On The Oligarch Kings blog today there is a post by David Macadam entitled "Lockerbie, the Scottish Bar and Libya: a different truth perhaps?". The last few paragraphs read as follows:]
The matter was referred to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review [Commission] whose own report, reluctantly oh so reluctantly, accepted that a miscarriage of justice had happened.
And Al-Megrahi appealed.
Scotland is a devolved country within the UK. Matters legal are dealt with by its own Justice Minister who is Kenny McAskill. Now Kenny is a nice guy. When he was in practise it was as a partner in a down home Mom and Pop law shop dealing with the daily concerns of ordinary people. He showed genuine concern and this lead him to politics where his calm manner and common touch have made him friends. But a diplomatic background or any international legal experience is not his.
This appeal had every likelihood of going ahead. If it did it would undoubtedly have been a disaster to the profession and to Scotland’s legal standing in the world.
Worse was to happen. Al-Megrahi fell ill with prostate cancer and a nightmare for the profession loomed. It was entirely likely that Al-Megrahi would be found innocent and it was just as likely, given the length of time the appeal would take, that he (an innocent man) would die a lingering death in a Scottish jail far from his home and family. Desperate for a way out of this quandary, did the profession do what it does best? Did it panic and send Kenny in to bat?
Kenny certainly does something really out of place for a justice minister. He turns up personally in the jail to negotiate with Al-Megrahi. The deal? We might speculate that it was to drop the appeal, and Kenny would invoke a little known part of a 1993 act which would allow him to release Megrahi as a compassionate act.
The appeal was certainly dropped and Al-Megrahi was back in Tripoli a fortnight later.
So, is Megrahi is back in Libya, not because BP were dealing with Libya, or any deal with the British Government but because the Scottish legal profession were terrified that the whole mess, which had been their one and only throw on the world stage, would come unravelled and their bar would end up looking like a bunch of backwood hicks and amateurs? It also entirely denies anyone ever being able to test Al-Megrahi’s arguments under court conditions. Did they put their own legal political expediency over justice?
It worked a treat boys didn’t it?
Sunday, 25 July 2010
US must be open on Megrahi letter
[This is the heading over a press release issued today by the SNP. It reads in part:]
The SNP called for the US Government to give its full co-operation to the Senate inquiry and to release the documents and any information over American discussions with Libya in relation to Abdelbasset Mohmed Al Megrahi.
Responding to revelations in todays newspapers of the content of US correspondence with the Scottish Government, reports of US negotiations over the Lockerbie bomber and campaign donations to the US senators involved in the inquiry from BP organizations SNP MSP Christine Grahame repeated her call for the US Government to allow the release of documents and for the Senate investigation to call the right witnesses:
“As a newspaper appears to have obtained this document it is ridiculous that the public and the US Senate Committee are unable to see it.
“At the very least the US Government must release its correspondence with the Scottish Government to its own Senate committee and lift the embargo on Scottish Government publication. Senator Menendez has asked for this document and the Obama administration must give permission for it to be released. The families of victims on both sides of the Atlantic deserve to know the full position of the US Government on this issue.
“If this senate inquiry is to be taken seriously it must ask the right questions of the right people and along with revisiting its failure to formally invite Tony Blair and his former adviser, now UK ambassador to the US Sir Nigel Sheinwald, they should ask the US government to set out what discussions it had with Libya over Mr Megrahi and if US officials were in contact or even accompanied UK officials in discussions around the deal in the desert.”
Commenting on the revelations of significant campaign donations by BP to US Senators and senior Democrats including President Obama and Hilary Clinton and by US oil companies drilling in and around Libya SNP MSP Michael Matheson said this exposed the pure politicking around what should be an incredibly serious issue.
Commenting on the revelations Mr Matheson said
"It's astonishing that after all the rhetoric and talk of BP funds as 'blood money' that those Senators attacking BP have benefited from their donations. It exposes some of the sheer political opportunism currently being played out over the tragic events at Lockerbie and in the Gulf."
The SNP called for the US Government to give its full co-operation to the Senate inquiry and to release the documents and any information over American discussions with Libya in relation to Abdelbasset Mohmed Al Megrahi.
Responding to revelations in todays newspapers of the content of US correspondence with the Scottish Government, reports of US negotiations over the Lockerbie bomber and campaign donations to the US senators involved in the inquiry from BP organizations SNP MSP Christine Grahame repeated her call for the US Government to allow the release of documents and for the Senate investigation to call the right witnesses:
“As a newspaper appears to have obtained this document it is ridiculous that the public and the US Senate Committee are unable to see it.
“At the very least the US Government must release its correspondence with the Scottish Government to its own Senate committee and lift the embargo on Scottish Government publication. Senator Menendez has asked for this document and the Obama administration must give permission for it to be released. The families of victims on both sides of the Atlantic deserve to know the full position of the US Government on this issue.
“If this senate inquiry is to be taken seriously it must ask the right questions of the right people and along with revisiting its failure to formally invite Tony Blair and his former adviser, now UK ambassador to the US Sir Nigel Sheinwald, they should ask the US government to set out what discussions it had with Libya over Mr Megrahi and if US officials were in contact or even accompanied UK officials in discussions around the deal in the desert.”
Commenting on the revelations of significant campaign donations by BP to US Senators and senior Democrats including President Obama and Hilary Clinton and by US oil companies drilling in and around Libya SNP MSP Michael Matheson said this exposed the pure politicking around what should be an incredibly serious issue.
Commenting on the revelations Mr Matheson said
"It's astonishing that after all the rhetoric and talk of BP funds as 'blood money' that those Senators attacking BP have benefited from their donations. It exposes some of the sheer political opportunism currently being played out over the tragic events at Lockerbie and in the Gulf."
‘Outraged’ US has been wooing Libya for years
[This is the heading over a section of Peter Hitchens's column in today's edition of the Mail on Sunday. Since the piece is short, and since it is probably the first time that I have ever agreed with anything written by Mr Hitchens, I quote it in full:]
Can those who fuss about the release of alleged Pan-Am bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi at least mention the fact there is no evidence that he committed this crime?
Also that the US government has been sucking up to Libya for years, in gratitude to Colonel Gaddafi for getting rid of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that he never in fact had.
Anyone who actually knows what is going on in the world must find the current dim, sheep-like credulity of most of the Western media almost unbearable.
[See also this short piece headed "US double talk on Megrahi" on The Spectator website.]
Can those who fuss about the release of alleged Pan-Am bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi at least mention the fact there is no evidence that he committed this crime?
Also that the US government has been sucking up to Libya for years, in gratitude to Colonel Gaddafi for getting rid of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that he never in fact had.
Anyone who actually knows what is going on in the world must find the current dim, sheep-like credulity of most of the Western media almost unbearable.
[See also this short piece headed "US double talk on Megrahi" on The Spectator website.]
US finds bullying a tough habit to kick
[This is the headline over an article by John Sexton on the China.org website. It reads in part:]
Imperial arrogance has become so ingrained in US political culture that it even pillories its most loyal ally, the United Kingdom.
While sensible countries like France drew back from the adventures of George W Bush, Tony Blair was always there, yapping his master on. But his fawning won the UK no rewards.
When new UK PM David Cameron arrived to pay homage in Washington last week, he faced a perfect storm of Brit-bashing over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In an extraordinary feat of self-deception, America is blaming the spill entirely on BP even though an explosion on an American-owned rig triggered the disaster. Warning systems on the Transocean Deepwater Horizon were disabled to allow the workers to sleep undisturbed. (...)
Scenting British blood, senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have demanded Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill attend hearings in Washington. They want to prove BP lobbyists, eager for Libyan oil concessions, persuaded the Scots to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds last year.
In fact, al-Megrahi was convicted in a special court in 2001 by three Scottish judges, on evidence so flimsy that even many relatives of the Lockerbie victims believe he was framed on the orders of the Americans.
The original Lockerbie inquiry had focused on the Iranians – who were said to have contracted a Palestinian group to destroy Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 in revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the USS Vincennes earlier the same year with the loss of 290 lives, including 66 children. (In a less than sensitive move, the US Navy later awarded combat medals to the Vincennes crew.)
But when it became no longer politically convenient to blame the Iranians, the perennial pantomime villain Colonel Gaddafi was a handy substitute, and al-Megrahi became the fall guy.
The Scottish ministers politely refused to attend the Imperial Inquisition. (As an aside, the senators must have forgotten that last time a Scot, George Galloway, appeared at a Washington hearing he wiped the floor with his interrogators.)
Salmond and MacKaskill showed more dignity than Cameron, who obediently proclaimed al-Megrahi's release "a mistake." Meanwhile back in London, his deputy, Nick "Calamity" Clegg, was complicating matters by declaring the 2003 invasion of Iraq illegal.
There are interesting times ahead for what one British MP has dubbed the Brokeback Coalition - and the UK's less-and-less special relationship with Washington.
Imperial arrogance has become so ingrained in US political culture that it even pillories its most loyal ally, the United Kingdom.
While sensible countries like France drew back from the adventures of George W Bush, Tony Blair was always there, yapping his master on. But his fawning won the UK no rewards.
When new UK PM David Cameron arrived to pay homage in Washington last week, he faced a perfect storm of Brit-bashing over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In an extraordinary feat of self-deception, America is blaming the spill entirely on BP even though an explosion on an American-owned rig triggered the disaster. Warning systems on the Transocean Deepwater Horizon were disabled to allow the workers to sleep undisturbed. (...)
