Libya got the blame, but many in US and UK intelligence believe Iran gave the instructions

[What follows is excerpted from a long article by John Simpson in today's edition of The Mail on Sunday:]

Following the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani in the early hours of Friday morning – personally ordered by President Trump from his Florida holiday home, Mar-a-Lago – retribution is now a major priority for Iran’s leaders and their forces. And, as my Iranian friend implied, they have plenty of options. There are only two requirements: whatever action they take should satisfy Iran’s instinctive desire for vengeance, yet it should not be so blatant that it provokes the United States into an all-out war. (...)

There is a huge variety of alternative strategies. Iran has often staged cyber-attacks against Western targets, with some success; but although cutting American power supplies or the flow of information might be briefly satisfying to Iran’s leaders, it won’t have the element of personal revenge they want. As in the past, Iran can use proxy groups to attack international shipping in the Gulf. But Western intelligence and tactics have improved recently, and this may not be as effective as in the past. (...)

An eye for an eye has always been the approach of the clerics who control the government of the Islamic Republic. (...)

On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes, a new guided missile cruiser, was on patrol in the Gulf at a time of greatly heightened tension between Iran and the US. It found itself involved in a shoot-out with a group of apparently hostile Iranian gunboats. While the firing was still going on, an Airbus A300 of Iran Air took off from Bandar Abbas, a civil as well as military airport on the Gulf coast of Iran, and flew south towards the Vincennes.

As a result of a catastrophic technical mistake, the defensive systems on the Vincennes identified the Airbus as a military jet coming in to attack. Vincennes fired two radar-guided missiles at it, bringing it down with the loss of all 290 people on board.

By chance, a television team was filming on the bridge of the Vincennes that morning. The cameraman captured the delight of the crew when they thought they had shot down a hostile fighter, and the change to horror when it became clear what had really happened.

William Rogers, the captain of USS Vincennes who gave the order to fire the missiles, was cleared by a board of inquiry, but Iran believes to this day that the destruction of the Airbus was deliberate, and its leaders announced that they would avenge it.

Almost six months later, on December 21, a small group of Libyan terrorists associated with Iran’s close ally Syria planted a bomb on an American PanAm airliner. It blew up over Lockerbie, killing 270 people altogether. 

Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya got the blame, but many people in the American and British intelligence community believe that Iran gave the original instructions for the attack, to avenge the shooting down of the Airbus. (...) 
[RB: While many believe that Iran commissioned the destruction of Pan Am 103, no-one that I'm aware of has ever suggested that Abdelbaset Megrahi or Lamin Fhimah were members of "a small group of Libyan terrorists associated with Iran's close ally Syria" nor is there any evidence that such a group existed. If Iran was the instigator, the evidence points to the actual perpetrators being Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-GC and there is no evidence of any Libyan link to that group.]

Iran’s religious leaders believe their authority and the reputation of Iran now depend on getting specific retribution for President Trump’s ordering of the assassination of General Soleimani and his companions.

Iran's "cold, calculated revenge"

[What follows is a brief excerpt from an article by Martin Jay published today in Middle East Online about the American assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani yesterday in Baghdad:]

In the morning of 3rd of January millions of people in the West woke up to the news that an Iranian general named Qasem Soleimani had been assassinated by an American strike in Baghdad. But very few of them, if any, will understand just how colossal a move the decision by Trump is and what the payback will be.

By far, this strike is way bigger than anything Trump has done so far in the region (...)

In fact, one could argue that even America’s downing of an Iranian airliner in July 1988 in the straits of Hormuz – a military blunder by a commander of an aircraft carrier who believed that an Iranian airliner was a fighter jet descending – also cannot even compare. Given that the decision to shoot down the civilian airliner was a genuine military misjudgement it is worth noting what Iran’s response was: cold, calculated revenge against an American airliner, Pan Am flight 103 just six months later three days before Christmas, packed full of Americans, including military.

Iran’s revenge will be equally calculated, but much more than merely Lockerbie. It’s hard not to underestimate how powerful and how respected Soleimani was to the Iranians – and how feared by his enemies. (...)

Trump’s decision to give the assassination the green light – in preference for a military strike against pro-Iranian Iraqi units which were apparently planning attacks against US forces there – has taken the threat of a war to a higher level and should be seen more rationally as yet another chapter in the war with Iran, since 1979. But an important one. The war has now shifted from proxy to direct which indicate that despite all the reports to the contrary, Trump is indeed ready for a real hands-on war in the region with Iran.

[RB: It is interesting and instructive that the author of this article -- a very experienced commentator on the middle-eastern scene -- regards the destruction of Pan Am 103 as unquestionably an act of revenge by Iran for the downing of Iran Air 655 by the USS Vincennes. This was also the view of the US Central Intelligence Agency, as noted in this paragraph from a report posted on 3 January 2020 on the website of The Guardian:]

US intelligence certainly believes Hezbollah was behind the bombing of an Israeli-Argentinian cultural centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, and the bombing of a bus full of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, in 2012. The CIA was also convinced that Iran was involved in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, in reprisal for the accidental downing of an Iranian airliner, Iran Air 655, five months earlier.

Let this be the year when the Scottish criminal justice system gives clarity on Lockerbie

[This is the headline over a letter from Dr Jim Swire published today on the website of The Herald. It reads as follows:]

As we enter a new decade, inevitably we carry with us uncompleted business from the past.

More than three decades ago an aircraft loaded with a terrorist bomb at Heathrow Airport exploded and fell upon the innocent town of Lockerbie. Ever since then some of us UK relatives of those who died aboard that aircraft have diligently sought the truth.

