Judges back Lockerbie evidence suppression

[This is the headline over a report published on the website of The Guardian on this date in 2008. It reads in part:]

A legal battle to release a secret intelligence report which could free the Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is to continue after judges ruled the foreign secretary had the right to suppress the document.

The ruling from the Lord Justice General, Lord Hamilton, dashes the hopes of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi that he would be quickly released.

It emerged last year that two secret papers had been given to the UK by a foreign government in September 1996, four years before al-Megrahi's trial began, but had never been disclosed to his defence team even though Scottish police and prosecutors had seen them.

Last July, the Scottish criminal cases review commission said that one of those documents raised further doubts about his guilt, and had played a key role in its decision to return al-Megrahi's conviction to the appeal court. It refused to disclose its contents or origin, however.

The Libyan's lawyers claim the document is essential to his appeal and are contesting the decision by the foreign secretary, David Miliband, to grant public interest immunity suppressing the papers on behalf of the British government.

The lawyers told three appeal judges last month that only the Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, had the right to withhold papers in a Scottish court and she had said she had no objection to them being released.

However, the judges ruled that the Lord Advocate had said that disclosure of those papers was a decision for the foreign secretary – an opinion they upheld. Al-Megrahi's lawyers will make a further attempt to force disclosure of the documents later this summer.

Miliband has told the court that releasing either document would cause "real harm" to the UK's national security, its counter-terrorism efforts and its relations with the country which supplied the papers.

Government lawyers have denied claims it came from the US government or the CIA, but said the foreign government involved had refused requests to release it.

Al-Megrahi, then a sanctions buster for Colonel Muammar Gadafy, was convicted in 2001 of murdering 270 passengers, crew and townspeople after planting a suitcase bomb in Malta which eventually blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, the small town in south west Scotland.

Desperate measure to influence the conduct of the court

[What follows is the text of a statement issued on this date in 2008 by Professor Hans Köchler:]

Los Angeles, 25 February 2008

P/RE/20878c-is

Upon conclusion of an information and consultation visit on international law issues to the Asia-Pacific region, Dr Hans Koechler today issued the following statement on the decision of the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary not to allow the disclosure of a document, provided by a “Foreign Government,” that is related to the electronic timer device which supposedly triggered the explosion of a bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103:

1. The continued withholding of evidence related to the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi makes a new appeal actually impossible.  Should the document in question not be made available, criminal proceedings under Scots Law will have to be terminated.

2. The behavior of the British Government is in contravention to the commitment it made vis-à-vis the United Nations Organization prior to the adoption of Security Council resolution 1192 (1998) to enable a fair and independent trial of the two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie case under Scots Law.

3. The invocation of “Public Interest Immunity” (PII) – unprecedented in the history of Scottish criminal justice – is tantamount to political interference into the Appeal Court’s conduct. It is obvious that criminal proceedings cannot be fair if the Defense is denied access to a piece of evidence (document) which has been revealed to the Prosecution.

4. Under the highly politicized circumstances of the Lockerbie Trial, the issuing of a PII certificate by the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom appears to be a rather desperate measure to influence the conduct of the court in a manner favorable to the British Government; it further strains the constitutional relations between Scotland and the United Kingdom.

5. The separation of powers between the Executive and Judiciary is a basic characteristic of the rule of law. In the present case, this principle is violated because of the outright interference of the British Government in a matter of the Scottish Judiciary.

6. The British Government’s interference makes devolution of authority in matters of Criminal Justice to Scotland entirely meaningless.  What is the meaning of “devolution” if a Scottish Court is prevented from operating according to its own rules? Scots Law is not to be administered under the terms of a Protectorate. The crucial question will now be whether the Scots will be able to assert their (constitutional) independence in devolved matters.

7. It is to be hoped that the Scottish Judges will uphold the independence of the Judiciary and will reject the British Government’s interference. A court of law is transformed into a political body should the Judges allow this kind of interference.

8. The persistent refusal of the UK Government to allow the disclosure of vital evidence to the Defense points into the direction of a cover-up. In the context of the irregularities at the Lockerbie trial and appeal in the Netherlands  (described in the undersigned’s reports of 2001 and 2002), this development demonstrates the need for an independent investigation under a United Nations mandate– especially since the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has declared that a “miscarriage of justice” may have occurred.

