Blushing with shame at the behaviour of the Crown Office

[This is the headline over a contribution by Len Murray, one of Scotland’s most distinguished solicitors, to today’s edition of the Scottish Review, written in response to an earlier article by the editor, Kenneth Roy. Len Murray’s piece reads as follows:]

Kenneth Roy's splendid article on the hapless Dr David Fieldhouse (11 June) makes a reader blush with shame at the behaviour of the Crown Office. That behaviour, however, should come as no surprise to any of us. 

I am member of Justice for Megrahi and indeed a member of the Committee of Justice for Megrahi. In September [2012] we wrote in confidence to the justice secretary Kenny MacAskill making certain allegations. Some 12 days later, before any reply had been forthcoming from the Justice Directorate, the Scotsman newspaper published a response from the Crown Office in which we were pilloried for having made 'defamatory and entirely unfounded... deliberately false and misleading allegations'.  The article went on to suggest that we had accused 'police officers [and] officials [of fabricating] evidence'.

That ill-tempered scandalous outburst has and had no foundation in fact whatsoever and it was made before any investigation had been made into what we said to the justice secretary.

To make matters worse – if that were possible – on 21 December [2012], the Times (Scotland edition) carried an interview given by the lord advocate to Magnus Linklater. Not only did the lord advocate, with a total disregard for the facts, repeat those scurrilous outpourings from the Crown Office, but he went on to add that we had levelled criminal accusations against the judges and/or the lord advocate of the day. We had done no such thing.

But that is not all. When the relatives of the victims – yes, the relatives of the victims, not Megrahi – lodged an application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission earlier last month, the Crown Office had the effrontery to say: 'The evidence upon which the conviction was based was rigorously scrutinised by the trial court and two appeal courts...'. Totally misleading. They know perfectly well that in the first appeal the court held that they were barred from considering the evidence in view of the grounds of appeal which had been submitted on behalf of Megrahi; whereas the second appeal never reached a hearing because Megrahi abandoned his appeal.

'Rigorously scrutinised'? Not even looked at as the Crown Office know perfectly well.

But even that is not all. It would appear that the application to SCCRC contains new evidence and new allegations which have never emerged before. One might expect, indeed one is entitled to expect from the Crown Office, a measured and considered response like: 'We shall investigate any new allegations thoroughly and put the result of our investigations before the Court'. Some of us might consider that their duty – but no, we get an outburst showing that closed mind which, it seems, is typical of our Crown Office when the name Megrahi is mentioned: 'We will rigorously defend this conviction when called upon to do so'. No mention of any investigation or even a look to see what is in the application, nothing but the closed mind.

When I was being interviewed more than 50 years ago by the court partner of the firm to which I would soon be indentured as a law apprentice, I remember being told: 'Find out the facts before you make up your mind'. What a pity that our lord advocate and his cohorts at the Crown Office apparently have still to learn that elementary lesson.

Not safe to be let out alone?

[What follows is taken from a report published today on the Mail Online website headlined £219,000 spent on foreign visits:]

Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland made two trips to America to mark the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing.

His trip to Syracuse University in New York last October cost £3,424.79 then in December he want to Washington, with the bill for that trip amounting to £2,119.00. On both occasions Mr Mulholland was accompanied by three officials.

Seven years' hard

This blog is seven years old today.

I started the blog just after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had referred Abdelbaset Megrahi’s conviction back to the High Court of Justiciary for a further appeal. It seemed to me that a commentary on the appeal process would be of some value. My expectation was that, even allowing for the law’s notorious delays, the blog would not be needed for longer than two years -- or two-and-a-half at the outside. Foolishly, of course, I gravely underestimated the Crown Office’s ingenuity in delaying proceedings (with the connivance or condonation of the appeal judges) and the obstructiveness of the then UK Government in the persons of the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and the Advocate General for Scotland, Lord Davidson of Glen Clova QC. The result was that the appeal hearing had only barely got into its stride when Megrahi’s illness led to his abandoning the appeal and being released on compassionate grounds in August 2009. So the Megrahi case lingers on, as does this blog. Perhaps the current SCCRC application will enable the case and this blog to be decently buried. But don’t expect it to be anytime soon.

