Exploding Lockerbie

[This is the title of a two-part article in the Criminal Law & Justice Weekly by David Wolchover, barrister and Head of Chambers Emeritus at 7 Bell Yard, London. It examines in detail the evidence led at Camp Zeist about the ingestion of the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie. Part I of the article can be read here and Part II here. The conclusion of the two-part article reads as follows:]

It will have become apparent from the analysis of the evidence before the court offered here that wherever the bomb which destroyed Pan Am 103 was built the Samsonite hardshell bag in which it was packed could not have come from Luqa as an anonymous item of baggage on KM180, or from Frankfurt on PA103A. It should have been as “plain as a pikestaff” that it was smuggled into the system at Heathrow.

Why the Judges lost sight of the wood for the trees is not a matter which warrants conjecture. That they did so is beyond doubt. When asked by Lord MacLean to confirm that al-Megrahi’s Abdusamad passport was never used again after December 21, 1988, William Taylor QC said “We don’t know that”, to which Lord Maclean riposted “Yes I do” and gave the reference. The Judge got the acerbic reply he truly deserved: “Thank you. I am corrected. So your Lordship has asked me a question to which your Lordship already had the answer.” The application of a sight more judicial cleverness and rather less too cleverness by half might have delivered a truer verdict.

[An earlier Lockerbie article by Mr Wolchover "Masking justice with 'mercy'" can be accessed here.]

Retrying Megrahi in the United States

In the light of suggestions that have been made over the past few months by American officials and commentators that the United States might wish to have Abdelbaset Megrahi handed over to the United States for retrial in America, it is perhaps worthwhile to consider some of the legal problems that would be faced in bringing this about.

As I said in a blog post on 6 March 2011:
"The United States Government, along with that of the United Kingdom, proposed the UN Security Council resolutions that set up the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist. Both governments thereby undertook internationally binding obligations to comply with the legal processes thus set in motion. The United States cannot lawfully renounce those obligations either unilaterally or in conjunction with whatever new government it chooses to recognise in Libya. To have Abdelbaset Megrahi lawfully handed over to the US would require a further UN Security Council resolution. The United States, as a permanent member of the Security Council could, of course, propose such a resolution. But would the other members support it? The US could also, naturally, simply ignore international legality (as it did, with the UK's supine support, in launching the invasion of Iraq) and seize Megrahi by force (with or without the connivance of a new Libyan regime)."

Furthermore, the Constitution of the United States, provides (art VI, clause 2): "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land". This means that the binding international obligation entered into by the United States in respect of the Lockerbie trial precludes any US court from trying Megrahi since that would be a breach of the international agreement regarding Lockerbie jurisdiction which the US itself co-sponsored.

Moreover, during the Camp Zeist trial, US government lawyers sat amongst the prosecutors and when their presence was questioned the Crown Office responded that the Lord Advocate could select whomsoever he chose to form part of the prosecution team. It can be strongly argued that this active participation by United States officials, as part of the prosecution team, in a trial which the US co-sponsored, personally bars (estops) the US from instituting its own national criminal proceedings.

As mentioned above, the US could sponsor a new UN Security Council resolution permitting it to retry Megrahi. But is there any realistic prospect of such a resolution being passed? The United States could also seek to pass internal US legislation permitting a retrial. But, in the absence of a UN Security Council resolution amending the existing ones, would not any such legislation be liable to be struck down under art VI clause 2 of the Constitution?

[This post has now been picked up in a news item on Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm.

Because I shall be on duty at Gannaga Lodge for the next few days, it is unlikely that there will be further blog posts before Sunday, 24 July.]

US ambassador repeats "try Megrahi" nonsense

[An interview with the US ambassador-at-large for war crimes, Stephen Rapp, published today on The Guardian website, contains the following:]

On Libya, the US ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues confirmed that Washington is interested in bringing the former Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, to trial for his role in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 above Lockerbie in 1988.

