[This is the headline over an item published today on the Lockerbie Truth website of Dr Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph. It reads in part:]
Today, the 21st of December, the darkest day of our year.
Dark for those who, twenty four years ago, lost fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, babes in arms in the greatest terror attack against our nation since the Second World War.
Dark for those relatives who watched at Kamp Zeist a travesty of a trial when two Libyans were accused of the great crime we know as "Lockerbie".
And dark for those Scottish police, forensic scientists, lawyers, the American FBI and Britain's MI6, all of whom were responsible for a miscarriage of British justice perhaps greater than any that had occurred before. (...)
And so the history of Lockerbie has in general revealed a deceit greater even than that contrived by the police following the Hillsborough disaster. In that case it is now known that important evidence was concealed and scores of police statements altered so as to make it appear that the many fans who were crushed were responsible for their own deaths. Thankfully the original inquest verdict which formed that view has now been overturned by an act of the British parliament, and a new inquest ordered.
And so we are drawn inevitably to the following questions:
Will the Scottish government at least consider that a Lockerbie verdict based on evidence by bribed identification witnesses and a bomb timer fragment possessing all the hallmarks of a clandestine plant might be overturned by judicial inquiry?
Will action be taken against [the Scottish police officer] who concealed from the trial and appeal judges his personal record of offers of multi-million dollar rewards to the only two identification witnesses in the Lockerbie case?
Or might a more comprehensive inquiry ask why several warnings of intended bombings prior to the Lockerbie attack were consciously ignored?
Who might now ask why a break-in at the terminal adjoining the loading areas of Pan Am and Iran Air on the night preceding the attack was discounted, the security officer's report routinely filed, and evidence given thirteen years later by that same officer, by then close to death, mocked in a court of appeal?
As this darkest of days ticks away the minutes, where does the great deceit of the Lockerbie trial now stand? And why do the British and Scottish parliaments remain silent?
[Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm has just published an article headlined Swire: Pan Am 103 a greater deceit than Hillsborough.]
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hillsborough. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hillsborough. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday 21 December 2012
Sunday 16 September 2012
An iron law
[The following are a few sentences from Martin Ivens’s column (behind the paywall) in today’s edition of The Sunday Times:]
The Hillsborough disaster not only brought out the worst in the police on duty in South Yorkshire that day in April 1989 but also establishment indifference. The families and friends of the 96 people who died have had to wait 23 years for the full truth to be told.
It is now confidently asserted by senior officers that the police have cleaned up their act: Hillsborough could never happen again. Are they right? The initial refusal to hold an inquiry into the killing by armed policemen on the London Underground of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian, in 2005 shows some habits die hard. (...)
Lord Justice Taylor’s contemporary inquiry condemned a police “blunder of the first magnitude” and officers’ accounts, he said, “were close to deceitful”. Alas, that judgment only scratched the surface. The coroner’s inquest was a joke. Another official inquiry failed to reveal the extent of the cover-up. No criminal prosecutions were mounted despite newspaper revelations of police tampering with the evidence.
It took a bishop, aided by two investigative journalists, to bring the full truth to light last week where government-appointed judges had failed. There appears to be some iron law that it takes two decades for the Crown to redress grievous wrongs committed by its servants. The imprisonment of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six spring to mind.
[As does the imprisonment of Abdelbaset Megrahi.]
The Hillsborough disaster not only brought out the worst in the police on duty in South Yorkshire that day in April 1989 but also establishment indifference. The families and friends of the 96 people who died have had to wait 23 years for the full truth to be told.
It is now confidently asserted by senior officers that the police have cleaned up their act: Hillsborough could never happen again. Are they right? The initial refusal to hold an inquiry into the killing by armed policemen on the London Underground of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian, in 2005 shows some habits die hard. (...)
Lord Justice Taylor’s contemporary inquiry condemned a police “blunder of the first magnitude” and officers’ accounts, he said, “were close to deceitful”. Alas, that judgment only scratched the surface. The coroner’s inquest was a joke. Another official inquiry failed to reveal the extent of the cover-up. No criminal prosecutions were mounted despite newspaper revelations of police tampering with the evidence.
It took a bishop, aided by two investigative journalists, to bring the full truth to light last week where government-appointed judges had failed. There appears to be some iron law that it takes two decades for the Crown to redress grievous wrongs committed by its servants. The imprisonment of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six spring to mind.
[As does the imprisonment of Abdelbaset Megrahi.]
Saturday 15 December 2012
Lockerbie, Hillsborough, Finucane
[In today’s edition of The Scotsman a letter is published from Dr Jim Swire. It reads as follows:]
The unanimous decision of the Holyrood justice committee on 11 December, to keep open petition 1370 from JFM (Justice for Megrahi) calling for an independent inquiry into the handling of the Lockerbie case, came at an opportune moment.
The powerful allegations of criminality lodged with justice secretary Kenny MacAskill by the same group in September had been referred for investigation to Dumfries and Galloway Police, the force which had responsibility for the investigation which led to the verdict – a stark contrast with the call embodied in the petition for an independent inquiry.
The material which emerged from Hillsborough concerning the deliberate altering of police statements to incriminate football fans and exonerate the police, and the astonishing involvement of MI5, the Northern Ireland police, the British Army intelligence units and others over the brutal murder of Pat Finucane, must place the Dumfries and Galloway chief constable in a deeply invidious position in assessing his own force’s previous performance in the Lockerbie investigation.
At a discussion group at the Edinburgh Book Festival this year, titled “A spectacular miscarriage of justice?”, Magnus Linklater alone claimed that the idea of a conspiracy concerning the Lockerbie case was not credible. [RB: Mr Linklater’s subsequent article in The Times can be read here.]
It was clear that even then, the bulk of the audience did not agree with him. Yes, he is a respected former editor of your estimable newspaper, but I wonder whether he now regrets his intervention.
