Thursday 7 September 2017

The three Lockerbie judges almost got the date correct

What follows is excerpted from an item originally posted on this blog on this date ten years ago.

The following article appears on the Ohmynews English language website at http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=380264&rel_no=1

Key Lockerbie Witness Admits Perjury

Ludwig de Braeckeleer

[They] have eyes to see but do not see, ears to hear but do not hear … --Ezekiel 12:2

The Lockerbie Affair has taken yet another extraordinary twist. Last Friday I received from Edwin Bollier, head of the Zurich-based company MeBo AG, a copy of a German original of an affidavit.

The document is dated July 18, 2007, and signed by Ulrich Lumpert, who worked as an electronic engineer at MeBo from 1978 to 1994. I have scrutinized the document carefully and concluded that I have no reason to doubt its authenticity or the truthfulness of its content.

Lumpert was a key witness (No. 550) at the Camp Zeist trial, where a three-judge panel convicted a Libyan citizen of murdering the 270 people who died in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.

In his testimony, Lumpert stated that "of the three pieces of hand-made prototypes MST-13 timer PC-boards, the third MST-13 PC-board was broken and [he] had thrown it away."

In his affidavit, certified by Officer Walter Wieland, Lumpert admits having committed perjury.

"I confirm today on July 18, 2007, that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 timer PC-board consisting of eight layers of fiber-glass from MEBO Ltd. and gave it without permission on June 22, 1989, to a person officially investigating in the Lockerbie case," Lumpert wrote. (The identity of the official is known.)

"It did not escape me that the MST-13 fragment shown [at the Lockerbie trial] on the police photograph No. PT/35(b) came from the nonoperational MST-13 prototype PC-board that I had stolen," Lumpert added.

"I am sorry for the consequences of my silence at that time, for the innocent Libyan Mr. Abdelbaset Al Megrahi sentenced to life imprisonment, and for the country of Libya."

In just seven paragraphs, the Lumpert affidavit elucidates the longstanding mysteries surrounding the infamous MST-13 timer, which allegedly triggered the bomb that exploded Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on Dec 21, 1988.

The Discovery of the MST-13 Timer Fragment

In the months following the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, someone discovered a piece of a gray Slalom-brand shirt in a wooded area about 25 miles away from the town. According to a forensics expert, the cloth contained a tiny fragment -- 4 millimeters square -- of a circuit board. The testimony of three expert witnesses allowed the prosecutors to link this circuit board, described as part of the bomb trigger, to Megrahi.

There have been different accounts concerning the discovery of the timer fragment. A police source close to the investigation reported that it had been discovered by lovers. Some have said that it was picked up by a man walking his dog. Others have claimed that it was found by a policeman "combing the ground on his hands and knees."

At the trial, the third explanation became official. "On 13 January 1989, DC Gilchrist and DC McColm were engaged together in line searches in an area near Newcastleton. A piece of charred material was found by them, which was given the police number PI/995 and which subsequently became label 168."

The Alteration of the Label

The officer had initially labeled the bag "cloth (charred)" but had later overwritten the word "cloth" with "debris."

The bag contained pieces of a shirt collar and fragments of materials said to have been extracted from it, including the tiny piece of circuit board identified as coming from an MST-13 timer made by the Swiss firm MeBo.

"The original inscription on the label, which we are satisfied, was written by DC Gilchrist, was 'cloth (charred).' The word 'cloth' has been overwritten by the word 'debris.' There was no satisfactory explanation as to why this was done."

The judges said in their judgment that Gilchrist's evidence had been "at worst evasive and at best confusing."

Yet the judges went on to admit the evidence. "We are, however, satisfied that this item was indeed found in the area described, and DC McColm, who corroborated DC Gilchrist on the finding of the item, was not cross-examined about the detail of the finding of this item."

It has long been rumored that a senior former Scottish officer who worked at the highest level of the Lockerbie inquiry had signed a statement in which he claimed that evidence had been planted. U.K. media have confirmed the story. Thus, the Scottish officer has confirmed an allegation previously made by a former CIA agent. The identity of the officer remains secret and he is only known as "Golfer."

"Golfer" has told Megrahi's legal team that Gilchrist had told him that he had not been responsible for changing the label.

The New Page 51

According to documents obtained by the Scotland on Sunday, the entry of the discovery is recorded at widely different times by UK and German investigators. Moreover, a new page 51 has been inserted in the record of evidence.

During the Lockerbie investigation Thomas Hayes and Allan Feraday were working at the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) forensic laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent.

Hayes was employed at the Royal Armament Research Development Establishment (RARDE). In 1995, RARDE was subsumed into the DERA. In 2001, part of DERA became the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL).

