Recruitment of the FBI's Lockerbie "golden informant"

[What follows is taken from an article headed Richard Marquise and his "Golden Informant" Majid Giaka - An Extract from "Enemies - A History of the FBI" by Tim Weiner posted yesterday on baz’s blog The Masonic Verses:]

Tim Weiner's recent book Enemies - A History of the FBI is a fascinating story of the creation of the FBI within the US Justice Department following American entry into the Great War, not for the purpose of criminal investigation but to counter the threat of radicals, anarchists and communists by means of dubious constitutionality. (...)

The author devotes six pages to an uncritical account of the Bureau's involvement in the Lockerbie case focusing on the role of the leader of the FBI taskforce (of 7 persons) Richard Marquise. (Tom Thurman is not mentioned.)

Marquise was recently quoted in the Dutch media in a story titled "The Lessons of Lockerbie" in relation to the shooting down of flight MH17 over the Ukraine. Marquise advocated the recruitment of a "Golden Informant" to solve the case just as he had done in the Lockerbie case (and by ignoring the actual evidence). Weiner's book gives a very interesting summary of how this "Golden Informant" Majid Giaka was recruited (page 372).

"Marquise needed to turn intelligence into evidence.  He needed a witness who would link Megrahi to the Samsonite suitcase with the Semtex.  He needed to find someone who knew that the suitcase carried the bomb from Air Malta to Pan Am 103.  He went back to the CIA. The Agency told him, belatedly, that it had once had a Libyan informant named Abdul Majid Giaka. He had gone on the CIA's payroll four months before Lockerbie. He was on it the night Pan Am 103 was bombed. But the Agency had dropped him a few months later, deeming him a fabricator milking his interrogators for money.

Marquise was dying to talk to Majid, no matter how dubious he seemed to the CIA.  In June 1991 the Agency flew him from a navy ship off the coast of Malta to give the FBI the chance to interview him in Virginia.  Justly wary of its informant, the CIA imposed one condition: don't tell anybody."  (Marquise immediately phoned Stuart Henderson.)  

"Majid was debriefed for at least two weeks during September 1991. He insisted that he knew three facts. He identified Megrahi as an intelligence officer serving as Libya's airline security chief. He said that Megrahi's subordinate in Malta had a cache of Semtex. And he said he had seen Megrahi with a large brown suitcase at the airport in Malta during the weeks before the Lockerbie bombing. Majid was without doubt an unreliable witness. But the FBI had faith that he was telling the truth on those three points. Marquise thought he had the foundation of a case that would stand up in court."

Giaka's account did stand up unchallenged before a patriotic US Grand Jury leading to the November 1991 indictment. However, it crumbled before even the Mickey Mouse Camp Zeist tribunal when in the defence team's finest hour they had admitted in evidence a large number of CIA cables regarding Giaka. What is astonishing is that Megrahi was actually convicted despite Giaka being discredited, a fact not mentioned in Mr Weiner's book.

Perhaps some of the parties to the MH17 atrocity will, (or have already) recruited their own "Golden Informant".

Marquise's wrote his own account of the Lockerbie investigation in his book Scotbom.  (Which I have never read.) Giaka of course never wrote his memoirs and has never been heard of since the close of the Camp Zeist trial.

I am afraid the only "Lesson of Lockerbie" for the families of those murdered on flight MH17 is how Governments fabricate evidence to suit their own political objectives regardless of the facts.

Crown statement accepts Pan Am 103 evidence chain broken

[This is the heading over an article posted today on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads as follows.]

A statement issued by the Crown Office which attempted to undermine MSP Christine Grahame does not challenge the key claim made by Grahame that the chain of evidence in the Lockerbie case was broken.

A fragment relied upon by the Crown during the trial travelled to the US and Germany, and Grahame said Scottish police investigators did not record the fragment’s transportation across the world and in doing so broke the vital chain of evidence undermining the integrity of the fragment.

“Questions also need to be answered about the associated evidence log that was meant to accompany PT-35. It mysteriously does not record that the fragment went to the US or Germany, even though the Crown Office has confirmed in writing that it definitely went to Germany," she said.

The Crown Office quickly issued a statement accusing Ms Grahame of promulgating “misleading” information, although crucially they did not deny the truth of Grahame’s story, and offered no explanation as to why the "chain of custody" label attached to the evidence fragment appears not to record the movements out of the country.

In 2007, MEBO engineer Ulrich Lumpert submitted an affidavit stating that the circuit board fragment produced in court at Zeist was part of a non-operational demonstration circuit board that he himself had removed from the premises of MEBO and had handed over to an investigator on 22 June 1989, six months after the destruction of Pan Am 103.

