[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads in part:]
The Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill has been asked by the secretary of the Justice for Megrahi Committee to explain why the Scottish Government has pledged to introduce an Act of Parliament to force the release of the crucial report from the Scottish Criminal Review Cases Commisison into Abdelbaset Al Megrahi's case, rather than a simple statutory instrument.
The SCCRC report concluded that a miscarriage of justice may have occured, and narrates the reasons in extensive detail explaining how it reached this conclusion.
The Justice For Megrahi secretary Robert Forrester contends that a simpler statutory instrument could facilitate the publication of the secret document (...)
"My understanding is that this process is not only very cumbersome and time consuming but also, on the face of it, appears to be unnecessary since the consent requirements blocking the document's publication are covered by a statutory instrument imposed in 2009 by means of secondary legislation," Forrester says. (...)
The letter was sent to MacAskill on 4 August and has not yet received a response.
Earlier this year Christine Grahame MSP asked a similar query, to which Mr MacAskill said: "Primary legislation is needed for full flexibility to ensure that an appropriate legislative framework is put in place.
"The proposed legislation will facilitate, as far as possible, the release of a statement of reasons by the Commission in circumstances where an appeal has been abandoned. In doing so, it will also maintain appropriate provision for such matters as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities."
Professor Black said those ends could "equally well be achieved in an appropriately drafted statutory instrument", and queried the legal basis for MacAskill's response.
The JFM Secretary has asked Mr MacAskill to explain the "conundrum".
"Why is it that the government is planning to pursue a programme for the introduction of primary legislation to remove the consent requirements that are impeding publication of the SCCRC's statement of reasons relating to Mr al-Megrahi's appeal?" Forrester's email asks.
"Obviously we may be missing something in the detail of what is required regarding this problem and we would be most appreciative if you could shed some light on the situation.
"Thank you again for your letter and we look forward to your response to the above puzzle."
Monday, 22 August 2011
Council concern over Lockerbie bomber following Libya rebel uprising
[This is the headline over a report published this afternoon on the STV News website. It reads in part:]
A Scottish council that has been in contact with the Lockerbie bomber since his release from prison has confirmed it will try to speak to him “imminently” following this weekend’s developments in the Libyan war.
Staff at East Renfrewshire Council communicate with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi as part of the conditions of his release from Greenock Prison. While he was in jail, members of his family lived in the East Renfrewshire area, so the responsibility of monitoring Megrahi’s adherence to his bail conditions fell to the local authority when he returned to his homeland.
A spokesman from East Renfrewshire Council has confirmed a report that appeared in The Guardian, which states the council urgently want to speak to the convicted terrorist after rebel forces reportedly took control of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, and are close to overthrowing the country’s under fire leader Muammar Gaddafi.
He said: "Right up to this point, there has been no breach of the release conditions and nothing up to now which gives us cause for concern. The conditions in the country put us into the position where we will need to contact him imminently to make sure we can still maintain that contact."
A spokesman from the council confirmed to STV News that contact is only made with Megrahi when council justice teams need to speak to him. The spokesman added disruption to Libya’s government since the rebel uprising earlier this year has largely been irrelevant to this arrangement, as contact is made directly with Megrahi and not via any governmental bodies. (...)
Meanwhile, an English MP has said Megrahi should be brought back to the UK if Gaddafi’s regime falls. Conservative Robert Halfon said extradition to the US should also be considered so the convicted bomber does not continue a "life of luxury" in Libya.
Mr Halfon said: "The release of al-Megrahi marked the low point of Britain's appeasement of Gaddafi. We should make every effort to bring him back so he can spend the rest of his time in prison where he belongs.
"Or he should spend the rest of his life in a Libyan jail, or be extradited to the US. We should do everything in our power to make sure he is in jail, rather than living a life of luxury."
[It is interesting that law-makers, even such insignificant ones as Mr Halfon, can be so cavalier about legality. Is this perhaps a symptom of society's general moral collapse, about which there has been so much speculation since the recent riots in English cities?
A report just published in the UK edition of the Huffington Post contains the following:]
A representative for East Renfrewshire Council said that whilst they were monitoring Abdel Baset Ali Al-Megrahi to ensure he kept to the terms of his release, they were under “no obligation” to protect him.
“Up to this point, all of the contact we expected to have, we have had. We have received monthly medical reports. All of our contact is up to date, as of Friday," said the spokesman.
But he said the council was currently trying to get in contact with Al-Megrahi: “Up until Friday, I would have said all of the contact is entirely up to date. The position at the moment is because of the situation in the city we will be looking to make contact with him sooner than we’d expected to, and the reason for that is to make sure that we can continue to make the contact we’ve had over the last two years.”
The spokesperson added that any breaches would be referred back to the parole board and the Scottish justice department, but stressed he would need permission to leave Libya.
“Our role is, because he’s been released on compassionate grounds, he’s released under certain conditions. We need to monitor him under those conditions, things like where he lives."
Scottish lawyer Derek Livingston said the change in government did not matter in “legal terms” but the Libyan transitional council may attempt to send Al-Megrahi back: “It doesn’t matter one iota that there’s been a change of government from a legal point of view. It might matter from a political perspective. In theory the Libyans could try and send him back.”
A Scottish Government Spokesperson did not comment on calls from an MP to send Al-Megrahi back to Britain, only saying: "Al-Megrahi was sent back to Libya because he is dying of terminal cancer, he is being monitored by East Renfrewshire Council according to the terms of his release licence which he has not breached."
A Scottish council that has been in contact with the Lockerbie bomber since his release from prison has confirmed it will try to speak to him “imminently” following this weekend’s developments in the Libyan war.
Staff at East Renfrewshire Council communicate with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi as part of the conditions of his release from Greenock Prison. While he was in jail, members of his family lived in the East Renfrewshire area, so the responsibility of monitoring Megrahi’s adherence to his bail conditions fell to the local authority when he returned to his homeland.
A spokesman from East Renfrewshire Council has confirmed a report that appeared in The Guardian, which states the council urgently want to speak to the convicted terrorist after rebel forces reportedly took control of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, and are close to overthrowing the country’s under fire leader Muammar Gaddafi.
He said: "Right up to this point, there has been no breach of the release conditions and nothing up to now which gives us cause for concern. The conditions in the country put us into the position where we will need to contact him imminently to make sure we can still maintain that contact."
A spokesman from the council confirmed to STV News that contact is only made with Megrahi when council justice teams need to speak to him. The spokesman added disruption to Libya’s government since the rebel uprising earlier this year has largely been irrelevant to this arrangement, as contact is made directly with Megrahi and not via any governmental bodies. (...)
Meanwhile, an English MP has said Megrahi should be brought back to the UK if Gaddafi’s regime falls. Conservative Robert Halfon said extradition to the US should also be considered so the convicted bomber does not continue a "life of luxury" in Libya.
Mr Halfon said: "The release of al-Megrahi marked the low point of Britain's appeasement of Gaddafi. We should make every effort to bring him back so he can spend the rest of his time in prison where he belongs.
"Or he should spend the rest of his life in a Libyan jail, or be extradited to the US. We should do everything in our power to make sure he is in jail, rather than living a life of luxury."
[It is interesting that law-makers, even such insignificant ones as Mr Halfon, can be so cavalier about legality. Is this perhaps a symptom of society's general moral collapse, about which there has been so much speculation since the recent riots in English cities?
A report just published in the UK edition of the Huffington Post contains the following:]
A representative for East Renfrewshire Council said that whilst they were monitoring Abdel Baset Ali Al-Megrahi to ensure he kept to the terms of his release, they were under “no obligation” to protect him.
“Up to this point, all of the contact we expected to have, we have had. We have received monthly medical reports. All of our contact is up to date, as of Friday," said the spokesman.
But he said the council was currently trying to get in contact with Al-Megrahi: “Up until Friday, I would have said all of the contact is entirely up to date. The position at the moment is because of the situation in the city we will be looking to make contact with him sooner than we’d expected to, and the reason for that is to make sure that we can continue to make the contact we’ve had over the last two years.”
The spokesperson added that any breaches would be referred back to the parole board and the Scottish justice department, but stressed he would need permission to leave Libya.
“Our role is, because he’s been released on compassionate grounds, he’s released under certain conditions. We need to monitor him under those conditions, things like where he lives."
Scottish lawyer Derek Livingston said the change in government did not matter in “legal terms” but the Libyan transitional council may attempt to send Al-Megrahi back: “It doesn’t matter one iota that there’s been a change of government from a legal point of view. It might matter from a political perspective. In theory the Libyans could try and send him back.”
A Scottish Government Spokesperson did not comment on calls from an MP to send Al-Megrahi back to Britain, only saying: "Al-Megrahi was sent back to Libya because he is dying of terminal cancer, he is being monitored by East Renfrewshire Council according to the terms of his release licence which he has not breached."
Rifkind on Libya and Megrahi
[What follows is an excerpt from an article by Sir Malcolm Rifkind QC MP, a former Tory Secretary of State for Scotland and Foreign Secretary, in today's edition of the London Evening Standard:]
It is not just Libyans who are entitled to celebrate Gaddafi's demise. The United Kingdom has a special interest in seeing the end of this despot. The destruction of PanAm flight 103 above Lockerbie in 1988 was the single greatest terrorist incident in Britain's history.
As Secretary of State for Scotland at the time, I had to visit Lockerbie hours after the explosion.
I toured the town with Margaret Thatcher and witnessed not only the debris from the stricken aircraft but the destruction and loss of life on the ground too.
The decision of the SNP government in Edinburgh to free convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi two years ago was unforgivably foolish, as were Tony Blair's naïve efforts to treat Gaddafi as a man with whom we could do business. He has remained, to the end, a vicious and cruel tyrant.
It is a relief that the present Government has been far more robust in its approach to Libya. David Cameron, in particular, is entitled to credit for taking the lead in calling for international action and ensuring that the RAF has been one of the lead participants in the successful Nato action.
It is not just Libyans who are entitled to celebrate Gaddafi's demise. The United Kingdom has a special interest in seeing the end of this despot. The destruction of PanAm flight 103 above Lockerbie in 1988 was the single greatest terrorist incident in Britain's history.
As Secretary of State for Scotland at the time, I had to visit Lockerbie hours after the explosion.
I toured the town with Margaret Thatcher and witnessed not only the debris from the stricken aircraft but the destruction and loss of life on the ground too.
The decision of the SNP government in Edinburgh to free convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi two years ago was unforgivably foolish, as were Tony Blair's naïve efforts to treat Gaddafi as a man with whom we could do business. He has remained, to the end, a vicious and cruel tyrant.
It is a relief that the present Government has been far more robust in its approach to Libya. David Cameron, in particular, is entitled to credit for taking the lead in calling for international action and ensuring that the RAF has been one of the lead participants in the successful Nato action.
The fall of Gaddafi...
...and the assassination of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi
[This is the headline over an article by Kevin Williamson posted today on the Bella Caledonia website. It reads as follows:]
As opposition forces move into Tripoli the final chapter of the Gaddafi regime seems about to be writ large, and in blood. This time there seems little chance of yet another miraculous reprieve for The Colonel, his parasitical family, his henchmen and assorted hangers-on.
Future narratives are limited as this stage. The CIA will have been working hard behind the scenes to smooth the transition towards democracy; consorting with and advising rebel commanders, and identifying those sympathetic to US strategic objectives.
