Scottish newspapers accused of shirking investigative duties

Today's issue of the Sunday Herald contains an article about a letter written by Professor Hans Köchler complaining about the supine attitude of the Scottish press over the Lockerbie miscarriage of justice. The article reads in part:

'When readers are asked what they want more of in newspapers the answer is often great, jaw-dropping scoops. Yet investigative reporting - the discipline behind many such stories - is increasingly seen by many newspaper executives as too expensive to bother with.

'This is certainly the view of Professor Hans Kochler [sic], the former UN monitor of the Lockerbie trial, who has attacked the Scottish media for its coverage of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's continuing appeals against his conviction.

'Kochler believes Scottish journalists are becoming unwilling to question the establishment version of events and work under editors and executives who refuse to finance proper reporting. He says he has a list of publications and journalists he believes have failed to do their jobs properly, which he may seek to publish at a later date.

'Says Kochler: "As far as Lockerbie is concerned I can't understand why more isn't being done by the European country that was most concerned with it. There is a lot at stake: the rule of law, security, the role of international terrorism. Why isn't somebody trying to find out why the authorities are now trying to withhold evidence and delaying everything?"

'In an earlier letter to veteran campaigner Robbie the Pict nee [sic] Brian Robertson, in which Kochler raised the issue of a potential media blackout, he simply wrote: "Where are Scotland's investigative journalists?"

'Kochler claims that editors reduced coverage under establishment pressure. Some journalists closely related to the story argue that the real reason why Lockerbie is off the agenda is because people are tired of it, but Kochler claims it is a symptom of a wider problem that cuts across the profession.'

The comments from members of the public which follow the article are well worth reading and are extremely well-informed.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

[Six years ago today, I posted on this blog an item headed Scottish newspapers accused of shirking investigative duties. It reads as follows:]

Today's issue of the Sunday Herald contains an article about a letter written by Professor Hans Köchler complaining about the supine attitude of the Scottish press over the Lockerbie miscarriage of justice. The article reads in part:

'When readers are asked what they want more of in newspapers the answer is often great, jaw-dropping scoops. Yet investigative reporting - the discipline behind many such stories - is increasingly seen by many newspaper executives as too expensive to bother with.

'This is certainly the view of Professor Hans Kochler [sic], the former UN monitor of the Lockerbie trial, who has attacked the Scottish media for its coverage of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's continuing appeals against his conviction.

'Kochler believes Scottish journalists are becoming unwilling to question the establishment version of events and work under editors and executives who refuse to finance proper reporting. He says he has a list of publications and journalists he believes have failed to do their jobs properly, which he may seek to publish at a later date.

'Says Kochler: "As far as Lockerbie is concerned I can't understand why more isn't being done by the European country that was most concerned with it. There is a lot at stake: the rule of law, security, the role of international terrorism. Why isn't somebody trying to find out why the authorities are now trying to withhold evidence and delaying everything?"

'In an earlier letter to veteran campaigner Robbie the Pict nee [sic] Brian Robertson, in which Kochler raised the issue of a potential media blackout, he simply wrote: "Where are Scotland's investigative journalists?"

'Kochler claims that editors reduced coverage under establishment pressure. Some journalists closely related to the story argue that the real reason why Lockerbie is off the agenda is because people are tired of it, but Kochler claims it is a symptom of a wider problem that cuts across the profession.'

The comments from members of the public which follow the article are well worth reading and are extremely well-informed.

[With a shamefully few honourable exceptions, the same can be said of the Scottish press today. The original article now appears here on the newspaper's website, but the readers' comments are no longer available.]

The Firm's coverage of Skye event

The October issue of the Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm has a two-page spread, with photographs, on the meeting organized by the Lockerbie Justice Group at Greshornish House, Skye, on 15 and 16 September 2008. The text reads as follows:

No limits on Skye as legal academics aim for new way ahead

Over two days at a retreat in the north of Skye, a unique and unprecedented international accord was drafted in an effort to provide Scots law with a way out of the Lockerbie judicial quagmire, and provide a better model for future cases. Steven Raeburn was there to hear the outcomes.

A secluded idyll at practically the northwesternmost fringe of the European continent is an incongruous site for an international conference. The ripples that could emanate from a quiet country hotel sited at the end of a rutted road, promulgated by two legal academics at the invitation of Scotland’s most dogged and effective patriot, far from the entrenched attitudes, vested interest and closed minds of the madding crowd of Holyrood and central belt establishment, could ripple out and write a profoundly significant chapter in the history of Scottish justice.

