Three dead men and their secrets

[This is the headline over an article by Kenneth Roy in today’s issue of the Scottish Review. It reads in part:]

Three of the key figures in the tangled politics of Lockerbie have now died within four years of each other: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person ever to have been convicted of the bombing (died 2012), Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, the Lord Advocate who initiated the criminal proceedings against al-Megrahi (2013) and Tony Gauci, the chief prosecution witness (a few days ago). To say that all three left unanswered questions would be one of the under-statements of our time.

Gauci was the owner of a clothes shop in Malta called Mary’s House. It was alleged that on 7 December 1988, a fortnight before the atrocity, al-Megrahi bought some clothes and an umbrella from his shop, that the clothes were wrapped round the device which brought down flight 103, and that al-Megrahi, a former head of security at Libyan Arab Airlines, collaborated with an official of the airline to breach the security at Luqa Airport and get the device on the first stage of its journey as an interline bag to Frankfurt.

But how reliable was Gauci? His credibility took a battering four years after the trial in a remarkable newspaper interview with Lord Fraser. The words attributed to Fraser – he never denied using them – were: 'Gauci was not quite the full shilling. I think even his family would say he was an apple short of a picnic. He was quite a tricky guy. I don’t think he was deliberately lying, but if you asked him the same question three times he would just get irritated and refuse to answer’.

When his successor as Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, read this assessment of the Crown’s star witness, he asked Fraser to clarify his opinion of Gauci; others, including Tam Dalyell and al-Megrahi’s counsel, William Taylor QC, spoke out more strongly. If Fraser did clarify his opinion, the world was not made aware of it at the time.

Three years later, however, he gave Gauci a friendlier character reference in a television programme about the Lockerbie case: 'I have always been of the view, and I remain of the view, that both children and others who are not trying to rationalise their evidence are probably the most reliable witnesses and for that reason I think that Gauci was an extremely good witness’.

How this statement could be reconciled with his earlier disobliging view of the witness, Fraser did not divulge. But the remarks received little attention, for the story had moved on dramatically: al-Megrahi was now on his way home to Tripoli, released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds, having been diagnosed with terminal cancer, after serving eight years of a life sentence for mass murder.

Fraser’s re-evaluation of Gauci as 'an extremely good witness’ looked ridiculous on close scrutiny. When the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had a detailed look at the case, it concluded that there was 'no reasonable basis’ for the judges’ opinion that the purchase of the clothes from Mary’s House took place on 7 December; the commission decided that they have must have been bought on some unspecified date before then.

This was an encouraging finding for the many defenders of al-Megrahi (myself included) who believed that 7 December was the date of his only visit to Malta. But in 2014, in a documentary for American television, Ken Dornstein, whose brother died at Lockerbie, produced evidence which undermined the case for al-Megrahi’s innocence. During 15 years of patient investigation, Dornstein discovered that al-Megrahi had been in Malta in the weeks leading up to the bombing, and that he had company: a Libyan bomb-maker, Abu Agila Mas’ud, who was among those who greeted him on his return to Libya. (...) [RB: It was never disputed that Megrahi had been in Malta earlier in 1988. What was disputed -- and what has never been proved -- is that he was there on 23 November, the other possible purchase date. On the Dornstein films, see John Ashton here and Kevin Bannon here.]

A number of fascinating secrets now go to the grave and seem destined to stay there. We shall never know what Peter Fraser really thought of the witness who was to prove so vital to his successful prosecution. We shall never know how much Tony Gauci was paid by the American authorities in return for his helpful evidence (or how much the Scottish authorities knew of the deal). And we shall never know what al-Megrahi was doing in Malta with Mas’ud if he was not there to facilitate the planting of the device.

There is a fourth 'we shall never know’ that can be stated with a sense of growing probability: that with the passage of time, and as the important players in the saga continue to fall off their perches, we shall never know the truth about Lockerbie.

Megrahi petition supported by Maltese nationals

[What follows is excerpted from an article that was published in the Maltese newspaper The Sunday Times on this date in 2010. It is particularly relevant following the recent death of Tony Gauci:]

More than 100 Maltese nationals have signed a petition calling on the Scottish government to open an independent inquiry into the only Lockerbie bombing conviction to date.

