Megrahi's solicitor on threat to UK Supreme Court

[The following are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Herald:]

Kenny MacAskill wants to cancel Scottish funding for the UK Supreme Court.

The Justice Secretary has ordered civil servants to investigate whether the Scottish Government can pull the financial plug on Britain’s most senior justices over what he sees as the threat they pose to centuries-old Scots Law.

Scotland currently contributes just under £500,000 a year to the London-based court but it is far from clear if the Scottish Government could stop its cheque.

The unprecedented threat to do so underlines just how angry Mr MacAskill is over two humiliating defeats at the UK Supreme Court, including last week’s decision to overturn the conviction of Nat Fraser for murdering his wife Arlene. (...)

Some lawyers last night warned that Mr MacAskill, an experienced defence solicitor, was risking a major constitutional crisis just by giving the impression of trying to undermine the finances of the UK Supreme Court.

Professor Tony Kelly, who acted for human rights group Justice in backing the Cadder appeal, said: “This is a politician interfering with the judicial branch of government. That is simply constitutionally impermissible. [RB: Tony Kelly is a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde.]

“It’s an attack on judicial independence which we have never seen the like of in the UK. We have a politician issuing threats against a court because he does not like its decisions.”

Mr Kelly added: “I don’t see any evidence that the Supreme Court has committed any grievous error. If there were English judges importing English doctrines into Scots Law, I am sure there would be a raft of evidence for Nationalist politicians. But there isn’t.”

Solicitor-advocate John Scott said he did not believe withdrawing funding from the Supreme Court would have any impact on the court’s jurisdiction over Scottish matters.

He said: “This is just political tub-thumping. It is a bit like somebody withholding part of their taxes because they don’t want to pay for nuclear weapons. It doesn’t work like that.”

MacAskill in offer to meet Megrahi

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has offered to meet the Lockerbie bomber in prison as he decides if the convicted mass murderer ought to be allowed home to Libya.

The Justice Minister has indicated he is willing to visit Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi in HMP Greenock, where he is serving life for murdering 270 people killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie 20 years ago.

The invitation has been extended by MacAskill at a time Libya is trying to exert diplomatic pressure on Britain to have the bomber repatriated.

The visit has been suggested by MacAskill as he carries out a consultation exercise with those involved in the case. He has met American and British relatives as well as Libyan Government officials.

A Scottish Justice Department spokeswoman said: "Mr MacAskill has offered to hear representations from Mr Megrahi. That offer only went this week, but it could be by letter or in person."

Megrahi's solicitor Tony Kelly said his client had not decided whether to take up the offer.

Yesterday it was reported Megrahi has signed a document agreeing to drop the appeal against his conviction if MacAskill allows him home to Libya. Megrahi was said to have handed the document to the Libyan Government, telling them not to hand it over until Scottish ministers have agreed to his transfer back home.

Kelly said: "I'm not going to say [anything] about the document at all. All I can say is that there is no impasse and I don't think that if the document exists, it would create an impasse." He claimed the correct chronology was for Scottish ministers to decide if the transfer should go ahead in principle before dealing with the conditions of the transfer.

Under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement between Britain and Libya, a move would only happen if Megrahi dropped his appeal. MacAskill is expected to decide in August if Megrahi should be returned.

If Megrahi leaves Scotland, there would be an outcry in the United States, where the overwhelming majority of the families of the 189 US victims believe he is guilty of the atrocity and should serve his sentence in a Scottish prison.

But the prospect of a MacAskill visit was welcomed by those who believe Megrahi has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

[From a report by Tom Peterkin in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday. The full text can be read here. The Sunday Times runs a similar report. It reads in part:

'[Kenny MacAskill's] decision to meet a convicted terrorist has provoked a backlash among American relatives of those who died in the 1988 bombing which killed 270 people. The justice secretary has said he wants to talk to all parties affected by the tragedy before deciding Megrahi’s fate.

'Bob Monetti, from New Jersey, whose 20-year-old son Rick was among the victims, accused MacAskill of giving the convicted murderer preferential treatment. “I don’t understand why they would treat this man as special compared to everyone else who has been convicted of murder,” he said.

'“Everyone seems to be bending over backwards to give him everything. The things that have been done for Megrahi treat him as though he were a person. I have a problem with that because, if he did the things he has been convicted of, he is not much of a person.”

'However, Jim Swire, the former GP whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the bombing, said the meeting was “an important and sensible step”, which he hopes will lead to Megrahi’s transfer or release. “As far as I’m concerned he is an innocent man dying in considerable pain,” he said. “It seems an unchristian and brutal punishment to keep him in prison away from his family.” (...)

'MacAskill’s meeting with Megrahi, agreed last week, is expected to take place at Greenock prison as early as this week.

'The Scottish government said: “We have received confirmation that Mr Megrahi does want to make representations to the cabinet secretary so we will take that forward. If we are asking anyone who can make relevant representations to do so, Mr MacAskill feels it would seem unfair if we didn’t hear representations from the man who this is all about.”

'Tony Kelly, Megrahi’s lawyer, said: “He has expressed a willingness to meet Mr MacAskill to make his position known.”

'A Cello MRUK poll for The Sunday Times last month inidicated that while 49% of Scots wanted Megrahi to remain in Scotland, 40% thought he should serve the rest of his sentence in Libya and 11% said he should be freed.' ]

New appeal 'may risk Megrahi lives'

[This is the headline over a report published in the Daily Express on this date in 2012. It reads as follows:]

The family of the Lockerbie bomber could be risking their lives if they raise the prospect of launching a fresh appeal against conviction, according to a leading figure in the campaign for a new inquiry into the court's decision.

Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing in December 1988, said the new Libyan regime wants nothing to do with links to Colonel Gaddafi. He sounded the warning as it emerged that Tony Kelly, the lawyer who represented Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, is seeking a visa to visit family members in the capital, Tripoli.

Dr Swire, who was in the Scottish Parliament to hear MSPs keep alive a petition for an inquiry, said expert advice suggests the Megrahi family would be first in line to make any appeal, with relatives of the bombing "second on the list".

After Holyrood's Justice Committee met, he said: "The situation as regards the Megrahi family is that Tony Kelly, the lead figure for the defence of the Megrahi case, is seeking a visa to go to Libya for talks with the family. The situation in Libya is very difficult indeed. I can hardly see how the family will be able to make a decision whether to ask for a further appeal or not.

"It's hard to see where they would get any funding from to do it and, indeed, they might be risking their lives to do it because the subsequent regime following Colonel Gaddafi have been hell-bent on passing all blame to the Gaddafi regime. They have a position where they say that everything they did wrong was Gaddafi's fault, not Libya's fault.

"If the Megrahi family put their heads above the parapet and say 'although our dad was, before he died, a member of the Gaddafi regime, he wasn't guilty and we're going to contest the issue in Scotland again', it would be, to say the least, extremely unpopular.

"Having been to Libya fairly recently, where you can hear the stutter of AK-47s in the back streets at night still, if I were the Megrahi family I'd be very, very nervous about raising the issue of an appeal."

Mr Kelly confirmed he is seeking a visa to visit Megrahi's relatives but would not comment on the purpose of the visit and said any link to an appeal would be speculation. "I'd arranged a visa but there were problems picking it up from the embassy, so I'm trying to secure another and visit Libya," he said.

MSPs of all parties on the committee agreed to keep the Justice for Megrahi petition open. It calls for the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the conviction of Megrahi at a specially convened Scottish court in the Netherlands in 2001.

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

[RB: The real risk that the Megrahi family took in making an application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in May 2014 makes it especially galling that the Commission in November 2015 refused to proceed with the consideration of that application. The same risk would attend any further application.]

Megrahi lawyer attacks Bill that axes safety net on right to appeal

[What follow are excerpts from an article in today's edition of The Times. It can be read -- but only, of course, by subscribers -- here.]

A leading human rights lawyer last night alleged that ministers had “pulled up the drawbridge” on victims of miscarriages of justice.

Tony Kelly, best known for representing Abdul Ali Baset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, said he was astonished by the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Bill, passed by MSPs in an emergency session last Wednesday, which seemed designed to reduce the number of cases going to appeal. (...)

He said the new law would cut across the powers of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to have potential miscarriages of justice reviewed and would discourage individuals from embarking on the appeal process.

“Loud and clear, the message from this legislation is ‘Don’t appeal’,” he said.

His intervention followed the remarks of Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Edinburgh, who earlier claimed that new legislation created a conflict of interest within the High Court, which had effectively been handed the power to block any appeal.

Section 7 of the Bill deals with references from the SCCRC and says: “In determining whether or not it is in the interests of justice that any appeal arising from the reference should proceed, the High Court must have regard to the need for finality and certainty in the determination of criminal proceedings.”

Mr Kelly said that in relation to “certainty” and “finality”, the SCCRC had been established to deal with cases that were final and certain.

Between 1999 and 2010, it received a total of 1186 cases, completed the review of 1136 cases and referred 97 cases to the High Court for determination. Theoretically, under the terms of the new legislation, all 97 could simply have been turned away by the High Court.

Mr Kelly said: “The SCCRC, when it was set up, was viewed as a safety net, it examined cases that fell out with the normal run of evidence and admissibility. Those included miscarriages of justice — and Scotland has had its fair share of those.

“There was a specific exception from that finality clause — enabling the commission to exercise its discretion in certain cases. How can you possibly pull back from that?”

Mr Kelly, who is visiting professor in human rights law at the University of Strathclyde, added: “Most concerning, is the fact that the High Court has two separate powers.

“It can immediately bounce a reference from the Commission if it doesn’t consider it in the interests of justice, and, in determining any appeal, it has got to have regard to ‘finality’. Loud clear, the message is: ‘Don’t appeal’.” (...)

Mr Kelly said that he was at loss to explain why the Cadder ruling had been extended to the right to appeal.

“The only rationale I can see is that they are pulling up the drawbridge, making it more difficult for people to submit applications to the Commission and for the Commission to refer cases to the High Court,” he said.

“You can talk about individual cases, but this is a blanket, covering every single appellant. It will be much more difficult, there will be fewer appeals.”

John McManus, project officer for Miscarriage of Justice Organisation (Mojo), said the legislation brought to mind the saying: “Who guards the guards?”

He added: “You are asking judges to judge themselves. They have passed verdict. Will they be willing to look at the failings of their own system?

“They seem to be closing the door even more on the appeals process.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said that it had been obliged to act swiftly following the Supreme Court ruling.

“The Scottish Government has worked closely with the appropriate bodies to prepare for every contingency arising from the case, helping mitigate the impact on the police and justice system in carrying out their day-to -day duties protecting the public and prosecuting crime,” she said.

