“I pray we may all with honesty seek and learn the truth”

[What follows is the text of a letter to The Times by Dr Jim Swire.  A week after it was sent, it has not been published and so I am taking the liberty of posting it here:]

I note your article from Mr Linklater concerning the security of the verdict reached against Mr Megrahi, regarding the murder of my daughter Flora and 269 others in the Lockerbie air disaster. [RB: Magnus Linklater is appointed CBE in today’s New Year Honours List.]

A brilliant medical student at Nottingham, Flora, who was only on her way to see her US boyfriend over Christmas, had just been accepted to continue her medical studies at Cambridge.

I have not enjoyed being accused by Mr Mullholland's Crown Office, as a member of the Justice for Megrahi (JFM) group's committee, of deliberate lying over this case.

Nor do I admire the tastelessness of your newspaper in publishing this contentious article on the very day of the 24th anniversary of my innocent daughter Flora's brutal murder. I am far from alone among UK relatives in questioning the probity of the management of this terrible case.

There are at present allegations of criminality lodged by the committee of JFM against members of the Crown Office and the Scottish police force over the conduct of the Lockerbie investigation and trial.

I will not stoop to making allegations now in your pages against the Crown Office, the Lord Advocate, nor indeed Mr Linklater until the allegations have been objectively investigated.

Your readers should remember that Benedict Birnberg, Gareth Peirce, Michael Mansfield QC, David Wolchover, Len Murray, Ian Hamilton QC, Jock Thomson QC, John Scott QC and Emeritus Professor (of Scots law) Robert Black QC are among many other lawyers who question the probity of this verdict.

However, in the spirit of the season, I offer all who contributed to this article a happy 2013, in which I pray we may all with honesty seek and learn the truth. That is actually all that we the relatives are asking for.  

[The article in today’s edition of The Times (behind the paywall) in which Mr Linklater’s honour is reported, contains the following paragraph:]

Mr Linklater remains one of most respected figures in Scottish journalism, with the skill and compassion to report sensitively on the tragedy of Lockerbie — “a story that has stayed with me ever since” — as well as the humour to deliver an agonised column about the iniquities of speed cameras.

Pro-Megrahi backers flayed by new Lord Advocate

[This is the headline over an article by Magnus Linklater (whose views on Lockerbie are well-known) in today’s edition of The Times.  It reads as follows:]

Scotland’s Lord Advocate has launched a powerful and stinging attack against “conspiracy theorists” who claim that the Lockerbie bomber was wrongly convicted.

In the most detailed rebuttal yet made to the case mounted by campaigners who argue that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was innocent and that Libya was not involved in the terrorist bomb plot that brought Pan Am 103 down over Lockerbie 24 years ago today, Frank Mulholland, QC, calls the allegations “without foundation”.

He goes on to accuse those making them of uttering “defamatory” comments against High Court judges who are unable to respond. [RB: Justice for Megrahi has made no defamatory comments against any High Court judge.  It is not defamatory of the Zeist judges to say that they were wrong in finding Megrahi guilty. Lawyers all the time say that judges got things wrong (and almost every time an appeal is allowed, other judges say so too). And in the Lockerbie case even the SCCRC concluded that, on an absolutely crucial point, no reasonable court could have reached the conclusion that the Zeist judges reached.  JFM in its recent allegations of criminality was very careful not to say that then Lord Advocate (and now High Court judge) Colin Boyd had attempted to pervert the course of justice.]

Mr Mulholland, who has relaunched an investigation into what he calls an act of “state-sponsored terrorism” by the former Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, says that he has been through all the evidence and is convinced that al-Megrahi’s conviction was “safe”.

An outside counsel invited by the Lord Advocate to conduct an independent review of the evidence has also concluded that the conviction was sound. [RB: It would be interesting to know the identity of this outside counsel.  Here, by contrast, is a short list of eminent lawyers who have concluded that the conviction was not sound: Benedict Birnberg, Gareth Peirce, Michael Mansfield QC, David Wolchover, Len Murray, Ian Hamilton QC, Jock Thomson QC, John Scott QC.  There are many more.]

“I am hugely frustrated that there is an unfounded attack on the integrity of the judges involved in the process,” Mr Mulholland said. “I saw a report on the BBC that [claimed] a high court judge — Colin Boyd, Lord Advocate at the time — perverted the course of justice. And it frustrates me that they’re not in a position to answer these allegations, these can be made without being challenged and without any real foundation.” [RB: At least Mr Mulholland does not here make the error of accusing JFM of responsibility for the BBC’s egregious misinterpretation of the English language.]

He compared the allegations to the uncontrolled media attempts to blacken the name of Lord MacAlpine, the former Conservative Party treasurer, over child abuse.

“I deplore any of that,” he said. “The appropriate place for voicing any concerns about the evidence is before a court of law, not in the court of public opinion, or the media. I haven’t spoken to the people who are affected by this, but I would imagine that they are frustrated that their reputations can be so easily attacked, and they can’t do anything about it.”

Mr Mulholland, who has been to Libya to make contact with the new regime, is hopeful that permission will be given soon to send Scottish police officials to Tripoli to gather evidence that would not only buttress the case against al-Megrahi, but reopen the wider plot to down the US airliner.

He believes that a criminal investigation rather than a public inquiry is the best way to resolve the 1988 Lockerbie case.

“I take the view that the calls for a public inquiry are essentially to set up a vehicle which would be a surrogate criminal court, he said. “I believe that the guilt or innocence of al-Megrahi is entirely a matter for the courts.”

He issued a challenge to the al-Megrahi apologists: “If you don’t like the set-up of the justice system, then what you do is you change it, through the democratic vehicle of parliament. You change the law.”

