Moussa Koussa gets UK visa and access to his oil millions

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

Colonel Gaddafi’s terror chief Moussa Koussa was yesterday granted an asylum seeker’s visa to stay in the UK – and full access to the millions he has stashed away in secret bank accounts.

MPs and Lockerbie families condemned the move to allow Libya’s “envoy of death” the right to come and go as he pleases for six months after a request to the Home Office by Foreign Secretary William Hague.

And the decision, ordered by the EU, to lift sanctions on the spy chief’s frozen assets – thought to contain millions from Libya’s booming oil sales – was branded as “astonishing”.

The move is understood to have been proposed by Mr Hague when he met European counterparts on Tuesday in an effort to encourage others to quit Gaddafi’s regime. A Treasury source said: “It sends a powerful signal to other potential defectors that, if they are currently on a list, they could be taken off that list if they do things differently.” But Tory MP Robert Halfon, whose family fled Libya when Gaddafi seized power, said: “I am astonished that the EU has decided to give immunity from sanctions to an alleged war criminal.

“The only place Mr Koussa should be travelling is to the Hague to face prosecution at the international court for war criminals.

“Many British people will be hugely concerned that these privileges are being granted to this man.”

Defending Koussa’s visa, a senior Whitehall source insisted there was “no deal, no immunity”. He added: “Koussa may be a nasty piece of work, but he could be key to Gaddafi’s removal. He needs temporary security here so he will work with us.” The Home Office has given Koussa a “Discretionary Leave to Remain” visa offered to asylum seekers pursuing their case to obtain a legitimate refugee status.

[Compare this with the following excerpt from a report headlined "Musa Kusa in UK snub" in today's edition of The Sun:]

Mad Dog Gaddafi's henchman Musa Kusa is refusing to return to Britain, it was claimed last night.

The tyrant's former spymaster has been handed back his passport and cash.

He was allowed to travel freely to Qatar on Wednesday and no longer has his assets frozen. And last night EU sanctions on him were formally lifted.

But Kusa - who defected from Gaddafi's regime last month - is refusing to quit Qatar in a bid to avoid prosecution over the Lockerbie bombing, say sources.

Kusa, 62, flew to the Arab state for international talks about Libya. Broadcaster Al Arabiya reported that Kusa fears the wrath of the families of the 270 Lockerbie victims who perished in the 1988 outrage.

American Susan Cohen, 72 - whose daughter Theo was on board the doomed flight - said: "I am not surprised. Kusa is an evil, evil man who effectively deserves to be hanged. He should not have been allowed to leave Britain."

The Foreign Office said Kusa is "a free individual who can travel to and from the UK", adding: "He has voluntarily agreed to assist all inquiries."

The botched defection of Moussa Koussa

[What follows is from an article by David Ignatius published today on the Washington Post website.]

The botched defection several months ago of Musa Kusa, Libya’s former foreign minister, illustrates the uncertain strategy that has plagued the NATO campaign against Col. Moammar Gaddafi. But even so, the Gaddafi regime is feeling enough pressure to send an emissary to Washington this week to explore a possible negotiated settlement.

Kusa, a prominent member of Gaddafi’s inner circle, fled to Britain on March 30. His departure was initially touted as a major blow to the Libyan regime. But new details suggest it was an ill-planned rush job that has backfired. Kusa left Britain in mid-April and is now under wraps in Doha, Qatar. (...)

The Libya standoff is prompting the new interest in a political settlement. Gaddafi’s intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, sent an emissary who will meet this week with a senior representative of the Obama administration. The message is that Gaddafi will give up power and retreat into the desert, while technocrats in his regime work with the TNC to form a transitional government. Senussi, widely feared in Libya, would apparently also withdraw from power. The US response couldn’t be learned.

The Kusa defection is a classic case of covert confusion. The Libyan official had originally planned to defect to France. A French intelligence officer is said to have contacted him on March 10 during a meeting of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A French intelligence official met him again on March 29 at the Royal Garden Hotel in Djerba, Tunisia, and pitched him about defecting, promising residency, financial help and legal immunity.

The French plan faltered the next morning after Paris demanded that, as part of the deal, Kusa appear publicly with President Nicolas Sarkozy when he arrived in Paris and denounce Gaddafi. Kusa refused, and initiated frantic contacts with MI6 representatives in London about fleeing there. The British first asked for three days to work out details, but when Kusa said he had to leave immediately, MI6 hammered out the basics in several hours, and the Libyan flew to Farnborough Airport, southwest of London.

Kusa’s escape to Britain got off to a bad start. MI6 officers met him at the airport, but his visa paperwork wasn’t ready for several hours. The British weren’t demanding that Kusa publicly renounce Gaddafi, but they weren’t offering him immunity from prosecution, either, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and 1984 shooting of a British policewoman. His debriefing at a safe house on the southern coast was rocky, in part because of the media frenzy about his defection — with Kusa reading tabloid headlines such as the Daily Mail’s description of him as Gaddafi’s “Fingernail-Puller-in-Chief.”

When Kusa’s passport was returned to him in mid-April, he promptly left for Qatar, nominally to attend a meeting of the “contact group” opposing Libya. He hasn’t left Doha since. The defection mishaps have been a “laughingstock” back in Libya and undermined hopes of other recruitments, according to one intelligence source.

Gaddafi's former foreign minister to stay in Qatar

[This is the headline over a Deutsche-Presse Agentur news agency report on the Monsters and Critics website. It reads as follows:]

Libya's former foreign minister Musa Kusa has decided to stay in Qatar for the time being due to worries that the relatives of Libyan terror attack victims want him prosecuted, the Al Arabiya broadcaster said Thursday.

Kusa fled to London at the end of March, around six weeks after the start of the uprising against Moamer Gaddafi, and dissociated himself from the Libyan ruler.

It appears he initially thought he could play a role in the new Libya. But most opposition figures distrust him and Western countries are interested in information he could provide as former head of the intelligence service rather than cooperation with him.

After his arrival in London, Kusa was questioned about the bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 that killed 270 people. Gaddafi allegedly ordered the attack. Kusa was not detained.

Kusa's predecessor as foreign minister, Abdel Rahman Shalgham, described him as the 'black box' of the Gaddafi regime.

Britain's decision to allow Kusa to attend a meeting of the Libya Contact Group in Qatar on Wednesday was criticized by some human rights groups and relatives of terror attack victims.

[A report published today on the Sify website reads in part:]

The Libyan rebels have refused to talk to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's former Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa at a summit in Qatar, saying he has blood on his hands, having been part of Gaddafi's inner circle.

Koussa, who is accused of being involved in the Lockerbie bombing case, fled to Qatar yesterday for an international summit on Libya to talk to Arab leaders about how to oust Gaddafi.

But a spokesmen for rebels attendingthe meet made it clear that they want nothing to do with the former intelligence chief, who was an integral part of Gaddafi's inner circle until he fled to Britain earlier this month.

"We did not invite him here. He is not part of our delegation," the Daily Mail quoted rebel spokesman Mahmoud Shamman, as saying.

In Benghazi, opposition spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga said talks with Koussa were 'not on the agenda'.

Senior Government sources said he has only been granted a 'time-limited' visa to stay in Britain, meaning he could be gone within six months.

Moussa Koussa and the Scottish police and prosecutors

[The following is from a report in The Independent today:]

Libya's acting foreign minister flew into Athens last night on a mission from Muammar Gaddafi which his Greek government hosts said meant the regime was now seeking an end to the fighting.

