Dr Swire has meeting with Moderator, Cardinal and Primus

[I am grateful to Dr Jim Swire for this account of a meeting that he had in Dunblane on 2 November 2010 with the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Right Rev John Christie), the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh (Cardinal Keith O'Brien) and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (Most Rev David Chillingworth, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane).]

This meeting was convened by Cardinal O'Brien, following his correspondence with Dr Jim Swire, which in turn had arisen in response to an article published by Cardinal O'Brien in Scotland on Sunday on 8th August 2010. This article had contrasted the position of the judicial systems and punishments of the United Sates with those of Scotland, including the provision for compassion, and discussed their respective relationships to justice and to revenge. The meeting also followed the presentation by Justice for Megrahi (JFM) to the Public Petitions Committee of the Holyrood Parliament, which the Cardinal had attended. My apologies (...) for so long a review of our meeting.

It is the belief of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi and the way in which the court at Zeist reached that verdict are insecure. In addition material released since the verdict by elements of his defence team, and by a UN official observer of the trial (Prof Hans Koechler), together with the limited findings of the SCCRC thus far made public, profoundly undermine confidence that justice has been delivered in this case. Since there were also aspects of the preparation of evidence for use in the court which might have been influenced by the political considerations of states outwith Scotland, the need to review the impartiality of our justice system in this case is greatly augmented.

JFM had therefore mounted the following petition to the Holyrood Parliament:

to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.

This commentary below represents only Dr Jim Swire’s personal comments concerning this meeting, which he felt very privileged to have attended. The meeting was chiefly concerned with Dr Swire attempting to define how he sees the current position over the Lockerbie trial, the trial’s origins and some of the events that followed it. He personally is convinced that the SCCRC were right to announce that they believed this case might have been a miscarriage of justice

Based on his own experiences of this case, Dr Swire himself is satisfied that Mr Megrahi could not have been involved as charged: this differs from the position of JFM, but of course we share the imperative that the whole trial process must be re-examined if we are to be sure what justice for Megrahi should be. Therefore this account is written partly as a personal assessment of the situation, and in the first person.

I hope that each of you three Church leaders may feel able to publish some comment upon the situation discussed here when you have had the opportunity to review the implications with your respective churches, and that whatever these comments may be, they may be made available to your respective congregations, and as widely as possible. Of course you are also at liberty to use all or any representative part of this account in any way you wish, and it is also my hope that you will not object to the publication of this account on The Lockerbie Case blog of Professor Robert Black. Over the question of how justice should serve our community, I believe that this case is best exposed to public view by any possible means, for its implications should concern all of us in Scotland.

The establishment and maintenance of an impartial justice system is fundamental to the health of any civilised community. If the confidence of a community in the impartiality of its justice system is undermined, or indeed is even significantly suspected of having been undermined, the entire community is disadvantaged. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

This disaster arose when a Boeing 747 containing 259 passengers and crew and baggage, all loaded at Heathrow and destined for New York, crossed into Scottish airspace over the Solway Firth, at about 7.02 pm on the 21st of December 1988 and exploded over Lockerbie about one minute later with the loss of 270 innocent lives, 11 of them among the people of Lockerbie below. There are therefore immediate questions over where the limits of Scottish legal authority should be set, since the loading of the bomb had occurred in London’s Heathrow airport. Those questions in turn bear upon matters relevant to the present state of devolution between Scotland and England. They also bear inexorably upon aspects of the accumulation and handling of evidence and forensic artefacts for use in the trial. For instance, the UK forensics officers appointed to this Scottish case by UK the authorities had already been very severely criticised by a Lord Chief Justice of England for the unreliability of their evidence in preceding IRA based murder trials in England.

Both the Lockerbie Fatal Accident Inquiry and the Zeist trial were held under Scots law, but their findings reach far over the border and beyond even European boundaries, as does the assembly of evidence and witnesses for their use. The greater the importance then of examining whether our legal performance was satisfactory, and the greater the importance that we ourselves ordain re-examination of our justice system, rather than allowing any entity outwith Scotland to do so. Then if errors are found we can at least be seen to be addressing them for ourselves.

However, within Scotland herself these factors themselves are also complex, for the relatively small enclaves of Scottish law and investigative police must act, and be seen to act objectively and not in any attempt at self-justification. We must not lose sight of one major criticism of the Zeist trial, namely that failures of the Crown Office as prosecuting authority in the sharing of material with the defence, was one of the major factors that seemed to make the trial unacceptable as a fair arena in which to try the case. We must also be aware that some of those directly involved in many of the processes required for this court to function, from the Lord Advocate of the day downwards, have by now evolved into major players in the Scottish legal system. The same applies in the police forces involved. The revelations from the McKie fingerprint case give great cause for concern about possible attempts at self-justification from both the legal and police communities in Scotland.

It is of paramount importance that any inquiry is seen to be outside the circles of individual and corporate influence within Scotland which might otherwise be accused of having invalidated the objectivity of such an inquiry. Meeting this requirement might mean the appointment by the Scottish Government of a chairman of inquiry of acknowledged impartiality from outside Scotland. As we shall see there are plenty of materials and personnel within Scotland upon which a meaningful inquiry could be based.

Back in 1989, the UK relatives of the dead (‘UK Families-Flight 103’) were soon in possession of a number of prior warnings which had been received by the British Government well before the disaster, but their requests to the Westminster Government to set up an immediate inquiry after protection of the aircraft had all too obviously failed, were ignored. Lady Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, refused even to meet to discuss an inquiry, and the pattern of rejecting any objective inquiry has been followed by every British Prime Minister since.

As was mandatory under Scots law, since the aircraft crew had ‘perished in their place of work’, a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) had been set up at Dumfries. In retrospect it was unfortunate, yet entirely proper, that (the late) Sheriff Principal Mowat who led that hearing instructed the FAI that it was to accept that ‘the bomb had arrived at Heathrow from Frankfurt'. This was to be the limit of the FAI’s remit in examining the origins of the disaster, and was in line with the current state of the police investigation at that time, which of course had to be protected, in view of hoped for impending prosecutions.

