Libyan linked to Lockerbie welcome in UK

[This is the headline over a report published in The Guardian on this date in 2001. It reads as follows:]

A senior Libyan official accused of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing and branded 'the master of terror' has been welcomed by the Foreign Office as part of a charm offensive in the wake of the 11 September attacks.

Musa Kusa, head of Libya's external security organisation - which masterminded the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the worst mass murder in Britain - arrived in London last month for talks with MI6, the secret intelligence service, and members of the CIA.

The invitation is a measure of how seriously the Foreign Office regards the Islamic threat. The move will infuriate British relatives of the 270 Lockerbie victims, many of whom believe that justice was not done when a Dutch court convicted a low-ranking member of the Libyan intelligence service for the bombing.

Kusa is known in Libyan dissident circles as the master of terror. He was behind the liquidation of Libyan dissidents in Britain and was expelled from London in 1980 for orchestrating the killing of a BBC World Service journalist, Mohamed Mustafa Ramadan, outside Regent's Park mosque.

He is also wanted in France in connection with the downing of a French DC-10 of the UTA airline in 1989 with 170 passengers aboard, an attack similar to the 1988 bombing of Flight 103.

The rehabilitation of Kusa - who was visiting Britain for the first time in 20 years without an alias - is seen as a reward for Tripoli's backing for the US coalition against terrorism. On his visit, which ended last week, Kusa is understood to have met William Burns, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, in what is thought to be the highest-level official contact between the United States and Libya since the US aerial bombardment of Tripoli in 1986.

'We welcome all attempts at close coordination and assistance whatever the source,' said a US official. 'I'm not aware we've ruled out anyone speaking on behalf of the Libyan government.'

The Foreign Office confirmed a Libyan delegation had been in Britain but refused to disclose its members. But Mohamed Azwai, the Libyan ambassador in London confirmed that Kusa had met British and American officials and provided a list of more than a dozen Libyans in the UK suspected of links to Osama bin Laden.

The list included members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (IFG), which Libya claims is active in Britain. Azwai appeared to accede to Washington's demands to admit responsibility for acts of its officials convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

'Mr Kusa came to Britain and met with his MI6 and the CIA counterparts,' Azwai said. 'Libya will not have difficulty accepting responsibility [for the Lockerbie bombing]. Under international law, the state must accept responsibility for the wrongdoing of its officials.'

[RB: Lots more about Musa Kusa can be read here.]

Lifting of UN sanctions against Libya

[On this date in 2003 the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution lifting the sanctions that had been imposed on Libya after the bombings of Pan Am 103 and UTA 772. The relevant Security Council press release (which includes the text of the resolution and the speeches made at the session) reads in part:]

After several delays in recent weeks, the Security Council this morning lifted decade-long sanctions against Libya, which were imposed after that country failed to cooperate with investigations into terrorist acts against Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, and France’s Union de transports aeriens (UTA) flight 772 over the Niger in 1989.

After postponing action on the issue last Tuesday in an effort to achieve consensus (see Press Release SC/7866 of 9 September), the Council adopted resolution 1506 today by a vote of 13 in favour with two abstentions (France, United States).  The decision became possible after Libya accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials, renounced terrorism and arranged for payment of appropriate compensation for the families of the victims.

Libya also expressed its commitment to cooperate with any further requests for information in connection with the investigation.  Those steps in compliance with relevant Council resolutions were recounted in a letter, dated 15 August, from Libya’s Permanent Representative to the President of the Council (document S/2003/818).

Speaking after the vote, however, the representative of the United States said that his country had abstained in the vote, because it did not want its position to be misconstrued as a decision to modify its bilateral measures regardless of future Libyan behaviour.  The United States’ sanctions on that country would remain in full force.

