This is the headline over an article (which does not appear on the newspaper's website) in yesterday's edition of The Sunday Post. It discloses that Professor Tim Valentine of the University of London has prepared a report in connection with the appeal of William Gage.
Professor Valentine also prepared a report on the eyewitness evidence accepted by the Zeist judges as constituting an identification of Abdelbaset Megrahi as the person who bought in Tony Gauci's shop the items that were in the same suitcase as the Pan Am 103 bomb. This report would have featured in Mr Megrahi's appeal had it not been abandoned prior to his compassionate release. The report can be read here.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Suffering is the lot of mankind
[The following are a few sentences from an extract in today's Irish Times from the book The Things I’ve Seen: Nine Lives of a Foreign Correspondent, by Lara Marlowe, the newspaper's Washington correspondent.]
Suffering is the lot of mankind; if my reporting sometimes strikes a chord in readers, I believe it is because I feel tied to the people whose pain I describe. As T S Eliot wrote:
“I am moved by ... The notion of some infinitely gentle/Infinitely suffering thing.” Some, like the parents of children who died violently in Ireland and France, became friends. Most have been swallowed up by distance and time. But I do not forget them.
There is Leila Behbehani, the three-year-old Iranian girl whose body I saw in a cold storage warehouse in Bandar Abbas, one of 290 civilians killed when the USS Vincennes guided-missile cruiser shot down an Iranian airliner in 1988. Leila was on her way to a wedding, and was wearing a turquoise party dress. She died with the contorted face of a child who is crying. Captain Will Rogers III, the commander of the Vincennes, was given a medal. (...)
I still believe that the Lockerbie bombing was retaliation for the downing of the Iran Air flight six months earlier.
Suffering is the lot of mankind; if my reporting sometimes strikes a chord in readers, I believe it is because I feel tied to the people whose pain I describe. As T S Eliot wrote:
“I am moved by ... The notion of some infinitely gentle/Infinitely suffering thing.” Some, like the parents of children who died violently in Ireland and France, became friends. Most have been swallowed up by distance and time. But I do not forget them.
There is Leila Behbehani, the three-year-old Iranian girl whose body I saw in a cold storage warehouse in Bandar Abbas, one of 290 civilians killed when the USS Vincennes guided-missile cruiser shot down an Iranian airliner in 1988. Leila was on her way to a wedding, and was wearing a turquoise party dress. She died with the contorted face of a child who is crying. Captain Will Rogers III, the commander of the Vincennes, was given a medal. (...)
I still believe that the Lockerbie bombing was retaliation for the downing of the Iran Air flight six months earlier.
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
What Justice for Megrahi seeks to achieve
[Following the appearance of Justice for Megrahi committee members before the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee last Tuesday, Dr Morag Kerr who had not been able to attend the hearing contacted me to express her congratulations on the team's performance. However, she felt that one point had not perhaps been adequately stressed. I agreed, and asked Dr Kerr to let me have a piece for posting on the blog. Here it is.]
The question has been asked, would it not be fair to say that Megrahi had his chance, he had his appeal ongoing, but he chose to drop it. Why should he be given another bite at the cherry?
To ask such a question is to misunderstand profoundly the point of the petition. Despite its name, “Justice for Megrahi” is not and never has been concerned with giving Mr al-Megrahi “another bite at the cherry”. It is concerned with establishing the truth, which transcends the mere fact of a verdict against one individual.
Over a million pounds of public money was spent by the SCCRC on their 3½-year investigation, and the outcome was an 800-page report with 13 volumes of appendices, and no less than six grounds on which a miscarriage of justice was suspected. What has been revealed of that report suggests that the original investigation quite simply got the wrong man, which means that the real perpetrators of the Lockerbie atrocity have never been identified.
Mr al-Megrahi stated that he dropped the appeal in order to improve his chances of returning home to Libya before he died. It appears he was mistaken in that belief, and how he came to be under that misapprehension might in itself be an interesting question. Be that as it may, the dropping of the appeal left the SCCRC findings untested in court. It is the contention of JFM that this unfortunate development should not be allowed to bury the truth, if the truth is indeed contained in these 800 pages.
