Megrahi and Fhimah appear in court in Tripoli

[What follows is excerpted from The Marxist-Leninist Research Bureau Report No 6:]

On 18 February 1992, al-Megrahi and Fhimah appeared in a Tripoli court to face a "routine investigative hearing. (...)  Abdul Taher Zawei, Councillor to the Supreme Court, said that under Libyan and international law there was no basis for their extradition. Criminal proceedings could be started in Libya, but this had so far proved impossible because neither the USA nor the UK authorities had responded to his requests to hand over copies of the evidence in their possession".

(Keesing's Record of World Events, Volume 38; p 38,791).

[RB: Here is what I have previously written about this:]

Libyan internal law, in common with the laws of many countries in the world, does not permit the extradition of its own nationals for trial overseas.  The government of Libya accordingly contended that the affair should be resolved through the application of the provisions of a 1971 civil aviation Convention concluded in Montreal to which all three relevant governments are signatories.  That Convention provides that a state in whose territory persons accused of terrorist offences against aircraft are resident has a choice aut dedere aut judicare, either to hand over the accused for trial in the courts of the state bringing the accusation or to take the necessary steps to have the accused brought to trial in its own domestic courts.  In purported compliance with the second of these options, the Libyan authorities arrested the two accused and appointed a Supreme Court judge as examining magistrate to consider the evidence and prepare the case against them.  Not surprisingly, perhaps, the UK and US governments refused to make available to the examining magistrate the evidence that they claimed to have amassed against the accused, who remained under house arrest in Libya until they were eventually handed over in April 1999 for trial at Camp Zeist.

[RB: This famous photograph is from that court appearance:]

Extensive lying, fraud, perjury, bought witnesses

[On this date in 2013 Swedish journalist Anders Carlgren published on his website an article headed Lockerbie - Yet Again the Clues Lead to a Palestinian Terrorist Group. It reads in part:]

Just two months before the Lockerbie bombing, West German police had cracked down on a terrorist cell outside of Düsseldorf, apprehending 17 members of none other than PFLP-GC. The most important find was four Semtex bombs build into Toshiba radios.

But a fifth bomb had gone missing, and it turned out that it had been hidden by the bomb builder of the terrorist cell, Marwan Kreeshat. The legendary European correspondent for ABC News Pierre Salinger later interviewed Kreeshat in prison. In that interview Kreeshat said that he was convinced that it was precisely his bomb that had brought down Pan Am Flight 103. It is also documented that during the fall of 1988, great sums were transferred from Iran to the German terrorist cell, in several batches via a variety of Middle Eastern banks.

But the Palestinian-Iranian trail sudden went cold and non-existent in August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. That invasion and the first Gulf war entirely changed the direction of the investigation, documentably at American request. During the preparation for the war, it was important to keep both Syria and Iran calm. The PFLP-GC was now entirely uninteresting and – unexpectedly – the rogue state Libya was pointed to as responsible for the act. The United Nations complied with a request to impose extensive sanctions against Libya.

One of the persons no longer under investigation was the Swedish-Palestinian Mohammed Abu Talb, then a resident of Uppsala. He had entered Sweden on a false passport. Abu Talb probably had ties to the German terrorist cell, as he and three other Swedish-Palestinians repeatedly traveled to places like Frankfurt and Munich. Abu Talb had a background as chief of bodyguard forces in Lebanon and in Syria, and in the Soviet Union he had received training in handling targeting robots.

Today many investigators and relatives of victims are convinced that Abu Talb obtained the fifth Semtex bomb and had it loaded onto the airplane in Frankfurt, where Pan Am 103 had begun its route. It was determined that the bomb-containing suitcase had been loaded without belonging to any passenger.

Three years before the Lockerbie bombing, in 1985, Abu Talb along with three Palestinian co-conspirators were behind the bombing of a synagogue in Copenhagen and similar bombs against airplane companies in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, both of which caused much death and destruction.

In May 1989 the four terrorists were apprehended in Sweden, and December 21st, one year after Lockerbie, Mohammed Abu Talb and Marten Imandi were sentenced to life prison. The two others received significantly milder punishments.

