Sheriffs involved in the Lockerbie case

[What follows is excerpted from an article that was published in The Herald on this date in 1993:]

One of Scotland's most distinguished legal figures is retiring.

Sheriff Principal John Mowat, QC, of South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway, will be succeeded by Sheriff Graham Cox, at present a Sheriff at Dundee.

The appointment of Sheriff Cox, 59, by the Queen on the recommendation of the Secretary of State for Scotland, will take effect from October 1, the Scottish Courts Administration said yesterday.

Among Mr Mowat's duties in recent years was the task of conducting the fatal accident inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster in which 270 people died.

During the £3m hearing he heard millions of words of evidence over a 61-day period.

He was born in Manchester 70 years ago and educated at Glasgow High School and Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh before graduating at Glasgow University.

[RB: The Fatal Accident Inquiry into the 270 deaths resulting from the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie opened in Easterbrook Hall, Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries on 1 October 1990. The Sheriff Principal’s 47-page findings were issued on 18 March 1991 and can be read here. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of the evidence related to the positioning of the bomb suitcase in luggage container AVE4041. By the time of the trial at Camp Zeist the Crown’s stance (and its evidence) had altered significantly. For further details, see Dr Morag Kerr’s Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies.

John Mowat’s successor as Sheriff Principal, Graham Cox QC, presided at Camp Zeist on 6 April 1999 at the first appearance of Megrahi and Fhimah before a Scottish court.

Abdelbaset Megrahi’s Scottish solicitor up to and including the first appeal, Alistair Duff, is now a sheriff and is currently Director of the Judicial Institute for Scotland. Norman McFadyen who was the procurator fiscal in charge of the Lockerbie case (and was one of the two members of the prosecution team who viewed the infamous CIA Giaka cables) is now a sheriff in Edinburgh.]

The disgraceful CIA Giaka cables saga recalled

[Fourteen years ago on this date the Scottish Court in the Netherlands was considering the implications of the CIA cables relating to Libyan defector Abdul Majid Giaka, which had just been made available to the defence, over the Crown’s vigorous objections. Here is how the proceedings were recorded at the time on TheLockerbieTrial.com website:]

Richard Keen QC for Fhimah described the CIA cables, which were made available to the defence today, as "highly relevant" to the defence case.

Keen told the court that the idea that they were not relevant is inconceivable.

[The] Lord Advocate told the court on Tuesday that the redacted passages in the CIA cables were irrelevant to the defence case. He [Richard Keen] said some of the disclosed material goes beyond issue of reliability and credibility to the heart of this case and the defence may now have to consider their position with respect to the trial.

William Taylor QC for Megrahi said that if Giaka is to give evidence on Monday the defence would require more time to review the information contained in the cables. Mr Keen said that a preliminary glance at the cables indicate that at least one additional witness required to be precognosced and this witness is outside Holland and Scotland. He sought confirmation from the Lord Advocate that what has been produced is what the Crown have seen.

The Lord Advocate indicated that there were deletions, which he understood were names but that he would require to speak to Mr Turnbull [Advocate Depute Alan Turnbull QC] and address the court on Monday in respect of whether the deletions are the same.

Analysis

The Crown appears to be on the defensive again regarding the issue of the CIA cables.

It seems clear that Giaka will not now testify on Monday and if the defence are granted a week long adjournment to examine the issue further then the earliest that Giaka will testify is Tuesday, 5 September.

The case does appear now to be totally disjointed with different chapters of evidence interweaving with the Giaka cables.

Several relatives of those who died on Pan Am 103 are also concerned at what might be contained in the CIA cables.

One made the point to me [Ian Ferguson, website co-editor] that they are concerned that Giaka was a paid informer for the CIA before the bombing. "Some family members," he said "shudder at the possibility, that if Giaka did tell the CIA about the planning of the bombing, then why was nothing done about it."

[My account of the CIA cables saga, as published in The Scotsman on 23 July 2007, reads as follows:]

The behaviour of the Crown in the Lockerbie trial was certainly not beyond criticism - and indeed it casts grave doubt on the extent to which the Lord Advocate and Crown Office staff can be relied on always to place the interest of securing a fair trial for the accused above any perceived institutional imperative to obtain a conviction.

