New hope for justice

[This is the headline over a report that appeared in the Malta Independent on this date in 2012. It reads as follows:]

Irrespective of which side of the Lockerbie divides one stands, it is beyond argument that the case that convicted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the atrocity has more than a few gaping holes in it. And with a furtive request by Scottish prosecutors for the Maltese courts to gather more evidence in the case, the chances of those holes being filled once and for all have seen a new light of day.

This fresh push for evidence raises hopes that justice and the answers to the many pending questions could at long last be delivered to the Lockerbie attack’s victims, al-Megrahi’s family and to Malta as well, which many believe had been erroneously labelled as the bomb’s point of departure.

This week, a Maltese court began hearing evidence from several witnesses behind closed doors with even the courtroom’s peepholes blocked from prying eyes. Both the Maltese and Scottish judicial authorities have been reticent about revealing details of the new line of inquiry. All the Scottish authorities would say, according to press reports, was that they were working in conjunction with American law enforcement on yet to be disclosed lines of inquiry and that ‘this is a live investigation to bring to justice the others involved in this act of state-sponsored terrorism’.

Authorities in the post-Gaddafi Libya have said they have in their possession previously top secret documents related to the case, while the capture last month and ensuing interrogation of Gaddafi’s intelligence chief Adbullah al-Senussi, it is hoped, could also shed further light on what many still believe to be an unsolved mystery.

The new lines of inquiry also come as ‘Justice for Megrahi’ campaigners prepare to repeat their arguments for the case to be re-examined in an inquiry. They are expected to appear before the Scottish Parliament later this month.

Malta’s name has been much maligned over the years for its connection to the case in which Megrahi was convicted of placing the bomb on a plane leaving Malta International Airport, where its fateful journey to the skies over Lockerbie was said to have begun.

With his death last May, al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, the victims’ families and the world runs the risk of the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing going to the grave with him, but this new inquiry could finally clear Malta’s, and al-Megrahi’s names.

The man died protesting his innocence, despite having dropped a planned appeal against his conviction so as to clear the way for his release and return to Libya under Scottish law, which grants compassionate release for the terminally ill.

That, were it to come to pass, would also be a gross injustice to Malta, whose good name has been tarnished over these last 23 years as the point of departure of the lethal luggage that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland on 21 December 1988, killing 270 people.

Evidence presented during the trial that the bomb, it has been said time and time again, had originated at Luqa Airport was some of the weakest of the entire proceedings. Al-Megrahi, a former employee with Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta and the only person to have been found guilty of the terrorist attack, was convicted largely on the basis of evidence supplied by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci – of the now infamous Mary’s House on Tower Road, Sliema.

In his evidence, Mr Gauci identified Mr al-Megrahi as the purchaser of articles of clothing and an umbrella found in the suitcase containing the bomb – placed on an Air Malta flight and transferred to the ill-fated Pan Am flight in Frankfurt.

It is not known whether Mr Gauci himself gave evidence in the Maltese courts this week. But he certainly should: in reviewing Megrahi’s request for an appeal, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had clearly found “there is no reasonable basis in the trial court’s judgement for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary’s House, took place on 7 December 1988” – the very argument that had sealed the indictment against Mr al-Megrahi.

In fact, this week’s testimony is believed to have centred on matters related to travel logistics.

In recommending that the appeal be heard, the Commission had ruled that although it had been proven that al-Megrahi had been in Malta on several occasions during the month in question, it was determined through the new evidence submitted that 7 December 1988 was the only date on which he would have had the opportunity to make the purchases from Mary’s House.

The evidence that was not heard at the trial concerned the date on which Christmas lights had been illuminated in Sliema near Mary’s House which, taken together with Mr Gauci’s evidence at trial and the contents of his police statements, indicates the purchase of the incriminating items had taken place before 6 December 1988 – when no evidence had been presented at trial to the effect that al-Megrahi was in Malta before 6 December.

Yet more new evidence indicated that, four days before the identification parade at which he picked out Mr al-Megrahi, Mr Gauci had seen a photograph of al-Megrahi in a magazine article linking him to the bombing.

