Lockerbie verdict 'politically influenced'

[This is the headline over a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2001. It reads as follows:]

A United Nations observer at the trial of two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing has said the judgment appeared to be politically influenced.

Speaking at a conference on the trial at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Austrian philosophy Professor Hans Köchler said there appeared to be pressure from the USA and UK.

Prof Köchler was one of five people appointed to observe the trial held at the Scottish Court in Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of the killing of 270 people in the 1988 bomb attack on Pan Am Flight 103.

His co-accused Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah was acquitted and has since returned to a hero's welcome in Tripoli.

Prof Köchler, who said his views were his own and not those of the United Nations, said: "The present judgment is logically inconsistent.

"You cannot come out with a verdict of guilty for one and innocent for the other when they were both being tried with the same evidence.

"In my opinion, there seemed to be considerable political influence on the judges and the verdict.

"My guess is that it came from the United States and the United Kingdom. This was my impression.”

The Innsbruck University professor said he had submitted his report on the trial to UN General Secretary Kofi Annan, who had forwarded it to the Scottish authorities.

The conference is expected to discuss Libyan demands for sanctions to be abolished.

Both US President George W Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair have said that sanctions will not be lifted until Libya accepts responsibility for the bombing and pays compensation.

Al Megrahi's legal team are appealing against his conviction.

[RB: A fuller account by Neil Mackay in the following day’s Sunday Herald can be read here.]

First appearance of Megrahi and Fhimah in Scottish court

[On this date in 1999 Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah made their first appearance in a Scottish court. What follows is excerpted from a report by Ian Black in The Guardian:]

Two Libyans accused of murder and conspiracy in connection with the Lockerbie bombing yesterday made their first appearance before a Scottish court which has been convened in the Netherlands.

Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi, aged 46, and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, aged 42, allegedly Libyan intelligence agents, were charged in a hearing before Graham Cox, sheriff principal of Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway. They will be committed for trial on April 15.

Before the arraignment at Camp Zeist, a former US air base now under Scottish jurisdiction, officials spent two hours reading out to the men the warrants for their arrest in Arabic and English as well as the names of each of the 270 people who died on Pan Am Flight 103 and on the ground in Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.

The two men were remanded in custody at HM Prison Zeist.

The Libyans appeared separately at the five-minute hearing, accompanied by lawyers, UN observers and interpreters. Each spoke once, to say 'yes'' in Arabic to confirm their identities. Both men deny the charges.

The accused left Tripoli on a UN plane on Monday, more than seven years after first being indicted in Scotland and the US.

Yesterday Scottish police were fingerprinting, photographing them and taking DNA samples.

Monday's handover marked the end of a diplomatic and legal struggle to bring the alleged bombers to court. It has led to the suspension of the UN sanctions on Libya imposed in 1992 to force their surrender. The Security Council has said it would consider lifting the sanctions altogether if Libya publicly renounces terrorism and complies with other UN demands.

British firms are now waiting to resume potentially lucrative trading links with Libya, but both the Foreign Office and the Department of Trade and Industry warned yesterday that the formality of lifting sanctions could take months to complete.

The British Libyan Business Group, a lobbying organisation, said that it was planning a direct flight to Libya to 'fly the flag and open negotiations for major business development'. Lord Steel, the Liberal peer, and MPs Teddy Taylor and Tam Dalyell are among the public figures being invited to join it.

Italian and French firms, competing for the lion's share of the Libyan market, are already planning similar promotional flights. (...)

In 1992 the value of British exports to Libya was £228 million while £162 million worth of goods were imported. Most British exports were industrial machinery and equipment, pharmaceuticals, chemical materials and products and electrical appliances. The main imports were petroleum products and organic chemicals.

In another clear sign that Libya wants to move quickly back to business as usual, Libyan Arab Airlines said yesterday it was considering resuming international flights after the lifting of the UN flight ban.

But a long legal haul is only just beginning. Under Scottish law, the trial should start in 110 days but lawyers for the accused are expected to ask for an extension to give them more time to prepare their defence, which could delay the trial's start by between six months and a year.

