Inconsistencies and contradictions of Lockerbie

[This is part of the heading over a lengthy item posted on this date in 2009 on the Ed's Blog City website. Reproduced below is the bulk of the text of the post.]

Since the release of the Dutch TV documentary, Lockerbie: Revisted, a number of curious unexplained inconsistencies in the accounts given by many of those who led the investigation have remained unchallenged. Officially anyway. The documentary maker Gideon Levy asked a number of important questions, crucial to the investigation and pivotal to the whole case, which were quite clearly not satisfactorily answered. Even more astounding, given the position and power of those in the investigation, some of the answers given by those entrusted to find those guilty of the bombing in 1988 directly conflicted with one another.

Mr Levy's first unexplained question relates to the PFLP-GC cell which was exposed by the German BKA and who's members were arrested in Neuss, Germany in October 1988, two months before the Pan Am bombing. They had been discovered with an array of weapons including a radio cassette manipulated into a bomb designed specifically for targeting aircraft. The key member of this group Marwan Khreesat, seemingly known to be the bomb maker, and part of a group planning on attacking American targets, was inexplicably released without charge and was thought to have left Germany for Jordan. After the bombing over Lockerbie, and it was determined that the bomb had been concealed in a radio cassette player, naturally suspicion focussed on the cell that had been exposed in Germany.

Lord Fraser, the former Lord Advocate entrusted in leading the investigation into the bombing, claims that the Scottish authorities were never given the opportunity to question Khreesat at any point with regard to any connection or knowledge about the Lockerbie bombing. Mr Khresat's involvement with the PFLP group and yet subsequent release can only be explained by deducing he was involved with very powerful individuals with the capability of securing such a release, and we can only conclude that the chance to question him was denied due to Khreesat's complex and unclear association with various intelligence and government agencies.

Richard Marquise, head of the FBI investigative team, states that he does not know why Khreesat was released by the Germans, and it is a matter Mr Levy should take up with the German government to clarify. Mr Marquise considers an explanation may be that Khreesat was working for the Palestinian group, as a bomb maker targeting US trains, bases and aircraft, but was also involved with the Jordanian intelligence services who enabled his release from Germany. Lord Fraser however, suggests that the only plausible explanation was that Khreesat was working for the Palestinian group while also involved with US intelligence therefore facilitating his release from Germany and proving someone who the Scottish authorities could not gain access to interview.

This in itself seems a disturbing chain of events and assumptions by those investigating the bombing of 103, and even more inexplicable to those who expect honest endeavour when seeking truth and justice from the investigators, especially given the nature of Khreesat's activities in Germany and his apparent history of expertise in bomb making. This cynicism is merely strengthened when Mr Fraser had stated unequivocally that neither he nor the Scottish prosecutors had ever gained access, despite repeated attempts, "they (the PFLP-GC cell) had simply disappeared", to interview Khreesat, while Mr Marquise seems quite indifferent to the fact that the German authorities had simply released a man of extremely dubious background clearly engaged in activities to cause serious harm to American citizens and institutions.

Mr Marquise does however state that to his knowledge Scottish prosecutors did in fact interview Khreesat, as did the FBI in 1989, clearly contradicting Lord Fraser's position, and that Scottish investigators were happy to accept Khreesat's word during an interview that he knew nothing of the Lockerbie bombing. That a key figure such as Khreesat, the man that according to Mr Marquise was "building the bombs", with the motive, method and capability of attacking US targets, and whether investigators had interviewed him or not, is not conclusively known to either of the two people leading the investigation, is simply incomprehensible.

Mr Levy then enquires about the possibilty of financial payments made to witnesses before, during or subsequent to the trial at Zeist in Holland where Al-Megrahi was found guilty. Inducement had been made to the public by the US authorities to "Give up these terrorists, and we'll give you upto $4 million" by the way of posters with photographs of the two Libyans, and presumably, naturally, by those investigating while interviewing suspects or witnesses. Even if not explicitly offered to those potential witnesses by investigators, the witnesses would be well aware of the financial reward that was available for the successful conviction of the two Libyan's.

