Evidence Syrians bombed Pan Am flight 103

[This is the headline over a report by Lucy Adams on page 2 of today's edition of The Herald. The article, which does not appear on the newspaper's website, reads in part:]

Study casts Libyan as fall-guy

Fresh evidence on the Lockerbie bombing has been lodged with MSPs as part of the most comprehensive dossier on the atrocity to go before the Scottish Parliament.

The report to the Justice Committee, which will include evidence thrown up by the recent conflict in Libya, will make the case for a full judicial inquiry into the case. 

One of its key findings is that even at the time of the indictment of two Libyans, intelligence was suggesting the bomb had been provided by a Syrian terror group.

The report includes a document from Dr Jim Swire (...) which provides a summary of a new academic report citing major inconsistencies in the public and private views of the intelligence community.

The paper also raises concerns about major anomalies in the forensic evidence. (...)

Dr Swire says the report from the internationally renowned Centre for Conflict Resolution at Bradford University makes it clear the investigation into the case was "deeply dependent upon the intelligence agencies of Britain and America".

He says: "The paper shows that even by the time of the indictments against the two Libyans by Scotland and America at the end of 1991, American intelligence still believed the Lockerbie bomb had been provided by a Syrian terror group.

"American intelligence also knew the Syrian bombs could be kept at ground level indefinitely without exploding, but that once on an aircraft they sensed the drop in air pressure following take-off and would then inevitably explode within 35 - 45 minutes after leaving the ground, this timing not being adjustable.  The Lockerbie plane had flown for 38 minutes before being destroyed.

"The paper records that throughout most of the intervening months America had therefore been pressing for the expulsion of the leader  (Ahmed Jibril) of a Syrian terrorist group (the PFLP-GC) in the belief they had supplied the bomb that destroyed the Lockerbie aircraft.  Bombs of this type were unique to the Syrian PFLP-GC group."

Robert Black (...) told The Herald: "The fact they were trying to extradite Megrahi when they still believed another man was responsible, shows that privately they were saying Jibril was responsible yet publicly they wanted to blame someone else.

"The Libyan scenario was never intended to stand up in court.  It was simply intended to be good enough to convince the media in the US and UK someone had been caught.  But lo and behold they were lucky enough to get a bench of judges that swallowed it hook line and sinker."

The submission also includes a supplement from John Ashton who is Megrahi's official biographer.

He states: "I have had access to all the disclosed Crown evidence; the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's statement of reasons, on the basis of which it granted him a second appeal against conviction; and all the evidence that would have been aired at Mr Megrahi's second appeal.  Uniquely, I have interviewed Mr Megrahi numerous times, both in prison and in Tripoli.  On the basis of everything that I have learned, I am convinced, not only that Mr Megrahi was wrongly convicted, but, more importantly, that the case is a huge scandal for the Scottish criminal justice system." (...)

[The report has at last -- Saturday evening -- been posted on the Herald Scotland website.  It can be read here.]

Papers for Scottish Parliament Justice Committee session

The papers that will be before the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee at its meeting on Tuesday, 8 November 2011 at 10.30 in Committee Room 2 can be found here. The papers relating to the Justice for Megrahi petition (PE 1370) can be found at pages 31 to 85 of the PDF document.  The submission prepared by the Justice for Megrahi Committee for this meeting is at pages 63 to 85.

A related news item on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.

Father of Lockerbie victim fears US plans to ‘abduct’ Megrahi

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Scotsman.  It reads in part:]

The father of one of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing has accused the US government of trying to “abduct” the only man convicted of the crime after it emerged it will seek to extradite him from Libya.

Jim Swire, whose 24-year-old daughter Flora was on Pan Am Flight 103 when it was blown up in December 1988, spoke out after the US state department indicated it intended to take advantage of the new Libyan government’s decision to allow Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to be deported.

Megrahi is the only man convicted of the atrocity, but many British relatives have questioned the guilty verdict while American relatives believe he was responsible. (...)

Dr Swire described the US’s attempts to bring Megrahi to America and put him in prison as “vindictive” and questioned the validity of the move under international law.

He said: “What they want to do is take him [Megrahi] off to prison in America.

“But the US agreed that Megrahi should be tried under Scottish law and subject to its decisions. This would be the opposite of that.

