CIA had no information that could have given advance warning

[What follows is excerpted from an article in today’s edition of The National headlined Uncovering the shocking secrets of the CIA files:]

Two nuclear submarines were involved in a collision off the west coast of Scotland at the height of the Cold War, according to a document from 1974, which is in a batch of around 13 million published online by America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

They shine some light on decades of spooks’ thinking in the US and were put on the CIA Records Search Tool (Crest) following a lengthy challenge from Muckrock, a freedom of information pressure group.

The papers were in the public domain, but could only be inspected on a personal visit to the National Archives in Maryland, where only four computers gave office-hours access to Crest. This, said Muckrock, “presented an obstacle to many researchers”.

The documents cover a vast range of topics including briefings on the Lockerbie bombing, UFO sightings, psychic experiments from the Stargate programme and include a collection of papers from Henry Kissinger, the former US diplomat, secretary of state and national security adviser, who served under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. (...)

TO examine them properly you would need to set aside a month or so. Apart from the sheer volume, the CIA search engine is not the best and an innocuous search can turn up 50,000 or more documents.

One previously secret set of papers is a briefing from December 1989 for then Director of Central Intelligence William H Webster, for a meeting with Ann McLaughlin, chairman of the president’s commission on aviation security and terrorism, a year after the Lockerbie bombing.

It describes allegations – later discredited – that the CIA allowed terrorists to place a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103. Other claims centre on a bigger drugs-for-hostages operation used as cover by leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) to plant a bomb on board; and a bomb threat warning from the Israelis to Germany and the CIA which the agency failed to act on.

However Webster dismissed the claims and said the CIA had no information that could have given advance warning of the tragedy.

Lockerbie trial judges ‘ignored inconsistencies’

[This is the heading over a report that appeared in The Scotsman on this date in 2002. It reads in part:]

The Lockerbie bombing trial judges made "errors great and small" when they convicted a Libyan intelligence officer of the atrocity, it was claimed yesterday.

Evidence which had pointed away from the guilt of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was ignored and the judges closed their minds to inconsistencies in the Crown case, the appeal hearing at the Scottish court in the Netherlands heard.

William Taylor, QC, the defence counsel, made the accusations as he homed in on one of the alleged mistakes which he insists led to Megrahi being wrongly convicted.

He said the judges had been unjustified in specifying a date for the purchase of clothing from a shop on Malta. (...)

Mr Taylor told the appeal hearing at Kamp van Zeist: "I will point to errors great and small ... Some of these errors are, by themselves, gross enough for this court to hold a miscarriage of justice has occurred. Others in combination produce a situation where a miscarriage of justice has occurred."

One of the major planks of the Crown case at the trial was that Megrahi bought clothes at Mary’s House shop in Sliema, Malta, on 7 December, 1988. Those were packed in a suitcase with the bomb which blew up Pan Am flight 103 on 21 December, 1988, killing a total of 270 people.

The date of the purchase was important because it was known Megrahi had been visiting Malta on Wednesday, 7 December, and had stayed at a hotel close to the shop. The shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, was able to say only the sale had taken place midweek about a fortnight before Christmas, and one of the ways the Crown attempted to pinpoint the date was by reference to street decorations.

Mr Taylor said: "Gauci’s evidence started with a positive assertion that the decorations were up and on. When asked to think carefully, he retreated somewhat and introduced the idea they were in the process of being put up. In previous statements to the police, he had said no decorations were up at the time of the sale. There were, therefore, three self-contradictory positions adopted by Gauci on this matter."

In holding the sale had been on 7 December, he added, the trial judges accepted it was at a time when the decorations would be going up, which they found consistent with Mr Gauci’s account of "about two weeks before Christmas".

Mr Taylor said: "In reaching its conclusion, the court has ignored the difficulty that Gauci had told the police in 1989 that there were no decorations up. The court had a duty … to give reasons as to why his statements could be ignored. The court has ignored without explanation a material factor."

He submitted that the failure to recognise the importance of an inconsistent prior statement by a witness giving evidence 12 years after the event was a significant error.

He said: "In view of the contradictions, the court should not have picked one of the positions in favour of the others advanced by Mr Gauci without there being a sound basis for doing so.

"The court failed to explain away the contradictory evidence. Gauci had said in a previous statement, when his memory was better, that the sale was at the end of November.

"The court makes no mention of this and ignores it. This is a highly material omission," said Mr Taylor.

