Friday 4 May 2018

Lockerbie case review is a welcome step in the interests of justice

[This is the headline over an editorial published today in The Herald. It reads as follows:]


The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s decision that it will look again at the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber is welcome.
The SCCRC has decided it is “in the interests of justice” to proceed with a review.
This paper has long argued for a public inquiry into the case, on the basis that there are a number of serious concerns about the way the guilty verdict against the late Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was reached.
This includes the withholding of key evidence from the defence, doubts about the identification of Al-Megrahi, and the motivation of witnesses who were paid.
It is a matter of regret that Al-Megrahi chose to drop his appeal against conviction in 2009. The SCCRC has now accepted the widely held supposition that Al-Megrahi chose not to pursue his appeal because he believed it would help secure his release from jail on compassionate grounds, suffering from terminal cancer.
For Al-Megrahi, any vindication will be posthumous. He continued to deny his involvement until his death from prostate cancer in 2012.
The SCCRC review is not the public inquiry many still seek. But it is important the conviction is scrutinised. As we approach the 30th anniversary of the terrible event of December 21 1998, there will be concern that Scottish justice will not emerge from any review in a good light. But should mistakes have been made, it is important they are acknowledged.
Whether or not Al-Megrahi was guilty of involvement, others must have played a part too. Relatives of those who died have described this as “unfinished business”. This review could put to rest many of their unanswered questions. It is in their interests and in the interests of public confidence in Scottish justice for the truth to finally emerge.
[RB: A leader headed Honest Truth in today's edition of The Times reads in part:]
Those who witnessed the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing on December 21, 1988 will never forget it. An explosion in the baggage hold of Pan Am Flight 103 blew the 747 passenger jet to pieces in the skies above Dumfries and Galloway. (...)
Now the case of the only man convicted of the atrocity is to be re-examined. Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 after a trial held, under Scots law, in a special court constructed in the Netherlands. He died of terminal prostate cancer in Libya in 2012, after being released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds after serving eight years of a 27-year sentence. Yesterday the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said it would carry out a review of al-Megrahi’s conviction. It will consider whether the case should be referred for a new appeal.
Those who lost loved ones in the Lockerbie tragedy have been forced to grieve in public and their desire for justice has manifested itself in a range of different ways. Many of the bereaved, particularly in the United States, believe al-Megrahi’s conviction was just. They largely accept the version of events presented by Scottish prosecutors and supported by the UK and US governments. Other relatives have been troubled by what they see as inconsistencies in the evidence and to varying degrees they have lost confidence in the authorities’ handling of the case. Meanwhile an entire Lockerbie industry has grown up and the story has become a magnet for cranks, activists, self-publicists and conspiracy theorists. They have commandeered the known facts and embellished them to their own purpose. [RB: Magnus Linklater really is a sore loser! I predict that he will eventually have a lot more to be sore about.]
The Lockerbie story has remained in the public eye in the years since al-Megrahi’s conviction because the world keeps changing, casting new light on the facts as they are known. There have been revelations about the circumstances in which Colonel Gaddafi, after talks with Tony Blair in what became known as “the deal in the desert”, surrendered the Lockerbie accused for trial. Investigative journalists have spent much time weighing the evidence supplied by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who was a key witness for the prosecution. The collapse in 2011 of the Libyan regime opened up the possibility of discovering more details of the state-sponsored operation which, according to the Crown Office’s version of events, led to the destruction of Flight 103. Despite the chaos wreaked on Libya by a brutal civil war, those inquiries are still continuing.
This move by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission adds a new twist to an already tangled tale. Some critics of the Scottish authorities’ handling of the Lockerbie case will view it as vindication of years of campaigning. They insist a miscarriage of justice has taken place and that this is the first step to a remedy. Others will observe this development with a weary sigh, wondering when the Lockerbie dead will finally be allowed to rest in peace.
This newspaper welcomes the commission’s decision to hold a review. If there are weaknesses in al-Megrahi’s conviction then it is the duty of the Scottish criminal justice system to acknowledge them. If the conviction is sound, then it does no harm to apply persistent accusations to rigorous analysis by some of the finest minds in Scots law. In both scenarios, what matters is openness, clarity and truth. We owe nothing less to the memory of those who died on that fateful winter’s night.