To illustrate this in the context of the Lockerbie trial, it is enough to refer to the saga of CIA cables relating to the star Crown witness, Abdul Majid Giaka, who had been a long-standing CIA asset in Libya and, by the time of the trial, was living in the US in a witness protection programme. Giaka's evidence was ultimately found by the court to be utterly untrustworthy. This was largely due to the devastating effectiveness of the cross-examination by defence counsel. Their ability to destroy completely the credibility of the witness stemmed from the contents of cables in which his CIA handlers communicated to headquarters the information that Giaka had provided to them in the course of their secret meetings. Discrepancies between Giaka's evidence-in-chief to the Advocate Depute and the contents of these contemporaneous cables enabled the defence to mount a formidable challenge to the truthfulness and accuracy, or credibility and reliability, of Giaka's testimony. Had the information contained in these cables not been available to them, the task of attempting to demonstrate to the court that Giaka was an incredible or unreliable witness would have been more difficult, and perhaps impossible.

Yet the Crown strove valiantly to prevent the defence obtaining access to these cables. At the trial, on 22 August 2000, when he was seeking to persuade the Court to deny the defence access to those cables in their unedited or uncensored form, the then Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, stated that the members of the prosecution team who were given access to the uncensored CIA cables on 1 June 2000 [Advocate Depute Alan Turnbull QC and Procurator Fiscal Norman McFadyen] were fully aware of the obligation incumbent upon them as prosecutors to make available to the defence material relevant to the defence of the accused and, to that end, approached the contents of those cables with certain considerations in mind.

Boyd said: "First of all, they considered whether or not there was any information behind the redactions which would undermine the Crown case in any way. Second, they considered whether there was anything which would appear to reflect on the credibility of Majid... On all of these matters, the learned Advocate Depute reached the conclusion that there was nothing within the cables which bore on the defence case, either by undermining the Crown case or by advancing a positive case which was being made or may be made, having regard to the special defence... I emphasise that the redactions have been made on the basis of what is in the interests of the security of a friendly power... Crown counsel was satisfied that there was nothing within the documents which bore upon the defence case in any way."

One judge, Lord Coulsfield, then intervened: "Does that include, Lord Advocate... that Crown counsel, having considered the documents, can say to the Court that there is nothing concealed which could possibly bear on the credibility of this witness?"

The Lord Advocate replied: "Well, I'm just checking with the counsel who made that... there is nothing within these documents which relates to Lockerbie or the bombing of Pan Am 103 which could in any way impinge on the credibility of Majid on these matters."

Notwithstanding the opposition of the Lord Advocate, the court ordered the unedited cables to be made available to the defence, who went on to use their contents to such devastating effect in questioning Giaka that the court held that his evidence had to be disregarded in its entirety. Yet, strangely enough, the judges did not see fit publicly to censure the Crown for its inaccurate assurances that the cables contained nothing that could assist the defence.

More from Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer

The following article appears on the OhmyNews English-language website:

Lockerbie Investigator Disputes Story

Richard Marquise led the U.S. task force that investigated the bombing

Ludwig De Braeckeleer

Published 2007-10-06 17:02 (KST)

"Proper judicial procedure is simply impossible if political interests and intelligence services -- from whichever side -- succeed in interfering in the actual conduct of a court … The purpose of intelligence services -- from whichever side -- lies in secret action and deception, not in the search for truth. Justice and the rule of law can never be achieved without transparency."
--Hans Koechler, U.N. observer at the Zeist trial

On Sept. 6, OhmyNews International published a story related to a sensational document known as the Lumpert affidavit. (See "Key Lockerbie Witness Admits Perjury.)

Ulrich Lumpert was a key witness (No. 550) at the Camp Zeist trial, where a three-Judge panel convicted a Libyan citizen of murdering 270 persons who died in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.

"I confirm today on July 18, 2007, that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 Timer PC-board consisting of 8 layers of fiberglass from MeBo Ltd. and gave it without permission on June 22, 1989, to a person officially investigating in the Lockerbie case," Lumpert wrote.

On Sept. 7, the agent who led the Lockerbie investigation for the FBI wrote to me and criticized the article on several grounds, but most importantly, he alleged that the Lumpert affidavit was a "total fabrication."

Richard Marquise led the U.S. task force that investigated the Lockerbie bombing. He has authored a book on the subject: Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation. He wrote to me:

"Lumpert's new statement is a total fabrication. He was interviewed several times, including at a judicial hearing in Switzerland as well as the trial itself and he never wavered in his story. His statement that he gave a 'stolen timer' to a Scottish officer in 1989 does not even fit the timeline since we had no idea about the origins of PT-35 at that time. We identified MeBo in the summer of 1990."