He claimed the trial judges had closed their minds to alternative dates, but there were indications that it had not been 7 December.

The following day was a public holiday on Malta, for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and shops were closed.

Mr Gauci had made no link between the sale and such a significant date, which would be the natural thing to do, the court heard, and there was evidence that Mary’s House was open the day after the sale.

Damages for DEA official over Lockerbie film

[What follows is a snippet published on this date in 1997 on the Libya: News and Views website:]

An American Drug Enforcement Agency official won libel damages earlier this week over a Libyan-backed film that suggested DEA negligence was partly to blame for the deadly bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. Britain's High Court awarded Michael Hurley $29,000 plus costs from Channel 4 television, which broadcast the film. The film, The Maltese Double Cross, revived allegations, which arose soon after a Pan Am jet exploded over Lockerbie in December 1988, that Libya was not behind the blast. (AP)

[RB: Another report reads as follows:]

A retired US Federal Agent has accepted £17,500 in damages from Channel 4 which linked him to the Lockerbie bombing. Michael Hurley who worked with the US Embassy in Cyprus took Channel 4 to court over the May 1995 programme which he said implicated him in the bombing. Channel 4 alleged one of Mr Hurley's agents had been a passenger on the flight and the bombers had swapped bags. His lawyer said it suggested the PanAm blast was due to his negligence.

Lockerbie evidence 'misunderstood'

[This is the headline over a report that appeared on the BBC News website on this date in 2002. It reads in part:]

The Lockerbie appeal has heard that the trial judges who convicted a Libyan man of the bombing misunderstood and misinterpreted crucial evidence.

The claim was made by the lead lawyer representing Abdelbaset ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who was found guilty in January 2001 of murdering 270 people.

He was jailed for life with the minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Lawyers for the Libyan are attempting to overturn the verdict and are focussing during the second day of the appeal on legal precedents to support their case that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

Bill Taylor QC, for al-Megrahi, told the court on Thursday that new evidence had emerged in recent months that could "tear holes" in the trial judges' ruling.

A BBC correspondent at the court described the second day's proceedings as "pretty dry stuff". (...)

Al-Megrahi's team has lodged a nine-page document with the court, setting out the grounds for the appeal.

Mr Taylor raised the evidence given by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who identified al-Megrahi as the man who bought clothes from his shop on 7 December 1988.

He pointed out that Mr Gauci only saw the Libyan once and 12 years went by before he gave evidence at the trial.

Mr Taylor said that although Mr Gauci had been a credible witness and done his best to tell the truth, the question of how reliable he was, was a "different matter".

He said the trial judges had wrongly used evidence which showed al-Megrahi was staying in a hotel near Mr Gauci's shop at the time to infer that he was the buyer of the clothes.

The only other identification came when Mr Gauci pointed out al-Megrahi in court as being "similar" to the man who he had seen in his shop and when he was shown photographs of him taken from newspapers.

Mr Taylor pointed out that there was "considerable publicity" by that time connecting his client with the investigation into the bombing.

He also rebutted suggestions by the Crown that the question of what date al-Megrahi was in Malta was irrelevant to the issue of identification.

Mr Taylor said on Wednesday he wanted to introduce new evidence relating to a security guard who says there was a break-in at a baggage area at Heathrow Airport on 21 December 1988, the day Pan Am Flight 103 took off for America.

The prosecution says the suitcase carrying the bomb which blew up the plane was loaded onto a plane in Malta.

From there it was transported via Frankfurt to Heathrow, where it was loaded onto Pan Am flight 103.

Al-Megrahi's defence team insists the case was more likely to have been placed on board the plane at Heathrow.

Lockerbie judges “misdirected themselves”

[What follows is the text of a report that was published on the website of The Guardian on this date in 2002:]

The Libyan jailed for the Lockerbie bombing today launched his appeal against his conviction.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was found guilty of carrying out the 1988 atrocity in a lengthy trial at a specially-convened Scottish court in Holland last year.

But Megrahi's lawyers say that fresh evidence has since emerged which casts doubt on the guilt of the Libyan, who was ordered to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison.

The defence team opened its case this morning at the beginning of the appeal hearing, at the same special Scottish Court at Camp Zeist in Holland were he was convicted.

Megrahi, 49, who has been held in prison at the camp, a former US air base, since being sentenced last January, was granted leave to appeal in August.

A panel of five judges, headed by Lord Cullen, the Lord Justice General, was selected last week to hear the appeal, which is expected to last about three weeks.

