This is the title of an article in The Royal Gazette (Bermuda) about David Whalley, who was one of the earliest on the scene of the Lockerbie disaster.
The full article can be read here.
Saturday 17 May 2008
Thursday 15 May 2008
The Benghazi trial and the Lockerbie trial
Here is an excerpt from an article on the trial of Bulgarian medical personnel in Libya on charges of deliberately infecting children with the HIV virus, from a blog entitled Clean Postings:
"The trial has been lampooned by Amnesty International, Lawyers Without Borders, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the EU, Germany, the US and Bulgaria. However, without hearing from the Libyans, I am unable to come to a definitive conclusion. I have to rely on the credibility of the media, scientists, the governments of the West, international NGOs and the UN.The scientists are, to my mind, the most believable of the lot. Their consensus points to the innocence of the accused. However, the scientific evidence has to be subjected to the rules and procedures of the court (remember the OJ Simpson case?) and I am ignorant of those.How about the governments and international NGOs? The Benghazi case mirrors the trial and conviction of alleged Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi. That trial too was denounced by Professor Hans Köchler, who was appointed as UN observer by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as a politically motivated show trial and a spectacular miscarriage of justice. None other than Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who drew up the 1991 indictment against the two accused Libyans and issued warrants for their arrest, has cast doubt upon the reliability of the main prosecution witness, Tony Gauci. Lord Fraser criticised the Maltese shopkeeper for being not quite the full shilling and an apple short of a picnic.In fact, evidence points to the framing of Libya as a scapegoat in that incident where 270 people lost their lives after a bomb exploded on board Pan Am Flight 103 as it overflew the Scottish town of Lockerbie. In 2005, a retired senior Scottish police chief gave defence lawyers a signed statement, which confirmed the claims made in 2003 by a former CIA agent that his CIA bosses actually wrote the script to incriminate Libya. He accused American intelligence agents of planting a circuit board fragment, identified as part of a sophisticated explosive timing device made by Swiss firm Mebo and only supplied to Libya and the East German Stasi. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Tam Dalyell, the former Labour MP who played a crucial role in organising the trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, declared that Libya had nothing to do with the bombing. He accuses Iran of contracting the Popoular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) to carry out the atrocity, in retaliation for the downing of an Iranian civilian airliner by a US Navy warship. On July 3, 1998 Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by the U.S.S. Vincennes killing all 290 passengers and crew as the plane flew over the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. In spite of the fact that the US ship was at the time of the shooting operating illegally in Iranian territorial waters, the plane was flying within an internationally recognised air corridor, and the US military issuing a statement holding the crew accountable for the shooting, the US refused to apologize and to accept responsibility and liability for the incident. At a news conference on 2 August 1988, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush declared, I will never apologize for the United States of America."
The full article can be read here.
"The trial has been lampooned by Amnesty International, Lawyers Without Borders, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the EU, Germany, the US and Bulgaria. However, without hearing from the Libyans, I am unable to come to a definitive conclusion. I have to rely on the credibility of the media, scientists, the governments of the West, international NGOs and the UN.The scientists are, to my mind, the most believable of the lot. Their consensus points to the innocence of the accused. However, the scientific evidence has to be subjected to the rules and procedures of the court (remember the OJ Simpson case?) and I am ignorant of those.How about the governments and international NGOs? The Benghazi case mirrors the trial and conviction of alleged Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi. That trial too was denounced by Professor Hans Köchler, who was appointed as UN observer by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as a politically motivated show trial and a spectacular miscarriage of justice. None other than Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who drew up the 1991 indictment against the two accused Libyans and issued warrants for their arrest, has cast doubt upon the reliability of the main prosecution witness, Tony Gauci. Lord Fraser criticised the Maltese shopkeeper for being not quite the full shilling and an apple short of a picnic.In fact, evidence points to the framing of Libya as a scapegoat in that incident where 270 people lost their lives after a bomb exploded on board Pan Am Flight 103 as it overflew the Scottish town of Lockerbie. In 2005, a retired senior Scottish police chief gave defence lawyers a signed statement, which confirmed the claims made in 2003 by a former CIA agent that his CIA bosses actually wrote the script to incriminate Libya. He accused American intelligence agents of planting a circuit board fragment, identified as part of a sophisticated explosive timing device made by Swiss firm Mebo and only supplied to Libya and the East German Stasi. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Tam Dalyell, the former Labour MP who played a crucial role in organising the trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, declared that Libya had nothing to do with the bombing. He accuses Iran of contracting the Popoular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) to carry out the atrocity, in retaliation for the downing of an Iranian civilian airliner by a US Navy warship. On July 3, 1998 Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by the U.S.S. Vincennes killing all 290 passengers and crew as the plane flew over the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. In spite of the fact that the US ship was at the time of the shooting operating illegally in Iranian territorial waters, the plane was flying within an internationally recognised air corridor, and the US military issuing a statement holding the crew accountable for the shooting, the US refused to apologize and to accept responsibility and liability for the incident. At a news conference on 2 August 1988, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush declared, I will never apologize for the United States of America."
