An exchange of views

[There has been an interesting exchange of views on the website of Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm arising out of the publication of Robert Forrester’s article The Damned Crown and the accompanying news item Crown Office under fire over “corruption of the trial court” in Pan Am 103 case. The exchange reads as follows:]

curzon
Mr Forrester should read paragraph 252 of the Appeal Court's judgment. That court said the evidence would have made no difference but that fact does not suit his, and this magazine's, agenda. 2 days ago, 07:33:08

Robert Forrester
Perhaps there is a flaw in my logic but I fail to see how an Appeal Court decision justifies the withholding of evidence from a trial court. 2 days ago, 12:26:06

curzon
Logic? How does a Crown statement which repeats what the Appeal Court said constitute "corruption of the trial court"? Yes the evidence should have been disclosed but it was heard in the appeal and dismissed.
If the break in evidence had never featured at all I could see your point or are you suggesting the Appeal Court was wrong to dismiss it? I think I can guess your answer. All these pesky judges eh!! Yesterday, 15:03:10

Robert Forrester 
Nothing whatsoever to do with 'pesky judges' actually but everything to do with the fact that the spokesperson is using an event which occurred after the fact (conviction) to say that it (the conviction) was a foregone conclusion because of an appeal judgement which quite obviously hadn't even been produced at the time. From this twisted and convoluted, backward reasoning we are expected to accept that the withholding of evidence from the court of fact is justifiable. It isn't. In the same way that denying the court knowledge of testimony produced on the back of a financial inducement to a witness who was 'not quite the full shilling' wouldn't be either. There is no argument. Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary passed the evidence concerning the Heathrow break in to the Crown (albeit in an unusual manner), the Crown subsequently failed to avail the defence of this knowledge. So no, not judges, facts. Yesterday, 18:15:16

Dave's disgrace

[This is the heading over a review by David Bryson on Amazon.com of John Ashton’s book Megrahi: You are my Jury.  It reads as follows:]

Reportedly Britain's esteemed prime minister Dave has called this book a disgrace, so I was intrigued to find out why. The man convicted in a strange kind of Scottish court for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on 21 December 1988 is Libyan. He was repatriated to Libya on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Justice Secretary, but that was in Gaddafy's day. He is terminally ill, but Mr Romney and the ineffable Mr McCain have been prompt in demanding his extradition to America on the grounds that the previous deal is now off. What `justice' he might receive in America is a legitimate question, but this new book devotes 400+ pages to a painstaking (but extremely readable) analysis of the justice that has come his way to date. I found much that I would certainly class as disgraceful, not least the way that discussion of the case has been dominated by the stridently vocal and pathologically ignorant but I don't have the impression that Dave's anathema was meant to be hurled at that. Indeed if this is just another instance of Dave stamping his little foot and trying another of his hoity-toity put-downs then his thunderbolt may turn out to be riding a boomerang.

Towards the end the book summarises the issues under two headings - the legal process, and what actually happened. The second of these is full of uncertainties, whatever people try to pretend. The legal process is hardly less complex, but it is possible for the general public to take a clear view, even if the legal profession themselves signally failed to. There's irony in this, I suppose. We are asked to apply plain-Joe logic to the legal issues but to shun glib man-in-the-street opinions as to the actual events. Layer upon layer of expert technical and forensic findings have been slowly peeled away to expose a different picture from the one they had at Megrahi's trial. Only experts can refute other experts: where the lay public like myself can go wrong is if we jump the gun and believe analysis that turns out not to be final. In such technical matters the lawyers themselves are laymen, but given patience they can understand the issues eventually, and so can we. When it comes to the law, we are invited to act as a jury, applying thought and common sense to matters that we need to have explained to us but that we can evaluate, once explained, as well as the lawyers can. The senior advocate in this case advised Megrahi to opt for jury trial. Megrahi did not understand the matter and agreed to the format eventually adopted, a panel of three eminent Scottish Law Lords. Tout court, their stately Lordships returned a guilty verdict that any rational person can see is downright perverse. No jury could conceivably have convicted.

