[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Times. It reads in part:]
A senior FBI investigator involved in the Lockerbie inquiry has entered the controversy over a vital piece of scientific evidence which secured the conviction of the Libyan bomber.
Richard Marquise, now retired, told The Times that a tiny bomb fragment at the heart of the prosecution case had been taken out of Scotland in the course of the investigation, and brought to Washington, where it was examined in the bureau’s laboratory. He said he believed it had also been taken to Germany His view appears to contradict a claim by Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, then Lord Advocate, who told a television documentary that to his knowledge, the fragment had never been outside Scotland. Lord Fraser, who led the prosecution, told a Dutch television crew that had evidence been sent abroad, the case against Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi would have been vulnerable.
Yesterday, however, Mr Marquise said no one denied that the fragment, part of the bomb’s timing device, had been examined by Scottish officials in the FBI laboratory in Washington, or that it had been scrutinised by experts in Germany. He added that these facts had been known by the defence team at the trial of al-Megrahi, who was convicted of planting the bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 people, and dismissed the controversy as a “non-issue”.
“I do know it was never in the possession of the FBI but these Scottish/British officials examined PT-35 [the fragment] in the FBI lab in Washington,” he told The Times. “No one has ever tried to hide that fact.”
That information was not, apparently, known to Lord Fraser. Asked by the television team whether the fragment had been taken to the US, Lord Fraser responded: “Not that I am aware of.” He added: “What would have gone through my mind is ... could this evidence get lost, or damaged or tampered with? No, no; I would want to keep everything so that there can be no accusations at a trial that in some way [it] has been fiddled with.”
The controversy erupted after the Crown Office responded to a freedom of information request from Christine Grahame, the SNP MSP for South of Scotland, confirming that the fragment had been sent for analysis to the Siemens company in April 1990.
Ms Grahame said Lord Fraser “did not know and would not have allowed this evidence to be taken out of Scottish jurisdiction and control”.
[I have now lost count of the number of different accounts of the movements of this item of evidence that have been given by Richard Marquise and Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson. Tracing and itemising them might be a nice research project for an enterprising law or journalism student.
Mr Marquise has e-mailed me the following response:
'I will try and make it simple for you---
'Marquise: told Levy in 2008 that the fragment came to US in custody and control of Scottish police/British forensic officials. Never out of their custody or control.
When he “cornered” me at Arlington, he said the Lord Advocate told him it never came to US. I told him there what I told him earlier in 2008 was what I thought the truth to be but perhaps I was mistaken (I did not see the fragment when it came to US in June 1990) I later clarified in an email that my first statement was correct.
'Henderson: as far as I know, the microphone in his face at Arlington in December 2008 was the first time Mr. Henderson ever said anything in public about Lockerbie. What he said was it was never in “US control.”
'In his official statement to prosecutors before trial, he acknowledged that it had traveled to the US for examination.
'Unfortunately, some things which happened over 20 years ago needed to be reflected upon. We are all aging and our recollections may not be perfect. However, I know one thing—none of us ever “fiddled with,” “tampered,” “changed,” “altered” or “manufactured” any evidence in this case to include PT-35.
'My brother once owned a football. He was so afraid it would get ruined, he kept it in the closet and never used it. It suffered “dry rot” and was eventually never useable. The same could be said about PT-35. Should police officials never shared its existence with anyone else, it might never have been identified. Try as they might, 6 months, 17 countries and 55 separate company visits failed to determine what it was. It was the sharing of the photograph and eventually the lab comparison which identified it.
'To listen to some in Scotland, this case should have been conducted ONLY by Scots without outside interference. It was only through the sharing of information that strides were able to be made to identify who was responsible for Lockerbie—despite what so many people do not want to believe. The sharing of information was vital to the Lockerbie case and is vital today as we try and prevent horrible acts of terrorism and other crimes.
'Those of us who have never taken money from anyone doing business in Libya are comfortable with that we did. Can you say the same? In the book, “The Price of Terror,” you are quoted as saying that you tried to resolve the (Lockerbie) deadlock at the behest of “a group of British businessmen whose desire to participate in major engineering works in Libya were being impeded by the UN sanctions.” Perhaps YOU were misquoted. Would you also like to get some law students on that as well?'
I am, of course, used to snide remarks to the effect that my stance on Lockerbie is due to my having been paid (which I have always thought a somewhat odd criticism to make of a lawyer). Here, from a forthcoming book, is the true account of how I came to become involved in the Lockerbie issue:
'I first became involved in the Lockerbie affair in January 1993. I was approached by representatives of a group of British businessmen whose desire to participate in major engineering works in Libya was being impeded by the UN sanctions. They had approached the then Dean of the Faculty of Advocates (the head of the Scottish Bar) and asked him if any of its members might be willing to provide advice to them -- on an unpaid basis! -- on Scottish criminal law and procedure in their attempts to unblock the logjam. The Dean of Faculty, Alan Johnston QC (later Court of Session judge Lord Johnston), recommended me. The businessmen asked if I would be prepared to provide independent advice to the government of Libya -- again on an unpaid basis -- on matters of Scottish criminal law, procedure and evidence with a view (it was hoped) to persuading them that their two citizens would obtain a fair trial if they were to surrender themselves to the Scottish authorities. There was, of course, never the slightest chance that surrender for trial in the United States could be contemplated by the Libyans, amongst other reasons because of the existence there of the death penalty for murder.']
