Questions about Iranian rôle have never been fully answered

[What follows is the text of a report published on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website on this date in 2000:]

A US television network report has focused attention on the possibility that Iran is linked to the Lockerbie bombing. As RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel reports, questions about an Iranian role have always been part of the case -- but have never been fully answered.

A report aired by the CBS network this weekend quotes an Iranian who says he has detailed evidence that Tehran masterminded the 1988 bombing of a US passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The man, now in Turkey, identifies himself as Ahmad Behbahani and says he is the former head of Iran's foreign terrorism activities. He also gives accounts of Iranian government involvement in other attacks and assassinations over the last two decades.

Since speaking to the network, the self-described spymaster has passed into the hands of the CIA, which is debriefing him to confirm his identity and his story. That means little more information about him is likely to be known for some time.

But the report is already generating widespread interest, because it focuses new attention on one of the central questions of the Lockerbie case.

That is whether the trail of the bombing ends in Libya, as prosecutors in the case maintain. A Scottish court operating in the Netherlands is currently trying two Libyans accused of placing the bomb, which killed 270 people.

When the investigation into the bombing began 12 years ago, many investigators first believed Iran was behind the attack. They cited Iranian threats to exact revenge for the U.S. shooting down of an Iranian airbus several months earlier in the Persian Gulf -- in which 290 people died. And they cited Iranian links to some radical Palestinian groups suspected of carrying out the work.

David Claridge is an analyst at Rubicon International, a London-based security advisory service. He has been closely following the Lockerbie case. Claridge says that although the Iranian track was later abandoned by the investigators, suspicions about Iran have lingered.

"The direction of the investigation for the first several years was very much focused upon the Iranian connection. It seemed logical that Iran would be involved [because it was] a significant sponsor of terrorism during that period, and Libya has never shown the kind of logistical capability that Iran has shown. [Then] the American and British authorities switched their attention away from Iran to Libya with really very little explanation as to why they felt that the Libya case was so much more plausible."

US and British government investigators have said that forensic evidence found on the ground pointed convincingly to Libyan involvement, forcing them to drop the Iranian angle and look toward Tripoli instead.

But Claridge says many close to the case feel that some of the key evidence could equally point to Iran, or to both Libya and Iran.

"The physical evidence, the fragment of electronic circuit board, which is the main piece of physical evidence which is supposed to point towards Libya -- there are also plausible theories that it points toward Iran."

He says lawyers defending the two Libyan suspects in the Netherlands will be trying to use some of that ambiguity about the evidence to suggest that the prosecution's case against them is incomplete.

"[There is] some fairly hard evidence suggesting that there is involvement of Iranian sponsored Palestinian groups, possibly the Abu Nidal organization and other Palestinian groups operating out of Germany. It is certainly the case that the defense in the trial going on at the moment intends to explore the possibility of Palestinian involvement with Iranian backing. They have made it clear that they intend to make an accusation against a Palestinian with the suggestion that the Iranians have backed them."

Under Scottish law, the defense attorneys need only to create a reasonable doubt in the minds of the panel of three judges hearing the case to win an acquittal.

If the man CBS interviewed is telling the truth, the revelations would have a direct impact on the Lockerbie trial. Claridge says:

"It is perfectly possible that you could have the involvement of both the [Libyan and Iranian] intelligence services. So just because there is Libyan involvement does not preclude Iranian involvement and vice versa. Certainly, if new evidence of this kind becomes available, it is going to blow a significant hole in the prosecution's case, which is going to require significant further investigation and examination."

Many parties and potential suspects in the case have already responded to the CBS report.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said today no one named "Behbahani" ever worked for the intelligence service.

The United States says it is standing by the Scottish prosecutors trying the two Libyans. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker says, "We believe the case [in the Netherlands] is very solid." But he also says Washington will fully assess the declared Mr Behbahani's story.

