The positioning of the Lockerbie bomb

[What follows is the text of an article by Steve James that was published on WSWS.org on this date in 2000:]

Testimony in the trial of the two Libyans accused of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 has deepened speculation regarding the bomb's location in the airplane and exposed divisions among the original air accident investigators.

Last week, prosecution witnesses robustly defended their view that the bomb that brought down the Boeing 747 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 259 passengers and crew as well as 11 local residents, had been in luggage container AVE 4041. The prosecution maintains that the two Libyan defendants, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, had loaded a suitcase containing the bomb onto a feeder flight in Malta, which was then transferred onto Flight 103 at Frankfurt. This scenario rests on the assumption that the bomb was located inside a suitcase. If it was not, then the prosecution's charges against the two Libyans is in danger of collapse

Peter Claydon, one of the Air Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) team looking into the disaster, explained that investigators came to the conclusion the bomb was in a suitcase after studying the pattern of damage to container AVE 4041 and the rest of the surrounding aircraft. Blast damage was most concentrated around the rear quarter of the container, beside the aircraft's hull. Claydon, pressed by the prosecution lawyers, stated several times that he was certain that the "event" took place inside the container. He disagreed with a defence suggestion that damage to the neighbouring container, AVN 7511PA, pointed to the blast occurring outside AVE 4041. He also stated that he thought the luggage item containing the explosive was not on the floor of the container, as the floor showed signs of having been protected from the direct effects of the blast by another piece of luggage. He explained how he found a tiny charred fragment of a circuit board lodged in the container's marker plate.

Claydon's testimony was followed by that of Ian Cullis, an explosives expert, and Christopher Peel, both from the UK's Defence Research Establishment (DERA). Their names do not appear on the list of contributors to the initial AAIB report. Cullis claimed that the sooting of the container remains, and pitting in both the fuselage and container, showed that the explosion had taken place inside the container. He said that deformations of the container floor again pointed to another piece of luggage having been forced into the floor by a blast above it. Peel, who has subsequently worked on a research project into the effects of small bombs on pressurised aircraft, narrated a video on the results of this work, which including exploding 450g of plastic explosive inside a Boeing 747. He claimed that using complex mathematical calculations, he could accurately place the bomb inside the luggage container.

Defence lawyer Richard Keen QC said to Peel, "You have not simply developed an analytical model, but gone back and altered your view of the facts in order to apply the analytical model."

Later, during three days of cross-examination, Peel admitted to Alan Turnbull QC that an earlier calculation put the bomb 17 inches from the aircraft hull, rather than the 24 inches currently suggested by Peel, and other analytical models suggested a distance of as little as 12 inches.

The three investigators' evidence directly contradicts analyses made by another prosecution witness, Edmund Bollier of MEBO AG, the Swiss electronics firm who manufactured the timer alleged to have triggered the explosion. Bollier has claimed in two reports that the bomb was attached directly to the aircraft's hull.

Bollier's claims were strengthened by the testimony of accident investigator Christopher Protheroe, who was a member of the AIIB team along with Claydon.

The 1990 report from the AAIB team [https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/2-1990-boeing-747-121-n739pa-21-december-1988] was quite clear in locating the bomb inside container AVE 4041, reassembled from fragments scattered around the Scottish countryside. But Protheroe admitted in court that there had been a significant mathematical error in the official report of the accident. According to his examination of the "Mach stem" effect used to calculate blast wave effects after an initial explosion, correct calculations would place the bomb 12 inches from the fuselage and therefore outside luggage container AVE 4041. After Protheroe's testimony the court adjourned so the remains of the shredded container could be assembled inside the courtroom.

The recent resignation of the head of Glasgow University's Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit, Andrew Fulton, following his exposure as a long-standing MI6 operative points to the US and UK intelligence services maintaining an acute interest in Pan Am 103 from the moment it crashed until the present trial. The Briefing Unit was set up in late 1998 to provide "impartial" advice on the legal aspects of the Lockerbie trial and has been contacted by many representatives of the world's media. Fulton, a British diplomat for 30 years, had been MI6 station chief in Washington DC in his last position. He was appointed to the unit 18 months ago as a "visiting law professor", despite his complete lack of legal experience. He was placed in charge of press briefings and controlled the flow of information from the unit.

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.

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.

The break-in at Heathrow Terminal 3

[On this date in 1988, the night before the departure of Pan Am 103, there was a breach of security at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 3 that potentially gave access to the baggage build-up area used for luggage destined for that flight. This breach of security was known to the Lockerbie investigators but was not disclosed to the legal teams defending Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah and so did not feature in the evidence led at the Zeist trial where Megrahi was convicted. The failure to disclose this material to the defence formed one of the grounds of Megrahi’s 2002 appeal. What follows is an account on The Pan Am 103 Crash Website of proceedings at that appeal on 13 February 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.

