Lockerbie relatives again call for independent inquiry

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in today’s edition of
The Herald:]

Relatives of Lockerbie bombing victims have renewed a call for a full independent inquiry into the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 following the 29th anniversary of the atrocity which killed 270 people.

John Mosey and Jim Swire, who both lost daughters when the aeroplane was blown out of the sky on December 21, 1988, believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the bombing in 2001, was innocent. Swire’s campaign group, Justice for Megrahi (JfM), lodged a legal appeal bid in July. (...)

On [4] July 2017, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission confirmed it had received a third application to review the conviction.

Meanwhile, a three-year investigation by police into nine allegations of criminality by Lockerbie investigators, known as Operation Sandwood, is ongoing. It is expected to conclude in February.

Jim Swire, 81, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora was on the flight, said it’s “essential” there is also “a full public inquiry which has to go beyond confines of Scotland”.

Mosey, 77, who lost his 19-year-old daughter, Helga, when the plane came down, said: “Maybe, just maybe, one or both of the two current direct approaches via Police Scotland and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission will bring us one step nearer to getting a full, independent inquiry and some honest answers to the big questions that trouble us."

“This would, at least, restore some of our confidence in our legal systems and in those who govern us and give us back a little of our national pride.”

Detective Superintendent Stuart Johnstone, of Police Scotland, said Operation Sandwood was at an advanced stage and that the final report would be closely scrutined by an independent QC before being submitted to the Crown Office.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We will examine the findings of Police Scotland’s Operation Sandwood report before we consider any future steps.”

The Crown Office - cause for serious concern?

[This is the heading over a message circulated today by Justice for Megrahi’s secretary, Robert Forrester, to Scottish political, legal, media and academic groups and individuals. It reads as follows:]

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 21st 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 9 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 to this e-mail with your views. If you wish any further information, please contact me: Email: forrester.robert@gmail.com

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: http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk.

Independent counsel to consider any Lockerbie criminality allegations

[What follows are written questions answered on 2 March 2017 in the Scottish Parliament:]

Question S5W-06844: Alex Neil, Airdrie and Shotts, Scottish National Party, Date Lodged: 02/02/2017

To ask the Scottish Government who will decide on what action should be taken arising from the findings of the Police Scotland report on Operation Sandwood.

Answered by James Wolffe QC (02/03/2017):

If there is any report submitted by Police Service of Scotland alleging criminality by named individuals, the Law Officers consider it important that such allegations in accordance with normal practice are dealt with fairly and robustly by independent counsel, supported as required by a senior Procurator Fiscal with no prior involvement in the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103. Independent counsel would therefore be expected to decide on what action should be taken.

Current Status: Answered by James Wolffe QC on 02/03/2017

Question S5W-06832: Alex Neil, Airdrie and Shotts, Scottish National Party, Date Lodged: 02/02/2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it remains the case that neither the Lord Advocate nor the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service personnel involved in Lockerbie-related matters would take part in the consideration of the Police Scotland report on Operation Sandwood and that an independent counsel would consider the report and, if so, who this counsel will be.

Answered by James Wolffe QC (02/03/2017):

As has been confirmed previously, in accordance with normal practice any report emanating from Operation Sandwood will be dealt with fairly and robustly by independent counsel, supported as required by a senior Procurator Fiscal with no prior involvement in the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103. Independent counsel will be appointed if any report alleging criminality is received.

Current Status: Answered by James Wolffe QC on 02/03/2017

What is at stake is the reputation of the Scottish justice system

[Today's edition of The Scotsman carries an article by James Robertson under the headline Lockerbie anniversary: ‘One terrible injustice cannot be cancelled out’. It reads as follows:]

Like many other people, I remember exactly where I was on the night of 21st December 1988. I was a bookseller in what was then the only Edinburgh branch of Waterstones, on George Street, and that evening the shop was crowded with customers choosing Christmas presents. Popular titles included Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and the paperback of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent. The phones were ringing constantly as people called to ask what time we closed or whether we had a copy of this or that book.

At about eight o’clock I answered the telephone and recognised the voice of a friend, another bookseller, on the line. He had just heard a radio report that a plane had crashed onto the town of Lockerbie. It sounded like a major incident and since, mistakenly, he thought I was from that part of the country he wanted to let me know. I thanked him and went back to work.