With all due respect, I must state very unambiguously that I remain convinced that the document is authentic and that the story is not a hoax. Moreover, I have obtained a document that strongly suggests that the timeline of the events related to the identification of the MST-13 timer has been fabricated.

Since the publication of the article, a well-informed source has told me that Lumpert has signed four affidavits. The documents were certified by notary Walter Wieland under Nr. 2069 to 2072.

I am now in possession of one of these four documents and I have received confirmation from the proper Swiss authority that Wieland indeed certified these documents on July 18 and that he is competent for doing so.

Although I was initially very skeptical of the Lumpert affidavit, I came to the conclusion that I have no reason to doubt its authenticity or the truthfulness of its content.

Indeed, both the timing of Lumpert's admission of perjury, his motivation for doing so as stated in the affidavit, as well as the content of the document led me to believe that the story is not a fabrication.

Lumpert wrote that he wishes to clear his conscience and that he can no longer "be prosecuted for stealing, delivering and making false statements about the MST-13 Timer PC-board, on grounds of statutory limitation."

Moreover, as I explained at length in the Sept. 6 article, the Lumpert affidavit, in just seven paragraphs, elucidates all of the longstanding mysteries surrounding the infamous MST-13 timer, which allegedly triggered the bomb that exploded Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988.

Conspiracy Theory?

I wish to add that I am obviously not the only one who had reached such a conclusion. The possibility that evidence has been fabricated in order to secure the conviction of the Libyans has gained support among many people who could hardly be described as conspiracy theorists.

Jim Swire, Robert Black and Hans Koechler are among the best-informed people about the extremely complex Zeist trial.

Black QC FRSE (Queen's Council and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh) has been Professor of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh since January 1981, having previously been in practice at the Scottish Bar. He is now professor emeritus.

For various periods he served as head of the Department of Scots Law (later Private Law). He has been an advocate since 1972 and a QC since 1987. From 1987 to 1996 he was general editor of The Laws of Scotland: Stair Memorial Encyclopedia (25 volumes). From 1981 to 1994 he served as a temporary sheriff (judge).

He has taken a close interest in the Lockerbie affair since 1993, not least because he was born and brought up in the town, and has published a substantial number of articles on the topic in the United Kingdom and overseas. He is often referred to as the architect of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Black's support for the story is obvious from the fact that he posted my article on his Web site. In a comment posted on OMNI, Black went out of his way to express his agreement with the 18-page analysis of the consequences of the Lumpert affidavit. "A masterly review of the weaknesses in the Lockerbie court's conviction of [Abdelbaset Al] Megrahi," Black wrote.

In April 2000, professor Koechler was appointed by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as international observer at the Lockerbie bombing trial that was held at Camp Zeist, Netherlands.

Koechler has also posted the article on his Web site. He wrote this comment on OMNI:

“This is a well-researched analysis which precisely reveals the serious mistakes and omissions by the official Scottish investigators as well as the carelessness and lack of professionalism of the judges in the Lockerbie case. The Scottish judicial authorities are under the obligation to investigate possible criminal misconduct in the investigation and prosecution of the Lockerbie case.On July 4, 2007, Koechler wrote to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, reiterating his call for a "full and independent public inquiry of the Lockerbie case."

Dr. Swire, who lost his daughter in the Lockerbie bombing, is a founder and the spokesperson of the U.K. Families 103, which campaigns to seek the truth about the worst act of terror ever committed in the U.K. In a letter addressed to my editor, he wrote that the article was "one of the best informed and most realistic" he had seen.

I promised Richard Marquise that I would make an effort "to see things from the other side." And I will. But for now, we must agree to disagree. I leave him with a comment posted by Iain McKie -- someone who knows all about the consequences of forensic mistakes.

Another Lockerbie mystery is why, given this latest opportunity [Megrahi's second appeal] to uncover the truth about this terrorist outrage that claimed the lives of people from 21 countries (including 189 Americans), and given the U.S. and British high profile "war on terror," is the political silence so deafening?

I find it increasingly difficult to argue with Dr. De Braeckeleer's conclusion: "Shame on those who committed this horrific act of terror. Shame on those who have ordered the cover-up. Shame on those who provided false testimony, and those who suppressed and fabricated the evidence needed to frame Libya. And shame on the media for their accomplice silence."The McKie's know best than most the cost of injustice. Shirley McKie was a successful policewoman until her life was shattered in February 1997 when four experts from the Scottish Criminal Records Office incorrectly identified a thumbprint from a crime scene as hers.

