Lockerbie suspect Abdullah Senussi in Tripoli hotel

[What follows is excerpted from a report published this morning on the website of The Herald:]

He is wanted in Scotland in connection with the biggest mass murder in our history.

He has a death sentence hanging over his head from his own country. And he has enemies who wish to see him buried.

Yet Abdullah al-Senussi, Libya’s one-time intelligence chief, former dictator Mummer Gaddafi’s “executioner” and the ultimate boss of the man known as the Lockerbie bomber is not in jail or hiding. He is, according to local reports, “holding court” in a four-star hotel in Tripoli, the 351-room Radisson Blu Mahari.

Mr Senussi is one of two men Scotland’s Crown Office want to speak to about Lockerbie. They do not doubt the conviction of Abdelbast Al-Megrahi (...)

They just don’t think Megrahi, who never admitted his guilt, acted alone.

The 1988 bombing of Pam Am Flight 103, prosecutors believe, was an operation of Libya’s intelligence system. Mr Senussi, who was married to Mr Gaddafi’s sister and a confidante of the murderous Libyan leader, was a core player in that regime network. Scottish prosecutors have made no secret they wish to speak to Mr Senussi and another operative, Mohammed Masud.

Both men were believed to be in a Tripoli prison, so Scottish authorities hoped to get hold of them, before any death penalty on Mr Senussi was carried out.

However, Libya now only exists on maps. The country has been ruled by strongmen and rival factions since the 2011 civil war which followed the fall and death of Mr Gaddafi. So prosecutors may wish to put Mr Senussi in the dock but that is, politically, logistically and diplomatically, difficult.

First, there is a queue. The International Criminal Court has indicted the 64-year-old for crime against humanity. Second, they have to figure out who to ask for Mr Senussi’s head. And that is not obvious.

The Libya Herald, an English-language news site, said Mr Senussi was taken to the Radisson last month after the prison where he was being held, the notorious Al-Hadba, changed hands after fighting in May. Mr Senussi is now thought to be under the control of the militia which captured the jail, Tripoli Revolutionaries’ Brigade of Hithaim Tajouri.

Going down in history as the Lockerbie bomber

[There has been extensive media coverage of yesterday’s submission of an application by the Megrahi family to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. A representative selection can be found here on Google News. Magnus Linklater’s article in The Times unsurprisingly doubts whether the application will succeed, largely relying on the Ken Dornstein film. Serious critiques of the “evidence” in this film can be found here (John Ashton) and here (Kevin Bannon).

The reaction of Christine Grahame MSP to the news is recorded on the Midlothian View website:]

SNP MSP Christine Grahame has welcomed the news that the family of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi have lodged a fresh application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in pursuit of a further appeal against his conviction for the Lockerbie Bombing in 1988. The disaster, which saw Pan Am Flight 103 destined for New York explode above the Scottish town on 21 December 1988, killed 270 people and is considered the most destructive act of terror in Scottish history.

Grahame, who met with the late Mr Megrahi three times whilst he was in prison in Greenock, and has long campaigned against the conviction, said:

“I am pleased that Mr Megrahi’s family has decided pursue an appeal against his conviction. I believe Mr Megrahi was wrongly convicted and that he abandoned his own appeal in desperation to return home before he died”

“I provided a statement for this application to the family’s solicitor Aamer Anwar and I sincerely hope the SCCRC remit the case to the High Court for a further appeal when all the evidence can be heard at last.

“I know how important it was for Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi to have his family’s name cleared. He told me on my final visit to him that he did not want the family name to go down in history as the Lockerbie bomber.

“It is also important for the victims’ families to learn the truth at last.” 

CIA wanted the suspects eliminated to stop any trial taking place

What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2013.

CIA ‘wanted to kill Lockerbie bomber before trial’

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The Scotsman, published the day after this item appeared in this blog.  The Scotsman’s story reads in part:]

The CIA wanted to assassinate Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and his co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, before their trial, a former Washington lobbyist has claimed.

William C Chasey, 73, made the sensational allegation in his autobiography, Truth Never Dies, which is to be turned into a film.

He claims agents tried to convince him to plant homing devices on Megrahi and Fhimah as part of the plot.

