[An interesting article by former ambassador to Libya Oliver Miles appears today in the Mail on Sunday. The following are excerpts.]
Justice Secretary Jack Straw’s acknowledgement that the prospect of trade and oil deals with Libya played a part in the Government’s handling of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi has heightened the intrigue.
One British motivation is clear: Libya, dirt poor in everything except oil and gas, has been an important energy producer for half a century. It sells £40billion of oil per year – mainly to Europe – and buys from every trading country in the world. Britain has become a major supplier.
Furthermore, Libya is that rare thing, a ‘rogue state’ which sponsored terrorism before being brought back into the international fold by diplomacy. (...)
For 15 years Libya has been slowly emerging from its status as international pariah, and dealing with London is regarded there as a staging post to its ultimate goal – the normalisation of relations with the United States.
There is also the matter of Megrahi, an important man from an influential tribe – the same as Abdullah Sanusi, the head of Libya’s internal intelligence service (equivalent to MI5 and MI6). Sanusi is related to Gaddafi by marriage and tribal solidarity is a strong link. Megrahi’s close family and tribal elders would have been putting pressure on the Libyan leader to do something about bringing their man home.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Libya has actively sought to deal with the international community, often using Britain as a diplomatic bridgehead to the US, which was in the past much more aggressive. It ended support for terrorism, paid compensation to victims on a vast scale and abandoned illegal programmes of weapons of mass destruction.
All this has made Libya increasingly attractive to the West. The benefits for Britain in having access to Libya’s oil, when gas supplies are subject to disruption by the Russians and nuclear plants are being decommissioned, should be obvious to anyone. (...)
Lockerbie has been central to Libya’s international rehabilitation. Under arrangements worked out in 1999 by Robin Cook and the Foreign Office, involving a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands, Megrahi was convicted of responsibility for the destruction of the Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie in 1988 which killed 270 people.
There have always been doubts about the evidence against him. Some believe, as I do, that the Libyans delivered him for trial only because they felt he was unlikely to be convicted.
Having read the legal judgment of his trial, I defy anyone to conclude from it that his guilt was proved beyond reasonable doubt. Yet his first appeal, in 2002, was dismissed. He always insisted on his innocence and only abandoned his second appeal in the hope of a return to Libya. (...)
On his second visit, in 2007, [Tony Blair] launched a number of initiatives, including assisting the return of BP to Libya.
He also unwittingly laid the foundations for the current furore by proposing a Prisoner Transfer Agreement to allow British prisoners convicted in Libya to serve their sentences in Britain and vice versa – an arrangement which exists between many countries.
The Libyans saw it as an instrument to get Megrahi home.
But Blair seems conveniently to have overlooked the fact that Megrahi’s fate rested with the devolved government in Scotland. Given the bad relations between the Labour Party and the Scottish Nationalists, this was more than a formal problem.
Blair also overlooked an even bigger obstacle. Under the Lockerbie trial agreements, any sentence arising from it had to be served in Scotland (the Libyans insisted on this since they feared Megrahi might be handed to the Americans and executed).
The Lockerbie agreements are not properly documented, but the commitments were well known to the Foreign Office, the Americans and the Libyans. Tony Blair may not have bothered about them as he didn’t like inconvenient advice from officials.
As these difficulties emerged, the Libyans began to feel that they had been led up the garden path. And when it became known last year that Megrahi was terminally ill with prostate cancer, Tripoli began to issue not-very-veiled threats that if he died in jail relations between Britain and Libya would suffer.
When his condition deteriorated, two things happened: he inexplicably abandoned his appeal, and a story was leaked to the BBC that Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill was to grant compassionate release.
The reaction in the US was fevered amid rumours of a deal involving business and oil. The Americans have taken a line which they would call robust and I would call vindictive.
Some reactions have been foolish (Obama’s suggestion that Megrahi should have been put under house arrest in Tripoli), and others outrageous.
The demand by Obama and Brown that Megrahi should not receive a ‘hero’s welcome’ was a classic example of demanding that water should run uphill.
I believe Megrahi’s release was influenced more by the Scottish government’s desire to assert its independence rather than by any deal. Others may disagree, but time will tell.
Progress is slow and there are many obstacles to a better way of life in Libya. But BP’s operations continue and Megrahi has returned home to die.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Revealed: Blair's role in Megrahi release
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Independent on Sunday. It claims that, as early as December 2003, the UK and US Governments were involved in negotiations designed to lead eventually to the repatriation of Abdelbaset Megrahi. What was sought in return was Libya's renunciation of its nuclear weapons programme, not trade or oil exploration concessions. The article reads in part:]
Tony Blair will be thrust into the controversy over the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi with questions in Parliament over a secret meeting the then Prime Minister orchestrated that brought Libya in from the cold.
MPs are set to demand the minutes of an extraordinary cloak-and-dagger summit in London between British, American and Libyan spies held three days before Mr Blair announced that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was surrendering his weapons of mass destruction programme.
At the time of the secret meeting in December 2003 at the private Travellers Club in Pall Mall, London – for decades the favourite haunt of spies – Libyan officials were pressing for negotiations on the status of Megrahi, who was nearly three years into his life sentence at a Scottish jail.
Whitehall sources said the issue of Megrahi's imprisonment was raised as part of the discussions, although it is not clear whether Britain or America agreed to a specific deal over his imprisonment, or a more general indication that it would be reviewed.
MPs are to investigate what was promised by Britain at the talks on 16 December, and the role that Mr Blair played in the affair. Until now, the controversy over Megrahi's release last month has centred on discussions between Gordon Brown's government and the Scottish executive and Libya since 2007, with Mr Blair apparently not involved in any way.
It has also focused on claims that the deal was related to oil deals, with Jack Straw admitting yesterday that BP's interests in Libya played a "big part". But authoritative sources said the seeds for Megrahi's release were sown in 2003, when Libya made the historic agreement to end its status as a pariah, and that the focus on oil and trade was a "red herring".
Yesterday the Libyan Foreign Minister, Musa Kusa – who himself was present at the Travellers Club meeting – told The Times that Megrahi's release was "nothing to do with trade".
Two days after the meeting Mr Blair and Col Gaddafi held direct talks by telephone; and the next day, 19 December, the historic announcement about Libyan WMD was made by Mr Blair and President Bush. (...)
Nine top-level MI6, Foreign Office, CIA and Libyan officials were present for the negotiations at the Travellers Club. The revelation that two senior American officials were present risks causing embarrassment to the White House, as Washington has made clear its criticism of the release of Megrahi by the Scottish government last month. (...)
Last night, a spokesman for Mr Blair could not be drawn on the December 2003 meeting. In fact, The Independent on Sunday has established that Mr Blair's involvement with the Travellers Club meeting was at arm's length, via his then foreign affairs envoy, the current ambassador to Washington Sir Nigel Sheinwald. (...)
Sir Nigel was in Downing Street and was kept informed of negotiations. He in turn kept the Prime Minister up to date. Full details of the meeting, and the identities of those present, have not been revealed until now.