Mr Mulholland says he has studied all the claims advanced in the book Megrahi: You are my Jury by the writer John Ashton, and finds no evidence to support them. He urged those arguing that al-Megrahi was innocent to put any additional evidence to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

“Mr Megrahi stood trial before a Scottish court and was convicted by three judges unanimously, then an appeal, where five judges unanimously upheld the conviction, hearing additional evidence about the Heathrow break-in [the claim that the bomb went aboard there],” he said. “Having heard all the arguments presented to them, they upheld the conviction. Part of our justice system is the [commission] for which I have the highest regard. Anyone who is concerned about a conviction can make an application to the commission.”

He added: “The commission had access to all the Crown’s papers, and they took the view that in relation to a very limited number of grounds, the case should be referred back to the appeal court, which they did. The defence were entitled to expand the appeal beyond the grounds of referral, and they included a number of grounds which had been rejected by the commission, and the court was in the process of hearing that appeal when al-Megrahi abandoned his appeal.

“Now, whatever you think, and everyone is entitled to their view as to whether he is guilty or not, the courts took the view that following a trial and an appeal and a subsequent appeal, which was abandoned, al-Megrahi’s conviction still stands and that is the application of the rule of law.”

Mr Mulholland believes the evidence shows that the previous Libyan regime under Colonel Gaddafi was involved in “an act of state-sponsored terrorism”.

He is working with the FBI, the US Attorney-General and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to pursue investigations. “We are applying the rule of law,” he said. “If you follow the evidence, it leads to Libya.”

The Damned Crown

[This is the headline over an article by Justice for Megrahi’s secretary, Robert Forrester, published today (with an accompanying news item) on the website of Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm.  It reads in part:] 

Last week we were treated to an embarrassment of riches courtesy of Number 25 Chambers Street. Firstly, we see Scotland’s Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, jetting off to Libya accompanied by his minder, Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, in an attempt to gain some small advantage in the media war over the Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. And, secondly, we had this from a Crown Office representative: “Even if the evidence about Heathrow had been heard by the trial court, it would not have reached a different verdict. The Crown was in the process of robustly defending the investigation and conviction when Mr Megrahi chose to abandon his second appeal.” 

In this one brief, devastating statement from the Crown, any quaint notion that the public may have that the Crown serves the interests of justice rather than the aggressive securing of convictions, no matter what contrary evidence might stand in its way, is dispelled. 

Irrespective of the outcome of the first appeal, where the Heathrow break in was raised, to say that the trial court “would not have reached a different verdict” had it been aware of the evidence at the time is to grossly prejudge the outcome of the trial and in no way legitimises the withholding of evidence from the defence. In short, it is a travesty of justice.

On top of the recent accusations of the withholding of evidence by the Crown to the defence (regarding Crown witness Abdul Majid Giaka) levelled at Colin Boyd, Lord Advocate at the time of the Zeist trial, the above Crown Office statement is a response to yet further information concerning the Crown’s withholding of evidence. According to the Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, police did not submit evidence to the Crown about a break in to Heathrow airside in the vicinity of the loading bay for flight 103, which took place a matter of hours prior to the departure of the plane, until 1999 (a decade after the event was reported by Heathrow security guard Ray Manly and a year prior to the commencement of the Zeist trial). Moreover, the Crown failed to avail the defence team of the occurrence. It was only after the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi for the crime that the break in became public knowledge, when Mr Manly approached the defence team with his evidence. 

 

The Zeist trial would likely not have materialised at all had it not been for the CIA evidence garnered from Giaka. Elements of which evidence the Crown attempted to withhold from the defence. His evidence was largely dismissed by the court as being that of a fantasist. The baton of star witness then passed to Toni Gauci, a man whose evidence is riddled with inconsistency and which also seems to have come on the back of a tempting $2,000,000 carrot (plus $1,000,000 for his brother Paul) provided by the US Department of Justice. Even the key material evidence, in the form of a shard of PCB, looks highly likely to have been a plant.

Many have long maintained, with considerable justification, that the Zeist judgement of an invisible bomb suitcase operated by a simple countdown timing trigger being transferred from Malta to Frankfurt then on to Heathrow is a complete flight of overly active imaginations. There are indeed areas of the judgement, particularly surrounding Mr Gauci, that give the distinct impression that under Scots Law the burden of proof is on the defence and that the accused is guilty until proven innocent. The attitude of the Crown as displayed in this statement supports this view. 

 

What is being said is that it doesn’t matter whether or not the trial court was in possession of the evidence about the Heathrow break in since, in our estimation, al-Megrahi would still have been convicted. On the basis of what? The first appeal? One cannot prejudge the outcome of a trial of fact by the judgement of an appeal which is circumscribed by quite different parameters. Quite apart from the fact that by withholding evidence the Crown is brazenly flouting the interests of justice and is quite probably a criminal offence in itself, it demonstrates a deeply unhealthy bias on the part of the Crown, and suggests the corruption of the trial court. In short, this revealing statement speaks volumes on the attitude of the Crown to this case. It is a national outrage that the Crown should be attempting to support such practices and only acts to substantiate the increasingly commonly held view that Zeist was, what is known in the trade as, a stitch up. 

The bereaved attended Zeist innocently thinking that the Crown was serving the interests of justice. By the end of the trial many had concluded that they had been duped and that the Crown was simply aiming to produce a conviction at any cost. It now looks like they were right.

How has this come about? The now common practice of successive Scottish governments of promoting Crown Office insiders lacking wider experience and practice within the justice system surely does not help. This can only promote the type of canteen culture that Michael Mansfield QC has said afflicts the forensic services, whereby they have come to see themselves as existing to secure convictions despite what contrary evidence may be indicating. Such a practice, given that the Crown so obviously no longer serves the interests of justice, can only act to produce further miscarriages of justice. Here the Crown is saying that it doesn’t matter that we withheld evidence, you ought all to be happy that we secured a conviction against the odds that we, fortunately, were able to manipulate in our favour. And, by the way, if you want to blame anyone, blame Mr al-Megrahi for dropping his second appeal when he didn’t have to. So, it is all the fault of a man convicted on highly dubious evidence, who, upon receiving a visit from the Cabinet secretary for Justice and a delegation of Libyan representatives, suddenly and quite unexpectedly gives up hope of clearing is name in order to guarantee his repatriation and see out his last days in the company of his family. How convenient that he should drop an appeal which looked very likely to result in the quashing of his conviction. The bereaved must also be delighted to hear that the Crown is handing responsibility for the interests of justice over to a convicted mass murderer. 

