An open, accountable and accessible system

1. From The Scotsman on this date in 2008:

Iain McKie, father of former detective Shirley McKie, from Ayr, warns the forensic foundation of our entire legal system is under threat.

For well over a century police, lawyers, judges and juries have accepted forensic evidence without question. But now as "light is being let in on the magic", fingerprinting, DNA, footwear, firearm and the other such evidence is being challenged and found wanting.

The Omagh bombing, the World's End Murders, the Templeton Woods murder and the SCRO fingerprint case have all shown that previously infallible evidence is indeed fallible and finally the prosecution system is being forced to review its whole forensic strategy.

While this is bad enough, Lockerbie and other cases have also revealed evidence of police and Crown Office incompetence, political intrigue and a court and legal system struggling to cope.

A system where justice takes forever and at a prohibitive cost. Slowly the realisation is dawning that we are faced with a justice system no longer fit for purpose. A system where there is very real danger of the innocent being found guilty and the guilty escaping punishment. Instead of the usual face saving "first aid" aimed at preserving the power and privilege of those within the system, the time is long overdue for broad ranging public and political debate aimed at creating an open, accountable and accessible system.

2. From The Guardian on this date in 2010:

Britain's special relationship with the United States is "stronger than ever" under Barack Obama, the American ambassador to London said today. (...)

Asked about US anger over the decision to allow Megrahi to return to Libya because of his terminal cancer, [Louis] Susman said: "The special relationship is very strong. It is like a strong marriage. Every once in a while you have a little spat.

"This was a spat. This was a case where friends can disagree."

He laughed off calls from some US figures for a boycott of Scottish products, saying he still drank Scotch whisky, visited Scottish golf courses and wore Scottish sweaters.

Did Megrahi release harm SNP?

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

Bruised and battered, but Salmond will bounce back

This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Times by the newspaper's virulently anti-SNP Scottish political editor, Angus Macleod. The two paragraphs relating to Lockerbie read as follows:

"But if there was one event that brought Mr Salmond face to face with the consequences of power, it was the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister, to free Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi on the grounds that he had only a limited time to live.

"Condemnation rained down as US relatives of Lockerbie victims expressed outrage. At one point it appeared as though Scotland, in US eyes, was to assume the same mantle as Cuba during the Cold War. The First Minister looked as if he had just emerged from a car crash."

As far as Scottish public opinion is concerned, the release of Mr Megrahi seems to have done the SNP no harm and may, indeed, have enhanced its standing.

False convictions do more harm than good

What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2010:]

We must strive to restore the integrity of criminal justice process

[This is the heading over a letter from Glasgow Liberal Democrat councillor Christopher Mason in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]

There is a worrying contradiction between the standards being applied in the cases of Tommy Sheridan and Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi. Sheridan was prosecuted because perjury threatens the whole justice system; but the British and Scottish establishments are apparently indifferent to the doubts expressed about the integrity of Megrahi’s trial and, indeed, the second appeal process.

The crux of the criticisms is that neither the forensic evidence about the timer nor the identification evidence provided by the Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci should have been accepted as sound. These criticisms are contained, we are led to believe, in the unpublished report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which recommended in June 2007 that a second appeal should be heard. The second appeal process was stymied by the refusal of British and American authorities to allow some of the documents to be dealt with by the court in the normal manner; if it had been heard promptly it would have been disposed of one way or the other before Megrahi’s release on health grounds ever became an issue.

Without the forensic evidence and Gauci’s evidence, Megrahi and Fahima could not have been prosecuted. There are allegations that this evidence was tainted. I do not understand why those who thought the Scottish justice system was seriously threatened by perjured evidence in Sheridan’s civil case against a newspaper, cannot find a way of looking into our criminal justice system in relation to the allegation that the most important criminal trial of the 20th century proceeded on the basis of false evidence.