Disilllusioned with what he sees as the betrayal by France, Britian and Italy because of the NATO-led military intervention, the Libyan leader may see Greece—with which he has long enjoyed good relations—as a possible diplomatic conduit to the West.

After Abdelati Obeidi met Prime Minister George Papandreou, Mr Obeidi's Greek counterpart, Dimitri Droutsas, said last night: "It seems that the Libyan authorities are seeking a solution." Though there were few details of what, if anything, the regime is proposing, Mr Papandreou has been in touch with Western governments over the past few days. Mr Obeidi is expected to travel on to Malta and Turkey. [RB: An article on the Aljazeera website on the Obeidi mission can be read here.]

Meanwhile, Scottish officials have arrived in London to question Libya's former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, on what he knows about the Lockerbie bombing. The interview, which may take place today, comes as MPs and families of victims of the attack demand that Mr Koussa should not be granted immunity from prosecution, even if there have been attempts to encourage others in the Gaddafi regime to defect.

Despite reports that Mr Koussa is named in court documents as overseeing Libya's supply of Semtex explosive to the Provisional IRA, British officials will seek to delay any legal moves against him, arguing that the priority is to oust Colonel Gaddafi.

[The other UK media that I have been able to access online go no further than to state that Scottish officials will today discuss with UK Foreign Office officials the possibility of interviewing Moussa Koussa. There is no suggestion that any such interview will take place today or, indeed, any time soon. For example, the report on the BBC News website can be read here; that on the Sky News website can be read here; that in The Scotsman (which is misleadingly headlined) can be read here; and the Press Association news agency report here.

However, the report in the Daily Record contains the following:]

A young Scottish prosecutor is leading efforts to question the high-profile Libyan defector Musa Kusa over the Lockerbie bombing.

Lindsey Miller, head of the Crown Office Serious and Organised Crime Division, has been liaising with families of the Lockerbie victims and wrote to them promising to pursue Gaddafi's former spy chief.

Lawyers and police could start interviewing Kusa today.

Miller, 39, is the senior procurator fiscal heading the investigation into the terrorist attack on Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 that killed 270 people.

In an email sent to relatives of the victims after Kusa arrived in Britain, Miller said her staff had notified the Foreign Office that "we wish to interview [Kusa] regarding any information he may have concerning the bombing of Pan Am flight 103."

She added that the bomb probe "remains open and we will pursue all relevant lines of inquiry in conjunction with our US counterparts". [RB: Regrettably, the Scottish police and prosecutors have a very narrow concept of what is "relevant" -- only material that supports the Malta-Frankfurt-Heathrow scenario.]

Representatives of the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary are to meet Foreign Office officials today to discuss access to the Libyan foreign minister.

Last night, Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill said: "They'll be seeking to interview him tomorrow.

"It's not for me to interfere with due process here. I have to stand back and leave that to the relevant authorities, but they've been there waiting in London since Friday." (...)

Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday gave the green light to the Crown Office after denying there would be an amnesty deal with Kusa if he helped topple Gaddafi.

Hague said: "It is a good thing, of course, where the Crown Office in Scotland wish to talk to him about what's happened in the past such as at Lockerbie.

"My officials are discussing with the Crown Office how to go about that. That's not a bad thing either - we want more information about past events."

Hague insisted there is no deal with Kusa. He said: "The Prime Minister and I have made clear there is no immunity from prosecution, there will be no immunity, he hasn't asked for that, there isn't a deal."

MacAskill added: "I welcome the commitment of the Foreign Secretary to allow them access and I hope that this provides further clarity on the Lockerbie atrocity."

US-Libya rapprochement following Lockerbie trial

[The following are excerpts from an article by Robert S Greenberger published in The Wall Street Journal on this date in 2002:]

Libya's Col Moammar Gadhafi, is attempting a rehabilitation.

Top US and Libyan officials have held several unpublicized meetings in England and Switzerland in recent years to discuss improving ties. Public-relations campaigns and lobbying efforts on Libya's behalf are under way, funded in part by oil money and driven by a desire to cash in on future deals or resume business interrupted by sanctions. The Libyan leader himself has been taking steps and sending signals that suggest he may want to get out of the terrorism business, US officials say.

The Gadhafi makeover could be reaching a critical moment. Last week, a top US official and a Libyan intelligence operative met near London in another attempt to talk about the steps Libya must take before ties can be resumed. Later this month, a Scottish court is scheduled to hear the appeal of a Libyan intelligence agent found guilty in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans. Libya has signaled to US officials directly and through intermediaries that when the legal process ends, the Gadhafi government may compensate the victims' families and take responsibility for the bombing, US officials say. Many US officials believe Col. Gadhafi himself was involved in the Pan Am bombing, the bloodiest terrorist attack on Americans before Sept 11.

In October, William Burns, the assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, who was at last week's meeting outside London, addressed a congressional committee about the purpose of US diplomacy toward Libya. He said it was meant "to make clear that there are no shortcuts around Libya ... accepting responsibility for what happened and also for paying appropriate compensation" for the Pan Am bombing.

There's a lot to be gained on both sides from rapprochement. Resolving the bombing could persuade Washington to lift the sanctions imposed in 1986. That would open the way for American companies to do business with the oil-rich country and for Libya to do some much-needed repair work on its economy. (...)

Still, the diplomatic dance between the US and Libya has produced a stark change in Libya's previously sharp anti-American rhetoric. It began in secret more than two years before Sept 11, in a series of meetings on the outskirts of London and in Geneva, Switzerland. Those meetings brought together senior officials of the Clinton administration, British officials and a top Libyan intelligence operative, Musa Kusa, according to US officials.

The idea to meet emerged in February 1998, when the US was embroiled in one of its periodic crises with Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair telephoned President Clinton to discuss growing complaints by moderate Arab allies that the West was dealing unfairly with Arab states. Mr Blair suggested it might be helpful to resolve the Libya issue in some way, a Clinton administration official recalls. (...)

President Clinton didn't move until after Col. Gadhafi agreed in April 1999 to hand over two Libyan suspects in the Pan Am 103 bombing. The White House then sent Martin Indyk, the assistant secretary of state for the Middle East at the time, and Bruce Riedel, the top White House Middle East staffer, to meet with Mr Kusa, who often handles delicate missions for Col Gadhafi. Mr Kusa has been associated for more than 20 years with Libyan intelligence, which has been connected to assassinations of Libyan dissidents abroad and the Pan Am bombing. (...)

In the highest-level contacts since President Reagan imposed sanctions in 1986, the US held four meetings in which Clinton administration officials laid out the steps Col Gadhafi must take to warm up relations with Washington. US officials hammered away at one theme: Libya must compensate the families of Pan Am 103 victims and take responsibility for the terrorist bombing to make normal ties possible. A United Nations resolution also calls for Libya to compensate the victims' families and take responsibility for the bombing.

Then, the day after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, Col Gadhafi condemned the actions publicly as "horrifying, destructive." In October, in a previously planned secret meeting, Mr Kusa met in England with Mr Burns. Mr Kusa talked about what he called their common enemy, terrorism, according to a diplomat familiar with the session. Mr Kusa offered information on the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which is believed to be linked to al Qaeda and which also targets Col Gadhafi.

On Dec 5, the US included the group on an expanded list of terrorist organizations whose members will be automatically barred from the US or expelled if found here. At last week's meeting outside London, Mr Burns reiterated the American stance on Pan Am 103, according to a State Department official. (...)