“If this is true, then it totally demolishes the prosecution version of how the aircraft was destroyed, as well, of course, as demonstrating deliberate fabrication of evidence laid before the court,” Professor Robert Black said at the time.

Former Police Investigator Stuart Henderson has stated on the record that if the crucial fragment had travelled abroad without being recorded, it would be tainted evidence and considered unreliable by the court.

“We couldn’t afford to let something like that go. It has never been in their [US] control at all. It couldn’t be, because it was such an important point of evidence it wasn’t possible to release it,” he said.

“It had to be contained to be produced at the court therefore you couldn’t afford to have it waved around for everyone to see it because it could have got interfered with.”

The Crown Office acknowledged that the fragment had travelled to Germany in 1990, and claimed that “at no time during the investigation was the timer fragment ever outside the custody and control of the Scottish police officers, or forensic scientists at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment.”

However, they did not address the break in the chain of evidence or make any reference to the fragment’s travel to the United States, or challenge Grahame's contention that the evidence log is incomplete.

Former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser also stated that as far as he was aware, the evidence had never left the UK.

“The Crown Office have confirmed to me that the fragment, PT-35, the piece of evidence that it was claimed by prosecutors linked Libya to the attack was also sent to Germany in April 1990 as well as the US,” Grahame says.

“On the 22nd of June 1990 it was then taken to the FBI lab in Washington for examination by FBI officials there. Lord Fraser makes it clear he did not know and would not have allowed this evidence to be taken out of Scottish jurisdiction and control, but that is precisely what did happen. That leaves a very serious question mark over the central piece of evidence used to convict Mr Megrahi."

Lockerbie files show Scots police doubted key witness

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Times. It reads in part:]

Scottish detectives distanced themselves from a key Lockerbie witness, it has emerged, casting further doubt on the conviction of the only person ever found guilty over the attack.

Abdul Majid Giaka, a Libyan agent turned CIA informant, gave evidence that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi collected a brown Samsonite suitcase from a Maltese airport the day before the 1988 bombing.

However, newly declassified files show that Scottish officers investigating the case admitted that his involvement had put them in a “delicate position”.

“The ‘birth’ of that witness was totally the making of the Americans,” they said in a document from 1991 that was marked secret.

It emerged this week that American prosecutors were seeking the extradition of the Libyan operative Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, accusing him of making the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people. He worked under Colonel Gaddafi and is serving a ten-year sentence for other crimes in a Tripoli prison.

The FBI is also believed to be interested in Abdullah Senussi, Gaddafi’s brother-in-law and security chief, who is suspected of overseeing the bombing and is in prison with Masud.

Lawyers carrying out a posthumous appeal on behalf of al-Megrahi, who died in 2012, say that the case against him was first made by Mr Giaka, whom they describe as “discredited”. They say that any charges levelled against Masud would fall apart if al-Megrahi’s conviction was overturned.

A report by the joint intelligence group of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary has been declassified and placed in the National Archives at Kew. The dossier, seen by The Times, dates to October 1991, when reports of Mr Giaka’s emergence as an American asset began to circulate.

The document, written by Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson, the senior investigating officer, says: “The development of the ‘new witness’ has placed us in a delicate position. The ‘birth’ of that witness was totally the making of the Americans. The Americans must be ‘as one’ with us in anything we propose to expose to the Maltese.”

The document also mentions Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper whose evidence played a decisive role in al-Megrahi’s conviction at a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands in 2000. It states: “The Americans are keen to approach the witness Tony Gauci and ‘ascertain’ if he feels insecure or otherwise. Their intention is to take Gauci to America.” (...)

However, in 2005 Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, the former lord advocate who drew up the indictment against al-Megrahi, expressed doubts over Gauci’s testimony, describing him as “not quite the full shilling”. Last month appeal judges were told that Mr Gauci had asked for money in return for giving evidence.

The court was also told that Mr Gauci had been shown a photograph of al-Megrahi before he picked him out in an identity parade.

Aamer Anwar, the lawyer representing the al-Megrahi family, said: “These documents shine a light on dark and desperate actions taken by the US intelligence services over Lockerbie.

“We can only surmise that the ‘new witness’ who had been ‘birthed’ by the Americans was Abdul Majid Giaka.

“Megrahi’s family understands he was first accused of being involved in a conspiracy by Giaka. There has always been a suggestion that Giaka may have fabricated matters to make himself more valuable to the Americans. If the conviction of the late Megrahi was overturned then the case against Abu Agila Masud is likely to fall apart.”