Megrahi, who was convicted in Scotland, was returned to Libya from the UK on grounds of ill health in 2009.

"The majority of those [on the Pan Am flight] were US citizens and there's a strong interest in the US to achieve justice. It was an act of terror.

"There's jurisdiction in the UK and US over individuals who were involved. I can't speak for the [US] department of justice, but there would be an interest in the US … in continuing the investigation and going beyond Mr Megrahi and determining whether other individuals [were involved]."

[As I have written elsewhere on this blog: "Megrahi has already faced trial and been convicted -- wrongly, in my view -- in a process supported by the United States. He could not be tried again in the USA unless Federal Law were changed to allow it."]

General Magnus Malan

The obituary in The Telegraph of General Magnus Malan, South Africa's defence minister at the time of the Lockerbie disaster, who died on 18 July, can be read here. That in the Cape Times can be read here. The controversy over whether a South African delegation to the United Nations, including Malan, was initially booked on Pan Am 103 but transferred onto an earlier flight to New York is explored in blog posts and comments that can be read here and by typing "Magnus Malan" into the blog's Google search facility.

[Yesterday, for the first time in a month, this blog was accessed from within Libya.]

Blame Iran, not Libya, for Pan Am Flight 103 bombing

[This is the headline over an article by Arthur F Bethea published today on the website of the Massachusetts newspaper South Coast Today. It reads as follows:]

In a late June press conference, President Obama said that Col Gadhafi, "prior to Osama bin Laden, was responsible for more American deaths than just about anybody on the planet."

Ignoring George Bush's needless invasion of Iraq that led to the deaths of more than 4,400 US soldiers, Obama linked Gadhafi and bin Laden to deceive less-informed viewers into thinking that the two are one and the same. They aren't. In 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden, and Gadhafi condemned 9/11. An enemy of bin Laden, Gadhafi opposes radical Islamic fundamentalism.

Obama was also alluding to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that murdered 189 Americans. This indirect smearing is reminiscent of Bush, who implied falsely (but never directly asserted) that Saddam sponsored 9/11. If Obama wants to accuse Gadhafi of Lockerbie, he should man up and state the charge directly.

Many people assume that Gadhafi is guilty of the Lockerbie bombing because a Libyan intelligence officer (Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi) was eventually convicted. What few Americans know is that the trial's fairness has been convincingly disputed. Key witnesses appear to have been paid for their testimony, evidence may have been fabricated, one crucial witness has admitted to perjury, and the witness who identified Megrahi has had his reliability attacked by the prosecutor who brought the original charges.

A former professor of Scottish law at Edinburgh University, Robert Black, said, "No reasonable tribunal, on the evidence heard at the original trial, should or could have convicted" Megrahi. The conviction was "an absolute disgrace and outrage." Megrahi is "an innocent man."

Some readers will protest, "But Gadhafi paid damages; he must be guilty." Yes, Libya paid more than $2.5 billion in reparations, but, according to one source, sanctions had cost the country $30 billion. Saif al-Islam, Gadhafi's son and former heir apparent, explained, "We wrote a letter to the Security Council saying we are responsible for the acts of our employees," but this "doesn't mean that we did it in fact." "What can you do?" he asked. "Without writing that letter we would not be able to get rid of sanctions."

Compelling evidence implicates Iran in the Lockerbie bombing. Thinking it was about to be attacked by a fighter jet, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airbus in July 1988, killing 290 people, most of them Iranians. Iran's religious dictator, the Ayatollah Khomeini, promised that the skies would rain with American blood. Iran offered a huge reward for revenge; a Palestinian terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, apparently accepted the offer; and 5½ months after the Vincennes disaster, 189 Americans were murdered.

A senior CIA officer in 1988, Robert Baer, worked the case from the start and concluded that Iran sponsored the bombing. According to Baer, now retired from the CIA, financial records indicate that Iran transferred $11 million to the Swiss bank account of the PFLP-GC two days after the bombing. Obviously, if Iran did transfer $11 million to a Palestinian terrorist group two days after the atrocity, this is overwhelming evidence of Iranian involvement. England's Sunday Herald said it saw the "CIA paperwork that supports" Baer's claims.

