Mandela believed Megrahi had suffered a deep wrong

[An item posted this morning on the Lockerbie Truth website of Dr Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph reads as follows:]

At long last the mainstream media are discovering the significance of the visit by Mandela in June 2002 to comfort Al-Megrahi in his Glasgow prison cell.

Mandela was a major influence in the setting up of the Lockerbie trial, the agreement by Libya to transfer the two suspects to the Lockerbie trial court in Kamp Zeist, and - unknown to many at the time - in pressing for a second appeal so that Al-Megrahi's innocence could be demonstrated in a court of law.  

As an expert lawyer Mandela was aware of the prosecution case and the evidence submitted, and believed that Al-Megrahi had suffered a deep wrong at the hands of the intelligence services of several governments.

A full account of Mandela's visit to see Al-Megrahi, including a privately taken family photo of the two together and a photo of the hand-written inscription by Mandela, is contained in John Ashton's book Megrahi: You are my Jury - The Lockerbie Evidence (2012 - Birlinn).

The details of the visit, together with the two photos, can be read here.

Mandela Day: a missed Scottish opportunity

The Scottish Government's press release on events to mark Mandela Day can be read here. The last paragraph states: "Last month Archbishop Desmond Tutu sent a video message to the people of Scotland welcoming plans to mark Mandela Day and he said he was delighted that First Minister Alex Salmond, the Scottish Government and the people of Scotland were marking the day."


At the time of Archbishop Tutu's message, I wrote on this blog: "Given that Archbishop Tutu is a Justice for Megrahi signatory, and given the role that Nelson Mandela played in facilitating a Lockerbie trial (and the interest he took in Abdelbaset Megrahi's fate thereafter) would it not be entirely appropriate and gracious for the Scottish Government to mark Mandela Day by announcing the independent inquiry into the Megrahi prosecution and conviction that the Archbishop, along with the other signatories, has called for?"


The Scottish Government press release does not list this as one of the Mandela Day events. What a surprise and disappointment!

South Africa, Libya and Lockerbie

[What follows is the text of an article by Lisa Macdonald headlined Growing Opposition to US Libya Sanctions published on this date in 1997 in Green Left Weekly:]

In response to US State Department criticism of his visit to Libya on October 23, South African President Nelson Mandela has accused the US administration of racism and condemned its arrogance to dictate where South African leaders should go.

US officials had attempted to pressure Mandela into cancelling the visit, arguing that governments should have the lowest possible diplomatic contact with the government of Libya and proclaiming that they would be disappointed by any ratcheting up of South African-Libyan relations.

Mandela said his visit fulfilled a moral commitment to Libya, which supported us during our struggle when others were working with the apartheid regime. The US government said Mandela’s response to its warnings was unfortunate.

This is just the latest attempt by the US to force South Africa to cede to US policy in relation to governments it considers troublesome. Libya, along with Cuba, Iran and Syria, is top of that list.

In 1995, a proposed deal involving the storage of Iranian oil in South Africa was scrapped under pressure from the US. Soon afterwards, concerns were raised in the US Congress about South Africa’s relations with Cuba. The following year, discussions about a possible arms deal between South Africa and Syria were cancelled after strong condemnation and threats from the US.

The US campaign against Libya began when the September 1, 1969, revolution overthrew the US puppet King Idris, refused to renew foreign base agreements and nationalised US, French and British oil interests. Since then, the US and its allies have waged a covert and overt war against Libya, including a series of CIA-orchestrated assassination attempts, provocative incursions into Libyan territorial waters and the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi in April 1986.

In 1992, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Libya which prohibit arms sales and flights to and from the country. These sanctions were ostensibly to punish Libya for so-called terrorist activities and to force it to extradite two Libyan agents accused by Britain and the US of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland, which killed 270 people.

Libya, supported by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), has proposed that the Lockerbie trial be held in a neutral country, conducted under Scottish law. In the words of Mandela, who has been mandated by the OAU to mediate between Britain and Libya on the issue: You can’t have a country like Britain, which is the complainant, the prosecutor and the judge at the same time. For a country to combine the three roles, there can be no justice there.