Scenting British blood, senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have demanded Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill attend hearings in Washington. They want to prove BP lobbyists, eager for Libyan oil concessions, persuaded the Scots to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds last year.
In fact, al-Megrahi was convicted in a special court in 2001 by three Scottish judges, on evidence so flimsy that even many relatives of the Lockerbie victims believe he was framed on the orders of the Americans.
The original Lockerbie inquiry had focused on the Iranians – who were said to have contracted a Palestinian group to destroy Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 in revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the USS Vincennes earlier the same year with the loss of 290 lives, including 66 children. (In a less than sensitive move, the US Navy later awarded combat medals to the Vincennes crew.)
But when it became no longer politically convenient to blame the Iranians, the perennial pantomime villain Colonel Gaddafi was a handy substitute, and al-Megrahi became the fall guy.
The Scottish ministers politely refused to attend the Imperial Inquisition. (As an aside, the senators must have forgotten that last time a Scot, George Galloway, appeared at a Washington hearing he wiped the floor with his interrogators.)
Salmond and MacKaskill showed more dignity than Cameron, who obediently proclaimed al-Megrahi's release "a mistake." Meanwhile back in London, his deputy, Nick "Calamity" Clegg, was complicating matters by declaring the 2003 invasion of Iraq illegal.
There are interesting times ahead for what one British MP has dubbed the Brokeback Coalition - and the UK's less-and-less special relationship with Washington.
The release of Megrahi: the buck stops here
[This is the headline over a long article by Eddie Barnes in Scotland on Sunday. The first section covers the well-trodden ground of the Scottish government's reasons for not sending witnesses to the Senate hearing and former UK minister Jack Staw's reasons for also refusing. The second section is more interesting -- particularly in a newspaper with the political stance of this one. It contains the following:]
With the two governments having rehearsed their lines over and again, it is hard to see how, even if they hauled Straw and MacAskill over in manacles, they would get further than the simple facts which the two governments can lean upon. MacAskill released Megrahi because he was ill. Straw and BP didn't release Megrahi because they couldn't.
End of story? Not quite. For relatives such as Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among those killed in December 1988, the hope is that the questionable genesis of the Senate inquiry, and the buck-passing of its witnesses, will not deter it from a more thorough investigation; into the trial of Megrahi himself.
Here the controversy really begins. For while BP's alleged involvement has created all the heat in Washington in recent weeks, the slow-burning story of Megrahi's prosecution is likely to last for much longer. Lockerbie veterans such as former Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who has long believed in Megrahi's innocence, thinks there is an obvious reason why MacAskill decided to free Megrahi. Yes, because he was terminally ill. But also: "I think he and Alex Salmond know in their heart of hearts that Megrahi was an innocent man who had nothing to do with Lockerbie."
He goes on: "Of course they can't say this because if they were to say it, here would be an SNP government decrying the quality of Scottish justice. It would be saying that Scottish justice had made an almighty fool of itself in the eyes of the world."
Dalyell and other sceptics such as Swire and UN Observer Hans Kochler, all argue that Megrahi's release was inextricably linked to the prisoner's decision to drop his appeal just before he was released last year. Minutes from the controversial meeting MacAskill had with Megrahi in Greenock jail show that the Justice Secretary raised the question of the appeal with Megrahi, warning him that the Scottish Government could "only grant a transfer if there are no court proceedings ongoing".
Megrahi had already been informed that the PTA request and compassionate release request (which was not affected by the appeal) would be taken together. There is no evidence in the minutes of any deal being brokered, but questions about why that meeting took place are now being raised. Kochler declared: "It is entirely appropriate to ask whether the decisive motive might have been the termination of proceedings so that the Scottish, UK and US administrations in the handing of the Lockerbie case would never be fully scrutinised in a court of law." Swire, Kochler and Dalyell all believe the matter needs to be examined.
For many American relatives who are convinced of Megrahi's guilt, such an inquiry into the reliability of the conviction would be met with dismay. Kochler and others are "conspiracy buffs", they argue The evidence linking Megrahi to the crime was clear. But the fact is that the senate inquiry, however misguided in its approach, is now focusing attention once more on the original claims: the Iranian connection; the claims of baggage on Flight 103 being tampered with at Heathrow; the evidence allegedly planted on the scene; the complicity of the US and UK Governments in a cover-up; and whether an innocent man was put in the dock.
The logical lesson to be taken from last week's buck-passing is clear.
If the US Senate cannot get the answers, then surely a proper inquiry should be called. The US Senators themselves have acknowledged this.
Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the four who called this week's hearing, declared: "The only way to restore the integrity of what happened and to continue the integrity of the British government is to do a full and complete investigation." Only a few weeks ago – before he took office – David Cameron agreed, arguing in the strongest terms that the matters most be probed.
Now in office, he is vacillating. It was Jack Straw and Kenny MacAskill who played the blame game last week. But if Cameron refuses to act over the coming weeks, he may go down as the biggest buck-passer of them all.
With the two governments having rehearsed their lines over and again, it is hard to see how, even if they hauled Straw and MacAskill over in manacles, they would get further than the simple facts which the two governments can lean upon. MacAskill released Megrahi because he was ill. Straw and BP didn't release Megrahi because they couldn't.
End of story? Not quite. For relatives such as Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among those killed in December 1988, the hope is that the questionable genesis of the Senate inquiry, and the buck-passing of its witnesses, will not deter it from a more thorough investigation; into the trial of Megrahi himself.
Here the controversy really begins. For while BP's alleged involvement has created all the heat in Washington in recent weeks, the slow-burning story of Megrahi's prosecution is likely to last for much longer. Lockerbie veterans such as former Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who has long believed in Megrahi's innocence, thinks there is an obvious reason why MacAskill decided to free Megrahi. Yes, because he was terminally ill. But also: "I think he and Alex Salmond know in their heart of hearts that Megrahi was an innocent man who had nothing to do with Lockerbie."
He goes on: "Of course they can't say this because if they were to say it, here would be an SNP government decrying the quality of Scottish justice. It would be saying that Scottish justice had made an almighty fool of itself in the eyes of the world."
Dalyell and other sceptics such as Swire and UN Observer Hans Kochler, all argue that Megrahi's release was inextricably linked to the prisoner's decision to drop his appeal just before he was released last year. Minutes from the controversial meeting MacAskill had with Megrahi in Greenock jail show that the Justice Secretary raised the question of the appeal with Megrahi, warning him that the Scottish Government could "only grant a transfer if there are no court proceedings ongoing".
Megrahi had already been informed that the PTA request and compassionate release request (which was not affected by the appeal) would be taken together. There is no evidence in the minutes of any deal being brokered, but questions about why that meeting took place are now being raised. Kochler declared: "It is entirely appropriate to ask whether the decisive motive might have been the termination of proceedings so that the Scottish, UK and US administrations in the handing of the Lockerbie case would never be fully scrutinised in a court of law." Swire, Kochler and Dalyell all believe the matter needs to be examined.
For many American relatives who are convinced of Megrahi's guilt, such an inquiry into the reliability of the conviction would be met with dismay. Kochler and others are "conspiracy buffs", they argue The evidence linking Megrahi to the crime was clear. But the fact is that the senate inquiry, however misguided in its approach, is now focusing attention once more on the original claims: the Iranian connection; the claims of baggage on Flight 103 being tampered with at Heathrow; the evidence allegedly planted on the scene; the complicity of the US and UK Governments in a cover-up; and whether an innocent man was put in the dock.
The logical lesson to be taken from last week's buck-passing is clear.
If the US Senate cannot get the answers, then surely a proper inquiry should be called. The US Senators themselves have acknowledged this.
Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the four who called this week's hearing, declared: "The only way to restore the integrity of what happened and to continue the integrity of the British government is to do a full and complete investigation." Only a few weeks ago – before he took office – David Cameron agreed, arguing in the strongest terms that the matters most be probed.
Now in office, he is vacillating. It was Jack Straw and Kenny MacAskill who played the blame game last week. But if Cameron refuses to act over the coming weeks, he may go down as the biggest buck-passer of them all.
Lockerbie: now pressure switches to America
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Sunday Herald. It reads in part:]
Pressure is growing on the US government to release secret documents which detail its position on the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
As the trans-Atlantic row deepens over why Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was freed from a Scottish jail last summer, the US government is being urged to drop its ban on the publication of letters it sent to both the Scottish Government and Whitehall on the issue.
The US government refused Holyrood permission to make the papers public in a strongly worded letter last September, a month after Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, was allowed to return to Libya following his compassionate release.
But the move to make the documents public took a step forward as the Senate committee on foreign affairs prepares for Thursday’s inquiry into the prisoner’s release, with chairman Senator Robert Menendez requesting that the Scottish Government provide information on Megrahi’s release in five key areas.
They include “any documents including communications to or from Scottish Government officials, relating to the US government’s position on Al Megrahi’s release or transfer to Libyan custody.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said last night: “We have received another letter from Senator Menendez, who will chair next week’s hearing, and who has now asked for us to provide five categories of documents relating to the case. We are more than happy to do so, and indeed have already published all we hold on this issue, with the exception of some documents where permission for publication has so far been declined.
“These unpublished documents include correspondence between the Scottish Government and the US Government, whose release Senator Menendez has now requested. We would urge the Senator and his colleagues to work with their own Government so that the remaining information we hold can be published in the interests of maximum transparency.”