Meanwhile, here is the second of two items published in the blog on the first day of its life:

The SCCRC Decision

On 28 June 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi’s conviction of the Lockerbie bombing back to the High Court of Justiciary for a further appeal. The case had been under consideration by the SCCRC since September 2003 and its statement of reasons (available only to Megrahi, to the Crown and to the High Court) extends to over 800 pages, accompanied by thirteen volumes of appendices. The Commission, in the published summary of its findings, rejected submissions on behalf of Megrahi to the effect that evidence led at the trial had been fabricated and that he had been inadequately represented by his then legal team, but went on to indicate that there were six grounds upon which it had concluded that a miscarriage of justice might have occurred. Strangely enough, however, only four of these grounds are enumerated in the summary. They are as follows:

“A number of the submissions made on behalf of the applicant challenged the reasonableness of the trial court's verdict, based on the legal test contained in section 106(3)(b) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. The Commission rejected the vast majority of those submissions. However, in examining one of the grounds, the Commission formed the view that there is no reasonable basis in the trial court's judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary's House, took place on 7 December 1988. Although it was proved that the applicant was in Malta on several occasions in December 1988, in terms of the evidence 7 December was the only date on which he would have had the opportunity to purchase the items. The finding as to the date of purchase was therefore important to the trial court's conclusion that the applicant was the purchaser. Likewise, the trial court's conclusion that the applicant was the purchaser was important to the verdict against him. Because of these factors the Commission has reached the view that the requirements of the legal test may be satisfied in the applicant's case.

“New evidence not heard at the trial concerned the date on which the Christmas lights were illuminated in thearea of Sliema in which Mary's House is situated. In the Commission's view,taken together with Mr Gauci's evidence at trial and the contents of his police statements, this additional evidence indicates that the purchase of the items took place prior to 6 December 1988. In other words, it indicates that the purchase took place at a time when there was no evidence at trial that the applicant was in Malta.

“Additional evidence, not made available to the defence, which indicates that four days prior to the identification parade at which Mr Gauci picked out the applicant, he saw a photograph of the applicant in a magazine article linking him to the bombing. In the Commission's view evidence of Mr Gauci's exposure to this photograph in such close proximity to the parade undermines the reliability of his identification of the applicant at that time and at the trial itself.

“Other evidence, not made available to the defence, which the Commission believes may further undermine Mr Gauci's identification of the applicant as the purchaser and the trial court's finding as to the date of purchase.”

The implications for the verdict of guilty

The reasons given by the Commission for finding that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in this case are not limited to the effect of new evidence which has become available since the date of the original trial and the non-disclosure by the police and prosecution of evidence helpful to the defence.    The prima facie miscarriage of justice identified by the Commission includes the trial court’s finding in fact on the evidence heard at the trial that the clothes which surrounded the bomb were purchased in Malta on 7 December 1988 and that Megrahi was the purchaser.  This was the very cornerstone of the Crown’s case against him.  If, as suggested by the Commission, that finding in fact had no reasonable basis in the evidence, then there is no legal justification whatsoever for his conviction by the trial court.

The implications for the Scottish criminal justice system

The present writer has always contended that no reasonable tribunal could have convicted Megrahi on the evidence led at the trial.  Here is just one example of the trial court’s idiosyncratic approach to the evidence.  Many more could be provided.