The Zeist trial is to be heard, uniquely, by a three-judge panel but no jury. It is expected to last a year or longer. If convicted, the suspects will serve their sentences in Barlinnie jail, Glasgow, Scotland's highest-security prison, with the unprecedented privilege of being under permanent observation by UN monitors.

Lockerbie suspects head for trial

[This is the headline over a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 1999. It reads as follows:]

The two men suspected of the Lockerbie airline bombing more than 10 years ago have arrived in the Netherlands to face trial.

As a result the UN Security Council has suspended sanctions against Libya.

The men were finally handed over into the custody of United Nations officials at Tripoli airport on Monday morning.

During the handover ceremony, suspected bomber Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi told Libyan television that he and his co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, were going to prove their innocence to the world.

The two men gestured with victory signs as they boarded the plane bound for the Netherlands, escorted by the UN's chief legal adviser, Hans Corell.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed the surrender of the suspects.

"I am looking forward to the earliest possible resumption of Libya's relations with the rest of the international community," Mr Annan told a news conference in New York.

The UN imposed sanctions on Libya for its refusal to surrender the two men.

United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Robin Cook described the handover of the suspects as "an historic moment".

"It is the end of a 10-year diplomatic stalemate, and it justifies the initiative we launched last year for a trial in a third country."

The US described the handover as a "positive step."

"This is clearly welcome news, although long overdue," White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said.

The two suspects are expected to be tried before Scottish judges, in a specially-convened court at the Camp Zeist airbase near Utrecht.

Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie in 1988, and a large piece of the fuselage fell onto the Scottish town.

The crash killed 259 people on board the plane, and another 11 on the ground.

The handover of the two men is the culmination of a decade of diplomatic efforts to find a solution which would satisfy the governments of Libya, the UK and the United States.

Western governments and the families of those killed in the bombing have maintained that a Libyan trial would not ensure a fair hearing.

Tripoli did not want the suspects to be sent to the UK.

Setting up a temporary Scottish court on the soil of a third country was put forward as a compromise solution.

The deal was eventually clinched with the intervention of leaders from South Africa, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Jane Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, said she was "very relieved" at the news of the handover.

"Obviously nothing can bring back the precious people that we have lost and that still hurts," Mrs Swire said.

"At least this is a good message for the world. People who are accused of wicked crimes like this are brought to justice."

The trial arrangements are said to be unprecedented in legal history, since they involve the establishment of a temporary court under the jurisdiction of one country, within the borders of another country.

After the suspects arrive in the Netherlands, they will have to be extradited from Dutch to Scottish custody, and the Zeist airbase has temporarily been declared Scottish territory.

The suspects must face a preliminary hearing within two days.

The trial should begin within 110 days, but given the complexities of the case, the defence is bound to request a postponement meaning the trial may not start for many months.

[RB: The above report was accompanied by another, headlined Analysis: Legal firsts for Lockerbie trial.]

Police officer recalls Lockerbie bomber arrest

[What follows is taken from a report just published on the BBC News website:]

A senior police officer has spoken of the moment he arrested the man later convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

Mike Leslie, who has retired after 30 years service, said Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was "bewildered and dazed".

It took five hours to read the arrest warrant to the Libyan intelligence officer - but he gave no reaction. (...)

He was tried at a specially convened Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

After serving eight years in prison, he was controversially released on compassionate grounds following a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Mr Leslie was one of three officers from Dumfries and Galloway who were at Camp Zeist when Al-Megrahi arrived there in 1999.

He said: "I think he was pretty bewildered, dazed by the events that were unfolding in front of him.

"I don't think ultimately he ever anticipated... that he would be handed over by Gaddafi.

"I actually read the warrant over to him.

"It took approximately five hours because you had to read the warrant over a line at a time, it went through an interpreter and also as part of that process, the 270 names of the victims had to be read over as well."

The former chief superintendent added: "There was never any reaction from him. It was very much staid and what you would expect from someone, I would imagine, that's been trained to give no reaction.

"But I think it boils down to the fact that he was pretty well bewildered by the fact that his country had handed him over."

