Lockerbie payout plea over Gaddafi 'blood millions' sitting untouched in US banks for 10 years

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of the Sunday Mail, following on from an item posted on this blog on 7 February 2018. It reads in part:]

Hundreds of millions of pounds of Colonel Gaddafi’s Lockerbie blood money is sitting in the

US government’s accounts a decade after it was paid out.

The Libyan dictator paid more than £1billion in 2008 for the families of American victims of
the atrocity and other terrorist attacks.

But up to a third of the cash is still to be distributed by the US government 10 years later.

Lockerbie campaigner Dr Jim Swire said some of the money could be spent on a new inquiry
into the bombing.

Other relatives suggested the cash be paid to Gaddafi’s victims in Libya.

Dr Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora was a passenger on the plane, believes that
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was innocent of the terrorist attack.

He said: “The block of a complete review of the Megrahi evidence to date since 2001
demands both explanation and redress.

“To challenge this impasse would be an excellent use of the money, if only the US authorities
were prepared to consider for one moment that justice was not served at the Camp Zeist
court.”

He added: “We are not asking people to believe us. We are asking people to re-examine the
evidence. And if that was done, I’m sure there would soon be no doubt the verdict against
Megrahi should have never been brought in.” (...)

Two years after Megrahi’s conviction, Libya paid £2billion to the families of the Lockerbie
bombing.

The United Nations later lifted the sanctions imposed on Libya, enabling the country to
exploit its vast oil reserves.

In 2008, a further £1billion was paid to settle outstanding claims from American families of
victims of Lockerbie and other Libyan state-sponsored terrorism.

In January this year, about 50 former Pan Am pilots were refused cash from the Libyan fund.

They claimed the bombing had led to the demise of the airline, costing them their jobs,
health insurance and pensions.

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was one of the passengers on Pan Am Flight 103, suggested
some of the remaining cash could go to Gaddafi’s victims in Libya.

Pamela, of Woking, Surrey, said: “What the Americans do with the rest of the money is a big
question and they clearly don’t want to answer it.

“Perhaps they should give it back to Libya. State-sponsored terrorism in Libya was rife for
years. Gaddafi killed a lot of his own people.

“There is a very good argument for saying it should help make reparations in Libya.

“What would be wrong would be the money just sitting there. There should be an open and
transparent discussion about what should be done with it.”

A US State Department official said: “Most of the $1.5billion (£1.1billion) received from
Libya through the settlement has been paid out to eligible claimants.

“Shortly after the settlement was received, the State Department paid amounts to the Pan
Am 103 victims, LaBelle Disco bombing victims and estates of victims who had died in other
terrorist attacks that were the subject of litigation pending against Libya in US courts. These
payments amounted to over $1billion (£726million).

“The State Department also made three referrals of claims to the Foreign Claims Commission
for adjudication.

On January 15, 2009, the Department referred various other categories of claims of US victims.

“All of those claims were adjudicated by the Commission and awards were paid in full.”

Other payments from Gaddafi’s cash include £27million to victims or their families of the
massacre at Lod airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1972 and the Rome airport attack in 1985.

The US Treasury refused to respond to enquiries about how much compensation cash is left.

Lockerbie father calls for restraint

[This is the headline over a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2001, four days after the aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It reads as follows:]

The father of one of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster has called for caution in any retaliation for the US terror attacks.

John Mosey, a leading member of the Lockerbie support group, wrote to the prime minister to express support for action, but also of his concerns.

The UK Families Flight 103 group wrote to Tony Blair after he pledged unqualified support for any reprisals the US should take.

It reminded Mr Blair of the 1988 tragedy, in which 270 people were killed, and said care should be taken so that more innocent people are not hurt.

Mr Mosey's daughter Helga, 19, was among the victims when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie.

''The utmost care must be taken that whatever path is eventually pursued is successful and does not harm innocent people thus producing another batch of terrorists,'' Mr Mosey wrote.

He said the civilised world clearly had to support the US in taking ''drastic and effective action to root out this network of evil''.