The full article can be read here.
Friday 9 May 2008
Iranian resistance group claims Iran responsible for Pan Am 103
In a further article on the OhMyNews International website, Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer reports that the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) claims that Iran was responsible for the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie. The article reads in part:
'The NCRI unambiguously blames Tehran for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over the town of Lockerbie. On their official Web site one can read the following.
'"The policy of kowtowing to the Iranians goes back a long way. It started in the late 1980s when Sir Geoffrey Howe, the then foreign secretary, attempted to establish a constructive dialogue with the mullahs in what proved a futile attempt to persuade Teheran to free British hostages in Lebanon.
'As part of this policy, the British government took the shameful decision to drop its claim that the Iranians had masterminded the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people in December 1988, even though British intelligence uncovered significant evidence of Iranian involvement."'
The full text of the article can be read here.
'The NCRI unambiguously blames Tehran for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over the town of Lockerbie. On their official Web site one can read the following.
'"The policy of kowtowing to the Iranians goes back a long way. It started in the late 1980s when Sir Geoffrey Howe, the then foreign secretary, attempted to establish a constructive dialogue with the mullahs in what proved a futile attempt to persuade Teheran to free British hostages in Lebanon.
'As part of this policy, the British government took the shameful decision to drop its claim that the Iranians had masterminded the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people in December 1988, even though British intelligence uncovered significant evidence of Iranian involvement."'
The full text of the article can be read here.
Wednesday 7 May 2008
Lockerbie: the doctor's strange story
This is the title of another article by the indefatigable Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer on the OhMyNews International website. In it he tells of the experiences of police surgeon Dr David Fieldhouse at Lockerbie during the hours immediately following the destruction of Pan Am 103 and in the months and years that followed and, in particular, of his identification of the body of US intelligence officer, Chuck McKee; and of (fortunately unsuccessful) attempts by the Scottish police and the Scottish Crown Office to discredit him.
Monday 5 May 2008
Proposed US-Libya deal angers Pan Am Flight 103 families
The following article appeared on the CNN website late yesterday evening:
Nearly 20 years after the terror bombing aboard Pan Am Flight 103 killed 189 Americans, the Bush administration is trying to resolve a bitter dispute between U.S. terror victims and Libya -- while still boosting oil supplies.
The victims' families say Libya, which admitted its involvement in the attack, hasn't fully compensated them for the bombing. [Note by RB: Libya has never, in fact, admitted involvement in the attack. What it has done is to accept responsibility for the acts of Libyan state employees, whatever those acts may have been. If Abdelbaset Megrahi's current appeal succeeds, there will be no extant Libyan admission of responsibility for the Lockerbie tragedy.]
And the relatives accuse the administration of letting the north African nation off the hook by trying to ease limits on investment in Libya before the full payments are made.
The Bush administration wants to give Libya a waiver on a law that allows terror victims to sue the country as well as the U.S. companies that are eager to do business with Libya. The law has halted billions of dollars in contracts between U.S. companies and Libya and slowed exploration for new oil supplies because of questions about liability.
"Are we willing to trade the blood of Americans for oil?" Kara Weipz, president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, told CNN. "If Libya is really serious about their commitments to the victims, why don't they just do what they are supposed to do?"
Americans made up the majority of the 270 people killed when the Pan Am flight exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. Libya has accepted responsibility for the involvement of its intelligence officials, one of whom was convicted of masterminding the bombing. A second official was acquitted.
Libya agreed to pay each family $10 million and has paid $8 million to each already. But Weipz says the families will keep fighting for the rest. "We are not ready to back down," she said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have told congressional leaders that the waiver would benefit U.S. national security, economy and foreign policy interests.
The administration says it sympathizes with the families, but Rice contends that U.S. interests could be hurt if the government doesn't fulfill rewards it promised to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for giving up weapons of mass destruction. "Obviously, when you have a major strategic shift of the kind that Libya has made, you want some affirmation," Rice told reporters earlier this year.
