The Lockerbie scapegoat

This is the headline over an article by Tam Dalyell that was published in The Spectator on this date in 2002. It reads as follows:]

There is an innocent man languishing in the Barlinnie jail in Glasgow tonight, and, all too probably, he will be there every night for the next 19 years. He is alone, far removed from his culture and his religion, blamed and punished for the biggest mass murder in British history, on British soil: the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988. His name is Abdelbaset al Megrahi. Recently Jack Straw rejected Nelson Mandela's calls for Megrahi to be allowed to serve the rest of his sentence in a Muslim country. I am convinced that he is the victim of the most spectacular miscarriage of justice in British legal history.

Three senior judges — Lord Sutherland, Lord Coulsfield and Lord MacLean — sitting in the Scottish Court in Zeist in the Netherlands without a jury, found Megrahi guilty in January 2001. The only evidence used to convict him was a few scraps of clothing found in the wreckage that were thought to have been wrapped around the bomb. These had been traced back to a shop in Malta where the owner, Tony Gauci, identified Megrahi from a photograph as the buyer. Inconsistencies within Gauci's testimony, such as that his initial description of the purchaser did not resemble Megrahi, and confusion over the date of the purchase were never resolved.

At no point did Megrahi get the chance to tell his story. When I went to see him with his solicitor, Mr Eddie McKechnie, in Barlinnie, he expressed his dismay that his previous defence team had prevailed upon him, against his every instinct, not to go into the witness box. Had he done so, he would have made the convincing case that he was not a member of the Libyan intelligence services, but a sanctions-buster, scouring Africa and South America and the Boeing Company for spare parts to allow Libyan Arab Airlines to continue operating in the face of sanctions.

Earlier this year Megrahi took his case to the appeal court, but the judges — Lord Cullen, Lord Kirkwood, Lord Macfadyen, Lord Nimrno Smith and Lord Osborne — did not address the issue of whether the evidence had been sufficient to establish Megrahi's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead they merely pointed out that his defence had accepted that there was enough evidence and had expressly disavowed any claim of 'miscarriage of justice'. I see their difficulty. It is one thing for the appeal court to tell a jury that they have arrived at an unreasonable verdict. It is another for one senior and four relatively junior judges to tell three of their most senior judicial colleagues, who have heard the evidence at first hand, that they have arrived at an absurd conclusion in finding Megrahi guilty. Whatever qualms they harboured, the appeal judges cannot have been unmindful of the fact that this would have made the Scottish legal process the laughing-stock of the world.

There should have been an inquiry. For an adversarial system of justice to arrive at the truth requires both of the adversaries to place before the court all information that was available to them. In the Lockerbie trial, the defence team of Abdelbaset al Megrahi chose not to do so. In such circumstances, the adversarial system simply does not work, and the objective becomes not to uncover the truth, but to find someone to shoulder the blame.

The British relatives of the Lockerbie victims were, as far back as 19 September 1989, offered an inquiry by the then secretary of state for transport. Cecil Parkinson — subject, he said, as they filed out of his room, to the agreement of colleagues. Somewhat sheepishly on 5 December 1989. Parkinson told the relatives that it had been decided at the highest level that there would be no inquiry.

For many years, I deduced that, since no other minister could at that time tell Cecil what to do in his own ministry, the 'highest level' must have been the prime minister. On 16 July 2002 I had the opportunity of asking Margaret Thatcher why she had refused an inquiry. She was mystified. She told me that it had not been put to her. I believe her. I suspect it was American Intelligence that prevailed.

The distinguished Austrian jurist Dr Hans Köchler, international observer, nominated by Kofi Annan wrote:

“As far as the material aspects of due process and fairness of the trial are concerned, the presence of at least two representatives of a foreign government in the courtroom during the entire period of the trial was highly problematic. The two state prosecutors from the US Department of Justice were seated next to the prosecution team. They were not listed in any of the official information documents about the court's officers produced by the Scottish Court Service, yet they were seen talking to the prosecutors while the court was in session, checking notes and passing on documents. For an independent observer watching this from the visitors' gallery, this created the impression of 'supervisors' handling vital matters of the prosecution strategy and deciding, in certain cases, which documents (evidence) were to be released in open court or what parts of information contained in a certain document were to be withheld (deleted)... Because of the role they played during the trial, the continued presence of the two US representatives introduced into the appeal proceedings a political element that should have been avoided.”

