[What follows is the text of a Press Association news agency report, as published today on the website of the Belfast Telegraph:]
Former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has returned to front-line politics after securing a seat at Westminster.
Mr MacAskill, who during his tenure at Holyrood sanctioned the release of the Lockerbie bomber, took East Lothian from Labour with 21,156 votes to Martin Whitfield’s 17,270.
Justice secretary in Alex Salmond’s government from 2007 to 2014, Mr MacAskill left office following Nicola Sturgeon’s appointment as First Minister and stepped down as an MSP in 2016.
He was thrust into the global spotlight in 2009 when he opted to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds.
Megrahi, who had cancer, died in his home country in 2012.
He remains the only person ever convicted for the bombing of Pan-Am flight 103 in December 1998, which killed 270 people.
Mr MacAskill was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as a list MSP representing the Lothians, before winning the constituency seat of Edinburgh East and Musselburgh in 2007 and then Edinburgh Eastern in 2011.
[RB: A review by James Robertson of Kenny MacAskill's book about the Lockerbie case can be read here, and another by John Ashton can be read here.]
Showing posts sorted by date for query "John Ashton". Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query "John Ashton". Sort by relevance Show all posts
Friday 13 December 2019
Saturday 6 July 2019
Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation with author Richard Marquise
[This is the title of a podcast uploaded yesterday to the Stratfor Worldview website. It takes the form of an interview with Richard Marquise conducted by Stratfor's Chief Security Officer Fred Burton. The podcast can be listened to, and a transcript can be read, here. The introduction reads as follows:]
On December 21, 1988, a plane full of travelers bound from London to New York exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. All on board were killed, as were 11 people on the ground. The subsequent investigation into the bombing spread over hundreds of square miles in a hunt for evidence that had been blown to smithereens.
The FBI's lead investigator in the case, Richard Marquise, was assigned to the monumental task of helping determine what had happened, who was responsible and, eventually, how to prosecute the case. He talked about his book detailing those efforts, Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation with Stratfor Chief Security Officer Fred Burton.
[RB: The podcast does not cover the criticisms of the investigation, prosecution and trial that have subsequently been made by the United Nations appointed observer at the trial, Professor Hans Köchler; by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission; by John Ashton; by Dr Morag Kerr and by many other persons and organisations. However it does contain interesting material, particularly on relations between the FBI and the Scottish police, and between the Scottish (and UK) authorities and the United States government.]
On December 21, 1988, a plane full of travelers bound from London to New York exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. All on board were killed, as were 11 people on the ground. The subsequent investigation into the bombing spread over hundreds of square miles in a hunt for evidence that had been blown to smithereens.
The FBI's lead investigator in the case, Richard Marquise, was assigned to the monumental task of helping determine what had happened, who was responsible and, eventually, how to prosecute the case. He talked about his book detailing those efforts, Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation with Stratfor Chief Security Officer Fred Burton.
[RB: The podcast does not cover the criticisms of the investigation, prosecution and trial that have subsequently been made by the United Nations appointed observer at the trial, Professor Hans Köchler; by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission; by John Ashton; by Dr Morag Kerr and by many other persons and organisations. However it does contain interesting material, particularly on relations between the FBI and the Scottish police, and between the Scottish (and UK) authorities and the United States government.]
Wednesday 19 December 2018
Ex-leader of Malta casts doubt on conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi
[This is part of the headline over a report published today in The Times. It reads in part:]
Malta’s longest-serving prime minister has claimed it was “impossible” for the Lockerbie bomb to have left the island and suggested that a miscarriage of justice had taken place.
Eddie Fenech Adami, who led the country at the time of the atrocity 30 years ago, also raised doubts about the reliability of the witness whose evidence led to the conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.
A panel of Scottish judges heard evidence that a bomb was loaded onto Air Malta flight KM-180, which left the island for Frankfurt on December 21, 1988, before being taken to London and transferred on to Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie — with the loss of 270 lives — the next day.
Testimony by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper, was central to linking al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, to the case and securing his conviction.
However, Mr Fenech Adami, who served as prime minister between 1987 and 1996 and from 1998 to 2004, has challenged the verdict reached by a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
He wrote in his memoirs: “The evidence against al-Megrahi purported to show he had wrapped a bomb in clothing bought from a shop in Sliema and placed it in a suitcase that made its way to Heathrow from Malta via Germany.
“We have never accepted this theory and no one has ever proved us wrong.
“My opinion is that it was technically impossible for the bomb to have taken such a complicated route. It would have been a very haphazard method of executing this act of terrorism.”
He added: “The only evidence against al-Megrahi was the testimony of Tony Gauci. I have always considered Gauci, who was paid by the Americans, to be a very unreliable witness.”
Air Malta insisted that no passengers or luggage had transferred from its Frankfurt flight to Pan Am 103. Its 1989 internal investigation concluded: “All 55 pieces of baggage have been accounted for and every one of the 39 passengers has been identified.”
Mr Gauci had described his customer as 6ft and aged about 50, while al-Megrahi was 36 and 5ft 8in. (...)
Unconfirmed reports have suggested that Mr Gauci, who died in 2016, was paid £1.6 million by the FBI through its “rewards for justice” programme. [RB: It is odd to describe the reports as unconfirmed. There is no doubt that payments were made to both Tony and Paul Gauci: Lockerbie reward payouts ‘above board’.]
Guido de Marco, Malta’s justice minister at the time of the bombing [RB: and later President of Malta], wrote before his death in 2010: “It seemed unrealistic that a timing device could have been put inside unaccompanied baggage that took such a complicated route to get on the Pan Am plane, since there was so much room for error.”
He also clashed with the UK authorities. He wrote: “I learnt that the British secret service was tapping the telephones of people in Malta without consulting the authorities. I ordered the investigating team to stop any activity in Malta.” Mr Fenech Adami is unable to comment further due to ill health.
[RB: Today's edition of The Times also contains an article by Magnus Linklater headlined Lockerbie conspiracy theories that challenge al‑Megrahi’s conviction. As an antidote to Mr Linklater's notorious hostility to any criticism of the Megrahi conviction, read this piece by John Ashton: Lockerbie, and the mangled logic of Magnus Linklater.
A further article by Magnus Linklater headlined Lockerbie bombing prosecutors close in on Libyan suspects contains the following:]
Scottish prosecutors are closing in on two Libyans suspected of planning the Lockerbie bombing.
Using diplomatic contacts that led to an agreement to extradite the brother of the Manchester bomber, US and Scottish investigators are hopeful they will be given permission to interview Abdullah al-Senussi, said to have been the Lockerbie mastermind, and Abu Agila Mas’ud, the bomb maker.
Both are held in a Libyan prison. (...)
So far, 30 years after the terrorist attack, only one suspect, Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, has been convicted for the bombing. He died in May 2012.
Some campaigners claim the conviction of al-Megrahi was a miscarriage of justice, but the Crown Office is certain that the original verdict was correct.
Inquiries by The Times have revealed that the Crown Office commissioned an independent report into allegations that there had been a deliberate plan to steer evidence away from Palestinian terrorists and towards Libya. Investigators were asked to “double and triple check” every aspect of the case.
They concluded that the original conviction was sound, and that allegations that evidence had been tampered with, or deliberately withheld could not be substantiated.
A Crown Office official said: “An independent evidence review did not find any evidence to support claims al-Megrahi, the only man jailed for the bombing, was wrongly convicted.”
Malta’s longest-serving prime minister has claimed it was “impossible” for the Lockerbie bomb to have left the island and suggested that a miscarriage of justice had taken place.