Mr Kusa, the Libyan head of external intelligence, was at the time banned from entering Britain after allegedly plotting to assassinate Libyan dissidents. But because of his closeness to Col Gaddafi, he was essential to the talks and was given safe passage to London. Also in the Libyan delegation was Abdulati [al-Obeidi], now the minister for Europe, who extracted the assurance from Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell this year that Mr Brown did not want Megrahi to die in a Scottish jail. Mr [al-Obeidi] said last week: "In my negotiations with the British and the Scottish, I didn't mention anything about trade relations."
For the Americans, Stephen Kappes, the CIA deputy director of operations, and Robert Joseph, counter-proliferation chief, led the talks. Britain was represented by William Ehrman, Foreign Office director general for defence and intelligence, and David Landsman, then the head of counter-proliferation at the Foreign Office. A CIA source said last night that a Lebanese businessman, while not at the meeting, was the key go-between, bringing together Libyan officials and British and US spies. The same businessman also put together a team of private investigators on Lockerbie to undermine the case against Megrahi.
An official with knowledge of the talks said of the Travellers Club meeting: "That was where the real negotiations were made."
[The same newspaper also publishes a leading article on the subject entitled "Megrahi: a small piece in the game".]
Tony Blair will be thrust into the controversy over the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi with questions in Parliament over a secret meeting the then Prime Minister orchestrated that brought Libya in from the cold.
MPs are set to demand the minutes of an extraordinary cloak-and-dagger summit in London between British, American and Libyan spies held three days before Mr Blair announced that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was surrendering his weapons of mass destruction programme.
At the time of the secret meeting in December 2003 at the private Travellers Club in Pall Mall, London – for decades the favourite haunt of spies – Libyan officials were pressing for negotiations on the status of Megrahi, who was nearly three years into his life sentence at a Scottish jail.
Whitehall sources said the issue of Megrahi's imprisonment was raised as part of the discussions, although it is not clear whether Britain or America agreed to a specific deal over his imprisonment, or a more general indication that it would be reviewed.
MPs are to investigate what was promised by Britain at the talks on 16 December, and the role that Mr Blair played in the affair. Until now, the controversy over Megrahi's release last month has centred on discussions between Gordon Brown's government and the Scottish executive and Libya since 2007, with Mr Blair apparently not involved in any way.
It has also focused on claims that the deal was related to oil deals, with Jack Straw admitting yesterday that BP's interests in Libya played a "big part". But authoritative sources said the seeds for Megrahi's release were sown in 2003, when Libya made the historic agreement to end its status as a pariah, and that the focus on oil and trade was a "red herring".
Yesterday the Libyan Foreign Minister, Musa Kusa – who himself was present at the Travellers Club meeting – told The Times that Megrahi's release was "nothing to do with trade".
Two days after the meeting Mr Blair and Col Gaddafi held direct talks by telephone; and the next day, 19 December, the historic announcement about Libyan WMD was made by Mr Blair and President Bush. (...)
Nine top-level MI6, Foreign Office, CIA and Libyan officials were present for the negotiations at the Travellers Club. The revelation that two senior American officials were present risks causing embarrassment to the White House, as Washington has made clear its criticism of the release of Megrahi by the Scottish government last month. (...)
Last night, a spokesman for Mr Blair could not be drawn on the December 2003 meeting. In fact, The Independent on Sunday has established that Mr Blair's involvement with the Travellers Club meeting was at arm's length, via his then foreign affairs envoy, the current ambassador to Washington Sir Nigel Sheinwald. (...)
Sir Nigel was in Downing Street and was kept informed of negotiations. He in turn kept the Prime Minister up to date. Full details of the meeting, and the identities of those present, have not been revealed until now.
Mr Kusa, the Libyan head of external intelligence, was at the time banned from entering Britain after allegedly plotting to assassinate Libyan dissidents. But because of his closeness to Col Gaddafi, he was essential to the talks and was given safe passage to London. Also in the Libyan delegation was Abdulati [al-Obeidi], now the minister for Europe, who extracted the assurance from Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell this year that Mr Brown did not want Megrahi to die in a Scottish jail. Mr [al-Obeidi] said last week: "In my negotiations with the British and the Scottish, I didn't mention anything about trade relations."
For the Americans, Stephen Kappes, the CIA deputy director of operations, and Robert Joseph, counter-proliferation chief, led the talks. Britain was represented by William Ehrman, Foreign Office director general for defence and intelligence, and David Landsman, then the head of counter-proliferation at the Foreign Office. A CIA source said last night that a Lebanese businessman, while not at the meeting, was the key go-between, bringing together Libyan officials and British and US spies. The same businessman also put together a team of private investigators on Lockerbie to undermine the case against Megrahi.
An official with knowledge of the talks said of the Travellers Club meeting: "That was where the real negotiations were made."
[The same newspaper also publishes a leading article on the subject entitled "Megrahi: a small piece in the game".]
MacAskill under pressure to release Megrahi appeal files
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Sunday Herald. It reads in part:]
Kenny MacAskill is under growing pressure to order the release of secret files which cast doubt on the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber. The justice secretary has the legal power to force the disclosure of material held by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) into the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Sunday Herald has learned.
Last night, Jean Couper, chairwoman of the SCCRC, confirmed the law which established the Commission allowed MacAskill to disclose hitherto confidential papers.
Professor Robert Black, a campaigner for greater openness on the case, said there was no excuse for MacAskill to hold back. The call coincides with fresh revelations about Alex Salmond's links to Qatar, the oil-rich Gulf state which lobbied for Megrahi's release.
Release of the SCCRC files could prove highly embarrassing for the Scottish legal system, which prides itself on the conduct of Megrahi's trial under Scots law at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2000 and 2001. (...)
After a three-year investigation into the case, the SCCRC produced an 800-page confidential report with 13 volumes of appendices in 2007, which identified six grounds for believing Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
Only a 14-page summary was made public, but even that raised strong doubts about the reliability of the key eyewitness against Megrahi.
The full report was later used by Megrahi to lodge a second appeal against his conviction - his first was refused in 2002 - and some of the contents were due to be aired in the Court of Appeal later this year and next.
When Megrahi, terminally ill with cancer, dropped his appeal before his return to Libya on compassionate grounds last month, it seemed the SCCRC findings would remain secret. (...)
Under the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Act 1997, material can be disclosed "in any circumstances permitted by an order made by the Secretary of State" using a simple piece of legislation called a statutory instrument.
Since devolution, the power has passed to the justice secretary. (...)
Black, of Edinburgh University Law School, said he had been unaware of the power, but there was no reason for MacAskill not to use it.
"You have a responsible independent body saying, In our view there may have been a miscarriage of justice'. I don't think you can overlook that."
[The actual statutory provision, as amended when the Scotland Act 1998 came into force, takes the form of a new section introduced by the 1997 Act into the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. It reads as follows:
'194K Exceptions from obligations of non-disclosure
(1) The disclosure of information, or the authorisation of the disclosure of information, is excepted from section 194J of this Act by this section if the information is disclosed, or is authorised to be disclosed —
(...)
(f) in any circumstances in which the disclosure of information is permitted by an order made by the [Scottish Ministers].
(...)
(5) The power to make an order under subsection (1)(f) above is exercisable by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of [the Scottish] Parliament.']
Kenny MacAskill is under growing pressure to order the release of secret files which cast doubt on the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber. The justice secretary has the legal power to force the disclosure of material held by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) into the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Sunday Herald has learned.