The brief given by the Foreign Office to their incoming new minister, Mike O'Brien (who, to his credit, has gone to Libya as the first British minister to do so for two decades, in response to my [17th!] Adjournment Debate on Lockerbie), was misleading. For example, Hansard, 23 July 2002, records O'Brien as saying in his prepared reply, 'The destruction of Pan Am 103 was followed by equally savage attacks on UTA flight 772 and the La Belle Disco.'

Surely the Foreign Office ought to have known that the Lockerbie tragedy happened two-and-a-half years after the incident at La Belle Disco. Given such casual and sloppy Foreign Office replies, why should those of us who have become 'Professors of Lockerbie Studies' over the last 14 years believe anything that the British and American governments tell us?

Two days after Lockerbie, $11 million was paid from sources in Iran to a bank in Lausanne. The money then moved to the Banque National de Paris, and onwards to the Hungarian Development Bank, ending up at the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command — the original Lockerbie suspects two years before Libya came into the frame. Is this a coincidence? [RB: This aspect of the story is comprehensively debunked by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer here.]

I believe that Libya was used by the West as a scapegoat for raisons d'etat: the US and Britain did not want to enrage Iran and Syria as they launched the Gulf war against Iraq. I believe Megrahi was also a scapegoat, used by the West for the same reasons.

But while his friends — including his British relatives, the Austrian jurist Dr Hans Köchler, President Mandela, and determined new lawyers in the persons of Eddie McKechnie and Margaret Scott QC — keep on fighting, there is hope that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Board or the European Commission on Human Rights could reverse injustice.

Lockerbie – the cover-up

[This is the headline over an article that was published in the Scottish edition of the Mail on Sunday on this date in 2009. It reads as follows:]

The wrong man was jailed for the Lockerbie bombing and the real suspect allowed to escape justice to satisfy political motives, a damning investigation can reveal.

The Scottish Mail on Sunday can today publish remarkable details from a report by two leading investigators which throws major doubt on the conviction of Libyan agent Abdel-baset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi. He is expected to be freed from a Scottish prison this week after serving eight years of a life sentence for the bombing. The report would have formed the basis of Megrahi's appeal against his conviction, a case which will never be heard after he dropped his legal challenge in return for his early release.

The investigation finds that the man almost certain to have conducted the attack was Mohammed Abu Talb, a convicted Palestinian terrorist with the backing, finance, equipment and contacts to have carried out the atrocity. It also places Talb at the scene where parts of the suitcase bomb were bought – and in Britain when it exploded over Lockerbie. But instead of pursuing Talb and his Iranian backers, the report claims the American and British manhunt was ordered to find a link to Libya and its leader, Colonel Gaddafi.

In a damning verdict on the case, the investigators conclude:'We are convinced Mr … Megrahi's conviction was based on flawed evidence … Megrahi's conviction was based on fundamentally flawed evidence. We have never seen a criminal investigation in which there has been such a persistent disregard of an alternative and far more persuasive theory of the case.This leads us to believe the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing was directed off-course as a result of government interference.'

Talb, serving a life sentence in Sweden for a fatal bombing campaign in the Eighties, was a key witness in the prosecution case against Megrahi in the Scottish courts, for which he received immunity from prosecution. However, the investigation on behalf of Megrahi's defence team by a former UK terror chief and a former US prosecutor who has worked for the British government provides compelling evidence that Talb was the bomber. The report reveals that:

· Talb had clothing from the same Maltese shop as that packed in the suitcase that carried the bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103;

· Talb's alibi that he was in Sweden at the time of the bombing was false, he was in London meeting other terrorists with an unprimed bomb;

· Talb had bribed a corrupt employee at Heathrow to get a suit case through security unchecked;

· Talb was paid $500,000 only four months after the bombing.

Megrahi is expected to fly to Libya after being granted his freedom on compassionate grounds. Officials insist the move followed assurances he has terminal cancer and has only three months to live. However, it is also understood that a condition of Megrahi's release was that he dropped his appeal, because the UK Government and the Scottish justice system were keen to prevent embarrassing details about the case emerging.

At the centre of the alleged cover-up is evidence that Libya, then a pariah state to the US and Britain, was singled out for responsibility to suit political motives, when in fact the bombing was carried out by Talb on the orders and funding of Iran in revenge for the shooting down of its airliner by a US warship.