A new “democratic” “populist” “leader” may soon emerge, as if from nowhere. A US-compliant provisional government could soon take the place of the old regime and elections will be planned, some distance down the line. Once the US, of course, has had a chance to vet all the suitable candidates.
If the Libyan people think that their country’s vast oil reserves will end up in the hands of the people, working for the common good, then they are in for another great betrayal. Compliant tribal warlords turned politicians in suits will ensure that global oil corporations will assume control. It’ll be business as usual.
Then there is the troublesome figure of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, who now lives under the protection of the Gaddafi regime. What will the CIA do with him? Do they return him to a Scottish prison? And risk a resumption of his appeal procedure – a legal process which may clear him of the bombing and stir up an international hornet’s nest? Implement a rendition process to put al-Megrahi in the hands of the same organisations who may have framed him in the first place? Or will they take the tried-and-tested CIA option and simply put a bullet in his head. Case closed. Time to move on.
Let’s put it this way. If al-Megrahi is found dead at any point in the next few weeks – irrespective of the convoluted official explanations of how he died – then we can take it as read that a) it was a premeditated strike by agents acting on behalf of the CIA, b) he was assassinated for the same reasons he was released with such haste: because he was innocent of the Lockerbie bombing and a legal appeal had to be stopped at all costs, c) the Scottish legal system was complicit in this framing, and d) those responsible for framing him, like those who actually carried out the worst mass murder in Scottish history, remain at liberty.
If al-Megrahi is not assassinated then let him return to Scotland – under house arrest if need be – and resume his judicial appeal. The SCCRC have collated the evidence that formed the basis of al-Megrahi’s appeal. It’s about time it saw the light of day. Irrespective of the repercussions, the Lockerbie victims’ families need justice and resolution. That will never happen if al-Megrahi is assassinated by the CIA or if a rendition process places him into the hands of those who were instrumental in the framing.
[This is the headline over an article by Kevin Williamson posted today on the Bella Caledonia website. It reads as follows:]
As opposition forces move into Tripoli the final chapter of the Gaddafi regime seems about to be writ large, and in blood. This time there seems little chance of yet another miraculous reprieve for The Colonel, his parasitical family, his henchmen and assorted hangers-on.
Future narratives are limited as this stage. The CIA will have been working hard behind the scenes to smooth the transition towards democracy; consorting with and advising rebel commanders, and identifying those sympathetic to US strategic objectives.
A new “democratic” “populist” “leader” may soon emerge, as if from nowhere. A US-compliant provisional government could soon take the place of the old regime and elections will be planned, some distance down the line. Once the US, of course, has had a chance to vet all the suitable candidates.
If the Libyan people think that their country’s vast oil reserves will end up in the hands of the people, working for the common good, then they are in for another great betrayal. Compliant tribal warlords turned politicians in suits will ensure that global oil corporations will assume control. It’ll be business as usual.
Then there is the troublesome figure of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, who now lives under the protection of the Gaddafi regime. What will the CIA do with him? Do they return him to a Scottish prison? And risk a resumption of his appeal procedure – a legal process which may clear him of the bombing and stir up an international hornet’s nest? Implement a rendition process to put al-Megrahi in the hands of the same organisations who may have framed him in the first place? Or will they take the tried-and-tested CIA option and simply put a bullet in his head. Case closed. Time to move on.
Let’s put it this way. If al-Megrahi is found dead at any point in the next few weeks – irrespective of the convoluted official explanations of how he died – then we can take it as read that a) it was a premeditated strike by agents acting on behalf of the CIA, b) he was assassinated for the same reasons he was released with such haste: because he was innocent of the Lockerbie bombing and a legal appeal had to be stopped at all costs, c) the Scottish legal system was complicit in this framing, and d) those responsible for framing him, like those who actually carried out the worst mass murder in Scottish history, remain at liberty.
If al-Megrahi is not assassinated then let him return to Scotland – under house arrest if need be – and resume his judicial appeal. The SCCRC have collated the evidence that formed the basis of al-Megrahi’s appeal. It’s about time it saw the light of day. Irrespective of the repercussions, the Lockerbie victims’ families need justice and resolution. That will never happen if al-Megrahi is assassinated by the CIA or if a rendition process places him into the hands of those who were instrumental in the framing.
Bring the Lockerbie bomber back to Britain
[This is the headline over an article on The Telegraph website by Nile Gardiner, "conservative commentator, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, and a former aide to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He is also a commentator on US and British television and a frequent contributor to the Fox News network". It reads as follows:]
With the impending downfall of Muammar Gaddafi, I imagine the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, is a very nervous man today. Megrahi was released to the Libyan government almost exactly two years ago by Scottish authorities on “compassionate grounds”, supposedly dying of cancer with just a few months to live, and was feted like a hero on his return to Tripoli. He has since staged something resembling a “miraculous” recovery, and is alive and well and expected to survive for several more years. Under Gaddafi’s patronage al-Megrahi has been living a life of luxury in Libya, frequently wheeled out as a ghastly cause célèbre by the old regime, in every effort to cause offence to the US and Britain.
An immediate priority for Downing Street – if a transitional government takes charge – should be to get al-Megrahi on a plane to London, where he should serve the rest of his life sentence. The Lockerbie bomber is one of the biggest mass murderers of modern times, responsible for the killing of 189 Americans and 43 Britons on board PanAm Flight 103, blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988, as well as the murder of 38 passengers from 19 other countries. His release by Scottish authorities with the complicity of the Labour government was sickening – and a stain on Britain’s international reputation.
The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary must press a post-Gaddafi government to arrest Megrahi and have him extradited to the United Kingdom. At the same time, the British government should back a further inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber, drawing on any relevant Libyan government files that may become available, shedding additional light on the whole affair. A price must be paid for the shedding of British and American blood, and the Lockerbie bomber should be back where he belongs – behind bars. And as for “Mad Dog” Gaddafi, the butcher of Tripoli will no doubt get his just desserts from his own people, who have suffered four decades of relentless fear and terror at his murderous hands.
[Well, at least he's not calling for Megrahi's summary execution or rendition to the United States. In Nile Gardiner's book that probably amounts to moderation.
And trust an insignificant, homoeopathy-supporting Tory MP to add his tuppenceworth: Call for Libya's al-Megrahi to be reimprisoned in UK.]
With the impending downfall of Muammar Gaddafi, I imagine the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, is a very nervous man today. Megrahi was released to the Libyan government almost exactly two years ago by Scottish authorities on “compassionate grounds”, supposedly dying of cancer with just a few months to live, and was feted like a hero on his return to Tripoli. He has since staged something resembling a “miraculous” recovery, and is alive and well and expected to survive for several more years. Under Gaddafi’s patronage al-Megrahi has been living a life of luxury in Libya, frequently wheeled out as a ghastly cause célèbre by the old regime, in every effort to cause offence to the US and Britain.
An immediate priority for Downing Street – if a transitional government takes charge – should be to get al-Megrahi on a plane to London, where he should serve the rest of his life sentence. The Lockerbie bomber is one of the biggest mass murderers of modern times, responsible for the killing of 189 Americans and 43 Britons on board PanAm Flight 103, blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988, as well as the murder of 38 passengers from 19 other countries. His release by Scottish authorities with the complicity of the Labour government was sickening – and a stain on Britain’s international reputation.
The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary must press a post-Gaddafi government to arrest Megrahi and have him extradited to the United Kingdom. At the same time, the British government should back a further inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber, drawing on any relevant Libyan government files that may become available, shedding additional light on the whole affair. A price must be paid for the shedding of British and American blood, and the Lockerbie bomber should be back where he belongs – behind bars. And as for “Mad Dog” Gaddafi, the butcher of Tripoli will no doubt get his just desserts from his own people, who have suffered four decades of relentless fear and terror at his murderous hands.
[Well, at least he's not calling for Megrahi's summary execution or rendition to the United States. In Nile Gardiner's book that probably amounts to moderation.
And trust an insignificant, homoeopathy-supporting Tory MP to add his tuppenceworth: Call for Libya's al-Megrahi to be reimprisoned in UK.]
Sunday, 21 August 2011
New report may put us on the road to finally discovering Lockerbie truths
[This is the headline over an editorial in today's edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]
The news that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) report into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing is to be published is welcome.
The furore surrounding the Scottish Government’s decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, and his refusal to stick to the “agreed” timetable for his death in his home country of Libya, has obscured the central question in this whole sorry story: was Megrahi actually guilty of the crime?
This newspaper has never been convinced that the conviction was sound. We are not alone. Many experts and some of the British families of the victims of the terrorist atrocity share that view.
Advanced reports suggest that the SCCRC also has serious concerns about the conviction.
It would, of course, have been better if Megrahi’s appeal had gone ahead and his conviction had been tested by a court of law. But that avenue is no longer open.
Megrahi is a free man – a fact which in itself infuriated US senators to such an extent that they are demanding he be handed over to America if Libyan leader Gaddafi’s regime collapses – but that does not mean the central question of his guilt or innocence is no longer relevant.
Lockerbie is now at the centre of so many complex conspiracy theories that it would be naive to suggest that the publication of the SCCRC’s report will finally put an end to decades of speculation. Nothing will succeed in doing that.
It will, however, shed light on the reliability or otherwise of some of the evidence put forward at the trial, notably that of chief prosecution witness Tony Gauci, whose testimony was riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions.
It will throw up other questions, and we may never know the answers to some of these.
The most important questions are: first, if Megrahi’s conviction for the bombing is unsound ... who did carry out the atrocity?
Secondly, if the SCCRC was about to question so strongly the court’s original guilty verdict, why did Megrahi withdraw his appeal? There was no legal requirement to do so. The decision to grant him compassionate release was independent of the appeal process.
It is not just the relatives of those who died on that fateful flight who deserve to know the answers. Scotland needs to know if, in this most controversial and public of cases, it can continue to place its faith in the Scottish legal system.
[The same newspaper features an article headlined Secret report casting doubt on Megrahi’s guilt will be published. It reads in part:]
A secret report casting doubt on the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber is to be published under a new law to be unveiled by the Scottish Government next month, when it sets out its legislative programme for Parliament.
The bill, to be formally announced on September 7, will enable the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to release its 800 pages of findings on Adbel Baset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, which have remained under lock and key since they were finalised in 2007.
The SCCRC report identified six grounds for believing Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice when he was prosecuted and tried for the murder of 270 people in the atrocity.
They included doubts over pivotal aspects of the prosecution case against him, and undisclosed payments to a key prosecution witness. (...)
The SNP Government has already tried and failed to make the SCCRC report public through a minor piece of legislation, but not all the parties to the case agreed, blocking its release.
It is understood the new bill will be a weightier measure, allowing the SCCRC to publish any of its reports which relate to cases where a subsequent appeal has been dropped, which includes Megrahi.
Last month the SCCRC’s chair, Jean Couper, said the organisation had “no objections, in principle, to the release of the Statement of Reasons detailing its decision” in the Megrahi case, provided the law allowed it.
The SCCRC report claims the court acted unreasonably when it concluded he had definitely bought the clothes which ended up in the suitcase carrying the airplane bomb.
Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who testified he sold Megrahi the clothes, was also found to have been paid a $2 million reward by the US government.
The news that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) report into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing is to be published is welcome.
