[This is the headline over a report on the website of WSYR TV, a television station based in Syracuse, NY. The report features an interview with Richard Marquise before his appearances at Syracuse University. The interview can be viewed, and the report read, here. The text of the report reads in part:]
For only the second time since Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie Scotland, the lead investigator is in Syracuse to talk about the disaster. Richard Marquise helped build the case that led to the only conviction in the bombing, and fought unsuccessfully to keep Abdul al-Megrahi in prison last year.
In an instant, the terrorist attack forever linked Syracuse, NY, and Lockerbie Scotland together. When Pan Am 103 blew up over the Scottish town, it killed 270 people on the plane. Among them were 35 Syracuse University students (...)
For years, lead investigator Richard Marquise sought justice. His crime scene was 845 square miles. "Its been part of my life for 22 years and you just can't discount something that has been that big a part of your life for such a long time," he said.
It took years for his team working with Scottish authorities to build a case that would lead to Abdul al-Megrahi's conviction 13 years after the bombing. "It was a circumstantial case and it took believing all the circumstances for the judges to convict."
Marquise says they got the right man, although he believes al-Megrahi wasn't the only one involved. al-Megrahi, Marquise says, was just the only one they could convict.
That is why Marquise and his Scottish counterpart fought so hard to keep al-Megrahi in prison before his 2009 release. "I think justice wasn't served because the only person convicted of this crime is home with his family, something the people who lost relatives on that plane will never have, their relatives home with them again," he said.
Marquise says he never has had a chance to speak to al-Megrahi, although he did say he was able to submit a question to Muammar Qaddafi during a lecture at Georgetown University in 2009. He says that through a translator the Libyan leader said Pan Am 103 was in the past. (...)
Marquise says his visit to the SU campus will not be easy for him, even though more than two decades have past since the bombing. "It's difficult just because the memories of the families and the people I've dealt with for over 20 years come back," he said.
Friday, 12 November 2010
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Megrahi madness
[This is the heading over a letter by Robin MacCormick in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]
Now that the US mid-term elections have passed, will we hear any more from the electioneering politicians who alleged a link between the release of the "Lockerbie bomber" and the BP oil rig disaster?
And will those UK politicians who tagged along on their coat-tails in order to disparage the Scottish Government make sure this glorious episode is recorded in their memoirs?
Now that the US mid-term elections have passed, will we hear any more from the electioneering politicians who alleged a link between the release of the "Lockerbie bomber" and the BP oil rig disaster?
And will those UK politicians who tagged along on their coat-tails in order to disparage the Scottish Government make sure this glorious episode is recorded in their memoirs?
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Richard Marquise at Syracuse University
The FBI lead investigator on the Pan Am 103 bombing that killed 270 people in 1988 will speak at 7:30 pm Thursday as part of the 2010 Syracuse Symposium at Syracuse University.
Richard A Marquise, a retired special agent with the FBI, will speak on “Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation” in room 001 of the Life Science Complex. The event is cosponsored by SU’s Forensic and National Security Sciences program, and is free and open to the public.
Marquise will also take part Friday in an invitation-only seminar “International Terrorism: Threat in the U.S. and Proactive Measures.”
The bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec 21, 1988. The terror attack killed 270 people, including 35 SU students returning from a semester abroad and five others with ties to Central New York.
Marquise was involved with the Lockerbie bombing investigation from its inception through to the indictments and trial. He received the Attorney General’s award for Distinguished Service.
He is the author of Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation, Algora Publishing, 2006.
Marquise is an expert in counter terrorism and crisis management and is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research in Tallahassee, Fla.
[From a report on the Syracuse website. Further details can be found on the website of Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange.
Caustic Logic on his blog The Lockerbie Divide suggests a number of pertinent questions that members of his audience might care to raise with Mr Marquise.]
Richard A Marquise, a retired special agent with the FBI, will speak on “Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation” in room 001 of the Life Science Complex. The event is cosponsored by SU’s Forensic and National Security Sciences program, and is free and open to the public.
Marquise will also take part Friday in an invitation-only seminar “International Terrorism: Threat in the U.S. and Proactive Measures.”
The bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec 21, 1988. The terror attack killed 270 people, including 35 SU students returning from a semester abroad and five others with ties to Central New York.
Marquise was involved with the Lockerbie bombing investigation from its inception through to the indictments and trial. He received the Attorney General’s award for Distinguished Service.
He is the author of Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation, Algora Publishing, 2006.
Marquise is an expert in counter terrorism and crisis management and is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research in Tallahassee, Fla.
[From a report on the Syracuse website. Further details can be found on the website of Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange.
Caustic Logic on his blog The Lockerbie Divide suggests a number of pertinent questions that members of his audience might care to raise with Mr Marquise.]
Media coverage of Justice for Megrahi petition hearing
[The best coverage of yesterday's hearing before the Holyrood Public Petitions Committee is to be found in The Times. It can be read -- but only by subscribers -- here. The report reads in part:]
The Scottish legal establishment was accused at a Holyrood committee yesterday of putting obstacles in the way of an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber.
The claim was made by Canon Patrick Keegans, who was the local Catholic priest in Lockerbie at the time of the disaster in December 1988.
He was giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s petitions committee in support of a 1600-signature petition organised by the Justice for Megrahi (JFM) campaign calling on the Scottish government to set up an inquiry.
Members of the group told MSPs a full independent inquiry was the only way to restore the reputation of the Scottish legal system. (...)
Canon Keegans told MSPs on the committee: “People have never found a full answer to Lockerbie and this will always be a source of distress.”
Canon Keegans, who lived in Sherwood Crescent, part of which was obliterated by falling debris from the aircraft said the case was about the “redemption of the Scottish justice system”.
He added: “We have been denied justice from the very beginning. I am very doubtful about the conviction of al-Megrahi. While doubt remains the victims are denied justice. What we need is the truth about Lockerbie.
He added: “Obstacles have been put in our way by the Crown Office and by the judiciary. There seems to be a desire to put a lid on this and keep it there.
“We need truth and we need justice to be at peace. Otherwise we are back in December 1988 in the darkness.”
Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, said the reputation of Scottish justice had been “shot to pieces”.
He said only an impartial inquiry could rebuild that reputation. Swire said the original criminal investigation was run by Scottish police forces and involved Scottish lawyers.
They were, he added, two obvious groups who might be interested in protecting their reputations.
“Speaking as a relative who has been looking for the truth for 22 years I think it would be vital that any inquiry is seen to be led impartially. Such an inquiry would be of little value if it was deemed to be in any way limited by groups involved in the trial.”
Mr Swire said an inquiry was the only way “we will be able to heal the terrible wounds done to our justice system”.
Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: “The fact of the conviction is being used as an excuse for not holding a wide ranging inquiry.”
He added: “We are asking the Scottish government to set up an inquiry. The government cannot deny there is domestic and international concern. We are asking them to investigate these concerns.”
Both First Minister Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, have said they have confidence in the conviction of al-Megrahi.
After hearing from the campaigners, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish government asking them to respond to the request for an independent inquiry.
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
[Less detailed reports can be found in The Scotsman, The Herald, The Press and Journal, The Courier, the Daily Record, The Sun and, in the USA, Fox. The report in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, a twice-weekly newspaper circulating in the Lockerbie area, can be read here.]
The Scottish legal establishment was accused at a Holyrood committee yesterday of putting obstacles in the way of an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber.
The claim was made by Canon Patrick Keegans, who was the local Catholic priest in Lockerbie at the time of the disaster in December 1988.
He was giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s petitions committee in support of a 1600-signature petition organised by the Justice for Megrahi (JFM) campaign calling on the Scottish government to set up an inquiry.
Members of the group told MSPs a full independent inquiry was the only way to restore the reputation of the Scottish legal system. (...)
Canon Keegans told MSPs on the committee: “People have never found a full answer to Lockerbie and this will always be a source of distress.”
Canon Keegans, who lived in Sherwood Crescent, part of which was obliterated by falling debris from the aircraft said the case was about the “redemption of the Scottish justice system”.
He added: “We have been denied justice from the very beginning. I am very doubtful about the conviction of al-Megrahi. While doubt remains the victims are denied justice. What we need is the truth about Lockerbie.
He added: “Obstacles have been put in our way by the Crown Office and by the judiciary. There seems to be a desire to put a lid on this and keep it there.
“We need truth and we need justice to be at peace. Otherwise we are back in December 1988 in the darkness.”
Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, said the reputation of Scottish justice had been “shot to pieces”.
He said only an impartial inquiry could rebuild that reputation. Swire said the original criminal investigation was run by Scottish police forces and involved Scottish lawyers.
They were, he added, two obvious groups who might be interested in protecting their reputations.
“Speaking as a relative who has been looking for the truth for 22 years I think it would be vital that any inquiry is seen to be led impartially. Such an inquiry would be of little value if it was deemed to be in any way limited by groups involved in the trial.”
Mr Swire said an inquiry was the only way “we will be able to heal the terrible wounds done to our justice system”.
Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: “The fact of the conviction is being used as an excuse for not holding a wide ranging inquiry.”
He added: “We are asking the Scottish government to set up an inquiry. The government cannot deny there is domestic and international concern. We are asking them to investigate these concerns.”
Both First Minister Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, have said they have confidence in the conviction of al-Megrahi.
After hearing from the campaigners, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish government asking them to respond to the request for an independent inquiry.
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
[Less detailed reports can be found in The Scotsman, The Herald, The Press and Journal, The Courier, the Daily Record, The Sun and, in the USA, Fox. The report in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, a twice-weekly newspaper circulating in the Lockerbie area, can be read here.]
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
MSPs to press ministers for Lockerbie probe
[This is the heading over a report on the website of the Deadline Press & Picture Agency. It is the only detailed account that I have been able to find of this afternoon's hearing before the Holyrood Public Petitions Committee. It reads as follows:]
MSPs are to demand a detailed explanation from the Scottish Government of why they oppose an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber.
Leading campaigners today (Tue) presented the parliament’s petitions committee with more than 1,600 signatures backing the move.
Members of the Justice For Megrahi group (JFM) told MSPs a full, independent inquiry was the only way to restore the reputation of the Scottish legal system.
Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the December 1988 bombing, dropped his second appeal and returned to his homeland after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Members of JFM believe the unanswered questions about the case have left a dark shadow over the victims and Scottish legal system.
Canon Patrick Keegans, who was the local catholic priest in Lockerbie at the time of the disaster, said: “People have never found a full answer to Lockerbie and this will always be a source of distress.”
Keegans, who lived in Sherwood Crescent, part of which was obliterated by falling debris, said the case was about the “redemption of the Scottish justice system”.