However, a former FBI chief has dismissed the claim as “nonsense”. (...)

Mr Chasey, president of the Foundation for Corporate Social Responsibility, a non-governmental organisation, became involved with Libya and the Lockerbie investigation when he was a lobbyist in Washington.

“On behalf of business clients, I went on a lobbying mission in 1992 with a US congressman in a bid to stabilise relations between the US and [Muammar] Gaddafi’s hated regime,” he said.

He told how he was taken to a private meeting with the two Lockerbie accused at a house in Tripoli. “Myself and the congressman and his wife then met Gaddafi and heard his pleas for help within Washington to get sanctions lifted, and heard his claims that Libya was not involved in Lockerbie,” Mr Chasey said.

“He spoke of the death of his daughter in a US air attack on his home and appealed directly to the congressman’s wife, as a mother, to get her husband to use his influence.”

Mr Chasey claims this clandestine meeting raised suspicions at the FBI, which launched a lengthy investigation into him.

Then, in 1995, he wrote a controversial book, Foreign Agent 4221: The Lockerbie Cover-Up, which claimed Libya was not responsible for the bombing.

“The FBI investigation, along with a probe by the US tax service, damaged my business and put incredible pressure on my wife, Virginia, and our young daughter Katie,” he said.

The family moved to Poland, where Mr Chasey had ties.

He said: “I was hit with 21 felony charges over crimes including wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, even larceny and forgery over allegations I stole headed notepaper from congressional offices.”

He denies the claims and says all but one were dropped in 1998 when he agreed a plea bargain and admitted a charge of filing a false tax return.

It was at this point he claims he was contacted by the CIA at Dulles Airport in Washington. “An agent approached me and asked if I could meet again with Megrahi and Fhimah to pinpoint their location so the CIA could assassinate them. In return, the charge would be dropped and my record expunged,” he said.

“He wasn’t explicit but my belief is that the CIA wanted the suspects eliminated to stop any trial taking place and bury the alternative view that Iran and Syria were behind Lockerbie.”

Mr Chasey, 73, was sentenced to 75 days in jail, 75 days in a half-way house and two years probation for the tax offence. He said: “I was sent to Allenwood Federal Prison in Pennsylvania and was amazed when I was joined in the canteen one day by the same CIA agent and one of his colleagues, dressed as inmates.

“They offered to free me and clear my record, but I said I would not take part in their plot to put electronic homing devices in the suspects’ residences so they could be targeted. I told them, ‘With all of your vast resources, the one thing you will never be able to destroy is my character’.”

Mr Chasey said he had decided to speak out now after being diagnosed with incurable cancer.

“Apart from my wife, no-one has known about this until now. I love my country, but I fear my government”, he said.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora, 23, died in the bombing, believes Megrahi was innocent. He said he had read Mr Chasey’s book and thought it was believable. “I think Bill Chasey is telling the truth about the CIA,” he said. “He is a respected philanthropist and was a leading lobbyist in Washington, so he’s not a crank.”

However, former FBI assistant director Buck Revell, who oversaw its Lockerbie investigation until 1991, said of Mr Chasey’s claims: “That’s nonsense.”

The CIA refused to comment.

Megrahi wasn't the bomber says Kenny MacAskill

[What follows is excerpted from an article by former Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill published this evening on the iNews website:]

Only Megrahi and his co-accused were surrendered, though many others were wanted by the prosecution, and only he was convicted.

The evidence was weak, understandably given the circumstances. That has been compounded by doubts over Tony Gauci’s evidence. He was a crucial witness who identified Megrahi as the man who bought clothes placed in the suitcase containing the bomb. His already debatable evidence has been damaged by information that the Americans paid him for it.  

So there are doubts: but that doesn’t mean an appeal is certain to proceed or be successful. After all, Libya carried out the bombing. The evidence showed that, Gadaffi admitted it, and those who succeeded him accepted it. [RB: Gaddafi did not admit it. The terms of his regime’s “acceptance of responsibility” can be read here. The value of the hasty acceptance of Libyan responsibility by politicians who supplanted Gaddafi can be regarded with a measure of scepticism.]

Moreover, whilst Megrahi wasn’t the bomber, he was a senior Libyan agent.