Even smaller players have had their say. Palestinian radical Ahmed Jabril, to whom Behbahani said he proposed the Lockerbie job, said he knows no such man. Jabril is secretary-general of the General Command of the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Meanwhile, the Lockerbie trial -- like the speculation over the alleged Iranian connection -- continues. The trial is still in the early stage of hearing evidence, and is predicted to go on at least 12 months.

Trump slams Alex Salmond and Hillary Clinton over Megrahi release

[What follows is excerpted from a report in today’s edition of The Sunday Times:]

A fresh war of words has broken out between Donald Trump and Alex Salmond after the American billionaire described Scotland’s former first minister as “dumb” for allowing the Lockerbie bomber to be freed on compassionate grounds.

Trump also rounded on Hillary Clinton, his potential rival for the US presidency, following recent claims that in 2009, when she was secretary of state, Clinton did not strongly oppose the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, despite official opposition to the move by the White House.

Trump, the presumptive Republican party’s presidential nominee, told The Sunday Times last week that it was “very sad and very stupid that [Megrahi] was released. Only Salmond and Hillary could be so dumb”.

His comments follow the publication of a book on the Lockerbie bombing by Kenny MacAskill, the former justice secretary who decided to free the terminally ill Megrahi from a Scottish prison. He was sent home to Libya and died in 2012.

According to MacAskill, Clinton phoned a week before Megrahi’s release and appeared to be “simply going through the motions” when she voiced concerns about the move.

It later emerged that the US government indicated a preference for Megrahi to be freed on compassionate grounds rather than transferred to a Libyan jail.

Trump later claimed that Salmond asked him to speak out in favour of the decision to release Megrahi. The tycoon refused. On Friday, Salmond accused Trump of having “problems with his memory”.

The SNP MP for Gordon in Aberdeenshire claimed that in 2011, two years after Megrahi’s release, Trump offered to endorse Salmond in the Scottish parliament election. Salmond said that he “politely declined”.

“Trump is clearly having further problems with his memory,” said Salmond.

“When I spoke to him on the phone on this issue in 2009 he seemed quite comfortable with the Megrahi release when he thought it was part of some economic deal. It was only when I told him that the Scottish government were following the precepts of Scots law with no financial advantage whatsoever that he seemed to find it more difficult to understand.

“At any rate he couldn’t have been too upset since he volunteered to publicly endorse me as first minister two years later in the Scottish election campaign of 2011. I politely declined his offer.”

Salmond said “at no stage” did Clinton support Megrahi’s release, although both the Bush and Obama administrations “knew it was the policy of the UK government, since they were all angling for the same economic and oil deals with Colonel Gaddafi”.

[RB: Very senior officials of the Gaddafi regime told me shortly before Megrahi’s release that repatriation (if granted by the Scottish Government) had been cleared with the US administration, but that there would be lots of huffing and puffing for US internal political reasons.]

Lockerbie: Conspiracy theories

[This is the headline over a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2000. It reads as follows:]

The allegations that Iran, not Libya, was behind the Lockerbie bombing in December 1988 are not new.

But the assertion by a former Iranian intelligence official, Ahmad Behbahani, that he was responsible for all "terrorist" operations carried out by the Iranian Government beyond its borders - including the Lockerbie bombing - may have an impact on the current trial in the Netherlands of the two Libyan suspects in the case.

The prosecution alleges that a bomb was planted on Pan Am Flight 103 by the two, Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, alleged to have been members of the Libyan intelligence services.

The two accused, for their part, have consistently said they are innocent and pointed at Syrian-backed Palestinian extremists.

At the time of the bombing, however, it was Iran that was immediately the leading suspect.

Iran's alleged motive for carrying out the attack was assumed to be a desire for revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian civilian flight by the US warship, the Vincennes, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, on 3 July 1988.

Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini vowed at the time that the skies would "rain blood" in revenge.

