The real perpetrators of Lockerbie bombing still to be brought to book

[This is the headline over a letter by Rev Dr John Cameron published on the website of the Belfast Telegraph on 1 December 2020. It reads as follows:]

In 1994 Nelson Mandela offered South Africa as a neutral venue for the Pan Am atrocity trial, but this was turned down by John Major.

His offer was also rejected by Tony Blair at the 1997 Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Edinburgh.

In words that still haunt our judiciary, Mandela warned “no one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge” in the Lockerbie case.

A life-long friend, the late Graham Cox, was Sheriff Principal of South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway when Fhimah and Megrahi were arrested.

They appeared before him on April 6, 1999 at a makeshift Scottish court at Kamp Van Zeist in Holland.

In spite of his suspicion that the prosecution had arrested the wrong men, this court appearance starting off the subsequent legal proceedings.

Cox had no doubt the bombing resulted from the shooting down of Iran Air 655 by the USS Vincennes in July 1988, or that the Iranians recruited the PFLP-General Command.

Later, when Mandela asked the Kirk to intervene in a “serious miscarriage of justice”, Cox pointed me to the unsafe forensics, the unlikely use of a long-range timer and the fact that the bomb entered the system at Heathrow.

My report for the Kirk was used by Al Jazeera in a documentary which left no doubt of Megrahi’s innocence. [RB: Dr Cameron's report and the Al Jazeera documentary are referred to here, at the text accompanying footnote 46.]

Sadly, Cox warned against any hope that the verdict might be reversed.

Lord Fraser, then our senior law officer, had admitted the key witness Tony Gauci wasn’t “the full shilling”, had been paid $3m by the US and that the trial was a farce, but “nobody wants this can of worms opened”.

A Scottish show trial has descended into farce

[This is the headline over an article by physicist and former Church of Scotland minister Dr John Cameron in today’s edition of the Scottish Review. It reads in part:]

The Sunday Herald has posted on its website the legal grounds found by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission for Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's second appeal. There was, of course, a clear public interest in making the report available and we have a right to know the nature of the SCCRC reservations and why it reached its conclusions.

It does not answer all the troubling questions which emerged in the wake of the atrocity, the investigation and the trial but it certainly casts doubt on the fairness of the verdict. Within months of the verdict three figures initiated a long protest: Dr Jim Swire (who lost his daughter), Hans Köchler (UN observer at the trial) and Nelson Mandela. Today there is hardly anyone north of the border who is not uneasy and the appeal has the support of the Kirk, the Catholic Church and the law faculties of the Scottish universities. It is also worth noting that not only his fellow prisoners but also the staff at Greenock prison believed he was innocent – usually a sign that something is seriously wrong.

The SCCRC document (a statement of reasons) sets out the grounds for referral back to the appeal court, four of which refer to the non-disclosure of evidence to the defence. This includes the main prosecution witness Tony Gauci having seen a magazine article and photograph linking Megrahi to the crime before making his 'positive' identification. There was also grave concern that Gauci knew the US would reward him with $2 million for 'successful' testimony and severe doubts about the clothing and the purchaser. A fifth reason covered 'secret' intelligence documents not seen by Megrahi's legal team while the sixth referred to new evidence on the date of clothes purchased in Malta.

I was disappointed but not surprised the commission took the forensic evidence at face value and ignored the warning of the distinguished criminal lawyer, Michael Mansfield. As he rightly says: 'Forensic science is not immutable and the biggest mistake that anyone can make is to believe that its practioners are somehow beyond reproach. Some of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history have come from cases in which the forensic science was later shown to have been grossly misleading'. There is, in fact, a 'canteen culture' in forensic science which encourages officers to see themselves as part of the prosecuting team rather than investigators seeking the truth.

In recent years no forensic-based case has caused greater concern than the Lockerbie trial and the prosecution has been widely accused of using the tactics of disinformation. The lead prosecutor was the lord advocate, Colin (later Baron) Boyd, who three years before had prosecuted the detective Shirley McKie in another forensic-based disaster. She was later compensated with £750,000 by the Scottish Executive after a botched trial based on faulty forensic evidence (...)

The involvement of the prosecuting team in the earlier fiasco to say nothing of severe doubts about the Lockerbie forensics is surely a matter of concern. The Crown Office said it had 'every confidence in successfully defending the conviction', but as Mandy Rice-Davies said at another trial, 'They would say that, wouldn't they'.