A vitally important issue was the date on which the goods that surrounded the bomb were purchased in a shop in Malta.  There were only two live possibilities:  7 December 1988, a date when Megrahi was proved to be on Malta and 23 November 1988 when he was not. In an attempt to establish just which of these dates was the correct one, the weather conditions in Sliema on these two days were explored. The shopkeeper’s evidence was that when the purchaser left his shop it was raining so heavily that his customer thought it advisable to buy an umbrella to protect himself while he went in search of a taxi.  The unchallenged meteorological evidence led by the defence established that while it had rained on 23 November at the relevant time, it was unlikely that it had rained at all on 7 December; and if there had been any rain, it would have been at most a few drops, insufficient to wet the ground.  On this material, the judges found in fact that the clothes were purchased on 7 December.

On evidence as weak as this how was it possible for the trial court to find him guilty?  And how was it possible for the Criminal Appeal Court to fail to overturn that conviction?  The Criminal Appeal Court dismissed Megrahi’s appeal on the most technical of technical legal grounds: it did not consider the justifiability of the trial court’s factual findings at all (though it is clear from their interventions during the Crown submissions in the appeal that at least some of the judges were only too well aware of how shaky certain crucial findings were and how contrary to the weight of the evidence).

It is submitted that at least part of the answer lies in the history of the Scottish legal and judicial system.  For centuries judges have accorded a specially privileged status to the Lord Advocate.  It has been unquestioningly accepted that, though a political appointee and the government’s (now the Scottish Executive’s) chief legal adviser, he (now, of course, she) would at all times, in his capacity as head of the prosecution system, act independently and without concern for political considerations and would always place the public interest in a fair trial above the narrow interest of the prosecution in gaining a conviction.  This judicial vision of the role of the Lord Advocate was reinforced by the fact that, until the Scottish Judicial Appointments Board commenced operations in 2002, all Scottish High Court Judges (and sheriffs) were nominated for appointment to the Bench by the Lord Advocate of the day.  This meant that, in all criminal proceedings, the presiding judge owed his position to the person (or one of his predecessors in office) who was ultimately responsible for bringing the case before him, and for its conduct while in his court.

The behaviour of the Crown in the Lockerbie trial was certainly not beyond criticism -- indeed 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 United States under a witness protection programme.

Giaka’s evidence was ultimately found by the court to be utterly unworthy of belief. 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 immensely 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 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.

Mr 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.  Secondly, they considered whether there was anything which would appear to reflect on the credibility of Mr 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 of the judges, 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 the -- -- 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 Mr 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.

Beyond the Lockerbie trial, the failure of the Crown to place the public interest in a fair trial above the interest of the prosecution in obtaining convictions is illustrated by the extent to which the Lord Advocate has recently had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, through the Privy Council in London before making available to the defence material in the prosecution’s possession that no-one could conceivably deny was of relevance and assistance in the accused person’s defence: see Holland v HMA 2005 SCCR 417;  Sinclair v HMA 2005 SCCR 446. So much for the fairness of the trial being the Crown’s primary and predominant motivation!

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” I Corinthians xiii.11. It is high time for all involved in the Scottish criminal justice system to put away childish things. All of us, judges included, are surely too old to believe any longer in fairy tales. Fairy tales can be convenient and comforting and can bolster our self esteem. But, as in the case of the belief that the Crown can uniformly be relied upon always to act selflessly in the public interest, they can be dangerous and, if acted upon, work terrible injustice.

It is submitted that the Lockerbie case demonstrates just how necessary it is, if public confidence is to be maintained, for the Scottish Executive to institute a high-powered, independent, investigation into all three aspects – investigation, prosecution and adjudication -- of the Scottish criminal justice system.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

[Six years ago today, I posted on this blog an item headed Scottish newspapers accused of shirking investigative duties. It reads as follows:]

Today's issue of the Sunday Herald contains an article about a letter written by Professor Hans Köchler complaining about the supine attitude of the Scottish press over the Lockerbie miscarriage of justice. The article reads in part:

'When readers are asked what they want more of in newspapers the answer is often great, jaw-dropping scoops. Yet investigative reporting - the discipline behind many such stories - is increasingly seen by many newspaper executives as too expensive to bother with.