Although 22 years have passed since 270 innocent people were murdered by whomever planted the Lockerbie bomb, this is not just a matter of historical interest or even of justice for the families of the victims. In the continuing campaign to deal with terrorism, the known integrity of our justice system will be essential to success. That is one of the lessons we are supposed to have learnt from Northern Ireland: false convictions do more harm than good.

One of the best defences against the crime of terrorism is the known integrity of the normal criminal justice process. To restore public confidence in the Scottish criminal justice system when dealing with terrorism, the Scottish Parliament should find some way of allowing the court to hear and dispose of the matters raised in the SCCRC 2007 report.

[RB: As far as I can see, the letter is no longer to be found on The Herald’s website.]

Was the objective not a trial but sanctions?

[What follows is excerpted from an article headed Criminal Justice or "War by Other Means" that was published on The Masonic Verses website on this date in 2008:]

It is generally assumed that the object of the announcement of the indictment on the 14th November 1991 was the trial of the two suspects (who were eventually handed over on the 5th April 1999.) However the Western powers pursued the case not under the relevant international Law (the 1971 Montreal Convention) but by political means through the UN Security Council and the imposition of sanctions against Libya.

The Lockerbie incident was exploited in order to impose UN sanction upon Libya for political considerations that largely predated the bombing and a trial was actually unwelcome to the West, their primary objective being regime change in Libya. A study of the historical background is necessary to understanding why Libya was blamed, a background that was largely irrelevant to the criminal proceedings.

In February 1986 the United States had imposed unilateral sanctions on Libya and US plans to topple Gaddafi long predated this. The Europeans, far more dependent on Libyan oil failed to support these sanctions to the chagrin of American business interests. Unilateral sanctions were ineffectual if Libya could trade elsewhere and it was an objective of US policy to transform unilateral sanctions into UN sanctions, achieved through the Lockerbie indictment.

Crucial evidence that the objective of the indictment was sanctions not a trial lies in the movements of Lhamin Fhimah (who was indicted solely to give credence to the “Malta” scenario.) In November 1991 Fhimah was again employed by Libyan Arab Airlines and was living openly in Tunis, capital of pro-Western Tunisia. On the day of the indictment Fhimah had returned to Tripoli for a visit when he saw news of his indictment on TV. (2)(3).

Did the Western intelligence agencies not know where Fhimah was living and could they not have sought his arrest and extradition by the Tunisian authorities? Or was Fhimah’s residence outside Libya an embarrassment? According to the former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser he had been asked by the Americans to “hold off” on the indictment while new evidence was developed (4) (likely the testimony of Majid Giaka) but if the object of the indictment was a trial why did they wait until Fhimah was in Libya before announcing it? Indeed the public announcement of the indictment at all was bizarre if the objective was a trial not sanctions.

From the announcement of the indictment until the trial the authorities pretended that the case against Libya was cast iron while dismissing any conflicting evidence. The prospect of a trial laid open the prospect of an acquittal. The announcement of an indictment allowed the authorities to claim the case was “solved” and to a great extent mollified the families of the victims and created a constituency to keep the issue (and the sanctions) going.

Of course if Libyan responsibility was undoubted, as the Americans proclaimed, why were they pursuing sanctions at all? The Americans had bombed Tripoli in response to a relatively minor outrage. This was something many US relatives could not grasp. Following a meeting with the FBI Director Dan Cohen commented:

“As we were leaving I asked Sessions if indictments would really be of any use, whether Pan Am 103 was something for the judicial system at all. After all, this wasn’t a drive-by shooting, it was really a military attack on America and should properly be answered in political or military terms. He thought for a moment and said, “You may very well be right”. (5) Cohen had a good point.

