Police appoint independent QC to oversee investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Lockerbie prosecutors

[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of The Herald. It reads as follows:]

Police Scotland is close to ending a two-year probe in to allegations of criminality by Lockerbie investigators and prosecutors.

In an unusual move, the national force has has appointed an independent QC to advise it on the inquiry because it could not ask Crown lawyers to assess evidence of alleged wrongdoing against the Crown.

Detectives are investigating nine allegations made by the Justice for Megrahi or JFM group, who believe that the only man ever convicted of the 1988 bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Mr Megrahi died in his native Libya in 2012 protesting his innocence despite his 2001 conviction at a specially convened Scottish court in the Netherlands.

Crown officials have stressed that the Lockerbie case remains live and that they have not ruled out further prosecutions.

Police Scotland has been looking in to the JFM allegations since February 2014 under Operation Sandwood. The campaign group has been lobbying for an independent prosecutor to investigate. The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, has previously said he will appoint a QC to deal with any report from the police. This person would not be the same person as the senior advocate advising the police. [RB: A media conference organised by Justice for Megrahi to be held in Edinburgh today will consider the Lord Advocate’s proposal for dealing with the Operation Sandwood report.]

Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone has now written to the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament confirming progress.

He said the allegations were "diverse in nature, resulting in a protracted inquiry".

Mr Livingstone added: "It has required a detailed and methodical approach, to ensure the necessary rigour to investigate the matter of complexity and sensitivity raised.

"As a result the investigation has taken longer than initially assessed.

"I can nevertheless confirm that the investigation has entered its final phase. A detailed report will be submitted by the senior investigating officer to me within the next two months.

"To ensure the critical requirement of demonstrating independence from the Crown, the report will be scrutinised by the independent Queen's Council appointed by Police Scotland."

Detective Superintendent Stuart Johnstone, Senior Investigating Officer for Operation Sandwood, said:

"The Operation Sandwood enquiry into nine allegations by the Justice for Megrahi group is still ongoing; it started in February 2014.

"The operation is reaching its final stages and is being dealt with as a major investigation by Police Scotland.

"A draft report is in the progress of being compiled, drawing on the findings and conclusions of two years of detailed examination and investigation.

"To ensure the critical requirement of demonstrating independence form the Crown, the report and its findings will be scrutinised and assessed by the independent Queen’s Counsel appointed by Police Scotland to provide independent direction and advice."

Lockerbie: the investigation remains live

[This is the headline over the fifth and final instalment of Dr Morag Kerr’s series of articles on the Lockerbie case. It appears in the April edition of iScot magazine and reads in part:]

Not even those who believed Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was guilty of the Lockerbie bombing ever imagined he acted alone.  This was always understood to have been an act of state-sponsored terrorism, and the official line was that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had ordered the attack in revenge for the US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi two years earlier in 1986.  Megrahi was merely the pawn who had been caught.  However, the acquittal of his co-accused Lamin Fhimah, who had originally been proposed as the man who put the bomb on the plane, left the identity of the other conspirators entirely up in the air.

Recognising this, the Lockerbie investigation remained live even after Megrahi’s conviction.  Initially it was largely a paper exercise, and the search for his supposed accomplices was seldom mentioned before August 2009, when he was released on compassionate grounds.  Instead the debate centred around whether Megrahi himself had been wrongly convicted, with the SCCRC report of 2007 enumerating no less than six grounds on which they believed a miscarriage of justice might have occurred.

Megrahi’s abandoning of the resulting appeal a few days before his release is mired in controversy.  On the face of it, the timing strongly implies some sort of quid pro quo.  His advocate Maggie Scott stated straight out that her client had been forced to give up the appeal as a condition of being allowed to return to Libya, but Kenny MacAskill, Justice Secretary at the time, has always denied putting pressure on Megrahi.

Following Megrahi’s return to Libya the Crown Office announced that it was pursuing fresh inquiries into the circumstances of the bombing, with a team of detectives assigned to the case and forensic evidence being reviewed.  Initially this was assumed to be a new, open-minded investigation prompted by the very real doubts highlighted by the SCCRC.  However, it soon became clear that it was anything but.  Despite Megrahi’s continuing protestations of innocence and the SCCRC’s findings remaining untested in court, the Crown Office decided to treat his withdrawal of appeal proceedings as a de facto admission of guilt.  There was to be no question of reconsidering the case against Megrahi.  The new investigation was focussed, exclusively, on identifying his presumed accomplices.