The Scottish Mail on Sunday has uncovered much of the evidence that would be a source of embarrassment. In recent years, we have revealed that critical evidence was manipulated and even planted, that the key witness was coached by detectives and rewarded for his ever-changing statements and that recent forensic tests conducted on crucial items of evidence shattered the Crown's case.

Now we have obtained documents which outline evidence that the leading player responsible for taking 270 lives in Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, was not Megrahi but Talb. The report carries weight because of the calibre of those who amassed the evidence - Jessica de Grazia, a former senior New York prosecutor who led an investigation for the UK Attorney General's office into the Serious Fraud Office, and Philip Corbett, a former deputy head of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch. Their access to informed sources in Middle East intelligence gives their report particular authority.

Instructed by Megrahi's defence team after his conviction in January 2001, de Grazia and Corbett placed Talb in key locations in Europe with terrorist leaders in the months prior to the Lockerbie bombing. Much of the evidence implicating Talb was known to the Crown and defence prior to the trial of Megrahi. Talb had links to at least two terror groups, in particular the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) and was a strong suspect. The PFLP-GC, funded by Iran and led by the Syrian Ahmed Jibril, was the first suspect in the Lockerbie case. A cell based in Europe in 1988 was led by Jibril's deputy, Hafez Dalkamoni, with Talb one of their most trusted lieutenants.

However, despite the belief that Iran was responsible, the outbreak of the first Gulf War in 1990 caused a major political shift in the investigation. A secret deal for Allied war-planes to use Iranian airspace to attack Iraq required the US and British governments to stop its pursuit of the Lockerbie bombers and their Iranian connections. Libya was instead chosen as the prime suspect.

When the focus of the investigation switched, the evidence gathered against Talb and the PFLP-GC was effectively discarded by Scottish and US investigators. However, de Grazia and Corbett say evidence almost certainly proved an Iranian-backed plot.

Five months before Lockerbie, the American vessel USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf. All 290 people on board perished. Iran vowed vengeance and promised that the skies would run with the blood of Americans. Three months later, in October 1988, German secret police raided a flat in Germany where Dalkamoni's cell was making Semtex bombs contained in Toshiba radio-cassettes designed to bring down aircraft, identical to the device used in the Lockerbie attack two months later. Although the Germans seized five devices, the bombmaker Marwan Khreesat told them a sixth had been removed by Dalkamoni.

De Grazia and Corbett's investigation reveals that Dalkamoni and Talb had been friends since 1980 and met, including in Malta, in the weeks before the bombing. De Grazia was also told by intelligence sources that 'because of his abilities, Talb was given Lockerbie to carry out'. The investigation says the missing bomb from Germany was probably taken to Malta for safe-keeping before being packed, unprimed, by Talb before its journey to London.

A Maltese connection had also been a focal point of the prosecution's case during Megrahi's trial. They argued that shopkeeper Tony Gauci identified Megrahi as the buyer of clothes later packed in the bomb case. However, de Grazia and Corbett say that Gauci also identified Talb as the man who 'most resembled' the buyer. Although Gauci's evidence about Megrahi provided key eyewitness evidence to the prosecution's case, it emerged that the store owner had been given paid holidays to Scotland as well as being coached by investigators in his evidence. De Grazia and Corbett say Gauci's evidence against Talb would have been just as strong if it had been pursued. Their report says the most conclusive link between Talb and the clothing bought from Gauci's shop was the discovery of a cardigan in his flat in Sweden. The cardigan was traced to a manufacturer on the Maltese island of Gozo, a firm that supplied Gauci.

The investigation says, based on their evidence, the plan was to launch the attack from Malta but this was dropped because of security at the island's airport. Talb and his colleagues decided Heathrow's security would be easier to crack. It emerged after the bombing there had been a security breach at Heathrow when a lock was forced near Pan Am's airside berths. Corbett describes the probe into the breach as 'inadequate'. Their inquiries uncovered evidence that on an earlier visit to London, Talb bribed an employee to get an unchecked case airside.

Crucially, the report exposes Talb's alibi for December 21. He was not, as he claimed, caring for the children of a relative who was giving birth in a Swedish hospital. They found that on December 19 he sailed from Sweden to Britain, arriving in London on December 21, the day of the bombing. There he met other terrorists, including bomber Abu Elias and Martin Imandi, who are thought to have been in possession of the device left on Flight 103.

