[The following is from the play’s producers:]
Now that we’re into August, a reminder that tickets for The Lockerbie Bomber are on sale at the MacRobert box office.
Controversial and heart-rending: The destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988 killed 270 people and was the worst terrorist atrocity in the UK. Now, for the first time, the horrific tragedy is brought to the stage in this new play which lifts the veil of secrecy thrown over the bombing.
“A few people, high up in the US and UK Governments, know exactly what happened, but they’re never going to tell us.”
"Sooner or later, to protect itself, the Scottish Government will have to cast the Crown Office adrift and abandon the fiction that Megrahi’s conviction is safe."
The cast is Carol Clark, Rhona Law, Jim Allan, Brian Paterson, Craig Murray and Alan Clark.
A review of the 70-minute play is at http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/review-by-vronsky-of-lockerbie-bomber.html
Some quotes from people who saw it in Falkirk in May:
“Brilliant, quite brilliant.”
“Chilling and intense.”
“It would make a great film.”
“I cried.”
The MacRobert Playhouse Theatre, University of Stirling, Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 September at 7.00pm and 9.00pm both nights. Tickets £10 and £9 (concessions) from the macrobert Box Office on 01786 466666 or at www.macrobert.org
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Libyans were not the perpetrators, says Dalyell
[What follows is an excerpt from a long interview with Tam Dalyell published in today’s edition of The Scotsman:]
On the question of Lockerbie, he remains convinced of Libya’s innocence and states, in his book [The Importance of Being Awkward: The Autobiography of Tam Dalyell], that the United States was aware of the plot to bomb the Pan Am flight by Iran as retaliation for the downing by America of an Iranian passenger jet in the summer of 1988. As he writes: “I came to conclude that a Faustian agreement had been reached, whereby the Americans would connive at one airliner being destroyed.” As he corrals two volumes of research into seven pages in his memoir, it is best to conclude that nothing will change his mind: “What I think is that the Libyans might have known about it. Were they the perpetrators? No, they were not.”
On the question of Lockerbie, he remains convinced of Libya’s innocence and states, in his book [The Importance of Being Awkward: The Autobiography of Tam Dalyell], that the United States was aware of the plot to bomb the Pan Am flight by Iran as retaliation for the downing by America of an Iranian passenger jet in the summer of 1988. As he writes: “I came to conclude that a Faustian agreement had been reached, whereby the Americans would connive at one airliner being destroyed.” As he corrals two volumes of research into seven pages in his memoir, it is best to conclude that nothing will change his mind: “What I think is that the Libyans might have known about it. Were they the perpetrators? No, they were not.”
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Crazy conspiracy theory
[This is the headline over an article posted today on Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph’s Lockerbie Truth website. It reads as follows:]
The discussion and Q&A session (...) at Saturday's Edinburgh [International Book] Festival was highly successful. It seemed that the RBS hall could have been filled several times over. Time restrictions prevented a full presentation and questions were unfortunately restricted.
Only one hostile question was asked. Magnus Linklater is [The] Times Editor for Scotland. Having read the John Ashton book, he felt that it pointed to a vast conspiracy spanning several continents and many organisations. Such a conspiracy was neither feasible nor credible.
Having received a full and honest explanation by John Ashton that he was making no such allegation, but merely dealing in facts, Mr Linklater then went to his office and vented his spleen against all who had, in his words, swallowed this "crazy theory".
In other words, as with every devious politician, he had created then answered his own question.
Space will not allow a full listing of all the facts - not theories - contained in the miscarriage of justice enacted against Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. Suffice to list a few. Mr Linklater is cordially invited to tell us, and you, which of these facts is incorrect.
1. The [Crown]’s principal witness, Majid Giaka, was discounted by the trial judges on the grounds that his motives in giving evidence were based on fear, self-preservation (...) [RB: and saying what was required to ensure continuance of his CIA retainer]. The judges were, however, unaware that Giaka had been promised a reward of $2m by the US Department of Justice.
2. The Scottish Crown Office's principal identification witness, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, was in discussion within days of his first contact with Scottish police regarding "unlimited monies with $10,000 available immediately" on offer through the US Department of Justice. Gauci would in time be paid $2m and his brother [Paul] $1m for their evidence.
And yet the trial and appeal judges were not informed of this fact by anyone, notably the (...) Scottish police investigator Harry Bell.
For Mr Linklater to claim therefore that we are alleging that the judges "presided" over this matter is a bland falsehood. The judges and defence team were not informed of the fact.
3. The fragment of timer circuit board said to have been found in the hills around Lockerbie is now proved to have false provenance.
During the trial the defence team and the judges accepted its provenance, since no contrary information was available from the prosecution team and the chief forensic scientist Alan Feraday.
And yet Feraday was aware of a strange anomaly between the fragment found at Lockerbie, and the timer boards supplied by Swiss manufacturers Thuring as control samples. It was said that the Lockerbie fragment had been part of a timer board made by Thuring and supplied to Libya in 1985. But Feraday had noted in his own handwriting that that the Lockerbie fragment was coated with "100% tin", and the control sample board with "70/30% tin-lead alloy".
The judges were unaware of this difference. For Mr Linklater again to claim that John Ashton and Jim Swire are alleging that the judges "presided" over a miscarriage is a false claim. The judges simply did not know.
The Feraday notations were [later] investigated by the defence team with the assistance of two independent reputable and highly experience scientists. There is now indisputable scientific proof that the Lockerbie fragment did not originate from the batch sold to Libya, and therefore was quite unconnected to Mr al-Megrahi.
[A further article on the same website headed A short history lesson can be read here.]
The discussion and Q&A session (...) at Saturday's Edinburgh [International Book] Festival was highly successful. It seemed that the RBS hall could have been filled several times over. Time restrictions prevented a full presentation and questions were unfortunately restricted.
Only one hostile question was asked. Magnus Linklater is [The] Times Editor for Scotland. Having read the John Ashton book, he felt that it pointed to a vast conspiracy spanning several continents and many organisations. Such a conspiracy was neither feasible nor credible.
Having received a full and honest explanation by John Ashton that he was making no such allegation, but merely dealing in facts, Mr Linklater then went to his office and vented his spleen against all who had, in his words, swallowed this "crazy theory".
In other words, as with every devious politician, he had created then answered his own question.
Space will not allow a full listing of all the facts - not theories - contained in the miscarriage of justice enacted against Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. Suffice to list a few. Mr Linklater is cordially invited to tell us, and you, which of these facts is incorrect.
1. The [Crown]’s principal witness, Majid Giaka, was discounted by the trial judges on the grounds that his motives in giving evidence were based on fear, self-preservation (...) [RB: and saying what was required to ensure continuance of his CIA retainer]. The judges were, however, unaware that Giaka had been promised a reward of $2m by the US Department of Justice.
2. The Scottish Crown Office's principal identification witness, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, was in discussion within days of his first contact with Scottish police regarding "unlimited monies with $10,000 available immediately" on offer through the US Department of Justice. Gauci would in time be paid $2m and his brother [Paul] $1m for their evidence.
And yet the trial and appeal judges were not informed of this fact by anyone, notably the (...) Scottish police investigator Harry Bell.
For Mr Linklater to claim therefore that we are alleging that the judges "presided" over this matter is a bland falsehood. The judges and defence team were not informed of the fact.
3. The fragment of timer circuit board said to have been found in the hills around Lockerbie is now proved to have false provenance.
During the trial the defence team and the judges accepted its provenance, since no contrary information was available from the prosecution team and the chief forensic scientist Alan Feraday.
And yet Feraday was aware of a strange anomaly between the fragment found at Lockerbie, and the timer boards supplied by Swiss manufacturers Thuring as control samples. It was said that the Lockerbie fragment had been part of a timer board made by Thuring and supplied to Libya in 1985. But Feraday had noted in his own handwriting that that the Lockerbie fragment was coated with "100% tin", and the control sample board with "70/30% tin-lead alloy".