The petition, signed by nationals from 33 countries, was filed with the Scottish parliament last Tuesday and is piloted by the pressure group Justice for Megrahi. (...)

The online petition attracted 1,649 signatories, a record for any petition ever filed with parliament’s petitions committee, according to Jim Swire, a founder of Justice for Megrahi and the father of Flora, a victim of the worst terrorist act on British soil. (...)

The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.

Dr Swire told The Sunday Times the ball is in the petitions committee’s court, adding that campaigners will probably be summoned by Scottish MPs to explain the contents of the petition.

“We believe our cause will find some ears but I can’t say how Scottish MPs will react,” Dr Swire said when asked whether he was hopeful the petition would move forward.

However, he pointed out that with the Scottish election in May [2011] the governing Scottish National Party may be willing “to be seen to do something”.

Campaigners, he added, were comforted by the decision of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007 that the Libyan “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”. (...)

Investigators had concluded the suitcase containing the bomb that exploded over Scotland was loaded in an unaccompanied luggage on an Air Malta flight to Germany before making its way to London.

Malta has always denied any link with the case.

The luggage was traced back to Mr Al-Megrahi and another Libyan man who at the time were Libyan secret service agents working with Libyan Arab airlines in Malta.

The crucial evidence to convict Mr Al-Megrahi was provided by a Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, from Sliema, who identified him as the person who bought the clothes that were found in the luggage.

However, serious doubts have been shed on the credibility of the Maltese shopkeeper.

Mr Al-Megrahi’s defence team contended that the Maltese witness was paid “in excess of $2 million”, while his brother was paid “in excess of $1 million” for cooperating. Neither has ever denied receiving payment.

Twenty-two years on from the bombing, Dr Swire remains convinced of the Libyan’s innocence, saying he was converted by the evidence he heard in the main trial.

In presenting the petition, the campaigners said the “perverse judgement not only resulted in the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi, but maligned Germany, Libya, Malta and the UK.”

It also quotes Foreign Minister Tonio Borg as saying: “We have no proof that these two Libyan suspects were involved in anything illegal in Malta regarding this case, particularly the placing of this bomb on Air Malta Flight 180.”

[RB: Justice for Megrahi’s petition remains on the current work programme of the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee.]

Evidence cast doubt on Gauci’s identification of Megrahi

[Print and broadcast media yesterday and today offer lots of reports about the death of Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci. What follows is excerpted from the report in today’s edition of The National:]

A Maltese shopkeeper whose evidence helped secure the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing has died at the age of 75. Tony Gauci was said to have died from natural causes.

He ran a clothes shop in Malta at the time of the bombing in December 1998, and claimed Megrahi had bought clothing there that was found wrapped around the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103, killing a total of 270 people.

Gauci’s evidence helped secure the conviction of Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, but doubts have been raised about his reliability.

Megrahi was convicted in 2001, but maintained his innocence until his death in 2012, three years after the Scottish Government released him from a life sentence on compassionate grounds.

Gauci was reportedly paid a $2 million reward for evidence against the only man convicted of the atrocity.

The Libyan lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002. Then, in 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) found six grounds where it was believed a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, paving the way for a second appeal.

The commission questioned evidence about the date on which the prosecution said the clothes were bought from Gauci’s shop.

The SCCRC also said evidence that cast doubt on Gauci’s identification of Megrahi had not been made available to the defence – in breach of rules designed to ensure a fair trial.

There was also evidence that four days before he identified Megrahi, Gauci had seen a picture of him in a magazine article about the bombing.

Megrahi dropped a second appeal in 2009 before being released due to his terminal prostate cancer.

In his last interview, he insisted he had “never seen” Gauci and had not bought clothes from him.

In 2014 the then Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, reaffirmed his belief in Megrahi’s guilt. (...)

In a statement, the campaign group Justice for Megrahi (JfM), told The National: “JfM members are sad that Mr Gauci has passed away.

