Key Lockerbie Witness Admits Perjury

[This is the headline over a long article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer that was published on the Global Research website on this date in 2007. The whole article is well worth reading. The following are excerpts from six of its fourteen sections:]

The Lockerbie Affair has taken yet another extraordinary twist. On Friday, August 31st, I received from Edwin Bollier, head of the Zurich-based MeBo AG, a copy of a German original of an Affidavit.

The document is dated July 18th 2007 and signed by Ulrich Lumpert who worked as an electronic engineer at MeBo from 1978 to 1994. I have scrutinized the document carefully and concluded that I have no reason to doubt its authenticity or the truthfulness of its content.

Lumpert was a key witness (no 550) at the Camp Zeist trial, where a three Judges panel convicted a Libyan citizen of murdering 270 persons who died in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.

In his testimony, Lumpert stated that: “of the 3 pieces of hand-made prototypes MST-13 Timer PC-Boards, the third MST-13 PC-Board was broken and [he] had thrown it away.”

In his affidavit, certified by [notary] Walter Wieland, Lumpert admits having committed perjury.

“I confirm today on July 18th 2007, that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 Timer PC-Board consisting of 8 layers of fibre-glass from MEBO Ltd. and gave it without permission on June 22nd 1989 to a person officially investigating in the Lockerbie case,” Lumpert wrote. (The identity of the official is known.)

“It did not escape me that the MST-13 fragment shown [at the Lockerbie trial] on the police photograph No PT/35(b) came from the non-operational MST-13 prototype PC-board that I had stolen,” Lumpert added.

“I am sorry for the consequences of my silence at that time, for the innocent Libyan Mr. Abdelbaset Al Megrahi sentenced to life imprisonment, and for the country of Libya.”

In just seven paragraphs, the Lumpert affidavit elucidates the longstanding mysteries surrounding the infamous MST-13 timer, which allegedly triggered the bomb that exploded Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on December 21st 1988.

The discovery of the MST-13 timer fragment

In the months following the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, someone discovered a piece of a grey Slalom-brand shirt in a wooded area located about 25 miles away from the town. According to a forensics expert, the cloth contained a tiny fragment – 4 mm square – of a circuit board. The testimony of three expert witnesses allowed the prosecutors to link this circuit board, described as part of the bomb trigger, to Megrahi.

There have been different accounts concerning the discovery of the timer fragment. A police source close to the investigation reported that it had been discovered by lovers. Some have said that it was picked up by a man walking his dog. Others have claimed that it was found by a policeman “combing the ground on his hands and knees.”

At the trial, the third explanation became official. “On 13 January 1989, DC Gilchrist and DC McColm were engaged together in line searches in an area near Newcastleton. A piece of charred material was found by them which was given the police number PI/995 and which subsequently became label 168.”

The alteration of the label

The officer had initially labelled the bag ‘cloth (charred)’ but had later overwritten the word ‘cloth’ with ‘debris’.

The bag contained pieces of a shirt collar and fragments of materials said to have been extracted from it, including the tiny piece of circuit board identified as coming from an MST-13 timer made by the Swiss firm MeBo.

“The original inscription on the label, which we are satisfied, was written by DC Gilchrist, was “Cloth (charred)”. The word ‘cloth’ has been overwritten by the word ‘debris’. There was no satisfactory explanation as to why this was done.”

The judges said in their judgement that Gilchrist’s evidence had been “at worst evasive and at best confusing”.

Yet the judges went on to admit the evidence. “We are, however, satisfied that this item was indeed found in the area described, and DC McColm who corroborated DC Gilchrist on the finding of the item was not cross-examined about the detail of the finding of this item.” (...)

The new page 51

According to documents obtained by Scotland on Sunday, the entry of the discovery is recorded at widely different times by UK and German investigators. Moreover, a new page 51 has been inserted in the record of evidence.

During the Lockerbie investigation, Dr Thomas Hayes and Allan Feraday were working at the DERA Forensic laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent.

Dr Hayes was employed at the Royal Armament Research Development Establishment (RARDE). In 1995, RARDE was subsumed into the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). In 2001, part of DERA became the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL).