In spite of this arbitrary acceptance of whence the bomb 'must' have come, the FAI did however tell us relatives that the aircraft had been under the host state protection of the UK at all relevant times on the ground at Heathrow, and that the disaster had been preventable. It is very unfortunate that the question of how the bomb actually got into Heathrow and onto the plane is now seen by many observers as being misrepresented at Zeist. If that turns out to be the case, then a main instruction for the FAI would appear to have been unjustified itself, requiring review of some aspects of the FAI hearings. Much of the work of the FAI was centred upon how passenger baggage was handled within Heathrow airport, and upon the performance of the UK Department of Transport in securing baggage there. Should it emerge in an inquiry or further appeal that the bomb may not have been introduced via the Frankfurt flight after all, but through the Heathrow break-in (vide infra) then it would be necessary to re-examine the question of UK failure to prevent the tragedy in terms of Heathrow perimeter security, rather than in terms of internal baggage handling methods at the airport. The task of a Scottish FAI is to determine the factors contributing to the death(s)

There is well informed criticism now of the whole concept of the bomb having come from Malta. Worse, information concerning a break-in to highly relevant parts of Heathrow during the small hours of the night before Lockerbie was withheld from the Zeist trial court until after the verdict had been reached. How this came about would have to be included in any meaningful inquiry into the probity of the trial, and would also have implications for the findings of the FAI, specifically in terms of the UK's responsibility to protect flights loading at Heathrow airport. In this respect the interests of 'UK Families-Flight 103' are broader than the petition by JFM which centres specifically upon the Zeist verdict. The people of Scotland however should also have an interest as to how this aircraft with its loaded bomb came to enter Scottish airspace that night, and rain death upon 11 of them in their homes in Lockerbie. Since the role of the protection offered to Pan Am 103 at Heathrow were addressed by the Scottish FAI, they must also fall within the remit of a Scottish investigation of the disaster.

Told by a former British Foreign Secretary that there was excellent evidence against the accused and none against any other country than Libya, by the time I entered the Zeist court I was expecting to see two of the murderers brought to justice.

Meanwhile we, in 'UK Families-Flight 103', strengthened by the findings of Scotland’s FAI that the disaster had been preventable, are still waiting for explanations from the Westminster Government as to why they failed to protect the lives of our families. The bomb which crossed the Scottish border that night in the belly of the 747 appeared to conform to those described in such detail in the warnings received in good time by the UK Government beforehand. This issue of the failure of protection at Heathrow may lie outwith Scottish jurisdiction, but the performance and findings of the two Scottish Court proceedings at Dumfries and Zeist lie entirely within Scotland’s sphere of responsibility, the latter being central to the question of whether Mr Megrahi’s conviction was or was not justified. JFM’s petition therefore centres upon the Zeist court and its findings.

Following some 18 months of official investigation immediately after the disaster, the finger seemed to point to Iran, seeking revenge, by using a Syrian terror group as mercenaries. having lost an airbus containing some 290 individuals shot down by a US missile cruiser six months before Lockerbie, the captain of the cruiser being presented with a medal following his return to the USA.

Then suddenly in late 1991 indictments were issued simultaneously in Edinburgh and Washington against two of Libya’s citizens.

There followed for the relatives years of hard work attempting to persuade Libya to allow the two to be tried under Scots law. These efforts were strongly supported by the then Professor of Scots at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Black QC and by Nelson Mandela, and many others, but involved multiple trips to talk to Colonel Gaddafi. The first of these was made by myself alone and in great fear, but two others were made jointly with Professor Black, who was himself the originator of the ‘Scottish court in a neutral country' concept.

Together with one other UK relative, I watched the whole of the evidence unfold at Zeist, and though only a layman, to my amazement as the case unfolded it seemed to me that the evidence was failing to support the involvement of either of the accused in the atrocity, let alone the island of Malta as the point of origin of the bomb. The second Libyan suspect, Mr Khalifa Fahima, was accused of conspiring with Mr Megrahi to cause the disaster but was found Not Guilty: a remarkable finding in view of the availability of the Scottish verdict of Not Proven.

Then came the evidence of a German forensic officer who explained to the court the nature of bombs found in the hands of a terror group, but not all confiscated, in Germany, two months before Lockerbie. He explained that the bombs were of Syrian provenance, from an Iranian linked terror group, the PFLP-GC in Damascus. He also carefully explained how these bombs, specifically designed to destroy aircraft in flight, were capable of introduction to an airport well in advance of their actual use. He explained too that put into an aircraft they would always explode between 35 and 40 minutes after take-off, by sensing the drop in air pressure, but that they were inert on the ground indefinitely. They were not adjustable. They came predicated always to explode 35-40 minutes after take-off.

Yet these devices could not have arrived by air from Malta as they would have exploded en route. From that point on, and knowing that the flight time for the Lockerbie aircraft had been 38 minutes, I found it hard to believe that Mr Megrahi, allegedly using a sophisticated digital timer from Malta, had risked his device passing through an Air Malta flight, changing planes at Frankfurt and then changing planes again at Heathrow, only to have it explode 38 minutes after take-off from Heathrow as the Lockerbie flight did. Why would he not set it to explode over mid Atlantic since the timing of the device he was alleged to have used was fully under his control? Why risk this devious route those two changes of airplane and so short a flight time out of Heathrow?

But the FAI had told us to assume that the bomb had been flown in from Frankfurt. What were the chances of a simple time-bomb from Malta happening to explode at just the same time after take-off from Heathrow as one of those described by the German forensic officer to the court would have been obligated to do? The hearings seemed permeated with failures to assuage reasonable doubt: a prerequisite supposedly for reaching a guilty verdict under Scots criminal law

There were great difficulties particularly surrounding the evidence given by Toni Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper alleged to have sold a tranche of clothing later found at the crash site to Mr Megrahi, who he could only say ‘looked a lot like the buyer of the clothes’. The evidence of identification never looked to be of the standard required to incriminate the real perpetrator, yet it was the only supposedly secure proof of Mr Megrahi’s involvement in Malta, there being no evidence to lead as to how he was supposed to have breached security at Luqa airport on the island. Such difficulties and many others will be central to any inquiry into this trial.