Investigations showed that Abu Talb had been in Malta during the fall of 1988, and that Marten Imandi had stayed in Malta for a longer period. In the Uppsala home of Abu Talb, police also found a calendar with a circle around December 21st. And in a recorded wiretap , the Abu Talb’s wife was heard saying to someone else: ”get rid of the clothes immediately.” A suitcase similar to the one holding the bomb was found at that person’s residence.

Both Abu Talb and Marten Imandi are now free after having had their life sentences converted. Abu Talb was also sentenced to deportation, but is nevertheless still in Sweden, as the government cannot decide which country he is to be deported to – Egypt, Syria or Lebanon. He has repeatedly applied to have his deportation cancelled, most recently last year, but his application was turned down every time. Marten Imandi, however, cannot be deported, as he is a Swedish citizen.

But this Swedish trail to the Lockerbie bombing has never been followed to the end, after the US and Great Britain surprisingly pointed to Libya as the guilty party. After many long and hard negotiations, Moammar Gadaffi agreed to turn over two Libyans to a special Scottish court located at an old military base in the Netherlands. After two rounds of mock trial, one of them, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, was convicted to 27 years of prison. Gadaffi paid 2.7 billion dollars to the relatives of the victims. The sanctions were lifted, and in return, Great Britain obtained profitable oil contracts. Al Megrahi was returned to Libya in 2009, where he died later from prostate cancer.

We know today that the owner of the shop in Malta, Tony Gauci, who sold the clothes found in the bomber’s suitcase, lied when he pointed out Al Megrahi in a confrontation; he had been shown a picture of Al Megrahi in advance. We also know that Tony Gauci received two million dollars from the US for testifying in the two mock trials. There are many other errors and repeatedly changing explanations in his testimony.

Abu Talb was also forced to testify during the trials, but he denied any kind of involvement, and claimed that he had been babysitting in Uppsala at the time. That alibi, however, has never been verified.

A year ago, Scottish newspapers published an 800-page report of the investigation from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which had been classified since 2007. The report pointed out extensive lying, fraud, perjury, bought witnesses and other mistakes during the legal process.

Mohammed Abu Talb and his terrorist associates in Sweden and Germany do not enjoy immunity from the Scottish authorities. Therefore there are good reasons to resume investigation of the Swedish-Palestinian trail.

Jack Straw and the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in The Herald on this date in 2008:]

Earlier this week, in a letter to The Herald, Mr [Jack] Straw insisted that Scottish ministers would have the final say on whether to transfer the Lockerbie bomber, following claims that he was a pawn in a recent £450m oil deal with Libya.

However, his comments unleashed renewed criticism from the Scottish Government for failing to explain why Westminster had not obtained an order specifically excluding Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi from the infamous "deal in the desert" made by Tony Blair last year.

Professor Robert Black, one of the architects of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist, yesterday accused the Westminster Government and former Prime Minister Blair of being "disingenuous" and dishonest about the prisoner transfer agreement.

He said: "When the UK Foreign Office entered into negotiations with Libya for a reciprocal prisoner transfer agreement, both sides were perfectly well aware that the only Libyan in a British jail whom the Libyans had the slightest concern about was Megrahi. The Libyan negotiators believed, and were known to believe, that the agreement they were drafting would cover Megrahi.

"The London government did not have the courtesy to inform the Scottish Government about these negotiations and later said the agreement would not cover Megrahi. This was at best disingenuous and, at worst, an outright lie."

It also came to light yesterday that the prisoner transfer agreement has not yet been officially signed off, and Mr Salmond is now pushing for Mr Straw to go back to Libya to persuade them to incorporate a clause specifically excluding Megrahi.

A source close to the First Minister said: "Mr Straw needs to go back to Libya and ensure that what they promised comes to pass. The prisoner transfer agreement should include a clear and specific exemption in relation to the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. This was the position they signed up to." (...)

Whitehall has repeatedly denied that Megrahi, who is serving 27 years in Greenock Prison for the attack, was part of the arrangement signed by the former Prime Minister. However, Libyan officials and lawyers have maintained that Megrahi was a key part of the discussions, which have been ongoing since 2005.

The agreement means any Libyan serving their sentence in the UK, and who has no pending appeal, could return home. However, under the law, those serving sentences in Scottish prisons can be moved only with the permission of Scottish ministers. (...)