Both Lord Fraser and Mr Marquise deny any financial reward, as promised in the posters and adverts issued, was made before or during the trial. However, while Lord Fraser is unaware of any payment subsequent to the trial, Mr Marquise will not comment. The only implication that can be made from this is that the reward offered before the trial and during the investigation was indeed paid to some witnesses after the trial. Any financial reward or inducement to those providing statements would surely render any testimony or information as lacking credibility and does not enhance the supposed search for 'truth' when life changing amounts of money are used as enticement.

So concerned with the implication of rewards to witnesses that Lord Fraser is reluctant to even comment on the suggestion that money was paid to witnesses after the trial without his knowledge.

The focus of the documentary then turns to the most pivotal and crucial piece of evidence found during the investigation and presented at the trial in Zeist. The fragment of microchip discovered 6 months (although the exact period has been disputed) after the disaster, and determined to be the most significant piece of evidence linking the bomb to a Swiss timer manufacturer who had links to Megrahi and Libya.

This particular piece of evidence, the microchip fragment, already somewhat controversial given the unexplained altering of the labels on evidence bags containing the 'charred' fragments, was examined and concluded had originated with the Swiss company called 'Mebo'. They had supplied these timers, it was claimed, to Libya, and Megrahi with his connections and dealings with Mebo, had used this timer in constructing the bomb which he then placed on a flight in Malta, later finding it's way onto the Pan Am flight from Heathrow.

Now it seems, neither Lord Fraser or Mr Marquise can conclusively explain who exactly made this identification of the timer fragment, and where this identification was made. In the UK or in Washington? By Mr Thurman or Mr Feraday? The fragment itself, or as part of the larger circuit board from where the fragment came? By photograph or the actual fragment?

Mr Marquise is certain that this evidence was transported from the UK to the US, and taken to the FBI labs in Washington, by a member of RARDE, thought to be Alan Feraday were the identification was made. The photograph of the tiny piece of fragment of the microchip (evidence PT35b) on a persons finger is claimed to be that of Thomas Thurman of the FBI, who was also the scientist who uncovered the microchips origin and connection to the circuit board made by Mebo. He claims in Mr Levy's film that the microchip was "brought over by UK authorities" to the United States were identification was made, and was conclusively re-identified in the UK by RARDE (Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment).

However, once again there are contradictions in the accounts given. Lord Fraser is adamant that no evidence recovered from the Pan Am debris has ever left his authority or the UK mainland. This would have compromised the whole investigation and could have resulted in accusations of manipulation and, or, contamination of any evidence purity. Detective Chief Supt Mr Stuart Henderson, head of the UK police investigation, also states that the evidence relating to Pan Am 103, any evidence, but specifically the fragment of microchip, never left the UK mainland, but in actual fact the US investigators and the FBI had travelled to the UK to identify the fragment at RARDE with Mr Feraday.

When the public are asked to trust the integrity of those we commend with providing the truth and justice our democratic society demands, expectations can be, on occasion, somewhat unrealistic. Especially when dealing with highly complex issues of international politics, international crimes of nation states and multi-national business corporations. The public however, do expect a genuine and honest search for these truths, and those we charge with this responsibility to fulfil those simplest and most honourable tasks to have carried out their duty, with conscience and integrity.

Those who died over Lockerbie, and the families of the victims deserve at least this. With the pain of a lost loved one however, the relatives of those who died have also had to endure the persistent inaccuracies, the constant contradictions, and the inexplicable decisions taken with respect to those who carried out the atrocity and how their government failed in their loved ones protection. Not by those who wish to seek conspiracies were there are none, and not by those who have ulterior motives for continuing to ask questions. But by the very investigators, police, professionals, experts, lawyers and those in power entrusted with upholding their faith in human kind and seeking justice in the supposed democratic nation we live in today. For those fundamental expectations and hopes are diminished with every conflicting statement, every unexplained area of the investigation, and every inscrutable and unaccountable decision taken by those with power in relation to finding the true perpetrators who organised and carried out the crime over Lockerbie in 1988.

