MacAskill accused of cashing in on Lockerbie

[This is the headline over a report published in today’s edition of The Times. It adds nothing whatever to the story in yesterday’s edition of the Daily Mail and, once again, contains comments exclusively from US, not UK, Lockerbie relatives. It reads in part:]

Relatives of the Lockerbie bomb victims are angry that Kenny MacAskill, the former Scottish justice secretary, is to profit from a book about his decision to release the man convicted of the atrocity.

In The Lockerbie Bombing: the Search for Justice Mr MacAskill explains his decision in 2009 to release Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.

His publisher will not reveal whether Mr MacAskill received an advance or what he would do with any royalties.

Relatives of some of the 270 people who died when Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down over Lockerbie in 1988 criticised his decision to make a profit.

Rosemary Mild, 74, whose stepdaughter Miriam Wolfe, 20, died, told the Daily Mail: “It is blood money when this man is profiting in this way — it is disgusting. Kenny MacAskill should have been forced to resign at the time of al-Megrahi’s release because what he did changed the way Scotland was regarded in the US and around the world. It was an abomination of justice.”

It is understood that Mr MacAskill’s book will be published in hardback on May 26 and will retail for £20.

Susan Cohen, an American who lost her daughter, Theodora, in the bombing, said: “It is totally self-serving of Kenny MacAskill to write this book. It is loathsome and disgusting.

“He is profiting from a decision which caused absolute outrage around the world, profiting from other people’s pain. If he is so convinced he made the right decision, why does he feel the need to attempt to justify it?”

Mr MacAskill, the former SNP member for Edinburgh Eastern at Holyrood, said recently that he wrote the book to “set the record straight” and added: “What I can say, without disclosing the full contents of the book, is that I knew we were a cog in a wheel.

“What I didn’t realise was how small a cog and how big a wheel. I think what comes out of this is that others should hang their head in shame and none of them is in Scotland.” (...)

A spokesman for Biteback Publishing said: “I can’t comment on the question of [whether he received] an advance, or what Kenny intends to do with any proceeds, as these arrangements are strictly between author and publisher.”

Mr MacAskill was not available for comment last night.

“This is the trial of the people who murdered our son”

[On this date in 2000 the Lockerbie trial began at Camp Zeist. The fullest account in the media of the day’s proceedings is to be found on Safia Aoude’s The Pan Am 103 Crash Website, from which the following excerpts are taken:]

Members of the court rose when the judges, wearing white wigs and dressed in flowing ivory robes with embroidered red crosses, were led into the chamber by a sentry bearing a silver mace. They took their seats on the bench underneath a Scottish royal crest bearing the Latin words: "Nemo me impune lacessit," which means "None dare meddle with me". The accused have waited almost a decade to have their day in court.

Flanked by Scottish police officers, the two suspects put on headphones to hear an Arabic interpretation of the English-speaking proceedings. Their facial expressions gave little away. Mr Fhimah sat virtually motionless, Mr Megrahi fiddled with his headphones and adjusted his glasses knowing that these new surroundings would become a kind of home over the next 12 months.

The suspects, clad in Libyan national dress of black cap, white robe and waistcoat, then pleaded not guilty to carrying out the bombing of New York-bound Pan Am flight 103 on the night of December 21, 1988. The clerk to the specially-convened Scottish court read a list of Arabic names of people he said the defence would allege were the real Lockerbie bombers.

It included members of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General and members of another group called the PPSF. The indictment against the accused - who sat impassively throughout - took 20 minutes to read, after which the clerk of the court announced that both men were pleading not guilty to all charges. (...)

More than 30 American victims' relatives were getting front-row seats in the public gallery, separated from the court by bulletproof glass. Relatives of the defendants sat on the other side, dressed in white robes like the accused, among them their daughters and Mr Fhimah's 15-year-old son, uncle and father. The two groups made obvious efforts to avoid each. Megrahi's 15-year-old son Khalid, dressed in a black bomber jacket and beige canvas trousers, sat just a couple of meters away from his father -- separated by bullet-proof glass and a Scottish police officer.

Victims' relatives shifted from seat to seat to find the best vantage point. “I like aisles. Aisles are good if I want to get away,” said one American woman. “We believe in faith. Whatever is written cannot be changed. We are not upset because we know they will get a fair trial and we know they are innocent,” said Ali Fahima, Fahima's cousin, speaking to reporters with the Libyan journalist interpreting.