Hayes testified that he collected the tiny fragment of the circuit board on May 12, 1989. He testified that the fragment was green. (Keep in mind that the board stolen from Lumpert is brown.) His colleague, Alan Feraday, confirmed his story at the Zeist trial.

The record is inserted on a loose-leaf page with the five subsequent pages re-numbered by hand. Hayes could not provide a reasonable explanation for this rather strange entry, and yet the judges concluded that: "Pagination was of no materiality because each item that was examined had the date of examination incorporated into the notes."

The argument of the court is illogical as the index number Hayes gave to the piece is higher than some entry he made three months later.

And there is more. In September 1989 Feraday sent a Polaroid photograph of the piece and wrote in the attached memorandum that it was "the best he could do in such short time." So, are we supposed to believe that it takes forensic experts several months to take a Polaroid picture?

Hayes could not explain this. He merely suggested that the person to ask about it would be the author of the memorandum, Feraday.

This, however, was not done. At the young age of 43, Hayes resigned just a few months after the discovery of the timer fragment.

Based on the forensic evidence Hayes had supplied, an entire family (the Maguire Seven) was sent to jail in 1976. They were acquitted in appeal in 1992. Sir John May was appointed to review Hayes' forensic evidence.

"The whole scientific basis on which the prosecution in … [the trial of the alleged IRA Maguire Seven] was founded was in truth so vitiated that on this basis alone, the Court of Appeal should be invited to set aside the conviction," said May.

In Megrahi's case, Hayes did not even perform the basic test that would have established the presence of explosive residue on the sample. During the trial, he maintained that the fragment was too small, while it is factually established that his laboratory has performed such tests on smaller samples.

Had he performed such a test, no residue would have been found. As noted by Lumpert, the fragment shown at the Zeist trial belongs to a timer that was never connected to a relay. In other words, that timer never triggered a bomb.

Feraday's reputation is hardly better. In three separate cases where men were convicted on the basis of his forensic evidence, the initial ruling was overturned in appeal.

After one of these cases in 2005, a lord of justice said that Feraday should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in the field of electronics.

According to forensic scientist Michael Scott, who was interviewed in the documentary The Maltese Double Cross -- Lockerbie, Feraday has no formal qualifications as a scientist.

The Identification of the MeBo Timer

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

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

Again, his record is far from pristine. The US attorney general has accused him of having altered lab reports in a way that rendered subsequent prosecutions all but impossible. He has been transferred out of the FBI forensic laboratory.

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

"We're not necessarily going to get the truth out of what we're doing here," Whitehurst concluded.

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

And the legal experts were just as fake as their scientific counterparts. In late 1998 Glasgow University set up the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit (LTBU) to provide impartial advice to the world media on the legal aspects of the complex and unique trial.

Andrew Fulton, a British diplomat, was appointed as a visiting law professor to head the Unit. Fulton has no legal experience whatsoever. Prior to his appointment as head of LTBU, Fulton was MI6 station chief in Washington, DC

The Modification of the MST-13 Timer Fragment

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

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

The two batches are very different but as early as 1991 Bollier told the Scottish investigators that he could not identify the timer from a photograph alone. Yet, the Libyans were indicted in November 1991 -- without Bollier ever having been allowed to see the actual fragment -- on the ground that the integrity of the evidence had to be protected.

But in 1998 Bollier obtained a copy of a blown-up photograph that Thurman had shown on ABC in 1991. Bollier could tell from certain characteristics that the fragment was part of a board of the timers made for East Germany and definitely not one of the timers delivered by him to Libya.

In September 1999 Bollier was finally allowed to see the fragment. Unlike the one shown by Thurman on ABC, this one was machine-made, like the one sold to Libya. But it was obvious from the absence of traces of solder that the timer had never been used to trigger a bomb.

"As far as I'm concerned, and I told this to … [Scottish prosecutor Miriam Watson], this is a manufactured fragment," Bollier says. "A fabricated fragment, never from a complete, functional timer."

The next day Bollier was shown the fragment once more. You may have already guessed that it now had the soldering traces. "It was different. I'm not crazy. It was different!" says Bollier.

Finally, at the trial Bollier was presented a fragment of a circuit board completely burnt down. Thus, it was no longer possible to identify to which country that timer had been delivered. When he requested to explain the significance of the issue, Lord Shuterland told him that his request was denied.

How did the judges account for all the mysterious changes in the appearance of the fragment? They simply dismissed Bollier as an unreliable witness.