'This is certainly the view of Professor Hans Kochler [sic], the former UN monitor of the Lockerbie trial, who has attacked the Scottish media for its coverage of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's continuing appeals against his conviction.

'Kochler believes Scottish journalists are becoming unwilling to question the establishment version of events and work under editors and executives who refuse to finance proper reporting. He says he has a list of publications and journalists he believes have failed to do their jobs properly, which he may seek to publish at a later date.

'Says Kochler: "As far as Lockerbie is concerned I can't understand why more isn't being done by the European country that was most concerned with it. There is a lot at stake: the rule of law, security, the role of international terrorism. Why isn't somebody trying to find out why the authorities are now trying to withhold evidence and delaying everything?"

'In an earlier letter to veteran campaigner Robbie the Pict nee [sic] Brian Robertson, in which Kochler raised the issue of a potential media blackout, he simply wrote: "Where are Scotland's investigative journalists?"

'Kochler claims that editors reduced coverage under establishment pressure. Some journalists closely related to the story argue that the real reason why Lockerbie is off the agenda is because people are tired of it, but Kochler claims it is a symptom of a wider problem that cuts across the profession.'

The comments from members of the public which follow the article are well worth reading and are extremely well-informed.

[With a shamefully few honourable exceptions, the same can be said of the Scottish press today. The original article now appears here on the newspaper's website, but the readers' comments are no longer available.]

Clean-up crew soldier suffers PTSD 25 years after Lockerbie

An article headlined Former soldier admits he's still coming to terms with Lockerbie bombing horror scene has been published this morning on the Daily Record website.  It reads in part:]

For former soldier Bob Taylor, the Lockerbie bombing was something he thought he’d dealt with 25 years ago.

But as media coverage mounted about the quarter-century anniversary, Bob found the memories of his time as part of the clean-up crew too difficult to cope with.

The 52-year-old, who lives in Catterick, North Yorkshire, but grew up in Kilmarnock, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and had to be signed off sick from his job. He had been Pertemps manager for Northallerton, Harrogate and Skipton.

He is now coming to terms with his condition through the support of the Help for Heroes Phoenix House Recovery Centre, also in Catterick.

“As part of the clean-up crew I had to walk the area and identify evidence. If it was clothing, we had to bag it. If it was a body part, we called the police over and they would deal with it,” Bob said.

At the time of the bombing, on December 21, 1988, Bob, who has been married to Daniella for 32 years and has two children, was stationed in Inverness with the Gordon Highlanders.

“The Royal Highland Fusiliers were deployed first but, on Christmas Eve, I was packing the car to go home on leave to Glasgow with my wife and children when we were told to attend a briefing on Christmas Day to go to Lockerbie. We were deployed on Boxing Day,” Bob said.

After two days as clean-up crew, Bob , who has served in Northern Ireland, Germany, Kenya, Portugal, Canada and America, was moved into the communication centre, where he had to maintain contact with crews on the ground, the civilian team and mark finds on a map of the area.

He said: “At the time we were angry to be missing Christmas and angry someone had decided to do that because it affected those on the aircraft, the town of Lockerbie and the wider community.

“I didn’t think much about what we were doing. It was just a job but then, 25 years later, when I was watching the anniversary coverage, it triggered something off.”

Bob made contact with the charity Vulnerable Veterans and Adult Dependants (VVADS), a bespoke Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service based at Catterick Garrison and he began eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) – a relatively new treatment that has been found to reduce the symptoms of PTSD.

The charity also put him in touch with Help for Heroes and Phoenix House.

He said: “The PTSD has really surprised me. I just thought I was a bit depressed but when the anniversary coverage started in the media, it just came flooding back and I was quite floored with it all.

“When I was serving I had the support of the guys in my battalion, but when you leave you lose all that.”