Dr Hayes testified that he collected the tiny fragment of the circuit board on May 12th 1989. He testified that the fragment was green. (Keep in mind that the board stolen from Lumpert is brown.) His colleague, Allan Feraday, confirmed his story at the Zeist trial.

The record is inserted on a loose-leaf page with the five subsequent pages re-numbered by hand. Dr Hayes could not provide a reasonable explanation for this rather strange entry, and yet the Judges concluded that: “Pagination was of no materiality, because each item that was examined had the date of examination incorporated into the notes.”

The argument of the Court is illogical as the index number Dr Hayes gave to the piece is higher than some entry he made three months later.

And there is more. In September 1989, Feraday sent a Polaroid photograph of the piece and wrote in the attached memorandum that it was “the best he could do in such short time.” So, are we supposed to believe that it takes forensic experts several months to take a Polaroid picture?

Dr Hayes could not explain this. He merely suggested that the person to ask about it would be the author of the memorandum, Mr Feraday.

This however was not done. At the young age of 43, Hayes resigned just a few months after the discovery of the timer fragment.

Based on the forensic Dr Hayes had supplied, an entire family [The Maguire Seven] was sent to jail in 1976. They were acquitted in appeal in 1992. Sir John May was appointed to review Dr Hayes forensic evidence.

“The whole scientific basis on which the prosecution in [the trial of the alleged IRA Maguire Seven] was founded was in truth so vitiated that on this basis alone, the Court of Appeal should be invited to set aside the conviction,” said Sir John May.

In the Megrahi’s case, Dr Hayes did not even perform the basic test which would have established the presence of explosive residue on the sample. During the trial, he maintained that the fragment was too small while it is factually established that his laboratory has performed such test on smaller samples.

Had he performed such test, no residue would have been found. As noted by Lumpert, the fragment shown at the Zeist trial belongs to a timer that was never connected to a relay. In other words, that timer never triggered a bomb.

Allan Feraday’s reputation is hardly better. In three separated cases,where men were convicted on the basis of his forensic evidence, the initial ruling was overturned in appeal.

After one of these cases in 2005, a Lord of Justice said that Feraday should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in the field of electronics.

According to forensic scientist, Dr Michael Scott, who was interviewed in the documentary The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie, Feraday has no formal qualifications as a scientist.

The identification of the MeBo timer

Thomas Thurman worked for the FBI forensics laboratory in the late 80’s and most of the 90’s. Thurman has been publicly credited for identifying the fragment as part of a MST-13 timer produced by the Swiss company Mebo.

“When that identification was made, of the timer, I knew that we had it,” Thurman told ABC in 1991. “Absolute, positively euphoria. I was on cloud nine.”

Again, his record is far from pristine. The US attorney General has accused him of having altered lab reports in a way that rendered subsequent prosecutions all but impossible. He has been transferred out the FBI forensic laboratory.

“He’s very aggressive, but I think he made some mistakes that needed to be brought to the attention of FBI management,” says Frederic Whitehurst, a former FBI chemist who filed the complaints that led to the Inspector General’s report.

“We’re not necessarily going to get the truth out of what we’re doing here,” Whitehurst concluded.

The story shed some light on his formation. The report says “Williams and Thurman merit special censure for their work. It recommends that Thurman, who has a degree in political science, be reassigned outside the lab and that only scientists work in its explosives section.” (...)

The modification of the MST-13 timer fragment

Forensic analysis of the circuit board fragment allowed the investigators to identify its origin. The timer, known as MST-13, is fabricated by a Swiss Company named MeBo, which stands for Meister and Bollier.

The company has indeed sold about 20 MST-13 timers to Libyan military (machine-made 9 ply green boards), as well as a few units (hand-made 8 ply brown boards) to a Research Institute in Bernau, known to act as a front to the Stasi, the former East German secret police.

The two batches are very different but, as early as 1991, Bollier told the Scottish investigators that he could not identify the timer from a photograph alone. Yet, the Libyans were indicted in November 1991, without ever allowing Bollier to see the actual fragment, on the ground that the integrity of the evidence had to be protected.