(2) The Maltese Double Cross, writer/director Alan Francovich

(3) Interview with Lhamin Fhimah (following his acquittal) featured

in Cover-up of Convenience by John Ashton & Ian Ferguson

Mainstream Publishing

(4) Ashton & Ferguson Interview with Lord Fraser

(5) Cohen, Susan and Daniel Pan Am 103 New American Library

2000 page 139

Concerned about the quality, reliability and fairness of the Scottish justice system

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2010:]

We should stop distracting ourselves from finding out the real truth about Lockerbie

[This is the heading over three letters in today's edition of The Herald. They read as follows:]

How well Jim Swire’s dignified search for truth contrasts with the bloodthirsty baying of some American politicians. Make no mistake, the central objection to the Megrahi affair in the United States is that he was tried in a justice system where the end result was not a lethal injection; everything else is just an attempt to build on that.

The modus operandi of the Senate inquiry was to reach a conclusion and then look for evidence that might support it, exactly what an American trial of Megrahi would likely have been. For some Scottish politicians to attempt to lend credibility to this circus for some short-term political gain is extremely unedifying and something that they should be ashamed of.

The question should not be whether Megrahi’s family should be able to be with him for his last days but whether he was guilty at all and if so who his accomplices were. To simply accept what now seems to be a rather shaky conviction is one thing, to not bother to ask whether one man could do all of this on his own is quite another. It is no conspiracy theory to point out that atrocities like Lockerbie are carefully planned and executed and not just the work of one rogue security agent. We should stop distracting ourselves from this central question.

Iain Paterson

Jim Swire has written a moving and passionate letter in which he continues to plead eloquently for some way to be found to re-examine the evidence and the decision of the Camp Zeist trial. After more than 20 years, the tragedy of the PanAm 103 bombing has still not been resolved satisfactorily, and the latest pathetic attempt by a group of ill-informed and prejudiced US senators, with little knowledge or appreciation of the points at issue, will not help.

We in Scotland should be much more concerned about the quality, reliability and fairness of the Scottish justice system. As pointed out by Nigel Dewar Gibb, comments such as those from John Lamont, the Tory MSP shadow spokesman, are unhelpful, as are the constant refusals of the UK government and the Scottish legal authorities to allow further investigation.

I learned my Scots Law, and my pride and confidence in the Scottish justice system, at the feet of Andrew Dewar Gibb, Professor of Scots Law at Glasgow University (coincidentally the father of Nigel Dewar Gibb). If he were alive today I am sure Professor Dewar Gibb would be adding his voice to those demanding a full public inquiry or a re-opening of the second appeal abandoned by Mr Megrahi so abruptly. Nothing less will satisfy those of us who wish justice to be done and seen to be done.

Iain A D Mann

Once again the consistently impressive and humbling Jim Swire hits on the salient point about the Lockerbie atrocity. It is a disgrace that we do not know for certain who carried out this crime, or why. We have been given serious doubts by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to question the truth surrounding the conviction of Mr Megrahi. The vacuous critical noises from politicians in this country and the US regarding the release of Megrahi are opportunistic political point scoring or, worse, an attempt to create a smoke screen around the real issues of guilt and responsibility.

Iain Carmichael

We must have Lockerbie inquiry, no matter the cost

[This is the headline over an editorial that was published in The Herald on this date in 2011. It reads as follows:]

As Pamela Dix, whose brother died in the Lockerbie bombing, says: "It is unfinished business." Now one more step has been taken towards unravelling the uncertainty that has hung over this case ever since that awful December night 23 years ago.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has revealed that he has the go-ahead under the Data Protection Act from Kenneth Clarke, his opposite number in the UK Government, to publish the 800-page Statement of Reasons from the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC). This document explains the grounds for appealing the conviction of the Libyan Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only person convicted of the atrocity. It was never published because the appeal itself was dropped when he was released on compassionate grounds in August 2009.

It emerged earlier this year that legislation going through Holyrood could not guarantee publication because the material would continue to be subject to UK data protection legislation. Now that potential hurdle appears to have been removed.