 

All governments need professional advisers, without them, the work of government would come to a grinding halt. It, therefore, goes without saying that governments must invest a considerable degree of trust in these advisers. However, the current Scottish Government is going well beyond the basic and necessary trust in its legal advisers, the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office, when it says that they, the government, “do not doubt the safety of Mr al-Megrahi’s conviction.” This is blind faith. What is more, the government, at every turn, obliges the wishes of the Crown by legislating to make any formal questioning of the Zeist verdict as difficult as possible. Who was behind the formulation of the 2009 Order, which, although it was claimed that its purpose was to facilitate the publication of the SCCRC’s statement of reasons for Mr al-Megrahi’s second appeal, had the effect, due to its wording, of doing precisely the opposite? Who was behind the Criminal Cases (Punishment and Review) (Scotland) Bill, Part 2, which, again because of its wording, was ostensibly designed to do precisely the same: block the publication of the SCCRC’s statement of reasons, and which crashed and burned with the publication of the document by The Herald newspaper, to the blushes of Chambers Street? Who was behind the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Bill, section 7, emergency legislation passed when there was no emergency and which acts to allow the High Court of Justiciary to reject applications for appeal which question its own judgements? What we are witnessing here is a case of the tail wagging the dog. The Scottish government must stand up for those who elect it and question the advice it is being fed by the Crown. It is not simply that a petition is sitting open before the Justice Committee supported by 1,646 signatories garnered in a period of two weeks active online. 

With this statement from the Crown, it is clear that the institution has now most publicly and openly damned itself. The government must act if anything is ever to be salvaged of the Scottish criminal justice system. 

Perhaps before swanning off to Tripoli at the taxpayer’s expense in order to try to notch up points in the publicity war, Mr Mulholland should bear in mind that thus far the protestations of Abdel-Jalil have produced zero. Likewise the Scottish delegation that interviewed Moussa Koussa produced an own-goal when he published a statement denying Libyan involvement in Lockerbie after being released to his freedom and bank accounts to live in Qatar. And again, the efforts of UK lawyer Jason McCue to get the Libyan rebels to sign up to Libyan guilt for Lockerbie also produced a large, fat, round zero, even with the carrot of access to the nation’s frozen overseas assets being dangled in front of their noses. The attitude of the Crown being as it is, if the Lord Advocate and his associates at the FBI actually do find anything incriminating in Libya, it is plain that, whatever it is, will have to be put under an electron microscope by an independent forensic lab in a neutral country.

There are now no longer any excuses. The government is fully aware that precedent exists for opening inquiries into judicial decisions. Can of worms or no can of worms, it must be opened, and, at this stage in the proceedings, the ball is firmly in the court of the Scottish Government to resolve this issue. The Crown Office can clearly no longer be trusted in this matter. For how long is the Scottish Government going to look on as the Crown continues to fight this embarrassing rear guard action after what is tantamount to a self confession to its own gross malpractice?

A Scottish show trial has descended into farce

[This is the headline over an article by physicist and former Church of Scotland minister Dr John Cameron in today’s edition of the Scottish Review. It reads in part:]

The Sunday Herald has posted on its website the legal grounds found by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission for Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's second appeal. There was, of course, a clear public interest in making the report available and we have a right to know the nature of the SCCRC reservations and why it reached its conclusions.

It does not answer all the troubling questions which emerged in the wake of the atrocity, the investigation and the trial but it certainly casts doubt on the fairness of the verdict. Within months of the verdict three figures initiated a long protest: Dr Jim Swire (who lost his daughter), Hans Köchler (UN observer at the trial) and Nelson Mandela. Today there is hardly anyone north of the border who is not uneasy and the appeal has the support of the Kirk, the Catholic Church and the law faculties of the Scottish universities. It is also worth noting that not only his fellow prisoners but also the staff at Greenock prison believed he was innocent – usually a sign that something is seriously wrong.

The SCCRC document (a statement of reasons) sets out the grounds for referral back to the appeal court, four of which refer to the non-disclosure of evidence to the defence. This includes the main prosecution witness Tony Gauci having seen a magazine article and photograph linking Megrahi to the crime before making his 'positive' identification. There was also grave concern that Gauci knew the US would reward him with $2 million for 'successful' testimony and severe doubts about the clothing and the purchaser. A fifth reason covered 'secret' intelligence documents not seen by Megrahi's legal team while the sixth referred to new evidence on the date of clothes purchased in Malta.

I was disappointed but not surprised the commission took the forensic evidence at face value and ignored the warning of the distinguished criminal lawyer, Michael Mansfield. As he rightly says: 'Forensic science is not immutable and the biggest mistake that anyone can make is to believe that its practioners are somehow beyond reproach. Some of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history have come from cases in which the forensic science was later shown to have been grossly misleading'. There is, in fact, a 'canteen culture' in forensic science which encourages officers to see themselves as part of the prosecuting team rather than investigators seeking the truth.

In recent years no forensic-based case has caused greater concern than the Lockerbie trial and the prosecution has been widely accused of using the tactics of disinformation. The lead prosecutor was the lord advocate, Colin (later Baron) Boyd, who three years before had prosecuted the detective Shirley McKie in another forensic-based disaster. She was later compensated with £750,000 by the Scottish Executive after a botched trial based on faulty forensic evidence (...)