By the time I got home and switched on the television it was the only news story. Pan Am flight 103, a Boeing 747 passenger jet en route from London to New York, had fallen out of the sky and, as would be quite quickly established, all 259 passengers and crew, and a further eleven people on the ground, had been killed. A few days later, everybody’s worst fears were confirmed: this was not the result of bad weather or mechanical failure, but of a bomb having been placed on the plane.

That night is now half my lifetime away, and belongs to a world in which there was no internet, and in which news in the UK was accessed entirely via newspapers, radio and four TV channels. Through all the subsequent years of political, social and cultural change, the story of the Lockerbie bombing has never faded. In part this is because of the sheer scale of it: an event like no other in recent Scottish history − except perhaps the Piper Alpha disaster of the same year, which claimed the lives of 167 oil platform workers. But Piper Alpha was an accident, whereas the destruction of Pan Am 103 was an act of mass murder. It led to the biggest ever Scottish criminal investigation and, after more than twelve years, to the conviction of one Libyan man, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

The response to the bombing brought out some of the very best in human behaviour − kindness, care, courage and dignity. It also left deep emotional wounds that for some will never fully heal. It is completely understandable that many relatives of the victims, people of Lockerbie, police and other emergency workers involved in the traumatic aftermath have long wanted the story to be over, or as ‘over’ as it ever can be. But after the long investigation, then the trial of Megrahi and his co-accused Lamin Khalifah Fhimah at a specially convened Scottish court in the Netherlands, and finally the conviction of Megrahi alone in 2001, too many questions were left unanswered for this to be possible.

Well-founded doubts about aspects of the investigation have existed almost since the night the plane came down. It is, for example, highly questionable whether the bomb was ingested into the air traffic system at Malta, as the prosecution case against Megrahi and Fhimah contended, rather than at Heathrow. There were serious shortcomings in the identification by Tony Gauci, a key witness, of Megrahi as the purchaser of clothes packed into the bomb suitcase. Likewise, there were clear failings in the metallurgical analysis of the timer used to trigger the bomb. The prosecution failed to disclose vital evidence to the defence. And the indictments against Megrahi and Fhimah, without which no case against them could have been brought, were based on information supplied by a witness found to have been completely unreliable and untrustworthy. Nevertheless, the juryless court acquitted Fhimah and, almost entirely on the basis of circumstantial evidence, found Megrahi guilty. The United Nations-nominated observer Professor Hans Köchler immediately condemned aspects of the judgement as ‘arbitrary’, ‘inconsistent’ and ‘irrational’ and said that the trial as a whole was ‘not fair and was not conducted in an objective manner.’

Concerns that the conviction might be a gross miscarriage of justice were reinforced over the years as new information emerged that had not been considered during either the trial or at Megrahi’s first appeal. The report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) on his conviction, made public by the Herald newspaper in March 2012, found six grounds which might have warranted referring the case to the Court of Appeal.

But by that time Megrahi was back home in Libya with terminal cancer, having dropped his second appeal at the time of his controversial release from prison, on compassionate grounds, in 2009. Even his death in May 2012 did not draw a line under the whole affair.

The campaign group Justice for Megrahi (JfM), to which I belong, was founded in 2008. Its signatories include some of those who lost loved ones in the disaster, such as Jim Swire and John Mosey, the ‘architect’ of the Kamp Zeist court arrangements Professor Robert Black, and various journalists, writers, lawyers, politicians, former police officers and other citizens who independently reached the conclusion that something had gone very wrong in the Lockerbie investigation and the subsequent prosecution of Mr Megrahi. In September 2012 the committee of JfM drew up six − later increased to nine − allegations of criminality in connection with the Lockerbie investigation and trial, relating to possible malpractice by Crown Office personnel, police and other prosecution witnesses. The allegations were submitted to the then Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill in strict confidence. They were passed nonetheless to the Crown Office, which at once publicly denounced them as ‘without exception, defamatory and entirely unfounded’ even before the dossier of detailed evidence had been examined by the police.

This intervention, we felt, represented both prejudice and an intolerable conflict of interest since the Crown Office would ultimately decide whether or not the allegations had any validity. Furthermore, JfM’s allegations would be dealt with by Dumfries and Galloway Police, the force which had carried out the original investigation. None of this gave us confidence that these matters would be treated systematically, objectively and fairly. Indeed, one of the most important outcomes of the Lockerbie saga has been to expose serious faults in the mechanism and procedures of Scottish justice.