That position differs significantly from the one the administration took six years ago, when it promised the families that the United States would not resume any kind of ties with Libya until it accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid appropriate compensation.
The oil companies are letting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce take the lead in lobbying for the exemption from the law. "It's an horrific incident, and Libya should pay up," said Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "That's very different from what this provision in law now provides -- it actually puts American companies on the hook for that claimant's interests and payment."
Meanwhile, Libya is spending millions of dollars hiring The Livingston Group, a Washington lobbying firm headed by former Republican congressman Robert Livingston, to make its case on Capitol Hill.
Libyan Ambassador Ali Aujali told CNN in a written statement that his government relies "on the good faith of the United States not to create impediments that could delay a positive result."
The State Department says it's working with Libya to strike a final deal to settle all victims' claims, as oil companies and Libya are lobbying Congress for waivers.
Nearly 20 years after the terror bombing aboard Pan Am Flight 103 killed 189 Americans, the Bush administration is trying to resolve a bitter dispute between U.S. terror victims and Libya -- while still boosting oil supplies.
The victims' families say Libya, which admitted its involvement in the attack, hasn't fully compensated them for the bombing. [Note by RB: Libya has never, in fact, admitted involvement in the attack. What it has done is to accept responsibility for the acts of Libyan state employees, whatever those acts may have been. If Abdelbaset Megrahi's current appeal succeeds, there will be no extant Libyan admission of responsibility for the Lockerbie tragedy.]
And the relatives accuse the administration of letting the north African nation off the hook by trying to ease limits on investment in Libya before the full payments are made.
The Bush administration wants to give Libya a waiver on a law that allows terror victims to sue the country as well as the U.S. companies that are eager to do business with Libya. The law has halted billions of dollars in contracts between U.S. companies and Libya and slowed exploration for new oil supplies because of questions about liability.
"Are we willing to trade the blood of Americans for oil?" Kara Weipz, president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, told CNN. "If Libya is really serious about their commitments to the victims, why don't they just do what they are supposed to do?"
Americans made up the majority of the 270 people killed when the Pan Am flight exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. Libya has accepted responsibility for the involvement of its intelligence officials, one of whom was convicted of masterminding the bombing. A second official was acquitted.
Libya agreed to pay each family $10 million and has paid $8 million to each already. But Weipz says the families will keep fighting for the rest. "We are not ready to back down," she said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have told congressional leaders that the waiver would benefit U.S. national security, economy and foreign policy interests.
The administration says it sympathizes with the families, but Rice contends that U.S. interests could be hurt if the government doesn't fulfill rewards it promised to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for giving up weapons of mass destruction. "Obviously, when you have a major strategic shift of the kind that Libya has made, you want some affirmation," Rice told reporters earlier this year.
That position differs significantly from the one the administration took six years ago, when it promised the families that the United States would not resume any kind of ties with Libya until it accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid appropriate compensation.
The oil companies are letting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce take the lead in lobbying for the exemption from the law. "It's an horrific incident, and Libya should pay up," said Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "That's very different from what this provision in law now provides -- it actually puts American companies on the hook for that claimant's interests and payment."
Meanwhile, Libya is spending millions of dollars hiring The Livingston Group, a Washington lobbying firm headed by former Republican congressman Robert Livingston, to make its case on Capitol Hill.
Libyan Ambassador Ali Aujali told CNN in a written statement that his government relies "on the good faith of the United States not to create impediments that could delay a positive result."
The State Department says it's working with Libya to strike a final deal to settle all victims' claims, as oil companies and Libya are lobbying Congress for waivers.
Thursday 1 May 2008
Justice and the SNP Government
In today's issue of The Herald, the paper's Scottish political editor, Douglas Fraser, has an article entitled "Honeymoon seems far from over". It is effectively a report card on the SNP Government's first year in office in Scotland. Under the heading "Justice" he writes: "While the Lockerbie bomber provided a platform on which to mount a defence of Scots law's distinctiveness, a successful appeal by Abdelbaset al Magrahi [sic] could spark a crisis of confidence."
This is certainly, in some respects, true. If Megrahi's appeal succeeds (as it manifestly should) and particularly if it is decided that, on the evidence at the trial, he should never have been convicted, then serious questions about Scotland's criminal justice system will need to be urgently addressed. There are those who will say that this is not before time. On the other hand, if the appeal is allowed, it will also show that high-profile miscarriages of justice can be rectified within the system.
The full article can be read here.
