[The following is an excerpt from a review on the Morning Star website by Brendan Montague of the recently-published history of MI5 The Defence of the Realm by Christopher Andrew.]
The secret service has enjoyed billions of pounds of funding since its formation 100 years ago and would like us to think that it has hired the finest young men and occasional woman from Oxbridge.
However, an agent with access to a local lending library and a newsagent would have better intelligence than MI5, if you are to believe anything in Christopher Andrew's 1,032-page tome.
For a start, even I could tell them that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi most likely did not place the bomb on the Pan Am Boeing 727 which crashed into Lockerbie in December 1988.
The evidence against him is weak even before you consider the millions in CIA cash paid to witnesses.
It's baffling how Andrew can keep a straight face while writing: "No significant hard evidence pointed towards Libya until some fragments of clothing classed as 'category one blast-damaged' and therefore from inside the case containing the bomb, were eventually traced to an outlet in Malta, where the shopkeeper recalled selling the clothing to a man resembling a suspect intelligence officer."
This does in fact sum up the prosecution case and should never have troubled a judge because of the self-evident weakness. Just read the parts of the sentence before and after "therefore."
What the MI5 official history fails to state is that the shopkeeper was paid millions by the CIA and his initial description did not resemble Megrahi in the slightest.
The evidence was, literally, threadbare.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Sen Schumer wants Lockerbie bomber back in Scottish prison
Sen Charles Schumer said Thursday that the Pan Am Flight 103 bomber should be transferred back to a Scottish prison.
Schumer (D-NY) said the terminally ill Libyan bomber released last summer has lived longer than the three months upon which his release was contingent. (...)
“The bottom line is Megrahi should have never been released in the first place, but it would be even more outrageous if he were to be able to live a long and free life after his release,” Schumer said in a statement on Thursday.
Schumer asked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in writing to transfer al-Megrahi back to the Scottish prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence. But it is unclear how Brown would dictate that Libya send al-Megrahi back to Scotland.
“The victims of Pan Am Flight 103 didn’t get a second chance at life and neither should Megrahi. Justice in this case was life in prison, no exceptions,” Schumer said in a statement. (...)
Al-Megrahi was checked into a local hospital in Tripoli upon his return to Libya, where he received a series of chemotherapy treatments.
Earlier this month, local media outlets reported that he had been released from the hospital and is living at his family’s villa with a police guard posted outside.
[From an article on the website of US Congressional affairs magazine The Hill. It is comforting -- or should that be distressing? -- to have this confirmation that idiocy is no bar to election to political office in the United States, as in the United Kingdom.
What follows is an excerpt from yesterday's US State Department press briefing given by spokesman Ian Kelly:]
QUESTION: All right. Okay. And lastly, tomorrow is the three-month anniversary of al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds. And Senator Schumer has written a letter to Gordon Brown with a rather interesting suggestion that – or not suggestion, a demand that since the guy isn’t dead yet and they said that he only had three months to live, he should be returned to – immediately returned back to Britain to go to jail. Schumer said – he said in his statement from his office, which actually misspells Lockerbie, unfortunately – (laughter) – says that since --
MR. KELLY: Hey, can you release the text of that?
QUESTION: -- since he has outlived the term of his release, and there has been speculation about exaggerations of the severity of his condition, the British Government should seek his immediate transfer back to prison in Scotland. Do you share Senator Schumer’s belief that since he hasn’t died yet, he should be sent back?
MR. KELLY: Well, you know what our stance on this has been, is that we believed all along that Mr. Megrahi should have served out his sentence in Scotland.
QUESTION: Well, no, but now this is – this three-month thing, I’m just wondering if – would the U.S. Government join in with Senator Schumer in demanding that since he’s still alive, he should go back to prison?
MR. KELLY: Well, we’d be happy to get Senator Schumer’s points of view on this. I haven’t seen the letter, but I’d be happy to have discussions with him.
QUESTION: All right. I’ll give it to you.
MR. KELLY: Thank you.
[A report on the website of The Guardian on US relatives' reaction to Mr Megrahi's inconsiderate failure to die on schedule, can be read here.]
Schumer (D-NY) said the terminally ill Libyan bomber released last summer has lived longer than the three months upon which his release was contingent. (...)
“The bottom line is Megrahi should have never been released in the first place, but it would be even more outrageous if he were to be able to live a long and free life after his release,” Schumer said in a statement on Thursday.
Schumer asked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in writing to transfer al-Megrahi back to the Scottish prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence. But it is unclear how Brown would dictate that Libya send al-Megrahi back to Scotland.
“The victims of Pan Am Flight 103 didn’t get a second chance at life and neither should Megrahi. Justice in this case was life in prison, no exceptions,” Schumer said in a statement. (...)
Al-Megrahi was checked into a local hospital in Tripoli upon his return to Libya, where he received a series of chemotherapy treatments.
Earlier this month, local media outlets reported that he had been released from the hospital and is living at his family’s villa with a police guard posted outside.
[From an article on the website of US Congressional affairs magazine The Hill. It is comforting -- or should that be distressing? -- to have this confirmation that idiocy is no bar to election to political office in the United States, as in the United Kingdom.
What follows is an excerpt from yesterday's US State Department press briefing given by spokesman Ian Kelly:]
QUESTION: All right. Okay. And lastly, tomorrow is the three-month anniversary of al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds. And Senator Schumer has written a letter to Gordon Brown with a rather interesting suggestion that – or not suggestion, a demand that since the guy isn’t dead yet and they said that he only had three months to live, he should be returned to – immediately returned back to Britain to go to jail. Schumer said – he said in his statement from his office, which actually misspells Lockerbie, unfortunately – (laughter) – says that since --
MR. KELLY: Hey, can you release the text of that?
QUESTION: -- since he has outlived the term of his release, and there has been speculation about exaggerations of the severity of his condition, the British Government should seek his immediate transfer back to prison in Scotland. Do you share Senator Schumer’s belief that since he hasn’t died yet, he should be sent back?
MR. KELLY: Well, you know what our stance on this has been, is that we believed all along that Mr. Megrahi should have served out his sentence in Scotland.
QUESTION: Well, no, but now this is – this three-month thing, I’m just wondering if – would the U.S. Government join in with Senator Schumer in demanding that since he’s still alive, he should go back to prison?
MR. KELLY: Well, we’d be happy to get Senator Schumer’s points of view on this. I haven’t seen the letter, but I’d be happy to have discussions with him.
QUESTION: All right. I’ll give it to you.
MR. KELLY: Thank you.
[A report on the website of The Guardian on US relatives' reaction to Mr Megrahi's inconsiderate failure to die on schedule, can be read here.]
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Call for SCCRC documents to be published
Calls for the documents, which cast doubt on the Lockerbie bomber's conviction, to be made public intensified yesterday, three months after his release.
The Liberal Democrat justice spokesman Robert Brown MSP demanded full details of an investigation carried out by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
It was the SCCRC that recommended that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi should appeal his conviction for a second time.
Megrahi began appeal proceedings, but dropped them shortly before he was controversially released by Kenny MacAskill. He was released on the basis that he only had three months to live.
