Lockerbie justice prevented by political interference

[This is the headline over a letter from Dr Jim Swire published in today’s edition of The Sunday Times. It reads as follows:]

Your article “MacAskill cites flaws in case against Megrahi” (News, last week) suggests behind-the-scenes moves by America to befriend Libya in search of good trade relations at the time of the alleged Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s release by Kenny MacAskill.

Those who watched the trial of Megrahi at Zeist unfold in 2000/1 became aware of extraordinary intrusions into court practice on behalf of the US. These included an abortive attempt to deny the court access to the contents of CIA cables which showed that its much-hyped “star witness” Jiaka was in fact known to the CIA to be a liar and a fantasist. The court rejected his evidence as unreliable except for still accepting that Megrahi “must have” carried a sinister suitcase into Luqa airport on the day of the tragedy.

The plot and the motives and methods of execution for revenge seem straightforward enough. Iran used the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command as mercenaries to exact revenge against the USA. What we need is to understand why the stories about Gaddafi’s Libya being involved were invented and supported for so long, and by whom.

Out of respect for the innocent victims of Lockerbie, on the plane and on the ground, justice must never be allowed to be polluted by international politics in such a way ever again.

[RB: Here is the text of Dr Swire’s letter as submitted to The Sunday Times:]

Your article today suggests behind the scenes moves by the US, to befriend Libya in search of good trade relations at the time of the alleged Lockerbie bomber Megrahi's release by Kenny MacAskill.

Those who watched the trial of Megrahi at Zeist unfold back in 2000/1 became aware of extraordinary intrusions into court practice on behalf of the US. These included an abortive attempt, supported to a remarkable extent by Scotland's then Lord Advocate, Lord Colin Boyd, to deny the Court access to the contents of CIA cables which showed that their much hyped 'star witness' aka Jiaka was in fact known to the CIA to be a liar and a fantasist.

The court rejected his evidence as unreliable except for still accepting  that Megrahi 'must have' carried a sinister suitcase into Luqa airport on the day of the tragedy.

Their Lordships had to admit that there wasn't any evidence that Megrahi used his presence there to put a suitcase of any kind onto Air Malta Flight KM180, (presumably on the hope by him that it would be carried round via Frankfurt to Heathrow and PA103).

For such a far fetched plan to work, a long running timer and a lot of luck with transfers at Frankfurt and Heathrow in the pre-Christmas rush would be required.

Post-trial evidence has emerged that a key piece of forensic evidence accepted by the court as part of just such a timer was in fact a fake and could not possibly have come from the Libyan stockpile. It was a clever fake and must have been produced by an organization having the skills of advanced circuit board manufacture at its disposal.

Likewise, not one credible piece of evidence in all these years has emerged confirming any of the other alleged examples of activities indicating Libyan involvement in the plot.

Our own William of Occam, inventor of Occam's razor: (interpreted as the belief that the simplest  explanation which agrees with all the known facts of a case is the most likely to be correct) can perhaps contribute here.

Details well set out in the book Adequately Explained By Stupidity? by Morag Kerr show that evidence from Heathrow, led in court but rejected, indicate that the suitcase containing the bomb was loaded onto Pan Am 103 under Heathrow baggage handler Mr Bedford and his assistant Mr Kamboj; having entered his baggage container well before the connecting flight for 'Megrahi's bomb' had even landed at Heathrow from Frankfurt. [RB: Dr Swire is mistaken on this point. The evidence discussed by Dr Kerr was not led in court and rejected: it was not led at all, though some of it was known to the Crown and not disclosed to the defence.]

At the same time the Syrian terror group the PFLP-GC had developed and tested anti-aircraft bombs whose electronics dictated that if they could simply be got aboard a target aircraft at the airport of take off, they would automatically explode around 40 minutes post take off by sensing the climb to cruise altitude.

The Lockerbie flight flew for 39 minutes from Heathrow until over Lockerbie.

Why would the PFLP-GC allow one of their devices to be used at Heathrow, and how would they get it to Heathrow anyway? The PFLP-GC had close ties to Teheran for funding and were near bankruptcy in 1988. After Lockerbie they were solvent, while at Lockerbie it seems likely that Teheran got its widely expected revenge for the shooting down of one of their Airbuses by a US missile cruiser the USS Vincennes in the Gulf, with the loss of 290 Iranian civilian lives, five months before Lockerbie.

It also so happens that an Iran Air transport aircraft landed at Heathrow on the 21st of December 1988, long before the flight from Frankfurt had arrived.

The plot and the motives and methods of execution for revenge seem straight forward enough. Iran used the PFLP-GC as mercenaries to exact revenge against the USA. What we need is to understand why the stories about Gaddafi's Libya being involved were invented and supported for so long, and by whom.

Out of respect for the innocent victims of Lockerbie, on the plane and on the ground, Justice must never be allowed to be polluted by international politics in such away ever again.