The Commission found Mr Gauci’s exposure to the photograph, so close to the date of the identity parade, “undermines the reliability of his identification of the applicant at that time and at the trial itself”.

Al-Megrahi’s lawyers have also claimed that Mr Gauci had given contradictory evidence, including differing dates of purchase and his account of the sale itself, and that, on one occasion, he had even identified Palestinian terrorist leader Abu Talb as the purchaser.

And then there are the other allegations made by Mr al-Megrahi’s defence team that Scottish detectives had coached Mr Gauci on at least 23 occasions, sometimes over alleged fishing trips on the Scottish lochs, and that he also received up to US$2 million in return for his testimony.

There are so many questions about the case that are still lingering or, rather, festering, that one questions whether the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing will ever be known, new lines of inquiry or not. Real justice, however, will never be served until those questions are answered once and for all and this new line of inquiry, however vague it may be at the moment, offers a new ray of hope.

Megrahi to Senussi: I am an innocent man

[What follows is a paragraph from the Wikipedia article Abdelbaset al-Megrahi:]

On 29 August 2011, a letter written by Megrahi was discovered by The Wall Street Journal at intelligence headquarters in Tripoli, Libya. In what was a private letter to Libya's intelligence chief not previously available to the public, Megrahi wrote "I am an innocent man," a letter apparently composed while he was serving a life sentence in Scotland, and written in blue ink on ordinary paper. The letter was found in a steel four-drawer filing cabinet that had been forced open by rebels who entered the office of intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.

[The relevant article in The Wall Street Journal contains the following:]

Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi maintained his innocence in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 throughout his trial and appeals—and did so in a private letter to Libya's intelligence chief, discovered on Monday in intelligence headquarters in Tripoli.

"I am an innocent man," Mr Megrahi wrote to Abdullah al-Senussi, a powerful official who was regarded as one of Col Moammar Gadhafi's closest aides, in a letter found by The Wall Street Journal. The letter, in blue ink on a piece of ordinary binder paper, was apparently written while Mr Megrahi was serving a life sentence in the UK. (...)

The letter to Mr Senussi was found in a steel, four-drawer filing cabinet in the intelligence chief's office in Tripoli. The cabinet had been forced open, apparently by rebels who shot holes in the lock. The office lay in shambles, but many of Mr Senussi's personal papers appeared untouched. There was no way to immediately confirm the authenticity of the letter. (...)

Mr Megrahi was sentenced by a Scottish court to life imprisonment in 2001. In the letter to Mr Senussi, Mr Megrahi mentions that he had been jailed for seven years, suggesting it was written sometime in early 2008 or late 2007, in the run up to the second appeal of his conviction.

It is unclear why he would have had reason to profess his innocence to Mr Senussi, who was in a position to already know details about the bombing. (...)

Mr Megrahi insisted he was innocent throughout his original trial and subsequent appeals. Even after his conviction, mystery and unanswered questions about who else may have been involved have surrounded the case.

In the letter, addressed to "My dear brother Abdullah," Mr Megrahi blamed his conviction on "fraudulent information that was relayed to investigators by Libyan collaborators."

He blamed "the immoral British and American investigators" who he writes "knew there was foul play and irregularities in the investigation of the 1980s."

He described in detail his latest legal maneuvering, focusing on the testimony by a Maltese clothes merchant that was critical to his conviction. The Maltese clothes merchant in question testified that Mr Megrahi had purchased clothes from him that were later found in the suitcase that contained the bomb that brought down Flight 103.

"You my brother know very well that they were making false claims against me and that I didn't buy any clothes at all from any store owner in Malta," Mr Megrahi wrote to Mr Senussi.

Mr Megrahi also had a message for "our big brother," a likely reference to Col Gadhafi, "that our legal affairs are excellent and we now stand on very solid ground."

"Send my regards to our big brother and his family and by the will of God we will meet soon and we will be victorious," he wrote. "I only hope that the financial support will continue in the coming period," he added.

