Rouhani's tweet indicates Iran was to blame for Lockerbie

[This is the headline over a report by Greg Russell in today's edition of The National. It reads as follows:]

A leading figure in the Lockerbie trial has said he believes that a social media post from the Iranian president refers to the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 and Iran’s responsibility for it.

Hassan Rouhani posted a tweet in response to President Donald Trump’s threat to target 52 sites in Iran should it retaliate against the US drone strike that killed top Iranian military figure General Qassem Soleimani on Friday.

Rouhani tweeted: “Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655. Never threaten the Iranian nation.”

The number 290 is a reference to the number of passengers on board Iranian Airways flight IR655 who died when the US Navy accidentally shot down their plane over the Persian Gulf in summer 1988.

Five months later, 270 people died when Pan Am flight 103 crashed in Lockerbie after a bomb exploded on board.

Blame for the attack fell on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Libya, although Western intelligence agencies believed Iran had ordered the bombing in retaliation for America’s downing of its plane in July.

Speaking to The National as Iran continued to mourn Soleimani, Robert Black QC, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh, said: “I think Rouhani’s tweet does refer to Pan Am 103 … The 290 clearly refers to those killed on Iran Air 655 and with ‘Never threaten the Iranian nation’ it seems to me that he’s saying that Iran responded to those Iranian deaths caused by US action.

“The only response that I can think of was the bombing of Pan Am 103 six months later.”

Middle East analyst Fatima Alasrar, from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, also indicated the link between Rouhani’s tweet and Lockerbie.

She wrote: “Rouhani is basically reminding @realDonaldTrump of the #Iranian Air Flight 655 carrying 290 passengers which was downed by a US navy warship the Vincennes in 1988.

“Though it was deemed a human error, Tehran worked covertly to exact its revenge.

“How? #Lockerbie.

“Boeing 747 airline Pan Am exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 and was assumed to be an operation conducted by the Libyans when it was #Iran who orchestrated the downing of the plane and paid the Libyans to do it.

“After years of denying, Rouhani just admitted to it!”

Black was born and raised in Lockerbie and has published many articles on the atrocity.

He is often referred to as the architect of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

The QC said other analysts shared Alasrar’s view: “Quite a lot of area experts in addition to Fatima Alasrar are interpreting the tweet as an implied admission (or boast) of responsibility for Lockerbie, for example Kyle Orton [who wrote] ‘The accidental shoot-down of Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988 convinced Khomeini to accept the ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq War. It has long been suspected that the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie five months later was Iran’s revenge. Rouhani seems to be taking responsibility’.”

Has President Rouhani acknowledged Iran's responsibility for Lockerbie?

[What follows is excerpted from a report in today's edition of the Daily Express:]

Donald Trump has been warned to expect another Lockerbie by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, as Iran continued to mourn the death of its top military leader Qassem Soleimani.

Mr Rouhani responded to the US President’s threat to strike 52 Iranian sites, by posting a cryptic tweet in which he told America to never threaten Iran and to “remember the number 290”. He wrote: “Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290.#IR655. Never threaten the Iranian nation.”

The figure 290 refers to the total number of passengers on Iranian Airways flight IR655 who died when their plane was accidentally shot down over the Persian Gulf by the US Navy in July 1988.

In December of the same year, Pan Am flight 103 crashed in Lockerbie after a bomb exploded on board, killing all 270 passengers.

Although Colonel Gaddafi and Libya were blamed for the terrorist attack, Western intelligence agencies believed that Iran ordered the bombing in retaliation for the downing of its plane in July.

Mr Rouhani’s post has been interpreted by some Middle East experts as a veiled reference to the Lockerbie tragedy and an implicit acknowledgement of their involvement in the affair.

Fatima Alasrar, a Middle East analyst from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, linked Rouhani's tweet with the Lockerbie disaster.

She wrote: “Rouhani is basically reminding @realDonaldTrump of the #Iranian Air Flight 655 carrying 290 passengers which was downed by a US navy warship the Vincennes in 1988.

“Though it was deemed a human error, Tehran worked covertly to exact its revenge. How? #Lockerbie.”