The judges were unaware of this difference. For Mr Linklater again to claim that John Ashton and Jim Swire are alleging that the judges "presided" over a miscarriage is a false claim. The judges simply did not know.
The Feraday notations were [later] investigated by the defence team with the assistance of two independent reputable and highly experience scientists. There is now indisputable scientific proof that the Lockerbie fragment did not originate from the batch sold to Libya, and therefore was quite unconnected to Mr al-Megrahi.
[A further article on the same website headed A short history lesson can be read here.]
Monday, 13 August 2012
John Ashton and Steven Raeburn respond to Magnus Linklater
[1. What follows is John Ashton’s response to Magnus Linklater’s article in today’s edition of The Times:]
Magnus Linklater’s article in today’s Scottish edition of The Times, ‘Has Scotland really swallowed this crazy conspiracy?’, misrepresents my position on the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. It claims that I, and certain others who believe that Mr Megrahi was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, have alleged a grand conspiracy to frame him and Libya, in which the police, the Crown Office, witnesses, judges, senior politicians and the intelligence services were all complicit. As I pointed out to Mr Linklater at the Edinburgh Book Festival on Saturday, had he read my book, Megrahi: You are my Jury, carefully, he would know that I have done no such thing.
Like the majority of Mr Linklater’s fellow audience members on Saturday, I have not swallowed a crazy conspiracy theory about Mr Megrahi’s conviction. Rather I have noted, among other things, that the Crown failed to disclose to Mr Megrahi’s defence team at least seven key items of exculpatory evidence; that two of the most important Crown witnesses were secretly paid millions of dollars by the US Government; and that the trial court’s judgment was, according to no less an authority than the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, unreasonable. All these facts Mr Linklater’s article omits to mention.
If Megrahi was framed – a big ‘if’, but not inconceivable given their extraordinary antics in the 1980s – it would almost certainly have been done by one of the US intelligence services, without the knowledge of the other protagonists listed by Mr Linklater. It is a matter of public record that during the Eighties the US National Security Council and CIA waged a massive covert campaign against Libya, which involved, among other things, spreading disinformation. During the same decade the same organisations made secret deals with the original prime suspect in the bombing, Iran. One of the Crown’s most important witnesses was revealed to be a CIA informant and prior to Lockerbie the CIA had at least one of the Swiss timing devices that the Libyans were alleged to have used to detonate the bomb. As my book revealed, new forensic evidence proves that the famous fragment of circuit board found within the bomb debris could not have been from one of the timers that, according to the undisputed Crown case, had been supplied to Libya. We don’t know the origin of the fragment, but it is by no means crazy to suggest that it was a plant. According to the head of the FBI’s Lockerbie investigation, Richard Marquise, his opposite number in the Swiss police believed this to be the case. Indeed, Marquise admitted that this possibility also crossed his mind.
Whatever the truth about the fragment, in my view Mr Megrahi was convicted, not because of a grand conspiracy, but, primarily, because the police, Crown and judges, while no doubt all acting in good faith, failed to pursue the truth objectively. It’s a flaw to which newspaper columnists are equally vulnerable.
[2. What follows is a response to Magnus Linklater from Steven Raeburn, editor of Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm:]
Magnus makes some challenging points: thankfully, diligent reporting allows us to go through them. Shall we?
1) Magnus: “To demonstrate that Libya was framed, they have to prove that there was a calculated decision to do so….”
01 Mar 2012 Swire seeks meeting with Cameron: "Deliberate concealment of the truth" in Pan Am 103 case (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2827/Swire_seeks_meeting_with_Cameron%3A_%22Deliberate_concealment_of_the_truth%22_in_Pan_Am_103_case.html
29 Mar 2011 What's Libya Got to Do With It...? (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/910/What's_Libya_Got_to_Do_With_It...%3F.html
2) Magnus: “That decision would have had to lead to the planting or suppression of forensic evidence…”
26 Mar 2012 Crown Office under pressure to explain withheld Pan Am 103 evidence (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2850/Crown_Office_under_pressure_to_explain_withheld_Pan_Am_103_evidence.html
06 Jan 2010 UN explosives consultant says Pan Am 103 circuit board fragment could not have survived explosion (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1834/UN_explosives_consultant_says_Pan_Am_103_circuit_board_fragment_could_not_have_survived_explosion.html
19 Dec 2011 Minister’s testimony ignored for 19 years is “nail in the coffin” of discredited Megrahi conviction (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2739/Minister%E2%80%99s_testimony_ignored_for_19_years_is_%E2%80%9Cnail_in_the_coffin%E2%80%9D_of_discredited_Megrahi_conviction_.html
3) Magnus: “the control of witnesses by intelligence services…”
09 Jun 2011 Former Lord Advocate concedes key Pan Am 103 witness was bribed (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2430/Former_Lord_Advocate_concedes_key_Pan_Am_103_witness_was_bribed.html
Exclusive: US Department of Justice won’t rule out investigation into FBI bribery of Pan Am 103 witnesses (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2846/Exclusive%3A_US_Department_of_Justice_won%E2%80%99t_rule_out_investigation_into_FBI_bribery_of_Pan_Am_103_witnesses_.html
4) Magnus: “the approval of senior politicians….
24 May 2011 Exclusive: Guildford Four and Birmingham Six solicitor condemns Tony Blair’s role in the “layers and layers of deceit” in Pan Am 103 case (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2567/Megrahi_release_linkage_to_oil_deals_confirmed_to_BBC.html
07 Sep 2011 Megrahi release linkage to oil deals confirmed to BBC (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2400/Exclusive%3A_Guildford_Four_and_Birmingham_Six_solicitor_condemns_Tony_Blair%E2%80%99s_role_in_the_%E2%80%9Clayers_and_layers_of_deceit%E2%80%9D_in_Pan_Am_103_case_.html
10 Sep 2009 "Al Megrahi was not the Lockerbie bomber" - former UK Ambassador (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1699/%22Al_Megrahi_was_not_the_Lockerbie_bomber%22_-_former_UK_Ambassador.html
08 Dec 2010 Political interference in “compassionate” release laid bare (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2190/Political_interference_in_%E2%80%9Ccompassionate%E2%80%9D_release_laid_bare_.html
5) Magnus: “the complicity of police officers….”
31 Dec 2011 Scottish police’s “desperate attempts” to block Megrahi miscarriage report to “hide” bribery revelations (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2754/Scottish_police%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9Cdesperate_attempts%E2%80%9D_to_block_Megrahi_miscarriage_report_to_%E2%80%9Chide%E2%80%9D_bribery_revelations_.html
Scottish MP Says Lockerbie Evidence Destroyed - Libyan Innocent (link)
http://rense.com/general21/lock.htm
6) Magnus: “a prosecution team prepared to bend every rule to secure a conviction….”
27 Oct 2008 Crown Office guilty of "obstructionist wheeze" and "appalling" treatment of Megrahi (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1124/Crown_Office_guilty_of_%22obstructionist_wheeze%22_and_%22appalling%22_treatment_of_Megrahi.html
22 Dec 2011 “Blinkered” Lord Advocate “failing in his duty” over Pan Am 103 (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2746/%E2%80%9CBlinkered%E2%80%9D_Lord_Advocate_%E2%80%9Cfailing_in_his_duty%E2%80%9D_over_Pan_Am_103_.html
08 May 2012 Exclusive: Crown Office under fire over “corruption of the trial court” in Pan Am 103 case (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2898/Exclusive%3A_Crown_Office_under_fire_over_%E2%80%9Ccorruption_of_the_trial_court%E2%80%9D_in_Pan_Am_103_case.html
7) and a set of senior Scottish judges willing to go along with that….