The British families of those killed in the Lockerbie disaster have welcomed Mandela’s call and endorsed South Africa as a suitable venue for a trial.

The South African government has further angered the US by supporting the OAU’s demand that the UN lift the sanctions against Libya.

Last month the Arab states voted to permit planes carrying Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to land on their territory and to permit other flights for religious and humanitarian purposes.

Of Mandela, Shamuyarira and the Lockerbie affair

[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of the Zimbabwean newspaper The Herald.  It reads in part:]

Tributes to veteran nationalist, journalist and politician Nathan Shamuyarira who died on June 4 at the age of 85 underlined his diplomatic and political achievements at local, regional and international levels.

As tributes poured in, Shamuyarira was described as a remarkable and admirable politician who contributed immensely to the shaping and development of Zimbabwe’s media and foreign policy. (...)

In April, 1999, Nelson Mandela refused to take full credit for the Lockerbie breakthrough which resulted in Libya handing over two suspects of the PanAm bombing over Lockerbie in 1988 in which 270 people were killed.

Speaking to businessmen in Midrand, the anti-apartheid struggle leader said there were other people who played an important role in the negotiations, singling out former Zimbabwean Foreign Affairs Minister Nathan Shamuyarira.

“He is the person who came to me and said let’s talk and settle this issue,” Mandela was quoted as saying, adding that he then spoke to former American President George Bush and Saudi Arabia’s King Fahed.

“Without these two (Shamuyarira and King Fahed) I don’t think there would have been a breakthrough,” he said.

Mandela was not puffed up by the huge praise he got internationally for his role in the Lockerbie diplomatic effort.

He repeatedly shrugged off the praise.

Shamuyarira too, shrugged off the praise, only demonstrating his distinctive brilliance and unmatched determination to have the Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing tried in a neutral country.

In an interview in April 1999, Shamuyarira said there were a number of inconsistencies in the case that pointed to a political victimisation of Libya and if brought to court, such evidence would exonerate Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al–Amin Khalifa Fahima.

“I have evidence that convinced me and Presidents Mugabe and Nelson Mandela and other world leaders that the Libyans were not involved.

“It was on the basis of these inconsistencies that I asked the two presidents to seek a fair trial for the two men,” Shamuyarira was quoted saying then.

According to a news agency report, one of the factors Shamuyarira felt would work for the Libyans when their trial starts in the Netherlands was that some people scheduled to fly on the Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt to New York on December 20 1988 were apparently warned that the flight was doomed and should change.

The plane blew up over Lockerbie in Scotland and killed 259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground.

“One of these people is then South African foreign affairs minister Pik Botha who was scheduled to take that flight to New York. He and others were tipped off and changed flights.

“Whoever tipped them had prior knowledge of the bomb and if it were the Libyans, surely, the last person they would tip was Botha given the animosity between Libya and South Africa the,” said Shamuyarira who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1985 and 1995.

This earned Shamuyarira who initiated talks that the Libyan suspects be tried in a neutral country, wide acclaim and made him to become a true giant of Zimbabwean and African foreign policy. (...)

Late veteran politician Dr Stan Mudenge who was Foreign Affairs Minister in 1999 described the breakthough as an African Union triumph over western bullying.

“When you look back at the whole issue, one can rightly say Africa as a whole won a major battle over western bullying. Each one of us as Africans did their bit and we won,” Dr Mudenge said back then.

With the Lockerbie case, Shamuyarira showed that he was a formidable force of Pan African  diplomacy – an indefatigable champion in the cause of peace, who worked tirelessly for a better world through peaceful conflict resolution mechanism.

His energies devoted to finding a peaceful way forward for the Libyan case led to the suspension of the embargoes that had been put in place to force Tripoli to surrender the two men charged with blowing up Pan Am Flight 103.

Shamuyarira, who has been credited as the first person to initiate talks on the possibility of having the Libyans tried in a neutral country.