It was bad luck that the case was forced out of the headlines by 9/11, otherwise surely some of the nonsense would have been spotted and stamped on. Whether that would have altered the verdict is moot nevertheless. More effective defence strategy might have prevented Tony Gauci (later described by no less than Scotland's head prosecutor as being an apple short of a full picnic) from leaving the witness box almost unscathed. Nevertheless it did not take any judges to see the inconsistencies in his evidence. What to me defies belief is how the judges in their Statement of Reasons showed that they were fully aware of these very inconsistencies but still set that aside and based their verdict largely on Gauci's wayward statements. No doubt juries return perverse verdicts at times, but for a real snafu you need a few senior Law Lords. The doubts started to be voiced not long after the verdict, and one of the judges took to the public prints to proclaim that he was in no doubt that their verdict had been right in all respects. Note that `all respects', no qualifications or refinements, just right in all respects. I was reminded of a very famous trial, less significant from any valid point of view but a real headline-hogger many years ago when a young female `escort' was told that a certain eminent male denied her evidence. Said she `He would say that, wouldn't he?'

It comes down to attitudes. Impartiality is not a gift of God, it has to be strictly practised, and while checks and balances help a patient investigation like this to highlight startling cases of evidence suppressed, and hint at others, we are still left guessing to a great extent. One thing however is crystal-clear, and John Ashton repeats it several times - the onus probandi, the burden of proof, falls on the prosecution, and these Law Lords blatantly landed it on the defence. One point Ashton does not make is that while English law is based on Anglo-Saxon, Scottish derives from Roman and the verdict `non liquet' (not proven) is available. There is no way that guilt was proved beyond reasonable doubt. So how did their Lordships pull off this miscarriage? I don't know, nor does Ashton, but if nobody had been convicted there would have been hell to pay among parties who do not like to be crossed or thwarted, so perhaps the thing to do is to reassure oneself that one is right in all respects and see if one can maintain the pretence.

Why were so many Americans at the crash site so soon, and what were they doing? Why were they communing with the prosecutors? A UN observer Professor Koechler alleges political interference, and you can find his report by downloading it from Private Eye. I have offered a review that you can find by keying on e,g, Lockerbie Foot, and I wonder why the earlier findings of the award-winning journalist Paul Foot are not acknowledged. Why was Megrahi released on `compassionate' grounds? My guess - because a blatant travesty of justice had been perpetrated. Mr Romney and Mr McCain please note. 


[Reviews on the Amazon.co.uk website can be read here.]

The Damned Crown

[This is the headline over an article by Justice for Megrahi’s secretary, Robert Forrester, published today (with an accompanying news item) on the website of Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm.  It reads in part:] 

Last week we were treated to an embarrassment of riches courtesy of Number 25 Chambers Street. Firstly, we see Scotland’s Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, jetting off to Libya accompanied by his minder, Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, in an attempt to gain some small advantage in the media war over the Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. And, secondly, we had this from a Crown Office representative: “Even if the evidence about Heathrow had been heard by the trial court, it would not have reached a different verdict. The Crown was in the process of robustly defending the investigation and conviction when Mr Megrahi chose to abandon his second appeal.” 

In this one brief, devastating statement from the Crown, any quaint notion that the public may have that the Crown serves the interests of justice rather than the aggressive securing of convictions, no matter what contrary evidence might stand in its way, is dispelled. 

Irrespective of the outcome of the first appeal, where the Heathrow break in was raised, to say that the trial court “would not have reached a different verdict” had it been aware of the evidence at the time is to grossly prejudge the outcome of the trial and in no way legitimises the withholding of evidence from the defence. In short, it is a travesty of justice.