Turning over the terrorism suspects also bolstered a public-relations and lobbying campaign conducted by Libya and its supporters, with quiet help from American companies. Four days after Col Gadhafi agreed to the handover, the US-Libya Dialogue Group held its first meeting, in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Mustafa Fitouri, a Libyan who is an information-technology professor at the Maastricht School of Management, helped arrange the session. He says the nonprofit group was set up "to show people in both countries, away from government, that people can communicate, work with each other." (...)

Mr Fitouri says some funds for the meeting were provided by US and Libyan companies, which he won't name. He adds that he doesn't know where all the money comes from because it's handled by a person, whom he also won't name, at a Libyan university. Until the Pan Am 103 case is resolved and sanctions are lifted, US companies don't want to be identified as being close to Tripoli.

Commemoration of Pan Am 103 at Arlington National Cemetery

[This is the headline over an article published late yesterday on the Consumer Travel Alliance website.  It reads as follows:]

Today, December 21, 2012, is the 24th anniversary of the Pan Am 103 bombing which killed 270 and remains the second worst terrorist attack in history against Americans after 9/11.

A memorial service was held alongside the Flight 103 Cairn at Arlington National Cemetery from 1:30 to 3:00 pm. It featured speeches by the US Attorney General Eric Holder [full text here], FBI Director Robert Mueller [full text here], TSA [Transport Security Administration] Administrator John Pistole [full text here], and Frank Duggan of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103. [RB: I have not been able find Mr Duggan's remarks online. This is probably a blessing.]

On this cold, gray and windy day, America’s top-ranking law enforcement officers paid their respects to those killed in this act of terrorism.

At the same time Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie, an organization of family members of the Pan Am 103 bombing victims, launched a major petition drive demanding the Governments of United States and Libya fulfill their longstanding promises of cooperation in the U.S. criminal investigations of numerous terrorist attacks against Americans by Libyans and bring those responsible to justice. The form to sign the petition is here.

Here is the petition text:

Expressing the disappointment, concern and increasing frustration and anger of the families and friends of victims of the Pan Am 103 bombing and all Americans at the failure of the United States to properly investigate the Pan Am 103 bombing (which killed 270 on December 21, 1988 over Lockerbie Scotland and remains the second worst terrorist attack in history against Americans) and other terrorist attacks and the failure of Libya to grant permission for US criminal investigators to gather evidence in Libya or fulfill its promises and obligations to fully cooperate with US criminal investigations of terrorist attacks against Americans, including most recently the murder of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on September 11th, 2012.

Whereas since 1989, hundreds of Pan Am 103 victims’ family members have pursued civil and criminal justice against those responsible for the murder of their loved ones;

Whereas there has been no known progress or criminal investigation developments since the indictments of two Libyan intelligence agents over 20 years ago and the conviction of one over 11 years ago, notwithstanding Libya’s formal promises to the UN in 2003 to fully cooperate with US criminal investigations and comply with numerous international anti-terrorism agreements, and notwithstanding renewed promises by the Libyan Transitional National Council leader in 2011 to provide new evidence and newly available witnesses and suspects in Libya;

Whereas Libya has recently granted permission to the United Kingdom for investigation within Libya by United Kingdom criminal investigators of a London police woman’s murder outside the Libyan embassy;

Whereas Libya has promised repeatedly (in 2003, 2011, 2012 and previously) to cooperate with the United States in the Pan Am 103 investigation;

Whereas the United States provided in 2011 essential support in protecting many of those now in the Libyan government and the Libyan people from being killed in masse by Gaddafi forces;

Whereas the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been claiming for 24 years that this is ‘the largest murder investigation in US history’ but with no visible results since 2000;

Whereas Senussi, former head of Gaddafi’s infamous External Security Organization that sponsored and carried out Gaddafi regime terrorism against the U.S. and other Western nationals and assassinations of exiled Gaddafi opponents, has now been sent back to Libya by Mauritania;

Whereas there is still no indication that the United States has sought to use its many tools of witness protection and relocation, terrorist reward programs, interrogation of Senussi, or former Gaddafi intelligence chief Musa Kusa in Qatar, and has not responded to the United Kingdom critics who claim that the evidence convicting Megrahi was flawed and/or fabricated by the United States DOJ and FBI;

Whereas, Libya is presently criminally prosecuting two former Libyan officials for “waste of public funds” in paying compensation to the families of Pan Am 103 victims; and

Whereas the Government of Libya has made no arrests in the September 2012 terrorist murders of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans and has failed to fully cooperated with US criminal investigations:

NOW, therefore, the undersigned hereby petition and request that

(1) The Congress of the United States hold oversight hearings requiring that the FBI and Department of Justice report on the status of the investigation into the Pan Am 103, including by explaining and releasing appropriate records showing—

(A) why since 2000 it has apparently failed to gather any evidence or interview witnesses (including former Justice Minister and former Chairman of the Libyan Transitional National Council Mustapha M A Jalil, who has publicly claimed to have proof of Gaddafi and others direct involvement) regarding the Pan Am 103 bombing;

(B) why the US Office of Foreign Assets Control has removed all travel and financial sanctions on Musa Kusa, former Gaddafi intelligence chief, stated by former US CIA Director George Tenet to be responsible for American bloodshed;

(C) why the Department of Justice and Department of State did not seek extradition from Mauritania of Senussi, who was named in United States indictments and convicted by France of the 1989 UTA jumbo jetliner bombing that murdered 170, including 6 U.S. citizens and Bonnie Pew, wife of the US Ambassador to Chad;

(D) why the Department of Justice never sought nor obtained access to Megrahi, the only person convicted of the Pan Am 103 mass murder who was imprisoned in the United Kingdom for 9 years, prior to his death in Tripoli in 2012;

(E) why, in over 20 years of what the Department of Justice often claimed was the biggest murder investigation in its history, has never named any of the Pan Am 103 terrorists except two low level Libyan intelligence agents;

(F) what resources the Department of Justice has devoted to the Pan Am 103 bombing criminal investigation and the costs of this investigation especially since 2000; and

(G) what requests or demands the United States made to Libya since 1989 for cooperation in the criminal investigation of the Pan Am 103 bombing and what responses if any were received;

(2) That the Government of Libya promptly grant the United States permission to investigate in Libya the Pan Am 103 bombing and other acts of terrorism by Libyan nationals against United States citizens (as it has repeatedly promised but so far failed to do) and permit the US to have a secure location on Libya territory to conduct such investigations.

(3) That unless the US Attorney General and the President of the United States certify to the US Congress by February 21, 2013 that Libya has fully cooperated with the Pan Am 103 bombing and the US consulate attack investigations, that new US and UN sanctions be imposed against Libya for sheltering terrorist murderers of hundreds of Americans and other nationals and for failing to cooperate with US criminal investigations to bring those responsible to justice.

Dated: December 21st, 2012

'Envoy of death'

[This is the headline over an article in the Embassy Row section of the website of The Washington Times. It reads in part:]

The Libyan foreign minister — linked to the Lockerbie bombing and an attack on a disco in Berlin that killed American soldiers and expelled from Britain for plotting to kill Libyan dissidents — will be honored this week in Washington by US and Arab business executives.

Musa Kousa [or Mousa Kousa or Mousa Kusa or Musa Kusa] is scheduled to discuss a recent Commerce Department mission to Libya and the new US-Libyan trade framework agreement when he attends a reception in his honor sponsored by the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce on Thursday [3 June] at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel.