He added: “We have been denied justice from the very beginning. I am very doubtful about the conviction of Megrahi. While doubt remains the victims are denied justice. What we need is the truth about Lockerbie.
Keegans, now the Canon in charge of St Margaret’s Cathedral, Ayr, said: “Obstacles have been put in our way by the Crown Office and by the judiciary. There seems to be a desire to put a lid on this and keep it there.”
“We need truth and we need justice to be at peace. Otherwise we are back in December 1988 in the darkness.”
Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, said “the reputation of Scottish justice has been shot to pieces”.
He said only an impartial inquiry could rebuild that reputation. Swire said the original criminal investigation was run by Scottish police forces and involved Scottish lawyers. They were two obvious groups who might be interested in protecting their reputation, he added.
“Speaking as a relative who has been looking for the truth for 22 years I think it would be vital that any inquiry is seen to be led impartially. Such an inquiry would be of little value if it was deemed to be in any way limited by groups involved in the trial.
Swire said an inquiry “is the only way we will be able to heal the terrible wounds done to our justice system”.
Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: “The fact of [Megrahi’s] conviction is being used as an excuse for not holding a wide ranging inquiry.”
Black refuted suggestions from one committee member that an inquiry would create a constitutional crisis by pitching government against judiciary.
He said: “We are asking the Scottish Government to set up an inquiry. The government cannot deny there is domestic and international concern. We are asking them to investigate these concerns.”
First Minister Alex Salmond has said he has confidence in the conviction of Megrahi.
After hearing today’s arguments, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government asking them to respond to the request for an independent inquiry.
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Have I Got News for You? TV star Ian Hislop.
[Today's proceedings before the Public Petitions Committee can be viewed here.]
MSPs are to demand a detailed explanation from the Scottish Government of why they oppose an independent inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber.
Leading campaigners today (Tue) presented the parliament’s petitions committee with more than 1,600 signatures backing the move.
Members of the Justice For Megrahi group (JFM) told MSPs a full, independent inquiry was the only way to restore the reputation of the Scottish legal system.
Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the December 1988 bombing, dropped his second appeal and returned to his homeland after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Members of JFM believe the unanswered questions about the case have left a dark shadow over the victims and Scottish legal system.
Canon Patrick Keegans, who was the local catholic priest in Lockerbie at the time of the disaster, said: “People have never found a full answer to Lockerbie and this will always be a source of distress.”
Keegans, who lived in Sherwood Crescent, part of which was obliterated by falling debris, said the case was about the “redemption of the Scottish justice system”.
He added: “We have been denied justice from the very beginning. I am very doubtful about the conviction of Megrahi. While doubt remains the victims are denied justice. What we need is the truth about Lockerbie.
Keegans, now the Canon in charge of St Margaret’s Cathedral, Ayr, said: “Obstacles have been put in our way by the Crown Office and by the judiciary. There seems to be a desire to put a lid on this and keep it there.”
“We need truth and we need justice to be at peace. Otherwise we are back in December 1988 in the darkness.”
Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, said “the reputation of Scottish justice has been shot to pieces”.
He said only an impartial inquiry could rebuild that reputation. Swire said the original criminal investigation was run by Scottish police forces and involved Scottish lawyers. They were two obvious groups who might be interested in protecting their reputation, he added.
“Speaking as a relative who has been looking for the truth for 22 years I think it would be vital that any inquiry is seen to be led impartially. Such an inquiry would be of little value if it was deemed to be in any way limited by groups involved in the trial.
Swire said an inquiry “is the only way we will be able to heal the terrible wounds done to our justice system”.
Professor Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, said: “The fact of [Megrahi’s] conviction is being used as an excuse for not holding a wide ranging inquiry.”
Black refuted suggestions from one committee member that an inquiry would create a constitutional crisis by pitching government against judiciary.
He said: “We are asking the Scottish Government to set up an inquiry. The government cannot deny there is domestic and international concern. We are asking them to investigate these concerns.”
First Minister Alex Salmond has said he has confidence in the conviction of Megrahi.
After hearing today’s arguments, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government asking them to respond to the request for an independent inquiry.
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Have I Got News for You? TV star Ian Hislop.
[Today's proceedings before the Public Petitions Committee can be viewed here.]
Lockerbie probe appeal at Holyrood
[This is the headline over a report on the Carrick Gazette website (and on the websites of a number of other local newspapers). It reads in part:]
Campaigners calling for an inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber are taking their case to the Scottish Parliament.
About 1,500 people have signed a petition by the Justice For Megrahi (JFM) pressure group calling on Holyrood to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's conviction. [RB: The actual number is 1646, from more than thirty countries, although the petition was actually available for signature online for only fifteen of the planned twenty days.]
Members of the group will appear before Holyrood's petitions committee on Tuesday,including Dr Jim Swire whose daughter Flora was killed in the disaster.
Dr Swire said: "It is imperative that the Scottish Government open an inquiry under its own auspices to deal with the corrosive and deeply damaging effects the Lockerbie case has had upon the Scottish criminal justice system." (...)
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O'Brien, head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Have I Got News for You? TV star Ian Hislop.
The witnesses appearing before MSPs will also include Edinburgh University Emeritus Scots Law Professor Robert Black, an architect of the the non-jury Lockerbie trial under Scots Law in the neutral Netherlands in 2000, who has since slammed the verdict as a "miscarriage of justice."
Megrahi dropped a second appeal against his conviction in the run-up to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to free him on compassionate grounds.
But campaigners say they could possibly try to pick up Megrahi's appeal against conviction if he died.
[A similar report appears on the Newsnet Scotland website; the BBC News website's report can be read here.
Anne McLaughlin MSP's Indygal Goes to Holyrood blog has a post headed Justice for Megrahi petition in Parliament Tuesday. It reads as follows:]
As a member of the Petitions Committee in Parliament I am particularly looking forward to tomorrow's meeting. We will hear evidence from Jim Swire, father of Flora who was one of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. He'll be presenting evidence in support of his petition calling for an enquiry into the conviction of Megrahi. He'll do so alongside Professor Robert Black and Iain McKie, father of Shirley.
I've met Iain McKie a couple of times through previous work and found him to be both charismatic and inspirational. And of course Jim Swire has to be one of the most compassionate people ever. I don't know if they have a point in claiming that Megrahi is innocent. What I do know is that it would be all too easy (and understandable) for Mr Swire to accept Megrahi's guilt and put all of his negativity energy in that direction.
But he didn't accept it. He has been outspoken in his condemnation of the conviction and as you can see is campaigning for an enquiry into it. I guess it's important to him that they get the right person but how tempting must it have been to turn a blind eye and blame the man with the conviction?
The other thing that occurs to me is that tomorrow, as I imagine is always the case, he will give evidence and in the recesses of his mind will be this image of his daughter, his flesh and blood, a young woman with a zest for life who only got to live for 24 years. That pain must never leave him and for that reason I am in awe of him and have nothing but the deepest respect.
You can watch the evidence session at 2pm [on Tuesday;] click here and scroll down to Petitions.
Campaigners calling for an inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber are taking their case to the Scottish Parliament.
About 1,500 people have signed a petition by the Justice For Megrahi (JFM) pressure group calling on Holyrood to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's conviction. [RB: The actual number is 1646, from more than thirty countries, although the petition was actually available for signature online for only fifteen of the planned twenty days.]
Members of the group will appear before Holyrood's petitions committee on Tuesday,including Dr Jim Swire whose daughter Flora was killed in the disaster.
Dr Swire said: "It is imperative that the Scottish Government open an inquiry under its own auspices to deal with the corrosive and deeply damaging effects the Lockerbie case has had upon the Scottish criminal justice system." (...)
The petition has already attracted the support of Cardinal Keith O'Brien, head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Have I Got News for You? TV star Ian Hislop.
The witnesses appearing before MSPs will also include Edinburgh University Emeritus Scots Law Professor Robert Black, an architect of the the non-jury Lockerbie trial under Scots Law in the neutral Netherlands in 2000, who has since slammed the verdict as a "miscarriage of justice."
Megrahi dropped a second appeal against his conviction in the run-up to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to free him on compassionate grounds.
But campaigners say they could possibly try to pick up Megrahi's appeal against conviction if he died.
[A similar report appears on the Newsnet Scotland website; the BBC News website's report can be read here.
Anne McLaughlin MSP's Indygal Goes to Holyrood blog has a post headed Justice for Megrahi petition in Parliament Tuesday. It reads as follows:]
As a member of the Petitions Committee in Parliament I am particularly looking forward to tomorrow's meeting. We will hear evidence from Jim Swire, father of Flora who was one of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. He'll be presenting evidence in support of his petition calling for an enquiry into the conviction of Megrahi. He'll do so alongside Professor Robert Black and Iain McKie, father of Shirley.
I've met Iain McKie a couple of times through previous work and found him to be both charismatic and inspirational. And of course Jim Swire has to be one of the most compassionate people ever. I don't know if they have a point in claiming that Megrahi is innocent. What I do know is that it would be all too easy (and understandable) for Mr Swire to accept Megrahi's guilt and put all of his negativity energy in that direction.
But he didn't accept it. He has been outspoken in his condemnation of the conviction and as you can see is campaigning for an enquiry into it. I guess it's important to him that they get the right person but how tempting must it have been to turn a blind eye and blame the man with the conviction?
The other thing that occurs to me is that tomorrow, as I imagine is always the case, he will give evidence and in the recesses of his mind will be this image of his daughter, his flesh and blood, a young woman with a zest for life who only got to live for 24 years. That pain must never leave him and for that reason I am in awe of him and have nothing but the deepest respect.
You can watch the evidence session at 2pm [on Tuesday;] click here and scroll down to Petitions.
Monday, 8 November 2010
No consultation with Scottish Human Rights Commission on emergency legislation
[This is the subject of a motion lodged in the Scottish Parliament by Robert Brown MSP, a member of the Justice Committee and a solicitor. So far it has been signed by four more Scottish Liberal Democrat MSPs and one Scottish Green Party MSP. The motion reads as follows:]
S3M-07333 Robert Brown (Glasgow) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): No Consultation with Scottish Human Rights Commission on Emergency Legislation— That the Parliament notes the views of Professor Alan Miller, Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, that there are serious concerns about both the human rights implications and the detailed terms of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010, which was drafted specifically to address a human rights issue; believes that the legislation may well leave Scottish criminal procedure relating to the detention and interrogation of suspects open to further challenge under the European Convention on Human Rights; feels that the speed with which the legislation was rushed through the Parliament was unnecessary and represented a constitutional outrage, and is appalled that the Scottish Government did not consult the Scottish Human Rights Commission, a body set up for advice on precisely this type of case, on what is considered the biggest human rights issue since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999.