To some great measure, Shamuyarira’s pre-eminent role in the Lockerbie affair, forced Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya, who died on 20 October 2011, to ‘demote’ Pan Arabism as a plank of Libya’s foreign policy.

[I reproduce this because it pays tribute to an African politician who played a not insignificant part in resolving the Lockerbie impasse that existed in the late 1990s, not because it is in all respects accurate about the factual and political background, which it clearly is not. For example, the story about Pik Botha being warned off Pan Am 103 has been discredited. And the all-too common assumption that Gaddafi had the power to compel the two accused to surrender for trial whether they wanted to or not, is just simply false.  I was involved at the time in Lockerbie dealings with both the Libyan Government and the Libyan defence team headed by Dr Ibrahim Legwell. If the Libyan Government had had the power to deliver Megrahi and Fhimah to Zeist against their will, the pair would have been there long before April 1999. The Gaddafi regime had the power to prevent the suspects from voluntarily surrendering themselves for trial (eg by preventing them from leaving Libya). But that was as far as the regime’s power went. It had no power to compel them to stand trial at Zeist if they chose not to.  What impeded a resolution of the Lockerbie standoff for years was not the Libyan Government nor the Libyan defence team, but the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States. It was on these governments that Mandela, Shamuyarira and others had to exert diplomatic and moral pressure to accept the solution that had long before been accepted by the Libyan authorities and the Libyan defence team. All this is explained here, for those interested in the true position.]

Straw denies Megrahi release was connected to trade deals

[This is the headline over an article in Monday's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]

Jack Straw, the UK Justice Secretary, has described as "absurd" suggestions that trade deals had anything to do with the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

Mr Straw was forced into the denial after letters leaked to a Sunday newspaper appeared to show that he had backed away from efforts to stipulate that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi should be exempt from a prisoner transfer agreement signed with Libya in 2007.

His comments were made as the father of one of the victims of the bombing of Pan Am 103 said it was time "to stop mulling over the why and wherefore of Megrahi’s release" and Nelson Mandela sent a letter of support to the Scottish Government. (...)

Mr Straw said: "The implication that, somehow or other, we have done some back-door deal in order to release Mr Megrahi is simply nonsense.

"What makes this whole debate absurd now is that Mr Megrahi was not released under the prisoner transfer agreement."

Mr Straw admitted that in return for Libya abandoning its nuclear weapons programme there were moves to "establish wider relations including trade", but added: "the suggestion that at any stage there was some kind of back-door deal done over Mr Megrahi’s transfer because of trade is simply untrue". (...)

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 emerged in a letter sent by Professor Jake 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."

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, called on the authorities in Scotland to "take responsibility" for reviewing Megrahi’s conviction.

In a letter to the media, Dr Swire said he was "delighted" that Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, had been freed.

He said: "Let us stop mulling over the why and wherefore of Megrahi’s release.

"The public’s knowledge of the shifty dealings surrounding the prisoner transfer agreement should help to swell demand for objective assessment of the Megrahi case."

[Notes by RB:

1. It is disingenuous in the extreme for Jack Straw to claim that the debate over a deal between the UK and Libyan Governments over Abdelbaset Megrahi is absurd because he was in fact repatriated, not under the prisoner transfer agreement, but through compassionate release.

The memorandum of understanding regarding prisoner transfer that Tony Blair entered into in the course of the "deal in the desert" (and which paved the way for the formal prisoner transfer agreement) was intended by both sides to lead to the rapid return of Mr Megrahi to his homeland. This was the clear understanding of Libyan officials involved in the negotiations and to whom I have spoken.

It was only after the memorandum of understanding was concluded that Downing Street and the Foreign Office belatedly realised that the decision on repatriation of this particular prisoner was a matter not for Westminster and Whitehall but for the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh -- and that government had just come into the hands of the Scottish National Party and so could no longer be expected supinely to follow the UK Labour Government's wishes. That was when the understanding between the UK Government and the Libyan Government started to unravel, to the considerable annoyance and distress of the Libyans, who had been led to believe that repatriation under the PTA was only months away.

