As we beaver away on
political blogs defining and refining our positions on every subject under the
sun, we should never forget that we are the seriously informed – or perhaps the
seriously misinformed – proportion of the Scottish population. A big part of
the rest of our community has a significantly superficial view of most issues
and assumes what they read in their chosen newspaper to be substantially true.
It is a widespread disengagement with the truth resulting from
this flawed confidence which is frustrating the heroic attempts of a handful of
dogged campaigners to have the travesty of the Camp Zeist conviction of
al-Megrahi driven into public consciousness.
If we are to be a part of a society that is just, honest and
civilised – as most believe it to be – it is essential that the complete and
utter absurdity of the trial and conviction is completely exposed. There are
powerful forces just as doggedly blocking this exposition and, depending on
your point of view, our media is either a compliant part of this conspiracy or
a victim of it.
If what I and a steadily growing number of informed people
believe is true we see a plot that strikes at the very foundation of society in
which our generations have confidently put their trust. And it may be a
disgrace a lot bigger than the fitting up of one innocent man.
This is a concise overall account of the
issue as I see it. Everything I cite can be easily sourced in the works of Private Eye’s late Paul Foot, in the late David Rollo’s booklet A Bum Rap and
indeed, in John Ashton’s book published now, and in millions of other words
published through many other sources and available online – but distressingly,
so very little of it published in any meaningful way in our mainstream media.
This is a critical point.
This almost blanket suppression is one of the great “whys” of
this distressing affair. There are many “whys” and I hold that the unravelling
of issues like this is better pursued through the “whys” than by the “hows “.
But to the main story.
On 21st December
1988 Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the Scottish border town of Lockerbie
killing all 259 persons on the flight and eleven persons in the town.
On the 31st January 2001 – extraordinarily, more than eleven
years after the atrocity – Libyan agent Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was charged
and found guilty of placing a bomb on a plane in Malta which caused the
subsequent explosion on Pan Am Flight 103. This was the verdict delivered in a
special Scottish court, convened, oddly without a jury, in Camp Zeist in
Holland. His co-accused was found not guilty. The convicted man was sent to
serve his life sentence in Greenock Jail. He subsequently was given a
compassionate release due to suffering from inoperable terminal cancer.
None of this is in doubt: we all know this stuff. On this case sadly this is
about all on which there is no doubt.
Immediately after the trial the United Nations observer at it, Austrian
Professor Hans Koechler described the verdict as “a spectacular miscarriage of
justice.”
Professor Robert Black QC (…) said “I am satisfied that not only was
there a wrongful conviction, but the victim of it was an innocent man. It
constitutes, in my view, the worst miscarriage of justice by a Scottish
Criminal Court since the conviction of Oscar Slater in 1909 for the murder of
Marion Gilchrist”.
Dr Jim Swire, whose 23 year old daughter Flora died in the bombing, went
to the trial to see justice done to the murderer of his child and left the
court convinced of Al Megrahi’s innocence. He has said “The scandal around Al Megrahi is not that a sick man was
released but that he was convicted in the first place.“ He describes the
trial as “a tragedy for Scotland.”
Now I’m prepared to take these guys’ word
for it. But the problem is that none of this has ever made sustained headlines
– or any headlines at all in any of our media. And because of this
amazing, long term episode of suppression the dirty deed at Camp Zeist was
initially got away with. (…)
The progression of my
thoughts over the years on this affair probably mirrors that of many others.
I was very soon sure that al-Megrahi was a scapegoat. No man
operating alone could have achieved what he was charged with. A scapegoat for
whom, however, was the next question. A scapegoat for Ghaddafi’s part in this
seemed initially plausible but later developments made this seem less than a
complete answer. As time went on and other disturbing information leaked
out, this became no kind of an answer at all. So the first “why” rears its
head.
Why, after a period during which it was widely assumed that Iran
had taken down Pan Am Flight 103, were two Libyans, under no sort of previous
suspicion, abruptly offered as culprits?
Whose interests did this development serve? That is the only
important question. Some have suggested that everybody was a winner. Iran’s
relationship with the US was resumed. Libya shortly thereafter had Western
sanctions against it lifted and Iranian and Libyan oil stated flowing westwards
again. The only little question remaining was the “honour” one. Was Iran
offered revenge for the shooting down of Iran Airbus 655?
We will return to that.
But all the while suspicion grew of dirty deals between the US
and the UK on one side and a variety of Middle Eastern interests on the other.
A decade later, the Lockerbie affair continues to unravel. Even
a superficial examination of the case against al-Megrahi and the “evidence” put
forward to support it immediately demolishes it.
The initial public euphoria built on a hunger to find someone
guilty for the Lockerbie atrocity has faded. In the cold light of day, the
travesty of a trial which proceeded on evidence that would have been laughed
out of a Sheriff Court becomes internationally recognised as a disgrace and a stain
on Scotland’s reputation.
Over the years, my opinion of the evidence that put al-Megrahi
behind bars has gravitated from a belief that it was very dubious to a
conviction now that most of it is absurd.