Suggestions that he had no role in it are fanciful. But whatever the outcome, as with JFK, the arguments will run and run.

[RB: This is quite mind-blowing stuff from a lawyer: Megrahi “wasn’t the bomber” but because he was “a senior Libyan agent” (actually, he wasn’t) it is “fanciful” to suggest he had no role in the bombing! Forget about evidence, forget about due process, Kenny knows best!

An article by Mr MacAskill in much the same terms appears in The Scotsman edition of Wednesday, 5 July. It does not improve with repetition.] 

SCCRC press release on Megrahi application

[What follows is the text of a press release issued today by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission:]

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission confirmed today that it has received a new application to review the conviction in the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi.

Mr Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of the murder of the 259 passengers and crew on board Pan American World Airways flight PA 103 from London to New York, and 11 residents of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988. He subsequently appealed his conviction and his first appeal was refused by the High Court in 2002.

Mr Megrahi then applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission for a review of his conviction in 2003, and, after a full review, his case was referred by the Commission to the High Court for a new appeal in 2007. Mr Megrahi subsequently abandoned that appeal in 2009. He was released from prison on compassionate grounds shortly thereafter. Mr Megrahi died from cancer in 2012.

The Commission received a further application in June 2014, which was made on Mr Megrahi’s behalf. The Commission rejected this application in 2015, concluding that it was not in the interests of justice at that time to proceed with the review. The reasons for this were detailed in our press releases issued on 5 and 6 November 2015 (currently available on our website). The main reason however was that despite various requests having been made of the Megrahi family, and of the late Mr Megrahi’s previous solicitors, Taylor & Kelly, for access to materials relating to the 2007-2009 appeal, these had not been forthcoming.

In rejecting the application in 2015 the Commission made it clear that it remained open in the future for the matter to be considered again by the SCCRC, but that it was unlikely that any future application would be accepted for a review unless it was accompanied by the original appeal materials to be sourced directly from Mr Megrahi`s solicitors.

Gerard Sinclair, the Chief Executive of the SCCRC, said today:

“As it does in every case the Commission will now give careful consideration to this new application. In particular, we will immediately be looking to see that this fresh application fully addresses the matters which we identified as missing from the application in 2015, and in particular provides access to the original appeal papers from Mr Megrahi`s solicitors.

“If the Commission accepts the application for a full review there are several important considerations which will affect the timescale within which we will be able to deal with this matter, including any new lines of enquiry and the fact that the membership of the Board has completely changed since the original referral in 2007.”

The Commission does not intend to make any further comment at this time.

Megrahi family lodge application with SCCRC

[What follows is the text of a report just published on the website of The Sun:]

The family of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi have lodged a new bid to appeal against his conviction, five years after his death.

Lawyer Aamer Anwar joined family members and supporters to hand files to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in Glasgow.

Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of the 1988 atrocity which killed 270 people.

He was jailed for 27 years but died of prostate cancer aged 60 in 2012 after being released on compassionate grounds in 2009.

He lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002, with the SCCRC recommending in 2007 that he should be granted a second appeal.

He dropped the second attempt to overturn his conviction in 2009, ahead of his return to Libya, but his widow Aisha and son Ali met Mr Anwar late last year to discuss a posthumous appeal to overturn the murder conviction.

The SCCRC will now decide whether there are grounds to refer the case to the appeal court.

The move has the support of Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga also died.

It is believed the new appeal bid is based on concerns over the evidence that convicted the Libyan, including that given by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who died last year.

Mr Anwar said: “It has been a long journey in the pursuit for truth and justice. When Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, killing 271 people from 21 countries, it still remains the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed in the UK – 28 years later the truth remains elusive.

“The reputation of Scottish law has suffered both at home and internationally because of widespread doubts about the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi.

“It is in the interests of justice and restoring confidence in our criminal justice system that these doubts can be addressed. However the only place to determine whether a miscarriage of justice did occur is in the appeal court, where the evidence can be subjected to rigorous scrutiny.” 

[RB: As of 09.45 the report is no longer to be found on The Sun website. But at 11.00 a virtually identical report was posted on the Sky News website. As of 11.13 this report can no longer be found on the Sky News website. What on earth is going on? However, there's now reliable confirmation: see Aamer Anwar at 11.26 on Twitter. The reports on the websites of The Sun and Sky News are now (13.30) back up again. It looks as if they may have originally published embargoed material a bit early.] 