But he added: "We must find a better way of dealing with our international differences than simply picking up a bigger stick with which to beat the other guys."

Mr Mosey said his daughter and those who died in Lockerbie were victims of ''aggressive American foreign policies'' either in the Gulf or Tripoli.

He also expressed the sadness felt by the Lockerbie support group over the US terror attacks and for the victims' families.

''Our feelings go out to the many in whose homes there is an empty place today, who are eagerly watching their TV screens and waiting desperately for information regarding someone who is missing."

Mr Mosey said he wrote ''as an individual whose family has been a victim of a terrorist attack''.

Tuesday's attacks in the US brought back memories of 13 years ago to the families of victims and residents of Lockerbie.

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter died in the Lockerbie bomb, said: "It's times like this that those of us who have experienced something of this nature are drawn together.''

UK and US Lockerbie relatives’ views diverge on Megrahi release

[What follows is the text of a report published in The Guardian on this date in 2009:]

Preparations are under way to free the Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing from prison next week, after doctors said his terminal prostate cancer was in its final stages.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, sentenced to a minimum life term of 25 years in 2001 for killing 270 people in the bombing, is expected to be released on compassionate grounds in time to return home for the start of the festival of Ramadan next week.

It was reported last night that the Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, told the Libyan government to make preparations for Megrahi's imminent release and arrange his flight home.

MacAskill, who has the final say over whether Megrahi should be transferred or released, visited the Libyan last week in Greenock prison, near Glasgow.

The Scottish parole board has also been asked for its views on granting compassionate early release to the former Libyan agent.

Scottish government officials insisted last night that no decision had been made to release Megrahi, either to send him home on compassionate grounds or to grant a separate Libyan request for him to continue his sentence in Libya.

A Scottish government spokesman said: "We can confirm that no decision has been made on applications under the prisoner transfer agreement or compassionate early release by Mr Al Megrahi.

"Justice secretary Kenny MacAskill is still considering all the representations in both cases and hopes to make a decision this month."

Megrahi's release is being resisted by US relatives of some of the 270 people killed in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on 21 December 1988.

American Susan Cohen, whose only child, 20-year-old Theodora, was one of 35 students from Syracuse University in New York on the flight, said any suggestion that Megrahi should be freed on compassionate grounds was "vile".

Speaking from her home in New Jersey, she said: "Any letting out of Megrahi would be a disgrace. It makes me sick, and if there is a compassionate release then I think that is vile.

"It just shows that the power of oil money counts for more than justice. There have been so many attempts to let him off. It has to do with money and power and giving [Libyan ruler Colonel Muammar] Gaddafi what he wants. My feelings, as a victim, apparently count for nothing."

She added: "This is just horrible. Compassion for him? How about compassion for my beautiful daughter? She deserves compassion not a mass murderer."

However, many British families believe Megrahi is innocent. The Libyan is part-way through an appeal against his 2001 conviction, at a trial held in the Netherlands heard under Scottish law. MacAskill cannot grant him a transfer while his appeal against his conviction goes through the courts. However if Megrahi were granted release on compassionate grounds he would not have to drop his appeal for this to be granted.

Pamela Dix, from UK Families Flight 103, said there had been a "lack of justice" for those killed in the tragedy.

Ms Dix, whose brother Peter was killed in the atrocity, told BBC2's Newsnight she was "baffled" by much of the evidence in the trial that led to Megrahi's conviction.

Asked whether his release would be a coup for Gaddafi on the 40th anniversary of his rise to power, she said: "That may well be the case. I'm not really in a position to judge the political situation in Libya."

Dix, said last night it was still far from clear whether Megrahi was innocent or guilty since the trial had left so many unanswered questions.

"Almost 21 years after the Lockerbie bombing, I would expect to know who did it, why they did it and how they did it. Instead, we're left in situation of really knowing very little about what happened."