Al-Megrahi's brother, Mohammed Ali Megrahi, said he is convinced his brother is innocent. "We are looking for the truth and we believe he didn't do it," he said outside the courtroom. "If we believed he did it, we wouldn't be here, and he wouldn't have come voluntarily." (...)

"I feel sick," said Susan Cohen, of Cape May Courthouse, NJ, whose daughter Theodora died in the crash. "I saw the Libyans come in, and I'm trying not to look at them." Her husband Daniel Cohen shares a sentiment common to many victims’ family members.  “I’m angry and you know I have absolutely no trouble with the word ‘revenge.’ None. I am just that angry.” (...)

“The people who are really responsible are who we are after,” said Kathleen Flynn of Montville, NJ, whose son, John Patrick Flynn, was among the victims. "We will attend every day, either here or in New York," said Kathleen Flynn. "This is the trial of the people who murdered our son, John Patrick Flynn. It will be terrible to sit in a courtroom with the murderers, but a parent has to do that."  “I don’t think Fhimah and Megrahi were sitting around a cafe in Malta and deciding, ‘Let’s blow up an American plane today.’ So I think obviously the culpability has to go up the chain of command and we want to know who did it and why.” (...)

No relatives turn up at Dumfries tv-link room in Scotland

It was business as usual at Dumfries Sheriff Court on Wednesday morning, with little evidence that the venue was electronically linked to Scotland's biggest ever murder trial. The legal proceedings at Camp Zeist, where two Libyan men stand accused of the murder of 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing, were relayed live to two screens in a small courtroom. The court was one of a number of venues in Britain and the United States chosen to televise the proceedings for the benefit of relatives and those directly affected by the disaster.

However, no-one had turned up at Courtroom Number Four by 1600 BST on Wednesday. Accredited relatives had been invited to use the facility but so far no-one has asked to do so. This could change, as the trial progresses though, according to Bert Houston, who was one of the first journalists on the scene of the disaster in the nearby town of Lockerbie on the night of 21 December 1988.

He said: "The point is that relatives do visit Lockerbie constantly throughout the summer and they may want to see some of the proceedings.  "The idea is that they come across here, spend a couple of hours or spend all day if they want, watching the proceedings.  "It's only 12 miles form Lockerbie and I'm quite sure relatives will take advantage of the situation later in the year."

Because it was recognised that not all of the victims' relatives would be able to attend the trial in the Netherlands, it was agreed that special centres should be set up where they could watch a television feed of the proceedings.

Ex-minister's "blood money" book insult

This is the headline over a long article in the Scottish edition of today’s Daily Mail. It can be read here. It deals, of course, with Kenny MacAskill’s forthcoming Lockerbie book. As the headline suggests, most of the article consists of outraged comments by relatives of US victims (and also by Frank Duggan -- president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc -- who is not a victim’s relative). Some UK relatives of Lockerbie victims were also approached by the Daily Mail, but none of their comments is published, presumably because they did not fit in with Mail’s preferred slant on the story.

Hillsborough and Lockerbie

[What follows is the text of a letter dated 28 April 2016 sent to the editor of The Guardian by Peter Biddulph, but not (as yet) published:]

Twenty seven years is indeed a damning indictment. (Owen Jones: Think Hillsborough couldn't happen today? Think again). And not only in the case of Hillsborough.

It is now almost thirty years since the Lockerbie bombing of December 21st 1988, in which 270 people were murdered by a terrorist bomb. Two Libyans were accused and tried at a specially located court at Kamp Zeist in Holland. One - Baset al-Megrahi - was convicted, the other acquitted with no case to answer.

Only eight years after the trial and two appeals did it emerge that the top police investigator had concealed his diary of his investigations from the defence team and the trial court. When examined by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) and members of the defence team, it was found to contain a chronological record of discussions with the US department of Justice and the sole identification witness concerning massive rewards, in the words of the US Department of Justice, of "unlimited monies" and "only if he gives evidence". The witness received $2m, and his brother $1m. This discovery was one of six areas of concern which led the SCCRC to conclude that "there may have been a miscarriage of justice".