In 2009, Baer told England's Sunday Mail that the CIA had "hard evidence" of Iranian involvement "almost from the moment the plane exploded."

Another American intelligence organization also linked the bombing to Iran. A September 1989 memo from the Defense Intelligence Agency states: "The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorized and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran's former interior minister."

There are many good reasons to oppose Obama's Libyan adventure but no good ones [to support it], including false revenge for Lockerbie.

Libyan foreign minister admits Lockerbie bombing involvement

[This is the headline over a report published this evening on The Telegraph website. It amplifies the AFP news agency report that was the subject of the immediately preceding blog post. The report reads in part:]

A former Libyan foreign minister has admitted the country was involved in the Lockerbie bombing but said for the first time it was part of a wider conspiracy.

The former minister, Abdul Rahman al-Shalgham, who was ambassador to the United Nations when he defected in February, revealed a new theory about who was responsible for the explosion on board Pan-Am Flight 103 in an interview with an Arabic newspaper.

"The Lockerbie bombing was a complex and tangled operation" he said, when asked to describe the background to the disaster.

"There was talk at the time of the roles played by states and organisations. Libyan security played a part but I believe it was not a strictly Libyan operation."

He went on to say that the compensation payment to the families he helped negotiate on behalf of the regime – while disclaiming responsibility – angered the Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi.

"He used to say, 'We had no role in Lockerbie, so why should we have to pay compensation'," Mr Shalgham said.

Two Libyan state employees were put on trial in The Hague [RB: Actually, of course, Camp Zeist, near Utrecht] under Scottish law for the bombing of Flight 103, in which 270 people died in 1988. One, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, though he was released on medical grounds in 2009.

Libya always denied involvement, and alternative theories state that it was the work of Iranian intelligence, or a Palestinian terrorist group.

Mr Shalgham's revelations are the first serious suggestion that there could be elements of truth to both stories.

Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the former minister of justice who defected at the beginning of the uprising against the Gaddafi regime in February and is now chairman of the opposition Transitional National Council, claimed in an earlier interview that Col Gaddafi personally ordered the bombing.

But Mr Abdul Jalil was only involved in politics from 2007, having been a provincial judge most of his career. Mr Shalgham, by contrast, was Libyan ambassador to Rome at the time of the bombing and later at the heart of government.

[See my comment at the end of the preceding blog post.]

Ex-foreign minister says Libya behind 1989 airline attack

[This is the headline over an Agence France Presse news agency report published today on the Al-Arabiya website. It reads as follows:]

Libya is responsible for a deadly 1989 attack on a French airliner, Libyan former foreign minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam told al-Hayat newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

“The Libyan security services blew up the plane. They believed that opposition leader Mohammed al-Megrief was on board, but after the plane was blown up, it was found that he was not on the plane,” said Mr Shalgam, who defected from Muammar Qaddafi’s embattled regime earlier this year.

On September 19, 1989, a UTA DC-10 travelling from Brazzaville to Paris via N’Djamena crashed in Niger after explosives on board detonated, killing 170 passengers and crew, including 54 French citizens.

A French court in 2009 sentenced six Libyan agents in absentia to life in prison for the attack, but Libya has never admitted it was responsible.

However, Tripoli had in 2004 agreed to pay $170 million in compensation to the families of the victims.

Mr Shalgam also said that the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie that killed 270 people, for which Libya is widely believed to have been responsible, was more complicated than the UTA attack.

“The Lockerbie operation was more complex ... the role of states and organizations has been discussed, and while the Libyan services were implicated, I do not think it was a purely Libyan operation,” he said.

Last February, a former official from the radical Palestinian group Abu Nidal said that the attacks against the Pan Am and UTA planes were conducted “in conjunction” with Libya, and that the explosives were fabricated in Libya.