On top of the recent accusations of the withholding of evidence by the Crown to the defence (regarding Crown witness Abdul Majid Giaka) levelled at Colin Boyd, Lord Advocate at the time of the Zeist trial, the above Crown Office statement is a response to yet further information concerning the Crown’s withholding of evidence. According to the Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, police did not submit evidence to the Crown about a break in to Heathrow airside in the vicinity of the loading bay for flight 103, which took place a matter of hours prior to the departure of the plane, until 1999 (a decade after the event was reported by Heathrow security guard Ray Manly and a year prior to the commencement of the Zeist trial). Moreover, the Crown failed to avail the defence team of the occurrence. It was only after the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi for the crime that the break in became public knowledge, when Mr Manly approached the defence team with his evidence. 

 

The Zeist trial would likely not have materialised at all had it not been for the CIA evidence garnered from Giaka. Elements of which evidence the Crown attempted to withhold from the defence. His evidence was largely dismissed by the court as being that of a fantasist. The baton of star witness then passed to Toni Gauci, a man whose evidence is riddled with inconsistency and which also seems to have come on the back of a tempting $2,000,000 carrot (plus $1,000,000 for his brother Paul) provided by the US Department of Justice. Even the key material evidence, in the form of a shard of PCB, looks highly likely to have been a plant.

Many have long maintained, with considerable justification, that the Zeist judgement of an invisible bomb suitcase operated by a simple countdown timing trigger being transferred from Malta to Frankfurt then on to Heathrow is a complete flight of overly active imaginations. There are indeed areas of the judgement, particularly surrounding Mr Gauci, that give the distinct impression that under Scots Law the burden of proof is on the defence and that the accused is guilty until proven innocent. The attitude of the Crown as displayed in this statement supports this view. 

 

What is being said is that it doesn’t matter whether or not the trial court was in possession of the evidence about the Heathrow break in since, in our estimation, al-Megrahi would still have been convicted. On the basis of what? The first appeal? One cannot prejudge the outcome of a trial of fact by the judgement of an appeal which is circumscribed by quite different parameters. Quite apart from the fact that by withholding evidence the Crown is brazenly flouting the interests of justice and is quite probably a criminal offence in itself, it demonstrates a deeply unhealthy bias on the part of the Crown, and suggests the corruption of the trial court. In short, this revealing statement speaks volumes on the attitude of the Crown to this case. It is a national outrage that the Crown should be attempting to support such practices and only acts to substantiate the increasingly commonly held view that Zeist was, what is known in the trade as, a stitch up. 

The bereaved attended Zeist innocently thinking that the Crown was serving the interests of justice. By the end of the trial many had concluded that they had been duped and that the Crown was simply aiming to produce a conviction at any cost. It now looks like they were right.

How has this come about? The now common practice of successive Scottish governments of promoting Crown Office insiders lacking wider experience and practice within the justice system surely does not help. This can only promote the type of canteen culture that Michael Mansfield QC has said afflicts the forensic services, whereby they have come to see themselves as existing to secure convictions despite what contrary evidence may be indicating. Such a practice, given that the Crown so obviously no longer serves the interests of justice, can only act to produce further miscarriages of justice. Here the Crown is saying that it doesn’t matter that we withheld evidence, you ought all to be happy that we secured a conviction against the odds that we, fortunately, were able to manipulate in our favour. And, by the way, if you want to blame anyone, blame Mr al-Megrahi for dropping his second appeal when he didn’t have to. So, it is all the fault of a man convicted on highly dubious evidence, who, upon receiving a visit from the Cabinet secretary for Justice and a delegation of Libyan representatives, suddenly and quite unexpectedly gives up hope of clearing is name in order to guarantee his repatriation and see out his last days in the company of his family. How convenient that he should drop an appeal which looked very likely to result in the quashing of his conviction. The bereaved must also be delighted to hear that the Crown is handing responsibility for the interests of justice over to a convicted mass murderer. 