“Effectively this would be an abduction of Megrahi because it would have no legal status. He is out on licence from a Scottish prison and if he is taken to America he would actually be in breach of that licence. So this is a complete legal mess.”

He added: “I am appalled by the idea. Megrahi should be left in peace to enjoy his last few weeks of life.”

The move by America to extradite Megrahi came after a senior minister in the new Libyan government said the bomber no longer enjoyed the VIP status he was granted by ousted president Muammar al-Gaddafi.

This means Libyans are willing to allow foreign governments to request his extradition, which would allow the bomber to face another trial – in America.

The US state department has said it intends to take advantage of this development.

A spokesman for the state department said it was ready to make a “formal approach” to Libya’s interim government, the National Transitional Council (NTC).

The new regime in Libya has made it clear it has no intention of protecting those who were close to Gaddafi.

NTC information minister Mahmoud Shamam said: “Basically, we don’t care what happens to him. He can live his life however he wants, provided there is no legal reason why he shouldn’t.

“For example, if the Scottish [or the US] want to get him back, they can apply through the courts and we would respect any such application.”

Last month, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said the US believes Megrahi should be returned to prison.

Meanwhile, the US Senate is also preparing to put pressure on Libya’s new government to launch a formal inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing. New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez said: “We know that Megrahi didn’t act alone, and I will continue to press the new government until all the facts are revealed and we can bring some sense of final closure to the hundreds of families who are still waiting.”

Has United States asked Libyan NTC to extradite Megrahi?

A reputable Scottish journalist tells me that there is a report in today's edition of the Daily Mail to the effect that the United States has formally requested the Libyan National Transitional Council to extradite Abdelbaset Megrahi to the United States and that a NTC spokesman has responded that the present Libyan government has no interest in Megrahi and any state that wants him can have him. I cannot find this story on the Mail Online website, but many reports of primarily Scottish interest are never posted there.

If Libya had a normally-functioning government and judicial system any such extradtion request would be summarily rejected.  Abdelbaset Megrahi has already stood trial for the crimes in respect of which a US Federal indictment was obtained in 1991.  The international warrant for that trial was a United Nations Security Council Resolution (1192 of 27 August 1998) passed at the instigation of the United States and the United Kingdom following a joint letter of 24 August 1998 (S/1998/795) to the Secretary General. That Security Council resolution required all UN member states (including the US) to cooperate. In the trial that followed at Camp Zeist, United States government lawyers (Messrs Murtagh and Biehl) formed part of the Lord Advocate's prosecution team. For the United States to seek Megrahi's extradition to be tried in the United States for the same crimes would be a perversion of international legality.  Moreover, no US Federal Court with any respect for the rule of law and sensitive to governmental abuse of process would accept jurisdiction to retry him in these circumstances. However, if the US Department of State wants something badly enough, questions of legality are likely to count for little.

As far as the United Kingdom is concerned, the government in London should be gravely concerned about this attempt by the United States to subvert the international juridical regime that was set up to resolve the Lockerbie affair; and the Scottish Government should be gravely concerned about a deliberate attempt by the United States to take action that would place Abdelbaset Megrahi, entirely against his will, in breach of the terms of the licence under which he was released from his Scottish prison.

[The report in question may have been in the Scottish edition of The Sun, not the Daily Mail.

A related news item in Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.  A short report appears in the Friday 4 November edition of The Herald.]

Questions remain about links with ex-spy chief

[This is the headline over a report (behind the paywall) in today's edition of The Times.  It reads as follows:]

The revelation that Moussa Koussa met top British and US officials at a Cotswolds hotel in 2003 will fuel suspicions that the Government shielded the former Libyan spy chief from prosecution after he defected to Britain in March.

For three decades Mr Koussa was a member of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle. He was expelled from Britain in 1980 for ordering the assassination of regime opponents. He was suspected of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other terrorist atrocities. He was Libya’s spy chief for 15 years, and witnesses recently told the BBC’s Panorama that he was present when 1,200 inmates were massacred at Abu Salim prison, Tripoli, in 1996.

Since 2001, however, he was a key player in Libya’s rapprochement with the West, negotiating his country’s abandonment of weapons of mass destruction and providing intelligence on al-Qaeda.

On visits to Britain he met officials at places such as The Travellers Club in Pall Mall and, as The Times reveals today, the Bay Tree Hotel in Burford, where he negotiated with Sir Mark Allen, then head of counter-terrorism at MI6 and now an adviser to BP, and Steve Kappes, a CIA agent who resigned as deputy director last year.