Mr Shalgam’s defection came in March when he was serving as Libya’s representative to the United Nations.

[Whether Libya was involved in the destruction of Pan Am 103 or not (eg by supplying materials to the culprits) it does not follow that a particular Libyan, viz Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was involved. The evidence against him remains just as weak as it was before Mr Shalgam spoke and the conviction of Megrahi on the evidence led at Zeist remains just as outrageous.

I may say that Mr Shalgam, whom I met on several occasions while he was Libya's foreign minister, always denied to me that his country was responsible for Lockerbie. But it may be that he is one of those who tends to tell people what he thinks, rightly or wrongly, that they want to hear.]

New doubts over crucial evidence in Lockerbie trial

[This is the headline over an article by John Ashton in today's edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]

A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.

Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish border town on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.

The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.

However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative.

The revelation comes as the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee prepares to consider calls for a public inquiry into the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

Campaigners believe he was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and accuse the police and Crown Office of concealing evidence that might have cleared him.

Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.

According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.

Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.

Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.

He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.

A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.

It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly.

Christine Grahame, SNP MSP and convener of the Justice Committee, said yesterday: “This adds to the growing body of evidence that Megrahi’s conviction, if it was placed before the appeal court today, would not stand the test of being proven beyond reasonable doubt.”

Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”

The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.

Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.

After seeing PT/35, Mebo’s owner, Edwin Bollier, said it was from a prototype circuit board that was never part of a functioning timer.

The police memo was one of hundreds of documents appended to the 800-page report into Megrahi’s conviction produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. However, its potential significance was apparently overlooked.

The Crown Office would not comment directly on the memo. In a joint statement with Dumfries and Galloway Police, which led the Lockerbie investigation, it said: “The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously … following trial and his conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges in an appeal court.”

[The flaws in the Zeist trial and the strictly circumscribed nature of the appeal are described in my article Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result.]

Lockerbie: Diplomat's wife hears a different story

[This is the heading over an item posted yesterday on the Sedulia's Quotations website. It reads as follows:]

A curious thing happened in the Gambia which I have often thought about since. Very soon after the Lockerbie disaster, an ex-Interpol detective came to dinner with us. He was in the Gambia investigating some kind of fisheries fraud for the EU. Over the meal we discussed Lockerbie and he said, "Oh it will all come out soon. That plane was carrying drugs to the US as part of a deal over the American hostages in Lebanon." He went on to tell us that in order for the drugs to get through unimpeded it was arranged that the cargo in the Pan Am plane would not be inspected. What happened then, he said, was that, via the Lebanese/Hezbollah/Iran connection, the extraordinary fact that the plane's cargo would travel unchecked, came to the ears of Iranians seeking revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner by the US not long before; somehow they arranged to put a bomb on board.

Though the detective said that this story would be all over the papers in the following months, it never was. I have told it to every journalist I know, but no paper has ever taken it up -- although there was a book published years ago called The Octopus Trail [The Trail of the Octopus, by Donald Goddard and Lester Coleman] which told more or less the same tale. Last year, not long before he died, I happened to tell Paul Foot the story and he urged me not to let it lie-- which is why I am putting it into this book.

-- Brigid Keenan (1939- ), Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse (2005).

[This Lockerbie theory was, of course, also advanced by Juval Aviv in his Interfor Report. More about Aviv can be found by entering his name in the blog's search facility.]

Mistakes by Scottish legal system should be exposed

[The following is an excerpt from a letter by William Forbes in today's edition of The Herald:]

Once a case from any jurisdiction reaches the Supreme Court they are all treated the same – there are no “additional” powers and all have to satisfy the test that there is a case to answer, in accordance with rules and statutes. If anything, greater care is exercised with Scottish cases to ensure the sovereignty of the Scottish courts. What appears to upset Alex Salmond and his supporters is that Scots appear to have better access to the Supreme Court than fellow UK citizens, but arguably this is illusionary. The idea that the Scottish legal system can be improved by further restricting access to justice is flawed and can only suit who would have our mistakes kept quiet. Whether mistakes are made in Camp Zeist, London or Edinburgh it is of the utmost importance that they are exposed and our system is improved as a result.