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query "Stuart Henderson". Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query "Stuart Henderson". Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday 21 October 2009
Wednesday 22 June 2016
The dodgy timer fragment
22 June 1989:
“In his affidavit Mr [Ulrich] Lumpert implicitly admits having committed perjury as witness No. 550 before the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. He states (para 2) that he has stolen a handmade (by him) sample of an ‘MST-13 Timer PC-board’ from MEBO company in Zurich and handed it over, on 22 June 1989, to an ‘official person investigating the Lockerbie case.’ He further states (in para 5) that the fragment of the MST-13 timer, cut into two pieces for ‘supposedly forensic reasons,’ which was presented in Court as vital part of evidence, stemmed from the piece which he had stolen and handed over to an investigator in 1989.”
From The Lumpert Affidavit, posted on this blog on 29 August 2007.
22 June 1990:
“When interviewed for a Dutch TV documentary in 2009 [Richard Marquise] insisted that PT35b had never been taken to the US. This claim was echoed by the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, and by [Scottish Senior Investigating Officer Stuart] Henderson. Henderson then amended his position, saying that the fragment had never been in ‘the control’ of the US investigators. He had chosen his words carefully, because the truth, as he must have known, was that PT35b was taken to the FBI forensic lab in Washington DC on 22 June 1990, in order to compare it with the MST-13 timer held by the FBI’s Tom Thurman; indeed, Henderson was one of the officers who took it there. It was strange that this fact could have slipped the minds of both the head of the FBI investigation and the chief prosecutor responsible for the Lockerbie indictments.
“The Washington visit was crucial, as it enabled Allen Feraday and the Scottish police to confirm that PT35b matched the MST-13 timer…”
From John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury, pp 165,66.
Further details can be found on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer’s PT35B website, particularly The Chronology of PT/35(b): 22 June 1990.
“In his affidavit Mr [Ulrich] Lumpert implicitly admits having committed perjury as witness No. 550 before the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. He states (para 2) that he has stolen a handmade (by him) sample of an ‘MST-13 Timer PC-board’ from MEBO company in Zurich and handed it over, on 22 June 1989, to an ‘official person investigating the Lockerbie case.’ He further states (in para 5) that the fragment of the MST-13 timer, cut into two pieces for ‘supposedly forensic reasons,’ which was presented in Court as vital part of evidence, stemmed from the piece which he had stolen and handed over to an investigator in 1989.”
From The Lumpert Affidavit, posted on this blog on 29 August 2007.
22 June 1990:
“When interviewed for a Dutch TV documentary in 2009 [Richard Marquise] insisted that PT35b had never been taken to the US. This claim was echoed by the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, and by [Scottish Senior Investigating Officer Stuart] Henderson. Henderson then amended his position, saying that the fragment had never been in ‘the control’ of the US investigators. He had chosen his words carefully, because the truth, as he must have known, was that PT35b was taken to the FBI forensic lab in Washington DC on 22 June 1990, in order to compare it with the MST-13 timer held by the FBI’s Tom Thurman; indeed, Henderson was one of the officers who took it there. It was strange that this fact could have slipped the minds of both the head of the FBI investigation and the chief prosecutor responsible for the Lockerbie indictments.
“The Washington visit was crucial, as it enabled Allen Feraday and the Scottish police to confirm that PT35b matched the MST-13 timer…”
From John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury, pp 165,66.
Further details can be found on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer’s PT35B website, particularly The Chronology of PT/35(b): 22 June 1990.
Friday 7 August 2009
Do not set 'guilty' Lockerbie bomber free, detectives plead
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Times. It reads in part:]
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”. (...)
In the letter sent to Kenny MacAskill last month, Mr Henderson and Mr Marquise claim the evidence they gathered added to a “strong circumstantial case” against al-Megrahi, and point out that Libya has admitted culpability for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on a number of occasions since.
They say that releasing him would make a mockery of the work undertaken during the Lockerbie investigation, the biggest murder inquiry in British history, involving Scottish police, Scotland Yard, the FBI and other agencies from around the world.
The pair write: “To release Mr Megrahi to a regime which has admitted culpability for killing 270 citizens of the world would be a mistake. It would nullify the dedicated work of dozens of law enforcement and intelligence officials around the world who only wanted to find the truth.”
The detectives acknowledge al-Megrahi's poor health but contend it should not be a reason to release him.
“The eight judges who have already heard the evidence including three who were able to observe each witness under direct and cross-examination came to the same conclusion the rest of us did - Mr Megrahi was guilty of murder. His current health situation does not change that.”
Mr MacAskill, who is awaiting independent medical reports assessing al-Megrahi's condition, is expected to make a decision on his future by the end of this month. On Wednesday, the minister took the unprecedented step of visiting the Libyan in jail, prompting accusations that he was undermining the legal process. Al-Megrahi's second appeal is currently under way, although he will be forced to abandon his attempt to clear his name if he wishes to pursue a prisoner transfer. Release on compassionate grounds would allow him to continue with the appeal after being freed.
