A commentary on the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the murder of 270 people in the Pan Am 103 disaster.
Tuesday 3 June 2008
"Insider" confirmation to Dr De Braeckeleer
"Within hours of the publication by OMNI, an insider, who wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons, contacted me. This source confirmed that OMNI had correctly identified the document and its country of origin. The source also tells me that the nature of an earlier meeting would unambiguously reveal the political nature of the indictments against Libya."
The full article can be read here.
Sunday 3 February 2008
Lockerbie: Chronicle of a Death Foretold
I reproduce below the final section, headed Ockam's Razor:
'Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious. -- St. Thomas Aquinas
'The 14th century English friar and logician William of Ockham is credited to have been the first to suggest the principle according to which the simplest explanation that fits all known facts is usually the right one. Allow me to review the facts.
'Following the Vincennes attack, the Iranian Ambassador at the UN told the world in no ambiguous terms that Iran will seek revenge. In Tehran, Mostashemi, the Iranian Minister of the Interior, promised that the skies will rain blood.
'Mostashemi, and top other Iranian officials, held a series of meetings in Beirut with several members of a well known organization, the PFLP-GC, led by Ahmed Jibril. Iran has colluded with the PFLP-GC before and after the Lockerbie bombing.
'The PFLP-GC was the logical choice for several reasons. The Palestinian group operated in Lebanon under Syrian protection and enjoyed a special relation with Mostashemi who had been the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon in the 80s.
'The organization had the know-how to manufacture timing devices involving an air-pressure switch for bombs to detonate aboard airplanes. Jibril had operating cells in Europe, including in Germany and Sweden. Last, but not least, Syrian drug Barron al Kasaar, and former associate of Oliver North, could easily bypass the security of Frankfurt airport, thanks to several baggage handlers working for his organization.
'In September, Jibril sent Dalkamoni, his most trusted lieutenant, to Germany in order to organize a cell which, with the collaboration of another PFLP-GC cell from Sweden, had for mission to construct bomb specifically designed to destroy airliners. A few weeks later, Jibril ordered Khreesat, one of his two senior bomb-makers, to join Dalkamoni in Germany.
'In late October, the German authorities arrested most members of both cells. They found four devices built into domestic objects, such as radios and televisions, as well as Pan Am timetables. Several members of the terrorist organization escaped the raid, including Abu Ellias and Abu Talb. A CIA-BKA asset told the FBI that Dalkamoni had passed one bomb to Ellias. Two PFLP-GC members, Goben and Tunayb, have revealed that Ellias planted thebomb in Jafaar's luggage.
'Jafaar met Talb in Sweden and then Jibril in Germany, in mid December. It seems that Jibril convinced Jafaar to carry heroin to the US. A witness described Jafaar as suspiciously agitated as he was waiting to board on Pan Am 103.
'The Germans tested one of these bombs by taking it up in a 747. They established that a bomb detonated by these timers would go off between 32 and 42 minutes after take-off. Flight 103 was in the air for 38 minutes before it blew up, right in the middle of the time frame.
'Last October, former CIA operative Robert Baer told David Horovitz that the bomb that exploded on Pan Am 103 was one of Dalkamoni devices.
'A high ranking Iranian defector testified that Iranian agents planted the bomb parts in Frankfurt, and that the bomb was assembled in London. (See Confession of an Iranian Terror Czar) Jibril and Kasaar were seen having diner alone in a Paris restaurant just weeks before the bombing. The BKA concluded that the bomb started its journey in Frankfurt.
'During the first appeal, in 2002, it was revealed that there had been a break-in at Heathrow the night before the bombing. The Iranian Air facility was immediately adjacent to the baggage assembly area where transit luggage for Flight 103 was loaded.
'The chief baggage handler, John Bedford, testified that, when he returned from a coffee break, he saw two additional suitcases had been loaded into the relevant container for Flight 103.