13 Oct 2010 Justice system "available to manipulation" (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2125/Justice_system_%22available_to_manipulation%22_.html
02 Oct 2009 Exclusive: Lockerbie judges under pressure to convict, despite unprecedented denial (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1733/Exclusive%3A_Lockerbie_judges_under_pressure_to_convict%2C_despite_unprecedented_denial_.html
Now, any good sportsman knows that you should always play the ball, and not the man, but diligence also obliges me to point out a fascinating fact that Magnus Linklater himself revealed to us.
14 Aug 2009 Exclusive: Former Scotsman editor confirms government and CIA influence over Lockerbie investigation
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1638/Exclusive%3A_Former_Scotsman_editor_confirms_government_and_CIA_influence_over_Lockerbie_investigation_.html
Perhaps Magnus would consider debating these with me [Steven Raeburn] at a public event.
Magnus Linklater’s article in today’s Scottish edition of The Times, ‘Has Scotland really swallowed this crazy conspiracy?’, misrepresents my position on the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. It claims that I, and certain others who believe that Mr Megrahi was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, have alleged a grand conspiracy to frame him and Libya, in which the police, the Crown Office, witnesses, judges, senior politicians and the intelligence services were all complicit. As I pointed out to Mr Linklater at the Edinburgh Book Festival on Saturday, had he read my book, Megrahi: You are my Jury, carefully, he would know that I have done no such thing.
Like the majority of Mr Linklater’s fellow audience members on Saturday, I have not swallowed a crazy conspiracy theory about Mr Megrahi’s conviction. Rather I have noted, among other things, that the Crown failed to disclose to Mr Megrahi’s defence team at least seven key items of exculpatory evidence; that two of the most important Crown witnesses were secretly paid millions of dollars by the US Government; and that the trial court’s judgment was, according to no less an authority than the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, unreasonable. All these facts Mr Linklater’s article omits to mention.
If Megrahi was framed – a big ‘if’, but not inconceivable given their extraordinary antics in the 1980s – it would almost certainly have been done by one of the US intelligence services, without the knowledge of the other protagonists listed by Mr Linklater. It is a matter of public record that during the Eighties the US National Security Council and CIA waged a massive covert campaign against Libya, which involved, among other things, spreading disinformation. During the same decade the same organisations made secret deals with the original prime suspect in the bombing, Iran. One of the Crown’s most important witnesses was revealed to be a CIA informant and prior to Lockerbie the CIA had at least one of the Swiss timing devices that the Libyans were alleged to have used to detonate the bomb. As my book revealed, new forensic evidence proves that the famous fragment of circuit board found within the bomb debris could not have been from one of the timers that, according to the undisputed Crown case, had been supplied to Libya. We don’t know the origin of the fragment, but it is by no means crazy to suggest that it was a plant. According to the head of the FBI’s Lockerbie investigation, Richard Marquise, his opposite number in the Swiss police believed this to be the case. Indeed, Marquise admitted that this possibility also crossed his mind.
Whatever the truth about the fragment, in my view Mr Megrahi was convicted, not because of a grand conspiracy, but, primarily, because the police, Crown and judges, while no doubt all acting in good faith, failed to pursue the truth objectively. It’s a flaw to which newspaper columnists are equally vulnerable.
[2. What follows is a response to Magnus Linklater from Steven Raeburn, editor of Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm:]
Magnus makes some challenging points: thankfully, diligent reporting allows us to go through them. Shall we?
1) Magnus: “To demonstrate that Libya was framed, they have to prove that there was a calculated decision to do so….”
01 Mar 2012 Swire seeks meeting with Cameron: "Deliberate concealment of the truth" in Pan Am 103 case (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2827/Swire_seeks_meeting_with_Cameron%3A_%22Deliberate_concealment_of_the_truth%22_in_Pan_Am_103_case.html
29 Mar 2011 What's Libya Got to Do With It...? (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/910/What's_Libya_Got_to_Do_With_It...%3F.html
2) Magnus: “That decision would have had to lead to the planting or suppression of forensic evidence…”
26 Mar 2012 Crown Office under pressure to explain withheld Pan Am 103 evidence (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2850/Crown_Office_under_pressure_to_explain_withheld_Pan_Am_103_evidence.html
06 Jan 2010 UN explosives consultant says Pan Am 103 circuit board fragment could not have survived explosion (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1834/UN_explosives_consultant_says_Pan_Am_103_circuit_board_fragment_could_not_have_survived_explosion.html
19 Dec 2011 Minister’s testimony ignored for 19 years is “nail in the coffin” of discredited Megrahi conviction (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2739/Minister%E2%80%99s_testimony_ignored_for_19_years_is_%E2%80%9Cnail_in_the_coffin%E2%80%9D_of_discredited_Megrahi_conviction_.html
3) Magnus: “the control of witnesses by intelligence services…”
09 Jun 2011 Former Lord Advocate concedes key Pan Am 103 witness was bribed (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2430/Former_Lord_Advocate_concedes_key_Pan_Am_103_witness_was_bribed.html
Exclusive: US Department of Justice won’t rule out investigation into FBI bribery of Pan Am 103 witnesses (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2846/Exclusive%3A_US_Department_of_Justice_won%E2%80%99t_rule_out_investigation_into_FBI_bribery_of_Pan_Am_103_witnesses_.html
4) Magnus: “the approval of senior politicians….
24 May 2011 Exclusive: Guildford Four and Birmingham Six solicitor condemns Tony Blair’s role in the “layers and layers of deceit” in Pan Am 103 case (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2567/Megrahi_release_linkage_to_oil_deals_confirmed_to_BBC.html
07 Sep 2011 Megrahi release linkage to oil deals confirmed to BBC (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2400/Exclusive%3A_Guildford_Four_and_Birmingham_Six_solicitor_condemns_Tony_Blair%E2%80%99s_role_in_the_%E2%80%9Clayers_and_layers_of_deceit%E2%80%9D_in_Pan_Am_103_case_.html
10 Sep 2009 "Al Megrahi was not the Lockerbie bomber" - former UK Ambassador (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1699/%22Al_Megrahi_was_not_the_Lockerbie_bomber%22_-_former_UK_Ambassador.html
08 Dec 2010 Political interference in “compassionate” release laid bare (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2190/Political_interference_in_%E2%80%9Ccompassionate%E2%80%9D_release_laid_bare_.html
5) Magnus: “the complicity of police officers….”
31 Dec 2011 Scottish police’s “desperate attempts” to block Megrahi miscarriage report to “hide” bribery revelations (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2754/Scottish_police%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9Cdesperate_attempts%E2%80%9D_to_block_Megrahi_miscarriage_report_to_%E2%80%9Chide%E2%80%9D_bribery_revelations_.html
Scottish MP Says Lockerbie Evidence Destroyed - Libyan Innocent (link)
http://rense.com/general21/lock.htm
6) Magnus: “a prosecution team prepared to bend every rule to secure a conviction….”
27 Oct 2008 Crown Office guilty of "obstructionist wheeze" and "appalling" treatment of Megrahi (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1124/Crown_Office_guilty_of_%22obstructionist_wheeze%22_and_%22appalling%22_treatment_of_Megrahi.html
22 Dec 2011 “Blinkered” Lord Advocate “failing in his duty” over Pan Am 103 (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2746/%E2%80%9CBlinkered%E2%80%9D_Lord_Advocate_%E2%80%9Cfailing_in_his_duty%E2%80%9D_over_Pan_Am_103_.html
08 May 2012 Exclusive: Crown Office under fire over “corruption of the trial court” in Pan Am 103 case (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2898/Exclusive%3A_Crown_Office_under_fire_over_%E2%80%9Ccorruption_of_the_trial_court%E2%80%9D_in_Pan_Am_103_case.html
7) and a set of senior Scottish judges willing to go along with that….