Similarly, only after eight years was the forensic notebook of the prosecution's leading forensic scientist available for scrutiny by the defence team. This contained proof of either gross negligence or perjury when he told the trial judges that a fragment of timer circuit board found at the crash site was materially and structurally identical with timer boards delivered in 1985 to the Libyan government. In fact, his hand-written annotations revealed that the metallurgy of the fragment and the control samples were quite different. The fragment was protectively coated with 100% tin, whereas the sample was coated with an alloy of 70/30% tin/lead.

These issues, and several others with serious implications concerning both police and Crown officers, have been repeatedly brought to the attention of the Scottish government, the Scottish Crown Office, and the police. At all stages, those who have helped to expose them to public scrutiny have been pilloried as "conspiracy theorists".

Campaigners for justice in the Lockerbie case now await the results of Operation Sandwood, a police investigation into allegations of criminality by the Scottish Crown and certain Scottish police officers and government scientists. There is concern that campaigners for the truth have been forced to await an investigation of the police, by the police.  Whatever Sandwood contains, however, those areas of alleged criminality will still stand, and the fight for truth will continue.

Hillsborough has given truth and justice to the people of Liverpool. Let us hope that in time the same will be said for the bereaved of Lockerbie.

[RB: Further posts on this blog drawing analogies between Hillsborough and Lockerbie can be read here.]

Libya in £68m Lockerbie payout

[This is the headline over a report published in The Sunday Times on this date in 2005. It reads as follows:]

The payment, following Libya’s admission of responsibility for the tragedy which claimed 270 lives, was made into a Scottish bank account last week.

Minmar, which insured the fuselage of the aircraft, will receive £45m plus interest, while the remainder will go to the trustees of Pan Am, which went into bankruptcy in 1991, three years after the tragedy.

Until recently, lawyers for the Libyan government had contested the insurance claim in the Scottish courts despite a public admission of guilt by Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the country’s leader. [RB: No such public admission of guilt was ever made by Gaddafi.]

Charles Wardle, the former Tory Home Office and trade and industry minister who was involved in compensation discussions, described the payment — which settles the insurance claim — as a positive step forward.

“On Wednesday $130m was paid into the Scottish bank account. It is a significant piece of unfinished business,” he added. “This is the last action to be settled in respect of the Lockerbie bombing in a Scottish court, so it is momentous in that respect.

“Nothing will ever remove the horror of the atrocity in the eyes of the Scottish people but at least the shadow it has cast over the Scottish courts for all these years has been lifted.”

The payment follows a visit to Tripoli by Tony Blair in March last year, during which he is believed to have persuaded Gadaffi to settle the claim.

British and American diplomats had a successful follow-up meeting in Libya in January. Anthony Layden, the British ambassador to Tripoli, and lawyers representing Pan Am’s interests also took part.

However, it is still uncertain how Libya’s latest move will affect the final compensation package for relatives of the victims of the disaster.

[RB: The background of this compensation claim is explored here.]

Libya ratifies agreement with UK that could send Megrahi home

[This is the headline over a report by Lucy Adams that was published in The Herald on this date in 2009. It reads as follows:]

Libya has signed and ratified the prisoner transfer agreement with the UK that could see the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing returning to Tripoli.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Libyan serving 27 years in HMP Greenock for the bombing that killed 270 people in December 1988, can now make an application to return home.

In order to apply for a transfer he would have to drop his appeal against conviction, which entered its second day yesterday.

In a tacit acknowledgement that Megrahi is likely to be allowed to return home, the Crown Office wrote to all relatives of the victims two weeks ago explaining the transfer process.

Earlier this year, The Herald revealed that Libyan officials had been encouraged by senior civil servants from both sides of the border, including Robert Gordon, the head of the Justice Department in Scotland, to apply for Megrahi to be transferred as soon as the agreement was ratified.

Megrahi, whose case was referred back for a fresh appeal in June 2007 because it "may be a miscarriage of justice", is suffering from terminal prostate cancer and relatives and campaigners are concerned that he will not survive the appeal, which is expected to last at least 12 months - partly because the court will be sitting for only four days a week on alternate months.

His request for interim bail was last year turned down by three appeal court judges.

The e-mail from the Crown coincided with the publication of a critical report on the transfer agreement by the Joint Committee on Human Rights at Westminster.

Mr Straw wrote to the committee in March to say he would delay ratification only until the Easter recess because "a delay beyond early April is likely to lead to serious questions on the part of Libya in regards to our willingness to conclude this and three other judicial co-operation agreements".