But in 1998, Bollier obtained a copy of a blown-up photograph that Thurman had shown on ABC in 1991. Bollier could tell from certain characteristics that the fragment was part of a board of the timers made for East Germany, and definitely not one of the timers delivered by him to Libya.

In September 1999, Bollier was finally allowed to see the fragment. Unlike the one shown by Thurman on ABC, this one was machine-made, as the one sold to Libya. But, from the absence of traces of solder, it was obvious that the timer had never been used to trigger a bomb.

“As far as I’m concerned, and I told this to [Scottish Prosecutor Miriam Watson], this is a manufactured fragment,” Bollier says. “A fabricated fragment, never from a complete, functional timer.”

The next day, Bollier was shown the fragment once more. You may have already guessed that it now had the soldering traces. “It was different. I’m not crazy. It was different!” says Bollier.

Finally, at the trial, Bollier was presented a fragment of a circuit board completely burnt down. Thus, it was no longer possible to identify to which country that timer had been delivered. As he requested to explain the significance of the issue, Lord Shuterland told him that his request was denied.

How did the Judges account for all the mysterious changes in the appearance of the fragment? They simply dismissed Bollier as an unreliable witness.

“We have assessed carefully the evidence of these three witnesses about the activities of MEBO, and in particular their evidence relating to the MST-13 timers which the company made. All three, and notably Mr Bollier, were shown to be unreliable witnesses. Earlier statements which they made to the police and judicial authorities were at times in conflict with each other, and with the evidence they gave in court. On some occasions, particularly in the case of Mr Bollier, their evidence was self contradictory.” (para 45)

Ulrich Lumpert and the MEBO circuit board

[According to his affidavit dated 18 July 2007, it was on 22 June 1989 that MEBO employee Ulrich Lumpert handed over the MST-13 circuit board from which fragment PT/35(b) derived “to a person who was an official investigator in the Lockerbie case”. An English translation of this German-language affidavit can be read here. At the time that this affidavit became public knowledge, I commented as follows:]

Ulrich Lumpert, an engineer at one time employed by MEBO in Zurich, gave evidence at the Lockerbie trial that a fragment of circuit board allegedly found amongst the aircraft debris (and which was absolutely crucial to the prosecution contention that the bomb which destroyed Pan Am 103 was linked to Libya) was part of an operative MST-13 timer manufactured by MEBO. In an affidavit sworn in Switzerland in July 2007 (available on the website www.lockerbie.ch) Lumpert now states that the fragment produced in court was in fact part of a non-operational demonstration circuit board that he himself had removed from the premises of MEBO and had handed over to a Lockerbie investigator on 22 June 1989 (six months AFTER the destruction of Pan Am 103).

If this is true, then it totally demolishes the prosecution version of how the aircraft was destroyed, as well, of course, as demonstrating deliberate fabrication of evidence laid before the court. 

At the forthcoming appeal resulting from the SCCRC’s report on the Megrahi conviction, will the appeal court have an opportunity to assess the truth of Lumpert’s revised version of events? The hurdles are formidable. Section 106 (3C) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 provides that an appeal may not be founded upon evidence from a witness at the original trial which is different from, or additional to, the evidence that he gave at that trial, unless there is a reasonable explanation as to why the new evidence was not given by him at the original trial and that explanation is itself supported by independent evidence. In this context “independent evidence” means evidence which was not heard at the original trial; which comes from a source other than the witness himself; and which is accepted by the appeal court as credible and reliable. It might well be extremely difficult to convince a court that these conditions were satisfied in Lumpert’s case.

"The ingredients that make up the prosecution’s case are rotten"

[What follows is excerpted from an article published in Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm on this date in 2011:]

Gareth Peirce, the solicitor who overturned the miscarriage of justice convictions of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, has backed the call for a full inquiry into the Pan Am 103 debacle, and has directly criticised former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s role in shoring up “layers and layers of deceit” in the case.

Peirce, whose recently published book Dispatches from the Dark Side contains an essay entitled “The Framing of Al Megrahi” spoke to The Firm exclusively about the Pan Am 103 case and said that her involvement was prompted in part by her learning that the same discredited personnel whose flawed evidence was instrumental in convicting the Guildford and Birmingham convicts were also the providers of the key flawed evidence in the Megrahi case.