Fall-out from ‘deal in the desert'

How did the row about the potential prisoner transfer of Megrahi start this week? Jack Straw wrote to The Herald to clarify the Westminster Government's position. He said that any decision to move Megrahi lay in the hands of Scottish ministers.

Why did he write the letter? He was responding to a letter published in the paper from Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the tragedy, which raised concerns about what Tony Blair may have promised Colonel Gaddafi during their "deal in the desert" in which the two leaders agreed on reciprocal extradition and transfer of prisoners.

What is the prisoner transfer agreement? A draft "Memorandum of Understanding on the pursuit of agreements on judicial co-operation" was signed by the British and Libyan governments in June last year when Mr Blair was visiting Colonel Gaddafi. It referred to "extradition and prisoner transfer". No prisoner is named, but the memorandum states: "The UK government will seek to obtain the agreement of all three jurisdictions within the UK in each of these cases." The final agreement has not yet been signed.

Why does the Scottish Government believe it is important for Megrahi to be specifically excluded from the agreement made between Libya and Westminster? The original international agreement, which allowed Megrahi to be put on trial at a special court at Camp Zeist, also stated that any person convicted would serve their full sentence in Scotland. Alex Salmond was not told about the "deal in the desert" until after the new agreement had been drafted, despite the fact Megrahi is held in a Scottish jail. Ensuring the Libyan serves the full sentence here, he believes, is vital to maintaining the integrity of Scots law. If Megrahi fails to win his current appeal, unless he is excluded from the agreement, he could push for judicial review of a decision to hold him in a Scottish prison, a fact Mr Straw has acknowledged in a private letter to Mr Salmond.

Why could he make a case for judicial review? Judicial review is a High Court procedure for challenging administrative decisions of public bodies. If Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill were to refuse a transfer request, Megrahi could challenge that decision in the courts. He could, for example, argue that all other Libyan prisoners in the UK had been moved and that the decision to keep him was unfair.

Why could Mr Straw not secure an exemption for Megrahi? Westminster officials argue that Libya turned down the request and point out there are no exclusion clauses in similar agreements with at least 100 other countries. They argue it would be almost impossible for Megrahi to win a judicial review.

Gauci's first “identification” of Megrahi

[What follows is excerpted from a review by Alan Taylor in the Scottish Review of Books of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury:]

For the police, the key breakthrough in this many-tentacled investigation came on 15 February 1991 when they put twelve photographs in front of Tony Gauci and asked him if any of them showed the man who had come into his shop. Gauci, writes Ashton, ‘studied all the photographs, then told [DCI Harry] Bell, “They are all younger than the man who bought the clothes.” Bell asked him to try to allow for any age difference and to judge which most closely resembled the man. Gauci looked again, at one point picking up the card. He studied Abdelbaset’s photo three times. [DC] Crawford subsequently described thinking to himself, “He’s gonna pick him.” And sure enough, Gauci  did. “I would say that the photograph at No. 8 is similar to the man who bought the clothing,” he said, adding, “the hair is perhaps a bit long. The eyebrows are the same. The nose is the same and his chin and shape of his mouth at are the same. The man in the photograph No 8 is in my opinion in his thirty years. He would perhaps have to look about ten years or more older and he would look like the man who bought the clothes. It’s been a long time now [two and a quarter years] and I can only say that this photograph No. 8 resembles the man who bought the clothing, but it is younger.” At the end of the statement he added, “I can only say that of all the photographs I have been shown this photograph No. 8 is the only one really similar to the man who bought the clothing…other than the one my brother showed me.”’

This, adds Ashton, is a reference to Mohamed Abu Talb, another suspect whose photograph had appeared in the Sunday Times and which Paul had shown to Tony. But the police were not interested in that. They had their man, or so they supposed. (...)

It would be wrong to suggest that it was only Tony Gauci’s testimony which led to the conviction of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing. Equally it would be wrong to say that his conviction would have been obtained and upheld without it.

Approaching the end game

[What follows is the text of a report dated 14 February 1999 on the ITN Source website:]

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has said that efforts to bring to trial two Libyan suspects in the 1988 airliner bombing over the Scottish town of Lockerbie "could be approaching the end game".