Three years later, after Al-Megrahi lost an appeal against his conviction, Mr Leslie escorted him to a helicopter that was to fly him from the Netherlands to Scotland.

Mr Leslie said: "The most satisfying aspect for me was the fact that having been at Lockerbie on the night it happened, the aftermath and then arresting him, reading the warrant over to him and getting the opportunity to look him in the eyes when he was sitting there in front of me.

"I got a lot of satisfaction out of that and I got a lot of satisfaction for the families, I think - the fact that justice was being brought to him.

Mr Leslie recently retired as divisional commander of Police Scotland in Dumfries and Galloway.

[RB: Further versions of this story can be read here and here.]

Dignitaries invited to Libya to witness handover of suspects

[What follows is the text of a report (based on material from The Associated Press news agency) published on the CNN website on this date in 1999:]

Arab dignitaries have been invited by Libya to witness the handover of two suspects in the 1988 Pan Am bombing, a further sign their promised extradition is imminent, an Arab League official said Sunday.

However, in Libya, secrecy has surrounded the operation and officials contacted by telephone have refused to divulge details about the much anticipated handover.

Arab diplomats said on Saturday that Libyan leader Col Moammar Gadhafi has ordered the passports of the two suspects returned to them.

Ahmed Ben Heli, the Arab League's Assistant Secretary-General said his delegation would fly later Sunday to the Tunisian airport of Jerba, from where they would be driven to the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Representatives from six Arab countries also would attend the handover to a United Nations representative, he said.

"It is good news for the Libyans -- indeed, for all Arabs -- that this quandary is finally over," Ben Heli told The Associated Press before leaving Cairo, site of the League's headquarters.

The move followed reports that the chief UN legal counsel, Hans Corell, had left for Europe on Friday on his way to Libya to arrange for the handover.

Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi are to be tried under Scottish law in the Netherlands.

The December 21, 1988, bombing of the Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people -- mostly Americans and Britons -- in the air and on the ground.

The two Libyans, allegedly former intelligence agents, were suspected of planting a suitcase bomb on the plane.

Ben Heli said he would represent the League's secretary-general, Esmat Abdel-Meguid, who could not make the trip because of other commitments.

The Algerian diplomat said the Libyan government also has invited foreign ministers of six Arab countries that formed a contact group set up by the League in 1992 to help negotiate an end to the crisis with the United States and Britain.

Egypt, a member of the group, has announced it is sending a senior minister. The other countries expected to send high-ranking officials were Syria, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania.

Arab diplomats in Cairo said that Libya also has asked South Africa and the Organization of African Unity to send representatives.

After a decade of insistence that Fhimah, 42, and al-Megrahi, 46, be extradited to the United States or Britain for trial, the United States agreed in August to a trial in the Netherlands.

Libya said last month it would turn the men over on or before Tuesday.

Terms of the deal call for the UN Security Council to suspend sanctions imposed in 1992, including an air embargo, as soon as the suspects arrive in the Netherlands.

The neutral venue solution: variations on a theme

[What follows is the text of a report that was published in The Herald on this date in 1995:]

Doubts over the feasibility of arranging for a Scottish court and jury to sit abroad are likely to prevent Labour from supporting an amendment to the new Criminal Justice Bill which could bring about a trial for the Lockerbie bombing.

The amendment, tabled by former Scottish Office minister Allan Stewart, would allow a Scottish court and jury to sit abroad for the trial of the two Libyans charged with carrying out the attack.

Libya has refused to hand over the men, who are accused of murdering the 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 exploded above Lockerbie in 1988, claiming they would not receive a fair trial in Scotland, or the United States.

Mr Stewart's amendment offers a potential solution by keeping the case

within the jurisdiction of the Scottish legal system while satisfying Libyan demands that the trial be held in a neutral third county, possibly The Hague in the Netherlands.

The amendment will be opposed by the Government when it comes up in the Commons Committee considering the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. With a Government majority of one on the committee, Labour's support for Mr Stewart could force a defeat.