Dr Jim Swire, who lost his 23-year-old daughter Flora, said it would be to Scotland's credit if the Libyan was released. "I am someone who does not believe he is guilty," he said. "The sooner he is back with his family the better.

"On reasonable human grounds it is the right thing to do and if it's true that he is to be returned on compassionate grounds then that would be more to Scotland's credit than returning him under the prisoner transfer agreement.

"It would mean that he can go to his family who he adores and live the last of his days on this planet with them."

Martin Cadman, who lost his son Bill, aged 32, in the disaster, concurred.

"I hope it is true as it's something we've been wanting for a long time," he said.

"I think he is innocent and even if he were not innocent I still think it's certainly the right thing to do on compassionate grounds."

Victim of one of the most spectacular miscarriages of justice in history

[Abdelbaset al-Megrahi died in Tripoli on this date five years ago. What follows is an obituary written by Tam Dalyell that was published in The Independent:]

Acres of newsprint have appeared in recent years, covering various rather separate theories about the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber.

If I thought for one moment that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was guilty as charged in the mass murder of 270 innocent people in the crash of the Pan Am airliner "Maid of the Seas" at Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, I would not have agreed to pen an obituary – let alone an affectionate one.

My settled conviction, as a "Professor of Lockerbie Studies" over a 22-year period, is that neither Megrahi nor Libya had any role in the destruction of Pan Am 103. The Libyans were cynically scapegoated in 1990, two years after the crash, by a US government which had decided to go to war with Iraq and did not want complications with Syria and Iran, which had harboured the real perpetrators of the terrible deed.

Libya and its "operatives", Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, only came into the frame at a very late date. In my informed opinion, Megrahi has been the victim of one of the most spectacular (and expensive) miscarriages of justice in history. The assertion of innocence is confirmed in the 497 pages of John Ashton's scholarly and remarkable book, Megrahi: You Are My Jury – The Lockerbie Evidence, published by Birlinn.

This is an opinion shared by the senior and experienced solicitor Eddie McKechnie, who successfully represented Fhimah at Zeist in Holland, where a Scottish court was assembled to try the two accused under rules conducted by the jurisdiction of the laws of Scotland, and who took on Megrahi's case following his conviction; by Tony Kelly, the immensely thorough solicitor who has represented him for the past six years; by the bereaved relatives Dr Jim Swire and the Reverend John Mosey, who lost daughters and attended the entire Zeist trial; by Professor Robert Black, Emeritus Professor of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, and Lockerbie-born; and by many others in legal Edinburgh.

Furthermore, the Scottish Criminal Review Commission, in the course of its 800-page report, says (paragraph 24, page 708): "The Crown deprived the defence of the opportunity to take such steps as it might have deemed necessary – so the defence's case was damaged." It concluded: "The commission's view is that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred."

Megrahi was not in Malta on the date the clothing, so crucial in the whole Lockerbie saga, was bought from the shopkeeper Tony Gauci. The proprietor of Mary's House identified a number of different people, including Abu Talb, who appeared at the trial to deny his part in the bombing.

Talb was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command and is now serving a life sentence in Sweden for the 1985 bombings in Copenhagen and Amsterdam. These discrepancies were part of the reason why the Scottish criminal review commission concluded that there could have been a miscarriage of justice; another was the unexplained payment of $10m from Iranian sources into the coffers of the Popular Front.

The testimony of Lesley Atkinson, who knew Megrahi well in Tripoli, is interesting. She is the wife of Neville Atkinson, who, in 1972, left a career as a night-fighter pilot in the Royal Navy to take up a position as personal pilot to the president of Libya, Colonel Gadaffi, until 1982. "Megrahi was polite and friendly and worked for Libyan Arab Airlines," Mrs Atkinson told me. "Of course, lots of people who worked for LAA were connected to the security services and I do not doubt that he was one of them. We knew him both at work and at the Beach Club – he was a normal, nice guy. I cannot imagine that he would ever have dreamt of planting a bomb on an airliner. He just would not have done that to passengers."