Britain, the United States and Libya are nearer than ever to an accord on trying two Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 but looseremain, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said on Sunday (February 14).

"What we now need is to tie down the general agreement to the principle of a trial in the Netherlands, with a very clear specific undertaking from (Libyan leader) Colonel (Muammar) Gaddafi," Cook told reporters.

"What we want to see is justice carried out in a fair and open trial.We now look as if we are closer to that than we have ever been so far," he said during a break in diplomatic efforts to broker a peace in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

South Africa said on Saturday that envoys from Pretoria and Saudi Arabia, who had been in talks this week with Gaddafi, had reached agreement over trying the men accused of the bombing of the Pan American jetliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

A total of 270 people, mostly Americans, were killed when the plane blew up and crashed.

Cook, speaking to reporters from the steps of the chateau in Rambouillet outside Paris where the Kosovo talks are taking place, said he would talk to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan about the agreement later in the day.

Libya has been under UN sanctions since 1992 over its refusal to surrender the two suspects in the bombing, Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah.

"I'm not going to sigh with relief until the two men touch down in the Netherlands.But I am encouraged at the progress that has been made.After months of very hard progress, it looks as if we could be approaching the end game," Cook said.

Cook said on Saturday that Britain and the United States would not compromise on insisting that the suspects serve any sentence in a Scottish prison if they were found guilty by a court in the Netherlands.

Bert Ammerman, a New Jersey school principal whose brother, Tom, was killed in the bombing, said he and other relatives of victims won't believe Gaddafi has agreed to cooperate until they actually see the defendants arrive in the Hague, where a trial would be held.

[RB: Megrahi and Fhimah arrived at Camp Zeist on 5 April 1999.]

Donald Trump equates wind farms to Lockerbie disaster

[This is the headline over an article published in The Huffington Post on this date in 2014. It reads in part:]

Donald Trump has compared the development of wind farms in Scotland to the Lockerbie disaster.

In yet another bizarre attack on green energy schemes, the billionaire tycoon announced “wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103.”

All 259 passengers and crew on board the flight and 11 residents of Lockerbie were killed when the Boeing 747 plunged from the skies over Dumfries and Galloway on 21 December, 1988.

The crass comments have sparked outrage from MPs and grieving families alike.

He made the remarks after green campaigners in Scotland urged the Scottish government not to “waste another second” on Trump and his controversial golf resort development, after he lost a legal challenge to an offshore wind farm project.

In an interview with the Irish Times, Trump again showcased his true passion of hating wind farms.

“Wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103. They make people sick with the continuous noise.

“They’re an abomination and are only sustained with government subsidy. Scotland is in the middle of a revolution against wind farms.”

Susan Cohen’s daughter was killed in the disaster. She told The Scotsman Trump had chosen an “unfortunate choice of words.”

“I wish he had not made that comparison. Lockerbie was a ghastly tragedy that destroyed many lives and is beyond comparison. It is one of the great and terrible events of man’s inhumanity to man and therefore it’s of an order where it should not be likened to anything.”

Joan McAlpine, the SNP MSP for the South of Scotland blasted the “unbelievably crass,” comments, saying they “show a complete lack of respect to the families affected by the Lockerbie bombing – in the US, Scotland and across the world.”

In December 2012, Trump was accused of “sinking to a new low” and being “sick” for publishing an advert in Scottish newspapers which linked the government’s support of wind farms with the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

The US billionaire revealed he was asked to support the Scottish government in the days following Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds.

Clipper Maid of the Seas

[On this date in 1970 Pan Am’s Clipper Maid of the Seas entered into service. The immediately following paragraph is from an article in 2000 on The Guardian website, the second two are from the Wikipedia article Pan Am Flight 103:]

The Maid of the Seas had been put into service on 12 February 1970 and had since made 16,497 flights and logged in 72,646 flight hours. But, in spite of the age of the machine, the pilots had no reason to worry as they made their final checks.

-----

The aircraft operating Pan Am Flight 103 was a Boeing 747–121, registered N739PA and named Clipper Maid of the Seas, formerly named Clipper Morning Light prior to 1979. It was the 15th 747 built and was delivered in February 1970, one month after the first 747 entered service with Pan Am.

