"I wonder why they are still trying to blame the wrong people for my daughter’s death"

[What follows is excerpted from a long interview of Dr Jim Swire by Marcello Mega in today's edition of The Scottish Mail on Sunday:]

My daughter was murdered 32 years ago tomorrow on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. For us, the anniversary is no different to the other 364 days. We remember Flora and feel her loss every day.

She would have celebrated her 24th birthday in America with her boyfriend the next day. I’m sure she would have been a mother by now. That day, our family lost a beloved daughter and sister, and all the future joy she would have brought us.

I have no doubt she would have had a wonderful career. She wanted to specialise in neurology and had done so brilliantly at nottingham University that she had been given time out to set up her own research project at Queen Square Hospital, London, l ooking at how HIV affected the brain.

I have many reasons to be angry. Much of my anger is directed at our Government and prosecution service, and the US authorities.

I wonder why they are still trying to blame the wrong people for my daughter’s death.

To hear last week the US intends to pursue another Libyan suspected of making the bomb that murdered 270 people fills me with despair, as does the news there is ‘fresh evidence’ linking a second suspect.

American investigators refuse to acknowledge the many flaws in the case that blamed Libya, and they continue the charade, ignoring all the evidence pointing to Iran. Now, cynically I believe, while five Scottish judges consider the posthumous appeal raised by the family of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi – the only man convicted of the bombing – outgoing US attorney-general William Barr will announce they want to try Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, allegedly a bomb-maker for the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The second suspect, Abdullah Al Senussi, is the ex-intelligence chief and brother-in-law of Gaddafi.

Mr Barr held the same position when Megrahi was first charged in 1991. Having suddenly and inexplicably changed the focus of the investigation from Iran to Libya in the beginning, he appears to have rounded the circle when no credible evidence remains against Libya. I wonder if the timing now was contrived to put pressure on the judges.

To believe the Crown’s case against Megrahi, you have to believe in a series of astonishing coincidences.

In October 1988 a European cell of the PFLP-GC terror group was raided by the German secret police in Neuss. Four bombs were recovered, all hidden in Toshiba cassette-recorders. Members admitted one device had been taken away by their leader.

The devices had a simple timer that ran for half an hour after being triggered by lowered air pressure at altitude. On a Boeing 747 this would occur seven minutes into the flight. The explosion was 37 minutes after take-off. The evidence label for the fragment supposedly linked to Libya was the only one of thousands of productions to be altered. Originally it read ‘charred cloth’, but the word ‘debris’ was overwritten, presumably when the debris itself was added.

The case for Iran as culprit is far stronger. Five months before Lockerbie, the USS Vincennes, a warship patrolling the Gulf, shot down an Iranian Airbus, killing all 290 on board. Iran vowed the skies would run with the blood of Americans. The US offered no apology.

Security warnings were shared by Western intelligence services from October 1988 that terrorists intended to bomb a US aircraft.

The later warnings were specific to Pan Am, prompting the US to offer embassy staff in Moscow the chance to fly home for Christmas with another airline. But the UK Government did nothing, failing to protect Flora and the other 269 victims, despite Heathrow having been notified of a bomb threat.

The story that saw Megrahi wrongly convicted of mass murder has the bomb on flights from Malta to Frankfurt and then on to Heathrow, but that did not happen. Even the judges who found Megrahi guilty in 2001 acknowledged the Crown had failed to show an unaccompanied bag flew on the flight from Malta. The Maid of the Seas, the Boeing 747 that would disintegrate over Lockerbie, was loaded from empty at Heathrow.

Evidence of a break-in at Heathrow the night before – which would have let someone plant the suitcase with the bomb in the relevant area – was known to the Scottish police, and must therefore have been known to the Crown, but was not revealed to Megrahi’s defence.

At the time, Heathrow had been notified by the UK department of Transport of the threat of bombs in Toshiba cassette-recorders.

We have a copy of a telex sent to Heathrow two days before Lockerbie, warning that such bombs would be hard to see on X-rays.

Incredibly, it told security staff at the airport that if an item looked uncertain on X-ray and was to be carried, it ‘could only be carried in the hold of the aircraft’.

The suppression of evidence that did not fit their case was a deliberate tactic of prosecutors.

They did not reveal that star witness Tony Gauci, owner of the shop that sold the clothing packed around the bomb, was to get $2 million (£1.5 million) for his testimony, even though he never once said the buyer was definitely Megrahi. The judges acknowledged his doubt in their verdict, but, uniquely in a criminal case where certainty is everything, made a virtue of it.

The statements Gauci made that didn’t fit the case were never shared but the judges later ruled on two matters Gauci was 100 per cent reliable on: the list of clothing and prices – not knowing that in an unseen statement he made in 1999 he had produced a different list – and that the buyer was Libyan.

The clothes purchase was agreed to have occurred on November 23, when Megrahi was in Malta. Other evidence, including Gauci’s brother Paul’s statement, pointed to december 7. Paul Gauci was not called to give evidence and received a $1 million (£740,000) reward. 

Megrahi received a life sentence.

The new appeal has not heard any of the considerable fresh evidence relating to the timer fragment.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case back to appeal but restricted the terms. There is copious evidence the fragment could not have been part of the bomb, yet the judges must decide if the conviction is safe without hearing it.

UK Families Flight 103 has always wanted to know why our loved ones were not protected despite the warnings, who killed them and why.

Our Government has always refused us a public inquiry. I am 84 and still hope to see justice done. It still brings tears to my eyes when I remember clearing out Flora’s London flat after her murder.

We found an offer to complete her studies at Cambridge, where I was an undergraduate. She would have been saving the news to tell us on Christmas day, or on her return from the States. I owe it to my wonderful daughter and to the man wrongly blamed for her death to keep fighting for the truth.

Lockerbie questions that US Attorney General William Barr needs to answer

[What follows is excerpted from an article by John Schindler published today on the Top Secret Umbra website:]

With just six weeks left for the Trump administration, speculation is swirling that Attorney General William Barr may step down before the official presidential transition on January 20. Barr has fallen out of favor with the White House since his admission last week that the Department of Justice’s investigation of our November 3 election has uncovered no significant voting fraud, contrary to the loud claims of President Donald Trump and his enraged surrogates. A longtime liberal bugbear, Barr suddenly became the Oval Office’s new whipping boy instead, and the attorney general is reportedly tired of the public presidential abuse. 

That would be the second time that Barr steps down as the attorney general (...)

Before we get to his decisions as Trump’s attorney general, we should first ask Bill Barr about what happened the last time he headed the Justice Department.