Now, though, there are suggestions that Mr Behbahani might himself be motivated by a desire for revenge against the current Iranian government.

Those who maintain that Iran was behind the attack say Tehran sponsored one of a number of radical Palestinian groups to actually carry out the attack.

Mr Behbahani told the CBS 60 Minutes programme he himself had first suggested the plan to bomb the Pan Am flight to Ahmad Jibril, who heads a Syrian-backed armed group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).

This organisation was a prime suspect in the immediate aftermath of the Lockerbie attack, but has denied any involvement.

Mr Behbahani also said Iran spent 90 days training a group of Libyans for the operation.

This would fit in with another theory, that the Lockerbie bombing could have been ordered, planned and carried out by a coalition of Iranians, Libyans and Palestinians.

Libya is alleged to have been motivated by a desire to avenge the 1986 US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi.

There are those who go even further, claiming that the trial at Camp Zeist is a cover-up of kinds, in which the two Libyan suspects are the 'fall-guys' in the whole affair, allowing any governments involved to claim that justice has been done, and the affair brought to a close.

There is one more theory, more convoluted and startling than these, that brings Israel, the CIA and US Military intelligence, or the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), into the frame.

An internal investigation by Pan Am is believed to have found that the bomb planted on Flight 103 was put on the plane during a stop-over in Frankfurt, and not in Malta by the Libyan suspects, as alleged by the prosecution in the trial.

The Pan Am report is believed to have concluded that the bomb was not aimed at the killing of Americans in general, but was targeted specifically to kill a small band of DIA operatives that had uncovered a drugs ring run by a "rogue" CIA unit in Lebanon.

The CIA unit is alleged to have been selling drugs to raise funds to buy the freedom of six US hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon at the time.

The drugs-ring and the connection to Hezbollah is said to have been set up by Israeli Mossad agents.

[RB: The Wikipedia article on Lockerbie conspiracy theories can be read here.]

Past sell-by date for Lockerbie justice?

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2011:]

No sell-by date on justice, promises Lord Advocate

This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. For a brief instant, it crossed my mind that the promise might have some relevance to the Lockerbie case, the miscarriage of justice suffered by Abdelbaset Megrahi and the ongoing quest for truth and justice pursued by relatives of Lockerbie victims, such as Jim Swire, John Mosey, Matt Berkley and Marina Larracoechea. But no. The Lord Advocate's pledge is confined to "cold cases" where there has been no conviction.

In his press statement Frank Mulholland QC says:

“Justice will pursue down the years those who have so far evaded detection for their crimes. The passage of time should be no protection. No-one should escape the consequences of their criminality and the grief this brings to victims and their families.”

Would that that were true in the Lockerbie case.

[RB: And five years later, we are still waiting for justice. Perhaps the appointment of a new Lord Advocate will hasten its achievement.]

Ministers raise fears over safety of al-Megrahi’s conviction

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

Ministers have been urged to reconsider its position on the safety of the conviction of alleged Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi following the publication of a book by former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.

SNP MSP Christine Grahame, former convener of Holyrood’s Justice Committee, said there is “definitely” reason to doubt safety.

Following the publication of his book, MacAskill said the conviction was “probably unsafe”.

At First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, Grahame, a signatory to the Justice for Megrahi campaign, referred to key evidence relating to the clothing found in the suitcase used to carry the bomb.

She said: “Given that there is an issue that the former justice secretary and the former first minister now both state that Megrahi was not the purchaser of the clothes in Malta and having regard to the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) that if Megrahi was not the purchaser there was insufficient evidence to convict him, can I ask the government to reconsider its position, and I quote, that they say there is no reason to doubt the safety of this conviction, because surely there is definitely now?”

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “It is not for me, for any First Minister or for any member of the government to decide that a conviction is unsafe.

“That is a matter for the courts of the land. That is the case in this case and it is the case in any other criminal matter.”