[Ian Bell's powerful article in today's edition of The Herald Britain's shameful role in rendition in the dock is also very much in point.]
The unanimous decision of the Holyrood justice committee on 11 December, to keep open petition 1370 from JFM (Justice for Megrahi) calling for an independent inquiry into the handling of the Lockerbie case, came at an opportune moment.
The powerful allegations of criminality lodged with justice secretary Kenny MacAskill by the same group in September had been referred for investigation to Dumfries and Galloway Police, the force which had responsibility for the investigation which led to the verdict – a stark contrast with the call embodied in the petition for an independent inquiry.
The material which emerged from Hillsborough concerning the deliberate altering of police statements to incriminate football fans and exonerate the police, and the astonishing involvement of MI5, the Northern Ireland police, the British Army intelligence units and others over the brutal murder of Pat Finucane, must place the Dumfries and Galloway chief constable in a deeply invidious position in assessing his own force’s previous performance in the Lockerbie investigation.
At a discussion group at the Edinburgh Book Festival this year, titled “A spectacular miscarriage of justice?”, Magnus Linklater alone claimed that the idea of a conspiracy concerning the Lockerbie case was not credible. [RB: Mr Linklater’s subsequent article in The Times can be read here.]
It was clear that even then, the bulk of the audience did not agree with him. Yes, he is a respected former editor of your estimable newspaper, but I wonder whether he now regrets his intervention.
[Ian Bell's powerful article in today's edition of The Herald Britain's shameful role in rendition in the dock is also very much in point.]
Thursday 19 December 2013
Lockerbie families consider third al-Megrahi appeal
[This is the headline over a report (behind the paywall) in today’s edition of The Times. It reads as follows:]
British relatives of Lockerbie bombing victims will consider making another appeal against the conviction of the only man found guilty of the atrocity.
Some members of the UK Families Flight 103 group will meet lawyers in the new year to discuss whether to apply to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), according to Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the bombing in December 1988.
“The intention of some members is to meet with lawyers in January and discuss the best options, the best way to get the truth,” he said. “It’s a disgrace that we have to wait 25 years to get the truth that should be available from our governments.”
The group will also consider whether an inquiry is the best route to get answers. Dr Swire is part of another group pursuing a long-running petition at the Scottish parliament calling for the Scottish government to open a full public inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Last December, Dr Swire said that the family of the convicted bomber could be risking their lives if they were to raise the prospect of a fresh appeal against conviction, possibly leaving it to victims’ families instead.
Dr Swire said that new evidence needed to be investigated, including allegations surrounding a break-in at Heathrow before the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people in the air and on the ground. “It’s clear following the evidence and the behaviour of certain governments that Megrahi wasn’t involved at all,” he said.
If successful, a new application to the SCCRC could start the third appeal into the conviction. Al-Megrahi lost his first appeal in 2002, a year after he was found guilty of mass murder and jailed for life.
The SCCRC recommended in 2007 that al-Megrahi should be granted a second appeal against his conviction. He dropped the appeal two days before being released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds.
Details of six grounds for referral to appeal were published last year. Four of the reasons refer to undisclosed evidence from the Crown to al-Megrahi’s defence team.
The grounds cover evidence about a positive identification of al-Megrahi by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who said that he had sold clothes to a Libyan man. The clothes were linked to a suitcase loaded on to the aircraft, which was then linked to the bomb and eventually to al-Megrahi.
The SCCRC has raised concerns that evidence suggesting Mr Gauci had seen a magazine article linking al-Megrahi to the bomb had not been passed to the defence. Contradictions about the day al-Megrahi was said to have bought the clothes were also highlighted. The trial was told that they were bought on December 7 but the SCCRC said that Mr Gauci also thought it might have been November 29. [RB: The two dates that were canvassed as real possibilities were 23 November and 7 December.]
Also of concern to the SCCRC was undisclosed evidence about Mr Gauci’s interest in rewards. The commission said that the defence should have been told that a substantial reward was on offer from the US Government.
This week, Frank Mulholland, QC, the Lord Advocate, announced that Libya had appointed two prosecutors to work on the investigation into the bombing.
[A similar article appeared in yesterday’s edition of The Scotsman, along with an opinion piece by Dr Jim Swire which reads in part:]
Try to imagine what it is like to know that your daughter went, unaware of her danger, through the corridors of an airport which knew that its “secure” airside had been broken into, and knew that there was a high terrorist threat to US aircraft at the time and yet still decided not to investigate who had broken in or what his motive might have been. Then try to imagine that you have tried in every way you can think of for 25 years to get an inquiry into why Lockerbie was not prevented and how things could be improved for the future, and been blocked at every stage.
It also took us until 2012 to get official confirmation – in a letter to me from the former Chief Constable (Dumfries and Galloway police) Patrick Shearer – that the investigating police had had complete files about that break-in in their computer from February 1989. That letter also explained that the file had been passed to the Crown Office before the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had even started. Yet still the prosecutors failed to share their knowledge with the defence.
It is probable that the suppression of this break-in evidence was caused by blind adherence to the hypothesis that the bomb must have come from Malta because of some associated clothing that had indeed originated there. Once a force has formed a strong hypothesis, it takes an earthquake to convince it that other evidence, particularly if hostile to the favoured hypothesis, ought to be shared with the defence. That is a problem we see again and again in miscarriage of justice cases. (...)
The United Nations special observer to the trial (Professor Hans Koechler of Vienna) was in no doubt that it did not represent justice. How could it have done when the break-in information describing an obvious possible avenue for the introduction of the bomb at Heathrow was simply denied to the defence? There were other signs of something far more sinister: Early in 1990, we UK relatives were called to the US embassy in London. In an aside to one of us there, an American official said privately of Lockerbie: “Your government and ours know exactly what happened, but they’re never going to tell.”