Taking a wider view, it cannot be overemphasised that the conviction as it stands is acting as an insuperable barrier to any further investigation of the Lockerbie disaster. While JFM is not asking the Scottish government to investigate the identity of the real perpetrators, which would indeed be outwith its remit, it is clear that if indeed the wrong man was convicted, this is the first error that must be addressed before any further steps can be taken to hold a more wide-ranging enquiry, or indeed to re-open the criminal investigation.
[Dr Kerr has also pointed out that in an answer I gave in the hearing I referred to Tony Gauci's having described in police statements the purchaser in his shop as being over six feet tall and over 50 years of age, whereas Mr Megrahi is 5 feet 8 inches tall and was at the time 38 years old. At the relevant time (November/December 1988) Mr Megrahi was in fact 36 years of age.]
The question has been asked, would it not be fair to say that Megrahi had his chance, he had his appeal ongoing, but he chose to drop it. Why should he be given another bite at the cherry?
To ask such a question is to misunderstand profoundly the point of the petition. Despite its name, “Justice for Megrahi” is not and never has been concerned with giving Mr al-Megrahi “another bite at the cherry”. It is concerned with establishing the truth, which transcends the mere fact of a verdict against one individual.
Over a million pounds of public money was spent by the SCCRC on their 3½-year investigation, and the outcome was an 800-page report with 13 volumes of appendices, and no less than six grounds on which a miscarriage of justice was suspected. What has been revealed of that report suggests that the original investigation quite simply got the wrong man, which means that the real perpetrators of the Lockerbie atrocity have never been identified.
Mr al-Megrahi stated that he dropped the appeal in order to improve his chances of returning home to Libya before he died. It appears he was mistaken in that belief, and how he came to be under that misapprehension might in itself be an interesting question. Be that as it may, the dropping of the appeal left the SCCRC findings untested in court. It is the contention of JFM that this unfortunate development should not be allowed to bury the truth, if the truth is indeed contained in these 800 pages.
Taking a wider view, it cannot be overemphasised that the conviction as it stands is acting as an insuperable barrier to any further investigation of the Lockerbie disaster. While JFM is not asking the Scottish government to investigate the identity of the real perpetrators, which would indeed be outwith its remit, it is clear that if indeed the wrong man was convicted, this is the first error that must be addressed before any further steps can be taken to hold a more wide-ranging enquiry, or indeed to re-open the criminal investigation.
[Dr Kerr has also pointed out that in an answer I gave in the hearing I referred to Tony Gauci's having described in police statements the purchaser in his shop as being over six feet tall and over 50 years of age, whereas Mr Megrahi is 5 feet 8 inches tall and was at the time 38 years old. At the relevant time (November/December 1988) Mr Megrahi was in fact 36 years of age.]
Monday, 15 November 2010
Lead Pan Am 103 investigator recalls search for suspect
[This is the headline over the report of Richard Marquise's recent talk at Syracuse University, NY in the university's newspaper The Daily Orange. It reads as follows:]
Richard Marquise searched the 845 square-mile crime scene for a piece of circuit board that would link Libyan terrorists to the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.
"The piece of evidence that cracked the case could fit on the tip of my finger," Marquise said. "I said, ‘If someone sneezes, we're going to need to do another crime scene search for evidence.'"
Marquise is a former FBI special agent and lead investigator of the task force assigned to the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 35 Syracuse University students. Marquise, who spoke Thursday in the Life Sciences Complex, worked in the FBI for more than 30 years.
Marquise walked the audience chronologically through what he called the "10-year odyssey" of the investigation. The tiny piece of circuit board evidence eventually led Marquise's task force to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was eventually convicted as a Libyan intelligence officer and the man behind the bombings. Al-Megrahi was tried before a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
"It was an electric moment. They don't have commercials in situations like this. The judge just stood up and said that they found Mr. Megrahi guilty on all accounts," Marquise said.
Al-Megrahi was released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds that terminal prostate cancer could end his life in three months. He remains alive today. New York senators and other U.S. leaders have called for al-Megrahi to be put back in prison after he survived nearly a year longer than expected and after questions arose about a possible backdoor deal between British Petroleum and the British government to have him released.
Marquise showed the audience a picture of a baby's shoe embedded in the ground after falling from the plane and another of the broken tail of the plane emblazoned with an American flag.
