[What follows are excerpts from the blog post on
4 Snowblog by Jonathan Miller, one of the Channel 4 journalists who took the film of Abdelbaset Megrahi in hospital in Tripoli.]
At 4.30pm I met the Lockerbie bomber.
It looked to me as though Abdel Basset al-Megrahi wasn’t long for this world. If he was going to face sentencing “by a higher power,” I wanted to get in there first and fast.
His release on compassionate grounds denied him his chance to clear his name in court. He maintained his innocence, but he’d go down in history as the man who killed 270 people on a Pan Am Jumbo.
If he really was dying, this might be his very last chance to speak to the world.
But as I was soon to discover, Mr al-Megrahi really was dying. I think. (...)
I planned out my questions as we raced down wide avenues, hung with vast portraits of Brother Leader Muammar Gaddafi, Guide of the Revolution, King of Kings.
Our world exclusive would involve a searching interrogation and cross-examination of the Lockerbie bomber.
Arriving at the hospital, armed police amazingly waved us through barriers; we were escorted into the private wing. This really was happening.
In an anti-chamber with oversized faux-leather armchairs, under a monstrous flat screen TV showing looped images of Gaddafi’s heroic revolutionary exploits, we waited.
Khaled, the bomber’s friendly 22-year-old son walked in; followed by Mohammed, his son-in-law. He had a tartan strip on his shirt collar. “I spent a long time in Scotland,” he said.
“You will have to be fast,” he added, in perfect English. “He is very sick. Very tired. Oh, and no questions.”
No questions? What?
I followed Mohammed down the corridor, past the policeman on the door and into the darkened room, where in the green gloaming, the convicted bomber lay propped up by pillows, gasping and rasping into an oxygen mask. Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was clearly not at all well.
I stood for a moment taking in the scene.
If this was stage-managed to make it look like al-Megrahi wasn’t long for this world, it was pretty convincing.
Family loitering around the bedside, Mrs al-Megrahi in a black cloak and hijab, looking teary – looking like she was already in mourning.
It was like a scene from an oil painting of man on deathbed.
There was the big picture of the Colonel on the wall above, the Koran beside him. And al-Megrahi himself just lay there, literally croaking as monitors beeped and drips dripped.
I asked my question anyway and felt awkward to doing so; there was no answer; there would be no answers.
This was all we were ever meant to see. The message was the message.
Al-Megrahi was dying; he’d take his secrets with him to the grave; Libya would move on. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi would no longer be have to be haunted by the inconvenient ghosts of the past.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
UK and Scottish governments ‘did deal’ over Lockerbie bomber release
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Times by Angus Macleod, the paper's Scottish Political Editor. The following are excerpts.]
Britain’s former ambassador to Tripoli said yesterday he believes that the Scottish and British governments did “some kind of deal” with Libya to release the Lockerbie bomber.
Oliver Miles told The Times that there was “something fishy” in the coincidence that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s lawyers applied to drop his appeal against conviction on the same day that news of his imminent release was leaked to the media.
“I cannot know what exactly happened but I believe that the UK and Scottish governments wanted the appeal to be dropped and somehow it was dropped”, said Mr Miles. (...)
Asked why the Scottish government would be keen to see the appeal dropped, Mr Miles said he had been told by Scottish sources that there was growing anxiety in the Scottish justice department that a successful appeal would severely damage the reputation of the Scottish justice system.
“I think there may have been some kind of deal,” Mr Miles said. “One part of the deal was to have the appeal dropped and the other part was the release on compassionate grounds. Somebody told the BBC.
“It may even have been the Libyans who leaked it because they wanted the Scots to deliver on their promise and this was a way of tying them in. I don’t think there was a deal involving business. I think on that ministers are telling the truth.”
Mohammed Siala, Libya’s Secretary for International Co-operation, told The Times he believed that al-Megrahi’s appeal would have proved his innocence. The Scottish government denied Mr Miles’s claim. Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy First Minister, said: “The decision to drop the appeal was taken by al-Megrahi and his legal advisers. The Scottish government had no influence in that decision.”
Britain’s former ambassador to Tripoli said yesterday he believes that the Scottish and British governments did “some kind of deal” with Libya to release the Lockerbie bomber.
Oliver Miles told The Times that there was “something fishy” in the coincidence that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s lawyers applied to drop his appeal against conviction on the same day that news of his imminent release was leaked to the media.
“I cannot know what exactly happened but I believe that the UK and Scottish governments wanted the appeal to be dropped and somehow it was dropped”, said Mr Miles. (...)
Asked why the Scottish government would be keen to see the appeal dropped, Mr Miles said he had been told by Scottish sources that there was growing anxiety in the Scottish justice department that a successful appeal would severely damage the reputation of the Scottish justice system.
“I think there may have been some kind of deal,” Mr Miles said. “One part of the deal was to have the appeal dropped and the other part was the release on compassionate grounds. Somebody told the BBC.
“It may even have been the Libyans who leaked it because they wanted the Scots to deliver on their promise and this was a way of tying them in. I don’t think there was a deal involving business. I think on that ministers are telling the truth.”
Mohammed Siala, Libya’s Secretary for International Co-operation, told The Times he believed that al-Megrahi’s appeal would have proved his innocence. The Scottish government denied Mr Miles’s claim. Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy First Minister, said: “The decision to drop the appeal was taken by al-Megrahi and his legal advisers. The Scottish government had no influence in that decision.”
Lockerbie: Drowning the facts
[This is the headline over an article in South Africa's leading weekly newspaper the Mail & Guardian by playwright, novelist and journalist Bryan Rostron. The following are extracts.]
The righteous fury vented this week over the compassionate release of the dying "Lockerbie bomber", Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, has drowned out the voice of reason. A cool appraisal of the evidence shows that he is almost certainly not guilty.
The Libyan appears to be a scapegoat of crude international realpolitik, dictated by the United States's need for new Middle Eastern allies during the first Gulf War.
South Africa has a powerful interest in seeing the truth exposed, as it was Nelson Mandela who brokered the 1999 deal that allowed al-Megrahi and his co-accused to be tried by a specially created court in Holland.
Hans Köchler, the legal observer nominated by the UN secretary general to monitor the trial, concluded that it took place "in a context of power politics". Damningly, he concluded: "There is not one single piece of material evidence linking the two accused to the crime. In such a context, the guilty verdict … appears to be arbitrary, even irrational."
The outrage in the US at al-Megrahi's "hero's welcome" in Libya also reveals a spectacular double standard. At first it was thought that the bomb that exploded on Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1998, killing 270 people, was revenge for the shooting down of a civilian Iranian airliner by a US warship six months before, which resulted in 290 deaths, including 66 children.
The US said this was a "mistake" but never formally apologised. Yet when Captain William C Rogers III, in command of the USS Vincennes, returned after his tour of duty President George Bush Snr awarded him the Legion of Merit medal.
For nearly two years after the Lockerbie tragedy both US and UK intelligence services were convinced that it was a revenge attack. Within months, the British minister of transport announced that the culprits were about to be arrested. Intelligence agencies continued to leak the names of suspects and point to a clear plot: that Iran had paid millions of dollars to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) -- supported and protected by Syria -- to carry out a revenge attack.
Detailed leaks continued until the eve of the first Gulf War. They identified PFLP leader Ahmed Jibril and, crucially, Abu Talb, by then in a Swedish prison for other terrorist offences, as having been in Malta when clothes were bought that were later wrapped around the device that blew up Flight 103.
In December 1989 the London Sunday Times reported: "During a 90-minute closed court session, Ulf Forsburg, the Uppsala district prosecutor, told the presiding magistrate that the owner of a boutique in Sliema, Malta, had identified Talb as the man to whom he sold the clothes."
All this was soon forgotten. And later the Maltese shopkeeper was to contradict his original evidence to suit the new scenario. What had changed was international politics. During the Iran-Iraq War, the West secretly backed Saddam Hussein and Iraq. As soon as that war ended, the US and the UK provided Hussein with massive trade credits and arms. In August 1990, however, Iraq invaded Kuwait and the West suddenly needed new allies in the region.
"Thus very quickly, in the summer and autumn of 1990, a sea change took place in the Gulf," wrote the British investigative journalist Paul Foot. "The US, UK and their allies started to negotiate with their former enemies. All this was completed quickly -- in November 1990 new deals were signed to neutralise Iran and bring Syrian forces into the combined operation against Saddam, already known as Desert Storm."
Clearly Syria and Iran could no longer be vilified as terrorist masterminds, or instigators of the Lockerbie bombing. Then president Bush Snr announced: "Syria took a bum rap on this." Another version was called for and supplied. "The first signs of change came as the opposing armies started to build up in the desert," wrote Foot in his 31-page special report for Private Eye, called "Lockerbie: The Flight from Justice". "In October 1990 a series of newspaper reports indicated that the guilty country responsible for Lockerbie was not Iran or Syria or even Palestine. The guilty country was Libya." (...)
Where did al-Megrahi's name surface? At the Camp Zeist trial in Holland it emerged that it was supplied by Majid Giaka, an unreliable Libyan informer for the CIA. Giaka produced the name only when his increasingly frustrated CIA handlers threatened to cut him off unless he provided something useful. At the Camp Zeist trial the judges summed up Giaka's evidence as "at best grossly exaggerated, at worst simply untrue".
But when investigators showed a photo of al-Megrahi to the Maltese shop owner, Tony Gauci, who had previously identified the Palestinian Talb, Gauci suddenly agreed he could have sold him clothes. In his initial testimony Gauci had stated that this man had been at least 1.8m tall and more than 50 years of age. Al-Magrahi is 1.7m and at the time of the supposed shop visit was 37.
Gauci's evidence, on which al-Megrahi's conviction really hangs, is riddled with discrepancies. After the trial the man responsible for the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing and for indicting al-Megrahi, the former Scottish Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser, described Gauci as "not quite the full shilling" and "an apple short of a picnic".
One convenient advantage of al-Megrahi's compassionate release, because he is dying of cancer, is that his appeal against his 2001 conviction will now not be heard.
Lawyers representing the Libyan would have alleged that Gauci was "coached" and that the US paid him a $2-million dollar reward.
These charges, as well as all other flimsy or discredited evidence, will never be retested in court.
Camp Zeist trial observer Köchler noted several disquieting factors. He pointed out that, quite improperly, two representatives of the US justice department were seated next to the prosecution team, giving the impression of being "supervisors".
He concluded that foreign governments, or their agencies, may have been allowed to determine what evidence was made available, adding: "Virtually all people presented by the prosecution as key witnesses were proven to lack credibility, in certain cases even having lied openly to the court."
In the recent international furore all this has been forgotten. Is al-Megrahi guilty? We don't know. But he clearly he did not get a fair trial.
The righteous fury vented this week over the compassionate release of the dying "Lockerbie bomber", Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, has drowned out the voice of reason. A cool appraisal of the evidence shows that he is almost certainly not guilty.
The Libyan appears to be a scapegoat of crude international realpolitik, dictated by the United States's need for new Middle Eastern allies during the first Gulf War.
South Africa has a powerful interest in seeing the truth exposed, as it was Nelson Mandela who brokered the 1999 deal that allowed al-Megrahi and his co-accused to be tried by a specially created court in Holland.
Hans Köchler, the legal observer nominated by the UN secretary general to monitor the trial, concluded that it took place "in a context of power politics". Damningly, he concluded: "There is not one single piece of material evidence linking the two accused to the crime. In such a context, the guilty verdict … appears to be arbitrary, even irrational."