"We have assessed carefully the evidence of these three witnesses about the activities of MeBo and in particular their evidence relating to the MST-13 timers, which the company made. All three, and notably Mr. Bollier, were shown to be unreliable witnesses. Earlier statements which they made to the police and judicial authorities were at times in conflict with each other and with the evidence they gave in court. On some occasions, particularly in the case of Mr. Bollier, their evidence was self contradictory." (§ 45)

A Scenario Implausible on Its Face

"The evidence which we have considered up to this stage satisfies us beyond reasonable doubt that the cause of the disaster was the explosion of an improvised explosive device … and that the initiation of the explosion was triggered by the use of an MST-13 timer," wrote the three fudges. (§ 15)

Lockerbie experts, such as former CIA employee Robert Baer, have suspected that the MST-13 timer could have been given by the Stasi to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command [PFLP-GL], a terrorist group based in Syria, funded by Iran and led by the terrorist Ahmed Jibril.

The allegation deserves attention as it is well known that the two organizations had strong ties. Moreover, the archives of the Stasi reveal that the agency had infiltrated the Swedish government, and it is well documented that Jibril's close collaborators were operating from Sweden. Yet I never believed for a moment that the Lockerbie bomb had been triggered by a timer.

No terrorist would ever attempt to bomb an airliner with a timer-triggered bomb, and definitely not during the winter season, let alone at Christmas time, where the timetables are absolutely useless as delays are the norm rather than the exception.

Don't take my word for it. Terrorists such as Jibril and counter-terrorists such Noel Koch have stated that much.

"Explosives linked to an air pressure gauge, which would have detonated when the plane reached a certain altitude or to a timer would have been ineffective," Jibril said.

"I know all about the science of explosives. I am an engineer of explosives. I will argue this with any expert that the bomb went on board in London. I do not think the Libyans had anything to do with this."

Noel Koch headed the US Defense Department's anti-terrorism office from 1981 to 1986. Koch ridiculed the idea that terrorists would gamble on the likelihood that unaccompanied luggage would be successfully transferred twice, first from Malta to Frankfurt, and then from Frankfurt to London.

"I can tell you this much that I know about terrorism: it's simple," Koch says. "You don't complicate life. Life's complicated enough as it is. If you've got a target you want to get as close as you can to it and you don't go through a series of permutations that provide opportunities for failure and that provide opportunities for discovery. It doesn't work that way."

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission

On Nov 13, 1991, two Libyans were indicted for the murder of 270 people who died in the Lockerbie bombing. The indictment was the outcome of a three-year U.S.-U.K. joint investigation.

Although Libya never acknowledged responsibility in the matter, decade-long U.N. sanctions forced Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi to handover the two men accused of the worst act of terrorism in the U.K. On April 5, 1999, they were transferred to Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, where they were judged under Scottish Law.

On Jan 31, 2001, a panel of three Scottish Judges acquitted one of them. They convicted the other for murder and sentenced him to life. Megrahi is serving his sentence in a prison near Glasgow.

Megrahi's appeal was rejected on March 14, 2002. (...)

In September 2003, he applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission [SCCRC] for a legal review of his conviction. His request was based on the legal test contained in section 106(3)(b) of Scotland's Criminal Procedure Act of 1995.
The provision states that an appeal may be made against "any alleged miscarriage of justice, which may include such a miscarriage based on … the jury's having returned a verdict which no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned."

On June 28, 2007, the SCCRC decided to grant Megrahi a second appeal and to refer his case to the High Court. An impressive 800-page long document stating the reasons for the decision has been sent to the High Court, the applicant, his solicitor and the Crown Office. Although the document is not available to the public, the commission has decided "to provide a fuller news release than normal."

Is it too much to ask why the "fuller news release than normal" lists only four of the six grounds that justify the commission's conclusion that a miscarriage of justice might have occurred?

As recently pointed out by Hans Koechler, who was an international observer appointed by the United Nations at the Lockerbie trial, we may also wonder "why a supposedly independent judicial review body [the SCCRC] would try to exonerate 'preventively' officials in a case which is being returned to the High Court for a second appeal because of suspicions of a miscarriage of justice."

Indeed, the SCCRC's statement that "the commission undertook extensive enquiries in this area but found nothing to support that allegation or to undermine the trial court's conclusions in respect of the fragment [of the MST-13 MeBo timer]" is rather difficult to justify.

Toward a Criminal Investigation?

Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the tragedy, describes the ruling on Megrahi as one of the most disgraceful miscarriages of justice in history, blaming both the Scottish legal system and US intelligence.

"The Americans played their role in the investigation and influenced the prosecution," Swire told The Scotsman.

Top-level UK diplomats tend to agree with him, such as Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya.