While Libya had taken steps in compliance with relevant United Nations resolutions, the United States continued to have serious concerns about other aspects of Libyan behaviour, he said.  These included its poor human rights record, its rejection of democratic norms and standards, its irresponsible behaviour in Africa, its history of involvement in terrorism and -- most importantly -- its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

Referring to the agreement reached yesterday between representatives of the families of the victims of the UTA flight and the Gadhafi Foundation, France’s representative said that agreement had enabled France to not oppose the lifting of sanctions.  The conditions had been established for the equitable settlement of the painful matter that involved 17 nationalities.

Also speaking after the vote were the representatives of Germany, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Syria, Spain and the United Kingdom.  They pointed out that the lifting of sanctions was an important phase in the process of reintegrating Libya in the international community, emphasizing that such normalization presumed that Libya would continue to abide by its commitments.  Several members of the Council also called on Libya to take other measures, including an equitable settlement for victims of the La Belle night club bombing in Berlin in 1986. (...)

Regarding the Lockerbie investigation, the United Kingdom (S/23307) and the United States (S/23308) had requested that Libya surrender for trial those charged with the destruction of the Pan Am flight on 21 December 1988, resulting in 270 deaths.  They further requested that Libya accept responsibility for the actions of its officials; disclose all it knew of the crime; and pay appropriate compensation.  Those requests were included in resolution 731 (1992).

The sanctions were spelled out in resolution 748, adopted on 31 March 1992, and resolution 883, adopted on 11 November 1993, and included travel restrictions, an arms embargo, and financial sanctions excluding financial resources derived from the sale of petroleum products and agricultural products.  Subsequently, the Council suspended the sanctions by its resolution 1192 (1998) after Libya agreed to hand over two suspects for trial before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands in connection with the Lockerbie bombing.  One of them, Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi, has since been convicted and jailed for his role.

UN Security Council welcomes Lockerbie trial plan

[On this date in 1998 the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution welcoming the proposal made by the United Kingdom and the United States for a trial before a Scottish court in the Netherlands of the Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing, and directing all UN member states to cooperate with it. A press release issued by the Security Council reads as follows:]

The Security Council tonight welcomed a joint United Kingdom-United States initiative for the trial of the two suspects before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands, as well as the willingness of the Netherlands Government to cooperate in implementing this initiative. It called on the Governments of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to take the necessary steps to implement the proposal, including the conclusion of arrangements to enable the court to exercise jurisdiction in the terms of the agreement between the two Governments.

The Council also demanded again that the Libyan Government comply without delay with its resolutions relating to the terrorist bombings of a United States airliner, Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, and a French airliner, Union de transports aeriens (UTA) flight 772, the following year.

By the terms of its resolution (1192 [1998]), adopted unanimously, the Council decided that the Libyan Government should ensure the appearance of the two accused in the Netherlands for trial, and also ensure that any evidence or witnesses in Libya were promptly made available to the court upon request. It decided further that the suspects should be detained by the Dutch Government on arrival in the Netherlands and asked the Secretary-General to assist the Libyan Government with the physical arrangements for their transfer from Libya directly to the Netherlands.

The Council reaffirmed that the wide range of aerial, arms and diplomatic sanctions it imposed against Libya by its resolutions 748 (1992) and 883 (1993) remained in effect and binding on all Member States. It decided, however, that they would be suspended immediately once the Secretary- General reported that the two accused had arrived at the Netherlands for trial, or had appeared before an appropriate court in the United Kingdom or the United States, and that the Libyan Government had satisfied French judicial authorities investigating the 1989 bombing of UTA flight 772 over Niger, in which 171 people died. A total of 270 people were killed in the air and on the ground when a bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103 exploded over the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.

The Council expressed its intention to consider additional measures if the two accused did not arrive or appear for trial promptly in the Netherlands. It invited the Secretary-General to nominate international observers to attend the trial.

(By its resolution 731 [1992], the Council demanded immediate compliance by Libya to the requests made to it by France, the United Kingdom and the United States to cooperate fully in establishing responsibility for the terrorist acts against the two airliners. Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Council by resolutions 748 [1992] and 883 [1992] repeated those demands. Resolution 883 [1993] also required Libya to ensure that the two accused in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 appeared for trial in the appropriate United Kingdom or United States court.)