This is certainly, in some respects, true. If Megrahi's appeal succeeds (as it manifestly should) and particularly if it is decided that, on the evidence at the trial, he should never have been convicted, then serious questions about Scotland's criminal justice system will need to be urgently addressed. There are those who will say that this is not before time. On the other hand, if the appeal is allowed, it will also show that high-profile miscarriages of justice can be rectified within the system.
The full article can be read here.
Tuesday 29 April 2008
Spielberg to direct Lockerbie bombing movie
Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer has a lengthy article under this headline on OhMyMews International. He gives details of the project and of the views of Juval Aviv, on whose book (and Interfor Report) the film is to be based.
Monday 28 April 2008
Limits on justice
This is the heading over a letter in today's issue of The Scotsman from Iain McKie (father of Shirley). In it he criticises the decision of the Lord Advocate to seek a hearing before a bench of five judges in an attempt to limit Abdelbaset Megrahi's grounds of appeal to those approved by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. A bench of three judges in an earlier case held that if the SCCRC referred a case back to the Appeal Court, the grounds of appeal submitted by the appellant need not be confined to the grounds upheld by the Commission. It is this precedent that the Lord Advocate is now seeking to have overruled.
Tuesday 22 April 2008
Lord Macfadyen
Lord Macfadyen, one of the five judges on the bench during the first Lockerbie appeal in 2002, died last week at the age of 62. He will be much missed: he was a good judge and a genuinely nice person.
In an obituary in today’s issue of The Herald, it is said that “His reputation on the bench was enhanced by the Lockerbie appeal of 2002.” This is quite simply not so: none of the Appeal Court judges enhanced his reputation by his participation in the Lockerbie appeal.
The court dismissed the appeal on the technical legal ground that Megrahi’s then legal team had submitted grounds of appeal that were incompetent and had not asked the court to address the correct issues (Was there enough evidence in law to convict him? Was the verdict of guilty one that, on the evidence, no reasonable tribunal could have reached?). In the course of the appeal hearing, a number of the judges, particularly Lords Kirkwood and Osborne, exposed the weaknesses in the Crown’s case against Megrahi at the trial. But, at the end of the day, the court held that it could adjudicate only on the (wrong and misconceived) issues raised by his lawyers. See “Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result” section headed “The Appeal”.
The court’s decision, in my view, was a weak one. The final court of appeal in criminal matters in Scotland should decide cases on their substantive merits, not on technicalities or on the performance of the appellant’s legal representatives. None of the judges who concurred in this approach to the Lockerbie appeal enhanced his reputation.
In an obituary in today’s issue of The Herald, it is said that “His reputation on the bench was enhanced by the Lockerbie appeal of 2002.” This is quite simply not so: none of the Appeal Court judges enhanced his reputation by his participation in the Lockerbie appeal.
The court dismissed the appeal on the technical legal ground that Megrahi’s then legal team had submitted grounds of appeal that were incompetent and had not asked the court to address the correct issues (Was there enough evidence in law to convict him? Was the verdict of guilty one that, on the evidence, no reasonable tribunal could have reached?). In the course of the appeal hearing, a number of the judges, particularly Lords Kirkwood and Osborne, exposed the weaknesses in the Crown’s case against Megrahi at the trial. But, at the end of the day, the court held that it could adjudicate only on the (wrong and misconceived) issues raised by his lawyers. See “Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result” section headed “The Appeal”.
The court’s decision, in my view, was a weak one. The final court of appeal in criminal matters in Scotland should decide cases on their substantive merits, not on technicalities or on the performance of the appellant’s legal representatives. None of the judges who concurred in this approach to the Lockerbie appeal enhanced his reputation.
Wednesday 16 April 2008
Abu Talb
The website of the International Herald Tribune reports that the life sentence for terrorist offences being served in Sweden by Abu Talb, who was the subject of a special defence of incrimination lodged by the accused at the Lockerbie trial (ie a claim that he, not the accused, was the true perpetrator) has been reduced to one of thirty years. The article begins:
"A Swedish court ruled Wednesday that an Egyptian-born Palestinian found guilty of terror attacks against U.S. and Jewish targets in the 1980s can have his life sentence turned into a 30-year prison term.
"The decision means Mohammed Abu Talb could be released in two years because he started serving his term in 1990 and prisoners in Sweden are normally released after having served two-thirds of their sentences.
"Abu Talb was sentenced to life in prison for a Synagogue bombing and an attack against a U.S. airline office in Denmark that killed one person and left several injured in 1985.
"He was also found guilty of involvement in the bombing of an Israeli airline office in the Netherlands.
