The reception given to Megrahi was low-key

What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009.

No ‘Hero’s Welcome’ in Libya

[What follows is the text of an opinion piece in The New York Times by Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi, the Colonel's son and, so some speculate, his likely successor.]

Contrary to reports in the Western press, there was no “hero’s welcome” for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi when he returned to Libya earlier this month.

There was not in fact any official reception for the return of Mr Megrahi, who had been convicted and imprisoned in Scotland for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The strong reactions to these misperceptions must not be allowed to impair the improvements in a mutually beneficial relationship between Libya and the West.

When I arrived at the airport with Mr Megrahi, there was not a single government official present. State and foreign news media were also barred from the event. If you were watching Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, at the time the plane landed, you would have heard its correspondent complain that he was not allowed by Libyan authorities to go to the airport to cover Mr Megrahi’s arrival.

It is true that there were a few hundred people present. But most of them were members of Mr Megrahi’s large tribe, extended families being an important element in Libyan society. They had no official invitation, but it was hardly possible to prevent them from coming.

Coincidentally, the day Mr Megrahi landed was also the very day of the annual Libyan Youth Day, and many participants came to the airport after seeing coverage of Mr Megrahi’s release on British television. But this was not planned. Indeed, we sat in the plane on the tarmac until the police brought the crowd to order.

So, from the Libyan point of view, the reception given to Mr Megrahi was low-key. Had it been an official welcome, there would have been tens if not hundreds of thousands of people at the airport. And the event would have been carried live on state television.

At the same time, I was extremely happy for Mr Megrahi’s return. Convinced of his innocence, I have worked for years on his behalf, raising the issue at every meeting with British officials.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently confirmed my statement that Libya put Mr Megrahi’s release on the table at every meeting. He also made it clear that there was never any agreement by the British government to release Mr Megrahi as part of some quid pro quo on trade — a statement I can confirm.

Mr Megrahi was released for the right reasons. The Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, freed Mr Megrahi, who is dying of cancer, on compassionate grounds. Mr MacAskill’s courageous decision demonstrates to the world that both justice and compassion can be achieved by people of good will. Despite the uproar over the release, others agree. A recent survey of Scottish lawyers showed that a majority of those surveyed agreed with the secretary’s decision.

It’s worth pointing out that we Libyans are far from the only ones who believe that Mr Megrahi is innocent of this terrible crime. In June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission determined that a “miscarriage of justice” may have occurred and referred the case to the High Court. A retired Scottish police officer who worked on the case has signed a statement saying that evidence was fabricated. The credibility of a key witness, a shopkeeper in Malta, has subsequently been disputed by the Scottish judge who presided in the review. Even the spokesman of a family group of Lockerbie victims has said that the group was not satisfied that the verdict in the Megrahi case was correct.

What’s more, although we Libyans believe that Mr Megrahi is innocent, we agreed in a civil action to pay the families of the victims, and we have done so. In fact, we could have withheld the final tranche of payments last year, because the United States had not kept its part of the deal, to fully normalize relations within the formally agreed-upon time frame. Still, we made the final payment as an act of good will.

The truth about Lockerbie will come out one day. Had Mr Megrahi been able to appeal his case through the court, we believe that his conviction would have been overturned. Mr Megrahi made the difficult decision to give up his promising appeal in order to spend his last days with his family.

Libya has worked with Britain, the United States and other Western countries for more than five years now to defuse the tensions of earlier times, and to promote trade, security and improved relations. I believe that clarifying the facts in the Lockerbie case can only further assist this process.

I once again offer my deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones of those lost in the Lockerbie tragedy. They deserve justice. The best way to get it is through a public inquiry. We need to know the truth.

“It happened. It shouldn’t have. It is obviously unacceptable”

[What follows is the text of a report headlined Maltese shopkeeper offered ‘unlimited funds’ for Lockerbie testimony that was published in the Maltese newspaper The Independent on this date in 2011:]

Former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC has admitted that new documents show Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, whose evidence was the cornerstone in convicting Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie disaster did receive payment for his testimony.

The issue has been a hot potato for years and while American authorities insist that witnesses were never paid, the former law chief who led the Lockerbie bombing probe hit out after a leaked report claimed key witness Gauci had been paid £1.2million to testify.