"No court is likely get to the truth, now that various intelligence agencies have had the opportunity to corrupt the evidence," Miles told the BBC.

The spectacular decision of the SCCRC is certain to give a second life to the dozen of alternative theories of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Nearly two decades later, the case is back to square one.

Back to Square One

Let us give Lord Sutherland, Lord Coulsfield and Lord Maclean some credit. After hearing 230 witnesses and studying 621 exhibits during 84 days of evidence, spread over eight months, the three judges of the Lockerbie trial almost got the date of the worst act of terror in the UK correct.

In the first line of the first paragraph of the most expensive verdict in history (£80 million), they wrote: "At 1903 hours on 22 December 1988 Pan Am flight 103 fell out of the sky." As a matter of fact, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded on Dec 21.

Michael Scharf is an international law expert at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Scharf joined the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence in April 1989. He was also responsible for drawing up the U.N. Security Council resolutions that imposed sanctions on Libya in 1992.

"It was a trial where everybody agreed ahead of time that they were just going to focus on these two guys, and they were the fall guys," Scharf wrote.

"The CIA and the FBI kept the State Department in the dark. It worked for them for us to be fully committed to the theory that Libya was responsible. I helped the counter-terrorism bureau draft documents that described why we thought Libya was responsible, but these were not based on seeing a lot of evidence, but rather on representations from the CIA and FBI and the Department of Justice about what the case would prove and did prove."

"It was largely based on this inside guy [Libyan defector Abdul Majid Giaka]. It wasn't until the trial that I learned this guy was a nut-job and that the CIA had absolutely no confidence in him and that they knew he was a liar."

The Magic Luggage

According to the Lockerbie verdict, the bomb was hidden in a Toshiba radio, wrapped in clothes and located in luggage that was mysteriously boarded in Malta.

The court has examined this allegation in depth and the matter occupies 24 paragraphs of the final verdict (§ 16 to § 34). After reviewing all the evidence and testimonies, the three judges came to the following conclusions:

"Luqa airport had a relatively elaborate security system. All items of baggage checked in were entered into the airport computer as well as being noted on the passenger's ticket. After the baggage had passed the sniffer check, it was placed on a trolley in the baggage area to wait until the flight was ready for loading.

"When the flight was ready, the baggage was taken out and loaded, and the head loader was required to count the items placed on board. The ramp dispatcher, the airport official on the tarmac responsible for the departure of the flight, was in touch by radiotelephone with the load control office. The load control had access to the computer and, after the flight was closed, would notify the ramp dispatcher of the number of items checked in. The ramp dispatcher would also be told by the head loader how many items had been loaded; and if there were a discrepancy, the ramp dispatcher would take steps to resolve it.

"In addition to the baggage reconciliation procedure, there was a triple count of the number of passengers boarding a departing flight, that is there was a count of the boarding cards, a count by immigration officers of the number of immigration cards handed in, and a head count by the crew.

"The records relating to KM180 on 21 December 1988 show no discrepancy in respect of baggage. The flight log (production 930) shows that 55 items of baggage were loaded, corresponding to 55 on the load plan.

"On the face of them, these arrangements seem to make it extremely difficult for an unaccompanied and unidentified bag to be shipped on a flight out of Luqa.

"If therefore the unaccompanied bag was launched from Luqa, the method by which that was done is not established, and the Crown accepted that they could not point to any specific route by which the primary suitcase could have been loaded.

"The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 is a major difficulty for the Crown case."

An internal 1989 FBI memo indicates that there is no indication that unaccompanied luggage was transferred from Air Malta to Pan Am. Law authorities from Malta and Germany came to the same conclusion.

And yet, without any explanation, the judges wrote in the conclusion of the verdict that: "the absence of an explanation as to how the suitcase was taken into the system at Luqa is a major difficulty for the Crown case, but after taking full account of that difficulty, we remain of the view that the primary suitcase began its journey at Luqa." (§ 82)

The Maltese Storekeeper

According to the verdict, Megrahi bought the clothes in which the bomb was wrapped in Sliema, a small town of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea, including the "cloth" in which the fragment was "discovered" by Hayes. At first sight, the "cloth" appears to be part of a Slalom shirt sold in a little shop -- Mary's House -- located on the island.

However, upon closer examination, the "cloth" raises a series of issues. Firstly, the color of the label is incorrect. A blue Slalom shirt label should have blue writing, not brown.

Secondly, the breast pocket size corresponds to a child shirt, not the 16-and-a-half-sized shirt allegedly bought by Megrahi, for the pocket would have been 2 centimeters wider.