The decision on Megrahi's transfer would ultimately rest with the Scottish Government and there have been indications in recent months that governments on both sides of the border are preparing for the transfer.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: "The prisoner transfer agreement between the UK and Libya was laid before Parliament on January 27. The Instruments of Ratification have been exchanged and the agreement is now in force.

"In the case of prisoners in Scottish jails, including Megrahi, and respecting the devolution settlement, any decision to transfer under this agreement would be for Scottish ministers and Scottish ministers alone."

The transfer deal was one of four co-operation agreements signed by the director of legal affairs at the Libyan Foreign Ministry and the British ambassador to Tripoli.

"These agreements open the way for ... judicial authorities in both countries to co-operate in the field of exchange of wanted suspects, transfer of prisoners, and carrying out judicial decisions," said the official.

Libya admits Lockerbie liability

[This is the headline over a report published on the Sky News website on this date in 2003. It reads as follows:]

Libya will pay £6.29m to each of the 270 victims of the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing after accepting civil responsibility for the blast. Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgham confirmed the £1.69bn compensation deal.

He said. "My country has accepted civil responsibility for the actions of its officials in the Lockerbie affair, in conformity with international civil law and the agreement reached in London in March by Libyan, American and British officials."

Mr [Shalgham] said full payment was conditional on UN sanctions against Libya being lifted after payment of an initial installment of £2.5m to each victim.

Sanctions imposed by the US would be lifted after a similar payment.

And after a final installment of around £1.25m, Libya would ask to be removed from the US list of countries supporting terrorism.

The £1.69bn total sum Libya will pay is the same as US officials said Libya had offered on March 12 as compensation in talks with the US and Britain.

They also said Tripoli was prepared to assume limited responsibility for the downing of Pan Am flight 103, something it has previously refused to do.

The Boeing 747 blew up and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988, after taking off from London, killing all 259 people on board and another 11 on the ground.

In January 2001, a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands convicted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, one of two Libyan agents charged with the bombing, and sentenced him to life in prison.

His appeal was rejected in March last year.

Hard to shake off suspicions of bias

From "In the Back" in the current edition of Private Eye:

Second Megrahi appeal commences

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2009:]

The legal team for the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has told judges that the evidence against him was "wholly circumstantial".

Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, who has prostate cancer, was not in court as his second appeal got under way.

However his QC, Maggie Scott, said he could follow proceedings via live video link to Greenock Prison.

She told the Court of Appeal that it remained Megrahi's view that he had suffered a "miscarriage of justice".

The second appeal is being heard by five judges in Edinburgh, headed by Scotland's senior judge, the Lord Justice General, Lord Hamilton.

Miss Scott said that because of his cancer Megrahi would need to take breaks due to the pain and was set to see doctors later this week for a new course of treatment.

She told the court: "The appellant's position is that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

"The trial court, on the basis of wholly circumstantial evidence, concluded beyond reasonable doubt that the appellant was involved in the commission of this crime.

"Our submission is it was wrong to do so".

She argued that the guilty verdict against Megrahi depended upon four "critical inferences" drawn at his trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Miss Scott said these included that Megrahi was the buyer of clothing remnants of which were found in the suitcase containing the bomb and that the purchase was made on 7 December, 1988.

She said it was also inferred that the purchaser knew the purpose for which the clothing was bought and that the suitcase containing the improvised explosive device was "ingested" at Luqa airport in Malta.

The defence counsel argued that they were not sufficiently supported by accepted evidence and relied on defective reasoning.

She said: "In this wholly circumstantial case the critical inferences are not the only reasonable inferences that could have been drawn from the accepted evidence."

She said they were insufficient in law to support the guilty verdict returned against Megrahi.

The first part of his hearing is expected to last four weeks with further stages in the process taking it into next year.

Police coached Lockerbie witness to identify Libyan as bomber

[This is part of the headline over a report published in The Guardian on this date in 2009. It reads as follows:]

The key witness in the Lockerbie bombing trial was coached and steered by Scottish detectives into wrongly identifying a Libyan sanctions buster as the bomber, his appeal lawyers claim.

Lawyers acting for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi will tell an appeal court that Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper, was interviewed 23 times by Scottish police before giving the evidence that finally led to Megrahi's conviction for the bombing in 1991.