Justice without fairness is the justice of the lynch mob. (...)

There is a great need to consider how the Scottish legal system copes with the notion of basic human rights. The opposing attitude of who cares if there has been a mistake, as long as it was a “Scoattish wan” does little to advance hope that the law in Scotland will mature.

[The Scottish Government has a golden opportunity to show that it is just as serious about investigating, rectifying and learning lessons from possible mistakes by the Scottish criminal justice system as it is about "protecting Scots law's independence" from a predatory Supreme Court. It should immediately announce the establishment of an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. Until that happens, the Scottish Government can with justice be accused of being more concerned with political posturing than with securing the rights of those who have been ill-served by Scotland's criminal justice system.

The above comment has been picked up in a news item on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm.]

Many still question Megrahi conviction in bombing of Pan Am 103

[This is the headline over an article in the current issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs by the magazine's publisher, Ambassador Andrew I Killgore. It reads as follows:]

Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi was convicted on Jan 31, 2001 of destroying Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec 21, 1988, killing the plane's 259 passengers, including 179 Americans, and 11 people on the ground. Megrahi was tried under Scottish law by Scottish judges in a special court sitting at Camp Zeist, a former American military base in The Netherlands.

As readers of the Washington Report are aware, the American media coverage of the Lockerbie trial was very thin, despite the heavy loss of American lives. There seems to be a determined silence about even the existence of an organization called "Justice for Megrahi," whose members include (full disclosure) this writer and several distinguished Britons, including Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the crash, and Dr. Robert Black, former professor of criminal law at Edinburgh University and creator of the idea of trying Megrahi and his co-defendant, Lamen Fhimah, in The Netherlands under Scottish law.

The revolution in Libya, and particularly the defection to Britain of former Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, has stirred some peripheral interest in Lockerbie. Before he became foreign minister, Koussa was head of Libyan intelligence, and close to Muammar al-Qaddafi. He would know what was in Qaddafi's mind when he agreed to turn over Megrahi and Fhimah for trial. Was it because the Libyan leader thought the two men were guilty, or because he knew he was obliged to do so to gain sufficient Western approval for the development of his country, including increased oil production?

The April 9 Washington Post ran an article saying that Scottish officials had "met" with Koussa, who they think may have crucial information about Lockerbie. According to the article, "Prosecutors said that they would offer no additional details of their conversations with Koussa." Just what did Koussa tell them, and why is no more information about the meeting forthcoming?

So far as this writer has seen, no American newspaper has mentioned that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled that Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice—a finding that presumably remains valid despite Megrahi's release from prison on compassionate grounds. Yet, the Washington Post article writes that "the case remains open despite Megrahi's conviction."

The heavy lethargy of the American media on Lockerbie includes no word that many outstanding Britons who lost relatives or friends in the Lockerbie crash do not believe that Megrahi is guilty. If members of "Justice for Megrahi," who obviously think he is not guilty, could possibly arrange a discussion with Moussa, it could clear up a lot of questions. Depending on Koussa's answers, it could reopen the question of who really bombed Pan Am 103.

[Yesterday, for the first time in its history, this blog had more visitors from the United States than from the United Kingdom. The most-read item was MSPs call for independent inquiry into Lockerbie.]

An interview with the British ambassador to Libya

[The following is an excerpt from an interview given by the UK's ambassador to Libya to the rebel-supporting Libya TV and published yesterday on its website:]

The H2O law firm, which represents the British victims of IRA bombings, visited Benghazi three weeks after the revolution erupted. Did they reach a deal with the NTC?
The law firm received an understanding and support at a later stage. The NTC has committed to helping clarify the Lockerbie case, the Yvonne Fletcher case and IRA victims.