Eddie Fenech Adami, who led the country at the time of the atrocity 30 years ago, also raised doubts about the reliability of the witness whose evidence led to the conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.
A panel of Scottish judges heard evidence that a bomb was loaded onto Air Malta flight KM-180, which left the island for Frankfurt on December 21, 1988, before being taken to London and transferred on to Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie — with the loss of 270 lives — the next day.
Testimony by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper, was central to linking al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, to the case and securing his conviction.
However, Mr Fenech Adami, who served as prime minister between 1987 and 1996 and from 1998 to 2004, has challenged the verdict reached by a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
He wrote in his memoirs: “The evidence against al-Megrahi purported to show he had wrapped a bomb in clothing bought from a shop in Sliema and placed it in a suitcase that made its way to Heathrow from Malta via Germany.
“We have never accepted this theory and no one has ever proved us wrong.
“My opinion is that it was technically impossible for the bomb to have taken such a complicated route. It would have been a very haphazard method of executing this act of terrorism.”
He added: “The only evidence against al-Megrahi was the testimony of Tony Gauci. I have always considered Gauci, who was paid by the Americans, to be a very unreliable witness.”
Air Malta insisted that no passengers or luggage had transferred from its Frankfurt flight to Pan Am 103. Its 1989 internal investigation concluded: “All 55 pieces of baggage have been accounted for and every one of the 39 passengers has been identified.”
Mr Gauci had described his customer as 6ft and aged about 50, while al-Megrahi was 36 and 5ft 8in. (...)
Unconfirmed reports have suggested that Mr Gauci, who died in 2016, was paid £1.6 million by the FBI through its “rewards for justice” programme. [RB: It is odd to describe the reports as unconfirmed. There is no doubt that payments were made to both Tony and Paul Gauci: Lockerbie reward payouts ‘above board’.]
Guido de Marco, Malta’s justice minister at the time of the bombing [RB: and later President of Malta], wrote before his death in 2010: “It seemed unrealistic that a timing device could have been put inside unaccompanied baggage that took such a complicated route to get on the Pan Am plane, since there was so much room for error.”
He also clashed with the UK authorities. He wrote: “I learnt that the British secret service was tapping the telephones of people in Malta without consulting the authorities. I ordered the investigating team to stop any activity in Malta.” Mr Fenech Adami is unable to comment further due to ill health.
[RB: Today's edition of The Times also contains an article by Magnus Linklater headlined Lockerbie conspiracy theories that challenge al‑Megrahi’s conviction. As an antidote to Mr Linklater's notorious hostility to any criticism of the Megrahi conviction, read this piece by John Ashton: Lockerbie, and the mangled logic of Magnus Linklater.
A further article by Magnus Linklater headlined Lockerbie bombing prosecutors close in on Libyan suspects contains the following:]
Scottish prosecutors are closing in on two Libyans suspected of planning the Lockerbie bombing.
Using diplomatic contacts that led to an agreement to extradite the brother of the Manchester bomber, US and Scottish investigators are hopeful they will be given permission to interview Abdullah al-Senussi, said to have been the Lockerbie mastermind, and Abu Agila Mas’ud, the bomb maker.
Both are held in a Libyan prison. (...)
So far, 30 years after the terrorist attack, only one suspect, Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, has been convicted for the bombing. He died in May 2012.
Some campaigners claim the conviction of al-Megrahi was a miscarriage of justice, but the Crown Office is certain that the original verdict was correct.
Inquiries by The Times have revealed that the Crown Office commissioned an independent report into allegations that there had been a deliberate plan to steer evidence away from Palestinian terrorists and towards Libya. Investigators were asked to “double and triple check” every aspect of the case.
They concluded that the original conviction was sound, and that allegations that evidence had been tampered with, or deliberately withheld could not be substantiated.
A Crown Office official said: “An independent evidence review did not find any evidence to support claims al-Megrahi, the only man jailed for the bombing, was wrongly convicted.”
Monday 3 December 2018
Ministers must end the Lockerbie secrecy
[This is the headline over an article by Magnus Linklater in today's edition of The Times. It reads in part:]
Secrecy is the enemy of truth. It suggests the real facts are being withheld, encouraging suspicion, conspiracy theories and fake news. In the case of the Lockerbie bombing, it plays into the hands of those who believe that we have been hoodwinked about the evidence. They are adamant that prosecutors got the wrong man. The latest disclosures make the search for truth more complicated. (...)
It is 30 years since a PanAm plane crashed on to the town, and in that time the idea has grown that governments colluded in pointing the finger at Libya and away from the real perpetrators. According to this, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted, was innocent and the real plotters were Palestinians backed by Iran.
Why else, goes the theory, would British intelligence have been tapping phones and monitoring calls? As Marc Horne revealed in The Times last week, relatives of those who died are convinced that, in the aftermath of the atrocity, their conversations were recorded. They would hear “clinks and clunks” on the line; files disappeared from computers; odd people pretending to be journalists turned up to interview them. [RB: Marc Horne's articles can be read here and here.]
Papers released by the UK government from the national archives show that Lynda Chalker, a Foreign Office minister, wrote to the late Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, then Lord Advocate and in overall charge of the investigation, to express concern about victims’ groups on both sides of the Atlantic. They “will need careful watching”, she wrote.
Not surprisingly, the surviving relatives, or at least those who believe there has been a miscarriage of justice, smell a rat. They think ministers were worried lest they stumble on an inconvenient truth: that intelligence agencies were busy doctoring facts to implicate Libya.
The latest revelations seem to bolster that view. It is not just the sketchy evidence that has been revealed, but the dozens of documents that are being retained, and will not be released for another five years at least. They include, bizarrely, reports brought back from Libya by the late Labour MP Bernie Grant who travelled several times to Tripoli to interview members of Gaddafi’s regime and left his papers to a London college. They have been closed to members of the public by the government until 2025.
If you wanted to encourage the idea that there has been a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, you could hardly do better than that. As Aamer Anwar, the Megrahi family’s lawyer, who hopes to run another appeal, says: “It comes as no surprise that the security services were instructed to spy on those British relatives who to date have never given up in their pursuit of the truth.”
On closer examination, the revelations do little more than muddy the waters. It is intriguing to note, for instance, that the period in 1989 when phones were allegedly being tapped, long precedes the implication of the Libyans. The main suspect was a Palestinian group known as the PFLP-GC, allegedly backed by the Iranian government, seeking revenge for the sabotage of one of its planes. Briefings from Lord Fraser’s office pointed in that direction. Why officials should have wanted to tap the phones of relatives is far from clear.
In May 1989, a fragment of a bomb timer was found in the charred collar of a shirt packed in the suitcase that had held the bomb. The significance of its discovery was not immediately apparent but from it would stem an investigation that eventually pointed to Megrahi and the Libyans.
According to campaigners such as Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the attack, and Robert Black, QC, architect of the Lockerbie trial, that evidence was manufactured, probably by the CIA, because neither UK nor US governments wanted a confrontation with Iran at the time. Libya was a more convenient target, and Megrahi a disposable suspect. They believed their communications continued to be monitored.
Many thousands of words have been published to sustain the case. That does not mean it is true. For all the painstaking work done to cast doubt on the course of the trial and conviction of Megrahi, it takes a massive suspension of disbelief to accept that a decision was made at the highest level to suppress evidence, substitute false information and tilt the Scottish justice system in the direction of a miscarriage of justice. It would have involved hundreds of intelligence agents, criminal investigators and government officials, to say nothing of Scottish lawyers and judges.