Our requests for an inquiry to successive Prime Ministers have always been rebuffed. Thus we have no explanation as to why a device about which Lady Thatcher’s Government had been warned in detail and in good time by the West Germans was allowed to be loaded onto the aircraft.

Following the heroic recovering of the bodies, and the deeply moving support of so many in that little town, in the face of the loss of its own 11 victims we felt the healing effect of their love.

It seemed that the fingertip searching of the disaster fields was a lesson in how a murder investigation should be conducted. However, by the time the police inquiry had culminated in the trial and a guilty verdict at Zeist in 2001 it became impossible for many to believe that the truth had been revealed.

Certainly even for us laymen there appeared to be multiple and very serious defects in much of the evidence, even down to what might or might not have been recovered from the crash site.

Over the intervening decades there have been many delays, culminating in the withdrawal of an appeal by the convicted Libyan, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, associated with his precipitous, but for some of us hugely welcome, release to die at home from his prostate cancer among his own family. This appeal ceased just before much new and apparently irrefutable evidence of the convicted man’s innocence could be heard.

Some of us relatives of the dead then applied to the High Court for a review of the entire case through a further appeal. This we were refused amongst allegations that we should be regarded as "a mischief".

We then flew to meet with members of Megrahi’s family and found them determined to apply under solicitor Aamer Anwar for a further appeal themselves, convinced, as they too are, of his total innocence.

Now it may be that 2020 will be the year of clear vision over this dreadful and fully avoidable tragedy.

Our independent Scottish criminal justice system has had from 1991 when the indictments against two Libyans were first issued to decide the issue of whether the two accused Libyans did destroy the PanAm 103 aircraft along with all those on board and 11 on the ground in Lockerbie or not. It has chosen to reject the request of some of those closest to some of the murdered passengers for a full review of the case including evidence accruing since the Zeist trial, through a further appeal.

We have been forced to the belief based on more than 30 years of study that there are aspects of our Scottish criminal justice system that are simply not fit for purpose. We have never wanted revenge even against the actual perpetrators themselves, looking instead for what can be done to improve our world in the name of those who died so cruelly and avoidably back in 1988. One of those improvements might be a full review of why the current system seems to defend itself against all criticism rather than address the deeply held doubts of those who have suffered from their marginalisation for so long.

More than 31 years after the atrocity the Government’s documents relating to it are still being sequestered in a special category of security in the National Archives where they are not accessible to requests under FOI nor from the media. Why would they do that? Government in secrecy is not democracy, any more than justice delayed is justice.

Let us make the clearing up of these cruel mysteries our vision for 2020.

Megrahi's trial "deeply flawed"

[In today's edition of The Times there appears an obituary of Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya. After his retirement from the Foreign Office, Oliver Miles was a frequent commentator in the media on matters relating to Libya including, inevitably, the Lockerbie case. References to him on this blog can be found here. What follows comes from a report in The Times on 14 August 2009:]

Relatives of Lockerbie victims were denied their final chance of discovering the truth yesterday when the only man convicted of the atrocity abruptly dropped his appeal.

The decision of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, who is expected to be freed from prison in Scotland next week allowing his return to Libya, sparked charges of a top-level cover-up.

Politicians, relatives and experts accused the Scottish government of striking a deal with the convicted terrorist: that in return for his repatriation he would abandon an appeal that might have exposed a grave miscarriage of justice. “It’s pretty likely there was a deal,” said Oliver Miles, a former British Ambassador to Libya, who told The Times that the British and Scottish governments had been very anxious to avoid the appeal. (...)

Al-Megrahi’s lawyers said he had dropped his appeal because his health had deteriorated sharply, though Scottish law would permit the appeal to continue even after his death.

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, strenuously denied that any pressure had been put on him. “We have no interest in pressurising people to drop appeals. Why on earth should we? That’s not our position — never has been,” he said.

But the Scottish government faced a wave of scepticism. Mr Miles called al-Megrahi’s original trial “deeply flawed” and said that both Scottish and British governments wanted no appeal because it would be very embarrassing.

Scottish Government minister who released Megrahi wins seat in UK Parliament

[What follows is the text of a Press Association news agency report, as published today on the website of the Belfast Telegraph:]

Former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has returned to front-line politics after securing a seat at Westminster.

Mr MacAskill, who during his tenure at Holyrood sanctioned the release of the Lockerbie bomber, took East Lothian from Labour with 21,156 votes to Martin Whitfield’s 17,270.

Justice secretary in Alex Salmond’s government from 2007 to 2014, Mr MacAskill left office following Nicola Sturgeon’s appointment as First Minister and stepped down as an MSP in 2016.

He was thrust into the global spotlight in 2009 when he opted to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds.

Megrahi, who had cancer, died in his home country in 2012.

He remains the only person ever convicted for the bombing of Pan-Am flight 103 in December 1998, which killed 270 people.

Mr MacAskill was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as a list MSP representing the Lothians, before winning the constituency seat of Edinburgh East and Musselburgh in 2007 and then Edinburgh Eastern in 2011.

[RB: A review by James Robertson of Kenny MacAskill's book about the Lockerbie case can be read here, and another by John Ashton can be read here.]

"Unfortunately, all I’ve seen is that the wheels of justice grind infinitely slow"

[What follows is excerpted from an obituary of Allan Gerson, published today on the website of The Washington Post:]

Allan Gerson, a Washington lawyer and legal scholar who helped pioneer the practice of suing foreign governments in US courts for complicity in terrorism, representing victims’ families in the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, died Dec 1 at his home in the District [of Columbia]. He was 74. (...)