Marquise has made other comments about the article that I will discuss at a later time. However, I wish to point out that Marquise is right to state that the quotes attributed to Michael Scharf, formerly of U.S. State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence, although correct do not represent exactly his opinion, as they have been printed out of context by the British media. (Scharf helped draft the sanctions against Libya.)

Scharf wrote to me,

“The text of the quotes is more or less accurate but is out of context, giving the misimpression that I thought that the two Lockerbie defendants were innocent and the U.S. government knew this all along. In fact, I referred to them as "fall guys" because I felt the case should not have focused exclusively on them, but rather should have gone up the chain of command all the way to Khadaffi [Muammar al-Qaddafi], and should also have focused on the possible involvement of third countries.

“It is true, as your quote indicates, that I felt the evidentiary case presented at Camp Zeist was not as strong as the Department of Justice had led the Department of State to believe it would be at the time we were pushing for sanctions against Libya in the U.N., but that is not to say that I thought the defendants were actually innocent of wrong doing, which is the impression left by the quotes.If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is the fact that no one except the judges is satisfied with the Lockerbie trial.”

Meanwhile, new extraordinary revelations have surfaced that support my view that the Lockerbie trial was engineered by Western intelligence services to frame Libya.

'Secret' Lockerbie Report Claim

Crucial information in the possession of the CIA that is related to the timer issue was withheld from the defense. The Heraldof Glasgow revealed on Oct. 2 that "a top secret [CIA] document vital to unearthing the truth about the Lockerbie bombing was obtained by the Crown Office but never shown to the defense team."

"The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) has uncovered there is a document which was in the possession of the crown and was not disclosed to the defense, which concerns the supply of MST-13 timers. Moreover, the commission has determined the decision to keep the document from the defense may have constituted a miscarriage of justice," the paper reported a source as saying.

The prosecutors have refused to make public the ultra secret document on the basis of national security. Many have been wondering what national security has to do with the Lockerbie bombing. "It is shocking to me that after 19 years of trying to get to the truth about who murdered my daughter national security is being used as an excuse," said Swire.

After having seen the CIA document, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission team that investigated the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi decided to grant him a second appeal. The document has not yet been seen by the defense. The document is thought to dispute the pivotal fact that the bomb was triggered by the MST-13 timer that linked the case to Libya.

The non-disclosure agreement was signed by Norman McFadyen, then one of the leading members of the prosecution, on June 1, 2000.

In an exclusive interview earlier this week, Koechler told Gordon Brewer of the BCC's "Newsnight Scotland,"

The withholding of evidence by the investigators and the prosecution from the defense at the Lockerbie court is a serious breach of the fundamental norms of a fair trial. If such action occurs on the basis of a written commitment given to a foreign intelligence service, as has now been revealed concerning crucial evidence related to the timer that allegedly triggered the explosion of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, the judicial nature of the entire proceedings is to be put into question.

If a foreign intelligence service is allowed to determine what evidence may be disclosed in court and what not, judicial proceedings before a court of law are perverted into a kind of intelligence operation the purpose of which is not the search for the truth, but the obfuscation of reality.Black has said,

If a foreign intelligence agency says they would be prepared to give the crown access only if they promise to keep the information secret, then it is the responsibility of the crown to say we cannot do that. They have an ethical responsibility not to sign such agreements.

This tends to indicate that the crown has not changed its fundamental stance that says they will decide what the public interest is and what information should or should not be disclosed. That is fundamentally wrong.The source in the Herald's report agrees: "The commission was unable to obtain authority for its disclosure. Without access to this document, the defense is disabled from putting before the court full and comprehensive grounds of appeal as to why the conviction should be quashed."

CIA Offered $2m to Lockerbie Witnesses

It now appears that huge amounts of money were offered by U.S. officials to at least three key witnesses. The defense was never told that the CIA had offered millions of dollars to their star witnesses.

"We understand the commission found new documents which refer to discussions between the U.S. intelligence agency and the Gaucis [Tony and his brother Paul] and that the sum involved was as much as $2m," a source close to the case told The Herald, according to an Oct. 3 report. "Even if they did not receive the money, the fact these discussions took place should have been divulged to the defense." Tony Gauci was an instrumental witness in the case.