Thirdly, German records show the shirt had most of the breast pocket intact, while the evidence shown at Zeist had a deep triangular tear extending inside the pocket.

Lastly, the storekeeper initially told the investigators he never sold such shirts to whoever visited him a few weeks before the Lockerbie tragedy.

Storekeeper Tony Gauci's testimony was pivotal in the case against Megrahi. Gauci gave a series of 19 statements to the police that are fully inconsistent. Yet, the judges found him trustworthy. Allow me to disagree.

On Jan 30, 1990, Gauci stated, "That time when the man came, I am sure I did not sell him a shirt." Then, on Sept 10, 1990, he told the investigators, "I now remember that the man who bought the clothing also bought a Slalom shirt." And to make things worse, two of his testimonies have disappeared.

When Were the Clothes Bought?

According to the verdict, Megrahi bought the clothes on Dec 7, 1989. Gauci remembered that his brother had gone home earlier to watch an evening football game (Rome vs Dresden), that the man came just before closing time (7 pm), that it was raining (the man bought an umbrella) and that the Christmas lights were on.

The game allows for only two dates: Nov 23 or Dec 7. The issue is critical for there is no indication that Megrahi was in Malta on Nov 23, but he is known to have been on the island on Dec 7.

The chief meteorologist of Malta airport testified that it was raining on Nov 23 but not on Dec 7. Yet the judges determined the date as Dec 7. This rather absurd conclusion from the judges raises two other issues.

The Dec 7 Rome-Dresden game was played at 1 pm, not in the evening. What is more, Gauci had previously testified that the Christmas lights were not up, meaning that the date had to be Nov 7.

On Sept 19, 1989, Gauci stated, "The [Christmas] decorations were not up when the man bought the clothing." Then, at the Lockerbie trial, Gauci told the judges that the Christmas lights were on. "Yes, they were … up."

Who Was the Mysterious Buyer?

"We are nevertheless satisfied that his identification, so far as it went, of the first accused as the purchaser was reliable and should be treated as a highly important element in this case," wrote the judges.

In fact, Gauci never identified Megrahi. He merely stated that Megrahi resembles the man to whom he had sold the clothes, but only if he were much older and two inches taller. Gauci, however, had identified another man: Abu Talb.

Talb was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), the terrorist group led by Jibril.

In late October 1988 the senior bomb maker of the PFLP-GC, Marwan Khreesat, was arrested in Frankfurt in the company of Hafez Dalkamoni, the leader of the organization's German cell.

Dalkamoni had met Talb in Cyprus and Malta the week before. In the car the two men used, police found a bomb hidden in a Toshiba radio. Khreesat told the police that he had manufactured five similar improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Each device Khreesat had built was triggered by a pressure gauge that activated a timer -- range 0 to 45 minutes -- when the plane reached a cruising altitude of 11,000 meters. The timers of all recovered bombs were set on 30 minutes. It takes about 7 minutes for a 747 to reach cruising altitude. Pan Am 103 exploded 38 minutes after take-off from London.

German police eventually recovered four of the IEDs Khreesat had built. No one seems to know what happened to the fifth one, which was never recovered. When police raided Talb's apartment in Sweden, they found his appointment notebook. Talb had circled one date: Dec 21.

Contrary to Jibril's statement, and surely he must know better, a bomb triggered by a pressure gauge set at 11,000 meters would not have detonated during the Frankfurt to London flight as the airliner does not reach cruising altitude on such a short flight.

Then again, such a device would not have detonated at all if it had been located in the luggage area, as the hold is at the pressure of the passengers' zone and never drops below the pressure equivalent of 2,400 meters.

This is why when the judges were presented with the undisputable and undisputed evidence that a proper simulation of the explosion -- taking proper account of the Mach stem effect -- would locate the explosion outside the luggage hold they simply decided to dismiss the existence of a scientifically well-established fact.

"We do not consider it necessary to go into any detail about Mach stem formation," the judges wrote.

Had the judges deemed it "necessary to go into the details regarding Mach stem formation," they would have been forced to acknowledge that the position of the bomb was fully incompatible with the indictment. That magic unaccompanied luggage went mysteriously through airport security was "plausible." That it jumped on its own out of the luggage hold at London airport was a little too much to believe.

In truth, a proper simulation of the explosion locates the bomb just a few inches away from the skin of the plane, a position fully consistent with the very specific damages left by the explosion.

The truth was inconvenient. The three judges had to dismiss it in order to justify a verdict that had been decided more than a decade before the first day of the Zeist trial.

Shame on those who committed this horrific act of terror. Shame on those who have ordered the cover-up. Shame on those who provided false testimony and those who suppressed and fabricated the evidence needed to frame Libya. And shame on the media, whose silence made it an accomplice.

