A welcome, albeit grudging, change of tune

[On Tuesday, 6 November the following item appeared on this blog:]

In the (redacted) version of Justice for Megrahi’s letter alleging criminal misconduct in the Lockerbie investigation and prosecution that was released to the press on 23 October 2012, allegation no 1 reads as follows:

“1.  On 22 August 2000 the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, communicated to the judges of the Scottish Court in the Netherlands information about the contents of CIA cables relating to the Crown witness Abdul Majid Giaka that was known to members of the prosecution team [A B and C D] who had scrutinised the cables, to be false. The Lord Advocate did so after consulting these members of the prosecution team. It is submitted that this constituted an attempt to pervert the course of justice.”

A number of journalists have interpreted this paragraph as embodying an allegation that Colin Boyd attempted to pervert the course of justice. The latest of these is Kenneth Roy in an article in today's edition the Scottish Review headlined A High Court judge and an allegation of criminality.  This raises concerns about the standard of English comprehension amongst journalists, because the paragraph makes no such allegation -- indeed was very carefully drafted in order to avoid it. What the paragraph alleges is that two members of the prosecution team, A B and C D,  supplied to Colin Boyd information about the CIA cables which A B and C D knew to be false (because they had scrutinised the cables) and which they knew he was going to, and did, communicate to the court.  That is the perversion of the course of justice that is alleged.

I am disappointed when journalists attempt to explain or excuse their flagrant misinterpretation of a text by reference to its -- non-existent -- ambiguity. The paragraph quite simply does not say that Colin Boyd perverted the course of justice. To represent that it does is an error on the part of the reader, not the writer.

[In today’s edition of the Scottish Review Kenneth Roy’s article There is a greater tragedy this weekend than the disgrace of the BBC contains the following:]

Most recently, here in Scotland, we have had an allegation, published by the BBC, of criminal wrongdoing against a High Court judge; although the source of the allegation has assured this magazine that it did not intend to make any such allegation, and that it was based on a misunderstanding, we have seen no correction or clarification of it by BBC Scotland. How fruitily ironic that the man drafted in by George Entwistle to investigate the goings-on at Newsnight is none other than the director of BBC Scotland, who seems to be unaware of the need to correct an injustice on his own doorstep.

Who is accused of perverting the course of justice?

In the (redacted) version of Justice for Megrahi’s letter alleging criminal misconduct in the Lockerbie investigation and prosecution that was released to the press on 23 October 2012, allegation no 1 reads as follows:

“1.  On 22 August 2000 the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, communicated to the judges of the Scottish Court in the Netherlands information about the contents of CIA cables relating to the Crown witness Abdul Majid Giaka that was known to members of the prosecution team [A B and C D] who had scrutinised the cables, to be false. The Lord Advocate did so after consulting these members of the prosecution team. It is submitted that this constituted an attempt to pervert the course of justice.”

A number of journalists have interpreted this paragraph as embodying an allegation that Colin Boyd attempted to pervert the course of justice. The latest of these is Kenneth Roy in an article in today's edition the Scottish Review headlined A High Court judge and an allegation of criminality.  This raises concerns about the standard of English comprehension amongst journalists, because the paragraph makes no such allegation -- indeed was very carefully drafted in order to avoid it. What the paragraph alleges is that two members of the prosecution team, A B and C D,  supplied to Colin Boyd information about the CIA cables which A B and C D knew to be false (because they had scrutinised the cables) and which they knew he was going to, and did, communicate to the court.  That is the perversion of the course of justice that is alleged. 

I am disappointed when journalists attempt to explain or excuse their flagrant misinterpretation of a text by reference to its -- non-existent -- ambiguity. The paragraph quite simply does not say that Colin Boyd perverted the course of justice. To represent that it does is an error on the part of the reader, not the writer.

Legacy of Lockerbie: part 2

[The following is taken from an article by Kenneth Roy, the editor, published today in the Scottish Review:]

The empty auditorium

On the subject of Lockerbie, we are not short of bar-room philosophers. When someone from the Sun phoned me last week for a quote, he assured me that, down at his local, most people were convinced that Megrahi should never have gone to prison. I told my new friend from the Murdoch empire that I was interested to hear it. I was tempted to add that if only his newspaper had supported the opinion of the boozing classes, the world would be a marginally fairer place. 

But where (I have been asking myself for the last fortnight), were all these bar-room philosophers when the facts of the Lockerbie disaster were first examined? I put this question with the hindsight of one of the strangest experiences of my professional life.

In December 1990, close to the week of the second anniversary, I turned up one morning at a psychiatric hospital in Dumfries. Part of the grounds had been converted into a mini-village, with its own 400-seat auditorium, administrative block, media centre and restaurant. I reported to the media centre and was issued with a badge, a desk and a telephone. 'Where is everybody?', I asked. There was no one in this centre; only rows and rows of empty desks and a long corridor of empty cubicles, each reserved for some famous newspaper or broadcasting organisation. 'Oh, there's never anybody here,' the security man replied casually. 'We haven't bothered to connect most of the phones'. He suggested that I should put my feet up, have a smoke, and listen to an audio feed of the proceedings. It was, he assured me, warmer in here than in the room with the 400-seat auditorium. 

I went to the room anyway. I was frisked at the door, emerging through a metal archway into a large, gloomy hall with a stage and municipal-green curtains, tightly drawn to exclude the little natural light. A third of the floor space had been penned off for bewigged counsel and their assistants – 28 of them. A team of three shorthand writers worked in 15-minute rotas. On the stage sat the impassive sheriff who was hearing the evidence. In the press benches, a handful of reporters. 

But the auditorium was deserted. Not one of the 400 seats in the public benches was occupied. During a break I asked an official if this was unusual. He told me that the highest attendance had been 10, on one of the early days. There had been no one for weeks. 

This was the fatal accident inquiry into Britain's worst peacetime atrocity, a terrorist crime which claimed 270 lives. 

