MacAskill may have breached Official Secrets Act over Lockerbie

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

Former justice minister Kenny MacAskill has revealed details of highly classified secret document which casts serious doubt on the safety of the conviction of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

However, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has said that the revelation, which will appear in MacAskill's new book about the downing of Pan Am flight 103, 'might' constitute a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

It is understood the FCO only became aware that top secret details were disclosed in MacAskill’s book when the Sunday Herald contacted the UK government about the revelations. Officials are now believed to be seeking legal advice.

The person who discloses information is guilty of an offence if they do so “without lawful authority knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, that it is protected against disclosure”.

In his book, The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search for Justice, which is due to be released on Thursday, MacAskill reveals details of a secret document which implicates the terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) in the Lockerbie bombing carried out on December 21 1988.

The PFLP-GC were the original suspects in the investigation into the biggest terrorist atrocity ever to have been committed in mainland Britain, which claimed the lives of 270 people, including 11 Lockerbie residents.

However, by 1991 police and prosecutors were entirely focused on Libya and in 2001 Megrahi – who was a former Libyan intelligence officer - was convicted of the bombing and sentenced to life in prison. (...)

The significance of the document which implicates the PFLP-GC is played down by MacAskill in his book but it does suggest others may have been involved in the bombing.

The details of the document are covered by a strict Whitehall gagging order. The document in question was the subject of a legal wrangle during Megrahi’s second appeal against conviction.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred the case to the High Court on the basis that there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

That conclusion was reached after the SCCRC team that investigated Megrahi's conviction discovered the existence of the document during their four-year probe which concluded in 2007.

Their 800-page report explains that their investigative team were allowed to access the document in Dumfries police station but they were prevented from removing the notes they made on it and the document itself.

The SCCRC was only able to access the document after signing up to a special agreement not to divulge the contents and was told by the Crown that “a conclusion was reached that the documents did not require to be disclosed in terms of the Crown's obligations”.

When Megrahi’s defence team pushed for the recovery of the information the Lord Advocate took the view that it would be appropriate to disclose the document.

However, the Advocate General, representing the UK government, produced a public interest immunity (PII) certificate signed by then Foreign Secretary David Miliband, which blocked the disclosure on the grounds of national security.

A spokeswoman for the FCO confirmed that “the [PII] certificate is still active” and “if the material protected by the certificate were disclosed, it might constitute a breach of the Official Secrets Act.”

She added: “It would be for the publisher of the book to seek their own legal advice about any legal risks they are running.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “This is a matter for the publisher to advise upon.”

In 2012 the UK Government went to great lengths to prevent our sister paper The Herald revealing details of the document.

It threatened legal action to stop publication and asked the paper to sign up to a court-approved gagging order.

At that time only the Crown, UK Government and SCCRC team knew the contents of the closely guarded document.

The Herald did publish some details which implicated the PFLP-GC, and revealed that the document originated in Jordan.

MacAskill, however, has gone much further, naming key individuals who were party to the contents of the document, and the potential security ramifications of its release into the public domain.

The Sunday Herald has chosen - after consultation with our lawyers - not to publish the full details of the document despite knowing its contents.

Co-founder of campaigning organisation Lockerbie Truth, Dr Jim Swire, 80, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, said the revelations confirmed his suspicions about the potential involvement of the PFLP-GC.

He said: “It’s exactly what the relatives of the victims have thought for many years. I hope that the book is published without interference. It may lead us to find ways of breaking through the refusal to look again at the evidence used to convict Megrahi.

“This sort of thing - pointing to official knowledge of the real perpetrators - could be absolutely crucial.”

A Crown Office spokesman said: “The Crown has had no involvement in the publication of the former Cabinet Secretary’s book and cannot therefore comment on its content ahead of publication.

“The suggestion that the PFLP-GC was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing was fully considered by the trial court following the incrimination of this terrorist group by Megrahi during his trial and does nothing to undermine the Crown's case that Megrahi acted with others in the bombing of flight Pan Am 103. (...)”

When asked about the possible breach of the PII certificate, Victoria Gilder, Publicity Director at Biteback, the publisher of MacAskill’s book, said: “Sorry, I can’t comment on that because I don’t know anything about it.

“The book is embargoed until next week…you’re not supposed to run anything. It’s embargoed until Monday.”

Last night a Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that the government department has not seen a copy of the book, but added: “We take the protection of material covered by Public Interest Immunity certificates extremely seriously.”