Their allegations are central to Megrahi's appeal, which begins in Edinburgh tomorrow, against his conviction for the murder of 270 passengers, crew and townspeople when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988.

The first stage of the Libyan's lengthy appeal, which may take until next year to complete, will focus on his claims that the original trial judges were wrong in law to convict him and wrong to discard crucial evidence which undermined their guilty verdict.

Gauci identified Megrahi as the purchaser of clothes at his shop on Malta which were later allegedly packed in the suitcase carrying the Lockerbie bomb. But the Libyan's lawyers will claim there is now substantial evidence undermining the credibility of Gauci's testimony.

Megrahi's lawyers now believe Gauci received a "substantial" reward from the US government after his conviction thought to be as much as $2m - a payment not disclosed at the trial. The case against Megrahi hinges on Gauci's claim that the clothes allegedly packed into the suitcase bomb were bought on 7 December - the only day when Megrahi was in the area.  Megrahi’s lawyers lawyers say they can now prove they were bought up to two weeks before then, when the Libyan was not in the country.

Megrahi's lawyers will claim that in nearly two dozen formal police interviews, Gauci gave contradictory dates of purchase, changed his account of the sale, and on one occasion appeared to identify the Palestinian terrorist leader Abu Talb as the purchaser. Gauci's evidence is made unreliable by "undisputed factors", the appeal court will hear. They include an "extraordinary" delay in Gauci recalling the events of December 1988 and naming Megrahi; the "extraordinary amount of post-event suggestion to which the witness was subjected"; and his exposure to photos of Megrahi.

The appeal, which Megrahi is expected to watch live on a video link from Greenock prison near Glasgow, is being contested by the Scottish prosecution service, and the British government.

New witness casts doubt on Lockerbie bomb conviction

[This is the headline over a report published in The Independent on Sunday on this date in 2009. It reads as follows:]

A new witness is expected this week to undermine thoroughly the case against the only person to be convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. New testimony will call into question evidence linking the Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, his lawyers claim.

Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, is serving 27 years in Greenock prison for the bombing.

Appeal hearings are due to begin on Tuesday, and Megrahi's lawyers insisted this weekend they will go ahead as planned, despite speculation that he may be returned to Libya under the terms of a controversial prisoner transfer agreement, due to be ratified tomorrow.

"We are turning up next week," said Tony Kelly, his solicitor. "We are seeking that the court upholds his appeal, admit that there has been a miscarriage of justice, and grant him his liberty. Whatever remedies come after that is for after the appeal."

Appeal documents seen by The Independent on Sunday reveal that testimony from a new witness is expected to undermine the evidence of a key prosecution witness, Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper. His testimony was vital in connecting Megrahi to the bombing at the trial in 2001.

Mr Gauci identified Megrahi as the person who bought the tweed suit, baby sleepsuit and umbrella found among the remnants of the suitcase that contained the bomb on board.

The new witness, not named in the documents, will provide an account the defence claims is "startling in its consistency with Mr Gauci's account of the purchase, but adds considerable doubt to the date the key items were purchased and identification of Megrahi as the purchaser".

All of this may be academic, as 56-year-old Megrahi, who was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in October 2008, has been reported as having less than a year to live and the appeal could take two years.

Increasingly, however, it seems likely that the Lockerbie suspect will spend his last days in Libya. This month, officials wrote to the families of victims of the bombing explaining the prisoner transfer programme, interpreted as a tacit agreement that Megrahi may be returned to Libya. Under the terms of the deal, if Megrahi participates in the transfer scheme, he will forfeit his right to appeal.

"If he goes back to Libya, it will be a bitter pill to swallow, as an appeal would reveal the fallacies in the prosecution case," said Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed on Flight 103. Dr Swire is a member of UK Families Flight 103, which wants a public inquiry into the crash. "I've lost faith in the Scottish criminal justice system, but if the appeal is heard, there is not a snowball's chance in hell that the prosecution case will survive."

[RB: The “new witness” was David Wright. His story can be followed here.]