She added: “Ministers have repeatedly made clear that they would be comfortable if that was to happen but that is the process that must be undertaken if this case is to be looked at by the appeal court.”

The issue was raised by new Tory MSP Douglas Ross, who called on Sturgeon to ask the new Lord Advocate to investigate MacAskill over the book.

Dismissing his question as “ludicrous”, Sturgeon responded: “In fairness to the member, I know he hasn’t been in Parliament for very long but you know, the First Minister does not direct the Lord Advocate when it comes to investigations. That is a pretty fundamental element of our constitution.”

The First Minister said a draft copy of the book was provided to the Scottish Government’s permanent secretary in February but she had not had the opportunity to read it herself.

She added: “In terms of the Lockerbie conviction, the conviction stands, I say again as the Crown Office have said in the past that there is confidence in the safety of that conviction and of course for that conviction to be overturned there would require to be an appeal taken and an appeal being successful.”

Mandela's visit to Megrahi

[What follows is the text of a report published in The Independent on this date in 2002:]

Nelson Mandela is expected to fly to Britain this week for a compassionate meeting with the Libyan agent serving a 20-year sentence in a Scottish prison for his part in the Lockerbie bombing.

The former South African President is known to have sympathy for Abdelbaset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi, who was jailed for his part in the terrorist outrage which killed 270 people. Mr Mandela is keen to reciprocate the support he received from Libya during the 27 years he was a political prisoner of South Africa's apartheid regime.

Megrahi has always protested that he did not help to destroy Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988. Despite losing an appeal against his conviction in March this year, his lawyers are planning an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights on 15 September and hope a show of support from Mr Mandela will help their case that their client was tried unfairly. Mr Mandela played a pivotal role in helping to break the diplomatic deadlock between Libya, the US and Britain that allowed the trial of Megrahi in Holland under Scottish jurisdiction.

Yesterday a spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said no formal application had been made for a visit from Mr Mandela. But a spokesman for Megrahi's legal team said they hoped the visit would be this week.

Mr Mandela is visiting the Netherlands and aides have said that if he is well enough to travel and his schedule allows it, then he would visit Megrahi. The visit is being supported by Tam Dalyell, the veteran Labour MP and Father of the House, who has voiced his own belief that Megrahi is innocent. "I hope Mr Mandela will visit and come to the same conclusion I did, which is that Mr Megrahi had nothing to do with the Lockerbie bomb."

Yesterday, a spokesman for Megrahi's legal team said no concrete plans had been made for a visit but confirmed that Mr Mandela was sympathetic to their case. He added: "I cannot say for certain whether he will be coming to Scotland but I do know that it is his desire to come to Scotland to visit my client and, perhaps not surprisingly, Mr Megrahi is keen that President Mandela finds the time to come to so see him.

"President Mandela, when in prison himself, received substantial support from Libya. President Mandela has a fondness for Libya and support for it."

[RB: The visit took place one week later on 10 June 2002.]

Nicola Sturgeon: Only courts can decide if Lockerbie conviction is unsafe

[This is the headline over a Press Association news agency report published this afternoon on the website of The Courier. It reads as follows:]

The Scottish Government has been urged to reconsider its position on the safety of the conviction of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi following the publication of a book by former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.

SNP MSP Christine Grahame, former convener of Holyrood’s Justice Committee, said there is “definitely” reason to doubt its safety.

Following the publication of his book, Mr MacAskill, who sparked an international outcry when he released the Libyan on compassionate grounds in 2009, said the conviction was “probably unsafe”.

At First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, Ms Grahame, a signatory to the Justice for Megrahi campaign, referred to key evidence relating to the clothing found in the suitcase used to carry the bomb.

She said: “Given that there is an issue that the former justice secretary and the former first minister now both state that Megrahi was not the purchaser of the clothes in Malta and having regard to the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) that if Megrahi was not the purchaser there was insufficient evidence to convict him, can I ask the Government to reconsider its position, and I quote, that they say there is no reason to doubt the safety of this conviction, because surely there is definitely now?”