Mr Kousa's terrorist background extends to the 1980s when he was accused of sending hit men around the world to kill critics of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. In London, he was known as the "envoy of death" when he was the head of the Libyan diplomatic mission to Britain, according to reports in the London newspapers, The Times and The Independent.

After his expulsion from Britain in 1980, Mr Kousa went on to serve as Mr Gadhafi's top spymaster for 15 years. Mr Kousa was reportedly complicit in the 1986 Berlin disco bombing that led to President Reagan's decision to attack Mr. Gadhafi's residence in Tripoli. He was also accused of plotting the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. One hundred ninety victims were Americans. (...)

The refurbishment of Mr Kousa's image began with his appointment as Libya's envoy to talks that led to a $2.7 billion compensation fund for the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster.

The foreign intelligence chief is also reported to have given London information on spies operating in Britain. (...)

President Obama sent career Foreign Service officer Gene A Cretz to serve as US ambassador in Tripoli in December 2008. Libyan Ambassador Ali Suileiman Aujali presented his credentials to Mr Obama in January 2009.

Libyan Foreign Minister defends UK Government over Lockerbie

A top Libyan official once expelled from Britain for plotting the deaths of exiled dissidents rode to the defence of the British Government over Lockerbie yesterday.

In one of the few interviews he has given, Musa Kusa, the Libyan Foreign Minister and long-time member of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle, told The Times that he was astonished by the controversy over the release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber.

“Where is the human rights, the compassion and mercy? The man is on the verge of death,” Mr Kusa said in a midnight conversation in his plush, chilled office in the centre of baking Tripoli.

He flatly denied any link between al-Megrahi’s release and British commercial interests in his oil-rich state and said that Libya was grateful to the British and Scottish governments for their humanity. “You should not do an injustice to the British Government. It was nothing to do with trade,” he said. “If we wished to bargain we would have done it a long time ago.”

Mr Musa, likewise, said that the row over al-Megrahi’s rapturous reception at Tripoli airport was the result of a cultural misunderstanding: such greetings were a Libyan custom. “I can’t say to [al-Megrahi’s] friends and tribe, ‘Don’t go there’,” he said. Not one Libyan official went to the airport, he added, and the reception was, by Libyan standards, “low key”. (...)

He flatly denied that al-Megrahi or Libya was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing. “Libya is a victim ... It’s a preconception of the Western media that Libya was the one,” he said.

[The above are excerpts from a report in Saturday's edition of The Times.]

Revealed: Blair's role in Megrahi release

[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Independent on Sunday. It claims that, as early as December 2003, the UK and US Governments were involved in negotiations designed to lead eventually to the repatriation of Abdelbaset Megrahi. What was sought in return was Libya's renunciation of its nuclear weapons programme, not trade or oil exploration concessions. The article reads in part:]

Tony Blair will be thrust into the controversy over the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi with questions in Parliament over a secret meeting the then Prime Minister orchestrated that brought Libya in from the cold.

MPs are set to demand the minutes of an extraordinary cloak-and-dagger summit in London between British, American and Libyan spies held three days before Mr Blair announced that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was surrendering his weapons of mass destruction programme.

At the time of the secret meeting in December 2003 at the private Travellers Club in Pall Mall, London – for decades the favourite haunt of spies – Libyan officials were pressing for negotiations on the status of Megrahi, who was nearly three years into his life sentence at a Scottish jail.

Whitehall sources said the issue of Megrahi's imprisonment was raised as part of the discussions, although it is not clear whether Britain or America agreed to a specific deal over his imprisonment, or a more general indication that it would be reviewed.

MPs are to investigate what was promised by Britain at the talks on 16 December, and the role that Mr Blair played in the affair. Until now, the controversy over Megrahi's release last month has centred on discussions between Gordon Brown's government and the Scottish executive and Libya since 2007, with Mr Blair apparently not involved in any way.

It has also focused on claims that the deal was related to oil deals, with Jack Straw admitting yesterday that BP's interests in Libya played a "big part". But authoritative sources said the seeds for Megrahi's release were sown in 2003, when Libya made the historic agreement to end its status as a pariah, and that the focus on oil and trade was a "red herring".

Yesterday the Libyan Foreign Minister, Musa Kusa – who himself was present at the Travellers Club meeting – told The Times that Megrahi's release was "nothing to do with trade".

Two days after the meeting Mr Blair and Col Gaddafi held direct talks by telephone; and the next day, 19 December, the historic announcement about Libyan WMD was made by Mr Blair and President Bush. (...)

Nine top-level MI6, Foreign Office, CIA and Libyan officials were present for the negotiations at the Travellers Club. The revelation that two senior American officials were present risks causing embarrassment to the White House, as Washington has made clear its criticism of the release of Megrahi by the Scottish government last month. (...)

Last night, a spokesman for Mr Blair could not be drawn on the December 2003 meeting. In fact, The Independent on Sunday has established that Mr Blair's involvement with the Travellers Club meeting was at arm's length, via his then foreign affairs envoy, the current ambassador to Washington Sir Nigel Sheinwald. (...)

Sir Nigel was in Downing Street and was kept informed of negotiations. He in turn kept the Prime Minister up to date. Full details of the meeting, and the identities of those present, have not been revealed until now.

Mr Kusa, the Libyan head of external intelligence, was at the time banned from entering Britain after allegedly plotting to assassinate Libyan dissidents. But because of his closeness to Col Gaddafi, he was essential to the talks and was given safe passage to London. Also in the Libyan delegation was Abdulati [al-Obeidi], now the minister for Europe, who extracted the assurance from Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell this year that Mr Brown did not want Megrahi to die in a Scottish jail. Mr [al-Obeidi] said last week: "In my negotiations with the British and the Scottish, I didn't mention anything about trade relations."

For the Americans, Stephen Kappes, the CIA deputy director of operations, and Robert Joseph, counter-proliferation chief, led the talks. Britain was represented by William Ehrman, Foreign Office director general for defence and intelligence, and David Landsman, then the head of counter-proliferation at the Foreign Office. A CIA source said last night that a Lebanese businessman, while not at the meeting, was the key go-between, bringing together Libyan officials and British and US spies. The same businessman also put together a team of private investigators on Lockerbie to undermine the case against Megrahi.

An official with knowledge of the talks said of the Travellers Club meeting: "That was where the real negotiations were made."

[The same newspaper also publishes a leading article on the subject entitled "Megrahi: a small piece in the game".]

The Sunday Herald on the BP/Megrahi furore

[The Sunday Herald contains a long article by James Cusick. The following are excerpts:]

In the current open season on oil company BP, a core of senators have switched their attentions from the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to BP’s exploration deals with Libya – and allegations that the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi helped BP secure a $900 million deal.

In his visit to Washington next week, Prime Minister David Cameron will discover if the senators are merely showboating ahead of their mid-term elections or whether they are serious about dissecting the role of international diplomacy and back-stage politics in the rehabilitation of oil-rich rogue states. For one leading energy consultant in London, who has commercial ties to oil and gas companies operating in the Middle East, showboating would be the preferred option.

“If Capitol Hill really wants the full, dark picture, they’ll need to do more than call in BP to answer a few questions,” he says.

“They might start with George Bush, Tony Blair and Condi Rice. Jack Straw would help; so would Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador to the United States. As well as BP, they should talk to Shell, Marathon, Amerada Hess, ConocoPhillips, all of them. And, if they’ve time, Colonel Gaddafi’s son Seif and Musa Kusa, Libya’s former head of intelligence [and currently Foreign Minister]. This is a Pandora’s Box.”