[RB: An opinion piece by Justice for Megrahi's Iain McKie in the same edition of The Times reads as follows:]

As this year’s 30th anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster approaches Justice for Megrahi (JfM) believes the decision by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to hold a full review into the conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi to be truly momentous.

After years of the Scottish justice system trying to consign this tragedy to history the commission, having reviewed the available evidence, has accepted that when al-Megrahi abandoned his appeal it was the last resort of a terminally ill man who longed to return home to his family. It would have been easy to conclude in the interests of justice there could not be another bite of the cherry. It is courageous and wise of the commission to decide otherwise.

In 2012 JfM made allegations about the conduct of persons involved in the investigation and trial of al-Megrahi, which became the subject of a four-year inquiry by Police Scotland. The findings of Operation Sandwood are about to be submitted to the Crown Office.

In the past the Scottish government turned down JfM’s requests for a public inquiry into what we believed to be a massive miscarriage of justice. Thankfully the Scottish parliament’s justice committee continues oversight of the situation and our petition for an inquiry remains open. We believe there now is real hope that this deep and abiding shadow over Scotland’s justice system will finally be removed.

[RB: An accompanying opinion piece by Magnus Linklater can be found here. It contains the usual slurs and misrepresentations that have been frequently countered in articles featured on this blog, including this one by John Ashton. A further article in The Times headlined Verdict 'was probably unsafe' reads as follows:]

Senior figures in the Scottish legal and political establishment believe that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi should not have been convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

Al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah went on trial in 2000 in a Scottish court, convened in the Netherlands, for the mass murder in 1988. Mr Fhimah was acquitted. Observers were shocked when al-Megrahi was found guilty. Critics of the verdict have focused on the testimony of Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who said that al-Megrahi “resembled” a man who bought clothes in his store that were later found to have been wrapped round the bomb that destroyed the plane.

It emerged that Mr Gauci was paid $1 million by the US justice department. Kenny MacAskill, the former justice secretary, has described the verdict as probably “unsafe”.

Robert Black, emeritus professor of law at Edinburgh University, said that the Scottish judges had come under pressure to convict.

“This was the most important criminal case in Scotland ever,” he said. “If there was not a conviction, the Lord Advocate really would have egg all over his face. The judges were not prepared to give the Lord Advocate a bloody nose.”

Thursday 3 May 2018

SCCRC deserves "great credit" for deciding to review Megrahi case

[What follows is excerpted from a report by Mike Wade published this afternoon on the website of The Times:]

A review of the evidence against the man found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing is to be held, to determine whether his family can lodge an appeal against his conviction.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) ruled that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi had abandoned a previous appeal in 2009 “as he held a genuine and reasonable belief that such a course of action would result in him being able to return home to Libya”. At the time he had terminal cancer.

(...)He was jailed for 27 years in 2001 but died of prostate cancer aged 60 in 2012, three years after his release on compassionate grounds.

SCCRC chief executive Gerard Sinclair said: “In any application where an applicant has previously chosen to abandon an appeal against conviction, the commission will look carefully at the reasons why the appeal was abandoned and consider whether it is in the interests of justice to allow a further review of the conviction.”

In this case, Mr Sinclair said that all the available evidence suggested al-Megrahi’s fight against cancer, and his desire to die with his family, had caused him to abandon his legal action.

In a statement, al-Megrahi’s family welcomed the SCCRC decision. “The reputation of the Scottish law has suffered both at home and internationally because of widespread doubts about the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi,” the statement said. “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.”

Jim Swire, who has long campaigned for an appeal, said he heard the news of the review “with great pleasure”.

Dr Swire, whose daughter died in the atrocity, was one of a number of observers of al-Megrahi’s trial in 2001 who has rejected its verdict.

He said that the SCCRC should be able to complete its work swiftly, after finding a number of grounds for appeal following an earlier review of the case, which reported in 2007.