9. The convicted Libyan national has a right to a genuine judicial review of his verdict outside the confines of international realpolitik. In June 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case back to the High Court of Justiciary for a second appeal. If appeal proceedings are now made impossible due to the British Executive’s interference, Mr Al Megrahi will be denied his right to fair trial under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In this case, he will be entitled to proceed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Sensitive information from a foreign government

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on this date in 2000 on the BBC News website:]

The Lockerbie trial is to be delayed again after "sensitive" information was given to the prosecution by a government.

In an unexpected development, Scotland's Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC told the judges on Monday it was impossible to proceed without further enquiries.

He gave few details to the court but confirmed that the information was related to the defence case and did not come from the United States.

Although some witnesses will be heard on Tuesday, the judges, with defence agreement, agreed then to adjourn the trial until Tuesday, 17 October.

On Monday the court at Camp Zeist in Holland was due to hear more evidence relating to the special defences of incrimination put forward by the two accused men.

They have denied all charges against them, blaming others for the atrocity including Mohamed Abo Talb, a former commander in the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front.

Talb, who was jailed for life in 1989 for bombing an airline's office in Copenhagen, was expected to give evidence as a prosecution witness on Monday.

The prosecution declined to comment further on the delay and a Crown Office spokesman said: "We can give no further information other than that given to the court by the lord advocate."

Mr Boyd told the court he had received the new information on Thursday and enquiries were carried out on Friday.

He said: "The matters raised by this information are of some complexity and considerable sensitivity. They relate not to the Crown case but to the defence case.

"Enquiries are continuing but it is likely, though not certain, that I will conclude that the information ought to be disclosed to the defence.

"However there are a number of difficult issues which require to be resolved before any disclosure is possible.

"The sensitivity of the enquiries is such that I am unable to give any further explanation at this stage."

Mr Boyd said it would be "inappropriate" to lead further Crown evidence relating to the special defences as the new information could have a bearing on the cross examination of witnesses.

William Taylor QC, defence counsel for Al Megrahi, told the judges he was "as much in the dark" as them about the reasons for the adjournment and therefore in no position to object to it.

However he added: "I am conscious that my client has now been in custody for some considerable time and any delay further extends that period."

Richard Keen QC, defending Fhimah, said: "It's obviously unfortunate the accused should have been in custody for one and a half years while 57 days of a trial has taken place.

"But the lord advocate was good enough to speak to myself and Mr Taylor before and I fully accept he has obligations incumbent on him in the public interest."

Presiding judge Lord Sutherland said that while a disruption to the proceedings was "unfortunate" the judges accepted the adjournment motion.

He said: "We will adjourn until next Tuesday for enquiries to be made. All we can do is express the hope that there will be sufficient time to resolve the difficulties."

[RB: I suspect that the document referred to above was not in fact provided to the defence at the Zeist trial and is the same document that was only disclosed six years later to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, and in respect of which the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, signed a Public Interest Immunity certificate to prevent its being revealed to Megrahi’s legal team for the subsequent appeal. The contents of the document were made public in a report in The Herald in June 2012. Kenny MacAskill made reference to it in his recent Lockerbie book: see Lockerbie: The bid to suppress evidence on this blog on 27 May 2016.]

The dead cannot cry out for justice

[What follows is excerpted from a long article published on this date in 2009 in the Malta Independent:]

The outrage expressed when the release of al-Megrahi was announced should not overshadow the memory of the trial that condemned and sentenced him.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi has never stopped reiterating his innocence and non-involvement in the blowing up of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988. (...)

As Ian Ferguson, author of the book The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie, points out: “From the start, there was a determination to try to prevent the appeal being heard. It opened but never got off the ground, with stall after stall, as each month al-Megrahi weakened with the cancer that was killing him. There was rejoicing in the Crown Office in Edinburgh when he was released and the appeal abandoned.”

In this regard, it should be ensured that beyond any hindrance or censorship, all assistance and co-operation should be extended to al-Megrahi to enable him to deservedly affirm his innocence.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) had already granted him a second appeal. His legal team has been trying to see the secret papers, which they believe could help overturn his conviction. However, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has signed a public interest(?) immunity certificate, claiming that making the document public could cause “real harm” to national security and international relations. Of course, and stopping a convicted man from proving his innocence! Is this intended to thwart any redress or amends by al-Megrahi?

When only selected evidence is available and the defence does not even get to see parts of it, then the conviction becomes unsound. (...)

It was more than nauseating to note how some dazed or perhaps swayed media played upon the trumped-up assumption of “worldwide condemnation” at his release. Oh no, nothing of the sort! What we see here is just a cynical US condemnation and filthy politics. Playing politics in this matter is the politics of the gutter!