However, in 2013 Police Scotland came into being, and the treatment of our allegations changed substantially. ‘Operation Sandwood’ was established, which at its conclusion was described by the police as ‘a methodical and rigorous inquiry using our major investigation framework under the direction of an experienced senior investigating officer.’ We have no argument with that description. Regular liaison meetings took place between JfM and Police Scotland, who engaged a QC completely independent of Crown Office to review the findings of Operation Sandwood. These were unprecedented arrangements. The current Chief Constable, Iain Livingstone, had oversight of the entire investigation, which was completed on 21st November this year.

The Sandwood report has now been submitted to Crown Office. The police concluded that there was ‘no evidence of criminality and therefore no basis to submit a standard prosecution report’. Crucially, however, Police Scotland’s statement goes on to say, ‘The material collated during the inquiry and the findings and conclusions reached have relevance to … the potential appeal against conviction lodged on behalf of the late Mr Megrahi.’

JfM does not, of course, have any knowledge of the details of what the Sandwood report contains, but we are confident that the police have indeed been ‘methodical and rigorous’. We know from the amount of time and resources spent on Operation Sandwood that the police did not deem our allegations either vexatious or without substance. And when the report is received, as it must be, by the SCCRC -- the body currently considering whether to recommend that Mr Megrahi’s family be allowed to make a fresh appeal against his conviction -- we firmly believe that its contents will contain enough information to make that recommendation inevitable.

Such a development, long overdue, would enable all material relevant to the case to be reviewed in the Court of Appeal. JfM believes that in the absence of a public inquiry, which the Scottish Government has consistently refused to establish, this is the only way to have all the evidence examined and to bring some kind of finality to this aspect, at least, of the Lockerbie story.

What is at stake is not just whether there was a miscarriage of justice in Megrahi’s conviction but the reputation of the Scottish justice system. None of this will lessen the pain and grief felt by the families of the dead. But the terrible injustice perpetrated on that December night thirty years ago is not cancelled by another injustice: it is compounded.

The full truth about the Lockerbie bombing is not yet known, but gradually we are moving towards it.

We must hope that some of those, now elderly, who have sought that truth for so long, are still here when it is brought into the light.

Genuinely independent prosecutor needed for JFM criminality allegations

[At its meeting on 21 April 2015 the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee resolved to write to the Lord Advocate enquiring how the Crown Office proposed to deal with the forthcoming Police Scotland report on Justice for Megrahi’s allegations of criminal misconduct on the part of police officers, prosecutors and Crown forensic scientists in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial. This arose out of the suggestion made on this blog that a special prosecutor or independent counsel might be required, in the light of the Lord Advocate’s publicly expressed views about the merits of JFM’s allegations and the character of JFM members. 

The Lord Advocate replied to the committee’s inquiry in a letter dated 8 May: “I had anticipated this as a potential issue some time ago given my involvement in the investigation and the nature of the allegations which have been made.  Arrangements were therefore put in place for an independent Crown Counsel who has not been involved in the Lockerbie case to deal with this matter if and when the need arises.”

JFM’s response to the Lord Advocate’s letter has now been posted on the Justice Committee’s website. It reads as follows:]

Following the Lord Advocate’s 8th May response to the 28th April letter from the Convener of the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee, the Committee of Justice for Megrahi (JFM) wishes to make the following observations. 

If the Lord Advocate is proposing a Crown Office advocate depute as an independent prosecutor to consider any Police Scotland report stemming from the investigation of JFM’s 9 allegations of criminality, known as Operation Sandwood, such a proposal falls well short of JFM’s concept of an independent, unbiased and constitutionally sound approach. 

1. JFM has on several occasions drawn the attention of the Justice Committee to the unprecedented, highly irresponsible and prejudicial public outbursts in which both the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office as a whole have not only grossly distorted the content of our allegations but also vilified us for having had the temerity to level the allegations in the first instance. How can any representative of a body that has described, in the media, JFM’s allegations as being ‘without exception, defamatory and entirely unfounded’ and ‘false and deliberately misleading’ make a fair and unprejudiced consideration of any evidence presented by the police? We believe that by ‘going public’ these authorities, being fully aware of ‘Sandwood’, have destroyed their constitutional independence and have threatened the integrity of that enquiry.  