Some accident. 

Only one person in this oppressively dim room was of more than passing interest. She sat incongruously in the pen reserved for the lawyers, but it was clear that she was not one of that lot. She was a woman in early middle age, beautiful, stylishly dressed. I observed that her concentration never wavered and that she never stopped writing; writing; writing. 

I discovered that her name was Marina de Larracoechea, that she was 43 years old, Spanish, an interior designer, that her sister Nieves, four years her junior, had been a flight attendant on Pan Am flight 103, and that she was here to represent her sister, murdered at 39. Legal representation did not interest Marina. She had to be in this unfamiliar town in person, in the depth of winter, resting her head heaven knows where, week after week, listening, writing, head down, writing. 

The airline's head of security – even for him there was no audience – gave evidence. I remember 22 years later that he spoke of 'bouncing off the walls in frustration' at his employer's lack of interest in his plans to improve the inadequate security. We did not know then about the Heathrow possibility. We knew very little. Megrahi was a free man. Tony Gauci was an obscure Maltese shopkeeper. Peter Fraser was just another of those jolly affable chaps at the Scottish bar, no one suspecting that he thought in such sophisticated imagery as a witness being an apple short of a picnic.

It was an inquiry taking place in the dark. Almost literally.

As she listened to the security man's evidence, Marina stepped up the pace of her ferocious note-taking. I didn't appreciate at the time the nature of this phenomenon; it took a while for my slow head to work it out. It was someone bearing witness. I hadn't seen the like of it before and I haven't seen the like of it since. It was a deeply impressive spectacle. 

At every new turn in the Lockerbie saga, I wondered what had happened to Marina. Maybe it was all that bar-room philosophy – to say nothing of all that speaking for Scotland crap – which finally drove me to make inquiries. It seems she is still alive and living in New York. 'I don't care about work any more,' she said some years ago. 'I can't do it any more. Personally I don't think I will ever be able to get back to many things in my life. All the rest is very minor compared to the fact that she is not around any more'.

Marina rejected a £4m payoff offered to each of the families. She said the money meant nothing to her and that all she wanted was the truth.

Marina requested that Nieves' name should be excluded from the Lockerbie memorial because neither truth nor justice had prevailed. I don't know whether this request was respected. 

Marina attended part of the trial in the Netherlands and left it convinced of Megrahi's innocence. She said at the time of his detention in Scotland: 'The fact that he is languishing in a Scottish prison is a source of great sadness to me and to many other relatives I have spoken to. He is nothing more than a scapegoat'.

Marina appealed to the Scottish judges to conduct an independent review of the evidence on the grounds that the full truth behind the bombing had been deliberately withheld. They rejected this request. She applied for permission to intervene and ask questions during the hearing of Megrahi's appeal. They rejected this application.

The most recent reference I have been able to source appeared in a Spanish newspaper at the beginning of last year. It was in the form of a personal statement.

Marina said:  I have worked hard with dedication and sacrifice, especially for truth and justice, in the case of the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 where my sister Nieves was murdered, along with 269 other equally precious and irreplaceable lives. This carnage, politically induced, announced and expected, occurred on 21 December 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Others, mainly government officials, diplomats and big businessmen had precise prior knowledge that helped them to change their flights and save their lives. Silence reigns over this and other important aspects.

In the same statement, Marina pleaded for health to continue fighting with even more determination 'and a little good fortune to help us bear with dignity the enormous burden of these 22 years'.

Her dignity was never in doubt. I experienced it for myself that long-ago December day in the tightly-curtained room. I'm reading it again through the lines I've just quoted. 

For 270 of those 400 vacant seats there was a victim. Yet it seems that the powerful have won. The powerful have kept their secrets. The powerful have always depended on the emptiness of the auditorium.

[Part 1 of Kenneth Roy’s article can be read here.]

Legacy of Lockerbie: part 1

[What follows is taken from an article by Kenneth Roy, the editor of the Scottish Review, in today’s issue. Part 2 of the article is due to be published tomorrow.]

Vacuous and semi-literate: the state of political language in Scotland

Political language is bad, often very bad, and a current illustration can be found in the Scottish Government's official statement on the death of Megrahi. The statement is in the name of Alex Salmond, but it is difficult to believe that the first minister, who used to write well and probably still does, is more than formally responsible for it. Even this busy man should check before he signs off the stuff. 

Look and squirm at the first sentence: Our first thoughts are with the families of the Lockerbie atrocity, whose pain and suffering has been ongoing now for over 23 years.

This is scarcely literate. Presumably it is a bureaucrat's way of conveying sympathy for personal grief, but the language is so stale that it feels ritualistic. The Scottish Government had months – years, as it turned out – to prepare for Megrahi's death. If it had any genuine concern for the families, it could have found a more sensitive way of expressing it. It could have started by respecting the English language. 

Pain and suffering has is bad enough. I don't fancy 'over 23 years' when 'more than' would have taken a second longer to type. But ongoing is horrible. The once-trendy 'ongoing' may be just about permissible in official documents – in the sense that any abuse of language seems to be permissible in official documents – but in a message of condolence it is inexcusable. Worse, we have ongoing now. When do the pain and suffering cease to be ongoing now? No doubt when all concerned are conveniently dead. 

It is open for relatives of Mr Megrahi to apply to the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission to seek a further appeal. 

'Open to' rather than 'open for' would have been better usage, but the real howler in this sentence is the incorrect reference to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. If the people responsible for this statement – we should remind ourselves that they had years to prepare it – can get the name of this organisation wrong, we're entitled to wonder how much else they get wrong; seriously wrong.