Mr Brown suggested making the documents public could offer some comfort to the families of the 270 victims of the bombing.
"There is now an urgent need for the release of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review papers.
"The Scottish Government must look at how the issues in them might be effectively tested by senior judges to give these families the closure they deserve," he said.
[The above is the text of an article in today's edition of The Scotsman. Once again, the readers' comments are also worth reading.
Earlier posts on the projected release of SCCRC material can be read here and here.]
The Liberal Democrat justice spokesman Robert Brown MSP demanded full details of an investigation carried out by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
It was the SCCRC that recommended that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi should appeal his conviction for a second time.
Megrahi began appeal proceedings, but dropped them shortly before he was controversially released by Kenny MacAskill. He was released on the basis that he only had three months to live.
Mr Brown suggested making the documents public could offer some comfort to the families of the 270 victims of the bombing.
"There is now an urgent need for the release of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review papers.
"The Scottish Government must look at how the issues in them might be effectively tested by senior judges to give these families the closure they deserve," he said.
[The above is the text of an article in today's edition of The Scotsman. Once again, the readers' comments are also worth reading.
Earlier posts on the projected release of SCCRC material can be read here and here.]
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Tories want Megrahi health reports
This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Scotsman. It can be read here. I draw attention to it only because of the readers' comments that follow the article.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Fragments of truth
[This is the heading over an article in the current issue of the magazine Scottish Left Review by Mark Hirst, Parliamentary Adviser to Christine Grahame MSP. The full article can (and should) be read here. The following are excerpts.]
Earlier this year I met with the man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in British history. Now back in Libya to await a verdict from a ‘higher court’, terminally ill Abdelbaset al Megrahi steadfastly maintains his innocence in the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie in December 1988. Many professionals involved in the case including US intelligence officers, legal experts and police investigators also share his view, in spite of the concerted propaganda efforts by vested interests in the Crown Office, FBI and US Justice and State Departments. Yet for reasons still to be fully explained by Megrahi, his Defence or the Scottish Government, in August this year he dropped his second appeal and a week later Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill released him on compassionate grounds. That decision resulted in a hysterical reaction from representatives of some of the US relatives and somewhat half-hearted condemnatory slogans from the Obama led US Government.
Megrahi was not required to drop his appeal in order to qualify for compassionate release. He subsequently claimed in a newspaper interview after his return to Libya that no pressure was placed on him to do so. So why did he? When I, along with MSP Christine Grahame, met with him his focus had been very much on the detail of the case and the new evidence that would be led during his second appeal. But he made it clear that his priorities had changed since discovering he was terminally ill last year. His over-riding objective was to return to Libya and to see his family before he died. He understood fully why some, mostly UK victim’s relatives, were keen to see the appeal continue, but told us it would not take them any closer to the truth and who was ultimately responsible for the deaths of their relatives.
Megrahi literally was running out of time and was deeply concerned that he would, as he put it very directly, return to Libya in a wooden box in the hold of a cargo plane. I believe he was genuinely supportive of the need of relatives of victims to get to the ‘truth’, but those efforts were not going to bring him any closer to his family in Libya before he died. His faith in Scottish justice and the legal process he had been subjected to was understandably low. “If they have a brave judge who looks and says ‘good or bad’, ‘yes or no’, but I doubt that the chair of the judges, who chairs all the other judges in Scotland, will turn around and say that all the other judges [at the trial and the first appeal] before got it wrong.” Megrahi said, before adding, “They will want to show, to keep the integrity of the system, that they don’t care if they have to keep an innocent man in prison to do that.”
The integrity in the Scottish legal system, whether it deserves it or not, is right at the heart of this issue, because that is what is at stake if the complete truth behind this case emerges and that is why very prominent vested interests are even now working hard to close the case down. The latest spurious police investigation being just one example that will ensure no independent inquiry takes place any time soon. (…)
The message to Megrahi, whether made explicitly or not, appears to have persuaded him to drop his 18-year fight to clear his name. That view was confirmed when his defence counsel Maggie Scott QC addressed the High Court in August to confirm Megrahi was indeed dropping his appeal. Scott stated that her client believed that this action would “assist in the early determination of those applications”. Applications, plural. The link was made explicitly. Ultimately Megrahi was led to believe by vested interests in our own legal establishment that his only chance of returning home was by dropping his second appeal and to leave his family name forever associated with the bombing of Pan Am 103. That outcome is a scandal that will haunt the Scottish legal system in particular, for decades to come.
So was there a conspiracy? Perhaps, but there certainly has been a cover-up which is very much ongoing. A cover-up of the weakness of the evidence, the weakness of the criminal investigation and a cover-up of the shameful conclusions reached by three Scottish judges at the trial. (…)
Earlier this year Dutch filmmaker Gideon Levy completed an award-winning documentary, still to be shown in the UK, that proves that the then-Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of [Carmyllie] was unaware that the crucial fragment used to link Libya to the attack went to the United States FBI lab for examination. It now transpires it also went to West Germany, although despite recent Crown Office claims that movement was not explicitly made during the trial. Levy’s film includes interviews with the chief prosecutor in the case, Lord Fraser, the FBI’s Senior Investigating Officer Richard Marquise and Robert Baer who for 30 years worked in the Middle East Directorate of the CIA and was a senior US intelligence operative. What emerges during the course of Levy’s film is the staggering revelation that this crucial evidence was not properly secured by Scottish police and should never have gone to the US. The importance of this piece of evidence cannot be [overstated]. Marquise states that without the fragment, known as PT-35, there would have been no indictment, let along conviction of Megrahi.
Lord Fraser, who brought the original indictments against Megrahi is then asked if he was aware that PT-35 had ever been to the US. “Not to my knowledge... I would not have permitted this as it was important evidence that could have been lost in transit, or tampered with or lost,” He is then shown the interview with Marquise, who confirms the fragment did go to the US before the trial. Fraser responds; “Well this is all news to me”. Later in the film Levy challenges Marquise to clarify whether PT-35 was taken to the US without the knowledge of the Lord Advocate. Standing next to him is retired Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson, the senior Scottish investigating officer in the case. Marquise initially seems confused over whether PT-35 was taken to Washington, contradicting his earlier on-camera interview, before Henderson interrupts and states categorically that the fragment was never in the US. “It was too important to be waved around”, Henderson states. “It was never in the US, it was never out of Scottish control. They [The FBI] came to the UK to see it, but it was never in the US.” After filming Marquise emailed Levy to “clarify” and confirm that PT-35 was indeed in the US and apologised for the earlier confusion. It is clear that if Marquise did not understand the significance of PT-35s foreign movements then Stuart Henderson clearly did.
What has not yet been made public, until now, is that Stuart Henderson states in his precognition statement that he gave to the Crown, ahead of Megrahi’s second appeal, that the fragment, PT-35 definitely did go the US. Henderson states that on the 22nd of June 1990 he travelled to the US with the fragment accompanied by Chief Inspector McLean, DI Williamson and Alan Feraday of RARDE, the forensic explosives laboratory in Kent. According to Henderson’s statement to the Crown they met with Metropolitan Field Officers of the FBI and Thomas Thurman, the FBI official who, it is claimed later ‘identified’ the origin of the fragment. Thurman has a degree in political science and has no relevant formal qualifications in electronics or any other scientific field.