My initial judgement – that they would have caught the right
man, but the evidence was hardly compelling – was probably shared by many. This
perception has lingered on, as has a notion held by others that maybe he didn’t
place the bomb but somehow he was “involved in it”. Therefore it’s all right to
lock him up.
No, it’s not. If he didn’t place the bomb on a plane in
Malta, as charged, he should have been acquitted. That’s all.
That’s the way our law and our courts are supposed to work – and
generally do at the hands of juries.
So let’s have a look at the first absurdity. Those of you who
have flown about or changed planes will know what I’m talking about. We are
expected to believe that Al Megrahi placed a case with a bomb in on a plane In
Malta which then, presumably on time, flew to Germany where the case was, as
planned , transferred to another plane which set off for London. On time. The
plot doesn’t work otherwise. Now my experience of intercontinental air travel
tells me that there would have been a significant chance that the case loaded
in Malta would have set off on a plane for Madrid or turned up three days later
in Sumatra. The bomb, we are informed, was specifically timed to go off
just after the plane cleared the UK mainland and went out over the Atlantic,
but a slight flight delay meant it went off over Lockerbie. (This much is
probably true. No pesky searches for evidence would have been possible.)
But how they would manage this accurately from Malta has never
been spelled out. It is, in fact, a completely absurd proposal. Nearly as
absurd as an initial suggestion, quickly withdrawn, that the bomb was triggered
by achieving a certain altitude which implied that the plane had gone from
Malta to Germany at hedge height. Altitude activation could of course
have been achieved had the bomb been loaded in London, but the plot didn’t
stretch to paying someone to say they had seen al-Megrahi in London.
The next absurdity is the fragment of bomb timer mechanism. The
size of a finger nail, this apparently was found somewhere in a wild and hilly
area of over 300 square miles of the South of Scotland and North West of
England.
I wouldn’t have been able to find it in my front garden. The
delay in finding it, the absence of any trace of explosives on it, the opinion
of experts that it couldn’t have survived the explosion, the strange numbering
of it when it was inserted into a list of other exhibits causing them all to be
renumbered and even a filmed statement by an ex CIA operative that it was
manufactured in a CIA laboratory, demolishes this as a piece of evidence.
Of course the significance of this little piece of hokum was
that it had little threads of a shirt on it. So we are told.
This shirt is the only piece of
“evidence” that linked Al Megrahi to the bombing. The fact that it seems
entirely possible that al-Megrahi was not in Malta the day the shirt apparently
was sold to him shouldn’t be allowed to cast any doubt on the veracity of this
evidence. Especially as it was purchased at great cost. The shopkeeper who says
he sold the shirt to Al Megrahi was given $2million for giving his evidence and
his brother was given $1million to keep him on message. There are disturbing reports alleging that Scottish police
officers were involved in the bargaining exercise here. Lord Fraser described the
Maltese shopkeeper as “an apple short of a picnic”. Yet on this man’s
testament another man was imprisoned for life on the basis of no robust
evidence whatsover.
We don’t have to ask “why” this $2million bribe was given. But
we have to ask “why” it wasn’t mentioned in court and “why” the defence had no
whiff of it. It wasn’t mentioned at the trial because it would have rendered
the evidence from the Maltese shopkeeper completely inadmissible. There would
have been no case whatsoever against al-Megrahi.
The next “why” is why the break-in at the baggage handling unit
at Heathrow a few hours before the fateful flight was kept from the court and
out of the public domain until after the trial? That of course would have dealt
a fatal blow to the fanciful Malta proposal.
It is very easy, however, to see “why” the UK and US governments
in particular are doggedly defending the indefensible conduct of this whole
affair.
Because what we are
looking at here is not just a wrongful conviction, a mistake. Mistakes
happen and Governments’ first impulse is to defend the verdicts reached in
their courts. What we are arguably looking at here, however, is a very
deliberate miscarriage of justice masterminded by governments to send an
innocent man – and a man they know to be innocent – to jail. Should this be
established the implications are terrifying.
And another “why” and the biggest why in my eyes, is why our
media is ignoring what facts there are in this sorry issue. We are
treated daily to a range of offensive, ignorant and infantile comment on
al-Megrahi and Lockerbie in our newspapers. Many of these journalists know they
are spouting rubbish. Our great, brave, campaigning press that will leave no
stone unturned in exposing politicians’ expense fiddles or in detailing the
sexual frolics of sports persons and showbiz nonentities refuse to deal with
this growing scandal. This is hugely important. Does our “free” press now hold
that defending those in power is one of their obligations? Why? And what kind
of pressure is being put on them – and from what source?
The current and continual “why” now is the swirling doubts about
the abandoned appeal and absolute imperative that this whole issue be blown
apart publicly.
Again we have to ask ourselves: Whose interest is served by the
suppression of the truth? And again we can line up the US, the UK and the
previous Libyan regime. How convenient now the imposed silence of Muammar
Ghaddafi!
Did the Libyan authorities suggest al-Megrahi abandon his
appeal? A reversal of the verdict and a demolition of the fabricated
evidence against him would have gone a way to supporting theories of a
Libya/UK/US plot.
What complications is Kenny MacAskill struggling with? There is
nothing in this for the Scottish Government but grief.