13 Oct 2010 Justice system "available to manipulation" (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2125/Justice_system_%22available_to_manipulation%22_.html
02 Oct 2009 Exclusive: Lockerbie judges under pressure to convict, despite unprecedented denial (link)
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1733/Exclusive%3A_Lockerbie_judges_under_pressure_to_convict%2C_despite_unprecedented_denial_.html
Now, any good sportsman knows that you should always play the ball, and not the man, but diligence also obliges me to point out a fascinating fact that Magnus Linklater himself revealed to us.
14 Aug 2009 Exclusive: Former Scotsman editor confirms government and CIA influence over Lockerbie investigation
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1638/Exclusive%3A_Former_Scotsman_editor_confirms_government_and_CIA_influence_over_Lockerbie_investigation_.html
Perhaps Magnus would consider debating these with me [Steven Raeburn] at a public event.
Has Scotland really swallowed this crazy conspiracy?
[This is the headline over an article (behind the paywall) in today's edition of The Times by the newspaper's Scotland Editor, Magnus Linklater. It reads as follows:]
A remarkable thing happened at the Edinburgh Book Festival on Saturday. Eight senior Scottish judges were accused of presiding over a major miscarriage of justice in the Lockerbie affair — and a packed Scottish audience applauded.
That trust in the judiciary should have descended to this level says much about the way that the long saga of this terrorist atrocity has evolved. A determined campaign to absolve the convicted bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, of guilt, has succeeded to the extent that not only does it appear to have swayed public opinion in his favour, it has also undermined confidence in the most important legal process Scotland has been involved in since the Second World War.
The man who lodged the accusation was Hans Köchler, the UN observer at the Lockerbie trial. He believes that the judges, both at the original trial, and the appeal, were prepared to overlook flawed evidence to ensure a conviction. His fellow panel members, Jim Swire, whose daughter died in the bombing, and the writer John Ashton, who has ghosted al-Megrahi’s own account of the affair, agreed.
They believe not only that the evidence was deliberately manipulated at the trial, but that, from the outset, there was a conspiracy to point the finger at Libya and divert attention from the real instigator, Iran.
Yet that contention has never been challenged in any detail. Because the trial judges and the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service, are bound by convention to remain silent, the counter-argument has gone by default so that we have only heard one side of the case. The opportunity of a second appeal, which might have tested the allegations, was abandoned by al-Megrahi himself when he was released on compassionate grounds and returned to Libya.
But the case mounted by the pro-Megrahi campaigners is every bit as flawed as the one it seeks to dismantle. To demonstrate that Libya was framed, they have to prove that there was a calculated decision to do so. That decision would have had to lead to the planting or suppression of forensic evidence, the control of witnesses by intelligence services, the approval of senior politicians, the complicity of police officers, a prosecution team prepared to bend every rule to secure a conviction, and a set of senior Scottish judges willing to go along with that.
This last contention is perhaps the most controversial. As Brian McConnachie, a senior Scottish QC, puts it: “The idea that eight Scottish judges took part in a deliberate manipulation of evidence for political reasons is simply preposterous.”
But for the conspiracy theorists, who have excluded reason and logic, the preposterous is all that remains.
[Mr Linklater made the same points at the EIBF session. The audience was rightly unimpressed. As Rolfe commented on this blog:
“Today, I wanted to tell Magnus Linklater he was an idiot. Miscarriages of justice happen all the time, and they don't need a huge conspiracy of eminent people who know the defendant is innocent but conspire to convict him anyway. They just need the cops to latch on to the wrong person and then see guilt in everything they say and everything they do. Then confirmation bias and groupthink do the rest. Although there was a lot of politicking surrounding Lockerbie which added to the pressure, especially the determination of the authorities that SOMEONE had to be fingered for the atrocity, there's nothing fundamentally different about it.
“Ask the Maguire Seven.”
Mr Linklater is also well aware, but chooses not to mention, that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent and expert body, in 2007 (well after the eight judges mentioned by him had made their respective rulings) reported that on a factual issue absolutely central to Megrahi’s conviction the trial judges had reached a conclusion that, on the evidence, no reasonable court could have reached.]
A remarkable thing happened at the Edinburgh Book Festival on Saturday. Eight senior Scottish judges were accused of presiding over a major miscarriage of justice in the Lockerbie affair — and a packed Scottish audience applauded.
That trust in the judiciary should have descended to this level says much about the way that the long saga of this terrorist atrocity has evolved. A determined campaign to absolve the convicted bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, of guilt, has succeeded to the extent that not only does it appear to have swayed public opinion in his favour, it has also undermined confidence in the most important legal process Scotland has been involved in since the Second World War.
The man who lodged the accusation was Hans Köchler, the UN observer at the Lockerbie trial. He believes that the judges, both at the original trial, and the appeal, were prepared to overlook flawed evidence to ensure a conviction. His fellow panel members, Jim Swire, whose daughter died in the bombing, and the writer John Ashton, who has ghosted al-Megrahi’s own account of the affair, agreed.
They believe not only that the evidence was deliberately manipulated at the trial, but that, from the outset, there was a conspiracy to point the finger at Libya and divert attention from the real instigator, Iran.
Yet that contention has never been challenged in any detail. Because the trial judges and the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service, are bound by convention to remain silent, the counter-argument has gone by default so that we have only heard one side of the case. The opportunity of a second appeal, which might have tested the allegations, was abandoned by al-Megrahi himself when he was released on compassionate grounds and returned to Libya.
But the case mounted by the pro-Megrahi campaigners is every bit as flawed as the one it seeks to dismantle. To demonstrate that Libya was framed, they have to prove that there was a calculated decision to do so. That decision would have had to lead to the planting or suppression of forensic evidence, the control of witnesses by intelligence services, the approval of senior politicians, the complicity of police officers, a prosecution team prepared to bend every rule to secure a conviction, and a set of senior Scottish judges willing to go along with that.
This last contention is perhaps the most controversial. As Brian McConnachie, a senior Scottish QC, puts it: “The idea that eight Scottish judges took part in a deliberate manipulation of evidence for political reasons is simply preposterous.”
But for the conspiracy theorists, who have excluded reason and logic, the preposterous is all that remains.
[Mr Linklater made the same points at the EIBF session. The audience was rightly unimpressed. As Rolfe commented on this blog:
“Today, I wanted to tell Magnus Linklater he was an idiot. Miscarriages of justice happen all the time, and they don't need a huge conspiracy of eminent people who know the defendant is innocent but conspire to convict him anyway. They just need the cops to latch on to the wrong person and then see guilt in everything they say and everything they do. Then confirmation bias and groupthink do the rest. Although there was a lot of politicking surrounding Lockerbie which added to the pressure, especially the determination of the authorities that SOMEONE had to be fingered for the atrocity, there's nothing fundamentally different about it.
“Ask the Maguire Seven.”
Mr Linklater is also well aware, but chooses not to mention, that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent and expert body, in 2007 (well after the eight judges mentioned by him had made their respective rulings) reported that on a factual issue absolutely central to Megrahi’s conviction the trial judges had reached a conclusion that, on the evidence, no reasonable court could have reached.]
Sunday, 12 August 2012
Media coverage of Megrahi session at Edinburgh Book Festival
An internet trawl
of the media has revealed the following reports on yesterday’s keynote session Megrahi: A spectacular miscarriage of
justice? at the Edinburgh International Book Festival:
Megrahi cover up questioned at Edinburgh International Book Festival on the EIBF website
Megrahi cover up questioned at Edinburgh International Book Festival on the EIBF website
Lockerbie
bomber’s cancer was a 'gift from god' on The Journal website
Megrahi
cancer diagnosis was 'gift' to authorities, says biographer on the website
of The Guardian
Megrahi's
cancer 'a gift from God' to government in the Sunday Herald
Author
calls Megrahi’s cancer ‘a gift for those with something to hide’ in Scotland on Sunday
Lockerbie
bomber’s Big C was ‘God’s gift’ in The
Sun
Megrahi
cancer was ‘gift’ to state in The
Sunday Times (behind the paywall). This report contains the following:
The cancer
that killed the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, was a “gift
from God” to those who had something to hide.