Mr Megrahi eventually dropped his appeal as a condition of his application for extradition to Libya.

Lockerbie bomber release saw Scotland take rap, says Kenny MacAskill

[This is the headline over a report just published on the website of The Herald. It reads in part:]

Scotland was set up to "take the rap" for the release of the Lockerbie bomber, according to former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.

Mr MacAskill likened the SNP government's involvement to "flotsam and jetsam, the same as the bags that fell upon the poor town of Lockerbie and the people there".

Mr MacAskill insisted the Scottish Government had not been complicit in any prisoner transfer deals for Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the atrocity, and had "no control and little influence".

The decision to return Megrahi to Libya in 2009 was taken by Mr MacAskill on compassionate grounds.

He said Scotland had not gained anything from the decision, and accused British and American politicians of hypocisy for criticising it while working to secure deals with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to further commercial interests.

The former politician made the comments at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, as he discussed his book The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search For Justice.

He said: "We got nothing out of it (Megrahi's release). The Scottish Government and indeed Scotland got a black spot, not simply the bomb that landed and devastated the town of Lockerbie."

He went on: "There was no deal done by us but there were certainly deals done internationally.

"We had no control and little influence, we knew things were happening, but you have got to remember it suited people to be able to put the blame on somebody and say it was Scotland.

"Because Obama, Clinton and Straw, all of them came out with it and said we don't agree with it, and they had been conniving and working for it.

"We had actually delivered what they wanted which was to let Megrahi go, but what I can give you an assurance on is that we did so following the rules and regulations of Scotland." (...)

Controversy continues to surround who was responsible for the 1988 bombing in which 270 people died.

The Pan Am flight on its way from London to New York exploded above Lockerbie, killing everyone on board and 11 people on the ground.

The politician argues that Megrahi, who died in Libya in 2012, was "a bit player" in an act of "state-sponsored terrorism".

He said: "The major person responsible for this was Colonel Gaddafi, supported by Senussi (Libyan intelligence chief) and various others in senior positions."

But while he described the Libyan's conviction as "extremely weak", he said the Scottish justice system and police had "acted honestly and with integrity".

Mr MacAskill said debate would "run and run", stating Lockerbie was "up there with the grassy knoll along with 9/11" in terms of international incidents in which conspiracy theories rage.

"I don't think we will ever get to the bottom of this. Equally, I am highly sceptical as to whether a Scottish court or a Scottish inquiry could ever get to the bottom of this," he said.

Campaigners’ Lockerbie plea to government over Lord Advocate's comments

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The National. It reads in part:]

A campaign group whose members believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was innocent of the Lockerbie bombing has urged “political intervention” from the Scottish Government.

The call from Justice for Megrahi (JfM) comes after the outgoing Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland speculated about a possible new trial for the bombing – which JfM said showed he had “gone rogue”.

Investigators from Scotland and the US said last year that they had identified two Libyans as suspects over the 1988 atrocity.

Mulholland had previously indicated he would stand down after the Holyrood elections and, in an interview to mark the occasion he told STV there was a “realistic possibility” of a second trial over bombing, which killed 270 people.

JfM told The National: “The time has come for political intervention by the Scottish Government as the Lord Advocate appears to have gone rogue in relation to his speculation about Lockerbie. It is particularly difficult to understand his statements given that we are awaiting the result of a three-year Police Scotland investigation into criminal allegations related to Lockerbie which, if proved, will cast severe doubt not only on Mr Megrahi’s original conviction but by implication on the guilt of the other ‘suspects’ Mr Mulholland claims to be pursuing.

“It was only in March this year that leading legal commentators criticised Mr Mulholland in relation to this report and yet he continues to publicly undermine the police inquiry.

“This makes it quite clear that he has made his mind up and will not be diverted from making his views public at every opportunity.

“Given this unprecedented stance it is a constitutional disgrace that the Crown Office will have the final say in relation to any prosecutions resulting from the police inquiry.

“The time is long overdue for the Scottish Government to intervene on behalf of the Scottish people.”