The outrage in the US at al-Megrahi's "hero's welcome" in Libya also reveals a spectacular double standard. At first it was thought that the bomb that exploded on Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1998, killing 270 people, was revenge for the shooting down of a civilian Iranian airliner by a US warship six months before, which resulted in 290 deaths, including 66 children.
The US said this was a "mistake" but never formally apologised. Yet when Captain William C Rogers III, in command of the USS Vincennes, returned after his tour of duty President George Bush Snr awarded him the Legion of Merit medal.
For nearly two years after the Lockerbie tragedy both US and UK intelligence services were convinced that it was a revenge attack. Within months, the British minister of transport announced that the culprits were about to be arrested. Intelligence agencies continued to leak the names of suspects and point to a clear plot: that Iran had paid millions of dollars to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) -- supported and protected by Syria -- to carry out a revenge attack.
Detailed leaks continued until the eve of the first Gulf War. They identified PFLP leader Ahmed Jibril and, crucially, Abu Talb, by then in a Swedish prison for other terrorist offences, as having been in Malta when clothes were bought that were later wrapped around the device that blew up Flight 103.
In December 1989 the London Sunday Times reported: "During a 90-minute closed court session, Ulf Forsburg, the Uppsala district prosecutor, told the presiding magistrate that the owner of a boutique in Sliema, Malta, had identified Talb as the man to whom he sold the clothes."
All this was soon forgotten. And later the Maltese shopkeeper was to contradict his original evidence to suit the new scenario. What had changed was international politics. During the Iran-Iraq War, the West secretly backed Saddam Hussein and Iraq. As soon as that war ended, the US and the UK provided Hussein with massive trade credits and arms. In August 1990, however, Iraq invaded Kuwait and the West suddenly needed new allies in the region.
"Thus very quickly, in the summer and autumn of 1990, a sea change took place in the Gulf," wrote the British investigative journalist Paul Foot. "The US, UK and their allies started to negotiate with their former enemies. All this was completed quickly -- in November 1990 new deals were signed to neutralise Iran and bring Syrian forces into the combined operation against Saddam, already known as Desert Storm."
Clearly Syria and Iran could no longer be vilified as terrorist masterminds, or instigators of the Lockerbie bombing. Then president Bush Snr announced: "Syria took a bum rap on this." Another version was called for and supplied. "The first signs of change came as the opposing armies started to build up in the desert," wrote Foot in his 31-page special report for Private Eye, called "Lockerbie: The Flight from Justice". "In October 1990 a series of newspaper reports indicated that the guilty country responsible for Lockerbie was not Iran or Syria or even Palestine. The guilty country was Libya." (...)
Where did al-Megrahi's name surface? At the Camp Zeist trial in Holland it emerged that it was supplied by Majid Giaka, an unreliable Libyan informer for the CIA. Giaka produced the name only when his increasingly frustrated CIA handlers threatened to cut him off unless he provided something useful. At the Camp Zeist trial the judges summed up Giaka's evidence as "at best grossly exaggerated, at worst simply untrue".
But when investigators showed a photo of al-Megrahi to the Maltese shop owner, Tony Gauci, who had previously identified the Palestinian Talb, Gauci suddenly agreed he could have sold him clothes. In his initial testimony Gauci had stated that this man had been at least 1.8m tall and more than 50 years of age. Al-Magrahi is 1.7m and at the time of the supposed shop visit was 37.
Gauci's evidence, on which al-Megrahi's conviction really hangs, is riddled with discrepancies. After the trial the man responsible for the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing and for indicting al-Megrahi, the former Scottish Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser, described Gauci as "not quite the full shilling" and "an apple short of a picnic".
One convenient advantage of al-Megrahi's compassionate release, because he is dying of cancer, is that his appeal against his 2001 conviction will now not be heard.
Lawyers representing the Libyan would have alleged that Gauci was "coached" and that the US paid him a $2-million dollar reward.
These charges, as well as all other flimsy or discredited evidence, will never be retested in court.
Camp Zeist trial observer Köchler noted several disquieting factors. He pointed out that, quite improperly, two representatives of the US justice department were seated next to the prosecution team, giving the impression of being "supervisors".
He concluded that foreign governments, or their agencies, may have been allowed to determine what evidence was made available, adding: "Virtually all people presented by the prosecution as key witnesses were proven to lack credibility, in certain cases even having lied openly to the court."
In the recent international furore all this has been forgotten. Is al-Megrahi guilty? We don't know. But he clearly he did not get a fair trial.
Monday, 31 August 2009
Unanswered Lockerbie questions
[What follows is the text of a letter by Dr Jim Swire published in Tuesday's edition of The Times.]
Father of Lockerbie victim speaks out after release of al-Megrahi
Sir, So al-Megrahi has gone home and questions surround the propriety of his going. What about the question of his guilt? The official UN observer of the trial, Professor Hans Koechler of Vienna, has described the trial as a travesty of justice and the verdict as untenable. Even the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission decided there might have been a miscarriage of justice. The questions that are important to UK relatives of the Lockerbie victims are these: who was really behind the bombing? How was it carried out? Why did the Thatcher Government of the day ignore all the warnings it got before Lockerbie? Why did it refuse even to meet us to discuss the setting up of an inquiry? Why was the information about the Heathrow break-in concealed for 12 years so that the trial court could not hear of it till after the verdict?
Dr Jim Swire
Father of Lockerbie victim, Flora, and a member of the UK Families-Flight 103 group
[Two letters are published in Tuesday's edition of The Herald under the headline "The last thing governments want is truth of Lockerbie to emerge". They can be read here.
A letter from Dr Swire also appears in The Daily Telegraph. It is referred to here. The full text is as follows.]
Kenny MacAskill was thoughtful enough to listen to some of the UK relatives before he made his decision. I thought him a man of integrity and urged him, on humanitarian and Christian grounds to release the dying man under 'Compassionate Release', not 'Prisoner Transfer', which I saw as a political trap.
Unlike 'Prisoner Transfer' This would also have allowed Megrahi's appeal to continue, had the prisoner not withdrawn it. Megrahi had always told me that he was determined to clear his name before going home, but under the shadow of death, who can blame him for changing his mind, uncertain as he was that he could trust his captors? After 8 years jail his appeal had barely started and at a snail's pace even then, although Scotland's SCCRC had decided his trial might have been a miscarriage of justice.
Whatever the unsavoury concealment of the 'deal in the desert' may mean, there are a number of us who believe that wresting something good out of something as evil as Lockerbie is the way to go. Surely improving commercial ties is a good thing for the citizens of both countries, that is what good politicians do.
The media reaction to the release ignores a far far more important question: was he guilty anyway? Many believe he was not, the SCCRC thought he might not be. The UN's appointed observer, Prof. Hans Kochler of Vienna has described the verdict as incomprehensible and a parody of justice. Many others agree.If he was not guilty, then why was he prosecuted and the real perpetrators ignored?
What we the UK relatives need is the truth and answers to the following questions:
Who was behind the bombing? How was it carried out? Why did the Thatcher government of the day ignore all the warnings they got before Lockerbie? Why did they refuse even to meet us to discuss the setting up of this inquiry? Why was the information about the Heathrow break-in concealed for 12 years so that the trial court did not hear of it till after the verdict? Why were we constantly subjected to the ignominy of being denied the truth as to why our families were not protected in what even our crippled FAI (crippled because it too was denied the information about Heathrow) found to have been a preventable disaster?
The details of Mr Megrahi's release surely are of little significance compared with these questions.
Father of Lockerbie victim speaks out after release of al-Megrahi
Sir, So al-Megrahi has gone home and questions surround the propriety of his going. What about the question of his guilt? The official UN observer of the trial, Professor Hans Koechler of Vienna, has described the trial as a travesty of justice and the verdict as untenable. Even the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission decided there might have been a miscarriage of justice. The questions that are important to UK relatives of the Lockerbie victims are these: who was really behind the bombing? How was it carried out? Why did the Thatcher Government of the day ignore all the warnings it got before Lockerbie? Why did it refuse even to meet us to discuss the setting up of an inquiry? Why was the information about the Heathrow break-in concealed for 12 years so that the trial court could not hear of it till after the verdict?
Dr Jim Swire
Father of Lockerbie victim, Flora, and a member of the UK Families-Flight 103 group
[Two letters are published in Tuesday's edition of The Herald under the headline "The last thing governments want is truth of Lockerbie to emerge". They can be read here.
A letter from Dr Swire also appears in The Daily Telegraph. It is referred to here. The full text is as follows.]
Kenny MacAskill was thoughtful enough to listen to some of the UK relatives before he made his decision. I thought him a man of integrity and urged him, on humanitarian and Christian grounds to release the dying man under 'Compassionate Release', not 'Prisoner Transfer', which I saw as a political trap.
Unlike 'Prisoner Transfer' This would also have allowed Megrahi's appeal to continue, had the prisoner not withdrawn it. Megrahi had always told me that he was determined to clear his name before going home, but under the shadow of death, who can blame him for changing his mind, uncertain as he was that he could trust his captors? After 8 years jail his appeal had barely started and at a snail's pace even then, although Scotland's SCCRC had decided his trial might have been a miscarriage of justice.
Whatever the unsavoury concealment of the 'deal in the desert' may mean, there are a number of us who believe that wresting something good out of something as evil as Lockerbie is the way to go. Surely improving commercial ties is a good thing for the citizens of both countries, that is what good politicians do.
The media reaction to the release ignores a far far more important question: was he guilty anyway? Many believe he was not, the SCCRC thought he might not be. The UN's appointed observer, Prof. Hans Kochler of Vienna has described the verdict as incomprehensible and a parody of justice. Many others agree.If he was not guilty, then why was he prosecuted and the real perpetrators ignored?
What we the UK relatives need is the truth and answers to the following questions:
Who was behind the bombing? How was it carried out? Why did the Thatcher government of the day ignore all the warnings they got before Lockerbie? Why did they refuse even to meet us to discuss the setting up of this inquiry? Why was the information about the Heathrow break-in concealed for 12 years so that the trial court did not hear of it till after the verdict? Why were we constantly subjected to the ignominy of being denied the truth as to why our families were not protected in what even our crippled FAI (crippled because it too was denied the information about Heathrow) found to have been a preventable disaster?
The details of Mr Megrahi's release surely are of little significance compared with these questions.
The BBC and Kenny MacAskill
The BBC is prickly about criticism of itself, particularly by people who work for it. I have some form on this one. After I left its full-time payroll, I wrote weekly or daily columns for newspapers, while continuing to be used by the BBC as a freelance pundit. In December 1988, in one of these columns, I criticised its pseudo-lyrical coverage of the Lockerbie disaster (bodies falling on soft earth; that sort of awful stuff) and suggested that they should stick to the facts. I was warned from on high that these comments were unwelcome and that I should watch it. I paid no attention. A few years later, I wrote a column critical of some of the policies of Radio Scotland. My Sunday morning review of the papers was promptly cancelled and I was told that I would not be invited back. Someone – not I – leaked my dismissal to the tabloids, one of which ran the delicious headline BEEB BAD BOY BANNED, a masterwork of alliteration. Since the BBC paid buttons, I could afford to laugh. I have never been inside any of its studios since.
Partly because of this form, partly because I'm so vulnerable to accusations of sour grapes, it would be wonderful if I never had to mention the BBC again. But its conduct on the political crisis in Scotland is so questionable that it is no longer possible to remain silent.