Statements were made by the representatives of the United States, Portugal, France, Brazil, Russian Federation, Japan, Sweden, Gambia, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Gabon, China, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. A representative of Libya also spoke.

The meeting, which was convened at 9:44 pm, adjourned at 11:10 pm.

The Lockerbie scapegoat

This is the headline over an article by Tam Dalyell that was published in The Spectator on this date in 2002. It reads as follows:]

There is an innocent man languishing in the Barlinnie jail in Glasgow tonight, and, all too probably, he will be there every night for the next 19 years. He is alone, far removed from his culture and his religion, blamed and punished for the biggest mass murder in British history, on British soil: the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988. His name is Abdelbaset al Megrahi. Recently Jack Straw rejected Nelson Mandela's calls for Megrahi to be allowed to serve the rest of his sentence in a Muslim country. I am convinced that he is the victim of the most spectacular miscarriage of justice in British legal history.

Three senior judges — Lord Sutherland, Lord Coulsfield and Lord MacLean — sitting in the Scottish Court in Zeist in the Netherlands without a jury, found Megrahi guilty in January 2001. The only evidence used to convict him was a few scraps of clothing found in the wreckage that were thought to have been wrapped around the bomb. These had been traced back to a shop in Malta where the owner, Tony Gauci, identified Megrahi from a photograph as the buyer. Inconsistencies within Gauci's testimony, such as that his initial description of the purchaser did not resemble Megrahi, and confusion over the date of the purchase were never resolved.

At no point did Megrahi get the chance to tell his story. When I went to see him with his solicitor, Mr Eddie McKechnie, in Barlinnie, he expressed his dismay that his previous defence team had prevailed upon him, against his every instinct, not to go into the witness box. Had he done so, he would have made the convincing case that he was not a member of the Libyan intelligence services, but a sanctions-buster, scouring Africa and South America and the Boeing Company for spare parts to allow Libyan Arab Airlines to continue operating in the face of sanctions.

Earlier this year Megrahi took his case to the appeal court, but the judges — Lord Cullen, Lord Kirkwood, Lord Macfadyen, Lord Nimrno Smith and Lord Osborne — did not address the issue of whether the evidence had been sufficient to establish Megrahi's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead they merely pointed out that his defence had accepted that there was enough evidence and had expressly disavowed any claim of 'miscarriage of justice'. I see their difficulty. It is one thing for the appeal court to tell a jury that they have arrived at an unreasonable verdict. It is another for one senior and four relatively junior judges to tell three of their most senior judicial colleagues, who have heard the evidence at first hand, that they have arrived at an absurd conclusion in finding Megrahi guilty. Whatever qualms they harboured, the appeal judges cannot have been unmindful of the fact that this would have made the Scottish legal process the laughing-stock of the world.

There should have been an inquiry. For an adversarial system of justice to arrive at the truth requires both of the adversaries to place before the court all information that was available to them. In the Lockerbie trial, the defence team of Abdelbaset al Megrahi chose not to do so. In such circumstances, the adversarial system simply does not work, and the objective becomes not to uncover the truth, but to find someone to shoulder the blame.

The British relatives of the Lockerbie victims were, as far back as 19 September 1989, offered an inquiry by the then secretary of state for transport. Cecil Parkinson — subject, he said, as they filed out of his room, to the agreement of colleagues. Somewhat sheepishly on 5 December 1989. Parkinson told the relatives that it had been decided at the highest level that there would be no inquiry.

For many years, I deduced that, since no other minister could at that time tell Cecil what to do in his own ministry, the 'highest level' must have been the prime minister. On 16 July 2002 I had the opportunity of asking Margaret Thatcher why she had refused an inquiry. She was mystified. She told me that it had not been put to her. I believe her. I suspect it was American Intelligence that prevailed.