The Scottish Government also denied reports that Alex Salmond received a letter from committee member Senator Frank Lautenberg, who is said to have “pleaded” with the First Minister to send a representative to the hearing to add “credibility” to proceedings.
[Another article in the same newspaper by James Cusick contains the following:]
Of all the missing pieces in the jigsaw of information on the Lockerbie bombing and its aftermath one of the most confusing is Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s decision to drop his appeal against his conviction for the greatest terrorist atrocity ever perpetrated over Scottish soil. (...)
The Scottish Government had repeatedly branded the 2007 Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK and Libya – brokered in Tripoli in May 2007 by the then-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and his foreign affairs adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald – as unconstitutional because it took no account of Scotland’s separate legal identity from the UK Government,
For the prisoner transfer agreement to go ahead Megrahi would have had to drop his appeal. But MacAskill rejected the PTA and opted instead to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, under the terms of which the appeal could have gone ahead as planned. Yet Megrahi opted to drop it. Why? (...)
MacAskill will have known the full facts that lay behind the SCCRC’s decision to grant the appeal. The commission produced an 800-page report of the decision taken at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001. It was a Scottish court sitting in an independent country, and heard by three high court judges. A further 14 pages offered evaluation of new evidence and new circumstances surrounding the case against Megrahi, and identified six key areas where a potential miscarriage of justice may have taken place. (...)
Perhaps the most damning fall-out from the imminent appeal process, however, is the potential shredding of the evidence used to convict Megrahi and the unanswered questions about why they were admitted to court in the first place. Other uncomfortable questions centre on why wider investigations into the background of key witnesses did not take place on any scale that would have routinely been tested in a different legal arena.
Crucial to Megrahi’s conviction was the prosecution’s ability to place him in Malta on December 7, 1988. That was the day the court identified as the date a purchase was made at Mary’s House, a shop run by Tony Gauci. Clothes bought in the Sliema shop on this specific date were said to have been in the Samsonite case containing the explosive device.
Gauci was the witness who identified Megrahi as buying the clothes from his shop, on December 7. (...) This is crucial because the Libyan’s passport states that he was in Malta at that time. But if the clothes purchase was made earlier then Megrahi couldn’t have been in Malta at the time. That is the new picture painted in the evidence reviewed by the SCCRC. Gauci’s identification of Megrahi in his shop is also questioned.
Documents also allege that at an early stage of the US-UK investigation Gauci asked for, and was given, $2m by the US Department of Justice for his contributions to the case.
Other new areas of evidence which cast doubt on the conviction included documents said to have come from the CIA which relate to the ‘Mebo’ timer that is said to have been the key device which detonated the bomb on the aircraft. Details of these documents were not given to Megrahi’s defence counsel.
The owner of the Mebo firm, Edwin Bollier, is also listed in review of the evidence as claiming that in 1991 the FBI offered him $4m to testify that the fragments of a timer found near the scene of the crash were part of a Mebo MST-13 timer which the company said had been supplied to Libya.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is supposed to be the outcome of any legal process seeking justice. The appeal of Megrahi, had it gone ahead, suggests that Scottish justice fell short in the way it dealt with Lockerbie.
[A third article in The Sunday Herald by Tom Gordon reads in part:]
To many observers, it was the day Kenny MacAskill crossed a line. Before BP’s oil spill made it the focus for conspiracy theories, it was also the moment some felt ministers pressured a dying man to spare the blushes of the Scots legal system.
Just before 9am on Wednesday, August 5 last year, the Justice Secretary entered Greenock Prison for a meeting with inmate 55725. (...)
On May 5, the Libyan government had applied for Megrahi’s release under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) initiated by Tony Blair.
The following month, on the advice of George Burgess, head of the government’s criminal law and licensing division, MacAskill agreed to meetings with key players in the Lockerbie case, including Megrahi.
On July 24, Megrahi made a separate application for release on compassionate grounds. (...)
MacAskill came with Robert Gordon, director of the Justice Department, and Linda Miller, from the Criminal Law and Licensing Division.
According to official notes of the meeting, MacAskill said he would be considering both applications for release “in parallel”.
After asserting his innocence, Megrahi gave a history of his case, from his surrender in 1999, to trial at Camp Zeist in 2001, up to the present day, his illness, separation from his family, and feeling of “desolation”.
MacAskill stressed he could only grant a PTA transfer if there were no court proceedings ongoing – in other words, if Megrahi dropped his appeals against conviction and sentence.
“Mr Megrahi confirmed he understood this point,” the note recorded.
However, according to one of those close to events, Megrahi wrongly took this to mean that dropping his appeals was also a pre-condition of compassionate release. It wasn’t.
“MacAskill said something stupid. He shouldn’t have mentioned the appeal at all. “[The two processes] were conflated. That’s ultimately what Megrahi took from it,” said the source.
A week later, Megrahi signalled he was dropping his appeals.
His QC, Maggie Scott, told the High Court her client thought this would “assist in the early determination of these applications”.
Note the “applications” plural. (...)
A senior legal source told the Sunday Herald Megrahi was definitely under the false impression that abandoning his appeals would help secure compassionate release.
However the Libyan may simply have calculated that with MacAskill considering the PTA and compassionate applications at the same time, ending his appeals would leave both options open rather than just one. [Note by RB: This is the correct interpretation. Mr Megrahi was very well aware that compassionate release did not require abandonment of the appeal. Equally, he knew that prisoner transfer did; and he, like his government, was still labouring under the lingering impression created by Blair and Sheinwald during the "deal in the desert" that his repatriation under the PTA was really a done deal. Release under the PTA was what was really expected, because that was what Nigel and Tony had led the Libyan government to believe.]
On September 2, by a majority vote, the Scottish Parliament declared MacAskill had “mishandled” the release decision, and that meeting Megrahi while considering his application for compassionate release was “wrong”, and an “inappropriate precedent”.
[An editorial in the same newspaper headlined "Don’t let America give us lessons in justice" contains the following:]
[E]ven if MacAskill’s decision was flawed – and that is surely a subjective opinion – there remains no evidence that BP played any role whatsoever in persuading the Justice Minister to release Megrahi. The Scottish Government has insisted it received no representations from the oil company, and that it had no contact with it. There is no evidence, or indeed any serious suggestion, that is not the case.
There is, however, plenty of evidence that the Westminster Government wanted Megrahi free and that it was lobbied by BP to pave the way for his return to Libya.
It was the Westminster Government – albeit not the present Government – that agreed the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya when Megrahi was the only significant Libyan in a British jail. It was a Westminster Government which specifically agreed not to exclude Megrahi from that agreement. And it was a Westminster Government that decided to agree a strategy of bringing Libya back in from the cold. BP has already admitted lobbying Westminster for a quick conclusion to the prisoner transfer agreement so that trade with Libya could resume. Indeed, a deal between the Libyan government and BP was signed almost immediately after the prisoner transfer agreement was approved. All this is in the public domain. It does not require an inquiry in America to establish these facts.
It was only when it became apparent that Westminister did not have the legal authority to release Megrahi that the matter landed on MacAskill’s desk. Westminster may have officially kept its wishes to itself while MacAskill was making his deliberations but there can be no doubt that it privately wished Megrahi freed. It had already agreed a deal to make that happen.
In the end, MacAskill went against the prisoner transfer agreement but instead decided on compassionate release. It is acceptable to question the wisdom of that decision. It is not acceptable to question MacAskill’s right to make it.
Yet if the events surrounding Megrahi’s death are known, there are many facts about his conviction, and in particular his appeal against that conviction, which remain shrouded in mystery.
By all means we should have an inquiry which would allow the serious doubts about the veracity of the evidence against Megrahi to be aired. But we do not need the inquiry currently being demanded and we do not need America to give us lessons in justice. Alex Salmond is right to have nothing to do with it.
Pressure is growing on the US government to release secret documents which detail its position on the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
As the trans-Atlantic row deepens over why Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was freed from a Scottish jail last summer, the US government is being urged to drop its ban on the publication of letters it sent to both the Scottish Government and Whitehall on the issue.
The US government refused Holyrood permission to make the papers public in a strongly worded letter last September, a month after Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, was allowed to return to Libya following his compassionate release.
But the move to make the documents public took a step forward as the Senate committee on foreign affairs prepares for Thursday’s inquiry into the prisoner’s release, with chairman Senator Robert Menendez requesting that the Scottish Government provide information on Megrahi’s release in five key areas.
They include “any documents including communications to or from Scottish Government officials, relating to the US government’s position on Al Megrahi’s release or transfer to Libyan custody.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said last night: “We have received another letter from Senator Menendez, who will chair next week’s hearing, and who has now asked for us to provide five categories of documents relating to the case. We are more than happy to do so, and indeed have already published all we hold on this issue, with the exception of some documents where permission for publication has so far been declined.
“These unpublished documents include correspondence between the Scottish Government and the US Government, whose release Senator Menendez has now requested. We would urge the Senator and his colleagues to work with their own Government so that the remaining information we hold can be published in the interests of maximum transparency.”
The Scottish Government also denied reports that Alex Salmond received a letter from committee member Senator Frank Lautenberg, who is said to have “pleaded” with the First Minister to send a representative to the hearing to add “credibility” to proceedings.
[Another article in the same newspaper by James Cusick contains the following:]
Of all the missing pieces in the jigsaw of information on the Lockerbie bombing and its aftermath one of the most confusing is Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s decision to drop his appeal against his conviction for the greatest terrorist atrocity ever perpetrated over Scottish soil. (...)
