Ian Bell on Lockerbie - five years ago today

What follows is the text of an item that was posted on this date in 2011 on this blog. It demonstrates perfectly just how much we have lost through the tragically early death of Ian Bell:

Lockerbie: Scoundrel Time

[This is the headline over the most recent post on Ian Bell's blog. It reads as follows:]

“There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world,

and the worst of it is that half of them are true.”

Churchill.

Expressen’s Kassem Hamade has been filing non-stop from Libya since he found his way into the country. You can hardly blame him. It’s not often a journalist winds up in the middle of a revolution, with a historic tale unfolding wherever he happens to look. Hamade files like a man in a hurry.

His Swedish newspaper is one of Europe’s more lurid tabloids, which is, of course, saying something. At a glance, it seems to publish just about anything its war correspondent elects to send. Whether it then asks many questions is another matter. You don’t dick around, as the Swedes may or may not say, with world exclusives. Print first, worry later.

Hamade is either a very good journalist, or a very bad one. Which is to say that either he has an instinct for a tale, or more luck than is strictly credible. This week, in any case, Expressen’s man found himself outside “a local parliament build­ing” in an unnamed Libyan town, just as someone important was being greeted by several hundred locals.

Given that it appears the gent in the “dark winter suit” and burgundy hat had only decided to switch sides and “join the people” on February 19, Hamade was luckier than usual. Here he was with a “40-minute interview” (readable in less than ten) with a top-level defector no more than three days after the event. This was smart work, on someone’s part.

Even better, the new-born patriot had the sound-bite of the year, perhaps of the decade: Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing. How about that?

Given that Mustafa Abdel-Jalil’s words reach us from Arabic via Swedish via (Googleised) English, we should probably exercise a little caution. This would set us apart from just about every newspaper, Scottish titles included, and web-site in the world, who excelled themselves if they remembered the word “claim”, and who oth­erwise didn’t give a toss. Gaddafi’s “justice minister” had spoken: gossip was proof.

Did any journalist, Hamade included, know anything at all about the erstwhile “Secretary of the General People’s Committee for Justice”, lately of Tripoli’s al-Salad Street, former recipient of numerous file-and-forget Amnesty petitions, nominal stew­ard of an arbitrary system of murder, torture, kidnapping, and “disappearance”? Thought not.

Did anyone know how close – or not – this individual had ever been to Gaddafi, particularly in December of 1988? A mere detail.

Did anyone pause to wonder why Abdel-Jalil’s revulsion at a massacre – the first he had ever heard of in Libya? – had coincided neatly with the regime’s collapse? Did they ask what he might have to gain, or to lose? But that sort of talk can seriously damage a world exclusive.

Hamade appears not to have allowed such words to enter his head. He did at least ask whether Abdel-Jalil possesses such a thing as proof, however, but was reas­sured by the functionary’s claim to have “information that is 100% sure” and “nothing I think... 100%.”

As the week wore on, this turned out to be the evidence heard around the world. It was enough, as any glance at the web will show, for almost every media outlet on the planet to go on. For most, the exciting follow-up was Abdel-Jalil’s loyal promise that “the devil” (Gaddafi) will “die like Hitler”, rather than a simple, scepti­cal question or two.

A pity. Had anyone read on, they would have found that Hamade did in fact get a little more change from his 40-minute investment. Why couldn’t his subject – who seemed to have returned to the business of governing in short order – just spill the beans?

Answer: “It is not time to reveal everything now”. Why not? Second answer: “I do not want to reveal the names involved, for the sake of the country”.

Aside from the fact that numerous individuals around the world involved with the Lockerbie case could – and have – allowed themselves the same excuse, this was interesting. Many of Gaddafi’s once stalwart ministers and diplomats have hit the rat runs; Abdel-Jalil is no different. But he seals his discretion in an odd fashion.

So he names Gaddafi as a mass murderer: that will suit Washington and Lon­don. It won’t upset Edinburgh much, either. Another slaughter to add to a lunatic’s charge sheet, and to bury therein. If the lunatic winds up dead “like Hitler”, so much the better. But Abdel-Jalil seems to be extending his insurance cover: having named a name, he retains “names”, and all “for the sake of the country”.