Whole Lockerbie case must be reviewed

[This is the heading over three letters published in today's edition of The Scotsman. They read as follows:]

W Robert Durward (Letters, 10 August) points out that Megrahi's trial has never been officially acknowledged as a "travesty of justice". However, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) stated: "The commission is of the view that based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."

If we take into consideration that this was the biggest mass murder committed in Scotland in modern times, many are rightly of the belief we should rigorously review the whole case and investigate fully the glaring fragility of the evidence used in the Camp Zeist trial.

If the Scottish criminal justice system made a mistake and jailed an innocent man, then it needs to be open and honest if it ever hopes to retain the confidence of the concerned Scottish public.
David Flett

Monday's STV documentary on Lockerbie was interesting in that Tony Kelly, Megrahi's lawyer, seemed bullish about the new evidence for the SCCRC appeal and especially the fact that Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper had been given £2 million for giving the evidence that was pivotal to Megrahi's conviction. The US government official would not comment on this, but it does raise some questions as to Gauci's impartiality.

Surely former lord advocate Lord Fraser was mistaken when he told the Sunday Times that "Gauci was not quite the full shilling. I think even his family would say (that he] was an apple short of a picnic". It would seem to me that Tony Gauci is very much "all there, and a wee bit mair", as they say in Fife. But whether justice was best served by this witness is another matter.
Tom Minogue

A year ago, at the height of the furore over the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Scotland was subjected to a barrage of (mostly ill-informed) hostile criticism from the United States.

At that time, you published a letter from me in which I suggested that, with Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition as examples of US justice at work, it ill-suited Hillary Clinton, amongst others, to lecture Scotland on the operation of any justice system, let alone a compassionate one. I have waited in vain for someone of influence in Scotland to express similar views in public. At last, Cardinal Keith O'Brien has spoken out.

Rather than simply "welcoming" his views (your report, 9 August), is it not time for Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill to reiterate the words of Cardinal O'Brien on every possible occasion?
Alan R Irons

[The following is a letter published in today's edition of The Herald.]

Jim Swire’s is one of the most uplifting letters I have ever read in your columns (The Herald, August 10). It is a privilege to share the planet with him.

He has suffered as great a blow as anyone can – the loss of a very close relative through personal malicious violence – and yet no rancour is there.

Although he acknowledges that in American culture there is some aspect of vengeance, he does not brand them all so. He says US Lockerbie relatives are the same kind of people he has encountered here and have the same desires as he has. I think we are too ready to assign national attributes. I have many American relatives and friends, and when asked how I find Americans, I reply, some I like, a few I dislike but the great majority I do not know well enough either to like or dislike. That answer would also apply to other nationals I know well: Indians, English and Scots. I imagine it would also apply to those whom I only know in small numbers or have not yet met. Perceived national stereotypes are poor guides to behaviour.

The problem of determining the truth is a persistent one, but I feel a chimera. I have spent my working life in science where hypotheses are tested in the laboratory. Having observed the most plausible hypotheses turn out to be defective, I have little faith in any inquiry yielding the truth. If a well-equipped laboratory cannot be absolutely certain of its results, what chance is there of a committee coming to an ultimately valid conclusion when its evidence is not only volatile but dependent on human observation, not of the directed kind as in the laboratory, but rather of a casual view of an event not recognised as important at the time? Human memory, even at the best of times, is frail.

Perhaps the best we can do is, as Dr Swire suggests, have the incident looked at by a group in whom we can trust, but that will lead to a never-ending regress if we look for faults in its findings. As Dr Swire says, the relatives want closure.
Chris Parton

[As someone who yesterday spent over four hours in the company of Dr Swire and Rev John Mosey, I wish to record how wholeheartedly, in respect of each, I endorse the second sentence of Mr Parton's letter.]

Crown’s breaches of duty of disclosure

[What follows is the text of a report published in The Independent on this date in 2009:]

The Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing today published more documents he claims prove his innocence.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi insisted the move was not meant to add to the upset of the people "profoundly affected by what happened in Lockerbie".

But he added: "My only intention is for the truth to be made known."

Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, was controversially freed from prison on compassionate grounds earlier this year.

He had been serving a life sentence at Greenock prison for the bombing of the Pan Am flight 103 in 1998, in which 270 people were killed.

Before his release, the bomber dropped his second appeal against that conviction.

His Scottish lawyers, Taylor and Kelly, said Megrahi remained ill in hospital in Tripoli, and that the documents published on the website www.megrahimystory.net related to his appeal.

In a statement Megrahi said: "I recognise that the Court of Criminal Appeal in Scotland is the only authority empowered to quash my conviction. In light of the abandonment of my appeal this cannot now happen."

However he added: "I continue to protest my innocence - how could I fail to do so?"

Megrahi said much of the material published today was "buttressed by the independent investigations of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission".

It was the commission that referred Megrahi's case back to the courts for its second appeal.

Megrahi - who was convicted of the bombing in January 2001 at a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands - had mounted an unsuccessful appeal in 2002.

But in 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, sent his case for a subsequent appeal.

Today he said: "The commission found documents which they concluded ought to have been disclosed to my defence."

And he claimed this included a "record of interest in financial reward" by Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who sold clothing found to have been in the suitcase that contained the bomb.

Megrahi also said the commission had seen documents which should have been given to his defence team at the trial.

He stated: "The commission concluded that the non-disclosure of these documents and other material may have affected the trial process and caused a miscarriage of justice."