'The crash investigators established that the explosion occurred precisely where those cases had been placed, above a single layer of baggage that Bedford had already packed into the container.
'The day prior to the bombing, various Intelligence Agencies intercepted communications informing Iranian Officials of the whereabouts of McKee and his rescue team.
'Two day after the bombing, communication intercepts indicate that Tehran ordered their Ambassador in Beirut to pay Jibril Organization for the successful operation. The transfer of the money is recorded and Dalkamoni was in possession of the Paris bank account number when he was arrested.
'Dalkamoni was rewarded for his services to the "Islamic revolutionary struggle against the West." The Iranian citation praises Dalkamoni for achieving the greatest-ever strike against the West.
'Moreover, $500,000 was transferred on April 25, 1989 to the Degussa bank of Frankfurt and deposited on the account of Mohammed Abu Talb. In his agenda, Talb had circled, the date of the Lockerbie bombing. In his apartment, police found clothes bought in Malta. Talb had met with Dalkamoni in Cyprus during October.
'Talb was in Malta on November 23 when clothes surrounding the bomb are believed to have been bought. The owner of the shop had initially identified him. He confessed his participation in the Lockerbie bombing and then retracted his confession without any explanation. His wife was heard telling in a phone conversation to Palestinian friends "to get rid of the clothes."
'Incidentally, Abu Talb likes his friends to call him by his nom de guerre, namely Abu Intekam, Father of Revenge, the very codename given by Mostashemi to the Lockerbie bombing operation.
Wednesday 28 May 2008
Former Iranian President blames Tehran for Lockerbie
The full article can be read here.
Tuesday 25 December 2007
British Media Exploited by Intel Agencies
He tells the story of The Sunday Telegraph in 1995 running a story planted by known intelligence agents (but reported by the newspaper to emanate from a "British banking official") about Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. One paragraph reads: "The paper accused Col. Muammar Qaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, of running a major money laundering operation in Europe intended to fund weapons of mass destruction: Saif al-Islam is a 'thoroughly dishonest, unscrupulous and untrustworthy maverick against whom the international banking community has been warned to be on its guard.'"
Saif sued for libel. At the trial in 2002 the newspaper eventually admitted that the allegations had been untrue and that there had been no evidence to support them. However, at one stage the newspaper had pleaded the defence of qualified privilege; the lawyers argued that it was in the public interest to publish the articles even if they turned out to be untrue. Dr De Braeckeleer comments on this:
"For those who follow the Lockerbie farce -- the Megrahi second appeal over the Lockerbie judgment -- it is hard not to notice the irony of the last argument. Indeed, it seems that in the U.K., it is good for the public to be told lies while at the same time it is good for the same public not to be shown secret documents believed to be vital to unearthing the truth about the largest crime ever committed on U.K. soil."
Tuesday 15 January 2008
Round-up from 9 to 15 January 2008
1. Libyaonline and Mathaba on 12 January 2008 both run the same article saying that Libya's first action as President of the United Nations Security Council should be to institute a UN inquiry into the circumstances of the destruction of Pan Am 103, under the chairmanship of Professor Hans Koechler, with particular reference to the death of Bernt Carlsson, the UN Commissioner for Namibia, in the disaster. From internal evidence, I would guess that the author of the article, or a principal source, is Patrick Haseldine. My own view is that it would be embarrassing, and involve a conflict of interest, for Libya to institute, or press for the institution of, such a UN inquiry, given that it is a Libyan state servant who currently stands convicted (wrongly, in my view) of the bombing. See
http://www.libyaonline.com/news/details.php?id=1637
and
http://mathaba.net/rss/?x=577588
2. Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer has an article on 11 January 2008 in OhMyNews International entitled "Confession of an Iranian Terror Czar" in which he contends that Iranian Brigadier General Ahmad Beladi Behbahani confessed to Iran's responsibility for the destruction of Pan Am 103. Further circumstantial evidence is rehearsed. See
http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=381443&rel_no=1&back_url
3. A commentary on, and expansion of some of the supporting evidence in, Dr De Braeckeleer's article is to be found on the Angirfan blog on 12 January. See
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2008/01/lockerbie-behbahani-and-arrest-of-al.html
4. The following letter from Kathleen Flynn, mother of one of those killed on Pan An 103, appears in The New York Times of 12 January:
'Re “Rehabilitating Libya” (editorial, Jan. 5), which says President Bush and leaders of other countries should keep pressing Tripoli for change:
'As the mother of J. P. Flynn, who was blown out of the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland, in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, I hope that this administration makes your editorial required reading for all State Department employees.
