[The above is the headline over the main article on the release of Abdelbaset Megrahi in The Herald. The following are excerpts.]
[O]n even the most controversial aspect of the process, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's visit to Greenock Prison, there appeared to be no real hostages to fortune, while minutes and reports of the prison governor, the Parole Board, the police and medical examiners, as well as correspondence with the Westminster Government and the Libyans, appeared to leave Mr MacAskill unscathed by the process.
And while the Scottish Government appears to have emerged as having at least followed due process, the real question marks remain over the US Government for its refusal to sanction release of material yesterday and the UK Government for continuing to say little. (...)
The Greenock visit
One question mark that remains relates to Mr MacAskill's decision to visit Megrahi in Greenock Prison. An eight-page document by a senior civil servant in the justice department advises the minister: "Mr Megrahi, as a subject of the transfer request, should be given opportunity to make his own representation on the proposal."
That advice concludes with the recommendation: "The groups and individuals identified should be offered short meetings with you to present their representations."
That Mr MacAskill inferred from this that he should go to meet the prisoner at Greenock is still being challenged by opponents, but the advice appears sufficiently robust to entitle him to say he was acting on advice.
There are then two documents relating to the meeting at HMP Greenock on August 6 - the official minute from the government side and Mr Megrahi's own handwritten note of his presentation to the meeting. (...)
The minute records, in dry official language, the prisoner's insistence that he had been unjustly convicted and his sympathy for the "terrible loss" of the victims' families. The minute adds, as Megrahi told The Herald in Tripoli last week: "He feels there is little prospect that his appeal will be concluded before his death, and that his dreams of returning home cleared no longer exist."
While the minute records Mr MacAskill advising Megrahi that prison transfer could only take place if there were no court proceedings ongoing, there is no specific mention that compassionate release would not require this. However, aides pointed out last night that the meeting was specifically about prisoner transfer, not compassionate release.
The handwritten note from Megrahi states: "I'm a very ill person. The disease that I have is incurable. All the personnel are agreed that I have little chance of living into next year. The last report which I received some weeks ago from consultant reaches the view that I have a short time left. I have a burning desire to clear my name. I think now that I will not witness that ultimate conclusion."
And in words that echoed Mr MacAskill's later reference to a "higher authority", he stated: "As I turn now to face my God, to stand before him, I have nothing to fear."
The prison reports
The release of Megrahi almost a fortnight ago was accompanied by part of a section of official prison paperwork, involving the report by Dr Andrew Fraser, the Scottish Prison Service director of health and care.
But yesterday most of the rest of that document was released and it fully backs Mr MacAskill's version of events.
Most emphatically, the document requires Prison Governor Malcolm McLennan to answer a straight question: "Do you consider that the prisoner should be released early? YES.
"Please state your reasons: The prognosis for Mr Megrahi is extremely bleak. Clinical advice would confirm that his death is likely to occur within a very short period. At present he is visibly displaying signs of ageing and pain during normal daily routine.
"He regularly refers to himself as a dying man and his mood can be described at times as extremely low. Release of Mr Megrahi will offer him and his family the opportunity to spend his remaining time in his country. This will mean he will have access to his close family at a time when his health is deteriorating." (...)
The police advice
There was much controversy over the course of last week over what advice had been received from Strathclyde Police about the possibility of releasing Megrahi to live in the family house in Newton Mearns, as had been pushed for by Conservatives.
Among yesterday's documents was a minute of a discussion between justice department civil servants and Deputy Chief Constable Neil Richardson on Friday, August 14, six days before the decision was announced and the day on which the final pieces of expert advice were received.
Assuming Megrahi would be deemed to be a "protected person," that note states: "Bluntly: the implication would be of extreme significance to the police force," and adding: "Simply to remain in house, with no movement or family staying (basic level) would require a total of 48 officers to sustain close protection. Cost of maintaining this level of protection would be around £100,000 per week.
"The police numbers and cost would be ramped up for trips to hospital requiring convoys, and would be higher still if his extended family stayed at the house where, the minute adds: "Children in particular could pose a kidnap threat." (...)
Holyrood-Westminster relations
The big question for UK ministers arising from documents released yesterday is simply this: Did UK ministers tell the Libyans that Gordon Brown did not want Megrahi to die in a Scottish jail?
