Malta is long overdue for an apology

[What follows is excerpted from an article published in Malta Today on this date in 2009:]

Dr [Jim] Swire, known for his involvement in the aftermath of the 1988 Pan-Am airline bombing in which his daughter Flora was killed, has spoken to MaltaToday and reiterated his belief that the bomb that exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie killing 270, did not leave from Malta.

Reacting to (...)  the doubts concerning key witness Tony Gauci’s testimony against Libyan convict Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, Swire said Malta was “long overdue for exoneration and an apology… I do not believe the bomb that killed my daughter started from there, nor do many others.”

Swire is also a founder member of the Justice for Megrahi campaign which seeks interim release from jail for Megrahi, who has been diagnosed with metastasized prostatic cancer and is terminally ill, so that he can return to his family in Scotland pending his second appeal against conviction.

Swire told MaltaToday that at the trial in the Netherlands, which found Megrahi guilty and convicted him to 27 years’ imprisonment for placing the bomb in the luggage that was found in Pan-Am Flight 103, “there was simply no evidence as to how Megrahi might have penetrated security at Luqa to put the bomb aboard.”

Megrahi, a former Libyan Arab Airlines security official in Malta, was claimed to have bought clothes from Mary’s Shop in Sliema, which were later found wrapped around the bomb. Shopkeeper Tony Gauci was crucial in identifying Megrahi as the man who bought the clothes from him just before Christmas 1988.

But Swire told MaltaToday that Air Malta had kept “exemplary records” of their flight KM180 which showed that all the bags carried belonged to the passengers and that all were returned to their owners, with none left over, at Frankfurt – where the bomb was loaded onto the Pan Am flight.

“Although Air Malta did force a British TV company to withdraw its allegations that they carried the bomb, I am surprised that neither they nor your government seem to have demanded an explanation for the concealment of evidence from Heathrow, until after the verdict implicating Luqa had been reached. The information only surfaced in Holland in 2000 thanks to the perseverance of the Heathrow security guard who had discovered the break-in,” Swire says.

“The judges were reduced to saying of how Megrahi was supposed to have penetrated security at Luqa and that the absence of evidence was ‘a major problem for the prosecution case’.

“They could surely never have achieved this extraordinary verdict, had they known all the facts.”

On the hand, Swire says the bomb was placed inside the luggage at Heathrow airport.

“In the early hours of the day of the disaster at Heathrow airport, London, there was a break-in allowing access for an unidentified person to the ‘secure’ airside portion of the airport, close to the Iran Air facility and to the baggage assembly shed. In that shed, inside the container in which the explosion was later shown to have occurred, was seen an unauthorised suitcase, which was not removed. It was seen well before the flight from Frankfurt had even landed.

“The most sinister aspect of this information about the break-in at Heathrow is that it was concealed for 12 years, until after the verdict had been reached, yet it was known to our anti-terrorist special branch, and fully recorded in the Heathrow security logbooks.

“A verdict has been brought in, dependent upon activities at Luqa for which there is no evidence, while the information about a probably highly relevant criminal act at Heathrow has been deliberately suppressed. What we need to know now is on whose orders the concealment was carried out and why they ordered it,” Swire said.

Lockerbie appeal

A three-year investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission into whether Megrahi suffered a miscarriage of justice has sent his case back into appeal, with the Libyan’s lawyers claiming there is now substantial evidence undermining the credibility of Tony Gauci’s testimony.

Last week, Megrahi’s lawyers announced that their new evidence showed Gauci had been “coached and steered by Scottish detectives” into wrongly identifying the Libyan, claiming Gauci was interviewed 23 times by Scottish police before giving the evidence that finally led to the conviction for the bombing.

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.

The Toshiba instruction manual evidence

[On this date in 2000, Mrs Gwendoline Horton gave evidence at the Lockerbie trial. A report on the South African IOL website, based on news agency reports from Camp Zeist, contains the following:]

An elderly resident of an English farming village told on Wednesday how she found among Pan Am Flight 103 debris strewn outside her home a document that became essential to the Lockerbie investigation - a cassette recorder manual. (...)