Initially the Gaddafi regime provided at least token co-operation, but little progress was made in the first two years.  In late 2011 the fall of Gaddafi  provided an entirely new playing field, with the Libyan rebels anxious to curry favour with the western powers, and in particular to lay the blame for every evil deed of the past forty years firmly at Gaddafi’s feet.  Nevertheless, this again amounted to very little.  The only relevant document found in the aftermath of Gaddafi’s overthrow was a letter from Megrahi to a Libyan official, in which he protested his innocence and asked for help to clear his name.  Several renegade Gaddafi-era officials anxious to reposition themselves in the new order advertised that they had evidence that Gaddafi had personally ordered the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, but this “evidence” turned out to be no more than a declaration that Megrahi wouldn’t have dared to do such a thing without an express order from Gaddafi, and pointing out the well-known fact that Gaddafi had paid for Megrahi’s legal representation and supported him while he was in prison.  The Crown Office issued periodic press releases emphasising their commitment to identifying the “others” with whom Megrahi had supposedly acted, but details of any actual progress were scanty to nonexistent.

Meanwhile those campaigning for Megrahi’s conviction to be reviewed were also active.  Members of the committee of Justice for Megrahi were concerned that not only were there serious grounds for believing the conviction to be a miscarriage of justice, but that the original inquiry and court proceedings might well have been tainted by misconduct.  After considerable discussion and soul-searching it was decided to lay these suspicions before the relevant authorities.

Formal allegations of criminality were drawn up against a number of individuals involved in both the 1988-92 police investigation and the 2000-01 court proceedings, eventually amounting to nine allegations in total supported by a 63-page dossier of evidence and legal argument.  Given that these allegations involved members of the Dumfries and Galloway police force and Crown Office personnel, it was difficult to know to whom the dossier should be submitted.  Accused bodies can’t themselves investigate the accusations against them – can they?  A letter was sent to Kenny MacAskill asking, in confidence, how Justice for Megrahi should proceed.

The reply was that the allegations should be submitted to the Dumfries and Galloway constabulary.  While JFM was unhappy with this instruction there was no option but to comply, and the dossier was sent to the then Chief Constable of the D&G, Patrick Shearer.  The reaction from the Crown Office was even more disconcerting.  Even before the detailed allegations had been submitted the Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland branded them “deliberately false and malicious” in the pages of the Scotsman, and dismissed the Justice for Megrahi group as “conspiracy theorists”.

The initial 2013 investigation of the allegations was unimpressive. (...)

The establishment of Police Scotland, combined with some pointed complaints, heralded a transformation.  A team of detectives was assigned to investigate the allegations, codenamed “Operation Sandwood”.  These officers have been working diligently on the material submitted by JFM for over two years.  Although a report was originally expected by the summer of 2015, the need to follow up additional leads and the desire to do a thorough job caused this to be postponed, and submission is currently expected in May 2016.

The allegations cover three main headings.  First, that the original police and forensic investigation ignored or sidelined crucial evidence demonstrating that the bomb was already in the baggage container an hour before the feeder flight from Frankfurt landed at Heathrow.  Second, that while police and forensic investigators knew very well that the metallurgical analysis of the printed circuit board fragment PT/35b showed that it had never been part of one of the MST-13 timers supplied to the Libyan armed forces, this information was concealed from the defence and the court, even to the point of a witness giving misleading testimony in the witness box.  Third, that the handling of the witness Tony Gauci was improper even by the standards of 1991-92, with the police investigation focussed on acquiring statements that could be represented as identifying Megrahi as the man who bought the clothes packed in the bomb suitcase rather than investigating dispassionately whether this was actually likely to be the case.  A fourth ground concerns misleading and untrue information supplied to the court by a member of the prosecution team, concerning the credibility of the witness Abdul Majid Giaka.

Thus, for the past two years, two fundamentally conflicting Lockerbie inquiries have been ongoing within Police Scotland.  The Crown Office’s own investigation, predicated entirely on the assumption that the bomb was introduced into the airport baggage system on Malta, and Operation Sandwood, which is examining evidence showing that the crime happened at Heathrow airport.  Something has to give.

The Lord Advocate has made it entirely clear that he gives credence to one position and one position only, the Malta origin theory. (...)

Operation Sandwood is due to submit its report in a few weeks time.  The dispute now centres on who will consider that report and decide whether charges should be brought as a result of the investigation.  As Crown Office personnel are among those accused, Justice for Megrahi strongly believes that the Crown Office should stand aside in favour of an independent prosecutor appointed from another jurisdiction.  The Lord Advocate however insists that the report will be considered by the Crown Office, merely conceding that he will not personally become involved in the process.

The Lord Advocate has fatally compromised his own position.  He has repeatedly attacked Justice for Megrahi in the most intemperate manner, publicly denouncing the original allegations as “defamatory, deliberately false and malicious” before he had even read them.  How or why the organisation he heads should not be excluded from the process on the same grounds has not been explained.  At a press conference on 16th March 2016 Mr. Len Murray, one of Scotland's most distinguished court practitioners and committee member of Justice for Megrahi, denounced Mr. Mulholland’s behaviour as scandalous and declared that his position was now untenable.