Above all, why did Attorney General Barr back in mid-November 1991 decide to indict two Libyan spies for the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988, a terrible crime that killed 270 innocent people. Barr’s announcement stunned our Intelligence Community, which had investigated that terrorist atrocity for nearly three years in voluminous detail, yet never suspected that Libya stood behind the attack.

Three decades ago, the Lockerbie tragedy loomed large in American news. A bomb inside a suitcase stowed in the Boeing 747’s forward left luggage container tore the airliner apart as it cruised at 31,000 feet, headed for New York. All 243 passengers and 16 crew on the Pan Am jumbo jet died, as did 11 people in the town of Lockerbie, which was showered by the flaming wreckage of the shattered 747. One hundred and ninety of the dead were Americans, including 35 Syracuse University students headed home for Christmas after a European semester abroad.

It didn’t take long for diligent British investigators to find the remnants of the Samsonite suitcase which contained less than a pound of Semtex plastic explosive manufactured in Czechoslovakia and hidden in a Toshiba radio cassette recorder. That trail quickly led to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, a radical Arab terrorist group that was headed by Ahmed Jibril, a former Syrian army officer. In the eyes of Western intelligence, the PFLP-GC was little more than an extension of Syria’s security services.

Intriguingly, less than two months before the Lockerbie attack, West German police rolled up a PFLP-GC bomb-making cell around Frankfurt, seizing four bombs made of Semtex hidden in Toshiba radios. Since Pan Am 103 originated in Frankfurt and that was the exact same kind of bomb which took down the doomed airliner, none of this seemed coincidental. Western intelligence circles heard chatter in the autumn of 1988 that the PFLP-GC, whose fifth Frankfurt bomb was never found by police, was planning to blow up U.S. airliners. Plus, one of the men taken into custody was Marwan Khreesat, a veteran bomb-maker who was believed to be behind the downing of a Swissair jetliner back in 1970, a terrorist attack which killed 47 people.

Before long, American intelligence believed that Iran was really behind the downing of Flight 103, given known close connections between Syrian intelligence and Iranian spy agencies. Neither was Tehran’s motive difficult to ascertain. A few months before, on July 3, 1988, the cruiser USS Vincennes, on station in the Persian Gulf, mistakenly shot down an Iran Air Airbus, a terrible accident which killed all 290 people aboard, including 66 children. Iran’s revolutionary regime promised revenge, and the Intelligence Community assessed that they got it over Scotland. As I explained on the thirtieth anniversary of the Lockerbie horror, that Iran stood behind the attack:

Was the conclusion of US intelligence, particularly when the National Security Agency provided top-secret electronic intercepts which demonstrated that Tehran had commissioned the PFLP-GC to down Pan Am 103 (...) One veteran NSA analyst told me years later that his counterterrorism team “had no doubt” of Iranian culpability. Bob Baer, the veteran CIA officer, has stated that his agency believed just as unanimously that Tehran was behind the bombing. Within a year of the attack, our Intelligence Community assessed confidently that Lockerbie was an Iranian operation executed by Syrian cut-outs, and that take was shared by several allies with solid Middle Eastern insights, including Israeli intelligence.

The IC was therefore taken aback on November 14, 1991, when Attorney General Barr announced the indictment of two Libyan spies, Abdelbaset el-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, for the downing of Pan Am 103. Libya denied the accusations, as did the two Libyan intelligence officers, and it took Britain almost a decade to bring the men to trial. In a unique arrangement, the trial was held in the Netherlands under Scottish law. In the end, the court did not convict Fhimah but did find Megrahi guilty of 270 counts of murder in early 2001. Megrahi maintained he was framed and, suffering from cancer, he was released on compassionate grounds in 2009. He returned to Libya and succumbed to cancer there in May 2012, protesting his innocence to the end.

Quite a few people who looked at the evidence believed that Megrahi really may have been innocent, including some relatives of Pan Am 103 victims. Many in intelligence circles had doubts too, particularly because the prosecution’s star witness, Abdul Majid Giaka, was another Libyan intelligence officer who became a CIA asset. Giaka claimed to have witnessed Megrahi and Fhimah’s preparations in Malta to take down Pan Am 103 with a bomb made by Libyan intelligence. The Scottish court found Giaka less than credible, yet his claims against Megrahi stood up adequately to produce a conviction.

CIA made Giaka available to the court as the star witness, while obscuring some of their clandestine relationship with the Libyan spy. Langley offered several of its own officers to the court as well, something CIA recounted with pride in its official telling of their support to the Lockerbie trial, but the agency was careful to only produce officials who endorsed the Libya-did-it hypothesis.

There was the rub. Some CIA officers who were close to Giaka did not find his claims about Pan Am 103 and his own intelligence service’s involvement to be credible; in fact, they considered their “star” to be an unreliable fabricator. However, this secret – which raises fundamental questions about the US government’s official position on Lockerbie since late 1991 – was kept confined to spy circles for decades. Until now.

John Holt, a retired CIA officer who served as Giaka’s handler three decades ago, has broken his silence, granting a detailed interview to British media about his role in this sensational case. The 68-year-old Holt spoke out for the first time about what really happened behind the scenes with Giaka, whom he dismissed as an asset who was prone to “making up stories.” Giaka was far from a reliable source and the former American spy opined that CIA kept Holt away from the trial, since agency leaders knew that his account contradicted the official US position on Lockerbie. As he explained:

I handled Abdul-Majid Giaka in 1989 for a whole year during which he never mentioned Libyan involvement in the bombing. My cables [back to CIA headquarters] showed he was a car mechanic who was placed by Libyan Intelligence as Malta Airport office manager with Libyan Arab Airlines and had very little information about anything to do with bombs – or Lockerbie. He felt humiliated by Megrahi, who was an official with the Libyan Intelligence Service. “I was treated,” he said, “like a dog when Megrahi came to the office.” That's all reported in my cables, so CIA knew Giaka had a grudge against Megrahi.

This was a personal vendetta, in other words, one that was driven by Giaka’s needs and his changing memory, as Holt elaborated:

Every time I met Giaka, which was each month or two, I would also ask him if he had any information at all about the Pan-Am bombing. All of us CIA and FBI field officers were asked by the CIA to keep pressing our assets for any answers or clues.  His answer was always: No.

I expressed my opinion to the FBI that Giaka was nothing more than a wannabe who was not a real Intel Officer for the Libyans. He had no information [about] Lockerbie, and I told the CIA all this in comments I made in my cables. He went back to Libya at the end of 1989 and I moved on to another assignment.  

In 1991, Giaka told the CIA that he had been exposed and the Libyans would kill him. When he was told he was useless to our intelligence services, he began making up stories. It was only when he needed desperately to get some financial and logistical support from the US to flee Libya in 1991 that he started telling the CIA things relevant to the Pan Am 103 bombing.