The distinguished Austrian jurist Dr Hans Köchler, international observer, nominated by Kofi Annan wrote:

“As far as the material aspects of due process and fairness of the trial are concerned, the presence of at least two representatives of a foreign government in the courtroom during the entire period of the trial was highly problematic. The two state prosecutors from the US Department of Justice were seated next to the prosecution team. They were not listed in any of the official information documents about the court's officers produced by the Scottish Court Service, yet they were seen talking to the prosecutors while the court was in session, checking notes and passing on documents. For an independent observer watching this from the visitors' gallery, this created the impression of 'supervisors' handling vital matters of the prosecution strategy and deciding, in certain cases, which documents (evidence) were to be released in open court or what parts of information contained in a certain document were to be withheld (deleted)... Because of the role they played during the trial, the continued presence of the two US representatives introduced into the appeal proceedings a political element that should have been avoided.”

The brief given by the Foreign Office to their incoming new minister, Mike O'Brien (who, to his credit, has gone to Libya as the first British minister to do so for two decades, in response to my [17th!] Adjournment Debate on Lockerbie), was misleading. For example, Hansard, 23 July 2002, records O'Brien as saying in his prepared reply, 'The destruction of Pan Am 103 was followed by equally savage attacks on UTA flight 772 and the La Belle Disco.'

Surely the Foreign Office ought to have known that the Lockerbie tragedy happened two-and-a-half years after the incident at La Belle Disco. Given such casual and sloppy Foreign Office replies, why should those of us who have become 'Professors of Lockerbie Studies' over the last 14 years believe anything that the British and American governments tell us?

Two days after Lockerbie, $11 million was paid from sources in Iran to a bank in Lausanne. The money then moved to the Banque National de Paris, and onwards to the Hungarian Development Bank, ending up at the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command — the original Lockerbie suspects two years before Libya came into the frame. Is this a coincidence? [RB: This aspect of the story is comprehensively debunked by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer here.]

I believe that Libya was used by the West as a scapegoat for raisons d'etat: the US and Britain did not want to enrage Iran and Syria as they launched the Gulf war against Iraq. I believe Megrahi was also a scapegoat, used by the West for the same reasons.

But while his friends — including his British relatives, the Austrian jurist Dr Hans Köchler, President Mandela, and determined new lawyers in the persons of Eddie McKechnie and Margaret Scott QC — keep on fighting, there is hope that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Board or the European Commission on Human Rights could reverse injustice.

The French DST: Yves Bonnet & Lockerbie

[This is the headline over an article posted today on the GOSINT website. It reads in part:]

The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST; English: Directorate of Territorial Surveillance) was a directorate of the French National Police operating as a domestic intelligence agency. It was responsible for counterespionage, counterterrorism and more generally the security of France against foreign threats and interference.

It was created in 1944 with its headquarters situated at 7 rue Nélaton in Paris. On 1 July 2008, it was merged with the Direction centrale des renseignements généraux into the new Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur.

The DST Economic Security and Protection of National Assets department had units in the 22 regions of France to protect French technology. It operated for 20 years, not only on behalf of defense industry leaders, but also for pharmaceuticals, telecoms, the automobile industry, and all manufacturing and service sectors. [Wikipedia]

Yves Bonnet was the DST Director November 1982 to August 1985.

Yves Bonnet

In the following video, Bonnet makes a remarkable allegation: he claims that Libya is NOT responsible for Lockerbie!

[RB: The video can be viewed here.]

“Ce n’est pas un ouvrage* consacrée à l’activité terroriste de la Libye, parce que je pense que sur ce sujet comme sur beaucoup d’autres, on a largement dépassé les limites de la verité et même du crédible.

Je prends pour exemple cette affaire de Lockerbie et également l’affaire du Ténéré** qui ont été imputées à la Libye alors que tous les Services de Renseignements savent que ces attentats ont été commis par Ahmed Jibril sous l inspiration et le financement de l’Iran.

Et cela, on le sait. Les Services Américains le savent, le MOSSAD le sait, la DGSE le sait et d ailleurs le Directeur de la DGSE de l’époque — Claude Silberzahn — ne s’est pas privé de le dire.