Gwendoline Horton, of Morpeth, 100km east of Lockerbie, described the scene around the town the day after the explosion. Air currents had carried a considerable amount of light debris into northern England and deposited it in the Morpeth area.

"All the local farmers were collecting it in the fields," Horton said. "We went out to collect what we could. I remember coming upon a document of some sort that made reference to a radio cassette player."

Police constable Brian Walton confirmed that he accepted Horton's find, which he described as an instruction handbook for a cassette player.

"It had tiny bits of cinder on the edges," he told the court. "At that time, it didn't have significance that it obviously might have now."

But when Horton was handed a plastic bag with fragments of the manual, she did not recognise it.

"I'm sure when I handed it in it was in one piece," she testified.

[RB: The best analysis of the evidence about the Toshiba instruction manual is to be found here and here on Caustic Logic’s blog The Lockerbie Divide.]

'Realistic possibility' of second Lockerbie bombing trial

[This is the headline over a report published this evening on the STV News website. It reads in part:]

Scotland's chief law officer believes there is a "realistic possibility" of a second trial over the murder of 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing.

Scottish and American investigators announced last year that they had identified two Libyans as suspects over the 1988 atrocity but since then very little has been said publicly about the case.

In an interview with STV News to mark his departure from the post after five years, lord advocate Frank Mulholland QC discussed the prospect of fresh prosecutions over Britain's biggest mass murder.

"I've been to Tripoli twice," said. "I've established good relations with the law enforcement attorney general in Libya.

"We're currently at a stage where there are a number of outstanding international letters of request, one of which is seeking the permission of the Libyan authorities to interview two named individuals as suspects.

"Following all the work that's been going on, and it's been painstaking, it's taken some time, it does take time.

"I hope that the Libyans will grant permission for that to be done. I obviously can't say too much publicly but a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to make that happen.

"What I hope is that this will bear fruit and we can take it to the next stage of seeking the extradition of the two named individuals."

Last October, it was announced the lord advocate and the US attorney general had agreed there was "a proper basis in law" to treat the two Libyans as suspects.

The two men were not named by the Scottish or US authorities but they are Abdullah Senussi, Colonel Gaddafi's former intelligence chief, and Abouajela Masud.

Both are being held in jails in Libya - Senussi is appealing against a death sentence while Masud is serving ten years for bomb making. (...)

Asked if there was any realistic possibility of Senussi being surrendered for trial, Frank Mulholland replied: "Before I embarked on this work I was told that there was no possibility, absolutely none, of the Libyans cooperating with law enforcement in Scotland or the United States. That happened.

"In 2011, I attended a ceremony in Arlington where the Libyan ambassador to the US made a public commitment on behalf of the Libyan government to help. They have kept their word. They have helped.

"I said it takes time, and it will take time, and that's certainly something which we are used to in relation to the Lockerbie inquiry.

"If we get to the stage of seeking the extradition of two named individuals or indeed more persons, I think there's a realistic possibility that there could be a further trial."

The two men are suspected of bringing down Pan Am 103 while acting along with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who remains the only person convicted of the bombing.

He died protesting his innocence after being released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government. A high-profile campaign to clear his name continues.

The lord advocate acknowledged any new Lockerbie trial would involve a public re-examination of the disputed evidence from Megrahi's.

"I don't fear that," he said. "I think that's a good thing. Without seeking to comment on what the outcome would be, I think the evidence would stand up to a further test.

"We wouldn't be doing this unless we thought that the evidence was sufficiently credible and reliable to have them interviewed as suspects, I think that's the best way to put it."

For many years after the bombing it seemed extremely unlikely there would ever be prosecutions over Lockerbie.

Eventually a diplomatic deal paved the way for the first trial to go ahead in a specially-convened Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Frank Mulholland first raised the hope that the collapse of Gaddafi's regime could allow Scottish police to visit Libya back in 2011.

