Debate continues over causes of Lockerbie, says air accident investigator

[A report by Mark Hirst published this afternoon on the website of the Russian news agency RIA Novosti contains the following:]

It is too early to draw any definitive conclusions over what caused aircrash of Malaysian flight MH17 in Eastern Ukraine, a former air accident investigator told RIA Novosti.

“It is too early to make any definitive conclusions on what caused the crash of this aircraft. There is a lot of apparent evidences, pointing towards a fairly sophisticated ground-to-air-missile. But as with any disaster like this, it’s requires some very close study to finish up with definitive conclusions,” said Tony Cable, who has been an investigator with the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch for 32 years and worked on the Lockerbie/Pan Am 103 bombing and the Paris Concorde disaster. (...)

Cable also told RIA Novosti he was surprised commercial flights were being permitted to fly directly over the conflict zone and said the responsibility for that had to rest with the Governments.

“I was surprised that aircraft were being allowed to fly over that area,” Cable said. “As far as I can see the responsibility for that would be government to government. So the Malaysian equivalent of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office giving advice to airlines. I don’t think you can expect the airlines themselves to work out that sort of detail on all the territories they cover.”

Cable worked directly on the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and despite the largest criminal investigation ever conducted in the UK and subsequent conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset al Megrahi, speculation still continues to this day over who was actually behind the attack. Cable told RIA Novosti a similar scenario could be repeated with Flight MH17.

“I could see a possibility of debate continuing over the causes of this disaster going on for years, as it has done with Lockerbie,” Cable said. “That is very much in the security and political field and way outside pure accident investigation which can just say what happened. It’s up to other folks to figure out why it happened.”

Release of communications between Scottish Government and Libyan Government "not in public interest"

[I am grateful to Mark Hirst for allowing me to post the following response from the Scottish Government to a Freedom of Information request made by him:]

Our ref: FOI/12101533               
16 November 2012

Dear Mr Hirst 

Thank you for your request under the Freedom of information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for information contained within communications between the Scottish Government and the Libyan and US Governments between 1 May 2011 and 16 October 2012 on the subject of the Lockerbie bombing and Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi. 

We do endeavour to provide information whenever possible. However, in this instance an  exemption under section 32(1)(a) of FOISA applies to the information requested. Section 32(l)(a) provides that information is exempt from FOISA if its release would prejudice substantially or would be likely to prejudice substantially relations between the UK and any other state.

As the exemption is conditional we have applied the ‘public interest test’. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. While we recognise  that there is some public interest in release because of the high degree of public interest in matters relating to the Lockerbie bombing and Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that communications made in confidence between the Scottish Government and other States will remain private, as failure to do so may make States reluctant to share information with the Scottish or UK Governments in future. 

The information in question concerns communications with the Libyan National Transitional  Council. We hold no records of communications between the Scottish Government and the US Government on matters related to the Lockerbie bombing or Mr Al-Megrahi between the relevant dates. 

Justice for Megrahi press conference

A report on the BBC News website by Scottish home affairs correspondent Reevel Alderson can be read here. An edited version of the press conference compiled by Mark Hirst for Aurora News can be viewed here.  The full report by Aurora News can be seen here.

SNP ministers 'wanted bomber out of the way'

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

Scottish Ministers last night angrily denied extraordinary claims from a sacked SNP adviser that the Lockerbie bomber had been released for “political” reasons – and not on grounds of ill health.

Mark Hirst claims First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill had already decided to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi before the application for a prisoner transfer from Libya was even received.

Mr Hirst, who was sacked as Christine Grahame’s senior political adviser in September, is embroiled in an increasingly bitter row with his former employer. (...)

Writing online yesterday [RB: in a comment on this blog], Mr Hirst said: “MacAskill made the decision... BEFORE his defence team or Libyan officials had made any application to have him returned.

“He didn’t do this because he felt any real sense of compassion, or for any commercial reasons as the Americans have stated, but because MacAskill believed it was politically expedient. Fair to say neither he or anyone expected the media furore that followed.

“For Scottish Ministers the bottom line was this; they were determined to uphold, as they saw it, the integrity of the Scottish legal system... whether or not it deserved it.