The involvement of the prosecuting team in the earlier fiasco to say nothing of severe doubts about the Lockerbie forensics is surely a matter of concern. The Crown Office said it had 'every confidence in successfully defending the conviction', but as Mandy Rice-Davies said at another trial, 'They would say that, wouldn't they'.

In fact the author of a magisterial study of the Lockerbie evidence, John Ashton, said it is clear the revelations have caused huge embarrassment for the judiciary. The trial was memorable for the performance of Fhimah's counsel, Richard Keen, dean of the Faculty of Advocates and one of the most brilliant legal minds of his generation. When I read his cross-examination of the forensic team of Thomas Hayes and Allen Feraday I thought as a professional physicist that he had shredded their credibility.

Edwin Bollier, who Keen scornfully and repeatedly referred to as 'a legitimate Swiss businessman', gave evidence about the timer which was shown to be pure fantasy. Keen then proceeded to demolish both Tony Gauci and Majid Giaka to such an extent that no-one in the court could be in any doubt that Lamin Fhimah had no case to answer. What I found beyond belief was that evidence which was judged farcical in the case of Fhimah was later accepted as plausible by the law lords in the case of Megrahi.

Having been involved in the appeal for many years, I would say my greatest doubts as a scientist involve the highly dubious theory that the bomb entered the system in Malta. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever an unaccompanied suitcase was secreted onto flight KM180, but Air Malta had won a libel action in 1993 establishing that it was not.

The Maltese police have always protested that this was a most unlikely scenario and the senior airport baggage loader was adamant that he always double-counted his luggage. This reliable official counted his luggage when it was finally gathered and again when it was physically loaded onto the plane and was certain there was no extra case. In fact, the idea of unaccompanied baggage with a bomb rattling around Europe before finding its way onto Pan Am 103 in London has always been widely ridiculed. The excellent screening at Frankfurt would almost certainly have picked it up and the theory added the further complication of requiring a non-barometric timer be used.

The interline baggage hall at Heathrow was notoriously insecure and John Bedford, a loader-driver employed by Pan Am had already told police of suspicious activity. He had placed a number of cases in the baggage container AVE 4041 for the flight but returned from a tea break to find a distinctive brown Samsonite case had been added. Sulkash Kamboj of the Pan Am affiliate Alert Security who told Bedford that he added the case, initially denied this to the police before finally admitting his involvement at the trial.

Whatever happens, it is a matter of the most profound regret that this Scottish show trial in the full glare of the international community has been allowed to descend into farce.

We should beware forensic evidence to secure convictions

[This is the headline over an article by Dr John Cameron, physicist and former Church of Scotland minister, in today’s edition of the Scottish Review.  It reads as follows:]

I 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.

The Maltese link is so tenuous, complex and full of assumptions it depends almost totally upon the integrity of the three forensic scientists involved – and that was a big problem. Megrahi is the only person convicted on their evidence whose conviction was not reversed on appeal.

One of the UK's foremost criminal lawyers, Michael Mansfield, has long warned against our judiciary's gross over-reliance on forensic evidence to secure convictions. He said: 'Forensic science is not immutable and the biggest mistake anyone can make is to believe its practioners are somehow beyond reproach. Some of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history have come from cases in which the forensic science was later shown to have been grossly misleading.'

There is, in fact, a kind of 'canteen culture' in forensic science which encourages officers to see themselves as part of the prosecuting team rather than seekers after truth. The scientific evidence points to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [-General Command] whose chief bomb-maker, Marwen Khreesat, was arrested in Frankfurt in December 1988.

In the boot of his car was a Toshiba cassette recorder identical to the one found later at Lockerbie with Semtex moulded inside it, a simple time delay and a barometric switch.

[In the same issue there is a contribution by David Hill which reads in part:]

With John Ashton's book blowing to smithereens any shred of credibilty left clinging to the guilty verdict on Al Megrahi (despite the BBC's selective and timid account of it) [The Herald]  led today [Tuesday 28 February] with a minor distraction about how or why the appeal was abandoned.

I know no sensible or well-informed person who believes the 'evidence' presented at the travesty at Camp Zeist would have got through a sheriff court.

I know no sensible or well-informed person who is now confident that Al Megrahi was guilty. And I recognise a growing conviction on the part of most of these preople that the sentence passed on Al Megrahi was the result of a pre-ordained and absolutely disgusting stitch between the US and the UK governments and the government of Libya to send, for whatever reasons, an innocent man to jail.

As the revelations have trickled out over the years it has become more and more probable that some in authority in Scotland were involved and I remain puzzled as to why the present Scottish Government, not in power at the the time of the trial, is dragging its feet.

I have assumed for some time that the UK, the US and particularly the Libyans have had every reason to fear an inquiry, whether a public inquiry or an Al Megrahi appeal, but once our newspapers see it as their obligation to cover up for those in power these newspapers are beyond any respect.

Forensic report on the Lockerbie bombing

[This is the title of a long article by Dr J U Cameron published yesterday on John Cameron's Blog. It reads in part:]

One of the UK’s foremost criminal lawyers, Michael Mansfield has long warned against over-reliance on forensic evidence to secure convictions. He said “Forensic science is not immutable and the biggest mistake that anyone can make is to believe that its practioners are somehow beyond reproach. Some of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history have come from cases in which the forensic science was later shown to have been grossly misleading.” There is, in fact, a kind of “canteen culture” in forensic science which encourages officers to see themselves as part of the prosecuting team rather than investigators seeking the truth.

At first this did not seem to matter in the aftermath of the destruction Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. It was quickly established by air accident investigators that there had been an explosion in the forward cargo hold in the baggage container AVE 4041. Fragments of a Samsonite suitcase which appeared to have contained the bomb were recovered, together with parts of a Toshiba Bombeat radio cassette recorder in which the bomb had been concealed. There were also items of clothing which looked as if they had also been in the case. At this stage the forensic evidence appeared robust and no credible doubt has been raised in the years since the event that this was the method by which the plane was destroyed.