Last night, Jean Couper, chairwoman of the SCCRC, confirmed the law which established the Commission allowed MacAskill to disclose hitherto confidential papers.
Professor Robert Black, a campaigner for greater openness on the case, said there was no excuse for MacAskill to hold back. The call coincides with fresh revelations about Alex Salmond's links to Qatar, the oil-rich Gulf state which lobbied for Megrahi's release.
Release of the SCCRC files could prove highly embarrassing for the Scottish legal system, which prides itself on the conduct of Megrahi's trial under Scots law at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2000 and 2001. (...)
After a three-year investigation into the case, the SCCRC produced an 800-page confidential report with 13 volumes of appendices in 2007, which identified six grounds for believing Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
Only a 14-page summary was made public, but even that raised strong doubts about the reliability of the key eyewitness against Megrahi.
The full report was later used by Megrahi to lodge a second appeal against his conviction - his first was refused in 2002 - and some of the contents were due to be aired in the Court of Appeal later this year and next.
When Megrahi, terminally ill with cancer, dropped his appeal before his return to Libya on compassionate grounds last month, it seemed the SCCRC findings would remain secret. (...)
Under the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Act 1997, material can be disclosed "in any circumstances permitted by an order made by the Secretary of State" using a simple piece of legislation called a statutory instrument.
Since devolution, the power has passed to the justice secretary. (...)
Black, of Edinburgh University Law School, said he had been unaware of the power, but there was no reason for MacAskill not to use it.
"You have a responsible independent body saying, In our view there may have been a miscarriage of justice'. I don't think you can overlook that."
[The actual statutory provision, as amended when the Scotland Act 1998 came into force, takes the form of a new section introduced by the 1997 Act into the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. It reads as follows:
'194K Exceptions from obligations of non-disclosure
(1) The disclosure of information, or the authorisation of the disclosure of information, is excepted from section 194J of this Act by this section if the information is disclosed, or is authorised to be disclosed —
(...)
(f) in any circumstances in which the disclosure of information is permitted by an order made by the [Scottish Ministers].
(...)
(5) The power to make an order under subsection (1)(f) above is exercisable by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of [the Scottish] Parliament.']
Saturday, 5 September 2009
Tony Blair and Colonel Gadaffi discussed al-Megrahi
Tony Blair discussed with Colonel Gadaffi how best to “find a way through" for the jailed Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi after BP formally signed an exploration deal in 2007, according to Libya’s Europe minister.
In an interview with The Sunday Times in Tripoli yesterday, Abdulati al-Obeidi, the minister, said that al-Megrahi had been on the agenda during Blair’s visit that year.
“They (Blair and Gadaffi) discussed possible ways on how legally to bring al-Megrahi to Libya, whether through British or international laws or the Scottish system,” the minister said.
“At that time they were merely exchanging ideas. The idea was discussed as a title. Everyone was looking for a relationship to continue and prosper into the future and to find a way out for Abdul Baset, but nothing was agreed." (...)
The minister, Libya’s longest-serving politican, going back since 1968, said he had been asked by his government to become involved in the negotiations over al-Megrahi’s release following the prisoner’s cancer diagnosis.
It was he who first conveyed Libya’s concerns to Bill Rammell, a Foreign Office minister at the time, about the possible consequences should al-Megrahi die in prison.
“I told Rammell and then (Ivan) Lewis, his successor, that al-Megrahi was very sick with cancer and that if he died in prison it would be disastrous in general, not just with regards to trade issues, but more importantly with public opinion, as people here and in the Middle East believed he was innocent, a hero.
“If he had died in prison they would also have believed that his illness was brought about intentionally and this would have been bad.”
He said he had conveyed the same message to Scottish officials.
It was then that Rammell had told him that neither Gordon Brown, the prime minister, nor David Miliband, the foreign secretary, wanted al-Megrahi to die in prison.
Legal experts were hired to explore ways in which to seek his freedom and they were made aware of possible release on compassionate grounds as well as under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement.
The minister said al-Megrahi had insisted on dropping his appeal against conviction for the Lockerbie bombing in order to give both options a better chance.
“He was a sick man, a dying man who wanted to return home, reunite with his family and see them before he died,” he said. Al-Megrahi had declared when he made his decision: “I want to die among my family.”
[The above are excerpts from an article in The Sunday Times.]
In an interview with The Sunday Times in Tripoli yesterday, Abdulati al-Obeidi, the minister, said that al-Megrahi had been on the agenda during Blair’s visit that year.
“They (Blair and Gadaffi) discussed possible ways on how legally to bring al-Megrahi to Libya, whether through British or international laws or the Scottish system,” the minister said.
“At that time they were merely exchanging ideas. The idea was discussed as a title. Everyone was looking for a relationship to continue and prosper into the future and to find a way out for Abdul Baset, but nothing was agreed." (...)
The minister, Libya’s longest-serving politican, going back since 1968, said he had been asked by his government to become involved in the negotiations over al-Megrahi’s release following the prisoner’s cancer diagnosis.
It was he who first conveyed Libya’s concerns to Bill Rammell, a Foreign Office minister at the time, about the possible consequences should al-Megrahi die in prison.
“I told Rammell and then (Ivan) Lewis, his successor, that al-Megrahi was very sick with cancer and that if he died in prison it would be disastrous in general, not just with regards to trade issues, but more importantly with public opinion, as people here and in the Middle East believed he was innocent, a hero.
“If he had died in prison they would also have believed that his illness was brought about intentionally and this would have been bad.”
He said he had conveyed the same message to Scottish officials.
It was then that Rammell had told him that neither Gordon Brown, the prime minister, nor David Miliband, the foreign secretary, wanted al-Megrahi to die in prison.
Legal experts were hired to explore ways in which to seek his freedom and they were made aware of possible release on compassionate grounds as well as under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement.
The minister said al-Megrahi had insisted on dropping his appeal against conviction for the Lockerbie bombing in order to give both options a better chance.
“He was a sick man, a dying man who wanted to return home, reunite with his family and see them before he died,” he said. Al-Megrahi had declared when he made his decision: “I want to die among my family.”
[The above are excerpts from an article in The Sunday Times.]
Straw admits Lockerbie trade link
Trade and oil played a part in the decision to include the Lockerbie bomber in a prisoner transfer deal, Jack Straw has admitted.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the UK justice secretary said trade was "a very big part" of the 2007 talks that led to the prisoner deal with Libya. (...)
But officials admit the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) was part of a wider set of negotiations aimed at bringing Libya in from the international cold, and improving British trade prospects with the country.
"Libya was a rogue state," Mr Straw told the paper. "We wanted to bring it back into the fold.
"And yes, that included trade because trade is an essential part of it and subsequently there was the BP deal." (...)
A spokesman for Mr Straw said the minister had always made clear that wider considerations such as trade played a part in the negotiation of the PTA. (...)
Deputy First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon said: "All this discussion about the prisoner transfer agreement is academic because al-Megrahi wasn't released under the prisoner transfer agreement.
"Having said that, Jack Straw's comments do tend to support the view that the Scottish Government always took which was that the prisoner transfer agreement was tainted and compromised by trade discussions."
The Scottish National Party MSP added: "That's why I think we were right to both oppose that agreement, but also to reject the application of the Libyan Government to have al-Megrahi released under it."