The court was misled

What follows is the text of an item published on this blog on this date in 2013:

Dr Jim Swire calls on Scottish Government to institute inquiry into Crown Office Lockerbie failings

[What follows is the text of a letter sent on 21 February by Dr Jim Swire to Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill:]

Almost a year ago, the book Megrahi: You are my Jury was published in Edinburgh. Much of the key evidence it contains derives from the prosecution’s own documents, some of them only shared with the defence a few weeks before Mr Megrahi withdrew his appeal. The book and other sources contain material which demonstrates that the Crown Office and their agents behaved in ways contrary to the proper prosecution of a case under Scottish Criminal law. Two outstanding examples amongst many others are the emergence, and reliance upon, the circuit board fragment known as PT35b with its ‘pure tin’ plating, and the concealment of the break-in evidence from Heathrow airport.

This letter is not an attack upon the verdict. It is a request to you to investigate what errors were made by the prosecution during the conduct of the investigation, the trial and in the subsequent years, and also in the SCCRC investigation.

It was claimed by the prosecution that PT35b had been found within a police evidence bag, and that it had come from the crash site. Yet we now know that this fragment simply could not have come from the timer circuitry of the Lockerbie bomb, if that bomb had been driven by a Libyan timer as cited.  The plating metallurgy is simply irreconcilably different.

Even the Crown’s forensic officer Feraday’s marginal notes show he was aware of the plating discrepancy long before the trial, by 1991 in fact, before the indictments had even been issued. Yet he signed a forensic document claiming that the fragment was ‘similar in all respects’ to the Libyan boards.

The work initiated by Feraday on PT35b, showed the plating discrepancy and was  available to the prosecution  long before the trial. The police did not pursue this matter with Thüring, who have confirmed that their sole plating process was with the tin/lead alloy as on DP347a, a sample Libyan type board. Finally the scientific evidence provided to the defence by Dr Chris McArdle and Dr Jess Cawley just before Mr Megrahi went home, confirmed the ‘pure tin’ plating of PT35b but also proved that proximity to exploding Semtex could not alter tin/lead plating to resemble ‘pure tin’ plating. This was work the prosecution had failed to initiate.

The court was thus misled into believing that PT35b could have been part of one of the Libyan timers which the prosecution had cited. The adoption of this belief was due to the failure of the prosecution to share all relevant evidence with the defence or the court, and to initiate all the appropriate testing. That belief is now demonstrably false.

As you are aware, Kenny, since you have had access to their materials, the SCCRC also knew that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the defence, but did not seem to realise that Thüring simply had no equipment capable of manufacturing circuit boards using the ‘pure tin’ process, failing to understand that in the industry ‘tinning’ refers equally to tin/lead as to ‘pure tin’ plating.

No other origin for PT35b other than the wreckage was ever suggested in court. PT35b was an optically perfect copy of circuitry demonstrated by the prosecution to have been present on the cited Libyan boards. The Crown Office and its agents were responsible for the sanctity of the evidence chain and the evidence bags. No one knows whence PT35b could have come, where it was made nor how it came to be found in the police evidence bag. All we know is that PT35b’s origin could not have been from a Libyan owned timer as cited by the prosecution.

I found that two weeks ago neither the Crown Office nor the police had even bothered to contact the Thüring firm’s Urs Bonfadelli, nor the scientists responsible for the discovery that PT35b’s plating could not have been changed even by a Semtex explosion, in all the more than eleven months since the book was published. Why not?

The concealment of the PT35b plating discrepancy by the Crown’s chief forensics officer, Feraday, the police and the Crown Office, allowed the court to presume that PT35b must have been part of a cited Libyan owned timer, when it clearly could not have been. The relevant documents were available to the prosecution long before the trial, but only discovered by the defence after the trial was over.