“No one should forget that the SCCRC previously spent three years looking at the case and they found six reasons why the verdict might be incorrect,” Dr Swire said. “One would imagine that this time there should be no significant delay in their review of the case.”

Robert Black, the eminent lawyer who designed the 2001 trial, held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, said it was “to the great credit” of the SCCRC that it decided to review the case. He too rejects the verdict against al-Megrahi.

“There is genuine concern about this conviction,” Professor Black said. “It was [the QC] Ian Hamilton who said, ‘I don’t think there is a lawyer in Scotland who believes al-Megrahi was properly convicted.’ That may be extreme, but it is tending in that direction.

“No lawyer can read that judgement, and say, ‘Yeah, they nailed it.’ It’s quite the reverse.” Al-Megrahi lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002.

Five years later the SCCRC recommended he should be granted the second appeal, subsequently dropped by al-Megrahi because of his ill health. His family lodged a posthumous appeal last year.

Press briefing on behalf of Megrahi family

[What follows is the text of a press release issued today by Aamer Anwar & Co on behalf of the Megrahi family:]

Statement issued on behalf of the family of Mr Al-Megrahi by solicitor Aamer Anwar

“It has been a long journey in the pursuit for truth and justice. When Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on the 21st December 1988 killing 270 people from 21 countries, it remains the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed in the UK. Nearly 30 years later many believe that Megrahi was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

An application was lodged by my office in July 2017 with the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) seeking to overturn the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for murder.

The application was submitted on behalf of :-

i)                    The immediate family members of the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi including his wife Aysha Ali Ahmed and son Ali abdulbasit Al-Megrahi (aged 22)
ii)                  Dr Jim Swire, Rev’d John F Mosey and many other British relatives of passengers who died on board Pan Am Flight 103 continue to support this application.

The Commission had previously determined on the 28th June 2007 that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice in relation to his conviction and identified six grounds for referring the case to the High Court. We have asked the Commission to reconfirm these six grounds.  

Special circumstances
The Commission were asked to address the issue of whether it is in the interests of justice to refer the case to the High Court for a posthumous appeal. The Appeal was commenced but following the diagnosis of terminal cancer it was suddenly abandoned in 2009. The application being lodged dealt with the circumstances that lead to Mr Al-Megrahi abandoning his appeal.

To date both the UK Government and Scottish Government have claimed that they played no role in pressuring Mr  Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. It was alleged that this was fundamentally untrue.

The question for the Commission was whether it regards it as in the interests of justice to refer a case back to the High Court where the convicted person himself had commenced an appeal on a SCCRC reference and then chosen to abandon it.

The answer depended on the precise circumstances in which the appellant came to abandon his appeal. Mr Megrahi's terminal illness; the fact that prisoner transfer was not open while the appeal was ongoing; and whether Mr Megrahi had no way of knowing that Kenny MacAskill would ultimately opt for compassionate release rather than prisoner transfer, or as is alleged that he was led to believe that he would not be released unless he dropped his appeal.

We welcome the news that today that the SCCRC having considered all the available evidence have confirmed that they believe then when Mr Megrahi abandoned his appeal, he did so as he believed he held a genuine and reasonable belief that such a course of action would result in him being able to return home to Libya, at a time when he was suffering from terminal cancer.

The case will now proceed to stage 2 and the Commission will conduct a full review of the conviction for the ‘Lockerbie Bombing’ in order to decide if the case is referred back to the Court of Appeal.

The reputation of the 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.


ONCE THE APPLICATION LODGED WITH THE SCCRC -WHAT HAPPENS?

1.      The case will be assigned to a case worker at the SCCRC and that worker will consider the case and provide a report to the Board (who sit once a month) The Board will consider whether to refer it back.

2.      The Board normally consider several cases at the same time but it is likely that in this instance the Board will convene specially to hear this application. 

