[An article published today on the website of Time magazine contains the following:]
"We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West," the rebels' newly appointed Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi bluntly told reporters in Tripoli. "It was Gaddafi who handed over Libyan citizens." A member of the rebels' National Transitional Council (NTC), Libya's caretaker government, told the London Sunday Times that "Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country."
That statement is not true. In reality, Gaddafi rewrote Libya's fortunes and his own by signing extradition orders for two Libyan citizens. In 1999 he sent al-Megrahi and another Libyan to the Netherlands to stand trial for mass murder in the Lockerbie bombing and paid $10 million to the family of each Lockerbie victim.
[Mr al-Alagi's statement is perfectly true. Gaddafi signed no "extradition orders" in respect of Megrahi and Fhimah. As I wrote in an earlier blog post:]
It should be noted that Libya did not extradite Megrahi and Fhimah for trial at Zeist, for exactly the reason set out above -- Libyan law (like that of many other countries) does not permit the extradition of its citizens for trial abroad. Megrahi and Fhimah voluntarily surrendered for trial, a decision that Megrahi at least must now bitterly regret.
[An article on Megrahi's situation published today on the website of The Tripoli Post can be read here.]
Monday, 29 August 2011
The Lockerbie affair and Scottish society
[This is the title of the 2011 Saltire Society Lecture delivered at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 28 August by Scotland's most distinguished living novelist, James Robertson. What follows is the text of the lecture.]
Since it is because of my occupation as a writer of fiction that I am giving this talk, why do I wish to devote it to something so clearly and tragically real as the Lockerbie bombing and its aftermath? There are two reasons. First, I believe that fiction and reality are by no means mutually exclusive: through fiction, or literature more generally, there is sometimes the possibility of reaching for truths about the human condition that cannot readily be grasped as we lead our daily lives, either because our lives are too busy or too difficult, or because other people and powers keep those truths from us. Second, this session is sponsored by the Saltire Society, which, as its website says, was founded 75 years ago ‘to encourage everything that might improve the quality of life in Scotland’. While the Saltire Society’s principal concern over those years has been with the cultural life of the nation, ‘culture’ is a very big concept, and I don’t think it is possible, or indeed desirable, to treat such things as architecture, arts and crafts, history, music, science and literature as if they are separate and distinct from the political, legal and social framework of the community in which they happen. The health and wellbeing of a community, of a country, of a nation – and Scotland is each and all of these – can be measured in many different ways, but if those of us engaged in ‘culture’ shrink from engaging with politics and the law, then neither our politics, nor our law, nor our culture in the widest sense, will be honest or progressive, or in tune with the Saltire Society’s aim of improving the quality of Scottish life. Quite the reverse: without that engagement, at a time in our history when there is so much public rhetoric about Scots taking more responsibility for running our own affairs – an aim I completely support – we run the risk of suggesting to our lawmakers and elected leaders that we hand them that responsibility without much caring what they do with it. I for one care very much.
With regard to the Lockerbie affair, many serious questions have been asked over the years, honestly, reasonably and intelligently by many different people, some of them directly affected by the event, some not – questions about the conduct of the investigation, about the resulting trial, about the conviction of one of the two accused, and about the subsequent release from prison of that same man. Where they remain unanswered, or have been answered in wholly unsatisfactory ways by the authorities, these questions hang like spectral shadows over the future of our country. If we cannot feel confident that the biggest criminal trial in Scottish history achieved a just, and convincingly just, outcome, then not only do those whose loved ones were murdered go on suffering, but Scotland as a whole suffers.
When I decided, back in March, to make Lockerbie and its continuing reverberations the subject of this session, I was conscious that the background against which I would be speaking might be very different to that which then existed. So indeed it has turned out. It was possible, for example, that the man convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, who as we all know was released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds, might have died from the prostate cancer from which he was suffering. It was possible that Colonel Gaddafi would have been removed from power by the rebellion in Libya, and that he too might be dead. It seemed highly probable that NATO – or elements within NATO – would not be much dismayed if its bombing campaign in Libya resulted in eliminating not only Gaddafi but also Megrahi, neither of whom would then be able to dispute what might be termed ‘the conventional wisdom’ on Lockerbie, as it has been maintained since Mr Megrahi’s conviction in January 2001. Mr Megrahi appears to have survived the NATO bombs, but it remains to be seen whether he will escape being snatched by, or handed over to, the Americans, some of whom are keen to set an example to their new friends in Libya of how to dispense justice by retrying a convicted man, changing the sentence he received – quite possibly to a lethal one – and overriding the justice system of another country (Scotland) because they don’t like its perfectly legal and properly conducted processes and outcomes. God help us all and not only Mr Megrahi if the new Libyan administration and the Scottish Government do not resist such moves. There is precious little, in statements made by William Hague, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, to indicate that the UK Government will object, although I am gratified to read statements from the National Transitional Council in Libya that they have no intention of handing Mr Megrahi over to anybody.
Other changes in circumstance between March and now were also possible: for example, some specific evidence might have been provided by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the former Libyan Justice Minister, now chair of the National Transitional Council, to support his claim, made in February, that he had proof that Gaddafi personally ordered the bombing. What have we heard from Mr Jalil since about Lockerbie? As far as I am aware, absolutely nothing of any substance. Or we might have heard from Moussa Muhammad Koussa, who was Libya’s Foreign Minister until he defected to the UK in March. Mr Koussa was formerly Head of Libyan Intelligence from 1994 to 2009,and before that worked for the Bureau for External Security, the Mathaba, which has been accused of responsibility for the bombing itself. If Libya had anything to do with Lockerbie, Mr Koussa is the man who would know. He was duly interviewed by British intelligence and the Scottish police, then allowed to leave the UK for Qatar. Had he told the police anything that incriminated either himself or other Libyans, or provided more details to support the conviction of Mr Megrahi, it is hard to imagine that the British Government would not have been eager to tell us. But neither they nor the police have said anything. Who, one might ask, is the more cynical? Those of us who are not surprised by this silence, or those who maintain it while also maintaining that they – to recycle the oft-used phrase – ‘do not doubt the safety of Megrahi’s conviction’?
We have heard from Guma el-Gamaty, the UK co-ordinator for the National Transitional Council, who two weeks ago said that Mr Megrahi’s release by the Scottish Government had ‘handed a political and diplomatic victory’ to the Gaddafi regime. But his statement was essentially about distancing the NTC from the regime’s past activities, and it studiously avoided admitting Libyan responsibility for Lockerbie. If Megrahi and his co-accused were involved, Guma el-Gamaty said, they were ‘very, very small fish in the chain’. He criticised previous British Governments’ dealings with Gaddafi and pointed an accusing finger at Moussa Koussa. None of this reveals anything new about Lockerbie.
It might also have been posited back in March that the political landscape of Scotland would change after the parliamentary election in May. This of course did happen, dramatically so, and the result – an SNP government with an overall majority – does have a bearing on the continuing significance of the Lockerbie affair. Before the SNP came to power in 2007 as a minority administration, it was, unlike the Conservatives and Labour, a party with clean hands as far as Lockerbie was concerned, largely because it had not previously been in government. Many of us hoped then that this would enable a fresh appraisal of the case to take place, especially as, in June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission announced its decision to refer Mr Megrahi’s case back to the High Court for a second appeal because it concluded that a miscarriage of justice could have occurred at his trial. But for the next two years legal proceedings dragged on, and the appeal remained unheard. Mr Megrahi meanwhile, in September 2008, was diagnosed with cancer. By the summer of 2009 his illness was considered by medical advisers to have progressed so far that the Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill authorised his release from prison on compassionate grounds. Mr Megrahi dropped his second appeal just before he was released, although there was no legal requirement for him to do so. The political storm that followed his release and his return to Libya completely diverted attention from the question, should he have been in prison in the first place?
It appears to me that, whether one approved or disapproved of Mr MacAskill’s decision, the Scottish Government acted absolutely according to protocol and legal process as far as prisoner release on compassionate grounds was concerned. The howls of outrage from the then Labour Government have since been revealed to be, largely, howls of hypocrisy and dishonesty. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government repeatedly stated at the time that it did not doubt the safety of Mr Megrahi’s conviction. Given the absolute consistency with which it has maintained this position, the exercise of the Justice Secretary’s discretionary powers to release him was and continues to be highly controversial. Arguably, though, one could hardly have expected the Government to express doubts about the conviction. Had it done so, it – the executive component of our political system – would effectively have been challenging the efficacy and independence of the judicial component.
With the May election result, however, we entered new political territory. The SNP has an overall majority, and will presumably be in power till 2016. Within weeks of the election, a furious row broke out over the relationship between the Scottish courts and the Supreme Court in London. The Scottish Government objected to the Supreme Court’s ruling that in a criminal case heard at the High Court in Scotland the human rights of the accused, as defined by the European Convention, had been infringed by the Crown’s failure to disclose vital evidence to the defence. On this occasion the First Minister and Justice Secretary showed no reluctance at all in expressing their opinions about the efficacy and independence of the judiciary. They seem to have objected to the Supreme Court’s decision not because they disagreed with the idea of accused persons having human rights, but because the Supreme Court was based in London rather than Strasbourg. There may have been some validity in their arguments, but the way those arguments were made did not indicate much respect for the principle of the separation of executive from judicial powers. It indicated instead a worrying complacency that everything in the Scottish judicial system was working perfectly well, and that any suggestion that it was not, even from two of the most experienced Scottish legal figures of their generation, Lord Hope and Lord Rodger, was unwelcome.
There was a sense, nevertheless, that the Scottish political context for discussing the correctness of the Lockerbie judgment might have shifted. But has it? One of Alex Salmond’s pre-election pledges was that, recognising the widespread concerns about Mr Megrahi’s case, his government if re-elected would bring forward primary legislation to allow the SCCRC to publish its findings without the consent of the various interested parties who had supplied information to the Commission. Robert Black, Emeritus Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, architect of the Camp Zeist trial in the Netherlands and a persistent critic of the outcome of that trial, has argued that the laborious process of introducing primary legislation through Parliament is not necessary: ‘It can, and should be done by Statutory Instrument (secondary legislation),’ Professor Black has said, ‘just as the Scottish Government did earlier when it permitted publication but only if those who supplied the information to the SCCRC consented. An unqualified permission to publish can be given through exactly the same legal mechanism as the earlier qualified permission.’ But, this aside, even were such legislation to be passed, what would change? It has been stated several times by the Government that the SCCRC’s ability to publish its findings would still be subject to ‘legal restrictions applying to the Commission such as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities’. This sweeping set of conditions, it seems to me, all but wipes out the possibility of the SCCRC being able to publish its findings – certainly not without serious further delays.
In June Al Jazeera’s English language channel showed a new documentary film called Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber. This film raised fresh concerns over particular aspects of the case. After watching it, I wrote to the First Minister, urging the establishment of an inquiry into Lockerbie, something many others have argued for. I received a reply on his behalf from the Justice Directorate, which stated that it was ‘not possible for the Scottish Government to comment on decisions of the courts’, that the conviction of Mr Megrahi was a judicial matter and that ‘it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to either influence the process or to make comment’ – something it had certainly not been backward in doing vis-a-vis the Supreme Court. The letter reiterated that ‘the Scottish Government do [sic] not doubt the safety of the conviction of Megrahi’ – which is surely a comment of some sort.
With regard to an inquiry, the Scottish Government has repeatedly argued, from Kenny MacAskill’s statement explaining his reasons for releasing Mr Megrahi onward, that ‘the questions to be asked and answered in any such inquiry would be beyond the jurisdiction of Scots Law and the remit of the Scottish Government, and such an inquiry would therefore need to be initiated by those with the required power and authority to deal with an issue, international in its nature.’ I hear the sound not so much of hands being tied as of hands being washed. Here we have a Nationalist administration – keen to persuade us of the virtues of independence, and willing to attack what it considers the interference of the Supreme Court in matters under Scottish jurisdiction – using the limitations of its devolved status as an excuse for inaction. I am sorry to sound so critical of the current Scottish Government, because I believe it has acted with more honesty over Lockerbie than any British Government has since 1988. But it is precisely because Scotland has in the intervening years acquired a substantial measure of devolved power and responsibility, and is in the process of acquiring more – in my view an entirely positive development – that I make these points. There is no prospect of the British authorities addressing the outstanding issues surrounding Lockerbie – it is not in their interests to do so. But it is in the interests of Scotland to address them. What is the point of a Scottish government if it will not, or the point of the Scottish Parliament if it cannot, engage with legitimate concerns raised over a judgment made by a Scottish court about an event that took place in Scotland? We are not talking about local planning regulations here. We are talking about the biggest criminal case in Scottish history.