The furore surrounding the Scottish Government’s decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, and his refusal to stick to the “agreed” timetable for his death in his home country of Libya, has obscured the central question in this whole sorry story: was Megrahi actually guilty of the crime?
This newspaper has never been convinced that the conviction was sound. We are not alone. Many experts and some of the British families of the victims of the terrorist atrocity share that view.
Advanced reports suggest that the SCCRC also has serious concerns about the conviction.
It would, of course, have been better if Megrahi’s appeal had gone ahead and his conviction had been tested by a court of law. But that avenue is no longer open.
Megrahi is a free man – a fact which in itself infuriated US senators to such an extent that they are demanding he be handed over to America if Libyan leader Gaddafi’s regime collapses – but that does not mean the central question of his guilt or innocence is no longer relevant.
Lockerbie is now at the centre of so many complex conspiracy theories that it would be naive to suggest that the publication of the SCCRC’s report will finally put an end to decades of speculation. Nothing will succeed in doing that.
It will, however, shed light on the reliability or otherwise of some of the evidence put forward at the trial, notably that of chief prosecution witness Tony Gauci, whose testimony was riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions.
It will throw up other questions, and we may never know the answers to some of these.
The most important questions are: first, if Megrahi’s conviction for the bombing is unsound ... who did carry out the atrocity?
Secondly, if the SCCRC was about to question so strongly the court’s original guilty verdict, why did Megrahi withdraw his appeal? There was no legal requirement to do so. The decision to grant him compassionate release was independent of the appeal process.
It is not just the relatives of those who died on that fateful flight who deserve to know the answers. Scotland needs to know if, in this most controversial and public of cases, it can continue to place its faith in the Scottish legal system.
[The same newspaper features an article headlined Secret report casting doubt on Megrahi’s guilt will be published. It reads in part:]
A secret report casting doubt on the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber is to be published under a new law to be unveiled by the Scottish Government next month, when it sets out its legislative programme for Parliament.
The bill, to be formally announced on September 7, will enable the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to release its 800 pages of findings on Adbel Baset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, which have remained under lock and key since they were finalised in 2007.
The SCCRC report identified six grounds for believing Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice when he was prosecuted and tried for the murder of 270 people in the atrocity.
They included doubts over pivotal aspects of the prosecution case against him, and undisclosed payments to a key prosecution witness. (...)
The SNP Government has already tried and failed to make the SCCRC report public through a minor piece of legislation, but not all the parties to the case agreed, blocking its release.
It is understood the new bill will be a weightier measure, allowing the SCCRC to publish any of its reports which relate to cases where a subsequent appeal has been dropped, which includes Megrahi.
Last month the SCCRC’s chair, Jean Couper, said the organisation had “no objections, in principle, to the release of the Statement of Reasons detailing its decision” in the Megrahi case, provided the law allowed it.
The SCCRC report claims the court acted unreasonably when it concluded he had definitely bought the clothes which ended up in the suitcase carrying the airplane bomb.
Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who testified he sold Megrahi the clothes, was also found to have been paid a $2 million reward by the US government.
Al-Megrahi was only Libyan in identity parade
[This is the headline over an article by Paula Murray in today's edition of the Sunday Express. It reads in part:]
The Lockerbie bomber was the only Libyan in the crucial identity parade before his trial in the Netherlands, the Sunday Express can reveal.
Secret documents prepared by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s lawyers show Dutch officials struggled to find volunteers who resembled the terror suspect.
The pool of lookalikes included white Europeans, men who were significantly taller or shorter than Megrahi and one who would have been 14 at the time of the atrocity.
Even so, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci – the Crown’s key witness who was paid £1.2 million to testify – still struggled to pick out Megrahi.
The revelations cast further doubt on the Libyan’s conviction over the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, which killed 270 people. in December 1988.
Yesterday, details of a secret report emerged showing that there were seven major flaws in the evidence. (...)
First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, writing in today’s Sunday Express, have defended their decision. [RB: I cannot find an article by Mr MacAskill on the newspaper's website, though a short one appears in the print edition.]
Yesterday, Mr Salmond said the new evidence “could and should have been judged in a court of law” but added that he “did not doubt” Megrahi’s guilt. (...)
A dossier for Megrahi’s appeal – which was dropped days before his release – claim the ID parade in April 1999 “fell short of what was fair”. Gauci, who sold clothing that was later packed in a suitcase with the bomb, said he could not be sure if any of the men were the same individual who had visited his shop a decade earlier.
Eventually, he picked out Megrahi as the one who “looked a little bit like exactly” the purchaser.
The report claims the parade was carried out after “an extraordinary length of time” using “stand-ins” who were not “sufficiently similar”.
It also points out that Megrahi’s photograph had widely published.Police reports from the parade are described as “incomplete and confusing”.
Professor Steven Clark, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, states: “At no time did [Gauci] ever clearly and definitively assert that Mr. Megrahi was the man who came into his store.
“Rather, in each identification procedure, he stated that Mr. Megrahi was ‘similar’ or ‘resembled’ the man.” [RB: Professor Clark's report on the identification evidence relating to Megrahi can be read here.]
Another eyewitness identification expert, Professor Tim Valentine, of Golsmiths University of London, said: “I do have concern of the quality of the identification evidence. I wouldn’t want to be convicted on identification evidence of that quality.” [RB: Professor Valentine's report on the identification evidence relating to Megrahi can be read here.]
Scottish campaigner Iain McKie, a member of the Justice for Megrahi committee, added: “The identification process of Megrahi was totally and utterly flawed and wrong. Yet the conviction rests on that identification. The whole process was rotten.”
[On the Express website Susan Lindauer posted the following comment on this story:]
Megrahi deserves to die a free man. As the primary negotiator w/Libya for the trial, I want to state as forcefully as possible and without equivocation: the CIA started talks for the trial with full knowledge of Megrahi's innocence. Unhappily, we recognized the US and Britain were so obsessed with Libya's guilt. It was decided that politicians and family members could not accept the truth of Megrahi's innocence, until they saw the (lack of) evidence on the table. There would have to be a trial.
However everyone expected an immediate acquittal. The CIA stood alert in the wings, ready to reconfigure the attack and arrest the real culprits. So ironically, the Lockerbie families would have achieved real justice 10 years ago, if only the Courts had behaved honorably in acknowledging Megrahi's innocence in the first place. It was obvious to anyone who examined the case.
[A comment from Susan Lindauer on an earlier Express story can be read here.]
The Lockerbie bomber was the only Libyan in the crucial identity parade before his trial in the Netherlands, the Sunday Express can reveal.
Secret documents prepared by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s lawyers show Dutch officials struggled to find volunteers who resembled the terror suspect.
The pool of lookalikes included white Europeans, men who were significantly taller or shorter than Megrahi and one who would have been 14 at the time of the atrocity.
Even so, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci – the Crown’s key witness who was paid £1.2 million to testify – still struggled to pick out Megrahi.
The revelations cast further doubt on the Libyan’s conviction over the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, which killed 270 people. in December 1988.
Yesterday, details of a secret report emerged showing that there were seven major flaws in the evidence. (...)
First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, writing in today’s Sunday Express, have defended their decision. [RB: I cannot find an article by Mr MacAskill on the newspaper's website, though a short one appears in the print edition.]
Yesterday, Mr Salmond said the new evidence “could and should have been judged in a court of law” but added that he “did not doubt” Megrahi’s guilt. (...)
A dossier for Megrahi’s appeal – which was dropped days before his release – claim the ID parade in April 1999 “fell short of what was fair”. Gauci, who sold clothing that was later packed in a suitcase with the bomb, said he could not be sure if any of the men were the same individual who had visited his shop a decade earlier.
Eventually, he picked out Megrahi as the one who “looked a little bit like exactly” the purchaser.
The report claims the parade was carried out after “an extraordinary length of time” using “stand-ins” who were not “sufficiently similar”.
It also points out that Megrahi’s photograph had widely published.Police reports from the parade are described as “incomplete and confusing”.
Professor Steven Clark, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, states: “At no time did [Gauci] ever clearly and definitively assert that Mr. Megrahi was the man who came into his store.
“Rather, in each identification procedure, he stated that Mr. Megrahi was ‘similar’ or ‘resembled’ the man.” [RB: Professor Clark's report on the identification evidence relating to Megrahi can be read here.]
Another eyewitness identification expert, Professor Tim Valentine, of Golsmiths University of London, said: “I do have concern of the quality of the identification evidence. I wouldn’t want to be convicted on identification evidence of that quality.” [RB: Professor Valentine's report on the identification evidence relating to Megrahi can be read here.]
Scottish campaigner Iain McKie, a member of the Justice for Megrahi committee, added: “The identification process of Megrahi was totally and utterly flawed and wrong. Yet the conviction rests on that identification. The whole process was rotten.”
[On the Express website Susan Lindauer posted the following comment on this story:]
Megrahi deserves to die a free man. As the primary negotiator w/Libya for the trial, I want to state as forcefully as possible and without equivocation: the CIA started talks for the trial with full knowledge of Megrahi's innocence. Unhappily, we recognized the US and Britain were so obsessed with Libya's guilt. It was decided that politicians and family members could not accept the truth of Megrahi's innocence, until they saw the (lack of) evidence on the table. There would have to be a trial.
However everyone expected an immediate acquittal. The CIA stood alert in the wings, ready to reconfigure the attack and arrest the real culprits. So ironically, the Lockerbie families would have achieved real justice 10 years ago, if only the Courts had behaved honorably in acknowledging Megrahi's innocence in the first place. It was obvious to anyone who examined the case.
[A comment from Susan Lindauer on an earlier Express story can be read here.]
Court should have heard ID evidence
[This is the headline over a report published yesterday evening on the Mirror website. It reads as follows:]
The veracity of identification evidence that led to the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing "could and should have been judged in a court of law", according to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.
Mr Salmond said it is unfortunate that Megrahi's appeal against his conviction never reached the High Court.
However, the First Minister said he has "never doubted Mr Megrahi's guilt".
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is currently withholding a report which raises questions about identification evidence that led to Megrahi's conviction, and contains its statement of reasons for referring the conviction back to the High Court.
The Libyan dropped his appeal shortly before Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to release him.
Speaking at a charity race day in Perth on the second anniversary of Megrahi's release, Mr Salmond said: "The SCCRC wanted to remit the case back to the court of appeal.
"That wasn't based on the forensics, which it upheld, but on identification evidence upon which there was a question mark which could and should have been judged in a court of law. Unfortunately that wasn't possible. I have never doubted Mr Megrahi's guilt."
The Scottish Government has pledged to bring about a change in the law to allow the SCCRC report to be published.
Mr Salmond said this publication would negate the need for a public inquiry, saying the report "will give more information than any public inquiry ever could".
The First Minister said he knows nothing about reports that the United States has made a "secret deal" with anti-Gaddafi forces in Libya to seize Megrahi and try him in a US court. He said: "I've read a number of reports, mutually contradictory incidentally, and I suspect they are based on very little indeed."
[It is clear that if the First Minister has "never doubted" Megrahi's guilt he simply has not read the Zeist court's reasons for convicting him or Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result or The SCCRC Decision.
Meanwhile, US Senators Menendez and Lautenberg are at it again.]
The veracity of identification evidence that led to the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing "could and should have been judged in a court of law", according to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.