I have also seen one of the crucial productions that was to be led during Megrahi’s second appeal which is the official log that accompanied PT-35 and is meant to record each movement of the evidence in order to protect the evidential chain. At each point it is signed for by the relevant police officer. This is an extremely important process and is meant to ensure the chain of evidence is not broken. There is no entry in this log recording that PT-35 ever went to the US, at any point. That has to cast serious doubts over its integrity in light of Henderson’s precognition statement and the confirmation from the FBI’s Dick Marquise that the fragment was in the US prior to the trial.
Earlier this year I met with the man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in British history. Now back in Libya to await a verdict from a ‘higher court’, terminally ill Abdelbaset al Megrahi steadfastly maintains his innocence in the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie in December 1988. Many professionals involved in the case including US intelligence officers, legal experts and police investigators also share his view, in spite of the concerted propaganda efforts by vested interests in the Crown Office, FBI and US Justice and State Departments. Yet for reasons still to be fully explained by Megrahi, his Defence or the Scottish Government, in August this year he dropped his second appeal and a week later Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill released him on compassionate grounds. That decision resulted in a hysterical reaction from representatives of some of the US relatives and somewhat half-hearted condemnatory slogans from the Obama led US Government.
Megrahi was not required to drop his appeal in order to qualify for compassionate release. He subsequently claimed in a newspaper interview after his return to Libya that no pressure was placed on him to do so. So why did he? When I, along with MSP Christine Grahame, met with him his focus had been very much on the detail of the case and the new evidence that would be led during his second appeal. But he made it clear that his priorities had changed since discovering he was terminally ill last year. His over-riding objective was to return to Libya and to see his family before he died. He understood fully why some, mostly UK victim’s relatives, were keen to see the appeal continue, but told us it would not take them any closer to the truth and who was ultimately responsible for the deaths of their relatives.
Megrahi literally was running out of time and was deeply concerned that he would, as he put it very directly, return to Libya in a wooden box in the hold of a cargo plane. I believe he was genuinely supportive of the need of relatives of victims to get to the ‘truth’, but those efforts were not going to bring him any closer to his family in Libya before he died. His faith in Scottish justice and the legal process he had been subjected to was understandably low. “If they have a brave judge who looks and says ‘good or bad’, ‘yes or no’, but I doubt that the chair of the judges, who chairs all the other judges in Scotland, will turn around and say that all the other judges [at the trial and the first appeal] before got it wrong.” Megrahi said, before adding, “They will want to show, to keep the integrity of the system, that they don’t care if they have to keep an innocent man in prison to do that.”
The integrity in the Scottish legal system, whether it deserves it or not, is right at the heart of this issue, because that is what is at stake if the complete truth behind this case emerges and that is why very prominent vested interests are even now working hard to close the case down. The latest spurious police investigation being just one example that will ensure no independent inquiry takes place any time soon. (…)
The message to Megrahi, whether made explicitly or not, appears to have persuaded him to drop his 18-year fight to clear his name. That view was confirmed when his defence counsel Maggie Scott QC addressed the High Court in August to confirm Megrahi was indeed dropping his appeal. Scott stated that her client believed that this action would “assist in the early determination of those applications”. Applications, plural. The link was made explicitly. Ultimately Megrahi was led to believe by vested interests in our own legal establishment that his only chance of returning home was by dropping his second appeal and to leave his family name forever associated with the bombing of Pan Am 103. That outcome is a scandal that will haunt the Scottish legal system in particular, for decades to come.
So was there a conspiracy? Perhaps, but there certainly has been a cover-up which is very much ongoing. A cover-up of the weakness of the evidence, the weakness of the criminal investigation and a cover-up of the shameful conclusions reached by three Scottish judges at the trial. (…)
Earlier this year Dutch filmmaker Gideon Levy completed an award-winning documentary, still to be shown in the UK, that proves that the then-Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of [Carmyllie] was unaware that the crucial fragment used to link Libya to the attack went to the United States FBI lab for examination. It now transpires it also went to West Germany, although despite recent Crown Office claims that movement was not explicitly made during the trial. Levy’s film includes interviews with the chief prosecutor in the case, Lord Fraser, the FBI’s Senior Investigating Officer Richard Marquise and Robert Baer who for 30 years worked in the Middle East Directorate of the CIA and was a senior US intelligence operative. What emerges during the course of Levy’s film is the staggering revelation that this crucial evidence was not properly secured by Scottish police and should never have gone to the US. The importance of this piece of evidence cannot be [overstated]. Marquise states that without the fragment, known as PT-35, there would have been no indictment, let along conviction of Megrahi.
Lord Fraser, who brought the original indictments against Megrahi is then asked if he was aware that PT-35 had ever been to the US. “Not to my knowledge... I would not have permitted this as it was important evidence that could have been lost in transit, or tampered with or lost,” He is then shown the interview with Marquise, who confirms the fragment did go to the US before the trial. Fraser responds; “Well this is all news to me”. Later in the film Levy challenges Marquise to clarify whether PT-35 was taken to the US without the knowledge of the Lord Advocate. Standing next to him is retired Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson, the senior Scottish investigating officer in the case. Marquise initially seems confused over whether PT-35 was taken to Washington, contradicting his earlier on-camera interview, before Henderson interrupts and states categorically that the fragment was never in the US. “It was too important to be waved around”, Henderson states. “It was never in the US, it was never out of Scottish control. They [The FBI] came to the UK to see it, but it was never in the US.” After filming Marquise emailed Levy to “clarify” and confirm that PT-35 was indeed in the US and apologised for the earlier confusion. It is clear that if Marquise did not understand the significance of PT-35s foreign movements then Stuart Henderson clearly did.
What has not yet been made public, until now, is that Stuart Henderson states in his precognition statement that he gave to the Crown, ahead of Megrahi’s second appeal, that the fragment, PT-35 definitely did go the US. Henderson states that on the 22nd of June 1990 he travelled to the US with the fragment accompanied by Chief Inspector McLean, DI Williamson and Alan Feraday of RARDE, the forensic explosives laboratory in Kent. According to Henderson’s statement to the Crown they met with Metropolitan Field Officers of the FBI and Thomas Thurman, the FBI official who, it is claimed later ‘identified’ the origin of the fragment. Thurman has a degree in political science and has no relevant formal qualifications in electronics or any other scientific field.
I have also seen one of the crucial productions that was to be led during Megrahi’s second appeal which is the official log that accompanied PT-35 and is meant to record each movement of the evidence in order to protect the evidential chain. At each point it is signed for by the relevant police officer. This is an extremely important process and is meant to ensure the chain of evidence is not broken. There is no entry in this log recording that PT-35 ever went to the US, at any point. That has to cast serious doubts over its integrity in light of Henderson’s precognition statement and the confirmation from the FBI’s Dick Marquise that the fragment was in the US prior to the trial.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
From Sunday newspapers
This is becoming embarrassing – for Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. His problem is that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, is, at time of writing, still defiantly alive in Libya, when he was supposed to be dead by now. When MacAskill released Megrahi in the teeth of world opinion, it was under the humanitarian convention whereby prisoners with less than three months to live may be set free.