[Note by RB: Mr Henderson and Mr Marquise are gravely in error when they say that "The eight judges who have already heard the evidence ... came to the same conclusion as the rest of us did - Mr Megrahi was guilty of murder." Only the three judges at the Zeist trial heard the evidence and reached that conclusion. The five judges at the 2002 appeal made it clear that they had not considered the sufficiency of the evidence against Megrahi nor whether any reasonable tribunal could have convicted on that evidence. In paragraph 369 of their Opinion they said:
“When opening the case for the appellant before this court Mr Taylor [senior counsel for Megrahi] stated that the appeal was not about sufficiency of evidence: he accepted that there was a sufficiency of evidence. He also stated that he was not seeking to found on section 106(3)(b) of the 1995 Act [verdict unreasonable on the evidence]. His position was that the trial court had misdirected itself in various respects. Accordingly in this appeal we have not required to consider whether the evidence before the trial court, apart from the evidence which it rejected, was sufficient as a matter of law to entitle it to convict the appellant on the basis set out in its judgment. We have not had to consider whether the verdict of guilty was one which no reasonable trial court, properly directing itself, could have returned in the light of that evidence.”
The true position, as I have written elsewhere, is this:
"As far as the outcome of the appeal is concerned, some commentators have confidently opined that, in dismissing Megrahi’s appeal, the Appeal Court endorsed the findings of the trial court. This is not so. The Appeal Court repeatedly stresses that it is not its function to approve or disapprove of the trial court’s findings-in-fact, given that it was not contended on behalf of the appellant that there was insufficient evidence to warrant them or that no reasonable court could have made them. These findings-in-fact accordingly continue, as before the appeal, to have the authority only of the court which, and the three judges who, made them."
In June 2007, after a three-year investigation, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission came to the conclusion that Megrahi's conviction may have constituted a miscarriage of justice. One of its six reasons for so finding was that in respect of absolutely crucial findings in fact by the trial court (the date of purchase of the clothing that surrounded the bomb and, hence, the identity of the purchaser) no reasonable tribunal could have reached the conclusion that the evidence established that it was Megrahi.
And whether Libya has admitted culpability for the Lockerbie tragedy has no bearing on whether a particular Libyan citizen was properly convicted or should now be released on compassionate grounds. But, of course, Libya has not admitted culpability. Here is a link to the official Libyan position which is that "Libya accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials". If, as a result of the present appeal, Megrahi's conviction is quashed there is no Libyan government admission of responsibility or culpability.]
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”. (...)
In the letter sent to Kenny MacAskill last month, Mr Henderson and Mr Marquise claim the evidence they gathered added to a “strong circumstantial case” against al-Megrahi, and point out that Libya has admitted culpability for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on a number of occasions since.
They say that releasing him would make a mockery of the work undertaken during the Lockerbie investigation, the biggest murder inquiry in British history, involving Scottish police, Scotland Yard, the FBI and other agencies from around the world.
The pair write: “To release Mr Megrahi to a regime which has admitted culpability for killing 270 citizens of the world would be a mistake. It would nullify the dedicated work of dozens of law enforcement and intelligence officials around the world who only wanted to find the truth.”
The detectives acknowledge al-Megrahi's poor health but contend it should not be a reason to release him.
“The eight judges who have already heard the evidence including three who were able to observe each witness under direct and cross-examination came to the same conclusion the rest of us did - Mr Megrahi was guilty of murder. His current health situation does not change that.”
Mr MacAskill, who is awaiting independent medical reports assessing al-Megrahi's condition, is expected to make a decision on his future by the end of this month. On Wednesday, the minister took the unprecedented step of visiting the Libyan in jail, prompting accusations that he was undermining the legal process. Al-Megrahi's second appeal is currently under way, although he will be forced to abandon his attempt to clear his name if he wishes to pursue a prisoner transfer. Release on compassionate grounds would allow him to continue with the appeal after being freed.
[Note by RB: Mr Henderson and Mr Marquise are gravely in error when they say that "The eight judges who have already heard the evidence ... came to the same conclusion as the rest of us did - Mr Megrahi was guilty of murder." Only the three judges at the Zeist trial heard the evidence and reached that conclusion. The five judges at the 2002 appeal made it clear that they had not considered the sufficiency of the evidence against Megrahi nor whether any reasonable tribunal could have convicted on that evidence. In paragraph 369 of their Opinion they said:
“When opening the case for the appellant before this court Mr Taylor [senior counsel for Megrahi] stated that the appeal was not about sufficiency of evidence: he accepted that there was a sufficiency of evidence. He also stated that he was not seeking to found on section 106(3)(b) of the 1995 Act [verdict unreasonable on the evidence]. His position was that the trial court had misdirected itself in various respects. Accordingly in this appeal we have not required to consider whether the evidence before the trial court, apart from the evidence which it rejected, was sufficient as a matter of law to entitle it to convict the appellant on the basis set out in its judgment. We have not had to consider whether the verdict of guilty was one which no reasonable trial court, properly directing itself, could have returned in the light of that evidence.”
The true position, as I have written elsewhere, is this:
"As far as the outcome of the appeal is concerned, some commentators have confidently opined that, in dismissing Megrahi’s appeal, the Appeal Court endorsed the findings of the trial court. This is not so. The Appeal Court repeatedly stresses that it is not its function to approve or disapprove of the trial court’s findings-in-fact, given that it was not contended on behalf of the appellant that there was insufficient evidence to warrant them or that no reasonable court could have made them. These findings-in-fact accordingly continue, as before the appeal, to have the authority only of the court which, and the three judges who, made them."
In June 2007, after a three-year investigation, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission came to the conclusion that Megrahi's conviction may have constituted a miscarriage of justice. One of its six reasons for so finding was that in respect of absolutely crucial findings in fact by the trial court (the date of purchase of the clothing that surrounded the bomb and, hence, the identity of the purchaser) no reasonable tribunal could have reached the conclusion that the evidence established that it was Megrahi.