Moussa Koussa, a former intelligence chief, defected to the UK and was permitted to leave without charge in April. He currently resides in Qatar and was at the contact group meeting in Doha. Is he helping the UK?
Moussa Koussa’s defection was a political gain for the revolution. He has given his commitment to the British government to talk to the police and help them with their investigations. No doubt he needs to rebuild his life in Doha.

Not so fast, Mr President! How Obama got it (all) wrong on Libya and how to fix it

[This is the headline over an article by Susan Lindauer published today on The Intel Hub and various other websites. The section headed The Lockerbie bombing reads as follows:]

Gadhaffi haters like to throw out Lockerbie to remind Europeans and Americans of Libya’s dark past long ago. In March 1999, after 7 years of UN sanctions, Gadhaffi’s government handed over two Libyans for Trial in the bombing of Pan Am 103, which exploded over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. Regardless, Gadhaffi fiercely denied any involvement in the Lockerbie conspiracy.

As with so many other terrorist cases, appearances of Libya’s guilt prove deceiving. Two star witnesses against Libya have now recanted their testimony, and confessed to receiving $4 million dollar payments each from the US and Britain. It’s an ugly stain on the International Criminal Court. [RB: The court that convicted Megrahi (and acquitted Lamin Fhimah) was a Scottish court, albeit sitting in the Netherlands.]

The good news for truth seekers is that last week the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee moved to launch a new inquiry into the Lockerbie case. Christine Grahame said: “There are so many conspiracy theories around now that I think it’s time that we had a clean, clear look at the role of Scottish justice in this.

The issue is not whether Libya, or any other country, was guilty. The issue is, was Abdelbaset al-Megrahi rightly convicted, and we have not heard the answer to that yet.”

That decision should be strongly applauded by everyone who champions integrity in government oversight. If American leaders would show the same concern for reexamining 9/11, it would go a long way to restoring confidence in our government.

In fact, there’s a lot of fresh leads for a Scottish inquiry to pursue. The Justice Committee could start by opening the deposition of my own CIA handler, Dr Richard Fuisz, sworn under oath in the US District Court of Virginia, in the closing days of the Lockerbie Trial. It’s got some eye popping information, for sure.

At my very first meeting with Dr Fuisz in September, 1994 — and throughout our years together — he gave me the real skinny on Lockerbie. Dr Fuisz swore that Pan Am 103 was a false flag operation to hide a rogue CIA team’s involvement in heroin trafficking out of the Bekaa Valley during the Terry Anderson hostage crisis in Lebanon.

Dr Fuisz explained that when Defense Intelligence officer, Maj Charles Dennis McKee and CIA officer, Matthew Gannon, stationed in Beirut, complained that a double agent was compromising efforts to rescue the hostages, the CIA and FBI sent a team to Lebanon for a fact-finding investigation.

Investigators were flying back to Washington on Pan Am 103 with evidence exposing the heroin ring when a bomb exploded on the plane. Intriguingly, shortly before, the State Department issued an internal travel warning to US Embassies that Pan Am 103 would be targeted for bombing on that day, and everybody should get off the plane.

The sudden exodus of government personnel freed up seats for students from Syracuse University, flying home stand by for the Christmas Holidays. The college students died.

Dr Fuisz frequently swore that he could identify every terrorist involved in the attack. Because he is such high ranking CIA operative, he has been forbidden from speaking publicly about his role in events leading up to the bombing. Throughout the 1990s, he was repeatedly threatened with 10 years in prison if he broke his silence.

Imagine then the herculean effort on my part to force the CIA to permit Dr Fuisz to give closed door testimony in front of Judge White in Virginia. In the process of speaking out myself, I made a lot of enemies at the Justice Department, who proved they had a long memory during my 5 year indictment on the Patriot Act.

My desire to call Lockerbie attorney, Edward MacKechnie as my chief witness to prove my relationship with Dr Fuisz and my standing as an Intelligence Asset played a significant role in why the Justice Department fought my demand for a Trial.