"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 colleaguePhilip 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.

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.

Manly, who cautioned the court he might have to take a break since he was taking strong medication for a serious illness, bristled at Turnbull's suggestions that his recollections about the incident might have become confused. "I'm still suffering from the horror of it all...if someone had carried out their jobs, this might have never happened," he said.

Philip Radley, Manly's supervisor, also disputed Turnbull's suggestion that a baggage handler probably forced open the double doors that were also secured with a long metal bolt. "You couldn't break it out like that," he said. Turnbull said a muted response by airport officials and police to the incident showed they did not believe an intruder had slipped into sensitive areas at the airport. Manly said he was interviewed by an anti-terrorist squad shortly after the incident, but his story was never followed up at the Lockerbie inquiry.

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.

[RB: The appeal court rejected this ground of appeal. Here is my explanation of why it did so:]

The only ground upon which a criminal appeal can succeed in Scotland is that there has been a miscarriage of justice. In the Note of Appeal lodged on behalf of Megrahi there were set out in 21 paragraphs (many of them subdivided) the grounds upon which, individually or in combination, it was contended that a miscarriage had occurred. One of those grounds related to the existence and significance of evidence which was not heard during the original proceedings. This evidence related to a breach of security at Heathrow Terminal 3 (potentially giving access to the baggage build-up area) the night before Pan Am 103 departed from that terminal on its fatal flight. The Appeal Court allowed the new evidence to be led before it, but ultimately concluded that it could not be regarded as possessing such importance as to have been likely to have had a material bearing on the trial court’s determination of the critical issue of whether the suitcase containing the bomb was launched on its progress from Luqa Airport in Malta (an essential plank in the prosecution case) or from Heathrow. This ground of appeal was accordingly rejected.

Pierre Salinger in witness box at Lockerbie trial

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

One of the two Libyans standing trial over the Lockerbie bombing is to ask judges to throw out the case against him.

The lawyer for Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah will argue at the Scottish court in the Netherlands that insufficient evidence has been presented against his client.

The prosecution case came to an end on Monday - 71 days, 250 witnesses and several lengthy adjournments after it was opened by Scotland's most senior law officer, Lord Advocate Colin Boyd, in May.

The Crown is seeking to show that a huge amount of circumstantial evidence, when taken together, proves Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah carried out the bombing, in which 270 people died.

Next week the court will hear a motion that there is no case to answer against Mr Fhimah.

The judges will be asked to decide on the weight of evidence against him, rather than the quality of the Crown case.

There has been no similar move from Megrahi, and there is now speculation he will be the first witness when the defence case begins next week.

Earlier, a senior American journalist told the trial that he knows who carried out the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

But Pierre Salinger, former chief foreign correspondent for the ABC network, was infuriated when the court would not allow him to name who he believed was to blame.

Mr Salinger said: "I know that these two Libyans had nothing to do with it. I know who did it and I know exactly why it was done."

He was based at ABC's London office when the two accused were indicted in 1991.

The court heard that Mr Salinger, who appeared as a prosecution witness, had interviewed the two standing trial.

Judges were shown extracts from the interview in which Mr Megrahi strongly denied being involved.

He added he had never been a member of the Libyan intelligence agency, and his family and countrymen would be "ashamed" to do such a job.

Mr Megrahi said he had not been in Malta on the day the bomb began its journey to Heathrow via Frankfurt.

Mr Salinger was then asked about how he had obtained the meeting, but he was stopped from giving his views on the case.

After Alan Turnbull QC, prosecuting, and defence counsel William Taylor QC and Richard Keen QC finished their questioning, the trial judge, Lord Sutherland, asked Mr Salinger to leave the witness box.

The broadcaster said: "That's all? You're not letting me tell the truth.

"Wait a minute, I know exactly who did it. I know how it was done."

Lord Sutherland interrupted and told the witness: "If you wish to make a point you may do so elsewhere, but I'm afraid you may not do so in this court."

The two men deny three charges, of conspiracy, murder and Contravening the Aviation Security Act 1982.

The defence says that Palestinian terror groups, not the Libyans, were responsible for the attack.

Mr Salinger was one of the last witnesses for the prosecution, which has previously called a Libyan spy and secret agents from the CIA and Stasi.

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.]

Megrahi and the coded passport

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

The Lockerbie trial has heard that one of the accused was issued with a false passport after security service chiefs sent an urgent request to the relevant authorities.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 48, was given a "coded" passport in the name of Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamed, the Scottish Court in the Netherlands was told.