Megrahi's lawyers issued a nine-page submission at the start of today's hearing, detailing their grounds for appeal.

The defence will launch a new attack on the evidence of Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who identified Megrahi as a man who had bought clothing at his store a few weeks before the bombing. The clothing was packed in the same suitcase as the bomb.

Defence lawyers at the trial had questioned the reliability of Mr Gauci's evidence, and the panel of judges admitted he had not made an "absolutely positive" identification of Megrahi either in court or from photographs. There was no jury, and the judges decided the verdict in the case.

According to the prosecution's version of events, which was accepted by the judges in the trial, the suitcase carrying the bomb was loaded on to a plane in Malta. From there it was taken via Frankfurt to Heathrow, where it was loaded onto Pan Am flight 103.

Megrahi's defence team has always insisted the bomb suitcase was more likely to have been placed on board the plane at Heathrow and wants to introduce new evidence to support that claim.

The defence has fresh testimony from Heathrow security guard Ray Manly, who has claimed there was a break-in at the baggage area at the airport on December 21 1988, the same day Pan Am flight 103 took off from there bound for America.

William Taylor QC said that with the exception of the new evidence, the grounds of appeal constituted criticisms of the findings of the judges in their 82-page opinion, which was issued at the end of the original trial.

Mr Taylor said: "A judgment of this sort has never in modern times been issued in a criminal trial in this country." He added that he intended to show that the three judges had effectively misdirected themselves as jurors and led to a miscarriage of justice.

He said that a reasonable jury in an ordinary trial could not have reached that verdict if it was given proper directions by the judge.

Alan Turnbull QC, for the Crown, argued that the evidence was not sufficient to justify being heard in the appeal.

All 259 passengers and crew on Pan Am 103, as well as 11 people on the ground, were killed when the plane was blown out of the sky over the Dumfries and Galloway town in December 1988.

Megrahi's co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, a former station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines, was acquitted at the end of the original trial after the judges ruled there was no evidence he had helped plant the bomb.

Today's hearing made legal history as its opening scenes were shown live on television and the Internet, although broadcasters will be subject to a number of restrictions, including a ban on televising evidence from witnesses.

Yesterday the Foreign Office said US, British and Libyan government officials had met earlier this month to discuss compensation for the victims of the bombing. A spokesman said the talks, on January 10, had been held in a "constructive atmosphere".

Official Report of Justice Committee consideration of Megrahi petition

[What follows is the text of the Official Report (Hansard) of the discussion of Justice for Megrahi’s petition at the meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee on 17 January 2017:]

Justice for Megrahi (PE1370)

The Convener (Margaret Mitchell):

I propose to defer to next week discussion of the three sets of petitions that are on the agenda, apart from the petition on an independent inquiry into the Megrahi conviction, in deference to the fact that we have people in the public gallery who have sat through all of the meeting to hear about that issue.

PE1370 is discussed on page 4 of the clerk’s paper 3 and annex F provides an update from Justice for Megrahi. The committee agreed to keep the petition open pending the completion of operation Sandwood, which we understood was to be completed by the end of 2016. However, according to the clerk’s recent update, the operation is still on-going and we do not have a completion date for it.

I ask the committee to consider and agree on what, if any, action it wishes to take in relation to the petition.

Stewart Stevenson:

The petitioners, in their letter to us, conclude by asking the committee to allow the petition to remain open until the conclusions of operation Sandwood have been announced. That is a reasonable request, to which we should accede.

Mary Fee:

I would have made the point that Stewart Stevenson just made if he had not made it, so I am grateful to him for making it.

The Convener:

In that case, the petition remains open.

UN Security Council requires Libya to comply with US/UK demands

[On this date in 1992 the United Nations Security Council passed its first resolution concerning Libya and the destruction of Pan Am 103 (UNSC Res 731). It reads as follows:]

The Security Council,

Deeply disturbed by the world-wide persistence of acts of international terrorism in all its forms, including those in which States are directly or indirectly involved, which endanger or take innocent lives, have a deleterious effect on international relations and jeopardize the security of States,

Deeply concerned by all activities directed against international civil aviation and affirming the right of all States, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and relevant principles of international law, to protect their nationals from acts of international terrorism that constitute threats to international peace and security,

Reaffirming its resolution 286 (1970) in which it called on States to take all possible legal steps to prevent any interference with international civil air travel,

