The Senegal timer

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

A Libyan secret service agent alleged by the prosecution to have gathered explosives and detonators used to bomb Pan Am Flight 103 has been questioned at the Lockerbie trial.

Mansour Omran Ammar Saber is named as one of the "others" in the indictment against the two Libyans accused of carrying out the bombing in December 1988.

The Crown says Mr Saber and other Libyan agents provided the explosives, detonator and timer.

Alan Turnbull, for the prosecution, referred in particular to one incident in February 1988, when Saber was arrested at Dakar airport in Senegal.

He was said to have been beaten unconscious and held in custody for four months after explosives and timers were discovered, allegedly in his baggage.

The witness denied all knowledge of the explosives.

The prosecution says the timer was made by Swiss firm Mebo on the orders of the head of the Libyan Secret Service in 1985.

Mr Turnbull showed the court photographs of explosives, timers, wires and a gun, believed to have been confiscated from him on his arrival at Dakar Airport.

He questioned Mr Saber on how the timer had ended up at Dakar Airport at the same time as him.

"It's none of my business and I don't know anything about it," he replied.

Later, the focus moved to the so-called Autumn Leaves investigation by the BKA German police unit which resulted in the arrest of several Palestinians and the discovery of weapons, ammunition and explosives at a Frankfurt flat in October 1988.

Three members of the BKA unit appeared and defence lawyers sought to show that Palestinian groups were active and gathering weapons and explosives in Germany shortly before the Pan Am 103 explosion.

The defence has suggested the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) were involved in the attack on the Pan Am plane.

The prosecution continues its case on Friday and is expected to conclude on Monday or Tuesday.

Presiding Judge Lord Sutherland granted the defence a one-week adjournment for lawyers to consider their position and prepare arrangements for the appearance of defence witnesses.

The trial, at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands, is now in its 70th day.

[The report on the proceedings of 16 November 2000 from Glasgow University’s Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit can be accessed here. The story of the Senegal timer can be followed here, on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer’s PT35B website.]

The Heathrow break-in evidence

[What follows is the text of a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2002:]

A former Heathrow Airport security guard has said he found a baggage store padlock "cut like butter" the night before the Lockerbie bombing.

Ray Manly was giving evidence at the appeal by Abdelbasset ali Mohmed al-Megrahi against his conviction for murdering 270 people in the 1988 bombing.

Al-Megrahi's defence team argue that the bomb could have been placed on Pan Am Flight 103 at Heathrow.

At his trial, one of the key areas of the prosecution case was that the bomb was loaded onto a feeder flight from Luqa Airport in Malta, where al-Megrahi worked.

Evidence about the reported break-in was not introduced at the trial and is only now being heard for the first time.

Mr Manly was on a night shift in Terminal 3 on the night of 20/21 December 1988.

He told the Scottish Court in the Netherlands that the doors separating landside from airside were unmanned at night after they had been locked.

During his rounds, he spotted that a padlock securing the doors had been broken.

'Deliberate act'

"The padlock was on the floor. In my opinion it was as if it had been cut like butter - very professional," he said.

The court was shown Mr Manly's security report, written soon after the incident in which he described the break-in as "a very deliberate act, leaving easy access to airside".

Mr Manly informed his colleague Philip Radley and police were called.

But Mr Manly said he did not see any police officers that night and was only interviewed by anti-terrorist squad officers about the incident the following January, after the Lockerbie disaster.

Giving evidence, Mr Radley told the five appeal court judges that Terminal 3's landside area, where passengers arrived to check in, was separated from airside by two thick rubber doors at the end of a corridor. Access to the airside area was restricted to staff.

The doors were secured by a 4ft long iron bar and a heavy duty padlock and security guards were on duty on each side of the doors.

Mr Radley said he was on the nightshift on 20 December when his supervisor called to tell him that the padlock on the doors had been broken.

A guard was placed on the doors - designated T3 2a and T3 2b - until the morning, when a replacement padlock was found.

Log book entry

The court was shown Mr Radley's log book for the night including an entry recorded at 35 minutes past midnight on December 21: "Door at T3 2a lock broken off."