After the bombing, De Grazia and Corbett say more evidence emerges linking Talb and his terror cell to the atrocity. They highlight evidence obtained via ex-CIA agent Robert Baer that the Iranian government paid $11 million into a European bank account held by the PFLP-GC two days later. An account held by Talb in Frankfurt was later credited with $500,000. In their conclusions, De Grazia and Corbett recommend forensic scrutiny of the timer fragment that was the only physical evidence in the case that pointed to Libya. That work showed the fragment had never been near an explosion, shattering the case against Megrahi.

The evidence gathered by De Grazia and Corbett would have been the cornerstone of Megrahi's appeal which was expected to have posed a serious challenge to his conviction. However, on Tuesday, as part of the private understanding between the dying Megrahi and the Scottish Executive, his lawyers will drop his appeal. The move will effectively close the chapter on Lockerbie, denying the public the opportunity to hear the full story behind the horror of December 21,1988.

[RB: John Ashton has advised circumspection about accepting the De Grazia and Corbett findings.]

Lockerbie’s shadow

[This is the headline over a report published on this date in 2003 in the Saudi Arabian English-language newspaper Arab News. It reads as follows:]

If it is correct that Libya has finally agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the relatives of the 270 victims of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 above Lockerbie in December 1988 and, far more importantly, is to take responsibility for the attack, the implications are considerable and unsettling.

On one level, the end of international sanctions which is supposed to follow will come as a huge relief to the Libyan people, who have suffered 15 years of economic and political isolation. Unemployment is put at 30 percent and economic stagnation has robbed tens of thousands of bright young graduates of proper career opportunities. The recent liberalization of the private sector will doubtless accelerate once Libya returns to its former place in the world.

But on another level it remains deeply disturbing that a sovereign state is about to admit that it was involved in a heinous act of terrorism. Even though one of the two members of the Libyan intelligence service who were eventually tried for their part in placing the bomb remains in prison (his colleague was found not guilty by an international court), it hardly seems possible that this man alone was responsible.

The question is how a public letter of confession to the United Nations, which is what is being demanded of it, will in any way ease the position of the Libyan government. The authorities in Tripoli have no doubt all along reasoned that compliance with this demand would hardly be the end of the matter.

Col Qaddafi’s government therefore finds itself between a rock and a hard place. If it actually knows the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing, admitting involvement as part of a legal settlement, it is almost certain, despite any guarantees to the contrary, to ignite claims for a further and possibly more extreme reckoning. If in reality it has no real idea of what happened, it has done itself no service by failing for the last 15 years to try and establish what really took place in the run-up to that fateful December day.

Qaddafi has worked hard to restore Libya’s international reputation. Libya is shortly hosting the first Pan-African oil conference and chairing a meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission. Yet the shadow of Lockerbie has always hung over such efforts. The Libyans have hoped that time would distance them from the devastating accusation of being a state that sponsored terrorism. But the bereaved relatives of Pan Am Flight 103 have acted as a slowly burning fuse. The moment the Libyan government bows to their demand to admit responsibility for Lockerbie, another terrible detonation could take place.

Libya looks to be damned if it does and certain to continue to be damned it doesn’t.

[RB: Libya’s letter accepting “responsibility for the actions of its officials” was delivered that same day. It can be read here.]

The French DST: Yves Bonnet & Lockerbie

[This is the headline over an article posted today on the GOSINT website. It reads in part:]

The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST; English: Directorate of Territorial Surveillance) was a directorate of the French National Police operating as a domestic intelligence agency. It was responsible for counterespionage, counterterrorism and more generally the security of France against foreign threats and interference.

It was created in 1944 with its headquarters situated at 7 rue Nélaton in Paris. On 1 July 2008, it was merged with the Direction centrale des renseignements généraux into the new Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur.

The DST Economic Security and Protection of National Assets department had units in the 22 regions of France to protect French technology. It operated for 20 years, not only on behalf of defense industry leaders, but also for pharmaceuticals, telecoms, the automobile industry, and all manufacturing and service sectors. [Wikipedia]

Yves Bonnet was the DST Director November 1982 to August 1985.

Yves Bonnet

In the following video, Bonnet makes a remarkable allegation: he claims that Libya is NOT responsible for Lockerbie!

[RB: The video can be viewed here.]

“Ce n’est pas un ouvrage* consacrée à l’activité terroriste de la Libye, parce que je pense que sur ce sujet comme sur beaucoup d’autres, on a largement dépassé les limites de la verité et même du crédible.