The Scottish Government had repeatedly branded the 2007 Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK and Libya – brokered in Tripoli in May 2007 by the then-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and his foreign affairs adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald – as unconstitutional because it took no account of Scotland’s separate legal identity from the UK Government,
For the prisoner transfer agreement to go ahead Megrahi would have had to drop his appeal. But MacAskill rejected the PTA and opted instead to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, under the terms of which the appeal could have gone ahead as planned. Yet Megrahi opted to drop it. Why? (...)
MacAskill will have known the full facts that lay behind the SCCRC’s decision to grant the appeal. The commission produced an 800-page report of the decision taken at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001. It was a Scottish court sitting in an independent country, and heard by three high court judges. A further 14 pages offered evaluation of new evidence and new circumstances surrounding the case against Megrahi, and identified six key areas where a potential miscarriage of justice may have taken place. (...)
Perhaps the most damning fall-out from the imminent appeal process, however, is the potential shredding of the evidence used to convict Megrahi and the unanswered questions about why they were admitted to court in the first place. Other uncomfortable questions centre on why wider investigations into the background of key witnesses did not take place on any scale that would have routinely been tested in a different legal arena.
Crucial to Megrahi’s conviction was the prosecution’s ability to place him in Malta on December 7, 1988. That was the day the court identified as the date a purchase was made at Mary’s House, a shop run by Tony Gauci. Clothes bought in the Sliema shop on this specific date were said to have been in the Samsonite case containing the explosive device.
Gauci was the witness who identified Megrahi as buying the clothes from his shop, on December 7. (...) This is crucial because the Libyan’s passport states that he was in Malta at that time. But if the clothes purchase was made earlier then Megrahi couldn’t have been in Malta at the time. That is the new picture painted in the evidence reviewed by the SCCRC. Gauci’s identification of Megrahi in his shop is also questioned.
Documents also allege that at an early stage of the US-UK investigation Gauci asked for, and was given, $2m by the US Department of Justice for his contributions to the case.
Other new areas of evidence which cast doubt on the conviction included documents said to have come from the CIA which relate to the ‘Mebo’ timer that is said to have been the key device which detonated the bomb on the aircraft. Details of these documents were not given to Megrahi’s defence counsel.
The owner of the Mebo firm, Edwin Bollier, is also listed in review of the evidence as claiming that in 1991 the FBI offered him $4m to testify that the fragments of a timer found near the scene of the crash were part of a Mebo MST-13 timer which the company said had been supplied to Libya.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is supposed to be the outcome of any legal process seeking justice. The appeal of Megrahi, had it gone ahead, suggests that Scottish justice fell short in the way it dealt with Lockerbie.
[A third article in The Sunday Herald by Tom Gordon reads in part:]
To many observers, it was the day Kenny MacAskill crossed a line. Before BP’s oil spill made it the focus for conspiracy theories, it was also the moment some felt ministers pressured a dying man to spare the blushes of the Scots legal system.
Just before 9am on Wednesday, August 5 last year, the Justice Secretary entered Greenock Prison for a meeting with inmate 55725. (...)
On May 5, the Libyan government had applied for Megrahi’s release under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) initiated by Tony Blair.
The following month, on the advice of George Burgess, head of the government’s criminal law and licensing division, MacAskill agreed to meetings with key players in the Lockerbie case, including Megrahi.
On July 24, Megrahi made a separate application for release on compassionate grounds. (...)
MacAskill came with Robert Gordon, director of the Justice Department, and Linda Miller, from the Criminal Law and Licensing Division.
According to official notes of the meeting, MacAskill said he would be considering both applications for release “in parallel”.
After asserting his innocence, Megrahi gave a history of his case, from his surrender in 1999, to trial at Camp Zeist in 2001, up to the present day, his illness, separation from his family, and feeling of “desolation”.
MacAskill stressed he could only grant a PTA transfer if there were no court proceedings ongoing – in other words, if Megrahi dropped his appeals against conviction and sentence.
“Mr Megrahi confirmed he understood this point,” the note recorded.
However, according to one of those close to events, Megrahi wrongly took this to mean that dropping his appeals was also a pre-condition of compassionate release. It wasn’t.
“MacAskill said something stupid. He shouldn’t have mentioned the appeal at all. “[The two processes] were conflated. That’s ultimately what Megrahi took from it,” said the source.
A week later, Megrahi signalled he was dropping his appeals.
His QC, Maggie Scott, told the High Court her client thought this would “assist in the early determination of these applications”.
Note the “applications” plural. (...)
A senior legal source told the Sunday Herald Megrahi was definitely under the false impression that abandoning his appeals would help secure compassionate release.
However the Libyan may simply have calculated that with MacAskill considering the PTA and compassionate applications at the same time, ending his appeals would leave both options open rather than just one. [Note by RB: This is the correct interpretation. Mr Megrahi was very well aware that compassionate release did not require abandonment of the appeal. Equally, he knew that prisoner transfer did; and he, like his government, was still labouring under the lingering impression created by Blair and Sheinwald during the "deal in the desert" that his repatriation under the PTA was really a done deal. Release under the PTA was what was really expected, because that was what Nigel and Tony had led the Libyan government to believe.]
On September 2, by a majority vote, the Scottish Parliament declared MacAskill had “mishandled” the release decision, and that meeting Megrahi while considering his application for compassionate release was “wrong”, and an “inappropriate precedent”.
[An editorial in the same newspaper headlined "Don’t let America give us lessons in justice" contains the following:]
[E]ven if MacAskill’s decision was flawed – and that is surely a subjective opinion – there remains no evidence that BP played any role whatsoever in persuading the Justice Minister to release Megrahi. The Scottish Government has insisted it received no representations from the oil company, and that it had no contact with it. There is no evidence, or indeed any serious suggestion, that is not the case.
There is, however, plenty of evidence that the Westminster Government wanted Megrahi free and that it was lobbied by BP to pave the way for his return to Libya.
It was the Westminster Government – albeit not the present Government – that agreed the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya when Megrahi was the only significant Libyan in a British jail. It was a Westminster Government which specifically agreed not to exclude Megrahi from that agreement. And it was a Westminster Government that decided to agree a strategy of bringing Libya back in from the cold. BP has already admitted lobbying Westminster for a quick conclusion to the prisoner transfer agreement so that trade with Libya could resume. Indeed, a deal between the Libyan government and BP was signed almost immediately after the prisoner transfer agreement was approved. All this is in the public domain. It does not require an inquiry in America to establish these facts.
It was only when it became apparent that Westminister did not have the legal authority to release Megrahi that the matter landed on MacAskill’s desk. Westminster may have officially kept its wishes to itself while MacAskill was making his deliberations but there can be no doubt that it privately wished Megrahi freed. It had already agreed a deal to make that happen.
In the end, MacAskill went against the prisoner transfer agreement but instead decided on compassionate release. It is acceptable to question the wisdom of that decision. It is not acceptable to question MacAskill’s right to make it.
Yet if the events surrounding Megrahi’s death are known, there are many facts about his conviction, and in particular his appeal against that conviction, which remain shrouded in mystery.
By all means we should have an inquiry which would allow the serious doubts about the veracity of the evidence against Megrahi to be aired. But we do not need the inquiry currently being demanded and we do not need America to give us lessons in justice. Alex Salmond is right to have nothing to do with it.
Saturday, 24 July 2010
The Libya investment firm and the release of the Lockerbie bomber
[This is the headline over a report on the Telegraph website. The following are excerpts.]
The terraced house just around the corner from the American embassy in London looks like most in the affluent street. Tall and elegant, only the shiny brass plaque gives a clue to what lies beyond the black front door.
The name reads Dalia Advisory Limited, a company established by Libyan businessmen just a week after the country's officials were told the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was being considered for release on compassionate grounds.
Dalia Advisory is in fact a "front" for the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), a sovereign wealth fund with £80 billion, to invest in Britain and beyond. The Georgian town house, bought for £6 million, is, ironically, only a few yards from the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Senior business sources have told The Sunday Telegraph that had Megrahi died in a British jail, the LIA would have taken its vast sums elsewhere. "If Megrahi had perished in Scotland, we would have become a pariah state as far as the Libyans were concerned," said one source.
Oliver Miles, a former ambassador to Libya and now deputy chairman of the Libyan British Business Council, said: "At the time of his release everyone knew that if he died in a Scottish jail, it would be bad for our relations." (...)
However long Megrahi now survives, the fact is business between Britain and Libya is currently booming. British exports to Libya are now double what they were a year ago while imports from Libya have risen three fold. In the first two months of this year alone, the UK exported £110 million of goods and services.
In Washington this week, the timing of the establishment of Dalia, run by an associate of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's favourite son Saif, will come under the scrutiny of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a wide-ranging hearing into the release.
Angry US politicians and victims' families are convinced that Megrahi – convicted of the murder of 270 people, 189 of them Americans, when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Dec 1988 – was allowed home to ease oil and business deals between Libya and Britain.
There is particular focus on the role of BP, already on America's most hated list because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In the US, the company is prime suspect in masterminding the release – although the British and Scottish governments and BP have all denied this.
And US-British relations are heading for a fresh crisis over the Megrahi affair as it appears that none of the five invited British witnesses will attend Thursday's hearing. (...)