However, although the Scottish Labour leadership is sympathetic to the demands of those campaigning for a solution to the impasse, it is understood to be concerned about the feasibility of having a Scottish court sit abroad.

Sources suggest there are ''fundamental problems'' including the need to alter Scots law to fit in with European law which could result in a ''mongrel court''. However, Labour is not yet prepared to dismiss Mr Stewart's clause, and will wait for the committee debate, expected after Easter.

Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who sits on the committee and who will support the amendment, said yesterday he would fight to secure his party's backing. He said he had received assurances from Deputy Shadow Scottish Secretary John McFall that Labour would back the amendment. ''I would be astonished if we didn't,'' he said.

Yesterday Mr McFall, who leads for Labour on the committee, said his side would wait ''with interest'' to hear Mr Stewart explain his idea.

Mr Stewart proposes to visit Libya from next Friday, to meet Libyan government officials with the aim of persuading them to accept his idea.

The former minister, who will announce details of his trip today, will write to all the MPs on the committee explaining the reasoning behind the new clause. He does not accept the argument that procedural difficulties would make it impossible for a Scottish court to sit in a third country.

Meanwhile, the British authorities yesterday refused to comment on a newspaper report which named an Arab businessman as the mastermind behind the Lockerbie bombing.

It claimed that Dr Ihsan Barbouti, who had offices in London and Malta, planned the attack, and received £3.2m from a Libyan account. Officially, Dr Barbouti died in 1990 after suffering a heart attack, but the newspaper suggests he may have faked his own death to avoid capture and trial.

[RB: A fuller account of the Ihsan Barbouti story can be read here.

Eventually, in summer 1998, a neutral venue solution to the Lockerbie impasse -- based on my January 1994 proposal -- was accepted by the United Kingdom and the United States.]

Cleaning up Hillary’s Libyan mess

[This is the headline over a long article by US investigative journalist Robert Parry that was published yesterday on the Consortium News website. The following are a few paragraphs from the beginning and the end, along with a passing reference to Lockerbie:]

Hillary Clinton’s signature project as Secretary of State – the “regime change” in Libya – is now sliding from the tragic to the tragicomic as her successors in the Obama administration adopt increasingly desperate strategies for imposing some kind of order on the once-prosperous North African country torn by civil war since Clinton pushed for the overthrow and murder of longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The problem that Clinton did much to create has grown more dangerous since Islamic State terrorists have gained a foothold in Sirte and begun their characteristic beheading of “infidels” as well as their plotting for terror attacks in nearby Europe.

There is also desperation among some Obama administration officials because the worsening Libyan fiasco threatens to undermine not only President Barack Obama’s legacy but Clinton’s drive for the Democratic presidential nomination and then the White House. So, the officials felt they had no choice but to throw caution to the wind or — to mix metaphors — some Hail Mary passes.

The latest daring move was a sea landing in Tripoli by the US/UN-formulated “unity government,” which was cobbled together by Western officials in hotel rooms in Morocco and Tunisia. But instead of “unity,” the arrival by sea threatened to bring more disunity and war by seeking to muscle aside two rival governments.

The sea landing at a naval base in Tripoli became necessary because one of those rival governments refused to let the “unity” officials fly into Libya’s capital. So, instead, the “unity” leaders entered Libya by boat from Tunisia and are currently operating from the naval base where they landed.

With this unusual move, the Obama administration is reminding longtime national security analysts of other fiascos in which Washington sought to decide the futures of other countries by shaping a government externally, as with the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s and the Iraqi National Congress in 2003, and then imposing those chosen leaders on the locals. (...)

Though Clinton and other “liberal interventionists” around Obama insisted that the goal was simply to protect Libyans from a possible slaughter, the U.S.-backed airstrikes inside Libya quickly expanded into a “regime change” operation, slaughtering much of the Libyan army.

Clinton’s State Department email exchanges revealed that her aides saw the Libyan war as a chance to pronounce a “Clinton doctrine,” bragging about how Clinton’s clever use of “smart power” could get rid of demonized foreign leaders like Gaddafi. But the Clinton team was thwarted when President Obama seized the spotlight when Gaddafi’s government fell.

