[This is the
headline over the second batch of material derived from Megrahi: You are my Jury published today on the heraldscotland.com website. It reads in part:]
Megrahi: You are my Jury, The Lockerbie Evidence is a detailed book, spanning 460 pages, 15 chapters, four appendices,
and a six-page glossary. It explores a number of key areas which
campaigners will regard as crucial to the case, including eight which relate to
previously unseen evidence. Here, chief reporter LUCY ADAMS present
extracts from the book and explain why they matter.
1.Why Megrahi dropped the appeal
CONTEXT: Abdelbaset Ali
Mohmed al Megrahi had two possible routes out of Greenock jail in August 2009:
a prisoner transfer application for which he first had to drop his appeal, or
compassionate release because of his prostate cancer. The latter route did not
demand that he drop his appeal, in contrast to the former. In the event, he
ended his appeal, yet the PTA was turned down, and Justice Secretary Kenny
MacAskill instead granted compassionate release. The chain of actions has
always been a mystery, leaving those who believe in Megrahi’s guilt to see his
decision as confirmation of their views. Why would an innocent man not pursue
an appeal against conviction that he had waited years to begin? Now, for the
first time, Megrahi claims that he was pressured to drop the appeal by Mr
MacAskill personally through diplomatic channels.
EXTRACT: "On 10
August MacAskill and his senior civil servants met a delegation of Libyan
officials, including Minister [Abdel Ali] Al-Obeidi. By this time I was
desperate. The 90-day time limit for considering the prisoner transfer
application had passed and, although I had some vocal public supporters,
MacAskill was coming under considerable pressure to reject both applications.
After the meeting the Libyan delegation came to the prison to visit me. Obeidi
said that, towards the end of the meeting, MacAskill had asked to speak to him
in private. Once the others had withdrawn, MacAskill told him it would be
easier for him to grant compassionate release if I dropped my appeal. He [MacAskill]
said he was not demanding that I do so, but the message seemed to me to be
clear. I was legally entitled to continue the appeal, but I could not risk
doing so. It meant abandoning my quest for justice."
LUCY ADAMS
VERDICT: Mr MacAskill, who was not contacted in advance of today's book
publication, has always said he could not interfere in the judicial process. If
Megrahi's version of events is true, it will prove very damaging to the
minister, who has repeatedly distanced himself from any appeal which, if it had
gone ahead, could have been a massive embarrassment to the Scottish legal
system. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had already found six
grounds on which Megrahi’s conviction was potentially unsafe.
2. The timer fragment
CONTEXT: At Megrahi's
trial at Camp Zeist, it was agreed that the fragment of electrical circuit
board found at the Lockerbie crash site [and referred to as PT/35b] came from
an MST-13 board manufactured by the Swiss company Mebo and Thuring, its
supplier. Mebo revealed that it had sold 20 such timers to the Libyans, and
this became a hugely significant part of the case against Megrahi. However, the
book claims that new evidence shows the fragment of circuit board found at
Lockerbie, which was 100% covered in tin, did not match those in the timers
sent to Libya and alleges that the Crown's forensic expert at trial, Allen
Feraday, was aware of the disparity but failed to disclose it.
EXTRACT: "On 23
October 2008, at just after 7pm, a member of [Tony] Kelly's [defence] team
finally put the crucial question to Bonfadelli [Urs Bonfadelli was responsible
for the manufacture of Mebo’s MST-13 boards]: was the circuitry of the MST-13
boards coated with pure tin or a tin/lead alloy? His answer was clear and
devastating: all were coated with an alloy of 70% tin and 30% lead. There could
be no mistaking this, he said. It was imminently apparent what this meant: if
PT/35b’s coating had not been changed by the explosion, then it could not have
been made by Thuring and therefore could not have been one of the 20 timers
supplied to Libya."
Mr Kelly subsequently instructed two
independent experts to see if the heat of the explosion could have turned the
fragment’s tin/lead alloy to tin – Dr Chris McArdle, who had 25 years
experience in the electronics industry, and Dr Jess Cawley, a metallurgist with
over 35 years experience. The book adds: "..McArdle pointed out there was
no way that it would have been hot enough for the lead to have evaporated away…
Cawley agreed, pointing out that, although plastic explosives of the type used
in the Lockerbie bomb produce a flash of intense heat, lead, like most metals,
requires a far longer exposure to high temperatures before it would melt, let
alone evaporate."
Documents from the Ministry of Defence
Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment, disclosed by the Crown
just before Megrahi's appeal was dropped, revealed contradictory notes from Mr
Feraday saying the coating was pure tin and then "70/30 SN/Pb" (70%
tin and 30% lead). The book states: "Had these documents been disclosed to
the defence team, they would have provided the basis for a vigorous
cross-examination of Feraday."