And whether Libya has admitted culpability for the Lockerbie tragedy has no bearing on whether a particular Libyan citizen was properly convicted or should now be released on compassionate grounds. But, of course, Libya has not admitted culpability. Here is a link to the official Libyan position which is that "Libya accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials". If, as a result of the present appeal, Megrahi's conviction is quashed there is no Libyan government admission of responsibility or culpability.]
Friday 24 April 2009
The Dutch TV documentary and reactions
[The Herald's report on the film shown last night in the Scottish Parliament can be read here. A letter from Dr Jim Swire in the same newspaper can be read here. The following are two accounts of the film from persons who attended the showing, and to whom I am extremely grateful.]
1. From Dr Swire
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.
2. From an interested observer
Although the film obviously had the approval of all (or most?) of those present, my own feeling is that it required the audience to already know something – of course it did the usual intro.
Around 18:05, Christine Grahame (MSP) introduced one or two of the better known names. Then hands over to Gideon Levy who introduces his film – played, I think, from his laptop to a beamer (not the BMW variety). His preamble is simply to say we will see conflicting statement between CIA and Scottish authorities.
*Film starts
*Initially just various quotes for effect, giving cause to doubt the verdict. And then showing that he has been to a ceremony for the 20th anniversary at Arlington.
*In charge of the investigation were Marquise (FBI) and Stewart Henderson, Scottish Police.
*Interview with Hans Köchler and a review of his opinion; why one guilty verdict and one not guilty? Initial indictment based on conspiracy, so how could it change?
*Interview with Ian Ferguson [co-author of Cover-Up of Convenience: The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie] (who turns up at other times in film).
*Chopping of interviews with Bob Baer (ex CIA), Fred Whitehurst (FBI), and Marquise and Lord Fraser; he (Levy) required of all his interviewees a handshake on their saying that they’d tell him the truth. They all agreed (although one of them – possibly Marquise, can’t remember – did reserve the right not to answer a question).
*Fraser says his successors (4 or 5 of different parties) could have stopped the proceeding
*Marquise shown Bob Baer saying he had been a bomb maker for the CIA. He (BB) found it very unlikely that anyone would have a bomb transferred from Malta to Frankfurt to Heathrow and onwards.
*BB mentions PFLP-GC (on behalf of Iran) being responsible after the USS Vincennes/Iran Air
*Why was the agent Khreesat released back to Jordan by the German BKA; Fraser said K was double agent of PFLP and CIA; Marquise suggested double agent of PFLP and Jordan spying agency.
*Ferguson (on film) now says there was a change of focus in the investigation because the U.S. was somehow involved.
*A video is shown of Gaddafi (we have to rely on subtitles naturally) saying U.S. companies have had to pay to get back in to Libya – the same amount as Libya has paid out to relatives of victims.
*Marquise says no money paid to witnesses prior to the trial; does not answer regarding after the trial.
*Fraser says he gave instructions, there should be no money to be paid to witnesses; admits he was conscious of the effects if discovered afterwards.
*Tom Thurman explains his analysis of the circuit chip which he found – it is pointed out by Gideon Levy that T.T’s degree is in political science.
*Whitehurst says that Thurman altered his (W.’s) reports. W. also asks why the chip was given to the FBI when the Brits should have experts to look at it. (Fraser denies knowing chip was ever in USA). W. claims it is Thurman’s finger behind the chip fragment in the photo ‘going the rounds’ – later in film, TT seems to agree, or at least lets the comment of Levy go without any complaint. Marquise says it was brought to the U.S. – Fraser is seen raising his eyebrows!
*Ferguson asks why fragment not tested for explosive residue – talk of cost, but various people waffle (sorry can’t really explain what was going on here, except that people could not really believe cost was a factor).
*Fraser states that he was never satisfied with the investigation that went into the PFLP-GC – should have been pushed further to show that they were not involved.
*Thurman denies that he was thrown out of his job, he retired voluntarily; his opinion regarding the fragment was verified in England.
*Marquise acknowledges “People don’t trust government”
*Then Marquise at Arlington (in company of Henderson) says the fragment was never in the U.S., but the circuit board was in the U.S. (yes, I am confused – perhaps he was talking of an example of such a circuit board). Henderson confirms fragment never left the U.K. Henderson says loudly in walking away ‘culprit is in custody’.
*Film ends, but Levy now adds that he received a letter from Marquise after the shooting while the film was being completed to say that (effectively) to clarify the interview he had given, he agrees that the fragment did come to Washington but under the control of Faraday of the U.K.
After the film, the two MSPs Christine Grahame and Margo MacDonald lead the ‘discussion’ – not much is actually discussed – mostly just points people want to draw attention to. Dr Swire speaks first on the film, and then to the question of the break-in at Heathrow the night before the crash. Asks why there were no restrictions on flights because of that breach of security. Also wanted to know why details of the break-in only became public knowledge (or at least available to defence) very late. Prof John Grant gives his opinion and is asked a couple of legal questions by one of the MSPs. Swire also asks Grant about the break-in and whether it can still be used in argument. Grant wants to know why Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission have not published their reasons – says they do publish a couple of wishy-washy (my words) paragraphs, but no detail.
1. From Dr Swire
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.
2. From an interested observer
Although the film obviously had the approval of all (or most?) of those present, my own feeling is that it required the audience to already know something – of course it did the usual intro.
Around 18:05, Christine Grahame (MSP) introduced one or two of the better known names. Then hands over to Gideon Levy who introduces his film – played, I think, from his laptop to a beamer (not the BMW variety). His preamble is simply to say we will see conflicting statement between CIA and Scottish authorities.