Then, in 1993, the late Baroness Thatcher wrote of her support for the 1986 US air force (USAF) raid on Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi: “It turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined…the much vaunted Libyan counter-attack did not and could not take place.” Yet two years before, in 1991, two Libyans had been officially blamed for the Lockerbie bombing. (...)
In the post-Snowden world, we all know how extensive is the reach, even among their own citizens, of US and UK intelligence gathering. What we do not know is what aspects of that intelligence are deliberately hidden from citizens who desperately need access to it in their grief, or indeed why any of it should be kept from them.
We relatives need the truth about who murdered our families and article 2 of human rights legislation guarantees our right to have it. While that truth is hidden, the true perpetrators are protected.
Next year, in the face of the blank refusal of governments to mount any meaningful inquiry, certain relatives will apply to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission for a further appeal against the Megrahi verdict. It is likely that some of us will also pursue other routes to force an honest inquiry out of obdurate governments; 25 years is too long, and we should not be opposed by our own elected governments.
If you look at terrible UK disasters – Northern Ireland and the IRA trials, the Hillsborough disaster and also Lockerbie, it is the denial of truth to the victims that is the common thread. So, indeed, there is a thread and that thread is truth.
[The announcement by the Lord Advocate that Libya had appointed two prosecutors to work on the investigation into the bombing has been widely reported in the media. Examples can be found here (BBC News); here (The Herald); and here (Dundee Courier). It is also reported that US and UK investigators are to be allowed to question Abdullah al-Senussi, the Gaddafi regime’s security chief who is currently awaiting trial in Libya. Here are examples from ITV News and from the Libya Herald.
The recently-retired Director of the FBI, Robert S Mueller III, has expressed confidence that others will be charged in connection with the Lockerbie bombing. A report on the BBC News website contains the following:]
In a rare interview, to mark the 25th anniversary of the deadliest act of terrorism in the UK, Mr Mueller said he was confident the ongoing investigation would "continue to produce results".
"We have FBI agents who are working full-time to track down every lead, as we have since it occurred 25 years ago," Mr Mueller said.
"My expectation is that continuously we will obtain additional information, perhaps additional witnesses, and that others will be charged with their participation in this.
"We do not forget. And by that I mean the FBI, the US Department of Justice, we do not forget," he said. (...)
Mr [Frank] Mulholland, Scotland's lord advocate, said on Monday that Libya had appointed two prosecutors to work on the Lockerbie case.
He told the BBC that the Libyans would work alongside Scottish and American investigators and described this as a "welcome development' which he said would hopefully lead to progress in the case.
Robert Mueller said there had been progress since the revolution in Libya and he expected that to continue.
But he acknowledged that violence and instability in Libya was making things more difficult.
"The problem in Libya now is the government is struggling to maintain security and order and bring peace to the country," he said. (...)
Robert Mueller said he was open to new evidence but remained convinced "the proof was solid on Megrahi".
He said: "My expectation is there are others who may well be brought to justice as a result of continuing investigation by both ourselves as well as the Scottish authorities".
Mr Mueller has been involved with the Lockerbie case for more than 20 years.
He was assistant attorney general in the United States in 1991 when indictments were issued for the two Libyan suspects, Megrahi and Al-amin Khalifa Fimah. (...)
Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, freed [Megrahi] on compassionate grounds in August 2009 because he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
At that time, Robert Mueller wrote a scathing letter to Mr MacAskill in which he said his decision "gives comfort to terrorists around the world".
In his BBC interview, which he said would be his last, Mr Mueller was asked if he had reflected on this intervention.
"My letter still stands," he said.
[Mr Mueller has featured regularly on this blog. The relevant items can be found here. By contrast, here are some very sensible comments from Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga died on Pan Am 103:]
A minister who lost his 19-year-old daughter in the Lockerbie bombing told ITV News the government are "looking in the wrong place" for the perpetrators after UK authorities were given permission to interview Muammar Gaddafi's former intelligence chief.
Reverend John Mosey said he was "very sceptical of any good" coming from the interview with Abdullah Senussi because the link between the 1988 disaster and Libya had been "blown out of the water."
He also added that the new Libyan regime are "desperate to pin it all on Gaddafi."
British relatives of Lockerbie bombing victims will consider making another appeal against the conviction of the only man found guilty of the atrocity.
Some members of the UK Families Flight 103 group will meet lawyers in the new year to discuss whether to apply to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), according to Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the bombing in December 1988.
“The intention of some members is to meet with lawyers in January and discuss the best options, the best way to get the truth,” he said. “It’s a disgrace that we have to wait 25 years to get the truth that should be available from our governments.”
The group will also consider whether an inquiry is the best route to get answers. Dr Swire is part of another group pursuing a long-running petition at the Scottish parliament calling for the Scottish government to open a full public inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Last December, Dr Swire said that the family of the convicted bomber could be risking their lives if they were to raise the prospect of a fresh appeal against conviction, possibly leaving it to victims’ families instead.
Dr Swire said that new evidence needed to be investigated, including allegations surrounding a break-in at Heathrow before the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people in the air and on the ground. “It’s clear following the evidence and the behaviour of certain governments that Megrahi wasn’t involved at all,” he said.
If successful, a new application to the SCCRC could start the third appeal into the conviction. Al-Megrahi lost his first appeal in 2002, a year after he was found guilty of mass murder and jailed for life.
The SCCRC recommended in 2007 that al-Megrahi should be granted a second appeal against his conviction. He dropped the appeal two days before being released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds.
Details of six grounds for referral to appeal were published last year. Four of the reasons refer to undisclosed evidence from the Crown to al-Megrahi’s defence team.
The grounds cover evidence about a positive identification of al-Megrahi by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who said that he had sold clothes to a Libyan man. The clothes were linked to a suitcase loaded on to the aircraft, which was then linked to the bomb and eventually to al-Megrahi.