As a young Justice Department trial lawyer, he pursued Nazi war criminals who had immigrated to the United States, later rising to become senior counsel to two US ambassadors to the United Nations, Jeane J Kirkpatrick and Gen Vernon A Walters.

Throughout, he maintained that the law had a decisive role in public policy and international affairs — a belief that drove his decade-long fight for justice for the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec 21, 1988, en route to New York from London.

The bombing killed all 259 passengers and crew — along with 11 people on the ground — and remains the deadliest terrorist attack in British history. Among the victims were 189 Americans, including many study-abroad students from Syracuse University.

Mr Gerson launched what began as a seemingly quixotic legal effort, seeking to obtain compensation for victims’ families from the government of Libyan ruler Moammar Gaddafi, which was accused of carrying out the bombing. His work spurred new legislation that paved the way for lawsuits against countries including Syria, Cuba, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Libya, where a legal team negotiated a $2.7 billion settlement in 2003 for the Lockerbie bombing.

“It took a lot of creative lawyering to come up with a system that would enable those victims to recover,” said Beth Van Schaack, an international criminal lawyer who teaches human rights at Stanford Law School. “There was no long history of precedents to draw on,” she added. “They were making stuff up as they went along . . . and now it’s become a standard practice. If a terrorist attack happens, there are lawyers who specialize in this area.”

Mr. Gerson’s work on the case emerged out of a 1992 op-ed he wrote in The New York Times, calling for the United Nations to create a claims commission to compensate survivors’ families using Libyan assets. His article caught the attention of Bruce M Smith, a former Pan Am pilot whose wife was killed in Lockerbie and who retained Mr Gerson in an effort to bring the UN proposal to fruition.

That idea never took off, leading Mr Gerson to launch his campaign to sue Libya for damages — a gambit that tested the centuries-old doctrine of sovereign immunity, in which governments are effectively considered above the law, not subject to civil suits or criminal prosecution without their consent. It was also unusual in that Mr Gerson was representing just one of the victims’ relatives, Smith, with other families taking part in a suit charging Pan Am with negligence for failing to detect the bomb.

“If we’d known all the difficulties at the outset,” he later told Washington City Paper, “we probably never would have proceeded.”

Mr. Gerson partnered with a recent law school graduate, Mark S Zaid, and filed suit in a federal court in New York in 1993. By then, he had been forced out of the Washington office of Hughes Hubbard & Reed, where a colleague was hired to take on Gaddafi as a client, resulting in a conflict of interest.

Their case proved unsuccessful amid sovereign immunity concerns. But as it proceeded, Mr Gerson and Zaid embarked on a new tack, drafting and championing what became the 1996 Anti­terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which enabled lawsuits against countries designated by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism.

In a phone interview, Zaid said he took the lead on drafting the legislation but credited Mr Gerson with overseeing the broader strategy, and with helping to forge political connections that smoothed its passage in Congress.

“He was very much a visionary, trying to come up with innovative legal theories to pursue claims that other people would have written off without any second thought,” he said. “He saw in his mind a path forward to accomplish justice, especially for these victims of terrorism that no one else was thinking of at the time.”

The legislation was signed into law following another terrorist attack, the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City. After Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001, a civil suit against Libya moved ahead, resulting in $10 million compensation for each victim, paid out over several years from an escrow account in a Swiss bank.

In 2016, Congress overrode President Barack Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which carved out further exemptions to sovereign immunity and enabled 9/11 victims’ families to sue Saudi Arabia for its alleged support for the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Mr Gerson was part of a team representing many of the families, and the case was still working its way through the courts when he died.

“There is a famous quote, that the wheels of justice grind infinitely slow but infinitely fine,” he told City Paper in 2002, while still awaiting resolution on Lockerbie. “Unfortunately, all I’ve seen is that the wheels of justice grind infinitely slow.” (...)

Mr Gerson developed close relationships with some of the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims and discussed their plight in The Price of Terror (2001), written with journalist Jerry Adler. The book also covered the legal drama surrounding the terrorist attack, looking somewhat optimistically toward the future.

“Terrorists who might be undeterred by the threat of American military force,” the authors wrote, “must now weigh the possibility of retaliation by the world’s largest contingent of lawyers.”

Lockerbie verdict "an aberration in the history of international law"

[What follows is an English translation (by me, with assistance from Google Translate) of an article published today on the website of the German newspaper Die Welt:]

Verdict over Lockerbie attack to be reviewed

In 1988, a bomb tore apart a plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.  A Libyan intelligence officer was convicted for the terrorist attack. But there are some indications that he was not the culprit. At the beginning of 2020, the case could be reconsidered.

More than 30 years after the attack on a jumbo jet of the former US airline Pan Am over Lockerbie, Scotland, a completely new legal review of the terrorist act may take place. In 2001, the Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basit Ali al-Megrahi was convicted as the culprit, but his family has applied for a review.

According to information obtained by Welt am Sonntag, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) will decide at the beginning of 2020 whether to allow an appeal to the High Court of Justiciary, the highest criminal court in Scotland. 

In Germany, the Lockerbie case made headlines in the spring.  The SCCRC had made requests for judicial assistance to the German judiciary, and dozens of former employees of the GDR state security were interrogated. [RB: The interrogation of former East German Stasi officers took place at the instigation of Scottish police and prosecutors, not the SCCRC, as explained here and here. We do not know what information the SCCRC is seeking in Germany, but here is what I said to a Scottish journalist in July:  "I really have no idea what it is that the SCCRC is seeking evidence about in Germany. The only German connections that spring readily to mind are (a) Operation Autumn Leaves in Neuss [https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2016/10/operation-autumn-leaves.html]; (b) the alleged movement of the bomb suitcase through Frankfurt Airport; and (c) Edwin Bollier's supply of MEBO timers to the East German Stasi. Because the court order granting the SCCRC a European Investigation Order refers to a specific person and his involvement with the Pan Am 103 case (and to possible criminal proceedings), I think (a) is the most likely. But this is merely guess-work."]