In fact the author of a magisterial study of the Lockerbie evidence, John Ashton, said it is clear the revelations have caused huge embarrassment for the judiciary. The trial was memorable for the performance of Fhimah's counsel, Richard Keen, dean of the Faculty of Advocates and one of the most brilliant legal minds of his generation. When I read his cross-examination of the forensic team of Thomas Hayes and Allen Feraday I thought as a professional physicist that he had shredded their credibility.

Edwin Bollier, who Keen scornfully and repeatedly referred to as 'a legitimate Swiss businessman', gave evidence about the timer which was shown to be pure fantasy. Keen then proceeded to demolish both Tony Gauci and Majid Giaka to such an extent that no-one in the court could be in any doubt that Lamin Fhimah had no case to answer. What I found beyond belief was that evidence which was judged farcical in the case of Fhimah was later accepted as plausible by the law lords in the case of Megrahi.

Having been involved in the appeal for many years, I would say my greatest doubts as a scientist involve the highly dubious theory that the bomb entered the system in Malta. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever an unaccompanied suitcase was secreted onto flight KM180, but Air Malta had won a libel action in 1993 establishing that it was not.

The Maltese police have always protested that this was a most unlikely scenario and the senior airport baggage loader was adamant that he always double-counted his luggage. This reliable official counted his luggage when it was finally gathered and again when it was physically loaded onto the plane and was certain there was no extra case. In fact, the idea of unaccompanied baggage with a bomb rattling around Europe before finding its way onto Pan Am 103 in London has always been widely ridiculed. The excellent screening at Frankfurt would almost certainly have picked it up and the theory added the further complication of requiring a non-barometric timer be used.

The interline baggage hall at Heathrow was notoriously insecure and John Bedford, a loader-driver employed by Pan Am had already told police of suspicious activity. He had placed a number of cases in the baggage container AVE 4041 for the flight but returned from a tea break to find a distinctive brown Samsonite case had been added. Sulkash Kamboj of the Pan Am affiliate Alert Security who told Bedford that he added the case, initially denied this to the police before finally admitting his involvement at the trial.

Whatever happens, it is a matter of the most profound regret that this Scottish show trial in the full glare of the international community has been allowed to descend into farce.

"Show me where it says Scots Law must be logical and fair."

[This is the heading over a review on amazon.co.uk of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury by physicist and Church of Scotland minister Dr John Cameron.  It reads as follows:]

I read John Ashton's 500 page tour de force Megrahi: You Are My Jury at a sitting and though I would not expect anyone else to do so it is an invaluable `source' for the public. His dissection of the trial in general and the 80 page judgement of Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean in particular make compelling if disturbing reading. The British public, media and politicians have a spectacularly poor knowledge of science and technology as debates over such things as windfarms and GM crops makes clear. It would be unreasonable to expect our Law Lords, classically educated at public schools where the teaching of science was bad and technology non-existent, to be any better. It was therefore only to be expected they would struggle to comprehend the weakness of the forensic evidence or to understand the operation of Frankfurt airport's X-ray security. Yet, as the UN observer wrote, that does not excuse their reliance on the partial evidence from wholly unreliable witnesses to reach a verdict `beyond any reasonable doubt'. The Crown's case was that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, acting together, smuggled the bomb on board a feeder flight from Malta in unaccompanied baggage. The Prosecution insisted they were either both innocent or both guilty however the only evidence linking Fhimah to this scenario depended on the evidence on one witness. This was Majid Giaka, a CIA informant, and by the time Fhimah's counsel, Richard Keen, had finished with him it was clear Giaka was both a liar and a fantasist. I thought the trial was over and though it still dragged on with increasing absurdity I was not surprised when the Crown closed that Keen submitted Fhimah had no case to answer. However, I had not counted on Alastair Campbell, who led the Crown's case, informing the court he was dropping the conspiracy charge i.e. separating al-Megrahi and Fhimah. This was allowed but conspiracy was the basis of the case so I asked a leading figure in our judiciary if they could do that and he said the Law Lords could do what they liked. When I replied that was illogical and unfair he archly responded, "Show me where it says Scots Law must be logical and fair" and an historic miscarriage of justice was inevitable.

Forensic folly and cultural collusion

[The following are two letters published in today’s edition of The Scotsman:]

Dr John Cameron (Letters, 24 December) is right to observe similarities between the Lockerbie and Shirley McKie investigations. An in-depth analysis of both cases reveals, however, that they had more than Colin Boyd in common.