If, as the Scottish Government maintains, it supports the maximum possible transparency in this case, it is apposite to ask why it took some time to make an official approach to the Westminster Justice Department regarding this matter. For years the UK and Scottish governments have played a slow-motion version of pass the parcel with this case, with neither seemingly prepared to increase the snail's pace progress and the prospect of political advantage (or damage) playing its part.

The imminent publication of John Ashton's biography of Megrahi may force the pace as, once the material is public, SCCRC will be free to publish it themselves. It is not clear how much further it will take us. The document dates from 2007. Fresh material and new forensic techniques have appeared in the interim. Also, in the interests of national security, some items and passages will be redacted.

Regardless of whether or not the man convicted of this crime is guilty as charged, others must have been involved. There are still many unanswered questions. Only a full and wide-ranging independent public inquiry can tackle these issues. This case may show the quality of Scottish justice in a poor light but ultimately getting at the truth is more important. It is also what the relatives of those who died desire and deserve.

First clue to Lockerbie crash found

[This is the headline over a report from this date in 1988 on the BBC News website. It reads as follows:]

Crash investigators have uncovered wreckage from Pan Am flight 103 which may hold the key to the Lockerbie air disaster.

A suitcase discovered in the wreckage of the Boeing 747 has been sent for testing at a government research centre amid speculation it may contain evidence the crash was caused by sabotage.

Bomb experts at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment in Fort Halstead, Kent, will be looking for particles which may have penetrated the suitcase and show evidence of an explosive.

It is being seen as a significant development in the investigation as it is the first piece from the wreckage to be sent for testing.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, which runs the research unit, said: "This is the first wreckage to be sent to us. The police have chosen what they want to be examined."

Results of the study are expected to be available by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, police have announced the search for clues may mean the process of retrieving bodies could take some time.

This is because the bodies may also contain particles which show if a bomb was planted, and could shed light on the investigation.

Michael Charles, who is heading the investigation said it is not known yet if the crash was caused by structural failure or a bomb.

Investigators cannot establish if the plane disintegrated before it came to ground, suggesting a bomb, or if it was destroyed by impact on the ground after severe structural failure led to its descent.

Aviation experts have said they believe the most likely cause is structural failure after an initial inspection of the black box flight recorders did not disclose anything.

Only a split second before radar contact was lost there was a 'faint unquantified noise'.

Rescue teams are continuing their search for bodies and the death toll currently remains at 240.

Divers are searching lochs and reservoirs for one wing of the plane which is still missing.

Relations between US and Libya improving

[What follows is a snippet from the Libya News and Views website from this date in 1999:]

After years of condemning Libya as a rogue state, the Clinton administration has recently taken steps toward better relations with the government of leader Mu'ammar al-Qadhafy, citing evidence of growing moderation on the part of a leader long demonized as a patron of international terror. Since Qadhafy agreed in April to the extradition of two men suspected of blowing up a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, the administration has permitted four US oil companies to visit Libya on reconnaissance missions and last month, publicly welcomed the expulsion from Libya of the infamous Abu Nidal terrorist group. Although unilateral US sanctions still bar most trade between American companies and Libya, the administration approved last spring the de facto lifting of international UN sanctions against the oil-rich North African country and -- according to a senior official -- is considering whether to lift a passport restriction that bars US citizens from traveling to Libya without a special State Department exemption. [Washington Post]

[RB: I wish a happy Christmas to all readers of this blog.]

Father Pat Keegans censored

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

Ayr priest barred from Lockerbie memorial service in Virginia

[This is the headline over a report in the [Daily Record]. It reads in part:]

An Ayr priest’s words were this week censored from a memorial service in the USA for the victims of the Lockerbie terror attack.

Canon Patrick Keegans was parish priest at Lockerbie when the attack occurred.

And he has spoken at previous services at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where there is a memorial cairn.

Canon Keegans had sent over an address to be read on Monday – the 21st anniversary of the atrocity.

But it wasn’t read out, after the leader of the American victims’ group took exception to part of it.