Scottish lawyers support Lockerbie inquiry

Five years ago an item headed Poll of Scottish lawyers finds 86% back inquiry into Lockerbie was posted on this blog.  I suspect that a poll conducted today would disclose a similar result. The July 2009 article reads as follows:

[The following is the text of a press release issued by the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. The magazine's website can be accessed here.]

A poll of solicitors in Scotland calling for a full public inquiry into the Lockerbie incident has received Parliamentary backing and international support.

86% of respondents to the poll which ran during Abdelbaset Ali Mohmad al-Megrahi’s appeal called for the inquiry, which has been blocked since Labour took office in 1997, despite their pledge to hold one whilst in opposition.

Christine Grahame MSP, who has met Mr Megrahi several times in jail said there were many unanswered questions.

"I have said that if the appeal by Mr Megrahi is dropped then I would want to see a full public inquiry. That remains my position. I believe that Mr Megrahi should not have been convicted on the evidence that was led against him and that there appears to have been a miscarriage of justice. A public inquiry would go a considerable way towards resolving that if Mr Megrahi drops his appeal to make himself eligible for transfer back to Libya under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement signed by the UK Government.”

The UN appointed special observer Hans Kochler said the poll result was “encouraging,” and accused authorities of a scandalous cover up.

"A full public inquiry is long overdue. Since April 2002 I have repeatedly called for such a measure,” he said.

“So far, neither the British nor Scottish political and judicial establishment has shown any genuine interest in finding out the real causes of the Lockerbie tragedy. To the contrary, the course of justice has been obstructed in numerous instances. It is high time that the public demands its right to full and uncensored disclosure of all the evidence of the Lockerbie case and all facts of the scandalous cover-up and delaying tactics we have seen since the first appeal decision.”

Professor Robert Black, instrumental in brokering the Zeist trial said he “wholeheartedly supports the call for a public enquiry into the Lockerbie case.

“There are so many grave concerns about the trial and the verdict that it is difficult to see how the Scottish criminal justice system can have its legitimacy restored without one,” he added.

Justice for Megrahi supporter honoured

[Journalist Kate Adie, a signatory member of the Justice for Megrahi campaign, has been awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret University. The following account is from yesterday’s edition of The Edinburgh Reporter:]

Kate Adie was awarded an honorary doctorate in recognition of her contribution to news reporting and our understanding of world events. (...)

The University was delighted to award Kate Adie, one of the UK highest profile journalists, with a Degree of Doctors of Letters at the graduation ceremony held in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall.

Dressed in flak jacket, helmet and holding a microphone whilst crouching on front-lines, Kate Adie became an iconic figure associated with breaking news from some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones.  She is particularly well known for her reporting of significant international events including the student uprising in China when she received a gun-shot wound to her elbow whilst reporting events in Tiananmen Square. She has also reported on turbulence and conflicts across the world such as in Northern Ireland, the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, the first Gulf War, the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the 1997 uprising in Albania and the civil war in Sierra Leone in 2000.

Kate hung up her flak jacket and helmet in 2003 to become a freelance journalist. Since then she has written five books, been a regular presenter on BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent, and won numerous awards including three Royal Television Society awards, the Richard Dimbleby Award from BAFTA in 1990, the Broadcasting Press Guild’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting, and an OBE in 1993.

A blast from the past

[On this date in 2000 the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist, which had begun on 3 May, was adjourned until 11 July. I posted on The Lockerbie Trial website, edited by Ian Ferguson and me, the following summary of what could be regarded as having been established by the evidence at the time of the adjournment.]

Apart from graphically setting the scene by establishing that Pan Am 103 was destroyed over Lockerbie and that 270 people were killed as a result, how far does the evidence led to date go towards establishing the case set out in the indictment against the two accused persons? 