[The above are extracts from a report on the BBC News website.]
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the UK justice secretary said trade was "a very big part" of the 2007 talks that led to the prisoner deal with Libya. (...)
But officials admit the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) was part of a wider set of negotiations aimed at bringing Libya in from the international cold, and improving British trade prospects with the country.
"Libya was a rogue state," Mr Straw told the paper. "We wanted to bring it back into the fold.
"And yes, that included trade because trade is an essential part of it and subsequently there was the BP deal." (...)
A spokesman for Mr Straw said the minister had always made clear that wider considerations such as trade played a part in the negotiation of the PTA. (...)
Deputy First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon said: "All this discussion about the prisoner transfer agreement is academic because al-Megrahi wasn't released under the prisoner transfer agreement.
"Having said that, Jack Straw's comments do tend to support the view that the Scottish Government always took which was that the prisoner transfer agreement was tainted and compromised by trade discussions."
The Scottish National Party MSP added: "That's why I think we were right to both oppose that agreement, but also to reject the application of the Libyan Government to have al-Megrahi released under it."
[The above are extracts from a report on the BBC News website.]
Friday, 4 September 2009
Why do we still cling to mythical link with US?
[This is the headline over Ian Bell's Saturday Essay in The Herald. The following are excerpts.]
[T]hat dilapidated heirloom, the special relationship, is being disowned by Americans and their leaders. Like those extradition laws by which the US demands and Britain requests, it turns out to have been a one-way street. So do we fret, or move on?
Matters have been brought to a head by the Lockerbie row. The Americans are justifiably aggrieved and, simultaneously, in the wrong. Sir Christopher Meyer, former ambassador to Washington, attests that there was a "clear political and diplomatic understanding" in 1998 that, if convicted, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi would serve his time in a Scottish prison. Now we learn that, while Britain talked trade, Gordon Brown was conveying an entirely different message to the Libyans.
The Americans smell a rat. This is not how loyal allies, as defined in Washington, are supposed to behave. Yet neither the American media nor the US government have shown the slightest interest in examining the safety of Megrahi's conviction. In fact, the administration is facing legal action just to force the release of documents that could shed light on the case. As for compassion, the integrity of Scots law or the memory of recent services rendered, these are of no account.
The reaction towards "the Brits" in the American popular press has been contemptuous. According to the New York Daily News, the special relationship has "gone". Brown is a "betrayer". The Republican right, in particular, has reached for every cliche in the book covering effete, duplicitous, post-imperial losers. As with the recent fantastic propaganda traducing the NHS, not a thought has been given to British opinion. Who cares, after all?
In fact, evidence that Scots are split evenly over Megrahi's release, as demonstrated in yesterday's opinion poll, would only harden attitudes, were it ever to penetrate. Such signs of pathetic weakness, like the British Army's alleged inadequacies in the field, are no more than a certain sort of American has come to expect. The belief that Britain is held in wide esteem in the US is our delusion.
[T]hat dilapidated heirloom, the special relationship, is being disowned by Americans and their leaders. Like those extradition laws by which the US demands and Britain requests, it turns out to have been a one-way street. So do we fret, or move on?
Matters have been brought to a head by the Lockerbie row. The Americans are justifiably aggrieved and, simultaneously, in the wrong. Sir Christopher Meyer, former ambassador to Washington, attests that there was a "clear political and diplomatic understanding" in 1998 that, if convicted, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi would serve his time in a Scottish prison. Now we learn that, while Britain talked trade, Gordon Brown was conveying an entirely different message to the Libyans.
The Americans smell a rat. This is not how loyal allies, as defined in Washington, are supposed to behave. Yet neither the American media nor the US government have shown the slightest interest in examining the safety of Megrahi's conviction. In fact, the administration is facing legal action just to force the release of documents that could shed light on the case. As for compassion, the integrity of Scots law or the memory of recent services rendered, these are of no account.
The reaction towards "the Brits" in the American popular press has been contemptuous. According to the New York Daily News, the special relationship has "gone". Brown is a "betrayer". The Republican right, in particular, has reached for every cliche in the book covering effete, duplicitous, post-imperial losers. As with the recent fantastic propaganda traducing the NHS, not a thought has been given to British opinion. Who cares, after all?
In fact, evidence that Scots are split evenly over Megrahi's release, as demonstrated in yesterday's opinion poll, would only harden attitudes, were it ever to penetrate. Such signs of pathetic weakness, like the British Army's alleged inadequacies in the field, are no more than a certain sort of American has come to expect. The belief that Britain is held in wide esteem in the US is our delusion.
Libyan Foreign Minister defends UK Government over Lockerbie
A top Libyan official once expelled from Britain for plotting the deaths of exiled dissidents rode to the defence of the British Government over Lockerbie yesterday.
In one of the few interviews he has given, Musa Kusa, the Libyan Foreign Minister and long-time member of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle, told The Times that he was astonished by the controversy over the release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber.
“Where is the human rights, the compassion and mercy? The man is on the verge of death,” Mr Kusa said in a midnight conversation in his plush, chilled office in the centre of baking Tripoli.
He flatly denied any link between al-Megrahi’s release and British commercial interests in his oil-rich state and said that Libya was grateful to the British and Scottish governments for their humanity. “You should not do an injustice to the British Government. It was nothing to do with trade,” he said. “If we wished to bargain we would have done it a long time ago.”
Mr Musa, likewise, said that the row over al-Megrahi’s rapturous reception at Tripoli airport was the result of a cultural misunderstanding: such greetings were a Libyan custom. “I can’t say to [al-Megrahi’s] friends and tribe, ‘Don’t go there’,” he said. Not one Libyan official went to the airport, he added, and the reception was, by Libyan standards, “low key”. (...)
He flatly denied that al-Megrahi or Libya was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing. “Libya is a victim ... It’s a preconception of the Western media that Libya was the one,” he said.
[The above are excerpts from a report in Saturday's edition of The Times.]
In one of the few interviews he has given, Musa Kusa, the Libyan Foreign Minister and long-time member of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle, told The Times that he was astonished by the controversy over the release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber.
“Where is the human rights, the compassion and mercy? The man is on the verge of death,” Mr Kusa said in a midnight conversation in his plush, chilled office in the centre of baking Tripoli.
He flatly denied any link between al-Megrahi’s release and British commercial interests in his oil-rich state and said that Libya was grateful to the British and Scottish governments for their humanity. “You should not do an injustice to the British Government. It was nothing to do with trade,” he said. “If we wished to bargain we would have done it a long time ago.”
Mr Musa, likewise, said that the row over al-Megrahi’s rapturous reception at Tripoli airport was the result of a cultural misunderstanding: such greetings were a Libyan custom. “I can’t say to [al-Megrahi’s] friends and tribe, ‘Don’t go there’,” he said. Not one Libyan official went to the airport, he added, and the reception was, by Libyan standards, “low key”. (...)
He flatly denied that al-Megrahi or Libya was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing. “Libya is a victim ... It’s a preconception of the Western media that Libya was the one,” he said.
[The above are excerpts from a report in Saturday's edition of The Times.]
Scots evenly split over MacAskill’s decision on Megrahi
Almost half of all Scots now support Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's controversial decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in a dramatic shift in public opinion.