John Holt, a former CIA agent who worked closely with Mr Giaka, claimed that the informant was a fantasist and an opportunist.

“I handled Giaka in 1989 for a whole year during which he never mentioned Libyan involvement in the bombing,” he said. “He was a car mechanic who was placed by Libyan intelligence as Malta airport office manager with Libyan Arab Airlines and had very little information about anything to do with bombs or Lockerbie.

“He felt humiliated by Megrahi, who was an official with the Libyan intelligence service, so the CIA knew he had a grudge.”

Mr Holt claimed that Mr Giaka changed his story in 1991 after fearing that his cover had been blown.

This month Mr Holt said: “When he was told he was useless to our intelligence services he began making up stories. It was only when he needed desperately to flee Libya in 1991 that he started telling the CIA things relevant to the Pan Am bombing, like hearing Megrahi and another man talking about a plan to bomb an American airliner.” (...)

Lockerbie: Seven new Libyans named (by Sunday Express)

[This is the headline over an article by Ben Borland and Bob Smyth in today’s edition of the Sunday Express. It reads as follows:]

A new 'all-star' squad of Scottish detectives will take over the Lockerbie bombing investigation, with the pursuit now likely to focus on seven key Libyan fugitives from justice.

At least two of the men are now dead, killed during the 2011 uprising against Colonel Gaddafi, but the search for the remaining suspects is set to become an unprecedented international manhunt.

Prime Minister David Cameron announced last week that British police will conduct inquiries in Libya for the first time, in a bid to clear up the remaining questions surrounding the December 1988 atrocity.

When the new Police Scotland force is formed on April 1, the case will pass from Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary to a team of specialist officers gathered from every area of Scottish law enforcement working directly for Chief Constable Stephen House.

So far, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi - who died of cancer last year - remains the only man ever convicted of murdering the 270 people who died on board Pan Am Flight 103 and in Lockerbie.

His co-accused and fellow Libyan intelligence officer, Lamin Fhimah, was found not guilty after a historic trial under Scots Law at The Hague in 2000.

However, the prosecution also named seven other co-conspirators - at least two of whom are now dead - who were also involved in planning the attack.

These agents in Colonel Gaddafi's feared secret service, the JSO, can today be named as Nasser Ali Ashour, Mohammed Abouagela Masud, Said Rashid, Ezzadin Hinshiri, Badri Hussan, Mohamed Marzouk and Mansour Omran Saber.

In 2009, Stuart Henderson, a former detective chief superintendent who led the Lockerbie probe for four years, said his team had asked to interview eight other "strong suspects" but been blocked by the Gaddafi regime.

He said: "We submitted eight other names of people that we wished to interview that were strong suspects. Unfortunately, we never got that opportunity."

The eighth man is thought to be former spy chief Abdullah Senoussi, who is facing imminent trial and a possible death penalty in Libya alongside Saif Gaddafi.

In addition, now that the law on double jeopardy has been scrapped, the Crown Office could bring fresh charges against Fhimah, who is known to still be in Tripoli.

The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, has already travelled to Libya, along with US investigators, to meet members of the new Libyan regime.

Detectives from Dumfries and Galloway are expected to follow in March, before the case comes under the remit of the new nationwide force.

A Police Scotland spokesman said: "The Lockerbie investigation will clearly continue beyond the transition date of the current forces including Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary into the single service. The service is committed to the investigation.

"The experience and knowledge of officers who have been involved in the case as well as the expertise and specialisms from other parts of the wider service will continue to be applied to the inquiry as has always been the case."

Meanwhile, it has emerged that a series of secret court hearings in Malta were focused on gathering evidence about the additional bombing suspects.

The hearings, requested by Scottish prosecutors, were held in September behind closed doors, with security so tight that courtroom peepholes were covered over with envelopes.

A source close to the Maltese judicial authorities has now revealed the probes were focused on gathering evidence into a mystery "third man".

The most likely candidate is Masud, who worked with Megrahi and Fhimah in Malta - where prosecutors said the bomb that brought down Flight 103 was planted at Luqa Airport.

One Lockerbie expert said: "It's possible they are looking at Masud, who allegedly arrived in Malta with Megrahi and was said to have been with him when he flew out of the country on the day of the bombing.

"He was also accused of plotting with Megrahi to mount an operation in Africa.

"I don't think the police ever found him."

Masud and several of the other suspects were first linked to the Lockerbie case by controversial CIA informant Majid Giaka.