It is significant that Professor Black has repeatedly stated that the events and evidence heard in the Zeist trial court itself present difficulties which should have ruled out a guilty verdict under Scottish criminal law, even without reference to events since the verdict was reached. Unlike my lay status, his is a powerful persuasive and professional voice claiming the need for the whole court process to be reviewed if we are to be certain whether justice was delivered for Mr Megrahi or not. Only a few others were prepared openly to express their doubts at first, but re-examination of the evidence and trial transcripts has increased doubts over the validity of the verdict for a number of highly qualified lawyers since. Gareth Peirce, one of Britain’s most respected human rights lawyers is an excellent example of this. Her article in the London Review of Books 'The framing of al-Megrahi' is well worth reading.

After three years of study the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) publicly stated that the trial might be a miscarriage of justice, massively increasing the doubts in the minds of many Scots both within and without our legal community.

Yet the current publicly expressed position of the Scottish Justice Minister and of our First Minister is that they have no doubts concerning the verdict. It is not apparent why they should be considered a more reliable source than the SCCRC, whose special task it is to decide such issues, and which spent so long in careful professional examination of this case.

I have made clear that the content of the Zeist court proceedings on their own are widely thought sufficient to require re-examination of the whole court process. However immediately after the verdict was reached, a night security guard complained to the Zeist defence team that his discovery of a break-in at Heathrow airport during the night preceding Lockerbie had been ignored by the court. It transpired that his discovery had been promptly reported to the Heathrow authorities, and that in January 1989 the security guard himself had been interviewed by the Metropolitan Police Special branch. Though the break-in had occurred close to where the bags for the Lockerbie flight were assembled and to where the facilities used by Iran Air were sited, neither the break-in itself nor the evidence from the interview of the night security guard were made known to the Zeist court, until after the verdict had been reached.

Although this startling new information seemed to fit perfectly as a route through which one of the Syrian automatic air pressure sensitive bombs described above might have been introduced, it did not dislodge the verdict. Paramount among reasons why this was so, revolved round the way that Mr Megrahi’s defence had approached the first appeal. The performance of Mr Megrahi’s defence team at Zeist must of course be re-evaluated by any inquiry.

The emergence of this evidence seemed to fit as if a vital piece of a jig saw into my own belief derived from the German forensic evidence heard in the Zeist court hearings themselves, that one of the Syrian automatic devices was most probably used, with their inevitable 35-40 minute flight time. Here at last was evidence of a credible route for the introduction of one of these devices to Heathrow. A reassuringly simple and satisfying alternative to the weird route allegedly chosen by Mr Megrahi and his bomb from Malta, accepted by the Zeist court.

Surely this was a ‘reasonable doubt’ contradicting the verdict, since if true, Mr Megrahi could not have been involved, having been shown in the court evidence to have been on Malta during the night of the break-in at Heathrow.

At this time there is no known explanation as to why this potentially vital information lay concealed from the trial court. It could be that the Met did not pass it on to the Scots; it could be that the investigating Scottish police chose to ignore it, but at least the Crown office has assured me in writing that they did not know of it prior to the verdict being reached. Here is another interface between UK responsibility and Scottish responsibility. We need to know where responsibility for this amazing lacuna in the main trial court's evidence arose, in pursuit of assessment of the competence or otherwise of the Scottish police investigation, for this investigation was central to the sufficiency of evidence led at Zeist.

I will mention one other development since the trial ended. Following the withdrawal of his appeal, Mr Megrahi’s defence team published a substantial amount of information which presumably would have been among that to be used had the appeal continued. This was not the work of some elusive conspiracy theorist, nor did it appear in one of the less well supported pages of Wikipedia. It was placed on the net by members of Mr Megrahi’s Scottish defence team, all no doubt available to any Scottish inquiry. Among their revelations was the information that the above mentioned Maltese shopkeeper Toni Gauci was observed by one of the investigating Scottish police officers, Harry Bell, to be showing increasing signs of desire to get his hands on a substantial sum in US dollars, to be provided from America ‘if he gave evidence leading to the conviction' of Mr Megrahi. The diary entry was made long before Toni Gauci did come to court to give his evidence. Evidence from other sources suggests that the amount was to be $2,000,000. That would be a life-changing fortune to the keeper of a small Maltese clothing store. The money appears to have come from Washington, from the US ‘Rewards for Justice’ programme, which listed Mr Megrahi’s name among those brought to ‘justice’ by the disbursements of its funds.

This policeman and his diary (which was not seen by the Zeist court, although its existence was known to it) should also be available for a suitably empowered inquiry to examine.

It seems to me therefore that there is no shortage of aspects to this case which lie within reach of an appropriately empowered Scottish inquiry. It is not the position of JFM that the verdict against Mr Megrahi was wrong, simply that it is so set about with legitimate and accessible doubt that it must now be re-examined, if we in Scotland are to retain confidence in our judicial system and its impartiality, and if we are to be sure that Mr Megrahi has received justice at our hands.

None of the above, bears upon the decision of our Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to allow Mr Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds in 2009. I was privileged to meet with Kenny before he made his decision and urged him to use the established precedent in Scots law to allow the desperately sick man home. It did not even require the withdrawal of his appeal which we hoped would fully review the verdict. I believe Kenny’s decision was a brave one, and of course it has brought vile criticism upon him from the USA, where there is expression of a hope that Mr Megrahi will quickly die and even preferably in pain. These are voices baying for vengeance.

Personally I believe we should be proud of Kenny’s decision and of the capacity of our legal system to exhibit compassion. Speaking as a doctor for a moment, I would say that the relief of the misery of being segregated from his family and desperately sick in an alien prison cell, all because of a horrible slaughter for which he may bear no responsibility, was the major reason for his much prolonged survival thus far in Tripoli. That gave me the joy of meeting him once more with his loving family in his hospital room in Tripoli last month.