Mr Salmond said it is unfortunate that Megrahi's appeal against his conviction never reached the High Court.
However, the First Minister said he has "never doubted Mr Megrahi's guilt".
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is currently withholding a report which raises questions about identification evidence that led to Megrahi's conviction, and contains its statement of reasons for referring the conviction back to the High Court.
The Libyan dropped his appeal shortly before Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to release him.
Speaking at a charity race day in Perth on the second anniversary of Megrahi's release, Mr Salmond said: "The SCCRC wanted to remit the case back to the court of appeal.
"That wasn't based on the forensics, which it upheld, but on identification evidence upon which there was a question mark which could and should have been judged in a court of law. Unfortunately that wasn't possible. I have never doubted Mr Megrahi's guilt."
The Scottish Government has pledged to bring about a change in the law to allow the SCCRC report to be published.
Mr Salmond said this publication would negate the need for a public inquiry, saying the report "will give more information than any public inquiry ever could".
The First Minister said he knows nothing about reports that the United States has made a "secret deal" with anti-Gaddafi forces in Libya to seize Megrahi and try him in a US court. He said: "I've read a number of reports, mutually contradictory incidentally, and I suspect they are based on very little indeed."
[It is clear that if the First Minister has "never doubted" Megrahi's guilt he simply has not read the Zeist court's reasons for convicting him or Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result or The SCCRC Decision.
Meanwhile, US Senators Menendez and Lautenberg are at it again.]
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Did secret report set Megrahi free?
[This is the headline over a double-page article (which does not feature on the newspaper's website) by Marcello Mega and Alan Roden on pages 14 and 15 of today's edition of the Scottish Daily Mail. Much of the content is similar to the article in today's issue of The Scottish Sun. The following are brief extracts from the Mail article:]
A devastating secret report that casts doubt on the Lockerbie bomber's guilt led to his early release from a Scottish jail, it was claimed last night.
Mass murderer Abdelbaset ... Al Megrahi was granted compassionate release to avoid the humiliation of a court overturning his conviction, according to critics.
These claims are today fuelled by leaked documents seen by the Scottish Daily Mail, which conclude 'no reasonable court' could have accepted some of the evidence that helped convict Megrahi. (...)
Finalised in 2007, the main report [by the SCCRC], which has never been released, runs to more than 800 pages with 13 volumes of appendices. (...)
But suspicion has persisted that Scottish authorities did not want the contents of the SCCRC findings made public.
Last night, veteran Scots Labour politician Tam Dalyell -- a former Father of the House of Commons --said: 'What was made clear to Megrahi was that by dropping [his appeal], it hugely enhanced his chance of returning to his family and the Tripoli sunshine.
'It was indicated to him -- by who I don't know, it may well have been Kenny MacAskill.'
Mr Dalyell, who believes Megrahi is innocent, added: 'Megrahi was desperate to get back [to Libya]. I went to see him in prison and I knew exactly what the situation was.' (...)
Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora on the flight, said last night: 'This underlines again the need for a full public inquiry.
'If the case against Megrahi was strong and compelling, there would have been no need to suppress evidence. It's time people listened to the facts. Megrahi did not do it -- and we need to know who did.'
Robert Forrester, chairman of the Justice for Megrahi group, said the case against the bomber amounted to 'assumption upon supposition upon thin air.'
A devastating secret report that casts doubt on the Lockerbie bomber's guilt led to his early release from a Scottish jail, it was claimed last night.
Mass murderer Abdelbaset ... Al Megrahi was granted compassionate release to avoid the humiliation of a court overturning his conviction, according to critics.
These claims are today fuelled by leaked documents seen by the Scottish Daily Mail, which conclude 'no reasonable court' could have accepted some of the evidence that helped convict Megrahi. (...)
Finalised in 2007, the main report [by the SCCRC], which has never been released, runs to more than 800 pages with 13 volumes of appendices. (...)
But suspicion has persisted that Scottish authorities did not want the contents of the SCCRC findings made public.
Last night, veteran Scots Labour politician Tam Dalyell -- a former Father of the House of Commons --said: 'What was made clear to Megrahi was that by dropping [his appeal], it hugely enhanced his chance of returning to his family and the Tripoli sunshine.
'It was indicated to him -- by who I don't know, it may well have been Kenny MacAskill.'
Mr Dalyell, who believes Megrahi is innocent, added: 'Megrahi was desperate to get back [to Libya]. I went to see him in prison and I knew exactly what the situation was.' (...)
Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora on the flight, said last night: 'This underlines again the need for a full public inquiry.
'If the case against Megrahi was strong and compelling, there would have been no need to suppress evidence. It's time people listened to the facts. Megrahi did not do it -- and we need to know who did.'
Robert Forrester, chairman of the Justice for Megrahi group, said the case against the bomber amounted to 'assumption upon supposition upon thin air.'
The dossier of doubt over Lockerbie
[This is the headline over a long article by Marcello Mega in today's edition of The Scottish Sun. It reads in part:]
The Scottish Sun today lifts the lid on a top-secret dossier that accuses Scots cops and prosecutors of suppressing seven key areas of evidence that cast doubt on the Lockerbie bomber's conviction.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission looked into the evidence against Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi - and found a murky web of lies.
The SCCRC's explosive report suspects the Scots authorities are behind a deliberate cover-up over the trial that saw Megrahi jailed for killing 270 people in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Dumfriesshire town.
Now on the second anniversary of cancer-stricken Megrahi's controversial release from a Scots jail, we can reveal the commission has grave concerns over the evidence against the 59-year-old following a multi-million-pound, four-year investigation.
In the dossier - seen by The Scottish Sun - Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who helped finger Megrahi as the bomber, is described as an "unreliable" witness.
Police are also accused of lying in court while prosecutors - including then Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC - are suspected of suppressing bombshell evidence that would likely have seen Megrahi walk free.
Last night Robert Black QC, retired Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University and the architect of the Lockerbie trial, told how he believes Megrahi is innocent.
Mr Black said: "Megrahi is not the Lockerbie bomber and these revelations further underline that.
"I said after reading the daily transcripts of the evidence at the trial and before the judges delivered their verdict that there was no way Megrahi could be convicted on the evidence presented.
"That the judges did convict him on the flimsiest of evidence, which required several leaps of faith on a number of crucial matters that had not been proven by the Crown, remains a matter of profound concern for all of us."
Mr Black said it was now vital that a top-level public inquiry is held to get to the truth.
He said: "We need strong leadership now. We need to admit publicly that we got it wrong, and set about putting right that injustice." (...)
[Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny] MacAskill has wanted the SCCRC findings to be released for months.
First Minister Alex Salmond and his SNP Government insist the law will be changed to publish the commission's 800-page report - to end ongoing speculation about Megrahi's conviction.
Mr MacAskill declined to comment on The Scottish Sun's revelations but his spokesman said: "We do not doubt the guilt of Mr al-Megrahi."
Some relatives of Megrahi's victims also believe he is guilty. Pete Lowenstein, who lost his 21-year-old son Alexander, said: 'I have great faith in the Scottish investigators and FBI agents. They did an amazing job, and I have no doubt in Megrahi's guilt."
Last night a spokesman for the Crown Office said they had "supported the conviction vigorously and stood ready, willing and able to do so throughout the appeal process which Mr Megrahi abandoned".
A spokesman for the SCCRC refused to comment.
Seven key flaws
Denied fair trial
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission says Megrahi WAS denied a fair trial in their damning report.
They said the Crown suppressed from Megrahi's defence team statements showing how much key witness Tony Gauci changed his mind about crucial details over the years.
Maltese shopkeeper Gauci's evidence fingered Megrahi as the man who bought clothes in his shop on the Mediterranean isle that were linked to the suitcase carrying the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103.
The SCCRC report says Gauci was an "unreliable" witness but this was not shown to be the case in court.
They said: "The effect of all of these inconsistencies is powerful. The court was left with a distorted and different impression of the witness. In this way Megrahi was denied a fair trial."
Cop lies
The SCCRC found that police said in evidence they first showed Gauci photos of Megrahi on September 14, 1989 - when he had in fact also been shown them on September 8.
The report said: "This was not disclosed to the defence. There is no statement from Gauci produced, no police witness statements produced."
The SCCRC said if Gauci had been shown Megrahi's pic six days before he picked him out as resembling the buyer at his shop, then that ID was totally undermined.
Diary dispute
In its report, the SCCRC challenges the integrity of evidence given by retired Strathclyde DCI Harry Bell, who had a close bond with Gauci.
The commission found that events recorded in Bell's diaries didn't always match what he said in evidence.
The commission noted that Bell claimed the Megrahi photo shown to Gauci on September 14, 1989, was the first one. This was not true.
It also reveals Bell, DC John Crawford, a retired Lothian and Borders cop, and an FBI agent all made statements claiming that Gauci had talked of a "striking similarity" between Megrahi and the buyer.
But Maltese officers revealed Gauci was unsure, was coached and told to age the photos by ten to 15 years.
The report says: "This is different to DCI Bell's evidence at trial. It also implies the witness is unclear."
Cash for answers
The commission obtained evidence from police memos that Gauci was made aware from his first contact with investigators that his testimony could be worth MILLIONS.
This contradicted evidence given by Scots and US investigators at Megrahi's trial.
One undisclosed memo reveals the FBI discussed with Scots cops an offer of unlimited cash to Gauci - with "$10,000 available immediately".
If a judge was made aware of this in another case, they'd tell a jury to discount the evidence.
Xmas lights lies
In court Gauci was vague about the exact date on which the clothes were bought.
The date was narrowed to either November 23, 1988, when Megrahi was not on Malta, or December 7, 1988, when he was.
Gauci said Christmas lights were NOT on yet in his hometown Sliema when the suspect visited his shop.
Cops said they could not find out when the lights were switched on.
But the SCCRC easily established it was December 6 - a day too early for Megrahi to have been the buyer.
The commission's report says: "It is clear that the police were in no doubt that Gauci was clear in his recollection." It adds "no reasonable court" could have concluded Megrahi bought the clothes from Gauci's shop.
Defence in the dark
It appears efforts were made to cover up key evidence that would have been useful for Megrahi's defence team.
The commission noted that early uncertainty on the part of Gauci was never passed over to the defence, nor was the fact that Scots detectives feared he was trying too hard to please them.
The fact a senior Maltese detective also considered Gauci to be an unreliable witness was never disclosed to lawyers representing Megrahi.
Evidence supressed
The SCCRC claims Colin Boyd QC, who was Lord Advocate at the time of Megrahi's trial and conviction in 2001, suppressed key evidence.
The trial judges maintained Gauci was "entirely reliable" on the list of clothing he claimed the buyer suspect purchased.
Yet a statement he made in 1999, and discovered by the SCCRC, saw him produce "a wholly different list of items and prices". This, along with many other files that could damage the Crown case, was suppressed. The report says Mr Boyd failed in his duty of disclosure to the defence.
[Long reports marking the second anniversary of Megrahi's compassionate release can be read on the BBC News website here, on the STV News website here, on The Herald website here, on The Scotsman website here, on The Independent website here, on The Telegraph website here, on the Newsnet Scotland website here and on The Times website here behind the paywall.]
The Scottish Sun today lifts the lid on a top-secret dossier that accuses Scots cops and prosecutors of suppressing seven key areas of evidence that cast doubt on the Lockerbie bomber's conviction.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission looked into the evidence against Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi - and found a murky web of lies.