Maybe that is what happened, but maybe is not enough. To allow the allegation to hover in the air is to undermine natural justice. It is unfair to the relatives, it casts doubt on the integrity of police and politicians, it clouds understanding of history.
Withholding evidence that might cast light on this matter is no way to resolve it. Many relatives have gone to the grave with uncertainty hanging over them. By 2025, when some or most of the papers are due to be released, others will have followed. There may be an appeal but, in the meantime, the government should come clean over its knowledge on Lockerbie and the investigation. It is hard to believe national security is still at risk 30 years on. Ministers have a responsibility to the dead and to the living. Justice suppressed, they should remember, is justice denied.
[RB: Mr Linklater once again contends that we Lockerbie dissentients are positing a grand conspiracy involving "hundreds of intelligence agents, criminal investigators and government officials, to say nothing of Scottish lawyers and judges". This is just nonsense. Here is what John Ashton wrote on a previous occasion when Mr Linklater made the same allegation:]
According to Mr Linklater's Times column of 13 August 2012, we allege a huge plot to shift the blame from Iran and the PFLP-GC to Libya, which involved: 'the planting or suppression of forensic evidence, the control of witnesses by intelligence services, the approval of senior politicians, the complicity of police officers, a prosecution team prepared to bend every rule to secure a conviction, and a set of senior Scottish judges willing to go along with that'. [RB: Responses to that article can be read here.]
The last sentence is key. It suggests that we claim that everyone from the police to the judges plotted with government and intelligence services to protect the likely bombers and convict those whom they knew to be innocent. The trouble is neither I, nor the great majority of Megrahi's supporters, have ever made such a claim.
To be clear, I believe that two different things happened: firstly, the US government ensured that blame was from Iran and the PFLP-GC to Libya; secondly, the Scottish criminal justice system screwed up massively. The first I consider likely, but unproven, the second I consider a cert. Both are based upon a rational evaluation of the available facts. I do not believe that the second occurred because the Americans told the Scots to exonerate the real culprits and frame innocents, indeed I find such suggestions fanciful.
In an email to me, Mr Linklater wrote: 'I've been in the [journalism] business for more than 40 years, and have learned over that time a simple principle of reporting: that good investigation requires sound proof'. Yet he has failed to produce any evidence that the majority of Megrahi's supporters have posited a grand conspiracy. The Justice for Megrahi campaign committee has formally alleged that some of the failures might have involved criminal conduct by certain Crown servants. They do not, however, claim that it happened at the behest of governments and intelligence services.
The US government was motivated to exonerate Iran, I believe, because the Iranians knew where the Iran-Contra skeletons lay and also held sway over the US hostages held in Lebanon – whose safe return was an obsession of the Reagan-Bush White House. Another obsession was Libya. As Watergate journalist Bob Woodward revealed, CIA director William Casey launched one of the biggest covert programmes in the agency's history, with the clear aim of toppling Gaddafi. Disinformation – that is, lying and fakery – was at its core.
The Lockerbie investigation was supposedly driven by old-fashioned detective work, but, as we have learned over the years, behind the scenes the CIA played a key role. We now know that the timer fragment was not from one of the 20 timers to Libya. Is it really far-fetched to suggest that the CIA planted it in order to conclusively link Libya to the bombing?
I have done many months of my own old-fashioned detective work among the hundreds of people who searched the crash site. They witnessed American officials in Lockerbie within two hours of the crash, CIA agents searching the site without police supervision, and substantial drug and cash finds – all things that have been officially denied. There may well be innocent explanations for these events, in which case the authorities should reveal them. And, instead of writing me off as a conspiracy theorist, perhaps Mr Linklater should do some door knocking of his own.
Secrecy is the enemy of truth. It suggests the real facts are being withheld, encouraging suspicion, conspiracy theories and fake news. In the case of the Lockerbie bombing, it plays into the hands of those who believe that we have been hoodwinked about the evidence. They are adamant that prosecutors got the wrong man. The latest disclosures make the search for truth more complicated. (...)
It is 30 years since a PanAm plane crashed on to the town, and in that time the idea has grown that governments colluded in pointing the finger at Libya and away from the real perpetrators. According to this, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted, was innocent and the real plotters were Palestinians backed by Iran.
Why else, goes the theory, would British intelligence have been tapping phones and monitoring calls? As Marc Horne revealed in The Times last week, relatives of those who died are convinced that, in the aftermath of the atrocity, their conversations were recorded. They would hear “clinks and clunks” on the line; files disappeared from computers; odd people pretending to be journalists turned up to interview them. [RB: Marc Horne's articles can be read here and here.]
Papers released by the UK government from the national archives show that Lynda Chalker, a Foreign Office minister, wrote to the late Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, then Lord Advocate and in overall charge of the investigation, to express concern about victims’ groups on both sides of the Atlantic. They “will need careful watching”, she wrote.
Not surprisingly, the surviving relatives, or at least those who believe there has been a miscarriage of justice, smell a rat. They think ministers were worried lest they stumble on an inconvenient truth: that intelligence agencies were busy doctoring facts to implicate Libya.
The latest revelations seem to bolster that view. It is not just the sketchy evidence that has been revealed, but the dozens of documents that are being retained, and will not be released for another five years at least. They include, bizarrely, reports brought back from Libya by the late Labour MP Bernie Grant who travelled several times to Tripoli to interview members of Gaddafi’s regime and left his papers to a London college. They have been closed to members of the public by the government until 2025.
If you wanted to encourage the idea that there has been a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, you could hardly do better than that. As Aamer Anwar, the Megrahi family’s lawyer, who hopes to run another appeal, says: “It comes as no surprise that the security services were instructed to spy on those British relatives who to date have never given up in their pursuit of the truth.”
On closer examination, the revelations do little more than muddy the waters. It is intriguing to note, for instance, that the period in 1989 when phones were allegedly being tapped, long precedes the implication of the Libyans. The main suspect was a Palestinian group known as the PFLP-GC, allegedly backed by the Iranian government, seeking revenge for the sabotage of one of its planes. Briefings from Lord Fraser’s office pointed in that direction. Why officials should have wanted to tap the phones of relatives is far from clear.
In May 1989, a fragment of a bomb timer was found in the charred collar of a shirt packed in the suitcase that had held the bomb. The significance of its discovery was not immediately apparent but from it would stem an investigation that eventually pointed to Megrahi and the Libyans.
According to campaigners such as Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the attack, and Robert Black, QC, architect of the Lockerbie trial, that evidence was manufactured, probably by the CIA, because neither UK nor US governments wanted a confrontation with Iran at the time. Libya was a more convenient target, and Megrahi a disposable suspect. They believed their communications continued to be monitored.
Many thousands of words have been published to sustain the case. That does not mean it is true. For all the painstaking work done to cast doubt on the course of the trial and conviction of Megrahi, it takes a massive suspension of disbelief to accept that a decision was made at the highest level to suppress evidence, substitute false information and tilt the Scottish justice system in the direction of a miscarriage of justice. It would have involved hundreds of intelligence agents, criminal investigators and government officials, to say nothing of Scottish lawyers and judges.
Maybe that is what happened, but maybe is not enough. To allow the allegation to hover in the air is to undermine natural justice. It is unfair to the relatives, it casts doubt on the integrity of police and politicians, it clouds understanding of history.