Nevertheless, this is perhaps not the fundamental issue.  If Operation Sandwood recommends criminal proceedings should follow as a result of their investigations, the law should take its course.  However, such a recommendation is by no means certain.  If there is insufficient evidence of wrongdoing to warrant any prosecutions, should the matter end there?

The reputation of Scotland’s criminal justice system rests on how this matter is handled.  A scandal of monumental proportions is brewing.  If the Operation Sandwood report confirms that the original Lockerbie investigation was completely off the rails, that it was looking for the bomb in the wrong airport, that it accused Libya on the basis of a fragment of printed circuit board that was never part of a device supplied to that country, and that it cajoled and bribed a witness to identify a man he’d never seen before as the purchaser of the clothes packed in the bomb suitcase, this cannot and must not be buried in top secret archives to spare the blushes of the Crown Office.

The answer to the most fundamental question about the Lockerbie disaster lies within the report being prepared by the Operation Sandwood detectives.  Where did the bomb that blew apart Pan Am flight 103 nearly six miles above the town begin its journey?  The people of Scotland, and the relatives of the dead, have the right to know.

[RB: This blog’s coverage of the four previous articles by Dr Kerr can be found here.]

Lockerbie: Campaigners fight to clear bomber's name

[This is the headline over an article published today on the STV News website. It reads in part:]

It's been three decades since Pan Am flight 103 blew up over the town of Lockerbie.

Only one man has ever been brought to justice for the attack, which claimed 270 lives. (...)

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was jailed for 27 years in 2001 before being released in 2009 on compassionate grounds as he battled cancer, shortly after abandoning his appeal.

His supporters, though, to continue to contest his conviction and hope he will one day be cleared.

They include relatives of Lockerbie victims, including Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Fiona died in the bombing.

Al Megrahi's conviction is currently being studied by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC).

His family filed an application to have his conviction overturned in July last year.

In May this year, the SCCRC announced that it would carry out a full review and decide whether an appeal against the conviction could be made.

Speaking at the time, the family's solicitor Aamer Anwar said: "When Mr Megrahi abandoned his appeal it simply didn't make sense.

"He had maintained his innocence until his dying breath, so nobody could understand why all of sudden he would drop it.

"There have always been allegations that the UK Government applied pressure to him and others, including the Libyan government, over the appeal.

"That is a matter that will be addressed at a later stage.

"But the commission has accepted there was a genuine and reasonable belief by Mr Megrahi that unless he dropped his appeal then he would simply die in prison in Scotland."

They're expected to make their ruling early in 2019.

In November, a four-year Police Scotland probe, known as Operation Sandwood, into the handling of the bombing investigation and prosecution found no evidence of criminality.

It came after nine allegations were made by the Justice for Megrahi campaign group.

They welcomed the police report and said the findings will be of importance to many of the issues being considered by the SCCRC

The group said: "The Operation Sandwood investigation has resulted in a seminal report which has examined many of the controversies which have arisen over the past 30 years.

"We believe that Police Scotland conducted their enquiry with thoroughness and integrity and we thank them for the work they have carried out."

Materials gathered during Operation Sandwood have now been handed over to the Crown Office.

A Crown Office spokesman said: "The Lord Advocate has been informed by the chief constable of the findings of the Operation Sandwood investigation and of the chief constable's conclusion, informed by the advice of independent senior counsel, that no evidence of any criminality was found.

"The findings contain material relevant to the live investigation into the Lockerbie bombing and to the SCCRC consideration of the case.

"On that basis, the documents have been passed to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service team dealing with the live investigation so that they can be given appropriate consideration."

[RB : The article continues with a useful timeline on the Lockerbie criminal case. The headline is, of course, in need of improvement. In an article like this, Megrahi should rather be referred to as "the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing" as, for example, The Herald always does.]

Independent consideration needed for "Operation Sandwood" Lockerbie report

[This is the headline over an item posted yesterday on the website of The Journal of the Law Society of Scotland. It reads as follows:]

Lord Advocate and Crown Office would be "judge and jury in own cause"

by Robert Forrester

I am writing as secretary of Justice for Megrahi (JfM), a single purpose group which campaigns for the truth to be revealed about the Lockerbie Pan Am disaster in 1988.

As the 27th anniversary approaches on 21 December, we are contacting as many individuals and organisations as we can who are engaged with and interested in the Scottish justice system, alerting them to a situation which we believe is unparalleled in our legal history and to enlist their support.

In 2012 JfM made nine criminal allegations in connection with the Lockerbie investigation and trial which, if supported, not only throw serious doubt on Mr Megrahi’s conviction but also point to possible malpractice by Crown Office personnel, police and other prosecution witnesses involved in this investigation and trial.

In April 2013 the initial police enquiry was upgraded by Police Scotland when they launched a major criminal investigation codenamed "Operation Sandwood", which will report on our allegations to the Crown Office early next year.

