Why MI6 disastrously spurned Mossad’s Heathrow alert

[This is the headline over an article by barrister David Wolchover that was published on the Jewish News website on 16 May 2016. It reads as follows:]

In my recent article on the part played by President Hassan Rouhani of Iran in the bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, I stated that Israeli intelligence had warned MI6 that Heathrow was the likely target for planting a bomb on a passenger aircraft but the warning was ignored because of a major rift between British and Israeli intelligence services. A number of readers have expressed curiosity about the episode.

During tensions in the Gulf earlier that year the US Navy had negligently shot down a packed Iranian Airbus. Israel and American intelligence soon learnt that for a multi-million dollar bounty Ahmed Jibril’s Syrian-based “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command” – experts in planting bombs on passenger planes – had been contracted by Iran to destroy an American airliner in revenge. Infiltrated Israeli agents also learnt that Heathrow was the prime target for the planting of a bomb on a US plane and British intelligence was duly alerted.

The significance of that warning was its prescience. Detailed scrutiny of the totality of the Lockerbie evidence proves conclusively that, contrary to the official story, the suitcase containing the bomb was placed by a terrorist in a portable luggage bin in Heathrow’s “interline” shed before the bin was taken out to the doomed Jumbo Jet. But Iran was not merely the paymaster. As reported in my earlier article, an Israeli intelligence source has confirmed that Iran in fact provided key logistical support. The bomb was flown into Heathrow on board an IranAir cargo jet which docked 200 yards from the Interline shed and was taken across to the shed by a PFLP-GC terrorist, named by my source as Jibril’s nephew, Marwad Bushnaq.

To learn why MI6 spurned the warning we must go back to the summer of 1988 when MI5 and Special Branch officers arrested a suspected member of the Palestinian Fatah Force 17 faction. But their captive turned out to be a Mossad double agent and in the light of other intelligence about Mossad’s activities in the UK the British Government concluded that the Israelis had been running an extensive network of operatives throughout the realm, engaging in the infiltration of various Fatah and PFLP cells. Since it was accepted that a number of Palestinian activist groups were cultivating close links with Irish republican terrorist bands it might have been supposed that British intelligence would have relished the chance to pool resources with their Israel counterparts. But other considerations prevailed. Whitehall was bound to show its outrage that Mossad had unilaterally made the UK Israel’s own private intelligence fiefdom.

Older readers may recall the dramatic outcome. On 17 June 1988 Mossad’s London station chief Arieh Regev and four other agents with diplomatic cover were sensationally expelled.

According to the late Samuel Katz’s 1993 book Israel Versus Jibril (Paragon, p205) Mossad alerted MI6 in late November 1988 that a Middle Eastern terrorist gang, probably one of the Syrian-sponsored anti-Arafat groups, would try to sabotage an airliner departing from Europe in the run-up to the Christmas holidays. Katz noted that the British dismissed the warning as no “hot tip” but a purely self-serving sham by which Mossad supposed they could worm their way back into MI6’s good books. He gave no further details of the warning and simply referenced an article by Yisrael Rosenblat in Ma’ariv Sofshavu’a (the Israeli newspaper’s weekend magazine) for November 22, 1991.

In fact my source confirmed that the warning was much more specific than that described in Rosenblat’s report. MI6 were very definitely told that because of the appalling shambles in Heathrow’s security (with airside passes easily obtained under the counter, hundreds having gone missing during the rebuilding of Terminal 3) the airport was Number One target to get a bomb into the hold of a wide-bodied plane operated by one of the premier American carriers.

Whitehall’s hostile attitude was conveyed back to Israel by an exasperated British intermediary and Mossad washed its hands of the whole business. The catastrophic aftermath may explain the desperate efforts to show that the bomb was not infiltrated at Heathrow. Doubtless the response of the joint intelligence chiefs to this revelation will be silence rather than denial but it is enough to hope that these days our security services are more pragmatic and less Israel-averse.

Statement by Aamer Anwar on MacAskill revelations

[What follows is the text of a statement issued today by Aamer Anwar:]

Statement issued by Aamer Anwar - lawyer instructed on behalf of the family of the late Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and Dr Jim Swire and other British relatives.