[A related Press Association news agency report on the Driffield Times website reads in part:]
A Holyrood committee has been urged to scrutinise the impact of emergency legislation rushed through Parliament.
MSPs voted last month to amend Scots law by granting criminal suspects immediate access to a lawyer.
The Scottish Government said it was necessary because the Supreme Court had ruled that the law was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. The ruling was prompted after an appeal brought by Peter Cadder, who was convicted at Glasgow Sheriff Court of two assaults and breach of the peace on interview evidence.
Liberal Democrats opposed the changes, which also allow extensions to the time suspects can be held without charge.
MSP Robert Brown criticised the Government for not consulting the Scottish Human Rights Commission and demanded that the Justice Committee should investigate.
He said: "This, after all, is one of the most significant civil liberties issues in Scotland since the establishment of the Parliament. The law is almost certainly going to be challenged as soon as a suspect is interviewed without a solicitor. This will throw the whole process back in the air again."
Mr Brown, who is the party's justice spokesman, lodged a motion at Parliament outlining his concerns and said the speed of the legislation was a "constitutional outrage". (...)
Mr Brown said there are "major issues" over the interpretation of the legislation, adding: "My own substantial amendments to the emergency legislation only really scratched the surface of the problems that are likely to emerge.
"Professional bodies are right to warn about the impact on legal aid. I am worried that this could really damage the public's ability to access the legal system. This is just one of several unintended consequences of the rushed and problematic legislation."
S3M-07333 Robert Brown (Glasgow) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): No Consultation with Scottish Human Rights Commission on Emergency Legislation— That the Parliament notes the views of Professor Alan Miller, Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, that there are serious concerns about both the human rights implications and the detailed terms of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010, which was drafted specifically to address a human rights issue; believes that the legislation may well leave Scottish criminal procedure relating to the detention and interrogation of suspects open to further challenge under the European Convention on Human Rights; feels that the speed with which the legislation was rushed through the Parliament was unnecessary and represented a constitutional outrage, and is appalled that the Scottish Government did not consult the Scottish Human Rights Commission, a body set up for advice on precisely this type of case, on what is considered the biggest human rights issue since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999.
[A related Press Association news agency report on the Driffield Times website reads in part:]
A Holyrood committee has been urged to scrutinise the impact of emergency legislation rushed through Parliament.
MSPs voted last month to amend Scots law by granting criminal suspects immediate access to a lawyer.
The Scottish Government said it was necessary because the Supreme Court had ruled that the law was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. The ruling was prompted after an appeal brought by Peter Cadder, who was convicted at Glasgow Sheriff Court of two assaults and breach of the peace on interview evidence.
Liberal Democrats opposed the changes, which also allow extensions to the time suspects can be held without charge.
MSP Robert Brown criticised the Government for not consulting the Scottish Human Rights Commission and demanded that the Justice Committee should investigate.
He said: "This, after all, is one of the most significant civil liberties issues in Scotland since the establishment of the Parliament. The law is almost certainly going to be challenged as soon as a suspect is interviewed without a solicitor. This will throw the whole process back in the air again."
Mr Brown, who is the party's justice spokesman, lodged a motion at Parliament outlining his concerns and said the speed of the legislation was a "constitutional outrage". (...)
Mr Brown said there are "major issues" over the interpretation of the legislation, adding: "My own substantial amendments to the emergency legislation only really scratched the surface of the problems that are likely to emerge.
"Professional bodies are right to warn about the impact on legal aid. I am worried that this could really damage the public's ability to access the legal system. This is just one of several unintended consequences of the rushed and problematic legislation."
All those in favour of unfair trials, please stand up
[This is the heading over a robust article by Maggie Scott QC in today's edition of The Scotsman arising out of the reaction by the Scottish Government (and others) to the UK Supreme Court's decision in the Cadder case. While not directly concerned with the emergency legislation, the article has much to say that is relevant to the Megrahi case. I quote only a few paragraphs:]
The Supreme Court decision in Cadder was entirely predictable, if not inevitable, in view of the decisions on the issue by the European Court of Human Rights. What is called into question is not the decision of the Supreme Court, but the earlier decision of seven Scottish judges which failed to enforce the right to legal advice.
The decision of the Scottish Appeal Court in its interpretation of the requirements of the European Convention was simply, in the words of Lord Hope of Craighead, not tenable. The question that is raised here is how did the Scottish judges get it so wrong ?
The answer, in my view, is rooted in a repeated refusal by Scottish judges in criminal matters to engage with and accept the consequences of the application of convention rights. An example of this arose in Cadder where the Scottish Appeal Court refused to entertain an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. Leave was subsequently granted by the Supreme Court itself. (...)
The Justice Secretary also seeks to justify his criticism of "interference" by the Supreme Court, by reference to the proud and "admired" system of criminal justice in Scotland. Unfortunately in recent years, the Scottish criminal justice system, notwithstanding the requirement of corroboration, has lagged behind other comparable jurisdictions in both its development of the criminal law and in respect of procedural rights.
Examples include our failure to introduce proper disclosure of information to the defence; our narrow and restrictive approach to appeals; our failure to develop a proactive judicial role in the protection of the fairness of trials; our failures to provide adequate safeguards regarding identification evidence and, as evidenced in this case, our failure to fully embrace and properly implement convention rights in criminal cases. It is my experience that we are no longer so admired internationally.
The Justice Secretary further complains of a "small industry" of lawyers who take cases to London. I must, presumably, declare myself a member of same.
This is because I consider it my duty to pursue a client's constitutional right to appeal to the Supreme Court to enforce his/her human rights. I have regrettably found it necessary to take the long road to London on a number of occasions, because of the failure of the Scottish courts to secure those rights. The very fact of this complaint highlights the misplaced hostility involved here.
In fact, the decision in Cadder demonstrates the need to have Scottish access to the Supreme Court in order to properly protect human rights. If such access is denied then the Scottish people - alone within the UK - will be truly disadvantaged.
The Supreme Court decision in Cadder was entirely predictable, if not inevitable, in view of the decisions on the issue by the European Court of Human Rights. What is called into question is not the decision of the Supreme Court, but the earlier decision of seven Scottish judges which failed to enforce the right to legal advice.
The decision of the Scottish Appeal Court in its interpretation of the requirements of the European Convention was simply, in the words of Lord Hope of Craighead, not tenable. The question that is raised here is how did the Scottish judges get it so wrong ?
The answer, in my view, is rooted in a repeated refusal by Scottish judges in criminal matters to engage with and accept the consequences of the application of convention rights. An example of this arose in Cadder where the Scottish Appeal Court refused to entertain an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. Leave was subsequently granted by the Supreme Court itself. (...)
The Justice Secretary also seeks to justify his criticism of "interference" by the Supreme Court, by reference to the proud and "admired" system of criminal justice in Scotland. Unfortunately in recent years, the Scottish criminal justice system, notwithstanding the requirement of corroboration, has lagged behind other comparable jurisdictions in both its development of the criminal law and in respect of procedural rights.
Examples include our failure to introduce proper disclosure of information to the defence; our narrow and restrictive approach to appeals; our failure to develop a proactive judicial role in the protection of the fairness of trials; our failures to provide adequate safeguards regarding identification evidence and, as evidenced in this case, our failure to fully embrace and properly implement convention rights in criminal cases. It is my experience that we are no longer so admired internationally.
The Justice Secretary further complains of a "small industry" of lawyers who take cases to London. I must, presumably, declare myself a member of same.
This is because I consider it my duty to pursue a client's constitutional right to appeal to the Supreme Court to enforce his/her human rights. I have regrettably found it necessary to take the long road to London on a number of occasions, because of the failure of the Scottish courts to secure those rights. The very fact of this complaint highlights the misplaced hostility involved here.
In fact, the decision in Cadder demonstrates the need to have Scottish access to the Supreme Court in order to properly protect human rights. If such access is denied then the Scottish people - alone within the UK - will be truly disadvantaged.
Dr Swire has meeting with Moderator, Cardinal and Primus
[I am grateful to Dr Jim Swire for this account of a meeting that he had in Dunblane on 2 November 2010 with the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Right Rev John Christie), the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh (Cardinal Keith O'Brien) and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (Most Rev David Chillingworth, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane).]
This meeting was convened by Cardinal O'Brien, following his correspondence with Dr Jim Swire, which in turn had arisen in response to an article published by Cardinal O'Brien in Scotland on Sunday on 8th August 2010. This article had contrasted the position of the judicial systems and punishments of the United Sates with those of Scotland, including the provision for compassion, and discussed their respective relationships to justice and to revenge. The meeting also followed the presentation by Justice for Megrahi (JFM) to the Public Petitions Committee of the Holyrood Parliament, which the Cardinal had attended. My apologies (...) for so long a review of our meeting.
It is the belief of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi and the way in which the court at Zeist reached that verdict are insecure. In addition material released since the verdict by elements of his defence team, and by a UN official observer of the trial (Prof Hans Koechler), together with the limited findings of the SCCRC thus far made public, profoundly undermine confidence that justice has been delivered in this case. Since there were also aspects of the preparation of evidence for use in the court which might have been influenced by the political considerations of states outwith Scotland, the need to review the impartiality of our justice system in this case is greatly augmented.
JFM had therefore mounted the following petition to the Holyrood Parliament:
to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.
This commentary below represents only Dr Jim Swire’s personal comments concerning this meeting, which he felt very privileged to have attended. The meeting was chiefly concerned with Dr Swire attempting to define how he sees the current position over the Lockerbie trial, the trial’s origins and some of the events that followed it. He personally is convinced that the SCCRC were right to announce that they believed this case might have been a miscarriage of justice
Based on his own experiences of this case, Dr Swire himself is satisfied that Mr Megrahi could not have been involved as charged: this differs from the position of JFM, but of course we share the imperative that the whole trial process must be re-examined if we are to be sure what justice for Megrahi should be. Therefore this account is written partly as a personal assessment of the situation, and in the first person.
I hope that each of you three Church leaders may feel able to publish some comment upon the situation discussed here when you have had the opportunity to review the implications with your respective churches, and that whatever these comments may be, they may be made available to your respective congregations, and as widely as possible. Of course you are also at liberty to use all or any representative part of this account in any way you wish, and it is also my hope that you will not object to the publication of this account on The Lockerbie Case blog of Professor Robert Black. Over the question of how justice should serve our community, I believe that this case is best exposed to public view by any possible means, for its implications should concern all of us in Scotland.