The Greshornish House Accord proposes that if Scotland was charged with managing such an international case in the future, it could be held at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. And that non Scottish judges could participate in a Scottish trial, citing international precedent. It also proposes practical amendments to the Criminal Procedure (Scotland ) Act 1995, the ‘bible’ of criminal law, and to the Scotland Act to amend the ‘inappropriate’ situation where the Chief Legal Adviser to the Government is also head of criminal prosecutions.

“I hope that we can set a hare running from this point, and that this message will eventually get to the powers-that-be, and they will take some cognisance of it,” said Robbie the Pict, who had gathered Professor Robert Black and Dr Hans Kochler, UN appointed observer to the Lockerbie proceedings, to discuss four key questions “in the hope of guidance in the pursuit of proper justice for all in relation to the destruction of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988”. The resultant accord is a four part template providing both a philosophical and a practical way out of the quagmire surrounding the ongoing Lockerbie proceedings which have stained Scots law. Proceedings which presently appear to be hostage to the strategic interests of UK and US foreign policy and Libyan governmental expedience.

The scale and depth of the mess has been extraordinary. The ease with which Scots law was hijacked is troubling. The lack of fuss or even interest from within the legal and political establishment, and the evident assent of Scots law to serve the geopolitical interest gives the impression of collusion, complicity and denial. Court doors have literally been closed as proceedings carry on in secret, to the exclusion even of the defence and the accused. The era of hidden justice is upon us. The proponents of the Greshornish House accord don’t think this is good enough.

“As an observer, I just would like to know exactly what the causes of this incident in the air over Lockerbie really are. I just hope that there will be a new appeal. If evidence is withheld from the defence, there can be no appeal,” Hans Kochler said, announcing the joint conclusions on Skye. “To me it is extremely frustrating that in regard to such an incident, just one person has been presented as the culprit, with no further questions asked and no investigations ever having been made. This is not a credible explanation.

“Why doesn’t Scotland, independent in regard to the administration of criminal justice, undertake the appropriate measures to investigate this matter fully? This is a case that is not closed. This is something that is ongoing, and I will not run away until I am presented with a clear, unambiguous and comprehensive decision of a court.”

“If this is an independent system, theoretically, the prosecutorial authorities of Scotland could still initiate investigations into this incident and into what caused it. I do not think everything is just connected to the question of the personal criminal responsibility of one lone individual.”

The ongoing court proceedings in the case, returned to the High Court on the basis that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, are presently diverted with procedural issues relating to the disclosure or otherwise of evidential letters, which have been given considerable weight by the court and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, although sources who are aware of the contents of the documents have told the Firm that their contents are well known and irrelevant. The sleight of hand will result, say both Black and Kochler, in unavoidable prejudice to Megrahi’s case, and his inevitable repatriation.

“This panel basically agrees that if they uphold the PII certificate, no appeal is possible, and Mr Megrahi will be sent home. He would have to be sent home. We cannot offer him a fair hearing of his appeal,” said Robbie the Pict, who brokered the accord and convened the panel. “If the FCO are urging that this is a highly sensitive document, this cannot be taken lightly. So it would prevail over the interests of Scottish justice. If that happens, there is an implicit duty upon the judges to say there is not an equality of arms, therefore they cannot offer Mr Megrahi a fair appeal hearing.”

Professor Robert Black, instrumental in orchestrating the original trial proceedings in Zeist, says there is currently no political will to reinvestigate the circumstances of the event, even if Megrahi is repatriated and proceedings close without a solid conviction as predicted. “I am not convinced that there is such political will. One of the things we have been trying to do is insert some backbone into those politicians who have the power to make it happen,” he said.

Kochler in turn drew comparison with the Shirley McKie embarrassment, which resulted in a lengthy and productive inquiry process that shed some welcome light on the dustier corners of the Scottish judicial and political power structure. Such an outcome is warranted in the Lockerbie scenario he says. “The present case definitely has as much weight as the McKie case for the rule of law, and for democratic structures. Why would the government of Scotland not agree to an independent inquiry? Scotland would also do a great service to the international rule of law. This was an incident of international nature. To know the truth about it is extremely important.”

The nexus between Scots law and UK foreign policy is directly affected by the friction arising from the handling of this case. Kochler believes that this presents an opportunity for Scots law to assert its credibility and ensure the maintenance of its international reputation. “It is a test case to see how independent the Scottish judiciary acts and how determined the authorities of this country are to assert the supremacy of the law over political interests,” he says.

“Scottish justice may still come out very well, if there is a new appeal, which is fair, and conducted with all the material and all the evidence made available to both sides, then there is still a chance. If not, this will just be one of the many cases where politics finally prevailed over law. This is the result of a political and international constellation that Scotland cannot control. But still, the judiciary should try to act independently and not give in to the political pressures.”