LOCKERBIE REVELATIONS BY EX-JUSTICE SECRETARY KENNY MACKASKILL

In 2014 I submitted an application with the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) seeking to overturn the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for murder. That application was submitted on behalf of Dr Jim Swire, Rev’d John F Mosey and 22 other British relatives of passengers who died on board Pan Am Flight 103 and also the six immediate family members of the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. The Commission determined on the 28th June 2007 that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice in relation to his conviction and identified six grounds for referring the case to the High Court. We asked the Commission to reconfirm these six grounds and address the issue of whether it was in the interests of justice to refer the case to the High Court for a further appeal. Sadly last November the SCCRC refused the application for referral. Today family members of the victims were angered and shocked by Kenny MacKaskill’s claims that Mr al-Megrahi’s release was part of a larger scheme to secure £13billion oil deals and £350 million worth of defence contracts for British firms. If true that is a shocking abuse of our justice system. An Appeal was commenced but following the diagnosis of terminal cancer it was suddenly abandoned in 2009. At the time the British Government and Scottish Government denied they played any role in pressurising Mr al-Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release but also denied that squalid deals for oil or weapons were behind his release. Of course a prisoner transfer was never open if the appeal was ongoing, but it was claimed that al-Megrahi had no way of knowing that Kenny MacAskill would ultimately opt for compassionate release rather than prisoner transfer, but it is also alleged that al-Megrahi was led to believe that he would not be released unless he dropped his appeal. Mr Megrahi was convicted on the word of a Maltese shop owner Gauci who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in multiple statements. Yet it is now accepted by the ex-Justice Secretary, that Megrahi might not have bought those clothes found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft. Yet Gauci was central to al-Megrahi’s conviction because the clothes recovered from the suitcase that carried the bomb onto Pan Am 103 were traced back to his shop. The case of al-Megrahi has been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history. A reversal of the verdict would have meant that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom stood exposed as having lived a monumental lie for 25 years and having imprisoned a man they knew to be innocent for ten years. Sadly once again the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system has been damaged both at home and internationally. The truth will only ever be exposed by allowing the Appeal Court to consider a fresh appeal challenging the original verdict. Background Notes   http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/lockerbie-exclusive-we-publish-the-report-that-could-have-cleared-megrahi.2012036248 http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/12/lockerbie-bombing-abdelbaset-al-megrahi http://www.thenational.scot/news/kenny-macaskill-reported-to-police-over-claims-about-lockerbie-bombing-trial.17646 http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/lockerbie-bomber-appeal-case-dropped-6775520 http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13198408.Court_to_rule_on_Lockerbie_appeal/

Lawyer calls for fresh appeal over Lockerbie bombing

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

Revelations by former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill about the decision to release the only man ever tried over the Lockerbie bombing, should trigger a fresh appeal challenging his conviction, according to lawyer Aamer Anwar.

Mr Anwar, who applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission for a review of the case in 2014, acting on behalf of some of the relatives of those killed in the terrorist attack, said only an appeal could restore the credibility of Scottish justice.

A previous attempted appeal was abandoned in 2009 after Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi was diagnosed with cancer, and the Libyan was subsequently released on compassionate grounds.

However Mr Anwar claimed that a forthcoming book on the case by Mr MacAskill had revealed that prior plans for a prisoner transfer agreement between the UK and Libya had been part of a larger scheme to secure £13 billion in oil deals and £350m of defence contracts.

Mr MacAskill says the Scottish Government opposed any prisoner transfer agreement that involved Mr Al-Megrahi, despite pressure from then Home Secretary Jack Straw.

Mr Anwar claimed Mr Al-Megrahi had also faced pressure, leading him to believe he would not be released if he went ahead with his appeal.

He said:"The case of Al-Megrahi has been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history. A reversal of the verdict would have meant that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom ... imprisoned a man they knew to be innocent for ten years.

"Sadly once again the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system has been damaged both at home and internationally. The truth will only ever be exposed by allowing the Appeal Court to consider a fresh appeal challenging the original verdicts."