“While he will no longer be able to appear in person as a witness, under the Criminal Procedure Scotland Act 1995 all the statements he has previously given to the police and prosecution are likely to be admissible during any future court proceedings.

“All of these statements have of course been available to the ongoing major police inquiry, Operation Sandwood.”

Aamer Anwar, the Glasgow lawyer who acts for the Megrahi family, told The National: “Tony Gauci went to his grave knowing that he had always been accused of falsifying his evidence to convict al-Megrahi who until his dying breath maintained he was innocent.

“It is sad that we were unable to test his ‘unreliable identification’ evidence at appeal, however the Megrahi family remain determined to return to court one day to overturn the conviction of their father Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.”

George Thomson, who worked for Megrahi’s defence team, said the Libyan would look forward to meeting his accuser.

He told The Times of Malta: “When I last spoke to Baset on his deathbed he spoke of the day that he and Tony might meet in another place, where Tony would have to face him and answer for the lies he said against him.

“I personally hope that Tony is in a better place and that he is now at peace because he must have led a tortured life knowing that he had jailed an innocent man for money.”

FBI Special Agent Thomas Thurman

A whole day power outage here in the Roggeveld Karoo made it impossible to post to this blog yesterday (30 October). Here is what I had intended to post:

[This is the heading over an article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer that appeared on the Canada Free Press website on this date in 2008. It reads in part:]

“No court is likely get to the truth [regarding the bombing of Pan Am 103], now that various intelligence agencies have had the opportunity to corrupt the evidence.” - Oliver Miles, Former British Ambassador to Libya

Thomas Thurman worked for the FBI forensics laboratory in the late 80s and most of the 90s. Thurman has been publicly credited for identifying a tiny fragment as part of a MST-13 timer produced by the Swiss company Mebo.

“When that identification was made, of the timer, I knew that we had it,” Thurman told ABC in 1991. “Absolute, positively euphoria! I was on cloud nine.”

Again, his record is far from pristine. The US attorney general has accused him of having altered lab reports in a way that rendered subsequent prosecutions all but impossible. He has been transferred out the FBI forensic laboratory. Thurman has since left the FBI and joined the faculty at the School of Criminal Justice, Eastern Kentucky University.

The story shed some light on his formation. The report says “Williams and Thurman merit special censure for their work. It recommends that Thurman, who has a degree in political science, be reassigned outside the lab and that only scientists work in its explosives section.”

“For what it’s worth the best information on Lockerbie came long after Zeist, when the investigation was closed. I’ve always been curious about this case and never stopped looking into it, until the day I left the CIA in December 1997,” Robert Baer told me.

“The appeals commission posed the question to me about someone planting or manipulating evidence only to cover all the bases. I told them I did not think there was an organized attempt to misdirect the investigation, although I was aware that once it was decided to go after Libya, leads on Iran and the PFLP-GC were dismissed. Often in many investigations of this sort, the best intelligence comes out long after the event,” Baer added.

“I’m fascinated to know precisely why the Scots referred the case back to the court, although they did tell me the FBI and Scotland Yard have manipulated the evidence for the prosecution,” Baer told me.

Forensic analysis of the circuit board fragment allowed the investigators to identify its origin. The timer, known as MST-13, is fabricated by a Swiss Company named MeBo, which stands for Meister and Bollier.

The company has indeed sold about 20 MST-13 timers to the Libyan military (machine-made nine-ply green boards), as well as a few units (hand-made eight-ply brown boards) to a Research Institute in Bernau, known to act as a front to the Stasi, the former East German secret police. (...)

The CIA’s Vincent Cannistraro is on the record stating that no one has ever questioned the Thurman credentials. Allow me.

“He’s very aggressive, but I think he made some mistakes that needed to be brought to the attention of FBI management,” says Frederic Whitehurst, a former FBI chemist who filed the complaints that led to the inspector general’s report.

“We’re not necessarily going to get the truth out of what we’re doing here,” concluded Whitehurst who now works as an attorney at law and forensic consultant.

Dr Whitehurst has authored something like 257 memos to the FBI and Justice Department with various complaints of incompetence, “fabrication of evidence” and perjury of various examiners in the FBI Laboratory (primarily Explosives Unit examiners).