2. It appears inevitable that these public interventions will have had an effect on potential witnesses. Witnesses are now expected to give evidence against a background of this very public ‘interference’ by Scotland’s senior prosecution authorities. Those authorities have consistently sought to dismiss the ‘conspiracy theorists’ behind the ‘Sandwood’ criminal allegations and to underline their opinion that Mr Megrahi and his accomplices are the only guilty parties in the case. We fear that certain Crown, Police and both expert and ordinary witnesses, encouraged by these statements, might seek to withhold or alter legitimate evidence which they could otherwise give to Operation Sandwood. 

3. In his letter of 8 th May, the Lord Advocate gives the impression that he is disengaging from involvement in consideration of the final police report on the matter. However, if he is responsible for the appointment of the ‘independent Crown Counsel’, from the outset, he clearly plays a pivotal role in the outcome of the prosecutor’s consideration of the report. Any such counsel should be chosen by a person or body entirely outwith the Crown Office. 

4. It is naïve to expect that an advocate depute in the Crown Office, appointed by the Lord Advocate and subject to his instructions, and whose tenure of that office depends entirely upon his decision, is likely to instruct proceedings of any kind and thus effectively say that the Lord Advocate was so publicly wrong. It is also extremely unlikely that he/she will easily set themselves against their colleagues in the Crown Office who have already made their position clear on several occasions. Equally importantly it is certain, no matter the decision reached, that in the minds of the protagonists on either side of the Lockerbie debate, the general public, the media and other commentators, justice will not have been seen to be done. It should be made clear that both the final decision on prosecution and the conduct of any prosecution rest with the independent (and independently appointed) counsel not tainted by any association with the Lord Advocate or any member of the Crown Office. 

5. Moreover, given that the Lord Advocate is head of Scotland’s prosecution service, it would seem inevitable that any final conclusions arrived at by the ‘independent’ prosecutor he mentions would, by dint of his position, find their way onto the Lord Advocate’s desk for the ultimate stamp of approval.  

6. Whilst JFM is, quite correctly, not privy to the operational detail relating to ‘Sandwood’, we have been most impressed by the diligence and professionalism of the officers working on the allegations. In the course of their investigations, Police Scotland have been working in tandem with an independent QC: how then will the Lord Advocate’s proposal fit together with the role already being played by Police Scotland’s QC? 

It is plain to see from the unethical, prejudicial and ill-judged statements issued by the Crown Office that there is a straightforward conflict of interests with respect to any role which that body can play in this case. 

The UK is signed up to the United Nations International Association of Prosecutors (IAP). In its pronouncements, the Crown Office has displayed a flagrant contempt for and disregard of the IAP principles as laid out in the IAP document Standards of Professional Responsibilities and Statement of Essential Duties and Rights of Prosecutors. Particularly, but not exclusively, these responsibilities include the duty of a prosecutor not to act in their own interest but always to serve and protect the public interest, be free from political interference, and generally be consistent, independent, impartial and transparent (as outlined in articles 1 through 4). The Crown Office is clearly in breach of these principles, and, as previously mentioned, no person currently in Crown Office can be impartial. The Report must be made to a totally independent person. http://www.iap-association.org/getattachment/34e49dfe-d5db-4598-91da-16183bb12418/ Standards_English.aspx 

The UK is also signed up to the Council of Europe. In its document The Role of Public Prosecution in the Criminal Justice System, adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 6th October2000.

Article 1 states: ‘Public prosecutors’ are public authorities who, on behalf of society and in the public interest, ensure the application of the law where the breach of the law carries a criminal sanction, taking into account both the rights of the individual and the necessary effectiveness of the criminal justice system.’

Article 9 states: ‘With respect to the organisation and the internal operation of the Public Prosecution, in particular the assignment and re-assignment of cases, this should meet requirements of impartiality and independence and maximise the proper operation of the criminal justice system, in particular the level of legal qualification and specialisation devoted to each matter.’ 

Article 24 states: ‘In the performance of their duties, public prosecutors should in particular: a. carry out their functions fairly, impartially and objectively.’ 