The problem for our Kenny is that Megrahi has not done the decent thing. This Friday will see the expiry of his supposed three-month maximum lease of life, but it looks likely he will not have shuffled off this mortal coil, as MacAskill assured us he would.
[The above are the first five sentences of an article in Scotland on Sunday by regular columnist and right wing ideologue Gerald Warner. For those who have the stomach for it, the remainder of his diatribe can be read here. The readers' comments that follow the article are worth reading even if the article itself is not. It is, of course, untrue to say that Kenny MacAskill assured us that Mr Megrahi would die within three months. What he said was that the medical reports submitted to him were to the effect that three months would be a reasonable estimate of his life expectancy.
The following are the first four paragraphs of an article headed "Scots outraged over bomber's release" on SFGate, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle.]
Do not believe that Scotland was united behind Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to grant "compassionate" release to the terminally ill convicted Pan Am 103 bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi in August.
When al-Megrahi flew home to a hero's welcome in Libya, Member of Scottish Parliament Richard Baker recalls "universal outrage" among Scots at the sight of Scotland's flag "being waved to welcome home the Lockerbie bomber in Tripoli. It just turned stomachs" - and produced among sensible Scots "profound shame and embarrassment."
Al-Megrahi was released after the former Libyan intelligence officer served a mere eight years in Scottish prison for his conviction for the 1988 airline bombing that killed 270 people, including 11 souls on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.
The Scottish Parliament in Holyrood voted 73-50 in favor of a measure that determined that MacAskill mishandled the decision. A poll conducted for the BBC found that 60 percent of Scots were opposed to al-Megrahi's early release and 32 percent supported it.
[As far as Scottish public opinion on the release is concerned, a more accurate picture than that given in the BBC's rogue poll can be found here and here.]
The problem for our Kenny is that Megrahi has not done the decent thing. This Friday will see the expiry of his supposed three-month maximum lease of life, but it looks likely he will not have shuffled off this mortal coil, as MacAskill assured us he would.
[The above are the first five sentences of an article in Scotland on Sunday by regular columnist and right wing ideologue Gerald Warner. For those who have the stomach for it, the remainder of his diatribe can be read here. The readers' comments that follow the article are worth reading even if the article itself is not. It is, of course, untrue to say that Kenny MacAskill assured us that Mr Megrahi would die within three months. What he said was that the medical reports submitted to him were to the effect that three months would be a reasonable estimate of his life expectancy.
The following are the first four paragraphs of an article headed "Scots outraged over bomber's release" on SFGate, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle.]
Do not believe that Scotland was united behind Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to grant "compassionate" release to the terminally ill convicted Pan Am 103 bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi in August.
When al-Megrahi flew home to a hero's welcome in Libya, Member of Scottish Parliament Richard Baker recalls "universal outrage" among Scots at the sight of Scotland's flag "being waved to welcome home the Lockerbie bomber in Tripoli. It just turned stomachs" - and produced among sensible Scots "profound shame and embarrassment."
Al-Megrahi was released after the former Libyan intelligence officer served a mere eight years in Scottish prison for his conviction for the 1988 airline bombing that killed 270 people, including 11 souls on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.
The Scottish Parliament in Holyrood voted 73-50 in favor of a measure that determined that MacAskill mishandled the decision. A poll conducted for the BBC found that 60 percent of Scots were opposed to al-Megrahi's early release and 32 percent supported it.
[As far as Scottish public opinion on the release is concerned, a more accurate picture than that given in the BBC's rogue poll can be found here and here.]
Saturday, 14 November 2009
An anniversary
It was on 14 November 1991 that the prosecution authorities in Scotland (the Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC) and the United States (acting US Attorney General, William Barr) simultaneously announced that they had brought criminal charges -- principally murder and conspiracy to murder -- arising out of the destruction of Pan Am 103 against two Libyan nationals, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, who were alleged to be members, and to have been acting throughout as agents, of the Libyan intelligence service.
According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.
[From a forthcoming book on the Lockerbie case.]
According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.
[From a forthcoming book on the Lockerbie case.]
Friday, 13 November 2009
The latest from Private Eye
The police “review” of the Lockerbie case appears to be little more than a sop to head off demands for a full public inquiry.
Any meaningful reinvestigation would involve another force being brought in to carry out the review – not an officer involved in the original investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103. It would also surely include a thorough review of the evidence upon which the independent Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) decided that Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice… But this is not to be.
Another new key area of concern is the forensic evidence underpinning the entire case: notably a small fragment of a circuit board for a bomb timer found in and among fragments of a man’s shirt recovered from the site. The shirt and other clothing recovered were said to have been traced back to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who said he had sold them to a man who resembled Megrahi.
The prosecution has always claimed that these tiny fragments were identified by Dr Thomas Hayes at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (Rarde) on 12 May 1989. There was concern at the time of the trial that the label on this crucial piece of evidence had been altered. Further, the pages in Hayes’ notes relating to this evidence had been curiously renumbered. Eye readers may recall that the work of Hayes and other Rarde scientists has subsequently been criticised in a series of high-profile miscarriage-of-justice cases involving IRA terrorism – in particular the inquiry by Sir John May into the wrongful conviction of the Maguire family, where scientific notebooks were found to have been altered.
Lawyers for Megrahi have now uncovered a similar pattern of inconsistencies, alterations, discrepancies and undisclosed material that again calls into question the integrity of the Rarde scientists. It comes from new scientific tests as well as a meticulous examination of evidence that was not disclosed or available at the time. Here are some examples …
* Photographs and evidence suggest that the circuit board and debris from the shirt had not been discovered until January 1990 – seven months later than Rarde claimed.
* Further evidence that scientific notes had been altered.
* Details of simulated explosions carried out in the US in July 1989 were not revealed, but debris from those blasts [was] taken both to Rarde and to Lockerbie for comparison.
* Exhibit labels were being written and attached by police more than a year after the debris was found.
* One man who was asked to put his name to the discovery of pieces of the charred shirt says he does not recall recovering the material. He also says the cloth shown to him by police was not the same grey colour as that identified in court as the shirt bought by Megrahi.
* Evidence to suggest the charred “bomb” shirt was in fact a child’s shirt.
* A wealth of conflicting evidence surrounding the discovery of charred pieces of a Babygro – also said to have been packed in the bomb suitcase and sold to Megrahi. One Babygro collected by investigators for comparison purposes was not accounted for.
The SCCRC which had some but not all of this material, rejected suggestions that the evidence had been deliberately fabricated. But it fell short of conducting its own forensic tests.
If this is a cock-up or incompetence, it is on such a scale that it recalls the verdict of Sir John May in the Maguire inquiry that the scientific basis on which the prosecution was founded should not be relied upon. Taken with Gauci’s highly dubious identification evidence …, the case for a public inquiry remains overwhelming.
[The above is the text of an article that appears on page 28 of the current edition (1249) of Private Eye. It does not feature on the magazine's website.]
