RIP Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

18 July 1918 - 05 December 2013

Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika

Among his many other achievements, Nelson Mandela played a significant and honourable part in the Lockerbie affair.  Here are a few excerpts from posts on this blog over the years.

Saturday, 12 January 2008  He [Abdelbaset Megrahi] spoke affectionately and admiringly of South African leader Nelson Mandela, who had visited him in prison, saying that Mandela refused to be accompanied by any British official when he visited him in his prison in Scotland. He added that Mandela also called him when he was visiting the Netherlands because his Dutch hosts had told him that he cannot visit him in prison as it would be a breach of protocol.

Friday, 18 July 2008  (on Mandela’s 90th birthday) 'With so much having been written about the man, the best insights can, perhaps, be gleaned from his 'lesser' successes rather than his iconic triumphs. Nowhere is this more evident than in his mediation on the Lockerbie issue. Mandela took a particular interest in helping to resolve the long-running dispute between Gaddafi's Libya, on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were indicted in November 1991 and accused of sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed at the Scottish town of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, with the loss of 270 lives. As early as 1992, Mandela informally approached President George Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country. Bush reacted favourably to the proposal, as did President Mitterrand of France and King Juan Carlos of Spain. In November 1994, six months after his election as president, Mandela formally proposed that South Africa should be the venue for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial.

'However, British Prime Minister, John Major, flatly rejected the idea saying the British government did not have confidence in foreign courts. A further three years elapsed until Mandela's offer was repeated to Major's successor, Tony Blair, when the president visited London in July 1997. Later the same year, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at Edinburgh in October 1997, Mandela warned: "No one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge." A compromise solution was then agreed for a trial to be held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, governed by Scottish law, and Mandela began negotiations with Gaddafi for the handover of the two accused (Megrahi and Fhimah) in April 1999.

‘At the end of their nine-month trial, the verdict was announced on 31 January 2001. Fhimah was acquitted but Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish jail. Megrahi's initial appeal was turned down in March 2002, and former president Mandela went to visit him in Barlinnie prison on 10 June 2002. "Megrahi is all alone", Mandela told a packed press conference in the prison's visitors room. "He has nobody he can talk to. It is psychological persecution that a man must stay for the length of his long sentence all alone. It would be fair if he were transferred to a Muslim country, and there are Muslim countries which are trusted by the West. It will make it easier for his family to visit him if he is in a place like the kingdom of Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt."’

Sunday, 30 August 2009  Nelson Mandela played a central role in facilitating the handover of Megrahi to the United Nations so he could stand trial under Scottish law in the Netherlands, and subsequently visited him in Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow.

His backing [for the compassionate release of Megrahi] emerged in a letter sent by Professor Jakes Gerwel, chairperson of the Mandela Foundation.

He said: "Mr Mandela sincerely appreciates the decision to release Mr al Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

"His interest and involvement continued after the trial after visiting Mr al Megrahi in prison.

"The decision to release him now, and allow him to return to Libya, is one which is therefore in line with his wishes."

Sunday, 14 February 2010  I have no doubt that President Mandela's influence and his interventions at the time of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Edinburgh in October 1997 were crucial in persuading the recently-elected Labour Government to countenance a "neutral venue" solution to the Lockerbie impasse. Also of crucial importance was the press conference held by the group UK Families-Flight 103 in Edinburgh during the Meeting and the worldwide publicity that it generated.

Friday, 17 June 2011  In November 1994, President Nelson Mandela offered South Africa as a neutral venue for the trial but this was rejected by John Major. A further three years elapsed until Mandela’s offer was repeated to Major’s successor, Tony Blair, when the president visited London in July 1997 and again at the 1997 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Edinburgh in October 1997. At the latter meeting, Mandela warned that “no one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge” in the Lockerbie case.

Sunday, 24 July 2011  Huge crowds greeted Nelson Mandela as he travelled from South Africa to meet Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

He met the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 2002 on a diplomatic excursion to see how he was being treated.

The former president of South Africa also discussed a campaign for Megrahi to serve his sentence in a Libyan prison.

Everyone who has met Mandela speaks of his kindness, gentleness and good manners.

His visit to Gaddafi's Cafe, the nickname given to the area of Barlinnie where Megrahi was held, underlined the humanity of the man.