"It hits home here in Syracuse maybe more than in any other city in the United States," Marquise said.
Marquise finished the lecture with a short video that showed interviews with some family members of the victims of the tragedy.
In one video, the mother of a Syracuse student who died in the crash was directed to the imprint that her son's body had made in the ground after falling from the plane. She said she lay down in the imprint and was able to feel close to her son once again. Several audience members wiped their eyes at the end of the video.
Marquise retired from the FBI in 2002 but remains active in the intelligence community by teaching and consulting.
He said: "I'm going to keep doing this because I don't think man was meant to retire."
Richard Marquise searched the 845 square-mile crime scene for a piece of circuit board that would link Libyan terrorists to the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.
"The piece of evidence that cracked the case could fit on the tip of my finger," Marquise said. "I said, ‘If someone sneezes, we're going to need to do another crime scene search for evidence.'"
Marquise is a former FBI special agent and lead investigator of the task force assigned to the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 35 Syracuse University students. Marquise, who spoke Thursday in the Life Sciences Complex, worked in the FBI for more than 30 years.
Marquise walked the audience chronologically through what he called the "10-year odyssey" of the investigation. The tiny piece of circuit board evidence eventually led Marquise's task force to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was eventually convicted as a Libyan intelligence officer and the man behind the bombings. Al-Megrahi was tried before a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
"It was an electric moment. They don't have commercials in situations like this. The judge just stood up and said that they found Mr. Megrahi guilty on all accounts," Marquise said.
Al-Megrahi was released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds that terminal prostate cancer could end his life in three months. He remains alive today. New York senators and other U.S. leaders have called for al-Megrahi to be put back in prison after he survived nearly a year longer than expected and after questions arose about a possible backdoor deal between British Petroleum and the British government to have him released.
Marquise showed the audience a picture of a baby's shoe embedded in the ground after falling from the plane and another of the broken tail of the plane emblazoned with an American flag.
"It hits home here in Syracuse maybe more than in any other city in the United States," Marquise said.
Marquise finished the lecture with a short video that showed interviews with some family members of the victims of the tragedy.
In one video, the mother of a Syracuse student who died in the crash was directed to the imprint that her son's body had made in the ground after falling from the plane. She said she lay down in the imprint and was able to feel close to her son once again. Several audience members wiped their eyes at the end of the video.
Marquise retired from the FBI in 2002 but remains active in the intelligence community by teaching and consulting.
He said: "I'm going to keep doing this because I don't think man was meant to retire."
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Deal that freed bomber
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Scottish Sunday Express. It does not appear on the newspaper's website. The report reads as follows:]
FBI's top Lockerbie agent claims Tony Blair sold Megrahi
The former FBI agent who led the Lockerbie investigation has reignited the debate over the bomber's release by accusing Tony Blair of manufacturing Britain's controversial prisoner transfer agreement with Libya to make it happen.
Richard Marquise poured scorn on the UK government's official stance that the infamous "deal in the desert" with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2007 did not relate solely to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
And in a rare interview during a visit to New York's Syracuse University which lost 35 students in the 1988 atrocity, he admitted he believed Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill faced a "difficult decision" after Westminster's meddling.
Mr Marquise said: "When he was released it was not a total shock to those of us involved in the investigation because of the deal in the desert between the British government and the Libyan government about the exchange of prisoners.
"We know that the deal when it was signed only related to Megrahi, it didn't relate to any other prisoners. It talked about exchanging prisoners and he was the only one." He also insisted they had got the right man, despite claims on this side of the Atlantic that Megrahi, controversially freed on compassionate grounds, may be innocent.
Lockerbie campaigner Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: "As far as the Libyans were concerned the prisoner transfer agreement was always about Megrahi, there was no one else they were even slightly interested in."
However, he branded Mr Marquise's insistence that Megrahi was guilty, as "absolute and utter balderdash."
[I had much more to say to the reporter about Mr Marquise's views, which the Express, as a family newspaper, wisely did not print.
The Sunday Post has an article (again, not on the newspaper's website) about Karen Torley's support for the Justice for Megrahi petition. For twelve years Karen Torley campaigned for the release of Kenny Richey from death row in Ohio. Coincidentally, Kenny Richey was born in Zeist.]