This fix was in, however, and Holt found his first-hand view of the case sidelined by his own agency. His cables which illuminated Giaka’s unreliability as a source were not shared by CIA with the Scottish court, while Langley declined to let Holt provide evidence at the trial. “We now all need to admit we got the wrong man, and focus on the real culprits,” Holt explained, pointing a finger at Bill Barr:

I have reason to believe there was a concerted effort, for unexplained reasons, to switch the original investigations away from Iran and its bomb-making Palestinian extremist ally the PFLP—General Command. Now we should focus a new investigation on the Iranians and their links with the bomber…I would start by asking the current attorney general, William Barr, why he suddenly switched focus in 1991, when he was also attorney general, from where clear evidence was leading, toward a much less likely scenario involving Libyans.

In May of this year, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ordered a fresh look into Abdelbaset el-Megrahi’s conviction. So far, this review has revealed claims that the prosecution presented a distorted version of the late Megrahi’s alleged role based on “cherrypicked” evidence in order to obtain a conviction. Bill Barr won’t be attorney general for much longer and he ought to avail himself of the opportunity to explain why credible information from veteran intelligence officers like John Holt was ignored to make a case against Megrahi, who may not be guilty of his supposed role in the murder of 270 innocent people.

Nearly a year ago, Attorney General Barr delivered remarks about the Pan Am 103 tragedy at a memorial service held at Arlington National Cemetery. He commemorated the dead of Lockerbie: “The Americans who died that day were attacked because they were Americans. They died for their country. They deserve to be honored by our nation.” Barr added that the case remains far from over for him: “In 1991, I made a pledge to you on behalf of the American law-enforcement community: ‘We will not rest until all those responsible are brought to justice.’ That is still our pledge. For me personally, this is still very much unfinished business.” The thirty-second anniversary of the Lockerbie attack is two weeks from today. If Barr meant what he said about resolving that tragedy’s unfinished business, John Holt’s testimony is an excellent place to commence the search for the full truth about what happened to Pan Am 103.

Who made the bomb? The full truth about Lockerbie is still not being told

[This is the headline over a long report by David Horovitz published today on the website of The Times of Israel. It reads in part:]

Megrahi went to his grave protesting his innocence, and his family continues to fight to clear his name. This week, Scotland’s highest criminal court is hearing his relatives’ latest appeal against his conviction, after an independent review determined that he might have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Among other flaws, the defense is highlighting that the Maltese shopkeeper who identified Megrahi as the man who purchased the incriminating clothing in the suitcase, and whose evidence has always been controversial, was paid for his testimony, a fact that was not disclosed to the defense in the original trial.

I have followed the Lockerbie case since the time of the bombing, when I was working for The Jerusalem Post as its London correspondent, and when I happened to see material in the early stages of the investigation that pointed not to Col. Gaddafi’s Libya, but rather to Iran and the Palestinian terrorist organization PFLP-GC — the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. Earlier in 1988, the US Navy’s guided-missile cruiser USS Vincennes had shot down an Iran Air Airbus in the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 passengers and crew, in a tragic case of mistaken identity. The US said it had misidentified the civilian airliner as a fighter jet. Iran had promised to avenge the deaths. Ayatollah Khomeini had vowed that the skies would “rain blood.” (...)

Just weeks before the Lockerbie blast, four devices strikingly similar to the one that would soon be utilized to such devastating effect on Flight 103 had been found in the possession of PFLP-GC members arrested in a Frankfurt suburb. That PFLP-GC cell was reported at the time to have been planning to blow up planes heading to the US and Israel. Its bombs, like those the PFLP-GC had used in the past, and like the Lockerbie device, were detonated by a barometric pressure device and timer, activated when a plane reaches a certain altitude. A fifth bomb in the Frankfurt cell’s possession was said to have disappeared; this was presumed to be the device that blew up Flight 103.

The Lockerbie investigators were initially following these leads; then they shifted their focus to Libya. In 2003, Gaddafi accepted responsibility for the bombing — though he denied ordering it — and paid compensation to the victims’ families, in accordance with UN demands for the lifting of sanctions on his country.

Almost seven years ago, a colleague of mine at The Times of Israel noticed that a man named Marwan Khreesat, a Jordanian national, maintained an Arabic-language Facebook page in which he had taken to posting pictures of the Lockerbie bombing. Khreesat was the PFLP-GC’s bombmaker-in-chief, the alleged maker of those barometric-pressure devices. He was one of those who was arrested by the German authorities in Frankfurt, only to be inexplicably released soon afterward. Now he was promising to reveal the truth about Lockerbie — to “write about Pan Am 103,” including “who was on the flight and the circumstances of the incident.”

In his posts, Khreesat also connected himself to the bombing of an El Al plane from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1972, describing that attack as “a challenge to the Israeli intelligence agents who are responsible for searching luggage and everything that goes on a plane.” The 1972 El Al bomb — another barometric-pressure device — had been hidden in a record player that two British women were duped into carrying by two Arab men who were later arrested. Although the bomb exploded, the pilot was able to make an emergency landing. “It was a successful blow against the Israeli enemy,” Khreesat wrote in a March 14, 2014, Facebook post, in which he also described spending time with PFLP-GC chief Ahmed Jibril in Rome as they waited for the attack to unfold.

In several 2013-4 Facebook posts relating to Lockerbie, Khreesat recalled his arrest two months before the bombing. He posted pictures of the destroyed cockpit of the 747 after the explosion, the painstakingly reconstructed parts of the plane wreckage, and a radio-cassette recorder like the one that held the bomb. He also asked a series of unanswered questions about the attack. “Who did the operation?” he mused in a post on the 25th anniversary of the blast. “Israel? Iran? Libya? Who carried the Toshiba explosive device [in which the bomb was hidden]?… Did the explosive device come from Malta airport like the American intelligence agencies say?… When will these riddles be solved.”

This week’s appeal by the Megrahi family was green-lighted by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in part because of “nondisclosure” of evidence to the defense team in the original trial. Some of that documentary evidence is widely reported to have been provided by Jordan’s late King Hussein and to not only to implicate the PFLP-GC in the Lockerbie atrocity, but to specify that Marwan Khreesat built the bomb.

On Friday, however, the head of the Scottish judiciary, Lord Carloway, ruled that the documents must still be withheld on the grounds of national security. Accepting a secrecy order signed by British Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb [sic], Carloway explained, “[Rabb’s] clear view is [that the release of the documentation] would cause real harm to the national security of the UK because it would damage counter-terrorism liaison and intelligence gathering between the UK and other states… The documents had been provided in confidence to the government. Their disclosure would reduce the willingness of the state, which produced the documents, to confide information and to co-operate with the UK.”