She has now criticised Scottish and UK Governments for “passing the parcel” over holding an inquiry, a matter the Scottish Government now concedes it has power to do, despite earlier denials. A petition for such an inquiry will be assessed by the new Petitions Committee.

“Because you have two countries involved, each is passing the parcel to the other,” Peirce told The Firm.

“The letter from the Scottish Government to the petitions committee says that in law, under the Inquiries Act, that Scotland cannot have an inquiry unless it is on a devolved issue, and the criminal justice system would be a devolved issue. But the letter adds that there are international implications, and therefore any inquiry should either be joint with England, or in England.

“There is a lot of truth in that, but as we saw with Megrahi’s return to Libya, Westminster claimed it was all the responsibility of Scotland, leaving Kenny MacAskill out on a limb. Yet, there is Blair busy with Gadaffi, desperately imploring Libya to make an application under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement. There are layers and layers of deceit here.”

Peirce says that the construction and maintenance of the discredited case against Megrahi has required active participation from those at all levels of the criminal justice system, with both tacit and overt support from the top of the political hierarchy.

“In the most notorious cases, everyone played their part, absolutely everybody,” she says.

“A big part of the blame lies within those who form the criminal justice system. It looks as if in the prosecution of the Lockerbie case, the defendants met the same fate, even to the extent of the same personnel featuring, in the person of the forensic scientists.”

The principal forensic analyst, Thomas Hayes, employed by the Crown to testify against Abdelbaset Al Megrahi was the same discredited analyst who was proven to have fabricated his evidence in the manufactured case against the Guildford Four.

He and Alan Feraday testified that the key forensic evidence, a fragment of circuit board, survived the explosion of Pan Am 103 and left traces of clothing connected to a shop in Malta. The owners of that shop provided the identification of Megrahi to the court, and were later found to have been paid in millions of dollars for their testimony. (...)

“That was the most shocking revelation to me,” Peirce says.

“Exactly the same forensic scientists who produced the wrongful conviction of Giuseppe Conlon, the Maguire family and of Danny McNamee, and had been stood down for the role they played. Yet here they were. Without them, there wouldn’t have been a prosecution, far less a conviction in Lockerbie.

“What shocked me most was that I thought that all that had been gone through on Guildford and Birmingham, the one thing that had been achieved was that nobody would be convicted again on bad science. But yet in the Lockerbie case, it isn’t just the same bad science, it is the same bad scientists.”

In July 2007 former MEBO employee Ulrich Lumpert swore an affidavit claiming that he had manufactured the crucial circuit board evidence and passed it to named individuals charged with investigating the Pan Am 103 case during 1989.

“All of this is screaming out for an inquiry. The ingredients that make up the prosecution’s case are really so rotten. They can’t and they shouldn’t sustain the weight of a presumed safe finding. You can see that they are utterly contaminated. They have no integrity. The forensic findings lack all the ingredients that should make them safe. The continuity of exhibits is all over the place. The only other pillar on which it is held up is this non-identification. It is just a catastrophe. The whole edifice is rotten, and it is astonishing it was ever stood up in the first place.”

[The long interview with Gareth Peirce in the same magazine can be read here.]

The text of the Lumpert affidavit

[It has been suggested to me by a regular reader of this blog that in the light of recent posts referring to the Lumpert affidavit and the alleged fabrication of timer fragment PT-35b, it would be useful to have the text of the affidavit available here on the blog. A copy of the original affidavit in German can be found here on the MEBO Ltd website. What follows is a translation by me, making some use of the English-language version also to be found on that website:]

AFFIDAVIT:

of Mr Ulrich Lumpert, electronic engineer,

ex-employee at company MEBO Ltd Telecommunication

8004 Zurich / Switzerland, between 1978 and 1994.

Ex a witness during the trial 'Fhimah, Al Megrahi'

(Lockerbie-case) 2000 in Kamp van Zeist NL.

Personal data

Name: Ulrich Lumpert;

Date of birth: 20 September 1942;

Occupation: electronic engineer;

Residence: (...), Kt. Zurich / Switzerland

°°°

AFFIDAVIT:

The following facts, which correspond to the truth, were signed by Mr Ulrich Lumpert on 18th July 2007.