The release of Megrahi: the buck stops here

[This is the headline over a long article by Eddie Barnes in Scotland on Sunday. The first section covers the well-trodden ground of the Scottish government's reasons for not sending witnesses to the Senate hearing and former UK minister Jack Staw's reasons for also refusing. The second section is more interesting -- particularly in a newspaper with the political stance of this one. It contains the following:]

With the two governments having rehearsed their lines over and again, it is hard to see how, even if they hauled Straw and MacAskill over in manacles, they would get further than the simple facts which the two governments can lean upon. MacAskill released Megrahi because he was ill. Straw and BP didn't release Megrahi because they couldn't.

End of story? Not quite. For relatives such as Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among those killed in December 1988, the hope is that the questionable genesis of the Senate inquiry, and the buck-passing of its witnesses, will not deter it from a more thorough investigation; into the trial of Megrahi himself.

Here the controversy really begins. For while BP's alleged involvement has created all the heat in Washington in recent weeks, the slow-burning story of Megrahi's prosecution is likely to last for much longer. Lockerbie veterans such as former Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who has long believed in Megrahi's innocence, thinks there is an obvious reason why MacAskill decided to free Megrahi. Yes, because he was terminally ill. But also: "I think he and Alex Salmond know in their heart of hearts that Megrahi was an innocent man who had nothing to do with Lockerbie."

He goes on: "Of course they can't say this because if they were to say it, here would be an SNP government decrying the quality of Scottish justice. It would be saying that Scottish justice had made an almighty fool of itself in the eyes of the world."

Dalyell and other sceptics such as Swire and UN Observer Hans Kochler, all argue that Megrahi's release was inextricably linked to the prisoner's decision to drop his appeal just before he was released last year. Minutes from the controversial meeting MacAskill had with Megrahi in Greenock jail show that the Justice Secretary raised the question of the appeal with Megrahi, warning him that the Scottish Government could "only grant a transfer if there are no court proceedings ongoing".

Megrahi had already been informed that the PTA request and compassionate release request (which was not affected by the appeal) would be taken together. There is no evidence in the minutes of any deal being brokered, but questions about why that meeting took place are now being raised. Kochler declared: "It is entirely appropriate to ask whether the decisive motive might have been the termination of proceedings so that the Scottish, UK and US administrations in the handing of the Lockerbie case would never be fully scrutinised in a court of law." Swire, Kochler and Dalyell all believe the matter needs to be examined.

For many American relatives who are convinced of Megrahi's guilt, such an inquiry into the reliability of the conviction would be met with dismay. Kochler and others are "conspiracy buffs", they argue The evidence linking Megrahi to the crime was clear. But the fact is that the senate inquiry, however misguided in its approach, is now focusing attention once more on the original claims: the Iranian connection; the claims of baggage on Flight 103 being tampered with at Heathrow; the evidence allegedly planted on the scene; the complicity of the US and UK Governments in a cover-up; and whether an innocent man was put in the dock.

The logical lesson to be taken from last week's buck-passing is clear.

If the US Senate cannot get the answers, then surely a proper inquiry should be called. The US Senators themselves have acknowledged this.

Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the four who called this week's hearing, declared: "The only way to restore the integrity of what happened and to continue the integrity of the British government is to do a full and complete investigation." Only a few weeks ago – before he took office – David Cameron agreed, arguing in the strongest terms that the matters most be probed.

Now in office, he is vacillating. It was Jack Straw and Kenny MacAskill who played the blame game last week. But if Cameron refuses to act over the coming weeks, he may go down as the biggest buck-passer of them all.

Re-open appeal hearing and deal with Lockerbie in a legal manner

[This is the headline over four letters published in today's edition of The Herald. They read as follows:]

I welcome advocate Brian Fitzpatrick’s support for a public inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing and the Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi conviction (Letters, April 8).

I have also called for such an inquiry, although my personal preference would be for the second appeal hearing to be re-opened so that the Scottish justice system could deal with the matter in the proper legal sequence.

At least this would allow the concerns of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to be tested in court, but the Scottish political and legal establishments seem determined not to allow this to happen.

I am sure that if they wanted they could find some way to reconstitute this court procedure, perhaps on the grounds that Megrahi may not have understood that withdrawing his appeal was not a pre-condition of his being granted compassionate release.