John Ashton, who co-wrote Megrahi’s
autobiography, made the claim yesterday at the Edinburgh International Book
Festival.
He said the Libyan’s diagnosis with prostate cancer set in motion a “political fix” that ensured his case would never reach the appeal court.
He said the Libyan’s diagnosis with prostate cancer set in motion a “political fix” that ensured his case would never reach the appeal court.
“Megrahi’s cancer was a gift from God for
everybody involved that had something to hide,” said Ashton. “It allowed his
release ... it was a tragedy for Megrahi but I think everybody else was
punching the air.”
Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment
in 2001 but an independent case review six years later unearthed fresh evidence
that cast doubt over the safety of his conviction.
Saturday, 11 August 2012
Book Festival puts spotlight on Megrahi cover-up
[This is the headline over a review on the Edinburgh Guide website of today’s keynote session at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It reads as follows:]
“Eight senior Scottish judges got it wrong, but the question is why? It is not because of a lack of intellectual skills”, said Hans Köchler this morning at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, suggesting an international government cover up over the conviction of the Libyan bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Speaking at the first keynote event on the opening morning of the Book Festival, Köchler, who was an observer at the Pan Am Flight 103 (Lockerbie) bombing trial and subsequent appeal, argued that the verdict was reached for political motives and that the Scottish judges at Camp Zeist passed a ruling which was not logical upon examination of the facts.
Joining Köchler in the event was John Ashton, author of Megrahi: You are my Jury, as well as Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed in the Lockerbie bombing of 1988 and whose account of those fateful events was the subject of an acclaimed Fringe play in 2010, Lockerbie: Unfinished Business.
Ashton, who worked on Megrahi’s legal team and has written the biography of Megrahi on his request, agreed with Köchler, arguing that the Crown Office withheld evidence in the initial trial: “their incompetence was shameful” he said.
Following a meeting with the Lord Advocate in February of this year, Jim Swire spoke of his fury that the Lord Advocate did not know why evidence was withheld by the Crown Office in the original trial, specifically the evidence surrounding a break in to Heathrow airport around the time Pan Am Flight 103 took off from London.
Megrahi, who died in May this year, was released on compassionate grounds from Scottish prison in 2009, a decision that was highly divisive.
“Megrahi’s cancer was a gift from God for everyone involved in this case. It was a tragedy for Megrahi but everyone else was punching the air”, said Ashton, suggesting that the release allowed for improved relations between the UK, Libya and the United States, having earlier said it was “plain as daylight” there was a deal between Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi.
“Eight senior Scottish judges got it wrong, but the question is why? It is not because of a lack of intellectual skills”, said Hans Köchler this morning at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, suggesting an international government cover up over the conviction of the Libyan bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Speaking at the first keynote event on the opening morning of the Book Festival, Köchler, who was an observer at the Pan Am Flight 103 (Lockerbie) bombing trial and subsequent appeal, argued that the verdict was reached for political motives and that the Scottish judges at Camp Zeist passed a ruling which was not logical upon examination of the facts.
Joining Köchler in the event was John Ashton, author of Megrahi: You are my Jury, as well as Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed in the Lockerbie bombing of 1988 and whose account of those fateful events was the subject of an acclaimed Fringe play in 2010, Lockerbie: Unfinished Business.
Ashton, who worked on Megrahi’s legal team and has written the biography of Megrahi on his request, agreed with Köchler, arguing that the Crown Office withheld evidence in the initial trial: “their incompetence was shameful” he said.
Following a meeting with the Lord Advocate in February of this year, Jim Swire spoke of his fury that the Lord Advocate did not know why evidence was withheld by the Crown Office in the original trial, specifically the evidence surrounding a break in to Heathrow airport around the time Pan Am Flight 103 took off from London.
Megrahi, who died in May this year, was released on compassionate grounds from Scottish prison in 2009, a decision that was highly divisive.
“Megrahi’s cancer was a gift from God for everyone involved in this case. It was a tragedy for Megrahi but everyone else was punching the air”, said Ashton, suggesting that the release allowed for improved relations between the UK, Libya and the United States, having earlier said it was “plain as daylight” there was a deal between Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi.
Megrahi events 'a political fix'
[This is the headline over a report from The Press Association news agency on today’s keynote session at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It reads as follows:]
The cancer which killed the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was a "gift from God" to establishments with something to hide, according to the Libyan's biographer.
John Ashton made the claim at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, joined by other high-profile critics of the controversial case.
Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, and Hans Kochler, the UN observer at the subsequent trial in the Netherlands, also took part before a capacity crowd.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was sentenced to life for the atrocity which claimed 270 lives above Lockerbie and on the ground at the town. He was released from prison on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, which eventually led to his death in May.
Mr Ashton, who recently published a book on the former Libyan intelligence officer, said: "Megrahi's cancer was a gift from God for everybody involved that had something to hide. It allowed his release, it allowed the final stages of the rapprochement between the UK and Libya, and it allowed the Scottish Government to allow him out of prison on a legal basis that wasn't one laid down by the hated government in Westminster. It was a tragedy for Megrahi but I think everybody else was punching the air."
The course of events was a "political fix", he told the audience at the venue in Charlotte Square. But he denied the trial was a "grand conspiracy" involving a range of security services and leading all the way to heads of state such as the US president. "What I say is, first and foremost, that the judges got it wrong, for whatever reason, and the Crown Office withheld evidence," he said. "I'm sure they did so in good faith but their behaviour was utterly incompetent and shameful."
The three men highlighted areas of evidence, heard under Scots law at Camp Zeist in Utrecht, which they said undermine the case against Megrahi. Key among them was a break-in at Heathrow Airport and discrepancies over the identification of Megrahi in a shop in Malta.
Dr Köchler said he cannot understand why Megrahi was found guilty but his alleged co-conspirator was not. "If such an argument, if such an opinion of court, was presented by a student in a seminar, he would not have passed because it is full of contradictions," he said. "They got it wrong. But the question is why?" He said the trial was politically motivated.
Mr Swire, an outspoken critic of the trial, believes a bomb was taken on board at London. "During the whole trial we did not know that Heathrow Airport had been broken into 16 hours before Lockerbie happened, it seemed to me very likely that was the technology that had been used," he said. "The whole concept that the thing came from Malta via Megrahi's luggage or anyone else's seemed to me far-fetched."
The panel's comments underlined the gulf between those who believe in Megrahi's guilt and those who feel he was innocent or the victim of a miscarriage of justice. American relatives in particular were angered by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to free Megrahi under compassionate release rules.
The cancer which killed the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was a "gift from God" to establishments with something to hide, according to the Libyan's biographer.
John Ashton made the claim at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, joined by other high-profile critics of the controversial case.
Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, and Hans Kochler, the UN observer at the subsequent trial in the Netherlands, also took part before a capacity crowd.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was sentenced to life for the atrocity which claimed 270 lives above Lockerbie and on the ground at the town. He was released from prison on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, which eventually led to his death in May.
Mr Ashton, who recently published a book on the former Libyan intelligence officer, said: "Megrahi's cancer was a gift from God for everybody involved that had something to hide. It allowed his release, it allowed the final stages of the rapprochement between the UK and Libya, and it allowed the Scottish Government to allow him out of prison on a legal basis that wasn't one laid down by the hated government in Westminster. It was a tragedy for Megrahi but I think everybody else was punching the air."
The course of events was a "political fix", he told the audience at the venue in Charlotte Square. But he denied the trial was a "grand conspiracy" involving a range of security services and leading all the way to heads of state such as the US president. "What I say is, first and foremost, that the judges got it wrong, for whatever reason, and the Crown Office withheld evidence," he said. "I'm sure they did so in good faith but their behaviour was utterly incompetent and shameful."