In February 2012 the Lord Advocate himself invited us relatives to a meeting in London to explain new moves being made in the criminal investigation. I chose to ask him for an explanation as to why the Heathrow break-in evidence had not been passed to the defence and the court as part of the relevant evidence. He claimed he had also wondered why, but did not know the answer. I then asked the current Chief Constable of the Dumfries and Galloway police, to see if he could discover the answer on our behalf. He did so most courteously and promptly. His letter is enclosed. It shows that the Dumfries and Galloway police of the day knew of the break-in from January 1989, kept this to themselves for a full decade, passed it to the Crown Office only in 1999 and then, together with the Crown Office, kept it hidden from the defence and the court until after the trial was over. Why?

The evidence concerning the break-in only surfaced in 2001 after the trial  had finished. Even then the only reason it did so was that the Heathrow guard who had discovered the break-in was bold enough to ask publicly why his evidence had been ignored by the court.

The prosecution appears to have failed us all in this case, the Heathrow break-in and the PT35b plating are but two of many other examples. There is a special obligation upon Governments to make available the evidence to the families of victims of murder. There is also an obligation upon our prosecution service to bring fair and prompt justice upon murderers. Thanks to the failures of the Crown Office, and their searchers as your prosecuting authority, it falls to your Government to investigate all these failures. I therefore request that you immediately arrange for  the creation of a properly endowed and objectively led inquiry into the apparent failings of the Crown Office in prosecuting this dreadful case, selecting as members and chairperson individuals acceptable as impartial to the relatives and to the people of Scotland.

I will make this letter available to the Scottish public also. They too deserve to know whether steps are now to be taken by their Government to explore the performance of the Crown Office prosecution in this  case and to enact legislation to curtail any future such deviation from their duty, as may be found by such an inquiry.

Lockerbie: The 28 year lie.

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

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

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

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

The key prosecution claims were:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feraday’s legacy

[On this date in 2005 Hassan Assali’s explosives conviction was quashed by the English Court of Appeal. His conviction in 1985 was founded on evidence given by Allen Feraday. What follows is a comment that appeared during the Zeist trial on the website edited by Ian Ferguson and me:]

As one of the Crown's key witnesses gave his testimony this week in Camp Zeist at the trial of the two Libyans accused of the bombing of Pan Am 103, one man, Hassan Assali watched news reports with interest as Allen Feraday took the witness stand.

Assali, 48, born in Libya but who has lived in the United Kingdom since 1965, was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to nine years. He was charged under the 1883 Explosives Substances Act, namely making electronic timers.

The Crown's case against Assali depended largely on the evidence of one man, Allen Feraday. Feraday concluded that the timers in question had only one purpose, to trigger bombs.

While in Prison Assali, met John Berry, who had also been convicted of selling timers and the man responsible for leading the Crown evidence against Berry was once again, Feraday. Again Feraday contended that the timers sold by Berry could have only one use, terrorist bombs.

With Assali's help Berry successfully appealed his conviction, using the services of a leading forensic expert and former British Army electronic warfare officer, Owen Lewis.

Assali's case is currently before the [English] Criminal Cases Review Commission, the CCRC. It has been there since 1997. Assali believes that his case might be delayed deliberately, as he stated to the Home Secretary, Jack Straw in a fax in February 1999: "I feel that my case is being neglected or put on the back burner for political reasons."

Assali believes that if his case is overturned on appeal during the Lockerbie trial it will be a further huge blow to Feraday's credibility and ultimately the Crown's case against the Libyans.

There is no doubt that a number of highly qualified forensic scientists do not care for the highly "opinionated" type of testimony, which is a hall mark of many of Feraday's cases.

He has been known, especially in cases involving timers to state in one case that the absence of a safety device makes it suitable for terrorists and then in another claim that the presence of a safety device proves the same, granted that the devices were different, but it is the most emphatic way in which he testifies that his opinions are "facts", that worries forensic scientists and defence lawyers.

In his report on Feraday's evidence in the Assali case, Owen Lewis states, "It is my view that Mr. Feraday's firm and unwavering assertion that the timing devices in the Assali case were made for and could have no other purpose than the triggering of IED's is most seriously flawed, to the point that a conviction which relied on such testimony must be open to grave doubt."