'Any rehabilitation of Libya must start at the top with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the same supreme Libyan leader who ruled on Dec. 21, 1988, when a bomb brought down the Pan Am jet. I have a hard time justifying “business as usual” with a terrorist nation and find it even sadder that the call from the United States has not been for regime change.'
See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/opinion/l12libya.html?ref=opinion
The editorial to which Mrs Flynn refers appears at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/opinion/05sat3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
5. The Bulgarian news agency Focus on 12 January published an article entitled "Wanted: Home For Lockerbie Jumbo" which considers various proposals for the final disposal of the wreckage of the aircraft. See
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n131303
Saturday 6 October 2007
More from Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer
The following article appears on the OhmyNews English-language website:
Lockerbie Investigator Disputes Story
Richard Marquise led the
Ludwig De Braeckeleer
Published 2007-10-06 17:02 (KST)
"Proper judicial procedure is simply impossible if political interests and intelligence services -- from whichever side -- succeed in interfering in the actual conduct of a court … The purpose of intelligence services -- from whichever side -- lies in secret action and deception, not in the search for truth. Justice and the rule of law can never be achieved without transparency."
--Hans Koechler, U.N. observer at the
On Sept. 6, OhmyNews International published a story related to a sensational document known as the Lumpert affidavit. (See "Key Lockerbie Witness Admits Perjury.)
Ulrich Lumpert was a key witness (No. 550) at the
"I confirm today on July 18, 2007, that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 Timer PC-board consisting of 8 layers of fiberglass from MeBo Ltd. and gave it without permission on June 22, 1989, to a person officially investigating in the Lockerbie case," Lumpert wrote.
On Sept. 7, the agent who led the Lockerbie investigation for the FBI wrote to me and criticized the article on several grounds, but most importantly, he alleged that the Lumpert affidavit was a "total fabrication."
Richard Marquise led the
"Lumpert's new statement is a total fabrication. He was interviewed several times, including at a judicial hearing in
With all due respect, I must state very unambiguously that I remain convinced that the document is authentic and that the story is not a hoax. Moreover, I have obtained a document that strongly suggests that the timeline of the events related to the identification of the MST-13 timer has been fabricated.
Since the publication of the article, a well-informed source has told me that Lumpert has signed four affidavits. The documents were certified by notary Walter Wieland under Nr. 2069 to 2072.
I am now in possession of one of these four documents and I have received confirmation from the proper Swiss authority that Wieland indeed certified these documents on July 18 and that he is competent for doing so.
Although I was initially very skeptical of the Lumpert affidavit, I came to the conclusion that I have no reason to doubt its authenticity or the truthfulness of its content.
Indeed, both the timing of Lumpert's admission of perjury, his motivation for doing so as stated in the affidavit, as well as the content of the document led me to believe that the story is not a fabrication.
Lumpert wrote that he wishes to clear his conscience and that he can no longer "be prosecuted for stealing, delivering and making false statements about the MST-13 Timer PC-board, on grounds of statutory limitation."
Moreover, as I explained at length in the Sept. 6 article, the Lumpert affidavit, in just seven paragraphs, elucidates all of the longstanding mysteries surrounding the infamous MST-13 timer, which allegedly triggered the bomb that exploded Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988.
Conspiracy Theory?