"Abu Talb, who came to Sweden in 1983, was an early suspect in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. But prosecutors abandoned the theory that Palestinians were responsible and turned their attention to Libya.
"He later testified in the trial in that case."
The full story can be read here.
"A Swedish court ruled Wednesday that an Egyptian-born Palestinian found guilty of terror attacks against U.S. and Jewish targets in the 1980s can have his life sentence turned into a 30-year prison term.
"The decision means Mohammed Abu Talb could be released in two years because he started serving his term in 1990 and prisoners in Sweden are normally released after having served two-thirds of their sentences.
"Abu Talb was sentenced to life in prison for a Synagogue bombing and an attack against a U.S. airline office in Denmark that killed one person and left several injured in 1985.
"He was also found guilty of involvement in the bombing of an Israeli airline office in the Netherlands.
"Abu Talb, who came to Sweden in 1983, was an early suspect in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. But prosecutors abandoned the theory that Palestinians were responsible and turned their attention to Libya.
"He later testified in the trial in that case."
The full story can be read here.
Saturday 12 April 2008
Where are they now?
As far as I can see from a trawl of the internet and the blogosphere, there were no developments of any significance regarding Lockerbie during my trip to Namibia.
However, it has been reported that Megrahi's junior counsel at the Zeist trial, John Beckett, has been appointed a sheriff (a judge in Scotland's lower court system). Beckett became a QC in 2005 after the trial, and served briefly as Solicitor General for Scotland (deputy to the Lord Advocate, the chief Scottish Government law officer and head of the prosecution system) in 2006 to 2007. See http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2008/04/10100308
As far as the other lawyers involved in the trial are concerned, most remain in practice but two of the prosecutors, Alastair Campbell QC and Alan Turnbull QC, have become judges of the Scottish supreme courts (the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary); Megrahi's solicitor, Alistair Duff, has become a sheriff; and Richard Keen QC, the senior counsel for the acquitted co-accused, Lamin Fhimah, has been elected Dean of the Faculty of Advocates (leader of the Scottish Bar). The then Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC (later Lord Boyd of Duncansby) has taken the highly unusual step of resigning from the Faculty of Advocates and becoming a solicitor. He is now a partner in a large Edinburgh law firm.
The three judges who presided at the trial, Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean, have all now retired from the bench.
However, it has been reported that Megrahi's junior counsel at the Zeist trial, John Beckett, has been appointed a sheriff (a judge in Scotland's lower court system). Beckett became a QC in 2005 after the trial, and served briefly as Solicitor General for Scotland (deputy to the Lord Advocate, the chief Scottish Government law officer and head of the prosecution system) in 2006 to 2007. See http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2008/04/10100308
As far as the other lawyers involved in the trial are concerned, most remain in practice but two of the prosecutors, Alastair Campbell QC and Alan Turnbull QC, have become judges of the Scottish supreme courts (the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary); Megrahi's solicitor, Alistair Duff, has become a sheriff; and Richard Keen QC, the senior counsel for the acquitted co-accused, Lamin Fhimah, has been elected Dean of the Faculty of Advocates (leader of the Scottish Bar). The then Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC (later Lord Boyd of Duncansby) has taken the highly unusual step of resigning from the Faculty of Advocates and becoming a solicitor. He is now a partner in a large Edinburgh law firm.
The three judges who presided at the trial, Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean, have all now retired from the bench.
Monday 7 April 2008
Hiatus
I am off to Namibia for a few days. It is unlikely that there will be any further posts on this blog before Friday, 11 April.
Sunday 6 April 2008
The Iranian connection ... continued
On 10 March 2008 on this blog I referred to an article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer regarding the claim by the Iranian intelligence operative, Abolghasem Mesbahi, that Iran alone was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing. "Mesbahi" was always known to be a pseudonym and, in a new article in OhMyNews International, Dr De Braeckeleer identifies him as Abdul Hasan Mephahi, explores his role in the Iran-Contra affair and considers the possible implications of these revelations for those seeking the truth about Lockerbie. Dr De Braeckeleer's article can be read here.
Friday 4 April 2008
US wants Lockerbie bomber to stay
The BBC Scotland news website has an article today with the above headline. Acting Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Volker is quoted as saying that the agreement that led to the Lockerbie trial provided that, if convicted, the accused should serve their sentences in Scotland. The United States expected this agreement to be adhered to, notwithstanding any prisoner transfer agreement that may have been entered into by the UK Government and Libya. The full article can be read here.
And here is the text of a press release issued today by the Scottish National Party (the party which forms the Scottish -- as distinct from the UK -- Government):
'The US state department has said it is standing by an international agreement requiring the Lockerbie bomber to serve his sentence in Scotland.