But Clinton didn’t miss a second chance to take credit on Oct 20, 2011, after militants captured Gaddafi, sodomized him with a knife and then murdered him. Appearing on a TV interview, Clinton celebrated Gaddafi’s demise with the quip, “we came; we saw; he died.”

However, with Gaddafi and his largely secular regime out of the way, Islamic militants expanded their power over the country. Some were terrorists, just as Gaddafi had warned. (...)

Yet, on the campaign trail, Clinton continues to defend her judgment in instigating the Libyan war. She claims that Gaddafi had “American blood on his hands,” although she doesn’t spell out exactly what she’s referring to. There remain serious questions about the two primary incidents blamed on Libya in which Americans died – the 1986 La Belle bombing in Berlin and the bombing of Pan Am 107 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. (...)

The aftermath of the Clinton-instigated “regime change” in Libya also shows how little Clinton and other U.S. officials learned from the Iraq War disaster. Clinton has rejected any comparisons between her vote for the Iraq War in 2002 and her orchestration of the Libyan war in 2011, saying that “conflating” them is wrong. She also has sought to shift blame onto European allies who also pushed for the war.

Though her Democratic rival, Sen Bernie Sanders, hasn’t highlighted her key role in the Libya fiasco, Clinton can expect a tougher approach from the Republicans if she wins the nomination. The problem with the Republicans, however, is that they have obsessed over the details of the Benghazi incident, spinning all sorts of conspiracy theories, missing the forest for the trees.

Clinton’s ultimate vulnerability on Libya is that she was a principal author of another disastrous “regime change” that has spread chaos not only across the Middle East and North Africa but into Europe, where the entire European Union project, a major post-World War II accomplishment, is now in danger.

Clinton may claim she has lots of foreign policy experience, but the hard truth is that much of her experience has involved making grievous mistakes and bloody miscalculations.

A conclusion no reasonable tribunal could have reached on the evidence

[The following are excerpts from an article headlined Lockerbie mystery will remain, based on an interview with me, that was published in Lockerbie’s local weekly newspaper The Annandale Herald on this date in 2009:]

Q. You are credited with being one of the “architects” of the first trial at Camp Zeist. What was your involvement at that time?

A. My personal involvement in the aftermath of the destruction of Pan Am 103 began in early 1993. I was approached by representatives of a group of British businessmen whose desire to participate in major engineering works in Libya was being impeded by the UN sanctions that had been imposed on Libya in an attempt to compel the surrender for trial in Scotland or the United States of America of their two accused citizens. They asked if I would be prepared to provide independent advice to Libya with a view (it was hoped) to persuading them their citizens would obtain a fair trial if they were to surrender to the Scottish authorities. I submitted material setting out the essentials of Scottish solemn criminal procedure and the various protections embodied in it for accused persons. It was indicated to me that the Libyan government was satisfied regarding the fairness of a criminal trial in Scotland but, since Libyan law prevented the extradition of nationals for trial overseas, the ultimate decision would have to be one taken voluntarily by the accused persons themselves.

For this purpose a meeting was convened in Tripoli in October 1993 of the international team of lawyers appointed to represent the accused. I am able personally to testify to how much of a surprise and embarrassment it was to the Libyan government when the outcome of the meeting of the defence team was an announcement that the accused were not prepared to surrender themselves for trial in Scotland. At a private meeting I had in Tripoli a day later it was explained to me the primary reason for the unwillingness of the accused to stand trial in Scotland was their belief that, because of unprecedented pre-trial publicity over the years, a Scottish jury could not possibly bring to their consideration of the evidence the impartiality and open-mindedness accused persons are entitled to expect and that a fair trial demands.