In recent comments to The Scottish Sun, Lord Fraser said: “I have to accept that it happened. It shouldn’t have and I was unaware of it. It is obviously unacceptable in the biggest case of mass murder ever carried out in Europe.”

He added that he had warned Scottish investigators at the time that offering bribes to witnesses would be “unacceptable”.

But a documentary aired recently on Al Jazeera, Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber?, has revealed papers claiming Gauci was offered “unlimited funds” before he was paid.

The claims are made in findings from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which insists there is evidence of a mistrial, findings which had led convicted bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi to launch an appeal against his conviction. The appeal was ditched two years ago when al-Megrahi was released from jail suffering from cancer.

The report was kept under wraps until now, despite the efforts of the SNP to release them.

The findings, which rely heavily on diary entries by retired Strathclyde Police detective Harry Bell, also say Gauci’s brother Paul received £600,000, despite not testifying.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission report says Scottish police applied to US authorities for reward cash after the trial and “substantial payments were received by both Tony and Paul Gauci after the appeal”.

Tony Gauci became the key witness as clothes from the suitcase that carried the bomb on Pan Am flight 103 - which killed 270 in 1988 - were traced back to his shop in Malta.

In addition to the payment of the Maltese witness for testimony, the Commission had previously found several other problems with the evidence on which al-Megrahi had been convicted.

Mr al-Megrahi’s appeal had been granted after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found the reliability of Maltese evidence used to convict the former Libyan intelligence agent of carrying out as highly questionable and recommended he be granted an appeal.

Al-Megrahi had been convicted largely on the basis of evidence supplied by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci of Mary’s House Tower Road Sliema. In his evidence Mr Gauci had identified Al-Megrahi as the purchaser of articles of clothing and an umbrella found in the suitcase - placed on an Air Malta flight and transferred to the Pan Am flight in Frankfurt - containing the bomb.

The Commission, however, found “there is no reasonable basis in the trial court’s judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary’s House, took place on 7 December 1988”, an argument that had sealed the indictment against Al-Megrahi.

The Commission noted that although it had been proven Al-Megrahi had been in Malta on several occasions in the month in question, it was determined through new evidence submitted that 7 December 1988 was the only date on which he would have had the opportunity to make the purchases from Mary’s House.

New evidence in the Commission’s hands at the time, not heard at the trial, concerned the date on which Christmas lights had been illuminated in Sliema near Mary’s House which, taken together with Mr Gauci’s evidence at trial and the contents of his police statements, indicates the purchase of the incriminating items had taken place before 6 December 1988 – when no evidence had been presented at trial to the effect that the applicant was in Malta before 6 December.

Yet more new evidence given to the Commission indicates that Mr Gauci, four days before the identification parade at which he picked out Al-Megrahi, had seen a photograph of Al-Megrahi in a magazine article linking him to the bombing.

The Commission found Mr Gauci’s exposure to the photograph, so close to the date of the identity parade, “undermines the reliability of his identification of the applicant at that time and at the trial itself”.

A can of worms

What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2011.

Conspiracy and cover-up in Lockerbie

[This is the headline over an article published yesterday on the Bread & Circuses website, vol 3 issue 11. It reads in part:]

In Libya, there were mass celebrations to honor the homecoming of their national hero, while in the Western press, there were repeated protests over the premature release of a convicted terrorist, but the whole sordid affair died within a short time, even if Megrahi hasn’t yet, and it has all been pretty much long forgotten.

If you think that’s the end of the story, you’re wrong. It’s just the beginning. And it’s a story that’s all too familiar, involving international intrigue, the CIA tampering with evidence, lies and cover-ups by disreputable prosecutors, and two world powers anxious to bring about a conviction at all costs, which included a $2 million payoff to buy fabricated witness accounting. As a result, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who may be one of the most hated men in the world, whose deteriorating health was considered too mild a punishment to many people around the world, and who has been incarcerated for perpetrating the attack on Pan-Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland since 1991, may also be innocent.