In forming a view on the Lockerbie affair, I have always tried to keep at a distance anything that has the whiff of a conspiracy theory. The thing about conspiracy theories, though, is that they rush to fill an information vacuum. The more I look, the more I am forced to the conclusion that if there is a conspiracy around Lockerbie, it is not one concocted by those who doubt the guilt of Mr Megrahi but a conspiracy of silence in which the US, UK and Scottish Governments are all, though not from shared motives, implicated. And this has far-reaching consequences for the wider relationship between those who govern and those who are governed, and I want to say something more about that in a few minutes.
First, however, I need to revisit some of the reasons for doubting the judgment of the special Scottish court at Camp Zeist, which in 2001 found Mr Megrahi, but not his co-accused, guilty of the bombing. And let me say here and now that if anybody can demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that my doubts are unreasonable, I will put my hand up and apologise for my scepticism. I think nearly everybody who has expressed concerns about Mr Megrahi’s conviction would be prepared to say the same thing.
The difficulties with the case against Mr Megrahi are too many to list in full here, so I will outline just six of them. First, there is no convincing evidence of an unchecked, unaccompanied suitcase having been put on the Air Malta flight (KM180) that left Luqa Airport in Malta on 21st December 1988, nor of such a case being transferred at Frankfurt to Pan Am feeder flight 103A, before finally being transferred onto Pan Am flight 103 at Heathrow. The judges themselves acknowledged this: ‘If… the unaccompanied bag was launched from Luqa,’ they said, ‘the method by which that was done is not established, and the Crown accepted that they could not point to any specific route by which the primary suitcase could have been loaded. The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 is a major difficulty for the Crown case.’ Second, the only location where a brown Samsonite hardshell suitcase like the one containing the bomb was actually identified by a witness, was at Heathrow, a much more probable ingestion point for the bomb. Third, it is highly debatable whether Mr Megrahi was in Malta on the day that the clothing which ended up in the suitcase containing the bomb was purchased at Tony Gauci’s shop in Sliema, Malta. There were two possible dates for the purchase of the clothing: overwhelmingly the circumstantial evidence points to one of these dates as that on which the purchase was made; the judges opted for the other. Fourth, there is the problem of a crucial fragment of circuit board which was found embedded in a piece of that clothing, and which indicated that the bomb was detonated by an MST-13 timer rather than by a barometric device. Again, all the circumstantial evidence points to the latter type of detonator (activated by air pressure change) having been used, apart from the fragment of circuit board, which was introduced into the chain of evidence through a highly contentious route. Time prohibits me from saying more on this complex matter of the circuit board fragment, but the information is in the public domain for anyone who wishes to explore it. Fifth, during the night of 20th/21st December 1988, about 16 hours before Pan Am Flight 103 took off, a padlock was cut through on a door giving access to the Pan Am baggage build-up area at Heathrow, the very location where the hardshell Samsonite suitcase was seen next afternoon. The fact of this breach of security was either mislaid or suppressed by the police and Crown during the trial, and though known to his lawyers by the time of Mr Megrahi’s first appeal, was dismissed by the appeal court as ‘coincidence’. Sixth, we have three witnesses whose identification of Mr Megrahi linked him to the atrocity. One of these witnesses, a Libyan CIA informant based in Malta called Abdul Majid Giaka, the judges said they were unable to accept as a ‘credible or reliable witness’. The second, Edward Bollier, who supplied electronic timers to Libya, the judges found to be ‘at times an untruthful and at other times an unreliable witness’, although they did accept some of his evidence. The third and key witness was Tony Gauci, the owner of the shop where the clothes that were later packed around the bomb were bought: Mr Gauci initially so signally and emphatically failed to identify Mr Megrahi as the purchaser that he had to be visited over and over again by police till he did. The court recognised that Mr Gauci’s was ‘not an unequivocal identification’. He was coached, given treats and financial inducements, and according to documentation now in the public domain was offered, and after the trial paid, a sum of $2million through the United States ‘Rewards for Justice’ programme. This last fact was not known to the court at Camp Zeist, and indeed appears to have been withheld by the police and the Crown prosecutors. Had it been known, Mr Gauci’s evidence would have been tainted beyond redemption, and probably deemed inadmissible by the court. Ironically, had all or even some of this information been presented to a jury in, say, Glasgow or Dundee, it is hard to imagine that Mr Megrahi would have been convicted.
If you read the judgment, as anybody can on-line, it is hard not to be struck by the number of gaping chasms in the chain of evidence, and the impressive leaps across those chasms that the judgment manages to perform. In the penultimate paragraph of the judgment the most acrobatic leap of them all is made: ‘We are aware,’ the judgment concludes, ‘that in relation to certain aspects of the case there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications. We are also aware that there is a danger that by selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of conflicting evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified. However, having considered the whole evidence in the case, including the uncertainties and qualifications, and the submissions of counsel, we are satisfied that … there is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the first accused, and accordingly we find him guilty.’
In the documentary film already mentioned, Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber, the matter of treats and financial inducements to Mr Gauci, was put to Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who as Lord Advocate in 1991 drew up the original charges contained in the warrants for the arrest of Mr Megrahi and his co-accused (Lamin Khalifa Fhimah). Lord Fraser’s response was as follows: ‘I have to accept that it happened. It shouldn’t have and I was unaware of it.’ He has also been quoted as saying, ‘I… warned our investigators that the eyes of the world were on us, and everything had to be done by the book. It would be unacceptable to offer bribes, inducements or rewards to any witness in a routine murder trial in Glasgow or Dundee, and it is obviously unacceptable to have done it in the biggest case of mass murder ever carried out in Europe.’ This, incidentally, is the same Lord Fraser, the same former Lord Advocate, who, according to the Sunday Times on 23rd October, 2005, described Mr Gauci, the Crown’s key witness, as having been ‘not quite the full shilling’ and ‘an apple short of a picnic’, and the same Lord Fraser who has just been appointed as an adviser to the Scottish Government on standards of ministerial conduct. I am not aware that Lord Fraser has ever disputed these attributions or retracted them.
Let us accept, as we must, that what is displayed in a court of law, any court of law, is not the truth but evidence, and that truth and evidence are two very different things. This is not a cynical view, merely a realistic one. Accepting it, and looking objectively at all the evidence, I for one cannot conclude that it proves beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Megrahi planted the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103, or indeed that he had anything to do with it. What the truth of the matter is – who really carried out the atrocity – we do not know. But we certainly will not arrive at the truth by studiously avoiding the compelling arguments that challenge the rightness of Mr Megrahi’s conviction. One wrong does not cancel another; it compounds it.
What are the consequences of all this for Scotland as it moves further down the road of political self-determination, that is to say as our politics and form of governance become more like our legal system, the independence of which was so jealously guarded at the Union of 1707? I believe that a failure to deal for so long with what are very legitimate concerns in the Lockerbie case is symptomatic of a malaise in the Scottish body politic, a failure of accountability. This malaise has been in part exposed by the re-establishment of a Parliament in Edinburgh, and indeed through that Parliament’s existence huge strides to cure it have been taken in the last dozen years. But devolution has also in part exacerbated the malaise, because sometimes political accountability falls conveniently somewhere between London and Edinburgh. It could be argued that this is a straightforward constitutional matter that will be resolved if and when Scotland becomes fully independent, but that I think would be naïve and wrong-headed: about as wrong-headed as the old Unionist canard that the Scots are somehow uniquely incapable of running their own affairs, and for the same reason – because it is not a uniquely Scottish problem. The implications of the Lockerbie affair have particular application to Scotland but are relevant to all democratic societies trying to balance freedom of information and open justice with issues of confidentiality and security. What kind of trust is there to be between the governed and those who govern? Can a culture of trust be built, or should we, the governed, trust only in the natural tendency of governments, of whatever complexion, to withhold information from us?
It seems to me that if as a community, a country, a nation, we do not address the outstanding matters of the Lockerbie case, then we are unlikely to address these wider concerns of trust and openness when they arise elsewhere, as they already have and inevitably will again, in our justice system and in our politics. This is not just about politicians, the makers of laws; it is at least as much about the legal system and the dispensers of justice. Faith that justice will ultimately prevail is a laudable virtue; but faith alone will not ensure that it does. We also require scepticism. It will be necessary to question, to doubt, and to require those who make and dispense the law to have the courage to answer those questions and allay those doubts, if we are to build the mature, dignified, morally defensible society that we should all want Scotland to be.
To return to where I started, to literature, but to poetry this time, not fiction. Do you remember the poem by Edwin Morgan that Liz Lochhead read on his behalf at the opening of the new Parliament building in 2004? What the people do not want, Morgan wrote, is a nest of fearties, a symposium of procrastinators, a phalanx of forelock-tuggers or a collection of ‘it wizny me-ers’? The poem, which is, appropriately, entitled ‘Open the Doors!’, goes on to say this:
Dear friends, dear lawgivers, dear parliamentarians,
you are picking up a thread of pride and self-esteem
that has been almost but not quite, oh no not quite,
not ever broken or forgotten…
We give you our consent to govern, don’t pocket it and ride away.
We give you our deepest and dearest wish to govern well,
don’t say we have no mandate to be so bold.
That is the spirit in which I have said what I have said this evening.
Since it is because of my occupation as a writer of fiction that I am giving this talk, why do I wish to devote it to something so clearly and tragically real as the Lockerbie bombing and its aftermath? There are two reasons. First, I believe that fiction and reality are by no means mutually exclusive: through fiction, or literature more generally, there is sometimes the possibility of reaching for truths about the human condition that cannot readily be grasped as we lead our daily lives, either because our lives are too busy or too difficult, or because other people and powers keep those truths from us. Second, this session is sponsored by the Saltire Society, which, as its website says, was founded 75 years ago ‘to encourage everything that might improve the quality of life in Scotland’. While the Saltire Society’s principal concern over those years has been with the cultural life of the nation, ‘culture’ is a very big concept, and I don’t think it is possible, or indeed desirable, to treat such things as architecture, arts and crafts, history, music, science and literature as if they are separate and distinct from the political, legal and social framework of the community in which they happen. The health and wellbeing of a community, of a country, of a nation – and Scotland is each and all of these – can be measured in many different ways, but if those of us engaged in ‘culture’ shrink from engaging with politics and the law, then neither our politics, nor our law, nor our culture in the widest sense, will be honest or progressive, or in tune with the Saltire Society’s aim of improving the quality of Scottish life. Quite the reverse: without that engagement, at a time in our history when there is so much public rhetoric about Scots taking more responsibility for running our own affairs – an aim I completely support – we run the risk of suggesting to our lawmakers and elected leaders that we hand them that responsibility without much caring what they do with it. I for one care very much.
With regard to the Lockerbie affair, many serious questions have been asked over the years, honestly, reasonably and intelligently by many different people, some of them directly affected by the event, some not – questions about the conduct of the investigation, about the resulting trial, about the conviction of one of the two accused, and about the subsequent release from prison of that same man. Where they remain unanswered, or have been answered in wholly unsatisfactory ways by the authorities, these questions hang like spectral shadows over the future of our country. If we cannot feel confident that the biggest criminal trial in Scottish history achieved a just, and convincingly just, outcome, then not only do those whose loved ones were murdered go on suffering, but Scotland as a whole suffers.