2. The letter from Dr Swire that is referred to in The Herald's article reads as follows:]

Lockerbie: the truth must be known

Before the Lockerbie trial, brokered by Nelson Mandela, had begun, I believed that it would reveal the guilt of the two Libyans in the murder of my daughter and all those others.

I have always believed that we should look for how something of benefit to the world could be somehow squeezed out of the appalling spectacle of brutal mass murder laid before us on those gentle Scottish hills. From before the Lockerbie trial, whilst still believing in Megrahi's guilt, I hoped even then that commercial links could be rebuilt between Libya and Britain for the benefit of both in the future. That was one of the reasons I went to talk to Gaddafi in 1991. It seemed that Libya's 5 million people with that country's immense oil wealth could mesh well with the many skilled people available among the 5 million population of Scotland.

What I heard at Zeist converted me to believing that the Libyan pair were in fact not involved in the atrocity after all. I remembered Nelson's comment at the time when a trial was agreed "No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and Judge". Yet under Clinton's presidency, the composition of the court had been altered so that Nelson's warning had been ignored. It was President Clinton too who told us all to realise 'its the economy, stupid.' But the UK, in the form of Scottish law, was now to exclude any international element, and the methods used to assemble the evidence revealed that the UK/US collusion was so close that it was safe to consider that alliance as Nelson's 'one country' also.

These matters are political and we have no expertise in that field, which appears distasteful to many. I do feel though that Lord Mandelson's disingenuous comments on the issue of the 'Prisoner Transfer Agreement' should lead him to resign (yet again).

More than 20 years later, we, the relatives, are still denied a full inquiry into the real issues for us - Who was behind the bombing? How was it carried out? Why did the Thatcher government of the day ignore all the warnings they got before Lockerbie? Why did they refuse even to meet us to discuss the setting up of this inquiry? Why was the information about the Heathrow break-in concealed for 12 years so that the trial court did not hear of it till after verdict? Why were we constantly subjected to the ignominy of being denied the truth as to why our families were not protected in what even our crippled FAI (crippled because it too was denied the information about Heathrow) found to have been a preventable disaster?

Let us stop mulling over the why and wherefore of Megrahi's release, I for one am delighted that a man I now consider innocent because of the evidence I was allowed to hear at Zeist is at home with his family at last. Let there be a responsible replacement immediately for the appeal a dying man understandably abandoned to ensure his release. Scotland should now take responsibility for reviewing a verdict which her own SCCRC already distrusts.The public's knowledge of the shifty dealings surrounding the 'Prisoner Transfer Agreement' should help to swell demand for objective assessment of the Megrahi case. Overturning the verdict would open the way for a proper international inquiry into why Lockerbie was allowed to happen, who was really behind it, as well as how the verdict came to be reached.

Let us turn our attention now, please, at last to the question of why we the relatives have been denied our rights to know who really murdered their families, and why those precious lives were not protected.

UK-Libya rapprochement following the Lockerbie trial

[What follows is excerpted from an article headlined Gaddafi, Britain, UK and US: A secret, special and very cosy relationship that was published in The Independent on Sunday on 4 September 2011. An important event in the post-Lockerbie rapprochement occurred on 16 December 2003:]

Most of the papers were found at the private offices of Moussa Koussa, the foreign minister, regime security chief and one of Gaddafi's chief lieutenants, on Friday afternoon. (...)

Mr Koussa, who defected after the February revolution and spent time in the UK, left to take up residence in the Gulf after demands that he face police questioning over the murder of Libyan opposition figures in exile, the Lockerbie bombing and the killing of the policewoman Yvonne Fletcher. In a sign of the importance of the British connection, MI6 merited two files in Mr Koussa's office, while the CIA had only one. UK intelligence agencies had played a leading role in bringing Gaddafi's regime in from the cold.