This won’t be the first time our Government has been involved in a conspiracy to commit murder, to cover up a crime, or to frame an innocent person to protect someone or something it considers more important in the big picture. In this case, the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, and Scotland were driven by a powerful need to attach this terrorist attack to a face as soon as possible. Under the circumstances, it served all of their purposes to pin it on a Libyan, without having to go to war with Libya itself. At that point, it didn’t matter all that much which Libyan, since to us Westerners, they all look alike anyway.

Between the eagerness of Scottish prosecutors and Government officials to circumvent the procedures of law to make their story fit the facts, and the $2 million dollars the United States Government put up as a bribe to anyone believable enough sell a phony story to a panel of judges hearing this case, it wasn’t all that difficult to make up a scenario that fit the crime. From beginning to end, there were inconsistencies and problems with the gathering of evidence and procedural misconduct on the part of investigators from the police department and the attorneys building this case. Using every manipulative trick and fraud they could come up with, they managed to hammer the square pegs into the round holes and Megrehi was convicted, in spite of protests not only from him and his attorneys who were denied fair access to police evidence and adequate appeals, but to people around the world who looked at the case against Megrahi and called foul. Those included private investigators from around the world who have taken an unbiased look at the evidence, to Nelson Mandela who pleaded with the Church of Scotland to independently investigate the case against Megrahi on their own.

In 2009, under mounting pressure, the Scottish Government had no choice but to allow the appeal to reopen the case. At this point, the British, American, and Scottish Governments were in a quandary. The latest appeal process and the world attention it was bringing, was going to open more than a can of worms for those closest to the conspiracy. It was going to open all the evidence, including formerly withheld and altered evidence, much of which was clearly tampered with by the authorities pressing for a conviction, to public scrutiny that they were previously able to keep a lid on.

So instead of taking that chance on having to explain the obvious framing and conspiracy to defraud the Courts, a deal was struck and Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was set free. While President Obama and Prime Minister Tony Blair were displaying their public outrage over Megrahi’s early release, behind the scenes they were wiping the sweat from each other’s brows, knowing that a serious political crisis had been averted. Unfortunately, the victims and their surviving families of the bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, must live with the frustration of believing that the murderer of their loved ones was freed on humanitarian grounds, when in fact, they should be more outraged than anyone else that the truth of what really happened will remain buried with the dead.

This is one of those stories that you will not see in the mainstream news media run by multi-national corporations in this country. This story was reported in a documentary film released on Al Jazeera English, the Arab news network. Before you judge the reliability of the source based on prejudices and opinions formulated for you by the American news networks with a strong motive in not wanting us to listen to this news forum with an opened mind, please watch this video and judge for yourself. 

Police came to a conclusion and then looked for evidence

What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2011.

Scottish Sunday Express on the Aljazeera documentary

[What follows is the text of a report by Ben Borland that appeared in yesterday's Scottish edition of the Sunday Express:]

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was convicted on the basis that he bought clothes from Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, including a grey men’s Slalom shirt. The clothing was then packed in a suitcase with the bomb that brought down Pan Am 103, killing 270 on December 21, 1988.

The charred remains of the shirt were crucial to the prosecution, as a forensic scientist found a piece of circuit board from the bomb embedded in the collar which first led investigators to Libya, and ultimately Megrahi.

However, it has now emerged that clothing manufacturers in Malta told Scottish police in January 1990 that the shirt recovered from the crash site was in fact a boy’s size.

Campaigners have stepped up calls for an inquiry after the claims surfaced in a documentary broadcast on Thursday by Arab TV network Al Jazeera but seen by only a handful of Scottish viewers. [RB: The programme can be watched on You Tube here.]

In it, Scotland’s former Lord Advocate also accepted that Gauci, the main prosecution witness, was paid $2million to give evidence against Megrahi. Scottish private investigator George Thomson tracked down shirt manufacturers Tonio Caruana and Godwin Navarro in Malta. They recalled being shown a fragment of shirt by DC John Crawford and telling him, independently of each other, that it was a boy’s shirt

Speaking to the Sunday Express yesterday, Mr Navarro, 76, said: “I stand by my statement. I believe it is a boy’s shirt because of the size of the pocket and the width of the placket, where the button holes are.”