When I decided, back in March, to make Lockerbie and its continuing reverberations the subject of this session, I was conscious that the background against which I would be speaking might be very different to that which then existed. So indeed it has turned out. It was possible, for example, that the man convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, who as we all know was released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds, might have died from the prostate cancer from which he was suffering. It was possible that Colonel Gaddafi would have been removed from power by the rebellion in Libya, and that he too might be dead. It seemed highly probable that NATO – or elements within NATO – would not be much dismayed if its bombing campaign in Libya resulted in eliminating not only Gaddafi but also Megrahi, neither of whom would then be able to dispute what might be termed ‘the conventional wisdom’ on Lockerbie, as it has been maintained since Mr Megrahi’s conviction in January 2001. Mr Megrahi appears to have survived the NATO bombs, but it remains to be seen whether he will escape being snatched by, or handed over to, the Americans, some of whom are keen to set an example to their new friends in Libya of how to dispense justice by retrying a convicted man, changing the sentence he received – quite possibly to a lethal one – and overriding the justice system of another country (Scotland) because they don’t like its perfectly legal and properly conducted processes and outcomes. God help us all and not only Mr Megrahi if the new Libyan administration and the Scottish Government do not resist such moves. There is precious little, in statements made by William Hague, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, to indicate that the UK Government will object, although I am gratified to read statements from the National Transitional Council in Libya that they have no intention of handing Mr Megrahi over to anybody.
Other changes in circumstance between March and now were also possible: for example, some specific evidence might have been provided by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the former Libyan Justice Minister, now chair of the National Transitional Council, to support his claim, made in February, that he had proof that Gaddafi personally ordered the bombing. What have we heard from Mr Jalil since about Lockerbie? As far as I am aware, absolutely nothing of any substance. Or we might have heard from Moussa Muhammad Koussa, who was Libya’s Foreign Minister until he defected to the UK in March. Mr Koussa was formerly Head of Libyan Intelligence from 1994 to 2009,and before that worked for the Bureau for External Security, the Mathaba, which has been accused of responsibility for the bombing itself. If Libya had anything to do with Lockerbie, Mr Koussa is the man who would know. He was duly interviewed by British intelligence and the Scottish police, then allowed to leave the UK for Qatar. Had he told the police anything that incriminated either himself or other Libyans, or provided more details to support the conviction of Mr Megrahi, it is hard to imagine that the British Government would not have been eager to tell us. But neither they nor the police have said anything. Who, one might ask, is the more cynical? Those of us who are not surprised by this silence, or those who maintain it while also maintaining that they – to recycle the oft-used phrase – ‘do not doubt the safety of Megrahi’s conviction’?
We have heard from Guma el-Gamaty, the UK co-ordinator for the National Transitional Council, who two weeks ago said that Mr Megrahi’s release by the Scottish Government had ‘handed a political and diplomatic victory’ to the Gaddafi regime. But his statement was essentially about distancing the NTC from the regime’s past activities, and it studiously avoided admitting Libyan responsibility for Lockerbie. If Megrahi and his co-accused were involved, Guma el-Gamaty said, they were ‘very, very small fish in the chain’. He criticised previous British Governments’ dealings with Gaddafi and pointed an accusing finger at Moussa Koussa. None of this reveals anything new about Lockerbie.
It might also have been posited back in March that the political landscape of Scotland would change after the parliamentary election in May. This of course did happen, dramatically so, and the result – an SNP government with an overall majority – does have a bearing on the continuing significance of the Lockerbie affair. Before the SNP came to power in 2007 as a minority administration, it was, unlike the Conservatives and Labour, a party with clean hands as far as Lockerbie was concerned, largely because it had not previously been in government. Many of us hoped then that this would enable a fresh appraisal of the case to take place, especially as, in June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission announced its decision to refer Mr Megrahi’s case back to the High Court for a second appeal because it concluded that a miscarriage of justice could have occurred at his trial. But for the next two years legal proceedings dragged on, and the appeal remained unheard. Mr Megrahi meanwhile, in September 2008, was diagnosed with cancer. By the summer of 2009 his illness was considered by medical advisers to have progressed so far that the Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill authorised his release from prison on compassionate grounds. Mr Megrahi dropped his second appeal just before he was released, although there was no legal requirement for him to do so. The political storm that followed his release and his return to Libya completely diverted attention from the question, should he have been in prison in the first place?
It appears to me that, whether one approved or disapproved of Mr MacAskill’s decision, the Scottish Government acted absolutely according to protocol and legal process as far as prisoner release on compassionate grounds was concerned. The howls of outrage from the then Labour Government have since been revealed to be, largely, howls of hypocrisy and dishonesty. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government repeatedly stated at the time that it did not doubt the safety of Mr Megrahi’s conviction. Given the absolute consistency with which it has maintained this position, the exercise of the Justice Secretary’s discretionary powers to release him was and continues to be highly controversial. Arguably, though, one could hardly have expected the Government to express doubts about the conviction. Had it done so, it – the executive component of our political system – would effectively have been challenging the efficacy and independence of the judicial component.
With the May election result, however, we entered new political territory. The SNP has an overall majority, and will presumably be in power till 2016. Within weeks of the election, a furious row broke out over the relationship between the Scottish courts and the Supreme Court in London. The Scottish Government objected to the Supreme Court’s ruling that in a criminal case heard at the High Court in Scotland the human rights of the accused, as defined by the European Convention, had been infringed by the Crown’s failure to disclose vital evidence to the defence. On this occasion the First Minister and Justice Secretary showed no reluctance at all in expressing their opinions about the efficacy and independence of the judiciary. They seem to have objected to the Supreme Court’s decision not because they disagreed with the idea of accused persons having human rights, but because the Supreme Court was based in London rather than Strasbourg. There may have been some validity in their arguments, but the way those arguments were made did not indicate much respect for the principle of the separation of executive from judicial powers. It indicated instead a worrying complacency that everything in the Scottish judicial system was working perfectly well, and that any suggestion that it was not, even from two of the most experienced Scottish legal figures of their generation, Lord Hope and Lord Rodger, was unwelcome.
There was a sense, nevertheless, that the Scottish political context for discussing the correctness of the Lockerbie judgment might have shifted. But has it? One of Alex Salmond’s pre-election pledges was that, recognising the widespread concerns about Mr Megrahi’s case, his government if re-elected would bring forward primary legislation to allow the SCCRC to publish its findings without the consent of the various interested parties who had supplied information to the Commission. Robert Black, Emeritus Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, architect of the Camp Zeist trial in the Netherlands and a persistent critic of the outcome of that trial, has argued that the laborious process of introducing primary legislation through Parliament is not necessary: ‘It can, and should be done by Statutory Instrument (secondary legislation),’ Professor Black has said, ‘just as the Scottish Government did earlier when it permitted publication but only if those who supplied the information to the SCCRC consented. An unqualified permission to publish can be given through exactly the same legal mechanism as the earlier qualified permission.’ But, this aside, even were such legislation to be passed, what would change? It has been stated several times by the Government that the SCCRC’s ability to publish its findings would still be subject to ‘legal restrictions applying to the Commission such as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities’. This sweeping set of conditions, it seems to me, all but wipes out the possibility of the SCCRC being able to publish its findings – certainly not without serious further delays.
In June Al Jazeera’s English language channel showed a new documentary film called Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber. This film raised fresh concerns over particular aspects of the case. After watching it, I wrote to the First Minister, urging the establishment of an inquiry into Lockerbie, something many others have argued for. I received a reply on his behalf from the Justice Directorate, which stated that it was ‘not possible for the Scottish Government to comment on decisions of the courts’, that the conviction of Mr Megrahi was a judicial matter and that ‘it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to either influence the process or to make comment’ – something it had certainly not been backward in doing vis-a-vis the Supreme Court. The letter reiterated that ‘the Scottish Government do [sic] not doubt the safety of the conviction of Megrahi’ – which is surely a comment of some sort.
With regard to an inquiry, the Scottish Government has repeatedly argued, from Kenny MacAskill’s statement explaining his reasons for releasing Mr Megrahi onward, that ‘the questions to be asked and answered in any such inquiry would be beyond the jurisdiction of Scots Law and the remit of the Scottish Government, and such an inquiry would therefore need to be initiated by those with the required power and authority to deal with an issue, international in its nature.’ I hear the sound not so much of hands being tied as of hands being washed. Here we have a Nationalist administration – keen to persuade us of the virtues of independence, and willing to attack what it considers the interference of the Supreme Court in matters under Scottish jurisdiction – using the limitations of its devolved status as an excuse for inaction. I am sorry to sound so critical of the current Scottish Government, because I believe it has acted with more honesty over Lockerbie than any British Government has since 1988. But it is precisely because Scotland has in the intervening years acquired a substantial measure of devolved power and responsibility, and is in the process of acquiring more – in my view an entirely positive development – that I make these points. There is no prospect of the British authorities addressing the outstanding issues surrounding Lockerbie – it is not in their interests to do so. But it is in the interests of Scotland to address them. What is the point of a Scottish government if it will not, or the point of the Scottish Parliament if it cannot, engage with legitimate concerns raised over a judgment made by a Scottish court about an event that took place in Scotland? We are not talking about local planning regulations here. We are talking about the biggest criminal case in Scottish history.
In forming a view on the Lockerbie affair, I have always tried to keep at a distance anything that has the whiff of a conspiracy theory. The thing about conspiracy theories, though, is that they rush to fill an information vacuum. The more I look, the more I am forced to the conclusion that if there is a conspiracy around Lockerbie, it is not one concocted by those who doubt the guilt of Mr Megrahi but a conspiracy of silence in which the US, UK and Scottish Governments are all, though not from shared motives, implicated. And this has far-reaching consequences for the wider relationship between those who govern and those who are governed, and I want to say something more about that in a few minutes.
First, however, I need to revisit some of the reasons for doubting the judgment of the special Scottish court at Camp Zeist, which in 2001 found Mr Megrahi, but not his co-accused, guilty of the bombing. And let me say here and now that if anybody can demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that my doubts are unreasonable, I will put my hand up and apologise for my scepticism. I think nearly everybody who has expressed concerns about Mr Megrahi’s conviction would be prepared to say the same thing.
The difficulties with the case against Mr Megrahi are too many to list in full here, so I will outline just six of them. First, there is no convincing evidence of an unchecked, unaccompanied suitcase having been put on the Air Malta flight (KM180) that left Luqa Airport in Malta on 21st December 1988, nor of such a case being transferred at Frankfurt to Pan Am feeder flight 103A, before finally being transferred onto Pan Am flight 103 at Heathrow. The judges themselves acknowledged this: ‘If… the unaccompanied bag was launched from Luqa,’ they said, ‘the method by which that was done is not established, and the Crown accepted that they could not point to any specific route by which the primary suitcase could have been loaded. The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 is a major difficulty for the Crown case.’ Second, the only location where a brown Samsonite hardshell suitcase like the one containing the bomb was actually identified by a witness, was at Heathrow, a much more probable ingestion point for the bomb. Third, it is highly debatable whether Mr Megrahi was in Malta on the day that the clothing which ended up in the suitcase containing the bomb was purchased at Tony Gauci’s shop in Sliema, Malta. There were two possible dates for the purchase of the clothing: overwhelmingly the circumstantial evidence points to one of these dates as that on which the purchase was made; the judges opted for the other. Fourth, there is the problem of a crucial fragment of circuit board which was found embedded in a piece of that clothing, and which indicated that the bomb was detonated by an MST-13 timer rather than by a barometric device. Again, all the circumstantial evidence points to the latter type of detonator (activated by air pressure change) having been used, apart from the fragment of circuit board, which was introduced into the chain of evidence through a highly contentious route. Time prohibits me from saying more on this complex matter of the circuit board fragment, but the information is in the public domain for anyone who wishes to explore it. Fifth, during the night of 20th/21st December 1988, about 16 hours before Pan Am Flight 103 took off, a padlock was cut through on a door giving access to the Pan Am baggage build-up area at Heathrow, the very location where the hardshell Samsonite suitcase was seen next afternoon. The fact of this breach of security was either mislaid or suppressed by the police and Crown during the trial, and though known to his lawyers by the time of Mr Megrahi’s first appeal, was dismissed by the appeal court as ‘coincidence’. Sixth, we have three witnesses whose identification of Mr Megrahi linked him to the atrocity. One of these witnesses, a Libyan CIA informant based in Malta called Abdul Majid Giaka, the judges said they were unable to accept as a ‘credible or reliable witness’. The second, Edward Bollier, who supplied electronic timers to Libya, the judges found to be ‘at times an untruthful and at other times an unreliable witness’, although they did accept some of his evidence. The third and key witness was Tony Gauci, the owner of the shop where the clothes that were later packed around the bomb were bought: Mr Gauci initially so signally and emphatically failed to identify Mr Megrahi as the purchaser that he had to be visited over and over again by police till he did. The court recognised that Mr Gauci’s was ‘not an unequivocal identification’. He was coached, given treats and financial inducements, and according to documentation now in the public domain was offered, and after the trial paid, a sum of $2million through the United States ‘Rewards for Justice’ programme. This last fact was not known to the court at Camp Zeist, and indeed appears to have been withheld by the police and the Crown prosecutors. Had it been known, Mr Gauci’s evidence would have been tainted beyond redemption, and probably deemed inadmissible by the court. Ironically, had all or even some of this information been presented to a jury in, say, Glasgow or Dundee, it is hard to imagine that Mr Megrahi would have been convicted.