Sheila Hetherington raised an important question in her contribution to SR [Scottish Review]'s Megrahi forum last week when she asked whether the BBC was always impartial in its reporting. She quoted bulletin intros such as 'Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, has been forced to defend the decision...' as indicative of a possible bias against the justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill. There was then the notorious Radio Scotland trailer which invited 'the silent majority' opposed to Megrahi's release to phone in. This gave a very poor impression of BBC neutrality, but on the programme itself it was explained that the reason for the appeal was that the calls received by the BBC to that date had been overwhelmingly in favour of Megrahi's release. Fair enough: although this did not excuse the partial slant of the trailer.
As the week went on, the hysteria of the initial media coverage of Mr MacAskill's decision abated somewhat. I noted on Thursday: 'There is a growing sense that the media and the political opposition may have misjudged the mood and spirit of a considerable number of thinking Scots.' The Scotsman quoted this the following day and endorsed it from the paper's own experience. The Scotsman's online poll, a larger one than any conducted so far, showed 57% in favour of Mr MacAskill's decision, while a poll in the Daily Mail showed a very slight majority against the decision. The results of both polls were in remarkable contrast to a poll conducted before the decision was announced, which had only 11% of Scots supporting release on compassionate grounds. Taken together, these polls pointed to a significant shift in opinion.
Late in the week, the apparent trend was undermined. A telephone poll commissioned by the BBC flatly contradicted the results of the earlier polls by indicating that 60% of Scottish voters opposed Mr MacAskill's decision. Even if the BBC poll was more accurate than the others (who knows?), it would still represent a shift in opinion, the tiny support for Mr MacAskill a few weeks ago having been converted into 32% of the Scottish electorate at worst, 57% at best. Given the irrational hostility of most of the press coverage (the Herald and Scotsman being honourable exceptions), even the lower figure feels like a triumph.
Unlike the Scotsman and the Daily Mail, which have a limited capacity to promote their own journalism, the BBC as a global broadcaster has enormous clout and influence across the civilised world. It has a responsibility, therefore, to be transparently fair in its reporting. Its own editorial guidelines insist that, in reporting the results of opinion polls, its journalists should be 'rigorous in applying due scepticism'. On this occasion, on a matter of the greatest sensitivity, it failed to respect these guidelines. Its extensive coverage of the poll gave the strong impression that the Scottish people are resolute in their opposition to Megrahi's release and that they believe Scotland's reputation to have been damaged. But in communicating this perception to the world, the BBC chose to ignore the results of other polls, the sympathetic editorial stance of both our quality daily newspapers, and the support of Scotland's churches for Mr MacAskill's decision. This may not be bias in intent, but it is bias in effect.
The lack of nuance and qualification was typified at the weekend in a blog by BBC Scotland's political editor, Brian Taylor. It is hard to see why an impartial BBC journalist – a lovely chap, but that is beside the point – should be given a privileged position on the BBC News website to air his views on Scottish politics. It is asking for trouble. The title of the blog, 'Blether with Brian', sounds designed to disarm. Look here, it says, don't take me too seriously; this is just a wee chat among pals. Needless to say, however, it is extremely influential, if only because it appears on such a widely read website.
In his blog on the results of his employer's poll, delivered in a folksy style in a succession of ultra-brief paragraphs, there was no acknowledgement of the serious doubts about Megrahi's conviction or of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's view that Megrahi may be the victim of a miscarriage of justice. No mention, either, of the substantial body of intelligent opinion behind Mr MacAskill. 'As things stand, Scotland is not happy,' he concluded. I suggest to Mr Taylor that this is a rather simplistic reading of the situation.
By yesterday, the BBC poll had become received wisdom in most of the Sunday newspapers. It was new and useful ammunition in the press campaign to discredit the justice secretary ahead of Wednesday's debate in the Scottish parliament; the attack dogs were out in force. Of course, the BBC will deny that it has contributed to this appalling atmosphere, but if it had to commission an opinion poll it should have reported its results with more scepticism and balance. The totality of its coverage in the last week has created the unpleasant feeling that, on the question of Mr MacAskill's political survival, the BBC is not a completely disinterested party.
[The above is the text of a column published today in the online edition of The Scottish Review by Kenneth Roy, the editor of the journal and Director of the Institute of Contemporary Scotland.]
Partly because of this form, partly because I'm so vulnerable to accusations of sour grapes, it would be wonderful if I never had to mention the BBC again. But its conduct on the political crisis in Scotland is so questionable that it is no longer possible to remain silent.
Sheila Hetherington raised an important question in her contribution to SR [Scottish Review]'s Megrahi forum last week when she asked whether the BBC was always impartial in its reporting. She quoted bulletin intros such as 'Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, has been forced to defend the decision...' as indicative of a possible bias against the justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill. There was then the notorious Radio Scotland trailer which invited 'the silent majority' opposed to Megrahi's release to phone in. This gave a very poor impression of BBC neutrality, but on the programme itself it was explained that the reason for the appeal was that the calls received by the BBC to that date had been overwhelmingly in favour of Megrahi's release. Fair enough: although this did not excuse the partial slant of the trailer.
As the week went on, the hysteria of the initial media coverage of Mr MacAskill's decision abated somewhat. I noted on Thursday: 'There is a growing sense that the media and the political opposition may have misjudged the mood and spirit of a considerable number of thinking Scots.' The Scotsman quoted this the following day and endorsed it from the paper's own experience. The Scotsman's online poll, a larger one than any conducted so far, showed 57% in favour of Mr MacAskill's decision, while a poll in the Daily Mail showed a very slight majority against the decision. The results of both polls were in remarkable contrast to a poll conducted before the decision was announced, which had only 11% of Scots supporting release on compassionate grounds. Taken together, these polls pointed to a significant shift in opinion.
Late in the week, the apparent trend was undermined. A telephone poll commissioned by the BBC flatly contradicted the results of the earlier polls by indicating that 60% of Scottish voters opposed Mr MacAskill's decision. Even if the BBC poll was more accurate than the others (who knows?), it would still represent a shift in opinion, the tiny support for Mr MacAskill a few weeks ago having been converted into 32% of the Scottish electorate at worst, 57% at best. Given the irrational hostility of most of the press coverage (the Herald and Scotsman being honourable exceptions), even the lower figure feels like a triumph.
Unlike the Scotsman and the Daily Mail, which have a limited capacity to promote their own journalism, the BBC as a global broadcaster has enormous clout and influence across the civilised world. It has a responsibility, therefore, to be transparently fair in its reporting. Its own editorial guidelines insist that, in reporting the results of opinion polls, its journalists should be 'rigorous in applying due scepticism'. On this occasion, on a matter of the greatest sensitivity, it failed to respect these guidelines. Its extensive coverage of the poll gave the strong impression that the Scottish people are resolute in their opposition to Megrahi's release and that they believe Scotland's reputation to have been damaged. But in communicating this perception to the world, the BBC chose to ignore the results of other polls, the sympathetic editorial stance of both our quality daily newspapers, and the support of Scotland's churches for Mr MacAskill's decision. This may not be bias in intent, but it is bias in effect.
The lack of nuance and qualification was typified at the weekend in a blog by BBC Scotland's political editor, Brian Taylor. It is hard to see why an impartial BBC journalist – a lovely chap, but that is beside the point – should be given a privileged position on the BBC News website to air his views on Scottish politics. It is asking for trouble. The title of the blog, 'Blether with Brian', sounds designed to disarm. Look here, it says, don't take me too seriously; this is just a wee chat among pals. Needless to say, however, it is extremely influential, if only because it appears on such a widely read website.
In his blog on the results of his employer's poll, delivered in a folksy style in a succession of ultra-brief paragraphs, there was no acknowledgement of the serious doubts about Megrahi's conviction or of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's view that Megrahi may be the victim of a miscarriage of justice. No mention, either, of the substantial body of intelligent opinion behind Mr MacAskill. 'As things stand, Scotland is not happy,' he concluded. I suggest to Mr Taylor that this is a rather simplistic reading of the situation.
By yesterday, the BBC poll had become received wisdom in most of the Sunday newspapers. It was new and useful ammunition in the press campaign to discredit the justice secretary ahead of Wednesday's debate in the Scottish parliament; the attack dogs were out in force. Of course, the BBC will deny that it has contributed to this appalling atmosphere, but if it had to commission an opinion poll it should have reported its results with more scepticism and balance. The totality of its coverage in the last week has created the unpleasant feeling that, on the question of Mr MacAskill's political survival, the BBC is not a completely disinterested party.
[The above is the text of a column published today in the online edition of The Scottish Review by Kenneth Roy, the editor of the journal and Director of the Institute of Contemporary Scotland.]
Compassion, conviction and lingering doubt
[This is the headline over a column in today's edition of The Guardian by lawyer, legal commentator, broadcaster and columnist, Marcel Berlins. It reads as follows.]
What if Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was innocent of the Lockerbie bombing? The furore over his release has concentrated on two issues: whether or not he deserved to be freed on compassionate grounds – the reason given by the Scottish justice secretary – and whether, behind the scenes, lurked the real motive for granting his freedom, which was all about oil and Britain's trading relationship with Libya.
Megrahi's return to Libya seemed conveniently to have sidelined another potentially embarrassing question: was he the victim of a miscarriage of justice? Was the decision to free him at least partly based on the Scottish desire to avoid having that question answered? Of course, no one connected with the decision, whether in Scotland, Whitehall or Downing Street, could admit, or even hint, that guilt or innocence was a factor. Officially, he was a properly convicted prisoner, no question.
It is not just Megrahi himself insisting on his innocence. For many years, the case has induced unease in the Scottish legal world. Evidence has emerged that appears to cast some doubt on the verdict. No one is saying the material absolutely proves Megrahi's innocence, but it has been enough to raise the possibility of wrongful conviction.
Jim Swire, the father of one of the Lockerbie victims, who led the campaign of bereaved British relatives to discover the truth about the tragedy, now believes that an injustice occurred – so do many families of British victims (though this doubt is not shared by families on the American side).
Robert Black QC, one of Scotland's most eminent advocates, who has studied the case, is of the same view. More importantly, in 2007, the independent Scottish criminal cases review commission (SCCRC) referred the Megrahi case to the Scottish appeal court, finding sufficient grounds to suggest a miscarriage. The court would not have been obliged to grant the appeal, but it has usually done so on previous SCCRC referrals. The court was due to hear the appeal later this year, but Megrahi formally withdrew it during the flurry of activity leading to his release.
His lawyer has made it clear that he did so because it was felt that continuing the appeal – which would have gone on after his death – might have prejudiced his chances of being sent home. In the last few days Megrahi himself has reiterated his claim to innocence.
If he was wrongly convicted, all sorts of new questions arise, not least who was the real bomber and whether Libya was the instigator of the attack. It is probably too late to uncover the whole truth, but should we not try? If he didn't do it, there would at least be a sort of vindication of the decision to release him, even if for the wrong reasons.
Is there any way still open to consider the evidence which might have overturned Megrahi's conviction? His Scottish lawyer says he will make the dossier public. But who would evaluate it? It would not be satisfactory to leave matters in uncertainty. There is a strong case for an independent inquiry.
[The following is one of the reader comments on Mr Berlins's column:
Maidmarion
31 Aug 09, 9:15am
'Much has been made of a BBBC poll, mostly by the BBBC, about the hostility in Scotland to the release of Mr Megrahi.
'I have yet to find more than one person who believes that he should not have been released.