*Film starts
*Initially just various quotes for effect, giving cause to doubt the verdict. And then showing that he has been to a ceremony for the 20th anniversary at Arlington.
*In charge of the investigation were Marquise (FBI) and Stewart Henderson, Scottish Police.
*Interview with Hans Köchler and a review of his opinion; why one guilty verdict and one not guilty? Initial indictment based on conspiracy, so how could it change?
*Interview with Ian Ferguson [co-author of Cover-Up of Convenience: The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie] (who turns up at other times in film).
*Chopping of interviews with Bob Baer (ex CIA), Fred Whitehurst (FBI), and Marquise and Lord Fraser; he (Levy) required of all his interviewees a handshake on their saying that they’d tell him the truth. They all agreed (although one of them – possibly Marquise, can’t remember – did reserve the right not to answer a question).
*Fraser says his successors (4 or 5 of different parties) could have stopped the proceeding
*Marquise shown Bob Baer saying he had been a bomb maker for the CIA. He (BB) found it very unlikely that anyone would have a bomb transferred from Malta to Frankfurt to Heathrow and onwards.
*BB mentions PFLP-GC (on behalf of Iran) being responsible after the USS Vincennes/Iran Air
*Why was the agent Khreesat released back to Jordan by the German BKA; Fraser said K was double agent of PFLP and CIA; Marquise suggested double agent of PFLP and Jordan spying agency.
*Ferguson (on film) now says there was a change of focus in the investigation because the U.S. was somehow involved.
*A video is shown of Gaddafi (we have to rely on subtitles naturally) saying U.S. companies have had to pay to get back in to Libya – the same amount as Libya has paid out to relatives of victims.
*Marquise says no money paid to witnesses prior to the trial; does not answer regarding after the trial.
*Fraser says he gave instructions, there should be no money to be paid to witnesses; admits he was conscious of the effects if discovered afterwards.
*Tom Thurman explains his analysis of the circuit chip which he found – it is pointed out by Gideon Levy that T.T’s degree is in political science.
*Whitehurst says that Thurman altered his (W.’s) reports. W. also asks why the chip was given to the FBI when the Brits should have experts to look at it. (Fraser denies knowing chip was ever in USA). W. claims it is Thurman’s finger behind the chip fragment in the photo ‘going the rounds’ – later in film, TT seems to agree, or at least lets the comment of Levy go without any complaint. Marquise says it was brought to the U.S. – Fraser is seen raising his eyebrows!
*Ferguson asks why fragment not tested for explosive residue – talk of cost, but various people waffle (sorry can’t really explain what was going on here, except that people could not really believe cost was a factor).
*Fraser states that he was never satisfied with the investigation that went into the PFLP-GC – should have been pushed further to show that they were not involved.
*Thurman denies that he was thrown out of his job, he retired voluntarily; his opinion regarding the fragment was verified in England.
*Marquise acknowledges “People don’t trust government”
*Then Marquise at Arlington (in company of Henderson) says the fragment was never in the U.S., but the circuit board was in the U.S. (yes, I am confused – perhaps he was talking of an example of such a circuit board). Henderson confirms fragment never left the U.K. Henderson says loudly in walking away ‘culprit is in custody’.
*Film ends, but Levy now adds that he received a letter from Marquise after the shooting while the film was being completed to say that (effectively) to clarify the interview he had given, he agrees that the fragment did come to Washington but under the control of Faraday of the U.K.
After the film, the two MSPs Christine Grahame and Margo MacDonald lead the ‘discussion’ – not much is actually discussed – mostly just points people want to draw attention to. Dr Swire speaks first on the film, and then to the question of the break-in at Heathrow the night before the crash. Asks why there were no restrictions on flights because of that breach of security. Also wanted to know why details of the break-in only became public knowledge (or at least available to defence) very late. Prof John Grant gives his opinion and is asked a couple of legal questions by one of the MSPs. Swire also asks Grant about the break-in and whether it can still be used in argument. Grant wants to know why Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission have not published their reasons – says they do publish a couple of wishy-washy (my words) paragraphs, but no detail.
Sunday 17 July 2011
New doubts over crucial evidence in Lockerbie trial
[This is the headline over an article by John Ashton in today's edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]
A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.
Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish border town on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.
The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.
However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative.
The revelation comes as the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee prepares to consider calls for a public inquiry into the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Campaigners believe he was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and accuse the police and Crown Office of concealing evidence that might have cleared him.
Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.
According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.
Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.
Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.
He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.
A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.
It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly.
Christine Grahame, SNP MSP and convener of the Justice Committee, said yesterday: “This adds to the growing body of evidence that Megrahi’s conviction, if it was placed before the appeal court today, would not stand the test of being proven beyond reasonable doubt.”
Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”
The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.
Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.
After seeing PT/35, Mebo’s owner, Edwin Bollier, said it was from a prototype circuit board that was never part of a functioning timer.
The police memo was one of hundreds of documents appended to the 800-page report into Megrahi’s conviction produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. However, its potential significance was apparently overlooked.
The Crown Office would not comment directly on the memo. In a joint statement with Dumfries and Galloway Police, which led the Lockerbie investigation, it said: “The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously … following trial and his conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges in an appeal court.”
[The flaws in the Zeist trial and the strictly circumscribed nature of the appeal are described in my article Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result.]
A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.
Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish border town on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.
The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.