“Ensuring Megrahi was out the way and sent back to Libya, his appeal dropped, was critical to achieving that objective.”

Mr Hirst also claimed that Ms Grahame – who was a vocal supporter of Megrahi and believed he had suffered a miscarriage of justice – had now “backed off” from the campaign.

So far, she has not used her position as Convener of the Justice Committee to push for a Scottish Government inquiry into the 1988 bombing.

Mr Hirst wrote: “Grahame said she could not, for political reasons, push Scottish Ministers fully on this.

‘There is only so far I can go,’ she told me and added that we should continue to try to divert and focus calls for an inquiry on the UK Government instead, knowing fine well they will never hold one.”

Megrahi, 59, is the only man ever convicted of the bombing in 1988. After being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, he was freed on compassionate grounds just days after dropping an appeal against his conviction – which many believe to have been flawed.

Colonel Gaddafi’s regime had also applied for a prisoner transfer, under a deal agreed with Tony Blair’s government as part of talks that also saw BP win lucrative oil deals.

Mr MacAskill’s spokesman said last night: “This is complete and absolute nonsense, from an individual in no position to know anything about these matters. There were two applications for release – one on compassionate grounds, and another for prisoner transfer. The Justice Secretary rejected the prisoner transfer application.

“In every regard, the Scottish Government acted without any consideration of the economic, political and diplomatic factors that the then UK Labour Government based its hypocritical position in favour of release on.”

MacAskill stands by Megrahi conviction "until such time as that matter were to be reviewed"

[What follows is an excerpt from a report published this afternoon by The Press Association news agency:]

A senior Scottish Government minister has backed Justice Committee convenor Christine Grahame amid allegations that she made sectarian remarks.

The Electoral Commission is investigating the allegations made by Mark Hirst, a former senior political advisor in her office.

She faced calls by Labour MSP Michael McMahon to "consider her position on the Justice Committee until such times as any investigation into this matter has been completed".

However, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said Ms Grahame has "rebutted these matters firmly" and the allegations should be viewed "with the contempt they deserve".

Mr MacAskill also said he will stand by the conviction of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing "until such time as that matter were to be reviewed". (...)

Ms Grahame is also a member of the Justice for Megrahi campaign.

Earlier this week, she spearheaded calls to continue a petition by the group calling for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for his role in the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people in 1988.

[Further details can be found here on the Herald Scotland website.

It lies, of course, within the powers of the government of which Kenny MacAskill is a member to have the matter of Abdelbaset Megrahi's conviction reviewed.  That is precisely what is sought in the petition currently before the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament and is precisely what the Scottish Government has been assiduously obstructing.

The Official Report of Tuesday's meeting of the Justice Committee at which the petition was discussed can be read here (at pages 11 to 15 of the PDF document).]

Reaction to Newsnight programme

[The following e-mail was sent by Frank Duggan to Tom Thurman and copied to Mark Hirst and me amongst others.]

Tom - that BBC video is rubbish. It must gall you to have your own experience and background deliberately misstated, but worse, to have the whole investigation continually called into question by others with unsupported theories. I would hope that there would be one reporter in the UK who would understand that the piece of timer in question, as well as other pieces of evidence, were not destroyed because the plane was not blown up! It was torn apart, and even pieces of paper that were in that suitcase were recovered. Perhaps we can remind them what happens when a pinhole is made in a balloon, and that the relatively small explosive charge created a gas shockwave penetrating the skin of the plane and blowing off the front nose portion.

Perhaps I am asking too much.

[The following e-mail was sent by Mark Hirst to Frank Duggan and copied to me.]

Tom Thurman complains [in an e-mail to Richard Marquise] that the BBC left out his other "relevant" background. Fred Whitehurst (former FBI Crime Lab Supervisor) has made it plain Thurman could not in any way describe himself as a scientist. He is certainly not qualified in the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) industry. Furthermore his comments related to PT35 confirm that the "link" was made not through scientific tests, but merely through a visual ID of the circuit board, after the most experienced explosive experts in the UK could not identify it, nor could the dozens of PCB manufacturers that police investigators visited.