In his interview, Mulholland said he had been to the Libyan capital Tripoli twice, and had established “good relations” with the country’s attorney general.

“We’re currently at a stage where there are a number of outstanding international letters of request, one of which is seeking the permission of the Libyan authorities to interview two named individuals as suspects,” he said. “I hope that the Libyans will grant permission for that to be done. I obviously can’t say too much publicly but a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to make that happen.”

Mulholland and the US Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced in October that there was “a proper basis in law” to treat the two Libyans as suspects. Authorities did not name the men, but they are known to be Colonel Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi, and Abouajela Masud.

Both are being held in Libyan jails, where Senussi is appealing against a death sentence and Masud is serving 10 years for bomb making.

'Realistic possibility' of second Lockerbie bombing trial

[This is the headline over a report published this evening on the STV News website. It reads in part:]

Scotland's chief law officer believes there is a "realistic possibility" of a second trial over the murder of 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing.

Scottish and American investigators announced last year that they had identified two Libyans as suspects over the 1988 atrocity but since then very little has been said publicly about the case.

In an interview with STV News to mark his departure from the post after five years, lord advocate Frank Mulholland QC discussed the prospect of fresh prosecutions over Britain's biggest mass murder.

"I've been to Tripoli twice," said. "I've established good relations with the law enforcement attorney general in Libya.

"We're currently at a stage where there are a number of outstanding international letters of request, one of which is seeking the permission of the Libyan authorities to interview two named individuals as suspects.

"Following all the work that's been going on, and it's been painstaking, it's taken some time, it does take time.

"I hope that the Libyans will grant permission for that to be done. I obviously can't say too much publicly but a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to make that happen.

"What I hope is that this will bear fruit and we can take it to the next stage of seeking the extradition of the two named individuals."

Last October, it was announced the lord advocate and the US attorney general had agreed there was "a proper basis in law" to treat the two Libyans as suspects.

The two men were not named by the Scottish or US authorities but they are Abdullah Senussi, Colonel Gaddafi's former intelligence chief, and Abouajela Masud.

Both are being held in jails in Libya - Senussi is appealing against a death sentence while Masud is serving ten years for bomb making. (...)

Asked if there was any realistic possibility of Senussi being surrendered for trial, Frank Mulholland replied: "Before I embarked on this work I was told that there was no possibility, absolutely none, of the Libyans cooperating with law enforcement in Scotland or the United States. That happened.

"In 2011, I attended a ceremony in Arlington where the Libyan ambassador to the US made a public commitment on behalf of the Libyan government to help. They have kept their word. They have helped.

"I said it takes time, and it will take time, and that's certainly something which we are used to in relation to the Lockerbie inquiry.

"If we get to the stage of seeking the extradition of two named individuals or indeed more persons, I think there's a realistic possibility that there could be a further trial."

The two men are suspected of bringing down Pan Am 103 while acting along with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who remains the only person convicted of the bombing.

He died protesting his innocence after being released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government. A high-profile campaign to clear his name continues.

The lord advocate acknowledged any new Lockerbie trial would involve a public re-examination of the disputed evidence from Megrahi's.

"I don't fear that," he said. "I think that's a good thing. Without seeking to comment on what the outcome would be, I think the evidence would stand up to a further test.

"We wouldn't be doing this unless we thought that the evidence was sufficiently credible and reliable to have them interviewed as suspects, I think that's the best way to put it."

For many years after the bombing it seemed extremely unlikely there would ever be prosecutions over Lockerbie.

Eventually a diplomatic deal paved the way for the first trial to go ahead in a specially-convened Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Frank Mulholland first raised the hope that the collapse of Gaddafi's regime could allow Scottish police to visit Libya back in 2011.

He is the first British or American official to publicly express the belief that a second trial could happen, albeit with carefully chosen words.

[RB: In my view the chances of either Senussi or Masud being extradited to stand trial for the Lockerbie bombing are precisely zero. I would, however, be delighted to be proved wrong since, as Frank Mulholland concedes, that would inevitably subject to further scrutiny the evidence that led to the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi -- a scrutiny that that evidence could not survive.]