The SCCRC has raised concerns that evidence suggesting Mr Gauci had seen a magazine article linking al-Megrahi to the bomb had not been passed to the defence. Contradictions about the day al-Megrahi was said to have bought the clothes were also highlighted. The trial was told that they were bought on December 7 but the SCCRC said that Mr Gauci also thought it might have been November 29. [RB: The two dates that were canvassed as real possibilities were 23 November and 7 December.]
Also of concern to the SCCRC was undisclosed evidence about Mr Gauci’s interest in rewards. The commission said that the defence should have been told that a substantial reward was on offer from the US Government.
This week, Frank Mulholland, QC, the Lord Advocate, announced that Libya had appointed two prosecutors to work on the investigation into the bombing.
[A similar article appeared in yesterday’s edition of The Scotsman, along with an opinion piece by Dr Jim Swire which reads in part:]
Try to imagine what it is like to know that your daughter went, unaware of her danger, through the corridors of an airport which knew that its “secure” airside had been broken into, and knew that there was a high terrorist threat to US aircraft at the time and yet still decided not to investigate who had broken in or what his motive might have been. Then try to imagine that you have tried in every way you can think of for 25 years to get an inquiry into why Lockerbie was not prevented and how things could be improved for the future, and been blocked at every stage.
It also took us until 2012 to get official confirmation – in a letter to me from the former Chief Constable (Dumfries and Galloway police) Patrick Shearer – that the investigating police had had complete files about that break-in in their computer from February 1989. That letter also explained that the file had been passed to the Crown Office before the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had even started. Yet still the prosecutors failed to share their knowledge with the defence.
It is probable that the suppression of this break-in evidence was caused by blind adherence to the hypothesis that the bomb must have come from Malta because of some associated clothing that had indeed originated there. Once a force has formed a strong hypothesis, it takes an earthquake to convince it that other evidence, particularly if hostile to the favoured hypothesis, ought to be shared with the defence. That is a problem we see again and again in miscarriage of justice cases. (...)
The United Nations special observer to the trial (Professor Hans Koechler of Vienna) was in no doubt that it did not represent justice. How could it have done when the break-in information describing an obvious possible avenue for the introduction of the bomb at Heathrow was simply denied to the defence? There were other signs of something far more sinister: Early in 1990, we UK relatives were called to the US embassy in London. In an aside to one of us there, an American official said privately of Lockerbie: “Your government and ours know exactly what happened, but they’re never going to tell.”
Then, in 1993, the late Baroness Thatcher wrote of her support for the 1986 US air force (USAF) raid on Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi: “It turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined…the much vaunted Libyan counter-attack did not and could not take place.” Yet two years before, in 1991, two Libyans had been officially blamed for the Lockerbie bombing. (...)
In the post-Snowden world, we all know how extensive is the reach, even among their own citizens, of US and UK intelligence gathering. What we do not know is what aspects of that intelligence are deliberately hidden from citizens who desperately need access to it in their grief, or indeed why any of it should be kept from them.
We relatives need the truth about who murdered our families and article 2 of human rights legislation guarantees our right to have it. While that truth is hidden, the true perpetrators are protected.
Next year, in the face of the blank refusal of governments to mount any meaningful inquiry, certain relatives will apply to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission for a further appeal against the Megrahi verdict. It is likely that some of us will also pursue other routes to force an honest inquiry out of obdurate governments; 25 years is too long, and we should not be opposed by our own elected governments.
If you look at terrible UK disasters – Northern Ireland and the IRA trials, the Hillsborough disaster and also Lockerbie, it is the denial of truth to the victims that is the common thread. So, indeed, there is a thread and that thread is truth.
[The announcement by the Lord Advocate that Libya had appointed two prosecutors to work on the investigation into the bombing has been widely reported in the media. Examples can be found here (BBC News); here (The Herald); and here (Dundee Courier). It is also reported that US and UK investigators are to be allowed to question Abdullah al-Senussi, the Gaddafi regime’s security chief who is currently awaiting trial in Libya. Here are examples from ITV News and from the Libya Herald.
The recently-retired Director of the FBI, Robert S Mueller III, has expressed confidence that others will be charged in connection with the Lockerbie bombing. A report on the BBC News website contains the following:]
In a rare interview, to mark the 25th anniversary of the deadliest act of terrorism in the UK, Mr Mueller said he was confident the ongoing investigation would "continue to produce results".
"We have FBI agents who are working full-time to track down every lead, as we have since it occurred 25 years ago," Mr Mueller said.
"My expectation is that continuously we will obtain additional information, perhaps additional witnesses, and that others will be charged with their participation in this.
"We do not forget. And by that I mean the FBI, the US Department of Justice, we do not forget," he said. (...)
Mr [Frank] Mulholland, Scotland's lord advocate, said on Monday that Libya had appointed two prosecutors to work on the Lockerbie case.
He told the BBC that the Libyans would work alongside Scottish and American investigators and described this as a "welcome development' which he said would hopefully lead to progress in the case.
Robert Mueller said there had been progress since the revolution in Libya and he expected that to continue.
But he acknowledged that violence and instability in Libya was making things more difficult.
"The problem in Libya now is the government is struggling to maintain security and order and bring peace to the country," he said. (...)
Robert Mueller said he was open to new evidence but remained convinced "the proof was solid on Megrahi".
He said: "My expectation is there are others who may well be brought to justice as a result of continuing investigation by both ourselves as well as the Scottish authorities".
Mr Mueller has been involved with the Lockerbie case for more than 20 years.
He was assistant attorney general in the United States in 1991 when indictments were issued for the two Libyan suspects, Megrahi and Al-amin Khalifa Fimah. (...)
Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, freed [Megrahi] on compassionate grounds in August 2009 because he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
At that time, Robert Mueller wrote a scathing letter to Mr MacAskill in which he said his decision "gives comfort to terrorists around the world".
In his BBC interview, which he said would be his last, Mr Mueller was asked if he had reflected on this intervention.
"My letter still stands," he said.
[Mr Mueller has featured regularly on this blog. The relevant items can be found here. By contrast, here are some very sensible comments from Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga died on Pan Am 103:]
A minister who lost his 19-year-old daughter in the Lockerbie bombing told ITV News the government are "looking in the wrong place" for the perpetrators after UK authorities were given permission to interview Muammar Gaddafi's former intelligence chief.
Reverend John Mosey said he was "very sceptical of any good" coming from the interview with Abdullah Senussi because the link between the 1988 disaster and Libya had been "blown out of the water."
He also added that the new Libyan regime are "desperate to pin it all on Gaddafi."
Monday 2 June 2014
Justice for Megrahi submission to Scottish Parliament Justice Committee
[What follows is the text of Justice for Megrahi’s submission to the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee in connection with its consideration of JFM’s petition at tomorrow’s meeting (which begins at 10.00 in Holyrood Committee Room 6 -- the relevant agenda item is expected to be reached at around 11.00.]
Since the Justice Committee’s last consideration of PE 1370 on 18 February 2014 and the resultant correspondence between the Justice Committee and Police Scotland, JFM is pleased to inform the Committee that constructive progress is now being made regarding the investigation into all nine allegations of criminality against Crown, police and forensic officials.
Justice for Megrahi (JFM) is grateful to the Justice Committee for its intervention with Police Scotland subsequent to the stalling of the investigation into JFM’s allegations of criminality against aforementioned officials.
On 21 February 2014 JFM received a letter of reassurance from Chief Constable Sir Stephen House that action would be taken to re-establish JFM’s confidence in the investigation. Through his good offices, a meeting between DCC Livingston (responsible for oversight), Detective Superintendent Johnstone (responsible for running the investigation) and representatives of JFM took place at the Police Scotland College, Tulliallan, on 2 April 2014.
Following a full and frank discussion, a major crime investigation team has been set up under Detective Superintendent Johnstone. In addition, the issue of ‘conflict’ between the JFM allegations and the COPFS investigation appears to have been overcome and interviews with JFM representatives speaking to the allegations in question have now taken place and further interviews may result. Clear lines of communication have been established and regular updates are in progress.
While there has been a positive sea-change in the police approach to the criminal allegations, ultimately, the report of their investigation will be handed over to the Crown Office for any action it might deem necessary. Given that institution’s public and highly prejudicial pronouncements, in 2013, before any investigation was even launched (see: Scotsman article of 24 September 2012 - http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/scotland/lockerbie-cover-up-like-hillsborough-claim-campaigners-1-2543953
and Times Scotland Edition article of 21 December 2012 - http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/pro-megrahi-backers-flayed-by-new-lord.html), JFM continues to have little faith in any decision the Crown Office might make in respect of its allegations.
Currently there are three separate initiatives being pursued in relation to the Lockerbie atrocity. The JFM call for an independent public inquiry (PE 1370), the JFM criminal allegations and the Lockerbie relatives anticipated submission to the SCCRC re a third appeal against Mr al-Megrahi’s conviction. All three pillars are integrally linked, although JFM, while totally supportive, has no direct role in the SCCRC submission.
There is no question that the Justice Committee, in its role as political overseer, has been hugely influential in progressing all three initiatives. For this reason, JFM considers it of major importance that the Justice Committee maintains PE 1370 open on the parliamentary books and continues to maintain a watching brief on behalf of the people of Scotland.
Should a decision to close be taken and it later transpires that criminal wrongdoing was committed during the Lockerbie investigation and Zeist trial, and/or should Mr Megrahi’s conviction be quashed upon appeal, the call for an inquiry would be irresistible. Closing the petition at this stage therefore makes little sense.
It is JFM’s position that the Justice Committee still has a massively important role to play in maintaining political oversight over these ongoing initiatives aimed at casting light on the most appalling atrocity ever committed on Scottish soil in recent history. We believe their continuing involvement is essential if wounds are ever to be healed and faith restored in the Scottish criminal justice system. It is sincerely hoped that the Justice Committee will identify with this view.
Finally, JFM regrets the delayed lodging of this submission but we were only informed of the 3 June consideration of PE 1370 after the deadline had lapsed.
Wednesday 17 July 2013
A spectacular failure of accountability
[This is part of the headline over an article by Justin Schlosberg published today on the New Statesman website. It reads in part:]
Ten years after the death of intelligence analyst David Kelly, the campaign for a formal inquest wages on. Shortly before his unnatural death in 2003, Kelly was outed as the BBC news source for a controversial report suggesting the government had lied in building its case for war with Iraq earlier that year. The fact that key questions remain unasked about an official investigation into a controversial death is nothing unheard of in British politics. But the Kelly case is unique because the most vociferous opponents of due process are not officials or politicians, but journalists. (...)
But there is something else we know which is that there has been unprecedented misinformation, obstruction of justice and on-going suppression of information in relation to this case. Only around a quarter of the police documents submitted to Hutton have been published and much of the remaining evidence has been sealed under an extraordinarily high level of classification for 70 years. It includes medical reports, photographs of the body and supplementary witness statements. The justification for this enduring secrecy is to prevent undue distress to the bereaved. But David Kelly was a public servant who suffered an unnatural death in extremely controversial circumstances. In far less controversial cases, the interests of the bereaved never outweigh that of the public interest in having a formal coroner’s inquest into an unnatural death.