Any meaningful reinvestigation would involve another force being brought in to carry out the review – not an officer involved in the original investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103. It would also surely include a thorough review of the evidence upon which the independent Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) decided that Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice… But this is not to be.
Another new key area of concern is the forensic evidence underpinning the entire case: notably a small fragment of a circuit board for a bomb timer found in and among fragments of a man’s shirt recovered from the site. The shirt and other clothing recovered were said to have been traced back to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who said he had sold them to a man who resembled Megrahi.
The prosecution has always claimed that these tiny fragments were identified by Dr Thomas Hayes at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (Rarde) on 12 May 1989. There was concern at the time of the trial that the label on this crucial piece of evidence had been altered. Further, the pages in Hayes’ notes relating to this evidence had been curiously renumbered. Eye readers may recall that the work of Hayes and other Rarde scientists has subsequently been criticised in a series of high-profile miscarriage-of-justice cases involving IRA terrorism – in particular the inquiry by Sir John May into the wrongful conviction of the Maguire family, where scientific notebooks were found to have been altered.
Lawyers for Megrahi have now uncovered a similar pattern of inconsistencies, alterations, discrepancies and undisclosed material that again calls into question the integrity of the Rarde scientists. It comes from new scientific tests as well as a meticulous examination of evidence that was not disclosed or available at the time. Here are some examples …
* Photographs and evidence suggest that the circuit board and debris from the shirt had not been discovered until January 1990 – seven months later than Rarde claimed.
* Further evidence that scientific notes had been altered.
* Details of simulated explosions carried out in the US in July 1989 were not revealed, but debris from those blasts [was] taken both to Rarde and to Lockerbie for comparison.
* Exhibit labels were being written and attached by police more than a year after the debris was found.
* One man who was asked to put his name to the discovery of pieces of the charred shirt says he does not recall recovering the material. He also says the cloth shown to him by police was not the same grey colour as that identified in court as the shirt bought by Megrahi.
* Evidence to suggest the charred “bomb” shirt was in fact a child’s shirt.
* A wealth of conflicting evidence surrounding the discovery of charred pieces of a Babygro – also said to have been packed in the bomb suitcase and sold to Megrahi. One Babygro collected by investigators for comparison purposes was not accounted for.
The SCCRC which had some but not all of this material, rejected suggestions that the evidence had been deliberately fabricated. But it fell short of conducting its own forensic tests.
If this is a cock-up or incompetence, it is on such a scale that it recalls the verdict of Sir John May in the Maguire inquiry that the scientific basis on which the prosecution was founded should not be relied upon. Taken with Gauci’s highly dubious identification evidence …, the case for a public inquiry remains overwhelming.
[The above is the text of an article that appears on page 28 of the current edition (1249) of Private Eye. It does not feature on the magazine's website.]
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Prime Minister on Megrahi's health
Question: It is almost three months since Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was released and some people are wondering whether he was as ill as he was said to be at the time. Have you any information about his health?
Prime Minister: The medical reports that were done at the time were done independently, but it was and is a matter for the Scottish administration to deal with the consequences of these reports. They made their decision, we accepted their decision, medical advice was provided to them and the Foreign Office is aware of what medical advice was given.
[From a press conference given by Gordon Brown on 10 November. The full transcript can be read here.]
Prime Minister: The medical reports that were done at the time were done independently, but it was and is a matter for the Scottish administration to deal with the consequences of these reports. They made their decision, we accepted their decision, medical advice was provided to them and the Foreign Office is aware of what medical advice was given.
[From a press conference given by Gordon Brown on 10 November. The full transcript can be read here.]
Lockerbie: Human rights lawyer states Megrahi was framed
[This is the headline over an article on the World Socialist Web Site. It consists largely of a summary of Gareth Peirce's recent contribution in the London Review of Books. The following are excerpts from the new article.]
Leading British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce has stated that, in her opinion Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the only man ... convicted of the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was framed.
Peirce has a long track record of defending those caught in the British legal system’s most notorious miscarriages of justice. Her clients have included the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and Judith Ward, all of whom were Irish people accused and wrongly convicted of IRA bomb attacks in the 1970s. More recently Peirce has taken up a number of high profile cases of individuals accused in the so-called “war on terror”, including the Tipton Three and Moazam Begg, held illegally by the US government in Guantánamo Bay. She has represented the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent man shot dead by British police in Stockwell underground station in 2005.
Writing in the September edition of the London Review of Books, Peirce, of the law firm headed by Benedict Birnberg, summarises some of the most concerning, and well known, aspects of the entire Lockerbie disaster in which 270 people died, and the subsequent investigation. (...)
Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and his co-accused, Llamen Khalifa Fhimah, were handed over by the Libyan government in 1999. The trial opened at a converted US airbase in the Netherlands in 2000. The indictment against Megrahi read that an MST 13 bomb timer was made in Switzerland, by MEBO AG, and sold exclusively to Libya.
Identification of the timer rested on the efforts of Thomas Hayes and Alan Feraday of the Royal Armament and Development Establishment (RARDE), along with Thomas Thurman of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In 1997, following an investigation by the US inspector general, Michael Bromwich, Thurman was barred from being called as an expert witness. Bromwich described Thurman as “circumventing procedures and protocols, testifying to areas of expertise that he had no qualifications in...therefore fabricating evidence”.
Thomas Hayes claimed that on May 12, 1989, he found a fragment of circuit board in the collar of a shirt later traced to a Maltese shop. The fragment itself had been found in January 1989 by British police investigating the crash site.
Peirce states, “Even if one knew nothing of the devastating findings of the public inquiry in the early 1990s into the false science that convicted the Maguire Seven or of the succession of thunderous judgments in the Court of Appeal in case after case in which RARDE scientists had provided the basis for wrongful convictions, Hayes’s key evidence in this case on the key fragment should be viewed as disgraceful”.
“Hayes”, Peirce continues, “played his part in the most notorious [miscarriage case] of all, endorsing the finding of an explosive trace that was never there, and speculating that a piece of chalk mentioned to the police by Vincent Maguire, aged 16, and a candle by Patrick Maguire, aged 13, ‘fitted the description better’ of a stick of gelignite wrapped in white paper”.
Hayes’s information regarding this crucial piece of Lockerbie evidence was also flawed. Despite having carefully documented every other piece of evidence he found, Hayes had made no drawing of this particular item and had not assigned it a reference number on discovery. He had not carried out a test for explosives. Hayes said he had “no idea” when the pagination of his notes recording findings had been altered to include an additional page, and it was an “unfathomable mystery” as to why the alterations should have occurred. (...)
She describes the verdict delivered in 2001 by three experienced judges, upheld later by five appeal court judges as “profoundly shocking”, and makes the following devastating assessment:
“Al-Megrahi’s trial constituted a unique legal construct, engineered to achieve a political rapprochement, but its content was so manipulated that in reality there was only ever an illusion of a trial”.
Peirce concludes that there is “pressing need to investigate in details how it has come about that there has been a form of death in this case—the death of justice—and who should be found responsible”.