A host of other scientists, all with vastly more qualifications than Feraday concurred with Owen Lewis.

A report by Michael Moyes, a highly qualified electronics engineer and former Squadron Leader in the RAF, concluded that "there is no evidence that we are aware that the timers of this type have ever been found to be used for terrorist purposes. Moreover the design is not suited to that application."

Moyes was also struck by the similarity in the Berry and Assali case, in terms of the Feraday evidence.

In setting aside Berry's conviction in the appeal Court, Lord Justice Taylor described Feraday's evidence as "dogmatic".

This week in the Lockerbie trial, Feraday exhibited that same attitude when questioned by Richard Keen QC.

Keen asked Feraday about Lord Justice Taylor's remarks on his evidence, but Feraday, dogmatically, said he stands by his evidence in the Berry case.

He was further challenged over making contemporaneous notes on items of evidence he examined. Asked if he was certain that he had made those notes at the time, he said yes. When shown the official police log book which showed that some of the items Feraday had claimed to have examined had in actual fact been destroyed or returned to their owner before he claimed to examined them, his response, true to his dogmatic evidence was the police logs were wrong.

Under cross-examination though, it did become clear that Feraday completed a report for John Orr who was leading the police Lockerbie investigation and in that report he stated he was,  "Completely satisfied that the Lockerbie bomb had been contained inside a white Toshiba RT 8016 or 8026 radio-cassette player", and not, as he now testifies, "inside a black Toshiba RT SF 16 model."

As recently as May [2000], the leading civil liberties solicitor, Ms Gareth Peirce, told the Irish Times that the Lockerbie trial should be viewed with a questioning eye as lessons learned from other cases showed that scientific conclusions were not always what they seemed.

Speaking in Dublin Castle at an international conference on forensic science, Ms Peirce said she observed with interest the opening of the Lockerbie trial and some of the circumstances which, she said, had in the view of the prosecution dramatically affected the case.

She asked herself questions particularly relating to circuit boards which featured in the Lockerbie case and also in a case that she took on behalf of Mr. Danny McNamee, whose conviction for conspiracy to cause explosions in connection with the Hyde Park bombings (another case in which Feraday testified) was eventually quashed. She asked herself whether the same procedures were involved.

Danny McNamee may be the most recent Feraday case to be overturned, Hassan Assali believes his case will be the next.

[RB: As mentioned above, Assali’s conviction was quashed on 19 July 2005. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, stated that Allen Feraday “should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in the field of electronics”.]

Flagrantly distorted picture put forward in Camp Zeist

[What follows is excerpted from a review in The Observer on this date in 2001 by investigative journalist Bob Woffinden of John Ashton and Ian Ferguson’s Cover-Up of Convenience:]

Last year, the case against two Libyans, Abdel Al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was heard at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands before three Scottish law lords. Gadaffi would have been briefed about the vagaries of British criminal justice processes, but he could hardly have appreciated that they would be this enfeebled.

It might have been anticipated that only the most reputable forensic scientists would be used. In fact, the Crown employed the services of three men whose credentials were in some doubt. The evidence of Dr Thomas Hayes in previous trials had contributed to the convictions of several innocent people. At the same time that Sir John May's public inquiry was condemning the laboratory staff for 'knowingly placing a false and distorted scientific picture before the jury', Hayes was retiring to become a chiropodist.

Allan Feraday, whose qualifications extended no further than a 1962 Higher National Certificate in applied physics and electronics, was criticised by the Lord Chief Justice in 1996 in a separate explosives case. Then there was the American Tom Thurman, who was criticised in a Department of Justice report for 'routinely altering the reports... in the FBI explosives unit', with the result that they, albeit unintentionally, became more favourable to the prosecution case.

Earlier this year, Fhimah was acquitted, although Al-Megrahi was convicted on the basis that he had placed the bomb on board a feeder flight in Malta. Not only was there no evidence that the bomb had been put on board in Malta, but Air Malta had won a libel action in 1993 establishing that it wasn't. So the trial led inexorably to the wrongful conviction of Al-Megrahi and the final betrayal of the bereaved families.