US blames Iran for downing of IR 655

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on this date in 1988 in the The Washington Post. It provides evidence of the official disinformation that was being disseminated by the United States Government in the immediate aftermath of the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655 by the USS Vincennes:]

A US warship fighting gunboats in the Persian Gulf yesterday mistook an Iranian civilian jetliner for an attacking Iranian F14 fighter plane and blew it out of the hazy sky with a heat-seeking missile, the Pentagon announced. Iran said 290 persons were aboard the European-made A300 Airbus and that all had perished.

"The US government deeply regrets this incident," Adm William J Crowe Jr, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.

The disaster occurred at mid-morning over the Strait of Hormuz, when the airliner, Iran Air Flight 655, on what Iran described as a routine 140-mile flight from its coastal city of Bandar Abbas southwest to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, apparently strayed too close to two US Navy warships that were engaged in a battle with Iranian gunboats.

The USS Vincennes, a cruiser equipped with the most sophisticated radar and electronic battle gear in the Navy's surface arsenal, tracked the oncoming plane electronically, warned it to keep away, and when it did not fired two Standard surface-to-air missiles.

Navy officials said the Vincennes' combat teams believed the airliner to be an Iranian F14 jet fighter. No visual contact was made with the aircraft until it was struck and blew up about six miles from the Vincennes; the plane's wreckage fell in Iranian territorial waters, Navy officials said. (...)

Iran accused the United States of a "barbaric massacre" and vowed to "avenge the blood of our martyrs."

President Reagan in a statement said he was "saddened to report" that the Vincennes "in a proper defensive action" had shot down the jetliner. "This is a terrible human tragedy. Our sympathy and condolences go out to the passengers, crew, and their families . . . . We deeply regret any loss of life."

Reagan, who was spending the Fourth of July holiday at Camp David, said the Iranian aircraft "was headed directly for the Vincennes" and had "failed to heed repeated warnings." The cruiser, he said, fired "to protect itself against possible attack."

News of the downing of the plane began with sharply conflicting accounts from Iran and from the Defense Department of what had transpired in the Persian Gulf. Early yesterday, Tehran broadcast accusations that the United States had downed an unarmed airliner.

The Pentagon at first denied the Iranian claims, declaring that information from the fleet indicated that the Vincennes, equipped with the Aegis electronic battle management system, had shot down an attacking Iranian F14 jet fighter. But after sifting through more detailed reports and electronic intelligence, Reagan directed the Pentagon to confirm there had been a tragic case of mistaken identity in the war-torn gulf.

Crowe, in his hastily called news conference at the Pentagon, also backed up the skipper of the Vincennes and faulted the Iranian airline pilot.

Crowe said the Airbus had flown four miles west of the usual commercial airline route from Bandar Abbas to Dubai and that the pilot ignored repeated radioed warnings from the Vincennes to change course.

Why and how the Vincennes mistook the bulky, wide-bodied Airbus A300 for a sleek, supersonic F14 fighter plane barely a third the transport's size will be the subject of "a full investigation," Reagan promised. A military team under the command of Rear Adm William N Fogarty of the US Central Command will leave this week to begin that investigation, Defense Department officials said.

“It happened. It shouldn’t have. It is obviously unacceptable”

[What follows is the text of a report headlined Maltese shopkeeper offered ‘unlimited funds’ for Lockerbie testimony that was published in the Maltese newspaper The Independent on this date in 2011:]

Former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC has admitted that new documents show Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, whose evidence was the cornerstone in convicting Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie disaster did receive payment for his testimony.

The issue has been a hot potato for years and while American authorities insist that witnesses were never paid, the former law chief who led the Lockerbie bombing probe hit out after a leaked report claimed key witness Gauci had been paid £1.2million to testify.

In recent comments to The Scottish Sun, Lord Fraser said: “I have to accept that it happened. It shouldn’t have and I was unaware of it. It is obviously unacceptable in the biggest case of mass murder ever carried out in Europe.”

He added that he had warned Scottish investigators at the time that offering bribes to witnesses would be “unacceptable”.