Article 34 states: ‘Interested parties of recognised or identifiable status, in particular victims, should be able to challenge decisions of public prosecutors not to prosecute; such a challenge may be made, where appropriate after an hierarchical review, either by way of judicial review, or by authorising parties to engage private prosecution.’ http://www.procuracassazione.it/procuragenerale-resources/resources/cms/documents/ COE_CM_20001006_Recommendation_2000_19_en.pdf

The Crown Office has turned Scottish justice into an embarrassing, laughing stock and developed this case into a running sore. We strongly believe that in order to acquire a fair, unprejudiced and truly independent reading of the final police report a special prosecutor must be appointed by a process independent of the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office, and must be seen to exercise his/her decision-making and prosecutorial functions without reference to the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office. 

Since the Lord Advocate’s position and independence as head of the prosecution system in Scotland is enshrined in the Scotland Act, such a mechanism must be put in place by the Lord Advocate himself, failing which, the Scottish Government should seek from the UK Government a section 30 Order in Council to enable the Scottish Government to do so. 

On 28th February 2007 the then Lord Advocate, Dame Elish Angiolini, in giving the inaugural KPMG Annual Law Lecture highlighted the position of the Lord Advocate in the 21st century by stating:  

‘The fact that prosecution decisions are taken independently does not mean that they are taken unaccountably. It is for the Parliament to decide whether the Lord Advocate is carrying out that vital function to its satisfaction, not as a matter of party politics, but as a matter of sound administration. 

‘The result is that the present system leaves an inefficient Lord Advocate, or an irresponsible Scottish Executive, nowhere to hide. If the prosecution system fails, then Parliament can hold the Lord Advocate, and the administration of which she forms a part, accountable for that failure. 

‘As Lord Advocate, I exercise considerable powers, and carry great responsibilities. And no sensible Minister ever takes Parliament lightly. I note, in passing, that the Justice Committees of the Scottish Parliament routinely scrutinise the work of the Law Officers. That notion is also now being discussed at Westminster. I would like to make one further point, touching on accountability. The prosecutor's judgement in starting a prosecution is clearly justiciable in the courts. That is as it should be.’ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/ cmconst/ 306/306we13.htm  

This seems to be pertinent and timely advice to the present holder of this historic office.

Throughout all of this, it appears that the Crown Office, in pursuit of obtaining and maintaining convictions above any other principle, has lost sight of its most fundamental raison d’être: the service of justice.

Fresh look at Lockerbie report 'would honour memory of Tam Dalyell’

[This is the headline over a report by Greg Russell in today’s edition of The National. It reads in part:]

The Crown Office has been urged to honour the memory of Tam Dalyell by ensuring that a police report into criminal allegations against those involved with the Lockerbie investigation and subsequent trial is given an “objective analysis”.

Iain McKie, a leading member of Justice for Megrahi (JfM), whose members believe Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was innocent of the bombing, was speaking to The National after our sister paper the Sunday Herald published details of Dalyell’s last interview.

In it, the former Labour MP said he would go to his grave believing Megrahi’s conviction was a “massive injustice”. (...)

Dalyell, who formerly represented Linlithgow, died last week, and was convinced Megrahi was innocent.

“I had great admiration for Tam Dalyell,” said McKie. “I really respected the way he stood up for his principles, and Lockerbie of course was one of the biggest he stood up for.

“It’s a major loss when you lose someone of the integrity and standing of Tam Dalyell.”

McKie said that while the MP’s death was a loss for JfM, it would also keep Lockerbie in the public eye, although he did not think it would affect the Operation Sandwood report on the group’s nine criminal allegations against police, Crown Office officials and forensic scientists involved in the Lockerbie investigation and trial.

He said: “It’s an awful thing to say in the tragedy of someone dying, but when something like this happens it keeps whole Lockerbie case open. It says that even in death he is speaking out to people and saying he believed in the innocence of Megrahi and he continued to believe in that until his dying day.

“It won’t directly affect the police report, but I think it affects the atmosphere in which it will be received and one would hope it would make the Crown Office open their eyes for once and realise that this is an issue which does matter to people; and when they receive the Operation Sandwood report that they give it an objective and fair look, because certainly the previous Lord Advocate had made up his mind that wasn’t going to happen.”

McKie said JfM hoped that Lord Advocate James Wolffe, QC, who replaced Frank Mulholland last summer, would ensure Sandwood was considered “objectively”.

“People like Tam Dalyell have held it close to their heart for many years – and there are others like him – and the Crown Office could honour him by ensuring that the police report gets an objective analysis,” said McKie.