We believe that by their continuing actions the Lord Advocate and Crown Office have totally disqualified themselves from considering this report.

We cite two main reasons:

• Some of the allegations relate to Crown Office personnel and thus they cannot be judge and jury in their own cause.
• The Lord Advocate and Crown Office have already come to a view on these allegations, in that they have publicly described the JfM complainers as "conspiracy theorists", and dismissed the allegations as "defamatory and entirely unfounded… deliberately false and misleading".

These views were first expressed before the police initiated their investigations and subsequently while they were in progress, and were clearly intended to undermine the credibility of the allegations and those who made them.

We would also draw your attention to the repeated public statements by the Lord Advocate and Crown Office that their whole focus is on tracing Mr Megrahi’s accomplices in Libya and elsewhere.

Should the ongoing Operation Sandwood investigations substantiate any of our allegations, then these very authorities will be forced to consider conclusions that they have consistently publicly decried.

It is this very public bias and prejudice evinced by the Crown authorities that convinces us they cannot be allowed to be the final arbiters of the Operation Sandwood report.

Our request for the police report to be considered by a prosecutor totally independent of the Crown has been dismissed by the Lord Advocate.

A plea to the Scottish Government to intervene and ensure an open and accountable consideration of the police report has also been peremptorily dismissed.

If you share our concerns, we would urge you to support our efforts to obtain an independent consideration of the police report by responding with your views to me at forrester.robert@gmail.com. If you wish any further information, please contact me.

The best source of information on Lockerbie and JfM’s ongoing campaign can be found on The Lockerbie Case blog run by Professor Bob Black QC, Emeritus Professor of Scots Law, Edinburgh University, at lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk.

Inquiry findings "have relevance to potential appeal against conviction"

[There are numerous reports in the media today about the conclusion of Police Scotland's Operation Sandwood. What follows is excerpted from the coverage in The Guardian which is based on material provided by the Press Association news agency:]

Police have found no evidence of criminality in relation to the handling of the investigation and prosecution of the Lockerbie bombing case following a long-running investigation.

A team of detectives spent four years examining nine allegations made by the Justice for Megrahi campaign group in an investigation called Operation Sandwood.

Pan Am flight 103 was on its way from London to New York when it exploded above Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, killing 270 people.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001, the only person found guilty of the bombing.

He was jailed for 27 years but died of prostate cancer aged 60 in 2012 after being released on compassionate grounds in 2009.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) announced earlier this year that a full review of the case was to be carried out to decide if a fresh appeal against Megrahi’s conviction could be made.

The allegations against the crown, police and forensic officials who worked on the investigation into the 1988 bombing included perversion of the course of justice and perjury.

Police Scotland’s chief constable, Iain Livingstone, said: “Officers carried out a methodical and rigorous inquiry using our major investigation framework under the direction of an experienced senior investigating officer. I have had oversight of the investigation since its outset.

“The substance of the allegations were diverse in nature and the sheer scale and complexity of the task has resulted in a particularly protracted enquiry which has taken longer than originally thought.

“However, this reflects the hard work and professionalism of the officers involved and their meticulous approach to the inquiry. The findings and conclusions have been validated by a senior Queen’s counsel, entirely unconnected with and acting independently from the Crown Office.

“I have written to the lord advocate to inform him Operation Sandwood is now complete and that there is no evidence of criminality and therefore no basis to submit a standard prosecution report.

“The material collated during the inquiry and the findings and conclusions reached have relevance to both the ongoing live investigation and the potential appeal against conviction lodged on behalf of the late Mr Megrahi.

“The materials have therefore been handed to Crown Office officials.” (...)

Justice for Megrahi campaigners welcomed the report and said the findings would be of importance to many of the issues being considered by the SCCRC.

The group said: “The Operation Sandwood investigation has resulted in a seminal report which has examined many of the controversies which have arisen over the past 30 years.

“We believe that Police Scotland conducted their enquiry with thoroughness and integrity and we thank them for the work they have carried out.

“As the 30th anniversary of this tragedy approaches we feel there is a very real possibility that the truth behind the UK’s worst ever terrorist outrage will finally be revealed.

“We have confidence that the Scottish criminal justice system will welcome this light that has now been shone into the darkness that surrounds Lockerbie and will ensure that the truth is finally revealed to those who lost their loved ones on the 21st December 1988.”

Megrahi campaigners welcome MSPs' decision to keep petition 'open' on Lockerbie investigation

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The National. It reads as follows:]

A campaign group calling for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing has welcomed a decision by MSPs to keep its petition “open” and maintain a watching brief on a police inquiry into the case.

Justice for Megrahi (JfM) had claimed the findings of the Police Scotland investigation into allegations surrounding the disaster might “never see the light of day”, because the Crown Office and Lord Advocate had “already come to a view” on allegations it had made casting doubt on the conviction.