Withholding evidence that might cast light on this matter is no way to resolve it. Many relatives have gone to the grave with uncertainty hanging over them. By 2025, when some or most of the papers are due to be released, others will have followed. There may be an appeal but, in the meantime, the government should come clean over its knowledge on Lockerbie and the investigation. It is hard to believe national security is still at risk 30 years on. Ministers have a responsibility to the dead and to the living. Justice suppressed, they should remember, is justice denied.
[RB: Mr Linklater once again contends that we Lockerbie dissentients are positing a grand conspiracy involving "hundreds of intelligence agents, criminal investigators and government officials, to say nothing of Scottish lawyers and judges". This is just nonsense. Here is what John Ashton wrote on a previous occasion when Mr Linklater made the same allegation:]
According to Mr Linklater's Times column of 13 August 2012, we allege a huge plot to shift the blame from Iran and the PFLP-GC to Libya, which involved: 'the planting or suppression of forensic evidence, the control of witnesses by intelligence services, the approval of senior politicians, the complicity of police officers, a prosecution team prepared to bend every rule to secure a conviction, and a set of senior Scottish judges willing to go along with that'. [RB: Responses to that article can be read here.]
The last sentence is key. It suggests that we claim that everyone from the police to the judges plotted with government and intelligence services to protect the likely bombers and convict those whom they knew to be innocent. The trouble is neither I, nor the great majority of Megrahi's supporters, have ever made such a claim.
To be clear, I believe that two different things happened: firstly, the US government ensured that blame was from Iran and the PFLP-GC to Libya; secondly, the Scottish criminal justice system screwed up massively. The first I consider likely, but unproven, the second I consider a cert. Both are based upon a rational evaluation of the available facts. I do not believe that the second occurred because the Americans told the Scots to exonerate the real culprits and frame innocents, indeed I find such suggestions fanciful.
In an email to me, Mr Linklater wrote: 'I've been in the [journalism] business for more than 40 years, and have learned over that time a simple principle of reporting: that good investigation requires sound proof'. Yet he has failed to produce any evidence that the majority of Megrahi's supporters have posited a grand conspiracy. The Justice for Megrahi campaign committee has formally alleged that some of the failures might have involved criminal conduct by certain Crown servants. They do not, however, claim that it happened at the behest of governments and intelligence services.
The US government was motivated to exonerate Iran, I believe, because the Iranians knew where the Iran-Contra skeletons lay and also held sway over the US hostages held in Lebanon – whose safe return was an obsession of the Reagan-Bush White House. Another obsession was Libya. As Watergate journalist Bob Woodward revealed, CIA director William Casey launched one of the biggest covert programmes in the agency's history, with the clear aim of toppling Gaddafi. Disinformation – that is, lying and fakery – was at its core.
The Lockerbie investigation was supposedly driven by old-fashioned detective work, but, as we have learned over the years, behind the scenes the CIA played a key role. We now know that the timer fragment was not from one of the 20 timers to Libya. Is it really far-fetched to suggest that the CIA planted it in order to conclusively link Libya to the bombing?
I have done many months of my own old-fashioned detective work among the hundreds of people who searched the crash site. They witnessed American officials in Lockerbie within two hours of the crash, CIA agents searching the site without police supervision, and substantial drug and cash finds – all things that have been officially denied. There may well be innocent explanations for these events, in which case the authorities should reveal them. And, instead of writing me off as a conspiracy theorist, perhaps Mr Linklater should do some door knocking of his own.
Monday 5 November 2018
Kenneth Roy: 26 March 1945 - 5 November 2018
I am saddened to learn of the death today of Kenneth Roy. As editor of the Scottish Review he wrote many articles about the Lockerbie case and the disgraceful conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, as well as publishing contributions by other Megrahi campaigners, such as Robert Forrester, Morag Kerr, John Ashton, James Robertson and me. A selection of these pieces can be found here. Although the Justice for Megrahi campaign and Ken Roy had occasional spats (he was a prickly character), his support for Megrahi and his advocacy of the case for the conviction to be overturned were unwavering.
At Ken's invitation, I spoke about the Lockerbie case on several occasions in the Young Scotland Programme organised by the Institute of Contemporary Scotland which Ken had set up. And on a memorable occasion in 2011, I shared a platform with him at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. A recording of our conversation, chaired by Iain Anderson, can be found here. Scotland has too few journalists of the calibre of Kenneth Roy. I shall miss him.
At Ken's invitation, I spoke about the Lockerbie case on several occasions in the Young Scotland Programme organised by the Institute of Contemporary Scotland which Ken had set up. And on a memorable occasion in 2011, I shared a platform with him at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. A recording of our conversation, chaired by Iain Anderson, can be found here. Scotland has too few journalists of the calibre of Kenneth Roy. I shall miss him.
Thursday 10 May 2018
Lockerbie bomber’s conviction may well collapse
[This is the headline over an article by Kenny MacAskill in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads in part:]
The Lockerbie saga continues and, as with the assassination of John F Kennedy, conspiracy theories will run for ever. It’s unsurprising that the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) has passed it through the first stage of their process, as Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s conviction is questionable to say the least.
As the SCCRC found on the last occasion when they considered this a decade ago, there are issues to investigate. Not least the evidence of Tony Gauci, a man who it’s since been disclosed received substantial sums of money for his testimony. Of course, it doesn’t mean he was a liar, I’ve heard many say he was just a simple man who tried to help and only later discovered there was a reward available.
However, given that it’s unprecedented in Scots Law and that the court in the same trial castigated the evidence of a paid CIA informer, it’s hard to see how it can be accepted. If it falls, then the case against Megrahi almost certainly collapses.
That doesn’t mean that those who prosecuted him or convicted him were at fault. In my view, all involved sought to act appropriately in what was an extremely difficult case. Nor does it necessarily follow that the court will exculpate Megrahi as I’ve always he had a peripheral role but wasn’t the bomber. It’s one thing to argue the conviction was unsafe but quite another to say that he had no involvement.
It’ll also be interesting if it does return to court to see if new evidence is rolled out by the Crown. Since the fall of Gaddafi, the CIA and MI6 have obtained documentation from Libya, as well as locating key witnesses and removing them from the failed state. They’re now available but will they be produced? In particular will Moussa Koussa, Libya’s former Foreign Minister, appear? He defected with the help of MI6 and now lives in Qatar.
Conspiracy theories abound about who perpetrated the Lockerbie bombing, most are absurd though a few have more legitimacy. However, it’s surprising that people still question Libya’s involvement in the atrocity and the reasons are threefold. Firstly, all the evidence points to it. Secondly, Colonel Gaddafi admitted it, stating that they hadn’t planned it but accepting that they’d taken over its delivery. [RB: The only evidence that tenuously supports this claim is an account by Arnaud de Borchgrave of a private conversation with Gaddafi. On no other occasion is he ever reported as having accepted Libyan involvement in Lockerbie.] He explained that if had they conceived it they wouldn’t have used Malta as the airport to place the fatal case on board, given its known use by Libyans. Thirdly, those who have succeeded Gaddafi in whatever semblance of government that has followed in that country have also accepted culpability, though they blamed it on the former despot’s regime.
Of course, what gives some credence to conspiracy theories is that Libya neither acted alone nor initiated it. As a former senior police officer once told me, using that euphemism from the Iraq war, it was a “coalition of the willing”. And that included Iran who put up a bounty for an American airliner to be bombed, following the downing of their own civilian airliner by the USS Vincennes just months before. It also included the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, which accepted the contract and had been planning an atrocity before being intercepted by German police just weeks prior in possession of Pan Am air tags, timetables and similar bomb-making equipment. Others including Syria would have known or been involved.