If Cover-Up of Convenience occasionally loses narrative focus, that is hardly surprising bearing in mind the difficulties with co-authors on opposite sides of the Atlantic, and the speed with which this book has been produced. It's an admirably thorough, exhaustively researched and gripping exposé of the complete Lockerbie scandal. Someone should use it as a basis of a screenplay. Even if Hollywood did its worst, what remained would still be more accurate than the flagrantly distorted picture put forward in Camp Zeist.

Was this really the best we had to offer?

[What follows is the text of a letter from Dr Jim Swire that was published in The Herald on this date in 2010:]

Flaws in evidence at Lockerbie trial

The Chilcot Inquiry has examined the role of the Blair government’s Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, allegedly converted to believing the Iraq war to be legal following “consultations in the USA”.

Should not the Lockerbie inquiry, when we get it, examine why the government of the day chose to ignore the words of its Lord Chief Justice, and appointed [Alan] Feraday to supply the forensic input to the Lockerbie trial?

Mr Feraday was criticised by the Lord Chief Justice in the case of R v Berry (1991). He declared that the nature of his evidence was dogmatic in the extreme and that he should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in this field. Also, the Home Office has paid compensation from the public purse to Mr Berry because he was jailed on the erroneous evidence of Mr Feraday.

The Lockerbie case depended heavily upon a piece of timer circuit board allegedly recovered from the wreckage and labelled “PT35B” presented to the court by the same Mr Feraday, who also had consultations with the USA.

Assuming the British Government wanted the Lockerbie trial to reach a fair verdict, was this really the best we had to offer?

Feraday's "expert" evidence

[The following are brief excerpts from a long article published in The Herald on this date in 2005. I strongly recommend that the full text be read:]

[T]he man I am interviewing, Gilbert McNamee ... usually known as Danny ... is the man who was accused of being the "master bomb-maker" behind the devastating 1982 Hyde Park blast which killed four members of the Household Cavalry. McNamee was found guilty in 1987 and sentenced to a 25-year jail term. He served 12 years before his release under the Good Friday Agreement. It wasn't until 1998 that his conviction for conspiracy to cause explosions was quashed on appeal and declared unsafe. (...)

During his trial, the Crown put forward in evidence three fingerprints and two pieces of electronic circuit board. The fingerprints were from a bomb left on a London street, and from sticky tape found in two separate arms caches, recovered in 1983 and early 1984. One of the circuit boards had been found in one of the arms caches; the other fragment was said to have been discovered after the bomb explosion at Hyde Park in 1982. The Crown's key scientific witness, Allen Feraday, said the two were matched in design and "artwork" and therefore made by the same master bombmaker. The prosecution based its case on the link between McNamee's fingerprint, the circuit board found in the arms cache, and the fragment of circuit board from Hyde Park.

When I mention Feraday to McNamee he looks directly at me. "I don't hate him, " he says. "I don't hate any of them. But I hate their methods."

McNamee's case was not the first conviction Feraday helped secure which was later overturned as unsafe. Feraday was severely criticised by the Lord Chief Justice in another case - Regina v Berry - before McNamee's conviction was finally quashed. John Berry, jailed in 1983 for selling timers to the Middle East, had his conviction quashed in 1993 after military experts challenged Feraday's evidence. The then Lord Chief Justice said the nature of Feraday's evidence in Berry's case was "dogmatic in the extreme" and "open to doubt at the very least".

In July this year, the conviction in a third case involving Feraday's expert advice was overturned. After a 20-year legal battle, the Lord Chief Justice ruled that the conviction of 53-year-old Hassan Assali, a Libyan, on terrorist conspiracy charges, was unsafe.

Assali's Hertfordshire factory was raided in 1984 and timing devices were seized. Feraday, the prosecution's only expert witness, said there was no lawful purpose for the devices, which Assali claimed were for domestic use.