Dr Swire's article in The Scotsman

I am grateful to Dr Jim Swire for sending me the full text of the article that appeared in The Scotsman on 14 March (see post on that date on this blog). It reads as follows (the version in The Scotsman was slightly edited):

"The issues here are tied into the development of the Scottish devolution process, they involve a great deal more than the sanctity of Mr Megrahi's (described by your headline as 'the Lockerbie bomber') appeal process.

"As the Lockerbie case progressed, the prosecution found itself in possession in 1996 of material that Mr Miliband now claims cannot be divilged to the defence. This occurred originally, it is said, because at the time, Scotland's Lord Advocate was ex officio a member of the UK government.

"Mr Miliband has, as your article says, now taken out Public Interest Immunity certificates(PIIs) to 'protect' the documents from release to either the defence or the public.

"Since a basic tenet of Scottish criminal law is 'equality of arms' between the defence and prosecution in a criminal case, it is hard to see how anyone can contend in the present circumstances that the 2nd appeal could be considered fair. Specially since the SCCRC seemed to be including the contents of these documents (which they had also been shown) in their reasons for referring the case back.

"PII certificates, carry as their justification and title, the interests of 'the public'. What may be at stake here, unless a solution is found in the High Court, is the freedom of the Scottish criminal system to be, and to be seen to be, independent of political control from Whitehall.

"If that absolute independance of Scottish law were not to be decisively established, and soon, it would be a black day indeed for the scottish public, which presumably Mr Miliband also claims to serve.

"The citizen needs to have faith in the independence and fairness of his judicial system, which he might need to use to protect himself from injustice imposed by his own government, let alone that in Westminster: selective disclosure to the prosecution in so grave a criminal case cannot be right."

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.]

David Miliband on Megrahi

"Al-Megrahi was the man behind the bombing," and "Al-Megrahi's release [in the Lockerbie bombing case] was obviously wrong," says former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband in an interview on Aljazeera English.

Mr Miliband has clearly not read John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury or Dr Morag Kerr’s Lockerbie: Fact and Fiction or watched Aljazeera’s documentary Lockerbie: Case Closed.

Until now David Miliband’s best-known contribution to the Lockerbie case was his signing of a public interest immunity (PII) certificate in the context of Abdelbaset Megrahi’s second appeal in an attempt to prevent disclosure of a document (relating to timers) that had been in the hands of the Crown since 1996 (before the Lockerbie trial) but which was never divulged to the defence (as the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission believes it should have been). His conduct in this matter was the subject of an editorial in the Sunday Herald headlined Miliband has made Lockerbie appeal a mockery of justice.

Scottish Sunday Express article

In today's Scottish Sunday Express there is an article by Ben Borland headlined "Lockerbie bomber to be freed". It tells of my speculation that Abdelbaset Megrahi could soon be freed because, if it is held that the mysterious document that the UK Government insists should not be disclosed, cannot be divulged to the defence, the Lord Advocate (who has said that, if it were up to her, the document would be handed over) might decide that the Crown could not, in conscience, proceed with opposing an appeal that would not, in the circumstances, be seen to be fair to Megrahi. The Sunday Express story in places hardens what was simply speculation on my part into something approaching fact. The article reads:

‘THE Lockerbie bomber is set to be sensationally freed on a “technicality” because of a controversial legal stalemate involving top secret documents.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 56, could even be released before the end of summer because of Westmin-ster’s refusal to make public the papers relating to the 1988 disaster.

Professor Robert Black – who helped orchestrate the Lockerbie trial – insists the Libyan, currently serving life in Greenock Prison, will be returned to his family long before the 20th anniversary of the disaster in December this year.

Scotland’s top judges are still deciding whether or not to release the secret document, which reportedly points the finger of blame at Iran for the atrocity that killed 270 people.

Earlier this year, Foreign Secretary David Miliband signed a Public Interest Immunity certificate to prevent its content being revealed, saying it could harm the national interest.

Speculation is now growing the judges will rule it should remain classified, forcing Lord Advocate Eilish Angiolini to free Megrahi because he
cannot have a fair appeal.

It would also avoid the need to hear any new evidence that may prove there was a miscarriage of justice or even a deliberate cover-up by the US and UK authorities.

Prof Black told the Sunday Express: “If the court says this document can’t be released in the normal way to the defence, then it is distinctly possible the Lord Advocate will say, if it cannot be seen that this appeal process is fair and open, it is better to say we will no longer oppose this appeal. Not because we believe Mr Megrahi is innocent, but because the appeal cannot be seen to be fair.”