Things took another turn on Friday night. With his usual taste for self-dramatisa­tion, the BBC’s John Simpson secured an interview in the vicinity of Ben­ghazi with an escapee from the crumbling regime more significant than Abdel-Jalil. Until the end of last week, General Abdel Fattah Younes al-Abidi was Gaddafi’s trusted Interior Minister. He has also known the Colonel for 47 years.

Here was still another Libyan big shot who suddenly found himself unable to stomach the day job. In his own account, al-Abidi was sent to Benghazi to crush the demonstrations there. When he decided to break the habit of a lifetime – or simply failed in the task – he pleaded with Gaddafi, he claims, not to bomb the protesters, and suffered an assassination attempt for his trouble.

So the general also felt the urge to “join the people”. He was also able to con­firm that his former friend and leader will commit suicide or be killed. And the gen­eral also felt able to say for certain that Gaddafi had ordered the Lockerbie bombing.

Except he did nothing of the sort. Simpson, like Hamade, was content, oddly in this case, just to hear a lapsed member of the regime pin the blame for mass murder on his old boss. Nothing in the way of proof was sought. All that al-Abidi told the BBC’s correspondent was, “There is no doubt about it. Nothing happens without Gaddafi’s agreement. I’m sure this was a national, governmental decision.” What a coincidence: two superannuated thugs with the same gambit.

Writing on the BBC’s web-site, Simpson prefaced the general’s quote with the following: “Although he was a military man rather than a politician at the time of the Lockerbie bombing in the 1980s, he [al-Abidi] maintains that Col Gaddafi was per­sonally responsible for the decision to blow up the Pan Am flight”.

There is no argument here for argument’s sake: if Gaddafi did it, he did it. But thus far we are being asked to accept – as the world is being asked to accept – the tes­timony of two men (no doubt there will be more) with skins to save and plenty of questions of their own still to answer. Yet even as they “confirm” they evade.

Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but persuasive testimony runs from remarks such as “It was common knowledge in the regime” to “I was there when he gave the order” to “This is how it was done”. The general was latterly Interior Minister, in Simpson’s words “one of the most powerful men in Libya”. Yet the best he can manage is “I’m sure this was a national, governmental decision”? What else would it be?

Stories and alibis are being assembled. Were you in the shoes of al-Abidi or Abdel-Jalil, bartering for your life and manoeuvring for a place in whatever power structure emerges when Gaddafi has gone, you would probably do the same. There’s no surprise in that.

My interest lies in how these off-handed confirmations, glib yet vague, con­nect with the Scottish justice system, the activities of successive British governments, and the statement of reasons – all 800-plus pages of it – produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in June of 2007 identifying “six grounds where (the Commission) believes that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred” in the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, “the Lockerbie Bomber”.

The short answer is that they do not, on the face of it, connect. Yet if there is somehow a connection the demand for explanations from the Scottish, British and American political and legal establishment is liable to become more, rather than less, intense. I’m betting we never reach that point. Our two new “witnesses” thus far re­semble nothing more than a pair of concentration camp guards who know the game is up, and who rack their brains for tales to tell.

These two emerge from the fog of war with hands full of mist. Here in Scot­land, meanwhile, that statement of reasons is locked still in a hall of legal mirrors, along with a Scottish government’s courage to insist on its legal right to inquire into the bombing. Which is worse?

In less than a week, a few evasive remarks by two tainted, desperate men have become common currency around the world, disseminated happily by those who know nothing, and gratefully by those who know better. Meanwhile, the evidence of crucial choices touching at the heart of justice lie buried from sight. Every party of government available to Scotland – Tory, Labour, and Nationalist – has been content to settle for that. Is it the questions they fear, or the answers? That could be settled easily enough.

Instead, we are asked to swallow the pronouncements of two individuals who worked hand in bloody glove with Gaddafi.

[Ian Bell ends his blog post with a graceful tribute to this blog. I find it difficult to express how much I appreciate this. To my mind Ian Bell (whom I have never met) is the best politics and current affairs commentator operating in the Scottish media today.]

Megrahi petition on agenda for Justice Committee meeting on 1 March

[Justice for Megrahi’s petition calling for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi is once again on the agenda of the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee for the meeting to be held on 1 March 2016 commencing at 10.00 in Holyrood Committee Room 6. A paper prepared for the meeting by the committee’s clerk reads as follows:]

PE1370: Independent inquiry into the Megrahi conviction

Terms of petition

PE1370 (lodged 1 November 2010): The petition on behalf of Justice for Megrahi (JFM), calls for the opening of an inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.