 

All governments need professional advisers, without them, the work of government would come to a grinding halt. It, therefore, goes without saying that governments must invest a considerable degree of trust in these advisers. However, the current Scottish Government is going well beyond the basic and necessary trust in its legal advisers, the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office, when it says that they, the government, “do not doubt the safety of Mr al-Megrahi’s conviction.” This is blind faith. What is more, the government, at every turn, obliges the wishes of the Crown by legislating to make any formal questioning of the Zeist verdict as difficult as possible. Who was behind the formulation of the 2009 Order, which, although it was claimed that its purpose was to facilitate the publication of the SCCRC’s statement of reasons for Mr al-Megrahi’s second appeal, had the effect, due to its wording, of doing precisely the opposite? Who was behind the Criminal Cases (Punishment and Review) (Scotland) Bill, Part 2, which, again because of its wording, was ostensibly designed to do precisely the same: block the publication of the SCCRC’s statement of reasons, and which crashed and burned with the publication of the document by The Herald newspaper, to the blushes of Chambers Street? Who was behind the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Bill, section 7, emergency legislation passed when there was no emergency and which acts to allow the High Court of Justiciary to reject applications for appeal which question its own judgements? What we are witnessing here is a case of the tail wagging the dog. The Scottish government must stand up for those who elect it and question the advice it is being fed by the Crown. It is not simply that a petition is sitting open before the Justice Committee supported by 1,646 signatories garnered in a period of two weeks active online. 

With this statement from the Crown, it is clear that the institution has now most publicly and openly damned itself. The government must act if anything is ever to be salvaged of the Scottish criminal justice system. 

Perhaps before swanning off to Tripoli at the taxpayer’s expense in order to try to notch up points in the publicity war, Mr Mulholland should bear in mind that thus far the protestations of Abdel-Jalil have produced zero. Likewise the Scottish delegation that interviewed Moussa Koussa produced an own-goal when he published a statement denying Libyan involvement in Lockerbie after being released to his freedom and bank accounts to live in Qatar. And again, the efforts of UK lawyer Jason McCue to get the Libyan rebels to sign up to Libyan guilt for Lockerbie also produced a large, fat, round zero, even with the carrot of access to the nation’s frozen overseas assets being dangled in front of their noses. The attitude of the Crown being as it is, if the Lord Advocate and his associates at the FBI actually do find anything incriminating in Libya, it is plain that, whatever it is, will have to be put under an electron microscope by an independent forensic lab in a neutral country.

There are now no longer any excuses. The government is fully aware that precedent exists for opening inquiries into judicial decisions. Can of worms or no can of worms, it must be opened, and, at this stage in the proceedings, the ball is firmly in the court of the Scottish Government to resolve this issue. The Crown Office can clearly no longer be trusted in this matter. For how long is the Scottish Government going to look on as the Crown continues to fight this embarrassing rear guard action after what is tantamount to a self confession to its own gross malpractice?

Heathrow admission fuels case for a Lockerbie public inquiry

[This is the headline over two letters in Saturday’s edition of The Herald arising out of the paper’s report about the failure to disclose to the defence at the Zeist trial information in police hands about a break-in at the baggage build-up area at Heathrow, used inter alia for Pan Am 103, the night before the Lockerbie disaster.  They read as follows:]

I went into the Zeist trial court convinced that I would see two of the murderers of my daughter convicted.

I was but a layman. Having heard the evidence, I emerged believing they had been framed.

It seemed obvious that the prosecution's story of a man (Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi) using a fully adjustable and long-running digital timer and setting it so that, after two changes of aircraft, it still only cleared Heathrow by 38 minutes, was a little unlikely.

During the trial it seemed more likely to me that an air-pressure-sensitive improvised explosive device (IED) perfected by the PFLP-GC terrorist group centred in Damascus and allied to Iran, might have brought the plane down.

We heard the details of these devices in the Zeist courtroom from Crown witness Herr Gobel, a West German forensics expert, how these IEDs were available in the terrorist world in December 1988, and that they had a non-adjustable interval of 35-45 minutes from take-off to explosion if put on an airplane.