The three men highlighted areas of evidence, heard under Scots law at Camp Zeist in Utrecht, which they said undermine the case against Megrahi. Key among them was a break-in at Heathrow Airport and discrepancies over the identification of Megrahi in a shop in Malta.
Dr Köchler said he cannot understand why Megrahi was found guilty but his alleged co-conspirator was not. "If such an argument, if such an opinion of court, was presented by a student in a seminar, he would not have passed because it is full of contradictions," he said. "They got it wrong. But the question is why?" He said the trial was politically motivated.
Mr Swire, an outspoken critic of the trial, believes a bomb was taken on board at London. "During the whole trial we did not know that Heathrow Airport had been broken into 16 hours before Lockerbie happened, it seemed to me very likely that was the technology that had been used," he said. "The whole concept that the thing came from Malta via Megrahi's luggage or anyone else's seemed to me far-fetched."
The panel's comments underlined the gulf between those who believe in Megrahi's guilt and those who feel he was innocent or the victim of a miscarriage of justice. American relatives in particular were angered by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to free Megrahi under compassionate release rules.
Documents to accompany Dr Swire's EIBF contribution
The following documents accompany Dr Jim Swire’s contribution to today’s Edinburgh International Book Festival session Megrahi: A spectacular miscarriage of justice?
1. Foreword by Tam Dalyell MP to Cover-up of Convenience by John Ashton and Ian Ferguson (2001)
Seldom can an act of terrorism have had so many layers of sinister intrigue as the Lockerbie bombing. It was ten days after the disaster, on the evening of 31 December 1988 – Hogmanay – that I first became aware something very odd was afoot. A constituent, who I knew was an off-duty Lothian and Borders Police officer, pulled me aside at a function. He told me in confidence about disturbing events he had witnessed in the preceding days, while assigned to the Lockerbie crash site helping the Dumfries and Galloway force search the site. He described how American agents were swarming around the area, openly removing items of debris. He was concerned, not only because they appeared to be riding roughshod over the rules of evidence gathering required of a criminal investigation, but also because the police were doing nothing to stop them. My initial reaction was, ‘Well, one can hardly deny the Americans, since they’ve lost 175 citizens.’ During the following weeks I talked to more officers, some of whom had been left seething by similar experiences with the mysterious Americans.
Five years later, because I had repeatedly raised Lockerbie issues in the Commons, I was introduced to Allan Francovich, a remarkable American film-maker who had just begun to make his landmark Lockerbie documentary The Maltese Double Cross. His dogged investigation suggested that the ‘official version’ of the bombing (which insisted it was, in the words of one US official, a ‘Libyan government operation from start to finish’) was a sham and that the real culprits lay outside of Libya. More worryingly, he presented compelling evidence that the CIA was complicit in the disaster and, in so doing, made sense of the troubling accounts of my police sources. Although not the first investigator to advance this ‘alternative version’, he did so with a degree of detail that was too great to be ignored. The British and American governments’ extraordinary joint campaign to discredit the film was both an indicator of how close Francovich had got to the truth and a disturbing reminder of the lengths to which some of those in authority would go to keep the lid on the affair.
Francovich’s sudden death in 1997 came as a massive blow, but
thankfully his deputy John Ashton has kept alive his spirit of inquiry.
In 1999 I became aware of another earnest seeker after the truth, Ian Ferguson, who was at the time producing a documentary for US National Public Radio. He is one of those rare individuals who, like Francovich and Ashton, is prepared to ask the awkward questions and devote many long hours to the search for answers. His reporting of the events surrounding the trial, for Scotland’s Sunday Herald newspaper and on his website thelockerbietrial.com, has been unsurpassed and has frequently rattled the cages of authority. I was delighted to learn that he and Ashton had collaborated to produce this book.
As an MP, I have seen it as my role to complement the efforts of the various investigators and the equally remarkable work of the British Lockerbie victims’ relatives, by raising questions in Parliament, and to that end I have so far initiated 16 adjournment debates. The sixth of these, held on 1 February 1995, was answered by the then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. I am told it was the only occasion since the war that a senior cabinet minister had replied to a backbencher’s adjournment debate. I am a creature of instinct and I sensed that he and the other ministers who have replied over the years were uncomfortable with having to peddle the official line. Later that day, Douglas spotted me talking to his then shadow and eventual successor Robin Cook MP. My diary entry for the day reads:
“Douglas [Hurd] swooped down on Robin and myself in the corridor by the window opposite the clerk’s assistant’s office. He said, ‘I really do ask you two to believe that as Foreign Secretary I cannot tell the [Scottish] Crown Office [which was in charge of the Lockerbie case] what to do, nor does the Foreign Office have detailed access to evidence which they say they have. You must understand that law officers really are a law unto themselves.’ Robin and I agreed that Douglas Hurd was not unfriendly towards us, and was probably correct in outlining the rules. Robin said that he guessed that Hurd was being honest with us and did not know the full story. I shrugged my shoulders, and told Robin he was probably right.”
One of the most remarkable, but least reported, revelations in the recent trial of the two Libyans was that even the Crown Office did not know the ‘full story’ when it indicted the pair in 1991. Indeed, it was not until the trial was underway that it learned that its star witness was highly unreliable. The CIA had known this for well over a decade, yet had not seen fit to make available the crucial paperwork documenting this man’s failings. Evidence heard at the trial also confirmed the long-held suspicion that CIA agents were involved in the highly irregular activities at the crash site witnessed by my police sources.
In my view, these facts alone warrant the public inquiry that has always been the demand of the British victims’ relatives. I have no doubt that there is much else in this book that will add weight to that demand. My government colleagues promised such an inquiry when in opposition and I trust that, as men of honour, they will make good that pledge.
2. Letter to Jim Swire from Chief Constable, Dumfries & Galloway Police
Dear Dr Swire, 2 April 2012
I refer to your recent correspondence headed ‘Apparent Suppression of Evidence’. This letter seeks to fulfil the undertaking I gave you to provide you with an unambiguous response to concerns you raised regarding the handling of statements and evidence in connection with the insecurity detected at Heathrow.
I can confirm the following:
In summary I can categorically state that no suppression of evidence took place and I hope this information alleviates your concerns in that regard.
(Signed) Patrick Shearer, Chief Constable.
3. The place of Lockerbie in world events, a review by Neil Berry of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury
Published by the plucky Scottish press Birlinn, John Ashton’s new book Megrahi: You are my Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence casts grave doubt on the validity of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi’s conviction as the Libyan terrorist responsible for blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 and murdering 259 mostly American people in December 1988. At the same time, it raises deeply disturbing questions about the United States and United Kingdom’s boasted commitment to truth and justice.
It is perhaps no surprise that the mainstream British media are fighting shy of according this bulky volume the attention it deserves. For to discuss its contents would mean re-visiting a vastly acrimonious episode that threatened to poison relations between Britain and the US: The early release in August 2009 from his Scottish prison — on grounds that he was dying of cancer — of a Muslim convict who was seen by many as the personification of evil.
A member of Megrahi’s legal team, John Ashton is liable to the charge that his familiarity with the Libyan has clouded his judgment, but his book — which intersperses an exhaustive examination of the evidence that led to his conviction with Megrahi’s own testimony — collates the work of several hands and is a model of forensic rigor. It is indeed hard to believe that any fair-minded person could read it without being persuaded that Megrahi was the victim of a grotesque miscarriage of justice. The powerful impression left by the book is that Megrahi, who had run security for Libyan Arab Airlines while engaging in clandestine trading, had the ill-luck to be in Malta, the putative point of origin of the Lockerbie bomb, at the wrong time, and that he was framed because the US found it convenient to point the finger of blame at Libya.