Background

Operation Sandwood

1. “Operation Sandwood‟ is the operational name for Police Scotland‟s investigation into Justice for Megrahi‟s (JFM) nine allegations of criminality levelled at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, police and forensic officials involved in the investigation and legal processes relating to Megrahi‟s conviction. The allegations range from perverting of the course of justice to perjury. The Committee was previously advised that Police Scotland‟s report on this operation would be completed before the end of the 2015 but clerks understand that this is not the case.

Latest developments

2. On 21 September 2015 the Committee received a letter from JFM (Annexe A), which posed eight specific questions relating to the appointment of independent Counsel to evaluate the report arising at the conclusion of Operation Sandwood. Because the letter referred to information provided to JFM by the Lord Advocate, and had arrived so close to the date of the meeting (on 22 September), the Convener took the decision not to circulate it to members until the Lord Advocate had confirmed he was happy for it to be published. The response was circulated to Members after the meeting on 22 September and has been published on the Committee‟s webpage.

3. At the 22 September meeting, the Committee agreed to write to the Lord Advocate (Annexe B) seeking further information regarding the appointment of independent Counsel to evaluate the report arising from Police Scotland‟s Operation Sandwood. The letter asked for more information about (1) the appointment process itself, (2) whether the person appointed is a current or former prosecutor with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service or is a practising lawyer in another jurisdiction, and (3) what other measures or protocols have been put in place to guarantee the Counsel’s independence.

4. The Lord Advocate‟s short response dated 6 October (Annexe C) does not provide a direct response to these three points. It explains that he has not been involved in the Operation Sandwood investigation nor the appointment of independent counsel. The letter also states that the appointment was dealt with by officials who had no involvement in the Lockerbie investigation. The letter states that issues raised had been dealt with by the Lord Advocate‟s Office in their response to JFM‟s letter (Annexe D) dated 24 August, although again this letter does not directly address the three points the Committee raised.

5. JFM provided an additional submission to the Committee on 5 November 2015, (Annexe E) (forwarded to Members 9 November 2015) which includes reference to the eight specific questions posed to the Lord Advocate.

6. On 5 January 2016, the Committee agreed to write to the Lord Advocate (Annexe F), asking him to respond to JFM‟s most recent submission to the Committee (Annexe G) which questions the Lord Advocate‟s intention to appoint Catherine Dyer, the Crown Agent, as the Crown Office official responsible for coordinating matters with the “independent counsel‟. The Committee requested the Lord Advocate‟s response by 5 February. The response was not received until 9.44am on 23 February just before the start of the Committee meeting at 10 am.

7. The Lord Advocate‟s letter of 23 February (Annexe H) explains that an independent senior counsel at the Scottish bar, with no prior involvement in the Lockerbie investigation and associated prosecution, has been appointed to undertake prosecutorial functions in relation to the Police investigation. This role includes providing an independent legal overview of the evidence, conclusions and recommendations and directing the inquiry when required.

8. The letter makes specific points in response to JFM’s criticism that the Crown Agent lacks sufficient impartiality to have any role in the investigation. No general comment is made in response to the Deputy Convener’s query as to “what procedures are in place to ensure an appropriate level of impartiality in instances where there have been complaints involving the COPFS’s handling of a case.”

9. The Committee has since received an additional submission from JFM dated 24 February 2016 (Annexe I). The letter reiterates their position with regards to the role of the current Crown Agent in the process and seeks clarification as to the appointment of the independent counsel. It also raises the question of the powers the COPFS might have to ignore or change the recommendations made by the independent counsel.

Options for action on petition PE1370

10. The Committee may wish to agree to:  

• request more information regarding the progress of Operation Sandwood,
• ask for more specific information about the appointment of the “independent” Crown Counsel, in line with the points made above,  
• take no further action on the petition before dissolution (without closing it) and leave it for a future justice committee to decide what further action, if any, to take on it.

[RB: Annexes A to I, referred to above, can be accessed here.]