On Oct. 5, Edwin Bollier, head of the Zurich-based company MeBo, told Koechler that during a visit to the headquarters of the FBI in Washington, D.C., at the beginning of 1991, he was offered an amount of up to $4 million plus a new identity in the U.S. if he would testify in court that the timer fragment that was allegedly found on the crash site around Lockerbie stemmed from a MST-13 timer that his company had delivered to Libya.

Media Silence

Will the media finally cover this extraordinary affair? Perhaps. In France, Le Figaro has published a couple of stories, one of which was entitled: "And if Libya Was Innocent …" Television channel France 3 reported the story of the Lumpert affidavit.

In the U.K., The Herald has picked up the latest developments in the story. The BBC has published a few lines about it. The London journal Private Eye is rumored to be running the story in its next edition. U.S. media remain amazingly silent.

Quo Vadis?

"In view of all these revelations and serious allegations, Koechler renewed his call for an independent international investigation of the handling of the Lockerbie case by the Scottish and British authorities," wrote Gordon Brewer of the BCC's "Newsnight Scotland."

"It remains to be seen whether the Scottish judicial and political system will live up to the challenge and whether the authorities will allow a full and objective inquiry," Brewer said. I have very little hope that the Scottish judicial and political system will allow an independent international investigation.

For now, I encourage my readers to reflect upon a Persian saying. "Shame on those who committed the deed. Shame on those who allowed the deed to be committed."

Ludwig De Braeckeleer has a Ph.D. in nuclear sciences. He teaches physics and international humanitarian law. He blogs on "The GaiaPost.”

©2007 OhmyNews

http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=380601&rel_no=1&back_url=

The obfuscation of reality

[What follows is the text of an article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer that was published on OhmyNews International on this date in 2007:]

"Proper judicial procedure is simply impossible if political interests and intelligence services -- from whichever side -- succeed in interfering in the actual conduct of a court … The purpose of intelligence services -- from whichever side -- lies in secret action and deception, not in the search for truth. Justice and the rule of law can never be achieved without transparency."

--Hans Koechler, UN observer at the Zeist trial

On Sept 6, OhmyNews International published a story related to a sensational document known as the Lumpert affidavit. (See "Key Lockerbie Witness Admits Perjury.)