The SCCRC's explosive report suspects the Scots authorities are behind a deliberate cover-up over the trial that saw Megrahi jailed for killing 270 people in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Dumfriesshire town.
Now on the second anniversary of cancer-stricken Megrahi's controversial release from a Scots jail, we can reveal the commission has grave concerns over the evidence against the 59-year-old following a multi-million-pound, four-year investigation.
In the dossier - seen by The Scottish Sun - Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who helped finger Megrahi as the bomber, is described as an "unreliable" witness.
Police are also accused of lying in court while prosecutors - including then Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC - are suspected of suppressing bombshell evidence that would likely have seen Megrahi walk free.
Last night Robert Black QC, retired Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University and the architect of the Lockerbie trial, told how he believes Megrahi is innocent.
Mr Black said: "Megrahi is not the Lockerbie bomber and these revelations further underline that.
"I said after reading the daily transcripts of the evidence at the trial and before the judges delivered their verdict that there was no way Megrahi could be convicted on the evidence presented.
"That the judges did convict him on the flimsiest of evidence, which required several leaps of faith on a number of crucial matters that had not been proven by the Crown, remains a matter of profound concern for all of us."
Mr Black said it was now vital that a top-level public inquiry is held to get to the truth.
He said: "We need strong leadership now. We need to admit publicly that we got it wrong, and set about putting right that injustice." (...)
[Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny] MacAskill has wanted the SCCRC findings to be released for months.
First Minister Alex Salmond and his SNP Government insist the law will be changed to publish the commission's 800-page report - to end ongoing speculation about Megrahi's conviction.
Mr MacAskill declined to comment on The Scottish Sun's revelations but his spokesman said: "We do not doubt the guilt of Mr al-Megrahi."
Some relatives of Megrahi's victims also believe he is guilty. Pete Lowenstein, who lost his 21-year-old son Alexander, said: 'I have great faith in the Scottish investigators and FBI agents. They did an amazing job, and I have no doubt in Megrahi's guilt."
Last night a spokesman for the Crown Office said they had "supported the conviction vigorously and stood ready, willing and able to do so throughout the appeal process which Mr Megrahi abandoned".
A spokesman for the SCCRC refused to comment.
Seven key flaws
Denied fair trial
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission says Megrahi WAS denied a fair trial in their damning report.
They said the Crown suppressed from Megrahi's defence team statements showing how much key witness Tony Gauci changed his mind about crucial details over the years.
Maltese shopkeeper Gauci's evidence fingered Megrahi as the man who bought clothes in his shop on the Mediterranean isle that were linked to the suitcase carrying the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103.
The SCCRC report says Gauci was an "unreliable" witness but this was not shown to be the case in court.
They said: "The effect of all of these inconsistencies is powerful. The court was left with a distorted and different impression of the witness. In this way Megrahi was denied a fair trial."
Cop lies
The SCCRC found that police said in evidence they first showed Gauci photos of Megrahi on September 14, 1989 - when he had in fact also been shown them on September 8.
The report said: "This was not disclosed to the defence. There is no statement from Gauci produced, no police witness statements produced."
The SCCRC said if Gauci had been shown Megrahi's pic six days before he picked him out as resembling the buyer at his shop, then that ID was totally undermined.
Diary dispute
In its report, the SCCRC challenges the integrity of evidence given by retired Strathclyde DCI Harry Bell, who had a close bond with Gauci.
The commission found that events recorded in Bell's diaries didn't always match what he said in evidence.
The commission noted that Bell claimed the Megrahi photo shown to Gauci on September 14, 1989, was the first one. This was not true.
It also reveals Bell, DC John Crawford, a retired Lothian and Borders cop, and an FBI agent all made statements claiming that Gauci had talked of a "striking similarity" between Megrahi and the buyer.
But Maltese officers revealed Gauci was unsure, was coached and told to age the photos by ten to 15 years.
The report says: "This is different to DCI Bell's evidence at trial. It also implies the witness is unclear."
Cash for answers
The commission obtained evidence from police memos that Gauci was made aware from his first contact with investigators that his testimony could be worth MILLIONS.
This contradicted evidence given by Scots and US investigators at Megrahi's trial.
One undisclosed memo reveals the FBI discussed with Scots cops an offer of unlimited cash to Gauci - with "$10,000 available immediately".
If a judge was made aware of this in another case, they'd tell a jury to discount the evidence.
Xmas lights lies
In court Gauci was vague about the exact date on which the clothes were bought.
The date was narrowed to either November 23, 1988, when Megrahi was not on Malta, or December 7, 1988, when he was.
Gauci said Christmas lights were NOT on yet in his hometown Sliema when the suspect visited his shop.
Cops said they could not find out when the lights were switched on.
But the SCCRC easily established it was December 6 - a day too early for Megrahi to have been the buyer.
The commission's report says: "It is clear that the police were in no doubt that Gauci was clear in his recollection." It adds "no reasonable court" could have concluded Megrahi bought the clothes from Gauci's shop.
Defence in the dark
It appears efforts were made to cover up key evidence that would have been useful for Megrahi's defence team.
The commission noted that early uncertainty on the part of Gauci was never passed over to the defence, nor was the fact that Scots detectives feared he was trying too hard to please them.
The fact a senior Maltese detective also considered Gauci to be an unreliable witness was never disclosed to lawyers representing Megrahi.
Evidence supressed
The SCCRC claims Colin Boyd QC, who was Lord Advocate at the time of Megrahi's trial and conviction in 2001, suppressed key evidence.
The trial judges maintained Gauci was "entirely reliable" on the list of clothing he claimed the buyer suspect purchased.
Yet a statement he made in 1999, and discovered by the SCCRC, saw him produce "a wholly different list of items and prices". This, along with many other files that could damage the Crown case, was suppressed. The report says Mr Boyd failed in his duty of disclosure to the defence.
[Long reports marking the second anniversary of Megrahi's compassionate release can be read on the BBC News website here, on the STV News website here, on The Herald website here, on The Scotsman website here, on The Independent website here, on The Telegraph website here, on the Newsnet Scotland website here and on The Times website here behind the paywall.]
Friday, 19 August 2011
Britain and US head for clash on fate of Lockerbie bomber
[This is the headline over an article published this evening on the United Arab Emirates The National website. It reads in part:]
The British and US governments appear to be on a legal collision course over the fate of a Libyan convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
The UK government accepts that Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, who was released from a Scottish prison two years ago today, can never be returned to Britain to complete his jail sentence.
But the Obama administration is believed to be ready to demand Al Megrahi's extradition to the US if Col Muammar Qaddafi is forced from power.
The release of Al Megrahi, who had completed fewer than eight years of a 27-year sentence, appalled the US government and most of the relatives of the 259 passengers and crew aboard Pan Am Flight 103, plus those of the 11 victims killed when the jumbo crashed on the Scottish border town.
It also angered David Cameron, who has since become Britain's prime minister, and his Conservative Party.
But while a Downing Street spokesman accepted this week the legal process had been exhausted and there was "no mechanism" for putting Al Megrahi back behind bars, the US administration is understood to be determined to extradite him to America, home to 189 of the victims.
"The US has not said anything officially but it is widely believed that the administration will try to get Megrahi back to the States if NTC [National Transitional Council] forces succeed in ousting Qaddafi," a diplomat said yesterday.
The NTC is the rebel authority Britain and the US recognise as the legitimate government of Libya. (...)
Guma El Gamaty, the UK coordinator for the NTC, this week described Al Megrahi's release as "helping Qaddafi and not the Libyan people".
"Unfortunately, it gave Qaddafi a political and diplomatic victory," Mr El Gamaty said. "By releasing Megrahi, it was the wrong signal."
But should the US and NTC agree to Al Megrahi's extradition, it would almost certainly cause a transatlantic rift and a clash over international law, not least because he has already been found guilty at a trial in The Netherlands under an agreement that included the US.
He also still falls within the jurisdiction of the Scottish legal system.
A Scottish government spokesman said: "East Renfrewshire Council, as the supervising local authority, has been able to maintain contact with Al Megrahi since his return to Libya, including during the recent conflict, and he continues to abide by the terms of his release licence."
But Robert Forrester, the secretary of Justice for Megrahi - a British-based lobby group that believes the Libyan was the victim of a miscarriage of justice - thinks the US will have no hesitation in trying to extradite him if Col Qaddafi and his regime fall.
"There is a strong likelihood that if members of the NTC lay their hands on Mr Al Megrahi, he may quickly find himself in possession of a one-way ticket to the USA, with all the dire consequences that that could hold in store for him," Mr Forrester said.
The Justice for Megrahi campaign has been joined by civil rights activists, relatives of two British victims, lawyers, journalists and even the Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
It wants the Scottish authorities to offer Al Megrahi "an open door" to enable him to flee to Scotland and live out his remaining time on licence in Britain.
But more strident voices have been calling for him to be brought back to Scotland to complete his prison term.
However, a spokesman for Mr Cameron said: "I don't think there is any mechanism by which he can be brought back to the UK."
Libyan authorities say Al Megrahi is already close to death, despite his appearance at the Qaddafi rally last month.
"His health has taken another turn for the worse after doctors discovered a growth on his neck," a government spokesman told the The Mail on Sunday.
"For the cancer to reach a part of the body so far away from the prostate confirms that Brother Megrahi's body is now ravaged by the disease."
The British and US governments appear to be on a legal collision course over the fate of a Libyan convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
The UK government accepts that Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, who was released from a Scottish prison two years ago today, can never be returned to Britain to complete his jail sentence.
But the Obama administration is believed to be ready to demand Al Megrahi's extradition to the US if Col Muammar Qaddafi is forced from power.
The release of Al Megrahi, who had completed fewer than eight years of a 27-year sentence, appalled the US government and most of the relatives of the 259 passengers and crew aboard Pan Am Flight 103, plus those of the 11 victims killed when the jumbo crashed on the Scottish border town.
It also angered David Cameron, who has since become Britain's prime minister, and his Conservative Party.
But while a Downing Street spokesman accepted this week the legal process had been exhausted and there was "no mechanism" for putting Al Megrahi back behind bars, the US administration is understood to be determined to extradite him to America, home to 189 of the victims.
"The US has not said anything officially but it is widely believed that the administration will try to get Megrahi back to the States if NTC [National Transitional Council] forces succeed in ousting Qaddafi," a diplomat said yesterday.
The NTC is the rebel authority Britain and the US recognise as the legitimate government of Libya. (...)
Guma El Gamaty, the UK coordinator for the NTC, this week described Al Megrahi's release as "helping Qaddafi and not the Libyan people".
"Unfortunately, it gave Qaddafi a political and diplomatic victory," Mr El Gamaty said. "By releasing Megrahi, it was the wrong signal."
But should the US and NTC agree to Al Megrahi's extradition, it would almost certainly cause a transatlantic rift and a clash over international law, not least because he has already been found guilty at a trial in The Netherlands under an agreement that included the US.
He also still falls within the jurisdiction of the Scottish legal system.
A Scottish government spokesman said: "East Renfrewshire Council, as the supervising local authority, has been able to maintain contact with Al Megrahi since his return to Libya, including during the recent conflict, and he continues to abide by the terms of his release licence."