The background is that in the early 90s the investigation also followed a trail to East Berlin, which is now being pursued again. The bomb aboard the Boeing 747 exploded on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 passengers and crew. Eleven inhabitants from Lockerbie also died.

The verdict against the Libyan agent al-Megrahi is controversial. Austrian international law expert Hans Köchler, who observed the Lockerbie trial for the United Nations, told Welt am Sonntag: "The Lockerbie trial was more like a secret service operation than ordinary court proceedings." The result was an "aberration in the history of international law" that the international community must correct for its own sake.

The British doctor Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the attack, considers a new procedure overdue. Swire told the newspaper, "I expected my country to find the truth, the whole truth." That the truth has been suppressed so far is "an insult to my murdered daughter."

The SCCRC deals with miscarriages of justice, and describes itself as "independent of Parliament, the Scottish Government, the Crown, the judiciary and the defense." As early as May 2018, the Commission stated that it was "in the interest of justice" to accept the request of the family of the convicted Libyan to consider whether they should be allowed to contest the verdict. At that time it stated that it wished to undertake a "total review", which is now almost complete, reports Welt am Sonntag.

A preliminary investigation into Lockerbie (file reference 50 Js 42.401 / 88) is pending at the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt am Main. The authority is acting in support of the Scots: "Currently, in Germany witness hearings are taking place by way of legal assistance," said the prosecutor to Welt am Sonntag. In the disaster, four Germans lost their lives, two women and two men, from Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.

[RB: A much longer article, with extensive interviews with Dr Jim Swire, Edwin Bollier and Professor Hans Köchler also appears today, behind a paywall, in Welt am Sonntag: 
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus203808432/Lockerbie-Attentat-Ein-trauernder-Vater-und-der-Kampf-seines-Lebens-fuer-die-Wahrheit.html.]

Guantanamo trials a reaction to US dissatisfaction with Lockerbie process

[What follows is the opening section of a very interesting article headed War Crimes, Justice, and the National Interest published yesterday on the website of The Tower, the newspaper of the Catholic University of America in Washington DC:]

Lawrence J Morris, chief of staff and counselor to Catholic University President John Garvey, was presented with the Mirror of Justice Scholars Award on Thursday, November 7th in the Slowinski courtroom at Columbus Law School. Morris’ role as chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo military commissions during the 9/11 trials was recognized with the award. It was presented by the St John Paul II Guild of Catholic Lawyers, which advocates the achievement of justice through law.

Subject to almost two decades of humanitarian criticism, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was established in Cuba at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Enacted by the George Bush administration, the facility was the result of swift action in the war on terrorism following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Twenty men believed to be involved in the attacks were detained on January 11th, 2002 and the prison population expanded to nearly 700 by May of 2003.

Morris was head of the Army’s criminal law branch during the establishment of the prison and was eventually asked to be chief prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commissions. 

Morris argued in 2002 for a public trial of the suspected 9/11 terrorists. He wanted to uphold the standards of the American justice system while still laying “bare the scope of al Qaeda’s alleged conspiracy,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Instead, Morris’ proposal was disregarded by the Bush administration which desired more rapid prosecution. Those accused were interrogated clandestinely as the priority of senior officials was prevention of future attacks over standard court proceedings. 

The Bush administration’s initial decision to deny public trials led to disarray. Several setbacks occurred and destructive allegations against Guantanamo drew public attention. Rumors of torture and abuse of inmates spread rapidly to civil rights groups and law professionals. The untimely combination of poor public image and internal disarray lead the administration to bring the cases to public trial, which they then asked Morris to conduct. He hoped to reintroduce military commissions, which are, as described by Morris, a “judicial mechanism and what is colloquially known as war-crimes tribunals.” Morris illustrated this with reference to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, which lead to the deaths of 270 people. 

Libyan prime minister Muammar al-Gaddafi produced the Libyan agents accused of the bombing in Lockerbie, who went to trial on the condition that “they would be tried under Scottish law in a Dutch courtroom,” said Morris. “Needless to say, there were no Americans involved.” [RB: Gaddafi was not the prime minister of Libya, but the "Leader of the Revolution". American lawyers from the US Department of Justice were in fact very heavily involved in the Zeist trial, as was noted by the UN Observer, Professor Hans Köchler, in his report on the trial and as can be seen in the references on this blog to Brian Murtagh and Dana Biehl.]

Thirteen years after the Lockerbie bombing, only one of the agents was convicted.

“We took from Lockerbie a sense of the limitations of relying on other sovereigns for justice,” says Morris.

In 2001, the young Bush administration spotted the similarities between the Lockerbie case and the 9/11 attacks and was looking to make rapid changes in response to past administrations. The thirteen-year delay of Lockerbie was unacceptable to the Bush administration, leading to their failed and controversial interrogation techniques which ultimately turned them to Morris’ appointment as the conductor of the public trials.

Morris turned to military commissions last used after World War II and “began drafting trial regulations and debating points of law with architects of the administration’s broad vision of presidential power,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Morris believed in the provision of due process to those being tried, allowing them similar court proceedings as those of US civilian court cases. However, the administration was steadfast in its view of the accused, one which saw the terrorists as below the fairness for which Morris advocated and which saw itself as above standard court practices. Morris and his team were presented once again with the issue of the disconnect between the meaning of justice to the White House and that to military lawyers, after the previous rejection of Morris’ proposal for public trials.