If you read the judgment, as anybody can on-line, it is hard not to be struck by the number of gaping chasms in the chain of evidence, and the impressive leaps across those chasms that the judgment manages to perform. In the penultimate paragraph of the judgment the most acrobatic leap of them all is made: ‘We are aware,’ the judgment concludes, ‘that in relation to certain aspects of the case there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications. We are also aware that there is a danger that by selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of conflicting evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified. However, having considered the whole evidence in the case, including the uncertainties and qualifications, and the submissions of counsel, we are satisfied that … there is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the first accused, and accordingly we find him guilty.’
In the documentary film already mentioned, Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber, the matter of treats and financial inducements to Mr Gauci, was put to Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who as Lord Advocate in 1991 drew up the original charges contained in the warrants for the arrest of Mr Megrahi and his co-accused (Lamin Khalifa Fhimah). Lord Fraser’s response was as follows: ‘I have to accept that it happened. It shouldn’t have and I was unaware of it.’ He has also been quoted as saying, ‘I… warned our investigators that the eyes of the world were on us, and everything had to be done by the book. It would be unacceptable to offer bribes, inducements or rewards to any witness in a routine murder trial in Glasgow or Dundee, and it is obviously unacceptable to have done it in the biggest case of mass murder ever carried out in Europe.’ This, incidentally, is the same Lord Fraser, the same former Lord Advocate, who, according to the Sunday Times on 23rd October, 2005, described Mr Gauci, the Crown’s key witness, as having been ‘not quite the full shilling’ and ‘an apple short of a picnic’, and the same Lord Fraser who has just been appointed as an adviser to the Scottish Government on standards of ministerial conduct. I am not aware that Lord Fraser has ever disputed these attributions or retracted them.
Let us accept, as we must, that what is displayed in a court of law, any court of law, is not the truth but evidence, and that truth and evidence are two very different things. This is not a cynical view, merely a realistic one. Accepting it, and looking objectively at all the evidence, I for one cannot conclude that it proves beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Megrahi planted the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103, or indeed that he had anything to do with it. What the truth of the matter is – who really carried out the atrocity – we do not know. But we certainly will not arrive at the truth by studiously avoiding the compelling arguments that challenge the rightness of Mr Megrahi’s conviction. One wrong does not cancel another; it compounds it.
What are the consequences of all this for Scotland as it moves further down the road of political self-determination, that is to say as our politics and form of governance become more like our legal system, the independence of which was so jealously guarded at the Union of 1707? I believe that a failure to deal for so long with what are very legitimate concerns in the Lockerbie case is symptomatic of a malaise in the Scottish body politic, a failure of accountability. This malaise has been in part exposed by the re-establishment of a Parliament in Edinburgh, and indeed through that Parliament’s existence huge strides to cure it have been taken in the last dozen years. But devolution has also in part exacerbated the malaise, because sometimes political accountability falls conveniently somewhere between London and Edinburgh. It could be argued that this is a straightforward constitutional matter that will be resolved if and when Scotland becomes fully independent, but that I think would be naïve and wrong-headed: about as wrong-headed as the old Unionist canard that the Scots are somehow uniquely incapable of running their own affairs, and for the same reason – because it is not a uniquely Scottish problem. The implications of the Lockerbie affair have particular application to Scotland but are relevant to all democratic societies trying to balance freedom of information and open justice with issues of confidentiality and security. What kind of trust is there to be between the governed and those who govern? Can a culture of trust be built, or should we, the governed, trust only in the natural tendency of governments, of whatever complexion, to withhold information from us?
It seems to me that if as a community, a country, a nation, we do not address the outstanding matters of the Lockerbie case, then we are unlikely to address these wider concerns of trust and openness when they arise elsewhere, as they already have and inevitably will again, in our justice system and in our politics. This is not just about politicians, the makers of laws; it is at least as much about the legal system and the dispensers of justice. Faith that justice will ultimately prevail is a laudable virtue; but faith alone will not ensure that it does. We also require scepticism. It will be necessary to question, to doubt, and to require those who make and dispense the law to have the courage to answer those questions and allay those doubts, if we are to build the mature, dignified, morally defensible society that we should all want Scotland to be.
To return to where I started, to literature, but to poetry this time, not fiction. Do you remember the poem by Edwin Morgan that Liz Lochhead read on his behalf at the opening of the new Parliament building in 2004? What the people do not want, Morgan wrote, is a nest of fearties, a symposium of procrastinators, a phalanx of forelock-tuggers or a collection of ‘it wizny me-ers’? The poem, which is, appropriately, entitled ‘Open the Doors!’, goes on to say this:
Dear friends, dear lawgivers, dear parliamentarians,
you are picking up a thread of pride and self-esteem
that has been almost but not quite, oh no not quite,
not ever broken or forgotten…
We give you our consent to govern, don’t pocket it and ride away.
We give you our deepest and dearest wish to govern well,
don’t say we have no mandate to be so bold.
That is the spirit in which I have said what I have said this evening.
'Let Megrahi die in peace' says Lockerbie victim's father
[This is the headline over a report published this afternoon on the website of The Independent. It reads in part:]
The father of one of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing today called for the man convicted of the atrocity to be left in peace to die.
Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, 23, said that he would treat Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi himself, if he could, to allow him a dignified death. (...)
Today American news channel CNN aired images of the convicted bomber, apparently comatose and near death, in his villa in the Libyan capital. (...)
Speaking about the CNN footage, Dr Swire, who has always maintained Megrahi's innocence, said: "It is obvious he is sufficiently ill and in need of pain relief and medical care. His medical treatment has been withdrawn due to the circumstances in Tripoli, and his family are saying his drugs have been stolen.
"I feel in view of all he's been through that he should have been accorded a peaceful end in Tripoli with his family. The idea of extraditing him is a monstrous one.
"I would be happy to go and try to look after him if that could be arranged, but I don't know how that could be. He will need pain relief and medication to allow him a dignified end.
"This is a man who withdrew his appeal so that he could be allowed to die close to his family and he deserves to be left in peace for his last days." (...)
Dr Swire dismissed the idea of extradition, saying: "Mr al-Megrahi has never wavered in his claim he was innocent and the evidence led against him was so polluted by political influence that it should never have led to his conviction.
"It's a great shame the overturning of the verdict will not happen while he is still alive to see it." (...)
Martin Cadman, whose son Bill, 32, died in the Lockerbie bombing, said British relatives still had questions as to the circumstances surrounding the attack.
Speaking from his home in Norfolk, Mr Cadman said he believed the Americans knew more than had already emerged.
He said: "Megrahi was not the only person, if he was any person, in this thing. At some time we've got to have the truth about it and the Americans have got to come clean about it."
Mr Cadman said he did not believe "any evidence" had been shown that Megrahi was involved in the bombing, adding: "I do hope that somehow this event now, Megrahi on the point of death, is going to make someone own up."
[Similar views about allowing Megrahi to die in peace have been expressed by First Minister Alex Salmond.]
The father of one of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing today called for the man convicted of the atrocity to be left in peace to die.
Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, 23, said that he would treat Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi himself, if he could, to allow him a dignified death. (...)
Today American news channel CNN aired images of the convicted bomber, apparently comatose and near death, in his villa in the Libyan capital. (...)
Speaking about the CNN footage, Dr Swire, who has always maintained Megrahi's innocence, said: "It is obvious he is sufficiently ill and in need of pain relief and medical care. His medical treatment has been withdrawn due to the circumstances in Tripoli, and his family are saying his drugs have been stolen.
"I feel in view of all he's been through that he should have been accorded a peaceful end in Tripoli with his family. The idea of extraditing him is a monstrous one.
"I would be happy to go and try to look after him if that could be arranged, but I don't know how that could be. He will need pain relief and medication to allow him a dignified end.
"This is a man who withdrew his appeal so that he could be allowed to die close to his family and he deserves to be left in peace for his last days." (...)
Dr Swire dismissed the idea of extradition, saying: "Mr al-Megrahi has never wavered in his claim he was innocent and the evidence led against him was so polluted by political influence that it should never have led to his conviction.
"It's a great shame the overturning of the verdict will not happen while he is still alive to see it." (...)
Martin Cadman, whose son Bill, 32, died in the Lockerbie bombing, said British relatives still had questions as to the circumstances surrounding the attack.
Speaking from his home in Norfolk, Mr Cadman said he believed the Americans knew more than had already emerged.
He said: "Megrahi was not the only person, if he was any person, in this thing. At some time we've got to have the truth about it and the Americans have got to come clean about it."
Mr Cadman said he did not believe "any evidence" had been shown that Megrahi was involved in the bombing, adding: "I do hope that somehow this event now, Megrahi on the point of death, is going to make someone own up."
[Similar views about allowing Megrahi to die in peace have been expressed by First Minister Alex Salmond.]
Lockerbie bomber 'a shell of a man'
[This is the headline over report just issued by The Press Association. It reads as follows:]
The Lockerbie bomber has been tracked down to his villa in the Libyan capital, where he is apparently comatose and near death, it has emerged.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was found bedridden, surrounded by his family in their grand home in an up-market part of Tripoli. His relatives allowed a reporting team from American news channel CNN to enter the house, which they said had been ransacked by looters who plundered all his medicine.
Oxygen and a fluids drip are all that are keeping him alive, according to his family.
His son Khaled al-Megrahi said he had no idea how much longer his father had to live, but insisted he should be able to spend his last few days in peace at home. "There is no doctor, there is nobody to ask and we don't have a phoneline to call anybody," he told the broadcaster.
His family said he had not been eating and they did not know how to treat him.
CNN reporter Nic Robertson said Megrahi looked far worse than he had done when he last saw him two years ago and described his appearance as "much iller, much sicker, his face is sunken...just a shell of the man he was". He added: "I was shocked when I walked into the room and saw him in such a state."
Megrahi was convicted and imprisoned in Scotland for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people. He was granted compassionate release in 2009 on the basis that he was expected to die from prostate cancer within months. But he survived and was residing in Tripoli until the Gaddafi regime fell.
Britain and the new Libyan government were at loggerheads over whether the bomber - and also Yvonne Fletcher's suspected killer - could be removed from the conflict-torn country. Pressure has been growing for Megrahi to be brought back to jail in the UK in the wake of the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
The Scottish Government and East Renfrewshire Council issued a joint statement to say there had been contact through Megrahi's family over the weekend.
It said: "Speculation about Al Megrahi in recent days has been unhelpful, unnecessary and indeed ill-informed. As has always been said, Al Megrahi is dying of a terminal disease, and matters regarding his medical condition should really be left there."
[Related reports in The Herald can be read here; in The Scotsman here; in The Guardian here. The report in The Times (behind the paywall) contains the following:]
“He is innocent,” Mohamed al-Alagi [Justice Minister in the Libyan Transitional National Council] told The Times, reflecting a widespread view within Libya. “We will not hand over any Libyan citizen. It was Gaddafi who handed over Libyan citizens,” said Mr al-Alagi, who helped defend al-Megrahi at his trial in the Netherlands.