Mr MacAskill was not available for comment.

[RB: I suspect that this report omits a reference by Mr Anwar to the MacAskill revelation that, above all others, points to the need for a fresh appeal: namely, the concession that the items from Malta that surrounded the bomb were not purchased by Abdelbaset Megrahi. If the trial court had not found (wrongly) that he was the purchaser, it could not and would not have convicted him.

Aamer Anwar has confirmed on Twitter that my suspicion was correct:]

Aamer Anwar ‏@AamerAnwar  2m2 minutes agoGlasgow, Scotland

@rblackqc spot on Robert I mentioned that MacKaskill said he didn't believe Megrahi purchased the clothes!

CIA officer aboard Pan Am 103

[The website Libya: News and Views contains an item (sourced to The Washington Post) dated 17 May 2000 that reads as follows:]

A new book published this week reveals that CIA officer Matt Gannon died aboard Pan Am Flight 103, a jumbo jet that was blown out of the sky in 1988 by, US officials believe, Libyan operatives in retaliation for US attacks on Libya in 1986. By coincidence, Gannon was the son-in-law of Thomas A Twetten, a top CIA official who helped plan the air strikes on Tripoli. Throughout the book, its author Ted Gup, a former Washington Post investigative reporter, describes how agency officials lied to family members about how their loved ones died to maintain "plausible deniability" and keep the CIA from being linked to controversial overseas missions.

[RB: I cannot find the article in question on The Washington Post’s website. But an article dated 15 May 2000 on the CBS News website contains the following:]

One of the 189 Americans killed when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, just before Christmas 1988 was a CIA officer, reports CBS News Correspondent Dan Raviv.

A new book, by former Time correspondent Ted Gup, says 34-year-old Matthew Gannon, an Arabic-speaking CIA officer, was returning from an undercover mission in Beirut "to gather intelligence on a number of terrorist cells."

The Book Of Honor also reveals that Gannon's father-in-law, Tom Twetten, was director of covert operations at the CIA at the time who helped plan the airstrikes on Tripoli. It's believed the Pan Am bombing was in retaliation for those raids.

Now retired in Vermont, Twetten told CBS News he has assured himself the two Libyans on trial are the bombers — "the right guys" — but they probably didn't know a CIA operative was aboard the doomed jet.

And, until now, neither did Americans.

"The agency maintains that identifying its casualties, even decades later, would endanger foreign nationals who may have provided the CIA with intelligence," writes Gup, a former Washington Post investigative reporter who now teaches journalism at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "But the oft-invoked argument wears thinner and thinner as the years wear on and bereaved families are asked to bear their losses in continued silence."

Gup reports agency officials often lie to family members about how their loved ones died to maintain "plausible deniability" and keep the CIA from being linked to controversial overseas missions.

[RB: A version of the well-known Pan Am 103 explanation involving Matthew Gannon and Charles McKee can be read here.]

MacAskill concession destroys foundation of Megrahi conviction

[Today’s Scottish newspapers have at last latched on to the most important revelation in the extract from Kenny MacAskill’s Lockerbie book that was published in The Sunday Times this week:]

The National:  Campaigners who believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was innocent of the Lockerbie bombing have reported former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to Police Scotland over his new book on the atrocity and the compassionate release of the only man ever convicted of it.

Justice for Megrahi had previously made a series of criminal allegations concerning the investigation and trial which they said would throw serious doubt on Megrahi’s conviction and “point to possible malpractice by Crown Office personnel, police and other prosecution witnesses”.

A spokesman for the group told The National yesterday: “We have made a formal report to Police Scotland in respect of Mr MacAskill’s book as we believe that some of the contents relate directly to our nine criminal allegations which are currently being investigated by the police.”

In a statement, a Police Scotland spokesman said: “We are aware of the imminent publication of the book and will assess any new information should it come to light.”

MacAskill’s book The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search for Justice is being serialised by a Sunday newspaper but has already come under fire from the architect of the Camp Zeist trial of Megrahi, the only man to be convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. Professor Robert Black QC said the book casts further doubt on the conviction.