Yet more prosecution non-disclosure alleged

[What follows is the text of a report that was published in Malta Today on this date in 2009:]

Gauci’s ‘friend’ is new link in Lockerbie saga

Defence team alleges Gauci brothers pocketed US reward for testimony

The defence team of Abdul Basset Ali al-Megrahi, who was found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing, is claiming the evidence of a friend of star witness Tony Gauci was never presented at the trial because it could have undermined the prosecution’s case.

Al-Megrahi, 56, a former intelligence officer at the Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta, was accused and found guilty of planting the bomb inside a suitcase that exploded on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, mainly on the strength of the testimony of Tony Gauci.

The Maltese shopkeeper claimed it was Megrahi who bought the clothes from his shop, Mary’s House in Tower Road, that were later found wrapped around the bomb in the suitcase.

But Maggie Scott QC has told the High Court in Edinburgh that evidence given by a friend of Gauci’s was never presented in the trial because it would have weakened the case against al-Megrahi, who was found guilty in 2001.

Al-Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal cancer, is appealing a life sentence after winning a retrial by the Scottish Criminal Case Review Board.

Scott said that David Wright, a friend of Tony Gauci, came forward to police in September 1989 and gave a statement to officers in England in December that year.

Scott said that Wright gave a “remarkably” similar description of a sale made at Gauci’s shop in Malta to the one used to implicate al-Megrahi.

Details of his statement, and whether it contradicted Mr Gauci’s evidence, had never been presented at the trial and had not been seen by the defence team.

“Mr Wright gives statements to police in England saying he was a friend of Mr Gauci and that he witnessed a transaction at Mr Gauci’s shop which bears remarkable resemblance to the sale to two men which Mr Gauci described,” Scott said.

She said his statement could have undermined Gauci’s testimony and that she wanted any documents relating to Wright to be produced.

Scott also asked the Crown to hand over any documents with reference to Gauci showing interest in a financial reward. She claims Gauci and his brother pocketed $2 million and $1 million by the US authorities, although the claim has never been verified.

Al-Megrahi’s lawyers claim they have evidence that Scottish detectives investigating the bombing recommended that Gauci, a shopkeeper from Malta, be given the payment after the case ended.

A delegation from the Scottish Crown is now expected in Malta to request permission to view the sensitive documents which al-Megrahi’s defence lawyers believe will help free their client.

Al-Megrahi was found guilty of the bombing, which killed all 259 people on board, at a trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, held under Scots law.

Although he lost a previous appeal against his conviction in 2002, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case back to court in June 2007. The commission found six grounds that may have constituted a miscarriage of justice.

Libya has paid out over $3.2 billion to the families of victims of the bombing.

Pan Am Flight 103: Was Lockerbie bomber really guilty?

[This is the headline over an article by Alasdair Soussi published today on the Aljazeera website. It reads in part:]

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the deadly bombing, but many believe his conviction was a miscarriage of justice.

To this day, Megrahi, who died in May 2012 protesting his innocence, remains the only person convicted of bringing down the American-bound airliner with a smuggled bomb, which, detonating 38 minutes into its flight from London, flung victims and debris over an 81-mile corridor covering 845 square miles.

Yet, Megrahi's January 31, 2001, conviction, his controversial release by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds due to illness in August 2009, and even his death in Libya from cancer three years later, have all failed to put to rest a murder case that remains one of the most contentious in modern criminal history.

Indeed, as the debate between those who maintain that Megrahi was guilty as charged and those who contend that he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice rages on, for many the case has not limited itself to a battle of evidence alone. It has also seen Scotland and its justice system put through years of unwarranted hardship - which has taken its toll.

"I think we should finally put to bed all the conspiracy theories about Lockerbie, which have occupied a great deal of time and space over the last 20 years maybe," said Magnus Linklater, a prominent Scottish political commentator who has become a noted critic of those advocating Megrahi's innocence.

Linklater told Al Jazeera that those who promote the notion of the Libyan's innocence - and the innocence of Libya itself in the Lockerbie bombing - are "misguided". (...)

The main focus of Linklater's wrath - and that of others who share his views - is Scottish-based Justice for Megrahi (JFM), an organisation that has called into question Megrahi's guilt - and is calling for a public inquiry into the bombing.

It makes no apology for pushing its line that Megrahi's conviction may constitute one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in modern legal history.

Len Murray, a retired Scottish criminal court solicitor and committee member of the group, told Al Jazeera that any notion that the case against Megrahi was "overwhelming", "could not be further from the truth".