I wish to add that I am obviously not the only one who had reached such a conclusion. The possibility that evidence has been fabricated in order to secure the conviction of the Libyans has gained support among many people who could hardly be described as conspiracy theorists.
Jim Swire, Robert Black and Hans Koechler are among the best-informed people about the extremely complex
Black QC FRSE (Queen's Council and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh) has been Professor of Scots Law in the
For various periods he served as head of the Department of Scots Law (later Private Law). He has been an advocate since 1972 and a QC since 1987. From 1987 to 1996 he was general editor of The Laws of Scotland: Stair Memorial Encyclopedia (25 volumes). From 1981 to 1994 he served as a temporary sheriff (judge).
He has taken a close interest in the Lockerbie affair since 1993, not least because he was born and brought up in the town, and has published a substantial number of articles on the topic in the
Black's support for the story is obvious from the fact that he posted my article on his Web site. In a comment posted on OMNI, Black went out of his way to express his agreement with the 18-page analysis of the consequences of the Lumpert affidavit. "A masterly review of the weaknesses in the Lockerbie court's conviction of [Abdelbaset Al] Megrahi," Black wrote.
In April 2000, professor Koechler was appointed by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as international observer at the Lockerbie bombing trial that was held at
Koechler has also posted the article on his Web site. He wrote this comment on OMNI:
“This is a well-researched analysis which precisely reveals the serious mistakes and omissions by the official Scottish investigators as well as the carelessness and lack of professionalism of the judges in the Lockerbie case. The Scottish judicial authorities are under the obligation to investigate possible criminal misconduct in the investigation and prosecution of the Lockerbie case.On July 4, 2007, Koechler wrote to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, reiterating his call for a "full and independent public inquiry of the Lockerbie case."
Dr. Swire, who lost his daughter in the Lockerbie bombing, is a founder and the spokesperson of the U.K. Families 103, which campaigns to seek the truth about the worst act of terror ever committed in the
I promised Richard Marquise that I would make an effort "to see things from the other side." And I will. But for now, we must agree to disagree. I leave him with a comment posted by Iain McKie -- someone who knows all about the consequences of forensic mistakes.
Another Lockerbie mystery is why, given this latest opportunity [Megrahi's second appeal] to uncover the truth about this terrorist outrage that claimed the lives of people from 21 countries (including 189 Americans), and given the U.S. and British high profile "war on terror," is the political silence so deafening?
I find it increasingly difficult to argue with Dr. De Braeckeleer's conclusion: "Shame on those who committed this horrific act of terror. Shame on those who have ordered the cover-up. Shame on those who provided false testimony, and those who suppressed and fabricated the evidence needed to frame
Marquise has made other comments about the article that I will discuss at a later time. However, I wish to point out that Marquise is right to state that the quotes attributed to Michael Scharf, formerly of U.S. State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence, although correct do not represent exactly his opinion, as they have been printed out of context by the British media. (Scharf helped draft the sanctions against
Scharf wrote to me,
“The text of the quotes is more or less accurate but is out of context, giving the misimpression that I thought that the two Lockerbie defendants were innocent and the
“It is true, as your quote indicates, that I felt the evidentiary case presented at Camp Zeist was not as strong as the Department of Justice had led the Department of State to believe it would be at the time we were pushing for sanctions against Libya in the U.N., but that is not to say that I thought the defendants were actually innocent of wrong doing, which is the impression left by the quotes.If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is the fact that no one except the judges is satisfied with the Lockerbie trial.”
Meanwhile, new extraordinary revelations have surfaced that support my view that the Lockerbie trial was engineered by Western intelligence services to frame
'Secret' Lockerbie Report Claim
Crucial information in the possession of the CIA that is related to the timer issue was withheld from the defense. The Heraldof Glasgow revealed on Oct. 2 that "a top secret [CIA] document vital to unearthing the truth about the Lockerbie bombing was obtained by the Crown Office but never shown to the defense team."