Mr Megrahi's death ends one chapter of the Lockerbie case, but it does not close the book conforms to one of the main rules of political language. It is not only a cliché, but a meaningless one. It is so vague that it could signify anything or nothing. It is probably also disingenuous. It implies some desire on the part of the Scottish Government to go on with this book which has caused successive administrations on both sides of the border so much trouble for so many years. How our masters must long for that liberating word 'Finis' to be written across the final page of the accursed tome. But, of course, it is expedient to convey some cloudy suggestion of activity, a hint of ongoing now.

The Scottish Government's statement is about to deteriorate sharply. But before it does, a background note from 1946, when George Orwell identified a number of dying metaphors in political language. He defined this language in general terms as a succession of phrases 'tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house'. The Megrahi statement is a perfect vision of the hen-house. Yet there is a reluctant word to be said in its favour, since it does not include any of the following dying metaphors:
     take up the cudgels
     toe the line (aka tow the line)
     ride roughshod over
     no axe to grind
     grist to the mill
     stand shoulder to shoulder

Orwell thought that the two most risible dying metaphors – exploring every avenue and leaving no stone unturned – had disappeared from common use. He was being over-optimistic. Sixty-six years later, pompous cops continue to explore the avenue and leave no stone unturned, often in search of a male person or persons as they do so. But the male person who thought of leaving no turn unstoned deserves our gratitude for helping to boo the original off the stage.

I'm surprised that Orwell neglected to mention dying sporting metaphors. We are about to be drowned in them during the many weeks of the Greater London egg and spoon race. Surely, however, he would have savoured the following gem from the Megrahi statement: ...what emerged is that the Scottish Government were the only ones playing with a straight bat...

A straight bat, indeed. Think of this. At Lockerbie, 270 precious lives were lost. But that was a long time ago. More than – or over – 23 years later, it is safe to refer to the tragedy in terms of cricket, a jolly nice English sport, one of the few in which the first minister has expressed little if any interest. Put aside the circular ugliness of the sentence construction – 'what emerged is that' etc – and concentrate on the choice of this dying metaphor. Why cricket? Why bats? Straight in what way, exactly? Where do they keep their bent ones?

This metaphor, like most metaphors in political language, is designed to conceal. It is lacking in precision; it spares its author the effort of communicating plainly. The metaphor is a disgrace; the statement as a whole is a disgrace. It reveals only that we should not necessarily believe a word we are told about Lockerbie.

Tomorrow: Part 2 of Legacy of Lockerbie

Bàs Megrahi: ceistean [Death of Megrahi: issues]

[This is the headline over an article in Gaelic by Seonaidh Caimbeul in yesterday’s edition of The Scotsman.  Regrettably, Scots Gaelic is not one of the language options offered by Google Translate.   Babylon claims to do so, but I have been unable to get the download to work. The article reads as follows:]

Tha bàs Abdelbasat Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 60, Di-Dòmhnaich sa chaidh air ceist na coireachd air son là dubh Logarbaidh [Lockerbie] 21.12.88 a thogail ás ùr agus iomagain ann gu bheil an gnothach a’ tarraing aire nàireil do dh’Alba air adhbharan eadar-dhealaichte.

Air an dàrna làimh tha feadhainn den bheachd gur e uilebheist a bh’ anns an Libianach a mharbh 270 le boma a phlantaig e air bòrd PanAm 103 a thuit air Logarbaidh. Tha iad ag ràdh gur e mearachd a rinn Ministear a’ Cheartais, Coinneach MacAsgaill [Kenny MacAskill], le bhith a’ leigeil le al-Megrahi a dhol dhachaigh gu Tripoli seach bàsachadh sa phrìosan. Thuirt ceannard nan Làbarach, Johann NicLadhmainn [Johann Lamont], ’s i a’ bruidhinn “ás leth muinntir na h-Alba”, nach robh an co-dhùnadh sin ach “a’ dèanamh tàir air na h-ìobairtich agus an teaghlaichean”.

Air an làimh eile tha cuid de luchd-dàimh nam marbh agus sàr-eòlaich lagh cinnteach nach robh al-Megrahi neo Libia an sàs sa mhort ’s gu bheil fianais nas earbsaich a’ comharrachadh Iran. Tha litir fhosgailte le taic bho dhaoine cliùiteach ann am beatha phoblach a’ fàgail air Riaghaltas na h-Alba gun deach ceuman a ghabhail “a tha a’ cur bacadh air adhartas sam bith a dh’ionnsaigh togail a’ cheò a tha ’na laighe air na thachair”.

Tha am bàrd Aonghas Dubh MacNeacail a’ toirt taic ris an iomairt air son sgrùdadh poblach. Thuirt e: “Chan eil mi a’ tuigsinn car son a tha daoine a’ dùnadh an sùilean ri fianais a tha a’ cur teagamh anns a’ bhinn a chaidh a chur air Mgr Megrahi. Bha na breitheamhan eisimeileach air an fhianais agus an fhiosrachadh a bha romhpa sa chùirt agus tha sinn uile an urra ris na leugh sinn mun chùis lagh. Ge-tà, tha fianais ùr air nochdadh bhon uair sin agus tha sàr-eòlaich air ceistean a thogail air a’ bhuaidh a bh’ aig riaghaltasan Ameireaga ’s Breatainn air cùis lagha Albannach.”

Se an t-Oll. Raibeart MacilleDhuibh [Robert Black] a chuir cùis-lagha Mhegrahi air bhonn fo lagh na h-Alba aig cùirt shònraichte anns na Dùthchannan Ìsle. Thuirt e: “Tha mi toilichte faicinn gu bheil na meadhanan naidheachd an-seo agus anns na Stàitean Aonaichte ag aithneachadh a-nis gu bheil fìor dhuilgheadasan ann an dìteadh Megrahi. Se tha dhìth a-nis gun aithnich Riaghaltas na h-Alba cho riatanach ’s a tha sgrùdadh poblach neo-eisimeileach.”

Ghabhadh tagradh a chur a-steach an aghaidh na binne le teaghlach al-Megrahi, ged a tha ughdarrasan Albannach agus Ameireaganach fhathast a’ rannsachadh ceanglan Libianach ri uabhas Logarbaidh.