On the assumption that the witnesses who have so far given evidence which is favourable to the Crown case are accepted by the judges as being credible (ie honest and truthful) and reliable (ie accurate in their observation and recollection of events) -- and in the light of defence challenges in cross-examination regarding eg the accuracy of record keeping, the provenance of certain crucial items of wreckage (where, when and by whom they were found; through whose hands they thereafter passed) and the competence and neutrality of certain expert witnesses, judicial acceptance of the credibility and reliability of witnesses cannot be regarded as a foregone conclusion -- it is possible that the following might be held to have been provisionally established, always subject to any later contrary evidence which may be led by the prosecution or the defence.

1.  That the seat of the explosion was in a particular Samsonite suitcase (which contained clothing manufactured in Malta and sold both there and elsewhere) at or near the bottom of a particular aluminium luggage container (AVE 4041).

2.  That the bomb had been contained in a black Toshiba RT SF 16 cassette recorder.

3.  That a fragment of circuit board from an MST-13 timer manufactured by MeBo AG formed part of the timing mechanism which detonated the bomb.

4.  That MeBo AG supplied MST-13 timers to the Libyan army, as well as to other customers such as the East German Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi).

5.  That the first-named accused, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, was known to the owners of MeBo AG;  that he was involved, in an official capacity (possibly as a member of the Libyan intelligence services), in obtaining for Libya electronic equipment (including timers) from MeBo;  and that a company of which he was a principal for a time had accommodation in the premises occupied by MeBo in Zurich.

6.  That the first-named accused possessed and used Libyan passports in false names.

7.  That the first-named accused, on occasion under the false name of Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamad, visited Malta on a number of occasions in 1988, including the night of 20/21 December.

No evidence has as yet been led to attempt to establish (a) that the Samsonite suitcase containing the bomb was launched on its fatal progress from Malta (as distinct from being directly loaded onto Pan Am 103 at Heathrow, or starting its journey at Frankfurt) or (b) that the clothing in the suitcase was purchased in Malta by either of the accused.  It is when the prosecution advances evidence on these two matters that it will be possible to say that evidence which is positively incriminatory of the accused has been led.  That stage has not yet been reached; but it is anticipated that it is with the chapter of evidence relating specifically to these matters that the trial will reconvene on 11 July 2000.

Megrahi petition on Justice Committee agenda for three years

On this date three years ago the following item, headed MSPs call for independent inquiry into Lockerbie was posted on this blog.

[This is the headline over a report just published on the STV News website. It reads as follows:]

Petition will be referred to Justice Committee as MSP demands 'truth must come out'.

MSPs have said further talks should take place on calls to hold an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing conviction.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted ten years ago of the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. The attack resulted in 270 deaths.

The Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee agreed to refer a petition calling for an inquiry, lodged by pressure group Justice for Megrahi, to Holyrood's Justice Committee for further consideration.

Committee member SNP MSP Bill Walker said it was important that "the truth" surrounding the issue is revealed.

He added: "I am desperate that the truth of this whole matter should come out. The truth must come out and we must do everything in our power to help it come out.

"This should go to the Justice Committee.

"This terrible thing happened a long time ago now and we must get to the truth sooner rather than later."

The petition, which was lodged by the group last year, calls on Holyrood to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 conviction.

Justice Committee convener Christine Grahame sat on the Public Petitions Committee in the last session.

During previous discussions on this issue, she said: "There are so many conspiracy theories around now that I think it's time that we had a clean, clear look at the role of Scottish justice in this.

"The issue is not whether Libya, or any other country, was guilty. The issue is, was Mr al-Megrahi rightly convicted, and we have not heard the answer to that yet."

The Scottish Government has already refused the petition's call for an inquiry into the conviction.

[A similar report has now appeared on the BBC News website. A report in Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.

This is a stunning victory for the Justice for Megrahi campaign and for all of those who have supported its petition, particularly since the committee clerk seemed in his agenda note to be gently hinting that the petition be kicked into touch.]