Meanwhile, The National understands that Megrahi’s wife Aisha is likely to lead a new appeal by the family to clear his name, and is preparing to lodge a dossier of documents with the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

The commission had ruled in 2007 that there were several grounds that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

The Megrahis will be backed by British relatives of those who died in the bombing.

However, Glasgow lawyer Aamer Anwar, who has represented the Megrahi family, yesterday would not comment on the move.

He said: “I can only say that things are at a highly critical and sensitive stage and it would be inappropriate to comment at the moment.”`

Struggle for Lockerbie justice continues

[This is the headline over a letter from Dr Jim Swire published in today’s edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]

It was of course a bitter blow when the High Court in the form of Lord Carloway and two other judges refused 24 UK Lockerbie relatives' application to the SCCRC to investigate the need for a further appeal against the Megrahi verdict ('Linking Megrahi to a new Lockerbie bombing suspect won't work ... he was innocent and his conviction is a stain on Scottish justice', News comment, October 4).

We have been advised that Scotland offers no process for appeal against Lord Carloway's decision.

We have hitherto avoided any public reaction to that decision primarily because it is of paramount importance not to impinge on the need of Police Scotland's ongoing investigation, Operation Sandwood, for freedom from improper external pressures. Sandwood is investigating allegations of criminality lodged by the group Justice For Megrahi in connection with the preparations for, the conduct of, and the sequels to, the Zeist trial.

In addition we are grateful that the Justice Committee of the Holyrood Parliament has retained a petition on its books (petition PE1370), to which many of us relatives signed up. It seems that any action which the Justice Committee may decide upon now over PE1370 must also logically await the findings of operation Sandwood.

John Ashton's article appears very well informed and is known to be heavily reliant on material prepared for use in the defence of Megrahi in Scottish courts. It also relies upon much material that was excluded, for whatever reasons, from use within the Zeist court, or which has emerged since Zeist, but which would certainly have been of critical importance to the SCCRC had the latter been enabled to pursue the request of the UK relatives for a further appeal.

Jury Still Out on Justice for Megrahi

[This is the headline over an article posted today by Ruth Wishart, one of Scotland’s most distinguished journalists, on her blog. It reads as follows:]

Today in Edinburgh a group of eminent people - or according to the Lord Advocate a group of "conspiracy theorists"- are holding a media event to highlight what they and many senior lawyers believe to be a further attempt to close down assertions that the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was not responsible for placing the bomb on board Pan Am 103.

Twenty seven years from the tragedy and four years from the death of Abdulbaset al-Megrahi, the controversy surrounding his conviction and the events at the Scottish court convened at Camp Zeist refuse to go away.  The Justice for Megrahi group which contains a number of prominent campaigners including Len Murray, Iain McKie, the novelist James Robertson and Jim Swire - whose daughter Flora was a victim - have made no fewer than 9 allegations concerning the flawed presentation or omission of vital evidence, and the information withheld from defence lawyers.

Amongst the areas they flag up is their continuing  belief that the bomb was loaded at Heathrow not Malta. that the identification of Megrahi as  the man who purchased clothing in the suitcase  supposedly containing the bomb came from a CIA paid informant, and that the fragments of circuit board recovered from the bomb did not conform, as argued, to the design sold to and used by Libya.

More seriously still, they allege that the prosecution misled the court and the bench when relaying the heavily redacted cables from US intelligence surrounding Megrahi's identification.

But the reason for today's conference is that Operation Sandwood,  the police investigation into these charges  surrounding the behaviour of crown witnesses, and indeed the Crown Office itself, is due to be published imminently.  In the normal course of events this report would go to the Lord Advocate.  Justice for Megrahi members believe this would amount to the Crown Office being the arbiter of its own actions and that a fully independent recipient must be found.

Interestingly Police Scotland yesterday announced that they would have the Sandwood report scrutinised by a QC they appointed "to ensure the critical requirement of demonstrating independence from the Crown'. While the timing of this intervention is hardly co-incidental, it remains to be seeen whether it will allay the disquiet of the JfM protagonists. 

Certainly, thus far they have been unpersuaded by the Lord Advocate's assurance that he can produce such an objective source from within his own organisation. 

Their scepticism is shared by some very prominent figures in the Scottish legal establishement.