'Acting Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Volker told BBC Scotland he expected the original deal to be "followed through". The UK Government and Libya recently struck an agreement over prisoner transfers.
'It emerged in June 2007 that the UK Government had signed a memorandum of understanding with Libya covering prisoner exchanges.
'First Minister Alex Salmond claimed at the time that the deal could allow Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi to serve the remainder of his sentence in Libya and he protested about a lack of consultation.
'Reacting to news that the US wants the Lockerbie bomber to stay in Scotland, Mr Salmond said:
"Anybody connected and convicted of the Lockerbie bombing should serve their sentences under Scottish jurisdiction. It is certainly not right for anyone regardless of their motivation to attempt to compromise or interfere or undermine the independent processes of the Scottish judicial system and I won't allow that to happen.
"We will defend the integrity of the Scottish judicial system, and uphold the international agreements that had been previously made."
'Megrahi is serving life for killing 270 people in the 1988 bombing. He was convicted in 2001 of blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie.'
And here is the text of a press release issued today by the Scottish National Party (the party which forms the Scottish -- as distinct from the UK -- Government):
'The US state department has said it is standing by an international agreement requiring the Lockerbie bomber to serve his sentence in Scotland.
'Acting Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Volker told BBC Scotland he expected the original deal to be "followed through". The UK Government and Libya recently struck an agreement over prisoner transfers.
'It emerged in June 2007 that the UK Government had signed a memorandum of understanding with Libya covering prisoner exchanges.
'First Minister Alex Salmond claimed at the time that the deal could allow Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi to serve the remainder of his sentence in Libya and he protested about a lack of consultation.
'Reacting to news that the US wants the Lockerbie bomber to stay in Scotland, Mr Salmond said:
"Anybody connected and convicted of the Lockerbie bombing should serve their sentences under Scottish jurisdiction. It is certainly not right for anyone regardless of their motivation to attempt to compromise or interfere or undermine the independent processes of the Scottish judicial system and I won't allow that to happen.
"We will defend the integrity of the Scottish judicial system, and uphold the international agreements that had been previously made."
'Megrahi is serving life for killing 270 people in the 1988 bombing. He was convicted in 2001 of blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie.'
Monday 31 March 2008
Libya's Lockerbie compensation proposal
There have recently been a series of press reports about a Libyan proposal to resolve outstanding compensation issues regarding the La Belle disco bombing and the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie and UTA 772 over Niger. Here, reproduced from Mathaba.Net, is Patrick Haseldine's perceptive commentary:
'It is hardly surprising that details have not been revealed about the 'comprehensive settlement agreement' which Libya has proposed to resolve the question of compensation for the terrorist bombings of Berlin's La Belle discotheque in April 1986, Pan Am Flight 103 at Lockerbie in December 1988 and UTA Flight 772 over Niger, West Africa, in September 1989.
Libya has never admitted responsibility for the La Belle attack. Nonetheless, in August 2004, the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity Associations (GIFCA) agreed with lawyers representing the German victims a final compensation figure of $35 million. US victims were presumably excluded from this agreement because of the USAF retaliatory air raid on Tripoli in June 1986, in which Muammar al-Gaddafi's adopted daughter Hannah was among dozens of casualties.
On August 15, 2003, Libya's UN ambassador, Ahmed Own, submitted a letter to the UN Security Council formally accepting "responsibility for the actions of its officials" in relation to both aircraft bombings. The Libyan government offered $2.7 billion compensation to relatives of the 270 Lockerbie bombing victims and proceeded to pay each family $8 million (from which legal fees of about $2.5 million were deducted). As a result, the United Nations cancelled the sanctions that had been suspended four years earlier, and US trade sanctions were lifted. A further $2 million would have gone to each family had the US State Department removed Libya from its list of states regarded as supporting international terrorism, but as this did not happen before the deadline set by Libya, the Libyan Central Bank withdrew the remaining $540 million in April 2005 from the escrow account in Switzerland through which the earlier $2.16 billion compensation for the victims' families had been paid. A civil action against Libya continues on behalf of Pan Am, which went bankrupt partly as a result of the Lockerbie attack. The airline is seeking $4.5 billion for the loss of the aircraft and the effect on the airline's business.