On peut écrire “La Libye’ d’une autre façon; on peut l’écrire  ‘L’Alibi’.

Je pense que ce pays est devenu, de part le personalité de son principal dirigeant — Muamar Kadhafi — un pays cible assez commode.”

Here is a rough translation:

“This is not a book* about to the terrorist activities of  Libya, because I think that, on this subject as on many others, we have far exceeded the limits of the truth and indeed credibility.

Let me take, for example the Lockerbie case and also the case of the Ténéré** that were blamed on Libya when all intelligence services know that these attacks were committed by Ahmed Jibril under the inspiration and funding from Iran.

We know this. The American Intelligence Agencies know it, the MOSSAD knows it, the DGSE knows it  and, in fact,  the then Director of the DGSE – Claude Silberzahn – was not shy to say it out loud.

You know, in French, ‘La Libye” and “L’alibi” sound the same….

I think Libya has become, because of the personality of its chief – Muammar Gaddafi — a rather convenient target country.”

[RB: *Yves Bonnet published two books in 2009 (the year of the video interview). It is not clear, at least to me, which one he is referring to. Details of the books can be found here and here.

** The Ténéré region of Chad is where UTA flight 772 was destroyed by a bomb on 19 September 1989.]

Lockerbie: A Sour Pill for Libya

[This is the headline over an article by Ashur Shamis originally published on the BBC News website on this date in 2002 and reproduced on the libya-watanona.com website. It reads as follows:]

The official Libyan media is paying only cursory attention to the Lockerbie appeal currently being heard at camp Zeist.

At best reports on the appeal come fourth on the news bulletins.

Considering how outspoken he has been in the past about Lockerbie, Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's current silence is startling.

This could be because the regime is not confident of a favourable outcome in the appeal against the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

Libya is hoping to draw the whole Lockerbie affair to a close. Tripoli is reported to have offered to pay billions of dollars in compensation to the families of the victims of the bombing, in return for closure on the issue.

United States and British officials, reported to be negotiating a settlement with representatives of the Libyan regime, are said to be pressing Libya for a settlement before the appeal is concluded.

Whichever way the appeal goes, Libya stands to lose financially and politically, or both.

'Ordinary Libyans powerless'

Like the government, most Libyans just want to see the Lockerbie affair concluded.

Libyans are well accustomed to the whimsical changes of direction of their leader, and to being powerless in the face of this whimsy.

Most Libyans are more likely to complain about the hardship of the dry season and traffic chaos in the cities.

Colonel Gaddafi's supporters still insist he is the arch-enemy of American imperialism and international Zionism.

However, most Libyans sympathise with al-Megrahi and his family, seeing them as hapless victims of a regime, which, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, adopted terrorism as a state policy.

The bombing of the Pan Am and French UTA flights, and the bombing of a Berlin discotheque - all acts in which the Gaddafi regime is at least implicated - are widely seen as elements of the Libyan leader's past coming back to haunt him.

But Libyans do worry about the billions of dollars their country will have to pay out in compensation.

Eventually, it is they who will end up suffering lower currency exchanged rates, reduced government salaries, higher prices and taxes, and run-down public services.

'Premature claims of victory'

Back in 1998, when Mr Gaddafi declared that he was ready to hand over the two Libyans suspected of the Lockerbie bombing for trial in the Netherlands, he sounded triumphant.

It took the Libyan leader eight years to reach this point - a period during which Libya came under an international air embargo and punitive US economic sanctions.

The country's economy was set back 10 years, its infrastructure deteriorated, and it became more and more isolated internationally.

When he finally did hand over the suspects in 1999, Colonel Gaddafi claimed credit domestically for defying the US by not handing over al-Megrahi and al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah for eight years, and he claimed credit internationally for allowing a trial to proceed by handing them over.

Deal struck?

Reports persist that a deal was struck with Colonel Gaddafi, though Western officials deny this.