FBI's top Lockerbie agent claims Tony Blair sold Megrahi
The former FBI agent who led the Lockerbie investigation has reignited the debate over the bomber's release by accusing Tony Blair of manufacturing Britain's controversial prisoner transfer agreement with Libya to make it happen.
Richard Marquise poured scorn on the UK government's official stance that the infamous "deal in the desert" with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2007 did not relate solely to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
And in a rare interview during a visit to New York's Syracuse University which lost 35 students in the 1988 atrocity, he admitted he believed Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill faced a "difficult decision" after Westminster's meddling.
Mr Marquise said: "When he was released it was not a total shock to those of us involved in the investigation because of the deal in the desert between the British government and the Libyan government about the exchange of prisoners.
"We know that the deal when it was signed only related to Megrahi, it didn't relate to any other prisoners. It talked about exchanging prisoners and he was the only one." He also insisted they had got the right man, despite claims on this side of the Atlantic that Megrahi, controversially freed on compassionate grounds, may be innocent.
Lockerbie campaigner Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said: "As far as the Libyans were concerned the prisoner transfer agreement was always about Megrahi, there was no one else they were even slightly interested in."
However, he branded Mr Marquise's insistence that Megrahi was guilty, as "absolute and utter balderdash."
[I had much more to say to the reporter about Mr Marquise's views, which the Express, as a family newspaper, wisely did not print.
The Sunday Post has an article (again, not on the newspaper's website) about Karen Torley's support for the Justice for Megrahi petition. For twelve years Karen Torley campaigned for the release of Kenny Richey from death row in Ohio. Coincidentally, Kenny Richey was born in Zeist.]
Case made for fresh Lockerbie inquiry
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of the Maltese newspaper The Sunday Times. It reads as follows:]
The “flawed” evidence which secured the Maltese connection to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing became a central plank in the plea for a fresh independent inquiry into the atrocity last week.
Had it not been for this evidence, which implicated Malta in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, Libyan national Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi could not have been found guilty, said former judge Prof Robert Black.
He was speaking at a hearing of the petitions committee in the Scottish Parliament, which has been asked to consider a call for a fresh inquiry into the case on the strength of a list of serious concerns about the safety of Mr Al-Megrahi’s conviction.
A panel of three Scottish judges, sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands, had found the former Libyan intelligence officer guilty of the murder of 270 people.
However, Prof Black, the architect of the extraordinary trial, along with others of the Justice for Megrahi pressure group, which includes relatives of victims, believe Mr Al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted. They are now asking the Scottish petitions committee to call a fresh inquiry backed by a petition signed by 1,649 people, including 100 Maltese citizens.
The conviction, Prof Black told the committee, hinges on the premise that Mr Al-Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes from the shop Mary’s House in Sliema, and which were later said to have been wrapped around the suitcase bomb which destroyed the Boeing 747.
According to this theory, consistently rejected by the Maltese government and Air Malta, the bomb left from Malta and was transferred onto the Pan Am Flight in Germany.
But Prof Black pointed out to the committee that Tony Gauci, the Maltese star witness for the prosecution, had only ever said that Mr Al-Megrahi looked “a lot like the man” who bought the clothes from his shop in the days before the bombing.
“He also said in his first police statement that the man was more than six feet tall and over 50 years old. At the relevant time in 1988, Mr Al-Megrahi was 38. He was then, and remains now I presume, five foot, eight inches tall. Still, the court held that he had been positively identified,” Prof Black said.
He also highlighted serious weaknesses in the rest of the evidence which placed Mr Al-Megrahi at Mary’s House.
For instance, according to Mr Gauci’s testimony, the man bought the clothes either on November 23 or December 7, 1988 – the days in which two legs of an international football match were aired on Maltese TV.
On November 23, it had rained heavily according to undisputed meteorological records tallying with Mr Gauci’s further evidence that his customer returned just after leaving to buy an umbrella.
However, Mr Al-Megrahi was not in Malta on the day. He was on the island in December 7 but it did not rain that day, according to the same meteorological records.
No reasonable court could have upheld the view that Mr Al-Megrahi was the man at Mary’s House on the strength of this evidence, Prof Black insisted.
This, he told the committee, was one of six legal points which led the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007 to declare that the Libyan “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”.