Retired Strathclyde Police superintendent Iain McKie, now a campaigner against miscarriages of justice, said: “The fact that the witnesses say it was a boy’s shirt and not an adult shirt seems to me quite critical.”

He said that if it was a boy’s shirt, then it cannot be the same one purchased from Gauci by the man he later identified as Megrahi – destroying the “evidence chain”.

Supt McKie said the latest claims added weight to calls for the Scottish Government to set up an independent inquiry into Megrahi’s conviction.

He added: “The whole chain of evidence has been totally and utterly shattered. It is looking more and more like the police came to a conclusion and then looked for evidence.”

The programme, Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber, also alleged that a piece of the shirt had been altered, as it is clearly a different shape in two police photographs.

However a spokesman for the Crown Office said yesterday that the matter was easily explained. He said: “The fragment of cloth alleged to have been removed from the shirt was examined by the scientists and is referred to in the forensic science report. It is clearly a separate fragment.”

But Fife-based Mr Thomson stood by his claims. He said: “In January 1990 they realise that what they have is a fragment of a boy’s shirt, while Gauci is saying he sold a gents’ shirt.

“The reason for people saying this is mainly down to the size of the pocket and lo and behold the next thing a fragment of the pocket has been removed.”

The documentary is the latest foreign TV show to expose doubts in Scotland’s handling of the case.

Dutch filmmaker Gideon Levy won the Prix Europa for the best current affairs programme of 2009 for Lockerbie Revisited, which has never been broadcast in Britain.

The truth about Lockerbie is likely to be ignored

[What follows is the text of an article by Jonathan S Tobin published on this date in 2014 on the website of Commentary magazine:]

Could there be a worse week for new revelations about the 1988 Lockerbie tragedy to be unveiled? The report claiming that Iran rather than Libya was the culprit in the atrocity should raise eyebrows around globe. But despite the persuasive case made for this theory, don’t expect the United States or any other Western country to heed the new evidence and re-open the case. With both the US and its European allies desperate to reach a new nuclear deal with Tehran that will enable them to halt the sanctions on the Islamist regime, discussions about the true nature of the administration’s diplomatic partner are, to put it mildly, unwelcome. If Washington isn’t interested in drawing conclusions about Iran from the seizure of an arms ship bound for terrorist-run Gaza last week or even the latest threat from its Revolutionary Guard about destroying Israel uttered yesterday, why would anyone think the Obama administration would be willing to rethink its conclusions about a crime that was long thought to be solved?

To be fair to the administration, a lot of time has passed since the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that cost the lies of 259 passengers and crew and 11 persons on the ground. The US and the West put a lot of energy into proving that agents of the Libyan Gaddafi regime were responsible. The Libyans were known state sponsors of terror and had an axe to grind against the US at the time. After the conviction of a Libyan intelligence agent for these murders, even more energy was spent on vainly trying to persuade a Scottish court from letting him go home to Libya, where he eventually died of cancer. [RB: It was, of course, a Scottish Government minister, not a Scottish court, that granted compassionate release.] Why would anyone in the US government want to admit that we were wrong all these years? Nor would most Americans think an investigation undertaken by a news organization like the reliably anti-American Al Jazeera, no matter how meticulous, would persuade them to rethink their long-held conclusions about the case.

But, as David Horovitz writes persuasively in the Times of Israel, Al Jazeera’s report is based on information from the same Iranian defector that accurately testified about the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina that killed 85 persons. Though the full truth about Lockerbie is yet to be uncovered, Horovitz is right to point out that if we accept the word of former Iranian intelligence agent Abolghasem Mesbahi about Tehran’s terrorist plot in South America, there’s no reason to dismiss his detailed claims about Lockerbie. The pieces here fit too well to allow us to merely shrug and move on.

But the problem isn’t Mesbahi’s credibility or even the embarrassment that a finding that debunked previous Western intelligence work on Lockerbie would cause in Washington and London. Rather, it’s the fact that the defector is pointing the finger at a government that the West wants very much to rehabilitate these days.

The United States and its European allies are deeply invested in the notion that Hassan Rouhani’s victory in Iran’s faux election last year marked a genuine change in the country’s political culture. Justifying a weak interim nuclear deal that granted Iran both significant sanctions relief and a tacit recognition of its “right” to enrich uranium was made possible not only by the arguments about Iran’s supposed desire for a new start with the West but also by a determination by the administration that it wanted to step away from confrontation with Tehran at all costs.