1. During the examination by the Bundespolizei (Federal Police) "BUPO" Switzerland, FBI and Scottish Police present in Zurich in 1991

and

the examination of the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) (Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation) by Commissioner Fuhl in Konstanz / Germany 1991

as well as

in the "Lockerbie Trial" in Kamp van Zeist 2000,

I had testified as witness No 550 and stated in the record, that of the 3 pieces of hand-made prototypes MST-13 timer PC-boards the third MST-13 PC-board was broken and I had thrown it away;

ULRICH LUMPERT, 8122 Binz / Kt. Zurich / Switzerland

Page 2  U.L.

I built two functioning MST-13 Timers with the remaining 2 PC-Boards, which were delivered to the GDR State Security Service (STASI) by Mr Bollier;

The MST-13 PC-Boards consisted of 8 layers of fiberglass and were brown in colour.

2. These statements recorded by me were not correct.

I confirm today on 18th July 2007 that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 timer PC-board consisting of 8 layers of fiberglass from MEBO Ltd and gave it without permission on *22nd June 1989 to a person who was an official investigator in the "Lockerbie case".

3.  At this *time I did not know that the MST-13 timer PC-board was used for a specific purpose in connection with the attack on PanAm 103, otherwise I would have requested permission from one of the owners of M/S Mebo Ltd (Meister or Bollier) to release the MST-13 PC-board.

4. In addition I handed over without permission a summary of the production films, hand-stuck templates and the blueprints of the MST-13 timer production in a yellow evelope to Det Superintendent James Gilchrist, Scottish Police during a *visit to Zurich in June1991.

(* according to Mebo: without the necessary sanction of the Swiss law enforcement).

5. Reason why I did not explain the true background before the court proceedings. I have been living in an indescribable condition of depression of and fear since my second examination by the police in 1991.

I got a shock and was in a significant state of anxiety when I was shown the photograph with the apparent MST-13 timer fragment by the "BUPO", FBI and the Scottish Police, surprisingly for the first time in *mid January 1991, which was apparently found in Lockerbie and they confronted me with the fact that this MST-13 timer fragment was found in Lockebie and was a part of the ignition device of the suitcase with explosives, which caused the Boeing 747 Pan Am Flight 103 to crash, killing 270 people.

ULRICH LUMPERT, 8122 Binz / Kt. Zurich / Switzerland

Page 3  U.L.

*According to Mr Bollier`s statement he was shown photographs of the MST-13 timer fragment (No.PT/35, PT/35(b) etc.) on 23rd April 1990 by "BUPO" and on 15th November 1990 by FBI and the Scottish Police.

Although the portrayed MST-13 fragment at this time itself, had been sawed into two pieces apparently for forensic reasons, it did not escape me that the MST-13 fragment on the police photograph (No. PT/35(b) came from the non-operational MST-13 prototype PC-board that I had stolen; this because there are clear characteristics e.g. on a specific soldering terminal, a relay had never been soldered.

The soldering terminal was flat and clean at this place.

Take note: I saw the photograph with the illustration of the non-processed originals, apparently the MST-13 timer fragment under "Evidence No. PT-35, image 9 from , for the first time at MEBO Ltd after the "Lockerbie- Appeal 2001", before my first Affidavit.

I clearly recognize the scratched remnants of the soldering tracts on this enlarged digital police photograph. I had nothing to do with the letter "M" (possibly an abbreviation of Muster 'sample'), which appears.

When I realized that the MST-13 PC-board, after it was handed over by me without permission was misused for deliberate politically criminal "action", it was clear to me that I was stuck "in the middle of it" and decided to keep quiet, for it could have been extremely dangerous for me as an unintentional "bearer of secrets".

I am sorry for the consequences of my silence at that time for the innocent Libyan Mr Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, sentenced to life imprisonment, and for the country of Libya.

ULRICH LUMPERT, 8122 Binz / Kt. Zurich, Switzerland

Page 4  U.L.

With the information known to me I would like to put an end to the accusation that Libya is responsible for the Lockerbie tragedy by "manufacturing" MST-13 timer-link with criminal intent.