It is said that he handed over the two Lockerbie suspects on condition that no other Libyan officials, including himself, would be dragged into the investigation or the trial.

At the time, the Libyan media hailed the outcome a victory and praised the virtues of the Scottish judiciary.

However, not only did the Lockerbie trial deliver an unexpected verdict in January 2001, but it also dragged out the conclusion of the affair.

One of the defendants was acquitted while al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence operative in Malta, was convicted of committing the atrocity and sentenced to life imprisonment.

'Ambiguous verdict'

This verdict gave everyone some cause for celebration. The families of the victims and the US and UK governments saw some form of justice being done.

However, the three Scottish judges freely admitted to "uncertainties and qualifications" in the evidence brought before them.

But, having considered the evidence as a whole, they decided it formed a convincing pattern, leaving them with no "reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the first accused".

This ambiguity in the judgement allowed Libya to argue that al-Megrahi was a "political hostage" and a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

The air travel embargo was lifted, but Libya continues to languish under damaging American trade sanctions.

The victory claimed by Colonel Gaddafi in 1999 is now looking very hollow indeed.

Uncovering real cause of Lockerbie tragedy was politically inexpedient

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Trowbridge H Ford entitled MI6's Sir John Scarlett: A Career of Increasingly Dangerous Failure that was published on this date in 2008:]

By this time [December 1990], Scarlett was busily arranging the set up of Libya for more terrorism. On December 21,1988, Pan Am Flight 103 had blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including Charles McKee's CIA investigative team returning from Beirut where it had been uncovering the deepest secrets of the Iran-Contra scandal - apparently Syrian Monzar Al-Kassar's efforts to free hostages there, and in Africa for the French in return for continued protection of his drug-smuggling operations. While this was going on, Al-Kassar's people learned everything they needed to know about how to stop it from returning to the States. When CIA's handlers of Al-Kassar in Washington learned of this, they allowed a suspicious suitcase on the plane despite a NSA warning of an attack on an airliner, thinking, it seems, that it was just more of his drug operations when, in fact, his associates slipped a Semtex device on the flight originating from Frankfurt.

Uncovering the real cause of the Lockerbie tragedy was most politically inexpedient as London and Washington were increasingly focusing on a showdown with Iraq's Saddam Hussein. In any confrontation with the dictator, it was essential to have both Syria and Iran at least on the sidelines, something impossible if Al-Kassar, brother-in-law of Syria's intelligence chief, and lover of its despot Hafez Al-Assad's niece, were ever indicted for the crime. As in the Palme assassination, the failure to find some apparent culprit for the mass murder - what could increasingly not be simply blamed on unknown terrorists - was putting more and more pressure onWest Germany's counterterrorists for apparently allowing it to happen. The real story had to be buried, as Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen wrote in The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, "in the graveyard of geopolitics." (p 286)

Scarlett, it seems, was the grave digger. On September 19, 1989, a Union des Transport Aériens (UTA) flight exploded over the Sahara in Niger while on its way from Brazzaville to Paris, via N'Djamena in Chad, killing all 171 passengers, including American Ambassador to Chad Robert Pugh's wife Bonnie, leaving "...a scene all too reminiscent of Lockerbie, Scotland." (Ted Gup, The Book of Honor, p 310) The similarity was not missed by France's DST, and Scarlett, the SIS resident in Paris, either, and they soon started connecting together the two bombings at Libya's expense.

Robert Pugh was the deputy chief of mission in Beirut who had had to clean up the mess when the American Embassy was bombed in April 1983, and the resulting CIA Counterterrorist Center (CTC) to stop such atrocities required a no-holds-barred solution to the Lockerbie bombing. Inter-agency cooperation of the highest degree, both domestic and foreign, was required if any culprits were ever to be caught, given the new legal restraints on how intelligence operations were to be conducted.