But a documentary aired recently on Al Jazeera, Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber?, has revealed papers claiming Gauci was offered “unlimited funds” before he was paid.

The claims are made in findings from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which insists there is evidence of a mistrial, findings which had led convicted bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi to launch an appeal against his conviction. The appeal was ditched two years ago when al-Megrahi was released from jail suffering from cancer.

The report was kept under wraps until now, despite the efforts of the SNP to release them.

The findings, which rely heavily on diary entries by retired Strathclyde Police detective Harry Bell, also say Gauci’s brother Paul received £600,000, despite not testifying.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission report says Scottish police applied to US authorities for reward cash after the trial and “substantial payments were received by both Tony and Paul Gauci after the appeal”.

Tony Gauci became the key witness as clothes from the suitcase that carried the bomb on Pan Am flight 103 - which killed 270 in 1988 - were traced back to his shop in Malta.

In addition to the payment of the Maltese witness for testimony, the Commission had previously found several other problems with the evidence on which al-Megrahi had been convicted.

Mr al-Megrahi’s appeal had been granted after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found the reliability of Maltese evidence used to convict the former Libyan intelligence agent of carrying out as highly questionable and recommended he be granted an appeal.

Al-Megrahi had been convicted largely on the basis of evidence supplied by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci of Mary’s House Tower Road Sliema. In his evidence Mr Gauci had identified Al-Megrahi as the purchaser of articles of clothing and an umbrella found in the suitcase - placed on an Air Malta flight and transferred to the Pan Am flight in Frankfurt - containing the bomb.

The Commission, however, found “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”, an argument that had sealed the indictment against Al-Megrahi.

The Commission noted that although it had been proven Al-Megrahi had been in Malta on several occasions in the month in question, it was determined through new evidence submitted that 7 December 1988 was the only date on which he would have had the opportunity to make the purchases from Mary’s House.

New evidence in the Commission’s hands at the time, not heard at the trial, concerned the date on which Christmas lights had been illuminated in Sliema near Mary’s House which, taken together with Mr Gauci’s evidence at trial and the contents of his police statements, indicates the purchase of the incriminating items had taken place before 6 December 1988 – when no evidence had been presented at trial to the effect that the applicant was in Malta before 6 December.

Yet more new evidence given to the Commission indicates that Mr Gauci, four days before the identification parade at which he picked out Al-Megrahi, had seen a photograph of Al-Megrahi in a magazine article linking him to the bombing.

The Commission found Mr Gauci’s exposure to the photograph, so close to the date of the identity parade, “undermines the reliability of his identification of the applicant at that time and at the trial itself”.

US plot to snatch Megrahi

[On this date in 2011 an article headlined US tells Libya rebels: Capture the Lockerbie bomber for us was published on the Mail Online website. It reads in part:]

A dramatic mission to capture the freed Lockerbie bomber from Libya and return him to face justice in the United States was revealed last night.

Under a secret deal between Barack Obama and Libyan rebel leaders, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi would be detained by opposition troops and then handed over to US Special Forces.

Senior Congressional sources in Washington have disclosed to The Mail on Sunday that President Obama has told the Libyan rebels through intermediaries that a condition of continued support from the US is that they must hand over Megrahi if they enter Tripoli.

The mission would involve Megrahi being flown to a neutral Arab country by US Special Forces once he is handed over by the rebels, and then on to America to face trial. [RB: Megrahi had already faced trial and been convicted -- wrongly, in my view -- in a process that the United States supported and participated in. He could not have been tried again in the USA unless Federal Law had been changed to allow it.] British SAS soldiers are unlikely to be directly involved in the operation. (...)

If Megrahi is captured, the hope is he may implicate Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi in the Lockerbie bomb plot.

The plan to capture the bomber came after US Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder last week to demand the US ‘continue working to return Abdelbaset Al Megrahi to prison’.

Mr Menendez has amended a Congressional Bill authorising the continued use of force in Libya to include a paragraph ordering ‘the continuation of Federal investigations into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103’.

Congressional sources disclosed that the US will ‘grab’ Megrahi as soon as they can. (...)