However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative.
The revelation comes as the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee prepares to consider calls for a public inquiry into the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Campaigners believe he was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and accuse the police and Crown Office of concealing evidence that might have cleared him.
Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.
According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.
Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.
Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.
He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.
A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.
It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly.
Christine Grahame, SNP MSP and convener of the Justice Committee, said yesterday: “This adds to the growing body of evidence that Megrahi’s conviction, if it was placed before the appeal court today, would not stand the test of being proven beyond reasonable doubt.”
Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”
The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.
Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.
After seeing PT/35, Mebo’s owner, Edwin Bollier, said it was from a prototype circuit board that was never part of a functioning timer.
The police memo was one of hundreds of documents appended to the 800-page report into Megrahi’s conviction produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. However, its potential significance was apparently overlooked.
The Crown Office would not comment directly on the memo. In a joint statement with Dumfries and Galloway Police, which led the Lockerbie investigation, it said: “The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously … following trial and his conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges in an appeal court.”
[The flaws in the Zeist trial and the strictly circumscribed nature of the appeal are described in my article Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result.]
Wednesday 7 April 2021
A self-blinded justice system
[What follows is from an email sent today by Jim Swire to a friend and supporter. It is reproduced here with Dr Swire's consent:]
There has been one quotation that I have been strengthened by throughout the last 35 years. It's from John Donne:
On a huge hill,Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that willReach her, about must and about must go,And what the hill's suddenness resists, win so.Yet strive so that before age, death's twilight,Thy soul rest, for none can work in that night.
I fear that the message of the last two lines is now upon us.
As for American contributions to the deception, I have long believed that there is no way we can puncture that bubble, fragile though it is.
For us, ... and so many others, now knowing the broad picture of the truth, is part of the healing process. But that healing is so severely damaged by the strutting pomposity of most of those who trumpet that the case is solved when so many of them must know it clearly is not.
Nor can we get away from the fact that a great deal of further evil has been unleashed upon the world by the obstruction to allowing the truth to get out. That obstruction has fostered some of the most malevolent characters in the terrorist world by shielding them from the threat of prosecution and has destroyed for a generation any prospect of peaceful progress for nearly seven million Libyans. By protecting the Ayatollahs of Iran from investigation the obstruction must also have reinforced the horrors that eighty three million ordinary people in Iran will have to face if they are ever to shake off the bands of religious impenetrability. Through ‘faith’ religious belief is used as a ‘reason' for abandoning the need to look with honesty at developments in the one world we actually live in, and some of whose intrinsic laws we are privileged to know.
A good example of such an individual was the policeman [Stuart] Henderson, who before he died said publicly in front of the US relatives that he would like to wring the neck of anyone who disagreed with the Scottish police findings in the case. He is now dead but the consequences of his force’s mistakes continues to blight and sometimes destroy all those lives in Libya.
A self-blinded ‘justice' system in Scotland together with a police force there which has also been blinded to the failure of its own hypothesis, partly through a deeply flawed verdict, partly by unjustified belief in their own infallibility, sails on. Like their justice system, that force will not listen to their voices when people originally with no axe to grind are raised in dissent.
However, John Mosey and I along with other UK relatives of the innocent dead have always wanted to force something of benefit for the future to emerge from that horrible toll of avoidable deaths at Lockerbie. That is worlds away from a desire for revenge against those who got things so grotesquely wrong in the investigation, many of whom are now dead anyway.
Now common sense (if I may be allowed so vague an entity at all) suggests to me that Henderson and his men fell into a deliberate trap set for the searchers by Ahmed Jibril in Damascus, in case any forensic evidence should fall into their hands after the crash, and that trap of course was the clothing readily traceable to Malta, inserted into the bomb suitcase. Common sense can also be stretched a little further to suggest that Abu Talb from the Jibril team was the probable buyer and provider of those clothes as part of Jibril's carefully organised plot.
The headlong chase to Malta which had to be based on the transfer of the bomb at Luqa (false), the transfer of a bag from the Air Malta flight to PA103A at Frankfurt (false) the transfer of the bag from PA103A to PA 103 at Heathrow (false) and the allegation that a MEBO MST13 timer had been used (false: based on a carelessly and fraudulently introduced fragment of circuit board clearly copied from the pattern of an MST13 board, but manufactured after the industry had switched to using lead-free plating technology in the early 90s).
Then one cannot ignore the concealment from the trial by the Crown Office prosecution team of the Metropolitan Police's findings of an airside break-in at Heathrow. We know that the Scottish police were informed of the Met’s findings by February 1989. Whether or not that break-in was the route by which the bomb came to be put aboard at Heathrow we cannot know, (and the proximity of Iran Air personnel adjacent to Pan Am provides an alternative route), but the break-in and its concealment from the trial court looks mighty like the deliberate removal of an obvious ‘reasonable doubt', which any criminal court ought to have had the opportunity to evaluate as the case unfolded in front of it.
Unfortunately however, failure to identify Iran as the initiating country skews the interests of justice between the nations if indeed there is any.
But perhaps we should leave to Scotland’s friends from “ the auld alliance”, her own poet Robbie Burns, to her philosopher David Hume to a recent Scottish Justice Secretary and also to a scion of the cream of British diplomacy, the last words.