The president is so worried about hurting the delicate feelings of the anti-Semitic government in Tehran that he is willing to veto new sanctions legislation that would have strengthened his hand in the talks. This policy is difficult enough to justify in the face of Iran’s continued support for terrorism, its genocidal threats against Israel (which make its possession of nuclear weapons more than a theoretical security problem), and its long record of diplomatic deception. The last thing the president and Secretary of State Kerry want is to have the Lockerbie case disinterred and for the regime—many of whose leading players were active in the security apparatus at the time—indicted for mass murder of innocent Americans.

So don’t expect anyone in Washington to take the new evidence about Lockerbie seriously or even to pay lip service to the notion of re-opening the case. Horovitz is right that Al Jazeera’s report ought to justify a new investigation that will fearlessly follow the evidence to the guilty parties. But as long as making nice with Iran is one of the diplomatic priorities of the United States, the truth about Lockerbie is likely to be ignored.

The “hero’s welcome” for Megrahi

[On this date in 2009 the UK media were full of outraged reports about the “hero’s welcome” that Abdelbaset Megrahi had received on his arrival back in Tripoli. The report on the BBC News website is one of the less inflammatory. What follows is an article by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi that was published in The New York Times a few days later:]

Contrary to reports in the Western press, there was no “hero’s welcome” for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi when he returned to Libya earlier this month.

There was not in fact any official reception for the return of Mr Megrahi, who had been convicted and imprisoned in Scotland for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The strong reactions to these misperceptions must not be allowed to impair the improvements in a mutually beneficial relationship between Libya and the West.

When I arrived at the airport with Mr Megrahi, there was not a single government official present. State and foreign news media were also barred from the event. If you were watching Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, at the time the plane landed, you would have heard its correspondent complain that he was not allowed by Libyan authorities to go to the airport to cover Mr Megrahi’s arrival.

It is true that there were a few hundred people present. But most of them were members of Mr Megrahi’s large tribe, extended families being an important element in Libyan society. They had no official invitation, but it was hardly possible to prevent them from coming.

Coincidentally, the day Mr Megrahi landed was also the very day of the annual Libyan Youth Day, and many participants came to the airport after seeing coverage of Mr Megrahi’s release on British television. But this was not planned. Indeed, we sat in the plane on the tarmac until the police brought the crowd to order.

So, from the Libyan point of view, the reception given to Mr Megrahi was low-key. Had it been an official welcome, there would have been tens if not hundreds of thousands of people at the airport. And the event would have been carried live on state television.

At the same time, I was extremely happy for Mr Megrahi’s return. Convinced of his innocence, I have worked for years on his behalf, raising the issue at every meeting with British officials.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently confirmed my statement that Libya put Mr Megrahi’s release on the table at every meeting. He also made it clear that there was never any agreement by the British government to release Mr Megrahi as part of some quid pro quo on trade — a statement I can confirm.

Mr Megrahi was released for the right reasons. The Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, freed Mr Megrahi, who is dying of cancer, on compassionate grounds. Mr MacAskill’s courageous decision demonstrates to the world that both justice and compassion can be achieved by people of good will. Despite the uproar over the release, others agree. A recent survey of Scottish lawyers showed that a majority of those surveyed agreed with the secretary’s decision.

It’s worth pointing out that we Libyans are far from the only ones who believe that Mr Megrahi is innocent of this terrible crime. In June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission determined that a “miscarriage of justice” may have occurred and referred the case to the High Court. A retired Scottish police officer who worked on the case has signed a statement saying that evidence was fabricated. The credibility of a key witness, a shopkeeper in Malta, has subsequently been disputed by the Scottish judge who presided in the review. Even the spokesman of a family group of Lockerbie victims has said that the group was not satisfied that the verdict in the Megrahi case was correct.

What’s more, although we Libyans believe that Mr Megrahi is innocent, we agreed in a civil action to pay the families of the victims, and we have done so. In fact, we could have withheld the final tranche of payments last year, because the United States had not kept its part of the deal, to fully normalize relations within the formally agreed-upon time frame. Still, we made the final payment as an act of good will.