Eddie McKechnie described Megrahi as a cultured man doing a job for his country, and certainly not a mass-murderer. Had he not been given extremely bad advice not to appear in the witness box Megrahi would have revealed the truth – that he was a sanctions-buster, travelling the world to find spare parts for the Libyan oil industry and Libyan Arab Airlines. This role was confirmed to me by Colonel Gadaffi, when, as leader of the Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation to Libya in March 2001, I saw him in his tent outside Sirte. Gaddafi's own knowledge or involvement in Lockerbie is a different matter.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi was born in 1952 and educated in Tripoli and in the Engineering Faculty of Benghazi University. He became involved in the Ministry of Trade, and like many other officials, certainly did so in the intelligence services. He served as the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines and as director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli. A genuine believer in what the young Gaddafi was trying to achieve, and in the Great Jamariyah, Megrahi was happy to put his talents at the service of the state. Where else in Africa is there no hint of personal corruption among the leadership, he asked me! He had good relations with engineers at Brown and Root, I was told by their chairman and managing director, Sir Richard Morris (1980-90). Brown and Root was the contractor for the huge irrigation projects in Cyrenerica, south of Benghazi, the man-made river bringing water to desert areas that had been fertile in Roman times.

He was understandably proud of the traditional skills associated with his people. On one occasion, when I visited him in Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow and told him that I had been to Leptis Magna, he responded: "You know that my Tripolitanian ancestors were the artists in stone, responsible for work throughout the Empire, not least in Rome itself!" Had the judges had the opportunity to get to know Megrahi, as I knew him, they could never have arrived at the verdict of "guilty" – at most, the good Scots legal term "not proven".

After Zeist, Fhimah, represented by the aggressively formidable barrister Richard Keen QC, was cleared and returned to a hero's welcome in Tripoli. Fhimah talked with knowledge and pride, as did Megrahi, about the wonderful sight of Sabbratah and the glories of the Greek colonial city at Cyrene.

Meanwhile, Megrahi was incarcerated in Barlinnie Prison. I was not his only visitor there and in Greenock who came away with a favourable opinion. Dr Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, a medical student at the University of Nottingham, told me: "On meeting Abdelbaset in Greenock prison, I found him charming, rational, not given to anger or bluster. He made it obvious that his first priority was to clear his name before returning to his much-loved family in Tripoli.

"I saw him for the last time just before Christmas 2008, when, he, a devout Muslim, gave me a Christmas card in which he asked me and my family to pray for him and his family. That card is one of my most precious possessions.

"This meeting was before he could have known just how closely death loomed. I cannot criticise his apparently voluntary decision to spend his last months on earth with his family, above the priority of clearing his name."

I know that in some uninformed quarters, Dr Swire's views are regarded as eccentric. But it is the other British relatives who have studied the position in depth, such as Martin Cadman, who lost his son Bill; Pamela Dix, who lost her brother; and the Reverend John Mosey, who lost a daughter, have arrived at precisely the same conclusions about Megrahi's innocence. Unlike some American relatives, they have bothered to make exhaustive studies of the detail.

In my opinion, whatever Gordon Brown, Kenny MacAskill, Alec Salmond and Jack Straw – all fundamentally decent human beings – may feel they have to say in public due to pressure, and wickedness in Washington and in the Crown Office in Edinburgh, which, above all, did not want their misdeeds exposed by the truth, they all knew that they were acquiescing in the release of an innocent man. I am not quite so sure that Fhimah did not have an inkling about potentially explosive material on its way to the Bekaa valley.

Even in his final hours, controversy never deserted Megrahi. The Libyan authorities were absolutely justified in declining to extradite him, both for reasons of international law and more importantly, that he was not guilty as charged of the Lockerbie crime – also the considered opinion of Dr Hans Koechler, who attended Megrahi's trial as an official UN observer and has examined his appeal process in Scotland.

As James Cusick, who has followed the twists and turns of the Lockerbie saga for many years as a highly informed journalist, wrote in The Independent on Tuesday 30 August, "The truth behind the Lockerbie bombing remains enmeshed in diplomatic gains."