'If you care to peruse these poll results from newspapers in Scotland, particularly the one from Lockerbie, you, too, might be puzzled by the BBBC poll results.
'Those For first number, those Against second number
Dumfries & Galloway Standard 88.4% 11.6%
Annandale Observer 73% 27% (Lockerbie paper)
Perthshire Advertiser 90.6% 8.4%
Ross-shire Journal 87% 13%
Scotsman 58% 42% (despite Edinburgh Evening News claims!)
Lennox Herald 80.5% 19.5%
Oban Times 89% 11%
Kilmarnock Standard 72.5% 28.5%
East Kilbride News 71% 29%
West Lothian Courier 75.2% 24.8%
Hamilton Advertiser 60.3% 39.7%
Airdrie Advertiser 56.1% 43.9%
Wishaw Press 83% 17%
Paisley Daily Express 62.23% 37.7%
You can add on a Reuters poll which gives a fairly even split and a Daily Mail poll also!
'The much trumpetted BBBC poll must have serious flaws, or someone manipulated the questions in such a way to get the result required.
'Otherwise, if you were aware of the above poll results, in all honesty one would have to start again, would one not?']
What if Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was innocent of the Lockerbie bombing? The furore over his release has concentrated on two issues: whether or not he deserved to be freed on compassionate grounds – the reason given by the Scottish justice secretary – and whether, behind the scenes, lurked the real motive for granting his freedom, which was all about oil and Britain's trading relationship with Libya.
Megrahi's return to Libya seemed conveniently to have sidelined another potentially embarrassing question: was he the victim of a miscarriage of justice? Was the decision to free him at least partly based on the Scottish desire to avoid having that question answered? Of course, no one connected with the decision, whether in Scotland, Whitehall or Downing Street, could admit, or even hint, that guilt or innocence was a factor. Officially, he was a properly convicted prisoner, no question.
It is not just Megrahi himself insisting on his innocence. For many years, the case has induced unease in the Scottish legal world. Evidence has emerged that appears to cast some doubt on the verdict. No one is saying the material absolutely proves Megrahi's innocence, but it has been enough to raise the possibility of wrongful conviction.
Jim Swire, the father of one of the Lockerbie victims, who led the campaign of bereaved British relatives to discover the truth about the tragedy, now believes that an injustice occurred – so do many families of British victims (though this doubt is not shared by families on the American side).
Robert Black QC, one of Scotland's most eminent advocates, who has studied the case, is of the same view. More importantly, in 2007, the independent Scottish criminal cases review commission (SCCRC) referred the Megrahi case to the Scottish appeal court, finding sufficient grounds to suggest a miscarriage. The court would not have been obliged to grant the appeal, but it has usually done so on previous SCCRC referrals. The court was due to hear the appeal later this year, but Megrahi formally withdrew it during the flurry of activity leading to his release.
His lawyer has made it clear that he did so because it was felt that continuing the appeal – which would have gone on after his death – might have prejudiced his chances of being sent home. In the last few days Megrahi himself has reiterated his claim to innocence.
If he was wrongly convicted, all sorts of new questions arise, not least who was the real bomber and whether Libya was the instigator of the attack. It is probably too late to uncover the whole truth, but should we not try? If he didn't do it, there would at least be a sort of vindication of the decision to release him, even if for the wrong reasons.
Is there any way still open to consider the evidence which might have overturned Megrahi's conviction? His Scottish lawyer says he will make the dossier public. But who would evaluate it? It would not be satisfactory to leave matters in uncertainty. There is a strong case for an independent inquiry.
[The following is one of the reader comments on Mr Berlins's column:
Maidmarion
31 Aug 09, 9:15am
'Much has been made of a BBBC poll, mostly by the BBBC, about the hostility in Scotland to the release of Mr Megrahi.
'I have yet to find more than one person who believes that he should not have been released.
'If you care to peruse these poll results from newspapers in Scotland, particularly the one from Lockerbie, you, too, might be puzzled by the BBBC poll results.
'Those For first number, those Against second number
Dumfries & Galloway Standard 88.4% 11.6%
Annandale Observer 73% 27% (Lockerbie paper)
Perthshire Advertiser 90.6% 8.4%
Ross-shire Journal 87% 13%
Scotsman 58% 42% (despite Edinburgh Evening News claims!)
Lennox Herald 80.5% 19.5%
Oban Times 89% 11%
Kilmarnock Standard 72.5% 28.5%
East Kilbride News 71% 29%
West Lothian Courier 75.2% 24.8%
Hamilton Advertiser 60.3% 39.7%
Airdrie Advertiser 56.1% 43.9%
Wishaw Press 83% 17%
Paisley Daily Express 62.23% 37.7%
You can add on a Reuters poll which gives a fairly even split and a Daily Mail poll also!
'The much trumpetted BBBC poll must have serious flaws, or someone manipulated the questions in such a way to get the result required.
'Otherwise, if you were aware of the above poll results, in all honesty one would have to start again, would one not?']
Letters to the editor of The Herald
[The Herald today prints six letters on the repatriation issue. All are supportive of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice's decision. The following are excerpts.]
The Herald deserves great credit for its fair and measured reporting on all aspects of the Lockerbie atrocity and the freeing of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi. Clearly, the only way peace of mind can be achieved on both sides of the Atlantic will be by the establishment of an independent public inquiry to examine the facts surrounding this most complex and controversial case.
The victims and their families deserve to know the truth, and perhaps it will emerge that Megrahi has also been a victim. Open minds and generosity of spirit are needed for the present, and future opinion polls may very well show a fair-minded public giving full support to a Justice Secretary whose brave and principled decision allowed Scotland to demonstrate to the world that it is a nation defined by its compassion, integrity and justice to all.
Ruth Marr, Stirling.
I am immensely proud of the integrity and courage of the Scottish Justice Secretary's decision and, as an elected member of the Scottish Parliament and member of the Scottish cabinet, he does act in my name, and I accept that. I also think there may well be profound positive implications for world politics in the long run.
First, and not only because Gaddafi's son says it, this decision may well have "touched Libyans", and the flags were celebratory and respectful, just as we would celebrate the return home of a long-held prisoner from abroad.
Secondly, this decision may well have touched the hearts not only of Libyans but also moderate Muslims around the world. It may have a deep and long-lasting impact on Muslim views of the west, when one small nation does not practice vengeance but has the maturity to act in a compassionate way to the one who is held to have injured us.
Veronica Gordon Smith, Edinburgh.
The speculation regarding the amount of time Megrahi has to live appears to reach new lows of obscenity.
So far nobody has questioned whether the "three months" are lunar months or the various combinations of 30- and 31-day months.
We now have the playground spectacle of the greatest experts in the western hemisphere uttering phrases hardly seen in the scientific journals of their chosen subjects; phrases such as "egg on his face" rather than: "The predictions have led to somewhat divergent results."
We also have expert politicians who, like onlookers at a playground fight, are backing their "expert" because he is a "better professor than the rest".
I can only hope that if they are eventually proved wrong, they have the good grace to apologise for holding everyone up.
I have long been of the opinion that when an expert leaves medicine for politics, then there is an immediate increase in the IQ of both professions; this saga has only strengthened my opinion.
Dr Andrew Craik, Calderwood, East Kilbride.
Have our opposition politicians really descended to the level of playground conkers whereby we may expect ructions should Megrahi live one day longer than three months predicted?
Bill Waddell, Cumbernauld.
Are the Americans really concerned about the release of Megrahi, purely because of the Lockerbie atrocity?
The detention of Megrahi in a Scottish prison put a cloud over relations between Libya and the UK; had he died here, antagonism towards the UK would have lasted many years.
As long as he remained in Scotland the UK suffered difficult trade relations with Libya, leaving a gap for others to cash in on, both in trade and oil exploration. No doubt many of the companies best placed to take advantage of this situation would be from the US.
International relations are a murky business at best. Maybe we should hesitate and think a while before accepting the outrage of some US officials at face value.
Maggie Jamieson, South Queensferry.
The Herald deserves great credit for its fair and measured reporting on all aspects of the Lockerbie atrocity and the freeing of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi. Clearly, the only way peace of mind can be achieved on both sides of the Atlantic will be by the establishment of an independent public inquiry to examine the facts surrounding this most complex and controversial case.
The victims and their families deserve to know the truth, and perhaps it will emerge that Megrahi has also been a victim. Open minds and generosity of spirit are needed for the present, and future opinion polls may very well show a fair-minded public giving full support to a Justice Secretary whose brave and principled decision allowed Scotland to demonstrate to the world that it is a nation defined by its compassion, integrity and justice to all.
Ruth Marr, Stirling.
I am immensely proud of the integrity and courage of the Scottish Justice Secretary's decision and, as an elected member of the Scottish Parliament and member of the Scottish cabinet, he does act in my name, and I accept that. I also think there may well be profound positive implications for world politics in the long run.
First, and not only because Gaddafi's son says it, this decision may well have "touched Libyans", and the flags were celebratory and respectful, just as we would celebrate the return home of a long-held prisoner from abroad.
Secondly, this decision may well have touched the hearts not only of Libyans but also moderate Muslims around the world. It may have a deep and long-lasting impact on Muslim views of the west, when one small nation does not practice vengeance but has the maturity to act in a compassionate way to the one who is held to have injured us.
Veronica Gordon Smith, Edinburgh.
The speculation regarding the amount of time Megrahi has to live appears to reach new lows of obscenity.
So far nobody has questioned whether the "three months" are lunar months or the various combinations of 30- and 31-day months.
We now have the playground spectacle of the greatest experts in the western hemisphere uttering phrases hardly seen in the scientific journals of their chosen subjects; phrases such as "egg on his face" rather than: "The predictions have led to somewhat divergent results."
We also have expert politicians who, like onlookers at a playground fight, are backing their "expert" because he is a "better professor than the rest".
I can only hope that if they are eventually proved wrong, they have the good grace to apologise for holding everyone up.
I have long been of the opinion that when an expert leaves medicine for politics, then there is an immediate increase in the IQ of both professions; this saga has only strengthened my opinion.
Dr Andrew Craik, Calderwood, East Kilbride.
Have our opposition politicians really descended to the level of playground conkers whereby we may expect ructions should Megrahi live one day longer than three months predicted?
Bill Waddell, Cumbernauld.
Are the Americans really concerned about the release of Megrahi, purely because of the Lockerbie atrocity?
The detention of Megrahi in a Scottish prison put a cloud over relations between Libya and the UK; had he died here, antagonism towards the UK would have lasted many years.
As long as he remained in Scotland the UK suffered difficult trade relations with Libya, leaving a gap for others to cash in on, both in trade and oil exploration. No doubt many of the companies best placed to take advantage of this situation would be from the US.
International relations are a murky business at best. Maybe we should hesitate and think a while before accepting the outrage of some US officials at face value.
Maggie Jamieson, South Queensferry.
Compassionate release was not part of international game
[The following are excepts from an article in The Daily Telegraph by Alan Cochrane.]
[A]mid all the scenarios surrounding this singular episode -- some crackpot, some merely misguided -- the single fact that many people appear to have great difficulty in accepting is Kenny MacAskill was not acting out a part in some great international game when he decided to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.
The Scottish Justice Minister released Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Full stop. He did not release him as part of a prisoner transfer agreement between the United Kingdom and Libya. The two are entirely separate and distinct.
A prisoner transfer agreement had been brokered by Tony Blair, ratified by Gordon Brown and implemented by Jack Straw and may well have seen Megrahi sent back to Libya to serve out the remainder of his 27-year sentence in exchange for some lucrative oil deals for British, EU and US companies.