The retired law professor added that such a “cynical” outcome would also avoid any renewed calls for a public inquiry.

The document is reportedly a German intelligence debriefing of an Iranian defector, who claimed Tehran paid a Palestinian terror cell to carry out the bombing, after the US accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger jet, in 1988.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the attack, yesterday said a full hearing would expose the “appalling collusion” of Britain and America.

He added: “There may be an attempt to remove the awkward problem of Megrahi by allowing him to return home and to remove the possibility of a public examination of the evidence.”

Such a move would be “a bit of a downer” to those still seeking the truth, Dr Swire added.'

Arguments for a Lockerbie inquiry

[Around a year after the abandonment by Abdelbaset Megrahi of his

second appeal and his compassionate release on 20 August 2009,

representatives of UK Families Flight 103 had a meeting with the

Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, with a view

to pressing the case for an inquiry into Lockerbie. The Rev’d John

Mosey, a member of the group, has recently found amongst his papers

a briefing note that I wrote for the group before that meeting

containing suggestions for points that should be made to Mr MacAskill.

It reads as follows:]

1. The SCCRC findings are there. [RB: The Scottish Criminal Cases
Review Commission found in June 2007 that there were six grounds on
which Megrahi’s conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of
justice.] They cannot simply be ignored or swept under the carpet.

2. The SCCRC is not a body composed of conspiracy theorists. Nor are
those who have, like it, questioned the justifiability of the Zeist verdict.
Apart from a number of UK relatives, they include the UN observer
Dr Hans Koechler, Kate Adie, Ian Bell, Ian Hislop, Michael Mansfield QC,
Gareth Peirce, John Pilger, Kenneth Roy, and Desmond Tutu.

3. There is widespread public concern within Scotland regarding the
Megrahi conviction. Look at the letters that have been published, and
the readers' online comments that have followed articles, in eg The
Herald, The Scotsman and Newsnet Scotland. Public confidence in the
Scottish prosecution system and the Scottish criminal justice system
has been severely dented.

4. At the very least there must be an inquiry covering the six issues on
which the SCCRC found that there might have been a miscarriage of
justice. All of the material on the basis of which that conclusion was
reached is already in the hands of the SCCRC in Scotland. There is
therefore no justification for contending that a purely Scottish inquiry
would not be meaningful, and the UK relatives may soon be compelled
to begin saying so very publicly. In respect of some of the SCCRC
evidence the previous Foreign Secretary [David Miliband] asserted
public interest immunity. If the new Foreign Secretary [William Hague]
refused to allow that material to be laid before an independent Scottish
inquiry, he would open himself to public excoriation. And even an
inquiry limited to the mass of SCCRC material in respect of which no
PII issue arises would still be valuable.

5. If, as a spokesman for the First Minister has asserted, "the Scottish
Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Megrahi"
will the Scottish Government disband the Scottish Criminal Cases Review
Commission? This expert body has stated that on six grounds there are
reasons for believing that Megrahi may have been the victim of a
miscarriage of justice. On what grounds and on the basis of what
evidence does the Scottish Government expect the people of Scotland
and elsewhere to prefer its satisfaction with the conviction over the
SCCRC's doubts? If the Scottish Government has evidence that
establishes that the SCCRC's concerns are unjustified, laying it before
an independent inquiry would be the best way of getting it before the
public at home and abroad and allaying their concerns about the safety
of the Megrahi conviction.

6. At present the SNP, unlike the Labour and Conservative parties, has
clean hands over the Megrahi conviction. But unless it moves soon, the
opprobrium over that conviction will begin to attach to the SNP as well.

7. Moreover, establishing an inquiry, as the UK relatives wish, is
morally the right thing to do. Surely the Scottish Government wishes to
occupy the moral high ground?

8. It took 19 years for Scottish politicians and the Scottish criminal
justice system to rectify the miscarriage of justice suffered by Oscar
Slater. Does the Scottish Government really want to break that dismal
record in relation to the Megrahi case?

9. Until the Megrahi conviction is removed from the picture, it can be
used -- and is being used -- by governments and politicians as a reason
for denying relatives an independent inquiry into the whole Pan Am 103
affair. By establishing an inquiry covering the SCCRC concerns only, the
Scottish Government would deprive the UK Government of this very
convenient excuse.