[The full account of his tracing of Megrahi by CNN's Nic Robertson can be read here.]
The Lockerbie bomber has been tracked down to his villa in the Libyan capital, where he is apparently comatose and near death, it has emerged.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was found bedridden, surrounded by his family in their grand home in an up-market part of Tripoli. His relatives allowed a reporting team from American news channel CNN to enter the house, which they said had been ransacked by looters who plundered all his medicine.
Oxygen and a fluids drip are all that are keeping him alive, according to his family.
His son Khaled al-Megrahi said he had no idea how much longer his father had to live, but insisted he should be able to spend his last few days in peace at home. "There is no doctor, there is nobody to ask and we don't have a phoneline to call anybody," he told the broadcaster.
His family said he had not been eating and they did not know how to treat him.
CNN reporter Nic Robertson said Megrahi looked far worse than he had done when he last saw him two years ago and described his appearance as "much iller, much sicker, his face is sunken...just a shell of the man he was". He added: "I was shocked when I walked into the room and saw him in such a state."
Megrahi was convicted and imprisoned in Scotland for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people. He was granted compassionate release in 2009 on the basis that he was expected to die from prostate cancer within months. But he survived and was residing in Tripoli until the Gaddafi regime fell.
Britain and the new Libyan government were at loggerheads over whether the bomber - and also Yvonne Fletcher's suspected killer - could be removed from the conflict-torn country. Pressure has been growing for Megrahi to be brought back to jail in the UK in the wake of the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
The Scottish Government and East Renfrewshire Council issued a joint statement to say there had been contact through Megrahi's family over the weekend.
It said: "Speculation about Al Megrahi in recent days has been unhelpful, unnecessary and indeed ill-informed. As has always been said, Al Megrahi is dying of a terminal disease, and matters regarding his medical condition should really be left there."
[Related reports in The Herald can be read here; in The Scotsman here; in The Guardian here. The report in The Times (behind the paywall) contains the following:]
“He is innocent,” Mohamed al-Alagi [Justice Minister in the Libyan Transitional National Council] told The Times, reflecting a widespread view within Libya. “We will not hand over any Libyan citizen. It was Gaddafi who handed over Libyan citizens,” said Mr al-Alagi, who helped defend al-Megrahi at his trial in the Netherlands.
[The full account of his tracing of Megrahi by CNN's Nic Robertson can be read here.]
Sunday, 28 August 2011
CNN claims to have tracked down Megrahi
[What follows is taken from an item just posted on the CNN Press Room blog. It features a photograph of Megrahi lying in bed with his mother sitting beside him:]
CNN's Nic Robertson has been looking for the man convicted of the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, and tracked him down today in Libya.
Libya's National Transitional Council announced Sunday it will not extradite Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing. The NTC justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi insisting that "We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West." Megrahi may be the last man alive who knows precisely who in the Libya government authorized that bombing. [RB: Alternatively, having had nothing to do with the bombing, he may not.]
CNN's Nic Robertson has been looking for the man convicted of the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, and tracked him down today in Libya.
Libya's National Transitional Council announced Sunday it will not extradite Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing. The NTC justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi insisting that "We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West." Megrahi may be the last man alive who knows precisely who in the Libya government authorized that bombing. [RB: Alternatively, having had nothing to do with the bombing, he may not.]
New Libyan government "will not hand over Megrahi"
[The following are excerpts from a report published (behind the paywall) in today's edition of The Sunday Times:]
Libya’s new government will refuse to hand over the suspected killer of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and the Lockerbie bomber if Britain seeks their extradition, senior officials warned this weekend.
Members of the National Transitional Council (NTC) said they would block any request for a British trial of the man suspected of shooting Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.
They would also reject any attempt to return Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, to prison in Scotland.
Hassan al-Sagheer, a member of the NTC and a legal expert, said: “Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country. We shall continue with this principle.” (...)
[The comments will] dismay relatives of the Lockerbie victims and politicians in Britain and America who have called for Megrahi to be sent back to jail. David Cameron has said he should not have been released two years ago when it was thought he would die from prostate cancer within months. (...)
Members of the NTC said they were highly unlikely to change the position.
“According to our laws, no one can be handed over unless there are previous agreements or special agreements to do so,” said Fawzi al-Ali, another NTC member.
A senior judge who took part in the early stages of the uprising that toppled Gadaffi last week emphasised another reason why Megrahi would not be sent to Britain or — as some US politicians have demanded — America.
The bomber is a member of one of the largest tribes that sided with Gadaffi during the revolt. “Any move to hand him back would cause internal conflict at a time when we are trying to bridge differences,” the judge said.
[Here is UK Foreign Secretary William Hague's response, as reported on The Telegraph website:]
Speaking in a round of broadcast interviews this morning, Mr Hague said: "This is an ongoing police investigation so it is quite difficult for me to comment.
"I would say that when chairman (Mustafa Abdel) Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue.
"It is true, it is a fact, that there is no extradition treaty with Libya. but we look to them to cooperate fully.
"So I would not take what has been written in the press today as the last word."
[And here is the Libyan National Transitional Council's rejoinder, as reported by The Press Association news agency:]
On Sunday morning, Foreign Secretary William Hague struck an optimistic note on the case, saying National Transitional Council (NTC) chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil had pledged to "co-operate fully".
"I would say that when chairman Jalil...was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue," Mr Hague said in a round of broadcast interviews. It is true, it is a fact, that there is no extradition treaty with Libya. But we look to them to co-operate fully."
Mr Hague played down comments by junior NTC members that extraditions would be blocked, insisting they were not the "last word".
However, on Sunday evening new justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi became the most senior figure so far to rule out handing individuals over.
"We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West," he told reporters in Tripoli. "Al-Megrahi has already been judged once and he will not be judged again ... We do not hand over Libyan citizens. (Muammar) Gaddafi does."
[It should be noted that Libya did not extradite Megrahi and Fhimah for trial at Zeist, for exactly the reason set out above -- Libyan law (like that of many other countries) does not permit the extradition of its citizens for trial abroad. Megrahi and Fhimah voluntarily surrendered for trial, a decision that Megrahi at least must now bitterly regret.]
Libya’s new government will refuse to hand over the suspected killer of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and the Lockerbie bomber if Britain seeks their extradition, senior officials warned this weekend.
Members of the National Transitional Council (NTC) said they would block any request for a British trial of the man suspected of shooting Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.
They would also reject any attempt to return Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, to prison in Scotland.
Hassan al-Sagheer, a member of the NTC and a legal expert, said: “Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country. We shall continue with this principle.” (...)
[The comments will] dismay relatives of the Lockerbie victims and politicians in Britain and America who have called for Megrahi to be sent back to jail. David Cameron has said he should not have been released two years ago when it was thought he would die from prostate cancer within months. (...)
Members of the NTC said they were highly unlikely to change the position.
“According to our laws, no one can be handed over unless there are previous agreements or special agreements to do so,” said Fawzi al-Ali, another NTC member.
A senior judge who took part in the early stages of the uprising that toppled Gadaffi last week emphasised another reason why Megrahi would not be sent to Britain or — as some US politicians have demanded — America.
The bomber is a member of one of the largest tribes that sided with Gadaffi during the revolt. “Any move to hand him back would cause internal conflict at a time when we are trying to bridge differences,” the judge said.
[Here is UK Foreign Secretary William Hague's response, as reported on The Telegraph website:]
Speaking in a round of broadcast interviews this morning, Mr Hague said: "This is an ongoing police investigation so it is quite difficult for me to comment.
"I would say that when chairman (Mustafa Abdel) Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue.
"It is true, it is a fact, that there is no extradition treaty with Libya. but we look to them to cooperate fully.
"So I would not take what has been written in the press today as the last word."
[And here is the Libyan National Transitional Council's rejoinder, as reported by The Press Association news agency:]
On Sunday morning, Foreign Secretary William Hague struck an optimistic note on the case, saying National Transitional Council (NTC) chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil had pledged to "co-operate fully".
"I would say that when chairman Jalil...was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue," Mr Hague said in a round of broadcast interviews. It is true, it is a fact, that there is no extradition treaty with Libya. But we look to them to co-operate fully."
Mr Hague played down comments by junior NTC members that extraditions would be blocked, insisting they were not the "last word".
However, on Sunday evening new justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi became the most senior figure so far to rule out handing individuals over.
"We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West," he told reporters in Tripoli. "Al-Megrahi has already been judged once and he will not be judged again ... We do not hand over Libyan citizens. (Muammar) Gaddafi does."
[It should be noted that Libya did not extradite Megrahi and Fhimah for trial at Zeist, for exactly the reason set out above -- Libyan law (like that of many other countries) does not permit the extradition of its citizens for trial abroad. Megrahi and Fhimah voluntarily surrendered for trial, a decision that Megrahi at least must now bitterly regret.]
I've no idea where 'friend' Megrahi is
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Sunday Express. It deals with the recent interview with Lamin Fhimah published in the Swedish newspaper Expressen. It adds nothing to Friday's post on this blog, except the following:]
The man cleared of the Lockerbie bombing yesterday broke his 10-year silence to admit he has no idea where his missing “friend” Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi has gone. (...)
Last night, Megrahi’s son Khaled posted on Facebook claiming his father has been moved to a relative’s house. (...)
[Fhimah] said: “When I was released and came home from Holland, I drove to a place where Gaddafi made a show out of it. We spoke nothing to each other. He welcomed me and nothing more.
“The only thing the regime did after they welcomed me was to confiscate my passport. I don’t know why, but they claimed that when the verdict against Megrahi was appealed I had to stay here in order to testify.” (...)
Labour claimed the SNP has “ignored” a law that allows a prisoner to be recalled if there is a “reversal or improvement” in their condition.
Party leader Iain Gray said: “If this piece of legislation had been enacted Megrahi could be back behind bars. It is yet another example of the SNP’s incompetence in this affair.”
However, a spokesman for Mr MacAskill said: “Al Megrahi was sent back to Libya following the due process of Scots Law because he was dying of terminal prostate cancer.
“He is dying of terminal prostate cancer, therefore by definition there has been no change in the medical conditions that led to his release.”
[Today's edition of Scotland on Sunday contains a long article by Dani Garavelli headlined Liberation of Libya opens way to Lockerbie truth which outlines some of the legal, political and practical difficulties standing in the way of either returning Megrahi to prison or holding further Lockerbie trials.]
The man cleared of the Lockerbie bombing yesterday broke his 10-year silence to admit he has no idea where his missing “friend” Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi has gone. (...)
Last night, Megrahi’s son Khaled posted on Facebook claiming his father has been moved to a relative’s house. (...)
[Fhimah] said: “When I was released and came home from Holland, I drove to a place where Gaddafi made a show out of it. We spoke nothing to each other. He welcomed me and nothing more.
“The only thing the regime did after they welcomed me was to confiscate my passport. I don’t know why, but they claimed that when the verdict against Megrahi was appealed I had to stay here in order to testify.” (...)
Labour claimed the SNP has “ignored” a law that allows a prisoner to be recalled if there is a “reversal or improvement” in their condition.
Party leader Iain Gray said: “If this piece of legislation had been enacted Megrahi could be back behind bars. It is yet another example of the SNP’s incompetence in this affair.”
However, a spokesman for Mr MacAskill said: “Al Megrahi was sent back to Libya following the due process of Scots Law because he was dying of terminal prostate cancer.
“He is dying of terminal prostate cancer, therefore by definition there has been no change in the medical conditions that led to his release.”
[Today's edition of Scotland on Sunday contains a long article by Dani Garavelli headlined Liberation of Libya opens way to Lockerbie truth which outlines some of the legal, political and practical difficulties standing in the way of either returning Megrahi to prison or holding further Lockerbie trials.]
Saturday, 27 August 2011
Neighbor: Lockerbie bomber's family at Libya home
[This is the headline over a news agency report from The Associated Press published this afternoon. It reads in part:]
No one answered the door Saturday at the Lockerbie bomber's Tripoli villa, hidden behind tall walls in an upscale neighborhood of the capital.
A neighbor, Yousef Mohammed, said he saw the son of Abdel-Baset al-Megrahi in the street on Friday and assumed that the family had not left the area. No private guards or rebel fighters were visible in the quiet side street of walled villas. (...)