As a former PCB quality assurance inspector myself (with the largest PCB manufacturer in the world) and who has spoken to a number of colleagues in the industry, there are a large number of scientific tests that could have, and should have, been carried out on PT35, but which were not. These would have given a clearer indication whether this fragment came from the timer device alleged. But as is clear in the trial transcript and below there was no actual scientific testing applied to this fragment, beyond the visual ID of a man whose professional integrity has, as is already widely known and reported, been brought into serious question in other criminal investigations. Sadly the same is true of Mr Feraday and the dubious forensic evidence he provided in other serious miscarriages of justice in the UK.

Sadly the Crown Office statement once again seems more concerned with upholding the reputation of the conviction, regardless of whether it deserves it or not - it clearly does not in this case. They are defending the indefensible, and leading the Scottish legal system further into the mire.

As a lifelong Scottish patriot, it pains me to say it but the reputation of the much vaunted independent Scottish legal system has been irredeemably damaged by this shoddy conviction, made worse by the subsequent sycophantic statements by the Crown Office to appease extreme right wing political sentiment in the US, whilst all the time one of the prime (PFLP-GC) suspects in this case sits comfortably in his home in Washington... What tragic irony.

Mr Duggan and those behind him (and I don't mean the US relatives of PA103) may take comfort in the knowledge that they are in some way reflecting and upholding the realpolitik of US global geo-political interests in persisting in the utter nonsense of this conviction, but eventually, regardless of the "appropriateness" of the forum, the full truth of this atrocity will come to light sooner or later. I would suggest, if they have not already done so, that the Crown Office press team begin drafting some preparatory lines to reflect that reality as it continues to enter the public domain, if we have any hope of salvaging the reputation of Scots law. I fear however it may be too late.

Lockerbie doubters branded ‘Holocaust deniers’

[This is the headline over a report in today's Scottish edition of The Sunday Times. It reads as follows:]

A representative of families of American victims of the Lockerbie disaster has likened those questioning the guilt of the convicted Libyan bomber to “Holocaust deniers”.

Frank Duggan, an official spokesman for Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, described those who believe Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is innocent as a “shameless band of conspiracy mavens”.

Those criticised include Christine Grahame, the nationalist MSP, her researcher Mark Hirst, Robert Black, the Edinburgh-based legal expert who helped broker Megrahi’s trial in the Netherlands and Gareth Peirce, the London-based human rights lawyer.

In an email sent to Richard Marquise, a former FBI official who headed the investigation, Duggan said Grahame, Hirst, Black and Peirce were “no worse than Holocaust deniers who will not accept the facts before their faces”.

Grahame, who believes that Iran, not Libya, was behind the 1988 bombing, which claimed 270 lives, said Duggan’s comments were ludicrous. “My father and the fathers and grandfathers of many of the other people who are seeking the truth about who attacked Pan Am 103 were fighting the perpetrators of the Holocaust for three years before the US saw fit to get involved,” she said.

Hirst accused Duggan of a “highly personal” smear campaign against those who doubted the safety of Megrahi’s conviction.

The row reflects anger among the families of the American victims at the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, has outlived his three-month prognosis. Last week, MacAskill defended his decision to a Holyrood inquiry into the handling of Megrahi’s release, insisting that the medical advice was “quite clear”.

US intelligence files published last week claim Megrahi was involved in buying and developing chemical weapons for Libya.

Black declined to comment and Peirce was unavailable for comment.

[I declined to comment since I was unwilling to descend into the gutter with Mr Duggan.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which, on six grounds, found that Mr Megrahi's conviction may have amounted to a miscarriage of justice, no better than Holocaust deniers, forsooth!

According to The Chambers Dictionary "maven" or "mavin" is US slang, from Yiddish, for pundit or expert.

The full e-mail exchange between Mr Duggan, Richard Marquise and Mr Hirst can be read here.

An interesting commentary (in German) on The Sunday Times article can be found on the Austrian Wings website. A more general article on the Lockerbie affair on the same website by Editor in Chief Patrick Radosta can be read here.]

Fragments of truth, continued

[The following exchange of e-mails involving Richard Marquise, Frank Duggan and Mark Hirst took place following the appearance on 17 November of Mark Hirst's article "Fragments of truth".]