She added: 'Boeing 747 airline Pan Am exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 and was assumed to be an operation conducted by the Libyans when it was #Iran who orchestrated the downing of the plane and paid the Libyans to do it.

“After years of denying, Rouhani just admitted to it!”

[RB: A longer article along the same lines appears today in the Daily Mail. In February 2016 barrister David Wolchover wrote an article setting out the evidence for Iran and Rouhani's responsibility for Lockerbie.]

Donald Trump, 'Mad Alex' and Megrahi

[What follows is extracted from a long article in today's edition of The Sunday Times in which Stephen McGinty interviews George Sorial, a lawyer and former top executive in the Trump organisation:]

As a lawyer in New Jersey, Sorial first met Trump when he was representing a group of Wall Street executives who wanted to turn the estate of John DeLorean, the disgraced car manufacturer, into a golf course. When Trump bought the project, Sorial negotiated the deal and later bonded with the property billionaire over the fact that both their mothers were born in Stornoway. (...)

Sorial, who was executive vice president of the Trump Organisation, keeps his power dry for Alex Salmond, who as first minister started as Trump’s champion and supporter before clashing over a proposed wind farm off the Aberdeenshire coast. In the book he argues that Salmond misunderstood Trump from the beginning when the first minister’s staff booked an expensive French restaurant in New York for an early meeting. Trump prefers steak and hot dogs.

As Sorial explains: “In public Trump called him ‘Mad Alex’ but in the office we would refer to him privately as ‘stupid bastard’. I can’t tell when the two of them had a proper falling out. The release of Al Megrahi [convicted for the Lockerbie bombing] was a remarkable moment. He called me trying to persuade me to speak to Mr Trump to support (the release). He sent us a statement that he wanted Mr Trump to issue publicly and I’ll never forget walking into the office. We were all New Yorkers. Personally one of my classmates J P Flynn was on Pan Am 104 (sic). That point was the first sign of his stupidity.

“Another time he tried to persuade us to purchase The Scotsman. He thought it would be a great move for us and for Scotland. We had no interest in a newspaper that nobody reads and is so laden with debt - talk about a bad deal. It was another one of many things that Salmond would try and sell us. But they were very different personalities.”

[Alex Salmond's reaction to this story is reported in Monday's edition of The Times, as follows:]

A spokesman for Mr Salmond said that Mr Sorial’s memory “is playing tricks again” and insisted that “at no stage did Alex consider Donald Trump as a likely or serious investor in The Scotsman”.

He added: “The Trump Organisation wanted Alex to move the site of the [offshore] turbines. The first minister refused to countenance that and they then took the Scottish government to court three times and lost three times.

“Two years after the decision to release Mr Megrahi on compassionate grounds the SNP were re-elected as the Scottish government by an absolute majority in a proportional parliament.”

Mr Salmond had been lined up as the figurehead for a takeover of Johnston Press, the owner of The Scotsman, by the Norwegian investor, Christen Ager-Hanssen, last year. However, he was dropped amid fears that his involvement would be too political.

"Low profile" warning to Americans dates back to Lockerbie

[What follows is excerpted from an article headlined The US embassy in the UK is telling Americans to “keep a low profile” during Trump’s visit published yesterday on the Vox website:]

The US Embassy in London is warning Americans to “keep a low profile” when President Donald Trump visits the UK from July 12 to 14.

Here’s why: Protesters who disagree with the US president’s policies are planning to stage multiple demonstrations during Trump’s trip. Most are set to take place on July 13, when Trump meets UK Prime Minister Theresa May and Queen Elizabeth.

And while this might sound extreme, it’s actually not. There are two reasons why.

“There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the alert. We send these out all the time,” Courtney Austrian, a spokesperson for the US mission in London, told me.