The documents reveal that British security agencies provided details about exiled opposition figures to the Libyans, including phone numbers. Among those targeted were Ismail Kamoka, freed by British judges in 2004 because he was not regarded as a threat to the UK's national security. MI6 even drafted a speech for Gaddafi when he was seeking rapprochement with the outside world with a covering note stressing that UK and Libyan officials must use "the same script". (...)

Britain's extraordinary rekindling of relations with Libya did not start as Mr Blair sipped tea in a Bedouin tent with Gaddafi, nor within the walls of the Travellers Club in Pall Mall – although this "summit of spies" in 2003 played a major role. It can be traced back to a 1999 meeting Mr Blair held with the man hailed as one of the greatest to have ever lived: Nelson Mandela, in South Africa.

Mr Mandela had long played a key role in negotiations between Gaddafi, whom he had hailed as a key opponent of apartheid, and the British government. Mr Mandela first lobbied Mr Blair over Libya in October 1997, at a Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Edinburgh. Mr Mandela was pressing for those accused of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing to be tried outside Scotland. In January 1999, Mr Mandela, during a visit by Mr Blair to South Africa, actively lobbied the PM on behalf of Gaddafi, over sanctions imposed on Libya and the Lockerbie suspects.

UN sanctions were suspended in April 1999 when Gaddafi handed over the two Lockerbie suspects, including Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was eventually convicted of the bombing. Libya also accepted "general responsibility" for the death of Yvonne Fletcher. Both moves allowed the Blair government to begin the long process of renewing ties with Libya.

Within a couple of years, the issue of persuading the Gaddafi regime to turn itself from pariah into international player surged to the forefront of the British government's agenda. It was during this time, according to the documents found in Mr Koussa's office, that MI6 and the CIA began actively engaging with Libyan intelligence chiefs. But it was a key meeting on 16 December 2003, at the Travellers Club, that would put the official UK – and US – stamp on Gaddafi's credibility. Present were Mr Koussa, then head of external intelligence for Libya, and two Libyan intelligence figures; Mr Blair's foreign affairs envoy, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, and three MI6 chiefs; and two CIA directors. Mr Koussa's attendance at the meeting in central London was extraordinary – at the time he had been banned from entering Britain after allegedly plotting to assassinate Libyan dissidents, and so was given safe passage by MI6.

Mr Koussa's pivotal role at the Travellers Club casts light on how, following his defection from Gaddafi's regime during the initial Nato bombing campaign earlier this year, he was able to slip quietly out of the country. Two days after the 2003 meeting, Mr Blair and Gaddafi held talks by telephone; and the next day, 19 December, the announcement about Libya surrendering its WMD was made by Mr Blair and President Bush.

In March 2004, Mr Blair first shook hands with Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent. The pair then met again in May 2007, shortly before Mr Blair left office.

Mandela breaks Lockerbie trial impasse

[On this date in 1997 a cartoon by South Africa’s leading political cartoonist, Zapiro, was published in The Sowetan. The text accompanying the cartoon on Zapiro's website reads as follows:]

Mandela backs a neutral country as venue for the trial of Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. The verdict in the protracted Lockerbie trial was a landmark in international law and a tribute to the diplomacy of Nelson Mandela, who played a leading role in bringing about the trial. It was largely through Mandela's ability to influence both Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on the one hand, and the British government on the other, that the unprecedented solution of trying the two Lockerbie suspects in a neutral country, the Netherlands, was agreed upon. Mandela broke an impasse, which arose because Britain, and the US, were insisting on a trial in either of their countries, while Gaddafi refused to hand over the suspects to them.

Scottish Government solicited support for Megrahi release

[The following is taken from a report published this afternoon on the Daily Record website:]

Emails released under freedom of information legislation, have revealed how the Scottish Government asked public figures to endorse the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

The documents show that First Minister Alex Salmond's advisers emailed the former South African leader's office, as well as former Irish president Mary Robinson and Desmond Tutu asking for them to consider issuing a public statement.

US businessman Donald Trump has already revealed that he was asked, but refused, to put his name to a prepared statement saying he was "certain" the release was made for good reasons.

The Government's requests came shortly after the controversial decision to grant compassionate release to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in August 2009.