1. From Richard Marquise to Mark Hirst, copied to Frank Duggan, dated 22 November
I have read your recent Lockerbie article entitled "Fragments of Truth" and I will tell you, that I believe your article was aptly named.

I can appreciate that Mr. Megrahi "steadfastly maintains his innocence" but I am certain you weighed that claim with all the other lies he has told in the past--"I am not a member of Libyan intelligence," and "I was not in Malta on 20-21 December 1988, I was here in Tripoli with my family." Those lies were proven at trial but somehow, you want to believe what he tells you today. I am incredulous. Is it the truth now or was it last time he spoke??

Your statement alleges that "many professionals involved in this case including US intelligence officers,legal experts and police investigators" share Mr. Megrahi's view. Who are they??? Former CIA agent Robert Baer should not count since he never worked on the case and has no idea what the evidence was or how it was collected or shared. Who are these other people? I do not count Gareth Pearce or Robert Black--they too know only what they "think?" As we who have been law enforcement professionals know--"thinking" is not admissible in court--facts and evidence are--even circumstantial evidence.

You speak of "new evidence" in this case but I have read his postings to date and have seen nothing which would change my mind about the righteousness of his conviction.

You talk about the "cover up" of the weakness of the investigation-- there was never a cover up--the evidence was the evidence and the three judges convicted him. You might call their reading the the evidence "shameful" but I think they came to the correct conclusion--Mr. Megrahi was guilty of murder the Libyan Government was responsible for the attack.

You believe we had pressure to secure the indictment. Yes, we did believe that a "timescale" was in place to announce something but we also recognized that without someone in Libya providing us information, there would probably never be any new evidence developed. This proved to be the case until 1999 when the Libyan Government was compelled to "cooperate" and some additional evidence was collected (which proved that Mr. Megrahi and Abdusamad were one in the same and that Mr. Megrahi was a Libyan agent. To me, these findings corroborated some of the things Mr. Giaka told us.

While it is true that intelligence agencies did provide the name of Mr. Megrahi (one of many), it was through the investigation that Mr. Fhimah was brought into the case. His name did not come from intelligence agencies and was a complete byproduct of "detective" work.

You (and others) continue to claim that witnesses at trial were motivated by money. While I will not be able to say what motivates each and every person who testifies at any trial, I have said it before and will say it again--no witness--none-- was ever promised money or asked to say anything at any interview or at trial in exchange for money. None!! In fact, it was Mr. Bollier who came to the US Embassy in January 1989 and attempted to implicate the Libyans, long before there was one shred of real evidence collected at Lockerbie. It would be nearly two years before he could even be identified as that person.

You continue to make allegations about Mr. Thurman and that he has no credentials to do "forensic" examinations. Would it shock you to know that not only does he have extensive experience as an explosives expert in the US military (pre FBI), he also has a masters degree in Forensic Science? I am certain that will be made clear in your next attempt to criticize him.

With regard to the "travel" of PT-35-- once again-- it was the sharing of information which led to the solution of this case. If the fragment had remained behind in Scotland, never shared, it would possibly be unidentified today. No one would ever have discovered it was a piece of one of 20 timers given to Libyan intelligence. It is clear no one ever attempted to "cover" that up-- I freely admitted it in my book, Mr. Henderson stated such in his precognition and I again said so to Mr. Levy. My "confusion" at Arlington last December over whether it had come to the US or not, was due more to the tone of the question, the setting and the allegation I may have lied to him when he first interviewed me. Unlike Mr. Megrahi, I do not tell lies when it comes to the evidence in this case. I said it right when Mr. Levy first interviewed me. We had nothing to hide because we did the right thing and there has never, never, never been one scintilla of proof that PT-35 was altered or changed in any way.

I was a bit disappointed that you chose to end your "treatise" using the vulgar quote from Ian Ferguson. I guess I expected better from someone who is involved in politics.

I would hope that in the future you cover "all" the facts when you write concerning Lockerbie.