Sir Nigel will be alongside Cameron in DC this week, just as he was alongside Tony Blair during his years as the British ambassador to the European Union, and later as Blair’s foreign policy adviser. Ahead of Cameron’s visit, it fell to Sir Nigel to state the coalition’s position on the release of Megrahi. “The new British Government is clear that Megrahi’s release was a mistake,” he said.

For Libyan diplomats, that will have come as a surprise. “Nigel and Tony” are regarded in Tripoli as the two figures who helped bring Megrahi home.

Operating behind the scenes and in direct contact with Gaddafi’s closest aides, it was Sir Nigel who – on Blair’s direct orders – helped broker the secret talks in 2003 between the UK and the US that eventually ended Libya’s exile and coaxed Gaddafi into ending his ambition to build a nuclear arsenal. After he and Condoleezza Rice, then the US national security adviser, had met Libyan officials, it was Sir Nigel who chaired a series of meetings in London with Libyan diplomats which sealed the deal.

In March the following year, Sir Nigel was with Blair when he visited Gaddafi’s tented complex in the desert outside Tripoli. One news paper report noted that it was 5,573 days since Pan Am Flight 103 had exploded over Lockerbie. Blair was the first British prime minister to visit Tripoli since Churchill, and his job was to confer international respectability on the Gaddafi regime and to re-open the commercial opportunities in one of the world’s least explored oil territories. (...)

Lurking in the background, however, was one unresolved issue: one that regularly presented tribal difficulties for Gaddafi in internal Libyan politics. This was Megrahi’s imprisonment in Scotland. (...)

After Blair’s meeting with Gaddafi in 2004, pressure increased on both the UK and US governments to create the necessary conditions for further commercial activity. But Megrahi was still an unresolved part of the Libyan jigsaw – and, felt many in the Foreign Office, a vital one. Quietly, the prospect of a prisoner transfer deal crept on to the ­diplomatic agenda.

Gaddafi’s son Seif has said that Megrahi’s release was a constant reference point in any trade talks. And in a meeting with Megrahi after he returned to Tripoli last year, Seif told him: “When British interests came to Libya, I used to put you on the table.”

According to a US embassy source in London, Seif would “scare the hell out of Capitol Hill” if he gave a witness testimony. It would not be what he had to say about BP – but what he could say about anyone from any country, including the US, trying to secure new and lucrative business with Libya. (...)

When Blair eventually returned to Tripoli in May 2007 to sign the so-called deal in the desert – a major step towards Libya’s international rehabilitation – it was Sir Nigel who had designed the “memorandum of understanding”. This included, for the first time, an outline of a legal agreement on prisoner transfer. On the same day that Blair and Gaddafi shook hands, both Blair and Sir Nigel travelled to the Libyan city of Sirt to watch BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward and the Libyan National Oil Company’s chairman Shokri Ghanem sign an exploration deal worth $900m.

Hayward knew he was delivering something big for BP. “Our agreement is the start of an enduring long-term and mutually beneficial partnership with Libya,” he said. “With its potentially large resources of gas, favourable geographic location and improving investment climate, Libya has an enormous opportunity to be a source of clean energy for the world.” (...)

BP expected the prisoner transfer agreement to be dealt with quickly by Westminster. But shortly after the signing ceremony between Hayward and Ghanem – which, although it looked formal enough, was still only an outline deal – Libyan officials were told by UK lawyers that there might be a problem with returning Megrahi to Tripoli. Transfer or release of prisoners from a Scottish jail was not a matter for Number 10 but for the devolved government at Holyrood.

According to a senior UK judicial source, when the prospect of delays in any prisoner transfer was suggested to Libya, it was dismissed as nonsense. One Libyan source claimed there would be no delay; that “Nigel and Tony have assured us”. This source also believed Megrahi would be back in Libya within six months.

But BP had begun to appreciate the Scottish problem. By the late autumn of 2007, the company was said to be worried about the slow progress being made in concluding the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

Last week BP officially acknowledged this concern. “We were aware this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan Government of BP’s exploration agreement,” the company said.

BP admits it lobbied the government, seeking to speed up the process of getting the transfer agreement into law. However, it denied it tried to intervene in the case of Megrahi in particular.

But Professor Black, the man who helped engineer the case at Zeist, says: “The prisoner transfer agreement and the potential release of Megrahi back to Libya have always been one and the same thing. It is disingenuous of BP to say they were different. Megrahi was always the name on the table. He was the only high-profile prisoner that mattered.”

Last year, Megrahi was released from jail on compassionate grounds by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary. MacAskill said the Libyan was in the final stages of prostate cancer and was expected to die within three months. He added that he was bound by Scottish values to release him and allow him to die in his home country. The transfer agreement – which the Scottish Government had criticised as unconstitutional because it had not been consulted – did not figure in the minister’s deliberations. (...)

The senate committee in Washington will care little about the constitutional in-fighting between Edinburgh and London. The former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has said that if Westminster had wanted to stop Megrahi leaving, it had the power to do so. “The last time I looked, Scotland wasn’t independent and doesn’t have powers over foreign policy,” said Bolton.

Although Sir Nigel says the UK Government believes the release of Megrahi was a mistake, he does not say if he thought it was mistake.

[Also in the Sunday Herald is an article by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill. It reads in part:]

My decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi last August was, as I made clear at the time and many times since, the right decision for the right reasons.

It was a decision based entirely upon the application for compassionate release that I was duty bound to consider. As I said then, it was not a decision I chose to make, but one I was obliged to make as Scotland’s Justice Secretary.

Megrahi was sent home to die according to the due process of Scots law, based on the medical report of the Scottish Prison Service director of health and care, and the recommendations of the parole board and prison governor – all of which have been published by the Scottish Government.

However, I was also faced with another, separate decision, in respect of Megrahi. That was the application before me for a transfer from Scotland under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement signed by the UK and Libyan governments.

I rejected that application because the US Government and the families of Lockerbie victims in the US had been led to believe such a prisoner transfer would not be possible for anyone convicted of the atrocity.

The Scottish Government has always totally opposed the Prisoner Transfer Agreement negotiated between the UK and Libyan governments. The memorandum that led to the Agreement was agreed without our knowledge and against our wishes.

That is why we chose to reveal the secret talks between the then Labour Government and the Libyans, as soon as we learned of the “deal in the desert” between Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi, with the First Minister making a statement to the Scottish Parliament on the issue as far back as June 2007. (...)

Let us be clear: the issues now being raised in the United States about BP refer to the Prisoner Transfer Agreement negotiated by the governments of the UK and Libya, and so have nothing to do with the decision on compassionate release, which was a totally different process based on entirely different criteria.

And the Scottish Government had no contact from BP in relation to Megrahi.

We would always look to assist any properly constituted inquiry – and indeed we very much support a wider UK public inquiry or United Nations investigation capable of examining all the issues related to the Lockerbie atrocity, which go well beyond Scotland’s jurisdiction. That remains the case.

In terms of the new UK Government’s position on the Megrahi issue, we have known the Prime Minister’s opinion since last August, and he knows the due process of Scotland’s independent legal system was followed.

We also now know Professor Karol Sikora has rejected news paper reports that misrepresented his comments about Megrahi’s condition.

I said last August that Megrahi may die sooner or may die later than the three-month prognosis the experts then deemed to be a reasonable estimate of life expectancy – that is something over which we have had no control.

What is certain is the man rightly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing remains terminally ill with prostate cancer.