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill made his decision to free Megrahi "based on the due process of Scots Law" and he "supports the conviction".

He added: "The Scottish Government has already released as much relevant information as possible, and have met with the SCCRC to look at what documentation relating to the appeal could be released by them."

The newly-published papers include claims that Tony Gauci was paid two million dollars (about £1.2m) by US authorities after the trial.

Much of the document published today relates to evidence which, Megrahi's lawyers say, was not produced at his trial.

When the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission sent Megrahi's case to the appeal court, it said doubt had been cast on some of the evidence which helped convict him, in particular evidence relating to his visit to Tony Gauci's shop in December 1988.

New evidence suggested the clothing had been bought before December 6, at a time when there was no evidence that Megrahi was in Malta, said the SCCRC.

And other evidence not available at the trial undermined Gauci's identification of him, it said.

Much of what is published today on the Megrahi website relates to Gauci's identification.

The legal documents by Megrahi's defence team say the SCCRC found material showing Mr Gauci was paid more than two million dollars by the US department of justice after the trial, and his brother Paul Gauci was paid one million dollars (about £600,000).

The SCCR also unearthed a statement made to police by David Wright, a friend of Tony Gauci, which had not been made available to the defence.

The statement from Mr Wright, who visited Tony Gauci, told of a purchase of clothing by two Libyans in October or November - but the statement was not investigated.

Other material published today also questions the reliability of Mr Gauci's identification of Megrahi.

The "missing evidence" on the identification of Megrahi was not put forward at his trial for a variety of reasons, according to the appeal papers published today by his lawyers.

They blamed both the prosecution for omitting some evidence from the trial - and the defence for not fully investigating the identification evidence.

Other arguments put forward in the documents relate to alleged inconsistencies in identification evidence, and to the possibility of Mr Gauci's recollection being tainted by "prejudicial" publicity.

The previously undisclosed evidence of David Wright was found by the SCCRC.

A friend of Mr Gauci and long-standing visitor to Malta, he called police in November 1989 after seeing TV coverage of Lockerbie which included footage of Mr Gauci's shop.

He told police he visited Mr Gauci in his shop in late October or November 1988, and saw two Libyans buy clothing.

The pair were smartly-dressed, had a lot of money, and bought several items of clothing.

Mr Gauci had referred to them as "Libyan pigs", and the descriptions given by Mr Wright did not resemble Megrahi.

But no further inquiries were made and Mr Wright's statement was not disclosed to the defence, the papers say.

The material showing that Mr Gauci asked for and received payment was also unearthed by the SCCRC, say the papers.

The commission found material showing that, at an early stage, he expressed an interest in receiving payment or compensation.

The material also "indicated" that US authorities offered to make substantial payments to him, that an application for reward money was made after the trial - and that Mr Gauci received "in excess of" 2 million dollars after the appeal, with his brother receiving 1 million dollars.

"The SCCRC states that, at some time after the appeal, the two witnesses were each paid sums of money under the Rewards for Justice programme administered by the US Department of Justice," said the papers.

And none of this had been disclosed to the defence, the papers say.

"The failure to disclose the information that reward monies have been discussed, that offers of rewards related to the witness have been discussed, and that substantial rewards have in fact been paid to the witness, is in breach of that duty to disclose."

Why did SCCRC fail to contact John Ashton for Megrahi documentation?

[What follows is the text of an item posted last night by John Ashton on his website Megrahi: You are my Jury:]

The SCCRC say they couldn’t get access to Megrahi’s appeal papers – so why didn’t they ask me for them?

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has today announced that it has rejected the application made by various UK Lockerbie victims’ relatives and members of the Megrahi family for a review of Abdelbaset’s conviction on the grounds that “it is not in the interests of justice”.

The accompanying statement contains the following:

The Commission also had to consider the circumstances surrounding the abandonment of Mr Megrahi’s previous appeal. To enable it to do so it was imperative that the Commission be provided with the defence appeal papers. After a period of 14 months, and despite various requests having been made of the Megrahi family and of the late Mr Megrahi’s previous solicitors, Messrs Taylor and Kelly, these have not been forthcoming…

[Quote by SCCRC Chairman Jean Couper:]

It is extremely frustrating that the relevant papers, which the Commission believes are currently with the late Mr Megrahi’s solicitors, Messrs Taylor and Kelly, and with the Megrahi family, have not been forthcoming despite repeated requests from the Commission. Therefore, and with some regret, we have decided to end the current review…

…The Commission has written to the late Mr Megrahi`s solicitors and to his family requesting access to the defence papers in order to allow it to consider the circumstances surrounding the abandonment of Mr Megrahi’s second appeal. No papers were forthcoming despite repeated requests.

Abdelbaset gave me access to all of the defence appeal papers, and I still have them, yet no one from the SCCRC approached me for them. Had they done so, I would have happily handed them over. I also reported on Abdelbaset’s reason for abandoning his appeal in Megrahi: You are my Jury.

The application to the SCCRC stated, in schedule 3, the following:

The circumstances in which Abdelbaset al-Megrahi came to abandon his second appeal are set out in Chapter 14 (pages 346 to 365) and Appendix 4 (pages 420 to 425) of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury — The Lockerbie Evidence (Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2012, ISBN-13 978 1 78027 015 9) and (much more briefly) on page 119 of John Ashton’s Scotland’s Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters (Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2013, ISBN-13 978 1 78027 167 5) to which the Commission is respectfully referred.