2. From Frank Duggan to Richard Marquise, copied to Mark Hirst and Robert Black, dated 22 November
We greatly appreciate your continuing to present the facts to Mr. Hirst, Ms. Grahame, Prof. Black, Gareth Pearce and the rest of the shameless band of conspiracy mavens. They are no worse than holocaust deniers, who will not accept the facts before their faces.

Thanks for your continued efforts on behalf of 270 innocent souls murdered by Mr. Megrahi and his state sponsors of terrorism.

3. From Mark Hirst to Richard Marquise and Frank Duggan, copied to Robert Black, dated 23 November
I am at somewhat of a loss as to know where to begin as it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is a huge intellectual void between us. You talk freely of "facts" yet seem utterly incapable of critically examining the facts that have come to light since the trial and indeed re-examine the supposed facts that were led during it.

I note, with some despondency, that US Governmental control of the doctrinal system may make it ultimately impossible for you to accept and consider the realities in this case and that American culture encourages an ideology that "hates" to lose and therefore it is extremely difficult for you to consider, even if you consciously knew it, that you may be entirely wrong.

Mr Duggan, it is apparent to me from your blatant right wing political agenda that your grasp of what facts there are is extremely limited. For information, unlike the United States of America, both my grandfathers fought for three consecutive the perpetrators of the holocaust before the US woke up to the danger of aggressive imperialist fascism, the same type of imperial cultural and political fascism which appears to be an integral part of US foreign policy today.

I suspect (although I have yet to see any evidence!) that at some base level both you and Mr Marquise are aware of the facts in this case, which is presumably why you have both consistently endeavoured to lower the arguments surrounding this case to concentrating on character assassination and failed to argue the substantive points in the case or answer the core questions at its heart.

Mr Duggan, despite what you may think, you clearly do not represent the 270 innocent souls who were murdered in December 1988, a fact that I fear has completely eluded you.

Turning to your comments Mr Marquise. I have been generous with you in the past and have stated to those I have met and discussed this with, including the Justice Minister at the time of the trial and others, that you may not have actively tried to deceive and that you simply reached the wrong conclusions on the limited evidence available and due to the enforced timescales imposed to secure an indictment. However it is clear that you have and are involved in a propaganda campaign to defend the conviction. I understand why on a personal level you would wish to do that. Your entire professional career and reputation and that of Henderson and other senior legal people here in Scotland depend on maintaining this unsafe conviction. That personal stake in this case has blinded you and those you have helped indoctrinate into ignoring the substantive pieces of information and evidence that has come to light since the kangaroo court proceedings in Holland.

I am willing to accept that there was a slackness in the investigation (in terms of failure to follow correct procedure), certainly in the Scottish police aspect of the case, because at that time no one seriously believed Libya would ever surrender the two accused. I can only imagine the sense of panic that ensued when it became evident that the Megrahi and Fhimah were prepared to come before what they were told, and believed would be a fair court process.

You seem to be trapped by the illusion that our certainty in Megrahi’s innocence is based solely on us meeting him in person and not by the conclusions of the SCCRC report, the discussions we have had with police officers involved in the case and very senior figures inside the Scottish legal system who are as appalled as us with the outcome of the investigation and conviction of an innocent man, whilst the real perpetrators go unpunished.

Regarding the cash reward received by witnesses I can only say if they were motivated by a civic or moral duty why would they need the money? In fact why would they actively seek financial reward, as you must know was the case? Another fact obscured by your visceral hatred of those who seek to objectively and critically examine the case you presented.

You claim that no money was ever offered or promised before trial. Presumably you mean "was never offered by the FBI" as you must know that money was discussed at length by US intelligence. I thought it was "us" who were the "deniers"?

You imply that I am behind the allegations that Mr Thurman is not properly qualified. That is not the case. It was the FBI’s Fred Whitehurst who makes that assertion although I appreciate it will not be a comforting experience to have fellow Americans undermine the determined indoctrination process you are involved with.