Are we just bored with Lockerbie now?

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Jonathan Brocklebank headlined A box-set binge or a genuine murder mystery? published today in the Scottish edition of the Daily Mail:]

Sixteen years ago I sat with a notebook and listened as witnesses told a courtroom what it was like to have a bombed Boeing 747 drop out of the sky in flames onto their town.

A wall of bullet-proof glass separated me from the people giving evidence and from the two Libyan men being tried for the atrocity. It afforded no protection from the searing images haunting the memories of those who watched Pan Am 103’s hellish descent.

These were painted so vividly, so matter-of-factly, that it felt rather like watching Lockerbie happen through binoculars. One man saw a ‘clean wing’, silhouetted against the clouds by the town lights, plunging vertically towards people’s houses.

Amidst a ‘rolling ball of fire’ descending from the sky, he saw much smaller black objects plunging earthward. Were these passengers? He did not say. I guessed so.

The testimony of the Lockerbie residents who travelled to the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands took up most of a day and I will never forget it. Nothing they had to say about the night of December 21, 1988, may have shed any light on the guilt or innocence of the two Libyan men sitting feet away from them in the dock, betraying no emotion.

But their graphic narration left no doubt about the monstrous scale of the crime being tried before three Scottish judges in 2000.  

With a death toll of 270 people, it remains Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity. And, if you’re into that kind of thing, it remains something of a murder mystery.

Even if you believe Adbelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi planted the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 – and I am not convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that I do – then you almost certainly do not believe that he acted in isolation. Who were his co-conspirators? Are they still alive? How many more years must their victims’ families wait before they are brought to justice?

Alternatively, could it be credible that an innocent man was tried and convicted of carrying out the most heinous act in Scottish criminal history? Can the most crucial trial ever conducted in Scots Law truly have returned the wrong verdict? Alternatively, could it be credible that an innocent man was tried and convicted of carrying out the most heinous act in Scottish criminal history? Can the most crucial trial ever conducted in Scots Law truly have returned the wrong verdict?

This is not simply the belief of a few conspiracy theorists with Sellotape holding their spectacles together. Some highly respected legal and investigative experts believe so, too – not to mention figures such as Dr Jim Swire, a former GP who has spent more than 25 years in pursuit of the truth about his daughter Flora’s killers.

At a time when much of the nation is glued to a documentary series on Netflix called Making a Murderer, concerning a man from Wisconsin whose name meant nothing to us a month ago, these seem questions worth asking... together with this one: are we just bored with Lockerbie now?

Six weeks before the story of convicted US murderer Steven Avery became the most obsessed-over topic at office water coolers across the land, another true crime TV documentary surfaced on BBC4 to little fanfare. It was not the full, three-part investigative film which Ken Dornstein made about the Lockerbie bombing following half a lifetime of research into the atrocity that killed his brother David.

It seems that was too much TV for a feature of global significance about an atrocity in Scotland. Instead, the three utterly compelling hour-long programmes in which Mr Dornstein identifies two possible further suspects for the bombing were chopped into one 90-minute film and broadcast on one of the Beeb’s out-ofthe-way channels on a rainy November night. (...)

As a direct result of his investigative odyssey across three continents, the Crown Office formally announced in October that there were now two new Lockerbie bombing suspects, Abu Agila Mas’ud and Abdullah Al Senussi.

I wonder how Mr Dornstein’s viewing figures on the BBC compared to those on Netflix for Making a Murderer, a tenpart, 607-minute splurge of true crime programming in which viewers are supposed to decide what kind of a man Steven Avery is. (...)

Me, I gave Making a Murderer an hour and no more. By contrast, who placed the bomb on board Pan Am 103, how and why, matters far more to my country, to the US and many other nations whose citizens died.

There are critical questions concerning the compassionate release of Megrahi in 2009 after little more than eight years in prison. Was he really freed by then Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill because of his prostate cancer – and, if so, why three full years before the cancer took his life?