MacAskill took the decision to release Megrahi in August 2009 on compassionate grounds. He was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and died three years later in Libya.

Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, told The National the most important thing to emerge from the book’s early extracts concerned the clothes that linked Megrahi to the bombing of PanAm flight 103.

He said MacAskill had written that “clothes in the suitcase that carried the bomb were acquired in Malta, though not by Megrahi. But if Megrahi didn’t buy the clothes, he was certainly involved”.

However, Black said: “This is huge. If the trial court hadn’t concluded that Megrahi bought the clothes in Gauci’s shop, he couldn’t have been convicted. This finding was absolutely crucial to the verdict.

“So Kenny is saying that the court was wrong on a matter absolutely essential to its verdict.”

Black also said MacAskill had cited among the reasons for his belief that Libya and Megrahi had been involved in the bombing “an alleged interview given by Colonel Gaddafi to The Washington Times in 2003”.

But he said: “There was no such 2003 interview. What MacAskill is referring to is the claim by the editor-in-chief of The Washington Times, Arnaud de Borchgrave, that in an off-the-record conversation in 1993 Gaddafi admitted that Libya played a part in a scheme to destroy an American aircraft which had been instigated by Iran.”

Black added there had been no mention of findings from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission that the conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of justice on six grounds. He said they included evidence in Dr Morag Kerr’s book Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies.

This, he said, established beyond reasonable doubt “that the suitcase containing the bomb did not arrive at Heathrow as unaccompanied baggage from Malta via Frankfurt but was already in the relevant luggage container before the feeder flight arrived”. (...)

Controversial identification was key to Megrahi's conviction

Central to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s conviction was his identification by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shop-owner, who testified that the Libyan had bought clothes that were later deemed to have been packed in the lethal suitcase bomb that brought down the PanAm flight.

In 19 separate statements made to police before the trial, Gauci had failed to positively identify Megrahi as the purchaser. During the trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, the shopkeeper was asked several times if he recognised anyone in the courtroom, but could only answer when a prosecutor pointed to Megrahi sitting in the left of the dock.

Gauci had also told police that the man who bought the clothes on either November 23 or December 7 was 6ft tall and more than 50 years of age. Megrahi was 5ft 8in tall, and in 1988 he was 36.

The shopkeeper said the buyer also purchased an umbrella because it was raining heavily outside. Yet Maltese meteorological records introduced by the defence team showed that while it did rain all day on November 23, there was almost certainly no rain on December 7.

If it did rain on the later date, the shower would have been barely enough to wet the pavement.

The Herald:  Campaigners claim a former Scottish minister has called into question the conviction of the only man found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing.

Former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill controversially released Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds after he was diagnosed with cancer.

But in a new book Mr MacAskill appears to dismiss crucial evidence that helped to convict Mr Megrahi.

He writes that he does not believe the claim he bought clothes in a store in Malta that were packed around the bomb.

He maintains, however. that Mr Megrahi played a role.

All 259 people on board and 11 on the ground where killed when a Pan-Am airliner exploded over Lockerbie in 1988.

James Robertson, of the Justice for Megrahi campaign group, said that MacAskill’s comments raised serious questions.

He said: “The most interesting thing in all this is that Kenny MacAskill has said that he does not believe that Megrahi was the man who bought those clothes.

"But this calls into account the whole Camp Zeist judgement and it would mean that Megrahi could not have possibly been behind the bombing.

“As Justice minister Kenny MacAskill repeatedly stuck to the line that he had no doubt Megrahi was guilty, but now appears to be saying the opposite.

“Alex Salmond also stuck to this line, and the Justice for Megrahi campaign will be asking if what was said in public was the same as was said in private.”

Press reaction to first extract from MacAskill book

There is quite extensive media coverage this morning of the extract from Kenny MacAskill’s book that was published yesterday in The Sunday Times. The issue that the media concentrate on -- to the exclusion of virtually all else -- is Kenny’s disclosure that, once the Scottish Government knew that the UK Government was absolutely adamant that Megrahi could not be excluded from the prisoner transfer agreement being negotiated with Libya, the Scottish Government sought political concessions from the UK Government as the price for its participation in the prisoner transfer process once the PTA was in force. The concessions sought were not in fact obtained.