As I have previously stated I coincidentally worked as a Quality Inspector for the world’s biggest PCB manufacturer in the world, ironically a US owned company. I therefore happen to know a little about circuit boards. Having recently read the court transcript the identification of PT35 was done purely on a visual comparison of a complete board which the CIA happened to have and which Thurman acquired. As I have previously stated the board was NOT manufactured by MEBO, but by Thuring AG and then sold to MEBO to be "populated". I have made the point before, and this is evident in the court transcript, that there are design characteristics on PT35 which yes, could be present on a complete MST13 timer, but, which the Court failed to consider, equally present on any number of other circuits produced by Thuring. That is not just my view but a view shared by people I know who still work in the industry and presumably why none of the 55 PCB companies visited by investigators was able to give a categorical identification of the fragment before Thurman’s "miraculous" (I am being generous) ID in Washington.

As you have stated Mr Marquise, without PT35 there would be no indictment, let alone a conviction so this and the other serious questions regarding PT35 are significant. Incidentally you previously took me to task over whether the MST13 timers were sold or simply "given" to Libya and stated, as "fact", that they were "given" and not sold. If you would like I am happy to send you a recorded interview conducted in 2000 with your associate Robert Muller, who I believe runs the FBI today. He makes it clear then that the timers were "sold". Perhaps a conference call may be required to get your stories straight before you begin lecturing others on what constitutes "fact" and what does not.

I am sorry you took offence at the "vulgar" quote I used from Ian Ferguson. It seemed to fit the vulgar outcome of the manner in which this investigation and trial were conducted and underscore the sheer scale of the huge miscarriage of justice that has taken place. In that context I believe there are other more substantive and relevant apologies to be made.

As you are aware, I and many others (including those inside the US and UK intelligence services) hold the view that Iran was responsible for this attack. Our narrative of the crime which led to the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie is based on our belief that Iran carried out the attack in revenge for the terrorist atrocity which the US carried out against Iran when they shot down Flight 655, five months before Lockerbie.

As you will see later today, we are now calling for an international inquiry to be established to examine the broader context that led to the Pan Am 103 attack and which, if we lived in a non-hypocritical, fair and just world, would hopefully lead to the conviction of those who are really responsible for Pan Am 103 and those officers and crew who illegally entered Iranian waters and blew up 290 innocent victims on the Iranian flight five months before. These are two interrelated terrorist acts in which the perpetrators, on both sides, have yet to face justice.

I appreciate the real sense of angst that many US families will have regarding the Megrahi release and those who believe, as I do, that he is innocent of this crime. They have been, as one US family member told me "lied to from the outset by our own government and others". I understand too that the American sense of "justice" is very much based on the concept of an eye for an eye and why, therefore, it would be very difficult for Americans to accept the revenge attack which Iran sponsored in retaliation for the murder of 290 of their citizens. I also understand why, Mr Marquise, you are so passionate to defend your reputation in the face of facts that existed during the investigation and which have emerged subsequently. That is an entirely understandable human reaction.

As you must surely appreciate by now, this is not an issue that is going to slip away quietly. Because the real perpetrators have yet to face justice, it shouldn’t be allowed to.

It may be comforting for you, Mr Duggan in particular, to hide behind his metaphoric redoubt and sling entirely inappropriate comment at those who are challenging the official version of events that has been fed to you over the years. The holocaust comparison you make directed at me is presumably an attempt to align those of us who believe Iran was responsible for the attack on Pan Am 103 to the abhorrent comments of the current President of Iran who is on record as a holocaust denier. What a vulgar irony that truly is.

Given, Mr Marquise, you are blind copying in other people to your correspondence between us you will have no particular objection to Professor Black reporting this exchange on his blog?

4. From Frank Duggan to Mark Hirst, copied to Richard Marquise and Robert Black, dated 24 November
There is no intellectual void. It would be helpful to your advocacy if you would explain Mr. Megrahi's actions in Malta and elsewhere, as brought out in the court's decision concerning his guilt. Stating that there were other reasonable, legal explanations for his carrying a false passport and lying about it is not helpful. These are facts that you "seem utterly incapable of critically examining."