10. It was Voltaire who said that the best is the enemy of the good. Of
course an inquiry convened under international auspices, or an inquiry
convened by the UK Government which has foreign relations powers,
would be better than one which would of necessity be limited to such
aspects of Lockerbie -- eg the police investigation, the prosecution, the
trial, the conviction, the SCCRC investigation and findings, the
applications for prisoner transfer and compassionate release -- as are
within the competence of the Scottish Government. But the argument
that a good and useful thing should not be done because somebody
else could, if so minded, do a better and more useful thing is always
a bad argument. It is sad to see the Scottish Government resorting to it.

11. There are skeletons in the cupboard of Scottish and UK Labour
Governments in relation to the Lockerbie case. If the Scottish
Government falls in May 2011 into the hands of the Labour Party,
there is no prospect whatsoever of a serious investigation. They have
too much to hide. Our only hope is for the SNP Government to do the
right thing.

Truth and justice mean more than national security

[The following letter from Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga died aboard Pan Am 103, appears in today's edition of The Herald.]

The Herald is to be congratulated on its excellent coverage of the comments made in London by Their Lordships Thomas and Lloyd Jones in their written ruling concerning "threats" to "national security" were they to publish a summary of alleged torture of a suspect detained at Guantanamo Bay ("MP demands truth on UK torture claim", and Leader, The Herald, February 5).

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has commented at some length (and with obvious discomfort) on the "intelligence relationship" and the "real risk" posed by the disclosure of terror-related intelligence in the public arena. This is not a new ploy but one being increasingly used by western politicians to hide embarrassing and unpalatable truths.

As a member of UK Families Flight 103 (the British Lockerbie victims families support group) I attended all but 12 days of the 10-month Lockerbie trial in Zeist and the subsequent first appeal. More recently, during the initial stages of the second appeal of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, allegedly "significant information" which, in the submission of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission could significantly affect the verdict has been deliberately withheld from the defence and thereby the public by virtue of the fact that (being the subject of a Public Interest Immunity Certificate signed by Mr Miliband) it may not be revealed in open court because it "might jeopardise UK security".

The main guarantees of justice in both England and Scotland are (a) the independence of the judiciary to be free and unrestrained by "political" inducements, threats or considerations and (b) a free press allowed to report and comment on what is said within the court confines.

So, we currently have two cases (in England and Scotland) where the full and impartial administration of justice is being actively obstructed and inhibited by political considerations said to be on the basis of national security. The European Convention on Human Rights requires that any accused should enjoy "equality of arms" and both English and Scottish law require that "justice shall be done and be seen to be done". That all now seems to be subject to any dubious and unexplorable claim that it is "not in the interests of national security"

In the first century the satirist Juvenal asked: "Who will guard the guards themselves?" Now we find that in two separate jurisdictions the Foreign Secretary and person or persons unknown are trying to obstruct or inhibit the fair and impartial conduct of two very major cases.

When is truth and justice going to become more important than vested geopolitical interests?

Truth and justice -v- national security

[From this blog, four years ago today:]

Truth and justice mean more than national security

[The following letter from Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga died aboard Pan Am 103, appears in today's edition of The Herald.]

The Herald is to be congratulated on its excellent coverage of the comments made in London by Their Lordships Thomas and Lloyd Jones in their written ruling concerning "threats" to "national security" were they to publish a summary of alleged torture of a suspect detained at Guantanamo Bay ("MP demands truth on UK torture claim", and Leader, The Herald, February 5).

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has commented at some length (and with obvious discomfort) on the "intelligence relationship" and the "real risk" posed by the disclosure of terror-related intelligence in the public arena. This is not a new ploy but one being increasingly used by western politicians to hide embarrassing and unpalatable truths.

As a member of UK Families Flight 103 (the British Lockerbie victims families support group) I attended all but 12 days of the 10-month Lockerbie trial in Zeist and the subsequent first appeal. More recently, during the initial stages of the second appeal of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, allegedly "significant information" which, in the submission of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission could significantly affect the verdict has been deliberately withheld from the defence and thereby the public by virtue of the fact that (being the subject of a Public Interest Immunity Certificate signed by Mr Miliband) it may not be revealed in open court because it "might jeopardise UK security".

The main guarantees of justice in both England and Scotland are (a) the independence of the judiciary to be free and unrestrained by "political" inducements, threats or considerations and (b) a free press allowed to report and comment on what is said within the court confines.