Examples of such press coverage can be found here: The Scotsman; The Herald; The Times; the Daily Record; and the Daily Mail.

The National by contrast emphasises fear of reprisals if Megrahi died in a Scottish jail as a major factor motivating the decision to repatriate.

New Scottish Parliament post for Christine Grahame MSP

Christine Grahame MSP has been elected as one of the Scottish Parliament’s two Deputy Presiding Officers. Unlike the Presiding Officer him/herself, deputies do not relinquish their political party affiliations. It is also possible for them to serve as committee members and conveners (see Guidance on Committees, para 2.13) Ms Grahame was, of course, convener of the Justice Committee in the last parliament and is a signatory member of Justice for Megrahi. Committee memberships and convenerships in the newly elected parliament have yet to be arranged.

John Ashton excoriates Kenny MacAskill

John Ashton has posted on his Megrahi: You are my Jury website this evening a detailed critique of the extract from Kenny MacAskill’s Lockerbie book that was published in The Sunday Times today. Mr Ashton’s article is headed Kenny MacAskill’s bungled Lockerbie book and it consists of the relevant portions of the MacAskill extract followed by corrections and commentary. This serves to demonstrate serious inaccuracies, flaws and omissions. John Ashton’s article is a must read.

Trade deal link to Lockerbie bomber release

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

The politician who freed the Lockerbie bomber today reveals the full story of how the Westminster government made him eligible for return to Libya, including the role of trade deals potentially worth £13bn to British companies.

In a dramatic new book, serialised exclusively in The Sunday Times, former justice minister Kenny MacAskill also admits his decision to free one of the world’s most notorious terrorists was partly motivated by a fear of violent reprisals against Scots if the killer died in Scottish custody.

His account divulges:

•Ministers refused to travel with MacAskill amid threats to his life;

•The SNP sought concessions from Westminster in exchange for Megrahi’s possible return;

•His view on who was really responsible for Britain’s worst terrorist attack.

MacAskill claims the UK government made Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi eligible for return to his Libyan home under a “trade for terrorist plan” to try to secure a massive oil and gas deal for BP which was in doubt. He says Jack Straw, then UK justice secretary, shared the details in a “highly confidential” telephone call which casts new light on a controversy that has dogged Tony Blair since his 2007 “deal in the desert” with the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadaffi.

That deal was to give British industry access to Libyan oil reserves worth up to £13bn and £350m of defence contracts as the former rogue state was rehabilitated, and involved a prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) allowing offenders to be moved between the countries.

Six months after that desert summit, MacAskill claims Straw warned him Gadaffi was threatening to cancel the energy contact and award it to a US firm unless Megrahi was covered by the PTA, after learning the new SNP regime was trying to exempt him.

Sensing that the British government, which had previously been prepared to exempt Megrahi from the PTA, was going to give in to Libya’s demands, MacAskill reveals that he and Salmond then tried to extract concessions in exchange for the agreement.

Although the Scottish government denied this five years ago, MacAskill says the concessions sought were changes to the law to give Holyrood power to regulate firearms and to curb lawsuits from former prisoners in Scottish jails who had been forced to use slop-out buckets in their cells instead of toilets.

Straw rejected MacAskill’s claims as a “highly embroidered version of what happened” while Salmond said his administration “played the whole thing with a straight bat from start to finish”. (...)

Within weeks of the UK government agreeing not to exempt Megrahi from the PTA, Gadaffi ratified the BP deal with Libya’s national oil corporation.

Negotiations for Megrahi’s return were interrupted after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and the Scottish government opted to free him on compassionate grounds in 2009. He died in Libya three years later.

A spokesman for BP said the company had no comment on the UK government’s actions or discussions.

In The Lockerbie Bombing, to be published on May 26, MacAskill reveals he feared the potential for a violent backlash in the Arab or wider Muslim world if Megrahi had been allowed to die while in Scottish custody.

Just a few weeks before MacAskill’s announcement to free him, UK hostages taken prisoner in Iraq had been murdered, which followed the execution of other Western nationals captured in the area.