That practice dates back to 1998 [RB: this should, of course, be 1988], when a terrorist blew up Pan Am Flight 103 in an incident now known as the Lockerbie bombing. (The plane exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.) There were allegations afterward that the US government told employees it had intelligence of a terrorist attempt, which prompted officials to change their flight plans. It’s unclear if those claims were true or not. [RB: From The Helsinki warning: "On 5 December 1988 (16 days prior to the attack), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a security bulletin saying that, on that day, a man with an Arabic accent had telephoned the US Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, and told them that a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt to the United States would be blown up within the next two weeks ... The anonymous warning was taken seriously by the US government, and the State Department cabled the bulletin to dozens of embassies. The FAA sent it to all US carriers, including Pan Am, which had charged each of the passengers a $5 security surcharge..."]

But since those allegations, US embassies around the world now give the same warnings to citizens as they do to employees, says Austrian. She added that embassy staff gets warnings like this all the time for mass demonstrations, which is why there is a warning now for all Americans.

US won’t disclose fate of $500 million paid by Libya for Lockerbie bombing victims

[This is the headline over a report published yesterday on the Breitbart

News website. It reads in part:]

The US government refuses to say whether it will keep or return the estimated $500 million that remains from the $1.5 billion Libya-sponsored fund intended to compensate American victims of terrorism following the 1988 attack on Pan American World Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a US State Department official acknowledged that the US government paid some of this money to victims of other terrorist attacks, not just Lockerbie. Libya’s government was linked to the assault on the Pan-Am aircraft.

In a statement to Breitbart News, the State official said:

Shortly after the [$1.5 billion] settlement was received [from Libya], the State Department paid amounts to the PanAm 103 victims, LaBelle Disco bombing victims, and estates of victims who had died in other terrorist attacks that were the subject of litigation pending against Libya in US courts These payments amounted to over $1 billion.

According to State, about $500 million remained in the fund. Public data online shows that the US government has only awarded an estimated $37.7 million, indicating that much larger portion of the $1.5 billion is leftover.

Asked whether the US government will keep the leftover funds or return the money to Libya, US President Donald Trump’s administration would not say.

“In the event there are any residual balances in the Fund Account at the time of the Fund’s expiration, those balances will be transferred pursuant to arrangements agreed between the parties,” noted the 2008 US-Libya settlement of $1.5 billion awarded by the African country.US government officials declined to tell Breitbart News what the “agreed arrangements” are.

The settlement agreement dictates that the $1.5 billion is intended to compensate US victims of “an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, hostage taking or detention or other terrorist act, or the provision of material support or resources for such an act; or by military measures” at the hands of Libya.

Under former US President Barack Obama, the American government issued compensation referrals for individuals who were not affected by Lockerbie “because there were some remaining settlement funds,” acknowledged the State official, noting that the same thing happened under former President George W Bush.

The US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Foreign Claims Settlement Commission (FCSC) is charged with deciding who gets the Libya funds.

FCSC officials recently denied a request by about 50 former Pan Am pilots to recover $46.5 million ($75.3 million with interest) from the Libya-subsidized funds. Whether $500 million or more remains in the Libya-sponsored fund, there is definitely enough money to cover the Pan-Am pilots’ claim.

The pilots, many of them senior citizens now who served in the US military, have argued that the Lockerbie attack prompted the demise of Pan Am, which resulted in them losing their jobs and pensions.

However, FCSC officials contended that the Lockerbie incident did not lead to PanAm’s demise and therefore had nothing to do with the pilots losing their jobs.

‘‘We brought in the CIA... the Scots… MI5”

[What follows is excerpted from a long article headlined How Donald Trump Misunderstood the FBI that was published yesterday in The New York Times Magazine:]

President George W Bush [chose] Robert Mueller as the sixth director of the FBI.

Born into a wealthy family, Mueller exemplified ‘‘the tradition of the ‘muscular Christian’ that came out of the English public-school world of the 19th century,’’ Maxwell King, Mueller’s classmate at St Paul’s, the elite New England prep school, told me. Mueller arrived at FBI headquarters with a distinguished military record — he earned a bronze star as a Marine in Vietnam — and years of service as a United States attorney and Justice Department official. It was a week before the Sept 11 attacks, and he was inheriting an agency ill suited for the mission that would soon loom enormously before it. Richard A Clarke, the White House counterterrorism czar under Clinton and Bush, later wrote that [Louis] Freeh’s FBI had not done enough to seek out foreign terrorists. Clarke also wrote that Freeh’s counterterror chief, Dale Watson, had told him: ‘‘We have to smash the FBI into bits and rebuild it.’’