Megrahi, who had cancer, died in May this year. He was sentenced to life in prison for the bombing of a US airliner over the Scottish town in 1988, which claimed 270 lives.

A template email was sent to the offices of Mr Mandela and Archbishop Tutu, with personalised references to their involvement or interest in the case.

The email sent on August 26 2009 to the Nelson Mandela Foundation stated: "Given his ongoing close involvement in Mr Megrahi's case, it would be very helpful if Mr Mandela was able to issue a public statement outlining his views on the decision of the Scottish Justice Secretary to release Mr al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Please let me know if this is something which you would be able to arrange. My colleagues and I would be happy to discuss this if you require any further information."

Mr Mandela played a role in the handover of Megrahi to face trial in a special Scottish court in the Netherlands.

The response said that Mr Mandela does not want to be involved in public issues any more but that he "sincerely appreciates" the decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

The decision was "in line with his wishes", according to the email.

Archbishop Tutu's office was approached with a similar email which noted his "long-standing humanitarian concerns".

He agreed to the request and issued a statement in which he said there was "nothing wrong" with the decision to free Megrahi.

Mrs Robinson, Irish president between 1990 and 1997, was approached through the human rights organisation she founded. Her office declined the invitation.

The Trump Organisation said in October that an approach was made asking for the decision to be endorsed.

At the time, a spokesman for the organisation said: "As Americans and New Yorkers who have unfortunately suffered and seen terrorism first-hand, it was ludicrous. The answer was no."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "The Scottish Government was perfectly entitled to seek support at home and abroad for this decision which was supported by some, including some relatives of Lockerbie victims, and opposed by others."

[A report on The Telegraph website can be read here; and one on the BBC News website here.]

Ignorant UK politicians

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

The Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing will remain in Glasgow after Jack Straw rebuffed Nelson Mandela's plea for him to be moved from Scotland to a prison in a Muslim country.

The foreign secretary's snub to Mr Mandela, former president of South Africa, was made public yesterday in a letter to Russell Brown, MP for Dumfries. In the letter, Mr Straw confirmed that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi would remain in Barlinnie jail in Glasgow.

''I can assure you there will be no change in policy on the location of Megrahi's imprisonment. He will serve his full prison sentence in Scotland,'' he said.

Mr Mandela, who was a prisoner in South Africa for 27 years, made his call for Megrahi to be moved in June, after visiting him in Barlinnie where he is serving a life sentence for the PanAm jumbo jet bombing which killed 270 people in 1988.

The veteran statesman had played a key role in ensuring that Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, handed over the two men suspected of the bombing.

Mr Brown, whose constituency includes Lockerbie, wrote to Tony Blair last month urging him to reject Mr Mandela's plea.

Yesterday, he welcomed Jack Straw's assurance that Megrahi, 49, would serve out his sentence in Scotland but said that, now speculation on the issue had been brought to an end, there should be a government inquiry into some aspects of the bombing.

In his letter to the Labour MP, Mr Straw said United Nations monitors had described the conditions in which Megrahi was being held as ''clearly very good'' and met all national and international standards. The monitors also said the Libyan's prison guards showed ''commendable'' awareness and respect for cultural and religious difference.

Mr Brown said the last thing he had wanted was to see this issue dropped into the current negotiations between the UK and Libya over sanctions, in an effort to make any deal easier.

He said: ''If you reopen the original agreement with Libya and decide that Megrahi should be moved to a Muslim country, it would only be a matter of time before you start to negotiate on length of the sentence or even the conviction itself.''

Mr Brown said there would not be a full public inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing but that he would like to see further investigations by the government.

[RB: Why Mr Brown or Mr Straw thought that the United Kingdom government had any control over where Abdelbaset Megrahi would serve his sentence is a mystery to me. Mr Mandela can be forgiven for not being aware of the details of the division of authority between the Scottish and the United Kingdom governments, but Messrs Brown and Straw cannot.]