The Lockerbie aircraft managed just 38 minutes before the explosion. Herr Gobel's evidence made it plain that such a device could not have been flown from Frankfurt to Heathrow let alone from Malta, unless it was armed at Heathrow airport. Otherwise, it would have had to be introduced at Heathrow to avoid explosion en route. Yet there was no known evidence to support introduction or arming of such a device at Heathrow. We now know that there was precisely this evidence available but that the police/Crown Office had failed to pass it to the defence team or the court ("Vital evidence on Lockerbie was withheld", The Herald, May 3).

The point at issue is simple: why was this evidence not available to the trial court? The UN's special observer to the trial, Professor Hans Koechler, described the trial as not representing justice because of failures of the prosecution to share information with the defence.

Sooner or later the truth will out, but I fear that the longer it takes, the greater will be the damage to our legal system's reputation. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission was correct in eventually deciding that "there may have been a miscarriage of justice". The appeal which followed, held in the knowledge of the plaintiff's progressive illness, seemed to some also to be subject to unwarranted delaying tactics by the Crown Office, though combined with the illness of a judge.

The Scottish Government does have the powers to order an inquiry. The relatives and the people of Scotland have a right to know the truth.
Dr Jim Swire.

Your revelations regarding the failure of the Crown Office to provide the defence with the material pertaining to the Heathrow break-in just hours before the Lockerbie bombing seriously undermines the integrity of the prosecution's case and, therefore, the integrity of the Scottish legal system.

The Crown Office dismissed the pre-trial significance of the break-in thus: "Even if this evidence had been heard by the trial court, it would not have reached a different verdict." This appears to derive from the wisdom of a Crown Office spokesman who said: "The Appeal Court was satisfied that, having heard direct evidence about the break-in at Heathrow, the verdict of the trial court was not a miscarriage of justice."

Arguably, that conclusion was influenced by the same kind of insular and complacent mindset that persuaded the Crown Office to withhold the Heathrow information from the defence.

The legal establishment in Scotland does not always react with optimum objectivity when confronted with challenges to its authority. When the Supreme Court overturned the unanimous decision of the High Court of Justiciary to dismiss Peter Cadder's appeal against his conviction (the appeal derived from human rights law regarding access to legal representation subsequent to arrest) the reaction of the legal establishment in Scotland was almost hysterical.

An informed bystander might be concerned that the Heathrow break-in should have been the subject of more robust and objective appraisal during Megrahi's first appeal.
Thomas Crooks.

Mulholland and FBI in secret Libya mission

This is the headline over a report in Wednesday's edition of The Herald regarding the Libya visit of Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC and FBI Director Robert Mueller.  The report can be read here. The report on the BBC News website can be read here; Thursday's edition of The Scotsman also runs a story which can be read here; The Herald on Thursday has an article which can be read here. It also has a report about the failure of the police to hand over to the defence (and only very much later than it was discovered to the Crown) details in their possession about the Heathrow break-in in the baggage build-up area just hours before the destruction of Pan Am 103.


The Firm's report on the Mulholland visit to Libya, headlined "Mulholland's visit to Libya a 'charade'", and featuring a statement from Justice for Megrahi can be read here.

Top official of Gaddafi regime found dead in Danube

[What follows is a report published yesterday by The Associated Press news agency:]

Former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem, whose body was found floating Sunday in the Danube river, died from drowning, Austrian police said.

Autopsy results on Ghanem's corpse showed no signs of violence, police spokesman Roman Hahslinger said Monday. The body was found in a section of the Danube that runs through Vienna close to where he had a residence.

Ghanem last year announced he was abandoning Gadhafi's regime to support the rebels who ultimately toppled the dictator. He was a former Libyan premier who last served as his country's oil minister until his 2011 defection.

He left Libya for Tunisia and then Europe in June as insurgents were pushing to topple Gadhafi. In Vienna, he worked as a consultant for an Austrian company.

Considered a member of Gadhafi's inner circle until his defection, he insisted that Libya bore no responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.

Hahslinger suggested the death may have been an accident and that Ghanem, 69, had complained to his daughter late Saturday that he was not feeling well. No suicide note has been found and there is no evidence Ghanem was under threat, Hahslinger said.