The junior Libyan intelligence officer, who was on secondment at Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), claimed he saw Masud arriving at the airport in Malta with Megrahi in December 1988.

He alleged they met Fhimah and collected a suitcase from baggage reclaim resembling the Samonsite case which contained the bomb.

Justice for Megrahi campaign member Professor Robert Black, a lawyer who was the architect of the original Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands, said:

"It looks like the Crown Office is trying to shore up the Malta connection, which is pretty weak."

A Crown Office spokeswoman said: "The investigation into the involvement of others with Megrahi in the Lockerbie bombing remains open and Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary continues to work with Crown Office and US authorities to pursue available lines of inquiry."

The seven agents:

- Nasser Ali Ashour, the 'Armourer'. A "smooth, cultured" spy who supplied Semtex and guns to the Provisional IRA for Gaddafi in the 1980s. Adrian Hopkins, the Irish skipper who helped smuggle the arms, told French police: "He spoke English with a very distinguished accent. He never looked you in the face, likes to parade, has small feet, wears Italian shoes, drinks whisky but does not smoke." He managed Libya's network of agents in the Mediterranean and hunted down Libyan dissidents throughout Europe. Now aged 68, his whereabouts are unknown.

- Mohammed Abouagela Masud, the 'Technician'. Introduced to a CIA undercover agent as an airline technician, he worked with Megrahi and Fhimah in Malta where the bomb was allegedly planted on a feeder flight in an unaccompanied Samsonite suitcase. The evidence against Masud is thought to have been the subject of secret court hearings held behind closed doors in Valletta last year, at the request of the Crown Office. His whereabouts are unknown.

- Said Rashid, the 'Assassin'. A former head of JSO's operations section and close friend of Gaddafi who went on to become a powerful government figure. He was killed in a shoot-out with rebels in February 2011 following a speech by the dictator's son, Saif. In 1983, Rashid was arrested in France in connection with the murders of Libyan dissidents in London, Bonn and Rome, but later released.

- Ezzadin Hinshiri, the 'Diplomat'. Another senior JSO figure who became a top official and one of Gaddafi's most loyal lieutenants. He was killed along with 52 other regime supporters in an infamous massacre at a seafront hotel in Sirte in the final days of the uprising in April 2011.

- Badri Hussan, the 'Businessman'. Set up a front company with Megrahi and rented an office in Zurich from Mebo, the Swiss firm linked to the timers used in the bombing. The firm's co-founder, Edwin Bollier, told the Lockerbie trial that he delivered a suitcase from Hussan to Hinshiri in Tripoli on December 17, 1988 - just days before the terror strike. Whereabouts unknown.

- Mohamed Marzouk and Mansour Omran Saber, the 'Missing Links'. Arrested at Dakar airport in Senegal in February 1988 with Semtex, TNT and bomb triggers. They were released without charge. In 1991, a "brilliant, young" CIA analyst realised the triggers matched those used in the Lockerbie bombing, changing the entire course of the investigation. Whereabouts unknown.

[A long article entitled Lifting the lid on Libya's secrets by Eddie Barnes is to be found in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday.

An interesting addendum to the Sunday Express article is to be found on the Malta Today website.  The relevant paragraphs read as follows:]

Scottish detectives are said to be focusing their inquiries on seven key Libyan fugitives from justice, among whom a 'third man' who allegedly arrived in Malta with convicted terrorist Abdelbaset Megrahi, and was said to have been with him when he flew out of the country on the day of the bombing in 1988.

A series of secret court hearings in Malta were reportedly focused on gathering evidence about the additional bombing suspects.

The hearings - requested by Scottish prosecutors - were held last September behind closed doors, and was said to have been aimed at  gathering evidence into a mystery 'third man' connected to the bombing.

According to sources, the most likely candidate is Masud, who worked with Megrahi and Fhimah in Malta - where prosecutors still insist that the bomb that brought down Flight 103 was planted at the old Luqa Airport.

Known as 'the technician' after being introduced to a CIA undercover agent as an airline technician, Masud worked with Megrahi and Fhimah at the Libyan Arab Airlines offices in Malta, where the bomb was allegedly planted onto a feeder flight inside an unaccompanied suitcase.

One Lockerbie expert told a Scottish newspaper today that "it's possible they are looking at Masud, who allegedly arrived in Malta with Megrahi and was said to have been with him when he flew out of the country on the day of the bombing. He was also accused of plotting with Megrahi to mount an operation in Africa. I don't think the police ever found him."