So, we currently have two cases (in England and Scotland) where the full and impartial administration of justice is being actively obstructed and inhibited by political considerations said to be on the basis of national security. The European Convention on Human Rights requires that any accused should enjoy "equality of arms" and both English and Scottish law require that "justice shall be done and be seen to be done". That all now seems to be subject to any dubious and unexplorable claim that it is "not in the interests of national security"

In the first century the satirist Juvenal asked: "Who will guard the guards themselves?" Now we find that in two separate jurisdictions the Foreign Secretary and person or persons unknown are trying to obstruct or inhibit the fair and impartial conduct of two very major cases.

When is truth and justice going to become more important than vested geopolitical interests?

UK and US geopolitical interests could derail fresh Lockerbie inquiry

[This is the heading over a letter from Joan S Laverie in today’s edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]

In a sudden conversion on the road to Damascus, the UK and United States governments, joined by the fledgling administration in Libya, have pledged to uncover the truth about Lockerbie (Lockerbie disaster: 25th anniversary, News, December 22). [RB: What the US and UK governments have pledged to do is to seek evidence against Libyans supposedly involved in the Lockerbie bombing along with Abdelbaset Megrahi.  This is far removed from uncovering the truth.  The truth about the Lockerbie bombing is the last thing the US and UK governments (and, apparently, the Scottish Government) want to be uncovered.]

This collective resolve, however, may have been derailed in its infancy by a ruling last week by a High Court judge in England. In a case brought by a Libyan dissident, abducted and tortured when rendered to Tripoli in 2004 as part of a joint MI6-CIA operation, the judge - according to reports - instructed the plaintiff to abandon his quest to sue both MI6 and the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, on the grounds that to pursue it would damage Britain's relationship with the US and therefore the "national interest".

If this same principle of "state doctrine" superseding the criminal law of the land was also applicable in May 2000 when the trial - under Scots law - began at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands of the two suspects rendered by Colonel Gaddafi, it is no wonder any attempt to obtain a safe conviction, albeit in the absence of a jury, was doomed to failure.

The United Nations observer at the trial described the verdict as "arbitrary, even irrational" and said: "Proper judicial procedure is simply impossible if political interests and intelligence services from whatever side, succeed in interfering with the actual conduct of a court."

It would seem that then, as now, the financial and geopolitical interests of the Western powers, and in particular those of the US, continue to preclude the pursuit of justice.

[UK government interference in judicial proceedings relating to Lockerbie on the pretext of "national interest" is, of course, nothing new. Regular readers of this blog will remember, for instance, the public interest immunity (PII) certificate signed by the then Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, during the second appeal in 2008. The sorry saga of the PII claim can be followed in these blogposts (amongst others):]

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/12/second-procedural-hearing.html

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/02/statement-by-professor-kchler.html
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/02/third-procedural-hearing.html
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/03/appeal-courts-decision-on-pii.html
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/07/lockerbie-appeal-to-crown-it-all.html
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/07/statement-by-professor-hans-kchler.html
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/07/letter-from-professor-kchler-to-foreign.html
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-on-pii-from-private-eye.html

Lockerbie: The 28 year lie.

[This is the headline over an item posted today on Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph’s Lockerbie Truth blog. It reads as follows:]

On this day in 1988, 21st of December, a terrorist bomb destroyed flight Pan Am 103 during its journey from Heathrow Airport in the UK to New York.

Sections of the dismembered plane and 259 passengers [and crew] fell across the Scottish town of Lockerbie and surrounding farms and fields.

In 1991 two Libyan security officers were indicted for the crime. Their trial began in May 2000.

The key prosecution claims were:

1.  Several weeks before the attack, one of the accused, Baset al-Megrahi, purchased a selection of clothes from a Maltese clothing shop.

2. Pieces of the clothing were found at the crash site.

3.  Embedded within one of the pieces was a 4mm square fragment - PT35(b) - of an electronic timer board.

4.  The FBI had proved that the fragment came from a batch of 20 such boards delivered in 1985 to Libya by Swiss electronics supplier MEBO.

5.  Two witnesses would identify the suspects and prove the case beyond doubt. The first, a CIA informant Majid Giaka; the second, a Maltese shopkeeper Toni Gauci.

The trial judges decided that Giaka  was untrustworthy, leaving Gauci as the sole identification witness.

On 31st January 2001 al-Megrahi was found guilty. The second accused, Khalifa Fhimah, was freed with "No case to answer". [RB: The court ruled that there was a case to answer, but at the end of the trial returned a verdict of Not Guilty.]

In the years since the verdict it has become clear that the world has been cynically misled by the FBI, the CIA, and British and Scottish governments.