Brian McConnachie QC says that:  “Having declared the allegations to be defamatory, unfounded, false and misleading, it is in my opinion impossible for any decision of the Lord Advocate arising out of the allegations to be seen to be impartial, objective or unbiased.”

While Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at Dundee University believes that  “Public confidence in the administration of criminal justice requires there to be no doubt that decisions whether or not to institute criminal proceedings are taken free from political or any other form of bias.”

The waters here are further muddied by the ongoing Crown Office's own investigation into Lockerbie which seeks to uncover which accomplices were also involved.  But, since that process is predicated on an assumption of Megrahi's guilt, it's clear that the two reports might prove entirely contradictory.

In addition a petition submitted to Holyrood's Justice Committee remains open some years after it was first laid.

I have no special expertise legal or otherwise in assessing the strength of the allegations made by the Megrahi committee.  But I do have huge respect for the integrity and knowledge of people like Jim Swire who has exhaustively reviewed the evidence, and James Robertson who painstakingly researched all aspects of the trial during his research for his Lockerbie based book The Professor of Truth.

None of the others involved would appear to have any particular axe to grind save their continuing doubts that there may have been a gross miscarriage of Scottish justice.

Similarly it seems to me foolish to ignore the legal opinions of such senior judicial figures as Brian McConnachie and Alan Page.

But in any event the core legal argument they make in the context of Operation Sandwood is a sound one - if you have an involvement in the matters under consideration, you cannot be the judge of a report on them.

The Lord Advocate, if he is right about these allegations being "misleading, unfounded" and the product of "conspiracy theorists" has surely nothing to lose by letting the report land on a wholly independent desk.

Probe into allegations of criminality in Megrahi investigation "still ongoing"

This is part of the headline over a report published in today’s edition of The Herald. It reads in part:

A three year police probe into allegations of criminality by Lockerbie investigators and prosecutors is still ongoing — 18 months after police said it had entered its “final stages”.

Police Scotland said they are still not in a position to say when Operation Sandwood, which was launched in February 2014, will be concluded and made public.

Police are investigating nine allegations of criminality levelled by campaign group Justice for Megrahi at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the police, and forensic officials involved in the investigation and legal processes relating to Megrahi’s conviction.

The allegations range from perverting the course of justice to perjury.

In March 2016, Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone told Holyrood’s Justice Committee the report had “entered its final phase”.

However, in the latest update, which will be considered by the committee on Tuesday, police said the operation remains ongoing.

“Although in its final stages, there are certain aspects that are not fully concluded,” Police Scotland told the committee.

Committee clerks said: “Once Police Scotland’s report is completed, it will be submitted for consideration by an independently appointed Queen’s Counsel appointed by Police Scotland, before going to the Crown Office.

“Clerks continue to seek updates from Police Scotland as to a likely publication date but Police Scotland is as yet not in a position to suggest when the report will be made public.

“The Justice for Megrahi submission indicates that it believes the report will be available to the Crown Office at some stage this year.”

Justice For Megrahi’s petition to Holyrood for an independent inquiry into the conviction has remained open for nearly seven years.

On 4 July 2017, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) confirmed it had received a third application to review the conviction.

Justice For Megrahi said: “JfM's sole interest remains acquiring justice for the victims of Pan Am 103, their families and friends, and those whom we regard as having been wrongly accused and convicted.

“This report is central to any further analysis of the Lockerbie tragedy, is of direct significance to the ongoing SCCRC consideration of the Megrahi family's submission for another appeal and is vital if the massive stain on the Scottish Justice system is ever to be removed.

“JfM has complete confidence in the work of Police Scotland on its behalf regarding JfM's various allegations of criminality associated with the conviction of Mr al Megrahi.

“Our present understanding is that the Police Scotland Operation Sandwood Report is in its final stages and will be available to the Lord Advocate at some stage this year.”

Mr Megrahi previously applied to the SCCRC in 2003, who referred his case to the High Court for appeal in 2007 but this appeal was abandoned in 2009.

In his authorised biography, Mr Megrahi claimed Kenny MacAskill, the SNP justice secretary at the time, urged him to drop his appeal as a way of helping his compassionate release from prison — a claim the Scottish Government denied.

After Mr Megrahi’s death in 2012, a second application was made to the SCCRC on his behalf in 2014, which was rejected in 2015 as the SCCRC had not had access to appeal materials from 2007-09.