Masud and several of the other suspects were first linked to the Lockerbie case by controversial CIA informant Majid Giaka. [RB: The Zeist judges held Giaka to be wholly unworthy of credit and excluded the whole of his evidence from consideration -- except his evidence relating to the structure and personnel of the Libyan intelligence services. The judges gave no reason for accepting his evidence on these matters.]

The junior Libyan intelligence officer, who was on secondment at Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), claimed he saw Masud arriving at the airport in Malta with Megrahi in December 1988.

He alleged they met Fhimah and collected a suitcase from baggage reclaim resembling the Samonsite case which contained the bomb.

[What follows is an excerpt from a report on the website of The Malta Independent:]

Former FBI assistant director Buck Revell, who oversaw that agency’s Lockerbie investigation until 1991, told The Scotsman newspaper this week: “The two individuals initially charged were not the only people involved. So there’s no doubt that this was approved by Gaddafi and everyone in the chain of command below him.

“There are documents, witnesses and other evidence that they can obtain in the intelligence service, or the military, or from other individuals involved in support organisations.

“I expect much, if not most, of it has been destroyed, but maybe some was saved.”

He added: “The crime itself is such that I don’t believe this case should ever be closed.”

However, British relatives of victims of the bombing of the Pan Am flight 103 who have protested that Megrahi was innocent are sceptical of what might be achieved in Libya.

Mr [Frank] Mulholland [the Lord Advocate] told the families that he intended to send police to the country in February last year, two months before he himself visited.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora, 23, died in the bombing, said: “He told us how he was going to send officers to Tripoli to try and find out more.

“Anyone who tries to gather evidence from modern day Libya should be careful. The interim government wishes to place every conceivable blame on the Gaddafi administration.”

Reverend John Mosey, who lost his daughter, Helga, 19, in the bombing, added: “I would be extremely sceptical about what could be found in those blasted and burned out offices.

“The former regime probably shredded anything it had.”

The campaign group Justice for Megrahi, which wants an independent inquiry into the conviction, was scathing about the continued focus on Libya.

“As far as I am concerned, the conviction was a gross miscarriage of justice and the efforts the police and Crown Office are making to locate other Libyans who may have colluded in the bringing down of Pan Am flight 103 amount to little more than eye-wash,” said group secretary Robert Forrester.

But the Crown Office remains convinced Libya is key to their investigation. One man widely believed to know the secrets of the Gaddafi government is Moussa Koussa, who briefly sought refuge in the UK, following the Libyan revolution.

John Ashton, author of Megrahi: You are my Jury, and former FBI agent Richard Marquise – two men with very different views on whether Megrahi was guilty – have both said investigations should focus on the former intelligence chief.

In his book, Mr Ashton argued Megrahi could not have been the bomber because the timer used in the explosion contained a different coating to circuit boards sold to Libya.

Abdallah Senussi, Gaddafi’s brother-in-law and head of the intelligence services, who was Megrahi’s immediate boss, is another man the FBI have looked at in connection with Lockerbie.

Other potential suspects include Saeed Rashid, whom an FBI report previously claimed “managed a sustained Libyan effort to conduct terrorist attacks against US interests since the early-1980s”, and Izz Aldin Hinshiri, who was suspected of buying the trigger for the Lockerbie bomb.

The Congressional Quarterly article

Here is the text of Jeff Stein’s recent article in Congressional Quarterly, as relayed to me by Richard Marquise, to whom I express my appreciation.

‘My Dec. 20 column warning that “Libya is close to getting off the hook” for millions of dollars due families who suffered the loss of loved ones in the Pan Am 103 and LaBelle discotheque bombings drew plenty of heat.

‘Some suggested that I had somehow taken Libya’s side by merely reporting on the conclusion of a Scottish criminal commission that a “miscarriage of justice” might have occurred in the Pan Am trial. Critics who support that view point to the early suspicions of U.S. intelligence that an Iranian-back terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, had really downed the airliner (in response to the accidental downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a U.S. Navy ship six months earlier).

‘Critics also denounced my reporting that at least two informants had received million-dollar rewards for providing evidence against the Libyans.

‘One of those who wrote me was the FBI agent in charge of the U.S. side of the PanAm 103 case, retired Special Agent Richard Marquise. After several e-mail exchanges, I invited him to write a critique for publication here. It is reproduced in its entirety below:

“We initially speculated it was the PFLP-GC based on events which had occurred in Germany in late 1988. We went with that premise until the painstaking evidence collection in Scotland (done by police officers not having any political agenda) turned the investigation in a different direction.