The establishment and maintenance of an impartial justice system is fundamental to the health of any civilised community. If the confidence of a community in the impartiality of its justice system is undermined, or indeed is even significantly suspected of having been undermined, the entire community is disadvantaged. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
This disaster arose when a Boeing 747 containing 259 passengers and crew and baggage, all loaded at Heathrow and destined for New York, crossed into Scottish airspace over the Solway Firth, at about 7.02 pm on the 21st of December 1988 and exploded over Lockerbie about one minute later with the loss of 270 innocent lives, 11 of them among the people of Lockerbie below. There are therefore immediate questions over where the limits of Scottish legal authority should be set, since the loading of the bomb had occurred in London’s Heathrow airport. Those questions in turn bear upon matters relevant to the present state of devolution between Scotland and England. They also bear inexorably upon aspects of the accumulation and handling of evidence and forensic artefacts for use in the trial. For instance, the UK forensics officers appointed to this Scottish case by UK the authorities had already been very severely criticised by a Lord Chief Justice of England for the unreliability of their evidence in preceding IRA based murder trials in England.
Both the Lockerbie Fatal Accident Inquiry and the Zeist trial were held under Scots law, but their findings reach far over the border and beyond even European boundaries, as does the assembly of evidence and witnesses for their use. The greater the importance then of examining whether our legal performance was satisfactory, and the greater the importance that we ourselves ordain re-examination of our justice system, rather than allowing any entity outwith Scotland to do so. Then if errors are found we can at least be seen to be addressing them for ourselves.
However, within Scotland herself these factors themselves are also complex, for the relatively small enclaves of Scottish law and investigative police must act, and be seen to act objectively and not in any attempt at self-justification. We must not lose sight of one major criticism of the Zeist trial, namely that failures of the Crown Office as prosecuting authority in the sharing of material with the defence, was one of the major factors that seemed to make the trial unacceptable as a fair arena in which to try the case. We must also be aware that some of those directly involved in many of the processes required for this court to function, from the Lord Advocate of the day downwards, have by now evolved into major players in the Scottish legal system. The same applies in the police forces involved. The revelations from the McKie fingerprint case give great cause for concern about possible attempts at self-justification from both the legal and police communities in Scotland.
It is of paramount importance that any inquiry is seen to be outside the circles of individual and corporate influence within Scotland which might otherwise be accused of having invalidated the objectivity of such an inquiry. Meeting this requirement might mean the appointment by the Scottish Government of a chairman of inquiry of acknowledged impartiality from outside Scotland. As we shall see there are plenty of materials and personnel within Scotland upon which a meaningful inquiry could be based.
Back in 1989, the UK relatives of the dead (‘UK Families-Flight 103’) were soon in possession of a number of prior warnings which had been received by the British Government well before the disaster, but their requests to the Westminster Government to set up an immediate inquiry after protection of the aircraft had all too obviously failed, were ignored. Lady Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, refused even to meet to discuss an inquiry, and the pattern of rejecting any objective inquiry has been followed by every British Prime Minister since.
As was mandatory under Scots law, since the aircraft crew had ‘perished in their place of work’, a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) had been set up at Dumfries. In retrospect it was unfortunate, yet entirely proper, that (the late) Sheriff Principal Mowat who led that hearing instructed the FAI that it was to accept that ‘the bomb had arrived at Heathrow from Frankfurt'. This was to be the limit of the FAI’s remit in examining the origins of the disaster, and was in line with the current state of the police investigation at that time, which of course had to be protected, in view of hoped for impending prosecutions.
In spite of this arbitrary acceptance of whence the bomb 'must' have come, the FAI did however tell us relatives that the aircraft had been under the host state protection of the UK at all relevant times on the ground at Heathrow, and that the disaster had been preventable. It is very unfortunate that the question of how the bomb actually got into Heathrow and onto the plane is now seen by many observers as being misrepresented at Zeist. If that turns out to be the case, then a main instruction for the FAI would appear to have been unjustified itself, requiring review of some aspects of the FAI hearings. Much of the work of the FAI was centred upon how passenger baggage was handled within Heathrow airport, and upon the performance of the UK Department of Transport in securing baggage there. Should it emerge in an inquiry or further appeal that the bomb may not have been introduced via the Frankfurt flight after all, but through the Heathrow break-in (vide infra) then it would be necessary to re-examine the question of UK failure to prevent the tragedy in terms of Heathrow perimeter security, rather than in terms of internal baggage handling methods at the airport. The task of a Scottish FAI is to determine the factors contributing to the death(s)
There is well informed criticism now of the whole concept of the bomb having come from Malta. Worse, information concerning a break-in to highly relevant parts of Heathrow during the small hours of the night before Lockerbie was withheld from the Zeist trial court until after the verdict had been reached. How this came about would have to be included in any meaningful inquiry into the probity of the trial, and would also have implications for the findings of the FAI, specifically in terms of the UK's responsibility to protect flights loading at Heathrow airport. In this respect the interests of 'UK Families-Flight 103' are broader than the petition by JFM which centres specifically upon the Zeist verdict. The people of Scotland however should also have an interest as to how this aircraft with its loaded bomb came to enter Scottish airspace that night, and rain death upon 11 of them in their homes in Lockerbie. Since the role of the protection offered to Pan Am 103 at Heathrow were addressed by the Scottish FAI, they must also fall within the remit of a Scottish investigation of the disaster.
Told by a former British Foreign Secretary that there was excellent evidence against the accused and none against any other country than Libya, by the time I entered the Zeist court I was expecting to see two of the murderers brought to justice.
Meanwhile we, in 'UK Families-Flight 103', strengthened by the findings of Scotland’s FAI that the disaster had been preventable, are still waiting for explanations from the Westminster Government as to why they failed to protect the lives of our families. The bomb which crossed the Scottish border that night in the belly of the 747 appeared to conform to those described in such detail in the warnings received in good time by the UK Government beforehand. This issue of the failure of protection at Heathrow may lie outwith Scottish jurisdiction, but the performance and findings of the two Scottish Court proceedings at Dumfries and Zeist lie entirely within Scotland’s sphere of responsibility, the latter being central to the question of whether Mr Megrahi’s conviction was or was not justified. JFM’s petition therefore centres upon the Zeist court and its findings.
Following some 18 months of official investigation immediately after the disaster, the finger seemed to point to Iran, seeking revenge, by using a Syrian terror group as mercenaries. having lost an airbus containing some 290 individuals shot down by a US missile cruiser six months before Lockerbie, the captain of the cruiser being presented with a medal following his return to the USA.
Then suddenly in late 1991 indictments were issued simultaneously in Edinburgh and Washington against two of Libya’s citizens.
There followed for the relatives years of hard work attempting to persuade Libya to allow the two to be tried under Scots law. These efforts were strongly supported by the then Professor of Scots at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Black QC and by Nelson Mandela, and many others, but involved multiple trips to talk to Colonel Gaddafi. The first of these was made by myself alone and in great fear, but two others were made jointly with Professor Black, who was himself the originator of the ‘Scottish court in a neutral country' concept.
Together with one other UK relative, I watched the whole of the evidence unfold at Zeist, and though only a layman, to my amazement as the case unfolded it seemed to me that the evidence was failing to support the involvement of either of the accused in the atrocity, let alone the island of Malta as the point of origin of the bomb. The second Libyan suspect, Mr Khalifa Fahima, was accused of conspiring with Mr Megrahi to cause the disaster but was found Not Guilty: a remarkable finding in view of the availability of the Scottish verdict of Not Proven.
Then came the evidence of a German forensic officer who explained to the court the nature of bombs found in the hands of a terror group, but not all confiscated, in Germany, two months before Lockerbie. He explained that the bombs were of Syrian provenance, from an Iranian linked terror group, the PFLP-GC in Damascus. He also carefully explained how these bombs, specifically designed to destroy aircraft in flight, were capable of introduction to an airport well in advance of their actual use. He explained too that put into an aircraft they would always explode between 35 and 40 minutes after take-off, by sensing the drop in air pressure, but that they were inert on the ground indefinitely. They were not adjustable. They came predicated always to explode 35-40 minutes after take-off.
Yet these devices could not have arrived by air from Malta as they would have exploded en route. From that point on, and knowing that the flight time for the Lockerbie aircraft had been 38 minutes, I found it hard to believe that Mr Megrahi, allegedly using a sophisticated digital timer from Malta, had risked his device passing through an Air Malta flight, changing planes at Frankfurt and then changing planes again at Heathrow, only to have it explode 38 minutes after take-off from Heathrow as the Lockerbie flight did. Why would he not set it to explode over mid Atlantic since the timing of the device he was alleged to have used was fully under his control? Why risk this devious route those two changes of airplane and so short a flight time out of Heathrow?
But the FAI had told us to assume that the bomb had been flown in from Frankfurt. What were the chances of a simple time-bomb from Malta happening to explode at just the same time after take-off from Heathrow as one of those described by the German forensic officer to the court would have been obligated to do? The hearings seemed permeated with failures to assuage reasonable doubt: a prerequisite supposedly for reaching a guilty verdict under Scots criminal law
There were great difficulties particularly surrounding the evidence given by Toni Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper alleged to have sold a tranche of clothing later found at the crash site to Mr Megrahi, who he could only say ‘looked a lot like the buyer of the clothes’. The evidence of identification never looked to be of the standard required to incriminate the real perpetrator, yet it was the only supposedly secure proof of Mr Megrahi’s involvement in Malta, there being no evidence to lead as to how he was supposed to have breached security at Luqa airport on the island. Such difficulties and many others will be central to any inquiry into this trial.
It is significant that Professor Black has repeatedly stated that the events and evidence heard in the Zeist trial court itself present difficulties which should have ruled out a guilty verdict under Scottish criminal law, even without reference to events since the verdict was reached. Unlike my lay status, his is a powerful persuasive and professional voice claiming the need for the whole court process to be reviewed if we are to be certain whether justice was delivered for Mr Megrahi or not. Only a few others were prepared openly to express their doubts at first, but re-examination of the evidence and trial transcripts has increased doubts over the validity of the verdict for a number of highly qualified lawyers since. Gareth Peirce, one of Britain’s most respected human rights lawyers is an excellent example of this. Her article in the London Review of Books 'The framing of al-Megrahi' is well worth reading.
After three years of study the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) publicly stated that the trial might be a miscarriage of justice, massively increasing the doubts in the minds of many Scots both within and without our legal community.
Yet the current publicly expressed position of the Scottish Justice Minister and of our First Minister is that they have no doubts concerning the verdict. It is not apparent why they should be considered a more reliable source than the SCCRC, whose special task it is to decide such issues, and which spent so long in careful professional examination of this case.