BP is to expected to send a senior executive but not the two men requested by senators – Tony Hayward, the beleaguered chief executive who may be about to leave the company, and Sir Mark Allen, the former MI6 agent who acted as a go-between for British and Libyan authorities. (...)
Speaking in a personal capacity, Mr Miles believes the American senators are conducting a "kangaroo court". He said: "They have already decided BP are guilty but they haven't got any evidence to say that." (...)
American anger is only compounded by the tone from Tripoli. Megrahi's wife Aisha, a schoolteacher, said: "Abdelbaset was a political prisoner who paid with ten years of his life to support his country. Libyans are perfectly right to celebrate his return to his family." And his eldest brother Mohammed added: "The public response is not a political one, but a show of support for someone who is much loved." (...)
Dalia was incorporated, according to Companies House records, on July 14 last year. A week earlier, at a meeting between Scottish and Libyan officials, Mr MacAskill first discussed the possibility of Megrahi being released on compassionate grounds rather than under PTA. [Note by RB: This wording gives the impression that, out of the blue, Kenny MacAskill raised the possibility of compassionate release with Libyan officials. This is arrant nonsense. The compassionate release option had been discussed in the media and was familiar to Libyan officials long before their meeting with Mr MacAskill.] BP's lobbying for the PTA – which was holding up ratification of a Libyan oil exploration deal – is at the centre of the US senate hearing next week.
The terraced house just around the corner from the American embassy in London looks like most in the affluent street. Tall and elegant, only the shiny brass plaque gives a clue to what lies beyond the black front door.
The name reads Dalia Advisory Limited, a company established by Libyan businessmen just a week after the country's officials were told the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was being considered for release on compassionate grounds.
Dalia Advisory is in fact a "front" for the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), a sovereign wealth fund with £80 billion, to invest in Britain and beyond. The Georgian town house, bought for £6 million, is, ironically, only a few yards from the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Senior business sources have told The Sunday Telegraph that had Megrahi died in a British jail, the LIA would have taken its vast sums elsewhere. "If Megrahi had perished in Scotland, we would have become a pariah state as far as the Libyans were concerned," said one source.
Oliver Miles, a former ambassador to Libya and now deputy chairman of the Libyan British Business Council, said: "At the time of his release everyone knew that if he died in a Scottish jail, it would be bad for our relations." (...)
However long Megrahi now survives, the fact is business between Britain and Libya is currently booming. British exports to Libya are now double what they were a year ago while imports from Libya have risen three fold. In the first two months of this year alone, the UK exported £110 million of goods and services.
In Washington this week, the timing of the establishment of Dalia, run by an associate of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's favourite son Saif, will come under the scrutiny of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a wide-ranging hearing into the release.
Angry US politicians and victims' families are convinced that Megrahi – convicted of the murder of 270 people, 189 of them Americans, when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Dec 1988 – was allowed home to ease oil and business deals between Libya and Britain.
There is particular focus on the role of BP, already on America's most hated list because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In the US, the company is prime suspect in masterminding the release – although the British and Scottish governments and BP have all denied this.
And US-British relations are heading for a fresh crisis over the Megrahi affair as it appears that none of the five invited British witnesses will attend Thursday's hearing. (...)
BP is to expected to send a senior executive but not the two men requested by senators – Tony Hayward, the beleaguered chief executive who may be about to leave the company, and Sir Mark Allen, the former MI6 agent who acted as a go-between for British and Libyan authorities. (...)
Speaking in a personal capacity, Mr Miles believes the American senators are conducting a "kangaroo court". He said: "They have already decided BP are guilty but they haven't got any evidence to say that." (...)
American anger is only compounded by the tone from Tripoli. Megrahi's wife Aisha, a schoolteacher, said: "Abdelbaset was a political prisoner who paid with ten years of his life to support his country. Libyans are perfectly right to celebrate his return to his family." And his eldest brother Mohammed added: "The public response is not a political one, but a show of support for someone who is much loved." (...)
Dalia was incorporated, according to Companies House records, on July 14 last year. A week earlier, at a meeting between Scottish and Libyan officials, Mr MacAskill first discussed the possibility of Megrahi being released on compassionate grounds rather than under PTA. [Note by RB: This wording gives the impression that, out of the blue, Kenny MacAskill raised the possibility of compassionate release with Libyan officials. This is arrant nonsense. The compassionate release option had been discussed in the media and was familiar to Libyan officials long before their meeting with Mr MacAskill.] BP's lobbying for the PTA – which was holding up ratification of a Libyan oil exploration deal – is at the centre of the US senate hearing next week.
Kenny MacAskill rejects Lockerbie plea
[This is the headline over a report on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]
Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has again refused to attend a US senate hearing over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Mr MacAskill said the only documents which the Scottish government had not already put in the public domain were correspondence with the US government.
A US senator has "pleaded" with the Scottish government to appear before the hearing next week. (...)
Mr MacAskill told the BBC the Scottish government had not yet received Mr Lautenberg's letter, but had received one from New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, a member of the Senate's foreign affairs committee, who had asked for further information.
He said: "The point has already been made quite clear by the First Minister of Scotland - I am the justice secretary of Scotland, I am elected by the people of Scotland and I am answerable to the parliament of Scotland.
"I have been made available and co-operated with enquiries both in the Scottish Parliament and in Westminster, and that is where jurisdiction lies."
Mr MacAskill said he would be happy to provide Mr Menendez with the information he had requested, which the Scottish government had already published on the internet.
He added: "The only matter that remains outstanding is communications between the American government and ourselves.
"The only reason that has not been published is that the American government has refused to give us consent to publish it.
"If Senator Menendez, and indeed Senator Lautenberg, wish to lobby or persuade the United States government to allow the release of that information, we will publish it forthwith."
[If the claim in the editorial in The Herald is correct that the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepts the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement, it is unlikely -- in a mid-term election year -- that the US government would consent to its release or that Democrat senators would seriously try to persuade it to do so.]
Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has again refused to attend a US senate hearing over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Mr MacAskill said the only documents which the Scottish government had not already put in the public domain were correspondence with the US government.
A US senator has "pleaded" with the Scottish government to appear before the hearing next week. (...)
Mr MacAskill told the BBC the Scottish government had not yet received Mr Lautenberg's letter, but had received one from New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, a member of the Senate's foreign affairs committee, who had asked for further information.
He said: "The point has already been made quite clear by the First Minister of Scotland - I am the justice secretary of Scotland, I am elected by the people of Scotland and I am answerable to the parliament of Scotland.
"I have been made available and co-operated with enquiries both in the Scottish Parliament and in Westminster, and that is where jurisdiction lies."
Mr MacAskill said he would be happy to provide Mr Menendez with the information he had requested, which the Scottish government had already published on the internet.
He added: "The only matter that remains outstanding is communications between the American government and ourselves.
"The only reason that has not been published is that the American government has refused to give us consent to publish it.
"If Senator Menendez, and indeed Senator Lautenberg, wish to lobby or persuade the United States government to allow the release of that information, we will publish it forthwith."
[If the claim in the editorial in The Herald is correct that the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepts the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement, it is unlikely -- in a mid-term election year -- that the US government would consent to its release or that Democrat senators would seriously try to persuade it to do so.]
MacAskill's meeting with Megrahi
[I am grateful to a reader of this blog who yesterday evening sent me the following message:]
You will be interested in tonight's Any Questions, if you didn't hear it. It's on the iPlayer here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t2y8r/Any_Questions_23_07_2010/
They begin with Megrahi, but you can go to 12 or 13 minutes in for the interesting bit. Magnus Linklater says he has seen a transcript of the meeting between Kenny MacAskill and Megrahi, and Kenny says "There is no question of you being released while there is still an appeal outstanding. The decsion as to whether you pursue that appeal is for you and your legal team."
Fergus Ewing has made it clear that the meeting was part of the provisions of the PTA and was about that application not compassionate release; however, that wording (if Magnus has remembered it correctly) seems very definite, if not threatening. One would need to know whether these were the exact words, and whether in context it was indeed referring purely to the PTA, but something smells very funny about this.
You will be interested in tonight's Any Questions, if you didn't hear it. It's on the iPlayer here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t2y8r/Any_Questions_23_07_2010/
They begin with Megrahi, but you can go to 12 or 13 minutes in for the interesting bit. Magnus Linklater says he has seen a transcript of the meeting between Kenny MacAskill and Megrahi, and Kenny says "There is no question of you being released while there is still an appeal outstanding. The decsion as to whether you pursue that appeal is for you and your legal team."
Fergus Ewing has made it clear that the meeting was part of the provisions of the PTA and was about that application not compassionate release; however, that wording (if Magnus has remembered it correctly) seems very definite, if not threatening. One would need to know whether these were the exact words, and whether in context it was indeed referring purely to the PTA, but something smells very funny about this.
US should examine its own conscience
[This is the headline over an editorial in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]
The decision by the Scottish Government that the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) director of health, Dr Andrew Fraser, should not give evidence at a United States Senate hearing into the release of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has brought claims they have something to hide.
But the charge should be directed at the US and the Senators should invite evidence from their own State Department. The letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepting the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) confirms the US condemnation of the Scottish Government as hypocrisy of the first order.
The Justice Secretary and the SPS health director are right to rebuff the US Senators’ invitation to attend the hearing into the release of Megrahi. Their actions have already been explained in a letter from Alex Salmond to Senators, along with an offer to answer further questions. It is therefore difficult to see what the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has to gain from the Justice Secretary appearing before them other than to bait him in a febrile political arena.