The UK and the US have their differences regarding law and justice that they may not agree on. The elaborate and shadowy politics behind the Lockerbie trial, including these same American families that are complaining about al-Megrahi’s release, also took blood money from Ghaddafi in a $2 billion dollar settlement.

Do you not remember that US military personnel, responsible for the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655, which killed all 290 passengers including 66 children, received a medal? What remuneration did the families of the victims receive? (...)

So, US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton reiterated her opposition and condemnation to the release of the alleged Lockerbie bomber in a strongly-worded message to the Scottish government. She stressed that it was “absolutely wrong” to release Megrahi. What is she afraid of? Could it be the absolute truth?

Here I would dare to suggest two main reasons why the US administration is highlighting its opposition to this release.

Firstly, it is more than apparent to the world at large that America cannot accept a decision not in line with its policy and made by another country and is prepared to spout its wrath against it.

Secondly, according to Al-Megrahi’s lawyer, he ran the “very real risk” of dying before his appeal was heard, after a judge’s illness caused further delay in the case. It was evident that his release would eliminate this immediate danger and raise the possibilities for a final honest outcome of this affair.

Perhaps we in Europe ought to ask if the USA is indeed our ally any more. It is not customary for allies to boycott each other when they disagree.

On the other hand, high profile supporters, including Nelson Mandela and Michael Mansfield QC among others, strongly maintain that al-Megrahi is innocent.

What did the Americans want? Perhaps that he should be left to die in prison and to have the dead body handed to the US so that it could “execute” it?

Although the political furore over the release of al-Megrahi mainly centred around three countries, namely Britain, the US and Libya, there may well have been covert dealings, until now kept secret, which had been hatched in other countries. New and compelling evidence has now been released which could now well prove his innocence.

In a memo dated 24 September 1989, and reproduced in the appeal submission, the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) states: “The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran’s former Interior Minister. The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad (Jibril), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) leader, for a sum of $1 million.”

The prosecution case was that al-Megrahi took the bomb, wrapped in clothes bought from a shop in Malta, to the island’s Luqa airport, where it was checked in and then transferred on to Pan Am flight 103.

A key witness against al-Megrahi was Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who owned Mary’s House from where the police say the garments were bought.

Also, central to al-Megrahi’s conviction was the evidence of this Maltese shopkeeper, who claimed that al-Megrahi had bought clothes from him allegedly found in the suitcase bomb. Lawyers were due to claim that Gauci was paid over $2 million by US investigators for his evidence, which followed more than 20 police interviews, and that many of the often wildly conflicting statements taken on each occasion were withheld from the defence

But his police statements are inconsistent, and prosecutors failed to tell the defence that shortly before he attended an identity parade, Mr Gauci had seen a magazine article with a picture of al-Megrahi, and speculated that he might have been involved. The BBC programme has discovered that the Scottish police knew Mr Gauci had looked at al-Megrahi’s photograph just days before the line-up.

But, contrary to police rules of disclosure designed to ensure a fair trial, this crucial information was not passed on to the defence.

Besides that, if it were proven that he was rewarded, his testimony would cast doubt on its value.

The SCCRC has thoroughly checked out the claims and found he received “a phenomenal sum of money” from the US. It was reported that Gauci is understood to be planning to use his newfound wealth to fund a move to Australia with his brother, Paul, who was also on the witness list but was not called to give evidence.

Professor Emeritus Robert Black of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, “architect” of the Scottish court on Dutch soil (and himself from Lockerbie) said of the original conviction: “I thought this was a very, very weak circumstantial case. I am absolutely astounded, astonished. I was extremely reluctant to believe that any Scottish judge would convict anyone, even a Libyan, on the basis of such evidence.”

He said in 2005 that al-Megrahi’s conviction was “the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for 100 years.” “Every lawyer who has ... read the judgment says ‘this is nonsense’. It is nonsense. It really distresses me; I won’t let it go.”

It is no wonder that some people were hoping that al-Megrahi would die before certain witnesses were called. The release on compassionate grounds is a blessing for them, as much as it was for him.

The key lesson is that the human rights of all parties need to be at the centre of the legal process and decision making if the public interest is to be served, and if justice is to be done and seen to be done.

The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.