The police discovered that the baggage container AVE 4041 had been loaded with interline baggage at Heathrow. The baggage had been x-rayed by Sulkash Kamboj of Alert Security, an affiliate company of Pan Am. John Bedford, a loader-driver employed by Pan Am told police that he had placed a number of cases in the container before leaving for a tea break. When he returned he found an additional two cases had been added, one of which was a distinctive brown Samsonite case. Bedford said that Kamboj had told him he had added the two cases. When questioned by the police, Kamboj denied he had added the cases or told Bedford he had done so. This matter was only resolved at the trial when under cross examination Kamboj admitted that Bedford was telling the truth.

All the evidence at this stage pointed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine –General Command (PFLP-GC). Five weeks before Lockerbie, a PFLP-GC cell was apprehended in Germany. Haffez Dalkamoni, right-hand man to the group’s leader Ahmad Jibril, and the bomb-maker, Marwen Khreesat, were arrested while visiting electrical shops in Frankfurt. In the boot of Dalkamoni’s car was a Toshiba cassette recorder with Semtex moulded inside it, a simple time delay switch and a barometric switch. Under German police interrogation, Dalkamoni admitted he had supervised Khreesat when he built bombs into a Toshiba radio cassette player, two radio tuners and a TV monitor. He also admitted that Khreesat had built other bombs including a second Toshiba containing similar pressure switches but he claimed to have no knowledge of its whereabouts.

The involvement of the PFLP-GC was consistent with what was assumed at the time to be the motive for the Pan Am atrocity. In July 1988 Iran Air Flight 655, a passenger jet containing some 300 Iranian pilgrims, had been shot down over the Persian Gulf by the renegade US battlecruiser Vincennes. Not only did America refuse to apologize, the captain of the ship and his gunnery officer were decorated for their actions. This crass behaviour caused outrage within Iran and throughout the Middle East. Tehran Radio condemned the attack as an act of naked aggression and announced it would be avenged ‘in blood-splattered skies’.

Soon the US Air Force Command was issuing warnings to its civilian contractors: ‘We believe Iran will strike back in a tit for tat fashion with mass casualties.’ Later warnings were more specific: ‘We believe Europe is the likely target for a retaliatory attack due to the large concentration of Americans and the established terrorist infrastructures in place throughout Europe.’

Within weeks the CIA reported that Ahmad Jibril, the leader of the PFLP-GC had met government officials in Iran and offered his services. Interpol circulated warnings about the PFLP-GC bombs to all European airports. Heathrow Airport issued its own warning to security staff, stating that it was ‘imperative that when screening or searching radios, radio cassette players and other electrical equipment, staff remain extra vigilant’. After the arrest of the PFLP-GC cell Heathrow received more information, including photographs of the Toshiba bomb from the German authorities.

In the aftermath of Lockerbie, all the Toshiba cassette bombs seized by the Germans were tested and found to run for 30 minutes after they were set. The advantage of the barometric timer employed is that it is not activated until the plane is airborne so the bomb will not go off on the ground if the flight is delayed. Some seven or eight minutes will elapse as the aircraft gains height and the air pressure drops enough to activate a barometric timer set to go off 30 minutes later, i.e. 37 or 38 minutes after the flight took off. It was precisely 38 minutes after Pan Am Flight 103 took off from Heathrow on 21 December 1988 that it exploded over Lockerbie.

The clothing thought to have been in the suitcase with the bomb contained labels which allowed the items to be traced to a shop in Malta. A member of Dalkamoni’s cell, Abu Talb, who was then awaiting trial for separate offences in Sweden, was known to have visited Malta shortly before the atrocity. When first questioned the owner of the shop, Tony Gauci, described the purchaser of the clothes as a dark-skinned, 50 year old man over six feet in height – which fitted Abu Talb – and identified him from a photograph.

The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) issued a memo on September 24th, 1989 which stated, “The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran’s former interior minister. The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad Jibril, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command leader, for a sum of $1m. $100,000 of this money was given to Jibril up front in Damascus by the Iranian ambassador to Syria, Muhammad Hussan Akhari for initial expenses. The remainder of the money was to be paid after successful completion of the mission.”

A DIA briefing in December 1989 entitled “Pan Am 103, Deadly Co-operation” confirmed the American belief that Iran was the state sponsor of the bombing. It claimed that the PFLP-GC was “fast becoming an Iranian proxy” and that the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 to avenge the shooting down of the Iran Air 655 airbus was the result of such Iranian and PFLP-GC co-operation. It specifically discounted Libya’s involvement in the bombing on the basis that there was “no current credible intelligence” implicating her. It stated: “Following a brief increase in anti-US terrorist attacks after the US airstrike on Libya in 1986, Gaddafi has made an effort to distance Libya from terrorist attacks.”

Then, in August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait thereby putting at risk the stability of the Saudi and Gulf sheikhdoms on which the West depended to preserve the status quo in the region. A sudden shift of alliances was necessary. If Iraq was to be confronted, then Iran had to be treated with kid gloves and the Syrian regime must be brought on board. At the beginning of 1991 Syrians joined Western troops in the attack on Saddam’s invading army and the increasingly isolated Colonel Gadaffi gradually became the chief suspect on the Lockerbie bombing.

As a result of the change in overall narrative and the fact that there had been absolutely no Libyan activity in London, interest in Heathrow as the scene of the bomb planting suddenly ceased. Now the Maltese connection became crucial. Heretofore it had simply been assumed the clothes were purchased at a Maltese tourist shop in preference to the more regulated shops of Frankfurt or London.