But Robert Forrester, the secretary of Justice for Megrahi - a British-based lobby group that believes the Libyan was the victim of a miscarriage of justice - thinks the US will have no hesitation in trying to extradite him if Col Qaddafi and his regime fall.
"There is a strong likelihood that if members of the NTC lay their hands on Mr Al Megrahi, he may quickly find himself in possession of a one-way ticket to the USA, with all the dire consequences that that could hold in store for him," Mr Forrester said.
The Justice for Megrahi campaign has been joined by civil rights activists, relatives of two British victims, lawyers, journalists and even the Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
It wants the Scottish authorities to offer Al Megrahi "an open door" to enable him to flee to Scotland and live out his remaining time on licence in Britain.
But more strident voices have been calling for him to be brought back to Scotland to complete his prison term.
However, a spokesman for Mr Cameron said: "I don't think there is any mechanism by which he can be brought back to the UK."
Libyan authorities say Al Megrahi is already close to death, despite his appearance at the Qaddafi rally last month.
"His health has taken another turn for the worse after doctors discovered a growth on his neck," a government spokesman told the The Mail on Sunday.
"For the cancer to reach a part of the body so far away from the prostate confirms that Brother Megrahi's body is now ravaged by the disease."
The Lockerbie bomber I know
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Guardian. It reads in part:]
Two years ago Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was controversially released on the grounds he was about to die. But this shadowy figure has survived to become a pawn in the Libyan conflict. John Ashton, who has long believed in his innocence, describes the man behind the myth
It's an anniversary that the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, will have long dreaded. Two years ago tomorrow MacAskill granted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, AKA "the Lockerbie bomber", compassionate release from the life sentence he was serving for the murder of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing. MacAskill had been advised that terminal cancer was likely to end the Libyan's life within the following three months: he had, in short, been "sent home to die". As Megrahi's recent appearance at a pro-Gaddafi rally reminded us, he has not stuck to the script.
The anniversary presents sections of the media with another opportunity to splutter its outrage at MacAskill's decision, and to resurrect the theory that it was driven by backroom deals rather than medical evidence. More seriously, for many of the relatives of the Lockerbie dead it adds an appalling insult to their already grievous injury.
But Megrahi's survival, and the Lockerbie case in general, now has far wider significance. For western governments struggling to justify why Libya should be singled out for enforced regime change, the issue has become a godsend. In recent weeks both Barack Obama and William Hague have tried to boost wilting public support for the war by highlighting Gaddafi's responsibility for the 1988 attack.
Libya's government-in-waiting, the National Transitional Council, has weighed in too. Its leader, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, claimed in February that Gaddafi personally ordered the bombing, and its London PR company, Bell-Pottinger, followed up Hague's comments by circulating a claim by a leading cancer specialist that MacAskill's decision was based on flawed medical advice. [RB: This claim is repeated in an article published today on the BBC News website.]
There is, though, another view that is shared by many who have scrutinised the Lockerbie case. They hold that the true scandal was not Megrahi's release, but his 2001 conviction. The Justice for Megrahi campaign, founded in 2008, counts among its signatories Dr Jim Swire and Rev John Mosey, each of whom lost a daughter in the bombing, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien. Another signatory, Scottish QC Ian Hamilton, last year blogged: "I don't think there's a lawyer in Scotland who now believes Mr Megrahi was justly convicted."
I go further than those lawyers: I am as certain as I can be that Megrahi is innocent. For three years until his return to Libya I worked as a researcher alongside his legal team and since then have been writing a book with him. I have read all his case files and have visited him many times, both in prison and in Tripoli. I'm one of a handful of people familiar with both the man and the evidence that convicted him.
It requires a book to explain all the flaws in that evidence. In 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) granted Megrahi an appeal, having identified six possible grounds for overturning the conviction. Among these, remarkably, was that the original judgment, delivered by three Scottish judges at a specially constructed court in the Netherlands, was unreasonable. Four of the other grounds concerned the Crown's most important witness, a Maltese shopkeeper called Tony Gauci, in whose shop Megrahi allegedly bought the clothes that ended up in the same suitcase as the bomb. In 1991 he picked out Megrahi from a lineup of photos. The SCCRC discovered that before doing so he had expressed an interest in receiving a reward, and that after Megrahi's conviction the Scottish police secretly approached the US Department of Justice to secure a $2m payment. Gauci's evidence was, in any case, highly unreliable. His descriptions of the clothes purchaser all suggested the man was around 50 years old, 6ft tall and with dark skin, whereas Megrahi was 36, is 5ft 8in and has light skin. (...)
He was born in Tripoli in 1952, into poverty that was typical of the times in Libya. One of eight siblings, his family shared a house with two others, and his mother supplemented his father's customs officer's income by sewing for neighbours. As a young child he was plagued by chest problems, for which he received daily vitamin supplements at his Unesco-administered school. His main passion was football, which continues to absorb him.
After finishing school in 1970, he briefly trained as a marine engineer at Rumney Technical College in Cardiff, hoping to become a ship's captain or navigator. When his eyesight proved too poor, he dropped out and returned to Tripoli, where he trained as a flight dispatcher for the state-owned Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA). Having completed his training and gained his dispatcher's licence in the US, he was gradually promoted to head of operations at Tripoli airport. Keen to improve his education, he studied geography at the University of Benghazi. He came top in his year and was invited to join the teaching staff on the promise that he could study for a master's degree in climatology in the US. When the promise proved hollow, he opted to boost his salary by returning to LAA.
In 1986 he became a partner in a small company called ABH and was temporarily appointed LAA's head of airline security. The following year he became part-time coordinator of the Libyan Centre for Strategic Studies. His Scottish prosecutors aimed to prove that these roles were cover for his activities as a senior agent for the Libyan intelligence service, the JSO.
Megrahi maintains that his only involvement with the JSO came during his 12-month tenure as head of airline security when he was seconded to the organisation to oversee the training of some of its personnel for security positions within the airline. There is ample documentary evidence to support his claim that ABH was a legitimate trading company whose main business was the purchase of spares for LAA aircraft, often in breach of US sanctions. He admits that he sometimes travelled on a false passport, but insists that it was issued to give him cover for his sanctions-busting activities; unlike his true passport, it did not betray his airline background.
Megrahi says that it came as a complete surprise when, in November 1991, he and his former LAA colleague Lamin Fhimah were charged with the bombing (Fhimah was found not guilty). Megrahi also maintains that it was their decision to stand trial and that they were not ordered to by their government. He was repeatedly warned that he was unlikely to receive a fair trial, but believed he would be acquitted.
During his decade in prison his good manners and cooperative behaviour earned him the respect of the officers. (...)
He was cheered by visits from well-known figures, most notably Nelson Mandela, and by hundreds of letters of support. In 2005 he was transferred to a low-security wing of HMP Gateside in Greenock, where he was placed among long-term prisoners nearing the end of their sentences. He was soon accepted by both inmates and officers, one of whom volunteered to me: "We all know he didn't do it." (...)
We were optimistic that his appeal would succeed, but its progress was glacial. In autumn 2008, with the first hearing still six months away, he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. He had always dreamed of clearing his name and returning to his family, but eventually felt compelled to choose between the two. Although the compassionate release decision carried no legal preconditions, he knew that abandoning the appeal would smooth the process. No longer able to make his case in court, he asked me to write his story so he could make it to the public.
Writing the book required numerous visits to Tripoli, where he received me warmly in the home he shares with his wife and four sons in a middle-class suburb. His illness limited our sessions to a couple of hours. He would check every word I'd written for accuracy and was insistent that I include the case for both sides and not shy away from awkward facts. He repeatedly told me: "I understand that people will judge me with their hearts, but I ask them to please also judge me with their heads."
His reception, on his return to Tripoli, was portrayed as a triumphant official welcome, but, as a WikiLeaks cable revealed, the Libyan authorities limited the crowd to 200, with thousands of supporters and the international media kept away. A few months later the Sunday Times reported that, at the time he was convicted, he had $1.8m in a Swiss bank account. In fact the account had been dormant since 1993, when it had a balance of $23,000. This year the same paper reported a claim by NTC leader Abdel-Jalil that Megrahi had blackmailed Gaddafi to secure his release from prison "by threatening to expose the dictator's role" in the bombing. Had he done so he would have severely jeopardised both his chance of freedom and the safety of his family in Libya. Although he responded to such misreporting with a faint smile and a roll of the eyes, it hurt him deeply that anyone could believe him guilty of murder. (...)
When I last saw him, in September 2010, he visited me at my hotel. It was the only time I saw him among ordinary Libyans. Again we were repeatedly interrupted, this time by strangers thanking him, not for an act of terrorism, but for sacrificing his liberty for the good of the nation. His decision to stand trial helped free the country from UN sanctions that imposed 12 years of collective punishment on the assumption of his guilt. We now know that that assumption was based on evidence that was, at best, flimsy and, at worst, fabricated.
His appearance at the rally in a wheelchair probably won't silence the conspiracy theorists who claim he is living the life of Riley. The fact that he has made it this far is partly down to the superior medical care he receives. But I believe it's as much to do with his will to live and the knowledge that every day survived is a fragment of justice reclaimed.
[Today's edition of The Independent contains a report headlined Lockerbie release milestone nears which records the varying views of Lockerbie relatives and commentators on Megrahi and his release. There is a similar article in The Scotsman. An article in The Times, behind the paywall, contains, apart from reactions to Megrahi's release and survival, the latest information on the state of his health. An article on The Telegraph website attributes his survival to Abiraterone, a drug developed in the UK but not yet approved for use here. A letter from Rev Dr John Cameron supportive of the release decision appears in today's edition of The Herald.]
Two years ago Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was controversially released on the grounds he was about to die. But this shadowy figure has survived to become a pawn in the Libyan conflict. John Ashton, who has long believed in his innocence, describes the man behind the myth
It's an anniversary that the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, will have long dreaded. Two years ago tomorrow MacAskill granted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, AKA "the Lockerbie bomber", compassionate release from the life sentence he was serving for the murder of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing. MacAskill had been advised that terminal cancer was likely to end the Libyan's life within the following three months: he had, in short, been "sent home to die". As Megrahi's recent appearance at a pro-Gaddafi rally reminded us, he has not stuck to the script.
The anniversary presents sections of the media with another opportunity to splutter its outrage at MacAskill's decision, and to resurrect the theory that it was driven by backroom deals rather than medical evidence. More seriously, for many of the relatives of the Lockerbie dead it adds an appalling insult to their already grievous injury.
But Megrahi's survival, and the Lockerbie case in general, now has far wider significance. For western governments struggling to justify why Libya should be singled out for enforced regime change, the issue has become a godsend. In recent weeks both Barack Obama and William Hague have tried to boost wilting public support for the war by highlighting Gaddafi's responsibility for the 1988 attack.
Libya's government-in-waiting, the National Transitional Council, has weighed in too. Its leader, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, claimed in February that Gaddafi personally ordered the bombing, and its London PR company, Bell-Pottinger, followed up Hague's comments by circulating a claim by a leading cancer specialist that MacAskill's decision was based on flawed medical advice. [RB: This claim is repeated in an article published today on the BBC News website.]
There is, though, another view that is shared by many who have scrutinised the Lockerbie case. They hold that the true scandal was not Megrahi's release, but his 2001 conviction. The Justice for Megrahi campaign, founded in 2008, counts among its signatories Dr Jim Swire and Rev John Mosey, each of whom lost a daughter in the bombing, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien. Another signatory, Scottish QC Ian Hamilton, last year blogged: "I don't think there's a lawyer in Scotland who now believes Mr Megrahi was justly convicted."