Questioned by Alan Turnbull QC, for the prosecution, Mr Radley explained that baggage handlers working airside would pass through the doors when starting their shift and leave the same way - unless they were delayed and the doors at T3 2a and 2b had been locked for the night.

In that case, he said, baggage handlers would have to take a longer route out of the terminal and there had been complaints about having to do so. On the night of 20 December, baggage handlers had to stay late because of a delayed flight, he confirmed.

Mr Turnbull suggested that a member of staff taking a short cut, could have forced the door, breaking the padlock.

Handlers' detour

Questioned by the defence Mr Radley said the detour for baggage handlers if the doors were locked was only "a couple of minutes".

He could not recall any previous incident in which staff had forced open locked doors.

The prosecution has also been allowed to present 11 new witnesses, to counter the new evidence.

Although the court's decision to allow the new evidence to be heard can be seen as a boost to the defence case, under Scottish law the appeal judges have to weigh whether the new testimony, had it been heard at the original trial, would have changed the outcome of that case.

Since his conviction, al-Megrahi has remained at the Camp Zeist compound which is surrounded by a six-metre tall concrete wall.

22 September 1998 was quite eventful

[On this date in 1998, the prosecution team for the Lockerbie trial was announced. The press release reads as follows:]

The Lord Advocate, Lord Hardie has announced the composition of the team of counsel involved in the preparation for and conduct of the trial in the Netherlands of the accused in the Lockerbie case. The selection and appointments were made by the Lord Advocate in the course of the last few weeks and were confirmed yesterday when the team met for the first time at the Crown Office, Edinburgh.

The Lord Advocate will lead the prosecution team at the trial and will attend as required. Colin Boyd QC, the Solicitor General will be responsible for the overall supervision of the team during the preparation of the case.

The team members are: Alastair Campbell, QC (49), Home Advocate Depute; Alan Turnbull, QC (40); and Jonathan Lake (31), Advocate. A fourth advocate has also accepted the appointment but for professional reasons is not being named at present. [RB: The fourth member of the team was Morag Armstrong, Advocate.]

Alastair Campbell will lead the team in the absence of the Lord Advocate. Both Mr Campbell and Mr Turnbull who is a former Advocate Depute have considerable experience of preparing for and conducting major trials

The Lord Advocate said:

"In selecting the team of prosecution counsel for this trial, I considered the particular strengths of the counsel appointed by me. I am confident that the individual members of the team will complement each other and I am delighted that they were able to accept instructions to appear on behalf of the Crown in this case.

"A site has been identified for the trial and the prosecution team has now been appointed. All that remains is for Libya to comply with the United Nations Security Council Resolution and to deliver the accused for trial in the Netherlands.

"I hope that occurs soon so that the trial may commence at the earliest opportunity".

The team, which also includes senior Crown Office officials, has already commenced preparation for the trial. To enable Mr Cambell to concentrate on the case full time, he will resign as Home Advocate Depute with effect from 30 September 1998.

[On the same day, Dr Jim Swire and I were meeting Colonel Gaddafi. Here is what I wrote about this some years ago:]

On 22 September [1998] Dr Swire and I had a further meeting with the Leader of the Revolution.  On this occasion the meeting took place not in Tripoli but 400 kilometres to the east in a genuine (not reinforced concrete) Bedouin tent in a desert location inland from the town of Sirte.  We drove most of the way in the usual government black Mercedes, transferring into a 4 x 4 only for the last few off-road miles.  When at the tent nothing could be seen but sand and sky; but out of sight just beyond the nearest dunes was a lengthy convoy of communications vehicles, ambulances, canteen vehicles and troop carriers. 

Surrounded by the sand dunes and by noisily ruminating camels, Colonel Gaddafi, Dr Swire and I discussed the details of the British scheme.  He accepted my assurance that at least some of the concerns that Libyan government lawyers had raised were unwarranted and that it would be worthwhile to continue to seek clarifications and reassurances through the office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations regarding the remaining issues. 