3.      The SCCRC review and investigation process is described as thorough, robust, impartial and independent.

4.      On receipt of an application the Chief Executive of the Commission allocates the application to a legal officer. They obtain the court papers.
5.      The legal officer obtains any other further information he or she considers to be necessary so that the Board of the Commission can take a decision about whether to accept the application for review. 
6.      If the Board does not accept the application for review, the Chief Executive writes to the applicant and his or her representative to inform them of the Board's decision and the file is closed.
7.      If the Board accepts the application for review, they will write to all the relevant parties - e.g. The Crown, the Police and the Defence - to notify them that the application has been accepted for review and to request that they preserve for the duration of our review all documents and productions they hold relative to the case.
8.      They obtain then relevant papers from the Crown, the Police and the Defence. 
9.      Under normal circumstances the Legal Officer will conduct a review of the papers and issues in the case and will arrange to interview the applicant. 
10.  The Legal Officer prepares a case plan document setting out information relating to the evidence led at trial, the appeal, the grounds of review and his or her recommendations to take forward the review of the case.
11.  Within two months from the date of the acceptance of the application for review, the case plan is submitted to a Committee of two or three Board Members and the Chief Executive. The Committee consider the case plan and agree a course of action with the Legal Officer for the review of the case.
12.  The Legal Officer proceeds with the investigation and review, updating the Committee on the progress of the review every month or so and seeking guidance from the Committee and/or the Chief Executive where necessary.
13.  The review process should take no longer than nine months for conviction cases.
14.  After the review of the case is completed, the Committee take a view about whether or not the case should be referred to the High Court.
15.  The legal officer then prepares a draft statement of reasons for referral or non-referral for the Committee’s consideration. Once the Committee is content with the draft statement of reasons, the case is submitted to the Board of the Commission for a decision. 
16.  If the Board recommends a referral then the application will go back to the Appeal Court.
BACKGROUND TO THE CONVICTION AND SENTENCE

Mr Megrahi was convicted on the 31st January 2001 of the charge of murder following trial at the High Court of Justiciary sitting at Kamp van Zeist in the Netherlands. His co-accused Al-amin Khalifa Fimah was acquitted following trial. Mr Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 27 years.

Appeal
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s first appeal was dismissed on the 14th March 2002.

The next appeal was mounted in consequence of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission’s reference dated 28 June 2007.

Grounds of Appeal 1 and 2 were argued before the Court in full at a public hearing which took place between 28 April and 19 May 2009. On 7th July 2009 the Court indicated that one of its numbers, Lord Wheatley, had been hospitalised. It continued consideration of the grounds of appeal.

On 18th August 2009 Mr Megrahi with leave of the court, abandoned his appeal. No judgement or opinion has therefore been handed down by the Court upon these submissions.

BACKGROUND TO THE CONVICTION  

Pan Am flight 103 (“PA103”)
1.5 At 7.03pm on Wednesday 21 December 1988, shortly after taking off from Heathrow airport, PA103 was flying at an altitude of 31,000 feet en route to John F Kennedy airport, New York, when an explosion caused the aircraft to disintegrate and fall out of the sky. 243 passengers and 16 crew on board were killed. The victims came from 21 countries, the vast majority being from the United States.

1.6 The resulting debris was spread over a very wide area in Scotland and the North of England, but principally it landed in and around the town of Lockerbie causing the deaths of a further 11 people. In all 270 people were killed in the disaster.

1.7 A massive police operation was mounted to recover the bodies of the victims and as much of the debris as possible. The local police force, Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary (“D&G”), was assisted in the search operation by numerous officers from other forces in Scotland and England, as well as by military personnel and members of voluntary organisations.

Fatal Accident Inquiry
1.8 On 1 October 1990 a fatal accident inquiry was conducted by Sheriff Principal John Mowat QC. In his findings in fact, Sheriff Principal Mowat found that a Samsonite suitcase (“the primary suitcase”) containing a Toshiba radio cassette recorder loaded with a Semtex-type plastic explosive had been placed on board Pan Am flight 103A (“PA103A”) from Frankfurt to London Heathrow before being transferred to PA103; that the suitcase had probably arrived at Frankfurt on another airline and been transferred to PA103A without being identified as an unaccompanied bag; that the baggage had not been reconciled with passengers travelling on PA103, nor had it been x-rayed at Heathrow; and that the cause of all the deaths was the  detonation of the explosive device in luggage container AVE 4041 which had been situated on the left side of the forward hold of the aircraft.