Here’s freedom to him that wad read,
Here’s freedom to him that wad write,
There’s nane ever fear’d that the truth should be heard,
But they whom the truth wad indite. -- Robert Burns
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. -- Montesquieu
In our reasonings concerning matters of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. ― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
The Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission’s decision to refer the Megrahi case back to the courts really isn’t a surprise. Issues of concern in the Lockerbie bombing trial include not least the witness payments to Tony Gauci. So back the case goes and while it may resolve some aspects relating to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, I won’t hold my breath that it’ll cast any more light on Lockerbie. Sadly, this review will clarify some questions regarding Megrahi, but I very much doubt it’ll provide closure on Lockerbie.
Kenny MacAskill — Former Cabinet Secretary for Justice (2007–2014)
No court is likely get to the truth, now that various intelligence agencies have had the opportunity to corrupt the evidence.
Oliver Miles — Former British ambassador to Libya
Monday 17 July 2017
Shrouded in a cloud of anomalies
[What follows is the text of an article by John Ashton published in the Sunday Herald on this date in 2011:]
New doubts over crucial evidence in Lockerbie trial
A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.
Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish border town on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.
The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.
However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative.
The revelation comes as the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee prepares to consider calls for a public inquiry into the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Campaigners believe he was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and accuse the police and Crown Office of concealing evidence that might have cleared him.
Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.
According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.
Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.
Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.
He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.
A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.
It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly.
Christine Grahame, SNP MSP and convener of the Justice Committee, said yesterday: “This adds to the growing body of evidence that Megrahi’s conviction, if it was placed before the appeal court today, would not stand the test of being proven beyond reasonable doubt.”
Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”
The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.
Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.
After seeing PT/35, Mebo’s owner, Edwin Bollier, said it was from a prototype circuit board that was never part of a functioning timer.
The police memo was one of hundreds of documents appended to the 800-page report into Megrahi’s conviction produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. However, its potential significance was apparently overlooked.
The Crown Office would not comment directly on the memo. In a joint statement with Dumfries and Galloway Police, which led the Lockerbie investigation, it said: “The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously … following trial and his conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges in an appeal court.”
Friday 3 April 2015
Lockerbie judges misled over testing of timer fragment
[A police memorandum dated 3 April 1990 during the Lockerbie investigation disclosed that the circuit board fragment PT/35 that allegedly formed part of the timing mechanism of the bomb (and that linked Libya to the atrocity) bore no trace of explosive contamination. At the Zeist trial Crown forensic scientific experts testified that the fragment had not been tested for explosive residue. The details that follow are taken from a blogpost of 17 July 2011 reporting on an article in that day’s Sunday Herald:]
A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.
The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.
However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative. (...)
Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.
According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.
Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.
Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.
He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.
A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.
It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly. (...)
Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”
The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.
Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.
Monday 1 July 2013
Megrahi biographer John Ashton and the Crown Office
[On his Megrahi: You are my Jury website John Ashton has today published an item headed Information is free but everywhere it is in chains. It reads in part:]
On 18 February this year I sent the following request to the Crown Office press office, which forwarded it to the CO’s freedom of information unit:
I am writing about the Lockerbie bombing and would be grateful if the Crown Office would answer some questions about the following important items of documentary evidence.
PT/82 and PT/88
On 18 February this year I sent the following request to the Crown Office press office, which forwarded it to the CO’s freedom of information unit:
I am writing about the Lockerbie bombing and would be grateful if the Crown Office would answer some questions about the following important items of documentary evidence.
PT/82 and PT/88
These documents contain the results of tests conducted on various pieces of Lockerbie debris at the Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment (RARDE). PT/82 contains, inter alia, results of metallurgy tests conducted on the fragment of circuit board PT/35b, while PT/88 contains, inter alia, the results of similar tests conducted on a control sample circuit board, DP/347a, which the police had obtained from the Swiss company Mebo and which was from the same manufacturing batch as those used in the Mebo timers that were supplied to Libya. The tests established that there was a very significant dissimilarity between the two items, namely, that the circuitry of PT/35b was plated with pure tin, whereas the circuitry on DP/347a was plated with an alloy of 70% tin and 30% lead. The documents each contain a handwritten note by RARDE scientist Allen Feraday, dated 1.8.91, which confirm the results. The pure tin plating of PT/35b would have required an entirely different manufacturing process to that used to plate DP/347a. Together the two documents contradict Mr Feraday’s claim, which he made in his forensic report for the Crown and repeated in evidence at trial, that PT/35b’s ‘materials and tracking pattern’ were ‘similar in all respects’ to those of DP/347a. The documents each have a Dumfries and Galloway police label dated 8 November 1999.
Questions:
1) Were the documents passed by the police to the prosecution team prior to the trial of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah?
2) If they were, why were they not disclosed to the defence?
3) Who made the decision not to disclose the documents to the defence?
D8624
This document contains, inter alia, two versions of a memorandum from Detective Inspector William Williamson to Senior Investigating Officer Stuart Henderson, the first dated 16.3.90 and the second 3.9.90. Both of these reported upon scientific tests conducted on PT/35b as part of the investigation of its origin. Both state:
This document contains, inter alia, two versions of a memorandum from Detective Inspector William Williamson to Senior Investigating Officer Stuart Henderson, the first dated 16.3.90 and the second 3.9.90. Both of these reported upon scientific tests conducted on PT/35b as part of the investigation of its origin. Both state:
‘Without exception it is the view of all experts involved in the PCB [printed circuit board] Industry who have assisted with this enquiry that the tin application on the tracks of the circuit was by far the most interesting feature. The fact that pure tin rather than a tin/lead mixture has been used is very unusual.’