Bombshell book

[This is the headline over an article published in the current issue of Private Eye (No 1421), page 37. It reads as follows:]

If former Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill believed his new book about the Lockerbie bombing would end the controversy surrounding the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, he was wrong.

The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search for Justice, provides an intriguing insight into the double dealing of the US and UK governments, whose ‘deals in the desert’ with Colonel Gaddafi were agreed against the backdrop of Megrahi’s release ‘on compassionate grounds’. But in the book MacAskill demolishes a central pillar of the prosecution case against Megrahi, the only man convicted of the atrocity. He concludes that Megrahi did not, as claimed, buy the incriminating clothes used to pack the bomb suitcase from a Maltese shop – the direct link between Megrahi and the bomb.

He then renders the conviction doubly unsafe by revealing the contents of material which has been kept secret under a controversial public interest immunity (PII) certificate signed in 2008 by the then Foreign Secretary, David Miliband.

Then known only to originate from a foreign country, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) had identified the material as potentially important to Megrahi’s defence. The Crown’s failure to disclose it at Megrahi’s trial in 2000 was one of the commission’s grounds for granting the appeal. Under the PII, the commission could not reveal the contents, leading to accusations that the government was involved in a cover-up. (Eye 1205).

MacAskill, who signed Megrahi’s release back to Libya, now reveals that the document in question was a letter from the late King Hussein of Jordan to then prime minister John Major, blaming the atrocity on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC). Eye readers will recall that members of the group were the original suspects. Some had been caught in Germany two months before Lockerbie, apparently preparing an airliner attack.

Bomb maker Marwan Khreesat later confessed to having built five bombs designed to detonate at altitude. Two were concealed within Toshiba radio-cassette players, one of which was never recovered. The Lockerbie bomb was also contained within a Toshiba radio cassette player - although a different model. Suspicions of PFLP-GC involvement were strengthened because Khreesat’s bombs were designed to detonate between 30 and 50 minutes after takeoff. The Lockerbie bomb on Pan Am flight 103 exploded 38 minutes after the airliner left Heathrow on 21 December 1988.

Despite admitting building aircraft bombs, Khreesat was freed by a German court a fortnight after his arrest and allowed to return to his native Jordan. He was later revealed to be an informant for the German and Jordanian intelligence services, which added weight to King Hussein’s letter to prime minister Major.

MacAskill seeks to downplay the letter’s significance, saying it was sent soon after Lockerbie and before the police investigation switched focus from the PFLP-GC to Megrahi in 1990. This is not the case. It emerged during the appeal hearings that the letter was sent in 1996 – long after the investigation had changed tack.

In his book MacAskill thus underscores two of the six grounds which the SSCRC decided rendered the conviction unsafe. In an interview on Scottish television he even conceded it may ‘unsafe’, but said he was still convinced of Megrahi’s guilt. Not only is some of his reasoning based on untested assertions, untested evidence and in places on the discredited testimony of CIA supergrass Majid Giaka, but as a lawyer he should know that is not how the criminal justice system works.

The book has led to calls for a further appeal against conviction and for a far reaching inquiry. Police in Scotland are already investigating allegations of criminal misconduct made by the Justice for Megrahi campaign against some of those involved in the Libyan’s conviction – including allegations of withholding evidence from the defence. The book now raises questions about who else shared MacAskill’s doubts over the safety of elements of the case and for how long.

MacAskill may himself yet be in hot water over the breach of the PII certificate. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was still considering the contents of his book.

Public interest immunity claim precludes fair hearing

[What follows is excerpted from an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2008. It reproduces a report in that day’s edition of The Sunday Times which no longer appears on the newspaper’s website.]

The UN observer at the Lockerbie trial, Hans Köchler, has said that the Libyan convicted of the bombing will not get a fair hearing in Scotland.

Köchler, who advises the European Commission on democracy and human rights, has condemned government interference in the appeal of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and said the hearing should be held in a neutral country.

His intervention follows an attempt by the British government to block the release of secret papers that could help clear the former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the 1988 bombing, which claimed 270 lives.

Köchler said Megrahi’s case was handled “more like an intelligence operation than a genuine undertaking of criminal justice” and criticised MSPs for failing to hold inquiries into the downing of Pan Am 103 and its judicial aftermath. “It is almost trivial to say that a fair trial requires the availability of evidence to the prosecution and defence. Only in a totalitarian system would the executive power interfere in court proceedings and order the withholding of evidence.”

The Advocate General, on behalf of British ministers, had objected to disclosure of the documents to Megrahi’s legal team, lodging a public interest immunity plea.