Wilful confusion has been stoked by US politicians who have deliberately ignored the inconvenient truth that a major obstacle to the PTA was that the only Libyan of any consequence in a British jail, Megrahi, was subject to the separate legal jurisdiction in Scotland.
His release last year was on the separate grounds of compassion due to a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer. Only its timing, which closely followed ratification of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK Government and Libya and the announcement of drilling rights for BP in Libya, has allowed conflation by those seeking to exploit outrage over the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Nevertheless the Scottish Government’s avowal of transparency is brought into focus by the refusal of the Justice Secretary to explain why he took the unprecedented step for a government minister of holding a private meeting with a prisoner before release. As long as that question remains unanswered, suspicion will continue that Megrahi’s withdrawal of his appeal was part of a deal. If MacAskill has nothing to hide, he should be open about the reason for that meeting, unless there is good cause to keep the matter under wraps. By the same token the US Senators should be honest and decouple Scotland’s compassionate release of Megrahi from BP’s interests in Libya.
The attack on PanAm flight 103 has been mired in the complexities of international politics from the beginning and, unfairly or not, Scottish justice has been found wanting in the international court of public opinion. The most glaring affront to justice, however, will always be that 270 people died on December 21, 1988 as the innocent victims of a terrorist crime. Their memories should be honoured by a quest for the truth, not the sordid continuation of political posturing based on misinformation on the other side of the Atlantic.
[I presume that The Herald also has an article describing in more detail the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government. Once that article appears online I shall add a reference to this post.
There is no further article on the document: I went so far as to buy a copy of the newspaper to make sure! What there is is a full page of readers' letters, nine out of the total of ten of which support the Scottish Government's stance. They can be read here.
An article by the paper's UK political editor Michael Settle contains the following:]
The US inquiry into release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was in danger of becoming an embarrassing no-show last night after Jack Straw announced he too had declined the offer to attend.
The former justice secretary said he could not help the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing because he had “absolutely nothing to do” with the decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, which he stressed was an “entirely separate decision for the Scottish Justice Secretary”.
However, the SNP’s Christine Grahame insisted Straw had no principled reason not to go, given his activities directly related to the committee’s central point of concern about oil.
She insisted his decision was deeply embarrassing for Scottish Labour, which had attacked Kenny MacAskill for declining the Senate’s invitation. (...)
Invitations to five foreign witnesses have gone out from the Senate committee and three have so far been rejected from Straw, MacAskill and Dr Andrew Fraser, the director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service, who drew up the final medical report on the Libyan.
It is not yet known if Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, will attend or Sir Mark Allen, a former lobbyist for the oil giant who helped broker the £590 million “deal in the desert” with Libya, but in light of the rejections, this is thought unlikely.
Confusion still surrounds the invitation written out for Tony Blair, the former prime minister, to attend but which was then swiftly withdrawn. The committee simply said it had been “an error”. (...)
Yesterday, there was a deal of support for Straw and MacAskill’s decision to decline to attend the Senate hearing. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, who was Scottish secretary at the time of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, said British ministers “should co-operate but not to the extent to give evidence in person”.
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to Washington, said: “As a matter of principle, a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee.”
Mike Gapes, Labour chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, accused the senators of political grandstanding while his colleague Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, claimed they were engaged in a witch-hunt against BP. (...)
Meantime, the Justice for Megrahi committee, which believes the Libyan to be innocent, called for the Scottish Government to launch its own inquiry, which would cover all aspects of the Lockerbie case. [Note by RB: The call for an inquiry is fully reported in an article on The Guardian website.]
The Senate committee’s hearing takes place at 7.30pm UK time on Thursday and is expected to last three hours.
[The Scotsman has an editorial on the subject. It is supportive of Kenny MacAskill -- perhaps a first for this virulently anti-SNP newspaper. It reads in part:]
In matters of international relations, protocol counts for much, diplomacy a great deal but integrity most of all.
The US senators who have sent out requests for Scotland's justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to appear before them in their inquiry into the Megrahi affair might usefully have borne this in mind.
Why expect Mr MacAskill to respond positively when the former UK prime minister Tony Blair has not been so summoned? It was Mr Blair who was in the tent with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi when a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) was discussed. It was Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi who was behind the plot to blow up the Pan Am jet with the callous slaughter of life over Lockerbie. It was both Col Gaddafi and Mr Blair that BP addressed in their lobbying over oil interests in Libya. As the First Minister Alex Salmond has made clear in his reply to the senators, "if your committee is concerned about BP's role or the PTA ,then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries". Quite.
The Scottish Government, publicly and by letter to the senators, has made clear the independent status of Scots law, the grounds under Scots law and the circumstances of Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds. It has also emphatically stated that at no time was it lobbied by BP on this matter.
Perhaps the senators felt that it would be unseemly to be seen to interrogate a former British prime minister who has been honoured by Congress. (...) Whatever the reason for the senators' actions, it is surely Mr Blair and Mr Straw, not Mr MacAskill, who are more central to the course of their inquiries. Requesting Mr MacAskill but not Mr Blair is at best asymmetric. But it smacks of an easy gesture to the gallery and also leaves the impression, unintended we are sure, that the Scottish justice secretary would be the easier to fry in the public pan.
While there is a wholly respectable case for Mr MacAskill to have accepted the senators' invitation and taken the opportunity to explain Scotland's legal system and put their concerns over its independence at rest, the senators have made it difficult for him to do so while not appearing to be a substitute for inquiries best addressed elsewhere.
In other circumstances Scottish ministers would have been happy to make their position plain to an American audience understandably outraged by an act of wanton terrorism and understandably appalled if Megrahi's release was the result of what has become widely known as "the deal in the desert".
The decision by the Scottish Government that the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) director of health, Dr Andrew Fraser, should not give evidence at a United States Senate hearing into the release of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has brought claims they have something to hide.
But the charge should be directed at the US and the Senators should invite evidence from their own State Department. The letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepting the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) confirms the US condemnation of the Scottish Government as hypocrisy of the first order.
The Justice Secretary and the SPS health director are right to rebuff the US Senators’ invitation to attend the hearing into the release of Megrahi. Their actions have already been explained in a letter from Alex Salmond to Senators, along with an offer to answer further questions. It is therefore difficult to see what the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has to gain from the Justice Secretary appearing before them other than to bait him in a febrile political arena.
Wilful confusion has been stoked by US politicians who have deliberately ignored the inconvenient truth that a major obstacle to the PTA was that the only Libyan of any consequence in a British jail, Megrahi, was subject to the separate legal jurisdiction in Scotland.
His release last year was on the separate grounds of compassion due to a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer. Only its timing, which closely followed ratification of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK Government and Libya and the announcement of drilling rights for BP in Libya, has allowed conflation by those seeking to exploit outrage over the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Nevertheless the Scottish Government’s avowal of transparency is brought into focus by the refusal of the Justice Secretary to explain why he took the unprecedented step for a government minister of holding a private meeting with a prisoner before release. As long as that question remains unanswered, suspicion will continue that Megrahi’s withdrawal of his appeal was part of a deal. If MacAskill has nothing to hide, he should be open about the reason for that meeting, unless there is good cause to keep the matter under wraps. By the same token the US Senators should be honest and decouple Scotland’s compassionate release of Megrahi from BP’s interests in Libya.
The attack on PanAm flight 103 has been mired in the complexities of international politics from the beginning and, unfairly or not, Scottish justice has been found wanting in the international court of public opinion. The most glaring affront to justice, however, will always be that 270 people died on December 21, 1988 as the innocent victims of a terrorist crime. Their memories should be honoured by a quest for the truth, not the sordid continuation of political posturing based on misinformation on the other side of the Atlantic.
[I presume that The Herald also has an article describing in more detail the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government. Once that article appears online I shall add a reference to this post.
There is no further article on the document: I went so far as to buy a copy of the newspaper to make sure! What there is is a full page of readers' letters, nine out of the total of ten of which support the Scottish Government's stance. They can be read here.
An article by the paper's UK political editor Michael Settle contains the following:]
The US inquiry into release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was in danger of becoming an embarrassing no-show last night after Jack Straw announced he too had declined the offer to attend.
The former justice secretary said he could not help the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing because he had “absolutely nothing to do” with the decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, which he stressed was an “entirely separate decision for the Scottish Justice Secretary”.
However, the SNP’s Christine Grahame insisted Straw had no principled reason not to go, given his activities directly related to the committee’s central point of concern about oil.
She insisted his decision was deeply embarrassing for Scottish Labour, which had attacked Kenny MacAskill for declining the Senate’s invitation. (...)
Invitations to five foreign witnesses have gone out from the Senate committee and three have so far been rejected from Straw, MacAskill and Dr Andrew Fraser, the director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service, who drew up the final medical report on the Libyan.
It is not yet known if Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, will attend or Sir Mark Allen, a former lobbyist for the oil giant who helped broker the £590 million “deal in the desert” with Libya, but in light of the rejections, this is thought unlikely.
Confusion still surrounds the invitation written out for Tony Blair, the former prime minister, to attend but which was then swiftly withdrawn. The committee simply said it had been “an error”. (...)
Yesterday, there was a deal of support for Straw and MacAskill’s decision to decline to attend the Senate hearing. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, who was Scottish secretary at the time of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, said British ministers “should co-operate but not to the extent to give evidence in person”.
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to Washington, said: “As a matter of principle, a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee.”