“Using conventional courts was insufficient [and] unable to bring these killers to justice in any matter that would be timely and just,” said Morris. “There was a need to make a point through the courts… that this was an unlawful attack by unlawful combatants and therefore to resurrect a dormant mechanism for justice that has not been used in years.” 

Far from a final answer

[On the occasion Syracuse University's annual Week of Remembrance for its 35 students who died in the Pan Am 103 tragedy, the website of central New York State's Spectrum News has published a long article on the Lockerbie disaster. The following are excerpts:]

Soon after the bombing, police and military fanned out on foot. They’d eventually scour hundreds of square miles.

It was the largest murder investigation in British history. In the end, it all came down to a piece of evidence so tiny it would fit on a fingertip.

After initially focusing on a possible Iranian connection, more attention was turning to Libya and its leader, Moamar Qaddafi. The pattern of Libyan action and US response had been building throughout the 1980s.

In 1989, investigators in Scotland discovered some clothing fragments. Embedded in them was a tiny piece of what had been a circuit board commanding a timer that set off the explosion aboard Pan Am 103. It was a brand of timer sold to Libya.

Forensics experts traced the clothing to a shop in the island nation of Malta. The owner of the shop identified the man who had purchased the clothes. He turned out to be a low-level operative in Libyan intelligence named Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.

A second Libyan charged was Khalifa Fhima, a former official of Libyan airlines at Malta’s Luqa Airport. (...)

It took years and tough United Nations sanctions, but Libya’s government eventually handed over al-Megrahi and Fhima for an unusual trial.

“I wanted to kill them. If I could have gone and sat there with an Uzi, I would have shot them dead on the spot,” said Susan Cohen, the mother of a Flight 103 victim. “No regrets, even if I got shot for it. And you want to know something? I still feel the same way.”

When the final verdict came 12 years after the bombing, the three-judge Scottish panel found al-Megrahi guilty and acquitted Fhima. Al-Megrahi would be handed a life sentence in Scottish prison. (...)

In 2015, the BBC reported that the Scottish government had named two new suspects, both reportedly behind bars in Libya at the time. Abdullah al-Senussi is the former Libyan intelligence chief under Gaddafi. Mohammed Abouajela Masud is a suspected bomb maker. Tracking them has been a challenge. (...)

But not everyone is convinced they’re on the right trail. Over the years, an entirely different theory has emerged about whom, and which country, were responsible.

In July 1988, a US warship came under attack by Iranian gunboats in the Persian Gulf. In the midst of the confrontation, the crew aboard the USS Vincennes spotted what it believed to be an approaching Iranian fighter jet closing in on their position. The US response was lethal.

It wasn’t long before the Vincennes crew realized they had made a tragic mistake. It was not an Iranian fighter jet, but an Iranian passenger jet — with 290 people onboard.

There was a quick promise of Iranian revenge.

In the months to come, intelligence agencies would report a series of meetings, organized by a leading Iranian government radical named Ali Akbar Mohtashami-Pur. Among those in attendance was Ahmed Jibril, leader of a splinter Palestinian group known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). Jibril was a close ally of Syrian President Hafez Assad.

Jibril's deputy was Hafez Dalkamoni, a man being closely watched by German police. Police knew of a plot to bomb aircraft flying out of Frankfurt. When they made their move, Dalkamoni and several others were arrested. Weapons were found, including a bomb hidden in a radio cassette player. There were indications that five bombs were produced. Only four are recovered.

A man with close ties to the PLFP-GC was Mohammed Abu Talb. Talb had visited Frankfurt and was later spotted in Malta, shortly before the Lockerbie bombing. At his home, police later found a calendar with the date — December 21, 1988 — circled.

Did Iran pay the PFLP-GC to exact its revenge? An airliner for airliner? (...)

The man who headed the Scottish side of the case against Libya says it’s possible the Libyan agents, knowing of the Frankfurt arrests, may have used details of that plot to cover their own moves, including housing the bomb in a Toshiba cassette player.

Relatives of those who died in Lockerbie sense that the case against the two Libyans was far from a final answer.

In the path of terrorists

[This is the heading over an article published on this date in 2000 on The Lockerbie Trial website, curated by Ian Ferguson and me during the Zeist trial and Megrahi's first appeal. The author is Joe Mifsud, a journalist and writer who covered the trial for various Maltese news media and who is now a judge in Malta. It reads as follows:]

A terrorist, like any other criminal, will do what he can to cover his tracks.  The Maltese origin of clothing in the bomb suitcase does not establish that either the suitcase or the bomb was once in Malta.

The clothing in the bomb suitcase, which was identifiable as having been manufactured in Malta, bore labels to this effect, enabled Royal Armament Research and Development (RARDE) to determine the country of origin as Malta.  So these labels had not been removed by the terrorists.

The Lockerbie investigators established that six items of the clothing and an umbrella, which originated in Malta were new and had been purchased new from the same shop in Malta on the same occasion.

These items of clothing had been purchased from Mary’s House in Sliema, weeks not day's before 21 December 1988.  The prosecution is claiming that the clothes were bought on  7 December, while the defense is suggesting 23 November 1988 as the date.

In my opinion the facts and matters set out above are consistent with an attempt by the terrorists to distract the attention of the investigating authorities away from Frankfurt or Heathrow to Malta in the event of the bomb being detected or as in fact happened of the bomb exploding above land and debris from the bomb and the bomb suitcase being recovered.