With occasional and notable exceptions, journalists’ persistent refusal to engage with the substance of this controversy reveals a blind spot in our system of democratic accountability, encapsulated by the label of "conspiracy theory". This taboo, which operates within journalist and academic circles alike, has some sound basis. It discriminates against conjecture often associated with tabloid sensationalism or internet subcultures that respond to secrecy or uncertainty with unfounded reasoning. This kind of theorising has also provided the foundation for racist and extremist ideology upon which acts of terror, genocide and ethnic cleansing have been predicated.
Such a cautionary approach, however, has led to an outright rejection of the idea that particular groups of powerful people might make, in the words of terrorism expert Jeffrey Bale, “a concerted effort to keep an illegal or unethical act or situation from being made public”. Yet both historical precedent and contemporary events suggest that such instances are a regular feature of real-world politics. The Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq War, for instance, has surfaced considerable evidence that the decision to invade Iraq was taken in secret and long before it was publicly announced and justified on what turned out to be false intelligence. The problem amounts to an “intellectual resistance” with the result that “an entire dimension of political history and contemporary politics has been consistently neglected” (Bale 1995). (...)
Above all, it is the enduring silence of newsrooms which has shielded successive governments from pressure for an inquest or from challenge to their persistent refusals to hold one.
The fires of injustice rage unabated. It took a lot longer than ten years for the relatives of Stephen Lawrence, Bloody Sunday and Hillsborough victims to get some semblance of accountability from the state. For the relatives of Daniel Morgan, the victims of the Iraq War, Lockerbie, secret rendition and torture, the struggle continues. If nothing else, campaigners for an inquest into David Kelly’s death have succeeded in drawing some attention to yet another spectacular failure of British justice.
Ten years after the death of intelligence analyst David Kelly, the campaign for a formal inquest wages on. Shortly before his unnatural death in 2003, Kelly was outed as the BBC news source for a controversial report suggesting the government had lied in building its case for war with Iraq earlier that year. The fact that key questions remain unasked about an official investigation into a controversial death is nothing unheard of in British politics. But the Kelly case is unique because the most vociferous opponents of due process are not officials or politicians, but journalists. (...)
But there is something else we know which is that there has been unprecedented misinformation, obstruction of justice and on-going suppression of information in relation to this case. Only around a quarter of the police documents submitted to Hutton have been published and much of the remaining evidence has been sealed under an extraordinarily high level of classification for 70 years. It includes medical reports, photographs of the body and supplementary witness statements. The justification for this enduring secrecy is to prevent undue distress to the bereaved. But David Kelly was a public servant who suffered an unnatural death in extremely controversial circumstances. In far less controversial cases, the interests of the bereaved never outweigh that of the public interest in having a formal coroner’s inquest into an unnatural death.
With occasional and notable exceptions, journalists’ persistent refusal to engage with the substance of this controversy reveals a blind spot in our system of democratic accountability, encapsulated by the label of "conspiracy theory". This taboo, which operates within journalist and academic circles alike, has some sound basis. It discriminates against conjecture often associated with tabloid sensationalism or internet subcultures that respond to secrecy or uncertainty with unfounded reasoning. This kind of theorising has also provided the foundation for racist and extremist ideology upon which acts of terror, genocide and ethnic cleansing have been predicated.
Such a cautionary approach, however, has led to an outright rejection of the idea that particular groups of powerful people might make, in the words of terrorism expert Jeffrey Bale, “a concerted effort to keep an illegal or unethical act or situation from being made public”. Yet both historical precedent and contemporary events suggest that such instances are a regular feature of real-world politics. The Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq War, for instance, has surfaced considerable evidence that the decision to invade Iraq was taken in secret and long before it was publicly announced and justified on what turned out to be false intelligence. The problem amounts to an “intellectual resistance” with the result that “an entire dimension of political history and contemporary politics has been consistently neglected” (Bale 1995). (...)
Above all, it is the enduring silence of newsrooms which has shielded successive governments from pressure for an inquest or from challenge to their persistent refusals to hold one.
The fires of injustice rage unabated. It took a lot longer than ten years for the relatives of Stephen Lawrence, Bloody Sunday and Hillsborough victims to get some semblance of accountability from the state. For the relatives of Daniel Morgan, the victims of the Iraq War, Lockerbie, secret rendition and torture, the struggle continues. If nothing else, campaigners for an inquest into David Kelly’s death have succeeded in drawing some attention to yet another spectacular failure of British justice.
Saturday 14 June 2014
Collective Conviction: The Story of Disaster Action
[This is the title of a book due out in August. One of the authors is Pam Dix of UK Families Flight 103. The publisher, Liverpool University Press, describes the book as follows:]
Collective Conviction tells the story of Disaster Action, a small charity founded in 1991 by survivors and bereaved people from the disasters of the late 1980s, including Zeebrugge, King’s Cross, Clapham, Lockerbie, Hillsborough and the Marchioness. The aims were to create a health and safety culture in which disasters were less likely to occur and to support others affected by similar events. The founders could not have anticipated the degree to which they would influence emergency planning and management and the way people are treated after disasters.
Aware of the value of lessons learned over 22 years, the trustees felt that this corporate memory should be captured. Collective Conviction encapsulates that memory, so that it can be called upon by survivors, bereaved, government and others for years to come.
The book sets out the chronology of Disaster Action’s history, with first-person accounts and case studies of disasters interweaved with chapters on the needs and rights of individuals, the treatment of bereaved and survivors, inquests and inquiries, the law, the media, memorials and commemorations, and the importance of corporate memory. Additionally, the book contains guidance notes for survivors and bereaved on dealing with a disaster, and best practice guidance for responders and the media.
This book is essential reading for those in a wide range of disciplines with an interest in: planning for, responding to, reporting on and dealing with the aftermath of disaster. And importantly, people affected by disaster should find solace and support in the personal stories of others.
Thursday 31 July 2014
"What is it that our states know but still hide from us, the relatives?"