5. From Mark Hirst to Frank Duggan, copied to Richard Marquise and Robert Black, dated 25 November

I suspect this exchange could continue forever and with no resolution between our differing views. I think this issue has been debated many times, but I don't see how inverting the burden of proof really assists the case being made against Megrahi. There are any number of unrelated reasons (unrelated to the crime) that would explain why Megrahi could have been carrying a diplomatic coded passport and these are already in the public domain. It was for the Crown to demonstrate these issues were directly connected to the crime, not for Megrahi or anyone else to explain what other possible reasons he may have had for carrying such a passport or other business he may, or may not have had in Malta. I understand that some of Megrahi's own children were also carrying coded diplomatic passports. Were these children involved in the crime also?

The independent SCCRC has concluded that there are very serious issues around the identification by Gauci, not just the millions of dollars he and his brother solicited and received from the CIA. Without the identification there is no case against Megrahi. The fact that the three judges appear to have misdirected themselves by coming up with their own narrative of the crime, which differed significantly from the one the Crown presented, is somewhat of a red herring in terms of defending the conviction being the "considered conclusion of a Scottish court", with the implication that they did not make a monumental legal error in doing so. You must at least know that.

Yourself and Mr Marquise continually attempt to dismiss critical examination of the case as the work of "conspiracy theorists" and appear to believe, without foundation, there is some kind of active conspiracy between myself, Ms Grahame, Professor Black, Dr Swire, John Pilger, Professor Chomsky, Nelson Mandela, Hans Kochler, Ian Ferguson, Gareth Pierce, Gideon Levy, Bob Baer, Fred Whitehurst and many others (including, most likely the SCCRC) who have looked at this case. Clearly the wide range of individuals, most, if not all, with exemplary professional credentials (despite your attempts at character assassination) demonstrates that beyond the three trial judges there remains, and is likely to remain, very serious doubts over the safety of this conviction and the manner in which the investigation was conducted.

That is one fact that I am confident we can both agree on.

Fragments of truth

[This is the heading over an article in the current issue of the magazine Scottish Left Review by Mark Hirst, Parliamentary Adviser to Christine Grahame MSP. The full article can (and should) be read here. The following are excerpts.]

Earlier this year I met with the man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in British history. Now back in Libya to await a verdict from a ‘higher court’, terminally ill Abdelbaset al Megrahi steadfastly maintains his innocence in the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie in December 1988. Many professionals involved in the case including US intelligence officers, legal experts and police investigators also share his view, in spite of the concerted propaganda efforts by vested interests in the Crown Office, FBI and US Justice and State Departments. Yet for reasons still to be fully explained by Megrahi, his Defence or the Scottish Government, in August this year he dropped his second appeal and a week later Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill released him on compassionate grounds. That decision resulted in a hysterical reaction from representatives of some of the US relatives and somewhat half-hearted condemnatory slogans from the Obama led US Government.

Megrahi was not required to drop his appeal in order to qualify for compassionate release. He subsequently claimed in a newspaper interview after his return to Libya that no pressure was placed on him to do so. So why did he? When I, along with MSP Christine Grahame, met with him his focus had been very much on the detail of the case and the new evidence that would be led during his second appeal. But he made it clear that his priorities had changed since discovering he was terminally ill last year. His over-riding objective was to return to Libya and to see his family before he died. He understood fully why some, mostly UK victim’s relatives, were keen to see the appeal continue, but told us it would not take them any closer to the truth and who was ultimately responsible for the deaths of their relatives.

Megrahi literally was running out of time and was deeply concerned that he would, as he put it very directly, return to Libya in a wooden box in the hold of a cargo plane. I believe he was genuinely supportive of the need of relatives of victims to get to the ‘truth’, but those efforts were not going to bring him any closer to his family in Libya before he died. His faith in Scottish justice and the legal process he had been subjected to was understandably low. “If they have a brave judge who looks and says ‘good or bad’, ‘yes or no’, but I doubt that the chair of the judges, who chairs all the other judges in Scotland, will turn around and say that all the other judges [at the trial and the first appeal] before got it wrong.” Megrahi said, before adding, “They will want to show, to keep the integrity of the system, that they don’t care if they have to keep an innocent man in prison to do that.”