Mr Fitzpatrick strongly defends the police officers, the judges and those of his colleagues involved in the original investigation and he is right to do so. It is a pity that he should then demean himself and weaken his argument by describing honourable people uneasy with the verdict, such as the bereaved parent Jim Swire, the UN observer Dr Hans Kochler and many others as “conspiracy theorists weaving a tale of deceit and intrigue to blacken the names of better men”. Such comments are objectionable and uncalled for.

The fact remains that the guilty verdict at Camp Zeist was largely influenced by two pieces of very dodgy evidence – the Malta shopkeeper’s identification of a customer he saw only once several months earlier until he was shown photographs of Megrahi by US agents and prompted by $2 million dollars of State Department cash – and the miraculous find of a fingernail-size piece of a timing device in a Lockerbie field by US security men six months after every other fragment of the plane and its contents had been collected in the most extensive search ever carried out by Scottish police officers.

The trial and subsequent investigations were also compromised by the withholding of certain information from the defence team and the refusal of both British and American governments to release relevant documents to the court. The weakness of the evidence resulted in a not proven verdict for one of the accused, and Megrahi’s guilty verdict must have been at best very marginal. No other evidence has yet been produced to prove any Libyan involvement in the atrocity.

Surely Mr Fitzpatrick’s legal experience, if not his political activities, must convince him that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done, especially in such a contentious case with the eyes of the world upon our Scottish justice system.
Iain AD Mann

Brian Fitzpatrick defends his fellow advocates who worked at the Camp Zeist trial for their efforts, yet heaps criticism on the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond when he knows full well that Mr MacAskill followed due process of Scots law when taking the decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

I admit to having no legal training, but during the trial I could not help but feel an uneasiness, which has steadily increased the more I have studied the available evidence on the Lockerbie tragedy. From the very beginning I thought it strange that two Libyan intelligence officers should be charged but only one found guilty; surely these intelligence officers would have been working together.

I don’t have sufficient knowledge to say whether Megrahi is innocent or guilty, but the SCCRC believes that there may have been a miscarriage of justice and some of the bereaved families who attended the trial also believe that there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

Mistakes have been made before, and it seems to me that there are enough questions requiring answers to justify the holding of a full independent public inquiry to establish the truth, which need be feared only by the guilty.
Ruth Marr

I was incensed by Brian Fitzpatrick’s views, ostensibly in reply to Iain AD Mann but covering all those who have appealed for a proper investigation into the circumstances of the Lockerbie tragedy (Letters, April 8).

Does he think that the estimable Jim Swire, whose daughter was one of the victims “would rather secure a headline than undertake any study of the evidence”? How dare he assert that.

Or what about Dr Hans Kochler who was the international observer at Camp Zeist appointed by the United Nations who wrote, amongst other things: “The trial, seen in its entirety, was not fair and was not conducted in an objective manner.”

If Mr Fitzpatrick, as a defence lawyer, found out that the main prosecuting witness was being paid a large sum of money for his “evidence”, would he not wonder if this compromised proceedings? No, what I and all the others who have queried this long-running saga want is simply the truth. Only then will the relatives of the victims at least have their doubts and suspicions cleared up.

I do, however, agree with his final paragraph in which he says that our country has been diminished by those who have weaved a tale of deceit and intrigue.

The sooner these people are asked to answer for that deception, the better. This can only be achieved once the truth comes out.
Raymond Hendry

Why on earth does everyone appear to assume that Moussa Koussa will tell the truth when questioned about Lockerbie?
David Clark

Don’t limit Lockerbie probe to BP claims, campaigners urge US senators

[This is the headline over an article on the CNS News website by international editor Patrick Goodenough. It reads in part:]

If the US Senate wants to get to the bottom of the early release of the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie bombing, it should look beyond allegations of links to an oil deal and ask whether the prisoner was sent home to preempt an appeal that could have overturned the trial verdict, campaigners said Wednesday.

Twenty-two years after Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, close observers of the drawn-out affair have many unanswered questions about the attack, the subsequent trial and conviction in 2001 of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.

The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee plans a hearing next Thursday on the “circumstances surrounding” Megrahi’s release last August. The Libyan was serving a life sentence in a Scottish prison for murdering 270 people, but after contracting terminal cancer was freed “on compassionate grounds,” with Scottish officials citing medical advice that he likely had three months to live.

Megrahi remains alive almost a year later, and a group of US Senators have called for answers, focused particularly on suspicions that British officials did a deal to safeguard a lucrative BP oil exploration contract in Libya.

BP acknowledges having lobbied the British government during negotiations between London and Tripoli in 2007 over a “prisoner transfer agreement” (PTA), concerned that delays in finalizing the deal could jeopardize its contract.