Incidentally, this meeting with Gaddafi was held on the day that President Clinton's videotaped grand jury testimony regarding his relationship with Monica Lewinsky was televised.  In the course of the pleasantries that took place before we all got down to business, Gaddafi informed us that he had spent the morning watching the President's performance on CNN television.  What most shocked him, he said, was the revelation that on some occasions while Miss Lewinsky was dutifully serving her President, the latter was speaking to foreign Heads of State on the telephone. 

Megrahi's first appeal

[Here is what I wrote on Thelockerbietrial.com website on this date in 2002 about the state of play at the close of week three of Abdelbaset Megrahi’s first appeal:]

In the course of Friday morning [8 February 2002] the Court decided that it was prepared to hear the new evidence proposed by the defence from security personnel on duty at Heathrow's Terminal 3 during the night before the departure of Pan Am 103, regarding a break-in in the luggage marshalling area.  Mr Alan Turnbull QC for the Crown had argued strongly that the proposed new evidence was not of sufficient "significance" to warrant the Court's hearing it.  By their decision the appeal judges indicated that they were of the view that the evidence in question could have the necessary "significance."  The Crown indicated that if this evidence was permitted, they would  themselves wish to lead evidence on the issue from up to eleven witnesses.  The Court suggested that discussions should take place between the Crown and the defence regarding these eleven potential Crown witnesses, with a view to ascertaining whether the attendance of all was really necessary.  It is likely that the Court will begin hearing the new evidence on Wednesday 13 February. 

During the week it has been abundantly clear that the appeal judges have absorbed the submissions made on behalf of the appellant Megrahi and appreciate the force of a number of the criticisms made in them of the reasoning in the written opinion of the trial Court.  Their Lordships have not been slow to draw their concerns to the attention of the Advocate-Depute.  In particular, Lord Osborne and Lord Kirkwood have asked some very pointed questions indeed and have subjected Advocate-Depute Turnbull and Advocate-Depute Campbell to rigorous cross-examination regarding the Crown's stance in supporting the trial Court's conclusions on certain crucial matters, such as the finding that the bomb was ingested at Luqa Airport in Malta; that Megrahi was the person who purchased the clothes from Mary's House in Sliema; and that the date of purchase was 7 December 1988.

"...there is a long way to go"

[The following are excerpts from two reports published in The Guardian on this date in 2000:]

Air controller tells historic court of final minutes of bombed Pan Am flight 103 
The final dramatic moments of Pan Am flight 103 before it exploded over Lockerbie nearly 12 years ago were recreated in a packed court yesterday at the start of the trial of two Libyans accused of murdering 270 people.

On the first day of the historic trial, the Scottish court in the Netherlands heard how air traffic controllers watched the radar blip of the doomed Boeing 747 shatter into fragments before it finally disappeared off their screens.

Questioned by Colin Boyd, the Lord Advocate, Alan Topp, descirbed how on the night of December 21 1988 he tracked the path of the aircraft on his radar monitor in the Scottish air traffic control centre at Prestwick, as the plane headed from London Heathrow towards New York.

Mr Topp, 64, of Troon, Ayrshire, said that at about 7pm he made contact with the jumbo as it entered Scottish air space. "Good evening Scottish, Clipper one zero three," he was told by the pilot, according to a transcript introduced in evidence. "We are at level three one zero." Those words were the last ever heard from the plane.

Lord Sutherland, sitting with two other judges, listened as Mr Topp described how at 7.02pm he first noticed a radar abnormality with Pan Am flight 103.

Just a minute later, according to a video recording of the radar screen shown in evidence, flight 103's blip fragmented into first three and then five discrete signals. "I had my radar opened out and you could see that one big bright square is made of up of several squares very close to each other," said Mr Topp.

"I had never seen anything like this happen before. Nobody had."

Several attempts to contact the aircraft were made by the air traffic control centre, but with no success. A KLM aircraft nearby was also unable to make contact with the plane, despite repeated attempts.

The court heard how Mr Topp called over his boss, Adrian Ford, 66, from Ayr, after a British Airways pilot, Robin Chamberlain, told him he had spotted a fire on the ground near Lockerbie. Mr Chamberlain, 52, told the court: "The closest I could put it is that it looked as if a petrol storage tank had blown up. If you imagine the things you see in films, it was like that - like a large explosion or a bomb - something of that nature."