I returned to Tripoli and in 1994 and presented a detailed proposal that a trial be held outside Scotland, ideally in the Netherlands, in which the governing law and procedure would be that followed in Scottish criminal trials on indictment but with the jury of 15 persons replaced by a panel of judges. In a letter to me it was stated the suspects would voluntarily surrender themselves for trial before a tribunal so constituted. The Deputy Foreign Minister of Libya stated his government approved of the proposal. I submitted the relevant documents to the Foreign Office in London and the Crown Office in Edinburgh. Their immediate response was that this scheme was impossible, impracticable and inherently undesirable, with the clear implication that I had taken leave of what few senses nature had endowed me with. However, from about late July 1998, following interventions supporting my “neutral venue” scheme from, amongst others, President Nelson Mandela, there began to be leaks from UK government sources to the effect that a policy change over Lockerbie was imminent; and on 24 August 1998 the governments of the United Kingdom and United States announced they had reversed their stance on the matter of a “neutral venue” trial. And after a number pitfalls were avoided, the suspects surrendered themselves for trial.

Q. What is your view of the legal process involving the case since then?

A. The outcome of the trial was a real shock. Since the day of the verdict I have consistently maintained the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi was contrary to the weight of the evidence and that the finding of guilt against him was a conclusion no reasonable tribunal could have reached on that evidence. I am glad to say my view appears to be shared by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, for this is one of the grounds on which it referred Megrahi’s case back to the High Court for a further appeal. As someone who has practised, taught and (as a part-time judge) administered the criminal law of Scotland for 35 years, I can confidently say that, in my opinion, the conviction of Megrahi is the worst and most blatant miscarriage of justice to have occurred in Scotland for a hundred years.

Q. What led to the formation of the Justice for Megrahi campaign?

A. What precipitated the establishment of the campaign was the refusal by the High Court to release Megrahi on bail pending his appeal, even though advanced and incurable prostate cancer had been diagnosed. The campaign is intended to create a climate of opinion in which his release on bail by the court, or his compassionate release by the Scottish Government, can be achieved so he can spend what time remains to him with his family at their house in Newton Mearns.

Q. What is your experience of meeting and working with victims’ families?

A. One of the great privileges accorded to me through my involvement in the Lockerbie case has been meeting, and forming friendships with, relatives of individuals killed aboard Pan Am 103: delightful people like Jim and Jane Swire, John and Lisa Mosey and Marina Larracoechea. My contacts with other relatives, particularly some American ones, have been less pleasurable. For some of them, anyone who expresses anything less than absolutely uncritical acceptance of the trial verdict and of Libyan culpability is a rogue and a scoundrel. How they will cope with the quashing of Megrahi’s conviction (which I believe to be inevitable if the current appeal goes the full distance) I hesitate to think. (...)

Q. The second appeal hearing is due to start at the end of April. What are your expectations of that?

A. If the appeal goes the full distance, I have no doubt whatsoever that Megrahi’s conviction will be quashed. But if his medical condition deteriorates dramatically, he may decide to apply for transfer back to Libya to die there in the bosom of his family. It is a condition of applying for prisoner transfer that there be no live legal proceedings in that prisoner’s case. This means in order to qualify, Megrahi would have to abandon his present appeal. I am cynical enough about Crown Office and Scottish Government Justice Department motives to believe this is the outcome these bodies devoutly wish to achieve. There are those — civil servants and others — whose careers and reputations have been built upon the Lockerbie conviction. For them, the ideal outcome is for the current appeal to be abandoned. If it proceeds the full distance, embarrassment (and perhaps worse) are inevitable.

Q. What is it about the Lockerbie case in general that has kept you so involved over the years?

A. The injustice of it. Abdelbaset Megrahi should never have been convicted. This is so obvious to anyone who looks at the evidence and at the trial court’s judgment that there must be something wrong with a system that has already taken more than eight years to reach a point where it might just be about to be rectified.

Q. Do you think there will ever be a satisfactory conclusion to the Lockerbie case?

A. I think Megrahi’s name will be cleared. I only hope he is alive to see it. Beyond that, I doubt if we will ever now find out who or what actually caused the destruction of Pan Am 103. The political (and indeed journalistic) will to investigate what truly happened seems to me to be lacking. And people like me and like those relatives who have never been convinced by the officially-approved explanation are growing old and tired. Clearing Megrahi is the best that we can hope to achieve, I’m afraid.