He is the first British or American official to publicly express the belief that a second trial could happen, albeit with carefully chosen words.

[RB: In my view the chances of either Senussi or Masud being extradited to stand trial for the Lockerbie bombing are precisely zero. I would, however, be delighted to be proved wrong since, as Frank Mulholland concedes, that would inevitably subject to further scrutiny the evidence that led to the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi -- a scrutiny that that evidence could not survive.]

Being the lord advocate means ‘always being ten minutes away from disaster’

This is the headline over a lengthy profile of the outgoing Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, in today’s edition of The Times. Scanning the article for references to Mr Mulholland’s absolutely outrageous conduct in connexion with Justice for Megrahi’s allegations of criminal misconduct in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial, my eyes lit upon the following:

“The departing lord advocate has kept some very bad company over the years. He had the satisfaction of dealing with Robert Black …”

Great was my disappointment to discover that the reference is to the serial killer, not to me.

The profile contains no reference whatsoever to Lockerbie or the Megrahi case. This is perhaps just as well, since any such reference would of necessity have conflicted with the saccharine tone of the rest of the piece.

Expert guesswork sometimes used to locate evidence

[The following are excerpts from a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2000:]

Tiny fragments of the suitcase suspected by police to have contained the bomb which destroyed Pan Am 103 were still being found months after the aircraft was blown up.

The fifth day of the Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands has heard that thousands of items were sifted through for signs of blast damage.

In the spring and summer of 1989, officers returned to specific search areas and turned up more evidence. (...)

Teams of officers sorted and examined 40,000 pieces for signs of unusual damage. They were labelled and stored according to the search sector in which they were found.

DC [Duncan] McInnes identified items he had discovered from his work inside the hanger in March 1989.

They included blast-damaged fragments of a brown suitcase and burnt pieces of material about an inch square.

He then identified other items he found when further outdoor searches were conducted in Newcastleton forest in the April and May of that year.

They included more tiny pieces of a brown suitcase, possibly Samsonite.

He had labelled one find as "rubber trim, copper-coloured, possibly from the bomb case". (...)

Cross-examined, DC McInnes acknowledged that the sheer volume of wreckage, plus erratic police labelling, meant expert guesswork was sometimes used to locate evidence and date its discovery retroactively.

He told defence counsel Bill Taylor that in the weeks following the disaster, trucks filled with wreckage arrived at a warehouse where an initial reconstruction of the plane was made.

Not every individual piece was labelled by waves of police conducting fingertip "line searches" over vast stretches of open country, forest and farmland, and some paper labels were washed out or dissolved by rain.

The detective agreed that it was now "utterly impossible" to reconstruct where, when and by whom individual pieces were found and admitted a description of another piece was written over type-correcting fluid covering words no longer legible.

Another officer, Thomas Gilchrist, admitted under cross-examination by defence advocate Richard Keen, that a description on one label which was shown magnified on a courtroom imager might possibly have been changed from "clothes" to "debris".

Desperate to see his family - so ... that's the priority

[The following are extracts from media reports published on this date in 2009:]

From The Herald: The Lockerbie appeal continued yesterday despite the Libyan Government's request to transfer the man convicted of the bombing back to Tripoli.

Legal experts warned that the deal has not yet been agreed and that, although the Libyan Government has made the application, it cannot go ahead without the agreement of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.

Maggie Scott, QC, told the court that Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer, would be undergoing tests today and next week and that he will not be able to watch but "he wants the matter to proceed".

In order for the transfer to take place, there can be no proceedings active, so Megrahi would have to drop the appeal.

The Crown Office appeal against the length of the 27-year sentence imposed on the Libyan would also have to be dropped. It, too, is currently still live.

Professor Robert Black, one of the architects of the original trial at Camp Zeist, said: "The application is a government-to-government application. The only indication of what Mr Megrahi's attitude towards it is from the mouths of other people. For the transfer to go through, it is Megrahi who would have to agree to drop the appeal."

Megrahi, 57, whose condition is said to have deteriorated considerably, could also re-apply for bail on the basis of his health.