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “It is not for me, for any First Minister or for any member of the Government to decide that a conviction is unsafe.

“That is a matter for the courts of the land. That is the case in this case and it is the case in any other criminal matter.”

Ms Sturgeon said it remained open for Megrahi’s close relatives to ask the SCCRC to refer the case to the appeal court.

She added: “Ministers have repeatedly made clear that they would be comfortable if that was to happen but that is the process that must be undertaken if this case is to be looked at by the appeal court.”

The issue was raised by new Tory MSP Douglas Ross, who called on Ms Sturgeon to ask the new Lord Advocate to investigate Mr MacAskill over the book.

Dismissing his question as “ludicrous”, Ms Sturgeon responded: “In fairness to the member I know he hasn’t been in parliament for very long but you know, the First Minister does not direct the Lord Advocate when it comes to investigations. That is a pretty fundamental element of our constitution.”

The First Minister said a draft copy of the book was provided to the Scottish Government’s permanent secretary in February but she had not had the opportunity to read it herself.

She added: “I’m sure it’s an interesting read but of course the content of it is a matter for Kenny and for his publishers.

“In terms of the Lockerbie conviction, the conviction stands, I say again as the Crown Office have said in the past that there is confidence in the safety of that conviction and of course for that conviction to be overturned there would require to be an appeal taken and an appeal being successful.”

[RB: A further report appears in Holyrood magazine. The exchanges at First Minister’s questions can be viewed here (starting 35 minutes in).]

A rôle far removed from impartiality

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2008:]

Dr Swire on public interest immunity

Today's issue of The Herald has a letter on the public interest immunity issue from Dr Jim Swire. It reads as follows:

Our first encounter with the Scottish justice system was the fatal accident inquiry (FAI) held in Dumfries under the late Sheriff Principal John Mowat. Two findings stood out: 1. The aircraft destroyed at Lockerbie on which our families perished, and into which it appeared that a bomb had been loaded at Heathrow, had been under the "host state protection" of the UK authorities; 2. It was preventable.

At the end of 1991 indictments were issued against two Libyans; there was, so the Foreign Office told us, no evidence against any other country than Libya.

Within two weeks, and with the subsequent ending of a professional career, one of us went to visit Colonel Gaddafi. We told him we believed that Scottish criminal justice was among the fairest available, and that it was independent of the English-based government. We dared to explain that we felt US justice to be inappropriate because of the death penalty, and because of the enmity between the two nations, and that Libyan justice, though appropriate under the international aviation treaties of the time, would never be accepted as impartial by the international community. Our plea to him was to allow his citizens to face justice under Scots law.

It was not until after two further visits to Libya and following the intervention of many, including Professor Robert Black of Edinburgh with proposals as to how Scottish criminal law might best be used, plus that of the late Robin Cook as Foreign Secretary, and Nelson Mandela some years later, that our wish was granted, the result being the trial at Zeist in Holland.

Meanwhile, we had sought, in the light of the FAI findings and the known warnings received beforehand, an independent and far-reaching inquiry into why the UK government had failed to protect our families. The Thatcher government of the day refused to discuss the issue of an inquiry with us. Twenty years later, despite repeated refusals, we are still waiting for the government to face up to the 1988 failure by allowing a full inquiry.

Therefore, we bring some preconceptions from outwith the criminal justice arena about the role of the UK government in the whole Lockerbie disaster, and issues arising from the trial, though that trial has to do only with the accusations against the two Libyan individuals, one of whom was acquitted and the other of whom is currently in Greenock prison.

Doubts about the verdict against him meant the affair was referred to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) which, after some three years, decided the trial might have been unfair, partly because two documents given to the UK government by a foreign power had been available to the Crown and Dumfries and Galloway police from long before the trial, but not to the defence. The matter fell to be resolved by the High Court.