This coalition mirrors the investigation into the atrocity which included not just US and UK law enforcement and security services but many others including the Germans and Israelis.
Now there are some who persist that Megrahi was just some innocent abroad who happened to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Really? Flying in on a false passport never to be used again, initially denying ever being there and apparently travelling without any luggage.
The specific evidence against him may be limited but the circumstantial evidence is compelling. He was a senior Libyan intelligence agent – head of security at Libyan Arab airlines. Not only did he carry out covert work for the regime but he was both a member of the Gaddafi clan and married into the family of another senior regime leader. (...)
Some have argued that the bomb was placed aboard at Heathrow but that’s rejected by the evidence though it’s been unhelpful that the Crown have yet to publish the police report into. [RB: The sentence breaks off here, leaving us no wiser about just what police report Mr MacAskill is referring to. Could it possibly be the report on Operation Sandwood?] More compellingly Pan Am went bust as a result of their security failings at Malta and it’s inconceivable that if there were any doubt that wouldn’t have been challenged. Money talks as they say! [RB: The security failings that led to Pan Am going bust were not at Malta Airport. IF the bomb suitcase started from Malta, it went from Luqa to Frankfurt on an Air Malta Flight, NOT a Pan Am flight. Pan Am's security failings were at Frankfurt and/or Heathrow.]
The initial prosecution was also against many more than just Megrahi and his co-accused Fhimah. They included far more senior figures and included the man believed to be the bomb-maker. All requests even by the defence in due course to speak to him were rejected by the Libyans, just as all demands for more senior accused to be handed over were rejected. [RB: This is false. No charges were ever levelled at any time against any Libyans other than Megrahi and Fhimah. No request was ever made by the United Kingdom or the United States at any time for other Libyans to be handed over.]
For a deal had been brokered by the United Nations between the US/UK and Libya that not only would the trial be under Scots Law, though at a neutral venue, but that there would be no regime change. In a nutshell the two accused offered up by Libya were the highest-ranking accused that the Libyan regime was prepared to release and the lowest level that the UK/US were prepared to accept.
But, there’s more evidence available now and others that can be prosecuted. So rather than looking back at Megrahi’s conviction, maybe it’s time to look at new evidence and at other accused.
[RB: Kenny MacAskill has made most of these points before. They have been comprehensively refuted by James Robertson here and John Ashton here.]
The Lockerbie saga continues and, as with the assassination of John F Kennedy, conspiracy theories will run for ever. It’s unsurprising that the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) has passed it through the first stage of their process, as Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s conviction is questionable to say the least.
As the SCCRC found on the last occasion when they considered this a decade ago, there are issues to investigate. Not least the evidence of Tony Gauci, a man who it’s since been disclosed received substantial sums of money for his testimony. Of course, it doesn’t mean he was a liar, I’ve heard many say he was just a simple man who tried to help and only later discovered there was a reward available.
However, given that it’s unprecedented in Scots Law and that the court in the same trial castigated the evidence of a paid CIA informer, it’s hard to see how it can be accepted. If it falls, then the case against Megrahi almost certainly collapses.
That doesn’t mean that those who prosecuted him or convicted him were at fault. In my view, all involved sought to act appropriately in what was an extremely difficult case. Nor does it necessarily follow that the court will exculpate Megrahi as I’ve always he had a peripheral role but wasn’t the bomber. It’s one thing to argue the conviction was unsafe but quite another to say that he had no involvement.
It’ll also be interesting if it does return to court to see if new evidence is rolled out by the Crown. Since the fall of Gaddafi, the CIA and MI6 have obtained documentation from Libya, as well as locating key witnesses and removing them from the failed state. They’re now available but will they be produced? In particular will Moussa Koussa, Libya’s former Foreign Minister, appear? He defected with the help of MI6 and now lives in Qatar.
Conspiracy theories abound about who perpetrated the Lockerbie bombing, most are absurd though a few have more legitimacy. However, it’s surprising that people still question Libya’s involvement in the atrocity and the reasons are threefold. Firstly, all the evidence points to it. Secondly, Colonel Gaddafi admitted it, stating that they hadn’t planned it but accepting that they’d taken over its delivery. [RB: The only evidence that tenuously supports this claim is an account by Arnaud de Borchgrave of a private conversation with Gaddafi. On no other occasion is he ever reported as having accepted Libyan involvement in Lockerbie.] He explained that if had they conceived it they wouldn’t have used Malta as the airport to place the fatal case on board, given its known use by Libyans. Thirdly, those who have succeeded Gaddafi in whatever semblance of government that has followed in that country have also accepted culpability, though they blamed it on the former despot’s regime.
Of course, what gives some credence to conspiracy theories is that Libya neither acted alone nor initiated it. As a former senior police officer once told me, using that euphemism from the Iraq war, it was a “coalition of the willing”. And that included Iran who put up a bounty for an American airliner to be bombed, following the downing of their own civilian airliner by the USS Vincennes just months before. It also included the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, which accepted the contract and had been planning an atrocity before being intercepted by German police just weeks prior in possession of Pan Am air tags, timetables and similar bomb-making equipment. Others including Syria would have known or been involved.
This coalition mirrors the investigation into the atrocity which included not just US and UK law enforcement and security services but many others including the Germans and Israelis.
Now there are some who persist that Megrahi was just some innocent abroad who happened to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Really? Flying in on a false passport never to be used again, initially denying ever being there and apparently travelling without any luggage.
The specific evidence against him may be limited but the circumstantial evidence is compelling. He was a senior Libyan intelligence agent – head of security at Libyan Arab airlines. Not only did he carry out covert work for the regime but he was both a member of the Gaddafi clan and married into the family of another senior regime leader. (...)
Some have argued that the bomb was placed aboard at Heathrow but that’s rejected by the evidence though it’s been unhelpful that the Crown have yet to publish the police report into. [RB: The sentence breaks off here, leaving us no wiser about just what police report Mr MacAskill is referring to. Could it possibly be the report on Operation Sandwood?] More compellingly Pan Am went bust as a result of their security failings at Malta and it’s inconceivable that if there were any doubt that wouldn’t have been challenged. Money talks as they say! [RB: The security failings that led to Pan Am going bust were not at Malta Airport. IF the bomb suitcase started from Malta, it went from Luqa to Frankfurt on an Air Malta Flight, NOT a Pan Am flight. Pan Am's security failings were at Frankfurt and/or Heathrow.]
The initial prosecution was also against many more than just Megrahi and his co-accused Fhimah. They included far more senior figures and included the man believed to be the bomb-maker. All requests even by the defence in due course to speak to him were rejected by the Libyans, just as all demands for more senior accused to be handed over were rejected. [RB: This is false. No charges were ever levelled at any time against any Libyans other than Megrahi and Fhimah. No request was ever made by the United Kingdom or the United States at any time for other Libyans to be handed over.]
For a deal had been brokered by the United Nations between the US/UK and Libya that not only would the trial be under Scots Law, though at a neutral venue, but that there would be no regime change. In a nutshell the two accused offered up by Libya were the highest-ranking accused that the Libyan regime was prepared to release and the lowest level that the UK/US were prepared to accept.
But, there’s more evidence available now and others that can be prosecuted. So rather than looking back at Megrahi’s conviction, maybe it’s time to look at new evidence and at other accused.
[RB: Kenny MacAskill has made most of these points before. They have been comprehensively refuted by James Robertson here and John Ashton here.]