[Here is the full text of the quotation that I supplied to the journalist for use in the article:]


I am very pleased at the coverage that the open letter has had, both in the UK and around the world.  In particular it is gratifying to see influential mainstream news media in the United States for the first time recognising that there are real problems with the Megrahi conviction -- see eg http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2012/05/nyt-admits-lockerbie-case-flaws.html and  http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2012/05/cnn-did-someone-else-bomb-pan-am-103.html. What we need now is recognition from the Scottish Government that there is here a matter of real public concern and that an independent inquiry into the investigation, prosecution and conviction is necessary. People like Kate Adie, Benedict Birnberg, Ian Hislop, A L Kennedy, Len Murray, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, John Pilger, Tessa Ransford, James Robertson, Kenneth Roy, Desmond Tutu and Terry Waite cannot simply be contemptuously dismissed as "conspiracy theorists" -- the lazy slur used by people who refuse to address the manifest flaws in the Lockerbie prosecution.

The coverage of his death has been crass and repugnant

[This is the headline over an article in the current edition of the Scottish Review by the editor, Kenneth Roy.  It reads as follows:]

Two of posh boy's closest chums, Charlie and Rebekah, along with a number of retainers, will be planking their expensively clad bottoms on the hard dock of Westminster magistrates' court three weeks tomorrow to face charges which, if proved, would normally lead to a significant stretch alongside ordinary Sun readers, heaven forbid, if not the life imprisonment to which these serious charges would make them theoretically liable; meanwhile, criminal proceedings against his former right-hand man, Mr Coulson, are still widely expected. I have just written an extremely long sentence. Purest coincidence.

Yet the prime minister, lol, still feels he's something of an authority on justice in this country. Mr High Moral Tone says the dying Megrahi should never have been released. John Junor's faithful assistant, Alice, invariably had a sick bag handy for passing to her master at the first sign of the latest hypocrisy. Alice, who was the busiest girl in British journalism, is badly missed. I could have used her at the weekend as I listened to David Cameron and again yesterday at the physically revolting media coverage of Megrahi's death. 

Was there anyone more crass than the prime minister lol? Almost unbelievably, there was. Her name is Johann Lamont and she appears to be the leader of the Scottish Labour Party.

This is what she said: Let me, on behalf of the people of Scotland, apologise to the families of all the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, for his [Megrahi's] early release. 

It is not necessary to accuse Ms Lamont of political opportunism; that goes with the territory. The truly remarkable thing about this statement – indeed the only remarkable thing – is its assumption that Johann Lamont is entitled to speak for the people of Scotland. I am one of the people of Scotland and she doesn't speak for me. My colleagues here are among the people of Scotland and she doesn't speak for them. In fact, there are many people of Scotland for whom Johann Lamont doesn't speak. How dare she?

I know for whom she speaks. There are 13,135 of them – the members of the Labour Party in Scotland. It's not a lot. It leaves 5,208,965 other people of Scotland whose opinions on the early release of Megrahi are unknown. Yet, on our behalf, Ms Lamont has just apologised to the families of the victims. She has presumed to apologise on my behalf, and your behalf, and everyone else's behalf. She has even had the audacity to apologise on behalf of the father of one of the victims, Dr Jim Swire, who has a home in Scotland, who could therefore be considered as one of the people of Scotland, and who supported Megrahi's early release and counted Megrahi as a friend.

If Ms Lamont's appointment as leader of the Scottish Labour Party had been endorsed by the Scottish public as a whole with her triumphant elevation to the office of first minister, her statement would have carried some authority. But it seems nothing much happened at the weekend while I was distracted trying to persuade Alice out of retirement. Johann Lamont simply went on being the leader of a party which collapsed dramatically only a year ago this month and is now reduced to 37 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament. A little modesty from Ms Lamont wouldn't go amiss. Oh, and a few ideas.

I forced myself to buy seven newspapers yesterday. Johann Lamont would have been proud of the Labour-supporting Daily Record with its front-page splash DO NOT MOURN THIS MONSTER. The Sun's NO PITY was almost subdued by comparison, but the paper recovered its form on page 2: HE FINALLY DIES...2 YEARS 6 MONTHS LATE. The Daily Mail had DEATH OF BOMBER AND THE SHAMING OF JUSTICE, the shaming in question being the release of Megrahi rather than the extreme doubts over the safety of his conviction. The Express was at least prepared to admit a doubt of its own, avoiding dogmatic certainty with its NOW TELL US THE TRUTH ABOUT LOCKERBIE.

THE BOMBER IS DEAD screamed The Scotsman across the full length of the front page – this from a paper with a proud sceptical tradition, the paper of Alastair Dunnett, Magnus Magnusson and Eric Mackay, a paper once regarded as Scotland's national quality daily.

Of the seven, only The Herald and The Guardian afforded the dead man the dignity of a name in its main headline. Both also studiously avoided calling him 'the Lockerbie bomber', a policy which The Herald adopted at an early stage; instead it more accurately described him as the only person convicted of involvement. Pedantic, of course; but honourably and essentially so. If you wanted balanced reporting yesterday, these were the places to look. It was, however, best to avoid BBC Scotland which still had 'the Lockerbie bomber' plastered all over its coverage, even in reference to the funeral. It is, as ever, interesting that the Scottish controller is unable or unwilling to impose journalistic standards on his own staff.

Among the political class, not everyone was as crudely populist as Johann Lamont. The Tory MP for Lockerbie, David Mundell, bravely inserted in his statement a note of condolence for the dead man's family. Willie Rennie, leader of the Liberal Democrat rump in the parliament, rose in my estimation for his demand that the facts must now be established, 'including whether crucial forensic evidence was withheld from the trial'. Mr Mundell's humanity and Mr Rennie's political leadership stood in stark contrast to the sheer awfulness of Cameron and Lamont.

For Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice secretary, the long ordeal is over. This magazine supported his decision at the time; we go on supporting it. God or the skill of the medical profession decrees when a terminally sick person will die – although personal determination may also be a factor. For any human being to commit to paper the words '2 years 6 months late' is repugnant. 

Despite the hysterical delusions of the media, I do not believe for a moment that the Scottish Government was party to any 'deal'. A decent politician released Megrahi on compassionate grounds and on these grounds alone. What do the Americans, who go on executing their citizens, have to teach us about compassion? I am grateful, indeed proud, to live in a country which embodies this principle in its penal code.

A statement by Justice for Megrahi on the death of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has now died without having been able to clear his name of the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 on the 21st of December 1988 during his lifetime. Now all those politicians and Megrahi-guilt apologists who regard compassion as being a weakling's alternative to vengeance, who boast of their skills at remote medical diagnosis, and who persistently refuse to address the uncomfortable facts of the case, will doubtless fall silent. Finally, the ‘evil terrorist’ has been called to account for himself before a “Higher Power”.

The prosecution case against him held water like a sieve. We are expected to believe the fantastic tale of the Luqa-Frankfurt-Heathrow transfer of an invisible, unaccompanied suitcase which miraculously found itself situated in the perfect position in the hold of 103 to create maximum destructive effect having eluded no fewer than three separate security regimes. There is no evidence for any such luggage ever having left the ground in either Malta or Germany, it is mere surmise. Not only that but we have accusations of the key Crown witness having been bribed for testimony; a multitude of serious question marks over material evidence, including the very real possibility of the crucial fragment of PCB having been fabricated; discredited forensic scientists testifying for the prosecution; Crown witness testimony being retracted after the trial and, most worryingly, allegations of the Crown’s non-disclosure of evidence which could have been key to the defence. Added to which, evidence supporting the alternative and infinitely more logical ingestion of the bomb directly at Heathrow was either dismissed at the trial or withheld from the court until after the verdict of guilty had been returned.

The judges were under immense pressure to bring in a verdict of guilty. Zeist was the most high profile trial that the Scottish High Court of Justiciary had ever presided over. There was massive international interest, and this was compounded by the fact that the judges played the dual roles of judge and jury in a case in which the indictments were brought by the same official body that had appointed them as judges in the first instance, the Lord Advocate. Anyone hoping, therefore, to discover an application of sound, empirical reasoning based on concrete evidence being exercised in the field of jurisprudence would do well to avoid the Zeist judgement. Indeed, the most exceptional of Zeist’s many exceptional features is the judgement. Anyone reading this extraordinary document could be forgiven for thinking that in Scotland there is a presumption of guilt and the burden of proof is on the defence. In the words of Professor Hans Köchler (UN appointed International Observer at the Kamp van Zeist Trial) commenting on the second appeal: “[it] bears the hallmarks of an intelligence operation.”

The Crown and successive governments have, for years, acted to obstruct any attempts to investigate how the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi came about. Some in the legal and political establishments may well be breathing a sigh of relief now that Mr al-Megrahi has died. This would be a mistake. Many unfortunates who fell foul of outrageous miscarriages of justice in the past have had their names cleared posthumously. The great and the good of western civilisation who have clamoured for Mr al-Megrahi’s blood of late may find it a salutary experience to reflect on the case of Derek Bentley: convicted and hanged in 1953, aged nineteen, for a crime for which in 1998 he was acquitted on his posthumous appeal. However long it takes, the campaign seeking to have Mr al-Megrahi’s conviction quashed will continue unabated not only in his name and that of his family, who must still bear the stigma of being related to the ‘Lockerbie Bomber’, but, above all, it will carry on in the name of justice. A justice which is still being sought by and denied to many of the bereaved resultant from the Lockerbie tragedy.

It took almost half a century to resolve the Bentley case. With the Zeist justice campaign now in its twelfth year, one has to ask, when faced with such intransigence, precisely whom the democratically elected, executive arm of state represents. Historically, all the major parties, both in Holyrood and Westminster, must shoulder equal responsibility. However, since first coming to power in 2007, the SNP government has actively taken measures which hinder any progress towards lifting the fog that lies over events, much to the dismay of its own party supporters and activists who take an interest in the case. In 2009, a statutory instrument which was supposed to remove the legislative prohibition on publication of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s statement of reasons for the second appeal (a document that cost tax payers in excess of £1,000,000 to produce) was so drafted as to render publication effectively impossible. In 2010, the government also fired new legislation through parliament (‘Cadder’ Section7) that makes any prospect of opening another appeal in the interests of justice a forlorn hope. Even today, ignoring the fact that, with the support of the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee, campaigners finally forced the government to admit that it does in law (under the Inquiries Act of 2005) have the power to open an inquiry into the case, the government persists in sending out correspondence claiming that it doesn’t; this, of course, is accompanied by the hackneyed old mantra of their not doubting the safety of the conviction. Furthermore, during the consultation period of the Criminal Cases (Punishment and Review) (Scotland) Bill, campaigners established that the Data Protection Act posed no legal obstacle to the publication of the SCCRC’s statement of reasons for the second appeal, however, the government maintained otherwise with the result that it was ultimately left to the courage and commitment of members of the journalistic community to test the government’s position to destruction. All of the aforementioned, and the regrettable habit of appointing Crown Office insiders to the position of Lord Advocate, are not reassuring signs that this matter is being treated with a sense of balance and objectivity by the authorities. The record has stuck. The longer this goes on, the more the doubts over the government’s true loyalties will increase.

This case has now become emblematic of an issue which affects each and every one of us and poses some profoundly basic questions which we ignore at our peril, namely: what do we perceive justice to be, what role ought it to play in our society and whom should it exist to serve? Our laws and how we apply them to our society are the most fundamental descriptor of how we function as a cohesive and coherent entity. They are effectively a portrait of our identity as a people. If, through complacency, we permit cosy, established authority to dictate the terms and to brush under the carpet concerns over how justice is defined and dispensed for the sake of convenience, expediency and reputation, we will only have ourselves to blame for the consequences.

The Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, says that “Scotland's Criminal Justice system is a cornerstone of our society, and it is paramount that there is total public confidence in it.” Scotland’s independent and professional arbiter in the matter of referrals to the Court of Appeal, the SCCRC, believe that, on no fewer than six grounds, Mr al-Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice at Zeist. Whether or not the courts are the right and proper platform to deal with this case, the conviction has been in the hands of the High Court of Justiciary since 2001 producing no resolution whatsoever and, moreover, how amenable are the courts now likely to be towards sanctioning another appeal given that they have been invested with new powers which allow them to reject applications which question their own judgements? Fine words are not enough. Action is required. After all, the government took executive action to release Mr al-Megrahi following the dropping of his appeal (something he was under no legal obligation to do). 52% of respondents to an opinion poll conducted by a major Scottish national newspaper supported the call for an independent inquiry into the case. Over a two week period, and with minimal publicity, 1,646 individuals put their names to a petition for an inquiry, which still remains open before the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee. If Scotland wishes to see its criminal justice system reinstated to the position of respect that it once held rather than its languishing as the mangled wreck it has become because of this perverse judgement, it is imperative that its government act by endorsing an independent inquiry into this entire affair. As a nation which aspires to independence, Scotland must have the courage to look itself in the mirror.

Signed:

Ms Kate Adie (Former Chief News Correspondent for BBC News).

Mr John Ashton (Author of ‘Megrahi: You are my Jury’ and co-author of ‘Cover Up of Convenience’).

Mr David Benson (Actor/author of the play ‘Lockerbie: Unfinished Business’).

Mrs Jean Berkley (Mother of Alistair Berkley: victim of Pan Am 103).

Mr Peter Biddulph (Lockerbie tragedy researcher).

Mr Benedict Birnberg (Retired senior partner of Birnberg Peirce & Partners).

Professor Robert Black QC (‘Architect’ of the Kamp van Zeist Trial).

Mr Paul Bull (Close friend of Bill Cadman: killed on Pan Am 103).

Professor Noam Chomsky (Human rights, social and political commentator).

Mr Tam Dalyell (UK MP: 1962-2005. Father of the House: 2001-2005).

Mr Ian Ferguson (Co-author of ‘Cover Up of Convenience’).

Dr David Fieldhouse (Police surgeon present at the Pan Am 103 crash site).

Mr Robert Forrester (Secretary of Justice for Megrahi).

Ms Christine Grahame MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).

Mr Ian Hamilton QC (Advocate, author and former university rector).

Mr Ian Hislop (Editor of ‘Private Eye’).

Fr Pat Keegans (Lockerbie parish priest on 21^st December 1988).

Ms A L Kennedy (Author).

Dr Morag Kerr (Secretary Depute of Justice for Megrahi).

Mr Andrew Killgore (Former US Ambassador to Qatar).

Mr Moses Kungu (Lockerbie councillor on the 21^st of December 1988).

Mr Adam Larson (Editor and proprietor of ‘The Lockerbie Divide’).

Mr Aonghas MacNeacail (Poet and journalist).

Mr Eddie McDaid (Lockerbie commentator).

Mr Rik McHarg (Communications hub coordinator: Lockerbie crash sites).

Mr Iain McKie (Retired Superintendent of Police).

Mr Marcello Mega (Journalist covering the Lockerbie incident).

Ms Heather Mills (Reporter for ‘Private Eye’).

Rev’d John F Mosey (Father of Helga Mosey: victim of Pan Am 103).

Mr Len Murray (Retired solicitor).

Cardinal Keith O’Brien (Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh and Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church).

Mr Denis Phipps (Aviation security expert).

Mr John Pilger (Campaigning human rights journalist).

Mr Steven Raeburn (Editor of ‘The Firm’).

Dr Tessa Ransford OBE  (Poetry Practitioner and Adviser).

Mr James Robertson (Author).

Mr Kenneth Roy (Editor of ‘The Scottish Review’).

Dr David Stevenson (Retired medical specialist and Lockerbie commentator).

Dr Jim Swire (Father of Flora Swire: victim of Pan Am 103).

Sir Teddy Taylor (UK MP: 1964-2005. Former Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland).

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize Winner).

Mr Terry Waite CBE (Former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury and hostage negotiator).

BBC Scotland and the Maltese mistress

[This is the headline over an article in today’s edition of the Scottish Review by the editor, Kenneth Roy.  It reads in part:]

I woke up on Monday morning to the exciting headline on the BBC:  Lockerbie bomber Megrahi 'visited Malta for sex'

It has taken 23 years for sex and Lockerbie to become strange bedfellows. We have had the deaths of 270 people, the life sentence imposed on the families of the victims (grief, without parole), the trial in the Netherlands, the disputed conviction, the visit of Kenny MacAskill to Greenock prison, compassionate release, the long campaign to prove Megrahi's innocence, Jim Swire's heroic stoicism, Megrahi's refusal to die. Heaven sakes, the story has everything – except sex. But now it's got that too.

Lockerbie bomber Megrahi 'visited Malta for sex'

What was anyone supposed to make of this? Before reading the text, I assumed that Megrahi must have gone there in search of prostitutes. It is conceivable that Malta runs to one or two. 

It wasn't like this. It seems that Megrahi had an extra-marital relationship with a woman on the island, a woman whom the BBC describes as his mistress. How does BBC Scotland know about all this? Ah. It has now 'seen previously secret documents' – a reference to the 800-page unpublished report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in which Megrahi makes a frank confession of his infidelity by way of explanation for his visits to Malta.