1.9 Sheriff Principal Mowat concluded that the primary cause of the deaths was a criminal act of murder.

The police investigation
 1.10 It had been concluded very soon after the disaster that the likely cause had been the detonation of an improvised explosive device. From the date of the explosion and throughout the course of 1989-1991, an extensive international police investigation was carried out, principally involving the British and American investigating authorities, but also including the police forces of the former Federal Republic of Germany (“the BKA”) and of Malta.

1.11 Initially, suspicion fell upon Palestinian terrorist groups, in particular the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (“PFLP-GC”). However, in 1990 developments in the investigation turned its focus to Libya, and on 13 November 1991 a warrant was granted by a sheriff at Dumfries for the arrest of the applicant and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah (“the co-accused”), both Libyan nationals. On the following day the Lord Advocate issued an indictment setting out the charges against the two accused. Simultaneously, as a result of a federal grand jury investigation, the US Attorney General published an indictment in substantially similar terms to that issued by the Scottish authorities.

1.12 Following publication of the indictments, the UK and the US sought the handover of the two accused for trial, and throughout 1992 and 1993 the UN Security Council issued a number of resolutions calling upon Libya to do so. It also imposed extensive economic sanctions against that country. Libya denied any involvement in the crime.

Proposals for trial in the Netherlands
1.13 In 1998 the governments of the UK and the US wrote to the Secretary General of the UN indicating that they were prepared to arrange a trial of the two accused before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. The trial, it was proposed, would follow Scots law and procedure in every respect except that the jury would be replaced by a panel of three judges. Following Libya’s consent to the initiative, an agreement was entered into between the UK and the Netherlands to put it into effect. On the same date, the High Court of Justiciary (Proceedings in the Netherlands) (United Nations) Order 1998 came into force in the UK, regulating such matters as the constitution of the trial and appeal courts.

1.14 Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean were appointed to form the panel of judges. Lord Abernethy was appointed as an additional judge to assume the functions of any member of the panel who died during the proceedings or was absent for a prolonged period. He was not required to carry out that function. The location of the court was chosen as Kamp van Zeist in the Netherlands.

1.15 On 5 April 1999, the applicant and the co-accused travelled to the Netherlands where they were arrested by Scottish police officers. On 14 April 1999 they were fully committed for trial, and were detained at premises within the court precincts. The indictment was served upon them on 29 October 1999.

The trial 
1.16 Preliminary pleas to the competency and relevancy of the charges were raised by both accused and argued on their behalf by counsel at a hearing on 7 December 1999. On 8 December, Lord Sutherland, sitting alone, held the charges to be both competent and relevant (see HMA v Al Megrahi (No 1) 2000 SCCR 177). Leave to appeal the decision was granted but no appeal was taken.

1.17 The trial commenced on 3 May 2000, and the cases for both accused closed on 8 January 2001. Neither the applicant nor the co-accused gave evidence.  Following submissions by the parties on 18 January 2001 the diet was adjourned to allow the judges to deliberate upon their verdicts.

1.19 The court returned its verdict on 31 January 2001. It unanimously found the co-accused not guilty. The verdict in relation to the applicant was recorded in the minutes of trial in the following terms (see also the transcript of proceedings on day 86 of the trial):
“The Court Unanimously found the Accused Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi GUILTY on the Second Alternative Charge but that under deletion of the words ‘and you Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifah [sic] Fhimah  did there and then cause a suitcase to be introduced to Malta’ in lines 4 to 6 of subhead (e) of said charge and under deletion of the words ‘said suitcase, or’ in line 4 of subhead (g) and under deletion of the word ‘similar’ in line [4] of said subhead (g)”.

1.20 The court sentenced the applicant to life imprisonment, backdated to 5 April 1999, and recommended that he serve a minimum period of 20 years before he could be considered for release on licence.