Last year, when three appeal court judges turned down his request for interim liberation, they left it open for him to apply again.

"He is in considerable discomfort," Ms Scott told the court yesterday. "It is anticipated he will be undergoing tests tomorrow and in the course of next week, so it is not anticipated he will be able to witness proceedings over the next series of days. He does, however, want matters to proceed. It is appropriate I point that out to the court."

Dumfries Labour MSP Elaine Murray yesterday expressed concerns that past and current comments made by First Minister Alex Salmond may be considered by the Libyan Government as Scottish ministers having predetermined their application for the transfer of Megrahi to a Libyan jail. She also provided the Libyans with grounds for judicial review should the application be rejected by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

From STV News:  First Minister Alex Salmond has cast doubt on whether Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill will be able to rule on the prisoner transfer request from Libya of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.

Libyan authorities have applied for Megrahi to be moved to Libya under a treaty between that country and the UK. The process should be completed within 90 days.

However, Mr Salmond has said it may be a problem to fulfil the agreement in that time frame.

Mr Salmond said: "In the prisoner transfer agreement, it says this process would normally take 90 days but of course there are unknowns, including the judicial process in Scotland which is not completely under our control."

Meanwhile, a MSP has said Megrahi is in deteriorating health and "absolutely desperate" to see his family.

Christine Grahame, who met the Libyan in Greenock Prison on Friday, refused to say if he intends to abandon his appeal which is now underway in Edinburgh.

Ms Grahame, SNP MSP for South of Scotland, paid an hour-long visit to Megrahi in Greenock, where he is serving a life sentence for the 1988 bombing which killed 270 people.

She said: "I found it quite upsetting. The man is obviously very ill and he is desperate to see his family - absolutely desperate to see his family - so, whatever it takes, that's the priority."

She went on: "I am absolutely more convinced than ever that there has been a miscarriage of justice."

Asked if Megrahi plans to press on with his appeal, she said: "I can't say that - that is for him to say through his lawyers."

Justice Scotched in Lockerbie Trial

[This is the headline over an article by Alexander Cockburn that was published in the 7 May 2001 edition of The Nation. It reads as follows:]

There’s a famous passage in Lord Cockburn’s Memorials of His Time where the great Scotch judge and leading Whig stigmatizes some of his Tory predecessors on the bench, including the terrible Lord Braxfield, who presided over what Cockburn called “the indelible iniquity” of the sedition trials of 1793 and 1794. “Let them bring me prisoners, and I’ll find them law,” Cockburn quotes Braxfield as saying privately, also whispering from the bench to a juror he knew, “Come awa, Maister Horner, come awa, and help us to hang ane o’ thae daamned scoondrels.”

Braxfield most certainly has his political disciples on the Scottish bench today, in the persons of the three judges who traveled to the Netherlands to preside over the recent trial of the two Libyans charged with planting the device that prompted the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. In the first criticism of the verdict, Hans Koechler, a distinguished Austrian philosopher appointed as one of five international observers at the trial in Zeist, Holland, by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, has issued a well-merited denunciation of the judges’ bizarre conclusion. “In my opinion,” Koechler said, “there seemed to be considerable political influence on the judges and the verdict.”

Koechler’s recently released analysis of the proceedings, in which the judges found one of the two accused Libyans, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, guilty while exonerating his alleged co-conspirator, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, is by no means an exercise in legal esoterica. Basically, he points out that the judges found Megrahi guilty even though they themselves admitted that his identification by a Maltese shop owner (summoned by the prosecution to testify that Megrahi bought clothes later deemed to have been packed in the lethal suitcase bomb) was “not absolute” and that there was a “mass of conflicting evidence.”

Furthermore, Koechler queries the active involvement of senior US Justice Department officials as part of the Scotch prosecution team “in a supervisory role.”