But just how secret are these documents? They are all over the place. Indeed they form the basis of John Ashton's book, 'Megrahi: You Are My Jury'. In response to a comment in this column, Mr Ashton has written to me to clarify how he acquired access to the SCCRC report: 'I got to see it with Megrahi’s approval, when I worked alongside his legal team. He allowed me to keep it and gave me his authority to present its contents in the book'. Well, that's clear enough. (...)

Of course there is a bit more innuendo to the story than Baset in bed. There is the suggestion that, since he was allowed to visit the island without a passport, a fact previously known to students of the case, he could have been slipping in and out, able to visit Tony Gauci's shop on any number of occasions to buy the clothes to wrap round the explosive device to blow up the aircraft. On the other hand – always a hand worth inspecting in the Lockerbie case – it could be argued that the existence of the mistress removes any hint of a dark ulterior motive for Megrahi's visits to Malta. 

The recent pattern of events has been fascinating. Mr Ashton's book reveals a huge evidential base pointing to Megrahi's innocence. SR then publishes an article by Mr Ashton disclosing for the first time the heavy involvement of the Scottish police in negotiating three million dollar payouts to Gauci and his brother, negotiations with which the Crown Office was familiar but chose to do nothing about. I wouldn't have called it implicit approval of the deals, but it came close. The Scottish media fail to pick up on Mr Ashton's story. Mr Ashton himself confesses to be mystified by the lack of interest. But the Scottish media still can't see past the terms of the compassionate release and the role of the fall guy, Scotland's justice secretary. The huge evidential base is anyway too boring to examine in detail. Let's just have another go at Kenny. Oh, and here's Megrahi in bed with a woman. Fabulous.

It is now clear that the selective unofficial publication of the SCCRC report is taking this case nowhere. It is a dreadful way for any mature democracy, far less one making such grand claims for the future as Scotland's, to conduct itself. The report must be published in full and be available for scrutiny by fair-minded people of all instincts and persuasions so that an intelligent judgement can be formed. The alternative is the present recriprocal bad-mouthing. 

Is this really how we want Scottish justice to be conducted – by leak and smear?


[The following comes from Justice for Megrahi's secretary, Robert Forrester:]


Congratulations to the BBC, they have finally discovered a sex angle to Lockerbie! That certainly ought to be the clincher which proves once and for all that Megrahi did it. Whatever next? It has taken them till now to publicise the fact that Libyans could go back and forth to Malta without passports. This information was freely available to anyone reading John Ashton's book, 'Megrahi: You are my Jury', a week ago. Think too what it says about DCI Bell's detective skills when he was conducting his investigations on Malta all those years ago and failed to discover this. Perhaps if he and his colleagues hadn't been spending so much time getting "pissed" in celebrations and looking after "wee" Toni Gauci to keep him sweet, they might have, but it's doubtful. The facts remain that there is no evidence for the primary suitcase at either Luqa or Frankfurt, the forensics are shot to hell, anything connected with Gauci is like taking a funfair ride on the ghost train, none of the much trumpeted 'new evidence' has been forthcoming from the NTC (with the exception of Abdel-Jalil's spectacular April Fools' Day joke on Newsnight last year) and the Crown is rapidly recutting its cloth with the BBC chipping. This is a very cheap move on their part. And the biggest problem of all? Any member of a paramilitary/terrorist organisation suggesting such a method as the Crown maintain was used to bring down 103 would be quietly shot as a potential liability. Hoping that an unaccompanied item of luggage could evade detection at 3 international airports and end up in exactly the right location in the hold of 103 so that that a 1lb Semtex charge, detonated by the most primitive of timing devices (which has now been established not to have been employed anyway) would destroy the plane is, frankly, bonkers. These people have been watching far too many Mission Impossible films. While the Crown is chasing its tail, perhaps our esteemed media would serve us better by focusing on the reams of evidential problems surrounding the investigation and the prosecution case against Mr al-Megrahi.

Megrahi - What Have The Scottish Government To Fear?

[This is the heading over an item posted today on the magnificent SubRosa blog. It reads as follows:]

Along with others, I can't understand the Scottish Government's insistence that the Megrahi conviction was sound. Nor can I understand why the Scottish Government's need for primary legislation to finally allow the publication of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's report on the Megrahi case when, according to Robert Forrester, the secretary for Justice for Megrahi, says that all that is required is 'to utilise the simple, relatively cheap, quick and effective expedient of an amending statutory instrument to remove the consent requirement in the 2009 statutory instrument'. source

The publication of semi-autobiographical book Megrahi: You Are My Jury, by author John Ashton, has returned the issue to the front pages once again.

Dr Jim Swire has, once more, felt compelled to plead his case against Megrahi's conviction and this week eloquently explained the evidence not provided to the defence before or even during the trial. Mr Forrester claims that the new legislation is so circumscribed by caveats and provisos that it will simply maintain the status quo whereby, under certain circumstances, providers of evidence to the SCCRC will still be in a position to block the publication of the document whilst it contains information which such persons have supplied to the SCCRC.

Kenneth Roy has broken the habit of a lifetime and joined something - the Justice for Megrahi Committee.  I'm not suggesting for one minute that Kenneth Roy's involvement will accelerate the Committee's progress, but it is another highly respected Scottish voice and the more the merrier.

What have the Scottish Government to fear about the SCCRC report? We now know that, although Megrahi withdrew his appeal, it would be possible for a posthumous one to be sought. 

Arguments over the power to hold an inquiry should be resolved in the public interest, but despite the Scottish Government's assertion that it would be willing to co-operate in a joint inquiry, the suspicion lingers that there is little enthusiasm for a process that could cast the Scottish judicial system in a poor light.  That may be so but it doesn't serve the interests of justice, the victims' families or the population of Scotland.

As I opined over a year ago, if the SNP plucked up some courage and forced the UK government to open an inquiry, it would be a very worthy and long-remembered legacy.