I go further than those lawyers: I am as certain as I can be that Megrahi is innocent. For three years until his return to Libya I worked as a researcher alongside his legal team and since then have been writing a book with him. I have read all his case files and have visited him many times, both in prison and in Tripoli. I'm one of a handful of people familiar with both the man and the evidence that convicted him.
It requires a book to explain all the flaws in that evidence. In 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) granted Megrahi an appeal, having identified six possible grounds for overturning the conviction. Among these, remarkably, was that the original judgment, delivered by three Scottish judges at a specially constructed court in the Netherlands, was unreasonable. Four of the other grounds concerned the Crown's most important witness, a Maltese shopkeeper called Tony Gauci, in whose shop Megrahi allegedly bought the clothes that ended up in the same suitcase as the bomb. In 1991 he picked out Megrahi from a lineup of photos. The SCCRC discovered that before doing so he had expressed an interest in receiving a reward, and that after Megrahi's conviction the Scottish police secretly approached the US Department of Justice to secure a $2m payment. Gauci's evidence was, in any case, highly unreliable. His descriptions of the clothes purchaser all suggested the man was around 50 years old, 6ft tall and with dark skin, whereas Megrahi was 36, is 5ft 8in and has light skin. (...)
He was born in Tripoli in 1952, into poverty that was typical of the times in Libya. One of eight siblings, his family shared a house with two others, and his mother supplemented his father's customs officer's income by sewing for neighbours. As a young child he was plagued by chest problems, for which he received daily vitamin supplements at his Unesco-administered school. His main passion was football, which continues to absorb him.
After finishing school in 1970, he briefly trained as a marine engineer at Rumney Technical College in Cardiff, hoping to become a ship's captain or navigator. When his eyesight proved too poor, he dropped out and returned to Tripoli, where he trained as a flight dispatcher for the state-owned Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA). Having completed his training and gained his dispatcher's licence in the US, he was gradually promoted to head of operations at Tripoli airport. Keen to improve his education, he studied geography at the University of Benghazi. He came top in his year and was invited to join the teaching staff on the promise that he could study for a master's degree in climatology in the US. When the promise proved hollow, he opted to boost his salary by returning to LAA.
In 1986 he became a partner in a small company called ABH and was temporarily appointed LAA's head of airline security. The following year he became part-time coordinator of the Libyan Centre for Strategic Studies. His Scottish prosecutors aimed to prove that these roles were cover for his activities as a senior agent for the Libyan intelligence service, the JSO.
Megrahi maintains that his only involvement with the JSO came during his 12-month tenure as head of airline security when he was seconded to the organisation to oversee the training of some of its personnel for security positions within the airline. There is ample documentary evidence to support his claim that ABH was a legitimate trading company whose main business was the purchase of spares for LAA aircraft, often in breach of US sanctions. He admits that he sometimes travelled on a false passport, but insists that it was issued to give him cover for his sanctions-busting activities; unlike his true passport, it did not betray his airline background.
Megrahi says that it came as a complete surprise when, in November 1991, he and his former LAA colleague Lamin Fhimah were charged with the bombing (Fhimah was found not guilty). Megrahi also maintains that it was their decision to stand trial and that they were not ordered to by their government. He was repeatedly warned that he was unlikely to receive a fair trial, but believed he would be acquitted.
During his decade in prison his good manners and cooperative behaviour earned him the respect of the officers. (...)
He was cheered by visits from well-known figures, most notably Nelson Mandela, and by hundreds of letters of support. In 2005 he was transferred to a low-security wing of HMP Gateside in Greenock, where he was placed among long-term prisoners nearing the end of their sentences. He was soon accepted by both inmates and officers, one of whom volunteered to me: "We all know he didn't do it." (...)
We were optimistic that his appeal would succeed, but its progress was glacial. In autumn 2008, with the first hearing still six months away, he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. He had always dreamed of clearing his name and returning to his family, but eventually felt compelled to choose between the two. Although the compassionate release decision carried no legal preconditions, he knew that abandoning the appeal would smooth the process. No longer able to make his case in court, he asked me to write his story so he could make it to the public.
Writing the book required numerous visits to Tripoli, where he received me warmly in the home he shares with his wife and four sons in a middle-class suburb. His illness limited our sessions to a couple of hours. He would check every word I'd written for accuracy and was insistent that I include the case for both sides and not shy away from awkward facts. He repeatedly told me: "I understand that people will judge me with their hearts, but I ask them to please also judge me with their heads."
His reception, on his return to Tripoli, was portrayed as a triumphant official welcome, but, as a WikiLeaks cable revealed, the Libyan authorities limited the crowd to 200, with thousands of supporters and the international media kept away. A few months later the Sunday Times reported that, at the time he was convicted, he had $1.8m in a Swiss bank account. In fact the account had been dormant since 1993, when it had a balance of $23,000. This year the same paper reported a claim by NTC leader Abdel-Jalil that Megrahi had blackmailed Gaddafi to secure his release from prison "by threatening to expose the dictator's role" in the bombing. Had he done so he would have severely jeopardised both his chance of freedom and the safety of his family in Libya. Although he responded to such misreporting with a faint smile and a roll of the eyes, it hurt him deeply that anyone could believe him guilty of murder. (...)
When I last saw him, in September 2010, he visited me at my hotel. It was the only time I saw him among ordinary Libyans. Again we were repeatedly interrupted, this time by strangers thanking him, not for an act of terrorism, but for sacrificing his liberty for the good of the nation. His decision to stand trial helped free the country from UN sanctions that imposed 12 years of collective punishment on the assumption of his guilt. We now know that that assumption was based on evidence that was, at best, flimsy and, at worst, fabricated.
His appearance at the rally in a wheelchair probably won't silence the conspiracy theorists who claim he is living the life of Riley. The fact that he has made it this far is partly down to the superior medical care he receives. But I believe it's as much to do with his will to live and the knowledge that every day survived is a fragment of justice reclaimed.
[Today's edition of The Independent contains a report headlined Lockerbie release milestone nears which records the varying views of Lockerbie relatives and commentators on Megrahi and his release. There is a similar article in The Scotsman. An article in The Times, behind the paywall, contains, apart from reactions to Megrahi's release and survival, the latest information on the state of his health. An article on The Telegraph website attributes his survival to Abiraterone, a drug developed in the UK but not yet approved for use here. A letter from Rev Dr John Cameron supportive of the release decision appears in today's edition of The Herald.]
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Why isn't he dead yet?
[This is the headline over a long and important article by Justice for Megrahi's secretary, Robert Forrester, published online today in the Scottish Review. The first few and last few paragraphs read as follows:]
Here we go again. As the anniversary of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's compassionate release approaches, we enter what has become the annual 'Lockerbie Bomber' blood fest. On the menu: politicos on both sides of the pond bewailing the fact that the man isn't dead; journalists, editors and pro-Zeist commentators attempting to stir up ill-informed public opinion with their equally ill-informed views, the Scottish government on the defensive, etc, etc.
And, one must ask, amongst these worthies, have any even bothered to read the Zeist trial transcript or the judgement, let alone done any further and deeper research into the trial and the investigation into the tragedy of Lockerbie? Doubtful.
The evidence against Mr al-Megrahi was entirely circumstantial. The fact that he was selected as the candidate is based on a determination to find a best fit for the frame and to build a case around this construct to the exclusion of eliminating any flies in the ointment by making assumption upon supposition upon thin air. Such is not the stuff of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. This is not justice, it is guess work. Guess work which provides a convenient fix, condemns and vilifies an individual (and his nation), dupes the bereaved and the public at large, and cripples the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system. (...)
In the last few days Dr [Jim] Swire, a Justice for Megrahi committee member, has expressed concern that Mr al-Megrahi could find himself either being assassinated by the US or, should the Libyan rebels manage to get hold of him, they would hand him over to the Americans so that he might benefit from a whole new slant on healthcare. Lest it be forgotten, the US agreed to the arrangements for the Zeist trial. Despite this, though, successive American administrations claiming to represent the voice of the American people, which quite clearly they don't, have shown no compunction when it comes to trampling over the sovereignty and sensibilities of others, have 'renditioned' their enemies for the purposes of torture to countries where such practices are par for the course, endorse a criminal justice system that seems to think that financial inducement in return for testimony is acceptable (...) and recognise no laws other than their own are clearly not going to bat an eyelid over the fact that Mr al-Megrahi is still a Scottish prisoner released under licence. It is a sorry world in which we live when the leaders of the most powerful 21st century, self-proclaimed Christian country have yet to mature beyond Urban II's 1095 call to arms.
The justice campaign lobbying the Scottish Parliament is not some random collection of fruitcake conspiracy theorists, despite the barricades set up by governments, the dizzyingly circular arguments presented by the crown and the vilification thrown at them by their pro-Zeist critics ('whores of a terrorist syndicate' being my own particular favourite). It comprises renowned figures from the worlds of the legal profession, politics, academia, the clergy, the police, journalism, and the arts etc as well as professionals who attended the crash site. But above all, it lists members of the bereaved and others who sat through every day of the trial. This is an issue which is crying out for an independent inquiry. It requires supreme courage on the part of the Scottish Government to show that we are not afraid to look ourselves in the mirror and admit that we are simply human and are capable of making mistakes no matter how hard we may try to avoid them.
It is also important to recognise that whilst there may well have been an element of malice involved in the case and its outcome, the majority of the problems associated with it are more likely a result of blind fixation, laziness, idiocy and a desperate need to avoid the excruciating embarrassment of not producing a conviction in the most high-profile case ever to come before a Scots court, dealing, as it was, with such a tragic case of mass murder.
Ultimately then, the question ought not to be should Mr al-Megrahi have been released, or why is he still alive, but why was he convicted in the first instance?
[Here is a response to this article published in the 23 August edition of the Scottish Review:]
I was disappointed in Robert Forrester's article (18 August) on Megrahi. He confuses the legitimate debate about the guilt of Megrahi with the release on medical grounds.
At the time I have no doubt that Dr Andrew Fraser acted in good faith. But, and it is a big but, it has never been made clear as to the medical opinions on which he based his report to the justice secretary. As an associate member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons – a membership offered to me by BAUSCH because of my work on prostate disease including cancer – I expressed serious concerns about the decision at the time.
Readers may remember that in the three weeks before the medical opinion stating that 'he was likely to die within three months' (first week, August 2009) the experts including urological oncologists (prostate cancer specialists) had stated a likely survival of 10 to 24 or more months. This sudden change has never been explained.
Who actually conducted the review and examination beyond the local GP medical officer at Greenock is unclear. The government's failure to publish the detailed facts and timeline adds to the anguish felt by some of the families.
The dropping of the appeal, a decision which was not a necessary prerequisite of release on medical grounds, has led to the confused thinking this article portrays. Has Megrahi even been asked if all the medical facts can be published? It would be interesting to know whether he refused treatment in Greenock rather than hinting at inadequacies in Scotland's treatment of his condition, which is an unbelievable slur promoted here.
Dr Richard Simpson MSP is shadow public health and sport minister.