Following representations by the advocate-general to the [UK] government, the Foreign Office's response was to make the two documents the subject of a Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificate.

The two documents, the denial of which to the defence was crucial to the SCCRC's decision that the verdict might be unsafe, are still denied to those by whom the convicted Libyan wishes to be represented in the appeal. The Foreign Office, through this PII certificate, has attempted to block, in the name of the national interest, the very Scottish criminal judicial process we believed to be independent of it.

The documents refer to a preventable outrage. They were provided to Dumfries and Galloway police and the Crown Office from at least 1996. PII certificates have never impacted upon Scottish criminal justice in this way before. The High Court has now to decide whether to set aside the PII certificate, or whether the national interest is really sufficiently powerful that it should be served by some intermediate degree of security for the documents. To do this the court first has to see the documents. Last week the High Court issued an order to the advocate-general that they be supplied with the documents within seven days.

No doubt their lordships will reach a wise decision; their responsibility is both to the Lockerbie criminal appeal process, and to future perceptions as to the independence of our criminal justice system. It has always been part of our endeavour to force something good out of this atrocity, and we hope Scottish criminal justice will be enhanced, not harmed.

As for the relatives of the dead, some of us cast the Westminster government in a rôle far removed from impartiality. However seriously defective its full failure in 1988 may or may not have been, it has hidden it behind powerful protective screens. The repercussions, should the criminal verdict be overturned on appeal, might impact heavily upon the perceived degree of the government's failure to protect our families and promote the truth. Just what this PII certificate is supposed to benefit is unclear. Maybe the answer is simply the politicians and civil servants of the Foreign Office.

James Wolffe becomes Scotland’s most senior law officer - and is urged to look into Lockerbie case

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The National. It reads as follows, accompanied by a legal commentator’s analysis:]

The Dean of the Faculty of Advocates James Wolffe QC is to become Scotland’s most senior law officer in succession to Frank Mulholland QC who is stepping up to be a judge.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has recommended the appointment of Wolffe as Lord Advocate and senior advocate depute Alison Di Rollo as Scotland’s new law officers, the latter becoming Solicitor General.

News of Wolffe’s recommendation was welcomed by Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh Robert Black who has urged him to look into the Lockerbie bombing case. The Scottish Criminal Bar Association has also welcomed him.

Di Rollo succeeds Lesley Thomson, who was appointed to the post in 2011, and who has informed the First Minister that she wishes to pursue new challenges.

The appointments will be made by the Queen on the recommendation of the First Minister, with the agreement of the Scottish Parliament. The appointments, if approved, will complete the First Minister’s newly-appointed ministerial team.

The Lord Advocate is a Minister of the Scottish Government and acts as principal legal adviser, but decisions by him about criminal prosecutions and the investigation of deaths are taken independently of any other person.

The Solicitor General is the Lord Advocate’s deputy. She assists the Lord Advocate to carry out his functions and is also a Minister of the Scottish Government.

First Minister Sturgeon said: “I am extremely pleased to recommend the appointments of James Wolffe and Alison Di Rollo as Scotland’s senior law officers.

“James has an outstanding legal background and extensive experience at all levels, including the House of Lords, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

“Alison led the work of the ground-breaking National Sexual Crimes Unit (NSCU) for three years, having previously held the role of deputy. Her outstanding leadership in this most sensitive of areas has inspired confidence in all connected to it.”

James Wolffe said: “I thank the First Minister for nominating me to the office of Lord Advocate. If I am appointed, it will be a great privilege to serve Scotland in that role.”

Alison Di Rollo said: “I am both delighted and honoured to be nominated for this role by the First Minister and I am looking forward to working with James in his new role.”

The First Minister thanked both Frank Mulholland QC and Lesley Thomson QC for their service.

She said: “In his time as Lord Advocate, Frank has made a substantial contribution to both the law and to Scottish society. The creation of the National Sexual Crimes Unit was just one example of the increased specialisation of the Crown Office that Frank Mulholland presided over.