"I am unable to contemplate their use in other than terrorist bombs, " Feraday told St Albans Crown Court at Assali's trial. After Assali's release, his legal team commissioned military experts from Berry's case, with backgrounds in explosives and electronics, whose subsequent report cast doubt on Feraday's evidence. The case was referred to the Court of Appeal in 2003, and the conviction was then overturned.

Perhaps more controversially, Feraday told judges in the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi - the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, in which 270 people died - that a fragment of a circuit board found in the wreckage was part of the bomb's detonator. The trial judges accepted his conclusion. In 2001, judges at a special court at Camp Zeist in Holland found Megrahi, now 53, guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life in jail. His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was cleared.

Feraday, now in his sixties, carried out some of the principal work on the key piece of forensic evidence at the Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) at Fort Halstead in Kent. RARDE, the main UK forensic centre for examining terrorist incidents, was subsumed into the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) after re-organisation. Feraday retired after 42 years' distinguished work.

Papers about Feraday's evidence in the previous cases have been sent to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which is investigating Megrahi's conviction, and speculation is rife that the Libyan could be freed if the commission refers his case to the appeal courts. There are also reports that he might be repatriated to his home country. Last month it was reported that the British, American and Libyan governments were negotiating the transfer of Megrahi to a prison in his home country on condition that he drops his appeal, suggesting that both the British and American governments would rather the case was not re-opened. Tony Kelly, who represents Megrahi, refused to comment on the pattern of quashed convictions: "My client has taken the firm view that we will not comment on the case while it is with the SCCRC."

Having worked on both the Berry and Assali cases, forensic expert Major Owen Lewis (retired), who served with the Royal Signals for 22 years, is, according to one source, investigating crucial forensic elements of the Lockerbie case on behalf of Megrahi.

Throughout his career, Lewis, who had particular experience of the Middle East, acquired specialist knowledge of electronic warfare, triggers, improvised explosive devices and surveillance.

The source said: "By now he's already got the modus operandi. And he knows how it works. Lewis is a very shrewd man, a very clever man." Kelly, Megrahi's lawyer, steadfastly refuses to comment. (...)

Dr Michael Scott, now a senior lecturer in computing at Dublin City University, gave evidence at the High Court in London where McNamee appealed his sentence. Scott has a degree in electronics from Queen's University, Belfast, and in engineering from Trinity College, Dublin. In 1977 he finished his doctoral dissertation at the University of Dundee. In spite of heading the government's explosives unit, Feraday's only relevant qualification was a Higher National Certificate in Applied Physics and Electronics. Throughout his career, however, he has spent a number of years studying explosives, and also specialised in analysing the capability of the IRA. He has also given testimony in many cases where his evidence was upheld. In June 1989 Feraday was made an OBE in the Queen's birthday honours.

When I contacted Scott in Dublin, he told me: "Taking circuit boards out of the explosives context, which in many cases was appropriate, then any number of electronic engineers would be better qualified than Feraday. Feraday's most damning conclusion was to point at a piece of electronics and say that it was part of a bomb, a purpose for which it was specifically designed and constructed, and that it could not be for any other purpose.

"However, his knowledge of electronics is in fact elementary, and his conclusions often just plain wrong. The electronics indeed could have other uses. His advantage is his explosives experience. However, even in this context there would be others better qualified than him. At the Berry appeal, where Berry had access to British army expertise, Feraday's evidence was, if you will excuse the expression, completely blown away."

Scott also described as "just nonsense" Feraday's assertion that the circuit board found in McNamee's case could only be used for bomb-making. "The simple circuit board found in this particular context could have had many other uses. Indeed, it was just an amplifier board, which is itself just a component. Just because an alarm clock can be used to make a bomb, it doesn't make possession of an alarm clock tantamount to possession of a bomb." (...)

The voice at the other end of the telephone is more upbeat than I expected. "I'm just getting on with my life, " says Hassan Assali, buoyantly. It's just over three months since his conviction on terrorist conspiracy charges was ruled unsafe, following a 20-year battle to clear his name. Having lost his house, his successful business and his first wife (he was divorced while in prison but has since remarried), he now lives in rented accommodation in Surrey. He is reluctant to discuss his case now that he intends suing the Crown for his false conviction, but he believes his freedom has given him his own sense of moral justice. (...)