You will remember that I personally am satisfied that Mr Megrahi was simply not involved, and therefore what might have been a supremely difficult moment to test the Christian obligation to try to love one’s enemies, was no problem. I have nothing for which to forgive him. Indeed, the roles are reversed. I campaigned for several years to have this man and his fellow Libyan submit to Scottish law as being a fair system.

Mr Megrahi is a devout Muslim. Yet in his cell just before Christmas 2008 he bought a Christmas card from the prison shop and gave it to me: on it he had written “To doctor Swire and family, please pray for me and my family”. Was that the act of a mass murderer? Should either of us hate the other? I don't think so, but I do believe we should investigate whether or not we in Scotland provided justice for Mr Megrahi at Zeist. I would like to think that we could all pray for him and his family, but for those among us who still believe he may be guilty, that prayer would be so much easier if review of this trial showed him to have been innocent all along. So I think we may pray that justice may be done here and that it be seen to be done by us, the people of Scotland, whom that justice system must faithfully serve in the future.

Crown’s breaches of duty of disclosure

[What follows is the text of a report published in The Independent on this date in 2009:]

The Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing today published more documents he claims prove his innocence.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi insisted the move was not meant to add to the upset of the people "profoundly affected by what happened in Lockerbie".

But he added: "My only intention is for the truth to be made known."

Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, was controversially freed from prison on compassionate grounds earlier this year.

He had been serving a life sentence at Greenock prison for the bombing of the Pan Am flight 103 in 1998, in which 270 people were killed.

Before his release, the bomber dropped his second appeal against that conviction.

His Scottish lawyers, Taylor and Kelly, said Megrahi remained ill in hospital in Tripoli, and that the documents published on the website www.megrahimystory.net related to his appeal.

In a statement Megrahi said: "I recognise that the Court of Criminal Appeal in Scotland is the only authority empowered to quash my conviction. In light of the abandonment of my appeal this cannot now happen."

However he added: "I continue to protest my innocence - how could I fail to do so?"

Megrahi said much of the material published today was "buttressed by the independent investigations of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission".

It was the commission that referred Megrahi's case back to the courts for its second appeal.

Megrahi - who was convicted of the bombing in January 2001 at a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands - had mounted an unsuccessful appeal in 2002.

But in 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, sent his case for a subsequent appeal.

Today he said: "The commission found documents which they concluded ought to have been disclosed to my defence."

And he claimed this included a "record of interest in financial reward" by Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who sold clothing found to have been in the suitcase that contained the bomb.

Megrahi also said the commission had seen documents which should have been given to his defence team at the trial.

He stated: "The commission concluded that the non-disclosure of these documents and other material may have affected the trial process and caused a miscarriage of justice."

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill made his decision to free Megrahi "based on the due process of Scots Law" and he "supports the conviction".

He added: "The Scottish Government has already released as much relevant information as possible, and have met with the SCCRC to look at what documentation relating to the appeal could be released by them."

The newly-published papers include claims that Tony Gauci was paid two million dollars (about £1.2m) by US authorities after the trial.

Much of the document published today relates to evidence which, Megrahi's lawyers say, was not produced at his trial.

When the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission sent Megrahi's case to the appeal court, it said doubt had been cast on some of the evidence which helped convict him, in particular evidence relating to his visit to Tony Gauci's shop in December 1988.

New evidence suggested the clothing had been bought before December 6, at a time when there was no evidence that Megrahi was in Malta, said the SCCRC.

And other evidence not available at the trial undermined Gauci's identification of him, it said.

Much of what is published today on the Megrahi website relates to Gauci's identification.

The legal documents by Megrahi's defence team say the SCCRC found material showing Mr Gauci was paid more than two million dollars by the US department of justice after the trial, and his brother Paul Gauci was paid one million dollars (about £600,000).

The SCCR also unearthed a statement made to police by David Wright, a friend of Tony Gauci, which had not been made available to the defence.

The statement from Mr Wright, who visited Tony Gauci, told of a purchase of clothing by two Libyans in October or November - but the statement was not investigated.

Other material published today also questions the reliability of Mr Gauci's identification of Megrahi.

The "missing evidence" on the identification of Megrahi was not put forward at his trial for a variety of reasons, according to the appeal papers published today by his lawyers.

They blamed both the prosecution for omitting some evidence from the trial - and the defence for not fully investigating the identification evidence.

Other arguments put forward in the documents relate to alleged inconsistencies in identification evidence, and to the possibility of Mr Gauci's recollection being tainted by "prejudicial" publicity.

The previously undisclosed evidence of David Wright was found by the SCCRC.

A friend of Mr Gauci and long-standing visitor to Malta, he called police in November 1989 after seeing TV coverage of Lockerbie which included footage of Mr Gauci's shop.

He told police he visited Mr Gauci in his shop in late October or November 1988, and saw two Libyans buy clothing.

The pair were smartly-dressed, had a lot of money, and bought several items of clothing.

Mr Gauci had referred to them as "Libyan pigs", and the descriptions given by Mr Wright did not resemble Megrahi.

But no further inquiries were made and Mr Wright's statement was not disclosed to the defence, the papers say.

The material showing that Mr Gauci asked for and received payment was also unearthed by the SCCRC, say the papers.

The commission found material showing that, at an early stage, he expressed an interest in receiving payment or compensation.

The material also "indicated" that US authorities offered to make substantial payments to him, that an application for reward money was made after the trial - and that Mr Gauci received "in excess of" 2 million dollars after the appeal, with his brother receiving 1 million dollars.

"The SCCRC states that, at some time after the appeal, the two witnesses were each paid sums of money under the Rewards for Justice programme administered by the US Department of Justice," said the papers.

And none of this had been disclosed to the defence, the papers say.

"The failure to disclose the information that reward monies have been discussed, that offers of rewards related to the witness have been discussed, and that substantial rewards have in fact been paid to the witness, is in breach of that duty to disclose."