“In her role as Solicitor General, Lesley’s work, particularly around domestic abuse, was pivotal in moving towards a system that instils confidence in victims of abuse and ensures that their abusers are held to account. I thank both Frank and Lesley for their dedicated service to the Government, to justice and to Scotland as a whole.”

Prof Black said on his blog: “It is to be hoped that one of the first priorities of the new Lord Advocate will be to consider all of the evidence now available about the Lockerbie case and the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi.”

ANALYSIS: Andrew Tickell 

Wolffe has what is needed to help Sturgeon in legal rough and tumble

The Lord Advocate is much more than a public prosecutor. Scotland’s chief law officer heads up the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal service, its independent prosecutors indicting and trying those accused of crime in the public interest. But his coat buttons up tight over a range of other equally important duties. The Lord Advocate is also the Scottish Government’s principal legal advisor – the legal brain in the cabinet, who – confidentially, sympathetically – helps its ministers navigate the increasingly tricky and complex legal rules which constrain their choices. Compared to the blood and thunder of indicting wrongdoers and dishing out punishment to the guilty, his advisory role is unsexy. It catches no eyes and commands no headlines. Most of it, ye and me will never hear about. But it is absolutely essential part of modern government.

Holyrood must steer its legislation safely through the reefs and shoals of European Union law, the European Convention on Human Rights, and a sometimes knotty devolution settlement. Any major, controversial piece of legislation is always vulnerable to a legal challenge.

Land reform, tobacco vending machine bans, minimum alcohol pricing, the Named Persons provisions – all have been subject to well-organised and well-resourced challenges in our courts.

If I was the Scottish Government – so exposed to all these legal challenges to its agenda – I’d want the best legal brain on my side, counselling me, putting my side of the story if things get tough.

Nicola Sturgeon’s nominee – James Wolffe QC – has these qualities in spades. But the pick represents a clear departure for Sturgeon, who has broken with the approach adopted by her predecessor in Bute House.

This is to be welcomed.

When he first took office in 2007, Alex Salmond took the unprecedented step of leaving Jack MacConnell’s Lord Advocate in post. Elish Angiolini – a career prosecutor and solicitor – remained in office until the Holyrood election of 2011, to be replaced by her then Solicitor General and fellow career Crown Office prosecutor, Frank Mulholland. Mr Salmond was keen that his law officers should enjoy an unprecedented “independence from the political process”, establishing themselves as “independent of politics”.

In the event, Mr Salmond discovered that an independent prosecutor can be politically useful. Mr Muholland intervened regularly in political debates during his tenure. But historically, the law officers were explicitly political appointments. The garlands went to party loyalists: folk up to the job, with the requisite legal training, politically sympathetic to the government’s agenda. The Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General were partisan legal problem-solvers who could be relied on to tell legal truth to political power around the privacy of the Cabinet table, who did a bit of prosecuting on the side.

The idea that the law officers should be career prosecutors is a recent – and perhaps not altogether successful – innovation. It was Jack MacConnell who promoted Elish Angiolini to the role. The first woman to occupy the post, Strathclyde-educated Angiolini was a world away from the “Edinburgh legal fraternity” and the members of the Faculty of Advocates, who had filled the post for centuries. Her appointment prompted predictable rhubarbing from dark and dusty corners of Parliament House.

But it wasn’t all sour grapes, snobbery and personal disappointment. Some asked more substantive questions. Could career criminal lawyers effectively advise the governing on all the tough public law issues the government faces? You can’t be an expert in everything. Since 2007, the SNP has faced countless legal headaches, but its law officers have been drawn from a fairly narrow professional range. Mr Wolffe’s appointment suggests the SNP have learned from these bruising experiences before the courts, and are reckoning much more seriously with the legal rough and tumble which the Government will – inevitably – face this session.