"It is worth bearing in mind that while the three [Scottish] judges [who tried the case] were experienced judges, judges in our High Court have never ever had to determine guilt or innocence - that's always left to the jury," he added. "But, when for the first time in modern legal history, it's left to three judges, they get it appallingly wrong.

Many observers share this view. (...)

JFM (...) contends that, far from being conspiracy theories, the weight of evidence casting doubt on the Libyan's guilt has been arrived at convincingly.

Retired police officer Iain McKie, who is also a JFM committee member, told Al Jazeera that his two JFM colleagues, signatory John Ashton and committee member Morag Kerr, authors of Megrahi: You Are My Jury and Adequately Explained by Stupidity? - Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies respectively, had backed up their various assertions - which have become central to the group's miscarriage of justice case - with hard evidence.

"Scotland's shame is quite clearly the way the whole affair has been conducted from the beginning - from the investigation, the prosecution, the judicial process and the aftermath. That's Scotland's shame," added McKie.

Supporting Linklater's position is the continuing work of Police Scotland.

It told Al Jazeera that Lockerbie "remains a live investigation" - and that, "along with the Crown Office", it was "committed to working with our colleagues at the FBI, the Department of Justice and the US Attorney's Office in Washington DC to gather any information or evidence that identifies those who acted along with al-Megrahi to commit this despicable act of terrorism".

Yet JFM is itself awaiting the final report of Operation Sandwood - Police Scotland's investigation of nine allegations of criminality levelled by the group at Crown, police and forensic officials who worked on the Lockerbie case. JFM is publicly calling for the inquiry’s final report to be assessed by an independent prosecutor.

As Lockerbie itself remains a live case, JFM awaits the results of Operation Sandwood and continues to campaign against the findings of the 15-year-old verdict, the events of December 21, 1988, will continue to cast a very long shadow.

Very little of the evidence now fits with the Crown case

[What follows is the text of a contribution by John Ashton in The Café section of today’s edition of the Scottish Review:]

Does Magnus Linklater run his Lockerbie articles through reverse fact-checking software before submitting them? How else I wonder could almost every one he writes contain so many basic errors?

His latest piece accuses me of failing to address new evidence concerning Mr Megrahi's relationship with alleged bomber Abouagela Masud. No one reading my recent articles could have failed to miss the fact that I acknowledged the evidence's potential significance and expressed my wish that it be put before the court. I also set out the reasons to treat it with scepticism, which I suspect is Mr Linklater’s real beef. Being sceptical is not the same as failing to address, but maybe his software conflates the two.

Mr Linklater acknowledges that he hasn't looked in detail at the evidence assembled by Dr Morag Kerr, which demonstrates that the bomb originated from Heathrow, rather than Malta (the latter being where Megrahi and Masud flew from to Tripoli on the morning of the bombing). He doesn't need to, he says, because the evidence was considered and dismissed by the appeal court and Megrahi’s trial lawyers. Except it wasn’t. Dr Kerr has in fact gone far further than anyone else in considering the bomb’s origin. If Mr Linklater doesn’t believe me, I’ll be happy to send him the defence paperwork and copies of the appeal court transcripts. I challenge Mr Linklater to read Dr Kerr's book and tell us why it doesn't stand up.

Mr Linklater also asserts that '[for] a long time those who argued for the Heathrow theory placed a lot of weight on the evidence that there had been a break-in: a padlock had been cut, allowing access to a potential bomb-carrier. That theory, I believe, has now been abandoned, because the timing is not right'. Wrong again. The break-in may or may not be significant, but the evidence of Heathrow ingestion stands separately to it and has never been considered as reliant upon it. Furthermore, Dr Kerr, who is the most prominent proponent of Heathrow, has always said that the break-in was likely irrelevant.

Mr Linklater goes on to tell us: 'When you have a large and complex circumstantial case, everything has to to fit into a coherent picture. Picking one part and analysing it in detail is unconvincing if what you come up with ignores other contradictory evidence'. The trouble is, very little of the evidence now fits with the Crown case that he is so keen to defend. Mr Megrahi allegedly bought the clothes from a Maltese shop that were placed in the bomb suitcase, yet the evidence shows that he looked nothing like the purchaser and that the clothes were bought when he was not on the island. The Crown claimed that a fragment of circuit board found among the clothes matched ones in timers supplied exclusively to Libya, but we now know that it did not. Most importantly, the Crown’s central claim that the bomb originated from Malta has been destroyed by Dr Kerr. Take Malta out of the equation and Megrahi's presence there, his lies and his shady associations are irrelevant.