At the air traffic control centre, Mr Ford immediately informed search and rescue teams that the aircraft was missing. "I said to the control there that Clipper 103 has vanished."

Earlier, the two Libyans, described by the prosecution as intelligence agents, pleaded not guilty to murder, conspiracy to murder and contravention of the Aviation Security Act 1982. They also lodged a special defence of incrimination and blamed Palestinian terrorists for the bombing.

In a statement read by the clerk of the court, the defence claimed that members of two Syrian-backed Palestinian groups - one of them a prosecution witness - had planted the bomb on flight 103.

The defence was submitted moments after Lord Sutherland opened proceedings against Abdel Baset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, who surrendered for trial last year. They claim to have been employees of Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta.

The defence statement also named Mohammed Abu Talb, a Palestinian, as one of 10 other alleged conspirators. He is serving a life sentence in Sweden for earlier bombings in Denmark and the Netherlands.

Abu Talb was an early suspect in the case, but investigators abandoned that line of inquiry. He is listed as one of more than 1,000 prosecution witnesses.

Seven other named Arab men, whose whereabouts are unknown, were described as formerly directors of a bakery in Malta,where the suitcase containing the bomb was allegedly loaded on to a feeder flight to Frankfurt, and from there to London.

The defence statement referred also to members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, and to Parviz Taheri, who is another crown witness.

First to testify was Richard Dawson, a civil aviation air traffic controller who was on duty at Heathrow airport on the night the plane crashed in flames on to the Scottish Borders town.

Mr Dawson, aged 52, described the routine procedures for departures from Heathrow, and radar control technology which allows the controllers to track the aircraft. He confirmed that the doomed flight made its first appearance in traffic control records at 6.18pm on December 21 1988, identified as Clipper 103, and that later it was cleared for takeoff, leaving the airport shortly afterwards.

Watching the trial throughout were the families of the Libyan accused. In total, 17 family members, including the children of the accused, witnessed the first day's proceedings - 10 of Mr Fhimah's relatives and seven of Mr al-Megrahi's. Mr Fhimah's uncle, Milad Fhimah, said: "We are Muslim, we look to Allah, we believe in God. We are not upset, because it is true that they are innocent."

Bruce Smith, a former Pan Am pilot whose wife, Ingrid, was killed in the crash, said: "This is the start of the trial and we welcome it, but there is a long way to go."

Judges and lawyers
Lord Sutherland, Presiding Judge Ranald Sutherland QC, 68, is one of the most experienced judges on the Scottish legal circuit. He was appointed to the bench in 1985 and has been an advocate, the Scottish equivalent of a barrister, since 1956. He frequently takes charge of the court of criminal appeal in Scotland and is used to high-profile cases.

Lord Coulsfield John Cameron QC, 66, was appointed to the bench in 1987 and first became an advocate in 1960. He took silk in 1973 and has had a long and varied career. He has lectured in law at Edinburgh University and was a judge in the courts of appeal of Jersey and Guernsey.

Lord MacLean Ranald MacLean QC, 61, is the newest of the judges to the Scottish bench. He was appointed to the bench in 1990, although he has been an advocate since 1964. In his advocate days he was most often a prosecutor.

William Taylor QC, Counsel for Al Megrahi Since the early 1980s, Bill Taylor has been one of the most prominent of Scotland's defence QCs. He has won a string of high-profile cases, helped by his good courtroom voice and what is generally regarded to be an extremely agile mind.

Richard Keen QC, Counsel for Fhimah Richard Keen's courtroom gifts are every bit as prominent as those of Bill Taylor. However his relative lack of experience in criminal cases made him, for many, a surprise choice as Fhimah's counsel.

The Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC Since Lord Hardie unexpectedly stepped down at the start of this year, Colin Boyd has led the prosecution team. As the former solicitor general for Scotland, he knows the case well. However, it is widely believed he will hand over the main prosecution role to one of his junior counsel - Alastair Campbell QC and Alan Turnbull QC - when the trial gets under way in earnest.