I have made clear that the content of the Zeist court proceedings on their own are widely thought sufficient to require re-examination of the whole court process. However immediately after the verdict was reached, a night security guard complained to the Zeist defence team that his discovery of a break-in at Heathrow airport during the night preceding Lockerbie had been ignored by the court. It transpired that his discovery had been promptly reported to the Heathrow authorities, and that in January 1989 the security guard himself had been interviewed by the Metropolitan Police Special branch. Though the break-in had occurred close to where the bags for the Lockerbie flight were assembled and to where the facilities used by Iran Air were sited, neither the break-in itself nor the evidence from the interview of the night security guard were made known to the Zeist court, until after the verdict had been reached.
Although this startling new information seemed to fit perfectly as a route through which one of the Syrian automatic air pressure sensitive bombs described above might have been introduced, it did not dislodge the verdict. Paramount among reasons why this was so, revolved round the way that Mr Megrahi’s defence had approached the first appeal. The performance of Mr Megrahi’s defence team at Zeist must of course be re-evaluated by any inquiry.
The emergence of this evidence seemed to fit as if a vital piece of a jig saw into my own belief derived from the German forensic evidence heard in the Zeist court hearings themselves, that one of the Syrian automatic devices was most probably used, with their inevitable 35-40 minute flight time. Here at last was evidence of a credible route for the introduction of one of these devices to Heathrow. A reassuringly simple and satisfying alternative to the weird route allegedly chosen by Mr Megrahi and his bomb from Malta, accepted by the Zeist court.
Surely this was a ‘reasonable doubt’ contradicting the verdict, since if true, Mr Megrahi could not have been involved, having been shown in the court evidence to have been on Malta during the night of the break-in at Heathrow.
At this time there is no known explanation as to why this potentially vital information lay concealed from the trial court. It could be that the Met did not pass it on to the Scots; it could be that the investigating Scottish police chose to ignore it, but at least the Crown office has assured me in writing that they did not know of it prior to the verdict being reached. Here is another interface between UK responsibility and Scottish responsibility. We need to know where responsibility for this amazing lacuna in the main trial court's evidence arose, in pursuit of assessment of the competence or otherwise of the Scottish police investigation, for this investigation was central to the sufficiency of evidence led at Zeist.
I will mention one other development since the trial ended. Following the withdrawal of his appeal, Mr Megrahi’s defence team published a substantial amount of information which presumably would have been among that to be used had the appeal continued. This was not the work of some elusive conspiracy theorist, nor did it appear in one of the less well supported pages of Wikipedia. It was placed on the net by members of Mr Megrahi’s Scottish defence team, all no doubt available to any Scottish inquiry. Among their revelations was the information that the above mentioned Maltese shopkeeper Toni Gauci was observed by one of the investigating Scottish police officers, Harry Bell, to be showing increasing signs of desire to get his hands on a substantial sum in US dollars, to be provided from America ‘if he gave evidence leading to the conviction' of Mr Megrahi. The diary entry was made long before Toni Gauci did come to court to give his evidence. Evidence from other sources suggests that the amount was to be $2,000,000. That would be a life-changing fortune to the keeper of a small Maltese clothing store. The money appears to have come from Washington, from the US ‘Rewards for Justice’ programme, which listed Mr Megrahi’s name among those brought to ‘justice’ by the disbursements of its funds.
This policeman and his diary (which was not seen by the Zeist court, although its existence was known to it) should also be available for a suitably empowered inquiry to examine.
It seems to me therefore that there is no shortage of aspects to this case which lie within reach of an appropriately empowered Scottish inquiry. It is not the position of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi was wrong, simply that it is so set about with legitimate and accessible doubt that it must now be re-examined, if we in Scotland are to retain confidence in our judicial system and its impartiality, and if we are to be sure that Mr Megrahi has received justice at our hands.
None of the above, bears upon the decision of our Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to allow Mr Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds in 2009. I was privileged to meet with Kenny before he made his decision and urged him to use the established precedent in Scots law to allow the desperately sick man home. It did not even require the withdrawal of his appeal which we hoped would fully review the verdict. I believe Kenny’s decision was a brave one, and of course it has brought vile criticism upon him from the USA, where there is expression of a hope that Mr Megrahi will quickly die and even preferably in pain. These are voices baying for vengeance.
Personally I believe we should be proud of Kenny’s decision and of the capacity of our legal system to exhibit compassion. Speaking as a doctor for a moment, I would say that the relief of the misery of being segregated from his family and desperately sick in an alien prison cell, all because of a horrible slaughter for which he may bear no responsibility, was the major reason for his much prolonged survival thus far in Tripoli. That gave me the joy of meeting him once more with his loving family in his hospital room in Tripoli last month.
You will remember that I personally am satisfied that Mr Megrahi was simply not involved, and therefore what might have been a supremely difficult moment to test the Christian obligation to try to love one’s enemies, was no problem. I have nothing for which to forgive him. Indeed, the roles are reversed. I campaigned for several years to have this man and his fellow Libyan submit to Scottish law as being a fair system.
Mr Megrahi is a devout Muslim. Yet in his cell just before Christmas 2008 he bought a Christmas card from the prison shop and gave it to me: on it he had written “To doctor Swire and family, please pray for me and my family”. Was that the act of a mass murderer? Should either of us hate the other? I don't think so, but I do believe we should investigate whether or not we in Scotland provided justice for Mr Megrahi at Zeist. I would like to think that we could all pray for him and his family, but for those among us who still believe he may be guilty, that prayer would be so much easier if review of this trial showed him to have been innocent all along. So I think we may pray that justice may be done here and that it be seen to be done by us, the people of Scotland, whom that justice system must faithfully serve in the future.
This meeting was convened by Cardinal O'Brien, following his correspondence with Dr Jim Swire, which in turn had arisen in response to an article published by Cardinal O'Brien in Scotland on Sunday on 8th August 2010. This article had contrasted the position of the judicial systems and punishments of the United Sates with those of Scotland, including the provision for compassion, and discussed their respective relationships to justice and to revenge. The meeting also followed the presentation by Justice for Megrahi (JFM) to the Public Petitions Committee of the Holyrood Parliament, which the Cardinal had attended. My apologies (...) for so long a review of our meeting.
It is the belief of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi and the way in which the court at Zeist reached that verdict are insecure. In addition material released since the verdict by elements of his defence team, and by a UN official observer of the trial (Prof Hans Koechler), together with the limited findings of the SCCRC thus far made public, profoundly undermine confidence that justice has been delivered in this case. Since there were also aspects of the preparation of evidence for use in the court which might have been influenced by the political considerations of states outwith Scotland, the need to review the impartiality of our justice system in this case is greatly augmented.
JFM had therefore mounted the following petition to the Holyrood Parliament:
to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.
This commentary below represents only Dr Jim Swire’s personal comments concerning this meeting, which he felt very privileged to have attended. The meeting was chiefly concerned with Dr Swire attempting to define how he sees the current position over the Lockerbie trial, the trial’s origins and some of the events that followed it. He personally is convinced that the SCCRC were right to announce that they believed this case might have been a miscarriage of justice
Based on his own experiences of this case, Dr Swire himself is satisfied that Mr Megrahi could not have been involved as charged: this differs from the position of JFM, but of course we share the imperative that the whole trial process must be re-examined if we are to be sure what justice for Megrahi should be. Therefore this account is written partly as a personal assessment of the situation, and in the first person.
I hope that each of you three Church leaders may feel able to publish some comment upon the situation discussed here when you have had the opportunity to review the implications with your respective churches, and that whatever these comments may be, they may be made available to your respective congregations, and as widely as possible. Of course you are also at liberty to use all or any representative part of this account in any way you wish, and it is also my hope that you will not object to the publication of this account on The Lockerbie Case blog of Professor Robert Black. Over the question of how justice should serve our community, I believe that this case is best exposed to public view by any possible means, for its implications should concern all of us in Scotland.
The establishment and maintenance of an impartial justice system is fundamental to the health of any civilised community. If the confidence of a community in the impartiality of its justice system is undermined, or indeed is even significantly suspected of having been undermined, the entire community is disadvantaged. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
This disaster arose when a Boeing 747 containing 259 passengers and crew and baggage, all loaded at Heathrow and destined for New York, crossed into Scottish airspace over the Solway Firth, at about 7.02 pm on the 21st of December 1988 and exploded over Lockerbie about one minute later with the loss of 270 innocent lives, 11 of them among the people of Lockerbie below. There are therefore immediate questions over where the limits of Scottish legal authority should be set, since the loading of the bomb had occurred in London’s Heathrow airport. Those questions in turn bear upon matters relevant to the present state of devolution between Scotland and England. They also bear inexorably upon aspects of the accumulation and handling of evidence and forensic artefacts for use in the trial. For instance, the UK forensics officers appointed to this Scottish case by UK the authorities had already been very severely criticised by a Lord Chief Justice of England for the unreliability of their evidence in preceding IRA based murder trials in England.
Both the Lockerbie Fatal Accident Inquiry and the Zeist trial were held under Scots law, but their findings reach far over the border and beyond even European boundaries, as does the assembly of evidence and witnesses for their use. The greater the importance then of examining whether our legal performance was satisfactory, and the greater the importance that we ourselves ordain re-examination of our justice system, rather than allowing any entity outwith Scotland to do so. Then if errors are found we can at least be seen to be addressing them for ourselves.
However, within Scotland herself these factors themselves are also complex, for the relatively small enclaves of Scottish law and investigative police must act, and be seen to act objectively and not in any attempt at self-justification. We must not lose sight of one major criticism of the Zeist trial, namely that failures of the Crown Office as prosecuting authority in the sharing of material with the defence, was one of the major factors that seemed to make the trial unacceptable as a fair arena in which to try the case. We must also be aware that some of those directly involved in many of the processes required for this court to function, from the Lord Advocate of the day downwards, have by now evolved into major players in the Scottish legal system. The same applies in the police forces involved. The revelations from the McKie fingerprint case give great cause for concern about possible attempts at self-justification from both the legal and police communities in Scotland.
It is of paramount importance that any inquiry is seen to be outside the circles of individual and corporate influence within Scotland which might otherwise be accused of having invalidated the objectivity of such an inquiry. Meeting this requirement might mean the appointment by the Scottish Government of a chairman of inquiry of acknowledged impartiality from outside Scotland. As we shall see there are plenty of materials and personnel within Scotland upon which a meaningful inquiry could be based.
Back in 1989, the UK relatives of the dead (‘UK Families-Flight 103’) were soon in possession of a number of prior warnings which had been received by the British Government well before the disaster, but their requests to the Westminster Government to set up an immediate inquiry after protection of the aircraft had all too obviously failed, were ignored. Lady Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, refused even to meet to discuss an inquiry, and the pattern of rejecting any objective inquiry has been followed by every British Prime Minister since.