Mueller had already earned the respect of the FBI rank and file during his tenure as chief of the criminal division of the Justice Department. When he started work at the Justice Department in 1990, the FBI had been trying and failing for two years to solve the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. ‘‘The FBI was not set up to deal with a major investigation like this,’’ Richard Marquise, an FBI intelligence analyst who became the leader of the Lockerbie investigation under Mueller, said in an FBI oral history. ‘‘I blame the institution.’’

Mueller used his power under law to obliterate the FBI’s byzantine flow charts of authority in the case. ‘‘We literally cut out the chains of command,’’ Marquise said. ‘‘We brought in the CIA. We brought the Scots. We brought MI5 to Washington. And we sat down and we said: ‘We need to change the way we’re doing business.... We need to start sharing information.’ ’’ It was a tip from the Scots that put Marquise on the trail of the eventual suspect: one of Col Muammar el-Qaddafi’s intelligence officers, whose cover was security chief for the Libyan state airlines. Qaddafi’s spy, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, was indicted in 1991. It took until the turn of the 21st century, but he was convicted.

It meant a great deal to Mueller, in the Lockerbie case, that the evidence the FBI produced be deployed as evidence in court, not justification for war. In a speech he gave at Stanford University in 2002, concerning the nation’s newest threat, he spoke of ‘‘the balance we must strike to protect our national security and our civil liberties as we address the threat of terrorism.’’ He concluded: ‘‘We will be judged by history, not just on how we disrupt and deter terrorism, but also on how we protect the civil liberties and the constitutional rights of all Americans, including those Americans who wish us ill. We must do both of these things, and we must do them exceptionally well.’’

Special counsel Robert Mueller and Lockerbie

[What follows is excerpted from a report published late yesterday on the website of The New York Times:]

The Justice Department appointed Robert S Mueller III, a former FBI director, as special counsel on Wednesday to oversee the investigation into ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials, dramatically raising the legal and political stakes in an affair that has threatened to engulf Mr. Trump’s four-month-old presidency.

The decision by the deputy attorney general, Rod J Rosenstein, came after a cascade of damaging developments for Mr. Trump in recent days, including his abrupt dismissal of the FBI director, James B Comey, and the subsequent disclosure that Mr Trump asked Mr Comey to drop the investigation of his former national security adviser, Michael T Flynn. (...)

While Mr Mueller remains answerable to Mr Rosenstein — and by extension, the president — he will have greater autonomy to run an investigation than other federal prosecutors.

As a special counsel, Mr Mueller can choose whether to consult with or inform the Justice Department about his investigation. He is authorized to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” according to Mr Rosenstein’s order naming him to the post, as well as other matters that “may arise directly from the investigation.” (...)

Mr Rosenstein, who until recently was United States attorney in Maryland, took control of the investigation because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself after acknowledging he had failed to disclose meetings he had with the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey I Kislyak, when Mr Sessions was an adviser to the Trump campaign. (...)

Mr Mueller’s appointment was hailed by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, who view him as one of the most credible law enforcement officials in the country. (...)

Mr. Mueller served both Democratic and Republican presidents. President Barack Obama asked him to stay two years beyond the 10-year term until he appointed Mr Comey in 2013, the only time a modern-day FBI director’s tenure has been extended.

[RB: Mr Mueller has featured regularly on this blog. Perhaps the most egregious of his ill-advised interventions in the Lockerbie case was the remarkable letter sent to Kenny MacAskill after the release of Megrahi in August 2009. The late and much lamented Ian Bell wrote a blistering article in the Sunday Herald about this letter headlined What do US cops know about justice?]

Donald Trump equates wind farms to Lockerbie disaster

[This is the headline over an article published in The Huffington Post on this date in 2014. It reads in part:]

Donald Trump has compared the development of wind farms in Scotland to the Lockerbie disaster.