Or was Megrahi packed off home purely to ensure that his appeal against conviction went away, for it was an appeal which might result in an unthinkably embarrassing quashed verdict?

I don’t know the answers to these questions any more than I know who killed Teresa Halbach. But, in the land of Lockerbie, it would be nice to think they were more pressing.

A fresh look at the bombing of Pan Am 103

This is the headline over an article by Trina Y Vargo that was published yesterday on Huffington Post. It reads as follows:]

Photos of the debris of a Russian airliner scattered across the Sinai reminded many of another plane that also came apart at 31,000 feet, more than a quarter of a century ago.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in midair, killing 259 people on board and 11 residents in the town of Lockerbie, Scotland below. Several victims were Massachusetts' residents. Many questions about that bombing remain unanswered, but new clues suggest this cold case should get a fresh look.

In 2001 a Libyan, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was convicted in a special court in the Netherlands for planning the bombing. After serving only 8 years in a Scottish prison (about 11 days per victim), the Scots released him on "compassionate grounds" in August 2009. It was reported that he was about to die from prostate cancer. He didn't die until nearly 3 years later and I was not alone in believing that his release had more to do with oil than compassion. Within days, he was meeting with Muammar Qadaffi, who, according to The Guardian, "heaped praise on Scotland, his 'friend Gordon Brown', the Queen and Prince Andrew, saying all of them had contributed" to the release of al-Megrahi.

Among the 189 Americans on Pan Am 103 was a 25 year-old named David Dornstein. Ken Dornstein was 21 years old when his brother was killed. In an excellent three-part series on PBS's Frontline, Ken, a documentary-maker who has been investigating the bombing, makes a compelling case that bomb-maker Abu Agila Mas'ud should be added to the list of suspects.

It was reported last month that the Scots and the US Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch have asked the Libyans for help in tracking down two suspects, presumably because of what Dornstein uncovered. While the suspects have not been named, the Libyans shouldn't have to look far to find Mas'ud or Qadaffi's former intelligence officer, Abdullah al-Senussi, as both are currently serving time in Libya after being convicted in the same trial. (The upheaval in Libya in the years that followed the 2011 killing of Qadaffi meant that his loyalists had to flea or try to hide and survive in a chaotic Libya where there is no love lost for the former regime.)

Dornstein's investigative work is impressive. One thing it should hopefully do is put to rest any suggestion that al-Megrahi was innocent. One of the most compelling things Dornstein presents is Libyan television footage of al-Megrahi's return to Libya, which shows some of the worst characters in the Qadaffi regime greeting him like a brother. If al-Megrahi was innocent, why was he warmly embracing al-Senussi and Al-Masud (who are identified in the video for the first time by Dornstein)?

This new information will also hopefully lead to a fresh look for evidence that may reach beyond Libya. At the time of the bombing, I was a foreign policy adviser to Senator Edward M Kennedy. In addition to supporting the bringing to trial of al-Megrahi and another Libyan who was ultimately acquitted, we encouraged the Clinton Administration to continue to investigate the many questions regarding possible Syrian and Iranian involvement in the bombing, questions that date back to the Reagan Administration.

The most widely held theory is that Iran, seeking revenge for the July 1988 downing of an Iranian Airbus by the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf, sponsored Ahmed Jibril, the Syrian-based leader of the PFLP-GC to carry out the bombing. Jibril's plans were disrupted in the fall of 1988, when German agents raided his terrorist cells in Germany in an operation known as "Autumn Leaves." It was believed that Jibril then handed off the plans to Qadaffi who was all too happy to carry out the bombing because he hated President Ronald Reagan who had bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in retaliation for the 1986 Libyan bombing of a discotheque in Berlin which killed 2 American soldiers and injured 79 others.

Several investigators at the time told us that only the two Libyans could be tried because they were the only two for whom prosecutors could make a case. With so much upheaval in the region, opportunities may now exist to obtain more leads and answers. The Obama Administration should make it a priority to quickly interview al-Senussi and Al-Masud. They might unlock answers to Qadaffi's personal involvement and perhaps answer questions about Iran and Syria. The US should also investigate other fresh evidence Dornstein has uncovered. And what of the Syria and Iran? Where is Ahmed Jibril? A 2012 New York Times reference to the Bashar al-Assad supporter suggests that he is either still in Syria, or perhaps Iran. And why did Scotland really let al-Megrahi go?