Police followed Palestine link, Lockerbie trial told

[This is the headline over a report in The Guardian on this date in 2000. It reads in part:]

Scottish police investigating the Lockerbie disaster flew to Rome and Germany within days of the bombing to study similar atrocities involving a Palestinian group, the Lockerbie trial in Holland was told today.

Retired detective chief inspector Gordon Ferrie said that the tragedy was treated as a murder inquiry from the day after it happened. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) quickly became the "focus of attention" because of arrests of some of its members in Germany only two months before Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie.

They included a man known as Marwan Kreeshat [or Khreesat] a technical expert who had been jailed for 18 years in his absence for his part in placing a bomb in a record player on an El Al flight from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1972. He had been arrested by the Germans in October 1988, the court was told, but released in December, before the Lockerbie bombing later the same month.

About ten senior officers from the Lockerbie inquiry spent weeks at the German headquarters of the BKA, the German equivalent of the FBI, the court heard.

The two Libyans accused of the bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, deny charges of murder and conspiracy to murder, and they have lodged special defences in which they incriminate, among others, members of the PFLP-GC.

Under cross-examination Mr Ferrie confirmed he had been sent to Rome twice to study the El Al incident, in which two British women had been befriended by three men - including Marwan Kreeshat - and persuaded to take a record player on board the plane. They did not know it contained a bomb.

El Al security measures ensured the record player went into the bomb-proof luggage hold, instead of in the passenger cabin. Fortunately, although the device exploded at about 13,000ft and blew a hole in the passenger floor, the plane landed back at Rome safely.

Mr Ferrie brought back to Lockerbie some of the Italian evidence in the case, including part of an altimeter which had been used in the bomb's trigger. Questioned by Richard Keen QC, representing Fhimah, Mr Ferrie confirmed that in Rome he had discovered that Kreeshat had been involved in other incidents "using improvised explosive devices", including the bombing of a plane using a Toshiba radio cassette recorder modified to act as a bomb.

The Lockerbie trial indictment accuses Megrahi and Fhimah of placing an "improvised explosive device" concealed inside a Toshiba radio cassette recorder on board an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt labelled for onward connection to New-York bound Pan Am Flight 103 at Heathrow. (...)

Re-examined by Alan Turnbull QC, prosecuting, Mr Ferrie was asked: "There came a stage when the inquiry led officers in a direction other than the PFLP, weren't there?" Mr Ferrie agreed.

However, when he then asked Mr Ferrie what the eventual result of the police inquiry was, defence lawyers objected that it was hearsay evidence, because Mr Ferrie had later been moved to other work.

Questioned by Mr Keen for Fhimah, Mr McLean insisted that, although FBI and CIA agents from America were swiftly on the scene of the disaster, all evidence found was "religiously and meticulously" logged, including items recovered by the CIA.

Crown Office's Lockerbie shame revisited

[One year ago today, two items were published on this blog.  The first was headed Former Lord Advocate ... seriously misled the Megrahi Court claims book author and dealt with the disgraceful episode of the redacted CIA cables relating to "star" Crown witness Abdul Majid Giaka.  The item merits perusal in full, but here is a taster:]

[Lord Advocate Colin] Boyd explained that according to Crown QC Alan Turnbull: “that there was nothing within the cables which bore on the defence case, either by undermining the Crown case or by advancing a positive case which was being made or may be made, having regard to the special case.”

Mr Boyd also explained that he had no control over the documents that they resided in the USA under the control of US authorities.

Boyd ended by stating categorically: “there is nothing within these documents which relates to Lockerbie or the bombing of Pan Am 103 which could in any way impinge on the credibility of Mr Majid [Giaka] on these matters.”

Mr Ashton’s book though now reveals that the reason the Lord Advocate had no control over the documents was that Norman McFadyen had signed a non-disclosure agreement before viewing them.

According to Mr Ashton, the Crown had “secretly, ceded to the CIA the right to determine what information should, or should not, be disclosed in a Scottish Court”.

Also, further revelations contained in Mr Ashton’s book show that far from being of no significance to the case, the redacted sections of the cables were in fact highly significant.