Reaffirming also its resolution 635 (1989) in which it condemned all acts of unlawful interference against the security of civil aviation and called upon all States to cooperate in devising and implementing measures to prevent all acts of terrorism, including those involving explosives,

Recalling the statement made on 30 December 1988 by the President of the Council on behalf of the members of the Council strongly condemning the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 and calling on all States to assist in the apprehension and prosecution of those responsible for this criminal act,

Deeply concerned over results of investigations which implicate officials of the Libyan Government and which are contained in Security Council documents that include the requests addressed to the Libyan authorities by France, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America in connection with the legal procedures related to the attacks carried out against Pan Am flight 103 and UTA flight 772 (S/23306, S/23307, S/23308, S/23309, S/23317),

Determined to eliminate international terrorism,

1. Condemns the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 and UTA flight 772 and the resultant loss of hundreds of lives;

2. Strongly deplores the fact that the Libyan Government has not yet responded effectively to the above requests to cooperate fully in establishing responsibility for the terrorist acts referred to above against Pan Am flight 103 and UTA flight 772;

3. Urges the Libyan Government immediately to provide a full and effective response to those requests so as to contribute to the elimination of international terrorism;

4. Requests the Secretary-General to seek the cooperation of the Libyan Government to provide a full and effective response to those requests;

5. Urges all States individually and collectively to encourage the Libyan Government to respond fully and effectively to those requests;

6. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

[RB: Libya’s failure to comply led in March 1992 to a further Security Council Resolution imposing sanctions.]

Megrahi should never have been convicted in the first place

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in The Scotsman on this date in 2002:]

Megrahi’s appeal is being financed and co-ordinated by a consortium of Libyan lawyers headed by Tripoli-based academic Dr Ibrahim Legwell. [RB: Dr Legwell was a practising lawyer in Tripoli. His academic appointments were honorary.]

In a bid to bolster the appeal case, the Libyan lawyers raised funds to recruit the services of some of the world’s leading legal minds and PR men.

The appeal is to be heard by Scotland’s highest-ranking judge, Lord Cullen, the Lord Justice-General, sitting with Lords Kirkwood, Osborne, Macfadyen and Nimmo Smith.

Professor Robert Black, QC, of Edinburgh University, who helped to pave the way for the Lockerbie trial to be held in a neutral country, believes that Megrahi should win his appeal.

He added: "I did not believe either of the accused should have been convicted, and it is pretty plain my view is that the appeal should succeed, simply because Megrahi should never have been convicted in the first place on the evidence that was led.

"I believe that conclusions drawn by the court, that Megrahi bought clothing on Malta on a day when he was known to be on the island, went against the weight of the evidence.

"These conclusions were absolutely vital to his conviction. But it is very difficult for five judges to turn round and say, ‘Our three very senior colleagues at the trial got it wrong and they were not entitled to convict.’ I’m not oozing confidence that my view will turn out to be correct."

The verdict is vulnerable

[What follows is the text of a report that was published in The Times on this date in 2012. It reads as follows:]

The doctor who lost his daughter in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has reaffirmed his belief that the Libyan man convicted of the attack is innocent.

Jim Swire said he was convinced that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, despite the belief of the new Libyan governement that al-Megrahi is guilty of the mass murder of the 270 passengers.

Dr Swire was speaking last night after an ITV documentary in which he was shown visiting al-Megrahi, who is dying of cancer. He also consulted representatives of the Libyan leadership that toppled the dictatorship of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi last year.

In one exchange Ashour Shamis, an adviser to Abdurrahim al-Keib, the Libyan Prime Minister, told Dr Swire: “As far as the Libyans are concerned, the Gaddafi regime, Gaddafi personally, are involved in planning and executing the atrocity. There is no doubt about it. They are involved, the regime are involved.”

Mr Shamis added that al-Megrahi was involved in the bombing, if “only a small player”. He went on: “Megrahi is an employee of Libyan security there is no doubt about it — of Libyan security. And if he was told to do something, he would have done it.”

Dr Swire said he had not accepted that argument. Mr Shamis, along with the rest of new government, had simply not had time to consider the case with any thoroughness.

“I found Tripoli percolated with the desire to pin everything imaginable under the sun on the defunct Gaddafi regime, because the people are so delighted to have got rid of him,” said Dr Swire. “Mr Shamis certainly believes al-Megrahi was guilty. I tried to make plain that if you look at the evidence that it is not at all likely.”