“By this time, we had reached an agreement with the CIA and other intelligence agencies to completely share information. With their assistance and the meticulous police investigation, this led to the eventual indictments.

“You quote several sources but Vince Cannistraro [the CIA official in charge of the agency’s investigation of PanAm 103] retired before the evidence began to lead to Libya.

“Your quote ‘more sinister factors were at work in the investigation’ which was attributed to Professor Black and other ‘authoritative sources close to the case’ is taken from people who only know what they believe but have no inside information.

“I can promise you as a 31-year FBI veteran who was proud of my service to America; no sinister forces were ever involved. If you (or anyone) were to speak with Stuart Henderson (the Scottish Senior Investigating Officer) or myself, we would tell you we followed the evidence, the way we were trained and no political or sinister forces were involved. Libya was implicated because of the evidence, not because we wanted to blame someone other than Syrian-backed terrorists.

“Edwin Bollier, the Swiss businessman who made the timer which blew up Pan Am Flight 103, seems to forget he went to a US Embassy in January 1989 after reading in the news that the ‘evidence’ pointed to the PFLP-GC cell in Germany (and therefore to Syria). He left an unsigned note implicating Libya — long before we knew anything about the timer, MEBO or Bollier, as that evidence was not developed until nearly two years would pass.

“Since 1992, Bollier’s story has changed. I would prefer to believe what he told a Swiss magistrate, the FBI and Scottish investigators in 1990 and 1991, not what he is now saying. I was the FBI official who met with Mr. Bollier in Washington, and I can assure you no one offered him (or any other witness for that matter) anything to implicate the Libyan Government.”

Note by RB: I simply wish to record my continuing conviction that the evidence led at the Lockerbie trial was insufficient to establish the guilt of Mr Megrahi (see the first posting on this blog in July 2007); that evidence that pointed in a different direction was suppressed and was not passed on to the defence; and that as a result of the forthcoming appeal necessitated by the (three-year long) investigation and findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, the unjustifiability of Mr Megrahi’s conviction will be clearly demonstrated.

[I eventually managed to maintain an internet connection for long enough to post this.]

"No political or sinister forces were involved" in Lockerbie investigation

[The following are excerpts from two items posted on this blog on this date in 2008. The items can be read here and here:]

(1) On 20 December 2007, Congressional Quarterly published an article by Jeff Stein reporting the burgeoning doubts regarding the safety of the conviction of Abdel Baset Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing. This is referred to in a posting on this blog on 21 December. Richard A Marquise, who headed the FBI team that investigated the destruction of Pan Am 103 (and author of a book on the subject) has sent me a further article under Jeff Stein's byline in Congressional Quarterly, in which Mr Marquise is quoted expressing his confidence in the integrity of the investigation and the safety of the conviction of Mr Megrahi.

(2) Here is the text of Jeff Stein’s recent article in Congressional Quarterly, as relayed to me by Richard Marquise, to whom I express my appreciation.

‘My Dec 20 column warning that “Libya is close to getting off the hook” for millions of dollars due families who suffered the loss of loved ones in the Pan Am 103 and LaBelle discotheque bombings drew plenty of heat.

‘Some suggested that I had somehow taken Libya’s side by merely reporting on the conclusion of a Scottish criminal commission that a “miscarriage of justice” might have occurred in the Pan Am trial. Critics who support that view point to the early suspicions of U.S. intelligence that an Iranian-back terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, had really downed the airliner (in response to the accidental downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a U.S. Navy ship six months earlier).

‘Critics also denounced my reporting that at least two informants had received million-dollar rewards for providing evidence against the Libyans.

‘One of those who wrote me was the FBI agent in charge of the U.S. side of the PanAm 103 case, retired Special Agent Richard Marquise. After several e-mail exchanges, I invited him to write a critique for publication here. It is reproduced in its entirety below:

“We initially speculated it was the PFLP-GC based on events which had occurred in Germany in late 1988. We went with that premise until the painstaking evidence collection in Scotland (done by police officers not having any political agenda) turned the investigation in a different direction.

“By this time, we had reached an agreement with the CIA and other intelligence agencies to completely share information. With their assistance and the meticulous police investigation, this led to the eventual indictments.

“You quote several sources but Vince Cannistraro [the CIA official in charge of the agency’s investigation of PanAm 103] retired before the evidence began to lead to Libya.

“Your quote ‘more sinister factors were at work in the investigation’ which was attributed to Professor Black and other ‘authoritative sources close to the case’ is taken from people who only know what they believe but have no inside information.