And to those who seek the truth, I advise them to follow the drug trail on the road to Damascus.

Ludwig De Braeckeleer has a PhD in nuclear sciences. He teaches physics and international humanitarian law. He blogs on The GaiaPost.

The following is a comment about this article posted on the Ohmynews website by Dr Hans Koechler:

Hans Koechler, 2007/09/07 00:40
This is a well researched analysis which precisely reveals the serious mistakes and omissions by the official Scottish investigators as well as the carelessness and lack of professionalism of the judges in the Lockerbie case. The Scottish judicial authorities are under the obligation to investigate possible criminal misconduct in the investigation and prosecution of the Lockerbie case.

Dr Hans Koechler
University Professor
International observer, appointed by the United Nations, at the Lockerbie Trial in the Netherlands

Wednesday 6 September 2017

BBC aims to show Lockerbie hearing

[This is the headline over a report published on the website of The Independent on this date in 1999. It reads as follows:]

The BBC is in competition with the United States broadcaster CNN to secure the right to televise the Lockerbie trial.

Cable News Network has done research showing there is enough interest among US audiences to offer television coverage of the trial of the suspected Libyan bombers. Many of the victims of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 were Americans returning to New York. Tony Maddox, CNN managing editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said its lawyers would make an application to the Scottish courts when the time was right but would, for now, let the BBC make the running.
BBC lawyers and executives have discussed the possibility of using a 1992 change in Scottish law, which allows cameras into Scottish courts, to argue for the trial to be televised.
The court pictures would be either shown as part of a continuous live transmission in the same way the trial of O J Simpson was screened in the States or presented as highlights during news bulletins.
Fred Croft, head of legal affairs at the BBC, and Glenn Del Medico, head of programme legal advice, both said they supported televising the Lockerbie trial.
Although the Lockerbie court will be on Dutch soil, it will use Scottish lawyers and will be governed by Scottish laws. Under 1925 legislation, all cameras are prohibited from British courts. But guidelines drawn up in 1992 by Lord Hope, then head of the Scottish judiciary, permitted a procedure for allowing cameras into Scottish courts. A final decision would rest with the presiding judge in consultation with the senior Scottish judiciary.
Mr Croft said: "If they [the Scottish courts] were to decide in favour, it would be television that the BBC should give the public the opportunity to watch. I am all for openness for courts and for making the justice system transparent." The only precedent for allowing cameras into a UK court was in 1994 when the BBC televised a Scottish murder trial.
Mr Croft said that this had been a success with both the viewers and the Scottish judiciary. Mr Del Medico said that there was also a precedent for filming cases in unique circumstances. In the Nazi war crimes trial of Anthony Sawoniuk earlier this year the jury travelled to Russia to examine the scene. The English courts allowed the jury to be filmed as it made its inspection.
Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifah Fhimah, both Libyan nationals, are being held at Camp Zeist, a former US air base in the Netherlands, where a court is being prepared that will have Scottish jurisdiction.
The trial, which could last for a year, is expected to start in February. The defendants' lawyers are understood to be opposed to allowing national television cameras in court.
British and American victims' families have been offered the chance of viewing the trial on closed-circuit TV in a "secure" building in their home countries. The trial will be conducted before a panel of three Scottish judges. Other than the judges, who replace the jury, the case will be held in accordance with Scottish criminal law.
[RB: The attempt by the BBC to get permission to televise the Zeist trial ultimately failed. The 2002 appeal was live-streamed by the BBC.]

Tuesday 5 September 2017

George Galloway’s interview with Frank Duggan

On this date in 2009, George Galloway conducted an interview on TalkRADIO with Frank Duggan, president of the US Lockerbie relatives’ organization Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc. Duggan cut the interview short but, unluckily for him, there is more than enough to demonstrate just how shaky is (or at least was) his grasp on the facts of the Lockerbie disaster. You can listen to the interview here.

Monday 4 September 2017

Probe into allegations of criminality in Megrahi investigation "still ongoing"

This is part of the headline over a report published in today’s edition of The Herald. It reads in part:

A three year police probe into allegations of criminality by Lockerbie investigators and prosecutors is still ongoing — 18 months after police said it had entered its “final stages”.

Police Scotland said they are still not in a position to say when Operation Sandwood, which was launched in February 2014, will be concluded and made public.

Police are investigating nine allegations of criminality levelled by campaign group Justice for Megrahi at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the police, and forensic officials involved in the investigation and legal processes relating to Megrahi’s conviction.

The allegations range from perverting the course of justice to perjury.