Not only were a number of Crown Office, police and forensic witnesses involved in both cases but there was particular interest shown by foreign governments through agencies like the FBI.

More importantly, a common culture appeared to bind these people and agencies together.

Their “conviction at all costs” mentality, regardless of the contrary evidence staring them in the face, brooked no opposition and of course erroneous forensic evidence, which still bears the mantle of infallibility, was extremely helpful to the cause.

It’s not for me to judge their motivation but it was this realisation that led to my joining Justice for Megrahi, the organisation currently locking horns with the Lord Advocate in the face of his latest outrageous outbursts in relation to past and ongoing Lockerbie enquiries.

“Forensic folly” indeed but also “cultural collusion”.

Through this continuing rejection of the reality staring him in the face the Lord Advocate, Scotland’s independent prosecutor in the public interest and a member of the Scottish Government, has severely compromised his constitutional position of independence and neutrality.

Iain A J McKie

Forensic evidence is not perfect but is the best form of evidence we currently have. All other forms of evidence have their risks, including confessions, witnesses and even film or digital recording.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was released on the basis of medical evidence that he would die within three months.

When he failed to die for 30 months we did not conclude that all medicine was therefore wrong. Dr Cameron criticises forensic evidence whilst citing narrative evidence.

Forensic evidence, being scientifically based, usually fails in human interpretation of the science rather than the science itself. We need to improve the scientific basis of forensic evidence rather than abandon it. Even DNA evidence is subject to interpretation and hence contains a risk of error.

Neil Sinclair

Lockerbie forensics

Two years ago today I reproduced on this blog a substantial part of a long article by physicist and former Church of Scotland minister Dr John Cameron entitled Forensic report on the Lockerbie bombing. 

Although it came before the devastating disclosures about the dodgy timer fragment (PT35b) in John Ashton's Megrahi: You are my Jury, the article is still well worth reading, as are the comments that it generated from Rolfe, Vronsky and Richard Marquise amongst others.

We should beware forensic evidence to secure convictions

[This is the headline over an article by Dr John Cameron, physicist and former Church of Scotland minister, in today’s edition of the Scottish Review.  It reads as follows:]

I first became involved in the Lockerbie case when Nelson Mandela asked the Church of Scotland to support his efforts to have Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction overturned. 

As an experienced lawyer, Mandela studied the transcripts and decided there had been a miscarriage of justice, pointing especially to serious problems with the forensic evidence. I was the only research physicist among the clergy and was the obvious person to review the evidence to produce a technical report which might be understood by the Kirk.

Scientists always select the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions to eliminate complicated constructions and keep theories grounded in the laws of science. This is 'Occam's razor' and from the outset the theory that the bomb entered the system in Malta as unaccompanied baggage and rattled around Europe seemed quite mad. I contacted everyone I knew in aviation and they all were of the opinion it was placed on board at the notoriously insecure Heathrow and that the trigger had to be barometric.

The Maltese link is so tenuous, complex and full of assumptions it depends almost totally upon the integrity of the three forensic scientists involved – and that was a big problem. Megrahi is the only person convicted on their evidence whose conviction was not reversed on appeal.

One of the UK's foremost criminal lawyers, Michael Mansfield, has long warned against our judiciary's gross over-reliance on forensic evidence to secure convictions. He said: 'Forensic science is not immutable and the biggest mistake anyone can make is to believe its practioners are somehow beyond reproach. Some of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history have come from cases in which the forensic science was later shown to have been grossly misleading.'

There is, in fact, a kind of 'canteen culture' in forensic science which encourages officers to see themselves as part of the prosecuting team rather than seekers after truth. The scientific evidence points to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [-General Command] whose chief bomb-maker, Marwen Khreesat, was arrested in Frankfurt in December 1988.

In the boot of his car was a Toshiba cassette recorder identical to the one found later at Lockerbie with Semtex moulded inside it, a simple time delay and a barometric switch.

[In the same issue there is a contribution by David Hill which reads in part:]

With John Ashton's book blowing to smithereens any shred of credibilty left clinging to the guilty verdict on Al Megrahi (despite the BBC's selective and timid account of it) [The Herald]  led today [Tuesday 28 February] with a minor distraction about how or why the appeal was abandoned.