Having been diagnosed as suffering from terminal prostate cancer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was desperate to achieve his repatriation to Libya so that he could die surrounded by his family. In these circumstances he applied for compassionate release on 24 July 2009. The Libyan Government had already submitted an application for prisoner transfer on 5 May 2009. Abandonment of Megrahi’s appeal was not a requirement for compassionate release, but it was a requirement for prisoner transfer; and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice intimated that, although prisoner transfer had been applied for more than two months before application was made for compassionate release, both applications would be dealt with by him simultaneously (see eg http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2009/07/megrahi-deadline-will-be-missed.html). Accordingly, if both routes to repatriation were to remain open to him, Megrahi had to abandon his appeal.

In a press release issued through his solicitor, Tony Kelly, a short time after his return to Libya, Megrahi stated: “I have returned to Tripoli with my unjust conviction still in place. As a result of the abandonment of my appeal I have been deprived of the opportunity to clear my name through the formal appeal process. I have vowed to continue my attempts to clear my name. I will do everything in my power to persuade the public, and in particular the Scottish public, of my innocence.” (see http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2009/09/press-release-regarding-publication-of.html). Until the end of his life, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi continued to protest his innocence of the crime of which he had been convicted: see eg http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2011/12/these-are-my-last-words-i-am-innocent.html.

In view of this, the SCCRC cannot have been unaware of my involvement in the case, so why did they not contact me?

Application to SCCRC by Megrahi family imminent

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in today’s edition of the Sunday Mail:]

A bid to clear the name of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing will be launched this week by his family.

Relatives of Abdelbaset al Megrahi will hand a dossier to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

They hope it will result in an appeal against Megrahi’s conviction. The details were finalised in talks with lawyer Aamer Anwar in Zurich.

Details of a planned appeal brought by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s widow and son, who want former justice ­secretary Kenny MacAskill to be quizzed in court over his release, are revealed by the Sunday Mail for the first time today. (...)

The grounds for a new appeal will formally be handed to Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission by the Megrahi family’s lawyer Aamer Anwar this week.

As justice secretary at the time, MacAskill took full responsibility for the decision to release the Libyan.

It’s understood Megrahi’s relatives want to question him on the ­circumstances surrounding the decision to release him and MacAskill said he would co-operate if called to give evidence.

Megrahi’s widow Aisha and son Ali Abdelbaset al-Megrahi agreed the terms of the appeal at a meeting in Zurich last November. (...)

Dr Swire and another relative, Rev John Mosey, are among 25 UK-based relatives of victims who are ­supporting the Megrahis’ appeal.

A source said: “There are too many ­unanswered ­questions and the best place for the truth to come out is in a courtroom.

“One of the main questions is why did Kenny MacAskill feel he had to meet Mr Megrahi in person on his own in prison?

“It is an extraordinary step for a justice ­secretary to meet a prisoner particularly if he is just about to release him on compassionate grounds.

“We need to know if he was ever given the impression overtly or implied that dropping his appeal would increase his chances of compassionate release.”

The new grounds for appeal include ­questions over the integrity of evidence ­produced by the Crown at the original trial, including circuit board fragments and clothes.

They also claim that crucial testimony given by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci was false and should have been ruled inadmissible.

The SCCRC have already ruled that ­Megrahi’s conviction was potentially a miscarriage of justice.

Victims’ relatives, led by Dr Swire, tried to have the conviction overturned posthumously but the SCCRC ruled they could only re-examine if asked by the family. That barrier has been overcome following the summit in Zurich.

Aisha al-Megrahi said: “I wish to pursue this appeal in my husband’s name to have his ­conviction overturned, to clear his name and to clear the name of my family. The world will say sorry to my husband and my family one day. That’s all I wish to say.”

Ali, 22, added: “I still feel bad that my father was innocent and locked up in prison for so many years.

“I lost my father and although nobody can bring him back, I still want justice for him. I’m sure that, with the new appeal, my father’s name will be cleared from all ­allegations.

“The Lockerbie affair hit my family very, very hard and we’re looking forward to the day that Scottish justice prevails and that we can live in peace again.

“We hope the authorities of Scotland will make it possible to correct the controversial verdict and give all the families who lost loved ones, including ours, real justice.”

Also in attendance in Zurich was Edwin Bollier, a Swiss businessman who was a witness at the original trial at Camp Zeist in Holland.

He is a former director of Swiss firm Mebo, who prosecutors claimed made the Lockerbie bomb’s timer. He believes Megrahi’s conviction wrongly implicated him in the atrocity.

The SCCRC have the power to refer the case to the Court of Appeal if they believe there are enough grounds. The process is likely to take months.

Anwar has received thousands of pages of documents from the original trial which had been held by Megrahi’s previous legal team Taylor & Kelly.

Megrahi’s Scottish lawyer while alive was Tony Kelly, a partner in that firm.

Anwar, installed last week as rector of Glasgow University, said: “The Lockerbie case has often been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal ­history.

“A reversal of the verdict would mean that the governments of the United States and the UK would be accused of having lived a monumental lie for over a quarter of a century and having imprisoned a man they knew to be innocent for the worst mass murder on British soil.

“The reputation of our criminal ­justice system has suffered at home and internationally because of the widespread doubts over the conviction of al-Megrahi.

“The only place those doubts can truly be addressed are in the Court of Appeal and nowhere else.”