[Mr MacAskill's opinion that Mr Megrahi was "rightly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing" is one that many, including the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, do not share.]

There's none so blind as those who will not see

[Two years ago today, I posted on this blog an item headed Lockerbie bombing inquiry police officer numbers raised based on a BBC News report. It contained the following:]

Additional police officers have been drafted into the Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary team investigating the Lockerbie bombing in 1988.

The inquiry has been scaled up following regime change in Libya.

Chief Constable Patrick Shearer said that the extra resources required for the probe had been supplied by the Scottish government. (...)

The overthrow and death of Col Muammar Gaddafi last year opened up a possible opportunity for investigators to explore the role of others in the bombing.

The Crown Office has already asked the new authorities in Libya for help with the inquiry.

As a result, Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, which has led the Lockerbie investigation from the start, has increased staffing levels within its inquiry team.

Detectives from the local force have already questioned Libya's former Foreign Minister Musa Kusa who fled to London when Col Gaddafi's regime started to fall.A spokesman for Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary said that for operational reasons it could not reveal the number of officers it had added to its inquiry team.

I commented: “Unless the police inquiry is prepared to investigate conscientiously the material that has come to light casting grave doubt on the Zeist trial's verdict against Abdelbaset Megrahi (including material uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission) the new staffing and resources will be a complete waste of time and money and will achieve no more than the "one man with a feather duster" that has been the pretext over the years for the police and Crown Office claim that the Lockerbie investigation was still live.

”The treatment of this issue by Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be found here.  The coverage of the story in the edition of The Herald for Wednesday 25 January [2012] contains the following: 'The Crown Office said: "The transitional Government of Libya has agreed to allow officers from Dumfries and Galloway police to travel to Libya for inquiries into the involvement of others with Mr Megrahi."'  So here we have confirmation from the horse's mouth of the scope of this ‘investigation’."

Nothing in the police and Crown Office stance has changed in the succeeding two years, notwithstanding the emergence of yet more evidence fatally undermining the Megrahi conviction.

More from Jonathan Mitchell QC

Jonathan Mitchell's most recent blog post on the Megrahi release is entitled "Compassionate release in Scotland: the actual policy and the law". It is a masterly exposition of the law and the policy relating to compassionate release. It should have been, but unfortunately was not, required reading for those MSPs who took part in today's debate in the Scottish Parliament. The following are brief excerpts:

"[O]n the published facts of Megrahi’s case, had the Scottish Government refused to allow compassionate release in terms of a policy which had been applied by it and its Lib-Lab predecessors, and before them by Labour and Conservative Secretaries of State alike, it would have been open to legal challenge with excellent prospects of success. That’s the way the law works; it doesn’t suddenly cease to operate because the person claiming its benefits is criminal, or a foreigner, or because release is politically undesirable. Still less because of the improbable suggestion that Americans will boycott Scotland and all its works if Scots law is applied impartially and judicially. (...)

"I cannot imagine that the release of Megrahi will in a few years be seen as a worse decision than the UK Government’s decision to release seventy-eight murderers who had collectively murdered far more people than were murdered at Lockerbie; or the US Government's decision to release a murderer of (per his conviction) twenty-two after three and a half years house arrest; or the UK Government’s decision that Pinochet should never face murder charges because of his supposedly poor health.

"But had the decision been to abrogate the law so that Megrahi would die in prison while Musa Kusa and Colonel Gaddafi himself are fawned on by Washington and London, that would, I think, have come to be seen as shameful."

Lockerbie bombing inquiry police officer numbers raised

[This is the headline over a report published today on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]

Additional police officers have been drafted into the Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary team investigating the Lockerbie bombing in 1988.

The inquiry has been scaled up following regime change in Libya.

Chief Constable Patrick Shearer said that the extra resources required for the probe had been supplied by the Scottish government. (...)

The overthrow and death of Col Muammar Gaddafi last year opened up a possible opportunity for investigators to explore the role of others in the bombing.

The Crown Office has already asked the new authorities in Libya for help with the inquiry.

As a result, Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, which has led the Lockerbie investigation from the start, has increased staffing levels within its inquiry team.

Detectives from the local force have already questioned Libya's former Foreign Minister Musa Kusa who fled to London when Col Gaddafi's regime started to fall.A spokesman for Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary said that for operational reasons it could not reveal the number of officers it had added to its inquiry team.

[Unless the police inquiry is prepared to investigate conscientiously the material that has come to light casting grave doubt on the Zeist trial's verdict against Abdelbaset Megrahi (including material uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission) the new staffing and resources will be a complete waste of time and money and will achieve no more than the "one man with a feather duster" that has been the pretext over the years for the police and Crown Office claim that the Lockerbie investigation was still live. 


The treatment of this issue by Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be found here.  The coverage of the story in the edition of The Herald for Wednesday 25 January contains the following: 'The Crown Office said: "The transitional Government of Libya has agreed to allow officers from Dumfries and Galloway police to travel to Libya for inquiries into the involvement of others with Mr Megrahi."'  So here we have confirmation from the horse's mouth of the scope of this "investigation".]

Torture, rendition and UK Government hypocrisy

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Derek Bateman headed Why Britain shares America's torture shame published yesterday on the Newsnet Scotland website:]

The trouble is that witness after witness has averred that British officials were associated with their kidnap, rendition and torture, sometimes intimately so. At first officially, there was ‘no British involvement’. Then there was a stopover at Diego Garcia. Then we heard of refuelling at Prestwick.

Liberty says: ‘We now know that during the War on Terror many people were unlawfully transferred from one territory to another in circumstances where they were subjected to torture, horrendous conditions of imprisonment and ill-treatment…in 2008 officials stated they were unsure how many other times such flights had passed through British airspace. This is despite previously consistent denials by the government of any such use of UK airspace.’ (...)

If you imagine the detainees all to be committed jihadist killers, it seems that as many as 26 were ‘wrongly held’, notoriously among them the al-Saadi family. They were rendered en masse (or en famille) to Libya in 2004 - Sami, an anti-Gaddafi dissident, his wife Karima and their four children, the eldest 12 and the youngest just six.

A pregnant woman was also rendered. She was Fatima Bouchard and she provides another link with the Labour government because after her forced return to Libya along with her husband where they were jailed, Britain was proud of its efforts in helping. So much so, that MI6 agent Mark Allen sent a letter to the Libyan regime to congratulate them on the arrival of their ‘air cargo’ (the Libyan couple).

The letter was addressed to the head of security in Libya Musa Kusa. He arrived in London after defecting and was set free, presumably because he had been an asset to Britain who couldn’t be allowed to talk about the nature of UK contacts with Gaddafi.

He was also the key figure who would have known the truth about any Libyan involvement in the Lockerbie Bombing. But while Megrahi was pursued and jailed, the security chief was released.

This convoluted snakes and ladders is the stuff of what passes for modern diplomacy and it shows that ‘national interest’ is a shifting and sinewy creature wriggling wherever the dark is to be found.

We only discovered after the release, courtesy of Sir Gus O’Donnell, Cabinet Secretary, that it had been British policy to aid the release of Megrahi all along. This had been made known to the Cabinet which at the time included Jim Murphy as Scottish Secretary. But no one made this information public. Meanwhile Iain Gray was roundly lambasting the SNP government for letting Megrahi go apparently unaware that his Labour colleague Murphy already knew it was government policy. (When I tried to get Murphy to admit this, he failed three times to respond.)