The commission’s decree had set the ball rolling for Mr Al-Megrahi’s appeal, which was aborted when he was released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last year because he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Beyond clearing Mr Al-Megrahi’s name, according to Jim Swire, a leading figure of the pressure group and the father of a victim, an inquiry was necessary to expunge the stain on the Scottish justice system.
He also argued that an inquiry would deprive certain governments of the excuse not to keep pursuing the real plotters of the atrocity.
At the end of the hearing, the petitions committee wrote to the Scottish government asking if it will set up a new inquiry, and if not, asked to know why.
The “flawed” evidence which secured the Maltese connection to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing became a central plank in the plea for a fresh independent inquiry into the atrocity last week.
Had it not been for this evidence, which implicated Malta in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, Libyan national Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi could not have been found guilty, said former judge Prof Robert Black.
He was speaking at a hearing of the petitions committee in the Scottish Parliament, which has been asked to consider a call for a fresh inquiry into the case on the strength of a list of serious concerns about the safety of Mr Al-Megrahi’s conviction.
A panel of three Scottish judges, sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands, had found the former Libyan intelligence officer guilty of the murder of 270 people.
However, Prof Black, the architect of the extraordinary trial, along with others of the Justice for Megrahi pressure group, which includes relatives of victims, believe Mr Al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted. They are now asking the Scottish petitions committee to call a fresh inquiry backed by a petition signed by 1,649 people, including 100 Maltese citizens.
The conviction, Prof Black told the committee, hinges on the premise that Mr Al-Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes from the shop Mary’s House in Sliema, and which were later said to have been wrapped around the suitcase bomb which destroyed the Boeing 747.
According to this theory, consistently rejected by the Maltese government and Air Malta, the bomb left from Malta and was transferred onto the Pan Am Flight in Germany.
But Prof Black pointed out to the committee that Tony Gauci, the Maltese star witness for the prosecution, had only ever said that Mr Al-Megrahi looked “a lot like the man” who bought the clothes from his shop in the days before the bombing.
“He also said in his first police statement that the man was more than six feet tall and over 50 years old. At the relevant time in 1988, Mr Al-Megrahi was 38. He was then, and remains now I presume, five foot, eight inches tall. Still, the court held that he had been positively identified,” Prof Black said.
He also highlighted serious weaknesses in the rest of the evidence which placed Mr Al-Megrahi at Mary’s House.
For instance, according to Mr Gauci’s testimony, the man bought the clothes either on November 23 or December 7, 1988 – the days in which two legs of an international football match were aired on Maltese TV.
On November 23, it had rained heavily according to undisputed meteorological records tallying with Mr Gauci’s further evidence that his customer returned just after leaving to buy an umbrella.
However, Mr Al-Megrahi was not in Malta on the day. He was on the island in December 7 but it did not rain that day, according to the same meteorological records.
No reasonable court could have upheld the view that Mr Al-Megrahi was the man at Mary’s House on the strength of this evidence, Prof Black insisted.
This, he told the committee, was one of six legal points which led the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007 to declare that the Libyan “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”.
The commission’s decree had set the ball rolling for Mr Al-Megrahi’s appeal, which was aborted when he was released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last year because he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Beyond clearing Mr Al-Megrahi’s name, according to Jim Swire, a leading figure of the pressure group and the father of a victim, an inquiry was necessary to expunge the stain on the Scottish justice system.
He also argued that an inquiry would deprive certain governments of the excuse not to keep pursuing the real plotters of the atrocity.
At the end of the hearing, the petitions committee wrote to the Scottish government asking if it will set up a new inquiry, and if not, asked to know why.
Nineteenth anniversary of Megrahi accusation
It was on 14 November 1991 that the prosecution authorities in Scotland (the Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC) and the United States (acting US Attorney General, William Barr) simultaneously announced that they had brought criminal charges -- principally murder and conspiracy to murder -- arising out of the destruction of Pan Am 103 against two Libyan nationals, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, who were alleged to be members, and to have been acting throughout as agents, of the Libyan intelligence service.
According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.
[From a forthcoming book on the Lockerbie case.]
According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.
[From a forthcoming book on the Lockerbie case.]
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Dispatches from the Dark Side
[What follows is a short review of Gareth Peirce's Dispatches from the Dark Side (Verso, £9.99) by Steven Poole in The Guardian.]