This welcome appointment leaves Nicola Sturgeon’s government legally fortified.

CIA Giaka cables and perverting the course of justice

[It was on this date in 2000 that two members of the Camp Zeist prosecution team viewed, at the United States embassy in the Netherlands, CIA cables relating to Abdul Majid Giaka. What follows is an excerpt from an article published in The Herald in March 2012:]

A key witness against Megrahi was a former Libyan Arab Airlines colleague, Majid Giaka, who was also a junior intelligence officer and CIA informant. At trial the defence were provided with partially redacted CIA cables about him.

After two of the Crown team had viewed almost complete cables on 1 June 2000, the Lord Advocate assured the court that the blanked out sections were of no relevance.

However, when less redacted versions were eventually released they cast further doubt on Giaka’s credibility. In their application to the SCCRC, Megrahi’s lawyers, who were not those who represented him at trial, argued that the failure to release the full, unredacted cables breached Megrahi’s right to a fair trial.

Remarkably, the SCCRC was not allowed to view the full cables, but having read the partially redacted ones, it commented:

It is difficult to understand the Lord Advocate’s assurances to the court on 22 August 2000 that there was “nothing within these documents which relate to Lockerbie or the bombing of Pan Am 103 which could in any way impinge on the credibility of Mr Majid on these matters”. The matter is all the more serious given that part of the reason for viewing the cables on 1 June 2000 was precisely in order to assess whether information behind the redacted sections reflected upon Majid’s credibility.

[RB: These events form the basis of one of the nine allegations of criminal misconduct in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial made by Justice for Megrahi and which are currently under investigation by Police Scotland. What follows is an excerpt from the section in JfM’s press outline relating to this allegation:]

The witness who testified to having seen Mr al-Megrahi and Mr Fhimah with the suspicious-looking suitcase [at Malta’s Luqa Airport] was one Majid Giaka, a Libyan national who had worked for the Libyan security services and who was a CIA informer. Giaka was originally the Crown’s star witness, and without his evidence it is likely that the indictments would not have been issued against the Libyan suspects in the first place.

Giaka’s testimony was originally contained in contemporaneous cables sent by his CIA handlers to Washington when he provided the crucial evidence - mainly in 1991. These cables were presented in court in a severely redacted form, raising the question of whether the redacted passages might contain information damaging to the Crown case. In June 2000 members of the prosecution team were for the first time allowed by the American lawyers present to see the cables in an unredacted form. The defence applied to the Bench to have similar sight of the cables, however this request was strenuously opposed by the prosecution.

During the course of the discussion of this matter, Lord Coulsfield specifically asked the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd whether the redacted passages contained anything which might possibly bear on the credibility of the witness Majid Giaka. The Lord Advocate then consulted a colleague on the prosecution team who had had personal sight of the unredacted cables. After receiving his reply, the Lord Advocate informed the Bench that “.... there is nothing within these documents which relates to Lockerbie or the bombing of Pan Am 103 which could in any way impinge on the credibility of Majid on these matters.”

Despite this assurance the Bench did in fact order the unredacted cables to be provided to the defence team. The contents of the redacted passages demonstrated Giaka to be entirely untrustworthy, and by referring to these passages Mr Taylor for the defence was able to mount a successful challenge to the credibility and reliability of Giaka’s testimony. It is abundantly clear that the reassurance given to the Lord Advocate and passed on by him to the Court was wholly false. It was accepted by the court that there was no evidence at all to connect either accused to a brown hardshell suitcase, at Luqa or anywhere else.

This provides prima facie evidence of an attempt to pervert the course of justice on the part of those members of the prosecution team who were aware of the contents of the redacted cables, and gave the Lord Advocate information they knew to be false, knowing that he in his turn would communicate this false information to the Court.

These facts have been in the public domain since June 2000, and it is unclear why no action has ever been taken against those members of the legal profession responsible.