According to the minute of a meeting in Glasgow with Libyans on March 12 this year, Abdulati Alobidi [RB: the normal English transliteration of this name is al-Obeidi], minister for Europe, spoke of a visit to Tripoli the previous month by Foreign Minister Bill Rammell at which it was pointed out that if Megrahi died in custody it would have "catastrophic effects" on Libyan-UK relations.
Mr Alobidi was minuted as saying: "Mr Rammell had stated that neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Secretary would want Mr Megrahi to pass away in prison but the decision on transfer lies in the hands of the Scottish Ministers."
That remains a clearer statement of the Prime Minister's opinion than Mr Brown has since been prepared to offer in public.
[The accuracy of Mr al-Obeidi's statement has now been confirmed by David Miliband in a radio interview. According to a report on The Times website:
"The Foreign Secretary admitted that it was true that Bill Rammell, a Foreign Office minister, had told his Libyan counterpart back in February that the Prime Minister did not want Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi to pass away in Greenock prison."]
Medical evidence
One area where no further detailed information has been released is in terms of medical evidence.
The main report remains that of Dr Andrew Fraser, director of health and care at the Scottish Prison Service, who summarised the views of four Scottish consultants directly involved in the case, plus the prison doctor.
His report, released on the day Mr MacAskill announced the Megrahi decision, attracted ferocious criticism from Labour's Dr Richard Simpson, who insisted that a second opinion should have been sought from another cancer consultant on whether Megrahi definitely had less than three months to live.
Dr Fraser's original report had attached to it, in a sealed envelope, the relevant medical reports on which he had based his opinion and there was pressure from critics for these to be released.
But the government refused to bow to that pressure, insisting that these detailed medical reports remain private.
There are, however, scattered across other documents released yesterday, other references to Megrahi's condition, including one, dated March 12, which made clear that by then the prisoner was already "receiving treatment and visits from a palliative care specialist", adding: "A consultant oncologist monitors Mr Megrahi's condition and he is also receiving support from a nurse who is trained in counselling."
Palliative care and a nurse trained in counselling are strong indications that by then he was being treated as terminally ill.
[An editorial in the same newspaper contains the following paragraphs:]
Justice Secretary Jack Straw emerges from all this little better. Having sought to exclude Megrahi from the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, he then performed a U-turn on the basis of "the overwhelming interests" of the United Kingdom. The strict answer to the question "deal or no deal?" may be "no deal" but there now can be little doubt that the Labour government allowed the man convicted of Britain's worst mass murder to become a pawn in the much desired rapprochement with the Gaddafi regime. The U-turn coincided uncomfortably with a major oil exploration deal for BP.
It was always unlikely that there was any sort of deal between the Scottish and Westminster Governments on this case, and the correspondence supports the claims that proper procedures were followed. And while First Minister Alex Salmond's letters betray a distasteful and inappropriate point-scoring approach, it is hard to fault his Justice Secretary. Mr MacAskill's visit to Megrahi's cell was, frankly, a faux pas but his painstaking consultations with all the relevant authorities, as well as victims' relatives, do him credit. And, given that all the official advice pointed one way, release on compassionate grounds still seems the right and logical decision, despite the repulsive hero's welcome Megrahi received in Tripoli.
Pursuing the political minutiae of this case any further would be futile. However, Lockerbie is not history, as Colonel Gaddafi's son claimed last week. For those who lost loved ones, it remains a gaping wound and an unexplained mystery. Stabilising relations with Libya and allowing a dying man to return to his family must not come at the cost of finding out what happened on the night of December 21, 1988, over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
[The principal article on the subject in The Times is well worth reading. As far as I can discover it is the only media article that mentions the letter of 24 August 1998 which gives the lie to the UK Foreign Office assertion that no "definitive commitment" had been given that anyone convicted would serve his whole sentence in Britain.]
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Foreign Office told Scotland it made no promises to US over how long Megrahi would stay in prison
[This is the headline over an article just published on The Guardian's website. The real point, of course, is not how long Mr Megrahi would stay in prison, but whether there was an undertaking that the whole of his sentence should be served in the UK. The article reads in part:]
The Foreign Office told the Scottish government that it had made no promises to America about how long the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi would spend in prison, according to letters published today. (...)