1. In 1989 Britain's prime minister Margaret Thatcher was advised by the Americans not to enquire into the attack.

2.  Even though she and her entourage had walked across the devastated town one day after the attack, she could not - in her 1993 memoir "The Downing Street Years" - recall the existence of Lockerbie. When asked by Father of the House MP Tam Dalyell why, she said: "I know nothing of Lockerbie, and do not write about something I do not know about."

3.  Seven years after the verdict the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) discovered significant new evidence that had been concealed from the trial judges and defence team.

4.  The SCCRC discovered a secret letter written by the King of Jordan to British prime minister John Major indicating that the Libyans were innocent of the crime.

The King's letter claimed that the attack had been Iranian-funded in revenge for the 1988 destruction by the USS Vincennes of an Iranian Airbus carrying 290 pilgrims to Mecca.

5. Unknown to most journalists and public, the King had agreed to place in protective custody Marwan Khreesat, expert bomb-maker for a Palestinian group, the PFLP-GC. Khreesat had made bombs for the group in Germany, to be used to bring down American passenger planes heading for the US.

6.  US and German intelligence knew that Iran had funded the attack. They had assembled a full dossier of intelligence proving that Khreesat and the Palestinian group were guilty.

7.  On the sudden discovery of PT35(b), however, US intelligence reversed direction and accused Libya of the crime.

8. The British government tried on two occasions to prevent the king's letter becoming public. The first, a Public Interest Immunity Certificate signed by Foreign Secretary David Miliband; the second, an unsuccessful attempt by Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt to close down a Scottish newspaper to prevent publication of the story.

9.  The SCCRC re-examined evidence given in the trial and discovered that al-Megrahi was not on the island of Malta on the day that the clothing was purchased.

10.  The SCCRC also discovered that police diaries of chief police investigator Harry Bell contained a record of multi-million dollar offers of payment to the Maltese shopkeeper Gauci "provided" - in the words of a letter to Harry Bell from the US Department of Justice - "he gives evidence."

11.  The SCCRC also re-examined all the evidence given by Gauci. They concluded that his so-called "identification" was founded on numerous viewings of photographs of al-Megrahi in the media and magazines, all linking him to the bombing. Gauci's evidence was therefore not credible, and the trial judges had been mistaken.

****

Was the Lockerbie fragment PT35(b) a fake? During the trial in 2000 there were suspicions about how it had been discovered and reported on by government scientists. The trial judges had discounted these suspicions.

Then in 2009 the al-Megrahi defence team made a startling discovery. In the years since the trial and first appeal they had managed to obtain a huge set of documents from police and Scottish Crown archives. Among the documents was the forensic notebook of scientific witness Allen Feraday.

Feraday had compared PT35(b) with control samples from MST13 timer circuit boards similar to those supplied to Libya in 1985 by MEBO.

He told the trial judges: "the fragment materials and tracking pattern are similar in all respects" to that of the MST13 timer.

But nine years prior to the trial, on 1st August 1991, when examining both the fragment and a MEBO MST13 timer circuit board, he had made two hand-written entries in his notebook which contradicted this.

The first recorded that tracks on fragment PT35(b) were protected by a layer of "Pure tin". The second said that tracks on the circuit of a control sample MST13 board were covered by an alloy of "70% tin and 30% lead".

Feraday and the police were fully aware of the difference. Two police scientific advisers suggested that the heat of the explosion might have evaporated the lead content of the alloy, leaving pure tin.

Another police adviser working for Ferranti International noted that fragment PT35(b) had indications of being "home made".

Neither the scientist's reports nor the Ferranti letter were followed up. All remained hidden in police files. The judges and defence team were unaware of their contents.

In the light of this new information the defence team consulted two prominent independent experts in the field. The experts repeatedly heat tested the evaporation theory with temperatures exceeding that of the bomb explosion. But the alloy of 70/30 tin/lead remained just that.

Thuring, the company which manufactured the circuit boards used in MST13 timers , confirmed in an affidavit that they had always used a 70/30 tin/lead combination.  Fragment PT35(b) did not, therefore, come from one of their circuit boards. How it was made and by whom remains a mystery.

Feraday either perjured himself or was grossly negligent. It was upon his statement and the identification evidence by Gauci that the case against Baset al-Megrahi would turn.

All this information has been put repeatedly to the Scottish and British governments and police. They have totally ignored it. Instead, for almost two years they have claimed to be "pursuing other suspects" in the chaos that is today Libya.

The Lockerbie campaign will continue. We intend to ensure - with the help of prominent friends from around the world - that the Lockerbie verdict will prove to be a disastrous miscarriage of justice.