In January 2004, the Libyan leader's son Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi signed an agreement on behalf of GIFCA with French relatives' group "Les familles du DC-10 d'UTA en colère" offering a compensation payment of $170 million, or $1 million for each of the 170 UTA victims. By May 2007, it was reported that 95% of this compensation money had been distributed. However, the families of the seven American victims refused to accept their $1 million awards and are pursuing the Libyan government through a federal court in Washington. On September 19, 2006, the court was asked to rule that the Libyan government and six of its agents were guilty of the September 19, 1989 destruction of UTA Flight 772. Damages of more than $2 billion were claimed for the loss of life and the destruction of the DC-10 jet. In April 2007, D.C. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy found Libya directly responsible for the bombing and presided over a three day bench trial from August 13 to August 15, 2007. On January 15, 2008 Judge Kennedy issued an order awarding $6 billion in damages to the families and owners of the airliner. Libya has appealed this decision.
There are, however, strong reasons for believing that Libya was "fitted up" for these two aircraft bombings. According to French investigative journalist, Pierre Péan, the FBI conspired to incriminate Libya for the sabotage of both Pan Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772. Péan wrote an article published in 'Le Monde Diplomatique' in March 2001, just after the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial had ended with the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on the strength of just one piece of hard evidence: a tiny fragment of a timing device manufactured by the Swiss firm Mebo.
Two years earlier, six Libyans were tried 'in absentia' and convicted in 1999 by a Paris court for the UTA Flight 772 bombing. Péan claimed there was something wrong:
"It is striking to witness the similarity of the discoveries, by the FBI, of the scientific proof of the two aircraft that were sabotaged: the Pan Am Boeing 747 and the UTA DC-10. Among the thousands or rather tens of thousands of pieces of debris collected near the crash sites, just one PCB fragment was found in each case, which carried enough information to allow its identification: Mebo for the Boeing 747 and "TY" (from Taiwan) for the DC-10."
Péan went on to accuse judge Jean-Louis Bruguière of ignoring the results of an analysis by Claude Colisti of the Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire (DCPJ) – one of the world's foremost explosives experts – that the "TY" timer fragment had no trace of explosives residue, and could not therefore have been connected to the bomb that destroyed UTA Flight 772. Furthermore, neither a forensic inquiry by the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) nor an examination by the scientific laboratory of the Préfecture de Police (PP) could make any connection between the timer fragment and the bomb. According to Péan, judge Bruguière had therefore taken at face value the word of an FBI political operative (Thomas Thurman), who had been discredited in 1997 by the US Inspector-General, Michael Bromwich, and told never again to appear in court as an expert witness, rather than accept the findings of French forensic experts. It was revealed at the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial that the British scientist, Dr Thomas Hayes, had also failed to test the Mebo timer fragment for explosives residue. Such reckless disregard for the integrity of forensic evidence is likely to have the most profound effects upon the Scottish judicial process in relation to Megrahi's second appeal against conviction at the Edinburgh Appeal Court in 2008.
There have been suggestions that, if Megrahi's appeal is successful and his conviction is overturned, Libya could seek to recover the compensation that has already been paid. Interviewed by French newspaper 'Le Figaro' on December 7, 2007, Saif al-Gaddafi insisted that the seven Libyans convicted for the Pan Am Flight 103 and the UTA Flight 772 bombings "are innocent". When asked if Libya would therefore seek reimbursement of the compensation paid to the families of the victims ($2.33 billion in total), Saif al-Gaddafi replied: "I don't know".
Thus, the proposed 'comprehensive settlement agreement' - that Libyan officials discussed in London last week with David Welch of the US State Department - is more likely to involve a refund of compensation to Libya, rather than any further payments by Libya.'
Here is an article on the compensation issue from The Wall Street Journal of 2 April 2008.
'It is hardly surprising that details have not been revealed about the 'comprehensive settlement agreement' which Libya has proposed to resolve the question of compensation for the terrorist bombings of Berlin's La Belle discotheque in April 1986, Pan Am Flight 103 at Lockerbie in December 1988 and UTA Flight 772 over Niger, West Africa, in September 1989.
Libya has never admitted responsibility for the La Belle attack. Nonetheless, in August 2004, the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity Associations (GIFCA) agreed with lawyers representing the German victims a final compensation figure of $35 million. US victims were presumably excluded from this agreement because of the USAF retaliatory air raid on Tripoli in June 1986, in which Muammar al-Gaddafi's adopted daughter Hannah was among dozens of casualties.