JFM’s petition remains on the agenda of the Justice Committee, three years after it was referred to it by the Public Petitions Committee, so that the committee can maintain a watching brief over Lockerbie developments.

No visible progress on Lockerbie "live investigation"

What follows is an item published on this blog on this date three years ago.

[The lead story in today's edition of the Maltese newspaper The Independent on Sunday reads as follows:]

Just when Malta thought it may have been seeing the infamy attached to it by way of the Lockerbie disaster subsiding, Scottish prosecutors are looking into the prospect of retrying acquitted Lockerbie bomber Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah.

The prospect, if realised, would reopen an ugly chapter in recent Maltese history as having been alleged to be the place where the bomb, concealed in a suitcase, was first loaded. The bomb was eventually loaded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in Christmas 1988 killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.

But the Scottish authorities appear unwilling to let the matter die a natural death following the acquittal and the subsequent guilty verdict and release of the second accused person, and rightly so seeing that a new legal window has now opened up.

A change in double jeopardy laws now provides the possibility of an accused person to stand trial a second time if compelling new evidence surfaces, and a specialist unit at the Crown Office in Edinburgh is in the process of re-examining the evidence against Mr Fhimah to ascertain the potential strength of such a case.

Mr Fhimah, a former station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta, had been accused of helping Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi place the bomb into the luggage system at Malta International Airport, where it was claimed the bomb’s fateful journey had begun.

Mr Fhimah had been acquitted in the Lockerbie trial at The Hague in 2001 after his defence argued the case against him was nothing more than “inference upon inference upon inference upon inference leading to an inference”.

Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the co-accused, had been convicted and the rest of his story is by now well known. He was granted a compassionate release from a Scottish prison in August 2009 just before he was about to appeal his guilty verdict, on the grounds that he was suffering from prostate cancer and had only a short time left to live. He is still alive.

But more than merely seeking once again to bring Mr Fhimah to justice, the Crown Office believes that the collapse of Libya’s Gaddafi regime could provide evidence for still further Lockerbie prosecutions.

Scottish prosecutors recently interviewed Libyan defector Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi’s former foreign minister and intelligence chief, when he was on British soil, and it is believed a number of questions about Mr Fhimah had been raised during the interview.

In an interview with The Times of London, the new Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, QC, appealed for Koussa’s fellow high-ranking Libyan defector, former justice minister Mustafa Mohammed Abdul Jalil, to come forward with information on the bombing. Mr Abdul Jalil, who is now the head of the provisional Libyan government in Benghazi, had said in a number of interviews that he had evidence of Gaddafi’s involvement in the 1988 bombing.

In one interview, he had told Swedish newspaper Expressen that Gaddafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. “I have proof that Gaddafi gave the order about Lockerbie,” he said, but did not describe the proof.

“To hide it, he [Gaddafi] did everything in his power to get al-Megrahi back from Scotland,” Abdel-Jalil was quoted as saying.

Mr Mulholland meanwhile told The Times of London in the interview, “I cannot send our investigators into an unsafe place but he [Fhimah] could pick up the phone. [RB: Surely the "he" Mulholland is referring to is Abdel-Jalil.] If he has relevant information on Lockerbie we would be delighted to see it.

“If a meeting can be arranged we would be prepared to see him in another country. The interview with Moussa Koussa was easier to arrange because he was in UK jurisdiction so it was quicker.”

[As I have said before on this blog, there will be no re-trial of Lamin Fhimah or any trial of Colonel Gaddafi for the bombing of Pan Am 103. The Crown Office is perfectly well aware that the evidence simply does not exist to make a conviction a realistic prospect; and that the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi on the evidence led at Zeist was a travesty perpetrated by a credulous court which has long since been exposed, by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission amongst many others.]

Three years later there are no signs of any move to re-indict Lamin Fhimah or, indeed, that the Crown Office’s much vaunted “live investigation” is making any progress in uncovering supposed Libyan accomplices who can be charged and tried.