Doubts remain over Megrahi’s guilt because of payments made to ‘star’ witnesses

[This is the heading over a letter from Dr Jim Swire in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]

There has been widespread condemnation from the United States, in particular, of Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

This condemnation must presuppose that the man was, indeed, guilty of playing a part in the Lockerbie atrocity, yet America is silent concerning the findings of Scotland’s Criminal Cases Review Commission, which indicated that there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

It may be an uncomfortable exercise for the senators, but perhaps they should don their reading glasses and look a lot closer to home. If they will examine the website of their own Rewards for Justice Program in Washington DC, they will find Megrahi’s name among those brought to “justice” by disbursement of RfJ funds.

If they will then look at the website set up on behalf of Megrahi by his defence team, they will find extracts from a policeman’s diary kept during the investigations into Lockerbie on the island of Malta.

These extracts show that the policeman knew that the shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who later claimed haltingly to identify Megrahi in court as the buyer of the clothes, (remains of which were found at the crash site), was increasingly aware of, and excited by, the offer of substantial reward for him if he would give evidence leading to the conviction of Megrahi. All this, of course, long before Mr Gauci actually did give his evidence in court.

If the proprietor of a small Glasgow clothing store, struggling to feed his family, were to be told that if he gave evidence that he had seen a certain individual buy clothes from his shop some years before, he would receive a gift of $2m, would you trust his evidence? The senators might also like to look at the material surrounding a witness known as Giaka, alleged, in the run up to the trial, to be a “star” witness, but who was shown in court to have been on the payroll of the CIA from before Lockerbie and whose evidence was, therefore, seen as suspect by the court. They might also demand a sight of the suite of CIA cables surrounding this man.

Nor need Westminster feel virtuous. Why did the Metropolitan Police investigation into the break-in at Heathrow the night before Lockerbie remain hidden until after the verdict had been reached? The Crown Office has told me it knew nothing about this until after the verdict.

Why did Lady Thatcher write in 1993 in her memoirs, The Downing Street Years, that, following her support for the USAF bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi in 1986 (two years before Lockerbie) “… there was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years”.

We see that Scotland, to whom the solemn task of trying the accused was passed, was on the receiving end of external political interference in what should have been a purely criminal case.

If the senators want to know the truth about this appalling atrocity, let them throw their weight behind the need for a process to be set up within Scotland, objectively to review the case against Megrahi.

Only we ourselves, in the absence of Megrahi’s appeal, can redeem our country’s reputation for justice and humanity, and ensure that our own citizens are protected by a wise and independent judicial system.

[For more from Dr Swire, see the Newsnet Scotland article "Swire: Lockerbie Witness Knew of $2 million Payment for Conviction". The readers' comments -- many supporting an independent inquiry notwithstanding this goes against SNP Government policy -- are also worth reading.]

We must lift the burden of false incrimination against a dying man

[This is the heading over a letter from Dr Jim Swire published in today’s edition of The Herald.  It reads as follows:]

In a villa, within a high walled garden in Tripoli, Libya, there lies a man wracked by the pain of widespread cancer, living out the last days of his life, cared for by his wife and children.

His name is known around the world as Megrahi, "the Lockerbie bomber".

He is what we would call middle class. His work was as a part-time international entrepreneur, part time employee of his State's airline, where his role involved the unusual task of trying to obtain spares for that airline's Boeing airliners in the face of international sanctions against his state. His work took him often to Malta where he may have had a mistress. It also took him from time to time to Zurich.

Yes, he also had a state-issued passport in a false name, to facilitate and conceal his journeyings and no doubt his trysts. Later when both Abdelbasel Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, pictured, and his family were confined to Tripoli, awaiting trial, (which he had volunteered to attend, in order as he believed to clear his name), he arranged for two of his children also to be issued with false passports so that they could attend a children's festival in another country. Such were the mores of his country, such were the uses of false passports.

The Scottish court at Camp Zeist was told that an investigating Scottish policeman had kept a diary but he was not told to go and get it from Glasgow. Yet we now know it contained contemporaneous evidence that the Scottish investigators knew the Americans were offering multi million dollar rewards "with $10,000 up front" and that those who falsely identified Megrahi were also aware of rewards long before they gave their evidence ("Six key points that cast doubt on Megrahi's guilt", The Herald, March 13).

We now know through the foresight of Megrahi's latter-day defence solicitor (now Professor) Tony Kelly of Glasgow,that it is not possible that the fragment found after the bombing could have come from a genuine Zurich timer board. That is unassailable scientific fact.

I hope that anyone reading this letter will consider the responsibility which Scotland carries for the failures that emerged in the delivery of justice at Zeist. We were responsible for failing to analyse "the fragment" fully, to discover whether it was genuine or not. We seem also to have been responsible for failing to produce evidence of the break-in at Heathrow which may have indicated a much simpler solution than the premeditated, contrived, cruel and criminal perversion of justice reached at Zeist.

It is time to lobby MSPs, to see if we can lift the terrible burden of false incrimination against this individual and his family, for which our court was in part responsible, before he dies. We may only have days or weeks to do so if he is to be alive to hear of it. Surely we owe that to him and to his family, currently cast as pariahs throughout the world. We also owe the truth about all that is known about the real killers, to the relatives of the victims.

We should remember the words of Nelson Mandela when the Zeist trial was announced: "No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and judge." 

[The letter as published is an edited version of two letters that Dr Swire submitted to the newspaper.  With his permission I reproduce here the full text of both.]

Letter 1

In a villa, within a high walled garden in Tripoli, Libya, there lies a man wracked by the pain of widespread cancer, living out the last days of his life, cared for by his still devoted wife and children.

His name is known around the world as Megrahi, 'the Lockerbie bomber'.

He is what we would call middle class, his work was as part time international entrepreneur, part time employee of his State's airline, where his work involved the unusual task of trying to obtain spares for that airline's Boeing airliners in the face of international sanctions against his State. His work took him often to Malta where he had a mistress, it also took him from time to time to Zurich.

Ah yes, he also had a State issued passport in a false name, to facilitate and conceal his journeyings and no doubt his trysts. Later when both he and his family were confined to Tripoli, awaiting trial, (which he had volunteered to attend, in order as he believed to clear his name), he arranged for two of his children also to be issued with false passports so that they could attend a children's festival in another country. Such were the mores of his country, such were the uses of false passports.