My last sight of Abdelbaset was on TV on 3 October, attended by Mrs Megrahi, with tubes galore, thanking Dr Swire in gentle tones for trying to furnish necessary drugs and hissing out that there were many liars at Zeist. So there were.

We must have Lockerbie inquiry, no matter the cost

[This is the headline over an editorial that was published in The Herald on this date in 2011. It reads as follows:]

As Pamela Dix, whose brother died in the Lockerbie bombing, says: "It is unfinished business." Now one more step has been taken towards unravelling the uncertainty that has hung over this case ever since that awful December night 23 years ago.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has revealed that he has the go-ahead under the Data Protection Act from Kenneth Clarke, his opposite number in the UK Government, to publish the 800-page Statement of Reasons from the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC). This document explains the grounds for appealing the conviction of the Libyan Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only person convicted of the atrocity. It was never published because the appeal itself was dropped when he was released on compassionate grounds in August 2009.

It emerged earlier this year that legislation going through Holyrood could not guarantee publication because the material would continue to be subject to UK data protection legislation. Now that potential hurdle appears to have been removed.

If, as the Scottish Government maintains, it supports the maximum possible transparency in this case, it is apposite to ask why it took some time to make an official approach to the Westminster Justice Department regarding this matter. For years the UK and Scottish governments have played a slow-motion version of pass the parcel with this case, with neither seemingly prepared to increase the snail's pace progress and the prospect of political advantage (or damage) playing its part.

The imminent publication of John Ashton's biography of Megrahi may force the pace as, once the material is public, SCCRC will be free to publish it themselves. It is not clear how much further it will take us. The document dates from 2007. Fresh material and new forensic techniques have appeared in the interim. Also, in the interests of national security, some items and passages will be redacted.

Regardless of whether or not the man convicted of this crime is guilty as charged, others must have been involved. There are still many unanswered questions. Only a full and wide-ranging independent public inquiry can tackle these issues. This case may show the quality of Scottish justice in a poor light but ultimately getting at the truth is more important. It is also what the relatives of those who died desire and deserve.

Lockerbie inquiry commitment dishonoured

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Tam Dalyell MP entitled The Lockerbie scapegoat that was published in The Spectator in August 2002:]

At no point did Megrahi get the chance to tell his story. When I went to see him with his solicitor, Mr Eddie McKechnie, in Barlinnie, he expressed his dismay that his previous defence team had prevailed upon him, against his every instinct, not to go into the witness box. Had he done so, he would have made the convincing case that he was not a member of the Libyan intelligence services, but a sanctions-buster, scouring Africa and South America and the Boeing Company for spare parts to allow Libyan Arab Airlines to continue operating in the face of sanctions. (...)

There should have been an inquiry. For an adversarial system of justice to arrive at the truth requires both of the adversaries to place before the court all information that was available to them. In the Lockerbie trial, the defence team of Abdelbaset al Megrahi chose not to do so. In such circumstances, the adversarial system simply does not work, and the objective becomes not to uncover the truth, but to find someone to shoulder the blame.

The British relatives of the Lockerbie victims were, as far back as 19 September 1989, offered an inquiry by the then secretary of state for transport, Cecil Parkinson — subject, he said, as they filed out of his room, to the agreement of colleagues. Somewhat sheepishly on 5 December 1989 Parkinson told the relatives that it had been decided at the highest level that there would be no inquiry.

[RB: In January 1995 Mr Dalyell had asked the Prime Minister, John Major, about the Parkinson meetings. Here is the Hansard report:]

Mr Dalyell To ask the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library his correspondence with Mr Martin Cadman, of the Lockerbie victims' relatives association, and in particular his response to Mr Cadman's letter of 18 December 1994, concerning Lord Parkinson's meetings on 19 September 1989 and 5 December 1989 with the relatives, and his answer of 15 December [1994], Official Report, column 1068.

The Prime Minister No, it is not my normal practice to do so.