But he was not sent back to Libya under the terms of that agreement. In fact, as he and Alex Salmond keep saying, Mr MacAskill refused, for a variety of reasons, to send him back under a prisoner transfer deal. Instead, he decided to release him on compassionate grounds after he was told, he says, that Megrahi had three months or less to live because of his terminal cancer.
What is driving this correspondent to distraction is the continued belief in some quarters that the SNP administration in Edinburgh was acting under orders from Downing Street in letting the bomber go home. To anyone who knows anything about the current relationship between ministers in London and Edinburgh and about the devolution 'settlement' in general, such a theory is positively bonkers. (...)
There clearly was a prisoner transfer deal connected with oil business and Megrahi was obviously a part of it but those issues are for Gordon Brown and his Cabinet to answer, not Messrs Salmond and MacAskill. Indeed, that pair are coming over all holier-than-thou over the fact that they didn't send him home to die because of any deals done by London, but for compassionate reasons.
Call me old fashioned, if you like, but that's what I believe to be the case. And I think the decision was the right one, even if they're getting more than a bit sanctimonious about the whole affair.
If there are questions to be answered about why the British government thinks that terrorist bombers are fit subjects to be included in trade deals and their release bartered away for commercial ends, then that's for them to explain. It is no business of the Nats in Edinburgh, which to be fair to them is what they've been saying to London for nigh on two years.
[A]mid all the scenarios surrounding this singular episode -- some crackpot, some merely misguided -- the single fact that many people appear to have great difficulty in accepting is Kenny MacAskill was not acting out a part in some great international game when he decided to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.
The Scottish Justice Minister released Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Full stop. He did not release him as part of a prisoner transfer agreement between the United Kingdom and Libya. The two are entirely separate and distinct.
A prisoner transfer agreement had been brokered by Tony Blair, ratified by Gordon Brown and implemented by Jack Straw and may well have seen Megrahi sent back to Libya to serve out the remainder of his 27-year sentence in exchange for some lucrative oil deals for British, EU and US companies.
But he was not sent back to Libya under the terms of that agreement. In fact, as he and Alex Salmond keep saying, Mr MacAskill refused, for a variety of reasons, to send him back under a prisoner transfer deal. Instead, he decided to release him on compassionate grounds after he was told, he says, that Megrahi had three months or less to live because of his terminal cancer.
What is driving this correspondent to distraction is the continued belief in some quarters that the SNP administration in Edinburgh was acting under orders from Downing Street in letting the bomber go home. To anyone who knows anything about the current relationship between ministers in London and Edinburgh and about the devolution 'settlement' in general, such a theory is positively bonkers. (...)
There clearly was a prisoner transfer deal connected with oil business and Megrahi was obviously a part of it but those issues are for Gordon Brown and his Cabinet to answer, not Messrs Salmond and MacAskill. Indeed, that pair are coming over all holier-than-thou over the fact that they didn't send him home to die because of any deals done by London, but for compassionate reasons.
Call me old fashioned, if you like, but that's what I believe to be the case. And I think the decision was the right one, even if they're getting more than a bit sanctimonious about the whole affair.
If there are questions to be answered about why the British government thinks that terrorist bombers are fit subjects to be included in trade deals and their release bartered away for commercial ends, then that's for them to explain. It is no business of the Nats in Edinburgh, which to be fair to them is what they've been saying to London for nigh on two years.
Sunday, 30 August 2009
Straw denies Megrahi release was connected to trade deals
[This is the headline over an article in Monday's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Jack Straw, the UK Justice Secretary, has described as "absurd" suggestions that trade deals had anything to do with the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
Mr Straw was forced into the denial after letters leaked to a Sunday newspaper appeared to show that he had backed away from efforts to stipulate that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi should be exempt from a prisoner transfer agreement signed with Libya in 2007.
His comments were made as the father of one of the victims of the bombing of Pan Am 103 said it was time "to stop mulling over the why and wherefore of Megrahi’s release" and Nelson Mandela sent a letter of support to the Scottish Government. (...)
Mr Straw said: "The implication that, somehow or other, we have done some back-door deal in order to release Mr Megrahi is simply nonsense.
"What makes this whole debate absurd now is that Mr Megrahi was not released under the prisoner transfer agreement."
Mr Straw admitted that in return for Libya abandoning its nuclear weapons programme there were moves to "establish wider relations including trade", but added: "the suggestion that at any stage there was some kind of back-door deal done over Mr Megrahi’s transfer because of trade is simply untrue". (...)
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 emerged in a letter sent by Professor Jake 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."
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, called on the authorities in Scotland to "take responsibility" for reviewing Megrahi’s conviction.
In a letter to the media, Dr Swire said he was "delighted" that Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, had been freed.
He said: "Let us stop mulling over the why and wherefore of Megrahi’s release.
"The public’s knowledge of the shifty dealings surrounding the prisoner transfer agreement should help to swell demand for objective assessment of the Megrahi case."
[Notes by RB:
1. It is disingenuous in the extreme for Jack Straw to claim that the debate over a deal between the UK and Libyan Governments over Abdelbaset Megrahi is absurd because he was in fact repatriated, not under the prisoner transfer agreement, but through compassionate release.
The memorandum of understanding regarding prisoner transfer that Tony Blair entered into in the course of the "deal in the desert" (and which paved the way for the formal prisoner transfer agreement) was intended by both sides to lead to the rapid return of Mr Megrahi to his homeland. This was the clear understanding of Libyan officials involved in the negotiations and to whom I have spoken.
It was only after the memorandum of understanding was concluded that Downing Street and the Foreign Office belatedly realised that the decision on repatriation of this particular prisoner was a matter not for Westminster and Whitehall but for the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh -- and that government had just come into the hands of the Scottish National Party and so could no longer be expected supinely to follow the UK Labour Government's wishes. That was when the understanding between the UK Government and the Libyan Government started to unravel, to the considerable annoyance and distress of the Libyans, who had been led to believe that repatriation under the PTA was only months away.
2. The letter from Dr Swire that is referred to in The Herald's article reads as follows:]
Lockerbie: the truth must be known
Before the Lockerbie trial, brokered by Nelson Mandela, had begun, I believed that it would reveal the guilt of the two Libyans in the murder of my daughter and all those others.
I have always believed that we should look for how something of benefit to the world could be somehow squeezed out of the appalling spectacle of brutal mass murder laid before us on those gentle Scottish hills. From before the Lockerbie trial, whilst still believing in Megrahi's guilt, I hoped even then that commercial links could be rebuilt between Libya and Britain for the benefit of both in the future. That was one of the reasons I went to talk to Gaddafi in 1991. It seemed that Libya's 5 million people with that country's immense oil wealth could mesh well with the many skilled people available among the 5 million population of Scotland.
What I heard at Zeist converted me to believing that the Libyan pair were in fact not involved in the atrocity after all. I remembered Nelson's comment at the time when a trial was agreed "No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and Judge". Yet under Clinton's presidency, the composition of the court had been altered so that Nelson's warning had been ignored. It was President Clinton too who told us all to realise 'its the economy, stupid.' But the UK, in the form of Scottish law, was now to exclude any international element, and the methods used to assemble the evidence revealed that the UK/US collusion was so close that it was safe to consider that alliance as Nelson's 'one country' also.
These matters are political and we have no expertise in that field, which appears distasteful to many. I do feel though that Lord Mandelson's disingenuous comments on the issue of the 'Prisoner Transfer Agreement' should lead him to resign (yet again).
More than 20 years later, we, the relatives, are still denied a full inquiry into the real issues for us - Who was behind the bombing? How was it carried out? Why did the Thatcher government of the day ignore all the warnings they got before Lockerbie? Why did they refuse even to meet us to discuss the setting up of this inquiry? Why was the information about the Heathrow break-in concealed for 12 years so that the trial court did not hear of it till after verdict? Why were we constantly subjected to the ignominy of being denied the truth as to why our families were not protected in what even our crippled FAI (crippled because it too was denied the information about Heathrow) found to have been a preventable disaster?
Let us stop mulling over the why and wherefore of Megrahi's release, I for one am delighted that a man I now consider innocent because of the evidence I was allowed to hear at Zeist is at home with his family at last. Let there be a responsible replacement immediately for the appeal a dying man understandably abandoned to ensure his release. Scotland should now take responsibility for reviewing a verdict which her own SCCRC already distrusts.The public's knowledge of the shifty dealings surrounding the 'Prisoner Transfer Agreement' should help to swell demand for objective assessment of the Megrahi case. Overturning the verdict would open the way for a proper international inquiry into why Lockerbie was allowed to happen, who was really behind it, as well as how the verdict came to be reached.
Let us turn our attention now, please, at last to the question of why we the relatives have been denied our rights to know who really murdered their families, and why those precious lives were not protected.
Jack Straw, the UK Justice Secretary, has described as "absurd" suggestions that trade deals had anything to do with the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
Mr Straw was forced into the denial after letters leaked to a Sunday newspaper appeared to show that he had backed away from efforts to stipulate that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi should be exempt from a prisoner transfer agreement signed with Libya in 2007.
His comments were made as the father of one of the victims of the bombing of Pan Am 103 said it was time "to stop mulling over the why and wherefore of Megrahi’s release" and Nelson Mandela sent a letter of support to the Scottish Government. (...)
Mr Straw said: "The implication that, somehow or other, we have done some back-door deal in order to release Mr Megrahi is simply nonsense.
"What makes this whole debate absurd now is that Mr Megrahi was not released under the prisoner transfer agreement."
Mr Straw admitted that in return for Libya abandoning its nuclear weapons programme there were moves to "establish wider relations including trade", but added: "the suggestion that at any stage there was some kind of back-door deal done over Mr Megrahi’s transfer because of trade is simply untrue". (...)
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 emerged in a letter sent by Professor Jake 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."
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, called on the authorities in Scotland to "take responsibility" for reviewing Megrahi’s conviction.
In a letter to the media, Dr Swire said he was "delighted" that Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, had been freed.
He said: "Let us stop mulling over the why and wherefore of Megrahi’s release.
"The public’s knowledge of the shifty dealings surrounding the prisoner transfer agreement should help to swell demand for objective assessment of the Megrahi case."
[Notes by RB:
1. It is disingenuous in the extreme for Jack Straw to claim that the debate over a deal between the UK and Libyan Governments over Abdelbaset Megrahi is absurd because he was in fact repatriated, not under the prisoner transfer agreement, but through compassionate release.
The memorandum of understanding regarding prisoner transfer that Tony Blair entered into in the course of the "deal in the desert" (and which paved the way for the formal prisoner transfer agreement) was intended by both sides to lead to the rapid return of Mr Megrahi to his homeland. This was the clear understanding of Libyan officials involved in the negotiations and to whom I have spoken.
It was only after the memorandum of understanding was concluded that Downing Street and the Foreign Office belatedly realised that the decision on repatriation of this particular prisoner was a matter not for Westminster and Whitehall but for the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh -- and that government had just come into the hands of the Scottish National Party and so could no longer be expected supinely to follow the UK Labour Government's wishes. That was when the understanding between the UK Government and the Libyan Government started to unravel, to the considerable annoyance and distress of the Libyans, who had been led to believe that repatriation under the PTA was only months away.
2. The letter from Dr Swire that is referred to in The Herald's article reads as follows:]
Lockerbie: the truth must be known
Before the Lockerbie trial, brokered by Nelson Mandela, had begun, I believed that it would reveal the guilt of the two Libyans in the murder of my daughter and all those others.