None of the material disclosed to the defence pre-trial contained similar references to the fact that PT/35b’s pure tin plating was ‘very unusual’.
Questions:
4) Was D8624 passed by the police to the prosecution team pre trial?
5) If it was, why was it not disclosed to the defence?
6) Who made the decision not to disclose it to the defence?
Statement S3743A by Detective Inspector Watson McAteer
In this statement DI McAteer reported:
In this statement DI McAteer reported:
‘About 1000 hours on Friday, 22nd September, 1989, along with the B.K.A. Airport enquiry team and F.B.I. special agent Whittaker, I visited the V3 interline station, located within the airfield at Frankfurt Airport. During the course of this visit I observed two operators using Gate Number 206. These operators worked as a team with one unloading baggage from the wagon onto the conveyor belt which feeds through to his colleague who remains seated within the coding gate booth. The coder then examined the luggage Tags on each piece of luggage prior to keying the details into the computer system. After completing this task, when the wagon had been completely unloaded, the coder entered the details on a work sheet located next to the key board within the coding gate. When this particular operation had been completed both workers walked away from the gate leaving it completely unattended, with the computer switched on and operable. Within the space of one minute, I observed a V3 worker carry a single suitcase from a batch located some fifty yards from gate 206 to that particular gate. This worker entered gate 206 coding booth and after keying details into the computer sent the single piece of luggage into the system. This operation was started and completed in less than fifteen seconds with no entry being made on the work sheet which was still in situ within the gate. Through FBI agent Whittaker I questioned the FAG supervisor Herr Zimmerman regarding this practice. Herr Zimmerman reluctantly agreed that such a practice was not unusual.’
At trial the defence called Mr Whittaker as a witness and questioned him about this incident. When asked if he mentioned the incident to anyone, Mr Whittaker said only that he had discussed it with DI McAteer and, within a day or two, the BKA. Under cross-examination by Advocate Depute Alan Turnbull QC, he said he couldn’t be certain that the baggage handler who keyed in the single item of baggage had not filled out the worksheet. Asked, ‘Do I take it that you would not be close enough to see whether this particular worker made an entry in a notebook?’ he replied, ‘It would be very likely that that could have been missed, yes.’
If the prosecution team had been in possession of S3743A, they should have been aware that: a) DI McAteer expressed no doubts that baggage handler who keyed in the single item had not recorded the transaction on the worksheet; b) according to DI McAteer, Mr Whittaker discussed the incident, not only, with the BKA, but also with a FAG supervisor; and c) according to DI McAteer, the supervisor described the practice as not unusual – a very significant admission when viewed in context.
If the statement had been disclosed to the defence, they would have been able to challenge Mr Whittaker’s evidence and make stronger submissions in respect of the possibility that the primary suitcase was ingested at Frankfurt airport.
Questions:
7) Was S3743A passed by the police to the prosecution team pre trial?
8) If it was, why was it not disclosed to the defence either before, or after, Mr Whittaker testified?
9) Who made the decision not to disclose it?
I look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely,
John Ashton.
Under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, the Crown Office should have responded within 20 working days, unless it needed to consider the public interest test, in which case it should have informed me within that 20-day limit. It failed to respond until 19 June, when it sent me this refusal notice from John Logue, the senior procurator fiscal for the East of Scotland, who was formerly a member of the Lockerbie prosecution team. The key passage reads:
We do endeavour to provide information whenever possible. However, in this instance an exemption under section 34(1)(a) of the 2002 Act applies to all the information requested.
The exemption covers information which has been held by a Scottish public authority for the purpose of an investigation into criminal matters whether the public body is the prosecuting authority or has an obligation to make a report to the Procurator Fiscal. In particular, it exempts information which at any time has been used for the purposes of:
• an investigation an authority has a duty to conduct to ascertain whether a person should be prosecuted for an offence;
• an investigation which may lead to a report to the procurator fiscal in connection with possible criminal proceedings; and
• criminal proceedings instituted in consequence of such a report.
Your questions relate to the steps taken by Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in relation to four documents during the preparation of the prosecution of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing and murder of 270 people. Information held in relation to the submission of evidence to the Procurator Fiscal and its consideration for disclosure is information which falls within the terms of section 34(1)(a).
As the exemption is conditional we have applied the ‘public interest test’. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. While we recognise that there is some public interest in release because it relates to the Lockerbie bombing which remains a significant event in Scotland and to Mr Megrahi’s conviction, this is outweighed by the public interest in withholding information because of the ongoing criminal investigation into the involvement of others with Mr Megrahi in the bombing and the possibility of further legal proceedings in relation to Mr Megrahi’s conviction.
The ‘possibility of further legal proceedings in relation to Mr Megrahi’s conviction’ is presumably a reference to the current police investigation into the complaints of alleged criminal misconduct made by the committee of Justice for Megrahi. Revealing why the documents were not disclosed, and who made the decisions, could not possibly jeopardise ‘the ongoing criminal investigation into the involvement of others’. It might well, of course, jeopardise the reputations of the Crown Office and its officers.
I am entitled to request an internal review of the refusal, but the likelihood of one of Logue’s colleagues overturning his decision is minimal. Section 47(1) of the act allows a right to appeal internal review decisions to the Scottish Information Commissioner, however, handily for the Crown Office, section 48 exempts it from that provision. In other words, the Crown Office is the final arbiter on whether or not its information should be made public. No other Scottish public authority enjoys this privilege.
The current issue of Private Eye carries the following article on the story (...) [RB: the article can be read here.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)