6. The reason why I reveal this fundamentally important information only today:

I would like to use this opportunity to clear my conscience, because I cannot be prosecuted for stealing, delivering and making false statements about the MST-13 timer PC-board, on grounds of statutory limitation.

7. The time is right for this, because action for a 2nd appeal has been granted in the "Lockerbie Case" on account of "Miscarriage of Justice".

I would also like to apologize to Mr Meister and Mr Bollier, MEBO Ltd for the damage caused to their prestige.

I herewith declare that the contents of the Affidavit are true.

4 pages.

Zürich, 18.07.2007

Signature:

(U.L.)  Ulrich Lumpert

__________________________________________________________

Only valid for the German Affidavit

Official Certification

This is to certify that this copy corresponds exactly with the document (4 single pages) shown to us this day and declared to be the orginal.

Zurich, this 18. 07. 2007

B No. 2070

Fee: Fr. 35.-- NOTARIAT ALTSTETTEN- ZÜRICH

Signature:

Walter Wieland, certifying officer

The Lumpert affair

[In autumn 2007 the Ulrich Lumpert story was still bubbling quietly away. What follows is an article by Olivier Schmidt published on 7 November 2007 on the Nachrichten Heute website:]

On 21 December 1988, a MST-13 timer-switch manufactured by the Zurich-based company MEBO detonated the cassette bomb which destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people. In mid-August, Ulrich Lumpert, a Swiss engineer and former MEBO employee, walked into a Zurich police station and asked to swear an affidavit before a notary confessing that he had lied about the specific MST-13 timer, fragments of which the prosecution claimed had been found at the Lockerbie crash site. 

Lumpert's testimony was crucial to implicating Libya in the conspiracy, which is exactly what the intelligence and military establishment in Washington wanted. Gray-suited officials speaking on behalf of various branches of the Reagan administration claimed Lockerbie was "an act of revenge" for the USAF bombing of Tripoli two years earlier. And former Libyan agent Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was the "scapegoat", sentenced to life by a Scottish court during the 2001 trial at Camp Zeist in Holland. He is currently serving his sentence at Greenock Prison, near Glasgow, in Scotland.

Mr Lumpert's former boss, Swiss businessman Edwin Bollier, supports the allegation. He has admitted that his company, MEBO, had sold a batch of twenty MST-13 timers to Libya in 1986. When FBI and Scottish detectives showed him a "fuzzy photograph" of the timer, which they claimed was found on the hillside and used to detonate the bomb in the forward luggage hold of Flight 103 from Heathrow to JFK, he confirmed that the fragments "looked as though they came from one of our timers". 

Ten years after the incident, he travelled to Dumfries, in Scotland, after finally being given permission to actually see the pieces of the badly burned brown circuit board, which matched MEBO's prototype. However, when the MST-13 went into production, the color of the circuit boards was changed to green, and the batch sold to the Libyans had green circuit boards, not brown, according to Mr Bollier.

At the trial in Camp Zeist, the 70-year-old businessman appeared for the defense, and claims the details about the circuit-board were ignored. [RB: Mr Bollier was in fact a prosecution witness.] The pieces which he asked to see again in court "were practically carbonized [and] they had been tampered with" since he had visited Dumfries. 

The pieces had been in the possession of FBI forensic laboratories which were later thoroughly discredited. Last June, this and other information resulted in the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) ruling that there was enough "new" evidence -- not including Lumpert's confession -- to suggest there had been a miscarriage of justice. Later this month, the Scottish Court of Appeal in Edinburgh will hear al-Megrahi's appeal against what is now regarded as a "deeply flawed" verdict.

MEBO went bankrupt after the Lockerbie incident. Threatened with a multi-million lawsuit by Pan Am, the company rapidly lost business, including a major contract to supply the German Kriminalpolizei (CID) and the Bundesgrenzshutz (Federal Border Police) with communications equipment.

COMMENT

It may finally be shown that the Libyan connection was part of a US/UK plot to demonize Kadaffi, which Intelligence has always maintained; see chapter 5, "The Trumped-Up Proof of Libyan Terrorism", in Olivier Schmidt, The Intelligence Files, 2005, Clarity Press. 