The YouGov poll of 1556 people found 45% thought Mr MacAskill made the right call to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi last month on compassionate grounds. The same percentage said he was wrong.
It shows a swing in support for the release following a BBC poll last Friday, when only 32% supported it. (...)
The research, for the SNP on Tuesday and Wednesday, found 49% of white-collar workers were in favour with 43% against. Support among blue-collar workers was 41% while 47% disagreed.
There was a difference in opinion among age groups. Between the ages of 18 to 34, support levelled out at 39% but among the over-55s, it reached 55%.
Almost half of those questioned (49%) said Nelson Mandela's support for Megrahi's release had enhanced Scotland's reputation, but a quarter said it had been damaged.
A spokesman for Mr MacAskill said: "The poll demonstrates a very substantial shift of opinion towards support for the Justice Secretary's decision."
[The above is from a report in today's edition of The Herald. The official poll results can be read here on the YouGov website. The SNP's press release on the poll can be read here.]
The YouGov poll of 1556 people found 45% thought Mr MacAskill made the right call to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi last month on compassionate grounds. The same percentage said he was wrong.
It shows a swing in support for the release following a BBC poll last Friday, when only 32% supported it. (...)
The research, for the SNP on Tuesday and Wednesday, found 49% of white-collar workers were in favour with 43% against. Support among blue-collar workers was 41% while 47% disagreed.
There was a difference in opinion among age groups. Between the ages of 18 to 34, support levelled out at 39% but among the over-55s, it reached 55%.
Almost half of those questioned (49%) said Nelson Mandela's support for Megrahi's release had enhanced Scotland's reputation, but a quarter said it had been damaged.
A spokesman for Mr MacAskill said: "The poll demonstrates a very substantial shift of opinion towards support for the Justice Secretary's decision."
[The above is from a report in today's edition of The Herald. The official poll results can be read here on the YouGov website. The SNP's press release on the poll can be read here.]
Too much heat and not enough light on Lockerbie
[This is the headline over columnist Ian Bell's Holyrood sketch in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Strange the unworthy thoughts that pop into your head. There was Labour's Iain Gray demanding that Alex Salmond make himself available to Holyrood's justice committee to discuss further the Megrahi affair. The idea, it seems, is to give the American families a proper say.
So I was wondering: when will the US government publish its share of related correspondence? You have a choice of answers, either "not soon", or "not at all".
Then, while Annabel Goldie was formulating the Glasgow lawyer's equivalent of J'accuse, I had another thought. She was joining the dots between Mr Salmond's meeting with Qatari officials over "investment" and that same government's support for the Libyan's compassionate release. Justice sold for the Scottish Futures Trust? It sounded sensational.
Important humanitarian issues at stake and Arab politicians in the vicinity? They worry about little else in Whitehall when they sell arms to the Saudis. Meanwhile, Ms Goldie does not yet have a case, I think.
But, lo and behold, a third thought arrived. Tavish Scott, for the Liberals, still has hopes for the truth about Lockerbie. Can't the Scottish judiciary do something?
Mr Salmond also harbours hopes. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission identified six grounds for a further appeal from Megrahi. The bereaved, one might think, are entitled to know the reasons why. So the First Minister has been talking to law officers.
But Scotland has limited rights in this, as he pointed out. He did not point out that the London government headed by a man who didn't (or did) wish to see Megrahi dead in Greenock prison has no interest whatsoever in a proper public inquiry.
That must have been why Mr Gray, he of Gordon Brown's Labour Party, claimed Mr Salmond "failed to carry the chamber" in the debate on Megrahi's release. "All the evidence shows he has failed to carry Scottish opinion," added the Opposition leader, with his usual thrilling doggedness.
The SNP lost Wednesday's vote, predictably. But Labour, the Tories and the Liberals lost their appetite for a confidence motion. A chance missed, surely? Or did winning such a vote look like the surest way to lose an election, while reducing an argument of principle to a squabble? (...)
In any other week, of almost any other year, the First Minister's utterances of the morning would have kept the Opposition buzzing with derision for the full half-hour of biting and gouging (Question Time, to you). Instead, of 13 proposed bills, barely a cheep. Of an independence referendum next year, barely a growl. There will be plenty of time to fight over votes towards the voting on a vote - exciting, isn't it? - but still: for now, one issue consumes all.
That's as it should be. But the old problem of heat and light is obvious. We've had lots of the former, none of the latter. Until the facts of Lockerbie are established, even the debate over compassion will remain peripheral.
Strange the unworthy thoughts that pop into your head. There was Labour's Iain Gray demanding that Alex Salmond make himself available to Holyrood's justice committee to discuss further the Megrahi affair. The idea, it seems, is to give the American families a proper say.
So I was wondering: when will the US government publish its share of related correspondence? You have a choice of answers, either "not soon", or "not at all".
Then, while Annabel Goldie was formulating the Glasgow lawyer's equivalent of J'accuse, I had another thought. She was joining the dots between Mr Salmond's meeting with Qatari officials over "investment" and that same government's support for the Libyan's compassionate release. Justice sold for the Scottish Futures Trust? It sounded sensational.
Important humanitarian issues at stake and Arab politicians in the vicinity? They worry about little else in Whitehall when they sell arms to the Saudis. Meanwhile, Ms Goldie does not yet have a case, I think.
But, lo and behold, a third thought arrived. Tavish Scott, for the Liberals, still has hopes for the truth about Lockerbie. Can't the Scottish judiciary do something?
Mr Salmond also harbours hopes. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission identified six grounds for a further appeal from Megrahi. The bereaved, one might think, are entitled to know the reasons why. So the First Minister has been talking to law officers.
But Scotland has limited rights in this, as he pointed out. He did not point out that the London government headed by a man who didn't (or did) wish to see Megrahi dead in Greenock prison has no interest whatsoever in a proper public inquiry.
That must have been why Mr Gray, he of Gordon Brown's Labour Party, claimed Mr Salmond "failed to carry the chamber" in the debate on Megrahi's release. "All the evidence shows he has failed to carry Scottish opinion," added the Opposition leader, with his usual thrilling doggedness.
The SNP lost Wednesday's vote, predictably. But Labour, the Tories and the Liberals lost their appetite for a confidence motion. A chance missed, surely? Or did winning such a vote look like the surest way to lose an election, while reducing an argument of principle to a squabble? (...)
In any other week, of almost any other year, the First Minister's utterances of the morning would have kept the Opposition buzzing with derision for the full half-hour of biting and gouging (Question Time, to you). Instead, of 13 proposed bills, barely a cheep. Of an independence referendum next year, barely a growl. There will be plenty of time to fight over votes towards the voting on a vote - exciting, isn't it? - but still: for now, one issue consumes all.
That's as it should be. But the old problem of heat and light is obvious. We've had lots of the former, none of the latter. Until the facts of Lockerbie are established, even the debate over compassion will remain peripheral.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
Al-Megrahi: a miscarriage of justice
Sir, I was a member of the team of lawyers who acted for Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi in his claim against the UK of breach of the right to a fair trial under the European Human Rights Convention. I met him in prison and, after carefully studying the transcripts of his trial and the judgments of the Scottish courts, came to the conclusion that he had been the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice.