Je prends pour exemple cette affaire de Lockerbie et également l’affaire du Ténéré** qui ont été imputées à la Libye alors que tous les Services de Renseignements savent que ces attentats ont été commis par Ahmed Jibril sous l inspiration et le financement de l’Iran.

Et cela, on le sait. Les Services Américains le savent, le MOSSAD le sait, la DGSE le sait et d ailleurs le Directeur de la DGSE de l’époque — Claude Silberzahn — ne s’est pas privé de le dire.

On peut écrire “La Libye’ d’une autre façon; on peut l’écrire  ‘L’Alibi’.

Je pense que ce pays est devenu, de part le personalité de son principal dirigeant — Muamar Kadhafi — un pays cible assez commode.”

Here is a rough translation:

“This is not a book* about to the terrorist activities of  Libya, because I think that, on this subject as on many others, we have far exceeded the limits of the truth and indeed credibility.

Let me take, for example the Lockerbie case and also the case of the Ténéré** that were blamed on Libya when all intelligence services know that these attacks were committed by Ahmed Jibril under the inspiration and funding from Iran.

We know this. The American Intelligence Agencies know it, the MOSSAD knows it, the DGSE knows it  and, in fact,  the then Director of the DGSE – Claude Silberzahn – was not shy to say it out loud.

You know, in French, ‘La Libye” and “L’alibi” sound the same….

I think Libya has become, because of the personality of its chief – Muammar Gaddafi — a rather convenient target country.”

[RB: *Yves Bonnet published two books in 2009 (the year of the video interview). It is not clear, at least to me, which one he is referring to. Details of the books can be found here and here.

** The Ténéré region of Chad is where UTA flight 772 was destroyed by a bomb on 19 September 1989.]

Libya agrees Lockerbie deal

[This is the headline over a report carried on the BBC News website on this date in 2003. It reads in part:]

Lawyers acting for families of the Lockerbie bombing victims say they have reached agreement with Libya on the payment of compensation.

The deal to set up a $2.7bn (£1.7bn) fund was struck with Libyan officials after negotiations in London.

Once the money is in place, Libya is expected to write to the United Nations saying it takes responsibility for the attack on Pan Am flight 103. (...)

Under the deal Libya was expected to start transferring the compensation money - up to $10m for every victim - into a Swiss bank account immediately.

The US is then expected to write to the UN Security Council to say it believes Libya has met the conditions for lifting of sanctions, which were suspended in 1999.

Britain would circulate a draft resolution calling for that step to be taken.

Lawyer Mark Zaid, who represents about 50 of the Lockerbie families, has been involved in the negotiations with the Libyan government.

He told BBC Scotland that the potential $10m pay-out was conditional on three events.

"The lifting of UN sanctions will result in a $4m pay-out," he explained.

"The lifting of US sanctions will result in a $4m pay-out and then if Libya is removed from the US State Department's state sponsored list of terrorists $2m will be paid."

David Ben-Aryeah, a spokesman for UK relatives, said there were "serious misgivings" about whether the two later instalments would ever be paid.

"The UK relatives, who have honoured me with their trust and friendship, have had two basic demands from the very first days - truth and justice," he said.

"We have had a form of justice but we have not had anything approaching the truth.

"They asked the foreign secretary for a full and independent inquiry. He rejected that request."

Mr Zaid said he hoped that the families would be told some of the language being used by Libya in its proposed acceptance of responsibility at [a] briefing on Friday.

"It would not surprise me if there are families who are not satisfied with the language," he said.

"The fact of the matter is that this is a financial deal for Libya. All Libya cares about is to extricate itself from these sanctions and re-enter the international and particularly the US market.

"The statement of responsibility will be diplomatic legalese. That's the way the process works.

"It will be a statement, most likely, that can be interpreted one way or the other depending on who the reader is."

He predicted that it would not go far enough for some families, who may decide to go forward with civil litigation.

George Williams, one of the leaders of the group representing the American families, said the language contained in the letter to the UN would be crucial.

"If he is just going to blame it on an individual citizen of Libya and say that the government has nothing to do with it then that is not acceptable at all," he said.

"I would just as soon have the UN sanctions re-imposed and continue until Colonel Gaddafi curls up in a corner and dies."

However, he said the compensation deal was "pretty much done".

"The only thing that would satisfy us more would be to have Gaddafi's head delivered on a platter over to the US and let us all walk by it and spit on it," he said.

[RB: Further details are to be found in Q&A: The Lockerbie compensation deal published by BBC News on the same day.]