There are many questions that deserve a new look. The FBI might want to hire Ken Dornstein to give them a hand.

Visceral resistance to challenges to the Lockerbie narrative

[Lockerbie’s long shadow is the headline over a column by Dr Neil Berry published today on the Arab News website.  It reads as follows:]

The explosion of the Russian airbus over the Sinai desert had sombre echoes of Lockerbie, the destruction in 1988 above the Scottish town of that name of Pan Am Flight 103 by a terrorist bomb.

Lockerbie can be seen as a portent of the present dark moment. The fresh Paris atrocities are the latest chapter of a conflict in which non-Muslims increasingly perceive the Islamic world as a reservoir of motiveless malignity.

The issue of Lockerbie has been revived by a film recently broadcast by the PBS television network in the US and in the UK by BBC4. Hugely emotive, My Brother’s Bomber is the work of the American journalist, Ken Dornstein, who lost his older brother at Lockerbie and who has spent years investigating the attack. Dornstein takes for granted that the Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi, convicted in 2001 of murdering 243 (mostly American) people at Lockerbie, was guilty as charged. But his film points an accusing finger at two possible accomplices, Abdullah Senussi, the late Libyan leader Col Qaddafi’s security chief, and Abu Agila Masud, the alleged bomb-maker. It conveys that the latter was also behind the 1986 attack on the La Belle discotheque in Berlin, popular with US servicemen, which led to the US bombing of Libya, for which Lockerbie was presumed vengeance. Currently imprisoned in Libya, the two men are now being treated as Lockerbie suspects by Scotland’s prosecuting authority.

The striking thing about Dornstein’s film is the one-eyed fixity of its gaze. Those unfamiliar with the tangled Lockerbie story could hardly grasp from it the disquiet about Megrahi’s conviction felt by British people of conscience, among them Dr Jim Swire, who, notwithstanding the loss of his daughter at Lockerbie became Megrahi’s friend, and the authors, John Ashton and Morag Kerr. They believe that the three Scottish judges who convicted Megrahi at a special court in the Netherlands perpetrated a gross miscarriage of justice. They question the credibility of Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who testified that Megrahi bought clothes from him that were wrapped round the Lockerbie bomb; they insist that the claim that the bomb originated in Malta has to be set against strong indications that it was planted in London; and they point out that the timer attached to the bomb, a key piece of evidence in the prosecution of Megrahi, proved not to belong to a batch of timers sold to Libya by a Swiss firm.

Swire and his fellow skeptics believe that Megrahi’s conviction would not have survived the appeal he was preparing when, in 2009, diagnosed with terminal cancer, he was released by Scotland’s devolved government to return to Libya to die. Public outrage at his release was matched by that of the political establishments of London and Washington. Yet one may wonder if this official fury was not in some measure theatrical. An appeal might well have unveiled politically embarrassing matters: the lavish efforts made by the US to look after Tony Gauci; the CIA’s black propaganda war against Libya; the grounds for suspecting that the Lockerbie attack was orchestrated by Iran.

Swire figures fleetingly in My Brother’s Bomber. The film shows him going to pay his last respects to the Megrahi in Tripoli, with Dornstein in attendance. Kitted out with concealed recording equipment, Dornstein hoped to accompany Swire into the dying man’s home but was politely refused entry and ended up writhing with frustration outside.

My Brother’s Bomber plays to the familiar stark binary narrative of terrorized West versus demonic Arab world. It may be felt that Dornstein shares with the US media and public opinion a visceral resistance to challenges to this narrative. In truth, there has never been much chance of the mainstream western media lending credence to alternative versions of the Lockerbie story. Now, in the poisonous, furiously polarized aftermath of the Paris massacre, the freedom of people like Jim Swire to question the official story could become more circumscribed than ever.