Subsequent to Peirce’s comments, more revelations have emerged about the crucial piece of MST 13 circuit board. Following a Freedom of Information request raised by Scottish Nationalist Member of the Scottish Parliament Christine Graham, the Scottish Crown Office has confirmed that evidence item PT-35, the piece of circuit board found by Hayes, was taken for examination to both Germany and the US. Graham claimed that this was done with the knowledge of the then chief prosecutor, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who recently told a Dutch television company that he was unaware of the fragment’s movements.
Megrahi was released by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny Macaskill in August, allegedly on humanitarian grounds. It occurred at a time when the Libyan government had made clear that, if the terminally ill Megrahi had been allowed to die in Greenock prison, British oil contracts would have been imperilled. In addition, Megrahi had agreed to drop a long delayed appeal against his conviction in order to secure his release.
The release triggered outrage from the US in particular and was attacked by President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the head of the FBI, and the US Joint Chief of Staff amongst many. Commentary went as far as suggesting that the so-called “special relationship” between British and US imperialism, and Scotland in particular, was imperiled.
All this has been forgotten. On September 21, US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly informed the world that the US had “deep abiding ties with Scotland”. Kelly continued, “We are very close allies, and I don’t think we’re looking to punish anybody per se. There’s no tit for tat here”.
Three weeks later, speaking before a meeting with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Clinton stated, “I have a special relationship with the prime minister. And of course, I think it can’t be said often enough, we have a special relationship between our countries”.
What was said between the two regarding Lockerbie is not clear, but the meeting came immediately prior to the British government’s decision to send an additional 500 troops to Afghanistan. Brown has subsequently ruled out a public inquiry into the bombing, while the Scottish government have denied they had the power to hold an authoritative inquiry in the first place.
Clinton also called in the Libyan government, speaking for 15 minutes en route to Egypt with Libyan Foreign Minister and former intelligence chief Musa Kusa. According to US Assistant Secretary Philip Crowley, the two talked of “Sudan, Darfur, cooperation about terrorism and the possibility of advancing our relationship”.
Crowley claimed that Megrahi was not discussed, lamely stating that “the Libyans understand our concerns about Megrahi very, very well”.
Leading British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce has stated that, in her opinion Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the only man ... convicted of the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was framed.
Peirce has a long track record of defending those caught in the British legal system’s most notorious miscarriages of justice. Her clients have included the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and Judith Ward, all of whom were Irish people accused and wrongly convicted of IRA bomb attacks in the 1970s. More recently Peirce has taken up a number of high profile cases of individuals accused in the so-called “war on terror”, including the Tipton Three and Moazam Begg, held illegally by the US government in Guantánamo Bay. She has represented the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent man shot dead by British police in Stockwell underground station in 2005.
Writing in the September edition of the London Review of Books, Peirce, of the law firm headed by Benedict Birnberg, summarises some of the most concerning, and well known, aspects of the entire Lockerbie disaster in which 270 people died, and the subsequent investigation. (...)
Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and his co-accused, Llamen Khalifa Fhimah, were handed over by the Libyan government in 1999. The trial opened at a converted US airbase in the Netherlands in 2000. The indictment against Megrahi read that an MST 13 bomb timer was made in Switzerland, by MEBO AG, and sold exclusively to Libya.
Identification of the timer rested on the efforts of Thomas Hayes and Alan Feraday of the Royal Armament and Development Establishment (RARDE), along with Thomas Thurman of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In 1997, following an investigation by the US inspector general, Michael Bromwich, Thurman was barred from being called as an expert witness. Bromwich described Thurman as “circumventing procedures and protocols, testifying to areas of expertise that he had no qualifications in...therefore fabricating evidence”.
Thomas Hayes claimed that on May 12, 1989, he found a fragment of circuit board in the collar of a shirt later traced to a Maltese shop. The fragment itself had been found in January 1989 by British police investigating the crash site.
Peirce states, “Even if one knew nothing of the devastating findings of the public inquiry in the early 1990s into the false science that convicted the Maguire Seven or of the succession of thunderous judgments in the Court of Appeal in case after case in which RARDE scientists had provided the basis for wrongful convictions, Hayes’s key evidence in this case on the key fragment should be viewed as disgraceful”.
“Hayes”, Peirce continues, “played his part in the most notorious [miscarriage case] of all, endorsing the finding of an explosive trace that was never there, and speculating that a piece of chalk mentioned to the police by Vincent Maguire, aged 16, and a candle by Patrick Maguire, aged 13, ‘fitted the description better’ of a stick of gelignite wrapped in white paper”.
Hayes’s information regarding this crucial piece of Lockerbie evidence was also flawed. Despite having carefully documented every other piece of evidence he found, Hayes had made no drawing of this particular item and had not assigned it a reference number on discovery. He had not carried out a test for explosives. Hayes said he had “no idea” when the pagination of his notes recording findings had been altered to include an additional page, and it was an “unfathomable mystery” as to why the alterations should have occurred. (...)
She describes the verdict delivered in 2001 by three experienced judges, upheld later by five appeal court judges as “profoundly shocking”, and makes the following devastating assessment:
“Al-Megrahi’s trial constituted a unique legal construct, engineered to achieve a political rapprochement, but its content was so manipulated that in reality there was only ever an illusion of a trial”.
Peirce concludes that there is “pressing need to investigate in details how it has come about that there has been a form of death in this case—the death of justice—and who should be found responsible”.
Subsequent to Peirce’s comments, more revelations have emerged about the crucial piece of MST 13 circuit board. Following a Freedom of Information request raised by Scottish Nationalist Member of the Scottish Parliament Christine Graham, the Scottish Crown Office has confirmed that evidence item PT-35, the piece of circuit board found by Hayes, was taken for examination to both Germany and the US. Graham claimed that this was done with the knowledge of the then chief prosecutor, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who recently told a Dutch television company that he was unaware of the fragment’s movements.
Megrahi was released by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny Macaskill in August, allegedly on humanitarian grounds. It occurred at a time when the Libyan government had made clear that, if the terminally ill Megrahi had been allowed to die in Greenock prison, British oil contracts would have been imperilled. In addition, Megrahi had agreed to drop a long delayed appeal against his conviction in order to secure his release.
The release triggered outrage from the US in particular and was attacked by President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the head of the FBI, and the US Joint Chief of Staff amongst many. Commentary went as far as suggesting that the so-called “special relationship” between British and US imperialism, and Scotland in particular, was imperiled.
All this has been forgotten. On September 21, US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly informed the world that the US had “deep abiding ties with Scotland”. Kelly continued, “We are very close allies, and I don’t think we’re looking to punish anybody per se. There’s no tit for tat here”.
Three weeks later, speaking before a meeting with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Clinton stated, “I have a special relationship with the prime minister. And of course, I think it can’t be said often enough, we have a special relationship between our countries”.
What was said between the two regarding Lockerbie is not clear, but the meeting came immediately prior to the British government’s decision to send an additional 500 troops to Afghanistan. Brown has subsequently ruled out a public inquiry into the bombing, while the Scottish government have denied they had the power to hold an authoritative inquiry in the first place.