[The second item is headed A clear signal... It is a blistering piece from the pen of Steven Raeburn, editor of Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm.  Again, it merits perusal in full.  Here is just one paragraph:]

The Crown Office persistently and desperately clings to the manufactured fantasy of Megrahi’s guilt, a fabrication specifically designed to implicate Libya as a matter of geopolitical convenience. It has steadfastly opposed every opportunity to undertake its duty and apply justice in this case. The Crown has been conducting an elaborate charade almost from the outset, with the explicit, curiously coordinated support of the Scottish Government, and tacit consent of the Westminster Government, whose own malfeasance from Thatcher downwards is transparent and warrants investigation.

One might have expected more in the way of hard evidence

[What follows is the text of an article by Ian Ferguson that was published on this date in 2000 by Middle East Intelligence Bulletin:]

Set in the tranquility of the Dutch countryside, the trial of the two Libyans accused of bombing Pan Am flight 103 and killing 270 persons on December 21, 1988 has not yet reached it's 50th day in session, yet it is already clear that the prosecution's case is showing signs of major cracks. The investigation, which led to the charges being brought against Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, was heralded as the largest criminal investigation in history. With the combined resources of the Scottish Police, the FBI and the CIA being brought to bear on this case, one might have expected a case which contained more in the way of hard evidence. Thus far, however, the Crown has presented a case composed entirely of circumstantial evidence and recent revelations at the trial show that some of it may be fatally flawed.

In the last few weeks we have seen an issue develop at the trial concerning the evidence of Libyan informer Abdul Majid Giaka. Prosecuting authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have for many years now indicated that this man would be their star witness. Skeptics were told to stay quiet and await his testimony at the trial. Giaka, who has been in the U.S. Witness Protection Program since July 1991, arrived at Camp Zeist on August 14 expecting to testify at the trial. The nearest he got to the courtroom was driving past it in his motorcade of US deputy marshals who provide his protection and he flew back to the United States on August 31. During those two weeks, instead of hearing the testimony of Giaka, the court has been preoccupied with legal submissions and arguments over a number of classified CIA cables sent by Giaka's handlers in Malta back to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The legal row erupted on August 22 when the court reconvened after the summer recess. William Taylor, QC for Megrahi, informed the judges that there were some 25 CIA cables relating to Giaka and that he had been informed the day before that the prosecution had seen much fuller versions of these cables than had been provided to the defense, thus placing the defense at distinct disadvantage. The Crown admitted that they had been shown a version of these cables on June 1 and that what they had seen was "blacked out" or redacted from the version given to the defense.

The Lord Advocate of Scotland, Colin Boyd, told the court that what Advocate Depute Alan Turnbull QC had seen was irrelevant to the defense's case and was also information which could be a threat to the national security of the United States. The judges were not impressed with this argument and ordered Boyd to use his best endeavors to approach the CIA and have these edited portions made available to the defense. Meanwhile, the court agreed with the defense that they could not hear the testimony of Giaka until the issue of the CIA cables was resolved.

Alongside the CIA cables, the defense also challenged another item--a diary belonging to Fhimah that the Crown wished to present to the court. The court was told that the diary was obtained without a search warrant and as such they challenged its admissibility.

By Friday of that week, Boyd had produced for the defense and the court the largely unedited versions of the CIA cables. The contents were regarded by the defense as being "highly relevant" to their case. During lengthy legal debates we were treated to some of the "irrelevant" information that the Crown had decided should be denied to the defense. The idea that the Crown saw themselves as the arbiters of this information was at best an appalling lack of judgment and at worst an attempt to suppress information damaging to their case.

The new information showed that the CIA agents in Malta had questioned the value of Giaka as an informer. In a cable dated September 1989 (over a year after the CIA recruited him as an informer), they contemplated cutting off his $1000 per month salary as he had not provided them with the quality of information they had hoped he would. They doubted that he was an agent for the JSO (Libyan External Intelligence) and had decided to inform him that he would be put on "trial" status until January 1990. This is hardly a ringing testimonial for any informer and its importance to the defense was enormous.