What has never been widely recognized is that the blowing up of Pan Am 103 over the Scottish town ofLockerbie took place six months after the shooting down of an Iranian airbus over the Persian Gulf in July 1988 by the American battle cruiser, the USS Vincennes, with the deaths of 290 Iranians. It was an outrage Iran immediately vowed to avenge, and all the indications were that it was Iran, acting through the shadowy terrorist splinter group, the Palestine Popular Struggle Front, that mandated the Lockerbie operation. If, in the aftermath of Lockerbie, the US shrank from confrontation with Tehran, it was because, on top of seeking to negotiate the release of American hostages held by Iranian-backed terrorists, it was concerned to have a free hand in repelling Saddam Hussein’s attempt to annex Kuwait to Iraq.
Yet a scapegoat for Lockerbie was imperative and Libya, with an egregious leader, Col Qaddafi, whose image in the West was that of a deranged tribal savage, figured as the ideal candidate. John Ashton’s book underlines how readily the Western public accepted the case for imposing crippling sanctions on Libya as the culprit for Lockerbie. Few demurred when — even before he was sentenced by 3 Scottish judges at a special court in the Netherlands in 2001 — US President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright repeatedly described Megrahi not as a suspect but as a mass murderer.
All this would be chilling enough — even if the case against Megrahi were a more compelling one. In truth, his conviction relied on the testimony of a shopkeeper in Malta who had but the sketchiest memory of selling clothes to an Arab customer around the time when a suitcase containing the bomb was supposedly put on a feeder flight to London, there to be loaded onto Pan Am 103. It relied, too, on a circuit board, alleged to have been part of the bomb and to have derived from a batch of Swiss timing devices sold to Libya, though it was to transpire that this item of evidence — found far from the Lockerbie crash site — had nothing to do with the timers in question. What is particularly shocking is how much material evidence was withheld from Megrahi’s trial — including the striking circumstance that the night before Pan Am 103 flew from London Heathrow, the airport was broken into.
The assumption that the Lockerbie bomb originated in Malta may well have deflected attention from a far more productive line of inquiry.
Megrahi endured his 8-year Scottish incarceration in the bitter knowledge that he had been convicted on a basis that came nowhere near to satisfying the principle that guilt should be proved “beyond reasonable doubt.” Following 9/11, however, he felt that his chances of ever clearing his name had all but vanished. Certainly, the belief that he was the “Lockerbie bomber,” a malevolent Muslim who had carried out Britain’s worst ever terrorist atrocity, lodged deep in the public mind — so deep that when he was diagnosed as having only months to live and Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MackAskill, decreed he should be allowed to return to Libya to die, there was widespread outrage, not least in the United States.
In Britain and the US, many were of the opinion that Megrahi was the beneficiary of a squalid oil deal struck with Qaddafi by Britain’s sometime Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and that British and Scottish politicians were not only colluding with a vile regime but insulting the dead.
Outrage about the commutation of his sentence grew as Megrahi confounded Scottish medical expectations regarding his survival prospects, living on in Tripoli until May of this year. And though he remained desperately ill, there were to be vindictive demands, following the toppling of Col Qaddafi in 2011, that he be made to face justice in the United States.
Yet on the evidence of John Ashton’s book it is not his truncated sentence that ought to be on British and American consciences. It is the fact that Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was ever convicted at all.
1. Foreword by Tam Dalyell MP to Cover-up of Convenience by John Ashton and Ian Ferguson (2001)
Seldom can an act of terrorism have had so many layers of sinister intrigue as the Lockerbie bombing. It was ten days after the disaster, on the evening of 31 December 1988 – Hogmanay – that I first became aware something very odd was afoot. A constituent, who I knew was an off-duty Lothian and Borders Police officer, pulled me aside at a function. He told me in confidence about disturbing events he had witnessed in the preceding days, while assigned to the Lockerbie crash site helping the Dumfries and Galloway force search the site. He described how American agents were swarming around the area, openly removing items of debris. He was concerned, not only because they appeared to be riding roughshod over the rules of evidence gathering required of a criminal investigation, but also because the police were doing nothing to stop them. My initial reaction was, ‘Well, one can hardly deny the Americans, since they’ve lost 175 citizens.’ During the following weeks I talked to more officers, some of whom had been left seething by similar experiences with the mysterious Americans.
Five years later, because I had repeatedly raised Lockerbie issues in the Commons, I was introduced to Allan Francovich, a remarkable American film-maker who had just begun to make his landmark Lockerbie documentary The Maltese Double Cross. His dogged investigation suggested that the ‘official version’ of the bombing (which insisted it was, in the words of one US official, a ‘Libyan government operation from start to finish’) was a sham and that the real culprits lay outside of Libya. More worryingly, he presented compelling evidence that the CIA was complicit in the disaster and, in so doing, made sense of the troubling accounts of my police sources. Although not the first investigator to advance this ‘alternative version’, he did so with a degree of detail that was too great to be ignored. The British and American governments’ extraordinary joint campaign to discredit the film was both an indicator of how close Francovich had got to the truth and a disturbing reminder of the lengths to which some of those in authority would go to keep the lid on the affair.
Francovich’s sudden death in 1997 came as a massive blow, but
thankfully his deputy John Ashton has kept alive his spirit of inquiry.
In 1999 I became aware of another earnest seeker after the truth, Ian Ferguson, who was at the time producing a documentary for US National Public Radio. He is one of those rare individuals who, like Francovich and Ashton, is prepared to ask the awkward questions and devote many long hours to the search for answers. His reporting of the events surrounding the trial, for Scotland’s Sunday Herald newspaper and on his website thelockerbietrial.com, has been unsurpassed and has frequently rattled the cages of authority. I was delighted to learn that he and Ashton had collaborated to produce this book.
As an MP, I have seen it as my role to complement the efforts of the various investigators and the equally remarkable work of the British Lockerbie victims’ relatives, by raising questions in Parliament, and to that end I have so far initiated 16 adjournment debates. The sixth of these, held on 1 February 1995, was answered by the then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. I am told it was the only occasion since the war that a senior cabinet minister had replied to a backbencher’s adjournment debate. I am a creature of instinct and I sensed that he and the other ministers who have replied over the years were uncomfortable with having to peddle the official line. Later that day, Douglas spotted me talking to his then shadow and eventual successor Robin Cook MP. My diary entry for the day reads:
“Douglas [Hurd] swooped down on Robin and myself in the corridor by the window opposite the clerk’s assistant’s office. He said, ‘I really do ask you two to believe that as Foreign Secretary I cannot tell the [Scottish] Crown Office [which was in charge of the Lockerbie case] what to do, nor does the Foreign Office have detailed access to evidence which they say they have. You must understand that law officers really are a law unto themselves.’ Robin and I agreed that Douglas Hurd was not unfriendly towards us, and was probably correct in outlining the rules. Robin said that he guessed that Hurd was being honest with us and did not know the full story. I shrugged my shoulders, and told Robin he was probably right.”
One of the most remarkable, but least reported, revelations in the recent trial of the two Libyans was that even the Crown Office did not know the ‘full story’ when it indicted the pair in 1991. Indeed, it was not until the trial was underway that it learned that its star witness was highly unreliable. The CIA had known this for well over a decade, yet had not seen fit to make available the crucial paperwork documenting this man’s failings. Evidence heard at the trial also confirmed the long-held suspicion that CIA agents were involved in the highly irregular activities at the crash site witnessed by my police sources.
In my view, these facts alone warrant the public inquiry that has always been the demand of the British victims’ relatives. I have no doubt that there is much else in this book that will add weight to that demand. My government colleagues promised such an inquiry when in opposition and I trust that, as men of honour, they will make good that pledge.
2. Letter to Jim Swire from Chief Constable, Dumfries & Galloway Police
Dear Dr Swire, 2 April 2012
I refer to your recent correspondence headed ‘Apparent Suppression of Evidence’. This letter seeks to fulfil the undertaking I gave you to provide you with an unambiguous response to concerns you raised regarding the handling of statements and evidence in connection with the insecurity detected at Heathrow.
I can confirm the following:
1. In January 1989 BAA security notified the Metropolitan police that an insecurity had been detected within terminal 3 at Heathrow during the early hours of 21 December 1988.