Mr Dalyell To ask the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of his response to Lockerbie victim relative Rev John Mosey's letter to him of 28 December 1994.

The Prime Minister No, it is not my normal practice to do so.

Mr Dalyell To ask the Prime Minister if, following communications from Mr Martin Cadman, Pamela Dix, Rev John Mosey and Dr Jim Swire, relatives of Lockerbie victims, he has anything to add to his oral answer to the hon Member for Linlithgow of 15 December [1994], Official Report, column 1068.

The Prime Minister I understand that the meeting between Lord Parkinson and a group of British relatives of the Lockerbie victims to which I referred in my reply to the hon Gentleman on 15 December took place in December 1989, not in 1990. At that meeting, Lord Parkinson explained the Government's decision not to hold a confidential inquiry into the disaster, but said that the Lord Advocate was likely to hold a public fatal accident inquiry. I have received representations from several relatives of Lockerbie victims calling for a further inquiry. However, in view of all the investigations that have already been carried out, and the need to avoid the danger of prejudicing a criminal trial of the two accused, I do not believe such an inquiry is warranted.

Victims' families: worst possible outcome

[This is part of the headline over a report published on the website of The Guardian on this date in 2009. It reads as follows:]

Relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster said today they feared vital evidence that could shed more light on the attack would remain hidden after the courts in Scotland granted the bomber's request to drop his appeal.

The families of some of the people who were killed in the attack had hoped the hearings, granted by the Scottish authorities after a three-year investigation, would uncover new details about the bombing that killed 270 people.

"This is the worst possible decision for the relatives," said Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was killed on board Pan Am flight 103, which exploded as it flew over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988. "There now seems little chance of this evidence being heard and scrutinised in public."

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of murder for his part in the bombing, and who now has terminal prostate cancer, has hinted strongly that he was secretly offered a deal to secure his quick, early, release from prison.

Appeal judges in Edinburgh were told yesterday that the 57-year-old was convinced that abandoning his long-running appeal against his conviction would "assist in the early determination" of the application to be sent back to Libya.

Maggie Scott QC, the head of Megrahi's legal team, increased suspicion of an unofficial deal by saying her client, who is now very weak, in severe pain and distressed, believed he would get home quickly only if he gave up the appeal.

She hinted that Megrahi believed that keeping the appeal "alive" meant the Scottish government would either block or delay his applications for compassionate release, including a separate prisoner transfer bid to be sent home to continue his sentence in a Libyan jail.

"His absolute priority in the little time he has left is to spend it with his family in his homeland," she told the court. "It's the appellant's belief that instructions to abandon his appeal will assist in the early determination of these applications."

Alex Salmond, the first minister, denied the claims, saying his government had "no interest whatsoever" in Megrahi abandoning his appeal, adding that the decision would be made by the justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, only on "the evidence received and the advice received".

He added: "There will be no consideration of international power politics or anything else, it will be taken on the evidence in the interest of justice."

Scotland's government has come under increasing pressure not to release Megrahi in recent days. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has phoned MacAskill urging him not to release the Libyan, and yeserday it emerged that seven US senators – including Edward Kennedy and John Kerry – had written to the justice secretary outlining their concerns. But expectations were growing last night that MacAskill was likely to free Megrahi, on compassionate grounds within days, after telling colleagues he was "very close" to a decision. It appeared that MacAskill had already ruled out using the prisoner transfer treaty after it emerged that he had made no attempt to clear away one significant obstacle to Megrahi's transfer.

The lord advocate, Elish Angiolini, is pursuing a separate appeal to get Megrahi's 27-year minimum sentence increased, but under the treaty no transfer can take place if criminal proceedings, including any appeals, are live. However, the next court hearing for Angiolini's appeal will take place on 8 September – at least a week after MacAskill's self-imposed deadline for a decision.

Legal sources said Angiolini had repeatedly told the Scottish government she would make a much quicker decision on dropping her appeal if MacAskill asked, but this request had never been made.