The cosiness of the relationship was laid embarrassingly bare in letters found in Mr Koussa’s office after the fall of Tripoli in August. In one, Sir Mark trumpeted Britain’s cooperation in forcibly repatriating a regime opponent, saying that was “the least we could do for you”.

When Mr Koussa fled Libya on March 30 he was flown in a private plane to Farnborough Airport and taken to a safe house.

David Cameron and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, both denied that he had been granted immunity from prosecution, and he was questioned by Lockerbie investigators. But within days the EU unfroze his assets at Britain’s request and he left for Qatar. He has lived in the Four Seasons Hotel, Qatar, ever since.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office insists there were no grounds for detaining him. But officials also accept that prosecuting Mr Koussa would have deterred other defections, and silenced a priceless source of inside information about Gaddafi’s regime.“I can’t say there was a deal, but it was very convenient for the Government that Moussa Koussa moved to Qatar,” Guma el-Gamaty, the former coordinator of Libya’s National Transitional Council in Britain, said. “If he’d stayed any longer the Lockerbie investigators were coming in to demand he should be investigated.”

Justice for Megrahi petition on agenda of Scottish Parliament Justice Committee

On 28 June 2011, the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee referred to the Parliament's Justice Committee the Justice for Megrahi petition (PE 1370) calling on the Scottish Government to institute an independent inquiry into Abdelbaset Megrahi's conviction.  The petition will be one of the items on the Justice Committee's agenda at its meeting on 8 November 2011 at 10am.  It is anticipated that the committee discussion will be limited to deciding what action to take on the petition (eg whether to call for evidence and, if so, from whom and in what form -- oral or written).

Ex-intel chief to Gaddafi wounded, raising more questions about handling of detainees

[This is the headline over a report published yesterday in the Checkpoint Washington section of The Washington Post website.  It reads in part:]

The former intelligence chief to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi was seriously injured Tuesday while in the custody of the National Transitional Council, fueling concerns about the treatment of loyalists to the deposed government.

The cause of Abuzed Omar Dorda’s injuries are disputed, but a relative of Dorda, a one-time UN envoy, has appealed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council president to intercede with Libyan authorities to protect the former official, saying he had been the target of an assassination attempt by his jailers. The UN’s special representative to Libya, Ian Martin, has instructed his staff to look into the claim. 

“Mr Dorda survived a murder attempt last night, 25 October, 2011, at the hands of his guards in the building where he was arrested,” Adel Khalifa Dorda, a nephew and son-in-law of the Gaddafi loyalist, wrote on behalf of the Dorda family. “He was thrown off the second floor leading to several broken bones and other serious injuries.” 

The nephew said authorities were forced to move Dorda to a hospital in Tripoli, where “as of now he is being held under extremely poor conditions.” 

The militiaman in charge of the hospital on Thursday confirmed Dorda was injured but refused to allow a reporter to interview him. The militiaman, Sadiq Turki, gave varying accounts of how Dorda was injured, first saying he had tried to commit suicide by jumping out of a second-story window, then saying the former official had been trying to escape his detention facility. 

“He’s the one who gave orders to kill and rape in Tripoli,” Turki told a reporter at the Mitiga military hospital. He declined to allow a reporter to talk to Dorda, saying, “This is confidential.” (...)

[Surgeon, Faraj] Al-Farjani and another doctor, Yahia Moussa, said Dorda’s wounds weren’t life-threatening but were serious for a 71-year-old man. The doctors said they hadn’t been able to question Dorda about how he was injured. (...)

Dorda had long been a high-ranking official in Gaddafi’s government, playing a role during his years at the United Nations in negotiating the deal that ended UN sanctions on Libya imposed after the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and paving the way to a financial payout to relatives of the victims. 

[Omar Dorda played a significant part in gaining and maintaining Libyan Government acceptance of and support for my neutral venue proposal for a Lockerbie trial and in resolving difficulties that arose (largely through the intransigence of the then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright) after the United States and the United Kingdom eventually accepted the need for such a solution. Without his quiet diplomacy at the United Nations in New York, I doubt if a Lockerbie trial would ever have taken place.]