Al-Megrahi is the only person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Britain's worst terrorist attack. His release after serving eight years of a life sentence infuriated the families of many victims, who suspected Britain's real motive was to improve relations with oil-rich Libya.
Some relatives [of Lockerbie victims], however, believe that al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted and that evidence points to Iranian-backed Palestinian militants as the perpetrators.
Mohammed, the neighbor, said he often saw al-Megrahi in the neighborhood. "This guy is sick. All the time, I saw him in the (wheelchair)," he said. Mohammed, a 30-year-old oil worker, said he and other neighbors did not believe al-Megrahi was involved in the Lockerbie bombing and that the family was well-liked in the neighborhood.
Usama el-Abed, the deputy chief of Tripoli's new city council, said he understood the sensitivity of the matter, but referred all questions about al-Megrahi to the rebels' interim government.
No one answered the door Saturday at the Lockerbie bomber's Tripoli villa, hidden behind tall walls in an upscale neighborhood of the capital.
A neighbor, Yousef Mohammed, said he saw the son of Abdel-Baset al-Megrahi in the street on Friday and assumed that the family had not left the area. No private guards or rebel fighters were visible in the quiet side street of walled villas. (...)
Al-Megrahi is the only person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Britain's worst terrorist attack. His release after serving eight years of a life sentence infuriated the families of many victims, who suspected Britain's real motive was to improve relations with oil-rich Libya.
Some relatives [of Lockerbie victims], however, believe that al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted and that evidence points to Iranian-backed Palestinian militants as the perpetrators.
Mohammed, the neighbor, said he often saw al-Megrahi in the neighborhood. "This guy is sick. All the time, I saw him in the (wheelchair)," he said. Mohammed, a 30-year-old oil worker, said he and other neighbors did not believe al-Megrahi was involved in the Lockerbie bombing and that the family was well-liked in the neighborhood.
Usama el-Abed, the deputy chief of Tripoli's new city council, said he understood the sensitivity of the matter, but referred all questions about al-Megrahi to the rebels' interim government.
Gaddafi escapes to Algeria?
[This is the headline over a report published today on the Israeli Ynet News website. It reads in part:]
A convoy of six armored vehicles has crossed the Libyan border to Algeria on Saturday night, the Egyptian news agency reported. While it is unclear who was riding in the cars, a rebel forces source estimated that the convoy transported senior Libyan officials – including the embattled leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
The report quoted a Libyan military council source as saying that troops loyal to Gaddafi's regime accompanied the convoy to the border. There was no official confirmation of the claim.
Algeria continues to maintain neutrality in the conflict, as it did throughout Libya's civil war. (...)
Meanwhile, authorities in the West continued to search for Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was convicted in the December 1988 bombing of a US-bound airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.
They attributed the loss of contact with Megrahi, who had been serving a minimum 27-year prison sentence for the bombing of Pan Am 103, to chaotic conditions in Libya caused by rebels' climactic push to oust Gaddafi. (...)
If Megrahi does not reappear in the relatively near future, it could cause fresh strains in relations between Scotland, Britain, and the United States. US politicians and the Obama administration harshly criticized Scotland's decision to release Megrahi.
[A related Agence France Presse news agency report can be read here.
The truth of this report has now been denied by the Algerian Foreign Ministry.]
A convoy of six armored vehicles has crossed the Libyan border to Algeria on Saturday night, the Egyptian news agency reported. While it is unclear who was riding in the cars, a rebel forces source estimated that the convoy transported senior Libyan officials – including the embattled leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
The report quoted a Libyan military council source as saying that troops loyal to Gaddafi's regime accompanied the convoy to the border. There was no official confirmation of the claim.
Algeria continues to maintain neutrality in the conflict, as it did throughout Libya's civil war. (...)
Meanwhile, authorities in the West continued to search for Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was convicted in the December 1988 bombing of a US-bound airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.
They attributed the loss of contact with Megrahi, who had been serving a minimum 27-year prison sentence for the bombing of Pan Am 103, to chaotic conditions in Libya caused by rebels' climactic push to oust Gaddafi. (...)
If Megrahi does not reappear in the relatively near future, it could cause fresh strains in relations between Scotland, Britain, and the United States. US politicians and the Obama administration harshly criticized Scotland's decision to release Megrahi.
[A related Agence France Presse news agency report can be read here.
The truth of this report has now been denied by the Algerian Foreign Ministry.]
Leader Iain Gray and Labour Party in Scotland at odds over Megrahi
[What follow are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Herald:]
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray has previously criticised the decision to release Megrahi.
Last night he said the terms of his release were now in “chaos” following reports of his departure.
“Scots who were aghast at the original decision [to release him] will now be totally perplexed at the Scottish Government’s insistence the licence has not been breached. Is Alex Salmond in denial?” he added.
He also accused the Scottish Government of attempts to shift responsibility on to the council, and “wash their hands of the matter”.
Megrahi was released in 2009 suffering from terminal prostate cancer. If he has broken the conditions of his release he could, technically, be recalled.
A spokesman for the Scottish Labour Party said it was not for opposition parties to decide.
“It does seem if he is on the run as has been reported then he has broken the terms of his licence,” he said. “However, that is not for us to decide – that judgment is for the Scottish Government. It is not for the Scottish Labour Party to monitor his release licence. We do not have the information the Scottish Government and East Renfrewshire Council have.”
He added: “We are not going to say that the conditions of his release have been broken, that would be irresponsible. But people will be asking whether they have been broken.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said it contacted the Libyan National Transitional Council in London and would discuss any change in Megrahi’s circumstances with it.
“However, all of the information we have about Megrahi is consistent with him dying of terminal prostate cancer, and he has not been in breach of his licence conditions,” he added.
He also said that contact with Megrahi by the criminal justice social work service of East Renfrewshire Council was not due for some time.
Last night, the council confirmed it was still attempting to speak to Megrahi. A spokesman also confirmed the council had received the latest monthly medical report on Megrahi and another was not due until next month.
[Two letters on the subject of Megrahi appear in the same newspaper. They read as follows:]
Well done to Iain Macwhirter for bringing some sanity back to the Megrahi debate (“If Megrahi is to be tried again, then let it be in the new Libya”, The Herald, August 25).
Many of those clamouring for Megrahi’s blood appear to have forgotten about the Scottish Criminal Courts Review Commission (SCCRC) decision to refer his case for appeal because they were of the view “that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”.
What is astonishing is that there has been no outcry by our media and politicians over the enormous sum of money apparently paid to Tony Gauci for giving evidence. As Mr Macwhirter implies, this alone should render Megrahi’s conviction unsafe. Why are David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Foulkes, among others, not demanding an explanation for this payment from the US?
Dr Hans Koechler, a university professor, was nominated by the United Nations to be an international observer at the Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands. In his evaluation of the proceedings, he stated: “As to my knowledge, there is not one single piece of material evidence linking the two accused (in the original indictment Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah were jointly accused of the bombing) to the crime. In such a context, the guilty verdict in regard to Megrahi appears arbitrary, even irrational.”
Dr Koechler also found it incomprehensible that when the indictment was based on the joint action of the two accused in Malta, Megrahi was found guilty and Fhimah not guilty.
It will be interesting to discover the content of the SCCRC report when it is published next month. [RB: The Scottish Government's legislative programme is to be published next month and is expected to feature primary legislation to enable the SCCRC Statement of Reasons to be published. It is most unlikely that the legislation will be enacted next month.]
Robert Woodcock.
If Megrahi’s release is good enough for Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter on Pan Am flight 103, and has conducted himself with dignity, balance and reason ever since, then it’s good enough for me – and forget the political posturing.
R Russell Smith.
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray has previously criticised the decision to release Megrahi.
Last night he said the terms of his release were now in “chaos” following reports of his departure.
“Scots who were aghast at the original decision [to release him] will now be totally perplexed at the Scottish Government’s insistence the licence has not been breached. Is Alex Salmond in denial?” he added.
He also accused the Scottish Government of attempts to shift responsibility on to the council, and “wash their hands of the matter”.
Megrahi was released in 2009 suffering from terminal prostate cancer. If he has broken the conditions of his release he could, technically, be recalled.
A spokesman for the Scottish Labour Party said it was not for opposition parties to decide.
“It does seem if he is on the run as has been reported then he has broken the terms of his licence,” he said. “However, that is not for us to decide – that judgment is for the Scottish Government. It is not for the Scottish Labour Party to monitor his release licence. We do not have the information the Scottish Government and East Renfrewshire Council have.”
He added: “We are not going to say that the conditions of his release have been broken, that would be irresponsible. But people will be asking whether they have been broken.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said it contacted the Libyan National Transitional Council in London and would discuss any change in Megrahi’s circumstances with it.
“However, all of the information we have about Megrahi is consistent with him dying of terminal prostate cancer, and he has not been in breach of his licence conditions,” he added.
He also said that contact with Megrahi by the criminal justice social work service of East Renfrewshire Council was not due for some time.
Last night, the council confirmed it was still attempting to speak to Megrahi. A spokesman also confirmed the council had received the latest monthly medical report on Megrahi and another was not due until next month.
[Two letters on the subject of Megrahi appear in the same newspaper. They read as follows:]
Well done to Iain Macwhirter for bringing some sanity back to the Megrahi debate (“If Megrahi is to be tried again, then let it be in the new Libya”, The Herald, August 25).
Many of those clamouring for Megrahi’s blood appear to have forgotten about the Scottish Criminal Courts Review Commission (SCCRC) decision to refer his case for appeal because they were of the view “that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”.
What is astonishing is that there has been no outcry by our media and politicians over the enormous sum of money apparently paid to Tony Gauci for giving evidence. As Mr Macwhirter implies, this alone should render Megrahi’s conviction unsafe. Why are David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Foulkes, among others, not demanding an explanation for this payment from the US?
Dr Hans Koechler, a university professor, was nominated by the United Nations to be an international observer at the Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands. In his evaluation of the proceedings, he stated: “As to my knowledge, there is not one single piece of material evidence linking the two accused (in the original indictment Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah were jointly accused of the bombing) to the crime. In such a context, the guilty verdict in regard to Megrahi appears arbitrary, even irrational.”
Dr Koechler also found it incomprehensible that when the indictment was based on the joint action of the two accused in Malta, Megrahi was found guilty and Fhimah not guilty.
It will be interesting to discover the content of the SCCRC report when it is published next month. [RB: The Scottish Government's legislative programme is to be published next month and is expected to feature primary legislation to enable the SCCRC Statement of Reasons to be published. It is most unlikely that the legislation will be enacted next month.]
Robert Woodcock.
If Megrahi’s release is good enough for Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter on Pan Am flight 103, and has conducted himself with dignity, balance and reason ever since, then it’s good enough for me – and forget the political posturing.
R Russell Smith.
Friday, 26 August 2011
Lamin Khalifa Fhimah on Gaddafi
[On the website of the Swedish newspaper Expressen today there appears an article based on an exclusive interview with Lamin Fhimah, the accused who was acquitted at the Zeist trial. It reads as follows:]
Expressen has met with Lockerbie bombing suspect Lamin Khalifa Fhimah who was tried on suspicion of involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Daring to speek openly about the Libyan dictator for the first time, Fhimah says Gadhafi "should be tried in court" in regards to whether he ordered the bombing and that he had his life taken away from him by the regime. "I don't know whether Gadhafi had anything to do with Lockerbie or not. There is a court and he is the one to explain whether he is innocent or not. He has to." Fhimah says.
Expressen met with Lamin Khalifa Fhimah in his home in Tripoli on Thursday. With the Libyan regime toppling, he feels that he is able to speak his mind on Muammar Khadaffi for the first time.
Fhimah was suspected of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, tried and found not guilty.
His arrival in Libya following the trial became a spectacle of large proportions and one of the four times Fhimah met with Gadhafi.
Despite being given a hero's welcome and what seemed like special treatment by Gadhafi, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah is now siding with the Libyan rebels.
Gadhafi made a show out of my arrival. We didn't say anything to each other. He welcomed me and nothing more. After that I stopped hearing from them.