After all, Mandela himself spent 18 of his 27 years in jail on Robben Island after being locked up by the South Africa's apartheid government.

Most of the crowd hoping to meet him were positioned around the reception and the main gates. Everyone on the staff wanted a glimpse of the great man. The wellwishers were rows deep.

But as he passed through the throng, Mandela stopped, looked to the edge of the crowd and spotted a young prison officer right at the back.

He said: "You sir, step down here."

When the officer got to the front, Mandela shook his hand, giving him a moment he would never forget.

Mandela remarked that he, too, knew what it was like to be at the back row and not noticed.

The great leader then went inside to meet Megrahi. [RB: Here is a photograph taken at the time.]

But he declined an offer to visit the cell blocks.

Mandela had seen enough to last a lifetime.

Wednesday, 29 February 2012  I [Dr John Cameron] first became involved in the Lockerbie case when Nelson Mandela asked the Church of Scotland to support his efforts to have Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction overturned. 

As an experienced lawyer, Mandela studied the transcripts and decided there had been a miscarriage of justice, pointing especially to serious problems with the forensic evidence. I was the only research physicist among the clergy and was the obvious person to review the evidence to produce a technical report which might be understood by the Kirk.

Scientists always select the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions to eliminate complicated constructions and keep theories grounded in the laws of science. This is 'Occam's razor' and from the outset the theory that the bomb entered the system in Malta as unaccompanied baggage and rattled around Europe seemed quite mad. I contacted everyone I knew in aviation and they all were of the opinion it was placed on board at the notoriously insecure Heathrow and that the trigger had to be barometric.  

[And while listening to or reading the tributes to Mandela from members of the UK government and Tory politicians, just bear this in mind.]

President Mandela's October 1997 visit to Libya

[What follows is the text of a Reuters news agency report from 23 October 1997:]

South African President Nelson Mandela, sternly dismissing US reservations about his mission, arrived in Libya on Wednesday for a visit described by diplomats as the most important for Muammar Gaddafi since the United Nations clamped sanctions on his nation in 1992.

Mandela, his Mozambican companion, Graca Machel, and Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo arrived at the Libyan border town of Ras Adjir by helicopter from the nearby Tunisian resort island of Djerba and drove across the frontier and 160 km (100 miles) to Tripoli. The trip was made by road because of an air embargo imposed on Libya by the United Nations.

Mandela's 50-vehicle convoy passed under a series of welcoming banners, including one that set the tone for his visit saying: "Mandela's visit to Libya is a devastating blow to America."

After a triumphant cavalcade around downtown Tripoli, Mandela, 79, was greeted by Gaddafi outside the ruined home in which the Libya leader's daughter, Hana, was brutally killed in a US air raid more than 10 years ago.

Greeting Gaddafi with a hug and a kiss on each cheek, Mandela told him: "My brother leader, my brother leader. How nice to see you."

Shortly afterwards, he told reporters he remained unimpressed by US opposition to his mission, adding:"Those who say I should not be here are without morals. I am not going to join them in their lack of morality."

Mandela said he had spent 27 years in jail rather than abandon his principles under pressure and said he felt the same way about his debt to Gaddafi and the Libyan people for their support in the struggle against apartheid.

"This man helped us at a time when we were all alone, when those who say we should not come here were helping the enemy (South Africa's white government)," Mandela said.

He reiterated South Africa's policy on the sanctions imposed by the United Nations to force Libya to hand over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland -- saying a way should be found to lift them.

Mandela said South Africa supported the Organisation of African unity's call for a trial in a neutral third country.

He said he would seek to promote a resolution of the stalemate between Libya and the United States and Britain at the Commonwealth summit in Edinburgh next week.

"It would be premature now to say exactly how we are going to search for a solution. (We) feel that to maintain these sanctions is to punish the ordinary people of Libya and that is why there is now great concern that the remaining sanctions must be lifted," he said.