I have always believed that we should look for how something of benefit to the world could be somehow squeezed out of the appalling spectacle of brutal mass murder laid before us on those gentle Scottish hills. From before the Lockerbie trial, whilst still believing in Megrahi's guilt, I hoped even then that commercial links could be rebuilt between Libya and Britain for the benefit of both in the future. That was one of the reasons I went to talk to Gaddafi in 1991. It seemed that Libya's 5 million people with that country's immense oil wealth could mesh well with the many skilled people available among the 5 million population of Scotland.
What I heard at Zeist converted me to believing that the Libyan pair were in fact not involved in the atrocity after all. I remembered Nelson's comment at the time when a trial was agreed "No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and Judge". Yet under Clinton's presidency, the composition of the court had been altered so that Nelson's warning had been ignored. It was President Clinton too who told us all to realise 'its the economy, stupid.' But the UK, in the form of Scottish law, was now to exclude any international element, and the methods used to assemble the evidence revealed that the UK/US collusion was so close that it was safe to consider that alliance as Nelson's 'one country' also.
These matters are political and we have no expertise in that field, which appears distasteful to many. I do feel though that Lord Mandelson's disingenuous comments on the issue of the 'Prisoner Transfer Agreement' should lead him to resign (yet again).
More than 20 years later, we, the relatives, are still denied a full inquiry into the real issues for us - Who was behind the bombing? How was it carried out? Why did the Thatcher government of the day ignore all the warnings they got before Lockerbie? Why did they refuse even to meet us to discuss the setting up of this inquiry? Why was the information about the Heathrow break-in concealed for 12 years so that the trial court did not hear of it till after verdict? Why were we constantly subjected to the ignominy of being denied the truth as to why our families were not protected in what even our crippled FAI (crippled because it too was denied the information about Heathrow) found to have been a preventable disaster?
Let us stop mulling over the why and wherefore of Megrahi's release, I for one am delighted that a man I now consider innocent because of the evidence I was allowed to hear at Zeist is at home with his family at last. Let there be a responsible replacement immediately for the appeal a dying man understandably abandoned to ensure his release. Scotland should now take responsibility for reviewing a verdict which her own SCCRC already distrusts.The public's knowledge of the shifty dealings surrounding the 'Prisoner Transfer Agreement' should help to swell demand for objective assessment of the Megrahi case. Overturning the verdict would open the way for a proper international inquiry into why Lockerbie was allowed to happen, who was really behind it, as well as how the verdict came to be reached.
Let us turn our attention now, please, at last to the question of why we the relatives have been denied our rights to know who really murdered their families, and why those precious lives were not protected.
The latest Scottish opinion poll
[The following opinion poll results are from a YouGov survey, conducted at the height of the furore over the SNP Government's repatriation of Abdelbaset Megrahi, published in the Scottish edition of today's Mail on Sunday. They show support for the Scottish National Party increasing from the previous poll only two days before. What follows is taken from a post on the UK Polling Report blog.]
[T]here is yet another Scottish poll, this time from Yougov in the Mail on Sunday’s Scottish edition. The poll [of 1183 adults] was conducted between the 26th and 28th August, so hot on the heels of the last YouGov Scotland poll, which was done between the 24th and 26th. The voting intention figures, each with changes from the previous poll 2 days before, are as follows:
Westminster: CON 20%(+1), LAB 30%(-3), LDEM 18%(+2), SNP 26%(+1)
Holyrood Constituency: CON 16%(nc), LAB 27%(-4), LDEM 16%(nc), SNP 34%(+1)
Holyrood Regional: CON 16%(-1), LAB 26%(-2), LDEM 16%(+1), SNP 30%(+3)
It’s a very short time span since the previous poll, but then, it’s also a fast moving story. It’s perfectly possible that all these differences are just variations within the margin of error. Alternatively, it could be a bit of a shift back towards the SNP as debate over the al-Megrahi release continues.
[T]here is yet another Scottish poll, this time from Yougov in the Mail on Sunday’s Scottish edition. The poll [of 1183 adults] was conducted between the 26th and 28th August, so hot on the heels of the last YouGov Scotland poll, which was done between the 24th and 26th. The voting intention figures, each with changes from the previous poll 2 days before, are as follows:
Westminster: CON 20%(+1), LAB 30%(-3), LDEM 18%(+2), SNP 26%(+1)
Holyrood Constituency: CON 16%(nc), LAB 27%(-4), LDEM 16%(nc), SNP 34%(+1)
Holyrood Regional: CON 16%(-1), LAB 26%(-2), LDEM 16%(+1), SNP 30%(+3)
It’s a very short time span since the previous poll, but then, it’s also a fast moving story. It’s perfectly possible that all these differences are just variations within the margin of error. Alternatively, it could be a bit of a shift back towards the SNP as debate over the al-Megrahi release continues.
No ‘Hero’s Welcome’ in Libya
[What follows is the text of an opinion piece in The New York Times by Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi, the Colonel's son and, so some speculate, his likely successor.]
Contrary to reports in the Western press, there was no “hero’s welcome” for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi when he returned to Libya earlier this month.
There was not in fact any official reception for the return of Mr Megrahi, who had been convicted and imprisoned in Scotland for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The strong reactions to these misperceptions must not be allowed to impair the improvements in a mutually beneficial relationship between Libya and the West.
When I arrived at the airport with Mr Megrahi, there was not a single government official present. State and foreign news media were also barred from the event. If you were watching Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, at the time the plane landed, you would have heard its correspondent complain that he was not allowed by Libyan authorities to go to the airport to cover Mr Megrahi’s arrival.
It is true that there were a few hundred people present. But most of them were members of Mr Megrahi’s large tribe, extended families being an important element in Libyan society. They had no official invitation, but it was hardly possible to prevent them from coming.
Coincidentally, the day Mr Megrahi landed was also the very day of the annual Libyan Youth Day, and many participants came to the airport after seeing coverage of Mr Megrahi’s release on British television. But this was not planned. Indeed, we sat in the plane on the tarmac until the police brought the crowd to order.
So, from the Libyan point of view, the reception given to Mr Megrahi was low-key. Had it been an official welcome, there would have been tens if not hundreds of thousands of people at the airport. And the event would have been carried live on state television.
At the same time, I was extremely happy for Mr Megrahi’s return. Convinced of his innocence, I have worked for years on his behalf, raising the issue at every meeting with British officials.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently confirmed my statement that Libya put Mr Megrahi’s release on the table at every meeting. He also made it clear that there was never any agreement by the British government to release Mr Megrahi as part of some quid pro quo on trade — a statement I can confirm.
Mr Megrahi was released for the right reasons. The Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, freed Mr Megrahi, who is dying of cancer, on compassionate grounds. Mr MacAskill’s courageous decision demonstrates to the world that both justice and compassion can be achieved by people of good will. Despite the uproar over the release, others agree. A recent survey of Scottish lawyers showed that a majority of those surveyed agreed with the secretary’s decision.
It’s worth pointing out that we Libyans are far from the only ones who believe that Mr Megrahi is innocent of this terrible crime. In June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission determined that a “miscarriage of justice” may have occurred and referred the case to the High Court. A retired Scottish police officer who worked on the case has signed a statement saying that evidence was fabricated. The credibility of a key witness, a shopkeeper in Malta, has subsequently been disputed by the Scottish judge who presided in the review. Even the spokesman of a family group of Lockerbie victims has said that the group was not satisfied that the verdict in the Megrahi case was correct.
What’s more, although we Libyans believe that Mr Megrahi is innocent, we agreed in a civil action to pay the families of the victims, and we have done so. In fact, we could have withheld the final tranche of payments last year, because the United States had not kept its part of the deal, to fully normalize relations within the formally agreed-upon time frame. Still, we made the final payment as an act of good will.
The truth about Lockerbie will come out one day. Had Mr Megrahi been able to appeal his case through the court, we believe that his conviction would have been overturned. Mr Megrahi made the difficult decision to give up his promising appeal in order to spend his last days with his family.
Libya has worked with Britain, the United States and other Western countries for more than five years now to defuse the tensions of earlier times, and to promote trade, security and improved relations. I believe that clarifying the facts in the Lockerbie case can only further assist this process.
I once again offer my deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones of those lost in the Lockerbie tragedy. They deserve justice. The best way to get it is through a public inquiry. We need to know the truth.
Contrary to reports in the Western press, there was no “hero’s welcome” for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi when he returned to Libya earlier this month.
There was not in fact any official reception for the return of Mr Megrahi, who had been convicted and imprisoned in Scotland for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The strong reactions to these misperceptions must not be allowed to impair the improvements in a mutually beneficial relationship between Libya and the West.
When I arrived at the airport with Mr Megrahi, there was not a single government official present. State and foreign news media were also barred from the event. If you were watching Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, at the time the plane landed, you would have heard its correspondent complain that he was not allowed by Libyan authorities to go to the airport to cover Mr Megrahi’s arrival.
It is true that there were a few hundred people present. But most of them were members of Mr Megrahi’s large tribe, extended families being an important element in Libyan society. They had no official invitation, but it was hardly possible to prevent them from coming.
Coincidentally, the day Mr Megrahi landed was also the very day of the annual Libyan Youth Day, and many participants came to the airport after seeing coverage of Mr Megrahi’s release on British television. But this was not planned. Indeed, we sat in the plane on the tarmac until the police brought the crowd to order.
So, from the Libyan point of view, the reception given to Mr Megrahi was low-key. Had it been an official welcome, there would have been tens if not hundreds of thousands of people at the airport. And the event would have been carried live on state television.
At the same time, I was extremely happy for Mr Megrahi’s return. Convinced of his innocence, I have worked for years on his behalf, raising the issue at every meeting with British officials.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently confirmed my statement that Libya put Mr Megrahi’s release on the table at every meeting. He also made it clear that there was never any agreement by the British government to release Mr Megrahi as part of some quid pro quo on trade — a statement I can confirm.
Mr Megrahi was released for the right reasons. The Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, freed Mr Megrahi, who is dying of cancer, on compassionate grounds. Mr MacAskill’s courageous decision demonstrates to the world that both justice and compassion can be achieved by people of good will. Despite the uproar over the release, others agree. A recent survey of Scottish lawyers showed that a majority of those surveyed agreed with the secretary’s decision.
It’s worth pointing out that we Libyans are far from the only ones who believe that Mr Megrahi is innocent of this terrible crime. In June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission determined that a “miscarriage of justice” may have occurred and referred the case to the High Court. A retired Scottish police officer who worked on the case has signed a statement saying that evidence was fabricated. The credibility of a key witness, a shopkeeper in Malta, has subsequently been disputed by the Scottish judge who presided in the review. Even the spokesman of a family group of Lockerbie victims has said that the group was not satisfied that the verdict in the Megrahi case was correct.
What’s more, although we Libyans believe that Mr Megrahi is innocent, we agreed in a civil action to pay the families of the victims, and we have done so. In fact, we could have withheld the final tranche of payments last year, because the United States had not kept its part of the deal, to fully normalize relations within the formally agreed-upon time frame. Still, we made the final payment as an act of good will.
The truth about Lockerbie will come out one day. Had Mr Megrahi been able to appeal his case through the court, we believe that his conviction would have been overturned. Mr Megrahi made the difficult decision to give up his promising appeal in order to spend his last days with his family.