The European Court of Human Rights rejected his claim without even communicating it to the Government, but the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission was sufficiently concerned to refer the case back to the Scottish judiciary.
I express no opinion about the decision to allow Mr al-Megrahi to return to die in Libya. But in my view, it is a misfortune that he has been induced to abandon his appeal. Had the appeal proceeded, it would have given him the opportunity to clear his name not only for his sake but also for the sake of the families bereaved by the mass murder at Lockerbie.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill, QC
House of Lords
[The above is the text of a letter published in Friday's edition of The Times. The European Court of Human Rights rejected Mr Megrahi's claim, not on the merits, but because he had not exhausted domestic remedies.]
The European Court of Human Rights rejected his claim without even communicating it to the Government, but the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission was sufficiently concerned to refer the case back to the Scottish judiciary.
I express no opinion about the decision to allow Mr al-Megrahi to return to die in Libya. But in my view, it is a misfortune that he has been induced to abandon his appeal. Had the appeal proceeded, it would have given him the opportunity to clear his name not only for his sake but also for the sake of the families bereaved by the mass murder at Lockerbie.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill, QC
House of Lords
[The above is the text of a letter published in Friday's edition of The Times. The European Court of Human Rights rejected Mr Megrahi's claim, not on the merits, but because he had not exhausted domestic remedies.]
US 'given bomber jail assurance'
[This is the headline over a report on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]
The US had a clear understanding that the Lockerbie bomber would serve his full jail term in the UK, a former British ambassador has said.
Sir Christopher Meyer was speaking to the BBC about his time as ambassador in Washington during the 1998 negotiations over Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi's trial. He said there was a "clear political and diplomatic understanding" Megrahi would remain in jail in Scotland. (...)
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said Hillary Clinton had stressed to him that there was a "clear understanding" that Megrahi would serve out his term in jail in Scotland if convicted.
Mr MacAskill said he contacted the UK government and they informed him that no assurances had been given to the US government at the time.
Outlining his decision to free Megrahi last month, the justice secretary said the US government and American families believed there had been agreements made, prior to trial, "regarding the place of imprisonment of anyone convicted".
Speaking to the BBC, Sir Christopher Meyer said: "One thing I do remember very, very clearly was that it was very important to them [the US] to get a commitment out of us that if Megrahi and the other guy were found guilty, they would serve the full term of their sentence in a UK jail.
"For the Americans that was a vital selling point for the relatives and friends of the Americans who died in the blowing up of the Pan Am flight."
[On the same issue, the Daily Mail has an article headlined "Brown the betrayer: U.S. fury over Britain's bare-faced lies and our broken promises to keep Lockerbie bomber in jail" which quotes certain somewhat inflammatory (but nevertheless accurate) remarks by me.]
The US had a clear understanding that the Lockerbie bomber would serve his full jail term in the UK, a former British ambassador has said.
Sir Christopher Meyer was speaking to the BBC about his time as ambassador in Washington during the 1998 negotiations over Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi's trial. He said there was a "clear political and diplomatic understanding" Megrahi would remain in jail in Scotland. (...)
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said Hillary Clinton had stressed to him that there was a "clear understanding" that Megrahi would serve out his term in jail in Scotland if convicted.
Mr MacAskill said he contacted the UK government and they informed him that no assurances had been given to the US government at the time.
Outlining his decision to free Megrahi last month, the justice secretary said the US government and American families believed there had been agreements made, prior to trial, "regarding the place of imprisonment of anyone convicted".
Speaking to the BBC, Sir Christopher Meyer said: "One thing I do remember very, very clearly was that it was very important to them [the US] to get a commitment out of us that if Megrahi and the other guy were found guilty, they would serve the full term of their sentence in a UK jail.
"For the Americans that was a vital selling point for the relatives and friends of the Americans who died in the blowing up of the Pan Am flight."
[On the same issue, the Daily Mail has an article headlined "Brown the betrayer: U.S. fury over Britain's bare-faced lies and our broken promises to keep Lockerbie bomber in jail" which quotes certain somewhat inflammatory (but nevertheless accurate) remarks by me.]
Megrahi was framed
[This is the heading over an article by John Pilger on the New Statesman's website. The following are extracts.]
The trial of the “Lockerbie bomber” was worse than a travesty of justice. Evidence that never came to court proves his innocence
The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown's "repulsion" to Barack Obama's "outrage", the theatre of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those who call themselves journalists. "But what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?" whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. "What will you say to your constituents, then?"
Horror of horrors that a dying man should live longer than prescribed before he "pays" for his "heinous crime": the description of the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, whose "compassion" allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to "face justice from a higher power". Amen. (...)
No one in authority has had the guts to state the truth about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, in which 270 people were killed. The governments in England and Scotland in effect blackmailed Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. Of course there were oil and arms deals under way with Libya; but had Megrahi proceeded with his appeal, some 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence would have set the seal on his innocence and given us more than a glimpse of how and why he was stitched up for the benefit of "strategic interests".
“The endgame came down to damage limitation," said the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who took part in the original investigation, "because the evidence amassed by [Megrahi's] appeal is explosive and extremely damning to the system of justice." New witnesses would show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft - he was convicted on the word of a Maltese shopowner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and even failed to recognise him in the courtroom.
The new evidence would have shown that a fragment of a circuit board and bomb timer, "discovered" in the Scottish countryside and said to have been in Megrahi's suitcase, was probably a plant. A forensic scientist found no trace of an explosion on it. The new evidence would demonstrate the impossibility of the bomb beginning its journey in Malta before it was "transferred" through two airports undetected to Flight 103. (...)
Megrahi was convicted by three Scottish judges sitting in a courtroom in "neutral" Holland. There was no jury. One of the few reporters to sit through the long and often farcical proceedings was the late Paul Foot, whose landmark investigation in Private Eye exposed it as a cacophony of blunders, deceptions and lies: a whitewash. The Scottish judges, while admitting a "mass of conflicting evidence" and rejecting the fantasies of the CIA informer [Majid Giaka], found Megrahi guilty on hearsay and unproven circumstance. Their 90-page "opinion", wrote Foot, "is a remarkable document that claims an honoured place in the history of British miscarriages of justice". (His report, Lockerbie - the Flight from Justice, can be downloaded from www.private-eye.co.uk for £5.) (...)
In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi's case for appeal. "The commission is of the view," said its chairman, Graham Forbes, "based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."
The words "miscarriage of justice" are entirely missing from the current furore, with Kenny MacAskill reassuring the baying mob that the scapegoat will soon face justice from that "higher power". What a disgrace.
[An article entitled "It was Megrahi’s appeal, not his health, that concerned the US and Britain" by American commentator William Blum appears in the Online Journal. The following are brief extracts:
'Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person ever convicted for the December 21, 1988 bombing, was released from his Scottish imprisonment August 21 supposedly because of his terminal cancer and sent home to Libya, where he received a hero’s welcome. President Obama said that the jubilant welcome Megrahi received was “highly objectionable.” (...) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was “angry and repulsed,” while his foreign secretary, David Miliband, termed the celebratory images “deeply upsetting.” Miliband warned: “How the Libyan government handles itself in the next few days will be very significant in the way the world views Libya’s reentry into the civilized community of nations.”