The results of toxicological tests are expected later this week.

[The Daily Mail's report on Mr Ghanem's death can be read here and The Herald's here.

An account of Mr Ghanem's denial of Libyan involvement in the downing of Pan Am 103 notwithstanding the  August 2003 "acceptance of responsibility" letter can be read here.]

Service interruption

Today is Freedom Day in South Africa -- the anniversary of the first non-racial general election in 1994; Tuesday, 1 May is Workers' Day, another public holiday. Many South Africans are taking Monday, 30 April off from work too and making a very long weekend of it. This is good news for Gannaga Lodge where I shall be busy for the next several days and so unable to devote much (if any) time to servicing this blog.

Trump that!

[What follows is an excerpt from BBC News's live text account of Donald Trump's appearance today before the Scottish Parliament's Energy Committee to oppose the Scottish Government's policy on renewable energy and wind farms:]


1115: Mr MacDonald [SNP MSP Angus MacDonald] says the "over-whelming" vote for the SNP at the last election shows public support for the policy. Mr Trump says people have not been given the facts. He goes off the point and says it is the same type of thinking which led to Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi being returned to Libya because he was about to die. "He has been seen running about the park", Mr Trump claims.


[Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm has a news item on its website about Trump's remark. It can be read here; and Mr Trump's entire performance can be viewed here.]

Crown Office "communications" unit under fire over "misleading" Megrahi statements

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

The author of the book Megrahi: You are my Jury which disclosed major revelations in the ongoing Pan Am 103 debacle has lodged a formal complaint to David Harvie, Director of the Serious Casework Division at the Crown Office over a "misleading statement" issued by functionaries in the communications department.

The complaint by John Ashton alleges that a misleading statement was issued on 25 March in response to newspaper coverage of the book's revelations, which led to the publication of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's report concluding that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

Ashton adds that the communications unit failed to correct the statement. 

The statement in question said: "...allegations of serious misconduct have been made in the media against a number of individuals for which the commission found no evidence. This is also to be deplored. In fact the commission found no basis for concluding that evidence in the case was fabricated by the police, the Crown, forensic scientists or any other representatives of official bodies or government agencies …" 

Ashton said in his letter to Harvie: "This gave the impression that 'Megrahi: You are my jury' and the previous reports in the Herald and Sunday Herald made unsubstantiated allegations against certain individuals and failed to report that the commission found no evidence that evidence was fabricated. In fact they did no such thing and were careful to report the commission’s findings on these matters."

Ashton states that he subsequently asked the Crown Office’s communications department to correct its statement, "making clear that neither the book, nor the Herald articles, made the claims apparently attributed to them."

The response from the Crown Office said that it did not consider that any correction was required.

"The Crown Office’s failure to correct the statement means that a distorted and misleading picture remains before the public," Ashton says in his letter to Harvie.

MacAskill evades Parliamentary Pan Am 103 “concern”

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

Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill has dodged a key written Parliamentary question which may have opened the door on a public inquiry into the ongoing Pan Am 103 debacle. 

The Scottish Government can hold an inquiry if “particular events have caused, or are capable of causing, public concern, or there is public concern that particular events may have occurred.”

MacAskill was asked by Justice Committee convener Christine Grahame whether the Pan Am 103 case constituted such an event, in the light of further revelations arising from the publication of the SCCRC report which concluded a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

MacAskill’s written answer to the query does not address the point raised by Ms Grahame. 

“The Statement of Reasons produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in the Al-Megrahi case provides details of the grounds on which the commission referred the case to the Court of Appeal,” the answer states.

“The only appropriate forum for the determination of Mr Al-Megrahi’s guilt or innocence is the Appeal Court. The court would have had the opportunity to consider the material contained in the Statement of Reasons had Mr Al-Megrahi not withdrawn his appeal. It remains open to Mr Al-Megrahi or to other interested parties to ask the commission to refer the case to the Appeal Court again.”