As was mandatory under Scots law, since the aircraft crew had ‘perished in their place of work’, a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) had been set up at Dumfries. In retrospect it was unfortunate, yet entirely proper, that (the late) Sheriff Principal Mowat who led that hearing instructed the FAI that it was to accept that ‘the bomb had arrived at Heathrow from Frankfurt'. This was to be the limit of the FAI’s remit in examining the origins of the disaster, and was in line with the current state of the police investigation at that time, which of course had to be protected, in view of hoped for impending prosecutions.
In spite of this arbitrary acceptance of whence the bomb 'must' have come, the FAI did however tell us relatives that the aircraft had been under the host state protection of the UK at all relevant times on the ground at Heathrow, and that the disaster had been preventable. It is very unfortunate that the question of how the bomb actually got into Heathrow and onto the plane is now seen by many observers as being misrepresented at Zeist. If that turns out to be the case, then a main instruction for the FAI would appear to have been unjustified itself, requiring review of some aspects of the FAI hearings. Much of the work of the FAI was centred upon how passenger baggage was handled within Heathrow airport, and upon the performance of the UK Department of Transport in securing baggage there. Should it emerge in an inquiry or further appeal that the bomb may not have been introduced via the Frankfurt flight after all, but through the Heathrow break-in (vide infra) then it would be necessary to re-examine the question of UK failure to prevent the tragedy in terms of Heathrow perimeter security, rather than in terms of internal baggage handling methods at the airport. The task of a Scottish FAI is to determine the factors contributing to the death(s)
There is well informed criticism now of the whole concept of the bomb having come from Malta. Worse, information concerning a break-in to highly relevant parts of Heathrow during the small hours of the night before Lockerbie was withheld from the Zeist trial court until after the verdict had been reached. How this came about would have to be included in any meaningful inquiry into the probity of the trial, and would also have implications for the findings of the FAI, specifically in terms of the UK's responsibility to protect flights loading at Heathrow airport. In this respect the interests of 'UK Families-Flight 103' are broader than the petition by JFM which centres specifically upon the Zeist verdict. The people of Scotland however should also have an interest as to how this aircraft with its loaded bomb came to enter Scottish airspace that night, and rain death upon 11 of them in their homes in Lockerbie. Since the role of the protection offered to Pan Am 103 at Heathrow were addressed by the Scottish FAI, they must also fall within the remit of a Scottish investigation of the disaster.
Told by a former British Foreign Secretary that there was excellent evidence against the accused and none against any other country than Libya, by the time I entered the Zeist court I was expecting to see two of the murderers brought to justice.
Meanwhile we, in 'UK Families-Flight 103', strengthened by the findings of Scotland’s FAI that the disaster had been preventable, are still waiting for explanations from the Westminster Government as to why they failed to protect the lives of our families. The bomb which crossed the Scottish border that night in the belly of the 747 appeared to conform to those described in such detail in the warnings received in good time by the UK Government beforehand. This issue of the failure of protection at Heathrow may lie outwith Scottish jurisdiction, but the performance and findings of the two Scottish Court proceedings at Dumfries and Zeist lie entirely within Scotland’s sphere of responsibility, the latter being central to the question of whether Mr Megrahi’s conviction was or was not justified. JFM’s petition therefore centres upon the Zeist court and its findings.
Following some 18 months of official investigation immediately after the disaster, the finger seemed to point to Iran, seeking revenge, by using a Syrian terror group as mercenaries. having lost an airbus containing some 290 individuals shot down by a US missile cruiser six months before Lockerbie, the captain of the cruiser being presented with a medal following his return to the USA.
Then suddenly in late 1991 indictments were issued simultaneously in Edinburgh and Washington against two of Libya’s citizens.
There followed for the relatives years of hard work attempting to persuade Libya to allow the two to be tried under Scots law. These efforts were strongly supported by the then Professor of Scots at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Black QC and by Nelson Mandela, and many others, but involved multiple trips to talk to Colonel Gaddafi. The first of these was made by myself alone and in great fear, but two others were made jointly with Professor Black, who was himself the originator of the ‘Scottish court in a neutral country' concept.
Together with one other UK relative, I watched the whole of the evidence unfold at Zeist, and though only a layman, to my amazement as the case unfolded it seemed to me that the evidence was failing to support the involvement of either of the accused in the atrocity, let alone the island of Malta as the point of origin of the bomb. The second Libyan suspect, Mr Khalifa Fahima, was accused of conspiring with Mr Megrahi to cause the disaster but was found Not Guilty: a remarkable finding in view of the availability of the Scottish verdict of Not Proven.
Then came the evidence of a German forensic officer who explained to the court the nature of bombs found in the hands of a terror group, but not all confiscated, in Germany, two months before Lockerbie. He explained that the bombs were of Syrian provenance, from an Iranian linked terror group, the PFLP-GC in Damascus. He also carefully explained how these bombs, specifically designed to destroy aircraft in flight, were capable of introduction to an airport well in advance of their actual use. He explained too that put into an aircraft they would always explode between 35 and 40 minutes after take-off, by sensing the drop in air pressure, but that they were inert on the ground indefinitely. They were not adjustable. They came predicated always to explode 35-40 minutes after take-off.
Yet these devices could not have arrived by air from Malta as they would have exploded en route. From that point on, and knowing that the flight time for the Lockerbie aircraft had been 38 minutes, I found it hard to believe that Mr Megrahi, allegedly using a sophisticated digital timer from Malta, had risked his device passing through an Air Malta flight, changing planes at Frankfurt and then changing planes again at Heathrow, only to have it explode 38 minutes after take-off from Heathrow as the Lockerbie flight did. Why would he not set it to explode over mid Atlantic since the timing of the device he was alleged to have used was fully under his control? Why risk this devious route those two changes of airplane and so short a flight time out of Heathrow?
But the FAI had told us to assume that the bomb had been flown in from Frankfurt. What were the chances of a simple time-bomb from Malta happening to explode at just the same time after take-off from Heathrow as one of those described by the German forensic officer to the court would have been obligated to do? The hearings seemed permeated with failures to assuage reasonable doubt: a prerequisite supposedly for reaching a guilty verdict under Scots criminal law
There were great difficulties particularly surrounding the evidence given by Toni Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper alleged to have sold a tranche of clothing later found at the crash site to Mr Megrahi, who he could only say ‘looked a lot like the buyer of the clothes’. The evidence of identification never looked to be of the standard required to incriminate the real perpetrator, yet it was the only supposedly secure proof of Mr Megrahi’s involvement in Malta, there being no evidence to lead as to how he was supposed to have breached security at Luqa airport on the island. Such difficulties and many others will be central to any inquiry into this trial.
It is significant that Professor Black has repeatedly stated that the events and evidence heard in the Zeist trial court itself present difficulties which should have ruled out a guilty verdict under Scottish criminal law, even without reference to events since the verdict was reached. Unlike my lay status, his is a powerful persuasive and professional voice claiming the need for the whole court process to be reviewed if we are to be certain whether justice was delivered for Mr Megrahi or not. Only a few others were prepared openly to express their doubts at first, but re-examination of the evidence and trial transcripts has increased doubts over the validity of the verdict for a number of highly qualified lawyers since. Gareth Peirce, one of Britain’s most respected human rights lawyers is an excellent example of this. Her article in the London Review of Books 'The framing of al-Megrahi' is well worth reading.
After three years of study the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) publicly stated that the trial might be a miscarriage of justice, massively increasing the doubts in the minds of many Scots both within and without our legal community.
Yet the current publicly expressed position of the Scottish Justice Minister and of our First Minister is that they have no doubts concerning the verdict. It is not apparent why they should be considered a more reliable source than the SCCRC, whose special task it is to decide such issues, and which spent so long in careful professional examination of this case.
I have made clear that the content of the Zeist court proceedings on their own are widely thought sufficient to require re-examination of the whole court process. However immediately after the verdict was reached, a night security guard complained to the Zeist defence team that his discovery of a break-in at Heathrow airport during the night preceding Lockerbie had been ignored by the court. It transpired that his discovery had been promptly reported to the Heathrow authorities, and that in January 1989 the security guard himself had been interviewed by the Metropolitan Police Special branch. Though the break-in had occurred close to where the bags for the Lockerbie flight were assembled and to where the facilities used by Iran Air were sited, neither the break-in itself nor the evidence from the interview of the night security guard were made known to the Zeist court, until after the verdict had been reached.
Although this startling new information seemed to fit perfectly as a route through which one of the Syrian automatic air pressure sensitive bombs described above might have been introduced, it did not dislodge the verdict. Paramount among reasons why this was so, revolved round the way that Mr Megrahi’s defence had approached the first appeal. The performance of Mr Megrahi’s defence team at Zeist must of course be re-evaluated by any inquiry.
The emergence of this evidence seemed to fit as if a vital piece of a jig saw into my own belief derived from the German forensic evidence heard in the Zeist court hearings themselves, that one of the Syrian automatic devices was most probably used, with their inevitable 35-40 minute flight time. Here at last was evidence of a credible route for the introduction of one of these devices to Heathrow. A reassuringly simple and satisfying alternative to the weird route allegedly chosen by Mr Megrahi and his bomb from Malta, accepted by the Zeist court.
Surely this was a ‘reasonable doubt’ contradicting the verdict, since if true, Mr Megrahi could not have been involved, having been shown in the court evidence to have been on Malta during the night of the break-in at Heathrow.
At this time there is no known explanation as to why this potentially vital information lay concealed from the trial court. It could be that the Met did not pass it on to the Scots; it could be that the investigating Scottish police chose to ignore it, but at least the Crown office has assured me in writing that they did not know of it prior to the verdict being reached. Here is another interface between UK responsibility and Scottish responsibility. We need to know where responsibility for this amazing lacuna in the main trial court's evidence arose, in pursuit of assessment of the competence or otherwise of the Scottish police investigation, for this investigation was central to the sufficiency of evidence led at Zeist.
I will mention one other development since the trial ended. Following the withdrawal of his appeal, Mr Megrahi’s defence team published a substantial amount of information which presumably would have been among that to be used had the appeal continued. This was not the work of some elusive conspiracy theorist, nor did it appear in one of the less well supported pages of Wikipedia. It was placed on the net by members of Mr Megrahi’s Scottish defence team, all no doubt available to any Scottish inquiry. Among their revelations was the information that the above mentioned Maltese shopkeeper Toni Gauci was observed by one of the investigating Scottish police officers, Harry Bell, to be showing increasing signs of desire to get his hands on a substantial sum in US dollars, to be provided from America ‘if he gave evidence leading to the conviction' of Mr Megrahi. The diary entry was made long before Toni Gauci did come to court to give his evidence. Evidence from other sources suggests that the amount was to be $2,000,000. That would be a life-changing fortune to the keeper of a small Maltese clothing store. The money appears to have come from Washington, from the US ‘Rewards for Justice’ programme, which listed Mr Megrahi’s name among those brought to ‘justice’ by the disbursements of its funds.