The integrity in the Scottish legal system, whether it deserves it or not, is right at the heart of this issue, because that is what is at stake if the complete truth behind this case emerges and that is why very prominent vested interests are even now working hard to close the case down. The latest spurious police investigation being just one example that will ensure no independent inquiry takes place any time soon. (…)

The message to Megrahi, whether made explicitly or not, appears to have persuaded him to drop his 18-year fight to clear his name. That view was confirmed when his defence counsel Maggie Scott QC addressed the High Court in August to confirm Megrahi was indeed dropping his appeal. Scott stated that her client believed that this action would “assist in the early determination of those applications”. Applications, plural. The link was made explicitly. Ultimately Megrahi was led to believe by vested interests in our own legal establishment that his only chance of returning home was by dropping his second appeal and to leave his family name forever associated with the bombing of Pan Am 103. That outcome is a scandal that will haunt the Scottish legal system in particular, for decades to come.

So was there a conspiracy? Perhaps, but there certainly has been a cover-up which is very much ongoing. A cover-up of the weakness of the evidence, the weakness of the criminal investigation and a cover-up of the shameful conclusions reached by three Scottish judges at the trial. (…)

Earlier this year Dutch filmmaker Gideon Levy completed an award-winning documentary, still to be shown in the UK, that proves that the then-Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of [Carmyllie] was unaware that the crucial fragment used to link Libya to the attack went to the United States FBI lab for examination. It now transpires it also went to West Germany, although despite recent Crown Office claims that movement was not explicitly made during the trial. Levy’s film includes interviews with the chief prosecutor in the case, Lord Fraser, the FBI’s Senior Investigating Officer Richard Marquise and Robert Baer who for 30 years worked in the Middle East Directorate of the CIA and was a senior US intelligence operative. What emerges during the course of Levy’s film is the staggering revelation that this crucial evidence was not properly secured by Scottish police and should never have gone to the US. The importance of this piece of evidence cannot be [overstated]. Marquise states that without the fragment, known as PT-35, there would have been no indictment, let along conviction of Megrahi.

Lord Fraser, who brought the original indictments against Megrahi is then asked if he was aware that PT-35 had ever been to the US. “Not to my knowledge... I would not have permitted this as it was important evidence that could have been lost in transit, or tampered with or lost,” He is then shown the interview with Marquise, who confirms the fragment did go to the US before the trial. Fraser responds; “Well this is all news to me”. Later in the film Levy challenges Marquise to clarify whether PT-35 was taken to the US without the knowledge of the Lord Advocate. Standing next to him is retired Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson, the senior Scottish investigating officer in the case. Marquise initially seems confused over whether PT-35 was taken to Washington, contradicting his earlier on-camera interview, before Henderson interrupts and states categorically that the fragment was never in the US. “It was too important to be waved around”, Henderson states. “It was never in the US, it was never out of Scottish control. They [The FBI] came to the UK to see it, but it was never in the US.” After filming Marquise emailed Levy to “clarify” and confirm that PT-35 was indeed in the US and apologised for the earlier confusion. It is clear that if Marquise did not understand the significance of PT-35s foreign movements then Stuart Henderson clearly did.

What has not yet been made public, until now, is that Stuart Henderson states in his precognition statement that he gave to the Crown, ahead of Megrahi’s second appeal, that the fragment, PT-35 definitely did go the US. Henderson states that on the 22nd of June 1990 he travelled to the US with the fragment accompanied by Chief Inspector McLean, DI Williamson and Alan Feraday of RARDE, the forensic explosives laboratory in Kent. According to Henderson’s statement to the Crown they met with Metropolitan Field Officers of the FBI and Thomas Thurman, the FBI official who, it is claimed later ‘identified’ the origin of the fragment. Thurman has a degree in political science and has no relevant formal qualifications in electronics or any other scientific field.

I have also seen one of the crucial productions that was to be led during Megrahi’s second appeal which is the official log that accompanied PT-35 and is meant to record each movement of the evidence in order to protect the evidential chain. At each point it is signed for by the relevant police officer. This is an extremely important process and is meant to ensure the chain of evidence is not broken. There is no entry in this log recording that PT-35 ever went to the US, at any point. That has to cast serious doubts over its integrity in light of Henderson’s precognition statement and the confirmation from the FBI’s Dick Marquise that the fragment was in the US prior to the trial.