If this can be shown along with the fact that those responsible for the bombing were closer to the Syrian regime than Tripoli, Mr Bollier will expect to be financial compensated for the international, state-sponsored conspiracy. Unlike the financial compensation and apologies Abdulbaset al-Megrahi can expect if his appeal is successful, an unpublicized out-of-court settlement is likely in Mr Bollier's case. And he'll be satisfied with having cleared his name and that of the company he founded.

Criminal acts and the Lockerbie evidence

What follows is the text of an item posted on this blog four years ago on this date:

Angiolini tells Parliament “no evidence of any criminal act” in Pan Am 103 evidence chain

[This is the headline over a news item just published on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It relates to the written answers given by the Lord Advocate to questions submitted by Christine Grahame MSP. The news item reads in part:]

The Lord Advocate has told the Holyrood Parliament that “there is no evidence of any criminal act having been carried out in relation to any of the forensic evidence in the Lockerbie investigation.” 

Elish Angiolini was responding to a Parliamentary question from MSP Christine Grahame (...)

Grahame asked Angiolini if she was aware of the reported comments of former FBI scientist Frederic Whitehurst implying that the FBI laboratory in Washington DC may constitute an additional crime scene in the case. 

Former Lord Advocate at the time of the trial, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, has stated publicly in a television interview for Dutch television in 2009 that he was not aware that the timer fragment known as PT35 was sent to the United States of America for examination by FBI officials, and that he would have opposed such transportation of this fragment on the basis of concerns that it might be lost in transit or provoke accusations that it had been tampered with. 

Angiolini said in her Parliamentary answer that she was aware of this information, and confirmed that the fragment was taken to the United States of America by Scottish police officers and a British forensic scientist in June 1990 as part of the investigation into the Lockerbie event. 

"There is no evidence of any criminal act having been carried out in relation to any of the forensic evidence in the Lockerbie investigation," she said.

“The fragment remained in the custody and control of the Scottish police officers and the British forensic scientist during the visit to the United States and was subsequently identified as having come from an electronic timer manufactured by a Swiss company, MEBO, to the order of the Libyan intelligence service,” she said. 

In July 2007, one week after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case back to High Court for Megrahi’s appeal, former MEBO employee Ulrich Lumpert swore an affidavit stating that he had personally manufactured the fragment, and that it had been introduced falsely into the Crown’s evidence chain. He said that he handed the fragment to authorities investigating the case on 22 June 1989, and admitted committing perjury in the Zeist trial, citing fear of his life if his testimony reflected what he narrated in his affidavit. (...)

Angiolini's answers did not narrate what investigations may have been undertaken within the Crown Office or in Scottish police forces to reach the conclusion that there was no evidence of criminal acts.

This is not the first time the conduct of the trail and its handling has been considered a crime. On 14 October 2005, UN Special Observer Hans Koechler concluded that the conduct of the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmend Al Megrahi had concerned him to the extent that a crime may have taken place at Camp Zeist to manufacture the conviction of Megrahi. 

“The falsification of evidence, selective presentation of evidence, manipulation of reports, interference into the conduct of judicial proceedings by intelligence services, etc. are criminal offenses in any country,” Koechler's office said in a statement. 

“In view of the above new revelations and in regard to previously known facts as reported in Dr. Koechler’s reports, the question of possible criminal responsibility, under Scots law, of people involved in the Lockerbie trial should be carefully studied by the competent prosecutorial authorities.”

[RB 2014: While the Lord Advocate in 2010 may have believed that there was no evidence of any criminal act having been carried out in relation to any of the forensic evidence in the Lockerbie investigation, no such belief can be honestly held today in the light of the revelation that PT35 had a metallurgical profile entirely different from the circuit boards in the timers supplied by MEBO to Libya. And, since the Crown knew this long before 2010 (indeed before the Zeist trial in 2000-2001) but did not disclose it to the defence, it is perhaps permissible to be somewhat sceptical that that belief was honestly held within the Crown Office in 2010. This issue features among the allegations of criminal conduct in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial that are currently under investigation by Police Scotland.]