Bill on secret document’s publication is ‘a waste of time’

[This is the headline over a report by Lucy Adams published this evening on the HeraldScotland website. It reads as follows:]

Legal experts have warned that the Bill currently going through Holyrood to allow for the release of a secret document about the Lockerbie case is a waste of time and taxpayers’ money.

The unpublished 800-page report from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) explains the six reasons why the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing should be referred back to court for a fresh appeal.

Ministers pushed for the new Bill and have said consistently they want to see the document put in the public domain, but the reality is that it requires an exemption under the Data Protection Act, which can only be granted by Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.

Despite starting the process to allow the SCCRC to publish in 2009, the Scottish Government has still not officially asked Mr Clarke for the exemption. The issue has been raised in informal talks only. 

Gerard Sinclair, the Commission’s chief executive, said: “As I previously indicated the Commission is willing, in principle, to publish this document, the content of which has been the subject of a great deal of public and media speculation and debate. 

“I believe, however, that legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament cannot, by itself, guarantee publication of this document, as both the Scottish Parliament and the Commission must act at all times in compliance with their respective obligations under the Human Rights Act. 

“In addition, the Commission would also still require to act lawfully and comply with the requirement of the Data Protection Act 1998 which is of course UK-wide legislation.”

Scottish officials claim the Bill currently going through the Justice Committee is important because it will remove the current obstacle of where a party objects to publication. 

Robert Black QC said: “They did not have to do it this way. It looks like they either had bad legal advice or they knew perfectly well what the end result would be. Why they would want to waste the Scottish Parliament’s time with this is an interesting question.”

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice said it had received no official request from ministers.

 A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “It is precisely because we believe that the SCCRC Statement of Reasons should be in the public domain that we are introducing a Bill later this year to enable publication, and the Bill is necessary in order to overcome objections by interested parties preventing any publication.”

Priest says Gaddafi’s death makes no difference to truth on Lockerbie

[This is the headline over an article published today on the website of the Scottish Catholic Observer.  It reads as follows:]

Canon Patrick Keegans says killing of former Libyan leader has no bearing on whether truth will emerge

The Ayrshire priest who survived the Lockerbie bombing, then helped the community recover, believes the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s death will ‘not affect’ whether the truth about the disaster emerges.

Canon Patrick Keegans, 65, and now the administrator of St Margaret’s cathedral in Ayr, knew the 11 people killed in his street debris from the Boeing 747 crashed into Sherwood Crescent on December 21 1988. His home was one of the few that remained standing.

In the weeks after the tragedy, he helped the town come to terms with what had happened, and later campaigned against the conviction of Libyan bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. Speaking after the former Libya dictator was killed in the Libyan town of Sirte last week, Fr Keegan’s said he doubted the dictators death would make a any real difference as though Gaddafi ‘may have been able to shed further light on PanAm 103’ his death ‘will not affect the full truth emerging’.’

“Already through the Scottish Cases Criminal Review Commission the world knows about the severe misgivings about the evidence presented at the trial of Magrahi and the belief that the verdict is unsound,” he said. “This is supported by the efforts and findings of investigative journalists and backed by respected intellectuals and judicial figures throughout the world. The US on the other hand never makes any reference to these findings and shuts its eyes and ears to the truth. So in the long run the death of Gadaffi makes no difference to the truth about PanAm 103.”

Canon Keegans still hopes that the truth about the disaster will one day emerge.

“We would like the truth, even though Gaddafi has died,” he said. “It is very convenient for some governments because they clearly had connections with him that were rather suspect. I am talking about the British Government and the US Government.”

The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Mr Megrahi, 59, has not been sighted in recent days with many claiming his life could be in danger because of his connections to Gaddafi. He was released from Greenock Prison on compassionate grounds more than two years ago because it was said he had less than three months to live with prostate cancer. On a news channel last month, he insisted that he had nothing to do with Lockerbie, adding: ‘The facts will become clear one day, hopefully in the near future.’

Gaddafi's son Saif offers to 'hand himself in' to International Criminal Court

[This is the headline over a report published today in the Daily Mail.  It reads in part:]

Colonel Gaddafi’s favourite son  – Saif al-Islam – has offered to  ‘surrender’ to the International Criminal Court in The Hague in return for a guarantee of his safety, Libyan officials said.

The 39-year-old British-educated playboy has been on the run since the Nato airstrike on the city of Sirte last Thursday that led to his father’s capture and execution.