"In our thoughts and prayers continuously"

[Nelson Mandela's message to Megrahi is the heading over an item posted today on John Ashton’s website Megrahi: You are my Jury.  It reads as follows:]

Nelson Mandela visited Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in Barlinnie prison on 10 June 2002. Here is Abdelbaset’s account of the visit and below it a photo of the two men together and one of the inscriptions that Mr Mandela wrote in an Arabic version of his book Long Road to Freedom, which he gave to Abdelbaset:

Three months after my transfer to Barlinnie, Nelson Mandela kept his promise to visit me. That the world’s most respected statesman should again take the trouble to demonstrate his solidarity gave me a great lift. We chatted for sometime, mainly about the unjust guilty verdict. Having spent 27 years imprisoned on Robben Island, the agonies of prison life were etched into his soul. He asked me about my living conditions, the standard of my food and my bed, clearly aware of the huge importance of those things to a prisoner’s wellbeing. Before he left I introduced him again to my family, who thanked him and presented him with a bouquet of flowers. I was allowed to take photographs of him in the reception area and he signed my Arabic version of his book Long Walk to Freedom, which describes his prison years. In it he wrote: ‘To Comrade Megrahi, Best wishes to one who is in our thoughts and prayers continuously. Mandela.’

Following the meeting he held a press conference, in which he declared: ‘Megrahi is all alone. 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.’

Mandela presses for neutral-nation trial of Lockerbie suspects

[This is the headline over a report published in The New York Times on this date in 1997. It reads in part:]

President Nelson Mandela of South Africa pressed Britain today to let two Libyans accused of blowing up an airliner over Scotland stand trial in a neutral country.

Justice cannot be done if Britain insists on trying the suspects in Britain or the United States, he said at a news conference during a meeting of Commonwealth leaders here.

Mr Mandela set off controversy this week by visiting Libya en route to Scotland to support Libya's plan for the two men to stand trial in a neutral country.

Britain and the United States are demanding the extradition of the pair, suspected of killing 270 people in the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. The United Nations has imposed sanctions on Libya for more than four years to force compliance.

Mr Mandela said he had not raised the matter with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, but he added: ''I have never thought in dealing with this question that it is correct for any particular country to be the complainant, the prosecutor and the judge at the same time. Justice cannot be said to be done in that situation.''

He noted that British relatives of Lockerbie victims backed a trial in a neutral country, as do some American relatives, as well as the Organization of African Unity, the Arab League, the Islamic Conference and the Nonaligned Movement.

British officials were adamant that there was no question of accepting the Mandela proposal, even if a foreign court abided by Scottish law. ''We believe they should be brought to justice here or in the United States,'' one said.

He said the Government took the views of the relatives seriously but saw ''formidable obstacles'' to a trial in a neutral country. The International Court of Justice in The Hague has been mentioned as one possibility.

It would be necessary for the British Parliament to pass primary legislation, and any third country would struggle to find the expertise in Scottish law needed at short notice to permit a meaningful trial, the officials said.

They said Foreign Secretary Robin Cook had underlined Britain's determination to insure a free trial by inviting representatives of African and Arab countries to come to Scotland to study its legal system and observe the trial.

''We wholly reject any suggestion that it would be an unfair trial,'' Mr Cook told ITN news on Friday. ''Scotland was where the murders took place. Scotland is the place where the trial should happen.''

But Mr Cook will come under further pressure when he meets Jim Swire, the father of one of the victims, on Sunday. ''I will be telling Mr Cook that we should have a trial in a third country under Scots law and that he has been badly advised in his opposition to this,'' Mr Swire told The Scotsman newspaper.