The truth about Lockerbie will come out one day. Had Mr Megrahi been able to appeal his case through the court, we believe that his conviction would have been overturned. Mr Megrahi made the difficult decision to give up his promising appeal in order to spend his last days with his family.

Libya has worked with Britain, the United States and other Western countries for more than five years now to defuse the tensions of earlier times, and to promote trade, security and improved relations. I believe that clarifying the facts in the Lockerbie case can only further assist this process.

I once again offer my deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones of those lost in the Lockerbie tragedy. They deserve justice. The best way to get it is through a public inquiry. We need to know the truth.

Bribery at the heart of Megrahi’s Lockerbie conviction?

[This is the headline over an article by Jon Snow on the Channel 4 News website on this date in 2011.  It reads as follows:]

While Libya continues to burn, an eerie silence has descended over the British media’s interest in reopening the uncertainties surrounding the Lockerbie bombing. The occasional defecting Libyan minister has pretended to hold previously untold secrets, but nothing has come of them.

It was left to Al Jazeera English to try to lance the boil last Thursday when the channel broadcast an explosive documentary on the subject. The programme makers had gained access to the unpublished report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission into the case.

Even more importantly, they managed to see the notebooks and diaries of the Scottish and American investigators written at the time. These were also in the possession of the Review Commission.

In short, the diaries make a blistering allegation – that the central Maltese witness whose testimony was key to convicting Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – had been bribed. The diaries record the apparent “offer of inducements made to Tony Gauci”, the Maltese shopkeeper who identified clothes that were found in the suitcase that carried the bomb on the plane, as having been bought at his shop by al-Megrahi.

Tony Gauci’s brother, Paul, it is claimed, in the same diaries as having “a clear desire to gain financial benefit”. The Review Commissions’ own report states that after the trial Tony Gauci was paid $2 million, and that brother Paul got $1 million reward money.

If true, these would be completely dynamite revelations. Of course, they would have come out in the appeal that Megrahi’s release prevented happening. It is inconceivable that this Scottish Review Commission’s report would not have surfaced at such an appeal. Does this perhaps explain why he was eventually bundled so speedily out of the country?

But the other question remains… why was it left to Al Jazeera to make these allegations?

Iran denies new Lockerbie bombing claims

[This is the headline over an Agence France Presse news agency report as published on the Arab Today website on this date in 2014. It reads as follows:]

Iran on Tuesday denied any involvement in the Lockerbie bombing in the face of new allegations it contracted Palestinian militants to carry out the 1988 attack which killed 270 people.

Documents obtained by Al-Jazeera television for a documentary to be broadcast later on Tuesday provided new backing to longstanding allegations that Iran and not slain Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi was behind the downing of the Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town.

"We reject any claims of Iranian involvement in this act of terror," foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham told reporters.

"Iran's stance -- not only on this case but on all terrorist-related issues -- is quite clear: Iran flatly denies (links) to any act of terror."

Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, -- the only person ever convicted over the bombing -- maintained his innocence right up until his death in May 2012.

Al-Jazeera said that new evidence gathered for Megrahi's planned appeal, which was aborted by his release from prison on compassionate grounds in 2012, supported his innocence and implicated a Syrian-based Palestinian militant group.

Campaigners led by Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed in the bombing, have long claimed that Tehran contracted the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command to carry out the bombing in revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the USS Vincennes, which killed 290 people in July 1988. The Syria-based PFLP-GC is blacklisted as a terrorist group by both the European Union and the United States.

In the documentary called Lockerbie: What Really Happened? Al-Jazeera cites testimony from alleged former senior Iranian intelligence official, Abolghasem Mesbahi, who defected to Germany in the late 90s. Mesbahi claims Iran contracted the bombing to PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, and provides names of those he says were involved in the operation.

"Money was given to Jibril upfront in Damascus for initial expense. The mission was to blow up a Pam-Am flight," Mesbahi told Al-Jazeera.

Former CIA agent Robert Baer, who was involved in the Lockerbie investigation, told Al-Jazeera that US intelligence agencies had long been convinced of Iran's involvement. He said the finger of blame was pointed at Kadhafi's Libya because the US government did not want to alienate Syria in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf war.