It is inherently unlikely that terrorists would have tried to place the bomb suitcase on board Air Malta KM 180 on 21 December 1988 for the following four reasons.

1.  Terrorists do not expose themselves and their plans to any unnecessary risk of detention or of error;

2.  Accordingly the terrorists responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103 would not have routed the bomb suitcase through Frankfurt and chosen to run the risk of it passing undetected through the security systems of three different airports on two different airlines when Air Malta during that period flew only three flights each week to Frankfurt but ten flights each week to Heathrow.

3.  Further if the bomb consisted of a timer device, terrorists would not have run the unpredictable risk of the passage of the bomb suitcase being delayed in one or more of the following ways:

a)  on the ground at Luqa as a result of mechanical failure, poor weather, security alert, air traffic control or any other reason;

b)  by being diverted away from Frankfurt for any of the reasons at above;

c)  above Frankfurt as a result of air traffic control delays for incoming flights (as in fact happened);

d)  by missing the interline connection at Frankfurt as a result of the bomb suitcase being lost, mishandled or detected in the course of x-ray or baggage reconciliation procedures;

e)  on the ground at Frankfurt for any of the reasons at (a) above;

f)  by being diverted away from Heathrow for any of the reasons at (a) above;

g)  above Heathrow as a result of air traffic control delays for incoming flights;

h)  by missing the interline connection at Heathrow for any of the reasons at (d) above;

i)   on the ground at Heathrow as a result of the connecting transatlantic aircraft being delayed, mechanical failure, poor weather, security alert or any other reason.

4.  Further if the bomb consisted of a barometric pressure device triggered by altitude which itself triggered a timer, terrorists could not have avoided (alternatively would not have risked) the bomb being prematurely triggered on board KM 180 or on board PA 103A from Frankfurt to Heathrow, and then detonating on board either of these flights or on the ground at Frankfurt or at Heathrow.

No terrorist could have predicted in advance the exact altitude at which either flight would have flown or, if such a prediction had been made, no terrorist could have guaranteed that the aircraft would have remained at that altitude and would not have been ordered away from it by air traffic control.  The bomb on board Pan Am 103 exploded approximately 35 minutes after take-off from Heathrow.

It is not clear for me why the Lockerbie investigators choose to blame Malta and Air Malta in this case, when it is so clear that we are the scapegoats for others that lacked security at their airports.

Were Lockerbie suspects handed over by Gaddafi at instigation of US evangelicals?

[What follows is excerpted from a report headlined Power not piety is what the evangelicals worship published this evening on the website of The Times:]

President Trump’s first outing at the National Prayer Breakfast, a Washington institution, was widely panned as a disaster.

He opened his speech with an attack on Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film star who replaced him as host of The Apprentice, and called on his audience of devout Christians to pray for Arnie’s terrible ratings to improve.

Clearly enjoying the joke, the president laughed to himself while a few feet away Mike Pence, the born-again vice-president, furrowed his brow in a look of barely concealed disgust.

It still baffles many why the organisers of Washington’s most prestigious annual Christian event invite the profane president to give their keynote address, or why 81 per cent of white evangelical Americans voted for him in 2016 which is believed to be a record for any president.

The publicity about alleged infidelities and the leak of Mr Trump’s crude locker-room banter about seducing women do not seem very Christian. This completely misses the point, however, according to a Netflix documentary called The Family about the secretive organisers of the National Prayer Breakfast. (...)

As soon as Mr Trump was elected, the Fellowship Foundation, which organises the National Prayer Breakfast and refers to itself as the Family, made a beeline for him. A delegation went to Trump Tower in New York led by Doug Coe, the de facto leader of the well-connected group which had persuaded every president since Eisenhower to attend. Mr Coe, who died in 2017 aged 88, led the foundation since 1969 but assiduously stayed out of the limelight. The documentary sets out just how far-reaching his contacts were with senior US politicians as well as powerful figures overseas, including some of Africa’s most unsavoury leaders from Colonel Gaddafi of Libya to the recently deposed Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.

In 1999, Mr Coe and Mark Siljander, a former Michigan congressman, met a Libyan foreign minister on a freelance diplomatic mission to Tripoli in the name of Jesus rather than the US government. Ten days later Gaddafi handed over the two Lockerbie bombing suspects.

“The bigger the monster, the bigger the work of God,” said Jeff Sharlet, 47, the author who exposed the tentacles of The Family in a book of the same name subtitled ‘The secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power’.

[RB: The implication here is that this "freelance diplomatic mission to Tripoli in the name of Jesus" induced the Libyan regime in the person of Colonel Gaddafi to hand over Megrahi and Fhimah for trial. This is arrant nonsense. The two suspects were not "handed over by Gaddafi". Gaddafi had no power to do so. The suspects themselves took the decision voluntarily  to surrender for trial. The process is accurately set out in the following excerpts from my article From Lockerbie to Zeist:]

[O]n 14 November 1991 the prosecution authorities in Scotland and the United States simultaneously announced that they had brought criminal charges against two named Libyan nationals who were alleged to be members, and to have been acting throughout as agents, of the Libyan intelligence service. (...)

On 27 November 1991 the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States each issued a statement calling upon the Libyan government to hand over the two accused to either the Scottish or the American authorities for trial.  Requests for their extradition were transmitted to the government of Libya through diplomatic channels.  No extradition treaties are in force between Libya on the one hand and United Kingdom and the United States on the other.