Diplomats in Tunisia said Mandela was Gaddafi's most significant guest since the UN banned air travel to the North African state. "Colonel Gaddafi receives a regular stream of African leaders in Tripoli, but it would be fair to say that with his international stature, Mr Mandela is the most significant visitor he has received since 1992," said an African diplomat. The United States has branded Libya a terrorist state and, in line with its policy of discouraging trade or diplomatic relations, on Monday renewed its objection to Mandela's visit. "We would be disappointed if he decided to make such a trip. To give (the Libyans) any solace at a time like this would be unfortunate," said US State Department spokesman James Rubin.

Ebrahim Saley, South Africa's ambassador to Tunisia and Libya, told Reuters, however, Libya had offered Mandela's ANC consistent moral support throughout the 30-year armed struggle against white rule in South Africa, including training and financial backing that helped the party to sweep apartheid into history.

Mandela visited Libya twice between his release from jail in 1990 and his election as South Africa's first black leader in 1994, but has not been to Tripoli since becoming president.

Abdalla Abzubedi, Libya's ambassador to South Africa, told Reuters the visit would focus on regional peace-making efforts and bilateral trade. Asked whether the Lockerbie issue could be raised, he said: "President Mandela always makes a difference to any international issue - especially in Africa."

Nelson Mandela and Abdelbaset Megrahi

[An article appears in today’s edition of The Herald headlined He brokered Lockerbie trial agreement.  It reads as follows:]

Nelson Mandela caused a stir when he called for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, to be released from his Glasgow cell and said he felt the Libyan had suffered an injustice.

He had visited the convicted Megrahi in Barlinnie prison in 2002 having been credited with helping to break the diplomatic deadlock between Libya, the US and Britain that allowed Megrahi's trial to go ahead.

The former South African president had helped to persuade Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan president, to hand over the two men accused of planting the bomb, convincing him that they would receive a fair trial.

Mandela was said, however, to have been disappointed when it was agreed that a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands was to try the men. He had favoured an international panel of judges.

The South African arrived at the Glasgow jail heavily guarded by a posse of police officers, diplomats and South African secret servicemen.

Mandela, who spent 27 years in Robben Island prison for his opposition to South Africa's apartheid regime, backed calls for a fresh appeal into Megrahi's conviction and an independent inquiry into the December 1988 bombing of the Pan Am jet, which claimed the lives of 270.

And he caused outrage when he pleaded to the Government for the Libyan to be transferred from Barlinnie to serve his minimum 20-year sentence in a Muslim country, such as Tunisia or Egypt, where he would not feel so isolated. He described Megrahi's solitary confinement as nothing short of "psychological persecution".

He said: "I profited a great deal by serving my sentence with other people. Our minds were occupied every day by something positive. For that reason it's difficult for me to believe that I was in jail for 27 years or so."

But Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that the move was out of the question.

Mr Straw quoted a report by independent UN monitors who had visited Megrahi at Barlinnie and concluded that his conditions were "good, meeting all known national and international standards".

Mr Straw added that Megrahi's guards had shown "commendable awareness of, and respect for, cultural and religious differences".

Four years ago, when the Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill was under intense pressure following the release of the Libyan on compassionate grounds, it emerged the Scottish Government received a letter saying the former South African president expressed his support for the move.

In the letter to the Scottish government, Professor [Jakes] Gerwel, the chairperson the Mandela Foundation, said: "Mandela sincerely appreciates the decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds."

It added: "Mandela played a central role in facilitating the handover of Megrahi and his fellow accused to the United Nations in order for them to stand trial under Scottish law in the Netherlands.

"His interest and involvement continued after the trial after visiting Mr Megrahi in prison.

"The decision to release him now, and allow him to return to Libya, is one which is therefore in line with his wishes."

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said there was "huge support" internationally for the decision to free Megrahi - who had terminal prostate cancer - to allow him to return home to Libya to die.

Mr Salmond said: "We have seen that Nelson Mandela has come out firmly in support, not just as the towering figure of humanitarian concern across the world in the last generation, but of course somebody who brokered the agreement that led to the Lockerbie trial in the first place."

He added: "Many people believe that you will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution." 

[An article published yesterday on the BBC News website contains the following:]

[Mandela’s] warmest praise was for Glasgow, for the support the city had given to him and his fellow prisoners.

"Whilst we were physically denied our freedom in the country of our birth, a city 6,000 miles away, and as renowned as Glasgow, refused to accept the legitimacy of the apartheid system and declared us to be free.