'Ah yes, “the civilized community of nations,” that place we so often hear about but so seldom get to actually see. American officials, British officials, and Scottish officials know that Megrahi is innocent. They know that Iran financed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian group, to carry out the bombing with the cooperation of Syria, in retaliation for the American naval ship, the Vincennes, shooting down an Iranian passenger plane in July of the same year, which took the lives of more people than did the 103 bombing. (...)
'In order to be returned to Libya, Megrahi had to cancel his appeal. It was the appeal, not his health, that concerned the Brits and the Americans. Dr. Jim Swire of Britain, whose daughter died over Lockerbie, is a member of UK Families Flight 103, which wants a public inquiry into the crash. “If he goes back to Libya,” Swire says, “it will be a bitter pill to swallow, as an appeal would reveal the fallacies in the prosecution case. . . . I’ve lost faith in the Scottish criminal justice system, but if the appeal is heard, there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that the prosecution case will survive.”
'And a reversal of the verdict would mean that the civilized and venerable governments of the United States and the United Kingdom would stand exposed as having lived a monumental lie for almost 20 years and imprisoned a man they knew to be innocent for eight years.']
The trial of the “Lockerbie bomber” was worse than a travesty of justice. Evidence that never came to court proves his innocence
The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown's "repulsion" to Barack Obama's "outrage", the theatre of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those who call themselves journalists. "But what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?" whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. "What will you say to your constituents, then?"
Horror of horrors that a dying man should live longer than prescribed before he "pays" for his "heinous crime": the description of the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, whose "compassion" allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to "face justice from a higher power". Amen. (...)
No one in authority has had the guts to state the truth about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, in which 270 people were killed. The governments in England and Scotland in effect blackmailed Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. Of course there were oil and arms deals under way with Libya; but had Megrahi proceeded with his appeal, some 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence would have set the seal on his innocence and given us more than a glimpse of how and why he was stitched up for the benefit of "strategic interests".
“The endgame came down to damage limitation," said the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who took part in the original investigation, "because the evidence amassed by [Megrahi's] appeal is explosive and extremely damning to the system of justice." New witnesses would show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft - he was convicted on the word of a Maltese shopowner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and even failed to recognise him in the courtroom.
The new evidence would have shown that a fragment of a circuit board and bomb timer, "discovered" in the Scottish countryside and said to have been in Megrahi's suitcase, was probably a plant. A forensic scientist found no trace of an explosion on it. The new evidence would demonstrate the impossibility of the bomb beginning its journey in Malta before it was "transferred" through two airports undetected to Flight 103. (...)
Megrahi was convicted by three Scottish judges sitting in a courtroom in "neutral" Holland. There was no jury. One of the few reporters to sit through the long and often farcical proceedings was the late Paul Foot, whose landmark investigation in Private Eye exposed it as a cacophony of blunders, deceptions and lies: a whitewash. The Scottish judges, while admitting a "mass of conflicting evidence" and rejecting the fantasies of the CIA informer [Majid Giaka], found Megrahi guilty on hearsay and unproven circumstance. Their 90-page "opinion", wrote Foot, "is a remarkable document that claims an honoured place in the history of British miscarriages of justice". (His report, Lockerbie - the Flight from Justice, can be downloaded from www.private-eye.co.uk for £5.) (...)
In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi's case for appeal. "The commission is of the view," said its chairman, Graham Forbes, "based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."
The words "miscarriage of justice" are entirely missing from the current furore, with Kenny MacAskill reassuring the baying mob that the scapegoat will soon face justice from that "higher power". What a disgrace.
[An article entitled "It was Megrahi’s appeal, not his health, that concerned the US and Britain" by American commentator William Blum appears in the Online Journal. The following are brief extracts:
'Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person ever convicted for the December 21, 1988 bombing, was released from his Scottish imprisonment August 21 supposedly because of his terminal cancer and sent home to Libya, where he received a hero’s welcome. President Obama said that the jubilant welcome Megrahi received was “highly objectionable.” (...) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was “angry and repulsed,” while his foreign secretary, David Miliband, termed the celebratory images “deeply upsetting.” Miliband warned: “How the Libyan government handles itself in the next few days will be very significant in the way the world views Libya’s reentry into the civilized community of nations.”
'Ah yes, “the civilized community of nations,” that place we so often hear about but so seldom get to actually see. American officials, British officials, and Scottish officials know that Megrahi is innocent. They know that Iran financed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian group, to carry out the bombing with the cooperation of Syria, in retaliation for the American naval ship, the Vincennes, shooting down an Iranian passenger plane in July of the same year, which took the lives of more people than did the 103 bombing. (...)
'In order to be returned to Libya, Megrahi had to cancel his appeal. It was the appeal, not his health, that concerned the Brits and the Americans. Dr. Jim Swire of Britain, whose daughter died over Lockerbie, is a member of UK Families Flight 103, which wants a public inquiry into the crash. “If he goes back to Libya,” Swire says, “it will be a bitter pill to swallow, as an appeal would reveal the fallacies in the prosecution case. . . . I’ve lost faith in the Scottish criminal justice system, but if the appeal is heard, there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that the prosecution case will survive.”
'And a reversal of the verdict would mean that the civilized and venerable governments of the United States and the United Kingdom would stand exposed as having lived a monumental lie for almost 20 years and imprisoned a man they knew to be innocent for eight years.']
The Megrahi debate
[This is the headline over an editorial in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
The defeat of the SNP government by the combined forces of the opposition achieved little more than token dissent, since there was no intention to move to a vote of no confidence. Given the strong feelings engendered by Megrahi's release and the international attention on the decision-making process in Scotland, this formal public demonstration of both the division of Scottish opinion and the scrutiny of the process was important.
Gordon Brown finally broke his silence on the situation to declare "there was no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel Gaddafi". That should have come sooner. More significantly politically, however, was his emphasis that he respected the right of Scottish ministers to make the decision - and the decision itself. Respect does not necessarily imply approval or agreement, but the wording laid embarrassingly bare the inconsistencies between the UK Labour government and Labour in Scotland. With the debate itself failing to elicit any more information than had already emerged from the documents published on Tuesday, Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray called for a "forensic" examination of Mr MacAskill's handling of the case in an inquiry by the Justice Committee. Such an inquiry would revisit the questions regarded as unanswered by the opposition parties: the necessity of Mr MacAskill's visit to Megrahi in jail, whether he took a sufficiently wide range of medical opinion and whether Megrahi could have remained in Scotland. All these issues will no doubt bear further scrutiny, but an inquiry is unlikely to reveal anything of real significance, and Mr Gray's call for one suggests that his interest is motivated by party-political point-scoring.
The same charge can be levelled at [UK Conservative Party leader David] Cameron's enthusiasm for an inquiry. Who said what to whom and when is not the main issue here. The further deterioration in Megrahi's condition yesterday reinforces the truth that he is terminally ill. There is no doubt that his release featured in diplomatic and commercial negotiations between the UK and Libya, but despite considerable coalescing of issues from some political interests, we should not lose sight of the fact that he was not released under the prisoner transfer agreement, but on compassionate grounds. The inquiry that is necessary is one that will finally uncover the truth behind the bombing of Pan Am 103 in December 1988.