The answer does not engage with the query’s central issue of whether the SCCRC findings constituted a “public concern” within the meaning of the Inquiries Act of 2005.

Scotland, independence, Megrahi: some views from Washington DC

[An article headlined Scots breakaway is talk of Capitol Hill by Ben Borland in today’s edition of the Sunday Express contains the following:]

The Scottish independence referendum is now a hot topic in the District of Columbia, from the corridors of power in the Senate and the Congress to the bars and coffee shops where talking politics is something close to an obsession.

And, just like it is at home in Scotland, opinion on the pros and cons of breaking up Britain appears to be sharply divided.

Many of the 11 million or so Americans with Scottish ancestry would love the “mother country” to throw off the shackles of Westminster, although their view can be inspired largely by Mel Gibson’s Braveheart and misty-eyed images of home.

A surprising number of Scottish Americans, however, are dead against independence – and for a wide variety of reasons.

Some say they simply do not understand why Scots would risk the end of the “special relationship” with Washington and give up the history and prestige that comes with being a member of the United Kingdom.

Others fear it would weaken the military power of America’s staunchest ally, especially if the SNP forces the removal of Trident nuclear missiles from the Clyde. 

Many more – especially in the South, where a high percentage of Scottish Americans live – are not impressed by the SNP’s liberal politics, which in US terms go way beyond even the extreme left-wing of the Democrats.

They cite the release of the Lockerbie bomber as Exhibit A of what would happen should the “socialists” at Holyrood be put in charge of foreign policy.

Privately, some Republican Members of Congress admit they would support Scottish independence because of a firm belief that “small government is always better than big government”. (...)

However, he [Congressman John Duncan, Republican, Tennessee] does not believe the biggest dispute so far between Holyrood and Washington – over the compassionate release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi – has done any lasting damage.

He said: “It maybe hurt a bit at the time but so many other things have happened since then. Looking back now with 20/20 hindsight, people obviously thought the man was in much worse shape than he has turned out to be.”  (...)

Veteran attorney John Bellassai, vice president of the National Capital Tartan Day Committee, said: “The big issue for Americans is that we don’t understand why the Scots would want to leave the Union when they have been our closest allies for so long.

“David Cameron was here recently and he spoke very eloquently about the special relationship. The feeling among Scottish Americans, at least here in Washington, is why would you want to jeopardise that?”

Outside the Beltway, in the heartlands of America, he said the decision to free Megrahi had seriously damaged the SNP’s credibility.

“Ninety-nine per cent of Americans just don’t understand why a man who murdered 270 people, including 189 US citizens, was simply allowed to go free,” he said.

Same old, same old

Question S4W-06500: Christine Grahame, Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale, Scottish National Party, Date Lodged: 28/03/2012

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-06179 by Kenny MacAskill on 27 March 2012, whether  the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission are matters that have caused or are capable of causing public concern within the meaning of section 1 of the Inquiries Act 2005.

Answered by Kenny MacAskill (18/04/2012):

The Statement of Reasons produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in the Al-Megrahi case provides details of the grounds on which the commission referred the case to the Court of Appeal.

The only appropriate forum for the determination of Mr Al-Megrahi’s guilt or innocence is the Appeal Court. The court would have had the opportunity to consider the material contained in the Statement of Reasons had Mr Al-Megrahi not withdrawn his appeal. It remains open to Mr Al-Megrahi or to other interested parties to ask the commission to refer the case to the Appeal Court again.

Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 18/04/2012

Scottish Parliament debate on SCCRC disclosure Bill

The official report (Hansard) of the Stage 1 debate on the Criminal Cases (Punishment and Review) (Scotland) Bill that took place yesterday in the Scottish Parliament has been published. It can be read here. Part 2 of the Bill relating to disclosure by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission of its Statement of Reasons in cases where the appeal that it allowed has been abandoned has, of course, now been rendered largely pointless by the publication on the heraldscotland.com website of the Statement of Reasons in the Megrahi case (though not the report's voluminous appendices).