But there was a long standing connection between Malta and Libya which survived all the twists and turns of international diplomacy. In particular, it was one of the key conduits through which essential supplies could be transferred to Tripoli when Gaddafi’s behaviour had provoked yet another set of sanctions being imposed on his country.

The purchaser of the clothes in Tony Gauci’s shop in Malta now magically morphed from a non-Libyan giant in late middle age to a youthful, 5’ 7” tall Libyan in his mid-thirties. His name, it appeared was Abdelbaset al Megrahi, head of security for Libyan Airlines. Educated in the USA and Britain, he was also director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli. A cosmopolitan figure with a wide range of international contacts it was rumoured that he was used by Libya to import essentials during periods of sanctions. The claim that he had suddenly changed into a terrorist bomber was met with derision at home and abroad. The idea that he and his colleague Khalifah Fhimah, the station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines at Luqa Airport in Malta, had somehow secreted an unaccompanied suit case onto flight KM180 was thought to be absurd.

The Maltese police also protested that this was a most unlikely scenario. They had questioned the senior airport baggage loader who was adamant that he always double-counted his luggage: once when it was finally gathered and again as it was physically loaded onto the plane. This extremely reliable official was absolutely certain that there were no unaccompanied cases in the luggage that he counted on to the flight. In fact, not only was there no evidence that the bomb had been put on board in Malta, but Air Malta had won a libel action in 1993 establishing that it was not!

The theory that the bomb entered the system in Malta as a piece of unaccompanied baggage and rattled around Europe before finding its way onto Pan Am 103 in London was widely ridiculed. The excellent screening at Frankfurt would have surely picked it up or, if not, it could well have been lost on the twilight zone of European baggage handling. But the greatest problem lay with the barometric trigger which would have caused flight KM180 to explode 38 minutes into the first leg to Frankfurt. This was the moment when the forensic scientists stepped up to the plate.

The two British scientists involved in the Lockerbie case were the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment’s Alan Feraday and Thomas Hayes. Charred material found some weeks after the bombing in woods near Lockerbie in mysterious circumstances had been sent for analysis to explosives laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent. According to his later testimony Hayes teased out the cloth of one piece of the material, later identified as the neckband of a grey Slalom-brand shirt. Within it he found fragments of white paper, fragments of black plastic, a fragment of metal and a fragment of wire mesh—all subsequently found to be parts of a Toshiba RT-SF 16 and its manual. Hayes testified that he also found embedded a half-inch fragment of circuit board.

The next reference to this famous circuit board fragment occurred when Alan Feraday sent a Polaroid photograph of it to the police officer leading the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector William Williamson, asking for help in identification. In June 1990, Feraday and DCI Williamson visited FBI headquarters in Washington and together with Thomas Thurman, an FBI explosives expert, finally identified the fragment as being part of a timer circuit board.

Thurman’s involvement in identifying the fragment later proved highly controversial because in spite of his claim to be an “explosives forensic expert” he had no formal scientific qualifications whatsoever. He read politics at university and had somehow drifted into the FBI Labs. Worse was to follow when in 1997 the US Inspector-General Michael Bromwich, issued a report stating that in other trials Thurman had “circumvented procedures and protocols, testified to areas of expertise that he had no qualifications and fabricated evidence”. Numerous defendants had to be released and Thurman was fortunate not to be prosecuted himself. He was fired from the FBI labs and banned from acting as an expert witness in any other court case.

Thurman could not therefore give evidence at the Lockerbie trial and the Crown’s case would be further damaged when the testimony of his UK counterpart, Alan Feraday, was called into question. In three separate cases — where Feraday had been the expert witness — men against whom he gave evidence have had their convictions overturned. Like Thurman, Feraday was not actually a professional scientist and in 2005, after yet another successful appeal, the Chief Lord Justice said that “under no circumstances should Feraday be allowed to present himself as an expert witness in electronics”.

By the time of the trial the career of Thomas Hayes was also over because a British Parliamentary inquiry had found he had conspired to withhold evidence in the notorious trial of the Maguire Seven. Sir John May had said, “The whole scientific basis on which the prosecution was founded was in truth so vitiated that on this basis alone the conviction should be set aside.” Hayes jumped before he was pushed and by the time of the trial was working as a chiropodist.

As the argument for a Maltese connection and Libyan involvement progressed the tiny fragment of circuit board became increasingly important. Thurman now “indentified” it as part of a batch made by the Swiss manufacturer Mebo for the Libyan military. This was not the simple design thought to have been used in the Pan Am 103 bombing but a complex type of long timer. Edwin Bollier later revealed that he declined an offer of $4 million by the FBI to testify that the fragment was indeed part of the Mebo MST-13 timer. Fortunately one of his employees, Ulrich Lumpert, was prevailed upon to do so at the trial though later, in a sworn affidavit, he would admit he had lied. The other co-owner of Mebo, Erwin Meister, confirmed that MST–13 timers had been sold to Libya and helpfully identified Megrahi as a “former business contact”.

All the ducks were finally in a line and the Anglo-American authorities indicted the two Libyan suspects in November 1991. Gaddafi was then ordered to extradite them for trial in either the United Kingdom or the United States. Since no bilateral extradition treaty was in force between any of the three countries, he refused to hand the men over but did offer to detain them for trial in Libya, as long as all the incriminating evidence was provided. The offer was unacceptable to the US and UK, and there was an impasse for the next three years.

In November 1994, President Nelson Mandela offered South Africaas 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.

A compromise solution was eventually engineered by the legal academic Professor Robert Black of Edinburgh University of a trial in the Netherlands governed by Scots law. Since this was in accordance with the New Labour government’s promotion of an “ethical” foreign policy, it was given political impetus by the then foreign secretary, Robin Cook. A special High Court of Justiciary was set up in a disused United States Air Force base called Camp Zeist in Utrecht.