Post-trial developments 
Appeal 
1.21 The applicant lodged grounds of appeal against conviction on 11 June 2001 and leave to appeal was granted on 23 August 2001. The proceedings took place at Kamp van Zeist between 23 January and 14 February 2002, and the opinion of the court, rejecting the appeal, was issued on 14 March 2002.

Application to the European Court of Human Rights 
1.22 On 12 September 2002 the applicant’s defence team lodged an application (number 33955/02) with the European Court of Human Rights in which they argued that the applicant’s right to a fair trial had been infringed by, inter alia, prejudicial pre-trial publicity. On 11 February 2003 the court ruled the application inadmissible on the basis that the applicant had failed to exhaust domestic remedies by raising these issues in the domestic forum.

Diplomatic developments 
1.25 On 12 September 2003, the UN passed a resolution lifting all UN sanctions against Libya.

 “Punishment part” hearing
 1.26 At a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow on 24 November 2003 under the Convention Rights (Compliance) (Scotland) Act 2001, the punishment part of the applicant’s sentence was set at 27 years, again backdated to 5 April 1999. On 18 December 2003 the Lord Advocate appealed against the sentence as being unduly lenient. 

For further background please refer to:-

Conviction of the 'Lockerbie bomber' to be reviewed

[This is the headline over a report just published on the website of The National. It reads as follows:]

A full review is to be held into the Lockerbie bombing conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has confirmed today.

The decision could lead to a fresh appeal for the Libyan, who abandoned an appeal prior to release from Greenock Prison on compassionate grounds.

The only person ever convicted of the 1988 atrocity, which killed 270 people, Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 and died in Tripoli in 2012.

He maintained his innocence and, following his death, campaigners have continued to press for an appeal to be granted.

Gerard Sinclair, the chief executive of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, said: “In any application where an applicant has previously chosen to abandon an appeal against conviction the Commission will, at the first stage of its process, look carefully at the reasons why the appeal was abandoned and consider whether it is in the interests of justice to allow a further review of the conviction.

"The Commission has now investigated this particular matter and interviewed the key personnel who were involved in the process at the time the previous appeal was abandoned in 2009.

"The Commission has also sought access to the relevant materials and has recovered the vast majority of these, including the defence papers which were not provided during its previous review.

"Having considered all the available evidence the Commission believes that Mr Megrahi, in abandoning his appeal, did so as he held a genuine and reasonable belief that such a course of action would result in him being able to return home to Libya, at a time when he was suffering from terminal cancer.

"On that basis, the Commission has decided that it is in the interests of justice to accept the current application for a full review of his conviction.”

[RB: The SCCRC's press release can be read here. The following statement is taken from a report on the BBC News website:]

[Megrahi's] family made an application to the SCCRC to have his conviction overturned last July.

In a statement on their behalf, their solicitor Aamer Anwar said they had endured a "long journey in the pursuit for truth and justice".

He added: "We welcome the news that today that the SCCRC having considered all the available evidence have confirmed that they believe that when Mr Megrahi abandoned his appeal, he did so as he believed he held a genuine and reasonable belief that such a course of action would result in him being able to return home to Libya, at a time when he was suffering from terminal cancer.

"The reputation of the 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."

He said the family's application to the SCCRC was supported by Jim Swire, who lost his 23-year-old daughter Flora in the bombing, the Rev John F Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter Helga died, and "many other British relatives of passengers who died on board Pan Am Flight 103".

Friday 27 April 2018

Shame about the way relatives of Lockerbie dead have been treated

[What follows is the text of a letter from Dr Jim Swire that was published in The Herald on 24 April:]

I have no right to a special opinion about the appalling anxiety caused to some members of the “Windrush people”, though some are friends of mine and I can only hang my head in shame at this thoughtless treatment of such a group where so many have made major lifetime contributions to our society. However I also feel shame about the way relatives of the Lockerbie dead have been treated by aspects of Scottish behaviour.

There has been momentous opposition to our quest simply for the truth as to who murdered our families that dreadful night. The ensuing supposedly Scotland-led criminal investigation was overrun initially by American investigators at the crash site. But who ordered the destruction of the notebooks kept by so many non-US-based but dedicated searchers and what was the motive for doing so?