At the time of its destruction, Clipper Maid of the Seas was 18 years of age and had accumulated over 75,000 flying hours. In 1987, it underwent a complete overhaul as it belonged to the civil reserve fleet of aircraft and this aircraft was retrofitted so that, in a national emergency, it could be turned into a freight aircraft within two days' work, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Lockerbie witnesses were paid

[This is the headline over an article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer published in OhmyNews International on this date in 2009. It reads in part:]

In recent times, allegations have resurfaced regarding payments offered to key witnesses of the Lockerbie trial.

Specifically, there have been rumors that Majid Giaka, Paul and Tony Gauci were each paid about US$4 million for their help in the conviction of Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988. (...)

Richard Marquise, the FBI agent who led the Lockerbie investigation, forcefully denied that witnesses were ever offered any money.

'"I can assure you that no witnesses were ever offered any money by anyone--including the CIA," Marquise told OhmyNews. "This issue came up at trial and I spoke with the defense lawyers about it in Edinburgh in 1999 -- before trial. No one was promised or even told that they could get money for saying anything. Every FBI agent was under specific orders not to mention money to any potential witness." (...)

'A source speaking on condition of anonymity told Jeff Stein, the national security editor of the Congressional Quarterly, that a key witness, Tony Gauci, and his brother were each paid somewhere between $3 million to $4 million for providing information leading to the conviction of Megrahi.

'Moreover, former State Department lawyer Michael Scharf confirmed to OhmyNews that rewards were paid in the context of the Lockerbie trial.

'"I knew that rewards payments were made, but not the amount. The Awards for Terrorism Information program has been around since the 1980s, and has been expanded to rewards for information leading to the arrest or conviction of international indicted war criminals like Karadzic and Mladic. When I worked at the Office of the Legal Adviser of the State Department I was involved in the program," Scharf wrote in an email to OhmyNews. (...)

'Prof Black, often referred to as the architect of the Lockerbie trial, agrees. "The issue of payments made or promised to witnesses forms an important part of the Grounds of Appeal," Black told the author.

'"At one time in Scotland, if payment had been made, or promised, to a witness that was an absolute bar to his giving evidence. Today, it is simply a factor that must be taken into account in assessing his credibility. However, in order for this to be done, it is necessary that the court should know that the payment was made or promised. Failure by the Crown to disclose the promise or the payment is a serious breach of their duty to the court and to the administration of justice," Black said.'

Lord Advocate Peter Fraser ennobled

[On this date in 1989 Peter Fraser QC was elevated to the peerage as Lord Fraser of Carmyllie. What follows is excerpted from his entry in Wikipedia:]

Fraser first stood for Parliament for Aberdeen North in October 1974, but was beaten by Labour's Robert Hughes.

He was elected as a Conservative & Unionist Member of Parliament for South Angus in 1979, where he remained in the House of Commons until June 1987 (from 1983 representing East Angus). He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to George Younger, Secretary of State for Scotland. In 1982 he was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland by Margaret Thatcher and became Lord Advocate in 1989. He was created a life peer as Baron Fraser of Carmyllie, of Carmyllie in the District of Angus on 10 February 1989 and was appointed a member of the Privy Council the same year.

During his time as Scotland's senior law officer, he was directly responsible for the conduct of the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Lord Fraser drew up the 1991 indictment against the two accused Libyans and issued warrants for their arrest. But five years after the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, when Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of 270 counts of murder, he cast doubt upon the reliability of the main prosecution witness, Tony Gauci. According to The Sunday Times of 23 October 2005, Lord Fraser criticised the Maltese shopkeeper, who sold Megrahi the clothing that was used to pack the bomb suitcase, for inter alia being "not quite the full shilling" and "an apple short of a picnic".

Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, who was chief prosecutor at the Lockerbie trial, reacted by saying: "It was Lord Fraser who, as Lord Advocate, initiated the Lockerbie prosecution. At no stage, then or since, has he conveyed any reservation about any aspect of the prosecution to those who worked on the case, or to anyone in the prosecution service." Boyd asked Lord Fraser to clarify his apparent attack on Gauci by issuing a public statement of explanation.