All manner of conspiracy theories surround the Lockerbie bombing, some of which do not rule out the involvement of Libya and Megrahi, most of which revolve around the fact that nobody has been prosecuted for making the bomb, and many of which focus on the PFLP-GC and Marwan Khreesat.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to raise the question of the Lockerbie bombing with several former Israeli intelligence figures, who were in office at the time of the bombing and well aware of the activities of the PFLP-GC at the time. Two of them insisted without elaboration that “Libya did it” and brushed away further questions. A third, by contrast, told me it was “clear that Jibril prepared the operation.”

Israel was “listening in” on the PFLP-GC during the months prior to Lockerbie, he said, and hearing about preparations for what “we thought was a plan to target an Israeli plane.” There was a “huge alert” in the Israeli security establishment because of indications that the PFLP-GC was about to strike, this source went on. “We told the British and the Americans what we knew, which was that there was an intention to hit an Israeli plane… We didn’t warn about a British or an American plane because we didn’t know that,” he said.

The new appeal hearing is expected to continue until Friday, with a ruling at a later date. “It is submitted in this case that no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned the verdict that it did, namely the conviction of Mr Megrahi,” the defense lawyer Claire Mitchell told the judges on Tuesday. But that argument will be harder to make without those “Jordanian” documents, which the defense has said are central to the appeal. If his relatives fail to have Megrahi’s conviction overturned, their allegation of a miscarriage of justice will linger.

Marwan Khreesat died in 2016.

His Facebook page is still online.

But he never did tell the truth about Lockerbie.

Scottish judges rule Lockerbie documents will remain secret

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Observer. It reads in part:]

Scotland’s most senior judges have upheld a secrecy order signed by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to withhold intelligence documents believed to implicate a Palestinian terror group in the Lockerbie bombing.

Lawyers acting for the family of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, believe the documents are central to a fresh appeal against his conviction which starts on Tuesday and had urged the court to release them.

The appeal has been lodged by Megrahi’s son, Ali Abdulbaset al-Megrahi, in what is believed to be the first posthumous miscarriage of justice case in Scottish legal history. Megrahi died of cancer in Tripoli in 2012 after being released from prison on compassionate grounds.

The documents are thought to have been sent by King Hussein of Jordan to the UK government after Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the town of Lockerbie on December 1988, killing all 259 passengers and crew, and 11 townspeople.

The documents are believed to allege that a Jordanian intelligence agent within the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), called Marwan Khreesat, made the bomb. Critics of Megrahi’s 2001 conviction believe the PFLP-GC carried out the attack on behalf of the Tehran regime in revenge for the destruction of an Iranian airliner by the US warship the USS Vincennesa in July 1988, but this was covered up in order to implicate Libya.

In August, Raab signed a public interest immunity certificate to keep the documents secret. In 2008 the then foreign secretary, David Miliband, also refused to release the papers ahead of Megrahi’s second appeal, later abandoned in the belief he would be released early from prison.

In a ruling issued late on Friday, Scotland’s most senior judge, Lord Carloway, the lord justice general, said the court had upheld Raab’s order signed in August, after studying the papers in a secret hearing earlier this month, even though the foreign secretary agreed the documents are relevant to the appeal.

“His clear view is [it] would cause real harm to the national security of the UK because it would damage counter-terrorism liaison and intelligence gathering between the UK and other states,” Carloway said, referring to Raab’s submission. “The documents had been provided in confidence to the government. Their disclosure would reduce the willingness of the state, which produced the documents, to confide information and to co-operate with the UK.”

To the disappointment of the Megrahis’ lawyers, Carloway sided with the UK government by arguing much of the material in the secret documents was known to Megrahi’s defence team at his trial in the Netherlands in 2000-01, as were claims about Khreesat’s role, even though the Jordanian cables were withheld from his lawyers.

The Megrahi family lawyers insist the documents could have opened up significant new lines of inquiry and helped prove Megrahi’s innocence if they had been released before his trial. Megrahi tried to incriminate the PFLP-GC in the bombing.

The Scottish government’s lawyers, who are on the UK government side in opposing the appeal, told Carloway they believed the documents should be disclosed.

The new appeal hearing was ordered after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission decided Megrahi’s conviction was arguably a miscarriage of justice, because of significant discrepancies in the evidence of the Crown’s key witness, a Maltese shopkeeper called Tony Gauci, who alleged Megrahi had bought clothes put in the suitcase bomb.

The SCCRC also said the Crown had failed to disclose Gauci and his brother were offered reward payments totalling $3m for testifying. Given that evidence, no reasonable jury would have convicted Megrahi, and his rights to a fair trial under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been breached. [RB: Non-disclosure of the payment offer to the Gaucis is not the principal basis of the contention that no reasonable jury would have convicted.]

The commission found the Jordanian documents were hearsay and had not come from a primary source. That contradicts a previous ruling by the SCCRC. In 2007, with different commissioners involved in the case, it had decided the Jordanian documents did raise questions about the safety of Megrahi’s conviction when it recommended an appeal.

With that hearing under way in August 2009, Megrahi abandoned his case after it emerged he had cancer. “He did so at least partly because he thought that by doing so his prospects of compassionate release would be increased,” the court said.

Finally my family has hope that our father’s name will be cleared

[What follows is a statement issued today by Aamer Anwar, solicitor for the Megrahi family members on whose behalf the application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission was made:]

On the 21st December 1988, 270 people from 21 countries were murdered in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed in the United Kingdom.

Since then the case of Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi the only man ever convicted of the crime has been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history.

[An] appeal was commenced in 2007 but following the diagnosis of terminal cancer it was suddenly abandoned in 2009.

A reversal of the verdict would have meant that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom stand exposed as having lived a monumental lie for 31 years, imprisoning a man they knew to be innocent and punishing the Libyan people for a crime which they did not commit.

In June 2014 we lodged an application with the Commission (SCCRC) seeking to overturn the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for murder. The application was submitted on behalf of the Immediate family members of the late Mr Al-Megrahi along with Dr Jim Swire, Reverend John F Mosey and 22 other British relatives of passengers who died on board Pan Am Flight 103.

The Appeal Court in a judgment in July 2015, ruled that the relatives of Lockerbie bombing victims would not be allowed to pursue an appeal on behalf of the only man convicted of the crime. The families did not give up and in July 2017 a further application was lodged with the Commission on behalf of the Al-Megrahi family.

For those who believe there is a time limit on justice I would like to quote Dr Jim Swire who I spoke to this morning after advising him of the decision.