Mike Gapes, Labour chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, accused the senators of political grandstanding while his colleague Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, claimed they were engaged in a witch-hunt against BP. (...)
Meantime, the Justice for Megrahi committee, which believes the Libyan to be innocent, called for the Scottish Government to launch its own inquiry, which would cover all aspects of the Lockerbie case. [Note by RB: The call for an inquiry is fully reported in an article on The Guardian website.]
The Senate committee’s hearing takes place at 7.30pm UK time on Thursday and is expected to last three hours.
[The Scotsman has an editorial on the subject. It is supportive of Kenny MacAskill -- perhaps a first for this virulently anti-SNP newspaper. It reads in part:]
In matters of international relations, protocol counts for much, diplomacy a great deal but integrity most of all.
The US senators who have sent out requests for Scotland's justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to appear before them in their inquiry into the Megrahi affair might usefully have borne this in mind.
Why expect Mr MacAskill to respond positively when the former UK prime minister Tony Blair has not been so summoned? It was Mr Blair who was in the tent with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi when a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) was discussed. It was Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi who was behind the plot to blow up the Pan Am jet with the callous slaughter of life over Lockerbie. It was both Col Gaddafi and Mr Blair that BP addressed in their lobbying over oil interests in Libya. As the First Minister Alex Salmond has made clear in his reply to the senators, "if your committee is concerned about BP's role or the PTA ,then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries". Quite.
The Scottish Government, publicly and by letter to the senators, has made clear the independent status of Scots law, the grounds under Scots law and the circumstances of Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds. It has also emphatically stated that at no time was it lobbied by BP on this matter.
Perhaps the senators felt that it would be unseemly to be seen to interrogate a former British prime minister who has been honoured by Congress. (...) Whatever the reason for the senators' actions, it is surely Mr Blair and Mr Straw, not Mr MacAskill, who are more central to the course of their inquiries. Requesting Mr MacAskill but not Mr Blair is at best asymmetric. But it smacks of an easy gesture to the gallery and also leaves the impression, unintended we are sure, that the Scottish justice secretary would be the easier to fry in the public pan.
While there is a wholly respectable case for Mr MacAskill to have accepted the senators' invitation and taken the opportunity to explain Scotland's legal system and put their concerns over its independence at rest, the senators have made it difficult for him to do so while not appearing to be a substitute for inquiries best addressed elsewhere.
In other circumstances Scottish ministers would have been happy to make their position plain to an American audience understandably outraged by an act of wanton terrorism and understandably appalled if Megrahi's release was the result of what has become widely known as "the deal in the desert".
Lockerbie: Megrahi was framed
The Dprogram website has just republished an article by John Pilger with this title. I blogged on it in September 2009 when it first appeared.
Friday, 23 July 2010
Jack Straw dismisses US invitation to answer Lockerbie questions
[This is the headline over a recent report on The Guardian website. It reads in part:]
Jack Straw, the former justice secretary, has rejected a demand from a US senate committee to appear in Washington next week to answer questions about the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
As Labour MPs accused the senators of "grandstanding", Straw wrote to the chairman of the senate committee to decline his "kind invitation" on the grounds that he played no role in the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. (...)
"I had absolutely nothing to do with [the] decision," Straw wrote. "Indeed I was on holiday at the time and only learned about it from an item on the BBC News website. It follows that I do not see how I could help your committee 'understand several questions still lingering from this decision' … You will therefore excuse me if I do not accept your kind invitation." (...)
Mike Gapes, the Labour chairman of the foreign affairs select committee in the last parliament, attacked the decision to invite Straw. "We, in our parliament, have never tried to summon Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice. I think it is political grandstanding by some US senators."
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, endorsed the decisions by Straw and MacAskill. "As a matter of principle a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee," Meyer told Radio 4.
"That does not mean that they can't in some way co-operate with the committee's enquiry, either privately or in correspondence. It is what the Americans would do if the boot was on the other foot. They have done it already. A number of them were approached to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. They declined to do so. But they have co-operated in private. I just don't think it is right for members of a sovereign government, albeit a very close ally, to be required in public under oath to give evidence to an American congressional inquiry."
Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, said: "The senate committee clearly is on a witch-hunt against BP. They would be highly annoyed if one of our select committees demanded to see an American politician put before us. They need to be careful because they are trying the patience of good friends of the US. I include myself as one."
[What, I wonder, will Richard Baker MSP, Scottish Labour's intellectually-challenged justice spokesman, say now? Watch this space.]
Jack Straw, the former justice secretary, has rejected a demand from a US senate committee to appear in Washington next week to answer questions about the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
As Labour MPs accused the senators of "grandstanding", Straw wrote to the chairman of the senate committee to decline his "kind invitation" on the grounds that he played no role in the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. (...)
"I had absolutely nothing to do with [the] decision," Straw wrote. "Indeed I was on holiday at the time and only learned about it from an item on the BBC News website. It follows that I do not see how I could help your committee 'understand several questions still lingering from this decision' … You will therefore excuse me if I do not accept your kind invitation." (...)
Mike Gapes, the Labour chairman of the foreign affairs select committee in the last parliament, attacked the decision to invite Straw. "We, in our parliament, have never tried to summon Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice. I think it is political grandstanding by some US senators."
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, endorsed the decisions by Straw and MacAskill. "As a matter of principle a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee," Meyer told Radio 4.
"That does not mean that they can't in some way co-operate with the committee's enquiry, either privately or in correspondence. It is what the Americans would do if the boot was on the other foot. They have done it already. A number of them were approached to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. They declined to do so. But they have co-operated in private. I just don't think it is right for members of a sovereign government, albeit a very close ally, to be required in public under oath to give evidence to an American congressional inquiry."
Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, said: "The senate committee clearly is on a witch-hunt against BP. They would be highly annoyed if one of our select committees demanded to see an American politician put before us. They need to be careful because they are trying the patience of good friends of the US. I include myself as one."
[What, I wonder, will Richard Baker MSP, Scottish Labour's intellectually-challenged justice spokesman, say now? Watch this space.]
Statement by Scottish Government on refusal to attend Senate hearing
[What follows is the text of a statement issued by the Scottish Government.]
First Minister Alex Salmond has written to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations again today following the Scottish Government's decision to formally decline the invitation for Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, and Director of Health and Care of the Scottish Prison Service Dr Andrew Fraser to attend a hearing in person.
The FM, in addition to information already provided, has offered to answer any additional questions in advance of the hearing, and any more that may arise from the hearing itself.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said:
"The First Minister wrote to Senator Kerry on Wednesday providing comprehensive information and assistance, which is the appropriate nature of Scottish Government involvement in the Senate Committee's hearing next week.
"Since the Lockerbie atrocity in 1988, all matters regarding the investigation, prosecution and compassionate release decision have been conducted according to the jurisdiction and laws of Scotland. Clearly, the Senate Committee has responsibility to scrutinise decisions taken within the US system, and Scottish Ministers and public officials are accountable within the Scottish Parliament system. That is the constitutional basis of our democracies.
"The Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee has already undertaken a full inquiry into the decision on compassionate release, and the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee has also examined the issue in terms of the formal inter-governmental relations that exist within the UK. That is right and proper.
"The focus of the Senators' concern has been any role played by BP in decisions on Al-Megrahi, and we have stated categorically to Senator Kerry that there was no contact of any kind between the Scottish Government and BP.
"In addition to the extensive information already provided, we have written to Senator Kerry again today and offered to answer any additional questions in advance of the hearing, and we would also be very happy to answer formally and in writing any more questions that may arise from the hearing itself.
"In that constructive spirit, we have also given the Committee permission to have the First Minister's initial letter to Senator Kerry, containing substantive information, entered into the hearing's record."
"If any matters emerge concerning the Scottish Government from the UK Cabinet Secretary's upcoming trawl of papers, we would also be happy to respond as necessary.
"We reiterate, however, that the only relevant material held by us and not yet published is information provided by or concerning the US and UK administrations - which we would like to publish in the interests of openness and full disclosure."
First Minister Alex Salmond has written to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations again today following the Scottish Government's decision to formally decline the invitation for Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, and Director of Health and Care of the Scottish Prison Service Dr Andrew Fraser to attend a hearing in person.
The FM, in addition to information already provided, has offered to answer any additional questions in advance of the hearing, and any more that may arise from the hearing itself.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said:
"The First Minister wrote to Senator Kerry on Wednesday providing comprehensive information and assistance, which is the appropriate nature of Scottish Government involvement in the Senate Committee's hearing next week.
"Since the Lockerbie atrocity in 1988, all matters regarding the investigation, prosecution and compassionate release decision have been conducted according to the jurisdiction and laws of Scotland. Clearly, the Senate Committee has responsibility to scrutinise decisions taken within the US system, and Scottish Ministers and public officials are accountable within the Scottish Parliament system. That is the constitutional basis of our democracies.
"The Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee has already undertaken a full inquiry into the decision on compassionate release, and the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee has also examined the issue in terms of the formal inter-governmental relations that exist within the UK. That is right and proper.
"The focus of the Senators' concern has been any role played by BP in decisions on Al-Megrahi, and we have stated categorically to Senator Kerry that there was no contact of any kind between the Scottish Government and BP.
"In addition to the extensive information already provided, we have written to Senator Kerry again today and offered to answer any additional questions in advance of the hearing, and we would also be very happy to answer formally and in writing any more questions that may arise from the hearing itself.