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

The United Nations Security Council (of which the UK and the USA are, of course, permanent members) first became involved in the Lockerbie affair on 21 January 1992 when it passed Resolution 731 strongly deploring the government of Libya's lack of co-operation in the matter and urging it to respond to the British and American requests contained in their statements of 27 November 1991.  This was followed by Security Council Resolution 748 (31 March 1992)  requiring Libya to comply with the requests within a stipulated period of time, failing which a list of sanctions specified in the Resolution would be imposed.  Compliance was not forthcoming and sanctions (including trade and air transport embargos) duly came into effect in April 1992.  The range and application of these sanctions was  extended by a further Resolution passed on 11 November 1993.  The imposition of sanctions under these last two Resolutions was justified by the Security Council by reference to Chapter 7 of the Charter of the United Nations on the basis that Libya's failure to extradite the accused constituted a threat to world peace. (...)

[I was] asked if I would be prepared to provide (on an unpaid basis) independent advice to the government of Libya on matters of Scottish criminal law,  procedure and evidence with a view (it was hoped) to persuading them that their two citizens would obtain a fair trial if they were to surrender themselves to the Scottish authorities.  This I agreed to do, and submitted material setting out the essentials of Scottish solemn criminal procedure and the various protections embodied in it for accused persons. 

In the light of this material, it was indicated to me that the Libyan government was satisfied regarding the fairness of a criminal trial in Scotland but that since Libyan law prevented the extradition of nationals for trial overseas, the ultimate decision on surrender for trial would have to be one taken voluntarily by the accused persons themselves, in consultation with their independent legal advisers.  For this purpose a meeting was convened in Tripoli in October 1993 of the international team of lawyers which had already been appointed to represent the accused. (...)

I am able personally to testify to how much of a surprise and embarrassment it was to the Libyan government when the outcome of the meeting of the defence team was an announcement that the accused were not prepared to surrender themselves for trial in Scotland. (...)

The Libyan government attitude remained, as it always had been, that they had no constitutional authority to hand their citizens over to the Scottish authorities for trial.  The question of voluntary surrender for trial was one for the accused and their legal advisers, and while the Libyan government would place no obstacles in the path of, and indeed would welcome, such a course of action, there was nothing that it could lawfully do to achieve it. (...)

Having mulled over the concerns expressed to me by [the Libyan defence lawyer] in October 1993, I returned to Tripoli and on 10 January 1994 presented a letter to him suggesting a means of resolving the impasse created by the insistence of the governments of the United Kingdom and United States that the accused be surrendered for trial in Scotland or America and the adamant refusal of the accused to submit themselves for trial by jury in either of these countries.

[RB: This scheme was accepted in writing by the suspects and their lawyers (and by the Libyan government) within two days.  It remained unacceptable to the United Kingdom and the United States for a further four years and seven months. But finally, in late August 1998, a neutral venue proposal was advanced by the UK which eventually led to Megrahi and Fhimah surrendering themselves for trial.]

French and Israeli media attribute Lockerbie to Palestinian group

Israeli media have recently been publishing articles that suggest that the Lockerbie bombing was perpetrated not by Libya but by a Palestinian group on behalf of Iran. This view is expressed, for example, in an article headlined Did French Caribbean serve as Palestinian terrorists arms route? published in today's edition of The Jerusalem Post; and in an article titled L’aveu de Bonnet prouve la connivence de l’Etat avec le terrorisme palestinien published on 11 August on the website of Le CAPE de Jerusalem. 

These articles stem from the admission, in a recent report in Le Parisien, by Yves Bonnet (Director of the French intelligence agency DST from November 1982 to August 1985) that the DST made a secret deal with the Abu Nidal Organisation that its members could travel to and live in France provided that they did not carry out attacks on French soil. An English language account can be found in Kim Willsher's report Ex-French spy chief admits 1980s pact with Palestinian terrorists in The Guardian of 9 August.

Yves Bonnet's public expression of the view that the bombing of Pan Am 103 was carried out by a Palestinian group and not by Libya is not new and instances can be found on this blog here.

Lockerbie — appeal decision delayed until 2020

[This is the headline over an article published today on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer's Intel Today website. It reads in part:]

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is reviewing the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man ever convicted for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Previously, it had been indicated that the SCCRC’s decision would be handed down by the end of summer 2019. But the SCCRC just announced that a decision is not expected before 2020. (...)

On May 3 2018, The  Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission announced it would examine the case to decide whether it would be appropriate to refer the matter for a fresh appeal.

Christine Grahame — a Member of the Scottish Parliament since its inception in 1999 — has been outspoken in her view that the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the 1988 Lockerbie tragedy is unsafe and represents a miscarriage of justice.

According to Grahame, the commission was expected to report by summer 2019.

RELATED POST: Lockerbie — Christine Grahame MSP: “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied”

However, the SCCRC has just announced that a decision is not expected before 2020.

Obviously, this new delay will cause frustration in some circles.

In an email to Intel Today, a long-time reseacher of the Lockerbie case wrote:

“It should come as no surprise that the SCCRC report is to be delayed: just about every other action by the Scottish, UK and US authorities has been delayed, sometimes by years.

It is a tactic to frustrate hope and retain control of events in the hands of those people who fabricated the Lockerbie false narrative.”

But some people remain optimistic. Megrahi family’s Scottish lawyer Aamer Anwar said:

“We presented significant material which requires robust investigation and a number of inquiries have unfolded after issues we raised.

The family want to insure every avenue is looked at and that no short cuts are taken. We have one chance and we expect this to go back to the appeal court.”

In an email to Intel Today, Robert Black QC FRSE – Professor Emeritus of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh and best known as the “Architect of the Lockerbie Trial” wrote:

“While it is disappointing that the SCCRC will not be reporting by the end of the summer, the fact that their investigations are taking longer than anticipated is, in some ways, a hopeful sign.