Sacked Lockerbie trial briefer in news again

[An article headlined Former Top UK Spy Now Works for Team Putin—and a Mobbed-Up Russian Lawyer is published today in The Daily Beast. The reference is to Andrew Fulton, whose link to the Lockerbie case is described in the article as follows:]

Andrew Fulton is a British ex-diplomat as well as the former chairman of the Scottish Conservatives. His role as an operative for the British Secret Intelligence Service has been reported in the UK press for years. It was confirmed in 2000 when he lost his job as coordinator of Glasgow University’s Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit, which covered the prosecution of Libyan terror suspects accused in the infamous 1988 bombing on Pan Am 103. Fulton was dismissed “following investigations into his MI6 career,” according to the Scottish weekly newspaper, the Sunday Herald. But by then Fulton had long since retired from government service.

In his MI6 days, Fulton reportedly had been posted in East Berlin, Saigon and New York. He had served as “head of station” in Washington, DC, and at the peak of his career he was the sixth most powerful official in the organization, according to The Herald.

Closing the Lockerbie case, not solving it

[This is the headline over an article by Simon Tisdall that was published in The Guardian on this date in 2000. It reads as follows:]

The long search for justice by the families of the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie disaster is approaching a crucial point with the opening next week in the Netherlands of the trial of two Libyan suspects accused of sabotaging Pan Am flight 103. The plane crashed near the Scottish town of Lockerbie after exploding in mid-air, killing 270 people.

But the trial of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah may raise more questions than it answers. The two men, alleged to be agents of Libyan intelligence, are expected to deny all the charges levelled against them. And terrorism experts say it is almost inconceivable that, even if they were involved, they could have acted alone or without the knowledge of the government of Colonel Muammar Gadafy.

As a condition for finally handing over the two suspects, after a protracted legal wrangle, Libya stipulated that the special court to be convened in Zeist would not seek to put the Libyan state on trial but concentrate solely on the case against the two men.

Libya's longstanding involvement in international terrorism will, however, provide the context for the trial. The US state department lists Libya as a state sponsor of terrorism and has maintained bilateral sanctions against the country. Its status as one of a group of so-called "rogue states" is used by the US, for example, to justify its need for a new "Star Wars" defensive missile shield.

Col Gadafy is a long-standing bogyman of the west. The US air attacks on Tripoli in 1986, ordered by President Ronald Reagan, followed a Libyan-inspired attack on a Berlin discotheque used by American servicemen. At various times, Col Gadafy has expressed support for groups engaged in armed struggles, from Lebanon to Northern Ireland.

Libyan "diplomats" were responsible for the murder in London of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. Last May, a shipment of Scud missile parts bound for Libya were discovered at Gatwick airport - a breach of the international arms embargo against Libya. And earlier this year, it was alleged that the British intelligence service, MI6, had at one time plotted to assassinate Col Gadafy.

Despite Libya's bloody track record, the Lockerbie attack was widely reported at the time to have been commissioned and paid for by Iran, which was said to be determined to avenge the earlier, accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane over the Gulf by the American navy ship, the USS Vincennes. The Iranians allegedly employed a Syrian-based terrorist group as middlemen. Under this theory, the Libyans were merely the "bag men" and the two suspects are fall-guys for a much wider plot.

Col Gadafy has been trying to clean up his image recently. His agreement to pay compensation for the death of WPC Fletcher, and his handing over of the Lockerbie suspects last April, brought a resumption of diplomatic ties with Britain, which has now sent an ambassador back to Tripoli. This week, Sir John Kerr, the top Foreign Office civil servant, will pursue this improvement in relations with a personal visit to Libya. Even the US has reopened informal diplomatic contacts.

Col Gadafy has also returned to the Organisation of African Unity fold, after many years of self-imposed isolation. And he attended the recent EU-Africa summit meeting in Cairo. Although on his best behaviour, he could not resist a characteristic tirade against the former colonial powers' African legacy.

The EU has lifted most remaining sanctions on Libya, although a proposal by Romano Prodi, the European Commission president, to invite Col Gadafy to Brussels was withdrawn recently amid much embarrassment.

Behind this thaw lies economic self-interest - Libya has important oil reserves and untapped commercial potential - and a desire to encourage Col Gadafy to adopt less threatening policies; put simply, to bring Libya in from the cold.

Thus while the Zeist trial may finally help bring the long-suffering families of the Lockerbie victims some sense of vindication, it may be unable to uncover the whole story of what really happened to flight 103. And suspicions will persist that governments as far apart as Tehran and Washington share a common interest in bringing the affair to a conclusion, however unsatisfactory - and in drawing a veil over the many murky and bloody episodes which comprised the West's undeclared 20-year war with Col Gadafy.