"The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) has uncovered there is a document which was in the possession of the crown and was not disclosed to the defense, which concerns the supply of MST-13 timers. Moreover, the commission has determined the decision to keep the document from the defense may have constituted a miscarriage of justice," the paper reported a source as saying.
The prosecutors have refused to make public the ultra secret document on the basis of national security. Many have been wondering what national security has to do with the Lockerbie bombing. "It is shocking to me that after 19 years of trying to get to the truth about who murdered my daughter national security is being used as an excuse," said Swire.
After having seen the CIA document, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission team that investigated the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi decided to grant him a second appeal. The document has not yet been seen by the defense. The document is thought to dispute the pivotal fact that the bomb was triggered by the MST-13 timer that linked the case to
The non-disclosure agreement was signed by Norman McFadyen, then one of the leading members of the prosecution, on June 1, 2000.
In an exclusive interview earlier this week, Koechler told Gordon Brewer of the BCC's "Newsnight
The withholding of evidence by the investigators and the prosecution from the defense at the Lockerbie court is a serious breach of the fundamental norms of a fair trial. If such action occurs on the basis of a written commitment given to a foreign intelligence service, as has now been revealed concerning crucial evidence related to the timer that allegedly triggered the explosion of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, the judicial nature of the entire proceedings is to be put into question.
If a foreign intelligence service is allowed to determine what evidence may be disclosed in court and what not, judicial proceedings before a court of law are perverted into a kind of intelligence operation the purpose of which is not the search for the truth, but the obfuscation of reality.Black has said,
If a foreign intelligence agency says they would be prepared to give the crown access only if they promise to keep the information secret, then it is the responsibility of the crown to say we cannot do that. They have an ethical responsibility not to sign such agreements.
This tends to indicate that the crown has not changed its fundamental stance that says they will decide what the public interest is and what information should or should not be disclosed. That is fundamentally wrong.The source in the Herald's report agrees: "The commission was unable to obtain authority for its disclosure. Without access to this document, the defense is disabled from putting before the court full and comprehensive grounds of appeal as to why the conviction should be quashed."
CIA Offered $2m to Lockerbie Witnesses
It now appears that huge amounts of money were offered by
"We understand the commission found new documents which refer to discussions between the
On Oct. 5, Edwin Bollier, head of the Zurich-based company MeBo, told Koechler that during a visit to the headquarters of the FBI in Washington, D.C., at the beginning of 1991, he was offered an amount of up to $4 million plus a new identity in the U.S. if he would testify in court that the timer fragment that was allegedly found on the crash site around Lockerbie stemmed from a MST-13 timer that his company had delivered to Libya.
Media Silence
Will the media finally cover this extraordinary affair? Perhaps. In
In the
Quo Vadis?
"In view of all these revelations and serious allegations, Koechler renewed his call for an independent international investigation of the handling of the Lockerbie case by the Scottish and British authorities," wrote Gordon Brewer of the BCC's "Newsnight
"It remains to be seen whether the Scottish judicial and political system will live up to the challenge and whether the authorities will allow a full and objective inquiry," Brewer said. I have very little hope that the Scottish judicial and political system will allow an independent international investigation.
For now, I encourage my readers to reflect upon a Persian saying. "Shame on those who committed the deed. Shame on those who allowed the deed to be committed."
Ludwig De Braeckeleer has a Ph.D. in nuclear sciences. He teaches physics and international humanitarian law. He blogs on "The GaiaPost.”
©2007 OhmyNews
http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=380601&rel_no=1&back_url=
Monday 24 September 2018
Salisbury Incident — Skripal case investigators could learn from the Lockerbie affair
“The men and women at Bletchley had no idea that in the Napoleonic Wars we had broken the French ciphers, any more than those people knew how ciphers had been cracked when we faced the threat from the Armada.
There was absolutely no question of learning from experience. This repeats itself more in intelligence than in any other area because the experience is less well known, and much of it classified. That is why you get major policymakers whose abilities are adequate in other ways who do so badly in matters of intelligence.