Dr Swire, father of Flora Swire who, one day before her 24th birthday, was brutally murdered said:-

 “It has always been and remains my intent to see those responsible for her death brought to justice. I still ache for her, what might have been, the grandchildren she would have had, the love she always gave us and the glowing medical career. For me this case is about two families, mine and Abdelbasset’s, but behind them now are seen to lie the needs of 25 other families in applying for a further appeal 31 years after the event itself- We need the truth.”

I pay tribute to the compassion, courage and perseverance of Dr. Swire, Rev Mosey, the many British relatives of victims and of course to the family of Mr. Al-Megrahi who lost a father, husband and son and describe him as the 271st victim.

I am grateful to our legal team, in particular Clair Mitchell QC and Gordon Jackson QC for their support and tireless efforts, as well as Robert Black QC.

We are grateful to the staff of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission for their exceptional hard work that has taken place over several years as a result of our application.

I can advise that this morning at 11am the Commission delivered to my office the full statement of reasons totaling  451 pages. I quote from their letter:

“The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has decided that Mr. Megrahi’s case should be referred to the High Court for the determination. The Commission believes that there may have been a miscarriage of justice in relation to the conviction, and that it is in the interests of justice to refer the case to the High Court.”

We had identified six grounds for referring the case to the Appeal Court. 

 The Commission have gone on to deliver a damning indictment of the process and believe that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred by reason of an ‘Unreasonable Verdict’ and the ground of ‘Non-Disclosure’. These grounds incorporate many of the issues we had identified in our application.

Unreasonable verdict

S106(3)(b) of the 1995 Act allows an appeal on the basis that a conviction was based upon a verdict that no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned. Despite the fact there was no jury here, that ground of appeal remains open to Mr Al Megrahi.

This ground relates to the Court’s finding that Mr Al Megrahi was the purchaser of items that were located within the suitcase which housed the bomb which destroyed Flight 103. Said items having been bought in a shop in Malta owned by Mr Tony Gauci.

The Commission have agreed with our submission that the Court could not reasonably find that Mr Megrahi was the purchaser of the items on the basis of the evidence which was before them. This finding was central to the Crown case against Mr Al Megrahi as absent that finding that linked Mr Al Megrahi to the items within the bomb suitcase, there would have been insufficient evidence to allow the Court to convict.

Mr Gauci’s statements and his evidence on identification were inconsistent. The positive identifications of Mr Al Megrahi which he made were qualified in some instances and made in circumstances hugely prejudicial to Mr Al Megrahi in others.  His evidence regarding the date of the purchase of the items from his store was perhaps even more incredible and could – and should – not have been accepted as credible or reliable.

The Commission have concluded that no reasonable Court could have accepted the evidence that Mr Megrahi was identified as the purchaser of the items from Gauci’s shop. That being the case, no reasonable Court could have convicted him.

 Non-Disclosure

We submitted serious allegations of the failure of the Crown to disclose evidence which could have been key to the defence and interfered with the right to a fair trial.

The Crown failed in its duty of disclosure of relevant material to Mr Al Megrahi’s defence team prior to trial. This prejudiced the defence in their preparation and conduct of the trial to such an extent that the Commission have concluded that this may have given rise to a miscarriage of justice.

The Commission conclude that there should have been disclosure to the defence regarding:

*Information contained in the precognition statement provided by Mr Gauci to the Crown.
*A statement given by Sergeant Bussutil and a confidential police report regarding Mr Gauci’s exposure to photographs in a magazine prior to attending an identification parade.
*Reward monies paid to Mr Gauci and his brother. Documents have claimed that Scottish police officers and FBI agents had discussed as early as September 1989 an offer of unlimited money to the Maltese shop keeper Tony Gauci.

We submit that it is unacceptable to offer bribes, inducements or rewards to any witness in a routine murder trial in Glasgow then it should have been unacceptable to have done it in the biggest case of mass murder ever carried out in Europe. Various reports have claimed that Tony Gauci received more than $2m in reward-money.

The Commission conclude that, when applying the Article 6 test regarding a fair trial under the ECHR, the failure by the Crown to disclose information regarding the photographs which had been viewed by Mr Gauci and the information on reward monies paid to the Gauci’s, that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

INTERESTS OF JUSTICE

 The Commission was asked to address the issue of whether it is in the interests of justice to refer the case to the High Court for a further appeal. [An] appeal was commenced in 2007 but following the diagnosis of terminal cancer it was suddenly abandoned in 2009. Ordinarily this would be a bar to a further appeal being raised.

The application we lodged dealt with the circumstances that lead to Mr Megrahi abandoning his appeal.

The Commission concluded that Mr Al-Megrahi abandoned his appeal in the genuine and reasonable belief that the Scottish Government had exerted pressure upon him to do so, to allow them to release him on compassionate grounds.

Consent to disclose Information

We are disappointed that various redactions appear in the statement of reasons because the Scottish Government, the UK Government, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States Government have refused consent to disclose matters which at this time reman redacted.

We must now insist that the Lord Advocate abide by his duty to make full disclosure.

In conclusion the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system has suffered badly both at home and internationally because of widespread doubts about the conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi.

Mr Al- Megrahi was convicted in a Scottish court of law and that is the only appropriate place for his guilt or innocence to be determined.

Within 21 days we must lodge a note of appeal with the High Court.

 There is finally hope on what has been a long journey for the truth, but there can never be a time limit on justice. 

I conclude with the words of Ali-Al-Megrahi (the son)

“Finally my family has hope that our father’s name will be cleared, I am grateful to all those who have supported my family in their long struggle for justice.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 states that where the Commission make a reference to the High Court they —

Give to the Court a statement of their reasons for making the reference; and

Send a copy of the statement to every person who appears to them to be likely to be a party to any proceedings on the appeal arising from the reference.

The grounds for an appeal arising from a reference to the High Court under section 194B of this Act must relate to one or more of the reasons for making the reference contained in the Commission's statement of reasons.  

 What happens next is that we assess the document and put in our note of appeal one or more of the reasons for making the reference.  We are not bound to put forward all of them – we are also not inhibited from adding more but “the High Court may, if it considers it is in the interests of justice to do so, grant leave for the appellant to found the appeal on additional grounds.”  

 An application by the appellant for leave to appeal must be made and intimated to the Crown Agent within 21 days after the date on which a copy of the Commission's statement of reasons is sent under subsection (4)(b).

 (4D)The High Court may, on cause shown, extend the period of 21 days mentioned in subsection (4C).

 The Appeal Court used to have the power to reject a reference but the law on that was changed in 2017.

First we have to assess the grounds of appeal that the Commission want to put forward – they have of course had since June 2014 and then July 2017 and a whole host of staff and resources to consider this. Our team will have to consider what we have been given and draft the note of appeal against conviction and have it lodged.