When is a "miscarriage" of justice really a perversion of it? The answer is clear enough in the most compelling essay here, on the Lockerbie bombing, justifiably entitled "The Framing of al-Megrahi". Other subjects include British complicity in "rendition" and torture overseas; the indefinite "detention" without trial (or, as Peirce calls it, "internment") of British citizens after 9/11; and the American mania for imposing solitary confinement, both before trial and in its "SuperMax" prisons, which she argues persuasively is at least blatantly vindictive and probably constitutes torture.
Along the way there are illuminating detours into terminological history (Peirce is very good on the way "defence of the realm" became "national security"), and a consistent seething contempt for governmental mendacity and secrecy. Despite some occasionally opaque syntax (one often ends up reading a sentence twice in a dour hunt for the main verb), the writing has an attractive steeliness.
When is a "miscarriage" of justice really a perversion of it? The answer is clear enough in the most compelling essay here, on the Lockerbie bombing, justifiably entitled "The Framing of al-Megrahi". Other subjects include British complicity in "rendition" and torture overseas; the indefinite "detention" without trial (or, as Peirce calls it, "internment") of British citizens after 9/11; and the American mania for imposing solitary confinement, both before trial and in its "SuperMax" prisons, which she argues persuasively is at least blatantly vindictive and probably constitutes torture.
Along the way there are illuminating detours into terminological history (Peirce is very good on the way "defence of the realm" became "national security"), and a consistent seething contempt for governmental mendacity and secrecy. Despite some occasionally opaque syntax (one often ends up reading a sentence twice in a dour hunt for the main verb), the writing has an attractive steeliness.
Friday, 12 November 2010
"Kicked into the long grass"
[A letter from Iain A D Mann in today's edition of The Herald contains the following paragraph:]
On Tuesday, Dr Jim Swire’s strongly-supported appeal to the Public Petitions Committee for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing was casually kicked into the long grass, with the bare statement that “the Scottish Government has no doubt about the safety of Megrahi’s conviction”. The genuine concerns of about 75% of the Scottish people, the report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the doubts of many legal experts worldwide were brushed aside with contempt.
[It is, of course, disappointing that the immediate reaction of the Scottish Government to Tuesday's hearing should have been to parrot the usual tired pretexts for not instituting an independent inquiry. But the outcome of the hearing was that a letter should be written to the Scottish Government asking them to explain in detail their reasons for refusing to set up an inquiry, with chapter and verse cited for the legal objections that they have referred to in the past.
The questions that the Public Petitions Committee has addressed to the Scottish Government are:
• Will you 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 as called for by the petitioner and for the reasons given in the petition?
• If not, will you provide a detailed explanation why not, specifying whether there is any legislation which would prevent you from holding such an inquiry, what this legislation is and how it prevents?
• Who would have the power to undertake an inquiry in the terms proposed in the petition?
The ball may have been kicked into the long grass. It is not going to be allowed to languish there.]
On Tuesday, Dr Jim Swire’s strongly-supported appeal to the Public Petitions Committee for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing was casually kicked into the long grass, with the bare statement that “the Scottish Government has no doubt about the safety of Megrahi’s conviction”. The genuine concerns of about 75% of the Scottish people, the report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the doubts of many legal experts worldwide were brushed aside with contempt.
[It is, of course, disappointing that the immediate reaction of the Scottish Government to Tuesday's hearing should have been to parrot the usual tired pretexts for not instituting an independent inquiry. But the outcome of the hearing was that a letter should be written to the Scottish Government asking them to explain in detail their reasons for refusing to set up an inquiry, with chapter and verse cited for the legal objections that they have referred to in the past.
The questions that the Public Petitions Committee has addressed to the Scottish Government are:
• Will you 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 as called for by the petitioner and for the reasons given in the petition?
• If not, will you provide a detailed explanation why not, specifying whether there is any legislation which would prevent you from holding such an inquiry, what this legislation is and how it prevents?
• Who would have the power to undertake an inquiry in the terms proposed in the petition?
The ball may have been kicked into the long grass. It is not going to be allowed to languish there.]
Pan Am 103 investigator visits Syracuse, shares his memories
[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.
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.
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.
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