“I can promise you as a 31-year FBI veteran who was proud of my service to America; no sinister forces were ever involved. If you (or anyone) were to speak with Stuart Henderson (the Scottish Senior Investigating Officer) or myself, we would tell you we followed the evidence, the way we were trained and no political or sinister forces were involved. Libya was implicated because of the evidence, not because we wanted to blame someone other than Syrian-backed terrorists.

“Edwin Bollier, the Swiss businessman who made the timer which blew up Pan Am Flight 103, seems to forget he went to a US Embassy in January 1989 after reading in the news that the ‘evidence’ pointed to the PFLP-GC cell in Germany (and therefore to Syria). He left an unsigned note implicating Libya — long before we knew anything about the timer, MEBO or Bollier, as that evidence was not developed until nearly two years would pass.

“Since 1992, Bollier’s story has changed. I would prefer to believe what he told a Swiss magistrate, the FBI and Scottish investigators in 1990 and 1991, not what he is now saying. I was the FBI official who met with Mr. Bollier in Washington, and I can assure you no one offered him (or any other witness for that matter) anything to implicate the Libyan Government.”

Note by RB: I simply wish to record my continuing conviction that the evidence led at the Lockerbie trial was insufficient to establish the guilt of Mr Megrahi (see the first posting on this blog in July 2007); that evidence that pointed in a different direction was suppressed and was not passed on to the defence; and that as a result of the forthcoming appeal necessitated by the (three-year long) investigation and findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, the unjustifiability of Mr Megrahi’s conviction will be clearly demonstrated.

Letter to Kenny MacAskill from FBI Director Robert S Mueller

Dear Mr. Secretary:

Over the years I have been a prosecutor, and recently as the Director of the FBI, I have made it a practice not to comment on the actions of other prosecutors, since only the prosecutor handling the case has all the facts and the law before him in reaching the appropriate decision.

Your decision to release Megrahi causes me to abandon that practice in this case. I do so because I am familiar with the facts, and the law, having been the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the investigation and indictment of Megrahi in 1991.

And I do so because I am outraged at your decision, blithely defended on the grounds of "compassion."

Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law.

Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation, the conviction by jury after the defendant is given all due process, and sentence appropriate to the crime, the terrorist will be freed by one man's exercise of "compassion."

Your action rewards a terrorist even though he never admitted to his role in this act of mass murder and even though neither he nor the government of Libya ever disclosed the names and roles of others who were responsible.

Your action makes a mockery of the emotions, passions and pathos of all those affected by the Lockerbie tragedy: the medical personnel who first faced the horror of 270 bodies strewn in the fields around Lockerbie, and in the town of Lockerbie itself; the hundreds of volunteers who walked the fields of Lockerbie to retrieve any piece of debris related to the breakup of the plane; the hundreds of FBI agents and Scottish police who undertook an unprecedented global investigation to identify those responsible; the prosecutors who worked for years - in some cases a full career - to see justice done.

But most importantly, your action makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988.

You could not have spent much time with the families, certainly not as much time as others involved in the investigation and prosecution.

You could not have visited the small wooden warehouse where the personal items of those who perished were gathered for identification - the single sneaker belonging to a teenager; the Syracuse sweatshirt never again to be worn by a college student returning home for the holidays; the toys in a suitcase of a businessman looking forward to spending Christmas with his wife and children.

You apparently made this decision without regard to the views of your partners in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the Lockerbie tragedy.

Although the FBI and Scottish police, and prosecutors in both countries, worked exceptionally closely to hold those responsible accountable, you never once sought our opinion, preferring to keep your own counsel and hiding behind opaque references to "the need for compassion."

You have given the family members of those who died continued grief and frustration. You have given those who sought to assure that the persons responsible would be held accountable the back of your hand.

You have given Megrahi a "jubilant welcome" in Tripoli, according to the reporting. Where, I ask, is the justice?

Sincerely yours,

Robert S. Mueller, III
Director

[Note by RB: On 6 August 2009, The Times published a report containing the following:

"The investigating officers who led the original inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing have made an unprecedented intervention in the case to argue against the release of the Libyan convicted of the attack.

"In a letter to the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish police chief and the FBI boss who led the international investigation 20 years ago launch a powerfully worded plea against the release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, who is serving a minimum sentence of 25 years for his part in the bombing.

"In the letter obtained by The Times, Stuart Henderson, the retired senior investigating officer at the Lockerbie Incident Control Centre, and Richard Marquise, the FBI special agent in charge of the US taskforce, whose detective work helped to convict Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, insist that he is guilty. They also argue that his release would “nullify the dedicated work of dozens of law enforcement and intelligence officials around the world”."