None of this has been properly addressed by Mr Linklater in any of his numerous articles on Lockerbie. Apparently it's okay to ignore contradictory evidence when it's the Crown case that is contradicted.

Buying peace

[On this date in 2004, Libya’s Prime Minister, Shukri Ghanem, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. A transcript of the long interview can be read here. Here is what he said about Lockerbie:]

Q: Another concern in Britain, from the relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing, is that Libya has not actually apologised for what happened, it has simply paid, or agreed to pay, compensation. Why has Libya not actually apologised, said that you're sorry that you were behind this act?

A: Because it is a case that we came to a conclusion that we reached an agreement in which we feel that we bought peace. We after a while and after the sanctions and after the problems we have faced because of the sanctions, the loss of money, and we thought that it was easier for us to buy peace and this is why we agreed on compensation. Therefore we said, let us buy peace, let us put the whole case behind us and let us look forward.

Q: So payment of compensation didn't mean any acceptance of guilt?

A: I agree with that and this is why I said we bought peace.

Q: Now at the moment, the United States still has Libya on its list of states that sponsor terrorism. How do you feel about that?

A: Well, of course you know the United States is a big power and a big country and it put us, to my mind, unjustly on this list. Because it is a powerful country it can apply certain sanctions. I think at least by now when we try to remove all the bones of contention and we try to buy peace and we try to reach an agreement on all pending issues, I think there is no reason whatsoever to keep Libya on this list and therefore I think that we should not be put on this list and I think pretty soon we will be removed from that list.

Lord Advocate criticised after Lockerbie response arrives only 15 minutes before MSPs meet

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The National. It reads as follows:]

The Lord Advocate has come under fire at Holyrood’s Public Petitions Committee [sic; this should read “Justice Committee”] after his office lodged a reply to a letter from it regarding the Lockerbie case minutes before its meeting started. Committee members wrote Frank Mulholland QC on January 12, seeking a response to calls made by the Justice for Megrahi (JfM) group for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town.

They also sought answers to JfM fears over the appointment of Crown Office chief executive Catherine Dyer as the Crown’s point of contact for Police Scotland’s Operation Sandwood into allegations of criminality surrounding the investigation.

However, the response was only handed to committee convener Christine Grahame 15 minutes before the committee meeting started.

She told MSPs: “I think as I’ve scolded Police Scotland I’ll scold the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office because we previously asked the Lord Advocate to respond to JfM’s latest submission. This morning, at 9.45 when I was sitting here ready to chair the committee, a response arrived. This is not good enough. It’s quite a short letter and can’t have taken long to write.”

Grahame then went on to read the letter, to “put it in the public domain”. It said Police Scotland was considering the JfM allegations “in accordance with due process”.

The letter added: “An independent senior counsel at the Scottish Bar with no prior involvement in the Lockerbie investigation and associated prosecution has been appointed to undertake prosecutorial functions in relation to the police investigation. This will include providing an independent legal overview of the evidence, conclusions, recommendations and directing the inquiry when required.”

It added that Mulholland did not agree that processes in place at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) needed to be amended to address the “sweeping and unfounded assertion that Scotland’s prosecution service cannot act independently in the public interest in a criminal investigation”.

Independent MSP John Finnie said: “We would have had some clarity if the Lord Advocate had provided JfM or indeed this committee with specific responses to the eight legitimate questions that were asked. And again I would make an appeal for that clarity.”

He also dismissed Mulholland’s claim that the allegations were being considered in accordance with due process, saying: “There’s been a significant deviation – for the better – from the normal process and that deviation is, and I quote the Lord Advocate ‘an independent senior counsel at the Scottish Bar with no prior involvement in the Lockerbie investigation and associated prosecution’.”

Iain McKie, a retired police officer and member of JfM, who attended the meeting, told The National: “The Lord Advocate has thrown down the gauntlet to the justice committee, saying ‘this is our business, we’ll deal with it’. I’m actually shocked at the Lord Advocate’s response because he owes a duty to Parliament and the people of Scotland to show independence in his prosecutorial role.”