William Taylor QC, who defended Megrahi at the trial and the appeal, said Lord Fraser should never have presented Gauci as a crown witness: "A man who has a public office, who is prosecuting in the criminal courts in Scotland, has got a duty to put forward evidence based upon people he considers to be reliable. He was prepared to advance Gauci as a witness of truth in terms of identification and, if he had these misgivings about him, they should have surfaced at the time. The fact that he is coming out many years later after my former client has been in prison for nearly four and a half years is nothing short of disgraceful. Gauci's evidence was absolutely central to the conviction and for Peter Fraser not to realise that is scandalous," Taylor said.

Tam Dalyell, former Labour MP who played a crucial role in organising the trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, described Lord Fraser's comments as an 'extraordinary development': "I think there is an obligation for the chairman and members of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to ask Lord Fraser to see them and testify under oath - it's that serious. Fraser should have said this at the time and, if not then, he was under a moral obligation to do so before the trial at Zeist. I think there will be all sorts of consequences," Dalyell declared.

[RB: Readers may also care to be reminded of James Robertson's magnificent jeu d'esprit Oh, come on, it's all over now.]

The World Court and Lockerbie

[What follows is excerpted from Justice Weeramantry and the Bridges of Understanding published today in the Sri Lanka Guardian:]

When two Libyan men were accused of causing the explosion of a bomb in the Pan Am Flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988, which killed all 259 passengers and crew, as well as eleven residents of the town of Lockerbie, The UK and US Governments requested Libya to extradite the accused so that they could be prosecuted in Scotland or in The United States. The matter came up before The International Court of Justice where Judge Weeramantry was one of the Bench hearing the case. One of the issues in the case was whether the Court had jurisdiction to issue provisional measures as applied for by Libya, in the face of Article 25 of the United Nations Charter which obligated member States to carry out decisions of the Security Council, which impliedly precluded the members from being obligated to carry out measures prescribed by the ICJ. Judge Weeramantry opined that both the Security Council and the Court were created by the Charter and therefore were complimentary to each other, ascribing to the court much needed credibility and jurisdiction.

As part of his judgment, Justice Weeramnatry said: “A great judge once said that the laws are not silent amidst the clash of arms. In our age we need also to assert that the laws are not powerless to prevent the clash of arms. The entire law of the United Nations has been built up around the notion of peace and the prevention of conflict… [T]he Court, in an appropriate instance where possible conflict threatens rights that are being litigated before it is not powerless to issue provisional measures conserving those rights by restraining an escalation of the dispute and the possible resort to force”.

[RB: My views on this very important World Court case can be read here. It is one of the minor tragedies of Lockerbie that the case was dropped after the Lockerbie trial. Had it proceeded, it is likely that it would have established that the ICJ had jurisdiction to review the legality of UN Security Council resolutions, which would have amounted to a significant brake on the power of, particularly, the permanent members of the Council.]

Guilty of monumental hypocrisy

[On this date in 2011 I reproduced on this blog Ian Bell’s column in that day’s edition of The Herald. It no longer seems to appear on the paper’s website, but it is worth repeating here:]

Sir Gus O’Donnell’s trawl through certain documents relating to the Lockerbie bombing has become very bad news for Labour.

It is bad in London, bad in Edinburgh; bad for reputations, bad for careers. On both sides of the border, the charge is the same: saying one thing, doing another. The only difference is that some things were shouted in one place and whispered elsewhere.

David Cameron handled the report with a certain vicious elegance in the Commons, in his best more-in-sorrow-than-anger voice. Too many things, he pointed out, were left unsaid by Labour ministers. Whether he would have behaved any differently in their shoes was a point he was happy to leave moot. He had certain aims in mind, and he achieved them.

Thus: blame Labour, blame the SNP, placate America, exonerate BP, and remind us that he was always opposed to the freeing of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on any grounds. Better still, for the eternal interests of Her Majesty’s Government, nothing in O’Donnell’s document obliged Cameron to deal with a real question: what of profound doubts over the original conviction?

No-one in the Commons, as usual, had a word to say about that.

Labour was all over the place. Gordon Brown was forced into a statement that answered no questions. Jack Straw, England’s Justice Secretary in the period at issue, fell to parsing any phrase that might provide an excuse. Meanwhile, the Scottish party found itself in a truly hideous position.