LUCY ADAMS VERDICT:
This was one of the most important components of the prosecution case against
Megrahi. As the book admits, this was the "golden thread". However,
shortly before Megrahi dropped his appeal, his defence team found proof that
the timer was not one of those supplied by Mebo to the Libyans. If anything
author John Ashton suggests – based on expert opinion – that the circuit board
was likely to have been "DIY" rather than commercially manufactured.
With this information, the golden thread falls.
3. The Iranian connection
CONTEXT: In the book's
preface, Megrahi says he does not want to "point the finger of blame at
anyone else", but much of the material drawn together will lead readers to
believe that Iran funded the PFLP-GC [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
- General Command] to carry out the bombing, in retaliation for the American
warship the USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian passenger jet and killing
all 300 people on board in 1988. The US apparently mistook it for an F-14
fighter.
EXTRACT: "The most
difficult witness [for the defence team] to get to was the PFLP-GC bomb-maker
and double agent Marwen Khreesat. Asked about the aim of his October 1988
mission to West Germany, Khreesat was unambiguous: 'It was made very clear to
us by Ahmed Jibril [leader of the PFLPC-GC] that he wanted to blow up an
aeroplane. This was the whole purpose of being there. Dalkamoni and I travelled
to Frankfurt in order to go to the offices of Pan Am to get information about
their flight schedules. We did this. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind
that Jibril wanted a Pan Am flight out of Frankfurt blown up.' Although
Khreesat remained adamant that his bombs were not of the twin-speaker type used
for the Lockerbie bomb, he revealed that Dalkamoni had at least one other radio
cassette bomb. If Khreesat was right, here at last was confirmation that the
PFLP-GC had at least one twin speaker device in West Germany."
LUCY ADAMS VERDICT: The
initial investigation into Lockerbie in 1989 all pointed towards the
culpability of a German cell of the PFLP-GC. There is much within the book,
including the above statement by bomb-maker Marwen Khreesat which appears to
confirm this view. There are also notes showing that Ronald Reagan and Margaret
Thatcher blocked a public inquiry in the bombing and an explanation that
politically it was not expedient to fall out with Iran – whose oil was relied
upon - in the run-up to the Gulf War against Iraq. A great deal of the evidence
incriminating the PFLPC-GC was not disclosed at the original trial or appeal.
The heavily referenced allegations in the book make it seem more likely that
they were behind the Lockerbie bombing than Libya. To have dismissed the
evidence against them at the time raises questions about the role and potential
bias of some of the security agencies involved, and the murkiness of the
international politics which has always shrouded the Lockerbie case.
4. Reward money and the reliability of
witnesses
CONTEXT: In the UK
witnesses cannot be paid for their information. However, the book describes in
detail how both Tony and Paul Gauci were offered reward money by the American
Justice Department. And, we learn for the first time, that this was discussed
even before Tony Gauci's first statement. The book also reveals that Edwin
Bollier, who ran Mebo and testified against Megrahi, was very interested in
"the reward money".
EXTRACT: "The
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) concluded 'In referring the
case on this ground the Commission is conscious of the potential impact of its decision
on Mr Gauci who may well have given entirely credible evidence notwithstanding
an alleged interest in financial payment. On the other hand there are sound
reasons to believe that the information in question would have been used by the
defence as a means of challenging its credibility. Such a challenge may well
have been justified, and in the Commission’s view was capable of affecting the
course of the evidence and the eventual outcome of the trial.'"
The book also reveals
that several other witnesses had the possibility of reward money dangled before
them: "Lamin [Fhimah's – Megrahi's co-accused, cleared at Camp Zeist]
former business partner Vincent Vassalo whom Abdelbaset and Lamin had visited
the evening before the bombing. He confirmed that it was his first meeting with
Abdelbaset, who had introduced himself by his real name, rather than the one on
his coded passport. He described Lamin's shock on learning of the police
investigation and his willingness to allow them to search the Medtours office
and take his diary. Once the search was finished he said DCI [Harry] Bell [who
was in charge of the police investigation in Malta] reminded him that a 'big
reward' was on offer for any helpful information he could provide."
LUCY ADAMS VERDICT: The
fact that Tony Gauci, the Crown's key witness who testified that he saw Megrahi
buy specific clothes in his shop which were later identified as having been
near the bomb, was even offered a reward raised the concerns of the SCCRC. It
undermines his witness statements, which we now know were far more inconsistent
and numerous than previously disclosed. The revelation that Bollier and others
were offered the possibility of reward money also goes some way towards
discrediting the integrity of the investigation itself.