Canon Keegan proclaimed the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi took ‘courage’ and was the ‘right decision’.

And he further said that although few in America believe Megrahi to be innocent, the victims of the bombing ‘deserve’ justice.

But Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am 103, saw the excerpt of Canon Keegans’ address, printed by The Herald newspaper.

And he said: “Fr Keegans’ remarks, as printed in the newspaper, were deemed to be very inappropriate for this memorial service." (...)

Canon Keegans’ address also included moving and poignant tributes to victims on the ground and in the air.

And he told the Post this week: “I felt that in view of what has happened this year, I should say the things I did.

“I thought it right to present my view, and the view of many in Scotland.

“I believe in freedom of speech, but Mr Duggan’s censorship of my words has given them greater impact.”

Questions remain

[What follows is the text of an article that appeared yesterday on the website of the San Francisco Chronicle:]

When the bomb went off, it was the deadliest act of terrorism against the United States in history.

The Chronicle’s front page from Dec 22, 1988, covers the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

“A Pan American World Airways jumbo jet carrying 258 passengers and crew members from London to New York crashed in a huge fireball at a village just north of the Scottish border last evening, killing everyone on board and at least 15 people on the ground,” the story read.

Once the bodies were counted, 243 passengers and 16 crew members were dead, along with 11 people on the ground. One hundred and eighty-nine of the dead were American; 43 were British. It was the greatest loss of American life in a terrorist act until Sept 11, 2001.

In the bombing’s immediate aftermath, however, terrorism’s role wasn’t certain.

“The cause of the disaster was not clear, with speculation centering on structural failure or sabotage,” the story read.

“Among the kinds of things that might suddenly cut all power would be a bomb or an explosive decompression caused by a structural weakness.”

It was soon obvious that terrorists were to blame, but the culprit wasn’t identified.

Libya and leader Muammar Gaddafi would accept responsibility in the late 1990s, and a Libyan intelligence officer would be imprisoned for murder in 2001. Questions remain as to whether Gaddafi ordered the attack and who carried it out.

Still more questions than answers

[This is part of the headline over an article that appeared in the Malta Independent on this date in 2010. It reads as follows:]

The 22nd anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing – the worst terrorist attack in history on British soil, and the worst terrorist attack that Malta can claim any sort of relation to – was commemorated on Tuesday.

But whether that relation is one of fact or fiction is quite another story, and one which is hotly disputed between victims’ families, former investigators and legal experts on both sides of the Atlantic.

Twenty-two years of anguish for the victims’ families, 22 years in which Malta’s name has been inextricably, and arguably erroneously, linked to the heinous crime and 22 years of questionable investigations, trials, a conviction and a compassionate release of the one person to have been found guilty.

The one fundamental question still lingering is whether the truth of who ordered and carried out the Lockerbie bombing will ever be known.

With the only convicted party, Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, having dropped a highly anticipated appeal when was ‘compassionately’ released from Scottish custody, the possibility of more of the truth ever coming out appears faint. Nor will Malta’s name ever be cleared by a court of law over its apparent role as the bomb’s point of departure.

The country has been dogged for more than two decades years by the prosecution’s contention that the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland on 21 December 1988 began its deadly journey on an Air Malta flight out of Luqa Airport.

Indeed, the only hope of answers for the families on both sides of the Atlantic, which hold very different views on the guilt of the convicted bomber, of learning the truth lies in the possibility of a separate enquiry into the case. Calls for that too, however, have been brushed aside.

Experts such as Prof Robert Black – a former Scottish judge and the architect of the original Lockerbie trial – insist that the evidence presented during the trial that the bomb had originated at Luqa Airport was some of the weakest of the entire proceedings.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a former employee at Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta and the only person to have been found guilty of the terrorist attack, had been convicted largely on the basis of evidence supplied by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci – of Mary’s House on Tower Road, Sliema.