[The recently published issue of Perspectives magazine contains an article by Dr Jim Swire, written some months ago. The text submitted for publication reads as follows:]
On a huge hill cragged and steep TRUTH stands, and he that would reach her about must, and about must go.
John Donne 1572–1631
The shock of the recent helicopter crash in Glasgow must have reminded many of the horror that descended upon the little town of Lockerbie way back in late December 1988, and there is a strong link between them. In Glasgow passers by and those involved but surviving gave us a vivid picture of the willingness of ordinary people in Scotland to help each other. Likewise the people of Lockerbie, in spite of the shock and loss in their own community showed us relatives the tenderness and love of those drawn together by a common tragedy.
Yet in the case of Lockerbie it was our Scottish investigating police, later compounded by our Scottish Crown Office, who kept concealed in their files till 2001*, after the court verdict had been reached, that before the loading of the plane that fell upon Lockerbie that night, Heathrow had been broken into close by to where the bags were to be loaded for the flight 16 hours later, and that despite warnings of increased risk to American aircraft, no effort had been made to discover the intruder nor his motive.
But greater powers than Scotland’s were also involved. We did not listen carefully enough to what some were warning us about in the wider world.
Nelson Mandela had warned us that in a trial “No one country should be complainant prosecutor and judge”, yet Scotland was handed all three roles.
The trial started in May 2000, but long before that we had received disquieting information that there might be improper political pressures to undermine our search for truth. Early in 1990 our group had been called to the US embassy in London to hear the findings of a US Presidential inquiry into Lockerbie. In a gap in the proceedings in a quiet aside to one of us a US official said “Your Government and ours know exactly what happened but they’re never going to tell”.
Another blow was added in 1993, two years after the issue of indictments against the two Libyans, through the memoirs of the late Lady Thatcher who had supported the USAF bombing of Libya in 1986. She wrote of it: “It turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined.... the much vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place”. Which nation then was responsible for Lockerbie?
Any nation wielding great power such as our American cousins do, will sometimes attract revenge as it carves its way among other nations. Lockerbie like so many other outrages was a revenge attack, upon an American aircraft.
Two possible origins for revenge are particularly relevant:-
1.) The bombing of Tripoli by the USAF in 1986 with the active support of our Prime Minister, the late Lady Thatcher.
2.) The destruction of Iran Air flight 655 in the Gulf five months before Lockerbie, by a rocket fired from the USS Vincennes. This tragedy was coupled to spectacular mismanagement by America of Iran’s ensuing lust for revenge.
So close has been the ‘special relationship’ between America and our country that hatreds elicited by one may be seen as the responsibility of both.
Yet it is always the prime responsibility of a sovereign State to protect its own citizens from harm.
Evidence assembled for and only partly used in the court case, has leaked out into the public domain, and been seized upon by amateur but truth-hungry relatives. It looks to us now as though the prosecution of the Libyan Megrahi should never have been undertaken.
Worse, far worse, the revenge attack that ended 270 innocent lives in the skies above Lockerbie and on the ground below had been predicted and was preventable.
I think of my daughter Flora pressing eagerly down those long Heathrow corridors that evening on her way to see her American boyfriend for Christmas, and submitting readily to the routine security checks, when as we now know, despite advance warnings of increased terrorist risks to American flights, the airport had decided to take no action to investigate the break-in. I conjure up a lurking terrorist resting and unmolested on airside and listening to the eager footsteps and chatter of his unsuspecting victims. This remains a source of fury and fuels our campaign 25 years later. Surely under these circumstances the suspension of outgoing flights until the break-in had been fully investigated was as elementary as it was mandatory? Heathrow’s night watch man who had found the break-in, had worked at the airport for 17 years and called it the worst security breach he had seen. Yet no public inquiry was called nor sanctions placed upon the airport for its lethargy. Flora too sought truth; she hated hypocrisy.
A brief summary of the trial indicates the importance of the break-in.
---------------------------------------------------
The trial
Lockerbie was clearly a revenge attack, the court had to decide who was getting revenge for what.
The prosecution case was that Megrahi of Libya had sent the bomb unaccompanied on a circuitous route via Frankfurt to Heathrow. There was no proof as to how the bomb might have been smuggled aboard in Malta, but obviously such a route required the use of a long running timer in the bomb if it was to survive the long journey and explode after leaving Heathrow. According to the prosecution a small fragment of timer circuit board labelled PT35b was found in the bombed wreckage and ‘in all respects’ matched one corner of timer circuit boards in possession of the Libyan regime. These timers would have enabled the bomb to be set, even from Malta. to explode over mid Atlantic. The origin of the bomb from Malta was also supported by the remains of Maltese originated clothing allegedly bought in Malta by Megrahi. and found in the same police evidence bag as PT35b.
The defence wanted to show that a Syrian group – the PFLP-GC – acting as mercenaries for Iran had made and supplied a very different type of bomb. This type of bomb had been used ‘successfully’ by the group several times before Lockerbie, to destroy or damage aircraft in flight. They contained an air pressure sensitive switch which kept them inactive at ground level, but if put aboard an aircraft, they would sense the ear-popping drop in pressure after the plane had been climbing for about 7 minutes, and then start a simple non-adjustable timer running of a type unique to the PFLP-GC in Damascus but incapable of running for more than roughly half an hour before exploding the charge. These bombs were therefore unalterably locked following take-off to 7 plus about 30 minutes before they would explode, but by the same token such a bomb could only have been put aboard at the airport of origin of the flight (Heathrow), since if put aboard an incoming flight when fully armed, they would have exploded before reaching Heathrow.
The Lockerbie flight had lasted 38 minutes after leaving Heathrow.
The case revolved round which type of bomb had been used, and the significance of the Maltese clothing.