In yet another bizarre attack on green energy schemes, the billionaire tycoon announced “wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103.”

All 259 passengers and crew on board the flight and 11 residents of Lockerbie were killed when the Boeing 747 plunged from the skies over Dumfries and Galloway on 21 December, 1988.

The crass comments have sparked outrage from MPs and grieving families alike.

He made the remarks after green campaigners in Scotland urged the Scottish government not to “waste another second” on Trump and his controversial golf resort development, after he lost a legal challenge to an offshore wind farm project.

In an interview with the Irish Times, Trump again showcased his true passion of hating wind farms.

“Wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103. They make people sick with the continuous noise.

“They’re an abomination and are only sustained with government subsidy. Scotland is in the middle of a revolution against wind farms.”

Susan Cohen’s daughter was killed in the disaster. She told The Scotsman Trump had chosen an “unfortunate choice of words.”

“I wish he had not made that comparison. Lockerbie was a ghastly tragedy that destroyed many lives and is beyond comparison. It is one of the great and terrible events of man’s inhumanity to man and therefore it’s of an order where it should not be likened to anything.”

Joan McAlpine, the SNP MSP for the South of Scotland blasted the “unbelievably crass,” comments, saying they “show a complete lack of respect to the families affected by the Lockerbie bombing – in the US, Scotland and across the world.”

In December 2012, Trump was accused of “sinking to a new low” and being “sick” for publishing an advert in Scottish newspapers which linked the government’s support of wind farms with the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

The US billionaire revealed he was asked to support the Scottish government in the days following Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds.

Donald Trump ‘sick’ for using Lockerbie in a rant against wind farms

[This is the headline over a report that appeared in The Scotsman on this date in 2012. It reads in part:]

Tycoon Donald Trump has been accused of “sinking to a new low” and being “sick” for linking his opposition to wind farms in Scotland to the Lockerbie disaster.

The Scottish Green Party has lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority over a controversial advert published in two regional newspapers.

In the full-page advert, the US billionaire – who has publicly denounced plans for an offshore wind farm near his new golf resort in Aberdeenshire – urges the public to protest against First Minister Alex Salmond’s support for renewable energy.

Under the banner “Is this the future for Scotland?” his protest displays a picture of a huge wind farm in California. It states: “Tourism will suffer and the beauty of your country is in jeopardy!

“This is the same mind that backed the release of terrorist al-Megrahi, ‘for humane reasons’ – after he ruthlessly killed 270 people on Pan-Am flight 103 over Lockerbie.”

Green Party co-convener Patrick Harvie MSP said: “Trump has sunk to a new low. Linking renewables policy to Lockerbie victims is sick.

“Not only did he have no shred of evidence that tourism would suffer when we quizzed him during the parliament’s inquiry into renewables, he has already been censured by the authorities for placing similar anti-renewables adverts.

“Trump’s organisation has already trashed a unique environment on the coast of Aberdeenshire and trampled on the rights of local people.

“Now he appears to be determined to buy up chunks of the Scottish press. It’s vital that Scotland doesn’t allow a bully to think he can flash his cash and get his own way.”

Sturgeon faces uphill battle with Donald Trump over his Lockerbie bomber fury

This is the headline over an article by Siobhan McFadyen published in today’s edition of the Daily Express. It reads in part:]

It was revealed that Ms Sturgeon plans to pen a letter to the billionaire and has not received a phone call despite the fact the Scottish Government was once on amiable terms.

The SNP leader and her predecessor, who called on Mr Trump to be banned from the UK, were once so close he was lobbied over plans to release the Lockerbie bomber.

And a drafted statement was even created that said the billionaire had supported the obtuse plan, a move that backfired extraordinarily, leading to an absolute break down in relations.

Millions of people in Scotland and the United States were revolted when former Justice Secretary Kenny MacKaskill allowed Abdel Basset Al Megrahi to go free following the Pan Am 103 bombing.

A total of 270 men, women and children died when the aircraft which was on route to the United States exploded over Scottish airspace.