Release of Megrahi forecast

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009:]

Lockerbie bombing prisoner to go free

[Most British daily newspapers today contain reports to the effect that compassionate release of Abdelbaset Megrahi is imminent. The following are excerpts from the report in today's edition of The Herald, which is the longest and most detailed.]

The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is expected to be released next week on compassionate grounds - nearly eight-and-a-half years after he was jailed for life for the murders of 270 people in the atrocity over Scotland.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, who is in the terminal stages of prostate cancer, is expected to return home to Tripoli before the start of Ramadan on August 21. His return will also coincide with the 40th anniversary of the coming to power of Libya's leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

The Herald understands a final decision on Megrahi will be made and announced by the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill next week.

The Scottish Government has strongly denied allegations that the prisoner and the recent Libyan delegation were given any suggestion that he should drop his appeal in order to win the right to return home. The decision will be based on Megrahi's deteriorating health and medical assessments.

However, he is expected to drop the appeal which began in April of this year. (...)

Originally it was thought that Megrahi would return home under a recent Prisoner Transfer Agreement signed with Libya. The Justice Secretary consulted with relatives of victims, Megrahi himself and the US State Attorney on this decision.

Prisoner transfer is thought to have been rejected as an option because it would be subject to judicial review and could lead to interminable delays. There is concern that Megrahi, who is serving a 27-year sentence in HMP Greenock, could die before the end of such a review and before the end of the current appeal. (...)

Martin Cadman, whose son lost his life in the Lockerbie bombing, last night welcomed news of Megrahi's imminent release.

"I've been waiting for it for a long time," he said. "First of all they were saying that Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah were accused, then Fhimah was found not guilty, and they were accused of acting with others, and as far as I know the Scottish authorities and everyone else has done nothing try and find who these others are. The whole thing is really very unsatisfactory for relatives like myself."

David Ben [Aryeah], who advised some of the UK families affected by the Lockerbie tragedy, said: "The majority of UK relatives have been extremely unhappy with the whole trial and the first appeal and what has been happening now. I was present the day of the verdicts and I was confused. So, I do not believe, and I will never believe, that this man was guilty of the crimes he was charged with.

"Of the American relatives, the vast majority are very quiet but a few very vocal ones have never accepted anything other than Megrahi's total guilt. Some of them, sadly, would like him to rot in prison for the rest of his days." (...)

History will be the judge if as expected Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, next week takes the decision to send the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing back to Libya on compassionate grounds.

The legal process which began almost 21 years ago will finally be over. Whether Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the man convicted of the atrocity, did or did not plant the bomb which exploded over Lockerbie may never be known.

[The Herald's contention that Mr Megrahi is expected to abandon his appeal if granted compassionate release and its assertion that once compassionate release is granted the legal process will be finally over are deeply worrying. What is the source of this expectation? The Scottish Government Justice Department has stated unequivocally, in correspondence with me, that it has never been suggested to Mr Megrahi or to his government that compassionate release was dependent upon, or could be influenced by, his agreeing to abandon his appeal. Mr Megrahi's stated position has always been that he wishes the appeal to proceed in order to clear his name, though if it came to a bald choice between clearing his name and being allowed to return to his homeland to die surrounded by his family, he would reluctantly choose the latter. That was the dilemma that faced him when prisoner transfer was the only option on the table. But compassionate release is not contingent upon abandonment of the ongoing appeal: that is precisely its advantage over prisoner transfer from the standpoint of both Mr Megrahi and the Scottish public interest. Why therefore are there still rumblings about the appeal being abandoned if compassionate release is granted?]

Lockerbie revisited

[This is the headline over an article published on this date in 2010 in the online Edinburgh Festival magazine Fest. It reads as follows:]

When David Benson set about translating the story of Dr Jim Swire, the father of one of the Lockerbie victims, to the Edinburgh stage, he could not have predicted the whirlwind of renewed controversy. He talks to Joe Pike about an unexpectedly relevant piece of personal and political theatre

Flora Swire boarded a Boeing 747-100 named Clipper Maid of the Seas at London Heathrow. On 21 December 1988—the day before her 24th birthday—she was travelling to New York to spend Christmas with her American boyfriend Hart Lidov. Earlier that year she had graduated in medicine with a first-class degree and top of her class.

There was no touch-down at JFK. At 7.03pm, 30,000 feet above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, a bomb exploded on board ripping through the aircraft's fuselage. PanAm Flight 103 gradually disintegrated over two horrific minutes before impact on Sherwood Crescent creating a large crater and destroying homes. There were 270 fatalities.