Al-Megrahi died in May 2012, three years after the Scottish Government released him from a life sentence on compassionate grounds.

JfM had written to the Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC early in November, asking a series of questions about his intentions regarding the report of the investigation – named Operation Sandwood – and the appointment of an independent counsel to consider it.

Mulholland had named the Crown Office point of contact as crown agent and chief executive Catherine Dyer, who, he said, had “no involvement whatsoever” in the investigation into the bombing.

Retired police officer Iain McKie, a member of JfM, said yesterday: “We had sent eight questions to the Lord Advocate about how they would deal with the police report, which he failed to answer.

“The committee have now decided to ask these questions on our behalf and that’s a significant step forward.”

The group’s questions focused on the status of the “independent counsel”, their association with the Crown Office and whether they would receive the Operation Sandwood report directly from Police Scotland without any intervention from the Lord Advocate or the Crown Office.

Independent MSP John Finnie told the committee the issue was “all about process” and not personalities.

He said: “We do have the suggestion that the Crown agent is an independent person in this process, or will play a role in this process and, as we’ve seen from the letters, I think any reasonable judgment would say that that’s not necessarily the case, given that the crown agent defended the Crown Office’s position on this in a letter of 2012.”

Finnie added: “I would like the clerk to write to the Lord Advocate with the particular questions.

“Hopefully we’ll get some response to them that would advise what further action, if any, we would need to take.”

A Crown Office spokesman told The National: “Further to the Lord Advocate’s letter of 8 May 2015 to the Justice Committee, and his letter of 24 December 2015 to Justice For Megrahi, the Lord Advocate can confirm that he has had no involvement in the appointment of Counsel undertaking this work other than to identify their criteria of independence and no previous involvement with the Lockerbie investigation.

“The counsel undertaking this work is not under the direction of the Lord Advocate.

“The Lord Advocate considers it important that any criminal allegations against persons who were representing the Crown are dealt with independently of the Crown.

“As indicated above steps have been taken to ensure this is the case.”

[RB: The eight questions referred to by Iain McKie are contained in a letter dated 5 November 2015 sent by JfM’s secretary, Robert Forrester, to the Lord Advocate. That letter is now to be found on the Scottish Parliament website (link here). It reads as follows:]

Date: 5th November 2015 

Dear Lord Advocate, 

Justice for Megrahi: Criminal Allegations: Appointment of Independent Prosecutor 

I refer to my previous letter of 24th August 2015, your response of 18th September and your recent correspondence with the Justice Committee on the above subject. 

JFM is still unclear as to your intentions in respect of any report emanating from the police ‘Operation Sandwood’ investigations. 

To assist us in our understanding we would appreciate it if you would answer the following questions. 

1. What is the status of the appointed independent Counsel? Is he or she a present or former member of Crown Office staff? Or a member of the Bar who has had no previous association with Crown Office? 
2. Who appointed the independent Counsel? If it was not the Crown Office, who was it? 
3. What are the ‘Terms of Reference’ under which the independent Counsel is working and who created them? 
4. Under whose ‘direction’ is the independent Counsel working? 
5. Will the independent Counsel receive the ‘Operation Sandwood’ report directly from the police/police QC without any intervention or comment by the LA or Crown Office and before those authorities are aware of the report’s  contents? 
6. Will the independent Counsel make a totally independent decision on the report without any input from the Crown Office? 
7. Will Crown Office have authority to reject or change any recommendation made by the independent Counsel? 
8. Will the recommendations of the independent Counsel be implemented in full and if not who will make this decision? 

We believe that answers to these questions are essential if we are to have any faith that a truly independent and objective assessment of the police report will be carried out. 

Given the importance of the legal and constitutional issues under debate we have written to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and the Convenor of the Justice Committee and have supplied them with a copy of this letter. 

We look forward to an early response.

MSP pushes for Sandwood conclusion

[This is the headline over a report published yesterday in The Southern Reporter. It reads as follows:]

Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale MSP Christine Grahame this week called for Holyrood’s justice committee to press for progress on Police Scotland’s Operation Sandwood Enquiry, which is investigating possible police criminality in the enquiry into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. 

The atrocity claimed 270 lives and resulted in the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi, but this conviction has been a source of deep controversy. 

Operation Sandwood was set up in February 2014 with the Justice Committee told in March 2016 by Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone it was in its “final stage”, however no further indication has been given that it is near a conclusion. 

The ongoing nature of the enquiry poses an obstacle to the family of the late Al-Megrahi as the application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) likely cannot progress until it is concluded. 

Ms Grahame said: “I have a longstanding interest in this matter and I do believe the case as to whether Megrahi was rightly convicted or not needs to be concluded. 

“The process for this is for the SCCRC to consider the application by Al-Megrahi’s family to have his conviction appealed and for that to happen Operation Sandwood must conclude and report to the Crown Office. 