MacAskill, who served as the SNP ­government’s justice secretary between 2007 and 2014 under Alex Salmond, promised to come forward if asked.

He said: “If I am called to give evidence, I will give evidence. Due ­process will take place and I will fully co-operate.”

He added: “This is a matter for the courts. It would be wrong of me to interfere. I am no longer involved in any aspect of it. I am happy to contribute but I will leave the due process of law to work its way.” (...)

Dr Swire backed plans for a new appeal. He said: “Shortly before Megrahi died, I met him in Tripoli and reassured him I would still do everything I could to clear his name.

“I am delighted that this request for an appeal is now being placed before the SCCRC.”

We must lift the burden of false incrimination against a dying man

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

In a villa, within a high walled garden in Tripoli, Libya, there lies a man wracked by the pain of widespread cancer, living out the last days of his life, cared for by his wife and children.

His name is known around the world as Megrahi, "the Lockerbie bomber".

He is what we would call middle class. His work was as a part-time international entrepreneur, part time employee of his State's airline, where his role involved the unusual task of trying to obtain spares for that airline's Boeing airliners in the face of international sanctions against his state. His work took him often to Malta where he may have had a mistress. It also took him from time to time to Zurich.

Yes, he also had a state-issued passport in a false name, to facilitate and conceal his journeyings and no doubt his trysts. Later when both Abdelbasel Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, pictured, and his family were confined to Tripoli, awaiting trial, (which he had volunteered to attend, in order as he believed to clear his name), he arranged for two of his children also to be issued with false passports so that they could attend a children's festival in another country. Such were the mores of his country, such were the uses of false passports.

The Scottish court at Camp Zeist was told that an investigating Scottish policeman had kept a diary but he was not told to go and get it from Glasgow. Yet we now know it contained contemporaneous evidence that the Scottish investigators knew the Americans were offering multi million dollar rewards "with $10,000 up front" and that those who falsely identified Megrahi were also aware of rewards long before they gave their evidence ("Six key points that cast doubt on Megrahi's guilt", The Herald, March 13).

We now know through the foresight of Megrahi's latter-day defence solicitor (now Professor) Tony Kelly of Glasgow,that it is not possible that the fragment found after the bombing could have come from a genuine Zurich timer board. That is unassailable scientific fact.

I hope that anyone reading this letter will consider the responsibility which Scotland carries for the failures that emerged in the delivery of justice at Zeist. We were responsible for failing to analyse "the fragment" fully, to discover whether it was genuine or not. We seem also to have been responsible for failing to produce evidence of the break-in at Heathrow which may have indicated a much simpler solution than the premeditated, contrived, cruel and criminal perversion of justice reached at Zeist.

It is time to lobby MSPs, to see if we can lift the terrible burden of false incrimination against this individual and his family, for which our court was in part responsible, before he dies. We may only have days or weeks to do so if he is to be alive to hear of it. Surely we owe that to him and to his family, currently cast as pariahs throughout the world. We also owe the truth about all that is known about the real killers, to the relatives of the victims.

We should remember the words of Nelson Mandela when the Zeist trial was announced: "No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and judge." 

[The letter as published is an edited version of two letters that Dr Swire submitted to the newspaper.  With his permission I reproduce here the full text of both.]

Letter 1

In a villa, within a high walled garden in Tripoli, Libya, there lies a man wracked by the pain of widespread cancer, living out the last days of his life, cared for by his still devoted wife and children.

His name is known around the world as Megrahi, 'the Lockerbie bomber'.

He is what we would call middle class, his work was as part time international entrepreneur, part time employee of his State's airline, where his work involved the unusual task of trying to obtain spares for that airline's Boeing airliners in the face of international sanctions against his State. His work took him often to Malta where he had a mistress, it also took him from time to time to Zurich.

Ah yes, he also had a State issued passport in a false name, to facilitate and conceal his journeyings and no doubt his trysts. Later when both he and his family were confined to Tripoli, awaiting trial, (which he had volunteered to attend, in order as he believed to clear his name), he arranged for two of his children also to be issued with false passports so that they could attend a children's festival in another country. Such were the mores of his country, such were the uses of false passports.

Feeling guilty over his Maltese mistress, he admitted that he had lied to at least one prominent international journalist as to the reasons for his own visits to Malta.  But the judges at his trial recorded that 'it was a serious problem for the prosecution' that there was no evidence of any sinister action by this man as he passed through Luqa airport on the day of the Lockerbie disaster,on his way back to Tripoli.

Upon his eventual release from a Scottish prison after ten years and the gathering intrusion of his fatal illness, he recorded that he had no grudge against the people of our country, still less against those who had cared for him in prison. Nor did he rail against those who may really have been responsible for the terrible crime of which he had been falsely accused for fear such accusations might themselves turn out to be false..

For those who had deliberately contrived his false conviction or born false witness against him for money, he warned of the judgement they must one day face at least at the bar of history if they believe they have no God.

But it was by means of the innate provision for compassion built into our justice system that we in Scotland were able to free him to die at home. This element of compassion was rightly praised, compared with the judicial systems of America, with their death sentences, and their brooding 'culture of vengeance' by the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal O'Brien, immediately following Megrahi's release to Tripoli.

I had the privilege of begging Kenny MacAskill to free Megrahi, who I was sure by then had played no part in the atrocity. Megrahi was dying, segregated from his family and innocent of this dreadful crime. Kenny on the other hand had at least to maintain that he still did believe Megrahi guilty, but we can now no longer hold such a belief with integrity.