A Crown Office spokesperson said: “The Lord Advocate has the utmost respect for the Justice Committee, and has provided information and assistance to it throughout this Parliament.

“As the Lord Advocate has made clear to the Justice Committee and JfM on a number of occasions, the Lord Advocate has had no involvement in the appointment of counsel undertaking this work other than to identify their criteria of independence and no previous involvement with the Lockerbie investigation.

“The counsel undertaking this work is not under the direction of the Lord Advocate. The Lord Advocate considers it important that any criminal allegations against persons who were representing the Crown are dealt with independently.

“As indicated above steps have been taken to ensure this is the case.” 

[RB: The committee’s Minute of Proceedings records that the committee agreed to write to the Lord Advocate expressing disappointment at his late reply to the Committee, and to consider the petition further at a future meeting.]

Lockerbie trial art

[What follows is from a review on the New York-based arts website Hyperallergic of an exhibition at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art:]

Nathan Coley, “Lockerbie Witness Box” (2003)

Nathan Coley’s “Lockerbie Witness Box” and “Lockerbie Evidence” series (2003) developed out of the time he spent as a court artist during the 2000 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial. The trial was held in the Netherlands but, for its duration, the area in which the court stood was declared Scottish territory. Surrounding an exact replica of the witness box are Coley’s drawings of the evidence presented at the trial: briefcases, ID cards, luggage tags, and dry-cleaning bills. Coley has often examined trauma and the aftermath of terrorist acts through his work, but seen in the context of this exhibition, the eeriness of the piece also encourages questions of nationhood, such as: If a nation can be so easily recreated on foreign soil, then what exactly is its value?

Devils in the Making continues at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow G1 3AH) through February 28.

The PFLP-GC chimera: Part Two

[What follows is Part Two of Kevin Bannon’s article on the chimerical PFLP-GC. Part One can be read here.] 

Steve Emerson et al

In their book The Fall of Pan Am 103 (1990) Steve Emerson and Brian Duffy alluded to a suspicion that the Germans had secretly agreed with Syria to leave Palestinian suspects alone so long as no terrorist actions would be planned in Germany: ‘We will leave you alone if you leave Germans and German targets alone’ [Emerson & Duffy  p124]. The notion of such a diabolical pact between Germany and a terrorist group is absurd and entirely incompatible with both West Germany’s Cold War position and its post-war attitude to terrorism. The Germans had in fact adopted a famously pro-Israeli position in the aftermath of The Holocaust. In this context, The murders of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich by the ‘Black September’ group had been a catastrophe for the Germans just as it had been a disaster for Israel and for the Olympic movement. The suggestion that Germany would again entertain murderous terrorists in their midst on the condition that German citizens would not be amongst their victims is abject nonsense. Emerson & Duffy’s stated source for this theory is ‘Israeli and Western intelligence officials’ [pp124 & 139] which speaks volumes about the integrity and reliability of such sources. An article in The Guardian in April 2012 by veteran foreign journalist Luke Harding and Israel correspondent Harriet Sherwood, observed that ‘German politicians from both left and right have traditionally been supportive of Israel, for obvious historical reasons’ [p27, The Guardian 6 April 2012]. The revelations of Herbstlaub more strongly suggest that the West German government had tolerated the presence of an Israeli ‘sting’ operation in their jurisdiction, out of a sense of obligation. 

According to Emerson, the Camp Zeist proceedings were ‘secured’ by Gaddafi, enabling the accused Libyans to get more ‘preferential treatment’ than they would were they tried in the US. He believed that the trial did not do justice to all the evidence, particularly ‘intelligence that could not satisfy the burden imposed’ by the ‘rules’ of proof and corroboration applicable to a court of law. Clearly a fountain of misconceptions - one could use coarser terms. [Steve Emerson, Terrorism on Trial: the Lockerbie Terrorist Attack and Libya: A retrospective Analysis, Case West Reserve Journal of International Law, Vol.36 no.2-3. 2004, 487-490].

Robert Baer, a former CIA man has made a successful second career out of writing about espionage and international intrigue. His take on the Lockerbie bombing does not contribute to a plausible or logical construct compatible with known facts, which genuine historical material tends to do. It is noteworthy that as a former CIA man, Robert Baer, for ‘security’ (i.e. strategic) reasons, cannot reveal most of the important things he must have knowledge of – hardly a position of strength for a writer of publications purporting to help unravel such mysteries. 