“This cannot be allowed to go on indefinitely –nearly 30 years have now passed since this atrocity and we find ourselves in the position where there are victims’ families who may die without knowing the truth about Lockerbie, whatever it turns out to be.” 

The committee agreed to Ms Grahame’s request. 

We asked Police Scotland when the Sandwood report is likely to be concluded. Detective Superintendent Stuart Johnstone said: “The investigation has reached its concluding phase and the full report will follow with a submission process through the Deputy Chief Constable to the independent QC appointed by Police Scotland, prior to submission to the Crown.”

Sandwood: no prosecutions but material relevant to potential future appeal

[The Operation Sandwood inquiry is now complete and its findings have been communicated to the Lord Advocate. A letter today from Chief Constable Iain Livingstone to Justice for Megrahi contains the following sentences:]

I have written to the Lord Advocate to inform him Operation Sandwood is now complete and that there is no evidence of criminality and therefore no basis to submit a standard prosecution report.

The material collated during the inquiry and the findings and conclusions reached have relevance to both the ongoing live investigation and the potential appeal against conviction lodged on behalf of the late Mr Megrahi. The materials have therefore been handed to Crown Office officials.

[Justice for Megrahi has today issued a press release in the following terms:]

LOCKERBIE REPORT BRINGS HOPE THAT THE TRUTH ABOUT THE UK’S WORST EVER TERRORIST OUTRAGE WILL FINALLY BE TOLD.

In 2012 when JfM made nine criminal allegations in connection with the Lockerbie investigation and trial, related to possible malpractice by Crown Office personnel, police and other prosecution witnesses, our main aim was to shine a light into the darkness that surrounded the investigation and trial related to the UK’s worst ever terrorist outrage.

Some six years later this light has been shone and we welcome Chief Constable Livingstone’s announcement that, while there will be no criminal prosecutions following from the Police Scotland enquiry, the findings of that enquiry will be of importance to many of the issues being considered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) as it carries out a review of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction to decide whether it would be appropriate to refer the matter to the Appeal Court.

We have always believed that it was via the Scottish Appeal Court that the truth would finally emerge and we have faith in the Scottish Justice System to ensure this is done.

The Operation Sandwood investigation has resulted in a seminal report which has examined many of the controversies which have arisen over the past thirty years. We believe that Police Scotland conducted their enquiry with thoroughness and integrity and we thank them for the work they have carried out.

We would also like to thank the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament for their oversight of the criminal investigation and trust that they will continue that oversight until an SCCRC decision is made and the outcome of any appeal is known.

JfM states: “As the 30th anniversary of this tragedy approaches we feel there is a very real possibility that the truth behind the UK’s worst ever terrorist outrage will finally be revealed. We have confidence that the Scottish criminal justice system will welcome this light that has now been shone into the darkness that surrounds Lockerbie and will ensure that the truth is finally revealed to those who lost their loved ones on the 21st December 1988.”

A welcome departure

[What follows is an item posted on this date in 2016 on Dr Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph’s Lockerbie Truth website:]

Scotland's Lord Advocate [Frank Mulholland] is to step down from his position as Scotland's leading law officer. Click here for more…

His decision comes just days after a media conference held in Edinburgh's Dynamic Earth conference centre on 16th March, chaired by representatives of Justice for Megrahi.

At that conference there were calls for the Lord Advocate to consider his position, following a special police investigation - Operation Sandwood - into allegations of criminality [by police and prosecutors] and a key forensic witness during the Lockerbie trial of Libyan Baset al-Megrahi.

It is understood that the Operation Sandwood report will be available for consideration in approximately two months time. [RB: It is now expected later this year. Justice for Megrahi's liaison group has regular meetings with the investigation team and is confident about the rigour of the complex investigation.]

Recently in an unusual move, the National Scottish Police Force has appointed an independent QC to advise it on the Sandwood inquiry because it felt unable to ask Crown Office lawyers to assess the evidence of alleged wrongdoing against certain Crown officers.  Click here for more on this story.

Al-Megrahi was convicted in 2000 for the Lockerbie bombing, in which 259 passengers and eleven townspeople were killed by a bomb placed on flight Pan Am 103.

[RB: Frank Mulholland QC was installed as a judge of the Court of Session and High Court of Justiciary on 15 December 2016. His disgraceful comments about Justice for Megrahi’s criminality allegations gravely compromised the Crown Office’s position in relation to Operation Sandwood.]

The case that never goes away

[What follows is the text of a talk given by Dr Morag Kerr on Saturday, 16 June 2018 at a rally at Inch Park, Edinburgh:]

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster, the case that never goes away.

I've heard people say, drop it, it's history.  But it's not much longer ago than Hillsborough, and that was only resolved to public satisfaction very recently.  And I personally have an aversion to a false narrative going down in history.  Other people feel the same way, including people personally impacted by the atrocity, and that's why we still have active campaigns.