This policeman and his diary (which was not seen by the Zeist court, although its existence was known to it) should also be available for a suitably empowered inquiry to examine.
It seems to me therefore that there is no shortage of aspects to this case which lie within reach of an appropriately empowered Scottish inquiry. It is not the position of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi was wrong, simply that it is so set about with legitimate and accessible doubt that it must now be re-examined, if we in Scotland are to retain confidence in our judicial system and its impartiality, and if we are to be sure that Mr Megrahi has received justice at our hands.
None of the above, bears upon the decision of our Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to allow Mr Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds in 2009. I was privileged to meet with Kenny before he made his decision and urged him to use the established precedent in Scots law to allow the desperately sick man home. It did not even require the withdrawal of his appeal which we hoped would fully review the verdict. I believe Kenny’s decision was a brave one, and of course it has brought vile criticism upon him from the USA, where there is expression of a hope that Mr Megrahi will quickly die and even preferably in pain. These are voices baying for vengeance.
Personally I believe we should be proud of Kenny’s decision and of the capacity of our legal system to exhibit compassion. Speaking as a doctor for a moment, I would say that the relief of the misery of being segregated from his family and desperately sick in an alien prison cell, all because of a horrible slaughter for which he may bear no responsibility, was the major reason for his much prolonged survival thus far in Tripoli. That gave me the joy of meeting him once more with his loving family in his hospital room in Tripoli last month.
You will remember that I personally am satisfied that Mr Megrahi was simply not involved, and therefore what might have been a supremely difficult moment to test the Christian obligation to try to love one’s enemies, was no problem. I have nothing for which to forgive him. Indeed, the roles are reversed. I campaigned for several years to have this man and his fellow Libyan submit to Scottish law as being a fair system.
Mr Megrahi is a devout Muslim. Yet in his cell just before Christmas 2008 he bought a Christmas card from the prison shop and gave it to me: on it he had written “To doctor Swire and family, please pray for me and my family”. Was that the act of a mass murderer? Should either of us hate the other? I don't think so, but I do believe we should investigate whether or not we in Scotland provided justice for Mr Megrahi at Zeist. I would like to think that we could all pray for him and his family, but for those among us who still believe he may be guilty, that prayer would be so much easier if review of this trial showed him to have been innocent all along. So I think we may pray that justice may be done here and that it be seen to be done by us, the people of Scotland, whom that justice system must faithfully serve in the future.
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Public Petitions Committee hearing on Megrahi petition
[On Tuesday 9 November, the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee will hold a hearing on the Justice for Megrahi petition. Dr Jim Swire, Mr Iain McKie, Mr Robert Forrester and I have been invited to attend to make a brief presentation and to respond to MSPs' questions.
The Scottish Sunday Express today runs an article on the forthcoming committee hearing. It reads in part:]
Shocking unseen evidence from the Lockerbie bomber’s abandoned appeal is to be presented to Holyrood this week in a bid to prove his innocence.
Campaigners including Professor Robert Black and Dr Jim Swire will use the documents to try and force a Scottish Government inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s conviction.
Dr Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 killed in the 1988 atrocity, will introduce previously unseen diaries which could cast doubt on one of the trial’s key witnesses and show he was offered cash for evidence. [RB: The journalist is in error. This material will not be introduced at the committee hearing, which will be concerned simply with what action, if any, should be taken on the petition, NOT with the merits of Abdelbaset Megrahi's conviction. That would be a matter for any inquiry set up as a result of the petition.]
Written by a Scottish detective they reveal police knew from an early stage that Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, whose identification of the bomber was pivotal in the conviction, had been promised an “unlimited” reward by the US.
Dr Swire, who will deliver a plea to ministers on Tuesday, said: “The diaries kept by Detective Inspector Harry Bell show he knew when he was interviewing Tony Gauci he was getting excited about the possibility of a reward.
“This information alone would ordinarily be enough to overturn the conviction. Both Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond have made public statements saying they have full confidence in the verdict against Megrahi.
“That is an extraordinary situation given the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has ruled there may have been a miscarriage of justice.” He added: “How can politicians say they have total faith in the verdict when the one organisation that Scotland possesses to look into these matters says otherwise? It is an untenable position.”
DI Bell was the Dumfries and Galloway detective who traced a scrap of material which had been wrapped around the bomb to Gauci’s clothes shop in Malta. When Megrahi was finally brought to trial, Gauci identified the Libyan in court as the man who had bought the clothing.
It has since emerged that Gauci received $2million and his brother, Paul, received $1million from the US Department of Justice. DI Bell kept a diary during the investigation, although this was not presented to the three judges at the Lockerbie trial in 2001.
On September 28, 1989, he recorded that the FBI had discussed with the Scottish police an offer of unlimited money to Gauci, with $10,000 being available immediately. On March 5, 1990, he recorded a meeting with the FBI and a Maltese detective to discuss “reward money as a last resort”.
And on January 8, 1992, he said Dana Biehl from the US Department of Justice had offered a $2million reward to Libyan double agent Majid Giaka, who also gave evidence against Megrahi. DI Bell wrote: “He was immediately advised of our concern regarding this. I also clarified with him about the Gauci reward and the response was only if he gave evidence.”
It contradicts police sources who have always insisted the rewards were only “engineered” after the trial to help the Gaucis leave Malta. (...)
At Tuesday’s Holyrood hearing, MSPs will consider for the first time a 1,646-signature petition calling for an independent Lockerbie inquiry. Previously, ministers have maintained such a wide-ranging probe could only be called by Westminster or the United Nations. However, Prof Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: “The reasons the Scottish Government has given for not holding an inquiry are simply not correct.”
The Scottish Sunday Express today runs an article on the forthcoming committee hearing. It reads in part:]
Shocking unseen evidence from the Lockerbie bomber’s abandoned appeal is to be presented to Holyrood this week in a bid to prove his innocence.
Campaigners including Professor Robert Black and Dr Jim Swire will use the documents to try and force a Scottish Government inquiry into Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s conviction.
Dr Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 killed in the 1988 atrocity, will introduce previously unseen diaries which could cast doubt on one of the trial’s key witnesses and show he was offered cash for evidence. [RB: The journalist is in error. This material will not be introduced at the committee hearing, which will be concerned simply with what action, if any, should be taken on the petition, NOT with the merits of Abdelbaset Megrahi's conviction. That would be a matter for any inquiry set up as a result of the petition.]
Written by a Scottish detective they reveal police knew from an early stage that Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, whose identification of the bomber was pivotal in the conviction, had been promised an “unlimited” reward by the US.
Dr Swire, who will deliver a plea to ministers on Tuesday, said: “The diaries kept by Detective Inspector Harry Bell show he knew when he was interviewing Tony Gauci he was getting excited about the possibility of a reward.
“This information alone would ordinarily be enough to overturn the conviction. Both Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond have made public statements saying they have full confidence in the verdict against Megrahi.
“That is an extraordinary situation given the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has ruled there may have been a miscarriage of justice.” He added: “How can politicians say they have total faith in the verdict when the one organisation that Scotland possesses to look into these matters says otherwise? It is an untenable position.”
DI Bell was the Dumfries and Galloway detective who traced a scrap of material which had been wrapped around the bomb to Gauci’s clothes shop in Malta. When Megrahi was finally brought to trial, Gauci identified the Libyan in court as the man who had bought the clothing.
It has since emerged that Gauci received $2million and his brother, Paul, received $1million from the US Department of Justice. DI Bell kept a diary during the investigation, although this was not presented to the three judges at the Lockerbie trial in 2001.
On September 28, 1989, he recorded that the FBI had discussed with the Scottish police an offer of unlimited money to Gauci, with $10,000 being available immediately. On March 5, 1990, he recorded a meeting with the FBI and a Maltese detective to discuss “reward money as a last resort”.
And on January 8, 1992, he said Dana Biehl from the US Department of Justice had offered a $2million reward to Libyan double agent Majid Giaka, who also gave evidence against Megrahi. DI Bell wrote: “He was immediately advised of our concern regarding this. I also clarified with him about the Gauci reward and the response was only if he gave evidence.”
It contradicts police sources who have always insisted the rewards were only “engineered” after the trial to help the Gaucis leave Malta. (...)
At Tuesday’s Holyrood hearing, MSPs will consider for the first time a 1,646-signature petition calling for an independent Lockerbie inquiry. Previously, ministers have maintained such a wide-ranging probe could only be called by Westminster or the United Nations. However, Prof Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: “The reasons the Scottish Government has given for not holding an inquiry are simply not correct.”
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Professor claims "Section 7 con trick"
[This is the headline over a news item published on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm following on from a recent post on this blog. After reproducing the post, The Firm concludes its report as follows:]
John McGovern of the Glasgow Bar Association, solicitor Tony Kelly and the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation have all publicly condemned the measures, introduced without consultation or prior notice to MSPs, and enacted in a single day.
John McGovern of the Glasgow Bar Association, solicitor Tony Kelly and the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation have all publicly condemned the measures, introduced without consultation or prior notice to MSPs, and enacted in a single day.
Friday, 5 November 2010
The section 7 con trick
The Scottish Government has stated that section 7 of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010 (2010 asp 15) was required in order to stem the potential flood of appeals that might have arisen after the Cadder decision through successful applications to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. This is not so. Section 7 goes much further than was necessary to avoid the floodgates opening.
What follows are the relevant provisions of section 7 as enacted by the Scottish Parliament, followed by a redraft showing all that would actually have been required.
What was enacted
In determining whether or not it is in the interests of justice that a reference should be made, the Commission must have regard to the need for finality and certainty in the determination of criminal proceedings.
All that was required
In determining whether a miscarriage of justice may have occurred the Commission shall not take into account the circumstance that the applicant was not allowed access to a solicitor before making to the police a statement subsequently used in evidence against him, provided that statement was made before 26 October 2010.
What was enacted
(1) Where the Commission has referred a case to the High Court under section 194B of this Act [the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995] , the High Court may, despite section 194B(1), reject the reference if the Court considers that it is not in the interests of justice that any appeal arising from the reference should proceed.