On August 15, 2003, Libya's UN ambassador, Ahmed Own, submitted a letter to the UN Security Council formally accepting "responsibility for the actions of its officials" in relation to both aircraft bombings. The Libyan government offered $2.7 billion compensation to relatives of the 270 Lockerbie bombing victims and proceeded to pay each family $8 million (from which legal fees of about $2.5 million were deducted). As a result, the United Nations cancelled the sanctions that had been suspended four years earlier, and US trade sanctions were lifted. A further $2 million would have gone to each family had the US State Department removed Libya from its list of states regarded as supporting international terrorism, but as this did not happen before the deadline set by Libya, the Libyan Central Bank withdrew the remaining $540 million in April 2005 from the escrow account in Switzerland through which the earlier $2.16 billion compensation for the victims' families had been paid. A civil action against Libya continues on behalf of Pan Am, which went bankrupt partly as a result of the Lockerbie attack. The airline is seeking $4.5 billion for the loss of the aircraft and the effect on the airline's business.
In January 2004, the Libyan leader's son Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi signed an agreement on behalf of GIFCA with French relatives' group "Les familles du DC-10 d'UTA en colère" offering a compensation payment of $170 million, or $1 million for each of the 170 UTA victims. By May 2007, it was reported that 95% of this compensation money had been distributed. However, the families of the seven American victims refused to accept their $1 million awards and are pursuing the Libyan government through a federal court in Washington. On September 19, 2006, the court was asked to rule that the Libyan government and six of its agents were guilty of the September 19, 1989 destruction of UTA Flight 772. Damages of more than $2 billion were claimed for the loss of life and the destruction of the DC-10 jet. In April 2007, D.C. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy found Libya directly responsible for the bombing and presided over a three day bench trial from August 13 to August 15, 2007. On January 15, 2008 Judge Kennedy issued an order awarding $6 billion in damages to the families and owners of the airliner. Libya has appealed this decision.
There are, however, strong reasons for believing that Libya was "fitted up" for these two aircraft bombings. According to French investigative journalist, Pierre Péan, the FBI conspired to incriminate Libya for the sabotage of both Pan Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772. Péan wrote an article published in 'Le Monde Diplomatique' in March 2001, just after the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial had ended with the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on the strength of just one piece of hard evidence: a tiny fragment of a timing device manufactured by the Swiss firm Mebo.
Two years earlier, six Libyans were tried 'in absentia' and convicted in 1999 by a Paris court for the UTA Flight 772 bombing. Péan claimed there was something wrong:
"It is striking to witness the similarity of the discoveries, by the FBI, of the scientific proof of the two aircraft that were sabotaged: the Pan Am Boeing 747 and the UTA DC-10. Among the thousands or rather tens of thousands of pieces of debris collected near the crash sites, just one PCB fragment was found in each case, which carried enough information to allow its identification: Mebo for the Boeing 747 and "TY" (from Taiwan) for the DC-10."
Péan went on to accuse judge Jean-Louis Bruguière of ignoring the results of an analysis by Claude Colisti of the Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire (DCPJ) – one of the world's foremost explosives experts – that the "TY" timer fragment had no trace of explosives residue, and could not therefore have been connected to the bomb that destroyed UTA Flight 772. Furthermore, neither a forensic inquiry by the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) nor an examination by the scientific laboratory of the Préfecture de Police (PP) could make any connection between the timer fragment and the bomb. According to Péan, judge Bruguière had therefore taken at face value the word of an FBI political operative (Thomas Thurman), who had been discredited in 1997 by the US Inspector-General, Michael Bromwich, and told never again to appear in court as an expert witness, rather than accept the findings of French forensic experts. It was revealed at the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial that the British scientist, Dr Thomas Hayes, had also failed to test the Mebo timer fragment for explosives residue. Such reckless disregard for the integrity of forensic evidence is likely to have the most profound effects upon the Scottish judicial process in relation to Megrahi's second appeal against conviction at the Edinburgh Appeal Court in 2008.
There have been suggestions that, if Megrahi's appeal is successful and his conviction is overturned, Libya could seek to recover the compensation that has already been paid. Interviewed by French newspaper 'Le Figaro' on December 7, 2007, Saif al-Gaddafi insisted that the seven Libyans convicted for the Pan Am Flight 103 and the UTA Flight 772 bombings "are innocent". When asked if Libya would therefore seek reimbursement of the compensation paid to the families of the victims ($2.33 billion in total), Saif al-Gaddafi replied: "I don't know".
Thus, the proposed 'comprehensive settlement agreement' - that Libyan officials discussed in London last week with David Welch of the US State Department - is more likely to involve a refund of compensation to Libya, rather than any further payments by Libya.'
Here is an article on the compensation issue from The Wall Street Journal of 2 April 2008.
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