Megrahi was convicted of mass murder in 2001 for the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, which killed all 259 people on board and 11 people in the Scottish town.

After protracted international pressure he was put on trial with his co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, under Scots law, at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. Megrahi was found guilty and ordered to serve a minimum of 27 years. Fhimah was found not guilty and freed.

Relatives of the victims said that though dropping the appeal meant many questions would go unanswered they would not give up their campaign to uncover the truth.

The Rev John Mosey, who lost his 19-year-old daughter, Helga, called the decision "incredibly frustrating" but not unexpected. "The relatives of those who died have been denied access to the evidence that was uncovered by a three-year investigation by the Scottish criminal cases review commission. Unfortunately it is what we expected from the beginning because the authorities – in Scotland, London and Washington – do not want any more information on this coming out."

Jean Berkley, whose son Alistair died in the bombing, agreed the decision was a blow but said the focus would now shift to getting a full independent inquiry. "The families are used to setbacks so we will continue the campaign, but this is difficult because people set lots of store by the appeal and now we are not going to hear the evidence that persuaded the [commission] to grant the hearing in the first place." Alistair's brother, Matt, said: "Many people with a deep understanding of this case have serious concerns about it which are unlikely to go away."

UK Court quest for Lockerbie facts

[This is the heading over an item dated 14 May 1998 on The Pan Am 103 Crash Website. The subheading reads “Ian Black on a mother's search for truth behind PanAm tragedy” which is a strong indication that the article was published in The Guardian, though I can find no trace of it on the newspaper’s website. It reads as follows:]

The mother of a British victim of the Lockerbie disaster is going to the High Court after failing to force an inquest to reveal more about the case.

Nearly 10 years after PanAm flight 103 exploded, killing 270 people, Elizabeth Wright, a London psychiatrist, is seeking judicial review of the decision of a Sussex coroner that he could not conduct an inquest on her son Andrew.

Andrew Gillies-Wright, then 24, was flying to New York for Christmas when he died on December 21, 1988. He was cremated and his ashes interred in South Lancing, West Sussex. Dr Wright, like other Lockerbie relatives seeking movement after years of impasse, agreed to act as a test case, but was told "the lawfully cremated remains of a person (that is that person's ashes) do not constitute 'a body' for the purpose of... jurisdiction."

The British families want an inquest to raise questions which were not answered in the Scottish fatal accident inquiry in Dumfries.Those include events on the ground after the incident, whether intelligence agencies had warned of an attack, and how it was that initial suspicions that Iran, Syria or Palestinians were responsible gave way to charges against Libya.

Gareth Peirce, Dr Wright's solicitor, said: "There is potentially clear and compelling evidence setting out a scenario so different from the one that has been officially presented that it's a continuing national and international disgrace that it remains hidden, and that it falls to the families of the victims to unravel it."

Behind the legal arguments being prepared by Ms Peirce and Michael Mansfield, QC, lies the pain of bereaved families whose hope of seeing justice is diminishing almost a decade after the crime. "It shows what sort of position we find ourselves in when we have to discuss whether a cremated human being is a body," said Pam Dix, spokesperson for UK Families Flight 103.

She added: "We were not satisfied with the fatal accident inquiry, and we see the inquest as one way to further our quest to find out exactly what happened... We want information, not blame.

"We know intelligence won't be openly discussed in any court, but we would like to see how far we could go in getting these matters aired."

Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, returned from Libya last month with "strong assurances" that the suspects would be handed over for trial in a neutral country. He accused the Government of "following slavishly in America's slipstream", despite the comment by Nelson Mandela that no nation should be "complainant, prosecutor and judge".

Roger Stone, the West Sussex coroner, wrote after refusing an inquest on Mr Gillies-Wright: "I hope, given time, that Dr Wright and other members of the family will find it possible to come to terms with their son's tragic death and take comfort from the loving memories they no doubt hold of him."

[RB: If a judicial review was in fact applied for (on which I can find no information) it clearly did not succeed.]