Libya has worked with Britain, the United States and other Western countries for more than five years now to defuse the tensions of earlier times, and to promote trade, security and improved relations. I believe that clarifying the facts in the Lockerbie case can only further assist this process.
I once again offer my deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones of those lost in the Lockerbie tragedy. They deserve justice. The best way to get it is through a public inquiry. We need to know the truth.
Mandela supports MacAskill decision
[This is the headline over the lead story by Campbell Gunn in today's edition of The Sunday Post, Scotland's largest-circulation Sunday newspaper. It reads as follows:]
Nelson Mandela has backed Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
The former South African president has retired from public life and no longer wishes to be involved in public issues.
But on Friday he sent a letter via his Nelson Mandela Foundation to the Scottish Government supporting the decision made on compassionate grounds by the Justice Secretary.
The move will be welcomed by the Scottish Government, which has consistently claimed, while there has been heavy criticism from the United States over the release, the majority of world opinion is supportive.
It will also ease the pressure that has been building on Mr MacAskill.
Professor Jakes Gerwel, chairman of the Mandela Foundation, said in the letter, “Mr Mandela appreciates the decision to release Mr al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
“Mr Mandela played a central role in facilitating the handover of Mr al-Megrahi and his fellow accused to the United Nations in order for them to stand trial under Scottish Law in the Netherlands.”
“His interest and involvement continued after the trial,” said the professor.
“The decision to release him now, and allow him to return to Libya, is one which is in line with his wishes.”
Mr Mandela visited al-Megrahi while he was in Barlinnie Prison, in June 2002, spending an hour with him and calling for him to be moved to a Muslim country.
He also played a key role in persuading Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi to hand over al-Megrahi and his co-accused Khalifa Fhima for trial in a neutral country for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, which killed 270 people.
President Mandela helped resolve the dispute between Libya, the US and the UK over bringing to trial the two Libyans indicted for the Lockerbie bombing.
In 1992, Mandela approached president George Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country and suggested South Africa. Bush was in favour but the plan was rejected by British prime minister John Major.
However, when the idea was suggested to Tony Blair, after he became PM, it was accepted and Holland was chosen as the neutral venue for the trial.
Yesterday, al-Megrahi said he was determined to clear his name and claimed a full inquiry into the events surrounding Lockerbie would help families of the victims discover the truth behind the bombing.
First Minister Alex Salmond has welcomed Mr Mandela’s support.
“The overall international reaction shows strong support for the decision to show compassion to a dying man, according to the due process of Scots Law,” he said.
“And that is clearly the view of the person who has demonstrated that quality above all others over the last generation.”
[The same newspaper carries a report on the statement by Eddie MacKechnie, Abdelbaset Megrahi's former solicitor, noted on 24 August on this blog. As far as I can see, it is the only newspaper to have picked it up.
Other newspapers -- for example The Sunday Herald, whose story can be read here -- are still harping on about the medical evidence underpinning Kenny MacAskill's decision. As I wrote on 28 August:
'The position is quite simply this. Specialist oncologists simply are not prepared to tell a patient, or anyone else who may want to know, how long that person has to live. They regard their function as being to provide or advise on the best care and treatment for the patient for however long or short a period he may have left to him. This means that if a patient, or anyone else with a need to know, insists on being provided with a time scale, this must be provided, not by the cancer specialists, but by the ordinary general practitioner attending the patient who must do his best, with his overall knowledge of the patient and the progess of the disease, to translate the specialists’ views into weeks or months.
'That is precisely what has happened in Abdelbaset Megrahi’s case. The newspapers and politicians who have sought to read something sinister and underhand into the medical aspects of Kenny MacAskill’s decision should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, particularly that vocal Labour MSP who is himself a medical practitioner.']
Nelson Mandela has backed Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
The former South African president has retired from public life and no longer wishes to be involved in public issues.
But on Friday he sent a letter via his Nelson Mandela Foundation to the Scottish Government supporting the decision made on compassionate grounds by the Justice Secretary.
The move will be welcomed by the Scottish Government, which has consistently claimed, while there has been heavy criticism from the United States over the release, the majority of world opinion is supportive.
It will also ease the pressure that has been building on Mr MacAskill.
Professor Jakes Gerwel, chairman of the Mandela Foundation, said in the letter, “Mr Mandela appreciates the decision to release Mr al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
“Mr Mandela played a central role in facilitating the handover of Mr al-Megrahi and his fellow accused to the United Nations in order for them to stand trial under Scottish Law in the Netherlands.”
“His interest and involvement continued after the trial,” said the professor.
“The decision to release him now, and allow him to return to Libya, is one which is in line with his wishes.”
Mr Mandela visited al-Megrahi while he was in Barlinnie Prison, in June 2002, spending an hour with him and calling for him to be moved to a Muslim country.
He also played a key role in persuading Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi to hand over al-Megrahi and his co-accused Khalifa Fhima for trial in a neutral country for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, which killed 270 people.
President Mandela helped resolve the dispute between Libya, the US and the UK over bringing to trial the two Libyans indicted for the Lockerbie bombing.
In 1992, Mandela approached president George Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country and suggested South Africa. Bush was in favour but the plan was rejected by British prime minister John Major.
However, when the idea was suggested to Tony Blair, after he became PM, it was accepted and Holland was chosen as the neutral venue for the trial.
Yesterday, al-Megrahi said he was determined to clear his name and claimed a full inquiry into the events surrounding Lockerbie would help families of the victims discover the truth behind the bombing.
First Minister Alex Salmond has welcomed Mr Mandela’s support.
“The overall international reaction shows strong support for the decision to show compassion to a dying man, according to the due process of Scots Law,” he said.
“And that is clearly the view of the person who has demonstrated that quality above all others over the last generation.”
[The same newspaper carries a report on the statement by Eddie MacKechnie, Abdelbaset Megrahi's former solicitor, noted on 24 August on this blog. As far as I can see, it is the only newspaper to have picked it up.
Other newspapers -- for example The Sunday Herald, whose story can be read here -- are still harping on about the medical evidence underpinning Kenny MacAskill's decision. As I wrote on 28 August:
'The position is quite simply this. Specialist oncologists simply are not prepared to tell a patient, or anyone else who may want to know, how long that person has to live. They regard their function as being to provide or advise on the best care and treatment for the patient for however long or short a period he may have left to him. This means that if a patient, or anyone else with a need to know, insists on being provided with a time scale, this must be provided, not by the cancer specialists, but by the ordinary general practitioner attending the patient who must do his best, with his overall knowledge of the patient and the progess of the disease, to translate the specialists’ views into weeks or months.
'That is precisely what has happened in Abdelbaset Megrahi’s case. The newspapers and politicians who have sought to read something sinister and underhand into the medical aspects of Kenny MacAskill’s decision should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, particularly that vocal Labour MSP who is himself a medical practitioner.']
Saturday, 29 August 2009
What do US cops know about justice?
[This is the headline over Ian Bell's article in tomorrow's edition of The Sunday Herald. The last section reads as follows:]
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the only man to be convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, is released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds with three months left to live. The staged celebrations upon his return to Libya anger some people. His appeal against conviction - feasible even for a dead man, but pointless - has already been withdrawn, angering others. Some are desperate for the truth; others suspect a political fix. But America's fury appears boundless.
Consider that. Scottish jurisdiction is not disputed. Nor is it news to Washington that Tony Blair stitched up a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya's Colonel Gaddafi in 2007 when only one Libyan was held in Britain. Nevertheless, Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice secretary, rejects that mechanism explicitly. Yet suddenly the whereabouts of the prisoner in the last dozen miserable weeks of his life matters hugely. And the word compassion causes unbridled anger.
Scotland is treated to the thoughts, none kind, of Obama, Hillary Clinton and that dying paragon, Ted Kennedy. MacAskill and Alex Salmond don't raise the possibility that Megrahi's conviction was unsafe. No-one mentions the many efforts expended by Kennedy on behalf of Irish Republicanism.
No-one asks how many Americans were convicted after the USS Vincennes brought down Iran Air flight 655 in 1986 with the loss of 290 lives. Guantanamo, Iraq, secret CIA torture prisons, the carnage in Afghanistan: Scotland's government remains circumspect.
Then a cop intervenes. I say "cop"; I mean Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, a man with a shaky grasp of the Scottish system but every confidence in his all-American right to give a foreign government a dressing-down. He's "outraged", says his letter to Caledonia. "Your action makes a mockery of the rule of law," he tells MacAskill. "Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world".
There is little comfort, though, for anyone still harbouring illusions over American attitudes to American power. So now the head of the FBI, an institution with a fascinating history in the civil rights field, is laying down his law to someone else's democracy, to the country that gave the US many of the notions that fleshed out its constitution? Let's say we'll cope.
In other parts, predictably, the Scottish cringe is at work. MacAskill has outraged "the world" ("To reprieve a seriously ill prisoner is an act of humanity" - Frankfurter Allgemeine, Germany). Tourists will scorn us; whisky sales will suffer; and Jack McConnell will have to do penance for our "shame". In other words, we will lose the essential friendship of America thanks to the unforgiveable crime of compassion.
What is that sort of friendship worth? And what sort of friendship is it that loads rights on one side and responsibilities, defined unilaterally, on the other? Does it occur to no-one that some of America's actions have looked rather more heinous lately, and certainly more costly to human life, than a single ministerial decision? All that stirring talk of democracy sounds a little hollow, and not for the first time.
MacAskill might be wrong, and those of us who have agreed with him might turn out to be wrong. I happen to believe Obama is wrong about Afghanistan: how many lives lost so far? But if the minister has erred, what is the nature of the error? You could say - though I do not - that he has been played for a dupe by London and Washington. The motives at work in the larger game stand little scrutiny, as usual. But MacAskill has made a moral choice: imagine. Those can go wrong.
Megrahi, convicted of mass murder, may enjoy a startling recovery. If that happens the justice secretary and several doctors will look very stupid.
They will not become culpable, however, and they will not have deserved the insults that flow from the likes of Mueller. We do things differently. In this regard, I'm certain, we do them better.
It is America's curse that it finds the possibility inconceivable.
[An opinion piece headed "MacAskill’s crime wasn’t to release a murderer but to disobey America" in The Sunday Herald by writer and lawyer Paul Laverty contains the following sentence:
'I suspect MacAskill is castigated not so much for the release a dying man, but because he has refused to obey. US politicians expect their UK and Scottish counterparts to take up automatic poodle position just as Straw and Blair have always done. True to form New Labour in Scotland do the same; they seem more concerned with parochial point scoring or whisky sales in the US than any genuine concern for the understandable feelings of hurt on part of the families of the victims. But the great tragedy revealed by this circus is how we have collectively sacrificed our critical faculties, our sense of history, and replaced them with spineless humiliating subservience to the powerful. MacAskill's decision is a brave exception, but it is a disgrace to see him so cornered while the nauseating hypocrisy of the US goes virtually unexamined.'
An article headed "Freeing the Lockerbie bomber was the right thing to do" on the US website The Presbyterian Outlook by a Florida pastor shows that American reaction to Megrahi's repatriation is not unanimously hostile.
This is also demonstrated in two articles on the Antiwar website entitled "From My Lai to Lockerbie" and "Apologies, Anger, and Apathy" both of which can be read here.]
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the only man to be convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, is released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds with three months left to live. The staged celebrations upon his return to Libya anger some people. His appeal against conviction - feasible even for a dead man, but pointless - has already been withdrawn, angering others. Some are desperate for the truth; others suspect a political fix. But America's fury appears boundless.