"It is for this reason that we respect, admire and above all, love you all."

Outside the City Chambers, Nelson Mandela lit up the grey October day, joining the dancers on stage and wowing the crowd with his own Mandela shuffle.

That was not the end of Nelson Mandela's connection with Scotland, or indeed with Glasgow.

Mr Mandela visited Megrahi in Barlinnie prison

He became a key figure in the negotiations which brought the two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing to trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Mandela argued the men ought to be tried in a neutral country

After Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted and brought to Scotland, Mandela visited him in Barlinnie.

I was there when he told a packed press conference inside the prison he believed Megrahi should be allowed a fresh appeal and should be transferred to serve his sentence in a Muslim country.

Seven years on, Nelson Mandela wrote to the Scottish government backing the decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

[Rivonia is the title of a magnificent song written in 1963 by poet, singer and song-writer Hamish Henderson. You can listen to it here.]

Mandela calls for fresh Megrahi appeal

[What follows is the rext of a report published on the website of The Guardian on this date in 2002:]

Former South African president Nelson Mandela today called for a fresh appeal in the case of the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, and asked that the prisoner be transferred to serve out his sentence nearer his native Libya.

Mr Mandela met with al-Megrahi for more than an hour at Glasgow's Barlinnie prison, where he is serving a life sentence for murder. Megrahi was convicted last year of smuggling a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie on December 21 1988. The bombing killed 270 people.

Mr Mandela today called for Scottish authorities to consider Megrahi serving his term in a Muslim country closer to his family.

"Megrahi is all alone," Mr Mandela told a packed press conference in the prison's visitors' room. "He has nobody he can talk to. It is a psychological persecution that a man must stay for the length of his long sentence all alone."

Mr Mandela added: "It would be fair if he were transferred to a Muslim country - and there are Muslim countries which are trusted by the west. It will make it easier for his family to visit him if he is in a place like the kingdom of Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt."

Mr Mandela also hopes to meet the prime minister, Tony Blair, and the US president, George Bush, to discuss the case.

Mr Mandela, who spent more than 20 years as a prisoner of South Africa's apartheid regime, said Megrahi was being "harassed" by other inmates at Barlinnie.

"He says he is being treated well by the officials but when he takes exercise he has been harassed by a number of prisoners. He cannot identify them because they shout at him from their cells through the windows and sometimes it is difficult even for the officials to know from which quarter the shouting occurs," he said.

During the 30-minute press conference, Mr Mandela described in detail how a four-judge commission from the Organisation for African Unity had criticised the basis by which Megrahi came to be convicted.

"They have criticised it fiercely, and it will be a pity if no court reviews the case itself," said Mr Mandela. "From the point of view of fundamental principles of natural law, it would be fair if he is given a chance to appeal either to the privy council or the European court of human rights."

Mr Mandela played a crucial role in persuading Libya to hand over the two men suspected of the bombing to be tried in a Scottish court in the Netherlands. He has been in touch with the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, about Megrahi's case.

Today the Labour MP Tam Dalyell, the father of the House of Commons, welcomed confirmation of Mr Mandela's visit and reiterated his belief that Megrahi was a political prisoner who had been guilty only of sanctions busting.

He told BBC Radio Scotland: "I asked him [Megrahi] what he was doing in Malta. He told me in detail how he had been a sanctions buster - getting components for Libyan Arab Airlines because of the sanctions, going to Nigeria, Brazil, above all to Ethiopia, having contacts with Boeing, in order to get much needed parts for aircraft."

Mr Dalyell said he had evidence, never presented at the trial, that may prove Megrahi's innocence. He claimed Iran had made a payment of $11m (£7.5m) to a militant Palestinian group two days after the bombing. 

Mandela's visit to Megrahi

[What follows is the text of a report published in The Independent on this date in 2002:]

Nelson Mandela is expected to fly to Britain this week for a compassionate meeting with the Libyan agent serving a 20-year sentence in a Scottish prison for his part in the Lockerbie bombing.

The former South African President is known to have sympathy for Abdelbaset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi, who was jailed for his part in the terrorist outrage which killed 270 people. Mr Mandela is keen to reciprocate the support he received from Libya during the 27 years he was a political prisoner of South Africa's apartheid regime.