I know no sensible or well-informed person who believes the 'evidence' presented at the travesty at Camp Zeist would have got through a sheriff court.

I know no sensible or well-informed person who is now confident that Al Megrahi was guilty. And I recognise a growing conviction on the part of most of these preople that the sentence passed on Al Megrahi was the result of a pre-ordained and absolutely disgusting stitch between the US and the UK governments and the government of Libya to send, for whatever reasons, an innocent man to jail.

As the revelations have trickled out over the years it has become more and more probable that some in authority in Scotland were involved and I remain puzzled as to why the present Scottish Government, not in power at the the time of the trial, is dragging its feet.

I have assumed for some time that the UK, the US and particularly the Libyans have had every reason to fear an inquiry, whether a public inquiry or an Al Megrahi appeal, but once our newspapers see it as their obligation to cover up for those in power these newspapers are beyond any respect.

Wrongful conviction with falsified evidence

[What follows is taken from the Very Rev Prof Iain Torrance's obituary of the Rev Dr John Cameron in today's edition of The Scotsman:]

In retirement, desperate to maintain an active brain, he turned to the newspapers. Over the years he took pleasure in being able to reach more people through his letters than he ever did from the pulpit and built a loyal following. He used to send these to me, always with the email heading, ‘Warblings’ or ‘More Warblings’. He was particularly proud to have supported his friend Margo Macdonald in her efforts to legalise Assisted Dying in this country, as well as Abdul Basset Ali al-Megrahi and his wrongful conviction of the Lockerbie bombing with falsified evidence. And I know that Abdul Basset Ali al-Megrahi used to send John Christmas cards from Barlinnie in gratitude for his kindness.

Lockerbie questions

[This is the heading over two letters published today in The Daily Telegraph.  They read as follows:]

SIR – The survival of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al–Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, beyond the three months he was given to live does not make his prognosis or release from jail suspect (report, Issue 1,087).

Doctors can only assess prognosis on the basis of population data and instinct. For an individual to survive far beyond the prognosis is not surprising, especially when the patient accesses treatments that are deemed too expensive by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or which are not available in Britain.

I can attest to this because I am still alive five years after being diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma. This cancer, caused by exposure to asbestos, has a median survival of 12 to 14 months.

It may be the drugs or the experimental treatments I have had overseas, or it may be that I am just out on the far right of the survival curve. But the fact that I am alive does not make the initial prognosis wrong.

Dr Andrew D Lawson, Warborough, Oxfordshire

SIR – Huge doubts remain about Megrahi’s conviction. In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found prima facie evidence of a miscarriage of justice. English and Scottish prosecution services have a bad record of keeping essential evidence from the defence; this was an especially reprehensible example.

Cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses was so devastating that Megrahi’s subsequent conviction is beyond comprehension. Much of the forensic scientific evidence and the theory that a suitcase bomb entered the system in Malta and rattled around Europe before exploding over Lockerbie are absurd.

Most of the Scottish judiciary believes the fingerprints of Iran and Syria are all over this episode and that the guilty verdict against Megrahi is manifestly unsafe.

Dr John Cameron, St Andrews, Fife

Lockerbie bomber’s confession ‘a translation error’

[This is the headline over a report published today (behind the paywall) on the website of The Times.  It reads in part:]

Scottish prosecutors are seeking a copy of an interview with the Lockerbie bomber, in which he appeared to admit that he had played a role in the atrocity.

A spokesman said last night: “We are aware of the interview with [Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi] which was partly broadcast on yesterday’s news. We are also aware that Megrahi is reported as having said in that interview that his role in the Lockerbie bombing was exaggerated.

“Dumfries and Galloway police have been instructed to obtain the whole interview. Once available the translation will be checked for accuracy.”

However, supporters of al-Megrahi claimed yesterday that his apparent admission was a mistranslation.

After the interview, conducted with Reuters news agency from his sickbed in Tripoli, al-Megrahi was widely quoted as saying that his role in the bombing had been “exaggerated”, a word that seemed to suggest that he had been involved in the atrocity. Hitherto he had always protested his innocence.

Robert Black, QC, Professor of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, maintained that the interview had not been translated correctly and that the Arabic word used by al-Megrahi was a different one, which meant to “invent or fabricate” rather than “exaggerate”. [RB: I myself speak no Arabic. I was informed by an Arabic speaker that the word used was "echtera" ( اخترع ) which means "invent, concoct, fabricate".]