Ulrich Lumpert was a key witness (No 550) at the Camp Zeist trial, where a three-Judge panel convicted a Libyan citizen of murdering 270 persons who died in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie. "I confirm today on July 18, 2007, that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 Timer PC-board consisting of 8 layers of fiberglass from MeBo Ltd. and gave it without permission on June 22, 1989, to a person officially investigating in the Lockerbie case," Lumpert wrote. On Sept 7, the agent who led the Lockerbie investigation for the FBI wrote to me and criticized the article on several grounds, but most importantly, he alleged that the Lumpert affidavit was a "total fabrication." Richard Marquise led the US task force that investigated the Lockerbie bombing. He has authored a book on the subject: Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation. He wrote to me: Lumpert's new statement is a total fabrication. He was interviewed several times, including at a judicial hearing in Switzerland as well as the trial itself and he never wavered in his story. His statement that he gave a "stolen timer" to a Scottish officer in 1989 does not even fit the timeline since we had no idea about the origins of PT-35 at that time. We identified MeBo in the summer of 1990. With all due respect, I must state very unambiguously that I remain convinced that the document is authentic and that the story is not a hoax. Moreover, I have obtained a document that strongly suggests that the timeline of the events related to the identification of the MST-13 timer has been fabricated. Since the publication of the article, a well-informed source has told me that Lumpert has signed four affidavits. The documents were certified by notary Walter Wieland under Nr 2069 to 2072. I am now in possession of one of these four documents and I have received confirmation from the proper Swiss authority that Wieland indeed certified these documents on July 18 and that he is competent for doing so. Although I was initially very skeptical of the Lumpert affidavit, I came to the conclusion that I have no reason to doubt its authenticity or the truthfulness of its content. Indeed, both the timing of Lumpert's admission of perjury, his motivation for doing so as stated in the affidavit, as well as the content of the document led me to believe that the story is not a fabrication. Lumpert wrote that he wishes to clear his conscience and that he can no longer "be prosecuted for stealing, delivering and making false statements about the MST-13 Timer PC-board, on grounds of statutory limitation." Moreover, as I explained at length in the Sept 6 article, the Lumpert affidavit, in just seven paragraphs, elucidates all of the longstanding mysteries surrounding the infamous MST-13 timer, which allegedly triggered the bomb that exploded Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on Dec 21, 1988. Conspiracy Theory? I wish to add that I am obviously not the only one who had reached such a conclusion. The possibility that evidence has been fabricated in order to secure the conviction of the Libyans has gained support among many people who could hardly be described as conspiracy theorists. Jim Swire, Robert Black and Hans Koechler are among the best-informed people about the extremely complex Zeist trial. Black QC FRSE (Queen's Council and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh) has been Professor of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh since January 1981, having previously been in practice at the Scottish Bar. He is now professor emeritus. For various periods he served as head of the Department of Scots Law (later Private Law). He has been an advocate since 1972 and a QC since 1987. From 1987 to 1996 he was general editor of The Laws of Scotland: Stair Memorial Encyclopedia (25 volumes). From 1981 to 1994 he served as a temporary sheriff (judge). He has taken a close interest in the Lockerbie affair since 1993, not least because he was born and brought up in the town, and has published a substantial number of articles on the topic in the United Kingdom and overseas. He is often referred to as the architect of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. Black's support for the story is obvious from the fact that he posted my article on his website. In a comment posted on OMNI, Black went out of his way to express his agreement with the 18-page analysis of the consequences of the Lumpert affidavit. "A masterly review of the weaknesses in the Lockerbie court's conviction of [Abdelbaset Al] Megrahi," Black wrote. In April 2000, professor Koechler was appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as international observer at the Lockerbie bombing trial that was held at Camp Zeist, Netherlands. Koechler has also posted the article on his Web site. He wrote this comment on OMNI: This is a well-researched analysis which precisely reveals the serious mistakes and omissions by the official Scottish investigators as well as the carelessness and lack of professionalism of the judges in the Lockerbie case. The Scottish judicial authorities are under the obligation to investigate possible criminal misconduct in the investigation and prosecution of the Lockerbie case. On July 4, 2007, Koechler wrote to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, reiterating his call for a "full and independent public inquiry of the Lockerbie case." Dr Swire, who lost his daughter in the Lockerbie bombing, is a founder and the spokesperson of the UK Families Flight 103, which campaigns to seek the truth about the worst act of terror ever committed in the UK In a letter addressed to my editor, he wrote that the article was "one of the best informed and most realistic" he had seen. I promised Richard Marquise that I would make an effort "to see things from the other side." And I will. But for now, we must agree to disagree. I leave him with a comment posted by Iain McKie -- someone who knows all about the consequences of forensic mistakes. Another Lockerbie mystery is why, given this latest opportunity [Megrahi's second appeal] to uncover the truth about this terrorist outrage that claimed the lives of people from 21 countries (including 189 Americans), and given the US and British high profile "war on terror," is the political silence so deafening? I find it increasingly difficult to argue with Dr De Braeckeleer's conclusion: "Shame on those who committed this horrific act of terror. Shame on those who have ordered the cover-up. Shame on those who provided false testimony, and those who suppressed and fabricated the evidence needed to frame Libya. And shame on the media for their accomplice silence." The McKies know best than most the cost of injustice. Shirley McKie was a successful policewoman until her life was shattered in February 1997 when four experts from the Scottish Criminal Records Office incorrectly identified a thumbprint from a crime scene as hers. Marquise has made other comments about the article that I will discuss at a later time. However, I wish to point out that Marquise is right to state that the quotes attributed