If the CIA agents closely involved with Giaka held this opinion in September 1989, what happened in the intervening period to July 1991 to alter this opinion and make his testimony so crucial to this trial? If he possessed any information linking either of the two accused to the Pan Am 103 bombing, why was it not offered in the months leading up to the attack in December 1988, at which point Giaka had already been on the CIA's payroll for four months? Could it be that he was not able to supply them with this information until a decision was made to shift the focus of the investigation from Syria and Iran to Libya?

Evidence already given at the trial by a senior Scottish Police detective, Harry Bell, shows that a photograph of Megrahi was first shown to Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci in February 1991, after Bell was contacted by Special Agent Philip Reid of the FBI. Once again we are forced to ask why it took so long for Giaka to implicate Megrahi or Fhimah. Did it take from August 1988 until February 1991 for Giaka to implicate either of the accused? We certainly can deduce that it must have been at least after September 1989, when coincidentally his source of CIA money was threatened with withdrawal.

The use of information gathered by paid informers is already a contentious issue before courts in many jurisdictions and it has certainly become a major issue at this trial. The issues relate to motivation and credibility. Giaka would have been made aware that the US Department of Justice was offering a huge reward (around $4 million) for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103 and this may prove to be yet another hurdle for the prosecution to overcome.

The defense, sensing that the CIA may hold further information on Giaka, as well as on other groups that were originally the prime suspects in the investigation, successfully petitioned the court to once again have the Lord Advocate use his "best endeavors" with the CIA and request that it hand over all information it had on Giaka and the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), specifically Mohammed Abo Talb, a member of the PFLP-GC.

On September 21, the court will hear whether or not the Lord Advocate has been successful in his requests to the CIA. If he is unsuccessful in his "best endeavors" route, the judges have left the door open to revisit another submission from Richard Keen QC for Fhimah, which they rejected in favor of asking Boyd to explore his present course of action. The legal remedy sought by Keen was for formal "letters of request" to be submitted to the U.S. government so that a federal judge can review all the pertinent documents held by the CIA and sanction the release of such documents (excluding those which pose a real threat to American national security). The judges originally rejected this request because Boyd informed the court that this procedure might take anywhere from six months to two years, during which time the court would have to be adjourned. Such a lengthy adjournment would likely be greeted by an outcry from many of the families of those murdered on Pan Am flight 103, but it may be the only solution for the judges to ensure that the accused receive a fair trial.

In any case, the Crown still has other problems with regard to the testimony of another contentious witness: Mohammed Abo Talb, who is currently serving a life sentence in Sweden for terrorist attacks in Copenhagen. Talb was originally the prime suspect in the Pan Am 103 bombing and has been named in the special defense cited by lawyers for both accused Libyans.

Talb has been linked to a PFLP-GC cell that was operating in Malta during 1988 and police found a diary in his Swedish apartment in which the date of December 21, 1988 (the day of the Pan Am bombing) is circled. Needless to say, this circumstantial evidence incriminates Talb at least as much as the note in Fhimah's diary saying "get Air Malta taggs" (sic) incriminates the accused. When Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci was asked to look at the photograph of Megrahi, he commented that this photograph "most resembled the man who bought clothes" in his shop, but went on to say "other than the picture of the man shown to me by my brother." The other picture Gauci was referring to was a photograph of Talb shown to him by his brother Paul.

The clothes in question are alleged to have been bought by Megrahi on the December 7, 1988, remnants of which the Crown alleges were found among the wreckage of the Pan Am plane. The defense will claim that the clothes were bought earlier by Talb and will present evidence of this to challenge the prosecution's claims.

So we have as good an identification of Talb as we have of Megrahi. Moreover, Talb is a convicted bomber with connections to a group that was making bombs hidden in Toshiba tape recorders that were nearly identical to the one alleged to have brought down Pan Am flight 103. We have also learned that Talb has agreed to testify at the Camp Zeist trial in return for a reduction in his sentence. A senior source in the Swedish police, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that an arrangement has been reached between the UK and Swedish authorities which will allow Talb to apply successfully for a "time limit" to be put on his sentence in return for his cooperation with Scottish prosecutors.