We have known for years that those who identified this man as the buyer of objects from a Maltese shop were offered at least two million American dollars, if they would give evidence identifying Megrahi as the buyer. The Scottish court at Zeist was told that an investigating Scottish policeman had kept a diary, he was never told to go and get it from Glasgow. Yet we now know it contained contemporaneous  evidence that the Scottish investigators knew the Americans were offering multi million dollar rewards 'with $10,000 up front' and that those who falsely identified Megrahi were also aware of rewards long before they gave their evidence.

The faltering giver of the 'identification' evidence, one apple short of a picnic or not, had been bribed.

A central item of forensic 'evidence' found inside a Scottish police evidence bag, where the label had been deliberately altered so as to alert the searching forensic officers to contents other than just 'cloth', was a tiny piece of circuit board, carefully crafted to mimic a piece of a timer supplied by a Zurich firm to Libya. But there is now scientific confirmation that this key item could never have been part of a Zurich/Libyan bomb timer. The patterns traced on the fragment were near perfect copies of the real thing, but  a human error had allowed the fragment copy to be coated with  pure tin, by a process never ever used by Thuring, the Swiss manufacturers of the genuine boards, who always used a tin/lead eutectic solder alloy instead.

With the demise of the authenticity of this fragment the last shreds of support for the verdict against Megrahi and the Malta story also died. A long running digital timer was necessary if the bomb was to survive the time from Malta to Lockerbie.

The prosecution was warned by its forensic officers, before the trial, of the difference between the circuit board fragment 'PT35b' and the real timer boards, but failed to investigate.

Our SCCRC was also aware of this anomaly, yet despite their special 53 page report on 'PT35b' they claimed to have found nothing to show that it was not genuine.

We now know through the foresight of Megrahi's latter day defence solicitor (now Professor) Tony Kelly of Glasgow, that it is not possible that this fragment could have come from a genuine Zurich timer board.

That is unassailable scientific fact.

It is now clear that others, outwith Scotland were determined to pin this terrible crime upon Libya and chose Megrahi as their scapegoat, using hi-tech subterfuge to create the illusion that the bomb, through its timer could have survived the interval between Luqa and Lockerbie. What a price Megrahi has paid for his adultery.

It still remains perfectly possible that Gaddafi might have played a role in facilitating the atrocity for he had a deep hatred against America for that country's attempt to assassinate him in 1986. Perhaps if the current Lord Advocate persists in his plan to send investigators to Libya, evidence will emerge from the fog that follows civil war there, but many are those who would try to save their own skins by alleging the guilt of others, not least Sennousi.

I hope that anyone reading these lines will consider the responsibility which Scotland carries for the failures that emerged in the delivery of Justice at Zeist. We were responsible for the contents of that police evidence bag, we were responsible for analysing 'the fragment' fully, to discover whether it was genuine or not, we seem also to have been responsible for failing to produce evidence of the break-in at Heathrow which may have indicated a much simpler solution than the premeditated,contrived, cruel and criminal perversion of justice reached at Zeist.

Somebody created that clever deceitful fragment, someone intended that our court should seem to incriminate Libya, but surely our compassion, of which the Cardinal spoke in 2010 should now extend to an immediate setting aside of the verdict against this man Megrahi, accompanied by a profound apology. 

One MSP, Christine Grahame (MSP) has long realised the deception carried out here. Now that we all know that this was a premeditated framing of Megrahi, it is time to lobby your own MSP,  to see if we can lift the terrible burden of false incrimination against this individual and his family, for which our court was in part responsible, before he dies.

We may only have days or weeks to do so if he is to be alive to hear of it.

Surely we owe that to him and to his family, currently cast as pariahs throughout the world.

We also owe the truth about all that is known about the real killers, to the relatives of the victims.

Once we have done that we should be slow to attribute individual blame for how this disastrous case was conducted, instead we must urgently seek ways by which such a disaster can be avoided in future, starting with the obligation of our prosecution service to share all relevant information with the defence. Let us use the past with all its errors to learn how to do things better in future. Our criminal system got this case terribly wrong, we need to take transparent steps to minimise the chance of repetition of this disgrace. That would be a real benefit for all of us to extract from this whole miserable business.

Finally we might wish to consider what role our increasingly independent country should adopt towards the International Criminal Court, should a crime of international dimensions occur in our land again. As we consider that question, we might remember the words of Nelson Mandela issued in Edinburgh when the Zeist trial was announced.

Letter 2

Thanks to the book by Lockerbie defence researcher John Ashton, we now have a clear account of how the conviction of Megrahi was achieved.

It was not achieved because some alien group wanted to pervert the course of Scottish justice,  nor did it bear any relationship to the simple needs of the relatives of those killed at Lockerbie to know the truth as to who the murderers really were and why they were not stopped.

It was achieved in order to pin the blame specifically upon Libya, presumably in furtherance of perceived political advantage for the country contriving the deceit.

We now know that the famous timer board fragment PT35b was fabricated to match the circuit boards in a set of professional timers sold to the Libyans in the days of Gaddafi.

The patterns traced on PT35b were near perfect copies of those on the real Swiss/Libyan circuit boards, only human error in treating the surface of the copper tracks on them has now revealed the truth through scientific analysis. PT35b simply could never have been part of one of the Libyan owned and Swiss made timers.