In March 2016, Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone told Holyrood’s Justice Committee the report had “entered its final phase”.

However, in the latest update, which will be considered by the committee on Tuesday, police said the operation remains ongoing.

“Although in its final stages, there are certain aspects that are not fully concluded,” Police Scotland told the committee.

Committee clerks said: “Once Police Scotland’s report is completed, it will be submitted for consideration by an independently appointed Queen’s Counsel appointed by Police Scotland, before going to the Crown Office.

“Clerks continue to seek updates from Police Scotland as to a likely publication date but Police Scotland is as yet not in a position to suggest when the report will be made public.

“The Justice for Megrahi submission indicates that it believes the report will be available to the Crown Office at some stage this year.”

Justice For Megrahi’s petition to Holyrood for an independent inquiry into the conviction has remained open for nearly seven years.

On 4 July 2017, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) confirmed it had received a third application to review the conviction.

Justice For Megrahi said: “JfM's sole interest remains acquiring justice for the victims of Pan Am 103, their families and friends, and those whom we regard as having been wrongly accused and convicted.

“This report is central to any further analysis of the Lockerbie tragedy, is of direct significance to the ongoing SCCRC consideration of the Megrahi family's submission for another appeal and is vital if the massive stain on the Scottish Justice system is ever to be removed.

“JfM has complete confidence in the work of Police Scotland on its behalf regarding JfM's various allegations of criminality associated with the conviction of Mr al Megrahi.

“Our present understanding is that the Police Scotland Operation Sandwood Report is in its final stages and will be available to the Lord Advocate at some stage this year.”

Mr Megrahi previously applied to the SCCRC in 2003, who referred his case to the High Court for appeal in 2007 but this appeal was abandoned in 2009.

In his authorised biography, Mr Megrahi claimed Kenny MacAskill, the SNP justice secretary at the time, urged him to drop his appeal as a way of helping his compassionate release from prison — a claim the Scottish Government denied.

After Mr Megrahi’s death in 2012, a second application was made to the SCCRC on his behalf in 2014, which was rejected in 2015 as the SCCRC had not had access to appeal materials from 2007-09.

Dubious "evidence" and suspect "witnesses"

[What follows is the text of an article by Linda S Heard that was published in Gulf News on this date ten years ago:]

On December 21 1988, a Pan Am plane mysteriously exploded over Scotland causing the death of 270 people from 21 countries. The tragedy provoked global outrage. In 1991, two Libyans were charged with the bombing.

In the event, only Abdulbaset Ali Mohammad Al Megrahi, a Libyan agent, was pronounced guilty by a panel of three judges, who based their decision on largely circumstantial evidence. Al Megrahi and the Libyan government have protested their innocence all along.

Nevertheless, after suffering punitive UN sanctions which froze overseas Libyan bank accounts and prevented the import of spare parts needed for the country's oil industry, Tripoli reluctantly agreed to pay $2.7 billion to victims? families ($10 million per family), on condition the pay-out would not be deemed as admission of guilt.

In February, 2004, the Libyan prime minister told the BBC that his country was innocent but was forced to pay-up as a "price for peace".

Al Megrahi is currently serving a life sentence but earlier this year the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled there may have been a miscarriage of justice on the basis of lost or destroyed evidence.

Later this month, a Scottish appeals court is due to revisit the case and is expected to overturn Al Megrahi's conviction as unsafe.

The Libyan leader's son Saif Al Islam recently said he is confident Al Megrahi will soon be found innocent and will be allowed to return home.

On Sunday, an Observer expose written by Alex Duval Smith reported "a key piece of material evidence used by prosecutors to implicate Libya in the Lockerbie bombing has emerged as a probable fake" with allegations of "international political intrigue and shoddy investigative work" levelled at "the British government, the FBI and the Scottish police".

The Observer story maintains Ulrich Lumpert a Swiss engineer who was "a crucial witness" has now confessed that he lied about the origins of a timer switch.

Recently, Lumpert gave a sworn declaration to a Swiss court, which read "I stole a prototype MST-13 timing device" and "gave it without permission on June 22, 1989 to a person who was officially investigating the Lockerbie affair".

The owner of the company that manufactured the switch - forced into bankruptcy after being sued by Pan Am - says he told police early in the enquiry that the timer switch was not one his company had ever sold to Libya.

Moreover, he insists the timer switch shown to the court had been tampered with since he initially viewed it in Scotland, saying the pieces appeared to have been "carbonised" in the interim. He also says the court was so determined to prove Libya's guilt it brushed aside his evidence.