to Michael Scharf, formerly of US State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence, although correct do not represent exactly his opinion, as they have been printed out of context by the British media. (Scharf helped draft the sanctions against Libya.) Scharf wrote to me, The text of the quotes is more or less accurate but is out of context, giving the misimpression that I thought that the two Lockerbie defendants were innocent and the US government knew this all along. In fact, I referred to them as "fall guys" because I felt the case should not have focused exclusively on them, but rather should have gone up the chain of command all the way to Khadaffi [Muammar al-Qaddafi], and should also have focused on the possible involvement of third countries. It is true, as your quote indicates, that I felt the evidentiary case presented at Camp Zeist was not as strong as the Department of Justice had led the Department of State to believe it would be at the time we were pushing for sanctions against Libya in the UN, but that is not to say that I thought the defendants were actually innocent of wrong doing, which is the impression left by the quotes. If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is the fact that no one except the judges is satisfied with the Lockerbie trial. Meanwhile, new extraordinary revelations have surfaced that support my view that the Lockerbie trial was engineered by Western intelligence services to frame Libya. 'Secret' Lockerbie Report Claim Crucial information in the possession of the CIA that is related to the timer issue was withheld from the defense. The Herald of Glasgow revealed on Oct 2 that "a top secret [CIA] document vital to unearthing the truth about the Lockerbie bombing was obtained by the Crown Office but never shown to the defense team." "The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) has uncovered there is a document which was in the possession of the crown and was not disclosed to the defense, which concerns the supply of MST-13 timers. Moreover, the commission has determined the decision to keep the document from the defense may have constituted a miscarriage of justice," the paper reported a source as saying. The prosecutors have refused to make public the ultra secret document on the basis of national security. Many have been wondering what national security has to do with the Lockerbie bombing. "It is shocking to me that after 19 years of trying to get to the truth about who murdered my daughter national security is being used as an excuse," said Swire. After having seen the CIA document, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission team that investigated the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi decided to grant him a second appeal. The document has not yet been seen by the defense. The document is thought to dispute the pivotal fact that the bomb was triggered by the MST-13 timer that linked the case to Libya. The non-disclosure agreement was signed by Norman McFadyen, then one of the leading members of the prosecution, on June 1, 2000. In an exclusive interview earlier this week, Koechler told Gordon Brewer of the BCC's "Newsnight Scotland," The withholding of evidence by the investigators and the prosecution from the defense at the Lockerbie court is a serious breach of the fundamental norms of a fair trial. If such action occurs on the basis of a written commitment given to a foreign intelligence service, as has now been revealed concerning crucial evidence related to the timer that allegedly triggered the explosion of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, the judicial nature of the entire proceedings is to be put into question. If a foreign intelligence service is allowed to determine what evidence may be disclosed in court and what not, judicial proceedings before a court of law are perverted into a kind of intelligence operation the purpose of which is not the search for the truth, but the obfuscation of reality. Black has said, If a foreign intelligence agency says they would be prepared to give the crown access only if they promise to keep the information secret, then it is the responsibility of the crown to say we cannot do that. They have an ethical responsibility not to sign such agreements. This tends to indicate that the crown has not changed its fundamental stance that says they will decide what the public interest is and what information should or should not be disclosed. That is fundamentally wrong. The source in the Herald's report agrees: "The commission was unable to obtain authority for its disclosure. Without access to this document, the defense is disabled from putting before the court full and comprehensive grounds of appeal as to why the conviction should be quashed." CIA Offered $2m to Lockerbie Witnesses It now appears that huge amounts of money were offered by US officials to at least three key witnesses. The defense was never told that the CIA had offered millions of dollars to their star witnesses. "We understand the commission found new documents which refer to discussions between the US intelligence agency and the Gaucis [Tony and his brother Paul] and that the sum involved was as much as $2m," a source close to the case told The Herald, according to an Oct 3 report. "Even if they did not receive the money, the fact these discussions took place should have been divulged to the defense." Tony Gauci was an instrumental witness in the case. On Oct 5, Edwin Bollier, head of the Zurich-based company MeBo, told Koechler that during a visit to the headquarters of the FBI in Washington, DC, at the beginning of 1991, he was offered an amount of up to $4 million plus a new identity in the US if he would testify in court that the timer fragment that was allegedly found on the crash site around Lockerbie stemmed from a MST-13 timer that his company had delivered to Libya. Media Silence Will the media finally cover this extraordinary affair? Perhaps. In France, Le Figaro has published a couple of stories, one of which was entitled: "And if Libya Was Innocent …" Television channel France 3 reported the story of the Lumpert affidavit. In the UK, The Herald has picked up the latest developments in the story. The BBC has published a few lines about it. The London journal Private Eye is rumored to be running the story in its next edition. US media remain amazingly silent. Quo Vadis? "In view of all these revelations and serious allegations, Koechler renewed his call for an independent international investigation of the handling of the Lockerbie case by the Scottish and British authorities," wrote Gordon Brewer of the BCC's "Newsnight Scotland." "It remains to be seen whether the Scottish judicial and political system will live up to the challenge and whether the authorities will allow a full and objective inquiry," Brewer said. I have very little hope that the Scottish judicial and political system will allow an independent international investigation. For now, I encourage my readers to reflect upon a Persian saying. "Shame on those who committed the deed. Shame on those who allowed the deed to be committed."