Megrahi has always protested that he did not help to destroy Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988. Despite losing an appeal against his conviction in March this year, his lawyers are planning an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights on 15 September and hope a show of support from Mr Mandela will help their case that their client was tried unfairly. Mr Mandela played a pivotal role in helping to break the diplomatic deadlock between Libya, the US and Britain that allowed the trial of Megrahi in Holland under Scottish jurisdiction.

Yesterday a spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said no formal application had been made for a visit from Mr Mandela. But a spokesman for Megrahi's legal team said they hoped the visit would be this week.

Mr Mandela is visiting the Netherlands and aides have said that if he is well enough to travel and his schedule allows it, then he would visit Megrahi. The visit is being supported by Tam Dalyell, the veteran Labour MP and Father of the House, who has voiced his own belief that Megrahi is innocent. "I hope Mr Mandela will visit and come to the same conclusion I did, which is that Mr Megrahi had nothing to do with the Lockerbie bomb."

Yesterday, a spokesman for Megrahi's legal team said no concrete plans had been made for a visit but confirmed that Mr Mandela was sympathetic to their case. He added: "I cannot say for certain whether he will be coming to Scotland but I do know that it is his desire to come to Scotland to visit my client and, perhaps not surprisingly, Mr Megrahi is keen that President Mandela finds the time to come to so see him.

"President Mandela, when in prison himself, received substantial support from Libya. President Mandela has a fondness for Libya and support for it."

[RB: The visit took place one week later on 10 June 2002.]

Nelson Mandela's forthrightness discomfits Tony Blair

[What follows is a report from The Associated Press news agency published on this date in 1999:]

Officials from South Africa and Saudi Arabia will fly to Libya to negotiate the surrender of two Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner, President Nelson Mandela said Thursday.

Mandela made the announcement at a joint news conference with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Both leaders expressed confidence that an impasse over bringing the two Libyans to trial in a third country could be broken.

The downing of the New York-bound airliner on Dec 21, 1988, over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people.

Blair had tried to limit his comments to generalities and grimaced when Mandela announced the pending mission.

He also became uncomfortable when Mandela criticized the Dec 16-19 US and British airstrikes against Iraq. Earlier Thursday, about 50 Muslims demonstrating against the attacks clashed with police in Cape Town, which Blair plans to visit Friday and Saturday.

Still, Blair was optimistic about the chances for the mission to Libya.

“There has been progress ... on an issue that some people thought was completely impractical,” Blair said. Britain sought a breakthrough, “out of a deep respect for the families of the Lockerbie victims and their desire for this trial to happen,” he said.

Mandela said Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and the director-general of Mandela's office, Jakes Gerwel, would fly to Libya in the next few days for talks with Libyan officials.

He said the UN Security Council had agreed to temporarily lift its air embargo of Libya to allow the two officials to fly to the Libyan capital of Tripoli. [RB: Largely through the influence of President Mandela, UK and US opposition to this mission at the United Nations was overcome.]

Mandela has already played a key role in convincing the United States and Britain to support a neutral venue for the trial and has relayed the proposal to Libyan leader Col Moammar Gadhafi, with whom Mandela maintains close ties.

Libya has agreed in principle to let the two stand trial in the Netherlands before a panel of Scottish judges. But the Libyan government demands that they be jailed in Libya if they are convicted.

In Tripoli, an unidentified Libyan Foreign Ministry official said Thursday that his government was still waiting for more information.

“(The United States and Britain) have to answer especially the points on the venue of imprisonment and the lifting of the sanctions,” the Libyan official said, according to a report by Egypt's official Middle East News Agency.

US and British diplomats have said that, if convicted, the suspects would serve their sentences in a British prison and that sanctions would be suspended after the handover.

Earlier Thursday, Blair lashed out at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, calling him “a threat.”

Mandela noted later that “the charter of the United Nations provides that member nations should seek to settle their problems through peaceful means.”

“Tony here and Bill Clinton, I have no doubt, respect that,” Mandela said.

Blair stiffened at the comment and told reporters: “I have absolutely nothing to add to what I said this morning on that.”