The Scottish police - The Crown Office - The payouts

[This is the headline over an article by John Ashton published this afternoon in a special edition of the Scottish Review.  It reads in part:]

The Scottish Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi. Their words, not mine. Their exact words in fact. That, as it happens, is also the position of the lord advocate. You wouldn't think that Megrahi's trial court judgement was described as incomprehensible by the UN trial observer and unreasonable by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), and that numerous informed commentators consider the guilty verdict to be an indelible stain on the reputation of Scotland's judiciary.

Of course, an SNP government will never easily admit that the country's foremost independent institution, its criminal justice system, made an almighty hash of Europe's biggest terrorist case. However, if it continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Crown Office, Lockerbie will one day rear up and bite it very hard. Why? Because, as Megrahi: You Are My Jury lays bare, the Crown Office failed to disclose to Megrahi's lawyers, numerous major items of exculpatory evidence. This has the potential to be the biggest scandal of Scotland's post-devolution era. (...)

There were two key witnesses. The first was [Maltese] shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who on three occasions picked out Megrahi as resembling the clothes purchaser: the first, three years after the bombing from a photospread; the second, in 1999 from an ID parade; and the third time in court. The second was forensic expert Allen Feraday, who said that a fragment of circuit board found within a blast-damaged Maltese shirt was 'similar in all respects' to circuit boards used within the 20 Libyan timers.
     
In their 80-page opinion, the trial court judges, Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and Maclean described Gauci as a 'careful witness' who: 'applied his mind carefully to the problem of identification whenever he was shown photographs, and did not just pick someone out at random…From his general demeanour and his approach to the difficult problem of identification, we formed the view that when he picked out the first accused at the identification parade and in court, he was doing so not just because it was comparatively easy to do so but because he genuinely felt that he was correct in picking him out as having a close resemblance to the purchaser'.

What the judges didn't know, because the Crown failed to disclose it, was that before picking out Megrahi's photo Gauci had asked the police about being rewarded for his evidence. According to previously secret police reports, he was 'aware of the US reward monies which have been reported in the press' and was strongly under the influence of his brother Paul who 'has a clear desire to gain financial benefit from the position he and his brother are in relative to the case' and 'is anxious to establish what advantage he can gain from the Scottish police'.

The Crown also concealed the fact that, for months prior to the ID parade, Gauci had a copy of a magazine article that not only carried a photo of Megrahi, but also detailed inconsistencies between the Crown case and Gauci's police statements – inconsistencies that his subsequent court testimony went some way towards ironing out.

The judges accepted that Gauci sold the clothes on 7 December 1988, the only date upon which Megrahi could have bought them. What they didn't know, again because the Crown failed to disclose it, was that, in his pre-trial Crown precognition statement, Gauci said that he thought the date was 29 November, because he recalled rowing with his girlfriend that day. Had that evidence been adduced at trial, the judges would have had no choice but to acquit Megrahi.

After the trial the Dumfries and Galloway police sought massive rewards for the Gauci brothers from the US Department of Justice. In a letter to the DoJ, dated 19 April 2002, the senior investigating officer wrote: 'At the meeting on 9 April, I proposed that $2 million should be paid to Anthony Gauci and $1 million to his brother Paul. These figures were based on my understanding that $2 million was the maximum payable to a single individual by the rewards programme. However, following further informal discussions I was encouraged to learn that those responsible for making the final decision retain a large degree of flexibility to increase this figure.’ 

It has never been denied that the brothers received at least $2 million and $1 million. The letter revealed that, at the request of a US official, the senior investigating officer had consulted with the Crown Office about the reward. He reported: 'The prosecution in Scotland cannot become involved in such an application. It would therefore be improper for the Crown Office to offer a view on the application, although they fully recognise the importance of the evidence of Tony and Paul Gauci to the case'. In other words, the Crown Office was prevented by its own rules from seeking a reward, but apparently had no intention of preventing the police from doing so.
     
All this, and more, was uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission during its four-year review of Megrahi's case, following which it referred the conviction back to the appeal court on no fewer than six grounds. Small wonder that the Scottish Government, which claims that it wants the commission's 800-page report to be published, is using legislative ruses to delay publication.

Unfortunately, the Commission failed to properly investigate Feraday's claim about the Lockerbie circuit board fragment. As my book reveals, had it done so, it would have learned that there was forensic evidence that proved the fragment could not have originated from one of the timers supplied to Libya. Tests overseen by Feraday demonstrated that the metallic content of the fragment was different to that of a control sample circuit board of the type used in the Libyan timers. The results were not disclosed to Megrahi's legal team until a month before his return to Libya. Police labels indicated that they had been handed to the police on 8 November 1999, six months before the opening of Megrahi's trial.

All these issues would have been aired in the High Court during Megrahi's second appeal. The Crown Office was no doubt hugely relieved when he abandoned the appeal in order to smooth his application for compassionate release. However, the relief will only be temporary. The scandal will not go away and as the depth of the cover-up is laid bare, sooner or later the government will be forced to distance itself from the Crown Office and abandon the fiction that Megrahi's conviction is safe.

[In an accompanying sidebar, Scottish Review editor Kenneth Roy makes the following comment:]

We knew that Gauci – a witness so convincing that he was later described by Scotland's lord advocate of the time as 'an apple short of a picnic' – had been paid by the US Department of Justice. There were rumours, too, about his brother Paul, who was motivated by a desire for financial gain but otherwise not directly connected to the events in Malta in December 1988.      What we did not know until today was the extent to which the Scottish authorities were involved.      In this special edition, John Ashton quotes from a letter written by the senior investigating officer in Scotland making plain the police's desire not only to reward the Gauci brothers but to seek the biggest bucks available.

• There is no doubting the authenticity of this letter. Ashton has a copy of it.
• There is also no doubting that without Gauci there was no case: Megrahi would have walked free. 
• Where do these revelations leave the reputation of Scottish justice? 
• Is this really the way we want to conduct our justice system?