“What I had to say about Tom Thurman and the computer chip was reported to the US attorney general’s inspector general during the investigation of wrongdoing in the FBI lab in the 1990s. I acquired all that information and the inspector general’s report from a law suit under the Freedom of Information Act and therefore the information provided under that FOIA request is in the public sector,” Whitehurst told me.

“I reported to my superiors up to and including the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US attorney general, members of the US Congress and US Senate as well as the Office of the President of the United States that FBI Supervisory Special Agent Thomas Thurman altered my reports for five years without my authorization or knowledge. This is public information. Thurman holds an undergraduate degree in political science and I hold a PhD in chemistry.”

“Thurman was not recognized by the FBI or anyone else as having expertise in complex chemical analysis and I was. When confronted with this information Thurman did not deny it but argued that my reports could and/or would hurt prosecutors’ cases. I was very concerned about the fact that wrong information in the final reports could hurt individuals and deny citizens of this country right to a fair trial. When I raised my concerns with my managers at the FBI laboratory, all except for one of them reminded me that Thurman was the “hero” behind determining the perpetrators of the Pan Am 103 disaster.”

“I understood from that that the FBI would not expose these issues for fear that the investigation into the Pan Am 103 bombing would be seen as possibly flawed and this would open the FBI up to criticism and outside review.”

No government body has found that Mr. Thurman has done anything illegal. However he was relieved from his post in the FBI’s Explosives Unit and placed in charge of the FBI’s Bomb Data Center.

“Did Mr Thurman find the integrated circuit chip about which you have referred? After leaving the FBI, I was interviewed by Scottish defense attorneys for one of the individuals accused of bombing Pan Am 103. At that interview were two of my attorneys, two FBI attorneys and two Scottish attorneys and me. I was asked what I knew about the circuit chip. I can say that I was not interviewed because I agreed with the official version of the discovery of that integrated circuit chip,” Whitehurst wrote to me. (...)

In the world of Forensic Sciences, former FBI [special agent] William Tobin is a legend. To name but a few of his achievements, Tobin demonstrated, along with his NTSB colleagues, that TWA 800 had been destroyed by mechanical failure at the time when virtually the rest of the world strongly believed a terror act. Both the NTSB and the CIA subsequently presented compelling evidence demonstrating the scientific validity of Tobin’s conclusion.

After retiring, Tobin demonstrated that the Lead content bullet identification technique, used by the FBI for more than four decades, was flawed. Tobin was not allowed to work on this matter while at the FBI.

Tobin knows a few things about superhero Thomas Thurman. Tobin told me that, in his opinion, Thurman and other Explosives Unit examiners were prone to confirmation bias, an observer bias whereby an examiner is inclined to see what he is expected to see. Tobin’s opinion is based on “numerous interactions whereby Thurman and other examiners rendered conclusions supporting the prevailing investigative or prosecutorial theory but which were unsupported by scientific fact.

It was not uncommon to determine that items characterized as ‘chrome-plated’ were nickel-plated, ‘extrusions’ turned out to be drawn products, ‘castings’ turned out to be forgings, white residues characterized as explosive residue turned out to be corrosion products (generally Al2O3 or a non-stoichiometric form), bent nails claimed to be indicative of an explosion, and a truck axle was characterized as having fractured from an explosion (a conclusion rendered solely from an 8-1/2” x 11” photograph where the axle was a small fraction of the field of view and the fracture surface itself was not observable).

“I put no credence into any scientific or technical conclusions rendered by anyone without a suitable scientific background for that matter, until I can make an independent evaluation. Thurman was a history or political science major to my recollection,” Tobin added

“His habit, as with most Explosives Unit examiners with whom I interacted and based on numerous court transcript reviews and ‘bailout’ requests I received on several occasions (to ‘bail out’ an examiner who not only misrepresented an item of evidence but also was confronted with more accurate representations of the evidence in trial), was to seek someone else’s expertise and then present it as his own in a courtroom without attribution.”