Last month senior judges ordered that the papers should be released to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, where a panel of three judges will decide in camera whether they should be disclosed.

The documents, which are believed to hold information about the electronic timer that detonated the bomb, were not disclosed to the defence during al-Megrahi’s trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. Megrahi lost an appeal in 2002, but the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission concluded that he might have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice and referred his case back to the court last year. One of the grounds for referral is believed to be the prosecution’s failure to disclose the secret document to Megrahi’s lawyers.

Köchler said the decision to hear the appeal in Scotland breached a concordat between the UK, the US and the Netherlands. “The fact that the new appeal proceedings take place in Scotland is not in conformity with the original intergovernmental agreement on the Lockerbie trial.” The proceedings totally lacked “transparency”, he said.

Last week, Robert Black, the Edinburgh law professor who helped to arrange Megrahi’s original trial in the Netherlands said the intergovernmental agreement no longer applied. It “existed for the original trial and the appeal. This is now the second appeal.” The agreement was spent, he said.

“Scotland made a mess of the trial and the appeal, and to an outside observer, that might lend justification to Köchler’s view. But I believe that this time it will be done properly and Megrahi will be released.”

Last year, Köchler said Scotland had the reputation of a “banana republic” because of its handling of the case.'

Truth revealed on Lockerbie bomb timer

[This is the headline over a report published on the website of The Scotsman on this date in 2008. It reads as follows:]

The top-secret document at the heart of the Lockerbie bombing appeal confirms beyond doubt the bomb timer was supplied to countries other than Libya, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

The document also gives "considerable detail" on how the use of a small bomb concealed inside a radio-cassette recorder was consistent with Palestinian terrorists rather than Libyans, according to a prominent legal source who has seen the paper.

Important pillars of the Crown's case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Libyan serving life for the atrocity, are "knocked down" by the contents of the document, added the source.

Last week, during a three-day hearing in Edinburgh, Scotland's senior judge, Lord Hamilton, and two of his colleagues listened to legal arguments about whether Megrahi's defence should be allowed to see the document, which was passed to the UK by a foreign power.

The UK Government, represented by Advocate General Neil Davidson QC, is opposing the defence application. Lord Advocate Eilish Angiolini has indicated she would hand it to the defence team but for the public interest immunity status afforded to it by Westminster.

The existence of the document emerged during the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's exhaustive three-year investigation into whether Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice when he was convicted of the murder of 270 people.

The information in the document was a key part of the Crown's case that the timer used in the bomb was supplied only to Libya. It also appears to confirm that the method of attack was typical of a Palestinian terror cell in Germany.

Scotland on Sunday's source confirmed: "The document dispels any doubts about the supply of MST-13s (timers] elsewhere."

He added: "There is considerable detail about the method used to conceal the bomb. The use of a small Semtex bomb concealed inside a Toshiba radio-cassette recorder was not linked to Libyan terror activity, but to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), the first suspects in the case."

The source conceded these matters had been "aired previously or pointed to by other evidence" but added: "(It] puts that evidence on another footing because it gives it 100% credibility because of where it comes from.

"I don't think, in itself, it either clears Megrahi or proves anyone else was responsible, but there is material that would undoubtedly be helpful to his defence and, in isolation, would lean away from the Crown's case and the verdict of the judges."

The source declined to reveal which country had provided the information. But, last night, another well-placed source said there were new and compelling indications that it may have been provided by Germany and contained information from an Iranian defector, Abolghasem Mesbahi. [RB: According to Kenny MacAskill in his book The Lockerbie Bombing the document in fact came from Jordan.]

The MST-13 timer used in the bomb was made by Swiss firm Mebo. Its co-owner, Edwin Bollier, has made it clear that the timers were supplied to others, including the Stasi, the former East German secret police. German intelligence would certainly be able to provide evidence of the Stasi's links to Mebo, and to the PFPL-GC's use of Semtex in Toshiba radio-cassette recorders.

In October 1988, two months before Lockerbie, the German secret police cracked a PFPL-GC cell operating in Neuss and recovered four such devices. The bomb-maker, Jordanian Marwan Khreesat, told German agents that a fifth device had been removed from the flat he was working in by the cell's leader, Hafez Dalkamoni, prior to their raid.

It was never recovered and many, including Khreesat himself, believe it was his device that brought down the flight over Lockerbie.