In recent years no forensic-based case has caused greater concern than the Lockerbie trial and the prosecution has been widely accused of using the tactics of disinformation. The lead prosecutor was the highly controversial Lord Advocate, Colin (later Baron) Boyd who three years before had prosecuted DC McKie in another forensic disaster. The policewoman denied an accusation by Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) fingerprint officers that she left her thumb print at a murder scene in January 1997. She was arrested in March 1998, charged with perjury but at her trial in May 1999 the SCRO fingerprint evidence was rejected out of hand and she was acquitted.

A senior Scottish police officer, James Mackay QPM, was appointed by the Crown Office to investigate the matter and he submitted his report to Boyd in October 2000. It found that the actions of the SCRO personnel amounted to 'collective manipulation and collusion' and four of them were immediately suspended by the SCRO. With the Lockerbie trial in full swing Boyd was obviously reluctant to prosecute the officers involved and to great public indignation he allowed them to be reinstated. It would clearly have damaged his fragile case in the Lockerbie trial to have four of Scotland’s forensic scientists prosecuted for covering up acts of criminality. The finger-print scandal was only resolved in 2006 when the policewoman was awarded £750,000 compensation and Boyd was rightly forced to resign as Lord Advocate.

There were profound inconsistencies in much of the evidence presented to the trial. For instance, the entry of the discovery of the timer fragment was recorded at widely different times by UK and German investigators. The German police files indicate that fragments of the bomb timer were found on the shirt in January 1990. So the shirt collar could hardly have been examined nor the items of evidence extracted on 12 May 1989 as was claimed by Hayes at the trial. German documents also contain photographs showing a piece of the shirt with most of the breast pocket undamaged but the images presented to the trial were different.

It is also disconcerting that an additional page was inserted into the evidence log detailing the discovery of the Slalom shirt with particles of the bomb timer on it. The record of the discovery was inserted into a loose-leaf folder with the five subsequent pages re-numbered by hand – a procedure for which the scientist could offer no explanation at the trial. The prosecution’s evidence looked at times like a co-coordinated effort to mislead the court. Yet the Judges helpfully concluded that the compromised evidence log did not matter because “each item that was examined had the date of examination incorporated into the notes.”

During the trial, MeBo engineer Ulrich Lumpert – whose evidence was crucial in connecting the famous fragment to the Libyan batch – caused consternation by adding that the fragment on display belonged to a timer that had never been connected to a relay, ie had not triggered a bomb. This claim could not be countered by the prosecution because Hayes had inexplicably not thought it necessary to test the tiny timer fragment for explosive residue. However, given their conduct of the trial it came as no surprise that the three Scottish judges were untroubled by what should have been a disaster for the prosecution.

The lead judge was the veteran Lord Sutherland accompanied by an inveterate tribunal chairman, Lord Coulsfield, and the sentencing and parole expert Lord MacLean. They admitted the uncertainties in the testimony and the dangers inherent in “selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together and ignoring parts which do not fit”. They also admitted it was possible they were “reading into a mass of conflicting evidence a pattern and conclusion which was not really justified” but ploughed on regardless.

In the end, the judges accepted that the absence of a credible explanation of how the suitcase was placed into the system at Luqa airport was “a major difficulty for the Crown case”. However they still managed to convince themselves that this was indeed what had happened. “When the evidence regarding the clothing, the purchaser and the timer is taken with the evidence that an unaccompanied bag was taken from KM180 to PA103A, the inference that that was the primary suitcase becomes, in our view, irresistible.” This statement was met with derision in Scotland and rightly dismissed as “inference piled upon inference”.

The judges further accepted that the PFLP-GC were also engaged in terrorist activities during the same period but found “no evidence from which we could infer that they were involved in this particular act of terrorism, and the evidence relating to their activities does not create a reasonable doubt in our minds about the Libyan origin of this crime.”

If most observers found this a very odd way of looking at the evidence, the final decisions of the judges provoked utter consternation. It appeared beyond any shadow of a doubt that the two accused were either both guilty or both not guilty but the Law Lords managed to find clear blue water between them. The judges were unanimous in finding the second accused, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, not guilty of the murder charge. He was freed and he returned to Libya on 1 February 2001.

As for Abdelbaset al-Megrahi the judges said: “There is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the first accused, and accordingly we find him guilty of the remaining charge in the indictment.” Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommendation that he should serve at least 20 years before being eligible for parole.

Huge doubts remain about the prosecution’s case and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in 2007 found prima facie evidence of a miscarriage of justice. It is clear from their report that the unreliability of the prosecution’s key witness Tony Gauci was one of the main reasons for the referral of Megrahi’s case back to the Appeal Court. Gauci had been interviewed 17 times by Scottish and Maltese police during which he gave a series of inconclusive statements and there was evidence that leading questions had been put to him. Gauci was clearly not the “full shilling” as Lord Fraser, Scotland’s senior law officer during the investigation, had admitted. And yet he was not entirely stupid. The Americans paid him $2 million for his revised identification and he now resides in comfortable obscurity in Malta.

The review commission also discovered that the prosecution failed to disclose a document from a foreign power which confirmed beyond any shadow of a doubt that the bomb timer was supplied to countries other than Libya. This document, passed to the commission by the foreign power in question, contained considerable detail about the method used to conceal the bomb and linked it to the PFLP-GC, the first suspects in the investigation. Moreover, the Iranian defector Abolghasem Mesbahi, who provided intelligence for the Germans, had already told the prosecutors in 1996 that the bombing been ordered by Tehran, not Tripoli.

Scientists generally recommend selecting the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions. Known as Occam’s razor, we use it to cut out crazy, complicated constructions and to keep theories grounded in the laws of science. The Maltese evidence linking Megrahi to the atrocity is so fragile, so complex and so full of unsupported assumptions it depends almost totally upon the integrity of the forensic scientists. It is therefore unfortunate that it would be difficult to find three more disreputable practioners than Thurman, Hayes and Feraday. It should be a matter of deep concern that Megrahi is the only man convicted on the evidence of these three individuals whose conviction was not reversed on appeal.