 It is highly likely that there will be requests for extensions of the time required to conduct a thorough review of the SCCRC decision and to prepare the note of appeal. Following that, there will be a number of procedural hearings, before the final appeal hearing.

We will also today write to the Lord Advocate advising him of his duty of disclosure and disclose all information

BACKGROUND TO THE CONVICTION AND SENTENCE

Mr Megrahi was convicted on the 31st January 2001 of the charge of murder following trial at the High Court of Justiciary sitting at Kamp van Zeist in the Netherlands. His co-accused Al-amin Khalifa Fimah was acquitted following trial. Mr Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 27 years.

Appeal

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s first appeal was dismissed on the 14th March 2002.

The next appeal was mounted in consequence of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission’s reference dated 28 June 2007.

Grounds of Appeal 1 and 2 were argued before the Court in full at a public hearing which took place between 28 April and 19 May 2009. On 7th July 2009 the Court indicated that one of its numbers, Lord Wheatley, had been hospitalised. It continued consideration of the grounds of appeal.

On 18th August 2009 Mr Megrahi with leave of the court, abandoned his appeal. No judgement or opinion has therefore been handed down by the Court upon these submissions.

BACKGROUND TO THE CONVICTION  

Pan Am flight 103 (“PA103”)

1.5 At 7.03pm on Wednesday 21 December 1988, shortly after taking off from Heathrow airport, PA103 was flying at an altitude of 31,000 feet en route to John F Kennedy airport, New York, when an explosion caused the aircraft to disintegrate and fall out of the sky. 243 passengers and 16 crew on board were killed. The victims came from 21 countries, the vast majority being from the United States.

1.6 The resulting debris was spread over a very wide area in Scotland and the North of England, but principally it landed in and around the town of Lockerbie causing the deaths of a further 11 people. In all 270 people were killed in the disaster.

1.7 A massive police operation was mounted to recover the bodies of the victims and as much of the debris as possible. The local police force, Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary (“D&G”), was assisted in the search operation by numerous officers from other forces in Scotland and England, as well as by military personnel and members of voluntary organisations.

Fatal Accident Inquiry

1.8 On 1 October 1990 a fatal accident inquiry was conducted by Sheriff Principal John Mowat QC. In his findings in fact, Sheriff Principal Mowat found that a Samsonite suitcase (“the primary suitcase”) containing a Toshiba radio cassette recorder loaded with a Semtex-type plastic explosive had been placed on board Pan Am flight 103A (“PA103A”) from Frankfurt to London Heathrow before being transferred to PA103; that the suitcase had probably arrived at Frankfurt on another airline and been transferred to PA103A without being identified as an unaccompanied bag; that the baggage had not been reconciled with passengers travelling on PA103, nor had it been x-rayed at Heathrow; and that the cause of all the deaths was the  detonation of the explosive device in luggage container AVE 4041 which had been situated on the left side of the forward hold of the aircraft.

1.9 Sheriff Principal Mowat concluded that the primary cause of the deaths was a criminal act of murder. 

The police investigation

1.10 It had been concluded very soon after the disaster that the likely cause had been the detonation of an improvised explosive device. From the date of the explosion and throughout the course of 1989-1991, an extensive international police investigation was carried out, principally involving the British and American investigating authorities, but also including the police forces of the former Federal Republic of Germany (“the BKA”) and of Malta.

1.11 Initially, suspicion fell upon Palestinian terrorist groups, in particular the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (“PFLP-GC”). However, in 1990 developments in the investigation turned its focus to Libya, and on 13 November 1991 a warrant was granted by a sheriff at Dumfries for the arrest of the applicant and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah (“the co-accused”), both Libyan nationals. On the following day the Lord Advocate issued an indictment setting out the charges against the two accused. Simultaneously, as a result of a federal grand jury investigation, the US Attorney General published an indictment in substantially similar terms to that issued by the Scottish authorities.

1.12 Following publication of the indictments, the UK and the US sought the handover of the two accused for trial, and throughout 1992 and 1993 the UN Security Council issued a number of resolutions calling upon Libya to do so. It also imposed extensive economic sanctions against that country. Libya denied any involvement in the crime.

Proposals for trial in the Netherlands

1.13 In 1998 the governments of the UK and the US wrote to the Secretary General of the UN indicating that they were prepared to arrange a trial of the two accused before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. The trial, it was proposed, would follow Scots law and procedure in every respect except that the jury would be replaced by a panel of three judges. Following Libya’s consent to the initiative, an agreement was entered into between the UK and the Netherlands to put it into effect. On the same date, the High Court of Justiciary (Proceedings in the Netherlands) (United Nations) Order 1998 came into force in the UK, regulating such matters as the constitution of the trial and appeal courts.

1.14 Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean were appointed to form the panel of judges. Lord Abernethy was appointed as an additional judge to assume the functions of any member of the panel who died during the proceedings or was absent for a prolonged period. He was not required to carry out that function. The location of the court was chosen as Kamp van Zeist in the Netherlands.

1.15 On 5 April 1999, the applicant and the co-accused travelled to the Netherlands where they were arrested by Scottish police officers. On 14 April 1999 they were fully committed for trial, and were detained at premises within the court precincts. The indictment was served upon them on 29 October 1999.

The trial 

1.16 Preliminary pleas to the competency and relevancy of the charges were raised by both accused and argued on their behalf by counsel at a hearing on 7 December 1999. On 8 December, Lord Sutherland, sitting alone, held the charges to be both competent and relevant (see HMA v Al Megrahi (No 1) 2000 SCCR 177). Leave to appeal the decision was granted but no appeal was taken.

1.17 The trial commenced on 3 May 2000, and the cases for both accused closed on 8 January 2001. Neither the applicant nor the co-accused gave evidence.  Following submissions by the parties on 18 January 2001 the diet was adjourned to allow the judges to deliberate upon their verdicts.