“He would frequently come into my office, ask for a ‘quick’ assessment of something (but I would always indicate that my opinion was only a preliminary evaluation and that I would need to conduct proper scientific testing of the item(s)), then weeks later I would see the assessment in a formal FBI Laboratory report to the contributor (of the evidence) as his own ‘scientific’ conclusion,” Tobin remembers.

“I cannot imagine that he was acting alone. He was a mid-level manager without a great deal of authority and with severely limited credentials of which the FBI was fully aware,” Whitehurst answered when I asked him if he thought that Thurman had acted alone.

“The problem with having a scientific laboratory within an intelligence gathering organization is that scientists traditionally are seeking truth and at times their data is in direct contradiction to the wishes of a government that is not seeking truth but victory on battle fields.”

“The problem with the scientific data is that when one wishes to really determine what the government scientists or pseudo scientists could have known, one need only look at the data. So few citizens ever ask for or review that data. So few scientists wish to question the government that feeds them and gives security to their families.”

“Was Thurman ordered to do what he did? No one acts alone without orders in the FBI. We had clear goals which were clearly given to us in every document we received from anyone. If a police organization wished for us to provide them “proof” of guilt then they told us in many ways of their absolute belief that the perpetrators were those individuals they had already arrested. If the president of the United States tells the country in the national news that Dandeny Munoz Mosquera is one of the most fear assassins in the history of the world then every agent knows that he must provide information to support that statement. If leaders decide without concern for foundation of truth then most people will follow them,” Whitehurst said.

“Thurman did not act alone. The culture at the FBI was one of group think, don’t go against the flow, stay in line, ignore that data that does not fit the group think,” Whitehurst added.

His former colleague agrees. “I’ve seen so often where an individual who was at one time an independent thinker and had good powers of reasoning acquires the ‘us vs them,’ circle-the-wagons, public-relations at all costs mentality at the FBI,” Tobin says.

“As much as I loved the institution, I have never seen a worse case of spin-doctoring of any image-tarnishing facts or developments as I had at the FBI. Never! It seemed the guiding principle was ‘image before reality’ or ‘image before all else’ (including fact). Whatever you do, ‘don’t embarrass the Bureau’ and ‘the Bureau can do no wrong.’”

Death of Tony Gauci announced

[What follows is the text of a report that has just appeared on the Times of Malta website:]

Tony Gauci's death means mystery might remain unresolved

Tony Gauci, the Maltese man who determined the outcome of the Lockerbie trial, has died,Times of Malta is informed.

Mr Gauci, who lived in Swieqi, is believed to have died of natural causes.

He had pointed at Abdelbaset al-Megrahi as the man who had bought the clothes from his Sliema shop, which were said to have been wrapped around aircraft which killed 270 people over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988.

This evidence tied together the prosecution's thesis, that the bomb loaded on to the doomed Pan Am flight at Heathrow Airport had first left from Malta before being transferred via Frankfurt. But serious doubts were raised about Mr Gauci’s testimony over the years.

Libyan national Al-Megrahi died in 2012 with the tag 'the Lockerbie bomber’ despite the fact that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had described Mr Gauci as an “unreliable” witness, putting the onus of the responsibility of the UK’s worst terrorist attack in doubt.

The SCCRC said the Crown prosecution suppressed from Megrahi’s defence team statements showing how much Gauci changed his mind about crucial details over the years.

Documents published later had revealed that the lead investigator in the Lockerbie bombing personally lobbied US authorities to pay Mr Gauci and his brother Paul at least $3 million for their part in securing the conviction of Al-Megrahi.

Mr Gauci never spoke publicly about the case and maintained the media silence that characterised his role in the whole affair. He was last approached for comment for an edition of Times Talk in November 2013.

Mr Gauci's death signals the end of a key witness to a case which continues being fought legally by relatives of victims who believe Mr Al-Megrahi was innocent.

Gaddafi "was no threat to any national security interest of the United States"

[What follows is the text of an article by American lawyer Bruce Fein that was published yesterday in the US edition of The Huffington Post:]

Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential nominee, has derided “Don’t do stupid stuff” as a worthless organizing principle of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

But her substitute of “Doing stupid stuff” is even worse.