There is also no credible evidence that the clothes from Tony Gauci’s shop found among the Lockerbie wreckage were really bought on the day stated in the trial. The sale seemed much more likely to have happened on a day when Abu Talb was on Malta and Megrahi definitely was not. It is also known that when the Swedish police arrested Abu Talb for a different terrorist offence they found some of the same batch of clothing in his flat in Uppsala. No explanation for that was forthcoming at the trial.

Finally, the behaviour of the chief prosecutor Colin Boyd, both in concealing the nefarious activity of his forensic scientists and withholding essential evidence from the defence, is utterly reprehensible. Together with lack of moral fiber shown by Lord Cullen and the Court of Criminal Appeal [at Megrahi's first appeal] it has left a permanent stain on the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system.

Megrahi's conviction "entirely unsustainable"

The White House has told Scottish Ministers that they should return the Lockerbie bomber to jail in Scotland, amid fresh calls for a full public inquiry into his conviction and subsequent release.

John Brennan, counter-terrorism adviser to President Barack Obama, said Washington had expressed "strong conviction" to officials in Edinburgh over what he described as the "unfortunate and inappropriate and wrong decision" to free Abdelbaset Al Megrahi. (...)

But campaigners who believe in Megrahi's innocence are now arguing that the backlash over his freeing should not obscure more fundamental questions surrounding his conviction.

It came as it emerged that the Egyptian-born terrorist Mohammed Abu Talb - the man many suspect as the real figure behind the bomb - was released from jail in Sweden.

Michael Mansfield QC, one of the country's best-known defence lawyers, said a full judicial inquiry was required to settle the doubts over the case. Mansfield said he had no doubt that the evidence given to secure Megrahi's conviction was "entirely unsustainable".

[From a report in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday.

The same newspaper runs an opinion piece by Kenny Farquharson headlined "Scotland itself is in the dock" arguing that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice should go to Washington to testify on the compassionate release decision before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As is so often the case with Scotsman publications these days, the readers' comments are much more interesting than the article.]

Lockerbie families lobby Gordon Brown for public inquiry

[This is the headline over an article just published on the Telegraph website. The following are excerpts.]

More than two decades have passed since Britain’s worst terrorist attack but the relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing remain united by a single common goal: the pursuit of the truth.

This weekend 11 of them descended on Downing Street to urge the Prime Minister to order a public inquiry into the atrocity that claimed 270 lives when Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to New York was brought down over Scotland.

Pam Dix, a prominent campaigner, handed over a letter addressed to Gordon Brown calling for a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss the need for a public inquiry and the main issues that it must address.

The families of those who died on Dec 21 1988 – 259 on the flight and 11 on the ground in Lockerbie – have been spurred into renewed action by the release in August, on humanitarian grounds, of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, 57, the only man convicted of the bombing. Megrahi, who has returned to his homeland of Libya, has terminal prostate cancer and may only have weeks, or even days, to live.

The relatives believe that a public inquiry offers the last realistic hope of finding out how and why their loves ones perished.

They are worried that without it their chances of learning the truth could end when Megrahi dies.

Ms Dix, whose brother Peter Dix, 35, was on the doomed Pan Am jet, said: “One of the central purposes of a full inquiry would be finally to scotch the many, often outlandish, conspiracy theories that exist around Lockerbie and why and how it happened. To take Megrahi and the criminal investigation: there are those who believe he is innocent, those who believe he is guilty and those somewhere in the middle – like me – who believe that they simply don’t know.

“Our adversarial system [of criminal law] means that it all hangs on the balance of reasonable doubt – it is not really about getting to the bottom of the matter. I found the trial process [in the Netherlands from 2000-01] baffling and very disappointing – my expectations were that it would at least take us further along the road to who might have been responsible.

“The UK has a fine tradition of public, independent inquiries that have been watershed events in changing our approach to the way in which an individual murder as well as disaster – the Herald of Free Enterprise, Stephen Lawrence, the Marchioness – for example, is investigated and how people are treated. These inquiries have all resulted in highly significant recommendations. The sad and unacceptable fact, however, is that such inquiries usually come about only because of the efforts of the bereaved and survivors. This must be wrong.”

Ms Dix said that, like the other relatives, she feels she owes it to her late brother, an Irishman, to press for major breakthroughs in the Lockerbie story. (...)

The Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga, 19, died in the Lockerbie tragedy, said: “We are still waiting for answers to the big questions, notably why this happened despite 14 or 15 explicit warnings. This was a preventable disaster.”

Until Megrahi’s release, the relatives were pinning their hopes on the new evidence that had been due to be made public at his second appeal hearing.

The appeal had been permitted in 2007 after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission uncovered six separate grounds for believing the conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice. However, Megrahi dropped his appeal two days before his release to improve his chances of being allowed to gain his freedom.

Those supporting the relatives’ call for a public inquiry include senior lawyers Gareth Peirce, Michael Mansfield QC, and Prof Robert Black QC, the “architect” of the Lockerbie trial.

Elaine Wright, a retired consultant psychiatrist whose son Andrew Gillies-Wright, 24, was another Lockerbie victim, said: “From our earliest meetings, all we wanted to establish was the truth.

“But we still haven’t found out what really happened and we must not allow this opportunity [the publicity resulting from the release of Megrahi] to slip away.” (...)

However, there was little encouragement for the relatives from Downing Street yesterday . A spokesman said: “We have received the letter and we will be responding to it. But in the past, the Foreign Office has said that the Scottish courts have made a decision in the case – and we still have a convicted individual. It is our belief that nothing can be gained from a public inquiry.”