Mesbahi has provided the Germans with intelligence that has enabled them to clear up terror crimes, but he was discredited by the UK when he was put up as a potential witness at the trial of Megrahi and his co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, who was cleared.

In 1996, Mesbahi claimed the bombing had been ordered by his former masters in Tehran, not Tripoli, and it is believed that the document was handed over to the Foreign Office later that same year.

There is growing suspicion among Lockerbie experts that the document could even provide the UK with a way to get Megrahi out of jail without facing a re-trial and thorough examination of aspects of the case that would embarrass the Crown Office and Westminster.

It is possible Megrahi will be freed this year on the fairly straightforward grounds published by the SCCRC. The normal practice in such a landmark case would be to order a retrial, but that has the potential to discredit the UK and the US on the world stage.

However, if Megrahi's conviction were quashed and the appeal court ruled he could not have a fair re-trial without the hidden material going to his defence, he would be freed on those grounds and the matter would eventually draw to a quiet conclusion.

Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, Flora, in the Lockerbie bombing, said he was concerned that the document might prove to be more important than its contents. He said: "If the document is not available to the defence at the appeal, then that appeal will be seen around the world, quite rightly, as unfair.

"The significance is likely to be not in the content, but on the impact it will have on the process, unless we can crack the impasse we're in."

Lockerbie: The bid to suppress evidence

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

It would have been an action unheard of in the Scottish press - the UK Government pulling an entire edition of a newspaper in a bid to suppress a secret document.

But that's exactly what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) threatened to do to The Herald in 2012 when it sought to publish details of a report implicating a Palestinian terror group in the Lockerbie bombing.

The full details of what happened were published yesterday in Kenny MacAskill's new book on the atrocity - and the FCO is again taking action.

The government department has said it is "considering the contents" of the book, The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search for Justice, amid claims it may breach of Official Secrets Act.

Mr MacAskill reveals that at the time the Herald was seeking to publish the information, he took a call from Tory MP Alistair Burt, who was working with the FCO.

"He threatened not just to pull The Herald's story, but to pull the whole edition of the newspaper," he said.

"I was incredulous. I told him that the people of Scotland would definitely notice if there was no Herald the next day.

"It really showed the extremes the UK Government was prepared to go to to stop the publication of something fundamental to Scotland's leading criminal case."

The document was subject to Public Interest Immunity, which prevented its release to the defence in the trial of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing.

After taking legal advice, The Herald ran the story detailing the main points of the document, including that it came from Jordan and implicated the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) in the December 1988 attack.

Certain information was not available to The Herald at that time, however it has all now been revealed in Mr MacAskill's book.

It is understood that the FCO requested a copy of the book on Sunday ahead of Thursday's publication, but were not provided with one as officials refused to rule out seeking an injunction.

The PFLP-GC were the original suspects in the investigation into Lockerbie, however by 1991 police and prosecutors were entirely focused on Libya.

This document naming the terror group was repeatedly suppressed at a high-level, despite sources claiming it presented little risk to national security.

In 2012, a source told The Herald: "The contents are very important but what makes them so much more significant is the lengths the UK Government and others have gone to in order to prevent anyone from seeing the document.

"This is the most remarkable piece of evidence. It does not rule out the Libyans but it does indicate that others were involved."

Mr MacAskill, who claimed the suppression of the document had more to with keeping the Jordanians happy so that radical cleric Abu Qatada could be deported from the UK, admits in his book that he believes the PFLP-GC were involved in the plot which killed 270 people.

The former politician, who made the controversial decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds in 2009, also raises doubts over the identification of Megrahi buying clothes from a shop in Malta that were found wrapped around the bomb.

However, he is now facing claims it is "dumbfounding" and "hypocritical" for a former justice minister to make such assertions that the case against Megrahi was flawed.

Robert Black QC, one of the architects behind Megrahi's trial who now heads up the Justice for Megrahi campaign, said: "Many of the things that Kenny is saying are the things that we've been saying for years.

"He said on the radio that there should be a new inquiry into Lockerbie - we've been asking for that for years, and it was him we were asking.

"It's only now that he doesn't actually have any power to do something that he's agreeing with us."

Mr Black added that it could be open to the FCO to try to secure a prosecution against Mr MacAskill for breaching the Officials Secrets Act, but he believes it would be highly unlikely.

He said: "Given that The Herald already published much of the detail in 2012, and they got away with it, I can't see how a case could be brought against him."

[RB: The above should be read along with the immediately preceding blogpost.]