As Secretary of State during President Barack Obama’s first term, Ms. Clinton single-handedly compounded problems of international terrorism, nuclear proliferation, war, refugees, and human rights from North Korea and China to South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa to Europe and Russia.

In sum, Ms. Clinton foreign policy makes former President George W. Bush look like a Talleyrand, Metternich, or Bismarck.

Emblematic was her imbecilic orchestration of war against Libya in 2011 to overthrow anti-jihadist Muammar Gaddafi. The secular Libyan leader had recently abandoned weapons of mass destruction, had paid billions in compensation to the victims of the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, and had been removed from the United States list of state sponsors of terrorism. He was no threat to any national security interest of the United States.

Secretary of State Clinton should have rewarded Gaddafi with economic, trade, and investment incentives. Such diplomatic savvy would have encouraged North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions which were fueled by worries that the United States would otherwise overthrow their respective regimes by force and violence.

Instead, Ms. Clinton chose war—a monumental blunder that continues to haunt the United States.

1. Clinton’s justification for war was Gaddafi’s human rights violations in Libya. That casus belli invited wars of aggression everywhere because no nation is without warts. Thus, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea under the pretest that Ukraine was oppressing its Russian ethnic citizens. It could use the same pretext to invade the Baltic States. That is why the United Nations Charter prohibits war except in self-defense under Articles 2, paragraph 4 and Article 51. Clinton flouted that international prohibition.

2. Clinton’s war justification was a stupendous lie known to one and all. On her watch, the United States maintained amicable relations with numerous countries beset with human rights records as bad or worse than Libya’s, for instance, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, China, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ethiopia.

3. Clinton lied to Russia in denying that an ulterior motive for the United States military intervention in Libya was regime change and the killing of Gaddafi. Strutting like Julius Caesar, Clinton clucked, “We came, we saw, he died.” Clinton’s lie gratuitously alienated Russia, and invited a new Cold War.

4. Clinton’s war splintered Libya into hundreds of tribal, ethnic, sectarian, or personal militias. The nation was thrown into an ongoing hydra-headed civil war, which gave birth to ISIS in Sirte and rival governments in Tripoli and Tobruk. Gaddafi’s cache of conventional arms fell into the hands of international terrorists throughout the Middle East. The lawlessness and chaos Clinton’s war created fueled the terrorist assassination of our Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens; and, the flight of millions of refugees from Libyan shores to Europe and tens of thousands of drownings in the Mediterranean Sea.

5. Clinton’s war fortified the determination of North Korea and Iran to develop, maintain, or expand nuclear arsenals to deter the United States from invasion. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, recently testified to Congress that negotiating nuclear disarmament with North Korea is now a pipedream. Additionally, Clinton’s so-called “Pivot to Asia” antagonized China and ended any possibility of its necessary cooperation in stopping North Korea’s nuclear adventurism. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated by President Obama with Iran only postpones fulfillment of its nuclear ambitions for ten years.

Hillary Clinton’s Libyan war is the very definition of doing stupid stuff. The multiplicity of calamities that ensued was as predictable as the force of gravity. Libya had never practiced democracy. It had never embraced democratic norms. It sported 140 tribal networks. Civil society was embryonic. Its political development was pre-Magna Charta. And corruption was endemic.

Depend upon it. If Ms. Clinton is elected President, her “doing stupid stuff” foreign policy will find expression in wars with Syria, China, and Russia with consequences far worse than the disasterous fallout from Libya.

Mandela breaks Lockerbie trial impasse

[On this date in 1997 a cartoon by South Africa’s leading political cartoonist, Zapiro, was published in The Sowetan. The text accompanying the cartoon on Zapiro's website reads as follows:]

Mandela backs a neutral country as venue for the trial of Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. The verdict in the protracted Lockerbie trial was a landmark in international law and a tribute to the diplomacy of Nelson Mandela, who played a leading role in bringing about the trial. It was largely through Mandela's ability to influence both Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on the one hand, and the British government on the other, that the unprecedented solution of trying the two Lockerbie suspects in a neutral country, the Netherlands, was agreed upon. Mandela broke an impasse, which arose because Britain, and the US, were insisting on a trial in either of their countries, while Gaddafi refused to hand over the suspects to them.