Either its leading members knew about London’s efforts to “facilitate” a release deal with Libya, or they did not. If not, what does that tell us about relationships between Labour in Edinburgh and Labour in Westminster?

But if all was known, what excused the many, vehement accusations hurled at Kenny MacAskill, the SNP minister who freed Megrahi? Labour in Scotland was still at that game this week, even when it was beyond doubt that its colleagues in London had connived in Libyan efforts. Straw, O’Donnell tells us, even thought of supplying a supportive letter.

It’s possible, of course, that some Scottish Labour figures were “in the loop” and some were not. The Scotland Office, first under Des Browne, and by October 2008 in the charge of Jim Murphy, was under no illusions. The latter minister was certainly given the minutes of calls between Straw and Alex Salmond. So what about Holyrood?

But this means that some passionate opponents of Megrahi’s release were permitted – encouraged? – to go on conducting a campaign against MacAskill while the truth was otherwise kept hidden. Take your pick: scandal, shambles, or a bit of both?

None is easy to spin, but Labour has done its best. Supported by the – no doubt unprompted – right-wing blogger Guido Fawkes, a tale filtered into the London media this week to the effect that MacAskill was prepared, late in 2007, to amend the Scottish Government’s opposition to Labour’s prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. The alleged price: cash to pay off human rights claims over prison slopping out, and devolved control over airgun legislation. And how tawdry would that have been?

O’Donnell certainly relates – of exchanges in November, 2007 – that “it is clear that HMG’s understanding was that a PTA without any exclusions” – meaning Megrahi, the only Libyan in a British prison – “might be acceptable to the Scottish Government if progress could be made with regards to ongoing discussions...” (on slopping out and firearms law). The Cabinet Secretary’s footnotes then refer the reader to letters between Straw and Browne in which the two allude to that “understanding”.

But O’Donnell’s very next sentence in the body of his text records that, “Kenny MacAskill restated the Scottish Government’s position that any PTA should exclude anyone convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in a letter to Jack Straw on 6 December 2007”.

So much was already in the public domain, thanks to the Scottish Government’s website. Nor did the SNP deviate from that position.

Labour’s attempt to establish otherwise this week depends entirely on a “leaked” email from John McTernan, Brown’s adviser, who gleaned his “understanding” from unnamed “officials”.

You wouldn’t base a Scottish election campaign on that, I’d have thought. But what else does Iain Gray and his Holyrood party now possess? Continued demands for the release of Megrahi’s medical records? Such material is redacted even in O’Donnell’s report, on data protection grounds. An oncologist would tell you, meanwhile, that a prognosis is not a prediction, but add that prostate cancer treatments – and hence survival rates – are improving yearly.

Even given the horrific scale of Lockerbie, an attack on compassion is tricky. It’s also beside the point. As is O’Donnell’s report, and Cameron’s lofty satisfaction, and Brown’s floundering response.

The fact that Labour has been found guilty of monumental hypocrisy is important in its own right, no doubt, but it is only one part of a larger argument. In the matter of mass murder, the question of guilt is paramount. Unless it is settled, beyond doubt, every other “row” is chatter, and distracting chatter at that. In the case of Megrahi, despite anything politicians claim, there is no certainty.

We do know, though, of $3 million paid by US authorities to Maltese brothers, Toni and Paul Gauci, for the sake of identification evidence. We know that Lord Peter Fraser, then Lord Advocate, would later describe the former brother, supposedly a star witness, as less than the full shilling and “an apple short of a picnic”.

We know, furthermore, that the forensic “experts” on both sides of the Atlantic, providers of still more “key evidence” at Camp Zeist, were later discredited thoroughly. We know Professor Hans Koechler, Kofi Annan’s UN observer, damned the trial as an outrage and an abuse.

There’s more, much more. We don’t know, though, why Megrahi still fails to provide proof of his innocence. We don’t know why no political party – the SNP included – is prepared to entertain even an inquiry into the conviction.

Those rows over the compassionate release of “the Lockerbie bomber” will do instead, at least until some successor to Sir Gus cares to examine a few more of the papers salted away in the hidden record.