Talb, who has consistently refused to be interviewed by the defense, was thought extremely unlikely to attend as a witness and, as the Scottish court has no power of subpoena, there has been speculation for months as to why he would even contemplate attending. It is now clear that the prospect of a release date was the price for his cooperation, but it will no doubt be another issue raised prior to or during his testimony. Whether the case against the Libyans will stand up to scrutiny in court cannot be predicted, but clearly the events of the last few weeks have been the biggest setback to the Crown since the trial started on May 3.

Amid all of the publicity generated by the CIA cables about Giaka, the Crown has tried to reassure the families that all is not lost, that its case does not rely on the testimony of a single witness. For years they have been hinting at DNA, fingerprint and other hard evidence which we were told would be produced at the trial. With the Crown's case admittedly on their last evidentiary chapter, we are still waiting.

A contemporary comment on Crown's shameful conduct

[What follows is an article by me that was published on TheLockerbieTrial.com website on this date in 2000:]

It will have been apparent to anyone who has followed even cursorily the cross-examination of the Libyan defector and long-term CIA asset, Abdul Majid Giaka, by defence counsel William Taylor QC and Richard Keen QC on 26, 27 and 28 September, that much of the devastating effectiveness of their questioning derived from their ability to refer the witness to the cables in which his CIA handlers communicated to headquarters the information that Giaka had provided to them in the course of their secret meetings.

Discrepancies between Giaka's evidence-in-chief to Advocate Depute Alistair Campbell QC and the contents of these contemporaneous cables enabled the defence to mount a formidable challenge to the truthfulness and accuracy, or credibility and reliability, of Giaka's testimony.  Had the information contained in these cables not been available to them, the task of attempting to demonstrate to the Court that Giaka was an incredible or unreliable witness would have been immensely more difficult and perhaps impossible.

It is in this context that the submissions of the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, on 22 August 2000, when he was seeking to persuade the Court to deny the defence access to those cables in their unredacted or uncensored form, must be viewed.  On that occasion the Lord Advocate said that the members of the prosecution team who were given access to the uncensored CIA cables on 1 June 2000 (Advocate Depute Alan Turnbull QC and procurator fiscal Norman McFadyen) were fully aware of the obligation incumbent upon them as prosecutors to make available to the defence teams material relevant to the defence of the accused and, to that end, considered the contents of those cables with certain considerations in mind. 

Mr Boyd said: "First of all, they considered whether or not there was any information behind the redactions which would undermine the Crown case in any way.  Secondly, they considered whether there was anything which would appear to reflect on the credibility of Mr Majid.  They also considered whether there was anything which might bear upon the special defences which had been lodged and intimated in this case.  On all of these matters, the learned Advocate Depute reached the conclusion that there was nothing within the cables which bore on the defence case, either by undermining the Crown case or by advancing a positive case which was being made on may be made, having regard to the special defence... I emphasise that the redactions have been made on the basis of what is in the interests of the security of a friendly power... Crown counsel was satisfied that there was nothing within the documents which bore upon the defence case in any way."

Lord Coulsfield then intervened:   "Does that include, Lord Advocate ... that Crown counsel, having considered the documents, can say to the Court that there is nothing concealed which could possibly bear on the credibility of this witness?"

The Lord Advocate replied:  "Well, I'm just checking with the counsel who made that.  In the sense in which My Lord put it to me at the start, that there may be material which relates to a completely different matter, then that cannot be said...  But, in the sense, My Lord, that there is nothing within the -- -- there is nothing within these documents which relates to Lockerbie or the bombing of Pan Am 103 which could in any way impinge on the credibility of Mr Majid on these matters."

In the light of the use actually, and entirely properly, made by the defence of material from those CIA cables in attacking, in the course of cross-examination, the credibility and reliability of Giaka’s evidence on matters relevant to the responsibility of the two accused men for the bombing of Pan Am 103, it may be that the Lord Advocate will (or at least should) feel that he owes an explanation of the statements made by him on 22 August 2000 which are quoted above.

[RB: Explanation came there none, either then or at any later time. This disgraceful Crown conduct forms the basis of one of Justice for Megrahi’s allegations of criminal misconduct in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial that are currently under investigation by Police Scotland.]