He considers himself one of the victims of the Gadhafi regime.
I lost my travel agency in Malta. I had a farm that I was forced to sell in order to provide for myself and my family. I haven't received any compensation from the regime. The only thing they did after welcoming me was confiscating my passport. I dont't know why. They claimed that when the sentence against Al Megrahi would be repealed by them, I had to be here to testify.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi was found guilty of the Pan Am bombing but was set free in 2009 due to severe illness.
When he arrived in Libya, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah was one of the first to welcome him and news footage of the two, arm-in-arm at the airport, raised suspicion against the aquitted Fhimah.
"Al Megrahi was a friend and a colleague of mine. I don't know if he has anything to do with Lockerbie. There was a legal process and he was sentenced by a court," he says.
Lamin Khalifa Fhimah describes the fall of Gadhafi as a "blessed moment".
I was never a part of the regime. I am an ordinary citizen, who was connected to a crime I had nothing to do with and I don't know who made that connection.
In an interview with Expressen in February of this year Gadhafi's former Minister for Justice Mustafa Abdul Jalil now one of the integral forces of the ongoing revolution claimed that the Lockerbie bombing was in fact executed on Gadhafi's orders. [RB: But Mr Jalil has never supplied the evidence that he then promised.]
Expressen has met with Lockerbie bombing suspect Lamin Khalifa Fhimah who was tried on suspicion of involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Daring to speek openly about the Libyan dictator for the first time, Fhimah says Gadhafi "should be tried in court" in regards to whether he ordered the bombing and that he had his life taken away from him by the regime. "I don't know whether Gadhafi had anything to do with Lockerbie or not. There is a court and he is the one to explain whether he is innocent or not. He has to." Fhimah says.
Expressen met with Lamin Khalifa Fhimah in his home in Tripoli on Thursday. With the Libyan regime toppling, he feels that he is able to speak his mind on Muammar Khadaffi for the first time.
Fhimah was suspected of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, tried and found not guilty.
His arrival in Libya following the trial became a spectacle of large proportions and one of the four times Fhimah met with Gadhafi.
Despite being given a hero's welcome and what seemed like special treatment by Gadhafi, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah is now siding with the Libyan rebels.
Gadhafi made a show out of my arrival. We didn't say anything to each other. He welcomed me and nothing more. After that I stopped hearing from them.
He considers himself one of the victims of the Gadhafi regime.
I lost my travel agency in Malta. I had a farm that I was forced to sell in order to provide for myself and my family. I haven't received any compensation from the regime. The only thing they did after welcoming me was confiscating my passport. I dont't know why. They claimed that when the sentence against Al Megrahi would be repealed by them, I had to be here to testify.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi was found guilty of the Pan Am bombing but was set free in 2009 due to severe illness.
When he arrived in Libya, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah was one of the first to welcome him and news footage of the two, arm-in-arm at the airport, raised suspicion against the aquitted Fhimah.
"Al Megrahi was a friend and a colleague of mine. I don't know if he has anything to do with Lockerbie. There was a legal process and he was sentenced by a court," he says.
Lamin Khalifa Fhimah describes the fall of Gadhafi as a "blessed moment".
I was never a part of the regime. I am an ordinary citizen, who was connected to a crime I had nothing to do with and I don't know who made that connection.
In an interview with Expressen in February of this year Gadhafi's former Minister for Justice Mustafa Abdul Jalil now one of the integral forces of the ongoing revolution claimed that the Lockerbie bombing was in fact executed on Gadhafi's orders. [RB: But Mr Jalil has never supplied the evidence that he then promised.]
The Lockerbie convict's new war
[This is the headline over an article by William Underhill published yesterday night on the website of The Daily Beast. It reads in part:]
Now the collapse of the Gaddafi regime has brought calls for Megrahi’s extradition to the United States or his return to prison in Libya.
For a vocal lobby in Washington, his freedom—and continuing survival—represent an affront that can at last be addressed. In the words of Sen Kirsten Gillibrand: “Seeing him participate in good health at a pro-Gaddafi rally recently was another slap in the face not just for the families of the Lockerbie victims but for all Americans and for all nations of the world who are committed to bringing terrorists to justice.”
A tad overstated? Such rhetoric certainly won’t find universal support in Britain. Megrahi is far from friendless back in Scotland, where Pan Am flight 103 crashed in 1988 killing 270 passengers and residents of the small town of Lockerbie. Campaigners convinced of his innocence are pressing the Scottish parliament for an inquiry leading to a possible appeal that would clear Megrahi’s name.
And the roll-call of big-name supporters for the Justice for Megrahi group can’t be easily ignored. On the list: Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu; the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien; Jim Swire, the parent of a Lockerbie victim, and Professor Robert Black, the lawyer who devised the special court which tried Megrahi in the Netherlands in 2001.
One more backer, the leading lawyer Ian Hamilton, has blogged: “I don't think there's a lawyer in Scotland who now believes Mr. Megrahi was justly convicted."
The group insists there’s no case for extradition on legal grounds. Says Robert Forrester, secretary of the campaign: “Mr. Megrahi is a Scots prisoner released under license and still falls under Scots jurisdiction therefore and neither Washington nor Westminster has any jurisdiction under Scots law.” But he concedes that politics may determine his fate. “The man should be left alone to continue with his medical treatment but he has become such a pawn that I can’t believe that is going to happen.”
Now the collapse of the Gaddafi regime has brought calls for Megrahi’s extradition to the United States or his return to prison in Libya.
For a vocal lobby in Washington, his freedom—and continuing survival—represent an affront that can at last be addressed. In the words of Sen Kirsten Gillibrand: “Seeing him participate in good health at a pro-Gaddafi rally recently was another slap in the face not just for the families of the Lockerbie victims but for all Americans and for all nations of the world who are committed to bringing terrorists to justice.”
A tad overstated? Such rhetoric certainly won’t find universal support in Britain. Megrahi is far from friendless back in Scotland, where Pan Am flight 103 crashed in 1988 killing 270 passengers and residents of the small town of Lockerbie. Campaigners convinced of his innocence are pressing the Scottish parliament for an inquiry leading to a possible appeal that would clear Megrahi’s name.
And the roll-call of big-name supporters for the Justice for Megrahi group can’t be easily ignored. On the list: Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu; the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien; Jim Swire, the parent of a Lockerbie victim, and Professor Robert Black, the lawyer who devised the special court which tried Megrahi in the Netherlands in 2001.
One more backer, the leading lawyer Ian Hamilton, has blogged: “I don't think there's a lawyer in Scotland who now believes Mr. Megrahi was justly convicted."
The group insists there’s no case for extradition on legal grounds. Says Robert Forrester, secretary of the campaign: “Mr. Megrahi is a Scots prisoner released under license and still falls under Scots jurisdiction therefore and neither Washington nor Westminster has any jurisdiction under Scots law.” But he concedes that politics may determine his fate. “The man should be left alone to continue with his medical treatment but he has become such a pawn that I can’t believe that is going to happen.”
“Spectacular” logic as MacAskill justifies discredited primary legislation argument over Megrahi miscarriage report
[This is the headline over a news item just published on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads as follows:]
The Secretary of the Justice for Megrahi Committee has dismissed the “spectacular” logic of the Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, who has written to the committee repeating that an Act of Parliament is required to facilitate the publication of the report which concluded Abdelbaset Al Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
MacAskill had been asked to explain why such an Act was necessary when a simpler piece of secondary legislation introduced the mechanism which is currently blocking the report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Professor Robert Black QC has previously said that an Act of Parliament is not required.
“As you will be aware, the Scottish Government made the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (Permitted Disclosure of Information) Order 2009, which provided that the SCCRC may publish information relating to a case it has referred to the Appeal Court which is subsequently abandoned, providing that persons who have provided information to the Commission have consented to its disclosure,” MacAskill said.
“In December 2010, the SCCRC announced that it had been unsuccessful in obtaining consent from all the relevant parties to the publication of the Statement of Reasons in the Megrahi case. In light of this, primary legislation is needed to provide the flexibility required to ensure that an appropriate legislative framework is put in place.
“The proposed legislation will facilitate the release of a statement of reasons by the Commission in circumstances where an appeal has been abandoned.”
The letter does not address the question put to it by the group, which asked why primary legislation was necessary, rather than secondary legislation.
“Whilst the text may be new, the logic, if that is not being too generous with the term, is spectacular,” JFM Secretary Robert Forrester said.
“This simply states what we already know then provides an answer which leaves us stranded somewhere."
The Secretary of the Justice for Megrahi Committee has dismissed the “spectacular” logic of the Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, who has written to the committee repeating that an Act of Parliament is required to facilitate the publication of the report which concluded Abdelbaset Al Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
MacAskill had been asked to explain why such an Act was necessary when a simpler piece of secondary legislation introduced the mechanism which is currently blocking the report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Professor Robert Black QC has previously said that an Act of Parliament is not required.
“As you will be aware, the Scottish Government made the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (Permitted Disclosure of Information) Order 2009, which provided that the SCCRC may publish information relating to a case it has referred to the Appeal Court which is subsequently abandoned, providing that persons who have provided information to the Commission have consented to its disclosure,” MacAskill said.
“In December 2010, the SCCRC announced that it had been unsuccessful in obtaining consent from all the relevant parties to the publication of the Statement of Reasons in the Megrahi case. In light of this, primary legislation is needed to provide the flexibility required to ensure that an appropriate legislative framework is put in place.
“The proposed legislation will facilitate the release of a statement of reasons by the Commission in circumstances where an appeal has been abandoned.”
The letter does not address the question put to it by the group, which asked why primary legislation was necessary, rather than secondary legislation.
“Whilst the text may be new, the logic, if that is not being too generous with the term, is spectacular,” JFM Secretary Robert Forrester said.
“This simply states what we already know then provides an answer which leaves us stranded somewhere."
Scottish officials still in dark as to whereabouts of Lockerbie bomber
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]
The Scottish justice secretary said officials are trying to contact Libyan rebel leaders as part of efforts to track down the Lockerbie bomber.
Kenny MacAskill said attempts are being made to reach the National Transitional Council (NTC) while fighting continues in Tripoli. Mr MacAskill released Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds two years ago after medical advice that the prisoner was three months from death. [RB: Three months from death was said to be a reasonable prognosis if he remained in prison in Scotland.]
As part of the terms, Megrahi is supposed to check in with officials at East Renfrewshire Council, but he has not been reached since fighting broke out in Tripoli. There have been growing calls in the US for Megrahi to be extradited there in the wake of the collapse of the Gaddafi regime.
But yesterday Mr MacAskill said: "Mr Megrahi is a Scottish prisoner. He's been released on licence in terms of the law that applies in Scotland.
"He remains a Scottish prisoner having been convicted by a Scottish court, albeit one that sat in the Netherlands, but it did so after the intervention of the United Nations, of Nelson Mandela and others, and he was tried by international agreement under the laws of Scotland."
He added: "There are obligations that go with him being a Scottish prisoner released on licence. But whilst we're in a war zone, which is accepted by everybody, I think we need to wait and see what happens there."
Asked if the Scottish Government is seeking contact with the NTC about Megrahi, Mr MacAskill said: "We're entering into communications. These matters are difficult, but we're seeking to make sure that we lock on to the authorities. But at present there is some doubt as to just which parts of Tripoli are controlled by whom. So, we seek to enter into discussions with the appropriate authorities."
He offered his support to council officials trying to contact Megrahi but said the "dust of battle" will have to settle before the picture is clear.
[The following, from an item posted yesterday on this blog, perhaps gives a more accurate picture than that painted above:]
A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said: “The next appointed date for scheduled contact with Al-Megrahi by the criminal justice social work service of East Renfrewshire Council is not for some time.
“He has not been in breach of his licence conditions to date, and if these circumstances were to change then that would be a matter for discussion with the new duly constituted authorities in Libya.
“As the Justice Secretary has said, we have already established a line of communication with the National Transitional Council in London.” A spokesman for Mr MacAskill added that Megrahi had never been under house arrest as part of his release conditions and was allowed to come and go from his property in Tripoli.