Dr Swire added that he hoped the documentary would re-awaken interest in al-Megrahi’s conviction, in a Scottish court at Camp Zeist, in the Netherlands, in 2001. The Libyan was released from Greenock prison on compassionate grounds in 2009 because he is suffering from terminal cancer.

“The verdict is vulnerable and would be repealed if there were a full inquiry into it,” said Dr Swire. “The Scottish public should understand what’s going on in their name: the support of an unsupportable verdict.”

A petition calling for a review of the al-Megrahi case has been lodged with Holyrood’s Justice Committee and will be debated in the Scottish Parliament next month.

Judges for Megrahi Zeist appeal named

Since my return to South Africa I have, until today, been in areas without internet connection. Here is what I would have posted on Thursday, 19 January had it been possible.

[What follows is a snippet from the Libya: News and Views website on this date in 2002:]

The five judges who will hear the appeal by the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing were named yesterday. The bench is to be headed by Scotland’s senior judge, Lord Cullen, the Lord Justice-General. He will sit with Lords Kirkwood, Osborne, Macfadyen and Nimmo Smith. The appeal is due to start next Wednesday at the Scottish court in the Netherlands. A year ago, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, 49, was found guilty of murdering the 270 people who died when Pan-am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky above Lockerbie in December 1988. Lawyers for al-Megrahi will insist at the appeal that his conviction was a miscarriage of justice. [The Scotsman]

Inference upon inference upon inference

Since my return to South Africa I have, until today, been in areas without internet connection. Here is what I would have posted on Wednesday, 18 January had it been possible.

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on the BBC News website on 18 January 2001:]

The Lockerbie trial has been adjourned until Tuesday 30 January while the judges consider their verdict after hearing 84 days of evidence. (...)

The trial itself lasted eight months but was persistently held up by procedural problems.

Defence counsel for the two Libyans accused of the bombing in which 270 died completed their closing arguments on Thursday and called on the judges to deliver not guilty verdicts.

They urged the three judges - Lord Sutherland, Lord Coulsfield and Lord Maclean - to find their clients not guilty of the murder of 270 people in December 1988.

The trial is taking place at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands and is thought to have cost about £50m.

On the last day of evidence they heard Richard Keen, QC, representing Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, systematically atttempt to dismiss the Crown's claims by challenging the quality of the testimony.

He said: "We have inference upon inference upon inference, leading to an inference."

Mr Keen said the fact that Mr Fhimah had been, prior to the bombing, station chief for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta did not mean he had the know-how to slip an unaccompanied suitcase bomb onto an outgoing flight.

"Even if Al-Amin Fhimah had possessed the expertise that the Crown attributes to him," Mr Keen said, "the evidence does not suggest that Libyan intelligence services would have looked to him for the furtherance of their alleged plot."

Mr Keen suggested Fhimah could have been duped into supplying baggage tags, and that an entry in his diary about "getting tags - OK" proved nothing.

He added that Libya's JSO intelligence agency had its own agent at the airport, Abdul Majid Giaka, who later defected to the United States and, in September, testified as the prosecution's star witness.

Like William Taylor, QC, who is representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, Mr Keen challenged Mr Giaka's evidence in an attempt to convince the bench that the case against the accused is not watertight.

On several points, Mr Keen said, Giaka was "unreliable, and at some times simply incredible".

He urged the judges to look back at his testimony with "conspicuous care".

Origin of bomb suitcase questioned

[What follows is an item from the Libya: News and Views website on this date in 2001:]

The defence in the Lockerbie trial used closing submissions on Tuesday to cast doubt on a point prosecutors must prove for conviction: the origin of the suitcase holding the bomb that killed 270 in 1988. Counsel for defendant Libyan Abdel Basset al-Megrahi summed up on the 82nd day of the trial by exposing flawed security at Frankfurt airport, in a bid to show the bomb bag could have been introduced there and not in Malta as the prosecution contends. Al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Fahima deny responsibility for the explosion that blew New York-bound Pan Am flight 103 out of the sky over the Scots town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. Prosecutors maintain the two defendants were behind the planting of a suitcase containing the makeshift bomb on a Frankfurt-bound flight at Malta's Luqa airport. [Reuters]

[RB: Readers are reminded that Justice for Megrahi’s petition calling for an independent inquiry into the Megrahi conviction (PE1370) is up for consideration at the meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee that will start at 10.00 today in Holyrood Committee Room 2. The committee’s proceedings can be viewed on Parliament TV.]