And as the Scottish saltire flag flew on the tarmac of the airport in Tripoli the decision infuriated Mr Trump who was later stripped of an honorary Scottish business ambassador title. (...)

Mr [Donald] Trump Jnr said: “Once we refused to support the ridiculous notion of letting an international terrorist out of jail, the entire approach of Alex Salmond’s administration and the entire way he has treated us changed drastically for the worse.”

An e-mail which was sent to the billionaire businessman by Geoff Aberdein, Mr Salmond’s senior adviser, who now works for Aberdeen Asset Management, showed just how off the mark the SNP were.

Mr Trump Jnr said: “As New Yorkers, we are not unfamiliar with terrorists. We had planes fly into the World Trade Centre. And for us to support the release of an international terrorist, we would be run out of New York City, if not America.” (...)

In January Mr Trump reiterated his irritation at Salmond whose deputy through-out his tenure was 46-year-old Sturgeon.

He fumed: "Megrahi and others were laughing out loud at what a stupid man Alex Salmond is. Why would a terrorist that blew up an airliner with so many lives lost be released under any circumstances?

"Alex Salmond is an embarrassment to Scotland.”

[RB: President-elect Trump is the man who compared the development of wind farms in Scotland to the Lockerbie disaster. Some of his other interventions on Lockerbie and Megrahi can be read here. As regards Scots being “revolted” by the release of Megrahi, a public opinion poll commissioned by the Express itself two years after his repatriation and before his death showed a majority in favour.]

President-elect Trump and Lockerbie

[President-elect Donald Trump has featured on many occasions over the years on this blog. The relevant posts can be read here. What follows is a sample from 13 February 2014:]

Wind farms like Lockerbie disaster - Donald Trump

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

Donald Trump sparked renewed outrage yesterday when he compared the development of wind farms in Scotland to the Lockerbie disaster.

On Tuesday, the billionaire tycoon announced that the Trump Organisation would be turning its back on Scotland and concentrating on developing a new course on the Republic of Ireland’s Atlantic coast.

The announcement came after Trump lost his legal challenge against the Scottish Government’s decision to give the go-ahead to an offshore wind farm in Aberdeen Bay which he claims will blight the view from his luxury golf resort at Menie, on the Aberdeenshire coast.

But yesterday, Trump sparked an angry backlash after renewing his attack on green energy schemes in Scotland in an interview with The Irish Times.

He told the newspaper: “Wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103. They make people sick with the continuous noise. They’re an abomination and are only sustained with government subsidy. Scotland is in the middle of a revolution against wind farms. People don’t want them near their homes, ruining property values.” (...)

Trump’s outburst was condemned by MSPs and relatives of the victims.

Susan Cohen, a New Jersey pensioner whose daughter Theodora, an aspiring actress, was 20 when she was killed in the disaster, said: “Obviously, there is no call for that. Donald Trump says many, many things here in the United States and I am, of course, appreciative of anyone who takes a tough stand on Lockerbie which he did at times.

“But, at the same time, I think that is an unfortunate choice of words. I wish he had not made that comparison. Lockerbie was a ghastly tragedy that destroyed many lives and is beyond comparison. It is one of the great and terrible events of man’s inhumanity to man and therefore it’s of an order where it should not be likened to anything.”

Joan McAlpine, the SNP MSP for the South of Scotland, claimed: “Even by Donald Trump’s standards, these comments are unbelievably crass and show a complete lack of respect to the families affected by the Lockerbie bombing – in the US, Scotland and across the world. He should withdraw them as a matter of urgency and apologise for any offence he has caused.”

Alison Johnstone, a Green Party MSP for the Lothians and member of Holyrood’s economy, energy and tourism committee, also hit out at the tycoon’s remarks. She said: “It’s grossly offensive to link renewables with the Lockerbie bombing. Mr Trump has already been reprimanded by advertising authorities for making such distasteful statements and he should apologise for his continued crass behaviour.” Ms Johnstone added: “He didn’t have a shred of evidence that renewables are bad for tourism when he was quizzed in parliament. Twelve-thousand people are now employed in renewables in Scotland, proving that Mr Trump knows nothing about the Scottish economy.”