The offer of surrender raises the prospect of a trial in The Hague which could include new details of the background to the Lockerbie bombing and murder of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher.

But it could prove embarrassing as Saif was close to leading figures in the last Labour government, not least Tony Blair.

A senior official in the National Transitional Council, Abdel Majid Mlegta, said Saif and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, the ousted tyrant’s brother-in-law, had been trying to broker a deal through a third country – believed to be Niger – to hand themselves in.

Senussi is said to have fled into Niger late last week and there were reports last night that Saif had also crossed into the country where hundreds of millions of pounds of Gaddafi’s smuggled money is held.

Saif and Senussi are wanted on ICC warrants for genocide and crimes against the Libyan people.

Commander Mlegta said the men believed ‘nowhere was safe’ for them. ‘They are proposing a way to hand themselves over to The Hague,’ he said. ‘They feel that it is not safe for them anywhere.’ (...)

Any court appearance by Saif would inevitably turn a spotlight on Britain’s attempts to foster a relationship with Gaddafi’s favoured son, who became the West’s ‘point man’ after Tony Blair signed the notorious ‘Deal in the Desert’ in March 2004.

Last year Saif described Mr Blair as a ‘personal family friend’ and said he had visited Libya ‘many, many times’ since leaving Downing Street. (...)

One Libyan official, quoted by Reuters, (...) said Saif’s escape was being masterminded by Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief Senussi, who is also wanted by the International Criminal Court.

A different take on Gaddafi's murder

[This is the headline over an article by Mike Carey published today in The Drum Opinion section of the Australian ABC News website. It reads in part:]

Mine is a conservative workplace and that's why I was surprised to hear Luke as he looked up at the TV monitor, "Don't people realise what's going on here, Europe and the US have just come in and taken over."

He was joined by a petite blond, "I think he should have been tried at the International Criminal Court" in The Hague. They both turned away as the worst excesses of Moamar Gaddafi's final humiliation and execution were shown around the country. If there had been a warning, I didn't see it!

We needed to be warned about the sadistic triumphalism that was to follow the gruesome death. "Wow!" said Hilary Clinton, hardly able to suppress a smile. British prime minister David Cameron said in many words what the Sun newspaper encapsulated in its headline, 'That's for Lockerbie'. Except the evidence for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie killing 270 people, right from the start, has pointed away from Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi and Libya to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command in the service of Iran. British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce devoted a chapter of her book, Dispatches From The Dark Side, to explaining why and how Megrahi was framed. A few brief examples: the Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, from whom the clothes which were wrapped around the bomb were bought, initially identified the purchaser but he was a Palestinian not al-Megrahi. German authorities arrested the Palestinian bomb makers but inexplicably released them. Evidence was tampered with or deliberately kept from the court and US authorities had written reports which claimed Iran was responsible but those too were suppressed. Tony Gauci was given a $2 million reward for his evidence and a new identity and life here in Australia.

Koussa denies Pan Am 103 involvement

[This is the headline over a news item published today on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm.  It reads as follows:]

Former Libyan intelligence Chief Moussa Koussa has issued a statement denying any involvement in the Pan Am 103 atrocity, affirming for the first time the denials attributed to him from former father of the House Tam Dalyell and Saif Gadaffi, who both also said that Koussa was not involved in the event.

Koussa, who was questioned in a highly choreographed move from the Crown Office, was not detained when he was interviewed in March this year. The Crown Office have revealed nothing about what was discussed at the interview, or whether they believed Koussa had a role to play in the events.

"I also had no involvement of any kind or knowledge of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 or the murder of WPC Fletcher in 1984. I have voluntarily assisted the relevant investigatory authorities with their inquiries in relation to these matters," Koussa said in a statement today.

"I had no involvement in Libya's intelligence and security organisations until my appointment as Head of the External Security Organisation (ESO) in 1994. This was Libya's foreign intelligence agency.

"My appointment reflected Libya's new foreign policy to make a break with the past and my wide experience had placed me in a good position to begin rebuilding fractured international relations. As a result I was responsible for a number of key negotiations and initiatives that improved international relations and led to the lifting of UN Security Council and US sanctions which had been damaging to the Libyan people."

Koussa's statement was made in response to claims broadcast by the BBC that he was personally involved in torturing detainees, a claim he denies.