[Unlike the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament, the UK Labour Government supports Kenny MacAskill's decision to release Mr Megrahi. As reported in today's edition of The Guardian:
'Gordon Brown risked alienating the Obama administration and British public opinion, when he finally admitted that he agreed with the Scottish executive's decision to release the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. (...)
'In a statement, Brown said: " I respect the right of the Scottish ministers to make the decision, and the decision." Number 10 acknowledged that his remarks were an endorsement of the early release.
'In a further embarrassment for the Labour party, Brown's support for the release was flushed out of him on the day that his Scottish Labour party colleagues helped pass a motion in the Scottish parliament condemning the release by 73 votes to 50.'
The Official Report (Hansard) on yesterday's debate can be read here.]
The defeat of the SNP government by the combined forces of the opposition achieved little more than token dissent, since there was no intention to move to a vote of no confidence. Given the strong feelings engendered by Megrahi's release and the international attention on the decision-making process in Scotland, this formal public demonstration of both the division of Scottish opinion and the scrutiny of the process was important.
Gordon Brown finally broke his silence on the situation to declare "there was no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel Gaddafi". That should have come sooner. More significantly politically, however, was his emphasis that he respected the right of Scottish ministers to make the decision - and the decision itself. Respect does not necessarily imply approval or agreement, but the wording laid embarrassingly bare the inconsistencies between the UK Labour government and Labour in Scotland. With the debate itself failing to elicit any more information than had already emerged from the documents published on Tuesday, Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray called for a "forensic" examination of Mr MacAskill's handling of the case in an inquiry by the Justice Committee. Such an inquiry would revisit the questions regarded as unanswered by the opposition parties: the necessity of Mr MacAskill's visit to Megrahi in jail, whether he took a sufficiently wide range of medical opinion and whether Megrahi could have remained in Scotland. All these issues will no doubt bear further scrutiny, but an inquiry is unlikely to reveal anything of real significance, and Mr Gray's call for one suggests that his interest is motivated by party-political point-scoring.
The same charge can be levelled at [UK Conservative Party leader David] Cameron's enthusiasm for an inquiry. Who said what to whom and when is not the main issue here. The further deterioration in Megrahi's condition yesterday reinforces the truth that he is terminally ill. There is no doubt that his release featured in diplomatic and commercial negotiations between the UK and Libya, but despite considerable coalescing of issues from some political interests, we should not lose sight of the fact that he was not released under the prisoner transfer agreement, but on compassionate grounds. The inquiry that is necessary is one that will finally uncover the truth behind the bombing of Pan Am 103 in December 1988.
[Unlike the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament, the UK Labour Government supports Kenny MacAskill's decision to release Mr Megrahi. As reported in today's edition of The Guardian:
'Gordon Brown risked alienating the Obama administration and British public opinion, when he finally admitted that he agreed with the Scottish executive's decision to release the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. (...)
'In a statement, Brown said: " I respect the right of the Scottish ministers to make the decision, and the decision." Number 10 acknowledged that his remarks were an endorsement of the early release.
'In a further embarrassment for the Labour party, Brown's support for the release was flushed out of him on the day that his Scottish Labour party colleagues helped pass a motion in the Scottish parliament condemning the release by 73 votes to 50.'
The Official Report (Hansard) on yesterday's debate can be read here.]
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
More from Jonathan Mitchell QC
Jonathan Mitchell's most recent blog post on the Megrahi release is entitled "Compassionate release in Scotland: the actual policy and the law". It is a masterly exposition of the law and the policy relating to compassionate release. It should have been, but unfortunately was not, required reading for those MSPs who took part in today's debate in the Scottish Parliament. The following are brief excerpts:
"[O]n the published facts of Megrahi’s case, had the Scottish Government refused to allow compassionate release in terms of a policy which had been applied by it and its Lib-Lab predecessors, and before them by Labour and Conservative Secretaries of State alike, it would have been open to legal challenge with excellent prospects of success. That’s the way the law works; it doesn’t suddenly cease to operate because the person claiming its benefits is criminal, or a foreigner, or because release is politically undesirable. Still less because of the improbable suggestion that Americans will boycott Scotland and all its works if Scots law is applied impartially and judicially. (...)
"I cannot imagine that the release of Megrahi will in a few years be seen as a worse decision than the UK Government’s decision to release seventy-eight murderers who had collectively murdered far more people than were murdered at Lockerbie; or the US Government's decision to release a murderer of (per his conviction) twenty-two after three and a half years house arrest; or the UK Government’s decision that Pinochet should never face murder charges because of his supposedly poor health.
"But had the decision been to abrogate the law so that Megrahi would die in prison while Musa Kusa and Colonel Gaddafi himself are fawned on by Washington and London, that would, I think, have come to be seen as shameful."
"[O]n the published facts of Megrahi’s case, had the Scottish Government refused to allow compassionate release in terms of a policy which had been applied by it and its Lib-Lab predecessors, and before them by Labour and Conservative Secretaries of State alike, it would have been open to legal challenge with excellent prospects of success. That’s the way the law works; it doesn’t suddenly cease to operate because the person claiming its benefits is criminal, or a foreigner, or because release is politically undesirable. Still less because of the improbable suggestion that Americans will boycott Scotland and all its works if Scots law is applied impartially and judicially. (...)
"I cannot imagine that the release of Megrahi will in a few years be seen as a worse decision than the UK Government’s decision to release seventy-eight murderers who had collectively murdered far more people than were murdered at Lockerbie; or the US Government's decision to release a murderer of (per his conviction) twenty-two after three and a half years house arrest; or the UK Government’s decision that Pinochet should never face murder charges because of his supposedly poor health.
"But had the decision been to abrogate the law so that Megrahi would die in prison while Musa Kusa and Colonel Gaddafi himself are fawned on by Washington and London, that would, I think, have come to be seen as shameful."
The debate in the Scottish Parliament
A minute-by minute account of today's Scottish Parliament debate on the compassionate release of Abdelbaset Megrahi can be read on the politics blog of The Guardian. Regrettably, the blogger appears to know very little about the Scottish political scene.
The debate has ended, but the vote will not be taken until 17.00.
"MSPs voted by 73 to 50 with one abstention to pass amendments criticising the Scottish Government."
[The sentence immediately above is from the BBC News website. Given that the SNP forms a minority government, with only 47 seats in the 129 seat parliament, this outcome can be counted some kind of success. And as Magnus Linklater (the Scotland Editor of The Times) writes in his Holyrood Sketch:
"Like most of the “big” subjects that the Holyrood Parliament has dealt with, this one brought out occasional eloquence, and not a little passion. And though the SNP government, perhaps inevitably, lost the vote, it did not necessarily lose the argument."]
The debate has ended, but the vote will not be taken until 17.00.
"MSPs voted by 73 to 50 with one abstention to pass amendments criticising the Scottish Government."
[The sentence immediately above is from the BBC News website. Given that the SNP forms a minority government, with only 47 seats in the 129 seat parliament, this outcome can be counted some kind of success. And as Magnus Linklater (the Scotland Editor of The Times) writes in his Holyrood Sketch:
"Like most of the “big” subjects that the Holyrood Parliament has dealt with, this one brought out occasional eloquence, and not a little passion. And though the SNP government, perhaps inevitably, lost the vote, it did not necessarily lose the argument."]
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