5.Undisclosed evidence
CONTEXT: The SCCRC
unearthed numerous statements, police reports and other documents which had
never been shared with the defence team. Part of the reason the case was
referred back for a fresh appeal was the non-disclosure of evidence. A
fascinating part of the book talks about the James Bond-like tales of attempted
coups, spying and double agents going on across the world. In particular, it
makes reference to an attempted coup in Togo in which timers matching those
thought to have been used in the Lockerbie bombing were discovered, and hints
at subterfuge and espionage by the American security services and others and
details the confusion caused. The prosecution had claimed that there were only
20 Mebo MST-13 timers and that they were sold only to the Libyans.
EXTRACT: "The
Commission unearthed potentially significant information about the MST-13
timers found in West Africa. Two timers were recovered from Togo in 1986. Among
the documents disclosed to the Commission was a previously confidential memo,
produced by [Senior Investigating Officer] Stuart Henderson the month after the
interview of Jean Baptiste Collin [the official in charge in Togo], which
provided a lengthy overview of the investigation. As the following passage made
clear, the West Africa investigations were causing considerable concern. [SIO
Henderson wrote]: 'After the recent interview of Collin, it is now more clear
than ever that the circumstances surrounding the recovery of the 'boxed MST-13
timer' in Senegal must be clarified beyond doubt. The whole essence of the
'MST-13 timers' is the sole manufacture by the Mebo company in world terms and
the explicit distribution to the Libyan ESO. Unless we can consolidate the
precise number of MST-13 timers circuit boards manufactured to fit the ‘boxed
timers’ and confirm the fact they were distributed, solely to the Libyans, then
we have serious problems with our direct evidence. [Collin] inferred that the
Americans knew the whole story... Crucially the notes [by DI William Williamson]
went on to record that Collin said the timer had been given to an 'intelligence
agency'."
To date, at least two
documents not disclosed to the defence still remain a secret because the UK
Government claims publicising them would be a threat to national security. The
book states: "The last of the Commission's Statement of Reasons... was
certainly the strangest of the six. It concerned two secret documents, supplied
by another country, which members of the Commission’s team had been allowed to
view at Dumfries police station in September 2006. They were forbidden from
copying them. On 27 April 2007, the Crown Office confirmed to the Commission
that they had carefully considered whether or not the documents required to be
disclosed to the defence and had concluded they did not. The Statement of
Reasons gave only two clues to the documents' contents. The first was an
extract from the Crown's 27 April 2007 letter which read 'it has never been the
Crown's position in this case that the MST-13 timers were not supplied by the
Libyan intelligence services to any other party or that only Libyan
intelligence services were in possession of the timers'. The second came in
paragraph 25.6 of the Statement which read 'In the Commission's view the
Crown's decision not to disclose one of the documents to the defence indicates
that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.'"
LUCY ADAMS VERDICT:
Since the trial at Zeist, Scots law has been challenged at the Supreme Court
and the policy of non-disclosure has had to be changed. A number of appeals
have been won on the grounds that important evidence was not shared with
defence lawyers. We now know that numerous documents were not disclosed to the
Lockerbie defence team. Some were sent to them after the second appeal was dropped.
Others may never be shared. Advocates in the past have described the unfairness
of partial disclosure as "playing with a stacked deck". This alone
could have seen Megrahi acquitted if his appeal had proceeded.
6. Forensics anomalies
CONTEXT The forensics
case against Megrahi was critical. The book reveals anomalies, contradictions,
and arguments between police, the forensics team, the CIA, and the FBI. It also
claims that information was withheld by the CIA and says anomalies later found
in the forensic evidence from the Ministry of Defence Royal Armaments Research
and Development Establishment "cast doubt on the overall reliability"
of some of the forensic reports.
EXTRACT: "Six
years after [Dr Thomas] Hayes [of RARDE] testified, a previously secret police
memo came to light that contradicted his evidence and stated that a residue
test had, in fact, been conducted...Most of the contradictory accounts about
how PT/35b was linked to the MST-13 timer were only revealed seven years later,
when the Crown’s precognition statements of Feraday, Williamson, Thurman and
Orkin were released by the SCCRC. Had the defence known about them at trial,
they would have provided the basis for vigorous cross-examinations of the
relevant witnesses...
"Viewed in isolation, the
individual anomalies surrounding the fragment may have appeared trivial, but
together they formed a shroud of suspicion that could not be dislodged. Had
they concerned a less important item, they could, perhaps, have been
overlooked, but the fragment was easily the most crucial physical evidence in
the entire case – the golden thread that linked Abdelbaset to the bomb."
Other items were not contained within
the forensic reports – including a small piece of circuit board from the radio
cassette bomb found in Dalkamoni's [of the Palestinian PFLPC-GC] car in Germany
– something the defence team only learned about years later. The book states:
"Whatever lay behind the multiple anomalies, inconsistencies, and
omissions, their cumulative effect was to erode the façade of forensic
certainty that surrounded the Crown case."