Professor Black said: “Far from being a confession, this was actually a vehement denial of any involvement.”

The Reuters news agency, which carried out the interview at al-Megrahi’s home this week, stood by its translation.

The Times, which has studied the original Arabic quoted by Reuters, has established that al-Megrahi used the word “kabbirni” which literally means “made my name bigger” — that is, he meant that the West had made his role seem bigger than it was. Al-Megrahi’s Scottish-based lawyer, Tony Kelly, intervened to warn against interpreting the comments made in the interview as a confession. “He was clearly in some distress and he is on medication, therefore subjecting these comments to any great scrutiny is unfair,” Mr Kelly said.

Al-Megrahi used his first interview in two years to criticise his trial in The Hague, which ended with his conviction for the 1988 terrorist act. He described the proceedings held in the Dutch court under Scots law as a farce and branded prosecutors “liars”.

“The facts will become clear one day, and hopefully in the near future. In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced. The West exaggerated my name. Please leave me alone. I only have a few more days, weeks or months. All my work was administrative. I never harmed Libyans. I didn’t harm anyone. I’ve never harmed anyone in my life,” he said. [RB: Even if "exaggerated" is an accurate translation of the Arabic, this passage does not, on any fair reading, amount to a confession of involvement in the destruction of Pan Am 103.]

Al-Megrahi’s lawyer said that the revelations that al-Megrahi referred to in the interview would be contained in the Libyan’s memoirs, which are due to be published in the near future. The Lockerbie bomber’s autobiography will contain details of the appeal he was planning to make against his conviction. (...)

Al-Megrahi also revealed that one of the relatives of a Lockerbie victim is helping him to secure powerful new drugs that could help prolong his life.

Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, Flora, in the bombing, believes that al-Megrahi is innocent and has offered to help him locate medicine that could help his condition. Dr Swire said: “I don’t believe this man murdered my daughter so I’m happy to help, and as a doctor I can’t discriminate — if someone needs help I must give it.”

[A letter headed The truth must be fearlessly pursued from Dr John Cameron in today's edition of The Scotsman contains the following:]

The performance of the Italian forensic team [in the Amanda Knox case] was deplorable and on a par with that seen in the prosecutions of Detective Constable Shirley McKie and Megrahi. Yet Italy can be proud that its system is self-righting while our judiciary still struggles to admit culpability in the manifestly unsafe verdicts on McKie and Megrahi.

[A letter from David Flett in the same newspaper reads as follows:]

Mr Megrahi promises us fresh new facts in the coming months that will add to his claim of innocence.

Could he perhaps be referring to publication of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) report?

It's ironic that while we lambast Westminster, Libya and the USA for not revealing all information in their possession we here in Scotland keep hidden the findings of a four-year independent investigation into the case.

It's obvious to me that all our politicians and our own justice system lack the stomach to pursue the Lockerbie truth.

So it was therefore further disappointing to see our very own Scotsman newspaper appear to misquote Megrahi and suggest a "confession" had taken place, adding yet another untruth to the mountain of untruths.

RIP Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

18 July 1918 - 05 December 2013

Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika

Among his many other achievements, Nelson Mandela played a significant and honourable part in the Lockerbie affair.  Here are a few excerpts from posts on this blog over the years.

Saturday, 12 January 2008  He [Abdelbaset Megrahi] spoke affectionately and admiringly of South African leader Nelson Mandela, who had visited him in prison, saying that Mandela refused to be accompanied by any British official when he visited him in his prison in Scotland. He added that Mandela also called him when he was visiting the Netherlands because his Dutch hosts had told him that he cannot visit him in prison as it would be a breach of protocol.

Friday, 18 July 2008  (on Mandela’s 90th birthday) 'With so much having been written about the man, the best insights can, perhaps, be gleaned from his 'lesser' successes rather than his iconic triumphs. Nowhere is this more evident than in his mediation on the Lockerbie issue. Mandela took a particular interest in helping to resolve the long-running dispute between Gaddafi's Libya, on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were indicted in November 1991 and accused of sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed at the Scottish town of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, with the loss of 270 lives. As early as 1992, Mandela informally approached President George Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country. Bush reacted favourably to the proposal, as did President Mitterrand of France and King Juan Carlos of Spain. In November 1994, six months after his election as president, Mandela formally proposed that South Africa should be the venue for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial.