Koussa previously said the Pan Am 103 event was "none of my doing," a position supported by Saif Gadaffi.

[The full text of Moussa Koussa's statement can be read here.]

Hillary Clinton has no right to interfere in our justice system

[This is the heading over a batch of letters published in today's edition of The Herald.  The first two read as follows:]

If I wrote to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton demanding that all the uncharged and untried prisoners still held at Guantanamo Bay be set free, or that all the poor wretches who have spent sometimes 20 years under sentence of death in American prisons be released, I doubt if she would reply.

But if she did, it would probably be to tell me that as a foreigner my views were irrelevant as I had no authority to comment on or criticise the US justice system. 

And she would be correct.

So what gives her the right to publicly criticise the Scottish justice system for releasing Abdulbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds, and to call for him to be put back in jail in Scotland, or even worse in America (“Clinton calls for Megrahi’s return to jail”, The Herald October 24)? 

The man is dying a slow and painful death from cancer, and would certainly have been dead by now if he had not been treated with expensive drugs manufactured and sold to Libya by an American company. 

Some human compassion would not go amiss, especially since there are still serious doubts about Megrahi’s conviction and the actions of the CIA in procuring the principal evidence for this.

As an avowedly Christian country, American citizens and their politicians too often reveal a very Old Testament thirst for vengeance, and little of the New Testament message of love and forgiveness. Sadly this is also often reflected in the application of US justice.

They would do well to follow instead the example of Scotland, the nation on whose founding principles their own Declaration of Independence is based.

Iain AD Mann

Conservative MSP John Lamont was quoted in The Herald as saying: “The last time Alex Salmond travelled to the Arab states to seek investment for Scotland he discussed the release of Mr Megrahi” (“Salmond trade trip defended against Megrahi claims”, October 25).

As a point of fact, the First Minister has never previously visited any Arab state, which renders the quote inaccurate.

In every regard the Scottish Government dealt with the case of Megrahi according to the rules and regulations of Scots Law, and without any consideration of the economic, political and diplomatic factors that the then Westminster Government based its position on – which as Sir Gus O’Donnell’s report revealed was in favour of Megrahi’s release.

The record demonstrates this beyond doubt. As the First Minister said in his reply to the Qatari ambassador of July 21, 2009: “The decision will be made on judicial grounds alone”; and the minute of his meeting with the Qatari representatives in Edinburgh on June 11, 2009 also makes it abundantly clear that the Megrahi case was being determined as a strictly “judicial matter”.

Exactly the same point was made to the UK, US and Libyan authorities, and indeed to any other interested party.

The issue of a trade mission to help Scottish companies succeed in growth markets is an entirely separate matter, and something to be supported in tough economic times.

There are clearly significant opportunities for Scotland in the region, given that, for example, IMF figures record economic growth of 16 % in Qatar in 2010.

Kevin Pringle,

Senior Special Adviser, First Minister of Scotland

Compare and contrast

A recent article by Dr Jim Swire in the high-circulation student newspaper The Journal entitled "Lockerbie relative: Scotland must review the verdict against Megrahi" can be read here.  A recent article in The Washington Times's Embassy Row blog headlined "Lockerbie avenged" setting out the views of Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc (not himself a Lockerbie relative) can be read here.

UK to discuss bomber with Libyans

[This is the headline over a Press Association news agency report issued yesterday evening.  It reads in part:]

Ministers will discuss the Lockerbie bomber's fate with their Libyan counterparts following the death of toppled dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, MPs have been told.

Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said the legal position of Libyan agent Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi appeared to have been settled, but said it was one of several topics Britain planned to raise with the Arab country's new leadership, including supplying explosives to Irish terrorists and the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.

Mr Burt told the Commons: "There are two or three legacy issues which need to be dealt with, not only that (Megrahi), but also issues in relation to the provision of Semtex to the IRA and the death of WPC Fletcher.

"All these will be considered. It's an important part of the new bilateral relationship between the UK and Libya, but not all these issues are presently settled.

"The legal position of Mr Al Megrahi appears to have been settled by past actions, but the legacy issues will be examined anew by this Government and the new government of the National Transitional Council." (...)

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has called for Megrahi to be sent back to Scotland in the aftermath of Col Gaddafi's death last week.

[The report on this matter in today's edition of The Herald can be read here.]