There were other pieces of forensic
information not disclosed by the Crown which pointed – again – at the potential
involvement of the PFLPC-GC. "Further important forensic information was contained
in a Crown precognition statement by Hayes's RARDE colleague Allen Feraday. He
revealed that he had been unable to rule out one of the debris items, PI/1588,
as being part of a barometric trigger. Given that the PFLP-GC bombs found in
Neuss [in the German raid on the PFLPC-GC] were barometric, this was
potentially significant."
LUCY ADAMS VERDICT This
is one of the densest and most complex sections of the book. The details of
different dates, reports, and contradictions is confusing but the overall
impression is that the scientists and forensics experts involved were working
under enormous pressure in very difficult circumstances. There is a sense that
the American security services often failed to disclose or delayed disclosure
of information to the Scottish police investigating. The overall picture is
that non-disclosure of certain forensic information at the trial and the
inconsistencies in the forensic reports subsequently seen by the defence team,
raise serious questions about aspects of the prosecution's forensic case.
7. The Bedford suitcase
CONTEXT: Ascertaining
which suitcase contained the bomb was critical in the initial stages of the
police investigation and subsequent forensic work. Much of the investigation
focused on where the suitcase was "ingested" – whether it was through
the airport at Malta, Frankfurt or Heathrow. Who put it on to the plane and
how? According to the Crown, forensic analysis of the fuselage indicated the
suitcase containing the bomb was in the second layer of suitcases – indicating
it had come from a feeder flight, rather than Heathrow. However, the book
reveals that Tony Kelly's review of the evidence focused on a brown hard-sided
suitcase seen by baggage loader John Bedford before the Frankfurt feeder flight
arrived. At trial, the judges described Bedford as a "clear and impressive
witness" but said there were many items of luggage not dealt with in
detail in the evidence of the case.
EXTRACT: "Kelly’s
team uncovered evidence that, had it been heard at trial, might have denied the
judges these get-outs. If the Bedford bag were not the primary suitcase then,
since he [Bedford] saw it before the arrival of PA103A [from Frankfurt], it
must have been legitimate. By checking the surviving bags and descriptions
provided by the victims’ relatives, [Detective Constable Derek] Henderson
established the colour and type of all the legitimate Heathrow interline bags.
None were brown, hard-sided suitcases...which meant it was almost certainly the
primary case."
That information from
DC Henderson was not in the list of productions for the original trial. The
book states: "Abdelbaset’s draft grounds of appeal claimed that the
absence of the Henderson schedules from the trial constituted a 'material
irregularity'...'that material evidence supporting the defence was not properly
presented and the appellant was denied a fair trial'."
LUCY ADAMS VERDICT
Subsequent to the trial and appeal, evidence emerged of a break-in at Heathrow
the night before the bombing. Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in
the tragedy, has consistently drawn attention to this break-in and campaigned
for a full inquiry into what happened. The Crown case was, in part, based on
the assertion that Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, his co-accused, ensured the
primary suitcase containing the bomb was on the feeder flight from Malta. The
fact the break-in at Heathrow the night before the tragedy only came to light
after the trial seems shocking. The fact that UK Governments have refused since
1988 to hold a full public inquiry into the case, even more so.
8. Why Megrahi used a coded
passport when in Malta
CONTEXT: At the trial,
the original appeal and indeed in a press release last week, the Crown has
always made much of Megrahi’s use in Malta of a false passport under the name
Abdusamad.
EXTRACT: "My
numerous absences created difficulties at home. Like most Libyan marriages at
the time ours was very traditional... she was understandably unhappy about my
frequent foreign trips, and would often become upset on learning that one was
imminent. I therefore fell into the habit, on shorter trips, of telling her I was
visiting people elsewhere in Libya...The Libyan Government had by then
introduced a policy of issuing those involved in the importation of embargoed
goods with so-called coded passports which concealed their real names and their
connections to state bodies. These passports were in no sense forgeries, but
were rather official documents issued by the Secretary of Transport and tightly
regulated. A further advantage was that it enabled me to leave my normal
passport at home, which made it easier to travel abroad without Aisha
knowing."
LUCY ADAMS VERDICT: Chapter 2 of the book, entitled Before the
Nightmare, explains Megrahi’s work importing embargoed cars, soap and
cigarettes lighters, and aviation parts. Much of the chapter is in the first
person, explaining in detail his course in marine engineering at Cardiff, his
first job as a flight dispatcher for Libyan Arab Airlines and his subsequent
promotion to controller of operations at Tripoli Airport. It provides a
fascinating insight into his life before the indictment but I found it
difficult to understand some of his justifications for lying to his wife as he
suggest above. It might seem easier to believe if he said he had been having an
affair. However, it may be difficult to understand because it is hard to relate
to what it must have been like to live in a country under such strict trade
sanctions as Libya had at the time.