--------------------------
The court did hear that the baggage handler at Heathrow (John Bedford) when he returned from a tea break to the container he had been loading for the Pan Am Lockerbie flight, saw a suitcase which he had not loaded and which was now on the floor of the container close to the very corner of that container which would fit against the fuselage skin of the aircraft. The court was kept unaware of the break-in, nor did it learn where the extra suitcase might have come from. Had the information about the break-in been shared with the defence before the trial, this surely would have aroused reasonable doubt about the device having arrived from Frankfurt, particularly since Bedford saw that mysterious case well before the Frankfurt flight had even landed. He did not remove nor reposition it and the container was then filled up with the bags from Frankfurt on top of the bags which Bedford had seen.
Both sides accepted that the bomb they favoured had contained approximately 400 - 450 grams of Semtex, just capable of being crammed into a tape recorder, but very puny for the task of destroying a robust 747. To be certain of total destruction a terrorist would have needed to ensure that his device was close to the vulnerable fuselage skin of the aircraft, that could only be achieved at Heathrow. Analysis of baggage surrounding the actual point of explosion showed how abruptly the force of such an explosion was damped down by neighbouring bags and their mostly soft contents. The position of the bomb relative to the fuselage skin was crucial.
The man from whom the clothing had been bought in Malta was called Tony Gauci. He and his brother Paul were in line to receive substantial payments from the US Justice Department through their ‘Rewards for Justice’ programme provided their evidence led to the conviction of Megrahi/Fhimah. The Zeist court had failed to review the contents of a Scottish policeman’s diary showing the extent to which the Gauci brothers were aware of this potential reward before giving evidence in the court: this also denied the court full knowledge of whether the identification by Mr Gauci of Mr Megrahi as the buyer of the clothing, conformed to the standards of Scottish criminal law. Serious distortion of evidence of the dates of the clothes being bought was necessary to avoid concluding that it had in fact been bought on a day when Megrahi was known not to have been in Malta.
Sometimes I think that we relatives have been incredibly slow to realise that there might be real world reasons for reaching a verdict which was convenient to the political needs of a country rather than to the needs of truth and justice. Within four days of the issue of the Libyan indictments Iranian backed groups started to release American hostages: President Bush had campaigned for office on getting those hostages back.
But there have also been rich rewards for us since the trial in meeting those who have also realised the deception.
The first person I met afterwards was Professor Robert Black QC, emeritus professor of Scots law at Edinburgh. Not only was he one of Scotland’s leading legal brains, but he had also taken a central role in the devising and setting up of the special neutral country trial at Zeist, It was clear at once that he did not believe that the proceedings had justified the verdict. His own concept had been subverted to become a monumental miscarriage of justice. A disgrace to the very system to which his life had been devoted. It seemed we were not after all the only people to find the verdict incomprehensible. He cannot know the relief that the knowledge that far more erudite people than us, the lay and obsessed relatives, felt excluded from the truth by that verdict .
Soon to follow were the findings of the UN special observer to the trial, Professor Hans Koechler of Vienna who also found the proceedings fatally flawed. So many others, have studied the evidence since and their ranks continually expand, bless them all. Two of the most significant have been women, solicitor Gareth Peirce at once drew our attention to the disastrous series of miscarriages of justice following events in Northern Ireland, and the similarities with the forensic provision for Zeist, she also injected us with the unshakeable knowledge that we do indeed have an absolute right to the truth over these dreadful murders. Her early article about Lockerbie was eye opening**.
Then came an academic from Bradford, Davina Miller. She had been researching America’s ‘choice of enemies’ in the Middle East, but came across the Lockerbie material. The title to her article*** ‘Who knows about this?’ reflects her astonishment that the trial had blamed Megrahi and his country. By 2011 she was also able to reference an amazing series of mainly US intelligence documents which showed an inexplicable sudden switch from probing Iran’s known role, to acceptance that it was to be laid at Colonel Gaddafi’s door.
No one yet knows how the above mentioned circuit board fragment (PT35b) came to be found in that Scottish police evidence bag. Astonishingly it has now emerged that the metallic plating on the fragment simply does not match that on the Libyan owned timers. It was plated by a process which the makers of the Swiss timers Libya owned had not even installed in their factory before 1988. The forensic expert advising the prosecution had written in a note to his examination of that fragment that he had realised the discrepancy in the plating, yet he told the court in evidence that the fragment and the Libyan boards were “similar in all respects”
The trials relating to the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six were similarly bedevilled by distortion or suppression of forensic evidence and convicted the innocent. Similarly at Hillsborough, distortion and suppression of truth by the police blamed the innocent bystanders.
Early on the morning of the day in 2012 when the book Megrahi: You are my Jury was published revealing as it did that the fragment PT35b simply could never have been part of one of the Libyan owned timers because of the plating anomaly, Downing Street released a claim that the book was “an insult to the relatives”. The author of the book tells me that there was no legitimate way that Downing Street could have had access to the file of the book in advance – indeed I had only been allowed to read it myself through the night before launch, in a personally handed-over copy. What is the secret that still drives our state to seek to protect the now clearly false story told in the court?
What if our state were to acquiesce in the perversion of our justice systems to suit the needs of the aspiring President of another State? What was the real origin of the fragment PT35b? How did it enter that Scottish police evidence bag?
From Lady Thatcher’s day, when Lord Parkinson went to ask her cabinet on our behalf for an inquiry, and returned with a metaphorical black eye from a blow from a hand bag, we have been repeatedly refused any inquiry in either England or Scotland always under the rubric of the wonderful criminal investigation and trial. What is it that our states know but still hide from us, the relatives? No recent catastrophe of such proportions has ever been denied an inquiry for twenty five years.
The opacity of Governments and the adherence to falsehood are deeply worrying. What sort of society have we become that we host gigantic intelligence systems spying even on our own innocent citizens, and yet when prevention fails, and some of those innocent citizens are murdered, deny transparency and objective re-examination of the facts to those of their citizens most devastated by that failure?
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