Here we go again. As the anniversary of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's compassionate release approaches, we enter what has become the annual 'Lockerbie Bomber' blood fest. On the menu: politicos on both sides of the pond bewailing the fact that the man isn't dead; journalists, editors and pro-Zeist commentators attempting to stir up ill-informed public opinion with their equally ill-informed views, the Scottish government on the defensive, etc, etc.
And, one must ask, amongst these worthies, have any even bothered to read the Zeist trial transcript or the judgement, let alone done any further and deeper research into the trial and the investigation into the tragedy of Lockerbie? Doubtful.
The evidence against Mr al-Megrahi was entirely circumstantial. The fact that he was selected as the candidate is based on a determination to find a best fit for the frame and to build a case around this construct to the exclusion of eliminating any flies in the ointment by making assumption upon supposition upon thin air. Such is not the stuff of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. This is not justice, it is guess work. Guess work which provides a convenient fix, condemns and vilifies an individual (and his nation), dupes the bereaved and the public at large, and cripples the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system. (...)
In the last few days Dr [Jim] Swire, a Justice for Megrahi committee member, has expressed concern that Mr al-Megrahi could find himself either being assassinated by the US or, should the Libyan rebels manage to get hold of him, they would hand him over to the Americans so that he might benefit from a whole new slant on healthcare. Lest it be forgotten, the US agreed to the arrangements for the Zeist trial. Despite this, though, successive American administrations claiming to represent the voice of the American people, which quite clearly they don't, have shown no compunction when it comes to trampling over the sovereignty and sensibilities of others, have 'renditioned' their enemies for the purposes of torture to countries where such practices are par for the course, endorse a criminal justice system that seems to think that financial inducement in return for testimony is acceptable (...) and recognise no laws other than their own are clearly not going to bat an eyelid over the fact that Mr al-Megrahi is still a Scottish prisoner released under licence. It is a sorry world in which we live when the leaders of the most powerful 21st century, self-proclaimed Christian country have yet to mature beyond Urban II's 1095 call to arms.
The justice campaign lobbying the Scottish Parliament is not some random collection of fruitcake conspiracy theorists, despite the barricades set up by governments, the dizzyingly circular arguments presented by the crown and the vilification thrown at them by their pro-Zeist critics ('whores of a terrorist syndicate' being my own particular favourite). It comprises renowned figures from the worlds of the legal profession, politics, academia, the clergy, the police, journalism, and the arts etc as well as professionals who attended the crash site. But above all, it lists members of the bereaved and others who sat through every day of the trial. This is an issue which is crying out for an independent inquiry. It requires supreme courage on the part of the Scottish Government to show that we are not afraid to look ourselves in the mirror and admit that we are simply human and are capable of making mistakes no matter how hard we may try to avoid them.
It is also important to recognise that whilst there may well have been an element of malice involved in the case and its outcome, the majority of the problems associated with it are more likely a result of blind fixation, laziness, idiocy and a desperate need to avoid the excruciating embarrassment of not producing a conviction in the most high-profile case ever to come before a Scots court, dealing, as it was, with such a tragic case of mass murder.
Ultimately then, the question ought not to be should Mr al-Megrahi have been released, or why is he still alive, but why was he convicted in the first instance?
[Here is a response to this article published in the 23 August edition of the Scottish Review:]
I was disappointed in Robert Forrester's article (18 August) on Megrahi. He confuses the legitimate debate about the guilt of Megrahi with the release on medical grounds.
At the time I have no doubt that Dr Andrew Fraser acted in good faith. But, and it is a big but, it has never been made clear as to the medical opinions on which he based his report to the justice secretary. As an associate member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons – a membership offered to me by BAUSCH because of my work on prostate disease including cancer – I expressed serious concerns about the decision at the time.
Readers may remember that in the three weeks before the medical opinion stating that 'he was likely to die within three months' (first week, August 2009) the experts including urological oncologists (prostate cancer specialists) had stated a likely survival of 10 to 24 or more months. This sudden change has never been explained.
Who actually conducted the review and examination beyond the local GP medical officer at Greenock is unclear. The government's failure to publish the detailed facts and timeline adds to the anguish felt by some of the families.
The dropping of the appeal, a decision which was not a necessary prerequisite of release on medical grounds, has led to the confused thinking this article portrays. Has Megrahi even been asked if all the medical facts can be published? It would be interesting to know whether he refused treatment in Greenock rather than hinting at inadequacies in Scotland's treatment of his condition, which is an unbelievable slur promoted here.
Dr Richard Simpson MSP is shadow public health and sport minister.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Tam Dalyell: Megrahi is not guilty
[This is the headline over a report published this evening on the STV News website. It reads in part:]
The former Labour MP told an audience in Edinburgh that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was innocent.
The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is not guilty, veteran politician Tam Dalyell has claimed.
Speaking three days before the second anniversary of Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds, Mr Dalyell also repeated his claim that former prime minister Margaret Thatcher personally dismissed calls for a public inquiry into the bombing.
The former MP told an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival that Megrahi "is not guilty as charged".
He said: "The people who did it were the gangs of [Ahmed] Jibril and Abu Nidal from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC).
"One of the reasons why the commission (The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission) said the verdict wasn't safe was the matter of the bill of £10m which was paid into the coffers of the PFLP-GC on December 23 1988, two days after Lockerbie."
The SCCRC referred Megrahi's conviction back to the High Court in 2007, but the appeal was subsequently dropped to clear the way for his compassionate release.
However, calls persist for a public inquiry, with Holyrood's Justice Committee preparing to consider a petition on the matter by the Justice For Megrahi group, led my Jim Swire whose daughter Flora died in the bombing.
However, Mr Dalyell claimed that Mrs Thatcher personally rejected earlier calls for an inquiry.
He said: "I asked her why, across 800 pages of her autobiography, that she didn't mention Lockerbie once.
"And she said: 'I didn't know about it...I don't know exactly what happened, and I don't write about things that I don't know about'."
He added: "It was clear by that time that she had been told by the Americans that they did not want a public inquiry.
"And you will remember that Jim Swire and John Mosey, the relatives, had gone to Cecil Parkinson, the Transport Secretary, who agreed that there should be a public inquiry.
"However, he came back rather sheepishly and said: 'I'm afraid my colleagues don't agree'.
"But there was only one colleague, and she didn't agree."
The former Labour MP told an audience in Edinburgh that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was innocent.
The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is not guilty, veteran politician Tam Dalyell has claimed.
Speaking three days before the second anniversary of Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds, Mr Dalyell also repeated his claim that former prime minister Margaret Thatcher personally dismissed calls for a public inquiry into the bombing.
The former MP told an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival that Megrahi "is not guilty as charged".
He said: "The people who did it were the gangs of [Ahmed] Jibril and Abu Nidal from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC).
"One of the reasons why the commission (The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission) said the verdict wasn't safe was the matter of the bill of £10m which was paid into the coffers of the PFLP-GC on December 23 1988, two days after Lockerbie."
The SCCRC referred Megrahi's conviction back to the High Court in 2007, but the appeal was subsequently dropped to clear the way for his compassionate release.
However, calls persist for a public inquiry, with Holyrood's Justice Committee preparing to consider a petition on the matter by the Justice For Megrahi group, led my Jim Swire whose daughter Flora died in the bombing.
However, Mr Dalyell claimed that Mrs Thatcher personally rejected earlier calls for an inquiry.
He said: "I asked her why, across 800 pages of her autobiography, that she didn't mention Lockerbie once.
"And she said: 'I didn't know about it...I don't know exactly what happened, and I don't write about things that I don't know about'."
He added: "It was clear by that time that she had been told by the Americans that they did not want a public inquiry.
"And you will remember that Jim Swire and John Mosey, the relatives, had gone to Cecil Parkinson, the Transport Secretary, who agreed that there should be a public inquiry.
"However, he came back rather sheepishly and said: 'I'm afraid my colleagues don't agree'.
"But there was only one colleague, and she didn't agree."
Where are our role models in Britain's 'broken society'?
[This is the headline over an article by Dan Mackay published today on the website of the John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier. It reads in part:]
Doctor Jim Swire, the father of one of the Lockerbie bombing victims, spoke of his continuing sadness when he appeared on stage with the author of a play about his quest for justice.
Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, was a one-off performance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Dr Swire's daughter, Flora, was 23 years old when she became one of the 270 victims of the 1988 atrocity.
Dr Swire stood shoulder to shoulder with writer and actor David Benson and members of the Justice for Megrahi committee. Dr Swire and the convicted bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, have become firm friends after they met at Greenock Prison. Dr Swire believes Megrahi is an innocent man and has been leading calls for a fresh inquiry.
He told a festival audience: "This is not my tragedy, it is not even the tragedy of other families. It is a tragedy for Scotland."
Swire insists the Megrahi conviction is one of the worst miscarriages of justice. It's an unusual position for a man who lost his daughter in the Pan Am Flight 103 attack. Remember, though, that Dr Swire is a hugely intelligent and informed man. More than practically anyone else he will know the case inside out.
Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government in August 2009 following the diagnosis of a terminal prostate cancer. He had apparently only three months to live. That was two years ago...
His release was conditional to relinquishing a legal challenge to contest the outcome of his conviction. [RB: Although dropping the appeal was not a necessary prerequisite for compassionate release, it was for prisoner transfer. And if Megrahi wished to keep both options open he had to abandon, given that Kenny MacAskill had intimated that he would deal with both applications concurrently.]
Many questions have since been raised about the underlying reason for his release and whether his conviction might have been quashed had he appealed it. Megrahi appeared, controversially, at a recent pro-Gadaffi rally in Tripoli, the Libyan capital.
As Dr Swire told his audience at the end of the play, the Lockerbie story is "unfinished business": it is Scotland's tragedy.
Doctor Jim Swire, the father of one of the Lockerbie bombing victims, spoke of his continuing sadness when he appeared on stage with the author of a play about his quest for justice.
Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, was a one-off performance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Dr Swire's daughter, Flora, was 23 years old when she became one of the 270 victims of the 1988 atrocity.
Dr Swire stood shoulder to shoulder with writer and actor David Benson and members of the Justice for Megrahi committee. Dr Swire and the convicted bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, have become firm friends after they met at Greenock Prison. Dr Swire believes Megrahi is an innocent man and has been leading calls for a fresh inquiry.
He told a festival audience: "This is not my tragedy, it is not even the tragedy of other families. It is a tragedy for Scotland."
Swire insists the Megrahi conviction is one of the worst miscarriages of justice. It's an unusual position for a man who lost his daughter in the Pan Am Flight 103 attack. Remember, though, that Dr Swire is a hugely intelligent and informed man. More than practically anyone else he will know the case inside out.
Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government in August 2009 following the diagnosis of a terminal prostate cancer. He had apparently only three months to live. That was two years ago...
His release was conditional to relinquishing a legal challenge to contest the outcome of his conviction. [RB: Although dropping the appeal was not a necessary prerequisite for compassionate release, it was for prisoner transfer. And if Megrahi wished to keep both options open he had to abandon, given that Kenny MacAskill had intimated that he would deal with both applications concurrently.]
Many questions have since been raised about the underlying reason for his release and whether his conviction might have been quashed had he appealed it. Megrahi appeared, controversially, at a recent pro-Gadaffi rally in Tripoli, the Libyan capital.
As Dr Swire told his audience at the end of the play, the Lockerbie story is "unfinished business": it is Scotland's tragedy.
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