1.18 There were originally three alternative charges libelled on the indictment: (1) conspiracy to murder; (2) murder and (3) contravention of sections 2(1) and 5 of the Aviation Security Act 1982. However, on 10 January 2001, the advocate depute’s motion to delete charges (1) and (3), and to amend charge (2), was granted by the court. Consequently, by the end of the trial both accused faced only a single charge of murder in the following terms:

“(2) You ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI being a member of the Libyan Intelligence Services and in particular being the head of security of Libyan Arab Airlines and thereafter Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, Tripoli, Libya and you AL AMIN KHALIFA FHIMAH being the Station Manager and formerly the Station Manager of Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta and having, while acting in concert with others, formed a criminal purpose to destroy a civil passenger aircraft and murder the occupants in furtherance of the purposes of the said Libyan Intelligence Services and having between 1 January 1985 and 21 December 1988, both dates inclusive, within the offices of Libyan Arab Airlines at Luqa Airport, Malta and elsewhere in Malta in your possession and under your control quantities of high performance plastic explosive and airline luggage tags, while acting in concert together and with others [sub-paragraph (a) was deleted on the motion of the advocate depute]

(b) you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI and AL AMIN KHALIFA FHIMAH did between 20 November and 20 December 1988, both dates inclusive, at the premises occupied by the firm of MEBO AG at the Novapark Hotel, Zurich Switzerland, at the premises occupied by you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI and by the said Libyan Intelligence Services, in Tripoli aforesaid, and elsewhere in Switzerland and Libya, through the hands of Ezzadin Hinshiri and Badri Hassan both also members of the Libyan Intelligence Services, order and attempt to obtain delivery from the said firm of MEBO AG of forty timers capable  of detonating explosive devices and of a type previously supplied by the said firm of MEGO AG to member of the Libyan Intelligence Services;

(c) you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI and AL AMIN KHALIFA FHIMAH did between 1 and 21 December 1988, both dates inclusive, at Luqa Airport, Malta without authority remove therefrom airline luggage tags; 

(d) you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI did on 7 December 1988 in the shop premises known as Mary’s House at Tower Road, Sliema, Malta purchase a quantity of clothing and an umbrella;

(e) you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI and AL AMIN KHALIFA FHIMAH did on 20 December 1988 at Luqa Airport, Malta enter Malta while you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI were using a passport in the false name of Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamad and you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI and AL AMIN KHALIFA FHIMAH did there and then cause a suitcase to be introduced to Malta;

(f) you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI did on 20 and 21 December 1988 reside at the Holiday Inn Tigne Street, Sliema, aforesaid under the false identity of Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamad;

(g) you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI and AL AMIN KHALIFA FHIMAH did on 21 December 1988 at Luqa Airport, aforesaid place or cause to be placed on board an aircraft of Air Malta flight KM180 to Frankfurt am Main Airport, Federal Republic of Germany said suitcase, or a similar suitcase, containing said clothing and umbrella and an improvised explosive device containing high performance plastic explosive concealed within a Toshiba RT SF 16 “Bombeat” radio cassette recorder and programmed to be detonated by one of said electronic timers, having tagged or caused such suitcase to be tagged so as to be carried by aircraft from Frankfurt am Main Airport aforesaid via London, Heathrow Airport to New York, John F Kennedy Airport, United States of America; and

(h) you ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI did on 21 December 1988 depart from Malta and travel from there to Tripoli, Libya using a passport in the false name of Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamad, while travelling with said Mohammed Abouagela Masud also a member of the Libyan Intelligence Services; and such suitcase was thus carried to Frankfurt am Main Airport aforesaid and there placed on board an aircraft of Pan American World Airways flight PA103 and carried to London, Heathrow Airport aforesaid and there, in turn, placed on board an aircraft of Pan American World Airways flight PA103 to New York, John F Kennedy Airport aforesaid; and said improvised explosive device detonated and exploded on board said aircraft flight PA103 while in flight near to Lockerbie, Scotland whereby the aircraft was destroyed and the wreckage crashed to the ground and the 259 passengers and crew named in Schedule 1 hereof and the 11 residents of Lockerbie aforesaid named in Schedule 2 hereof were killed and you did murder them; and it will be shown that between 1 January 1985 and 21 December 1988, both dates inclusive, in Tripoli, Libya, at Dakar Airport, Senegal, in Malta and elsewhere the said Libyan Intelligence Services were in possession of said electronic timers, quantities of high performance plastic explosive, detonators and other components of improvised explosive devices and Toshiba RT SF 16 “Bombeat” radio cassette recorders, all for issue to and use by their members, including Mohammed El Marzouk and Mansour Omran Ammar Saber.”

1.19 The court returned its verdict on 31 January 2001. It unanimously found the co-accused not guilty. The verdict in relation to the applicant was recorded in the minutes of trial in the following terms (see also the transcript of proceedings on day 86 of the trial):

“The Court Unanimously found the Accused Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi GUILTY on the Second Alternative Charge but that under deletion of the words ‘and you Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifah [sic] Fhimah  did there and then cause a suitcase to be introduced to Malta’ in lines 4 to 6 of subhead (e) of said charge and under deletion of the words ‘said suitcase, or’ in line 4 of subhead (g) and under deletion of the word ‘similar’ in line [4] of said subhead (g)”.

1.20 The court sentenced the applicant to life imprisonment, backdated to 5 April 1999, and recommended that he serve a minimum period of 20 years before he could be considered for release on licence.

 Post-trial developments 

Appeal 

1.21 The applicant lodged grounds of appeal against conviction on 11 June 2001 and leave to appeal was granted on 23 August 2001. The proceedings took place at Kamp van Zeist between 23 January and 14 February 2002, and the opinion of the court, rejecting the appeal, was issued on 14 March 2002. 

Application to the European Court of Human Rights 

1.22 On 12 September 2002 the applicant’s defence team lodged an application (number 33955/02) with the European Court of Human Rights in which they argued that the applicant’s right to a fair trial had been infringed by, inter alia, prejudicial pre-trial publicity. On 11 February 2003 the court ruled the application inadmissible on the basis that the applicant had failed to exhaust domestic remedies by raising these issues in the domestic forum.

Diplomatic developments 

1.23 On 15 August 2003, Libya delivered a letter regarding the Lockerbie bombing to a meeting of the UN Security Council. The letter contained the following passages: 

“… the remaining issues relating to fulfilment of all Security Council resolutions

resulting from the Lockerbie incident have been resolved…

… Libya as a sovereign state:

••• Has facilitated the bringing to justice of the two suspects charged with the

bombing of Pan AM 103, and accepts responsibility for the actions of its

officials;

••• Has cooperated with the Scottish investigating authorities before and during

the trial and pledges to cooperate in good faith with any further requests for

information in connection with the Pan Am 103 investigation. Such

cooperation would be extended in good faith through the usual channels;

••• Has arranged for the payment of appropriate compensation…”

1.24 On 12 September 2003, the UN passed a resolution lifting all UN sanctions

against Libya.

“Punishment part” hearing

1.25 At a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow on 24 November 2003 under the Convention Rights (Compliance) (Scotland) Act 2001, the punishment part of the applicant’s sentence was set at 27 years, again backdated to 5 April 1999. On 18 December 2003 the Lord Advocate appealed against the sentence as being unduly lenient. 