The task was to link Libya as having "...been ultimately responsible for both Pan Am 103 and UTA 772." (Ibid) While authorities were searching the desert for the wreckage of the French airliner, they apparently found the circuit board which was responsible for the IED explosion - what reminded investigators of what had happened to the same UTA flight back on March 10, 1984 when it exploded without loss of life while parked on the tarmac in Brazzaville - and now Anglo-American authorities worked together to create the same scene in the Scotland wreckage. A CIA agent planted parts from the same kind of detonator in the wreckage area of the Lockerbie crash while looking for belongings of its deceased personnel which was found by Bureau agents in early 1990 while they were searching for evidence of what caused the crash.

As in the Palme fiasco, Scarlett worked with the former SIS agent in Oslo, Robert Andrew Fulton apparently aka Mack Falkirk, who became its chief agent in Washington. While Scarlett was persuading his superiors to allow the CIA and FBI complete access to the Lockerbie crash site, Fulton was priming their superiors back in Washington to make the most of the opportunity. Scarlett put the icing on the cake, it seems, by persuading Abd Al-majid Jaaka, a Libyan intelligence officer who had defected to the British embassy in Tunis, to tell his story to the Americans in Rome, and claim that two former colleagues had prepared the bomb which blew up the airliner in revenge for the UK/USA bombing of Tripoli after the Palme assassination. The ruse was so successful that by the time Libya finally handed over the two fallguys for trial in Holland, Anglo-American covert operators were completely in charge of the prosecution. [RB: I know of no evidence supporting the statement that Giaka defected to the British embassy in Tunis rather than from Malta via a US Navy ship.]

Scarlett's particular contribution to their conviction, as MI6's Director of Security and Public Affairs, was to persuade disgruntled MI5 whistleblower Daivd Shayler to join SIS, and to claim that Gaddafi's destruction of Pan Am flight 103 had so angered SIS that it had plotted to assassinate him, with Al-Qaeda's help, in 1995/6. As Shayler and his former mistress Annie Machon have written in Spies, Lies & Whistleblowers: while there was no credible evidence that the Iranians were behind the Lockerbie bombing there was no question that Gaddafi was. With everyone fixed on the alleged SIS assassination of the Libyan leader, it helped make their claim about Lockerbie tragedy a foregone conclusion.

To add injury to injury, Machon and Shayler made it sound as if Scarlett was the victim of some kind of British Stalinism where intelligence service chiefs were obliged to go along with what their political bosses demanded. As Dame Stella Rimington had explained her appointment to head the Security Service in her autobiography, Open Secret, as learning to go along with her superiors, so Scarlett became SIS director general after his time as head of the Joint Intelligence Committee where he supinely agreed to the doctoring of the 'dodgy dossier' on Iraq's alleged WMD to suit the demands of Downing Street. They added:

"David has always said that the intelligence services are anything but meritocratic, with those not rocking the boat more likely to be promoted than those who stand up for what is right. Scarlett's appointment has provided more than ample proof of that." (p 357)

To show that this was anything but the truth, Scarlett then arranged for his buddy Andrew Fulton to officially resign from SIS, and take up a visiting professorship at Glasgow's School of Law, though he had had no legal training, much less any legal degrees. In 2000, he volunteered his services as legal advisor to the Lockerbie Commission on briefing the press about the trial [sic; a reference to Glasgow University's Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit], and his handiwork became so notorious that he was forced to resign, once his background became known. For a sample of it, see what Machon and Shayler did with the British media's attempts to exonerate Qaddafi for Lockerbie.

Why does Lockerbie rhyme with irony?

[This is the headline over an article by Michael Glackin published today by the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star. It reads as follows:]

Oh the irony. What are we to make of news last week that Scottish prosecutors suddenly want to interview two Libyans they have identified as “new suspects” in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, in which 270 people were killed? The short answer is not much. One reason is that the suspects are hardly new. Both men were of interest to the original investigation in 1991. Abdullah al-Senussi, a former Libyan intelligence chief and brother in law of Moammar Gadhafi, was convicted in absentia by a French court in 1999 after having been found guilty of involvement in the bombing of a French UTA airliner over Niger in 1989. How ironic is that? He is currently on death row in Tripoli for crimes committed by the Gadhafi regime.