So there is a history of the Cabinet having knowledge of security issues and keeping quiet, which is what I believe happened over torture rendition -  the British State knowingly staged kidnappings and illegal transport of victims for a torture regime and, in the spirit of outsourcing, gave questions to the torturers to ask…that’s our government…our LABOUR government. That is as shameful as water-boarding and cattle prods and puts us side by side with the torturers themselves. Labour – ‘Britain’s democratic socialist party…’

Lockerbie: the current status

[What follows is the text of an essay written on 1 January 2013 by Dr Jim Swire:]

On 21st  December 2012,  US relatives of those Americans who died aboard the PanAm 103 747 over Lockerbie chose to issue a petition to their government.

Their petition  majors on aspects of the relationship between their own country and Libya – the Libya of both before and after Colonel Gaddafi’s death. It can be read on The Lockerbie Case blog (http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2012/12/commemoration-of-pan-am-103-at.html). [RB: Note that the group which launched this petition is not Victims of Pan Am 103 Flight Inc, whose president is Frank Duggan.]

There can be no doubt that under the late Colonel, Libya was responsible for much mischief, murder and mayhem in the world. In the UK we cannot forget the supply of Libyan arms to IRA terrorists, providing weapons and explosives for the murder of both soldiers and civilians in both Northern Ireland and the UK mainland.

In 1984 the FBI had warned the Irish concerning a shipment of about 7 tons of arms and explosives from the USA heading for Ireland, which was intercepted. But In another major victory for intelligence in 1987 the ship the Eksund was stopped at sea and found to be loaded with Libyan guns and explosives intended for the Provisional IRA. These arms would have bolstered the weapons obtained from America in the previous decade which had included the deadly Armalite rifle, the image of which can still be seen depicted on Belfast gable ends.

For many Irish Americans the cause pursued by the IRA/Provos was seen as that of freedom fighters, a euphemism for those who clandestinely and indescrimately kill for their cause.

Not being an American nor claiming to understand the mindset of the ‘average American citizen’, nor having any access to their governmental or intelligence organisations, I feel I have no right to criticise the direction which the American relatives are now taking in their search for the truth about the tragedy of Lockerbie. All that can be said I think about the content of their petition is that to seek to draw together many different aspects of the relationships between Libya and America is to risk confounding the search for the true perpetrators of Lockerbie, for it starts from the assumption that Libya ‘must’ have been involved.

This presumption of Libyan guilt is founded of course upon the evidence led and the verdict reached at the Lockerbie trial in Zeist, 12 years ago. Apart from that there have been claims and counter claims about how others in the Gaddafi regime might have been involved. These claims belong in the hall of smoke and mirrors created by national and international intelligence and the politicians to whom they report. I certainly, and I suspect the American relatives, cannot be certain where the truth lies in such an arena.

The only apparent solid foundation for the notion of Libyan guilt is the Zeist verdict against the Libyan, Megrahi. That is now being used in this petition as a foundation for exploring multiple other aspects of Libyan/US relations over the decades. That in turn makes it all the more important to examine the legitimacy of that verdict.

Whether or not higher echelons of Gaddafi’s regime were involved in Lockerbie I do not know. The strange co-operation of the UK in assisting in Musa Kusa’s escape from Libya to the Middle East certainly suggests that he was seen as an intelligence asset in the West, but whether that included any aspect of Lockerbie we have of course no idea. When I met him in 1991 I found him an intimidating central figure in the Colonel’s regime, but was never faced with meeting Senoussi, widely known as a brutal killer on behalf of the dictator. Both men’s names have been  co-opted into this petition now created by American Lockerbie families. For me they remain denizens of the hall of mirrors too.

My sad task here is to question the one foundation which seems to me to underlie the US relatives’ petition; namely the conviction of Megrahi. I bitterly regret that in doing so I have to challenge the deeply held belief concerning the verdict against Megrahi among equally bereaved families in the US, for to do so must disturb the relative tranquillity (‘closure’) which many feel they have achieved in the lee of this verdict. Even closure however can be a false haven if the facts on which it is based are untrue. My fervent wish is that those who do shelter in the lee of this verdict will look objectively  at the facts now known to surround it. Tough but better to venture out of the shelter into the storm again if one wants to reach the real safe haven of provable truth.  Below is a brief summary of the story we heard at Zeist, together with sufficient of the reasons why it is unsafe, some of which emerged in the court, many of which have emerged later.

For those who wish to make their best effort to understand the discussion I recommend a book published in February of 2012. It is written by John Ashton, who spent years working on the legal aspects of the case. At Zeist there was no jury, and the book’s title invites the reader to assume that role. Megrahi: You are my jury is published by Birlinn of Edinburgh (ISBN-13: 978 1 78027 015 9) and is available from Amazon.com.

On the very day it was published, this book was described as ‘an insult to the (Lockerbie) relatives’, by the UK Prime Minister’s Office.

I hope that many will simply read it with an open mind. I do not believe that Downing Street can have done so.

In the hope of simplifying what some regard as an impenetrably complex story here is a simplified version of what seems to have happened. Please check it out against what is actually known to be true.

The months preceding Lockerbie
In July 1988 an American warship had accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus (Iran Air flight 655) killing 290 innocent people.

Iran swore revenge.

America awarded a medal to Captain Rogers, the ship’s captain.

In October 1988 the West German police broke up a cell of Palestinian terrorists operating in Neuss near Frankfurt, but really emanating from  Syria.

In doing so the BKA police recovered a number of IED bombs from the Neuss flat. Unfortunately they also missed some of them, which disappeared into the terrorist world. These IEDs were triggered by sensing the drop in air pressure when a plane takes off, they also had inbuilt timers, which were not adjustable and meant that such devices would always explode 30-45 minutes after take off. They were the leading design available to terrorists for destroying aircraft in flight. The Syrian group using them were closely allied to Iran.

The fatal Lockerbie flight lasted 38 minutes.

It was the hearing of this forensic evidence from the German expert, Herr Gobel in the court that first alerted the writer to the  improbability of the Malta story. Why launch a bomb from there with a long running and fully adjustable timer, and have it explode just 38 minutes into the flight when it could have been set for many hours after the target flight had left Heathrow?

Some  of the arrested conspirators were released promptly by the BKA, despite having been arrested with one of these IEDs actually in their possession at the time of arrest. This extraordinary decision seems another portal into the hall of mirrors.

According to CIA sources the terrorist group involved received significant funding from Iran immediately after Lockerbie.

The prosecution case at Zeist
The story was that Megrahi, aided and abetted by Fhima had put a suitcase containing the bomb aboard Air Malta flight KM180 as Megrahi passed through Luqa airport on 21st December 1988.

The suitcase, suitably labelled was then claimed to have passed through Frankfurt airport where it was transferred to a PanAm feeder flight (PA103A) to Heathrow, there it was transferred again, this time into a already partly loaded container , containing some bags which had been loaded into it at Heathrow before the arrival of PA103A from Frankfurt. The full container, now containing luggage from both Heathrow and Frankfurt was then placed in the hold of PA103 itself.

In order for all this to be confirmed it was necessary to link the two Libyans to the suitcase and explain how it might have survived the complex route proposed only to explode 38 minutes out of Heathrow. In order to have done so, their bomb would have had to have contained a long running timer.

There was not a scrap of evidence led in court that any such suitcase had been loaded onto the Air Malta flight. Their Lordships simply described this evidence deficit as ‘a difficulty for the prosecution’.