Feeling guilty over his Maltese mistress, he admitted that he had lied to at least one prominent international journalist as to the reasons for his own visits to Malta.  But the judges at his trial recorded that 'it was a serious problem for the prosecution' that there was no evidence of any sinister action by this man as he passed through Luqa airport on the day of the Lockerbie disaster,on his way back to Tripoli.

Upon his eventual release from a Scottish prison after ten years and the gathering intrusion of his fatal illness, he recorded that he had no grudge against the people of our country, still less against those who had cared for him in prison. Nor did he rail against those who may really have been responsible for the terrible crime of which he had been falsely accused for fear such accusations might themselves turn out to be false..

For those who had deliberately contrived his false conviction or born false witness against him for money, he warned of the judgement they must one day face at least at the bar of history if they believe they have no God.

But it was by means of the innate provision for compassion built into our justice system that we in Scotland were able to free him to die at home. This element of compassion was rightly praised, compared with the judicial systems of America, with their death sentences, and their brooding 'culture of vengeance' by the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal O'Brien, immediately following Megrahi's release to Tripoli.

I had the privilege of begging Kenny MacAskill to free Megrahi, who I was sure by then had played no part in the atrocity. Megrahi was dying, segregated from his family and innocent of this dreadful crime. Kenny on the other hand had at least to maintain that he still did believe Megrahi guilty, but we can now no longer hold such a belief with integrity.

We have known for years that those who identified this man as the buyer of objects from a Maltese shop were offered at least two million American dollars, if they would give evidence identifying Megrahi as the buyer. The Scottish court at Zeist was told that an investigating Scottish policeman had kept a diary, he was never told to go and get it from Glasgow. Yet we now know it contained contemporaneous  evidence that the Scottish investigators knew the Americans were offering multi million dollar rewards 'with $10,000 up front' and that those who falsely identified Megrahi were also aware of rewards long before they gave their evidence.

The faltering giver of the 'identification' evidence, one apple short of a picnic or not, had been bribed.

A central item of forensic 'evidence' found inside a Scottish police evidence bag, where the label had been deliberately altered so as to alert the searching forensic officers to contents other than just 'cloth', was a tiny piece of circuit board, carefully crafted to mimic a piece of a timer supplied by a Zurich firm to Libya. But there is now scientific confirmation that this key item could never have been part of a Zurich/Libyan bomb timer. The patterns traced on the fragment were near perfect copies of the real thing, but  a human error had allowed the fragment copy to be coated with  pure tin, by a process never ever used by Thuring, the Swiss manufacturers of the genuine boards, who always used a tin/lead eutectic solder alloy instead.

With the demise of the authenticity of this fragment the last shreds of support for the verdict against Megrahi and the Malta story also died. A long running digital timer was necessary if the bomb was to survive the time from Malta to Lockerbie.

The prosecution was warned by its forensic officers, before the trial, of the difference between the circuit board fragment 'PT35b' and the real timer boards, but failed to investigate.

Our SCCRC was also aware of this anomaly, yet despite their special 53 page report on 'PT35b' they claimed to have found nothing to show that it was not genuine.

We now know through the foresight of Megrahi's latter day defence solicitor (now Professor) Tony Kelly of Glasgow, that it is not possible that this fragment could have come from a genuine Zurich timer board.

That is unassailable scientific fact.

It is now clear that others, outwith Scotland were determined to pin this terrible crime upon Libya and chose Megrahi as their scapegoat, using hi-tech subterfuge to create the illusion that the bomb, through its timer could have survived the interval between Luqa and Lockerbie. What a price Megrahi has paid for his adultery.

It still remains perfectly possible that Gaddafi might have played a role in facilitating the atrocity for he had a deep hatred against America for that country's attempt to assassinate him in 1986. Perhaps if the current Lord Advocate persists in his plan to send investigators to Libya, evidence will emerge from the fog that follows civil war there, but many are those who would try to save their own skins by alleging the guilt of others, not least Sennousi.

I hope that anyone reading these lines will consider the responsibility which Scotland carries for the failures that emerged in the delivery of Justice at Zeist. We were responsible for the contents of that police evidence bag, we were responsible for analysing 'the fragment' fully, to discover whether it was genuine or not, we seem also to have been responsible for failing to produce evidence of the break-in at Heathrow which may have indicated a much simpler solution than the premeditated,contrived, cruel and criminal perversion of justice reached at Zeist.

Somebody created that clever deceitful fragment, someone intended that our court should seem to incriminate Libya, but surely our compassion, of which the Cardinal spoke in 2010 should now extend to an immediate setting aside of the verdict against this man Megrahi, accompanied by a profound apology. 

One MSP, Christine Grahame (MSP) has long realised the deception carried out here. Now that we all know that this was a premeditated framing of Megrahi, it is time to lobby your own MSP,  to see if we can lift the terrible burden of false incrimination against this individual and his family, for which our court was in part responsible, before he dies.

We may only have days or weeks to do so if he is to be alive to hear of it.

Surely we owe that to him and to his family, currently cast as pariahs throughout the world.

We also owe the truth about all that is known about the real killers, to the relatives of the victims.

Once we have done that we should be slow to attribute individual blame for how this disastrous case was conducted, instead we must urgently seek ways by which such a disaster can be avoided in future, starting with the obligation of our prosecution service to share all relevant information with the defence. Let us use the past with all its errors to learn how to do things better in future. Our criminal system got this case terribly wrong, we need to take transparent steps to minimise the chance of repetition of this disgrace. That would be a real benefit for all of us to extract from this whole miserable business.

Finally we might wish to consider what role our increasingly independent country should adopt towards the International Criminal Court, should a crime of international dimensions occur in our land again. As we consider that question, we might remember the words of Nelson Mandela issued in Edinburgh when the Zeist trial was announced.

Letter 2

Thanks to the book by Lockerbie defence researcher John Ashton, we now have a clear account of how the conviction of Megrahi was achieved.

It was not achieved because some alien group wanted to pervert the course of Scottish justice,  nor did it bear any relationship to the simple needs of the relatives of those killed at Lockerbie to know the truth as to who the murderers really were and why they were not stopped.