The debate can be viewed here on the BBC Democracy Live website.

Search for justice

[This is the headline over a section in the Embassy Row column on the website of The Washington Times.  It reads in part:]

Relatives of the victims of a Libyan bomb attack on an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, more than 20 years ago told Libya’s ambassador Thursday that they want more answers, not more money, in their “search for justice.”

Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103, tried to reassure Ambassador Ali Suleiman Aujali* that the families of the 270 victims of the bombing support British authorities in their efforts to open a fresh investigation with the help of the new government in Libya.

“I want to assure you that the families of the US victims of this bombing have no intention of seeking monetary compensation. Our efforts were never about money but instead were a search for justice,” Mr Duggan wrote in a letter to the ambassador.

British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt this week informed Parliament of “apprehension in some parts” of Libya’s National Transitional Council that London is after more compensation.

He insisted that the British effort is “about finding out the truth of the matter.”

Only one man was convicted of the bombing, but authorities always have suspected more Libyans were involved. (…)

Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed last year in the uprising that toppled his regime, never admitted responsibility for the bombing. However, he paid relatives of the victims $2.7 billion in restitution.

*[Here, from an article in the Caledonian Mercury, are some of Ambassador Aujali’s previous statements about Libya and Lockerbie:]

In 2007, Aujali is in Washington, telling The Washington Diplomat that Libya’s decision to accept responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing was a “calculated economic decision” because Western sanctions were crippling the country to the tune of $5 billion a year by depriving Libya of technology. (...)

In 2009 Aujali wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the fact that “a large and growing body of evidence that casts serious doubt on [Abdel Baset al-Megrahi’s] conviction and suggests that an innocent man may have been languishing in prison” had been widely under-reported by the US media. “

“The Scottish flags they flew alongside Libyan flags were not an endorsement of the terrible deeds of which [the then recently released Megrahi] was accused,” he said. “They were a powerful sign of solidarity between two very different nations that nonetheless share the value of compassion”.

[UK relatives of Lockerbie victims are also continuing their search for truth and justice, but along lines very different from Mr Duggan’s.]

New Lockerbie play to be premiered in Falkirk

[The following is taken from the What’s On Scotland website:]

The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie killed 270 people and was the worst terrorist atrocity in the UK. Now, for the first time, the appalling tragedy is being brought to the stage in a new play presented by Falkirk’s Tryst Theatre. The Lockerbie Bomber by Kenneth Ross dramatises the search for the truth about the 1988 outrage. Tryst will perform the premiere of the harrowing and hard-hitting play in Falkirk on May 26. The six parts are taken by Jim Allan, Alan Clark, Carol Clark, Rhona Law, Craig Murray and Brian Paterson. Director Alan Clark said: “The play is set in the present day and looks at the Lockerbie bombing from three different perspectives – the victims’ families, journalists investigating the case, and the UK and US security services engaged in cynically covering up what happened.” The play, which explores this veil of secrecy, is described as “docu-drama faction” and links Grangemouth, Greenock, Glasgow and Guantanamo Bay in the gritty and fast-moving 70-minute piece. “The writer says it’s a mix of fact and fiction plus conspiracy theories and some interesting speculation,” explained Alan. He added: “We were attracted to it because it’s new, challenging, contemporary theatre and the issues surrounding the bombing are currently front-page news all round the world. Twenty-four years on, Lockerbie still looms large over Scotland and there are still unanswered questions over what happened that night and who is ultimately responsible for two hundred and seventy deaths. As one of the characters says: 'A few people, high up in the US and UK Governments, know exactly what happened, but they’re never going to tell us.'" The premiere of The Lockerbie Bomber takes place on Saturday May 26 at 8pm in Falkirk Town Hall. Tickets, £7 and £5 (concessions) are available from the Tryst Theatre Box Office on 01324 715886, from the Steeple Box Office on 01324 506850, from club members or at the door on the night.