For further background please refer to:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-25465662

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/lockerbie-exclusive-we-publish-the-report-that-could-have-cleared-megrahi.2012036248

http://www.sccrc.org.uk/ViewFile.aspx?id=612

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/today-sunday-herald-publishes-behind.html 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-25465662

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-43987079

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10688067/Lockerbie-bombing-was-work-of-Iran-not-Libya-says-former-spy.html

Innocence of Megrahi and Libya does not point to guilt of Iran

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer published today on his Intel Today website, where full supporting citations can be found:]

On January 6 2020, President Hassan Rouhani tweeted the following message:

“Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655. Never threaten the Iranian nation.”

This tweet was a response to President Donald Trump’s threat to target 52 sites in Iran should it retaliate against the US drone strike that killed top Iranian military figure General Qassem Soleimani on January 3 2020.

Not surprisingly, Rouhani’s message was quickly commented on by Middle East and Lockerbie experts as well as by imbeciles and hypocrites.

Real experts —

Middle East analyst Fatima Alasrar, from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, was one of the first to indicate the link between Rouhani’s tweet and Lockerbie.

“Rouhani is basically reminding @realDonaldTrump of the #Iranian Air Flight 655 carrying 290 passengers which was downed by a US navy warship the Vincennes in 1988.

Though it was deemed a human error, Tehran worked covertly to exact its revenge.

How? Lockerbie.”

Robert Black — Professor Emeritus of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh and best known as the architect of the Lockerbie Trial– concurs.

Speaking to The National as Iran continued to mourn Soleimani, Black said:

“I think Rouhani’s tweet does refer to Pan Am 103 … The 290 clearly refers to those killed on Iran Air 655 and with ‘Never threaten the Iranian nation’ it seems to me that he’s saying that Iran responded to those Iranian deaths caused by US action.

The only response that I can think of was the bombing of Pan Am 103 six months later.”

Imbeciles and hypocrites —

Given half a chance, idiots will never miss the opportunity to share with you their “deep knowledge” on sensitive issues. The current Iran Crisis is a case in point.

Describing himself as an expert on terrorism strategy with 36 years of services in the US Intel Community, Malcolm Nance tweeted:

“PANAM 103 was DEFINATELY Qaddafi Libya. We found the same Swiss digital detonators were purchased by Libyan intelligence and were also used on the UTA 772 in flight bombing. No question. Iran had nothing to do with it.”

Here is a quick primer for this “expert”. Firstly, no detonators were recovered, let alone identified, among the debris of PA 103 and UTA 772.

Secondly, the timer that allegedly triggered the bomb on UTA 772 was produced in Taiwan, not Switzerland.

Thirdly, we know now that PT/35(b) — a fragment of an PCB allegedly found at Lockerbie — does NOT match the metallurgy of the Swiss timers — MST13 — delivered to Libya. Full stop. (...)

Intel Today analysis —

There is no doubt whatsoever that Rouhani makes a direct reference to the 290 victims of Iranian Air Flight 655.

His warning “Never threaten the Iranian nation” appears to be a veiled threat suggesting that Iran will retaliate for Soleimani’s assassination just like they did in the case of Iranian Air Flight 655.

Assuming that this is indeed what Rouhani means, then it seems logical to conclude that he is claiming Iran’s responsibility for the downing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.

Actually, it is not the first time that a high level Iranian cleric claims responsibility for Lockerbie.

Indeed, when I spoke to Bani Sadr — who served as the first president of the Republic of Iran — he told me that ayatollah Motashemi-pur had immediately taken credit for the Lockerbie bombing which he regarded as a “just revenge” for Flight 655.

However…

Let me say this one more time. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Lockerbie verdict is utter nonsense.

Megrahi — the man known as the Lockerbie bomber — clearly suffered a spectacular miscarriage of justice.

In fact, the analysis of the fragment that linked Libya to Lockerbie demonstrates that the Swiss timers delivered to Libya played no role in the tragedy.

This is, in my opinion, the only reasonable conclusion that an honest person can reach.

However, to many observers, the innocence of Megrahi — and Libya — can only point to the guilt of Iran.

I can not agree with such a flawed logic, for it may very well replace a 30 years old lie by a new one, which would be quite convenient to certain groups today as it would suit very well their geopolitical agenda. (...)

Let me make this point very clear. There is not a shred of evidence that Iran ordered the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie as an act of retaliation for Iran Air 655.

And there is a good reason for that which I will reveal today.

In the aftermath of Flight 655 disaster, the US and Iran conducted a series of secret talks in the city of Montreux, Switzerland.  Richard Lawless was representing Bush and Abolghasem Mesbahi was an envoy of Rafsanjani.

By the end of September 1988 — 3 months before Lockerbie — they managed to settle an agreement.

None of this has ever been made public for obvious reasons. It would have been perceived as a second IranGate scandal. (...)

So, what really happened?

The Lockerbie investigation underwent three separated stages. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the American and British investigators quickly identified the cause of the tragedy as well as those responsible for it.

However, both Bush and Thatcher agreed that the truth was inconvenient.

From early January 1989 to March 1989, US and UK Intelligence agencies were busy writing a script implicating Iran.

That was not a very difficult task considering that very realistic but false “means, motive, and opportunity” could easily be wowen into a rather believable story.

Basically, the events of the “Autumn Leaves” operation — the PFLP-GC cell operating in Frankfurt — became a blueprint for the script. Thus all the key items appear at this stage: brown Samsonite, clothes from Malta, Toshiba radio, Semtex, Frankfurt, etc…

But in March 1989,  George H W Bush and Margaret Thatcher decided to hold off this game plan.

Why? Remember that the US is in secret talks with Rafsanjani and the future seems promising.

Ayatollah Khomeini is dying and his hardliner heir — Grand Ayatollah Montazeri — has been sacked on March 26 1989.

Khomeini died on June 3rd 1989. Ali Khamenei was elevated from the position of hojatoleslām to the rank of Ayatollah.That title, and a modification of the Constitution which previously restricted the job to the few people such Montazeri who had the title of Grand Ayatollah, was then enough to promote him as Khomeini’s successor.

Next, Rafsanjani himself was elected Iran’s president on August 3rd 1989.

By September 1989, blaming Iran for Lockerbie would no longer have served the geopolitical interests of the US and UK.

And lo and behold, in September 1989, the investigation entered stage 3 and  switched away from Iran to solely focus on Libya thanks to the mysterious ‘discovery’ of a tiny circuit board known as PT/35(b). The rest is History. (...)

If the SCCRC recommend a new trial, the infamous Zeist verdict does not have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving.

This should be the very top priority. Once Megrahi is acquitted and the Lockerbie-Libya fiction is erased once and for all, then the time will be right to investigate the true cause of disaster and reveal the identity of the culprits. It is not very hard at all…