'However, British Prime Minister, John Major, flatly rejected the idea saying the British government did not have confidence in foreign courts. A further three years elapsed until Mandela's offer was repeated to Major's successor, Tony Blair, when the president visited London in July 1997. Later the same year, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at Edinburgh in October 1997, Mandela warned: "No one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge." A compromise solution was then agreed for a trial to be held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, governed by Scottish law, and Mandela began negotiations with Gaddafi for the handover of the two accused (Megrahi and Fhimah) in April 1999.

‘At the end of their nine-month trial, the verdict was announced on 31 January 2001. Fhimah was acquitted but Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish jail. Megrahi's initial appeal was turned down in March 2002, and former president Mandela went to visit him in Barlinnie prison on 10 June 2002. "Megrahi is all alone", Mandela told a packed press conference in the prison's visitors room. "He has nobody he can talk to. It is psychological persecution that a man must stay for the length of his long sentence all alone. It would be fair if he were transferred to a Muslim country, and there are Muslim countries which are trusted by the West. It will make it easier for his family to visit him if he is in a place like the kingdom of Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt."’

Sunday, 30 August 2009  Nelson Mandela played a central role in facilitating the handover of Megrahi to the United Nations so he could stand trial under Scottish law in the Netherlands, and subsequently visited him in Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow.

His backing [for the compassionate release of Megrahi] emerged in a letter sent by Professor Jakes Gerwel, chairperson of the Mandela Foundation.

He said: "Mr Mandela sincerely appreciates the decision to release Mr al Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

"His interest and involvement continued after the trial after visiting Mr al Megrahi in prison.

"The decision to release him now, and allow him to return to Libya, is one which is therefore in line with his wishes."

Sunday, 14 February 2010  I have no doubt that President Mandela's influence and his interventions at the time of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Edinburgh in October 1997 were crucial in persuading the recently-elected Labour Government to countenance a "neutral venue" solution to the Lockerbie impasse. Also of crucial importance was the press conference held by the group UK Families-Flight 103 in Edinburgh during the Meeting and the worldwide publicity that it generated.

Friday, 17 June 2011  In November 1994, President Nelson Mandela offered South Africa as a neutral venue for the trial but this was rejected by John Major. A further three years elapsed until Mandela’s offer was repeated to Major’s successor, Tony Blair, when the president visited London in July 1997 and again at the 1997 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Edinburgh in October 1997. At the latter meeting, Mandela warned that “no one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge” in the Lockerbie case.

Sunday, 24 July 2011  Huge crowds greeted Nelson Mandela as he travelled from South Africa to meet Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

He met the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 2002 on a diplomatic excursion to see how he was being treated.

The former president of South Africa also discussed a campaign for Megrahi to serve his sentence in a Libyan prison.

Everyone who has met Mandela speaks of his kindness, gentleness and good manners.

His visit to Gaddafi's Cafe, the nickname given to the area of Barlinnie where Megrahi was held, underlined the humanity of the man.

After all, Mandela himself spent 18 of his 27 years in jail on Robben Island after being locked up by the South Africa's apartheid government.

Most of the crowd hoping to meet him were positioned around the reception and the main gates. Everyone on the staff wanted a glimpse of the great man. The wellwishers were rows deep.

But as he passed through the throng, Mandela stopped, looked to the edge of the crowd and spotted a young prison officer right at the back.

He said: "You sir, step down here."

When the officer got to the front, Mandela shook his hand, giving him a moment he would never forget.

Mandela remarked that he, too, knew what it was like to be at the back row and not noticed.

The great leader then went inside to meet Megrahi. [RB: Here is a photograph taken at the time.]

But he declined an offer to visit the cell blocks.

Mandela had seen enough to last a lifetime.

Wednesday, 29 February 2012  I [Dr John Cameron] first became involved in the Lockerbie case when Nelson Mandela asked the Church of Scotland to support his efforts to have Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction overturned. 

As an experienced lawyer, Mandela studied the transcripts and decided there had been a miscarriage of justice, pointing especially to serious problems with the forensic evidence. I was the only research physicist among the clergy and was the obvious person to review the evidence to produce a technical report which might be understood by the Kirk.

Scientists always select the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions to eliminate complicated constructions and keep theories grounded in the laws of science. This is 'Occam's razor' and from the outset the theory that the bomb entered the system in Malta as unaccompanied baggage and rattled around Europe seemed quite mad. I contacted everyone I knew in aviation and they all were of the opinion it was placed on board at the notoriously insecure Heathrow and that the trigger had to be barometric.  