He writes: “There was hostility to the West and ordinary citizens were becoming targets. Most in North Africa or the wider Arab world neither knew of Scotland nor cared about it. I was aware of the deaths of prison officers that had occurred in Northern Ireland where some had died through terrorist attack.

“The last thing I wanted was to have Scotland become a place that was demonised and its citizens targeted. I would not allow Scottish oil workers or others, wherever they might be, to face retribution as a consequence of my decision.”

In an interview with The Sunday Times, MacAskill, whose own safety was thought to be at risk as he considered whether to free Megrahi, added: “I think, looking at events in Brussels and Paris, I stand by that. We would have kept him in if we had decided that was necessary but he would never have been allowed to die here.”

In a book extract in this newspaper today, the former minister argues that a coalition involving Libya, Syria, Iran and Palestinian terrorists were behind the Lockerbie bombing, in revenge for the downing of an Iran Air flight by a US naval ship in July 1988.

[RB: In the extract published in The Sunday Times today, Mr MacAskill cites three reasons for his belief in Libyan (and Abdelbaset Megrahi’s) involvement in the atrocity. They are (1) an alleged interview given by Colonel Gaddafi to The Washington Times in 2003; (2) Mustafa Abdel-Jalil’s statement reported in the Swedish newspaper Expressen; and (3) Scottish investigators’ and prosecutors’ belief in the accuracy of the information disclosed in Ken Dornstein’s recent films. It is interesting, however, that Mr MacAskill explicitly states "Clothes in the suitcase that carried the bomb were acquired in Malta, though not by Megrahi. But if Megrahi didn’t buy the clothes, he was certainly involved." If the Zeist court had not made the finding-in-fact that Megrahi purchased the clothes, it would not, and could not, have convicted him.

As regards (1): There was no such 2003 interview. What MacAskill is referring to, as is clear from the “quote” from Col Gaddafi that he provides, is the claim by the editor-in-chief of The Washington Times, Arnaud de Borchgrave, that in an off-the-record conversation in 1993 Gaddafi admitted that Libya played a part in a scheme to destroy an American aircraft which had been instigated by Iran. De Borchgrave’s account of this conversation can be read on this blog here. My comment at the time was as follows:

“On the assumption that this account of an off-the-record conversation in 1993 is accurate, it in no way affects the wrongfulness of the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. As I have tried (without success) to explain to US zealots in the past, the fact -- if it be the fact -- that Libya was in some way involved in Lockerbie does not entail as a consequence that any particular Libyan citizen was implicated. The evidence led at the Zeist trial did not justify the guilty verdict against Megrahi. On that basis alone his conviction should have been quashed had the recently-abandoned appeal gone the full distance. That conclusion is reinforced (a) by the material uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and (b) by the material released on Mr Megrahi's website.”

As regards (2): An account of the statement by Mustafa Abdel-Jalil can be read here. Evidence that he promised to supply never materialised. The best he could come up with was the assertion that the Gaddafi regime paid Megrahi’s legal expenses -- something that had never been hidden or denied. A response to Abdel-Jalil by John Ashton can be read here. Blistering commentaries by the late Ian Bell can be read here and here.

As regards (3): A lengthy response by John Ashton to the disclosures in the Dornstein films can be read here. Another long and detailed commentary by Dr Kevin Bannon can be read here. Dr Neil Berry makes critical comments on the films here.

Nowhere in The Sunday Times coverage is there mention of (a) the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s findings that, on six grounds, the Megrahi conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of Justice; (b) the evidence disclosed in John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury and, in particular, the metallurgical discrepancy between the dodgy circuit board fragment PT35b and circuit boards used in the MST-13 timers supplied to Libya; and (c) the evidence supplied in Dr Morag Kerr’s Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies which establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the suitcase containing the bomb did not arrive at Heathrow as unaccompanied baggage from Malta via Frankfurt but was already in the relevant luggage container before the feeder flight arrived. Perhaps these issues are dealt with elsewhere in Mr MacAskill’s book. But I won’t be holding my breath.