A Trial would have reopened questions about the Lockerbie conviction and Libya’s guilt. It also would have exposed the CIA’s continued role in heroin trafficking to finance black ops through the 1990s.

The CIA was fighting to protect itself. When my efforts succeeded in forcing the CIA to allow the deposition to go forward, the CIA stipulated that Dr. Fuisz’s deposition must be sealed in the United States, so that Americans would have zero knowledge that his testimony existed or what it contained.

True to his word, inside the deposition, there’s a double seal that contains a list of 11 names of the Lockerbie conspirators and a map outlining the conspiracy.

It would be supremely valuable for the Scottish Justice Committee to open that double seal and review the full deposition. At that point, a decision could be made whether Dr Fuisz should be subpoenaed again to answer further questions.

However already there’s a substantial body of evidence that has never been viewed by Scottish Judges at all.

If Scottish families want justice in Lockerbie, that’s the best way forward. As for the rest, there’s nothing to fear. Gadhaffi’s arm does not reach into Europe. He’s got no ties to terrorism whatsoever.

The conundrum of Scots Law

[This is the headline over an article by Hazel Lewry
published today on the Newsnet Scotland website. For some mysterious reason it is dated 3 June 2011 (now changed to 9 July). It reads in part:]

In recent years there have been at least three readily identifiable cases of potential miscarriages of justice or denial of basic human rights taking place under Scots Law: the Megrahi, Cadder and Fraser cases, each with their own unique aspects, each with their own unique implications for Scots justice. In every case there have been strong common threads. All put Scots Law, and those who practise within it, under an external microscope. Each case had its own issues that rightfully required this intense scrutiny.

Each case highlighted the dissimilarities between England and Scotland.

History has demonstrated that in the view of the UK, differences are not encouraged. Differences that can give Westminster’s dictated foreign policy a very bloody nose, as in the Megrahi case, shall and must be dealt with at the earliest opportunity.

With respect to Megrahi it was absolutely no surprise that the Scotland Bill was quietly and quickly amended in an attempt to address this issue, at least partially.

[It is unfortunate that the author is not more specific about the amendment she is referring to. On a quick trawl through the Bill, the only provision that seems potentially relevant is clause 27, which reads in relevant part:

Implementation of international obligations
(1) The 1998 Act [ie the Scotland Act 1998] is amended as follows.
(2) After section 57 insert—
“57A International obligations
Despite the transfer to the Scottish Ministers by virtue of section 53 of functions in relation to observing and implementing international obligations, a function in relation to those matters which is exercisable by the Scottish Ministers is also exercisable by a Minister of the Crown as regards Scotland if it was exercisable by that Minister as regards Scotland immediately before that transfer.”

I suppose that this could be interpreted to cover a situation in which the UK Government had concluded a prisoner transfer agreement with a foreign country, but the Scottish Government was unwilling to operate it in respect of a particular prisoner in a Scottish prison. A UK Government Scotland Office minister might then have the power to exercise the transfer function in relation to that prisoner.]

Will NATO resurrect Operation Gladio to frame Gaddafi?

[This is the headline over an article published today on the Prison Planet website. It reads in part:]

Libyan leader’s threat to attack Europe could provide NATO with the perfect pretext to launch a full ground invasion

Given the fact that NATO itself was one of the pioneers of false flag terror to frame political enemies under Operation Gladio, a CIA-supported terror campaign that was responsible for a series of bloody attacks in Europe throughout the cold war years, we shouldn’t be surprised if NATO ressurects the legacy of Gladio in its desperation to justify a final decapitation strike to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi’s threat to attack Europe in retaliation for the NATO bombing campaign in Libya prompted the establishment media to react with contrived outrage, eliciting sharp intakes of breath at the mere thought that Gaddafi, whose country has been under constant bombardment for over three months, would dare to even speak about fighting back. (...)

Gaddafi himself is no stranger to being the focus of international condemnation for bloody terror attacks blamed on his government.