[And while listening to or reading the tributes to Mandela from members of the UK government and Tory politicians, just bear this in mind.]

Intolerable lethargy

[The current edition of Private Eye (issue 1335) contains the following article, which I have copied from John Ashton’s website Megrahi: You are my Jury since it does not yet appear on the magazine’s own website:]

David Cameron and Scottish police and prosecutors hoping to unearth material relating to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing have all left Tripoli empty-handed. Libyan justice minister Salah al-Marghani told the Telegraph last week: “The matter was settled with the Gaddafi regime. I am trying to work on the current situation rather than dig into the past.”

While the Scottish authorities are, by contrast, trying to put an upbeat spin on last month’s meetings with Libyan ministers and officials, saying they hoped for further progress, the apparent break should give Dumfries and Galloway detectives time to follow up more tangible leads. It is more than a year since new forensic evidence came to light which in effect destroyed not only the prosecution case against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, but also any positive links to Libya itself. Police have still not been to see the two UK scientists whose findings come from a re-examination of crash debris. Dr Jim Swire, who has campaigned tirelessly find out exactly how his daughter, Flora, came to die in the bombing, and who was responsible, is now preparing a case for a full independent inquiry, calling the police, Crown and government failure to properly investigate the new evidence a ‘dereliction of duty’.

Eye readers may remember two experts, Dr Chris McArdle and Dr Jess Cawley, showed that the most important forensic evidence recovered from the debris of Pan Am 103 – a fragment of timing device circuit board said to match those known to have been supplied to Libya – was in fact fundamentally different. The plating metal on the two boards was different. On the debris fragment, it was pure tin and on the boards used in the Libyan timers, it was a tin/lead mix.

The new evidence would have formed a major part of Megrahi’s appeal, had he not – because of his advanced cancer - abandoned it in order to return to Libya to die with his family. Instead it was detailed in the book, Megrahi: You are my Jury, by John Ashton, a researcher, writer and one of the Libyan’s defence team. But if the blast fragment was no match for Libyan timers, where or who did it come from?

Cameron will no doubt continue to avoid calls for an inquiry by maintaining that Scottish police are “looking further into the issues around the Lockerbie bomb”, and protracted wranglings with the Libyans buys more time. It is, of course, always possible that detectives could unearth some material in Libya that provides a link to Gaddafi and the sophisticated plot to blow up a passenger aircraft – he was, after all, no stranger to state-sponsored terrorism.

Ever since the dictator’s overthrow, various Libyan defectors and politicians, including Mustafa Abdel Jalil, Gaddafi’s former justice minister who later headed of Libya’s National Transitional Council, have promised “proof” of Gaddafi’s involvement. And yet it has still not been forthcoming.

Another was Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi’s intelligence chief at the time of Lockerbie and the man who London and Washington always claimed was behind the atrocity. After his defection he was interviewed in London by Scottish police. But curiously for a man, once thought to be a mass murderer, his assets were unfrozen and he was allowed to leave the country.  Newspaper reports suggested that Koussa had in fact long been a useful MI6 asset, which if true, just raises more questions about the government’s approach to Lockerbie.

The only Lockerbie-related document confirmed to have come out of Tripoli since the revolution is a private letter from Megrahi himself, written while he was in jail, to Libya’s then intelligence chief and Gaddafi’s right hand man, Abdullah al-Senussi.  It was found by Wall Street Journal staff among other “apparently untouched” papers in Senussi’s ransacked office. In it Megrahi maintains his innocence, claiming fraudulent information had been passed to investigators by “Libyan collaborators” and saying British and American investigators ignored “foul play” and irregularity.  He gives details of his lawyers’ efforts to prove his innocence.

That Megrahi should seek to convince of his innocence, the very hit man who should have known all about the bombing and who carried it out, (if the Crown’s case is correct) again raises fundamental questions about the conviction.

As Jim Swire says in the latest of a series of letters to David Cameron, the Crown Office and the Scottish government, last month:  “There is thus now no remaining credible link between the take off of the Lockerbie flight from Heathrow airport with the bomb on board, and the island of Malta, or the hand of Megrahi. It is now over 24 years since my daughter Flora was murdered at Lockerbie. As her father I have a right to know who murdered her and why her life was not protected. Such lethargy as this is intolerable”.