Kadhafi's regime admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing in 2003 and eventually paid $2.7 billion in compensation to victims' families. But Kadhafi's now jailed son and heir apparent Seif al-Islam has long insisted that the admission was merely a tactical ploy to end the regime's pariah status and mend fences with the West.

[RB: I understand that a further Al-Jazeera documentary on Lockerbie will shortly be ready for broadcast.]

Pan Am Flight 103: Was Lockerbie bomber really guilty?

[This is the headline over an article by Alasdair Soussi published today on the Aljazeera website. It reads in part:]

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the deadly bombing, but many believe his conviction was a miscarriage of justice.

To this day, Megrahi, who died in May 2012 protesting his innocence, remains the only person convicted of bringing down the American-bound airliner with a smuggled bomb, which, detonating 38 minutes into its flight from London, flung victims and debris over an 81-mile corridor covering 845 square miles.

Yet, Megrahi's January 31, 2001, conviction, his controversial release by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds due to illness in August 2009, and even his death in Libya from cancer three years later, have all failed to put to rest a murder case that remains one of the most contentious in modern criminal history.

Indeed, as the debate between those who maintain that Megrahi was guilty as charged and those who contend that he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice rages on, for many the case has not limited itself to a battle of evidence alone. It has also seen Scotland and its justice system put through years of unwarranted hardship - which has taken its toll.

"I think we should finally put to bed all the conspiracy theories about Lockerbie, which have occupied a great deal of time and space over the last 20 years maybe," said Magnus Linklater, a prominent Scottish political commentator who has become a noted critic of those advocating Megrahi's innocence.

Linklater told Al Jazeera that those who promote the notion of the Libyan's innocence - and the innocence of Libya itself in the Lockerbie bombing - are "misguided". (...)

The main focus of Linklater's wrath - and that of others who share his views - is Scottish-based Justice for Megrahi (JFM), an organisation that has called into question Megrahi's guilt - and is calling for a public inquiry into the bombing.

It makes no apology for pushing its line that Megrahi's conviction may constitute one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in modern legal history.

Len Murray, a retired Scottish criminal court solicitor and committee member of the group, told Al Jazeera that any notion that the case against Megrahi was "overwhelming", "could not be further from the truth".

"It is worth bearing in mind that while the three [Scottish] judges [who tried the case] were experienced judges, judges in our High Court have never ever had to determine guilt or innocence - that's always left to the jury," he added. "But, when for the first time in modern legal history, it's left to three judges, they get it appallingly wrong.

Many observers share this view. (...)

JFM (...) contends that, far from being conspiracy theories, the weight of evidence casting doubt on the Libyan's guilt has been arrived at convincingly.

Retired police officer Iain McKie, who is also a JFM committee member, told Al Jazeera that his two JFM colleagues, signatory John Ashton and committee member Morag Kerr, authors of Megrahi: You Are My Jury and Adequately Explained by Stupidity? - Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies respectively, had backed up their various assertions - which have become central to the group's miscarriage of justice case - with hard evidence.

"Scotland's shame is quite clearly the way the whole affair has been conducted from the beginning - from the investigation, the prosecution, the judicial process and the aftermath. That's Scotland's shame," added McKie.

Supporting Linklater's position is the continuing work of Police Scotland.

It told Al Jazeera that Lockerbie "remains a live investigation" - and that, "along with the Crown Office", it was "committed to working with our colleagues at the FBI, the Department of Justice and the US Attorney's Office in Washington DC to gather any information or evidence that identifies those who acted along with al-Megrahi to commit this despicable act of terrorism".

Yet JFM is itself awaiting the final report of Operation Sandwood - Police Scotland's investigation of nine allegations of criminality levelled by the group at Crown, police and forensic officials who worked on the Lockerbie case. JFM is publicly calling for the inquiry’s final report to be assessed by an independent prosecutor.

As Lockerbie itself remains a live case, JFM awaits the results of Operation Sandwood and continues to campaign against the findings of the 15-year-old verdict, the events of December 21, 1988, will continue to cast a very long shadow.