It was achieved in order to pin the blame specifically upon Libya, presumably in furtherance of perceived political advantage for the country contriving the deceit.

We now know that the famous timer board fragment PT35b was fabricated to match the circuit boards in a set of professional timers sold to the Libyans in the days of Gaddafi.

The patterns traced on PT35b were near perfect copies of those on the real Swiss/Libyan circuit boards, only human error in treating the surface of the copper tracks on them has now revealed the truth through scientific analysis. PT35b simply could never have been part of one of the Libyan owned and Swiss made timers.

It must be clear to all who are not 'blind because they do not wish to see', that the purpose of this slight of hand was to incriminate Libya in this dreadful mass murder, using the hapless Megrahi as scapegoat. 

In Scotland we too are guilty by association. Our prosecution authorities knew before the Megrahi trial had started  that the fragment had 'turned up' inside a Scottish police evidence bag with its label clumsily altered. They knew of the anachronistic insertions in the forensic record for PT35b. They knew that PT35b was not in fact 'similar in all respects' to the circuit boards of the Libyan timers, because the forensic officer who had made that claim had already pointed out that  in fact metallurgical differences existed.

Both our prosecution service, before the trial, and later our SCCRC after the trial knew, (or at least had access to, evidence which clearly showed) that in reality there were differences in the metallurgical details between PT35b and the real Libyan circuit boards. Both failed to investigate these differences, despite the SCCRC's special 53 page special report on the fragment.

It took the detailed diligence and foresight of Professor Tony Kelly of Glasgow (for Megrahi's defence), and John Ashton his researcher, to reveal that the differences between PT35b and the real Libyan boards were irreconcilable, and to show that even if the fragment had really been in a Semtex explosion, this gap was unbridgeable.

In addition we neglected the far more credible story, in view of PA103's flight time, that a Syrian pressure sensitive bomb with their inevitable flight time of 35-45 minutes might have been introduced at Heathrow, avoiding the detailed examination of exhibit PI/1588 which may have been the remains of a pressure sensitive switch from the wreckage field, and if so, pointing to Syria and Iran, not Libya. If that were not fault enough, the evidence of the break-in to Heathrow airport 16 hours before Lockerbie, investigated in January 1989 by the Met. was completely denied to the Zeist trial court. Only last month (Feb 2012) Lord Advocate Mulholland told us that he had still 'been unable to discover' why that evidence was not made available at the trial.

The determination to use this trial as a vehicle for deliberate deception, presumably in pursuance of international political ends did not come from within Scotland. But the multiple failures by our prosecution service responsibly to use the available material and share it with Megrahi's defence did.

For more than a decade some of us, the relatives, have realised that we are being denied the truth about what is really known about this horrible slaughter. We have had to watch Scottish justice twisting and turning to avoid blame for the way its manifest failures contributed to a foreign based wicked and premeditated perversion of justice. We were astonished by the defence position taken in Megrahi's first appeal in Zeist and have squirmed in front of the deliberate delaying tactics exhibited in Megrahi's second appeal in Edinburgh. Now we have learned that even our SCCRC were not astute enough to realise the real origins of PT35b despite their 53 page special report on it.

In contrast to a declaration from 10 Downing Street made just before Ashton's book had even been launched or read, that his book was 'an insult to the Lockerbie relatives', it throws light upon a devious and profoundly dirty aspect of international politics, which on top of our bereavemen,t has burdened us, like some noxious parasite for more than 23 years.

Is Scotland now man enough to investigate these failures, outclassed though they were by the malevolent misuse of our system by a foreign power? Justice delayed is justice  denied. Specially for Megrahi. In the end our system compounded the insults heaped upon the memory of those who died.

It has never been our policy as relatives to seek vengeance against individuals who failed us. Rather let us seek a full inquiry as requested by the group 'Justice for Megrahi', to see how we can do things better in future.  We cannot change the past, but we can and must learn from it. The people of Scotland too need to have faith in their justice system restored, all the more so as they perhaps approach independence.

There is also a middle class Libyan dying in great pain in Tripoli. It is thanks to the compassion built into our justice system that this innocent scapegoat is back home. Perhaps if we hurry we can give him the relief of knowing that his conviction was wrong, and that the incubus is lifted from his family.

We have the power within Scotland to remove this unjust verdict and issue an apology for the part our justice system played in this dreadful miscarriage. How wonderful if our compassion, displayed in allowing Megrahi home to his family could now extend to telling him at last, before his disease finally claims him, that we acknowledge his innocence.

Finally we might wish to consider what role our increasingly independent country should adopt towards the International Criminal Court, should a crime of international dimensions occur in our land again. As we consider that question, we might remember the words of Nelson Mandela issued in Edinburgh when the Zeist trial was first announced: 'No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and judge'. 


[Dr Swire also has a letter in today’s edition of The Scotsman.  It reads as follows:]

My visit to Tripoli in December 2011 showed the interim government there already assuming Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s guilt, without any apparent knowledge of his case.

The atmosphere was one of a determination to blame everything possible on the hated Gaddafi regime.

It would surely be best for truth and justice if Abdullah Senoussi, Gaddafi’s head butcher, were to be arraigned in front of the International Criminal Court (ICC), remembering Nelson Mandela’s famous comment in Edinburgh when the Zeist trial was first announced, that: “No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and judge.”

Bullies are usually cowards when cornered. Senoussi will want to oblige with information blackening the Gaddafi regime (except for his part in it all, of course).

Funny how he surfaced just after John Ashton’s book had revealed beyond any doubt that the central forensic evidence, (the alleged fragment of an exclusively Libyan timer), which the Lockerbie court had relied on to implicate Malta and Megrahi, had been deliberately fabricated to incriminate the Gaddafi regime.

Could there be any connection between “extraordinary rendition” and Senoussi’s appearance? After all, it seems the UK was providing information on selected UK citizens for “scourging” by Senoussi and Co.

It would be almost poetic to reverse the process and “render” him indirectly to the interim government.

What a pity that over the years the US has tended to be antagonistic to the ICC.