Since the disaster, Flora's father Dr Jim Swire has fought to bring those responsible for the Lockerbie bombings to justice. Now he's now the focus of a play by writer and actor David Benson. When we meet in an office on a hot day in London's West End, Benson is nervous: “I'm feeling of course all that sense of anticipation, and fear that one feels when you have a new show that you're launching in that intense market place...Edinburgh is, for four weeks on earth, the most judgmental place you could be”.

Recent events have not helped to reduce the pressure. David Cameron's recent visit to Washington, along with the investigations of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations into last year's release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the bombings, have put Lockerbie back at the top of the news agenda. This renewed relevance won't hurt ticket sales, but the show wasn't planned to capitalise upon it. Applications for Fringe shows are finalised in May, months before the recent developments. Since then, Benson has received calls from newspapers across the world, yet his main concern remains learning his lines.

Lockerbie seems at first a curious choice of topic for a writer and actor whose most successful performances have explored the camp, comic and completely un-political lives of entertainers Kenneth Williams, Noel Coward and Frankie Howerd. When I suggest that his current show marks a departure from more frivolous entertainment, Benson seems offended citing that the focus of much his work is complex personalities: “I like to do something that challenges me and the audience."

Ironically, when deciding the subject of Benson's next production, his producer James Seabright was convinced he should create a solo show based on the war-time sitcom Dad's Army. That never happened because at the end of the 2009 Fringe when Benson was finishing his run of a show on Dr Samuel Johnson, he started investigating Pan Am Flight 103.

“I was doing some research online on the subject of Lockerbie, idly browsing news stories, and I came across the website of Dr Jim Swire. I saw he had written a book—as yet unpublished—giving his account of what had happened, written with a co-researcher, Peter Biddulph.”

“They had a note saying to leave your email address if you'd like to know when the book is published. So I sent them an email and had a message back very quickly from Biddulph saying 'I see that you're an actor and you write one-man shows. Perhaps you'd be interested in having a look at this unpublished text and seeing if there's anything you can do with it'.”

Even though the topic was not on his agenda, Benson replied. “I would love to read it anyway so he sent me a copy of it and I was absolutely transfixed.” Fascinated by Dr Swire's traumatic journey, his campaign of enormous courage, and his anger and grief at the loss of his daughter, Benson spent months reading up on the subject and secured a rare 90-minute meeting with Swire. “He answered every question I had. Thoroughly as he always does. And I felt able to go away and write a script that would tell his story and tell things that maybe he can't tell.”

Swire is an enigmatic figure. When I tried to contact him to for an interview, the intermediary said: “I haven't heard back from him. He does rather go to ground from time to time.” His dogged efforts to bring the suspects to trial led to him visit the Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi three times. In an interview with The Herald in 2007 he said: "You might not think there was any common ground between a GP from the Midlands and an army colonel turned dictator based in an Arab country. But there was.” Swire continues: "He had lost his adopted daughter Hannah when she was just 15 months old, when the US bombed Tripoli in 1986. I took a book of pictures of Flora, making sure there was one of her at just that age."

When I ask Benson, now 48, if constructing his play has been emotional, he reveals it has generated anger above all else. He blames governments for “doing everything they could do block the Lockerbie relatives' path to justice. They had many reasons for not wanting the true story coming out and they very cynically produced a cover story that these Libyans were supposed to have done it. That is a horrendous, sickening insult to the grief of the people who are still seeking justice.”

Yet behind Benson's anger is deep sympathy for his subject, something he is not accustomed to finding in his work: “When I look at Dr Swire's story and realising how much he's lost, understanding the depth of his grief that I sometimes find it quite overwhelming in even speaking the lines I've written myself.

“He goes from being very formal and in control, giving out this information fact by fact about what happened, and then once in a while having to admit that his beautiful lovely daughter who he adored is dead, died in a horrible way and that he will never see her again. I think it's impossible not to be touched by that, and also to realise one has an awesome responsibility in telling that story to get it right. Because you're dealing with some of the deepest human emotions.”

[RB: David Benson is again performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year but in a very different play, Boris: World King, of which I have written “If there's a better Edinburgh Fringe performance than David Benson's in Boris: World King, I'll be amazed. This is a fantastic show -- screamingly funny, but also serious and sad. See it.” Details here.]