As for the long running timer required for a flight from Malta to Lockerbie via Frankfurt and Heathrow, the prosecution produced a fragment of timer circuit board, allegedly retrieved from the Lockerbie wreckage and found in a police evidence bag. It was claimed to have come from a circuit board in a timer bought by Libya from a Swiss firm, MEBO, well before Lockerbie. These timers , had one been used, could have been adjusted to explode over the Atlantic or even over New Jersey.

The fragment appeared to have been part of such a timer’s circuit board.

However what the court did not know was that the metal layers on the circuit elements of the fragment did not match those on the Libyan boards, although looking exactly like them to the naked eye.

This difference was known to the prosecution before the trial. its significance is explained in detail in Megrahi: you are my jury.

Although the prosecution forensic officer knew of this difference and recorded it in his notes, he told the court that the fragment was ‘similar in all respects’ to the Libyan circuit boards.

The manufacturer of the circuit boards sold to Libya before Lockerbie has confirmed  by affidavit that his firm did not use, nor even have the equipment necessary for manufacture of, circuit boards by the ‘pure tin’ process found on the curious and  apparently incriminating fragment.

Although the anomaly over the fragment was known to the prosecution well before the trial, its true significance did not come to the attention of Megrahi’s defence until his second appeal in Edinburgh.

It did however come to the attention of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC), who had investigated the case. Like the prosecution’s forensic officer, they failed to investigate the full significance of the difference between the fragment and the Libyan circuit boards. Yet they still found six reasons why the case might have been a miscarriage of justice and agreed its referral to a further appeal.

What is revealed in Megrahi: you are my jury is that the fragment has a coating which is essentially ‘pure tin’, not a tin/lead alloy like the Libyan-owned timer boards . Moreover further, objective scientific testing confirms that there is no possibility that this coating could be derived from that on the Libyan boards, not even by exposure in extreme proximity to a Semtex explosion...

Clothing originating from a Malta shop run by the Gauci brothers was found among the Lockerbie wreckage. The prosecution alleged that this clothing was bought on a certain day when Megrahi was on the island, circumstantial evidence has accumulated indicating that in fact it was bought on a  different date when he was not on Malta.

The investigating Scottish police bought improper pressure to bear on Mr Gauci to encourage him to identify Megrahi as the buyer: some of this they concealed from the court.

They also knew that Gauci was aware of, and keen to get his hands on, substantial US offered money, conditional on him giving evidence against Megrahi in court. Again the Scottish police did not declare this knowledge to the Court.

Thus the identification of Megrahi as the buyer of the clothing would certainly have been seen to have failed to reach the standards for an identification normally required in a Scottish criminal court, had all the facts been then known to the court.

The evidence against alleged co-conspirator Fhima failed to convince the court and he was found not guilty. In order to continue proceedings, the charges against Megrahi had then to be altered from conspiring with Fhima, to conspiring with others unknown. Changing the charge in mid stream seems hard to justify under Scots law.

If the prosecution case was a myth, how was it really done?
The above description is taken so far as possible from the evidence led at Zeist and knowledge accumulated since. It is astonishing that it seems to fail to implicate Megrahi and Malta in so many ways.

With one exception, not yet mentioned, the Zeist evidence, unlike the events leading up to the disaster itself,  helps little to tell us about the most likely true explanation. Only after the verdict did that piece of evidence  come to light.

It was that during the night of 20/21 December 1988 about 16 hours before the disaster somebody broke into Heathrow airside at a point close to where the Lockerbie bomb was loaded aboard PanAm103 the following evening.

Although the airport authorities were told immediately of the break-in they seem to have decided that they could afford to ignore it, not calling in Scotland Yard until long after the atrocity, and failing to halt outgoing flights until the identity and motive of the intruder had been identified, as one would surely expect at a time of known heightened terrorist risk, especially for US aircraft...

The bombs mentioned above being made in Neuss had key characteristics which were described to the Zeist court.

They were inert on the ground, but would sense falling air pressure in a climbing aircraft and explode 30-45 minutes after take off. The court heard that the delay was not adjustable.

This means that one of these devices when armed could not have been flown in from Frankfurt, let alone Malta: it would have exploded en route.

The user had to either bring one overland to the target airport or fly in with a disarmed one and arm it there. Once loaded in the target plane he could be sure that the device would explode between 30-45 minutes after takeoff, for no timer would start until the air pressure fell appropriately. Evidence that a suitcase similar to that containing the bomb was indeed loaded at Heathrow into the very container where the explosion occurred 38 minutes after take-off was heard in court but rejected.

The break-in was entirely concealed from the trial court, yet the evidence which was heard at Zeist as to the loading of the container at Heathrow in which the explosion did occur now needs to be reviewed in the light of the break-in. The opportunity for the introduction of such a device by an overland route at Heathrow did exist after all. So reviewed, the Heathrow evidence is seen strongly to support the loading of the bomb-containing suitcase there into the baggage container labelled as and destined for PA103.

The Scottish Crown Office and their investigating police force must answer as to why this break-in evidence was suppressed from January 1989 when the Scotland Yard police told them about it, until after the trial had ended and the verdict been reached.

The concept that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie seems to rest on the conviction of Megrahi, yet the timer fragment said to support the use of a long running timer by Megrahi could not have come from one of the Libyan timers proposed by the prosecution. They were profoundly incompatible.

If Megrahi and Malta were but a myth, was it incompetence that led the Crown Office and their investigators to get so much wrong or something more sinister still?

There is no evidence known to us that suggests any other point of origin for the mysterious fragment other than ‘the Libyan bomb from Malta’. Yet it was found inside a Scottish police evidence bag, the court was told, tucked inside a piece of shirt collar readily identifiable as having been bought in Gauci’s shop in Malta. And now we know, though it was hidden from the court and the first appeal that the fragment could not have come from one of the designated Libyan timers, so where could it have come from, and how on earth did it come to be found inside an official  police evidence bag?

Come to that why had someone altered the label on that very bag in such a way as to make it simpler for the investigating forensic officer to find the fragment, rather than just have him find the piece of cloth?

An even more sinister question is who could have carefully copied the circuitry of a corner of a Libyan owned circuit board, but let themselves down by carelessness over the plating technique? There is simply no known alternative circuit board nor electronic device associated with Lockerbie from which the fragment might have been derived.

I do hope that this attempt to review the situation will be criticised, but by people who have taken the trouble to check on the facts portrayed or hinted at in it. The self styled circumstantial case against Megrahi does not seem to survive such examination, and without it the huge bubble of the ‘Libya did it believers’ seems at least as circumstantial itself.

It was just before the evidence about the circuit board fragment and other exculpatory matters were to be led in Edinburgh in open court that the Megrahi appeal was cancelled. Only now has it become public knowldege.

I have tried but failed to discover anything that could be called proof of Libyan involvement at a higher level than Megrahi. That failure is to be expected for a private citizen seeking to probe State security.

However I wonder whether those who drew up the accusatory petition against their own country over its relationship with Libya have ever asked themselves whether the perceived refusal of their government(s) to obtain any answers might be because there simply isn’t any genuine evidence of Libyan involvement at any level.

Hatred and desire for revenge are always corrosive to those who harbour them. What a further tragedy for the bereaved of Lockerbie if we have been deliberately misled by those who should care for us, their citizens.

Then there is the Christian tenet of forgiveness, how can one forgive someone if his identity is being officially concealed? Such aspects of this terrible case complicate and prolong the grieving process, and in the end will only harm those involved in the deception and the reputation of their nations.