Friday 4 May 2018
Lockerbie case review is a welcome step in the interests of justice
[This is the headline over an editorial published today in The Herald. It reads as follows:]
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s decision that it will look again at the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber is welcome.
The SCCRC has decided it is “in the interests of justice” to proceed with a review.
This paper has long argued for a public inquiry into the case, on the basis that there are a number of serious concerns about the way the guilty verdict against the late Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was reached.
This includes the withholding of key evidence from the defence, doubts about the identification of Al-Megrahi, and the motivation of witnesses who were paid.
It is a matter of regret that Al-Megrahi chose to drop his appeal against conviction in 2009. The SCCRC has now accepted the widely held supposition that Al-Megrahi chose not to pursue his appeal because he believed it would help secure his release from jail on compassionate grounds, suffering from terminal cancer.
For Al-Megrahi, any vindication will be posthumous. He continued to deny his involvement until his death from prostate cancer in 2012.
The SCCRC review is not the public inquiry many still seek. But it is important the conviction is scrutinised. As we approach the 30th anniversary of the terrible event of December 21 1998, there will be concern that Scottish justice will not emerge from any review in a good light. But should mistakes have been made, it is important they are acknowledged.
Whether or not Al-Megrahi was guilty of involvement, others must have played a part too. Relatives of those who died have described this as “unfinished business”. This review could put to rest many of their unanswered questions. It is in their interests and in the interests of public confidence in Scottish justice for the truth to finally emerge.
[RB: A leader headed Honest Truth in today's edition of The Times reads in part:]
Those who witnessed the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing on December 21, 1988 will never forget it. An explosion in the baggage hold of Pan Am Flight 103 blew the 747 passenger jet to pieces in the skies above Dumfries and Galloway. (...)
Now the case of the only man convicted of the atrocity is to be re-examined. Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 after a trial held, under Scots law, in a special court constructed in the Netherlands. He died of terminal prostate cancer in Libya in 2012, after being released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds after serving eight years of a 27-year sentence. Yesterday the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said it would carry out a review of al-Megrahi’s conviction. It will consider whether the case should be referred for a new appeal.
Those who lost loved ones in the Lockerbie tragedy have been forced to grieve in public and their desire for justice has manifested itself in a range of different ways. Many of the bereaved, particularly in the United States, believe al-Megrahi’s conviction was just. They largely accept the version of events presented by Scottish prosecutors and supported by the UK and US governments. Other relatives have been troubled by what they see as inconsistencies in the evidence and to varying degrees they have lost confidence in the authorities’ handling of the case. Meanwhile an entire Lockerbie industry has grown up and the story has become a magnet for cranks, activists, self-publicists and conspiracy theorists. They have commandeered the known facts and embellished them to their own purpose. [RB: Magnus Linklater really is a sore loser! I predict that he will eventually have a lot more to be sore about.]
The Lockerbie story has remained in the public eye in the years since al-Megrahi’s conviction because the world keeps changing, casting new light on the facts as they are known. There have been revelations about the circumstances in which Colonel Gaddafi, after talks with Tony Blair in what became known as “the deal in the desert”, surrendered the Lockerbie accused for trial. Investigative journalists have spent much time weighing the evidence supplied by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who was a key witness for the prosecution. The collapse in 2011 of the Libyan regime opened up the possibility of discovering more details of the state-sponsored operation which, according to the Crown Office’s version of events, led to the destruction of Flight 103. Despite the chaos wreaked on Libya by a brutal civil war, those inquiries are still continuing.
This move by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission adds a new twist to an already tangled tale. Some critics of the Scottish authorities’ handling of the Lockerbie case will view it as vindication of years of campaigning. They insist a miscarriage of justice has taken place and that this is the first step to a remedy. Others will observe this development with a weary sigh, wondering when the Lockerbie dead will finally be allowed to rest in peace.
This newspaper welcomes the commission’s decision to hold a review. If there are weaknesses in al-Megrahi’s conviction then it is the duty of the Scottish criminal justice system to acknowledge them. If the conviction is sound, then it does no harm to apply persistent accusations to rigorous analysis by some of the finest minds in Scots law. In both scenarios, what matters is openness, clarity and truth. We owe nothing less to the memory of those who died on that fateful winter’s night.
[RB: An opinion piece by Justice for Megrahi's Iain McKie in the same edition of The Times reads as follows:]
As this year’s 30th anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster approaches Justice for Megrahi (JfM) believes the decision by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to hold a full review into the conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi to be truly momentous.
After years of the Scottish justice system trying to consign this tragedy to history the commission, having reviewed the available evidence, has accepted that when al-Megrahi abandoned his appeal it was the last resort of a terminally ill man who longed to return home to his family. It would have been easy to conclude in the interests of justice there could not be another bite of the cherry. It is courageous and wise of the commission to decide otherwise.
In 2012 JfM made allegations about the conduct of persons involved in the investigation and trial of al-Megrahi, which became the subject of a four-year inquiry by Police Scotland. The findings of Operation Sandwood are about to be submitted to the Crown Office.
In the past the Scottish government turned down JfM’s requests for a public inquiry into what we believed to be a massive miscarriage of justice. Thankfully the Scottish parliament’s justice committee continues oversight of the situation and our petition for an inquiry remains open. We believe there now is real hope that this deep and abiding shadow over Scotland’s justice system will finally be removed.
[RB: An accompanying opinion piece by Magnus Linklater can be found here. It contains the usual slurs and misrepresentations that have been frequently countered in articles featured on this blog, including this one by John Ashton. A further article in The Times headlined Verdict 'was probably unsafe' reads as follows:]
Senior figures in the Scottish legal and political establishment believe that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi should not have been convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
Al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah went on trial in 2000 in a Scottish court, convened in the Netherlands, for the mass murder in 1988. Mr Fhimah was acquitted. Observers were shocked when al-Megrahi was found guilty. Critics of the verdict have focused on the testimony of Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who said that al-Megrahi “resembled” a man who bought clothes in his store that were later found to have been wrapped round the bomb that destroyed the plane.
It emerged that Mr Gauci was paid $1 million by the US justice department. Kenny MacAskill, the former justice secretary, has described the verdict as probably “unsafe”.
Robert Black, emeritus professor of law at Edinburgh University, said that the Scottish judges had come under pressure to convict.
“This was the most important criminal case in Scotland ever,” he said. “If there was not a conviction, the Lord Advocate really would have egg all over his face. The judges were not prepared to give the Lord Advocate a bloody nose.”
[RB: An opinion piece by Justice for Megrahi's Iain McKie in the same edition of The Times reads as follows:]
As this year’s 30th anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster approaches Justice for Megrahi (JfM) believes the decision by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to hold a full review into the conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi to be truly momentous.
After years of the Scottish justice system trying to consign this tragedy to history the commission, having reviewed the available evidence, has accepted that when al-Megrahi abandoned his appeal it was the last resort of a terminally ill man who longed to return home to his family. It would have been easy to conclude in the interests of justice there could not be another bite of the cherry. It is courageous and wise of the commission to decide otherwise.
In 2012 JfM made allegations about the conduct of persons involved in the investigation and trial of al-Megrahi, which became the subject of a four-year inquiry by Police Scotland. The findings of Operation Sandwood are about to be submitted to the Crown Office.
In the past the Scottish government turned down JfM’s requests for a public inquiry into what we believed to be a massive miscarriage of justice. Thankfully the Scottish parliament’s justice committee continues oversight of the situation and our petition for an inquiry remains open. We believe there now is real hope that this deep and abiding shadow over Scotland’s justice system will finally be removed.