There is no profession that know so little about its own history as the intelligence community does.”
There is no do doubt whatsoever that Intelligence professionals should have a much better knowledge of their history as, now and then, they could use a few hints from past cases. (...)
The comments from Professor Andrew are not without irony. Ten years ago, I wrote to a British scholar who specializes in the history of MI5. I strongly suggested to this professor that it was urgent to save all information regarding the Lockerbie Affair. The reply was direct. “There is no need for that. Nobody, absolutely nobody, cares about this old story.”
Well, never mind that the SCCRC has decided last year to conduct a full review of the Lockerbie case. A new trial is widely expected to quash the infamous Zeist verdict.
Today, although I am certainly not an expert in the Skripals investigation, I would like to tell you about two striking similarities between this case and the Lockerbie affair. (...)
The Smell Test
LOCKERBIE — For many months, a Germany-based terrorist cell was the prime focus of the Lockerbie investigators. Marwan Khreesat — the bomb maker of this organisation — had built five explosive devices. One was hidden inside a Toshiba cassette-recorder similar to the one that allegedly destroyed Pan Am 103.
According to Intelligence reports, Khreesat, Dalkamoni — the leader of the cell in Germany — and Ahmed Jibril — the head of the PFLP-GC — had repeated discussions about various methods to cover the smell of SEMTEX, the explosive used in these five radio-bombs as well as in the attack of Pan Am 103.
These events occurred in October 1988 and Pan Am 103 was downed on December 21 1988. At that time, only one company produced SEMTEX and terrorists like it very much because it was odourless. Chemicals were added after 1991 to give SEMTEX a distinct smell.
One of the first questions addressed to Dalkamoni after his arrest by the German police at the end of October 1988 was if he knew what SEMTEX smells like. He was quite surprised. “Who do you take me for? I am an explosive professional. I know everything about explosives. Of course, SEMTEX is odourless.”
Today, we know that Khreesat was a CIA mole. Why did he made up all these stories about the smell of SEMTEX? Thirty years later, we still do not know.
SALISBURY — According to UK media, Charlie Rowley mentioned that the perfume that killed his girlfriend had an odd ammonia-type smell. Again, Novichok, like all nerve agents, is both tasteless and odourless.
And if you try to spin the story, you quickly run into troubles. Sure, ingredients could have been added. But, we have been told all along that the samples match exactly the Russian ‘secret’ formula.
The Mystery of the Residue Analysis
SALISBURY — According to the official press release:
“On 4 May 2018, tests were carried out in the hotel room where the suspects had stayed. A number of samples were tested at DSTL at Porton Down. Two swabs showed contamination of Novichok at levels below that which would cause concern for public health.
A decision was made to take further samples from the room as a precautionary measure, including in the same areas originally tested, and all results came back negative. We believe the first process of taking swabs removed the contamination, so low were the traces of Novichok in the room.”
So, we must accept that residues of Novichok were present in the hotel room for two months, and then disappeared because of a couple of swabs? How often do they clean a hotel room in East London, where the “suspects” stayed before travelling to Salisbury?
LOCKERBIE — The Lockerbie trial statistics are impressive. The trial amassed 10,232 pages of evidence amounting to more than 3m words. The court was shown 2,488 pieces of evidence and heard 229 prosecution witnesses. The trial cost £60m.
One would therefore safely conclude that the evidence of SEMTEX in the bombing of Pan Am 103 is well established. One would be wrong! None of the important fragments — radio, timer and pieces of clothing surrounding the device — were actually tested for explosive residues.
Only one piece of debris (a beam from the luggage container) — out of 4 million pieces collected — indicated the presence of SEMTEX. When I first saw these data, I immediately understood that something was badly wrong.
The spectrum indicated that all kinds of explosive residues were present in the swabs. This is clearly nonsense as some of these explosives, such as TNT and SEMTEX components, do not mix. Obviously, this was a case of contamination.