In 2005, a former Scottish police chief signed a statement alleging the CIA had planted fragments of a timer circuit board produced at trial, evidence supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent to the effect his agency "wrote the script" to ensure Libya was incriminated.

There are also allegations that clothing allegedly purchased by the bomber in Malta before it was wrapped around the bomb, was intact when discovered but by the time it reached the court it was in shreds.

The shopkeeper who sold the item made a statement to the effect Al Megrahi had never been a customer. Instead, he identified an Egyptian-born Palestinian Mohammad Abu Talb - now serving a life sentence in Sweden for a synagogue bombing.

Professor Hans Koechler, appointed by the UN to be an observer at the trial, has termed its outcome "a spectacular miscarriage of justice". Koechler has repeatedly called for an independent enquiry, which, to date, the British government has refused to allow.

Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, insists "no court is likely to get to the truth, now that various intelligence agencies have had the opportunity to corrupt the evidence".

Jim Swire, the father of one of the Lockerbie victims, said "Scottish justice obviously played a leading part in one of the most disgraceful miscarriages of justice in history."

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador, who was earlier second-in-command of Britain's Aviation and Maritime Department from 1989 to 1992, writes about a strange incident on his website.

Murray says a colleague told him "in a deeply worried way" about an intelligence report indicating Libya was not involved in the Pan Am bombing. When he asked to see it, his colleague said it was marked for named eyes only, which Murray describes as "extremely unusual". Earlier, a CIA report that had reached a similar conclusion had been conveniently buried.

If Al Megrahi walks, as is likely, Libya will be vindicated and would presumably be able to reclaim monies paid in compensation along with its reputation.

This would also be a highly embarrassing turn of events for Britain and the US not to mention their respective intelligence agencies, and would leave the question of who bombed Pan Am Flight 103 unanswered.

In a perfect world, Libya should also receive an apology from its accusers and should be allowed to sue for damages for all that it lost as a result of UN sanctions.

But in a world where political expediency often triumphs, the appeal has no foregone conclusion despite the exposure of dubious "evidence" and suspect "witnesses".

Sunday 3 September 2017

Mandela, Gaddafi and Blair

[What follows is excerpted from a long article headlined Gaddafi, Britain and US: A secret, special and very cosy relationship that was published in The Independent on this date in 2011:]

Britain's extraordinary rekindling of relations with Libya did not start as Mr Blair sipped tea in a Bedouin tent with Gaddafi, nor within the walls of the Travellers Club in Pall Mall – although this "summit of spies" in 2003 played a major role. It can be traced back to a 1999 meeting Mr Blair held with the man hailed as one of the greatest to have ever lived: Nelson Mandela, in South Africa.
Mr Mandela had long played a key role in negotiations between Gaddafi, whom he had hailed as a key opponent of apartheid, and the British government. Mr Mandela first lobbied Mr Blair over Libya in October 1997, at a Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Edinburgh. Mr Mandela was pressing for those accused of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing to be tried outside Scotland. In January 1999, Mr Mandela, during a visit by Mr Blair to South Africa, actively lobbied the PM on behalf of Gaddafi, over sanctions imposed on Libya and the Lockerbie suspects.
UN sanctions were suspended in April 1999 when Gaddafi handed over the two Lockerbie suspects, including Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was eventually convicted of the bombing. Libya also accepted "general responsibility" for the death of Yvonne Fletcher. Both moves allowed the Blair government to begin the long process of renewing ties with Libya.
Within a couple of years, the issue of persuading the Gaddafi regime to turn itself from pariah into international player surged to the forefront of the British government's agenda. It was during this time, according to the documents found in Mr Koussa's office, that MI6 and the CIA began actively engaging with Libyan intelligence chiefs. But it was a key meeting on 16 December 2003, at the Travellers Club, that would put the official UK – and US – stamp on Gaddafi's credibility. Present were Mr Koussa, then head of external intelligence for Libya, and two Libyan intelligence figures; Mr Blair's foreign affairs envoy, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, and three MI6 chiefs; and two CIA directors. Mr Koussa's attendance at the meeting in central London was extraordinary – at the time he had been banned from entering Britain after allegedly plotting to assassinate Libyan dissidents, and so was given safe passage by MI6.
Mr Koussa's pivotal role at the Travellers Club casts light on how, following his defection from Gaddafi's regime during the initial Nato bombing campaign earlier this year, he was able to slip quietly out of the country. Two days after the 2003 meeting, Mr Blair and Gaddafi held talks by telephone; and the next day, 19 December, the announcement about Libya surrendering its WMD was made by Mr Blair and President Bush.
In March 2004, Mr Blair first shook hands with Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent. The pair then met again in May 2007, shortly before Mr Blair left office.