Why is it that there's still so much concern about Lockerbie?Fundamentally, because the verdict in 2001 never made any sense.  As the court proceedings unfolded the prosecution case appeared to be falling apart.  The evidence against the accused was far far weaker than the public had been led to believe and credible alternative culprits and lines of inquiry had never been properly investigated.  The guilty verdict against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi came as a genuine shock to many informed observers, and their concerns have never been laid to rest.

Two separate but parallel campaigns have been going on for the last few years, and both are seeing significant developments unfolding.  First, there is the application by Megrahi's family for a posthumous appeal against his conviction.

This case has already had two appeals come to court.  The first appeal, the automatic one immediately after the conviction, was brought on the wrong grounds by Megrahi's inept advocate, and was dismissed essentially on a string of technicalities.  The second appeal was the result of a prolonged investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and it came to court in 2009.  But by that time Megrahi had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and was anxious to return home to his family before he died, and he formally abandoned that appeal immediately before he was granted compassionate release.

This introduced a legal controversy.  Megrahi himself and his legal team maintained that he had withdrawn the appeal to make it more likely that compassionate release would be granted.  Kenny MacAskill denied having made that a condition of granting compassionate release.  When Megrahi's family applied to the SCCRC for a third appeal, the point that had to be decided was, how many bites at the cherry is anybody allowed to have?  The appellant abandoned his appeal voluntarily, so why should another be allowed?

The SCCRC's decision on this was reported last month.  They accepted that Megrahi withdrew the appeal because he believed it would improve his chances of being allowed to go home, and that it wasn't in any way a capitulation or an admission of guilt.  They have therefore decided to carry out a full evaluation of the new application from his family.  I anticipate that this will result in a third appeal being allowed and going to court.

The second campaign is an initiative by the pressure group Justice for Megrahi, of which I'm secretary depute.  The JFM committee includes retired senior lawyers and a retired senior police officer as well as relatives of Lockerbie victims, so we have a lot of expertise to call on.  Back in 2012 when the prospects of getting a third appeal to court were looking remote, we had a look at other options to force the authorities to look again at the case.  The thing is, you can't just go to the police or the Crown Office and say, look, here's why I think you got this wrong, you must reconsider.  It doesn't work like that.  What you can do, is force the police to look at the case again by making formal allegations of criminality against other people, which they are then duty bound to investigate.

I'm not talking about allegations against alternative suspects, but against people involved in the original investigation and the trial at Camp Zeist.  We had very good reason to believe that significant shenanigans had taken place at both stages of the proceedings, and that we had sufficient evidence to compel the police to investigate this seriously.  Eventually we submitted nine separate allegations to the authorities, backed up with credible evidence in each case.  These included police misconduct, forensic fraud and/or criminal negligence, perjury, and attempts to pervert the course of justice.

Now of course talk is cheap and anyone can allege anything, but if there had been no substance to our allegations the police could have disposed of them quickly with very little trouble.  That's what they thought they were going to do, at first.  However it was eventually realised that there was serious substance to what we were saying, and in 2014 a dedicated Police Scotland investigation was set up, codenamed Operation Sandwood.  I think the fact that it has taken these detectives four years to finalise their report says a lot about how well-founded our position is, and how thorough the investigation has been.

It seems likely that the Operation Sandwood report will be submitted to the Crown Office before the SCCRC is ready to report, but I don't really know how much longer it will be for either of them.  Both reports will be confidential and will not automatically be made public, so we're going to have to do a fair bit of reading between the lines.

Although the two investigations are separate, they are essentially investigating the same thing -- the evidence in the Lockerbie case.   There's a huge amount of that, but systematic analysis boils it down to three critical points, only two of which specifically incriminate Megrahi.

The first of these is the identification evidence.  Clothes packed in the suitcase with the bomb were traced to their manufacturer, and from there to the shop where they were sold.  Amazingly the shopkeeper remembered selling more than one of these items to a customer, and he had some recollection of what that man looked like.  The prosecution alleged that it was Megrahi who had bought these clothes.

The first SCCRC report detailed six grounds on which the commission believed it was possible that a miscarriage of justice had occurred, and all of these related to the clothes purchase.  It seems to me inevitable that the new SCCRC investigation will have to allow a new appeal on these grounds if nothing else.  However, we hardly need to wait for the SCCRC on that one.  Kenny MacAskill has already, belatedly, conceded the point.  In his recent book and again in press articles, he agrees that Megrahi was not the man who bought the clothes.

In fact that's all it should take to overturn the conviction entirely.  If he didn't buy the clothes the case against him falls apart in logic.  However, Kenny doesn't see it that way, and pins his continued assertion that Megrahi was involved in the bombing on the second main point which appears to incriminate him, the fact that he was present at the airport when the bomb was smuggled on board the plane.  This also seems to be the fall-back position of the Crown Office.  Well, maybe someone else bought the clothes, but Megrahi was there when the crime took place and he was a Libyan security agent so go figure.