In December 2012, Trump was accused of “sinking to a new low” and being “sick” for publishing an advert in Scottish newspapers which linked the government’s support of wind farms with the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

The Scottish Green Party lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority over the controversial advert, published in two regional newspapers and urging the public to protest against First Minister Alex Salmond’s support for renewable energy.

Under the banner “Is this the future for Scotland?” the advert featured a picture of a huge wind farm in California and a photograph of the First Minister.

It stated: “Tourism will suffer and the beauty of your country is in jeopardy! This is the same mind that backed the release of terrorist al-Megrahi ‘for humane reasons’ – after he ruthlessly killed 270 people on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie.”

The advert was condemned as “misleading” by the Advertising Standards Authority. (...)

[David Milne, a long-standing opponent of the Trump resort:]

Words have been used by Mr Trump on many occasions to accuse others of impropriety and inappropriate behaviour, with little in the way of evidence to support his claims. Having read the Court of Session decision by Lord Doherty, he obviously came to a similar conclusion about the evidence supplied by Mr Trump in that situation.

Unfortunately, grandiose words seem to have failed Mr Trump this time and his use of the Lockerbie bombing in comparison to wind turbines is not acceptable.

To diminish the suffering of the families of that event by trying to compare an international terrorist event that killed people of several nationalities with an attempt to protect and extend the environment of our planet is insensitive and ill considered. I am certain even some of his own supporters back in the USA will be shocked.

Trump slams Alex Salmond and Hillary Clinton over Megrahi release

[What follows is excerpted from a report in today’s edition of The Sunday Times:]

A fresh war of words has broken out between Donald Trump and Alex Salmond after the American billionaire described Scotland’s former first minister as “dumb” for allowing the Lockerbie bomber to be freed on compassionate grounds.

Trump also rounded on Hillary Clinton, his potential rival for the US presidency, following recent claims that in 2009, when she was secretary of state, Clinton did not strongly oppose the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, despite official opposition to the move by the White House.

Trump, the presumptive Republican party’s presidential nominee, told The Sunday Times last week that it was “very sad and very stupid that [Megrahi] was released. Only Salmond and Hillary could be so dumb”.

His comments follow the publication of a book on the Lockerbie bombing by Kenny MacAskill, the former justice secretary who decided to free the terminally ill Megrahi from a Scottish prison. He was sent home to Libya and died in 2012.

According to MacAskill, Clinton phoned a week before Megrahi’s release and appeared to be “simply going through the motions” when she voiced concerns about the move.

It later emerged that the US government indicated a preference for Megrahi to be freed on compassionate grounds rather than transferred to a Libyan jail.

Trump later claimed that Salmond asked him to speak out in favour of the decision to release Megrahi. The tycoon refused. On Friday, Salmond accused Trump of having “problems with his memory”.

The SNP MP for Gordon in Aberdeenshire claimed that in 2011, two years after Megrahi’s release, Trump offered to endorse Salmond in the Scottish parliament election. Salmond said that he “politely declined”.

“Trump is clearly having further problems with his memory,” said Salmond.

“When I spoke to him on the phone on this issue in 2009 he seemed quite comfortable with the Megrahi release when he thought it was part of some economic deal. It was only when I told him that the Scottish government were following the precepts of Scots law with no financial advantage whatsoever that he seemed to find it more difficult to understand.

“At any rate he couldn’t have been too upset since he volunteered to publicly endorse me as first minister two years later in the Scottish election campaign of 2011. I politely declined his offer.”

Salmond said “at no stage” did Clinton support Megrahi’s release, although both the Bush and Obama administrations “knew it was the policy of the UK government, since they were all angling for the same economic and oil deals with Colonel Gaddafi”.

[RB: Very senior officials of the Gaddafi regime told me shortly before Megrahi’s release that repatriation (if granted by the Scottish Government) had been cleared with the US administration, but that there would be lots of huffing and puffing for US internal political reasons.]