Consider that. Scottish jurisdiction is not disputed. Nor is it news to Washington that Tony Blair stitched up a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya's Colonel Gaddafi in 2007 when only one Libyan was held in Britain. Nevertheless, Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice secretary, rejects that mechanism explicitly. Yet suddenly the whereabouts of the prisoner in the last dozen miserable weeks of his life matters hugely. And the word compassion causes unbridled anger.
Scotland is treated to the thoughts, none kind, of Obama, Hillary Clinton and that dying paragon, Ted Kennedy. MacAskill and Alex Salmond don't raise the possibility that Megrahi's conviction was unsafe. No-one mentions the many efforts expended by Kennedy on behalf of Irish Republicanism.
No-one asks how many Americans were convicted after the USS Vincennes brought down Iran Air flight 655 in 1986 with the loss of 290 lives. Guantanamo, Iraq, secret CIA torture prisons, the carnage in Afghanistan: Scotland's government remains circumspect.
Then a cop intervenes. I say "cop"; I mean Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, a man with a shaky grasp of the Scottish system but every confidence in his all-American right to give a foreign government a dressing-down. He's "outraged", says his letter to Caledonia. "Your action makes a mockery of the rule of law," he tells MacAskill. "Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world".
There is little comfort, though, for anyone still harbouring illusions over American attitudes to American power. So now the head of the FBI, an institution with a fascinating history in the civil rights field, is laying down his law to someone else's democracy, to the country that gave the US many of the notions that fleshed out its constitution? Let's say we'll cope.
In other parts, predictably, the Scottish cringe is at work. MacAskill has outraged "the world" ("To reprieve a seriously ill prisoner is an act of humanity" - Frankfurter Allgemeine, Germany). Tourists will scorn us; whisky sales will suffer; and Jack McConnell will have to do penance for our "shame". In other words, we will lose the essential friendship of America thanks to the unforgiveable crime of compassion.
What is that sort of friendship worth? And what sort of friendship is it that loads rights on one side and responsibilities, defined unilaterally, on the other? Does it occur to no-one that some of America's actions have looked rather more heinous lately, and certainly more costly to human life, than a single ministerial decision? All that stirring talk of democracy sounds a little hollow, and not for the first time.
MacAskill might be wrong, and those of us who have agreed with him might turn out to be wrong. I happen to believe Obama is wrong about Afghanistan: how many lives lost so far? But if the minister has erred, what is the nature of the error? You could say - though I do not - that he has been played for a dupe by London and Washington. The motives at work in the larger game stand little scrutiny, as usual. But MacAskill has made a moral choice: imagine. Those can go wrong.
Megrahi, convicted of mass murder, may enjoy a startling recovery. If that happens the justice secretary and several doctors will look very stupid.
They will not become culpable, however, and they will not have deserved the insults that flow from the likes of Mueller. We do things differently. In this regard, I'm certain, we do them better.
It is America's curse that it finds the possibility inconceivable.
[An opinion piece headed "MacAskill’s crime wasn’t to release a murderer but to disobey America" in The Sunday Herald by writer and lawyer Paul Laverty contains the following sentence:
'I suspect MacAskill is castigated not so much for the release a dying man, but because he has refused to obey. US politicians expect their UK and Scottish counterparts to take up automatic poodle position just as Straw and Blair have always done. True to form New Labour in Scotland do the same; they seem more concerned with parochial point scoring or whisky sales in the US than any genuine concern for the understandable feelings of hurt on part of the families of the victims. But the great tragedy revealed by this circus is how we have collectively sacrificed our critical faculties, our sense of history, and replaced them with spineless humiliating subservience to the powerful. MacAskill's decision is a brave exception, but it is a disgrace to see him so cornered while the nauseating hypocrisy of the US goes virtually unexamined.'
An article headed "Freeing the Lockerbie bomber was the right thing to do" on the US website The Presbyterian Outlook by a Florida pastor shows that American reaction to Megrahi's repatriation is not unanimously hostile.
This is also demonstrated in two articles on the Antiwar website entitled "From My Lai to Lockerbie" and "Apologies, Anger, and Apathy" both of which can be read here.]
Megrahi's lawyer to release dossier 'proving' his innocence
[The following are excerpts from an article in The Sunday Telegraph by Chief Reporter Andrew Alderson.]
Tony Kelly, a Scottish solicitor, said that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, 57, who returned to his homeland ten days ago after being released from prison on compassionate grounds, remains determined to show his guilty verdict was unjust.
Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, withdrew his second appeal against conviction just two days before he was allowed to return to Libya.
Those close to him say he did so reluctantly because he was convinced it would improve his chances of being freed from a Scottish jail, eight years after being convicted of murdering 270 people.
The disclosure will further enrage critics of the decision to free Megrahi, the only man convicted of the atrocity.
It also raises the likelihood of further embarrassment for Scotland over the handling of the original trial and it could lead to fresh questions over whether Megrahi was innocent and, if so, who was really behind the bombing.
Mr Kelly intends to fly to Tripoli, the Libyan capital, within days to receive instructions from his client.
Mr Kelly said: "Mr Megrahi wants all the information that has been gathered made public at some point.
"But how and when this takes place is ultimately a matter for him to decide. It is my intention to travel to Tripoli in the course of the next week or so to obtain his instructions on this."
The lawyer said he had been unable to discuss this issue with Megrahi after his release because things were "fraught" and the Libyan had been rushing to get a plane to his homeland.
Mr Kelly confirmed that Megrahi had left the relevant legal documents supporting his second appeal in the UK rather than take the evidence back with him to Libya.
Although Mr Kelly declined to reveal the new evidence which would have been presented to appeal hearing, it is understood that Megrahi's legal team had planned to list some 20 grounds why his conviction was unsafe, including:
*Potentially crucial evidence was deliberately withheld from Megrahi's first trial.
*One crucial witness was paid $2 million (£1.25 million) for his suspect evidence.
*Allegations of tampering with key evidence.
*American intelligence believed Iran – not Libya – was responsible for Lockerbie. (...)
Professor Robert Black QC, the lawyer who was the architect of the Lockerbie trial, said Megrahi had been caught in a difficult position prior to his release.
This was because Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, was considering either releasing him on compassionate grounds or as part of a prisoner exchange programme between Britain and Libya that was first agreed by Tony Blair and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, two years ago.
Megrahi could have been released on compassionate ground without dropping his appeal – but he could not have been freed under the exchange programme if legal action was ongoing.
"Megrahi [had] reached a stage where he was so concerned to get back to Libya to die that he was prepared to do even unpalatable things [drop his appeal] to achieve that objective," Professor Black said.
He added that the new evidence relating to Megrahi's second appeal ought still to be made public – initially through a limited inquiry in Scotland into the entire Lockerbie criminal case.
He said there was also a chance of a larger EU or United Nations investigation into the case. (...)
Megrahi's second appeal had been permitted in 2007 after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission uncovered six separate grounds for believing the conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice.
Under Scottish law, provided the appeal was ongoing, Megrahi's family could have continued it after his death, but the legal action was halted by the appeal being withdrawn.
Tony Kelly, a Scottish solicitor, said that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, 57, who returned to his homeland ten days ago after being released from prison on compassionate grounds, remains determined to show his guilty verdict was unjust.
Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, withdrew his second appeal against conviction just two days before he was allowed to return to Libya.
Those close to him say he did so reluctantly because he was convinced it would improve his chances of being freed from a Scottish jail, eight years after being convicted of murdering 270 people.
The disclosure will further enrage critics of the decision to free Megrahi, the only man convicted of the atrocity.
It also raises the likelihood of further embarrassment for Scotland over the handling of the original trial and it could lead to fresh questions over whether Megrahi was innocent and, if so, who was really behind the bombing.
Mr Kelly intends to fly to Tripoli, the Libyan capital, within days to receive instructions from his client.
Mr Kelly said: "Mr Megrahi wants all the information that has been gathered made public at some point.
"But how and when this takes place is ultimately a matter for him to decide. It is my intention to travel to Tripoli in the course of the next week or so to obtain his instructions on this."
The lawyer said he had been unable to discuss this issue with Megrahi after his release because things were "fraught" and the Libyan had been rushing to get a plane to his homeland.
Mr Kelly confirmed that Megrahi had left the relevant legal documents supporting his second appeal in the UK rather than take the evidence back with him to Libya.
Although Mr Kelly declined to reveal the new evidence which would have been presented to appeal hearing, it is understood that Megrahi's legal team had planned to list some 20 grounds why his conviction was unsafe, including:
*Potentially crucial evidence was deliberately withheld from Megrahi's first trial.
*One crucial witness was paid $2 million (£1.25 million) for his suspect evidence.
*Allegations of tampering with key evidence.
*American intelligence believed Iran – not Libya – was responsible for Lockerbie. (...)
Professor Robert Black QC, the lawyer who was the architect of the Lockerbie trial, said Megrahi had been caught in a difficult position prior to his release.
This was because Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, was considering either releasing him on compassionate grounds or as part of a prisoner exchange programme between Britain and Libya that was first agreed by Tony Blair and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, two years ago.
Megrahi could have been released on compassionate ground without dropping his appeal – but he could not have been freed under the exchange programme if legal action was ongoing.
"Megrahi [had] reached a stage where he was so concerned to get back to Libya to die that he was prepared to do even unpalatable things [drop his appeal] to achieve that objective," Professor Black said.
He added that the new evidence relating to Megrahi's second appeal ought still to be made public – initially through a limited inquiry in Scotland into the entire Lockerbie criminal case.
He said there was also a chance of a larger EU or United Nations investigation into the case. (...)
Megrahi's second appeal had been permitted in 2007 after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission uncovered six separate grounds for believing the conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice.
Under Scottish law, provided the appeal was ongoing, Megrahi's family could have continued it after his death, but the legal action was halted by the appeal being withdrawn.
Scottish church leaders urge free vote on Lockerbie issue
Leaders of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) and the Catholic Church in Scotland have urged the Scottish Parliament to hold a free vote over whether it was right to send the Lockerbie bomber home on compassionate grounds.
The Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti and the Rev Ian Galloway from the Kirk, made the appeal before a debate scheduled for Wednesday 2 September 2009.
MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) are being invited to pass judgement on the decision, by the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to free terminally ill Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
The church leaders argue that the issue is a question of personal conscience because it depends on views of compassion which transcend party political considerations.
They say it would be wrong for party whips effectively to make the decisions on behalf of individual MSPs.
A spokesman for Archbishop Conti declared: "Parliament should be free to express itself on this issue without the interference of party whips."
Mr Galloway added: "I would hope it would not be decided by the parties, and MSPs would have the opportunity to reflect themselves on the issues."
Both men made it clear last week that they supported MacAskill's decision.
[The above is the text of a report on the Ekklesia website.]
The Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti and the Rev Ian Galloway from the Kirk, made the appeal before a debate scheduled for Wednesday 2 September 2009.
MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) are being invited to pass judgement on the decision, by the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to free terminally ill Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
The church leaders argue that the issue is a question of personal conscience because it depends on views of compassion which transcend party political considerations.
They say it would be wrong for party whips effectively to make the decisions on behalf of individual MSPs.
A spokesman for Archbishop Conti declared: "Parliament should be free to express itself on this issue without the interference of party whips."
Mr Galloway added: "I would hope it would not be decided by the parties, and MSPs would have the opportunity to reflect themselves on the issues."
Both men made it clear last week that they supported MacAskill's decision.
[The above is the text of a report on the Ekklesia website.]
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