Mandela, Gaddafi and Lockerbie

[What follows is the text of a report headlined Nelson Mandela visits Libya, embraces Moammar Gadhafi that was published on the CNN website on this date in 1997. It reads as follows:]

South African President Nelson Mandela was shown on Libyan state television embracing Moammar Gadhafi in front of his military barracks home in Tripoli.

Thousands of Libyans gathered in the capital's streets on Wednesday to welcome Mandela, according to official Libyan media monitored in Cairo.

Mandela is on his first presidential visit to the diplomatically isolated North African nation. He has scheduled two days of talks with Gadhafi.

"Mandela is not only South African but he is also a symbol for the peoples of the entire world," Gadhafi was quoted by official media as saying at a late-night dinner for Mandela.

The two leaders were shown punching their fists into the air just before listening to each other's national anthem.

The United States and Great Britain have objected to Mandela's visit, because of Libya's refusal to turn over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland that claimed 270 lives.

Mandela drove into Libya from Tunisia, in observance of a United Nations air embargo on Libya over the bombing.

His motorcade stopped at the site of the ruins of a residence of Gadhafi that had been bombed by U.S. warplanes in 1986. He was welcomed to the spot with an honor guard and a band.

Mandela visited Libya in 1990 after his release from 27 years in jail, and 1994, after his election as South Africa's first black leader but before he took office.

"President Mandela is coming to thank the people of Libya for standing by the African National Congress during the years of struggle against apartheid," said Ebrahim Saley, South Africa's ambassador to Tunisia and Libya.

[RB: President Mandela was on his way to Edinburgh for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held there between 24 and 27 October 1997. This meeting (and a press conference during it involving, amongst others, Dr Jim Swire, Dr David Fieldhouse and me) was a very important milestone on the tortuous path towards a neutral venue Lockerbie trial.]

Nelson Mandela

Here is an excerpt from a post on the South African blog Cunkuri on the occasion of the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela:

'With so much having been written about the man, the best insights can, perhaps, be gleaned from his 'lesser' successes rather than his iconic triumphs. Nowhere is this more evident than in his mediation on the Lockerbie issue. Mandela took a particular interest in helping to resolve the long-running dispute between Gaddafi's Libya, on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were indicted in November 1991 and accused of sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed at the Scottish town of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, with the loss of 270 lives. As early as 1992, Mandela informally approached President George Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country. Bush reacted favourably to the proposal, as did President Mitterrand of France and King Juan Carlos of Spain. In November 1994, six months after his election as president, Mandela formally proposed that South Africa should be the venue for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial.

'However, British Prime Minister, John Major, flatly rejected the idea saying the British government did not have confidence in foreign courts. A further three years elapsed until Mandela's offer was repeated to Major's successor, Tony Blair, when the president visited London in July 1997. Later the same year, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at Edinburgh in October 1997, Mandela warned: "No one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge." A compromise solution was then agreed for a trial to be held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, governed by Scottish law, and Mandela began negotiations with Gaddafi for the handover of the two accused (Megrahi and Fhimah) in April 1999.

'At the end of their nine-month trial, the verdict was announced on 31 January 2001. Fhimah was acquitted but Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish jail. Megrahi's initial appeal was turned down in March 2002, and former president Mandela went to visit him in Barlinnie prison on 10 June 2002. "Megrahi is all alone", Mandela told a packed press conference in the prison's visitors room. "He has nobody he can talk to. It is psychological persecution that a man must stay for the length of his long sentence all alone. It would be fair if he were transferred to a Muslim country, and there are Muslim countries which are trusted by the West. It will make it easier for his family to visit him if he is in a place like the kingdom of Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt."

'Megrahi was subsequently moved to Greenock jail and is no longer in solitary confinement. On 28 June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission concluded its three-year review of Megrahi's conviction and, believing that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, referred the case to the Court of Criminal Appeal for a second appeal. Fifteen years on from his initial involvement, Mandela's moral stature is bringing closure to the victims and reintegration into the world community of a country previously described as a rogue state. Mandela has frequently credited Mahatma Gandhi for being a major source of inspiration in his life, both for the philosophy of non-violence and for facing adversity with dignity. In the Lockerbie case it lives on as inescapable fact.'

The full text can be read here.