[RB: An accompanying opinion piece by Magnus Linklater can be found here. It contains the usual slurs and misrepresentations that have been frequently countered in articles featured on this blog, including this one by John Ashton. A further article in The Times headlined Verdict 'was probably unsafe' reads as follows:]
Senior figures in the Scottish legal and political establishment believe that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi should not have been convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
Al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah went on trial in 2000 in a Scottish court, convened in the Netherlands, for the mass murder in 1988. Mr Fhimah was acquitted. Observers were shocked when al-Megrahi was found guilty. Critics of the verdict have focused on the testimony of Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who said that al-Megrahi “resembled” a man who bought clothes in his store that were later found to have been wrapped round the bomb that destroyed the plane.
It emerged that Mr Gauci was paid $1 million by the US justice department. Kenny MacAskill, the former justice secretary, has described the verdict as probably “unsafe”.
Robert Black, emeritus professor of law at Edinburgh University, said that the Scottish judges had come under pressure to convict.
“This was the most important criminal case in Scotland ever,” he said. “If there was not a conviction, the Lord Advocate really would have egg all over his face. The judges were not prepared to give the Lord Advocate a bloody nose.”
Saturday 24 March 2018
Justice for Megrahi's suggested issues for Scottish Parliament Justice Committee
[The following document outlines some of the issues that Justice for Megrahi considers arise out of its submission to the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee for consideration at its meeting on Tuesday 27 March 2018. It is expected that the submission itself will appear on the Scottish Parliament website on Monday:]
APPENDIX ‘A’: Justice Committee Brief: MacAskill/Salmond Public Statements and Relevant Questions.
(NB: While quotations have been checked and are believed to be accurate please check against references before use.)
FROM THE MEDIA:
The Times: 15th May 2016
‘Trade deal link to Lockerbie bomber release’
‘In a dramatic new book, serialised exclusively in The Sunday Times, former justice minister Kenny MacAskill also admits his decision to free one of the world’s most notorious terrorists was partly motivated by a fear of violent reprisals against Scots if the killer died in Scottish custody.
His account divulges:
•Ministers refused to travel with MacAskill amid threats to his life;
•The SNP sought concessions from Westminster in exchange for Megrahi’s possible return.’
ITV News Website Monday 23 May 2016
‘Megrahi conviction "probably unsafe" says MacAskill’
‘Scotland's former Justice Secretary has told ITV Border there are doubts about the conviction of the only man found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing.
“I do think there are now doubts upon the conviction and I tend to think that it probably would result in it being found unsafe.”
The Times: 25th May 2016
‘MacAskill ‘has destroyed the Lockerbie conviction’’
‘Robert Black, QC, said that Kenny MacAskill’s contention in his new book that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi had not bought the clothes wrapped around the explosive device that destroyed an airliner amounted to “the end of the conviction”…………
“If that were now the official Scottish government position, that is the end of the conviction,” Professor Black said. In a statement, the Crown Office said it remained certain of al-Megrahi’s guilt.’
Sunday Herald 29th May 2016
Book Review by John Ashton: ‘The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search for Justice’ by Kenny MacAskill
‘The unravelling of Kenny MacAskill ... and the case against Megrahi’
‘Overshadowing these revelations, however, is a single sentence buried among the book’s 322 pages, which reads: “Clothes in the suitcase that carried the bomb were acquired in Malta, though not by Megrahi.” ……………….As the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission noted when it referred Megrahi’s conviction to the appeal court in 2007, the assumption that Megrahi was the clothes purchaser was critical. Without it, there was insufficient evidence to convict him.’
‘The weaknesses in the identification evidence were well known to the Scottish government when MacAskill, as Justice Secretary, was claiming that the conviction was safe,’ says JfM’s Iain McKie, a former police superintendent who spent 15 years battling the police and Crown Office to clear the name of his daughter Shirley McKie.’
Scotsman: 5th July 2017.
‘Kenny MacAskill: Lockerbie conspiracy theories ‘absurd’
‘The case is complex. It could only ever be thus given who was involved, how it was carried out and where the bomb detonated. That there was a trial at all is down to the remarkable investigation carried out by Scottish officers and colleagues from many forces in the UK and beyond. The planning of the atrocity was global with several countries and organisations involved, and the debris was scattered from the Solway Firth to the Kielder Forest. As a consequence, the evidence could never be the clearest or most compelling.’
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/kenny-macaskill-lockerbie-conspiracy-theories-absurd-1-4494840
The Herald 30th November 2017
‘Alex Salmond casts doubt on Lockerbie bomber conviction’
‘Alex Salmond has cast doubt on the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber, suggesting it was based on evidence that was “open to question”.
The former First Minister – who was in office when Abdelbaset al Megrahi was controversially freed from prison on compassionate grounds – said it was possible “for someone to be guilty, yet wrongly convicted”……………..
However, his conviction was not just based on the strength of that evidence but on identification evidence which is to say the least open to question.”
The National 30th November 2017
‘US and UK were ‘double-dealing’ on Megrahi release’
‘In a special St Andrew’s Day edition of the Alex Salmond Show on RT today, MacAskill makes the explosive claim that Scotland was “slapped about mercilessly” by the British and American governments, who he accuses of “double dealing”.
Salmond himself says the identification evidence which helped convict Megrahi is “open to question” and berates the “total cynicism” of those who attacked the Scottish Government over the decision to send the Libyan home on compassionate grounds because he had terminal prostate cancer. He says the UK Government wanted Megrahi sent home to secure an oil deal. (…)’
The Times: 1st December 2017
‘Salmond condemned after casting doubt on Lockerbie conviction’
‘Alex Salmond has provoked criticism for claiming that the only man jailed for the Lockerbie bombing was wrongly convicted.
The former first minister said he believed that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was guilty of playing a part in the terrorist attack that killed 270 people in December 1988, but that the court was wrong to convict him.’
The Cable Magazine: 9th January 2018
‘Kenny MacAskill: Reflecting on Lockerbie’
‘Megrahi was released by me in 2009, on compassionate grounds, when I was Justice Secretary. In many ways, the trial has overshadowed both the events leading up to it, and actions subsequent to it. For some, it has become a cause célèbre and for others, simply the culmination of the tragedy………….Perhaps there should have been more wariness all those years ago, when an Italian air force plane in UN markings collected Megrahi and his co-accused – Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah – from Tripoli, to take them to the Netherlands for trial. For though this was to be a trial held under Scots law (albeit convened in a former Dutch air force base), the major ground rules had already been set. However, the Scottish judges presiding over the trials has not yet been notified of those rules.Vested financial interests should perhaps also have been discerned. The first Scots lawyers to visit Gadhafi travelled on a plane provided by Babcock and Wilcox. Others later returned on the private jet of Tiny Rowland.’
The Herald: 2nd September 2016
‘Kenny MacAskill: Gauci and the benefit of doubt on Lockerbie’
‘The issue with the continued trial of the Scottish justice system is that it lets the major security and commercial interests off the hook. The Scottish police did outstanding work both at the crash scene and in the subsequent investigation, along with law enforcement colleagues globally. Prosecution and judicial authorities acted diligently and honourably. Yet they have been traduced by some, which is a calumny upon them.
The criminal investigation into Lockerbie was overshadowed by commercial and security deals that were ongoing for decades and in which Scotland had no involvement.’
The Herald: 21st August 2016
‘Lockerbie bomber release saw Scotland take rap, says Kenny MacAskill’
‘Scotland was set up to "take the rap" for the release of the Lockerbie bomber, according to former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.