That aspect of the case is my own personal speciality.  Was Megrahi present at the scene of the crime?  There's no doubt he was at the airport in Malta that morning, catching a short-hop flight back to Tripoli after an overnight business trip to Malta.  The question is, was that actually the scene of the crime?  There was no evidence at all that security at Malta airport was breached that morning, no evidence that an illicit, unaccompanied suitcase was smuggled on to the flight to Frankfurt, and considerable evidence that no such thing actually happened.  Exactly how the prosecution managed to persuade the judges that it had happened is one of the enduring conundrums of the Lockerbie saga.

The Crown case depends absolutely on their preferred modus operandi, the story of the suitcase that was smuggled on to an aircraft in the morning on Malta, was transferred automatically through the baggage transfer system at Frankfurt without anyone realising that there was no passenger attached to it, and was then in due course transferred to the transatlantic airliner Maid of the Seas at Heathrow.  It was the transatlantic leg that blew up over Lockerbie.

However, as I said, there's no evidence at all of that suitcase being present at Malta airport, and the evidence from Frankfurt that was used to assert that it must have been there is tenuous beyond belief.  It's only when you look at the evidence from Heathrow itself that things get a lot clearer.  To cut a long story short, there is clear and incontrovertible evidence that the bomb suitcase was already in the baggage container at Heathrow a full hour before the connecting flight from Frankfurt landed.  This evidence was available to the investigation at an early stage, but it appears the investigating officers simply didn't want to know.  The amount of effort expended in ignoring that suitcase is quite remarkable.

But once that is accepted, Megrahi really is exonerated.  This smear of "well maybe he didn't buy the clothes but he was there when the bomb was smuggled on board the plane so obviously he was involved" simply doesn't stand up.  He was 1,500 miles away at the time -- the distance from London to Tripoli.

The Crown Office case simply collapses.  It's not a situation where the crime has been more or less solved but there just isn't enough admissible evidence to get a conviction to stick, the Lockerbie investigation was up a gum tree almost from the beginning. Despite clear and compelling evidence that Heathrow was the scene of the crime, the police chased a red herring down a blind alley to Malta, and refused to think again even when prolonged investigation there turned up no sign of the bomb.

This admission would be hugely embarrassing for the legal establishment.  Millions of pounds spent on an investigation that was investigating the wrong airports.  An entire country ruined by punitive sanctions imposed on the assumption that its nationals were guilty of the atrocity.  Millions more spent on that three-ring-circus of a trial.

So I think we can anticipate some pretty strenuous resistance to this finding.  I expect the SCCRC to be pressurised to confine their investigation to the original six grounds of appeal, which were all about the clothes purchase, and not to extend their remit to the route of the bomb suitcase or indeed to the third point of contention, the identity of the fragment of printed circuit board that was alleged to have been part of the bomb's timing mechanism.

I also expect the Crown Office to try to bury the Sandwood report into our allegations of criminality.  There's an unavoidable weakness there.  The stratagem that we had to use was to accuse individuals of criminal offences in the course of these matters being wrongly investigated and wrongly presented to the court.  However, even if Operation Sandwood agrees with us on all three main headings -- that Megrahi was not the man who bought the clothes, that the bomb was introduced at Heathrow not Malta, and that the fragment of circuit board was not what the prosecution said it was -- it's quite possible that no actual prosecutions will result.

The people involved are now quite elderly, in their seventies or older.  Some of them are dead.  John Orr, the first senior investigating officer assigned to the case, who was prominent in turning a blind eye to the Heathrow evidence, died about four months ago.  Even if Operation Sandwood concludes that there is credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing as opposed to blind incompetence, it's not impossible that a decision might be taken that prosecutions are not in the public interest.

So I'm somewhat prepared for the announcement that no prosecutions are to be brought as a result of the Operation Sandwood investigation.  That, in my opinion, will not be good enough.  The public paid for that investigation, and the public is entitled to know the broad outcome of its inquiry into the facts.  Does the Sandwood report accept that the witness Tony Gauci was groomed and pressurised into identifying Megrahi as the man who bought the clothes, even though he looked absolutely nothing like him?  Does it agree that the Lockerbie bomb started its journey in the late afternoon at Heathrow airport, not in the morning on Malta?  And does it agree that the scrap of printed circuit board, whatever it was, was never part of one of the timers in the batch that was sold to Libya?

We may have to wait for the third appeal coming to court to get to the bottom of all this, but these are the questions that the public, and in particular journalists, should be asking.

Now if anyone wants to hear a lot more detail about this, I will be giving a longer, illustrated talk on the evidence at the Yes Hub in a couple of weeks time, and there will be more opportunity for questions, and you won't have to stand in the rain to do it.  But if anyone has anything they want to ask now, fire away.