniversary and Lockerbie will be permitted to sink back into decent obscurity. But future generations will be grateful that, before that happened, Jill Haldane had the vision and the persistence to find a way of ensuring that the voices of the people of Lockerbie were heard and preserved.