Although Libyan government agents working at the behest of Gaddafi were accused of carrying out the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Scotland, evidence that emerged both before and after the 2001 trial and conviction of alleged former intelligence office Abdelbaset al-Megrahi strongly indicates that the attack was a false flag event.

“Former Labor MP Tam Dalyell and Edinburgh law professor Robert Black urged the Scottish and UK governments to answer reports there is evidence Abu Nidal, aka Hasan Sabri al-Banna, was a US agent,” The Scotsman reported on October 27, 2008. “They have long believed Abu Nidal, who died in Iraq in 2002, and his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command were responsible for co-ordinating the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988 with the loss of 270 lives.”

“Intelligence reports, said to have been drawn up for Saddam Hussein’s security services, said Kuwaitis had asked Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, to find out if al-Qaeda was present in Iraq,” David Maddox wrote for the newspaper. The reports referred to Abu Nidal’s “collusion with both the American and Kuwaiti intelligence apparatuses in co-ordination with Egyptian intelligence.” [RB: A comment on this story that I wrote at the time can be read here.]

MP Dalyell said the reports added weight to the theory that Lockerbie was a “tit-for-tat” attack for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger airliner by the warship USS Vincennes in 1988, and was allowed by the US administration. (...)

In May of 2000, a gag order added weight to the theory that Libya was not behind the Lockerbie bombing. Dr Richard Fuisz, a CIA agent and a potential key trial witness, was gagged by the US government under state secrecy laws and faced 10 years in prison if he revealed any information about the terrorist attack, the Sunday Herald reported. Fuisz, a multi-millionaire businessman and pharmaceutical researcher, was, according to US intelligence sources, the CIA’s key operative in the Syrian capital Damascus during the 1980s where he also had business interests.

“One month before a court order was served on him by the US government gagging him from speaking on the grounds of national security, he spoke to US congressional aide Susan Lindauer, telling her he knew the identities of the Lockerbie bombers and claiming they were not Libyan,” Neil Mackay wrote. “Fuisz’s statements to Lindauer support the claims of the two Libyan accused who are to incriminate a number of terrorist organizations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which had strong links to Syria and Iran,” in short Abu Nidal.

Nidal was either killed by the Iraqi secret police for his role as an American double agent or he committed suicide after the Iraqis learned of his betrayal, according to The Independent. (...)

At the foundation of the Lockerbie fiction is the claim that Gaddafi had Pan Am flight 103 blown of the sky as revenge for Reagan’s 1986 bombing of Triopli, allegedly in response to the bombing of a night club in West Berlin that killed one US soldier. Reagan’s illegal attack on October 18, 1985, was at the time the largest air assault since the Vietnam War. 120 aircraft rained destruction on points around the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. At least 100 civilians were killed, including Gaddafi’s 15-month-old adopted daughter, Hana.

Former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky revealed the truth behind the bombing in his 2002 book, By Way of Deception: The Making of a Mossad Officer — it was orchestrated by Israel.

A special communications device, Ostrovsky claims, was planted by naval commandos deep inside Libya by the Mossad. “The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP, and intended to be received by American and British listening stations,” write Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy. “The listeners would have no doubt they had intercepted a genuine communication” and “the content of the messages, once deciphered, would confirm information from other intelligence sources, namely the Mossad.”

“After the bombing of Libya, our friend Qadhafi is sure to stay out of the picture for some time. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are the next target. We’re starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time, but in the end, there’s no doubt it’ll work,” a Mossad agent told the author. (...)

Gaddafi steadfastly refused to accept responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing for over a decade and made it a condition of Libya’s $2.7 billion payout to the families affected in 2002 that it was “the price of peace” and not an admission of guilt.

The story of how Libyan patsies were framed for the Lockerbie attack should give Gaddafi pause for thought and remind him to be a little more sophisticated in his rhetoric. Should there be a staged event in Europe that gets blamed on Libya, NATO powers will confidently point to Gaddafi’s own public statement as evidence for his culpability.