Defence Legal Team rejects Lord Advocate’s claims over ‘Lockerbie Bomber’

[What follows is the text of a press release issued today by Aamer Anwar, head of the Lockerbie Defence Legal Team:]

We reject Lord Advocate’s claims over ‘Lockerbie Bomber’

On the eve of the anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing, Scotland’s Lord Advocate has once again rejected claims that Mr Megrahi could be innocent stating that:

“During the 26 year long inquiry not one Crown Office investigator or prosecutor has raised a concern about the evidence in this case. We remain committed to this investigation and our focus remains on the evidence and not speculation and supposition. Our prosecutors and police officers, working with UK government and US colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing to justice those who acted along with al-Megrahi.”

When Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, 270 people from 21 countries perished. It remains the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed in the UK.

But the trial of the “Lockerbie Bomber” remains the UK’s worst miscarriage of justice, whose consequences are still being felt 26 years later whilst the truth remains elusive.

The Lord Advocate’s speech in Washington makes for great sound bites with an American audience but lacks analysis of the essential facts.

In June 2014 we lodged an application with the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) seeking to overturn the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for murder. That has absolutely nothing to do with conspiracy theories but is based on a solid assessment of the ‘so called evidence’ against Mr Al-Megrahi.

It is claimed that the Crown Office and Police Scotland have carried out a review of the evidence used to convict Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi which ‘confirms beyond doubt that he was responsible for the killings.’

Such reviews repeat an ‘age old mantra’ of the Crown never doubting the safety of the conviction. It would be better to place such reviews in context, despite many miscarriages of justice over the years it is noticeable that prosecutors have never accepted that they have made mistakes, so why would it be any different now?

The application to the SCCRC was submitted on behalf of :-

i)      Six immediate family members of the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

ii)     Dr Jim Swire, Rev’d John F Mosey and 24 other British relatives of passengers who died on board Pan Am Flight 103.

An essential fact missing from the Lord Advocate’s speech is that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) had already determined on the 28th June 2007 that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice in relation to his conviction and identified six grounds for referring the case to the High Court.

The Chairman of the SCCRC Graham Forbes at the time said:

“The Commission is of the view, based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.”

Following Mr Al-Megrahi’s death and our subsequent instructions for a posthumous appeal we have asked the Commission to reconfirm these six grounds.

We have also requested that the Commission consider referring the case:-

i)  On the ground of the Crown’s non-disclosure to the defence of evidence relating to the difference in metallurgical composition between the fragment of circuit board PT35b and the circuit boards in the timers supplied by MEBO to Libya. New evidence claims that the fragment of a circuit board and bomb timer, “discovered” in the Scottish countryside could not have been responsible for the bombing.

ii)  On the ground of the evidence uncovered which demonstrates that the bomb suitcase was already in Pan Am 103 luggage container AVE4041 before the feeder flight from Frankfurt arrived at Heathrow with, as the Crown contended and the trial court accepted, a suitcase from Malta which contained the bomb. It was submitted that there is evidence which will show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft.

iii)    New evidence claims the impossibility of the bomb beginning its journey in Malta before it was ‘transferred’ through two airports undetected to Pan Am Flight 103.

iv)   There is a multitude of serious question marks over material evidence, and most worryingly, allegations of the Crown’s non-disclosure of evidence which could have been key to the defence.

v)     Mr Megrahi was convicted on the word of a Maltese shop owner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and failed to even recognise him in the courtroom.

Documents have claimed that Scottish police officers and FBI agents had discussed as early as September 1989 ‘an offer of unlimited money’ to the Maltese shop keeper Tony Gauci.

Gauci was central to Megrahi’s conviction because the clothes recovered from the suitcase that carried the bomb onto Pan Am 103 at Heathrow, bound for New York, were traced back to his shop.

Various reports have claimed that Tony Gauci received more than $2m and his brother more than $1m in reward money.

This completely contradicted guarantees given by Richard Marquise, of the FBI who led the US wing of the Lockerbie investigation- ‘no witness in this case was ever promised or paid any money in return for their testimony’.

I would submit that if it is unacceptable to offer bribes, inducements or rewards to any witness in a routine murder trial in Glasgow then it should have been unacceptable to have done it in the biggest case of mass murder ever carried out in Europe.

What is unusual about our application is that this is the first time in legal history in the UK that relatives of murdered victims have united with the relatives of a ‘convicted’ deceased to seek justice by means of a referral to the Appeal Court.

The case of Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi is described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history for a reason. A reversal of the verdict would mean that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom stand exposed as having lived a monumental lie for 26 years, by imprisoning a man they knew to be innocent.

The Appeal was commenced but following the diagnosis of terminal cancer it was suddenly abandoned in 2009. The application we lodged with the SCCRC deals with the circumstances that led to Mr Megrahi abandoning his appeal.

To date both the British Government and Scottish Government have claimed that they played no role in pressuring Mr  Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release.

The Governments in England and Scotland stand accused of effectively blackmailing a dying man into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release, and the backdrop to all of this was ‘strategic oil interests’.

The reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system has suffered badly both at home and internationally because of widespread doubts about the justifiability of the conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi.

It is in the interests of justice and of restoring confidence in our criminal justice system and its administration that these doubts be addressed.

The Lord Advocate was right when he said that the only place to determine guilt or innocence was in a court of law, where the evidence could be subjected to “great scrutiny, cross examination and testing”.

That is exactly what we intend to do if the SCCRC as a result of our application refers the original conviction back to the Court of Appeal believing that there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

END OF STATEMENT BY SOLICITOR AAMER ANWAR

STATEMENT BY DR JIM SWIRE FATHER OF FLORA SWIRE

“It has always been and remains my intent to see those responsible for her death brought to justice.  So by 1990 I was appalled by what I already knew concerning what appeared to me to be the betrayal of the trust which we should be able to place in our Government to protect us.

For me this case is about two families, mine and Abdel Baset’s, but behind them now are seen to lie the needs of 25 other families in applying for a further appeal 26 years after the event itself.

We need the truth and Scotland’s management of this case produced a verdict perfectly tailored for use by those who would seek to ensure that the full truth remains hidden.”