It must be clear to all who are not 'blind because they do not wish to see', that the purpose of this slight of hand was to incriminate Libya in this dreadful mass murder, using the hapless Megrahi as scapegoat. 

In Scotland we too are guilty by association. Our prosecution authorities knew before the Megrahi trial had started  that the fragment had 'turned up' inside a Scottish police evidence bag with its label clumsily altered. They knew of the anachronistic insertions in the forensic record for PT35b. They knew that PT35b was not in fact 'similar in all respects' to the circuit boards of the Libyan timers, because the forensic officer who had made that claim had already pointed out that  in fact metallurgical differences existed.

Both our prosecution service, before the trial, and later our SCCRC after the trial knew, (or at least had access to, evidence which clearly showed) that in reality there were differences in the metallurgical details between PT35b and the real Libyan circuit boards. Both failed to investigate these differences, despite the SCCRC's special 53 page special report on the fragment.

It took the detailed diligence and foresight of Professor Tony Kelly of Glasgow (for Megrahi's defence), and John Ashton his researcher, to reveal that the differences between PT35b and the real Libyan boards were irreconcilable, and to show that even if the fragment had really been in a Semtex explosion, this gap was unbridgeable.

In addition we neglected the far more credible story, in view of PA103's flight time, that a Syrian pressure sensitive bomb with their inevitable flight time of 35-45 minutes might have been introduced at Heathrow, avoiding the detailed examination of exhibit PI/1588 which may have been the remains of a pressure sensitive switch from the wreckage field, and if so, pointing to Syria and Iran, not Libya. If that were not fault enough, the evidence of the break-in to Heathrow airport 16 hours before Lockerbie, investigated in January 1989 by the Met. was completely denied to the Zeist trial court. Only last month (Feb 2012) Lord Advocate Mulholland told us that he had still 'been unable to discover' why that evidence was not made available at the trial.

The determination to use this trial as a vehicle for deliberate deception, presumably in pursuance of international political ends did not come from within Scotland. But the multiple failures by our prosecution service responsibly to use the available material and share it with Megrahi's defence did.

For more than a decade some of us, the relatives, have realised that we are being denied the truth about what is really known about this horrible slaughter. We have had to watch Scottish justice twisting and turning to avoid blame for the way its manifest failures contributed to a foreign based wicked and premeditated perversion of justice. We were astonished by the defence position taken in Megrahi's first appeal in Zeist and have squirmed in front of the deliberate delaying tactics exhibited in Megrahi's second appeal in Edinburgh. Now we have learned that even our SCCRC were not astute enough to realise the real origins of PT35b despite their 53 page special report on it.

In contrast to a declaration from 10 Downing Street made just before Ashton's book had even been launched or read, that his book was 'an insult to the Lockerbie relatives', it throws light upon a devious and profoundly dirty aspect of international politics, which on top of our bereavemen,t has burdened us, like some noxious parasite for more than 23 years.

Is Scotland now man enough to investigate these failures, outclassed though they were by the malevolent misuse of our system by a foreign power? Justice delayed is justice  denied. Specially for Megrahi. In the end our system compounded the insults heaped upon the memory of those who died.

It has never been our policy as relatives to seek vengeance against individuals who failed us. Rather let us seek a full inquiry as requested by the group 'Justice for Megrahi', to see how we can do things better in future.  We cannot change the past, but we can and must learn from it. The people of Scotland too need to have faith in their justice system restored, all the more so as they perhaps approach independence.

There is also a middle class Libyan dying in great pain in Tripoli. It is thanks to the compassion built into our justice system that this innocent scapegoat is back home. Perhaps if we hurry we can give him the relief of knowing that his conviction was wrong, and that the incubus is lifted from his family.

We have the power within Scotland to remove this unjust verdict and issue an apology for the part our justice system played in this dreadful miscarriage. How wonderful if our compassion, displayed in allowing Megrahi home to his family could now extend to telling him at last, before his disease finally claims him, that we acknowledge his innocence.

Finally we might wish to consider what role our increasingly independent country should adopt towards the International Criminal Court, should a crime of international dimensions occur in our land again. As we consider that question, we might remember the words of Nelson Mandela issued in Edinburgh when the Zeist trial was first announced: 'No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and judge'. 


[Dr Swire also has a letter in today’s edition of The Scotsman.  It reads as follows:]

My visit to Tripoli in December 2011 showed the interim government there already assuming Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s guilt, without any apparent knowledge of his case.

The atmosphere was one of a determination to blame everything possible on the hated Gaddafi regime.

It would surely be best for truth and justice if Abdullah Senoussi, Gaddafi’s head butcher, were to be arraigned in front of the International Criminal Court (ICC), remembering Nelson Mandela’s famous comment in Edinburgh when the Zeist trial was first announced, that: “No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and judge.”

Bullies are usually cowards when cornered. Senoussi will want to oblige with information blackening the Gaddafi regime (except for his part in it all, of course).

Funny how he surfaced just after John Ashton’s book had revealed beyond any doubt that the central forensic evidence, (the alleged fragment of an exclusively Libyan timer), which the Lockerbie court had relied on to implicate Malta and Megrahi, had been deliberately fabricated to incriminate the Gaddafi regime.

Could there be any connection between “extraordinary rendition” and Senoussi’s appearance? After all, it seems the UK was providing information on selected UK citizens for “scourging” by Senoussi and Co.

It would be almost poetic to reverse the process and “render” him indirectly to the interim government.

What a pity that over the years the US has tended to be antagonistic to the ICC.