Clinton also called in the Libyan government, speaking for 15 minutes en route to Egypt with Libyan Foreign Minister and former intelligence chief Musa Kusa. According to US Assistant Secretary Philip Crowley, the two talked of “Sudan, Darfur, cooperation about terrorism and the possibility of advancing our relationship”.
Crowley claimed that Megrahi was not discussed, lamely stating that “the Libyans understand our concerns about Megrahi very, very well”.
Justice Secretary under fire as bomber defies three-month prognosis
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Times. It reads in part:]
Three months after he was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government, the Lockerbie bomber continues to defy predictions about the likely course of his illness.
When, on August 20, Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary announced that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, was suffering from terminal prostate cancer, he suggested that he had about three months left to live.
Yesterday, however, al-Megrahi, the only person to be convicted over the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 atrocity, which claimed 270 lives, was still fighting the illness in a Libyan hospital. The 12-week time span is crucial because only prisoners expected to survive three months or less are eligible for compassionate release.
Last night Mr MacAskill was under pressure again as victims’ relatives questioned his decision, and said they felt “hurt and betrayed”.
The Times understands that al-Megrahi remains a patient at the Tripoli Medical Centre, where he was admitted about ten days after he returned to Libya. Although sources were not able to say how ill he is, his family suggested that his prognosis was poor. His elder brother, Mohammed, said he was unable to comment on his health but confirmed he was “still in hospital taking heavy treatments”.
A Libyan official said that al-Megrahi’s will to live was probably stronger “in the bosom of his family than in a prison cell”, but emphasised: “The outcome is not in any doubt.”
A prominent British cancer specialist, who asked not to be named, said, “no one should be remotely surprised” that the Lockerbie bomber was still alive. Three months was merely the average life expectancy of someone with prostate cancer as advanced as al-Megrahi’s, he said. Some patients would live longer while others would die sooner.
Al-Megrahi has not been seen in public since September 9, when he was briefly taken into a conference room inside the hospital to meet a delegation of African Union parliamentarians. He was in a wheelchair, coughed repeatedly and said nothing during his ten-minute appearance. Observers said he looked very frail. (...)
Tony Kelly, al-Megrahi’s lawyer in Scotland, refused to comment on his client’s health. Under the terms of release, East Renfrewshire Council receives a monthly report from al-Megrahi’s doctors, and its criminal justice officials speak to him periodically by video link or telephone, but a council spokesman refused to discuss the bomber’s health.
Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which represents US families, said he was not surprised that al-Megrahi lives on.
“We never believed he was as sick as he said he was,” he said. “They had been saying for over a year he had one foot in the grave.”
He said the families felt “hurt and betrayed” by the Scottish government and claimed that the Libyan’s survival would intensify those feelings.
Pamela Dix, of Woking, Surrey, whose brother Peter was killed in the attack, urged the authorities to provide more information about al-Megrahi’s condition. She said that speculation over his condition could detract from their efforts to force a public inquiry into the Lockerbie affair.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish government said: “The Justice Secretary made his decision taking into account a report dated August 10 from the Director of Health and Care for the Scottish Prison Service which indicated that a three-month prognosis was then a reasonable estimate.”
• Campaigners including Noam Chomsky and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have sent an open letter to the United Nations, calling for an extensive UN-run public inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing. The letter, addressed to the President of the General Assembly of the UN, says that the decision by al-Megrahi to drop his appeal before being freed on compassionate grounds ended “one of the last best hopes” of discovering the truth about the tragedy.
Three months after he was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government, the Lockerbie bomber continues to defy predictions about the likely course of his illness.
When, on August 20, Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary announced that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, was suffering from terminal prostate cancer, he suggested that he had about three months left to live.
Yesterday, however, al-Megrahi, the only person to be convicted over the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 atrocity, which claimed 270 lives, was still fighting the illness in a Libyan hospital. The 12-week time span is crucial because only prisoners expected to survive three months or less are eligible for compassionate release.
Last night Mr MacAskill was under pressure again as victims’ relatives questioned his decision, and said they felt “hurt and betrayed”.
The Times understands that al-Megrahi remains a patient at the Tripoli Medical Centre, where he was admitted about ten days after he returned to Libya. Although sources were not able to say how ill he is, his family suggested that his prognosis was poor. His elder brother, Mohammed, said he was unable to comment on his health but confirmed he was “still in hospital taking heavy treatments”.
A Libyan official said that al-Megrahi’s will to live was probably stronger “in the bosom of his family than in a prison cell”, but emphasised: “The outcome is not in any doubt.”
A prominent British cancer specialist, who asked not to be named, said, “no one should be remotely surprised” that the Lockerbie bomber was still alive. Three months was merely the average life expectancy of someone with prostate cancer as advanced as al-Megrahi’s, he said. Some patients would live longer while others would die sooner.
Al-Megrahi has not been seen in public since September 9, when he was briefly taken into a conference room inside the hospital to meet a delegation of African Union parliamentarians. He was in a wheelchair, coughed repeatedly and said nothing during his ten-minute appearance. Observers said he looked very frail. (...)
Tony Kelly, al-Megrahi’s lawyer in Scotland, refused to comment on his client’s health. Under the terms of release, East Renfrewshire Council receives a monthly report from al-Megrahi’s doctors, and its criminal justice officials speak to him periodically by video link or telephone, but a council spokesman refused to discuss the bomber’s health.
Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which represents US families, said he was not surprised that al-Megrahi lives on.
“We never believed he was as sick as he said he was,” he said. “They had been saying for over a year he had one foot in the grave.”
He said the families felt “hurt and betrayed” by the Scottish government and claimed that the Libyan’s survival would intensify those feelings.
Pamela Dix, of Woking, Surrey, whose brother Peter was killed in the attack, urged the authorities to provide more information about al-Megrahi’s condition. She said that speculation over his condition could detract from their efforts to force a public inquiry into the Lockerbie affair.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish government said: “The Justice Secretary made his decision taking into account a report dated August 10 from the Director of Health and Care for the Scottish Prison Service which indicated that a three-month prognosis was then a reasonable estimate.”
• Campaigners including Noam Chomsky and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have sent an open letter to the United Nations, calling for an extensive UN-run public inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing. The letter, addressed to the President of the General Assembly of the UN, says that the decision by al-Megrahi to drop his appeal before being freed on compassionate grounds ended “one of the last best hopes” of discovering the truth about the tragedy.
Monday, 9 November 2009
Former diplomat urges MacAskill to press for UN Lockerbie inquiry
[This is the headline over an article on the website of the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads as follows:]
Patrick Haseldine, a former diplomat under John Major's Westminster administration, has pressed Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill to take active steps to initiate an international inquiry into the Lockerbie debacle, pointing out that MacAskill pledged to support such an inquiry should it convene.
Haseldine is among the signatories of an open letter addressed to the President of the UN General Assembly asking the United Nations to 'institute a full public inquiry.
"I'm very pleased to note from your statement that you have committed the Scottish Government to 'fully co-operate in such an inquiry'. However, a UN member state must first table a resolution at the General Assembly, and get a majority of votes in favour, before a Lockerbie inquiry can be instituted," he said.