When Scotland does finally decide that action must be taken to re-examine the Megrahi verdict, the process is likely to be severely hampered by the absence of those notebooks.

Who ordered their destruction and why? It was a monstrously unwise decision, from deep within a huge international criminal inquiry, almost on a par with the decision by Scotland’s High Court that we UK relatives have no locus to request a further appeal against the Zeist verdict. I have met a number of searchers who are most unhappy as to how their findings have been treated: they are left without a key route to verify their concerns.

Wednesday 18 April 2018

The culprit has swayed with the immediate need for a villain

[What follows is excerpted from an article headlined Robert Mueller's Questionable Past that appeared yesterday on the American Free Press website:]

During his tenure with the Justice Department under President George H W Bush, Mueller supervised the prosecutions of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, the Lockerbie bombing (Pan Am Flight 103) case, and Gambino crime boss John Gotti. In the Noriega case, Mueller ignored the ties to the Bush family that Victor Thorn illustrated in Hillary (and Bill): The Drugs Volume: Part Two of the Clinton Trilogy. Noriega had long been associated with CIA operations that involved drug smuggling, money laundering, and arms running. Thorn significantly links Noriega to Bush family involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Regarding Pan Am Flight 103, the culprit has swayed with the immediate need for a villain. Pro-Palestinian activists, Libyans, and Iranians have all officially been blamed when US intelligence and the mainstream mass media needed to paint each as the antagonist to American freedom. Mueller toed the line, publicly ignoring rumors that agents onboard were said to have learned that a CIA drug-smuggling operation was afoot in conjunction with Pan Am flights. According to the theory, the agents were going to take their questions to Congress upon landing. The flight blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Tuesday 17 April 2018

Police inquiry into Lockerbie bombing claims coming to conclusion

[This is the headline over a report published in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads in part:]

Campaigners for the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing believe a long-running police investigation is finally nearing its end. 

Police Scotland is examining allegations made by the Justice for Megrahi (JFM) group about the prosecution of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. (...)

Officers started a probe – Operation Sandwood – in February 2014 after JFM made a number of complaints against prosecutors, police and forensic officials, alleging attempts to pervert the course of justice ahead of Megrahi’s trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands 18 years ago. 

The completed police report will be passed to independent legal counsel before it goes to the Crown Office. 

Iain McKie, a member of JFM, said he expected the police report to be concluded in the next few months. 

He said: “The more information Police Scotland got during the course of the inquiry, the more long and involved the investigation became. All credit to them, they have followed where that took them. 

“It would appear as if the report is very near to completion. I can well understand why it’s late. As an ex-cop myself, I know that some inquiries can grow arms and legs.” 

Last year Megrahi’s family lodged a new appeal against his conviction with the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). 

It is believed the appeal is based on concerns over the evidence used to convict the Libyan, including that given by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who died in 2016. 

Mr McKie added: “[Operation Sandwood] is going to be the definitive inquiry because it’s going to be used by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in looking at the current appeal from the Megrahi family and also to underpin our call for a public inquiry. 

“This is an extremely important report – it’s probably the last time the people of Scotland will get the chance to look behind the muck that covers Lockerbie.

“There’s no pressure from us about the time it takes. It’s the quality of the report we’re interested in.” 

It is not the first time hopes have been raised about the long-running police investigation coming to an end. In 2015, police said the inquiry was in its “final stages”. 

Last year former First Minister Alex Salmond used his show on Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT to claim Megrahi may have been “wrongly convicted”

Mr Salmond, who was first minister at the time of Megrahi’s release, said the evidence used to convict him was “open to question”. 

The former SNP leader said he believed it was possible for someone to be guilty, but also wrongly convicted. 

Detective Superintendent Stuart Johnstone said: “The investigation has reached its concluding phase and the full report will follow with a submission process through the deputy chief constable to the independent QC appointed by Police Scotland, prior to submission to the Crown.”

[RB: Following the sad death of Robert Forrester on 22 March 2018, Iain McKie has assumed the mantle of secretary of the Justice for Megrahi campaign group.]