In my own research, I did manage to find some novelties in Mark Perry’s The Last Days of the CIA (1992) – but referred to them only for their effect as ‘comic relief’.

The PFLP-GC and Ahmed Jibril

The moniker ‘PFLP-GC’ represents a cynical attempt to usurp the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – an official and rational political party with international recognition as such. 

The deadliest atrocity attributed to the PFLP-GC was said to be the in-flight bombing of Swissair Flight 330 en-route to Tel Aviv in February 1970, killing 47 passengers and crew. After the bombing, the PFLP-GC - or callers on its behalf - were reported as having claimed and (separately) denied responsibility for the atrocity, but it was suggested, implausibly, that the denial was only after the outrage the bombing had caused – an outcome which the actual bombers must surely have expected [New York Times, Feb 22, 1970]. The criminal investigation into the plane’s loss by the Swiss Federal Prosecutors Office ‘ceased definitively’ in November 2000 as no perpetrator had been identified. In response to a ‘demand’ for information about the investigations into the loss of Flight SR 330 filed in the Swiss Federal Council chamber in March 2009, the Federal Council’s response was: "There is little hope of bringing the bomber[s] to court because there are not enough clues for their identification and arrest. This was the case in 1970, and the passage of time has further blurred the evidence and reduced the chances of a successful prosecution" [Daniel Huber, “We are crashing - goodbye everybody” (E-paper) 20 Minuten 9 February 2010]. 

The PFLP-GC were retrospectively named or claimed as perpetrators of the Kiryat Shimona massacre of Israeli villagers in 1974, but those terrorists blew themselves up before they could be interrogated. Another attack in Israel using micro-light aircraft in the 1980’s also resulted in the deaths of the perpetrators. These terrorist acts were real enough, but the claim that the PFLP-GC were behind it, was no more than that.

As a matter of historical comparison, the Israelis famously sought out and liquidated most of the ‘Black September’ group responsible for the murders of members of the 1972 Munich Israeli Olympic team. It must be significant that Ahmed Jibril, the PFLP-GC leader, ostensibly responsible for murdering many more Jewish and Israeli non-belligerents, has not only remained at large but has been openly accessible, enjoying a high profile, and giving filmed interviews to news teams (See Francovitch The Maltese Double Cross 1994). In May 1985 the Israelis actively promoted Jibril as go-between in a spectacular deal involving the release of well over 1,150 Palestinian ‘and other’ prisoners in exchange for 3 Israeli soldiers said to have been held by the PFLP-GC – whoever they were. [Ze'ev Schiff, ‘The Prisoner Exchange’ Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol 14, No. 4, (Summer, 1985) University of California Press, pp176-180]. The agreement greatly enhanced Jibril’s prestige and status, confirming him as the ‘Palestinian’ that the Israeli’s could do business with, but if Jibril had been what he claimed to be, the Israeli’s would surely have eliminated him. In that event, the Palestinians would have shed few tears as Ahmed Jibril has been persona non grata in Gaza and the West Bank for decades. Gaza-based Mohammed Suliman writing for the pan-Middle Eastern website Al-Monitor, quoted two Palestinian residents in Syria in December 2012, while the Syrian civil conflict was on-going. One PFLP official, Mariam Abu Dakka criticized Jibril’s faction as unrepresentative. “Everyone knows the true size of PFLP-GC. They are not representative of the Palestinians. Their acts only represent them[selves], and in fact their membership in the Palestine Liberation Organization has been frozen for some time now,” Similarly, Rabah Mhanna, a senior member of the political bureau of the PFLP, affirmed the same position. “Ahmed Jibril does not even belong to the Palestinian Left. He is closer to the extremist right-wing groups than to revolutionary leftist ones” [Mohammed Suliman, Al-Monitor: 27 December 2012]. This explains Israel’s promotion of Jibril, whose principal contribution has been to help associate the Palestinians primarily with indiscriminate mass killings, rather than their pursuit of statehood.

Defence counsel in the Lockerbie trial ventured to present the Frankfurt bomb factory, PFLP-GC and the Goben memorandum as crucial to their case. In fact these diversions played a significant role in making the entire defence case eventually look ridiculous.