"In that constructive spirit, we have also given the Committee permission to have the First Minister's initial letter to Senator Kerry, containing substantive information, entered into the hearing's record."
"If any matters emerge concerning the Scottish Government from the UK Cabinet Secretary's upcoming trawl of papers, we would also be happy to respond as necessary.
"We reiterate, however, that the only relevant material held by us and not yet published is information provided by or concerning the US and UK administrations - which we would like to publish in the interests of openness and full disclosure."
US Senate committee backs down over plans to call Tony Blair over Lockerbie bomber release
[This is the headline over a report on the Telegraph website. It reads in part:]
The US Senate committee investigating the release of the Lockerbie bomber appears to have mysteriously backed down over plans to call Tony Blair to testify.
The committee seemingly drafted a letter to ask the former Prime Minister to appear before it but this was never sent.
It remains unclear if a genuine error was made somewhere in the Senate. The committee may have decided that it was too controversial to ask him
Frederick Jones, communications director for the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “Mr Blair was not and will not be an invitee.”
He added: “I deeply regret any confusion this may have caused. We still have to get to the bottom of this.”
Jack Straw, the former Justice and Foreign Secretary, has been asked to appear next week before a US Senate committee investigating the possible role of BP in the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Senators have written to Mr Straw asking him to the hearing next week along with BP executives and members of the Scottish devolved administration.
BP, which has won contracts in Libya, has admitted it lobbied Mr Straw in 2007 to introduce a prisoner transfer agreement with the North African state.
Senators are focusing on the relationship between Mr Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 official who helped BP to win the valuable contracts. Sir Mark has also been asked to appear.
He became a special adviser to BP and had at least two telephone conversations with Mr Straw to discuss the prisoner transfer deal. He also had meetings with Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Mr Straw said last night: “I have no objection in principle to explaining the background to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Indeed, I have done so on a number of occasions before the United Kingdom Parliament.
“However, before coming to any decision as to whether to accept this invitation I shall be consulting Gordon Brown, as prime minister at the time, and seeking the advice of the Foreign Office.
“It is, in my experience, highly unusual for the legislature of one sovereign state to conduct an inquiry into decisions of another sovereign state, including, as in this case, decisions by a devolved administration on the release of a prisoner.”
[An amusing piece on the "phoney letter to Tony" appears on the Sky News website.
For the current state of play on who will attend the Senate committee's hearing, see "Will anybody attend the US Lockerbie hearing?" on The First Post website.]
The US Senate committee investigating the release of the Lockerbie bomber appears to have mysteriously backed down over plans to call Tony Blair to testify.
The committee seemingly drafted a letter to ask the former Prime Minister to appear before it but this was never sent.
It remains unclear if a genuine error was made somewhere in the Senate. The committee may have decided that it was too controversial to ask him
Frederick Jones, communications director for the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “Mr Blair was not and will not be an invitee.”
He added: “I deeply regret any confusion this may have caused. We still have to get to the bottom of this.”
Jack Straw, the former Justice and Foreign Secretary, has been asked to appear next week before a US Senate committee investigating the possible role of BP in the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Senators have written to Mr Straw asking him to the hearing next week along with BP executives and members of the Scottish devolved administration.
BP, which has won contracts in Libya, has admitted it lobbied Mr Straw in 2007 to introduce a prisoner transfer agreement with the North African state.
Senators are focusing on the relationship between Mr Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 official who helped BP to win the valuable contracts. Sir Mark has also been asked to appear.
He became a special adviser to BP and had at least two telephone conversations with Mr Straw to discuss the prisoner transfer deal. He also had meetings with Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Mr Straw said last night: “I have no objection in principle to explaining the background to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Indeed, I have done so on a number of occasions before the United Kingdom Parliament.
“However, before coming to any decision as to whether to accept this invitation I shall be consulting Gordon Brown, as prime minister at the time, and seeking the advice of the Foreign Office.
“It is, in my experience, highly unusual for the legislature of one sovereign state to conduct an inquiry into decisions of another sovereign state, including, as in this case, decisions by a devolved administration on the release of a prisoner.”
[An amusing piece on the "phoney letter to Tony" appears on the Sky News website.
For the current state of play on who will attend the Senate committee's hearing, see "Will anybody attend the US Lockerbie hearing?" on The First Post website.]
Scots defend Lockerbie convict’s release
[This is the heading over a post by Robert Mackey on The Lede, the news blog of The New York Times. It reads in part:]
Scotland’s government will not be providing any new documents on the release of the Libyan man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 to a Senate panel investigating the matter, it said in a statement on Wednesday night.
The Scottish government also declined a request from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to have Scotland’s justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, appear next week at a hearing that will look into allegations that BP might have lobbied for the return of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to Libya in order to secure an oil contract with the Libyan government. BP denies that it lobbied for Mr Megrahi’s release but said that it did press for a prisoner transfer agreement to be completed.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond wrote in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his government, which has authority over justice matters and made the decision to release Mr Megrahi last year, had already published all of the relevant documents under its control. He added: “The only significant documents that we have not published are US government representations and some correspondence from the UK government, where permission was declined. The Scottish government is, and has always been, willing to publish these remaining documents if the US and UK governments are willing to give permission for that to be done.”
Mr. Salmond also insisted that even if BP might have lobbied the government of the United Kingdom to complete a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, his regional authority was not involved in those discussions and eventually decided to release Mr Megrahi on compassionate grounds because of a terminal illness rather than transfer him to Libyan custody. He wrote:
"My understanding is that the recent interest from the Committee and from other Senators stems mainly from concerns over any role played by BP in al-Megrahi’s release. I can say unequivocally that the Scottish government has never, at any point, received any representations from BP in relation to al-Megrahi. That is to say we had no submissions or lobbying of any kind from BP, either oral or written, and, to my knowledge, the subject of al-Megrahi was never raised by any BP representative to any Scottish Government Minister. That includes the Justice Minister to whom it fell to make the decisions on prisoner transfer and compassionate release on a quasi-judicial basis. [...]
"If your Committee is concerned about BP’s role or the [prisoner transfer agreement] then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries. There is nothing the Scottish Government can add to this since we have had no contact with BP at any point in the process of considering al-Megrahi’s position."
While outrage over the release of Mr. Megrahi in the United States has returned to the headlines with the new focus on BP, continued doubts about his guilt by some legal experts and family members of the victims of the bombing in Britain have led them to call for “an inquiry into the atrocity itself.” Pamela Dix, whose brother, Peter Dix, was killed in the bombing wrote on the Guardian’s Web site that an inquiry was needed because, “The families have faced years of denials and obfuscation, as we have painstakingly sought answers to the many unanswered questions about Lockerbie. The BP issue is just another element in the shameful way in which the truth behind Britain’s biggest mass murder has been hidden.”
[The post ends with a reprise of concerns about the soundness of Mr Megrahi's conviction that had been outlined in a post on The Lede in August 2009 and quotations from Gareth Peirce's article in London Review of Books.]
Scotland’s government will not be providing any new documents on the release of the Libyan man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 to a Senate panel investigating the matter, it said in a statement on Wednesday night.
The Scottish government also declined a request from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to have Scotland’s justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, appear next week at a hearing that will look into allegations that BP might have lobbied for the return of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to Libya in order to secure an oil contract with the Libyan government. BP denies that it lobbied for Mr Megrahi’s release but said that it did press for a prisoner transfer agreement to be completed.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond wrote in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his government, which has authority over justice matters and made the decision to release Mr Megrahi last year, had already published all of the relevant documents under its control. He added: “The only significant documents that we have not published are US government representations and some correspondence from the UK government, where permission was declined. The Scottish government is, and has always been, willing to publish these remaining documents if the US and UK governments are willing to give permission for that to be done.”
Mr. Salmond also insisted that even if BP might have lobbied the government of the United Kingdom to complete a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, his regional authority was not involved in those discussions and eventually decided to release Mr Megrahi on compassionate grounds because of a terminal illness rather than transfer him to Libyan custody. He wrote:
"My understanding is that the recent interest from the Committee and from other Senators stems mainly from concerns over any role played by BP in al-Megrahi’s release. I can say unequivocally that the Scottish government has never, at any point, received any representations from BP in relation to al-Megrahi. That is to say we had no submissions or lobbying of any kind from BP, either oral or written, and, to my knowledge, the subject of al-Megrahi was never raised by any BP representative to any Scottish Government Minister. That includes the Justice Minister to whom it fell to make the decisions on prisoner transfer and compassionate release on a quasi-judicial basis. [...]
"If your Committee is concerned about BP’s role or the [prisoner transfer agreement] then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries. There is nothing the Scottish Government can add to this since we have had no contact with BP at any point in the process of considering al-Megrahi’s position."
While outrage over the release of Mr. Megrahi in the United States has returned to the headlines with the new focus on BP, continued doubts about his guilt by some legal experts and family members of the victims of the bombing in Britain have led them to call for “an inquiry into the atrocity itself.” Pamela Dix, whose brother, Peter Dix, was killed in the bombing wrote on the Guardian’s Web site that an inquiry was needed because, “The families have faced years of denials and obfuscation, as we have painstakingly sought answers to the many unanswered questions about Lockerbie. The BP issue is just another element in the shameful way in which the truth behind Britain’s biggest mass murder has been hidden.”
[The post ends with a reprise of concerns about the soundness of Mr Megrahi's conviction that had been outlined in a post on The Lede in August 2009 and quotations from Gareth Peirce's article in London Review of Books.]
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