He served six and a half years. After his release, his legal team commissioned military experts . . . Major Lewis, Lt Colonel John Wyatt (retired; a 23-year veteran of the Royal Engineers, involved in bomb disposal and counter terrorist operations) and Squadron Leader Michael Hoyes (retired; a chartered engineer who spent 22 years with the RAF) . . . whose report cast doubt on Feraday's evidence. As a result his conviction was overturned by the Lord Chief Justice.

According to the Appeal Court judgment:

"There is no doubt that an important part of the Crown's case against the appellant [Assali] depended on the evidence of Mr Feraday . . .

He examined all the devices that had been recovered. His evidence supported the Crown's case with regard to the nature of those devices."

The judgement also cited the Berry case, which had similarities to Assali's. It stated:

"On the appeal in that case, evidence was given by Major Lewis and Colonel Wyatt, together with Dr Bora, who were highly experienced and impressive court experts who concluded that similar devices to those in this case were simply timers. Mr Feraday had also given evidence in the case of Berry. The evidence which was given by the three experts to whom we have just referred rebutted the evidence of Mr Feraday that the absence of safety devices in the timers prevented their use for legitimate purposes.

Accordingly, the Court of Appeal concluded in Berry that Mr Feraday's opinions were central to the trial and were open to doubt at the very least. They therefore quashed Mr Berry's conviction. As the evidence of Mr Feraday was equally crucial to the prosecution in this case, the implications for this case were obvious."

Of Allen Feraday, Hassan Assali simply says: "He's a very, very experienced evidencegiver. If his evidence managed to convince a judge, he must have been bloody good."

Part of the prosecution's response to the Assali appeal stated: "Critical to the case against the appellant [Assali] was Allen Feraday's evidence. The Crown is of the view that there is a reasonable argument to suggest that the . . .

material [meaning the report by Assali's defence experts] might well have left his [Feraday's] evidence open to reasonable doubt. In the circumstances, the Crown does not feel it is in a position to advance argument to support the safety of the conviction on this basis, and will not seek to resist the argument of the appellant that this material renders his conviction unsafe."

Assali was officially a free man on July 19, 2005.

Assali believes the successful challenge to the evidence in his own case "will have significance on the Megrahi case". He also believes his own case was delayed in a bid to prevent Feraday's evidence being scrutinised before Megrahi's appeal. "The authorities didn't want to rock the Lockerbie boat. This bollocks about Megrahi . . . absolute shit. I know there is some devastating stuff. The SCCRC will have it at the moment. And they can dig up further because they have extreme powers.When that comes up . . . by God. That's the satisfaction I have at the moment." (...)

Allen Feraday lives in Halling, in Rochester, Kent. He was invited to comment when contacted at his home, but declined.

Danny McNamee lives a life now where people don't really know about his past. (...)

"The system cannot handle someone who says, 'But I didn't do this, boys.'" Curiously, he says he always knew the legal process . . . though not necessarily British justice . . . would free him. "Not in those terms, " he explains. "What it did do was make me understand the value of the legal system being properly implemented. The rules are there to be followed. If there was anger, it was towards the people who should know better . . . the people who don't obey the rules and they know the rules."

Before finishing up, he talks briefly about the Lockerbie case and the impact his own case … and the cases of Berry and Assali ... might have on it. "They know Feraday's judgement is, at the very least, questionable, " he says, his voice weighed down by his past. "But you have to ask not really a question about him, but a question about the prosecuting authorities who then seek to rely upon someone whose evidence has been discredited."

He shrugs. His life has moved on. It's not come tumbling down. But the ripples of his story are still being felt. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is serving his sentence in Greenock Prison near Glasgow, where he continues to protest his innocence. The case is being considered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, whose findings are expected to be announced early in 2006.

According to one source, "the unmasking of the judicial system and all its hubris will be there for all to see".