My worry always has been that the Commission might find that, although there might have been a miscarriage of justice, it was not in the interests of justice that there be a third appeal (Megrahi having lost the first one and abandoned the second one in order to return home to die).

If this was going to be the ultimate decision of the Commission, I do not believe that they would be conducting such rigorous and lengthy investigations.

I’m reasonably confident therefore that the SCCRC will find that there may have been a miscarriage of justice, for the six reasons specified by their predecessors in 2007 and also on at least some of the further additional grounds advanced since then.

And, as I say, I think it unlikely that, having so concluded they would then say that it was not in the interests of justice for there to be a further appeal.”

Most Intel Today readers (90%) believe that the Lockerbie verdict is a spectacular miscarriage of justice.

I understand that a similar poll among Scotland lawyers would be even more devastating.

Truth never dies.

FBI pulls Lockerbie agents out of Libya as fighting escalates

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

US agents tasked with finding out who assisted bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi have been withdrawn from the fractured country in north Africa.

Families of those who died when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up in December 1988 were told last week in a letter from the FBI.

However, John Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter Helga was on the London to New York flight, said: “I think it’s an excuse to say that they’ve found nothing in Libya.”

Many families of those who died believe Megrahi, who was freed from jail because of a terminal illness almost 10 years ago, was not responsible for the terrorist attack that killed all 259 people on the plane and 11 people in Lockerbie.

Mr Mosey said: “Having attended the whole of the trial except for two weeks, we were far from convinced of his guilt.

“When he was released I felt that something a bit closer to justice was being done.”

The FBI continued to pursue Megrahi’s co-conspirators until April, when fighting escalated between forces of the internationally recognised Government of National Accord and political faction the Libyan National Army.

In a letter, Kathryn Turman, the FBI’s Victim Services Division assistant director, told families: “This has created an even greater environment of destabilisation within Libya. It is unknown when the fighting will resolve and which group will take over leadership.

“Due to the current situation, the US government has ceased all movement into Libya and withdrew the limited personnel previously in country.

“Of course, the FBI will continue to work with other investigative leads, including those with our Scottish partners, to focus on efforts outside of Libya, and within Libya when opportunities arise.”

Former police officer Iain Mckie, secretary of the Justice for Megrahi group, which campaigns to clear his name, questioned the decision to pull out of Libya. He pointed to the extradition of the brother of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi last week and said it would appear the UK authorities can still “do business” in Libya.

Mr McKie said: “Where does the Crown Office stand on this given their inquiries are apparently ongoing In Libya?”

Prosecutors in Scotland are working with the FBI to bring those who assisted Megrahi to justice.

The Crown Office said: “Prosecutors and police, working with UK Government and US colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who acted along with Al Megrahi to justice. This is a live criminal investigation.”

It emerged in March that Scots investigators were interviewing at least five former agents of the East German secret police over their possible involvement in the Lockerbie attack. (...)

Armed conflict in and around Tripoli escalated on April 4, 2019, when forces from the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army, led by General Khalifa Haftar, launched an offensive to capture the city from the Government of National Accord.

Civilians and medical workers are among dozens who have died, and a further 100,000 have fled Tripoli.

Both the US and the UK Government has warned citizens not to travel to Libya and those who are in the country have been told to flee.

The Foreign Office said: “Fighting can break out anywhere without warning.

“There’s a high risk of civilians being caught in indiscriminate gunfire or shelling, including air strikes, in all areas where there is fighting.”

[RB: The edition of The Times for Monday, 22 July has picked up The Sunday Post's story. The report contains nothing new, except for its last sentence, which reads: "A decision on whether the family of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, who died in 2012, can appeal against his conviction, has been delayed until next year." Previously, it had been indicated that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's decision would be handed down by the end of summer 2019.]

PanAm103 and MH370 compared and contrasted

[What follows is excerpted from an article published yesterday on the website of The NY Times Post and headlined MH370: Terrifying Lockerbie bombing comparison revealed. It also appears today on the Express website:]

Malaysia Airlines flight 370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board and it is still a mystery as to what exactly happened. Meanwhile, Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb on December 21, 1988, en route from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York. N739PA came down over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 people on the ground.

In the aftermath of MH370’s disappearance, certain similarities between the incidents were noticed.

The sudden loss of radar contact and the lack of a distress signal were among these.

Channel 5’s documentary Flight MH370 said: “The instant and sudden loss of radar contact suggests Mh370 simply dropped out of the sky.

“Back in 2014, in the days immediately after the plane goes missing, one explanation being considered is a terrorist bomb.

“That is what brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 killing 270 people.

“Like MH370, there was no distress call and the aircraft disappeared from radar screens instantaneously.”

However, a key difference between MH370 and the Lockerbie bombing is that the wreckage of N739PA was found and it is confirmed to have been an explosion that brought the plane down, whereas the wreckage of MH370 was never found.

The perpetrators of the Lockerbie bombing were traced back to Libya and in 2001 Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, was found guilty of 270 counts of murder.

He was jailed for life but released in 2009 on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and he died in 2012.

Meanwhile, Libyan leader General Muammar Gaddafi accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing in 2003 and paid compensation to the families of the victims.

Curiously however, whilst accepting responsibility he still maintained that he was not behind the attack. [RB: What Libya actually accepted responsibility for is set out clearly here.]

Accepting responsibility was part of a list of requirements set out by the UN for Libya to have crippling sanctions lifted.

In contrast, no perpetrators have ever been identified for MH370’s disappearance.