Lockerbie bomb: the truth will out

This is the title of an article by Paul Feeney published in the current issue of the magazine Notes from the Borderland (issue 11). It provides an excellent summary of the current state of play in the Lockerbie case. With the permission of the magazine’s publishers, the full text of this important article can be read here.

UK goverment adamant in opposing neutral venue trial

[What follows is the Hansard report of an exchange that took place in the House of Commons on this date in 1997 arising out of a question to the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook:]

HC Deb 28 October 1997 vol 299 cc700-702

Mr Dalyell If he will make a statement about his meeting with the Lord Advocate in September on the issues arising out of new information on Lockerbie and Libyan sanctions.

Mr Robin Cook I met my noble Friend the Lord Advocate on 4 September. His view remains that the available evidence supports the case against the two accused Libyans, and that there is no evidence of the involvement of nationals of any other country in the Lockerbie bombing. I fully accept that assessment.

It is for the Libyan authorities to fulfil their clear duty to surrender the two men accused of that act of mass murder to stand trial in Scotland. I am today inviting the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Arab League and the Organisation of African Unity to send a delegation to Scotland, to show them the judicial system there and to discuss arrangements for a trial in Scotland with international observers.

Mr Dalyell Since one of the reasons given by the Foreign Secretary for objecting to a trial on Lockerbie in The Hague is that the Americans might refuse to submit evidence that they held to a court outside Scotland or the United States, can we reflect on why the Americans should do that? Is there a suggestion that the Americans might be unwilling, after nine years, to give information to the Dumfries and Galloway police?

Mr Cook We have had full co-operation throughout from the United States authorities and they have shared fully with the investigating powers all the evidence available to them. It would not be possible, however, to mount a prosecution without the co-operation of the US authorities, who hold part of the evidence. Most of those killed on the Pan Am jet were Americans, and the majority of their relatives do not want a trial to take place outside Scotland or the United States.

Sir Teddy Taylor As the interest of those who lost their relatives in the dreadful disaster is that a trial should take place and the guilty parties be identified and punished, is the Foreign Secretary really saying that there are no circumstances in which he will consider a trial outside Scotland, especially as the Libyans have already said that they would willingly surrender the two accused to an independent party—perhaps Egypt—if the trial were held in any third country?

Mr Cook If I may correct the hon Gentleman, what happened at Lockerbie was not a disaster; it was murder. No one in the House should forget that. I find it strange that it should be argued that a trial by Scots judges under Scots law in another country would be fair, but a trial by Scots judges under Scots law in Scotland would not. We have nothing to be defensive about concerning the impartiality of our courts, and I shall be proud to display that when I meet the delegation.

Mr Menzies Campbell I welcome the Foreign Secretary's announcement of the invitations that he has extended. Is the assertion that no fair trial can be obtained in Scotland not only unfounded but unnecessarily provocative? If the test of fairness of a judicial system is transparency, does not the Scottish system stand comparison with many others, including the Libyan system? May not fairness be established by the presence of independent observers at every stage of the legal process?

Mr Cook The hon and learned Gentleman makes some fair points about the nature of the Scottish legal system. It is, after all, the legal system to which we subject our citizens. I see no reason why there should be a separate system for those from Libya, but I understood that other countries may not be so persuaded. That is why I have made in good faith the offer that we are willing to discuss any reservations that other countries may have, confident in the knowledge that we can put them right. We would welcome monitors and observers from them at a trial so that justice could not only be done but be seen internationally to be done.

Mr Godman It is almost nine years since that terrible night when Pan Am flight 103 fell out of the sky. As one who has all along argued that those deemed guilty of that terrible crime should stand trial in the High Court in Edinburgh and not in America, may I offer my sincere compliments to my right hon Friend for arguing the case that such a trial should take place in Edinburgh?

Mr Cook I am grateful to my hon Friend for his support.

[RB: Ten months later, in August 1998 the UK Government finally conceded that a trial under Scots law should take place in the Netherlands.]