[A report in today's edition of The Herald contains the following:]
It is East Renfrewshire that will determine whether the convicted terrorist has breached the terms of his release licence. These include keeping in regular contact and producing monthly medical reports.
However, it is thought the Scottish Government would ensure the Libyan was recalled to prison, if it was deemed he had breached his licence. (...)
In the US, there are growing calls for Megrahi to be reincarcerated, with some senators and relatives of the bombing victims demanding his extradition to the US to stand trial there.
The Herald has been told that, on the ground in Libya, a race is now on between US and UK special forces to find and seize the convicted terrorist.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Gordon Brown has been rebuffed in his attempt to get a UK Government report on Megrahi changed.
In February, Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, concluded the Labour Government did “all it could” to facilitate the Libyan’s release. In six strongly-worded letters Mr Brown insisted he “did not propose, initiate, lead, adopt, or even know of a policy called facilitation” in relation to Megrahi. But Sir Gus said Government papers showed “facilitation” was the policy agreed by UK ministers. He has refused to change his report.
[The following are extracts from a report to be found behind the paywall in today's edition of The Times:]
The Times twice went to al-Megrahi’s high-walled mansion in a war-torn area of Tripoli yesterday and was told first by his brother and then by his son that he had gone. They suggested that he was either at Tripoli central hospital or at his mother’s home near the Bab al-Aziziya compound, Colonel Gaddafi’s former stronghold. The Times visited both but he was not at either. His mother’s modest house was locked up and neighbours said that the family had left many days ago. (...)
Al-Megrahi’s son, Khalid, 25, said that he was afraid the rebel National Transitional Council would hand his father back to the Scottish authorities. When asked about those calling for his reimprisonment, he replied: “Shame on them. He’s a human being. He’s very sick. What’s the point of him going back? He will die, and they’re the ones who sent him back to Tripoli in the first place.”
Al-Megrahi’s brother, Abdul Nasser, 53, ridiculed the idea of his returning to a Scottish prison, saying that he would never survive the journey. He would not let The Times into the house.
Both insisted that al-Megrahi, 58, was a very sick man who now spent most of his time in bed. He could no longer go to the toilet alone, was fed by intravenous drip, found it hard to talk and used an oxygen mask. “Last month the doctor came and said his medicines didn’t work any more,” they said. (...)
Khalid al-Megrahi said that his father left for the hospital last Friday, accompanied by his nurse. “We don’t know if he’s still there or even alive. We can’t get through to him,” he said, adding that he might have gone on to his mother’s house.
A doctor who lives nearby told The Times: “Maybe the son’s a liar. Maybe they’ve just moved him to a safer place.”
[The paragraph that follows is taken from an editorial published yesterday on the website of The Washington Times. Comment seems superfluous:]
Regime change doesn’t end US focus on this North African nation. The United States has an interest in the fate of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, who was released from a British prison in 2009 on supposed humanitarian grounds after a faked cancer diagnosis claimed he had just weeks to live. Al-Megrahi was last seen on July 26 at a pro-Gadhafi rally. The murderer should not die in freedom.
The Scottish justice secretary said officials are trying to contact Libyan rebel leaders as part of efforts to track down the Lockerbie bomber.
Kenny MacAskill said attempts are being made to reach the National Transitional Council (NTC) while fighting continues in Tripoli. Mr MacAskill released Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds two years ago after medical advice that the prisoner was three months from death. [RB: Three months from death was said to be a reasonable prognosis if he remained in prison in Scotland.]
As part of the terms, Megrahi is supposed to check in with officials at East Renfrewshire Council, but he has not been reached since fighting broke out in Tripoli. There have been growing calls in the US for Megrahi to be extradited there in the wake of the collapse of the Gaddafi regime.
But yesterday Mr MacAskill said: "Mr Megrahi is a Scottish prisoner. He's been released on licence in terms of the law that applies in Scotland.
"He remains a Scottish prisoner having been convicted by a Scottish court, albeit one that sat in the Netherlands, but it did so after the intervention of the United Nations, of Nelson Mandela and others, and he was tried by international agreement under the laws of Scotland."
He added: "There are obligations that go with him being a Scottish prisoner released on licence. But whilst we're in a war zone, which is accepted by everybody, I think we need to wait and see what happens there."
Asked if the Scottish Government is seeking contact with the NTC about Megrahi, Mr MacAskill said: "We're entering into communications. These matters are difficult, but we're seeking to make sure that we lock on to the authorities. But at present there is some doubt as to just which parts of Tripoli are controlled by whom. So, we seek to enter into discussions with the appropriate authorities."
He offered his support to council officials trying to contact Megrahi but said the "dust of battle" will have to settle before the picture is clear.
[The following, from an item posted yesterday on this blog, perhaps gives a more accurate picture than that painted above:]
A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said: “The next appointed date for scheduled contact with Al-Megrahi by the criminal justice social work service of East Renfrewshire Council is not for some time.
“He has not been in breach of his licence conditions to date, and if these circumstances were to change then that would be a matter for discussion with the new duly constituted authorities in Libya.
“As the Justice Secretary has said, we have already established a line of communication with the National Transitional Council in London.” A spokesman for Mr MacAskill added that Megrahi had never been under house arrest as part of his release conditions and was allowed to come and go from his property in Tripoli.
[A report in today's edition of The Herald contains the following:]
It is East Renfrewshire that will determine whether the convicted terrorist has breached the terms of his release licence. These include keeping in regular contact and producing monthly medical reports.
However, it is thought the Scottish Government would ensure the Libyan was recalled to prison, if it was deemed he had breached his licence. (...)
In the US, there are growing calls for Megrahi to be reincarcerated, with some senators and relatives of the bombing victims demanding his extradition to the US to stand trial there.
The Herald has been told that, on the ground in Libya, a race is now on between US and UK special forces to find and seize the convicted terrorist.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Gordon Brown has been rebuffed in his attempt to get a UK Government report on Megrahi changed.
In February, Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, concluded the Labour Government did “all it could” to facilitate the Libyan’s release. In six strongly-worded letters Mr Brown insisted he “did not propose, initiate, lead, adopt, or even know of a policy called facilitation” in relation to Megrahi. But Sir Gus said Government papers showed “facilitation” was the policy agreed by UK ministers. He has refused to change his report.
[The following are extracts from a report to be found behind the paywall in today's edition of The Times:]
The Times twice went to al-Megrahi’s high-walled mansion in a war-torn area of Tripoli yesterday and was told first by his brother and then by his son that he had gone. They suggested that he was either at Tripoli central hospital or at his mother’s home near the Bab al-Aziziya compound, Colonel Gaddafi’s former stronghold. The Times visited both but he was not at either. His mother’s modest house was locked up and neighbours said that the family had left many days ago. (...)
Al-Megrahi’s son, Khalid, 25, said that he was afraid the rebel National Transitional Council would hand his father back to the Scottish authorities. When asked about those calling for his reimprisonment, he replied: “Shame on them. He’s a human being. He’s very sick. What’s the point of him going back? He will die, and they’re the ones who sent him back to Tripoli in the first place.”
Al-Megrahi’s brother, Abdul Nasser, 53, ridiculed the idea of his returning to a Scottish prison, saying that he would never survive the journey. He would not let The Times into the house.
Both insisted that al-Megrahi, 58, was a very sick man who now spent most of his time in bed. He could no longer go to the toilet alone, was fed by intravenous drip, found it hard to talk and used an oxygen mask. “Last month the doctor came and said his medicines didn’t work any more,” they said. (...)
Khalid al-Megrahi said that his father left for the hospital last Friday, accompanied by his nurse. “We don’t know if he’s still there or even alive. We can’t get through to him,” he said, adding that he might have gone on to his mother’s house.
A doctor who lives nearby told The Times: “Maybe the son’s a liar. Maybe they’ve just moved him to a safer place.”
[The paragraph that follows is taken from an editorial published yesterday on the website of The Washington Times. Comment seems superfluous:]
Regime change doesn’t end US focus on this North African nation. The United States has an interest in the fate of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, who was released from a British prison in 2009 on supposed humanitarian grounds after a faked cancer diagnosis claimed he had just weeks to live. Al-Megrahi was last seen on July 26 at a pro-Gadhafi rally. The murderer should not die in freedom.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Megrahi 'flees Tripoli with Col Gaddafi' rumour
[The following are excerpts from a report published this evening on The Telegraph website:]
Standing outside the smart modern two-storey villa belonging to Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in the upmarket Hay Damascus suburb of Tripoli, [neighbours] said he had not been seen since the rebels’ sudden advance on the capital. (...)
“This man knows too many things,” Hussein Barba, a Canadian-educated doctor who lives behind Mr Megrahi’s house said. “Gaddafi has taken him with him, wherever he is.”
Some neighbours said they believed that Mr Megrahi’s wife was still living in the house. Though resolutely anti-Gaddafi, they also demonstrated Mr Megrahi’s ambiguous position in a society where many believe he is innocent of the accusation of placing the suitcase bomb on Pan-Am 103, killing 270 people, in December 1988.
They said they had promised to protect his house while he was away and prevent anyone trying to get in, whether or not his wife was still there.
One said his son was still living in the area – along with his father’s BMW – and staying with friends, though he refused to say where. “He goes from place to place to check on things,” he said. “He was an ordinary person, not involved with the government. He had no reason to leave.”
The Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, said officials were trying to contact rebel leaders in Libya to ensure Mr Megrahi would continue with the monitoring that was a requirement under the terms of his early release from prison on compassionate grounds. (...)
“Tripoli and Libya is a war zone and until the dust of battle settles I think we have to allow them to continue to make the efforts that they’re doing,” he said.
“Hospitals are overrun, the British embassy is having difficulties operating, so I think East Renfrewshire have done a good job to date and I fully support them in the efforts they’re making.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said: “The next appointed date for scheduled contact with Al-Megrahi by the criminal justice social work service of East Renfrewshire Council is not for some time.
“He has not been in breach of his licence conditions to date, and if these circumstances were to change then that would be a matter for discussion with the new duly constituted authorities in Libya.
“As the Justice Secretary has said, we have already established a line of communication with the National Transitional Council in London.” A spokesman for Mr MacAskill added that Megrahi had never been under house arrest as part of his release conditions and was allowed to come and go from his property in Tripoli.
Standing outside the smart modern two-storey villa belonging to Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in the upmarket Hay Damascus suburb of Tripoli, [neighbours] said he had not been seen since the rebels’ sudden advance on the capital. (...)
“This man knows too many things,” Hussein Barba, a Canadian-educated doctor who lives behind Mr Megrahi’s house said. “Gaddafi has taken him with him, wherever he is.”
Some neighbours said they believed that Mr Megrahi’s wife was still living in the house. Though resolutely anti-Gaddafi, they also demonstrated Mr Megrahi’s ambiguous position in a society where many believe he is innocent of the accusation of placing the suitcase bomb on Pan-Am 103, killing 270 people, in December 1988.
They said they had promised to protect his house while he was away and prevent anyone trying to get in, whether or not his wife was still there.
One said his son was still living in the area – along with his father’s BMW – and staying with friends, though he refused to say where. “He goes from place to place to check on things,” he said. “He was an ordinary person, not involved with the government. He had no reason to leave.”
The Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, said officials were trying to contact rebel leaders in Libya to ensure Mr Megrahi would continue with the monitoring that was a requirement under the terms of his early release from prison on compassionate grounds. (...)
“Tripoli and Libya is a war zone and until the dust of battle settles I think we have to allow them to continue to make the efforts that they’re doing,” he said.
“Hospitals are overrun, the British embassy is having difficulties operating, so I think East Renfrewshire have done a good job to date and I fully support them in the efforts they’re making.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said: “The next appointed date for scheduled contact with Al-Megrahi by the criminal justice social work service of East Renfrewshire Council is not for some time.
“He has not been in breach of his licence conditions to date, and if these circumstances were to change then that would be a matter for discussion with the new duly constituted authorities in Libya.
“As the Justice Secretary has said, we have already established a line of communication with the National Transitional Council in London.” A spokesman for Mr MacAskill added that Megrahi had never been under house arrest as part of his release conditions and was allowed to come and go from his property in Tripoli.
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