Assuming a requisite degree of judicial impartiality, the prosecution’s case absolutely depended on proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes, traced by police to a Maltese clothes shop. In nineteen separate statements to police prior to the trial the shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, had failed to make a positive identification of Megrahi. In the witness box Gauci was asked five times if he recognized anyone in the courtroom. No answer. Finally, the exasperated prosecutor pointed to the dock and asked if the man sitting on the left was the customer in question. Even so, the best that Gauci could do was to mumble that “he resembled him.”

Gauci had also told the police that the man who bought the clothes was 6 feet tall and over 50 years of age. Megrahi is 5 feet 8 inches tall, and in late 1988 he was 36. The clothes were bought either on November 23 or December 7, 1988. Megrahi was in Malta on December 7 but not on the November date. The shopkeeper recalled that the man who bought the clothes also bought an umbrella because it was raining heavily outside. Maltese meteorological records introduced by the defense showed clearly that while it did rain all day on November 23, there was almost certainly no rain on December 7. If it did rain on that date, the shower would have been barely enough to wet the pavement. Nevertheless, the judges held it proven that Megrahi had bought the clothes on December 7.

No less vital to the prosecution’s case was its contention that the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 had been loaded as unaccompanied baggage onto an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, flown on to London, and thence onto the ill-fated flight to New York. In support of this, prosecutors produced a document from Frankfurt airport indicating that a bag had gone from the baggage-handling station at which the Air Malta bags (along with those from other flights) had been unloaded and had been been sent to the handling station for the relevant flight to London. But there was firm evidence from the defense that all the bags on the Air Malta flight were accompanied and were collected at the other end. Nevertheless, the judges held it proven that the lethal suitcase had indeed come from Malta.

The most likely explanation of the judges’ decision to convict Megrahi despite the evidence, or lack of it, must be that either (a) they panicked at the thought of the uproar that would ensue on the US end if they let both the Libyans off, or (b) they were simply given their marching orders by high authority in London. English judges are used to doing their duty in this manner–see, for example, the results of various “impartial” judicial inquiries into British atrocities in Northern Ireland over the years.

In closing arguments, the prosecution stressed the point that Megrahi could not have planted the bomb without the assistance of Fhimah – that both defendants were equally guilty, and should stand or fall together. Nevertheless, the judges elected to find one of the two conspirators guilty and the other one innocent, a split verdict that Koechler finds “incomprehensible.” It is however entirely comprehensible if we accept that the judges knew there was no evidence to convict either man but that it was politically imperative for them to send one of them down for twenty years and thereby pass the buck to the appeals court. Given the legally threadbare nature of the judges’ eighty-two-page “opinion” justifying their actions, many observers are assuming that the five-man panel of judges who will eventually hear Megrahi’s appeal will have to do the right thing. But that is what many of us said about the original trial.

Libyan government applies for Megrahi prisoner transfer

[What follows is the text of a report that was published on the BBC News website on this date in 2009:]

The Libyan authorities have requested that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing be transferred from Scotland.

The application for the transfer of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was received by the Scottish Government.

The move came after a prisoner transfer agreement was ratified by the UK and Libyan governments last week.

Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of carrying out the 1988 atrocity, which claimed 270 lives when Pan-Am flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town.

The Scottish Government, which has the final say on the transfer request, said the application would be considered by officials who would advise ministers.

Under the terms of the prisoner transfer agreement, it is thought the process could take about 90 days - although it could take longer if further information is required.

Al-Megrahi, who is terminally ill with prostate cancer, is currently being held in Greenock Prison.

The 57-year-old, who has already lost one appeal, has been conducting a second appeal against his conviction. It is being heard by five judges in Edinburgh.

Although the appeal can continue while Scottish ministers consider the application from the Libyan authorities, a transfer would not be possible while criminal proceedings are taking place.

That means it would not be possible for al-Megrahi to return to Libya unless he dropped his appeal.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was on board the Pan Am flight, said it was only right Megrahi should be allowed home.

"I am not opposed to this, simply because I don't believe the man is guilty as charged and I don't think Megrahi should be in prison," he said.