The other suspect, Mohammed Abouajela Masud, is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Tripoli for bomb-making. Masud was almost indicted for the Pan Am bombing in 1991, alongside Abdelbaset Ali Megrahi, the former head of security at Libyan Arab Airlines and the only person convicted of the atrocity.

Masud is also thought to have been involved in the bombing of a Berlin discotheque in 1986 frequented by American military personnel. The attack led to US airstrikes against Libya soon thereafter. Ironically, and depending on your point of view, this is what led to the bombing of Pan Am 103.

But the chances of either man appearing in a Scottish court are slim. The Tripoli-based General National Congress, backed by Islamist extremists and not recognized by the West, controls the fate of both men. It’s unlikely they will be extradited, and hard to see anyone volunteering to travel to Tripoli to interview them.

The conviction of Megrahi, who died in 2012, three years after he was released from a life sentence “on compassionate grounds,” was based on the theory that Gadhafi had ordered the bombing in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes against Libya.

Gadhafi admitted responsibility in 2003, but this was always seen as an economically pragmatic move, rather than an admission of guilt. A former Libyan prime minister, Shukri Ghanem, said as far back as 2005 that the decision to accept responsibility was to “buy peace and move forward.”

Another irony is that while the authorities insist the investigation into the bombing remains “ongoing,” the Scottish judiciary recently refused a request from some of the relatives of victims to hear an appeal against Megrahi’s conviction that would have allowed new evidence to be presented in court.

The legal case against Megrahi had more holes in it than Swiss cheese. His early release from jail in 2009, after being convicted of the biggest mass murders in British history, only added to the bad smell around the entire case.

The key witness against Megrahi, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, was given a $2 million reward for his evidence by the CIA and a place in a witness-protection program. Gauci, who even the Scottish prosecutor who indicted Megrahi described as being “an apple short of a picnic,” is now understood to be living in Australia.

It’s worth remembering that in October 1988, two months before the Pan Am bombing, German police raided an apartment in Frankfurt and arrested several Palestinians. The raid unearthed explosives, weapons and, crucially, a number of radio cassette recorders similar to the one used to detonate the Pan Am 103 bomb. Most of the Palestinians were members of the Syrian-controlled Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmad Jibril, a Palestinian former Syrian Army officer. Jibril has spent recent years defending the regime of President Bashar Assad. He was reported to have been killed in August although this has since been denied.

Much of the evidence indicates Jibril and the PFLP-GC carried out the bombing on behalf of Iran and Syria to avenge the July 1988 accidental downing of an Iranian commercial airliner by a US warship, killing 290 people. This is backed up by evidence from the US Defense Intelligence Agency showing that the PFLP-GC was paid $1 million to carry out the bombing. The DIA also claimed that Jibril was given a down payment of $100,000 in Damascus by Iran’s then-ambassador to Syria, Mohammad Hussan Akhari.

Many believe then-Syrian President Hafez Assad’s support for the U.S.-led alliance to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991 meant Syria’s role in the bombing was swept under the carpet. It is worth pointing out that Megrahi was not formally indicted by the United States and the United Kingdom until November 1991.

But the PFLP-GC is not the only non-Libyan suspect. The Frankfurt raid also revealed compelling evidence against Muhammad Abu Talib, a former leader of the Palestine People’s Struggle Front. Oddly enough Talib was released from a life sentence he was serving in Sweden for involvement in bomb attacks weeks after Megrahi’s release in 2009.

Finally, given that the authorities remain keen to pursue the Libyan angle, it is odd they spent so little time interviewing Gadhafi’s former spymaster Moussa Koussa when he fled to London as the regime was collapsing in 2011. Koussa, who in the words of one British government official was “up to his neck” in the bombing, spent just three days in London and then flew on to Qatar, where he remains, living on assets that were quietly unfrozen by the West around the same time. Oh the irony.