In his evidence Mr Gauci had identified Mr al-Megrahi as the purchaser of articles of clothing and an umbrella found in the suitcase containing the bomb – placed on an Air Malta flight and transferred to the ill-fated Pan Am flight in Frankfurt.

But in reviewing the request for an appeal, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found, for numerous reasons, that “there is no reasonable basis in the trial court’s judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary’s House, took place on 7 December 1988” – the very argument that had sealed the indictment against Mr al-Megrahi.

That appeal, however, never came to fruition, with al-Megrahi having been released and returned to Libya, on compassionate medical grounds in that he apparently only had three months to live.

There are so many questions about the case that are still lingering, or, rather, festering that one questions whether the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing will ever be known.

The Lockerbie tragedy has left an indelible stain on Malta’s reputation – a stain that will remain, irrespective of whether an inquiry into the Lockerbie case and the evidence that was to be heard at appeal is undertaken, and regardless of what the outcome of such an inquiry would be.

Malta, for many, will always be the place from where the Lockerbie bomb started its fateful journey. An international petition has been handed in to to the Scottish Parliament urging the Scottish government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction.

Such an inquiry would go a long way to bringing a sense of justice to the victims’ families, irrespective of the outcome, and would also help to settle the score insofar as Malta is concerned.

Prevarications, obfuscations and plain lies

[What follows is the text of a report published in today’s edition of The National:]

There will never be closure in the Lockerbie bombing case until it returns to the appeal court, according to one of Scotland’s top lawyers.

Glasgow solicitor Aamer Anwar, who represents the family of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man ever convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, was speaking to The National yesterday – the 28th anniversary of the atrocity in which 270 people died.

“Some of the British relatives, as well as the Megrahi family, do not believe that there has ever been closure,” said Anwar. “They remain determined to search for justice and the truth.

“At this stage it would be inappropriate to comment other than to say the legal process is certainly not at an end and my thoughts are with those families of the victims, but also the family of Al Megrahi. Until this case returns to the appeal court there will never be closure.”

Earlier, Megrahi’s family reiterated their belief that the Libyan was innocent of the bombing.

Writing on a social media page set up by the Friends of Justice for Megrahi (JfM), they said they were “on the right path” to finding out the truth.

They said there was new evidence and they were working “in Switzerland and Scotland” to finally prove that Megrahi was innocent.

Writing on the same page, John Mosey, who lost his 19-year-old daughter Helga in the bombing, also expressed his belief that Megrahi, who died in 2012, was innocent.

“It is now beyond clarity that the Libyan man found guilty was falsely accused and convicted,” he said. “As one of the only two relatives who attended the whole trial and first appeal in Holland, I came away convinced that a gross miscarriage of justice had been carried out.”

Mosey said that former Sheriff Principal John Mowat has said Lockerbie was “a preventable disaster”, and the question was why it had been allowed to happen.

“This question has not even been permitted to be asked let alone answered,” he said. “Every effort to raise this question has been rebuffed. Mrs Thatcher made it very plain that there would be no independent inquiry into this, the largest mass killing in the UK outside wartime.

“Our efforts to get an answer to this primary question have been reinforced by the mass of evidence that it was known beforehand that a Pan Am flight out of the UK to the USA would have a bomb on board in a Toshiba cassette player in that week before Christmas.

“At least 10 warnings were logged by the FAA and other authorities. An anonymous phone call to the US embassy in Helsinki on December 5 gave accurate details of the bomb and the week it would be deployed.”

Mosey added that he and other families still wanted an answer to the big question: “Those who we pay to govern and protect us failed miserably even though the danger was known.

“Nothing was done to either prevent the disaster or to warn the public. We have been forced down the important but subsidiary road of questioning the verdict and attacking the Scottish legal system. We do not want to have anyone hung out to dry but simply to have some transparency and honesty from those who have strung us along for all of these years with prevarications, obfuscations and plain lies.”