(2) In determining whether or not it is in the interests of justice that any appeal arising from the reference should proceed, the High Court must have regard to the need for finality and certainty in the determination of criminal proceedings.
All that was required
Where the Commission has referred a case to the High Court under section 194B of this Act, the High Court may, despite section 194B(1), reject the reference if the only reason given by the Commission for making the reference is that the applicant was not allowed access to a solicitor before making to the police a statement subsequently used in evidence against him and that statement was made before 26 October 2010.
What follows are the relevant provisions of section 7 as enacted by the Scottish Parliament, followed by a redraft showing all that would actually have been required.
What was enacted
In determining whether or not it is in the interests of justice that a reference should be made, the Commission must have regard to the need for finality and certainty in the determination of criminal proceedings.
All that was required
In determining whether a miscarriage of justice may have occurred the Commission shall not take into account the circumstance that the applicant was not allowed access to a solicitor before making to the police a statement subsequently used in evidence against him, provided that statement was made before 26 October 2010.
What was enacted
(1) Where the Commission has referred a case to the High Court under section 194B of this Act [the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995] , the High Court may, despite section 194B(1), reject the reference if the Court considers that it is not in the interests of justice that any appeal arising from the reference should proceed.
(2) In determining whether or not it is in the interests of justice that any appeal arising from the reference should proceed, the High Court must have regard to the need for finality and certainty in the determination of criminal proceedings.
All that was required
Where the Commission has referred a case to the High Court under section 194B of this Act, the High Court may, despite section 194B(1), reject the reference if the only reason given by the Commission for making the reference is that the applicant was not allowed access to a solicitor before making to the police a statement subsequently used in evidence against him and that statement was made before 26 October 2010.
Thursday, 4 November 2010
A commentary on the implications of the Cadder Case
This is the heading over a lengthy article by Robert Forrester (with a contribution from me) just published in the Speakers' Corner section of the Newsnet Scotland website. It discusses in particular the pernicious effects of certain provisions of the emergency legislation enacted by the Scottish Parliament in response to the Supreme Court's decision in the Cadder case. As Mr Forrester says:
"The al-Megrahi/Zeist case has profound ramifications for us all. It raises questions and symbolises issues which strike at the very heart of what we perceive our identity to be. In addressing this matter, JFM [the Justice for Megrahi campaign] seeks to ask exactly what justice is, what it means, whom it exists to serve and what role it ought to be playing in our society.
"If our institutions of government and the civil service persist in failing to look themselves in the mirror and make an honest attempt to take the bull by the horns, they will have only themselves to blame if, by their actions and inaction, the good name of Scottish justice is not redeemed and society further degenerates into a morass of cynicism."
"The al-Megrahi/Zeist case has profound ramifications for us all. It raises questions and symbolises issues which strike at the very heart of what we perceive our identity to be. In addressing this matter, JFM [the Justice for Megrahi campaign] seeks to ask exactly what justice is, what it means, whom it exists to serve and what role it ought to be playing in our society.
"If our institutions of government and the civil service persist in failing to look themselves in the mirror and make an honest attempt to take the bull by the horns, they will have only themselves to blame if, by their actions and inaction, the good name of Scottish justice is not redeemed and society further degenerates into a morass of cynicism."
Megrahi lawyer attacks Bill that axes safety net on right to appeal
[What follow are excerpts from an article in today's edition of The Times. It can be read -- but only, of course, by subscribers -- here.]
A leading human rights lawyer last night alleged that ministers had “pulled up the drawbridge” on victims of miscarriages of justice.
Tony Kelly, best known for representing Abdul Ali Baset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, said he was astonished by the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Bill, passed by MSPs in an emergency session last Wednesday, which seemed designed to reduce the number of cases going to appeal. (...)
He said the new law would cut across the powers of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to have potential miscarriages of justice reviewed and would discourage individuals from embarking on the appeal process.
“Loud and clear, the message from this legislation is ‘Don’t appeal’,” he said.
His intervention followed the remarks of Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Edinburgh, who earlier claimed that new legislation created a conflict of interest within the High Court, which had effectively been handed the power to block any appeal.
Section 7 of the Bill deals with references from the SCCRC and says: “In determining whether or not it is in the interests of justice that any appeal arising from the reference should proceed, the High Court must have regard to the need for finality and certainty in the determination of criminal proceedings.”
Mr Kelly said that in relation to “certainty” and “finality”, the SCCRC had been established to deal with cases that were final and certain.
Between 1999 and 2010, it received a total of 1186 cases, completed the review of 1136 cases and referred 97 cases to the High Court for determination. Theoretically, under the terms of the new legislation, all 97 could simply have been turned away by the High Court.
Mr Kelly said: “The SCCRC, when it was set up, was viewed as a safety net, it examined cases that fell out with the normal run of evidence and admissibility. Those included miscarriages of justice — and Scotland has had its fair share of those.
“There was a specific exception from that finality clause — enabling the commission to exercise its discretion in certain cases. How can you possibly pull back from that?”
Mr Kelly, who is visiting professor in human rights law at the University of Strathclyde, added: “Most concerning, is the fact that the High Court has two separate powers.
“It can immediately bounce a reference from the Commission if it doesn’t consider it in the interests of justice, and, in determining any appeal, it has got to have regard to ‘finality’. Loud clear, the message is: ‘Don’t appeal’.” (...)
Mr Kelly said that he was at loss to explain why the Cadder ruling had been extended to the right to appeal.
“The only rationale I can see is that they are pulling up the drawbridge, making it more difficult for people to submit applications to the Commission and for the Commission to refer cases to the High Court,” he said.
“You can talk about individual cases, but this is a blanket, covering every single appellant. It will be much more difficult, there will be fewer appeals.”
John McManus, project officer for Miscarriage of Justice Organisation (Mojo), said the legislation brought to mind the saying: “Who guards the guards?”
He added: “You are asking judges to judge themselves. They have passed verdict. Will they be willing to look at the failings of their own system?
“They seem to be closing the door even more on the appeals process.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said that it had been obliged to act swiftly following the Supreme Court ruling.
“The Scottish Government has worked closely with the appropriate bodies to prepare for every contingency arising from the case, helping mitigate the impact on the police and justice system in carrying out their day-to -day duties protecting the public and prosecuting crime,” she said.
A leading human rights lawyer last night alleged that ministers had “pulled up the drawbridge” on victims of miscarriages of justice.
Tony Kelly, best known for representing Abdul Ali Baset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, said he was astonished by the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Bill, passed by MSPs in an emergency session last Wednesday, which seemed designed to reduce the number of cases going to appeal. (...)
He said the new law would cut across the powers of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to have potential miscarriages of justice reviewed and would discourage individuals from embarking on the appeal process.
“Loud and clear, the message from this legislation is ‘Don’t appeal’,” he said.
His intervention followed the remarks of Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Edinburgh, who earlier claimed that new legislation created a conflict of interest within the High Court, which had effectively been handed the power to block any appeal.
Section 7 of the Bill deals with references from the SCCRC and says: “In determining whether or not it is in the interests of justice that any appeal arising from the reference should proceed, the High Court must have regard to the need for finality and certainty in the determination of criminal proceedings.”
Mr Kelly said that in relation to “certainty” and “finality”, the SCCRC had been established to deal with cases that were final and certain.
Between 1999 and 2010, it received a total of 1186 cases, completed the review of 1136 cases and referred 97 cases to the High Court for determination. Theoretically, under the terms of the new legislation, all 97 could simply have been turned away by the High Court.
Mr Kelly said: “The SCCRC, when it was set up, was viewed as a safety net, it examined cases that fell out with the normal run of evidence and admissibility. Those included miscarriages of justice — and Scotland has had its fair share of those.
“There was a specific exception from that finality clause — enabling the commission to exercise its discretion in certain cases. How can you possibly pull back from that?”
Mr Kelly, who is visiting professor in human rights law at the University of Strathclyde, added: “Most concerning, is the fact that the High Court has two separate powers.
“It can immediately bounce a reference from the Commission if it doesn’t consider it in the interests of justice, and, in determining any appeal, it has got to have regard to ‘finality’. Loud clear, the message is: ‘Don’t appeal’.” (...)
Mr Kelly said that he was at loss to explain why the Cadder ruling had been extended to the right to appeal.
“The only rationale I can see is that they are pulling up the drawbridge, making it more difficult for people to submit applications to the Commission and for the Commission to refer cases to the High Court,” he said.
“You can talk about individual cases, but this is a blanket, covering every single appellant. It will be much more difficult, there will be fewer appeals.”
John McManus, project officer for Miscarriage of Justice Organisation (Mojo), said the legislation brought to mind the saying: “Who guards the guards?”
He added: “You are asking judges to judge themselves. They have passed verdict. Will they be willing to look at the failings of their own system?
“They seem to be closing the door even more on the appeals process.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said that it had been obliged to act swiftly following the Supreme Court ruling.
“The Scottish Government has worked closely with the appropriate bodies to prepare for every contingency arising from the case, helping mitigate the impact on the police and justice system in carrying out their day-to -day duties protecting the public and prosecuting crime,” she said.
A contradiction
Does no-one else see the contradiction present in the current political furore about the air cargo bomb plot and the continued failure of the Scottish, UK and US Governments to mount a full inquiry into the 1988 terrorist outrage at Lockerbie?
Headlines about the current terrorist crisis representing a potential “second Lockerbie” only serve to compound my confusion and fuel thoughts of hypocrisy and self-interest.
How resolute and strong the politicians have sounded this past week in their determination to protect us all from the scourge of terrorism and, yet, when given the opportunity to mount an inquiry into the worst terrorist outrage ever perpetrated on UK soil, this resolve just melts away.
I would have thought that it was in the interests of the fight against terrorism and the credibility of our own Scottish justice system to mount an inquiry into the 1988 outrage, that claimed the lives of 270 innocent victims, so that lessons can be learned and the terrorists will feel less secure in their lairs.
[The above is the text of a letter from Iain A J McKie published in today's edition of The Herald.]
Headlines about the current terrorist crisis representing a potential “second Lockerbie” only serve to compound my confusion and fuel thoughts of hypocrisy and self-interest.
How resolute and strong the politicians have sounded this past week in their determination to protect us all from the scourge of terrorism and, yet, when given the opportunity to mount an inquiry into the worst terrorist outrage ever perpetrated on UK soil, this resolve just melts away.
I would have thought that it was in the interests of the fight against terrorism and the credibility of our own Scottish justice system to mount an inquiry into the 1988 outrage, that claimed the lives of 270 innocent victims, so that lessons can be learned and the terrorists will feel less secure in their lairs.
[The above is the text of a letter from Iain A J McKie published in today's edition of The Herald.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)