2. The Metropolitan police passed this evidence to the Police Incident Room at Lockerbie and Actions were raised to investigate this matter.
3. During the course of this investigation Mr Manly, the BAA Security Team Leader who discovered the insecurity, was interviewed by an officer from the Metropolitan Police and a statement was obtained from him. The interview took place on 31 January 1989. A number of other witnesses were also traced and interviewed regarding the insecurity.
4. Mr Manly’s statement was passed to the police incident room at Lockerbie and was registered on the HOLMES system on 2 February 1989. This statement and those from other witnesses identified At Heathrow were considered by enquiry officers at the time in the context of a range of emerging strands of evidence.
5. In 1991 the police report outlining the evidence against Mr Megrahi and Mr Fhima was submitted to the Crown Office. This report did not contain a reference to the insecurity at Heathrow and made no mention of Mr Manly's statement.
6. The surrender of Mr Megrahi and Mr Fhima for trial in the Netherlands prompted a massive preparation exercise during the course of which over 14,000 witness statements were provided to Crown Office in 1999. Mr Manly's statement was included in the material supplied to Crown though again the police made no reference to it.
7. In 2001, as a result of Mr Manly contacting defence representatives, the insecurity at Heathrow was subject to a fresh investigation, the Crown disclosed the relevant statements to the defence and as you know the matter was considered during Mr Megrahi's first appeal. The appeal judges, in rejecting the appeal, made it clear that their assessment of the significance of this additional evidence must be conducted in the context of the whole circumstantial evidence laid before the trial court and concluded that "it cannot be said that the verdict falls to be regarded as a miscarriage of justice on account of having been reached in ignorance of the additional evidence" As the Lord Advocate explained at the meeting in London it is not for the appeal court to look at the case "afresh", it has to consider the new evidence in the context of the whole case that the trial court had before it.
In summary I can categorically state that no suppression of evidence took place and I hope this information alleviates your concerns in that regard.
(Signed) Patrick Shearer, Chief Constable.
3. The place of Lockerbie in world events, a review by Neil Berry of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury
Published by the plucky Scottish press Birlinn, John Ashton’s new book Megrahi: You are my Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence casts grave doubt on the validity of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi’s conviction as the Libyan terrorist responsible for blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 and murdering 259 mostly American people in December 1988. At the same time, it raises deeply disturbing questions about the United States and United Kingdom’s boasted commitment to truth and justice.
It is perhaps no surprise that the mainstream British media are fighting shy of according this bulky volume the attention it deserves. For to discuss its contents would mean re-visiting a vastly acrimonious episode that threatened to poison relations between Britain and the US: The early release in August 2009 from his Scottish prison — on grounds that he was dying of cancer — of a Muslim convict who was seen by many as the personification of evil.
A member of Megrahi’s legal team, John Ashton is liable to the charge that his familiarity with the Libyan has clouded his judgment, but his book — which intersperses an exhaustive examination of the evidence that led to his conviction with Megrahi’s own testimony — collates the work of several hands and is a model of forensic rigor. It is indeed hard to believe that any fair-minded person could read it without being persuaded that Megrahi was the victim of a grotesque miscarriage of justice. The powerful impression left by the book is that Megrahi, who had run security for Libyan Arab Airlines while engaging in clandestine trading, had the ill-luck to be in Malta, the putative point of origin of the Lockerbie bomb, at the wrong time, and that he was framed because the US found it convenient to point the finger of blame at Libya.
What has never been widely recognized is that the blowing up of Pan Am 103 over the Scottish town ofLockerbie took place six months after the shooting down of an Iranian airbus over the Persian Gulf in July 1988 by the American battle cruiser, the USS Vincennes, with the deaths of 290 Iranians. It was an outrage Iran immediately vowed to avenge, and all the indications were that it was Iran, acting through the shadowy terrorist splinter group, the Palestine Popular Struggle Front, that mandated the Lockerbie operation. If, in the aftermath of Lockerbie, the US shrank from confrontation with Tehran, it was because, on top of seeking to negotiate the release of American hostages held by Iranian-backed terrorists, it was concerned to have a free hand in repelling Saddam Hussein’s attempt to annex Kuwait to Iraq.
Yet a scapegoat for Lockerbie was imperative and Libya, with an egregious leader, Col Qaddafi, whose image in the West was that of a deranged tribal savage, figured as the ideal candidate. John Ashton’s book underlines how readily the Western public accepted the case for imposing crippling sanctions on Libya as the culprit for Lockerbie. Few demurred when — even before he was sentenced by 3 Scottish judges at a special court in the Netherlands in 2001 — US President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright repeatedly described Megrahi not as a suspect but as a mass murderer.
All this would be chilling enough — even if the case against Megrahi were a more compelling one. In truth, his conviction relied on the testimony of a shopkeeper in Malta who had but the sketchiest memory of selling clothes to an Arab customer around the time when a suitcase containing the bomb was supposedly put on a feeder flight to London, there to be loaded onto Pan Am 103. It relied, too, on a circuit board, alleged to have been part of the bomb and to have derived from a batch of Swiss timing devices sold to Libya, though it was to transpire that this item of evidence — found far from the Lockerbie crash site — had nothing to do with the timers in question. What is particularly shocking is how much material evidence was withheld from Megrahi’s trial — including the striking circumstance that the night before Pan Am 103 flew from London Heathrow, the airport was broken into.
The assumption that the Lockerbie bomb originated in Malta may well have deflected attention from a far more productive line of inquiry.
Megrahi endured his 8-year Scottish incarceration in the bitter knowledge that he had been convicted on a basis that came nowhere near to satisfying the principle that guilt should be proved “beyond reasonable doubt.” Following 9/11, however, he felt that his chances of ever clearing his name had all but vanished. Certainly, the belief that he was the “Lockerbie bomber,” a malevolent Muslim who had carried out Britain’s worst ever terrorist atrocity, lodged deep in the public mind — so deep that when he was diagnosed as having only months to live and Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MackAskill, decreed he should be allowed to return to Libya to die, there was widespread outrage, not least in the United States.
In Britain and the US, many were of the opinion that Megrahi was the beneficiary of a squalid oil deal struck with Qaddafi by Britain’s sometime Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and that British and Scottish politicians were not only colluding with a vile regime but insulting the dead.
Outrage about the commutation of his sentence grew as Megrahi confounded Scottish medical expectations regarding his survival prospects, living on in Tripoli until May of this year. And though he remained desperately ill, there were to be vindictive demands, following the toppling of Col Qaddafi in 2011, that he be made to face justice in the United States.
Yet on the evidence of John Ashton’s book it is not his truncated sentence that ought to be on British and American consciences. It is the fact that Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was ever convicted at all.
Friday, 3 August 2012
John Ashton, Hans Köchler & Jim Swire at Edinburgh Book Festival: a reminder
MEGRAHI: A SPECTACULAR MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE?
Saturday 11 August, 11:30am - 12:30pm
Edinburgh Book Festival, RBS Main Theatre, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh
£10.00, £8.00
The explosive publication of John Ashton's book, Megrahi: You Are My Jury has raised new doubts about Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction for the bombing of the Pan Am bombing above Lockerbie in 1988. In this keynote discussion Ashton is joined by Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the tragedy, and by Hans Köchler, the UN's official observer at the Lockerbie trial. Chaired by Ruth Wishart.
Saturday 11 August, 11:30am - 12:30pm
Edinburgh Book Festival, RBS Main Theatre, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh
£10.00, £8.00
The explosive publication of John Ashton's book, Megrahi: You Are My Jury has raised new doubts about Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction for the bombing of the Pan Am bombing above Lockerbie in 1988. In this keynote discussion Ashton is joined by Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the tragedy, and by Hans Köchler, the UN's official observer at the Lockerbie trial. Chaired by Ruth Wishart.
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