But Barrie Berkley, who lost his son Alistair in what was the worst terrorist attack in UK history, said he hoped the appeal would continue.

"I would rather the appeal be completed first and I hope the courts would facilitate it going through without any further delay," said Mr Berkley, of Hexham, Northumberland.

"We want the appeal to go through because it's the main means of us getting further information about how our family members died or why they died.

"We really want to know whether the Libyans were behind this and Megrahi was behind it."

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond previously raised concern that his government was not consulted by UK ministers before a memorandum of understanding on prisoner transfer was signed with Libya.

A spokesman for the then prime minister, Tony Blair, insisted at the time that no deal had been signed over the future of Megrahi, who was tried under Scottish law at a specially convened court at Camp Zeist, in the Netherlands.

Police followed Palestine link, Lockerbie trial told

[This is the headline over a report in The Guardian on this date in 2000. It reads in part:]

Scottish police investigating the Lockerbie disaster flew to Rome and Germany within days of the bombing to study similar atrocities involving a Palestinian group, the Lockerbie trial in Holland was told today.

Retired detective chief inspector Gordon Ferrie said that the tragedy was treated as a murder inquiry from the day after it happened. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) quickly became the "focus of attention" because of arrests of some of its members in Germany only two months before Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie.

They included a man known as Marwan Kreeshat [or Khreesat] a technical expert who had been jailed for 18 years in his absence for his part in placing a bomb in a record player on an El Al flight from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1972. He had been arrested by the Germans in October 1988, the court was told, but released in December, before the Lockerbie bombing later the same month.

About ten senior officers from the Lockerbie inquiry spent weeks at the German headquarters of the BKA, the German equivalent of the FBI, the court heard.

The two Libyans accused of the bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, deny charges of murder and conspiracy to murder, and they have lodged special defences in which they incriminate, among others, members of the PFLP-GC.

Under cross-examination Mr Ferrie confirmed he had been sent to Rome twice to study the El Al incident, in which two British women had been befriended by three men - including Marwan Kreeshat - and persuaded to take a record player on board the plane. They did not know it contained a bomb.

El Al security measures ensured the record player went into the bomb-proof luggage hold, instead of in the passenger cabin. Fortunately, although the device exploded at about 13,000ft and blew a hole in the passenger floor, the plane landed back at Rome safely.

Mr Ferrie brought back to Lockerbie some of the Italian evidence in the case, including part of an altimeter which had been used in the bomb's trigger. Questioned by Richard Keen QC, representing Fhimah, Mr Ferrie confirmed that in Rome he had discovered that Kreeshat had been involved in other incidents "using improvised explosive devices", including the bombing of a plane using a Toshiba radio cassette recorder modified to act as a bomb.

The Lockerbie trial indictment accuses Megrahi and Fhimah of placing an "improvised explosive device" concealed inside a Toshiba radio cassette recorder on board an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt labelled for onward connection to New-York bound Pan Am Flight 103 at Heathrow. (...)

Re-examined by Alan Turnbull QC, prosecuting, Mr Ferrie was asked: "There came a stage when the inquiry led officers in a direction other than the PFLP, weren't there?" Mr Ferrie agreed.

However, when he then asked Mr Ferrie what the eventual result of the police inquiry was, defence lawyers objected that it was hearsay evidence, because Mr Ferrie had later been moved to other work.

Questioned by Mr Keen for Fhimah, Mr McLean insisted that, although FBI and CIA agents from America were swiftly on the scene of the disaster, all evidence found was "religiously and meticulously" logged, including items recovered by the CIA.

“It just looked like everything was burning”

[What follows is excerpted from Safia Aoude’s coverage of Day 2 of the Lockerbie trial (4 May 2000) on The Pan Am 103 Crash Website:]

Graphic accounts of the carnage inflicted when a terrorist bomb ripped apart a jumbo jet and sent it plunging into a Scottish town dominated the second day of the Lockerbie trial on Thursday. relatives of the victims attending the trial held hands as witnesses recounted the grisly scene of flaming houses and screaming. Defense lawyers did not question the five eye-witnesses who testified on the second morning of the trial to a grim court. (...)