[A letter of 3 July 2009 to a Scottish Justice Department official] said the Foreign Office did not consider that the UN resolution covering the Lockerbie case, or any UK-US dealings, presented "an international law bar to such a transfer under the PTA [UK-Libyan prisoner transfer agreement] where it is consistent with Scots law".
The letter adds that, because the British government could not foresee how relations with Libya would evolve, it "consequently did not give the US an absolute commitment in relation to the future imprisonment of the Lockerbie accused."
It adds: "We do not consider that the UK entered into a definitive commitment, legal or otherwise, that now precludes Megrahi's transfer under the prisoner transfer agreement should Scottish ministers decide to approve that request."
The second letter is to MacAskill himself from Ivan Lewis, a Foreign Office minister, dated 3 August. It is a response to MacAskill's request for clarification of the first letter. It quotes the relevant paragraph from the earlier letter about there being no reason under international law why Megrahi could not be transferred, adding that this remained "the considered assessment of the UK government".
[Note by RB: As I have said before, there can be absolutely no doubt that an undertaking was given that anyone convicted in the Lockerbie case would serve his sentence in Britain. In paragraph 4 of their joint letter of 24 August 1998 to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Acting Permanent Representatives of the United Kingdom and the United States said: "If found guilty, the two accused will serve their sentence in the United Kingdom." This letter is referred to in, and formed the basis of, UN Security Council Resolution 1192 (1998) which provided the international warrant for the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist.
The Foreign Office letters can accordingly be charitably described as being economical with the truth; and it is hardly surprising that Mr MacAskill found them unhelpful in clarifying the position, particularly if he sought his own legal advice on the matter.]
The Foreign Office told the Scottish government that it had made no promises to America about how long the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi would spend in prison, according to letters published today. (...)
[A letter of 3 July 2009 to a Scottish Justice Department official] said the Foreign Office did not consider that the UN resolution covering the Lockerbie case, or any UK-US dealings, presented "an international law bar to such a transfer under the PTA [UK-Libyan prisoner transfer agreement] where it is consistent with Scots law".
The letter adds that, because the British government could not foresee how relations with Libya would evolve, it "consequently did not give the US an absolute commitment in relation to the future imprisonment of the Lockerbie accused."
It adds: "We do not consider that the UK entered into a definitive commitment, legal or otherwise, that now precludes Megrahi's transfer under the prisoner transfer agreement should Scottish ministers decide to approve that request."
The second letter is to MacAskill himself from Ivan Lewis, a Foreign Office minister, dated 3 August. It is a response to MacAskill's request for clarification of the first letter. It quotes the relevant paragraph from the earlier letter about there being no reason under international law why Megrahi could not be transferred, adding that this remained "the considered assessment of the UK government".
[Note by RB: As I have said before, there can be absolutely no doubt that an undertaking was given that anyone convicted in the Lockerbie case would serve his sentence in Britain. In paragraph 4 of their joint letter of 24 August 1998 to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Acting Permanent Representatives of the United Kingdom and the United States said: "If found guilty, the two accused will serve their sentence in the United Kingdom." This letter is referred to in, and formed the basis of, UN Security Council Resolution 1192 (1998) which provided the international warrant for the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist.
The Foreign Office letters can accordingly be charitably described as being economical with the truth; and it is hardly surprising that Mr MacAskill found them unhelpful in clarifying the position, particularly if he sought his own legal advice on the matter.]
Official documents relating to prisoner transfer and compassionate release
The Scottish Government has today released the documents relating to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice's decision to refuse the Libyan Government's application for Abdelbaset Megrahi's transfer to Libya under the UK-Libya Prisoner Transfer Agreement, but to grant Mr Megahi's application for compassionate release. The documents (which do not include medical reports) can be read here.
The United Kingdom Government has also released relevant documents. Those emanating from the Department of Justice can be read here and those from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office here.
Analysis of the UK Government documents by Political Editor Philip Webster for The Times under the heading "Libya must have felt it was pushing at an open door" (later changed to "Gordon Brown's Lockerbie view is an explosive revelation") can be read here.
The United Kingdom Government has also released relevant documents. Those emanating from the Department of Justice can be read here and those from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office here.
Analysis of the UK Government documents by Political Editor Philip Webster for The Times under the heading "Libya must have felt it was pushing at an open door" (later changed to "Gordon Brown's Lockerbie view is an explosive revelation") can be read here.
Meeting Megrahi in hospital
[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.
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.
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.']
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