"On 3 October 2009, another signatory, Professor Robert Black QC, wrote to Malta's Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr Tonio Borg, requesting Malta to table the necessary UNGA resolution. I think it would be helpful at this stage if you were to take an early opportunity to contact the Maltese Government, and reiterate your pledge that the Scottish Government will co-operate fully in a [Malta-sponsored] United Nations inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster."
Signatories to the UN letter include Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu, campaigner Noam Chomsky, Tam Dalyell and members of both UK Families Flight 103 and the Justice for Megrahi campaign.
Patrick Haseldine, a former diplomat under John Major's Westminster administration, has pressed Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill to take active steps to initiate an international inquiry into the Lockerbie debacle, pointing out that MacAskill pledged to support such an inquiry should it convene.
Haseldine is among the signatories of an open letter addressed to the President of the UN General Assembly asking the United Nations to 'institute a full public inquiry.
"I'm very pleased to note from your statement that you have committed the Scottish Government to 'fully co-operate in such an inquiry'. However, a UN member state must first table a resolution at the General Assembly, and get a majority of votes in favour, before a Lockerbie inquiry can be instituted," he said.
"On 3 October 2009, another signatory, Professor Robert Black QC, wrote to Malta's Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr Tonio Borg, requesting Malta to table the necessary UNGA resolution. I think it would be helpful at this stage if you were to take an early opportunity to contact the Maltese Government, and reiterate your pledge that the Scottish Government will co-operate fully in a [Malta-sponsored] United Nations inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster."
Signatories to the UN letter include Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu, campaigner Noam Chomsky, Tam Dalyell and members of both UK Families Flight 103 and the Justice for Megrahi campaign.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
"It is totally untrue."
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, rejecting claims that his government had decided not to investigate Lockerbie prime witness Tony Gauci due to pressure from the US.
[From the Quotes of the week column in today's edition of the Maltese newspaper The Sunday Times.]
[From the Quotes of the week column in today's edition of the Maltese newspaper The Sunday Times.]
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Britain admits paying thousands for advice from Libya on airline security
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph. It reads in part:]
Victims of the Lockerbie bombing have criticised the Government for paying for tens of thousands of pounds-worth of advice from Libya on airline safety.
Documents show that taxpayers covered the cost of flying Libyan security experts to the UK, while British officials met Libyan counterparts at Tripoli airport.
In all five different visits were made to discuss “aviation security” at a total cost to the taxpayer nearly £25,000 between 2007 and 2009.
The Government declined to say what was discussed at the meetings, insisting it does not comment on “specific operational issues”. (...)
Pamela Dix, whose brother, Peter, was killed in the bombing, said that while she was "entirely in favour for a deepening of our links with Libya", it was "bizarre and inappropriate to receive advice in this way".
She added: "Whatever the level of responsibility for Lockerbie, they have been responsible for the destruction of other aircraft.
"The idea of the Department for Transport seeking advice on aviation security - let alone paying for it - from Libya is quite shocking.
"I was in favour of diplomatic relations being restored with Libya, in the interests of mutual understanding and to reduce the likelihood of terrorist activity, but not at the expense of good sense and an understanding of the political context."
The details of the controversial programme were disclosed in a response to a Freedom of Information request from The Daily Telegraph.
The details included how six British officials met four Libyan officials in Britain in March last year to discuss “aviation security” and officials from the Department for Transport visited Tripoli airport twice in 2007, and on two more occasions earlier this year.
Other talks have also taken place since 2001 about increasing the number of flights between the UK and the north African country. (...)
Around 140,000 passengers fly regularly between the UK and Libya on three airlines - British Airways, Libyan Arab Airlines and Afriqiyah Airways.
Anglo-Libyan relations are under intense scrutiny after Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds in August, a move which was denounced as a “mistake” by US President Barack Obama.
Victims of the Lockerbie bombing have criticised the Government for paying for tens of thousands of pounds-worth of advice from Libya on airline safety.
Documents show that taxpayers covered the cost of flying Libyan security experts to the UK, while British officials met Libyan counterparts at Tripoli airport.
In all five different visits were made to discuss “aviation security” at a total cost to the taxpayer nearly £25,000 between 2007 and 2009.
The Government declined to say what was discussed at the meetings, insisting it does not comment on “specific operational issues”. (...)
Pamela Dix, whose brother, Peter, was killed in the bombing, said that while she was "entirely in favour for a deepening of our links with Libya", it was "bizarre and inappropriate to receive advice in this way".
She added: "Whatever the level of responsibility for Lockerbie, they have been responsible for the destruction of other aircraft.
"The idea of the Department for Transport seeking advice on aviation security - let alone paying for it - from Libya is quite shocking.
"I was in favour of diplomatic relations being restored with Libya, in the interests of mutual understanding and to reduce the likelihood of terrorist activity, but not at the expense of good sense and an understanding of the political context."
The details of the controversial programme were disclosed in a response to a Freedom of Information request from The Daily Telegraph.
The details included how six British officials met four Libyan officials in Britain in March last year to discuss “aviation security” and officials from the Department for Transport visited Tripoli airport twice in 2007, and on two more occasions earlier this year.
Other talks have also taken place since 2001 about increasing the number of flights between the UK and the north African country. (...)
Around 140,000 passengers fly regularly between the UK and Libya on three airlines - British Airways, Libyan Arab Airlines and Afriqiyah Airways.
Anglo-Libyan relations are under intense scrutiny after Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds in August, a move which was denounced as a “mistake” by US President Barack Obama.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Arabs support Al Megrahi's return to Libya
[The following press release was sent to me by a reader. The blog post on the Doha Debate on the motion "This House deplores the release of the Lockerbie bomber to Libya" can be read here.]
Doha, Qatar, November 4: Six out of 10 Arabs support the Scottish government's decision to send the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi back to Libya on compassionate grounds – but a similar number didn't believe Libya would have done the same.
The findings, contained in a YouGov poll, contradict the results of last month's Doha Debate, where a mainly Arab audience narrowly passed a motion deploring the release.
The poll was completed during the third week of October by more than 1,000 respondents from 18 Arab countries.
Over half – 55 percent - of those interviewed cast doubt on Al Megrahi's conviction for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. A similar number said they had no idea who else might have carried out the attack.
Roughly half the respondents believe that Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing only to rejoin the international community and attract investment to its oil industry.
[The press release is published without alteration or addition in the 5 November edition of The Peninsula.
The full YouGov report on the poll can now be read here.]
Doha, Qatar, November 4: Six out of 10 Arabs support the Scottish government's decision to send the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi back to Libya on compassionate grounds – but a similar number didn't believe Libya would have done the same.
The findings, contained in a YouGov poll, contradict the results of last month's Doha Debate, where a mainly Arab audience narrowly passed a motion deploring the release.
The poll was completed during the third week of October by more than 1,000 respondents from 18 Arab countries.
Over half – 55 percent - of those interviewed cast doubt on Al Megrahi's conviction for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. A similar number said they had no idea who else might have carried out the attack.
Roughly half the respondents believe that Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing only to rejoin the international community and attract investment to its oil industry.
[The press release is published without alteration or addition in the 5 November edition of The Peninsula.
The full YouGov report on the poll can now be read here.]
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