[What follows is an excerpt from an account that I wrote several years ago about the UK Government’s objections to my neutral venue proposal:]

On my return to the United Kingdom [from Libya in January 1994] I submitted the relevant documents [about my neutral venue proposal and Libyan agreement to it] to the Foreign Office in London and the Crown Office (the headquarters of the Scottish prosecution service) in Edinburgh.  Their immediate response was that this scheme was impossible, impracticable and inherently undesirable, with the clear implication that Professor Black must have taken leave of what few senses nature had endowed him with. That remained the attitude of successive Lord Advocates and Foreign Secretaries for four years and seven months.  During this period the British government's stance remained consistent: United Nations Security Council Resolutions placed upon the government of Libya a binding international legal obligation to hand over the accused for trial to the UK or the US authorities.  Nothing else would do.  If Libyan law did not currently permit the extradition of its own nationals to stand trial overseas, then Libya would simply have to alter its law (and, if necessary, its Constitution) to enable it to fulfil its international duty.

Over the years British government sources put forward six specific objections to my proposal. 

(...)

Objection 2

There would be formidable technical difficulties in implementing the proposal to set up a non-jury court applying Scottish criminal law and procedure but sitting outside Scotland, for example in the Netherlands.

I had always accepted that my proposal would involve the necessity of amending the law. As the law stood, a Scottish High Court judge had no authority to preside over a sitting of the court anywhere outside Scotland.  Nor, assuming the trial resulted in a conviction, were Scottish prison governors entitled to incarcerate in their institutions persons other than those committed by the warrant of a duly-constituted UK court.  However, I contended that it was not beyond the competence, capabilities and expertise of Scottish parliamentary draftsmen, in consultation with the Crown Office (the body responsible for the running of the Scottish criminal prosecution system) and the officials of The Scottish Office Home Department’s Criminal Justice Division (the Government Department then responsible for criminal law and policy in Scotland) speedily to draft primary or secondary legislation constituting such a court and providing that it should apply all the rules of evidence and procedure applicable to High Court trials in Scotland, save only those relating to the presence and functions of the jury.  I also argued that, if such legislation were promoted, it would be unlikely to meet with serious opposition in either House of Parliament; and that both the United Nations and the Netherlands would be willing to cooperate if such a court were established.  That I was right about all these matters can be seen from the ease with which, in 1998, the Scottish Court in the Netherlands was eventually set up.

Mandela intervention over Lockerbie

[The following are brief extracts from a long article just published on the website of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:]

Nelson Mandela is inextricably linked to the emergence of post-apartheid South Africa. Although he long withdrew from active politics after a one-term presidency (1994-99), he remained his country’s moral conscience in terms of domestic issues, and a principled defender of human rights internationally. (...)

Internationally, Mandela’s iconic status impacted beyond South Africa’s borders. He pressed the warring factions into a power-sharing constitution in Burundi in 2000, although the civil war did not cease. Before his retirement, he continued to lead by example, whether on AIDS education or as the lone critic of a Nigerian military dictatorship when nobody dared to follow him. In contrast, his successor, Thabo Mbeki, supported the Nigerian military strongman Sani Abacha after the execution of the Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Mandela also intervened successfully in the long simmering Lockerbie bombing crisis, by sending his chief of staff to work out a deal with Ghaddhafi in Libya. [RB: This is a reference to Jakes Gerwel.]

Blair appeals to Mandela over Lockerbie

[What follows is a snippet from the Libya: News and Views website on this date in 1999:]

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in an interview published on Sunday he would appeal to South African President Nelson Mandela to persuade Libya to hand over two men suspected of the Lockerbie bombing for trial in the Netherlands. Blair, who starts a four day visit to South Africa on Tuesday, said negotiations between Britain, the United States and Libya over the 1988 airline bombing had reached an impasse. In the interview with the Sunday Business newspaper, he said Mandela had already played a “unique and important” role in trying to resolve the controversy and he would ask the South African leader to intervene again. “I will explain that we have done all that we reasonably can to resolve the impasse over the trial. The UK-US initiative for a trial in the Netherlands has been on the table for four months,” said Blair. “I will appeal to President Mandela to convince the Libyan government that a third country trial should now proceed,” he added. [Reuters]

[RB: My proposal for a neutral venue trial, agreed to by the Libyan government and defence team, had been on the table for four years and seven months before the UK and US proposal was launched. For Tony Blair to complain that Libya had taken four months to consider the UK/US initiative seems somewhat crass.]