It is therefore untrue for the Director to suggest that the decision was taken without regard to, or in ignorance of, the views of the investigators (or at least some of them). His complaint (if he has one at all) therefore has to be that the ultimate decision was not one that they approved of.

In civilised countries decisions regarding liberation of prisoners are not placed in the hands of policemen and prosecutors, nor are they accorded a veto over those decisions. Mr Mueller (and Mr Marquise) would probably wish that this were otherwise. The rest of us can be grateful that it is not.]

Can you believe it?

[What follows is Dr Jim Swire’s account of the showing of Gideon Levy’s Lockerbie Revisited in the Scottish Parliament the previous evening:]

I saw the film last night in the Scottish Parliament. Lord Fraser, Stuart Henderson, Richard Marquise, Fred Whitehurst, Tom Thurman, Prof Hans Koechler and Robert Baer all made contributions in it.

The subject was the famous 'timer circuit board fragment', called PT35B in the court records.

There was evidence of widespread confusion over what was supposed to have been the way in which PT35B was handled, some claimed it had been to the USA others that it had not. The impression was that at least some of these were trying to contribute to a story the truth of which they did not want us to know.

Their stories could not all be true, for they differ widely.

'Oh what a complex web we weave when first we practice to deceive'

For me Robert Baer of the CIA was the most significant. His view was basically that of course it was a Iranian/Syrian job, but that even the USA (and therefore the UK) could not confront Iran militarily over it. That would, without question, have been to strangle the straits of Hormuz and therefore US oil supplies for a start. That sounds common sense to me.

The interviewer of these men was Gideon Levy himself [the film-maker], who showed great skill in extracting a maximum of information from them.

There was one criticism and that was that the film did show the famous picture of a tiny piece of circuit board on someone's finger tip. This is a picture of a shattered piece from a domestic cct board such as a tape recorder. It carried the codes of the former components printed in white on the fragment which appeared to have been of 'Paxolin' (mid brown) and bore no resemblance to a piece of fibre-glass board.

Use of this image will cause some confusion and allow the critics to get their knives in.

Otherwise it gave excellent support to the idea that the PT35B fragment has a very suspicious history, lacking the confirmed freedom from interference required of any significant item of 'evidence' for use in a murder trial.

I was able to point out at the end that PT35B also appeared to be something that could hardly have survived such close proximity to the Semtex charge, and that at least two independent explosives firms have confirmed this. Also that its police evidence bag had had its label interfered with, while its entry into the UK forensic report appeared to have been a hasty afterthought, requiring renumbering of the subsequent pages.

There is also said to be evidence that PT35B was never tested prior to the trial, for explosives residues, but that this has now been done and shown no trace of such residues.

Incredibly one contributor to the film claimed that the failure to do this was 'for reasons of economy'. Can you believe it? PT35B was only the most important forensic item in the entire 'evidence' armoury.

UK Lockerbie families call US senators to Scotland

[This is the headline over a news agency report from The Associated Press. It reads in part:]

Some families of the British victims of the Lockerbie bombing have challenged four US senators to speak to them about their take on the 1988 terror attack.

Although the American relatives of those who died in the attack have largely focused on the controversy surrounding the release of former Libyan agent Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of playing any role in the atrocity, many here in the UK harbor lingering doubts about his guilt — and want the US to know it.

"The senators should not be asking why Mr. al-Megrahi was released, but why he was convicted in the first place," said Rev. John Mosey, whose daughter Helga, 19, was among those who perished in the attack. "This is not about one man, but about the 270 people who died."

Lawyers for al-Megrahi have long argued that the attack was actually the result of an Iranian-financed Palestinian plot, and that authorities in Britain and the United States tampered with evidence, disregarded witness statements and steered investigators toward the conclusion that Libya, not Iran, was to blame.

Libya accepted responsibility and pay compensation for the Lockerbie bombing, the argument goes, as a quick and easy way to shake off its pariah status.

The theory remains a matter of debate in Scotland. Retired Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson, who helped link al-Megrahi to the bombing, recently told Scottish television that the idea that anyone would attempt to frame al-Megrahi was ridiculous. (...)

Mosey said that US officials needed to change their focus.

"Instead of hounding the doctors and Scottish politicians in the case, I would like them to come over to speak to us, the UK families of Flight 103," he said. "We are not in uniform agreement, but I think they need to hear our voices.

"We have not learned the truth about Lockerbie."

Still, it does have some traction and Mosey and others have called for a public inquiry into the case.