Years later, we learned that the laboratory that had conducted these measurements was indeed totally contaminated. One could find explosive residues in the offices, in the library, in the restaurant, anywhere. Over the years, that laboratory has been renamed many times: RARDE, DERA, DSTL. Many names, but it is the same damn place.
It was contamination in the Lockerbie Affair. And I would not rule out contamination in the Salisbury Case. If there is something we learn from history, it is that some people never learn from history.
Saturday 6 September 2008
Libyan Nuke Program Was CIA-MI6 Sting Op
The article can be read here.
Further developments in this saga are related in an Associated Press article dated 22 January 2009 which can be read here.
Friday 5 June 2015
Another claim of Iranian responsibility
Saturday 11 February 2017
Lockerbie witnesses were paid
Sunday 10 July 2016
Megrahi convicted on evidence designed to prosecute Abu Talb
Monday 24 April 2017
Lockerbie — Pan Am 103: the truth at last?
Wednesday 29 April 2015
"No reasonable jury could have drawn the critical inferences"
The son of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was in court yesterday alongside Libyan lawyers, international observers and the relatives of the victims, to hear the first day of his father’s new appeal.
Khalid al Megrahi, 22, the eldest son of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was present to hear his father's case to clear his name at the Court of Criminal appeal in Edinburgh.
Senior judges heard that the health of Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, has deteriorated and that he would be unable to sit through a full day of proceedings.
Megrahi, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year, will be watching the appeal at HMP Greenock through a live video link. However, Margaret Scott QC, his defence advocate, said he would need to take breaks and attend medical appointments during the appeal.
Megrahi, 57, is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years after being convicted in 2001 of bombing Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 and murdering 270 people.
He lost his appeal in 2002 but was referred back to the courts in June 2007 by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) whose three-and-a-half year investigation found that his conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice on six different grounds.
Beginning legal submissions on Megrahi's behalf, Ms Scott QC told the court: "The appellant's position is that there has been a miscarriage of justice in this case."
She said the trial court, on the basis of "wholly circumstantial evidence", concluded it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that Megrahi was involved in the crime.
"In our submission, it was wrong to do so," she said. She told them that Megrahi would require to take breaks due to pain and is to see doctors later this week over a new course of treatment. (...)
In the gallery were a number of relatives of victims of the tragedy, including Dr Jim Swire, the Reverend John Mosey, and Hairat Ade-Balogun, an international observer for the UN.
Ms Scott told the judges the trial court's conclusion centred on four "critical inferences".
These were that Megrahi bought the clothing which was in the suitcase containing the bomb, that the purchase happened on December 7 1988, that the buyer knew the purpose for which the clothing was bought, and that the suitcase containing the bomb was "ingested" at Luqa airport in Malta.
But Ms Scott told the court these were all areas of dispute.
"No reasonable jury, properly directed, could have drawn the critical inferences which were necessary to return that verdict of guilty," she said.
She also suggested other conclusions could have been drawn from the accepted evidence.
Megrahi's request for interim bail was last year turned down by three appeal court judges and there is concern that he may not survive the lengthy appeal process.
The Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) between Libya and the UK, which was signed by Westminster last year and is due to be ratified shortly, means that any Libyan serving a sentence in the UK, who has no pending appeal, could be returned home. [RB: The PTA was ratified that very day, 29 April 2009.] Those in Scottish prisons could be moved only with the permission of Scottish ministers.
Libyan officials say they have been encouraged by senior civil servants from both sides of the border, including Robert Gordon, the head of the Justice Department in Scotland, to apply for Megrahi to be transferred as soon as the agreement is ratified.
[A report in The Scotsman concentrates on the difference in attitude towards Megrahi and his appeal between US and UK relatives of Lockerbie victims. The most informative account of the first day of the appeal, and of the background to it, is that of Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer (whose new blog PT35B should be followed by anyone interested in the Lockerbie case) which can be found here.]