Maloud Mohamed Omar El Gharour, of the general passport and nationality department in Libya, said that in June 1987 his department received a letter from the external security services asking for a new "coded" passport for Al Megrahi.

Prosecuting counsel Alan Turnbull QC asked the witness: "What would you understand by a coded passport?"

Mr El Gharour said: "It means simply that the passport does not carry the original name of its holder."

He told the court that the letter requesting the passport asked for the matter to be dealt with "very urgently".

It said the name of the holder of the coded passport was Al Megrahi who was described as having the job of "collaborator civil".

However the profession listed for his false passport was to be "employee".

The false passport was issued on the same day as the urgent letter was received, Mr El Gharour said.

The Lockerbie indictment accuses Al Megrahi of travelling to Malta, where the bomb which blew up Pan Am Flight 103 is alleged to have originated, on various occasions in 1987 and 1988 using the false identity of Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamed.

Carol Butler, of the British Immigration Services, told the court that stamps in the Abdusamad passport showed the user arriving in Malta on 20 December 1988 and flying back to Libya the following day.

The passport was not used again after 20 December.

[I have commented on this evidence as follows:]

Megrahi (inexplicably, in the view of many) was not called by his lawyers to give evidence on his own behalf at the trial; so no explanation of his use of this passport was ever supplied to the court. There is an innocent (ie non-Lockerbie related) explanation (involving his role in seeking to circumvent US trade sanctions against Libya and obtain Boeing aircraft spare parts on behalf of his employers, Libyan Arab Airlines) which could have been provided.

[Megrahi’s own explanation of the use of this coded passport on this occasion can be found in John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury at pages 108 to 115.]

Promotions for prosecutors involved in CIA Giaka cables scandal

[What follows is the text of an item posted on TheLockerbieTrial.com on this date in 2000:]

The Lord Advocate [Colin Boyd QC] announced on Monday [9 October 2000] that Alan Turnbull QC, one of the senior Crown counsel at the Lockerbie trial, was being promoted to Home Advocate Depute. [RB: The Home AD was the most senior prosecutor in the Crown Office after the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General for Scotland.]

The announcement has come as a surprise to many including Turnbull himself, who has of late been keeping a very low profile at the Camp Zeist trial.

Turnbull's low profile in the courtroom has had a good deal to do with the results of his trips to the CIA "reading room" at the US Embassy in The Hague.

Accompanied by Senior Procurator Fiscal Norman McFadyen, Turnbull read through the secret text of numerous CIA documents.

Presumably both he and McFadyen decided that what was hidden behind the redacted versions of the CIA cables and shown to them was not relevant to the defence case or that it did not undermine the Crown case.

Subsequent events in court have shown that the text that lay behind the redacted cables was highly relevant to the defence. What compounded the problems for the prosecution was that Turnbull and McFadyen, knowing now what lay behind the some of the redactions, must also have known that the notations written along side the redacted areas which were supposed to describe in general terms what was hidden, turned out to be utterly misleading and bogus.

These notations were obviously designed to throw any interested party off the track of what really lay behind the blacked out sections of the cables.

Turnbull clearly was clearly involved in this exercise in preparation for the Crown's examination of the Libyan informer Giaka but that task fell to Advocate Depute Campbell and Turnbull took a back seat.

Turnbull and McFadyen, both highly experienced prosecutors, must have been aware that allowing this deception to go forward could be damaging to the Crown's relationship to the court, leaving aside the legalities and ethical consideration of their actions.

Sources close to the trial have told us that Alastair Campbell QC, was very concerned about this and was not prepared to allow this situation to go unresolved and his actions ensured that the defence was informed.

That Turnbull and McFadyen stayed silent on these matters for so long is a real cause for concern. We do know that they had to sign confidentiality documents before the CIA would allow them to see material and one could fairly ask if they had any authority to do so, bearing in mind the Crown's responsibility to the Court. What form of undertaking Turnbull and McFadyen gave the CIA should be made public. 

Given the background to these events, the timing of the announcement of Turnbull's promotion caused surprise in many quarters.

Informed sources have told us that that there are several members of the legal profession considering lodging formal complaints with the Faculty of Advocates and the Law Society of Scotland regarding the conduct of Alan Turnbull and Norman McFadyen in relation to the CIA cables. 

[RB: In March 2003 there was also promotion for Norman McFadyen. He became Crown Agent, the civil service head of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. These two promotions tellingly illustrate just how seriously Lord Advocate Boyd took the Crown’s shameful behaviour over the CIA Giaka cables.

All four of the prosecution lawyers mentioned above are now judges in Scotland.]

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.]