When the US State Department was asked to comment on the Megrahi plot, an official said he would ‘take the question’. This is a regular tactic used by the State Department enabling it to neither confirm nor deny what is put to officials.

US government sources say if Megrahi were found guilty after a trial, he would get life without parole.

Although there would be calls for him to be executed, international pressure is likely to prevent the death sentence being carried out.

Megrahi questions continue to find voice in Scottish public sphere

[What follows is the text of an item posted on the Lallands Peat Worrier website on this date in 2011:]

Delayed recognition, but I dare say that some of you might not have noticed interesting progress in Holyrood this week, on the Justice for Megrahi petition. I was waiting for the parliamentary authorities to upload the official report to get a read of what committee members actually said in the course of their deliberations - but it has not yet materialised. Ho hum. So I thought I'd crack on anyway, while the development is still remotely contemporary. By way of background, the petition was presented to the parliament's Public Petitions Committee in the last session by Dr Jim Swire, Robert Black QC and other and despite some technical hitches in the process, attracted some 1,646 signatures. The petition calls...

"...on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988."

After taking evidence from the petitioners, the Petitions Committee wrote to the Scottish Government, asking three discrete questions:

Will you open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988 as called for by the petitioner and for the reasons given in the petition?

If not, will you provide a detailed explanation why not, specifying whether there is any legislation which would prevent you from holding such an inquiry, what this legislation is and how it prevents?

Who would have the power to undertake an inquiry in the terms proposed in the petition?

The government's answer to all three questions was basically - no. Ministers responded in the following terms towards the end of January this year:

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice made clear in his response of 16 September to a Parliamentary Question (S3W-35844) from George Foulkes on this issue that the Government have no plans to initiate an inquiry on this issue.

The Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi. He was tried and convicted by a Scottish court before three judges and his appeal against conviction, heard by a panel of five judges, was unsuccessful. A second appeal, following a referral from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, was abandoned by Mr Al-Megrahi. The conduct of his defence during his trial and the appeals, including his decision not to give evidence at trial and the decision to abandon the second appeal, was entirely a matter for Mr Al-Megrahi and his legal advisors.

The Government’s view is that the petition is inviting the Scottish Government to do something which falls properly to the criminal justice system i.e. inquire into whether a miscarriage of justice has taken place. The criminal justice system already provides a mechanism for that to happen. The fact that Mr Al-Megrahi chose to abandon his second appeal rather than pursue it is entirely a matter for him and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to institute an inquiry as a result.

The Inquiries Act 2005 provides that, to the extent that the matters dealt with are devolved, and criminal justice is devolved, the Scottish Government would have the power to conduct an inquiry. However, the wide ranging and international nature of the issues involved (even if the inquiry is confined to the trial and does not concern itself with wider matters) means that there is every likelihood of issues arising which are not devolved, which would require either a joint inquiry with or a separate inquiry by the UK government.

Separately, the Scottish Government intends to bring forward legislation to allow the SCCRC to publish a statement of reasons in cases such as Mr Al-Megrahi's where an appeal is abandoned, subject of course to legal restrictions applying to the SCCRC such as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities.

The Committee also received correspondence from such varied bodies as the Lord Advocate and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, asking the latter whether they can re-open an abandoned appeal before the Court of Criminal Appeal. On the 28th of June, the freshly constituted Public Petitions Committee agreed "to refer the petition to the Justice Committee under Rule 15.6.2 for further consideration".  Under the parliament's standing orders, the Committee could have responded in a number of ways. It might have unilaterally closed the petition [Rule 15.7]. Indeed, Holyrood's Justice Committee may decide to do so in due course. One significant aspect of this development is that the chair of the committee to which the petition has been referred, the SNP's Christine Grahame, has gone on record on several occasions, questioning Megrahi's guilt. Of course, by no means does the petition's continuing survival in Holyrood suggest that any independent public enquiry will be held into the case. What it does mean, however, is that questions about the evidence against Megrahi and his culpability for the atrocity over Lockerbie will continue to find voice [in] the Scottish public sphere, in the months to come.

[RB: Six years later the petition remains open before the Justice Committee and the “questions about the evidence against Megrahi and his culpability for the atrocity over Lockerbie” accordingly continue to find voice in the Scottish public sphere.]