Mr MacAskill likened the SNP government's involvement to "flotsam and jetsam, the same as the bags that fell upon the poor town of Lockerbie and the people there".
Mr MacAskill insisted the Scottish Government had not been complicit in any prisoner transfer deals for Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the atrocity, and had "no control and little influence".
The decision to return Megrahi to Libya in 2009 was taken by Mr MacAskill on compassionate grounds.’
……………………………………………………………………………………
FROM ‘KENNY MACASKILL: THE LOCKERBIE BOMBING’ - (Biteback Publishing, 2016):
Alex Salmond: back cover quotation.
‘It ends with the most credible explanation yet published of who was really responsible for the downing of Pan Am flight 103.’
Kenny MacAskill, in the book itself:
1. p.137: ‘The court itself commented on the lack of evidence of the Samsonite case with the bomb being placed on board the Air Malta flight. It certainly seems that is where it all started and that Megrahi was at the airport at the time with a pass** that allowed him access. But, beyond that, there is really is no evidence other than that he was there. It’s understandable how once loaded at Malta it would work its way through the system unchecked and with only cursory checks at Frankfurt and Heathrow. But there is no direct evidence that Megrahi placed the bag on board.’
2. p.138: ‘Would a jury have convicted the accused? Most certainly they would have.…They would have almost certainly been swayed by views that had already been formed in the court of public opinion before the trial at Camp Zeist convened.’
3. p.139: ‘This [the trial at Camp Zeist] was more than the trial of the accused; so much more. Prospects for peace and trade depended on it; as much as the closure for some victims’ families and vengeance for others… The thaw in international tensions would have receded and fast, and the hoped-for lifting of sanctions and resumption of trade would have faltered and evaporated. Both Libya and the West both wanted and needed it. The world would have become a less certain and less secured place. The die was cast when the trial was established.…It’s hard to imagine how there could have been any other verdict in the circumstances. In many ways, as with Megrahi and Fhimah, Scots law and its judges were simply actors in the theatre that had been created to circumvent and solve both as diplomatic impasse and political problem. Scots law convened the trial, and yet found itself on trial.’
4. p.305: ‘The clothes were acquired in Malta, though not by Megrahi. The identification is suspect. The attempts to make the purchase fit the two possible dates when Megrahi was there are problematic indeed. The final selection of 7 December to tie in with the big European football fixture fails to take account of the meteorological evidence of there being no rain. Given the importance placed on Gauci recalling an umbrella having been bought, all that seems rather implausible.’
5. pp.305-307: ‘But if Megrahi didn’t buy the clothes, he was certainly involved.…Megrahi flew in to Malta with the suitcase that was to transport the bomb…Megrahi had been to Malta the month before, which was probably preparatory for the scheme and involved discussions on the logistics of clothes, the suitcase and the bomb equipment. He may even have brought the timers in with him. He would meet with others in the embassy to discuss and build plans already developed by the PFLP-GC − hence the interlining with a flight through Frankfurt in Germany. Though Megrahi had been involved in the acquisition of timers, and even witnessed their use in tests in Libya, he would not be the bomb maker. That would have been prepared in the Libyan People’s Bureau…’
6. pp.312-315: ‘Megrahi took the case to the airport, but it was Fhimah who would get it airside and beyond security.… Fhimah was familiar both with the procedures and to the staff who worked there. Placing a bag behind and into the system was a relatively simple task given the accreditation and access Fhimah had.…
‘It will probably never be known just how the security measures were breached, but no doubt that was why the plot involved those with accreditation, access and knowledge of the airport. If anyone would know how to do it, then Fhimah would.’
7. p.316: ‘There are also aspects of the case that could not be sustained in a court of law with the high standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt required and specific rules on evidence needed. There are equally aspects of this case that may not have seen a criminal conviction sustained on appeal. But, this account of how the bombing was carried out and by whom is based on information gathered meticulously by police and prosecutors from the US, Scotland and elsewhere. It’s also founded on intelligence and sources not available for a court or that have only come to light thereafter.’
** But see item 6, in which KM contradicts himself, as he specifically states that it was Fhimah who had the knowledge and accreditation to get a bag through the security system at Luqa and who did so, even though KM’s explanation of how this happened is entirely speculative.
APPENDIX ‘B’: Justice Committee Brief: Relevant Questions
In addition to the four central questions contained in the main submission JfM believes the following ones relevant to any JC consideration.
- Why do Mr MacAskill and Mr Salmond both now express doubts about the safeness of Megrahi’s conviction was unsafe when their government said that it did not doubt the safety of the conviction?
- MacAskill and Salmond must have known that Mr Megrahi’s family might one day resurrect his appeal. Did they not appreciate that, in stating that it did not doubt the safety of Megrahi’s conviction, their government was making a public judgement on a process that was supposed to free from political influence?
- When they were in government, to what extent were their own and their government’s public statements shaped by the Crown Office? In asking this question we note that after the publication of the SCCRC report by the Sunday Herald, the Crown Office and Salmond put a remarkably similar spin on the Commission’s findings:
Crown Office statement, 23 March 2012:
‘In the Megrahi case, the Commission was asked to look at more than 40 possible grounds for a referral to the Appeal Court. The Commission rejected the vast majority of these and referred the case to the Appeal Court on six grounds, many of which were inter-related.*
Alex Salmond 24.3.12: ‘While the [SCCRC] report shows that there were six grounds on which it believed a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, it also rejected 45 of the 48 grounds submitted by Megrahi, and in particular it upheld the forensic basis of the case leading to Malta and to Libyan involvement’**
*Scottish government spokesman quoted in the Herald, 21 May 2012 http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13058872.Lockerbie_families_vow_to_force_public_inquiry/.
**Alex Salmond quoted in the Mail Online 25.3.12 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120243/Calls-probe-conviction-Lockerbie-bomber-al-Megrahi-grounds-appeal-leaked-internet.html
- Was MacAskill briefed by the Crown Office and/or the police when writing his book? On what basis did he state that Megrahi did not buy the clothes for the bomb suitcase from Tony Gauci’s shop?
- MacAskill is aware that a major police investigation, Operation Sandwood, is ongoing in to the JfM allegations of criminality against some of the Lockerbie investigators. In his recent article for Cable, MacAskill states that investigators have been "denigrated for alleged falsities” and that "At the trial stage, both prosecutors and judges acted professionally in dealing with the facts then before them.” Did he not consider that this was publicly undermining the investigation?
- Why did MacAskill pass the JfM committee’s confidential allegations on to the Crown Office when he knew that the allegations were against Crown Officials?
- Why did he insist that the committee must take the complaint to Dumfries and Galloway police, even though its Lockerbie investigation was the subject of the complaints?
- Why did he not appoint an independent investigator to examine the allegations, as he was empowered to do under the 2005 Inquiries Act?
- Having been given a summary of the JfM committee’s allegations by MacAskill, the Crown Office immediately issued a statement claiming that the allegations were: ‘without exception, defamatory and entirely unfounded’? Do MacAskill and Salmond believe that was an appropriate comment for the CO to make? If not, why did they not rebuke the Crown Office?
- Why did MacAskill tell the Scottish Parliament that primary legislation was needed to remove the requirement that all those who had supplied information to the SCCRC must consent to the release of the SCCRC report when in fact all that was necessary under the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 was another statutory instrument? And why did also state in the same parliamentary answer that publication would be subject to data protection restrictions?
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