Witnesses to the Lockerbie bombing have relived the horror of the night Pan Am flight 103 was blown up.  They described how they fled for their lives as flames and debris fell over the tiny Scottish town and of the stricken plane falling from the sky in a burning arc towards the ground.

Social worker Jasmine Bell, 53, relived how she had evaded flames and burning objects as she arrived in the Scottish town to deliver Christmas food parcels. She told the specially convened court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands how she called at her brother's home in Sherwood Park - close to Sherwood Crescent where the Lockerbie residents lost their lives. She looked up into the sky as her brother yelled: "It's a plane, get down."

Mrs Bell, from Dumfries, told the court: "I looked up and saw what I imagined was a small plane just going over my head. I ducked down and covered my head.

"There was fire all around me, there were burning objects and the fire was falling down from the sky and as it landed on the ground I was stepping backwards to avoid the fire and I stepped back and back until my back was against the wall of the house and I couldn't go any further." Then her brother, who had entered his home through the garage, pulled her into the house, Mrs Bell said.

"Everything was burning, the driveway, the lawn, the hedges, the rooftops, it just looked like everything was burning." (...)

Kevin Anderson, 35, a plasterer from Tundergarth, three miles from Lockerbie, saw the cockpit of the plane, one of the few recognisable sections to fall to earth. He said: "It was like an atomic bomb that you see on the telly. It was up in the air and then came down."  Then, he said, debris began falling and the cockpit landed in the field, about 100 yards away from him.  "I fetched the wife and we went up to look. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

"There were bodies lying around the cockpit. I went to get my father-in-law from his house about 100 yards up the road. We went over to the cockpit to see if anyone was alive. I had a torch. We looked inside the cockpit. I could see the pilot." (...)

The most senior police officer in Lockerbie on the night of the Pan Am 103 disaster has said he fears the town may never get back to normal.  Retired superintendent Geoffrey Carpenter was giving evidence after the recess. He was among the first officers to reach the scene and became a key figure in organising the rescue services and coping with the aftermath of the disaster. Mr Carpenter told the trial he hoped the case would mark the last chapter in the tragedy.

Mr Carpenter, who retired seven years ago and still lives in Lockerbie, was asked by prosecuting counsel Colin Boyd QC whether the community would ever get over what happened. He said: "It's difficult to say. It affects people in different ways. You get people who don't want to know, and people who want to talk about it.  "It's unfortunate that you've got this court sitting now which brings it all home.

"I would like to think that, at the end of this, we get back to normality, if we ever do.   "It is something we have to live with for the rest of our lives."

Mr Carpenter praised the way in which the people of Lockerbie reacted to the disaster. He told the court: "They baked, made food for search teams and many volunteered help in the enquiry centre. They did a tremendous job." (...)

Also among the spectators today was New York lawyer James Kreindler, who is preparing a civil suit against Libya on behalf of 105 victims' families. "We probably have 90 percent of the evidence we need," he told The Associated Press, though said he lacked testimony that the bomb was planted at the behest of the government. Kreindler said: "There is evidence we need to show that Libya was responsible for the bombing and that evidence has been kept confidential until it is brought forward in the criminal trial.

“Whether the two men are criminally convicted is not essential for us. We do not need criminal convictions to move forward against the Libyans.”

Suspect Fhimah's cousin Ali Fhimah said to the press today: “We met him yesterday and his spirits are very high and he is confident he (will be proved) innocent.”  The Saudi-owned daily Asharq al-Awsat also quoted al-Megrahi's brother, Mohammad, as saying: “He is in high spirits.”

"This is the first time I've seen my dad in the courtroom.  I feel sad but hopeful he will prove his innocence," Megrahi's  daughter Ghada Megrahi told reporters at the court. Wearing a kerchief on her head in keeping with Muslim tradition, she said, “It hurts, but I know my father is innocent,” before a burly Libyan man, who would not identify himself, shepherded them away.