[The relevant Private Eye page can now be viewed here.]

Lockerbie families vow to force public inquiry

[This is the headline over a report by Lucy Adams in today’s edition of The Herald.  It reads in part:]      

                                                                 

Relatives of the Lockerbie victims have vowed to pursue a public inquiry, even if it means forcing the hand of the UK Government through the courts.

On the day Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, was laid to rest near the Libyan capital of Tripoli, Dr Jim Swire whose daughter Flora died in the atrocity, revealed the families have taken legal advice and are planning to challenge UK ministers with a judicial review.

Prime Minister David Cameron and First Minister Alex Salmond have both rejected calls for an independent inquiry into the bombing in December 1988 that claimed 270 lives.

However, lawyers claim it would be possible to challenge that decision in the courts and Dr Swire said he is determined to pursue an inquiry.

It also emerged yesterday that Tony Kelly, Megrahi's lawyer, will travel to Libya this week to pay his respects to Megrahi's family.

Megrahi was released from prison on compassionate grounds almost three years ago because he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

He had been granted a fresh appeal by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which found there could have been a miscarriage of justice on six different grounds. However, he dropped the appeal.

Megrahi's release unleashed an international storm of criticism, but many of the victims' relatives believe the conviction to be unsound, especially in light of new evidence.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill yesterday said he had made the "right decision for the right reasons". (…)

SNP MP Angus Robertson said the "hypocrisy" of Labour and Conservative MPs was in contrast to Mr MacAskill's "in good faith" decision.

Dr Swire and other relatives are working with leading lawyer Gareth Peirce to compel the UK Government under human rights legislation to allow an inquiry.

Dr Swire told The Herald: "Our lawyers are saying we have an absolute right to know who killed our loved ones and why they were not protected."

He said that had become "increasingly important" since they learned recently that statements about a break-in at Heathrow Airport before the December 1988 bombing were kept by police until 1999.

Dr Swire added: "This might mean pushing for a judicial review of the UK Government's decision not to grant an independent inquiry.

"The alternative right now is for Alex Salmond to get his act together and grant an independent inquiry in Scotland.

"I am not in the mood to forgo the right to know who murdered my daughter and who knew the airport was broken into 16 hours before and decided not to do anything about it.

"I will have to take further advice on whether I could pursue this through the SCCRC. I think the next move lies with the Megrahi family."

Professor Robert Black QC – the architect of Megrahi's trial, said ministers could be persuaded to hold an independent inquiry in Scotland, or a relative of Megrahi may re-apply to the SCCRC and push for a new appeal.

Ministers' continued refusal to hold a public inquiry could be challenged as a breach of article 8, the right to a family life.

Niall McCluskey, an advocate and expert in human rights, said: "The court could declare the Government was in some way in breach of the petitioner's human rights. Judicial review is a mechanism by which they could seek to have the decision of the Government not to hold an inquiry challenged."

John Ashton, a former member of Megrahi's defence team and the author of his official biography, Megrahi: You Are My Jury, said: "He has suffered a very painful death and he has gone to his grave with the conviction hanging over him.

"I am convinced that sooner or later the conviction will be overturned."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "The Scottish Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of al Megrahi. Nevertheless, there remain concerns to some on the wider issues of the Lockerbie atrocity.

"The questions to be asked and answered in any such inquiry would be beyond the jurisdiction of Scots law and the remit of the Scottish Government, and such an inquiry would therefore need to be initiated by those with the required power and authority to deal with an issue, international in its nature."

Downing Street refused to explain Mr Cameron's reasoning behind his refusal to back a new inquiry.

[It is disappointing to see the Scottish Government trotting out the shopworn old excuse that any such inquiry would be beyond the jurisdiction of Scots law and the remit of the Scottish Government. As has been pointed out on many occasions, what is being called for is an inquiry into the investigation, prosecution and conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. Each and every one of these matters is within the jurisdiction of Scots law and the remit of the Scottish Government:

The event occurred over and on Scottish territory.
The case was investigated by a Scottish police force.
The trial was conducted under Scots Law.
Mr Megrahi was convicted under Scots Law.
Mr Megrahi was imprisoned in a Scottish gaol.
The SCCRC referred the second appeal to the Scottish Court of Appeal.
Mr Megrahi was given compassionate release by the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice.]