Scotland’s devolved government last summer rejected a Libyan request to send Megrahi home under the PTA (which would have seen him serve out his sentence in a Libyan jail) but then in late August released him on compassionate grounds, “to return to Libya to die.”

Two men who have long campaigned for the truth – the father of one of the victims, and a UN-nominated international observer at the 84-day Lockerbie trial – called Wednesday for any new inquiry to dig deep.

Jim Swire, whose daughter died on Flight 103, wrote a letter to the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Sen John Kerry. Hans Kochler, the Austrian academic who observed the 84-day trial, issued a statement.

Both men are among those who believe justice was not done in the trial.

In his letter, Swire said it would be wise if the inquiry looked beyond Megrahi’s release, and examined whether he should have been convicted in the first place.

Why was the appeal dropped?

Something that has puzzled Swire, Kochler and many others was Megrahi’s abrupt decision just days before his release to abandon a second appeal against his conviction and sentence. (A first appeal failed in 2002).

The Libyan had throughout insisted he was not guilty and had for years been pushing for a second appeal. In 2007, the independent Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which had been investigating the case since 2003, concluded that there “may have been a miscarriage of justice” and recommended that he be allowed to go ahead with the appeal.

After lengthy procedural delays, the appeal process finally got underway in mid-2009 and the case was set down for a substantive court session starting November 2.

On Aug 12, however, Megrahi applied to the High Court in Edinburgh to drop his appeal, and on Aug 18 the court agreed. Two days later he was freed and flew home.

Legal experts have pointed out that dropping the legal case was not a prerequisite for being released on compassionate grounds (although it would have been a requirement for a transfer under the PTA.)

“Was pressure put upon him to do so?” Swire asked in his letter to Kerry. “Maybe a proper inquiry would answer that question too.”

Hans Koechler, who served as a UN-nominated international observer at the Lockerbie trial.

Koechler in his statement also raised questions about Megrahi’s decision to drop the appeal he had been fighting for for so long. (...)

At the time of Megrahi’s application to drop the appeal Christine Grahame, a Scottish lawmaker whose electoral region includes Lockerbie and who had met with the convict in prison, also voiced doubts.

“I know from the lengthy discussions I had with him that he was desperate to clear his name, so I believe that the decision is not entirely his own,” she said.

The Scottish government at the time denied that any pressure had been placed on Megrahi to drop his appeal.

Questions

The prosecution case was that Megrahi, who was based in Malta, planted the bomb in a suitcase there which was loaded onto a flight to Frankfurt. There it was transferred as unaccompanied baggage to a feeder flight for Pan Am 103, the London Heathrow to New York flight.

Swire and others believe that Megrahi’s appeal, had it gone ahead, would have heard evidence calling into question the testimony of a key prosecution witness, Maltese store owner Tony Gauci, who supposedly sold Megrahi clothing that was packed in the suitcase containing the bomb. In its review of the case, the SCCRC questioned the reliability of Gauci’s evidence.

Also unclear is the significance, if any, of an unusual break-in at a baggage area at Heathrow Airport used by Pan Am 18 hours before the Lockerbie bomb exploded.

A security guard’s report to anti-terror police about the break-in was not presented during the trial but in a later sworn affidavit he said it could have been possible for an unauthorized person to have obtained tags for a particular flight and then placed a tagged bag at a baggage collection point.

News of the Heathrow break-in contributed to conjecture that the bombers may have introduced the device in London, rather than Malta, thus calling into question the Megrahi link altogether.

Koechler said the families of the Lockerbie victims deserve to know the truth, and any alleged BP role in Megrahi’s release was only one of many aspects that need investigating. (...)

Libyan ‘admission’

Libya’s agreement in 1999 to surrender for trial Megrahi and a co-accused – later acquitted – and its payment of compensation to families of the Pan Am victims resulted in a lifting of U.N. sanctions and improving relations with Western governments.

Key to the ending of sanctions was a letter Libya sent to the UN Security Council in August 2003, widely interpreted as Libya’s admission of responsibility for the bombing.

What the letter actually said was that Libya “has facilitated the bringing to justice of the two suspects charged with the bombing of Pan Am 103, and accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials.”

In 2004 Libyan Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem caused a stir when he told the BBC that Libya had only agreed to the admission and compensation to “buy peace.”

“After the sanctions and after the problems we faced because of the sanctions, the loss of money, we thought it was easier for us to buy peace and this is why we agreed on compensation,” he said.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi later rebutted the remarks but his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi – who played a key role in Libya’s return to diplomatic respectability – made similar comments four years later.

“Yes, we wrote a letter to the Security Council saying we are responsible for the acts of our employees, or people,” he told the BBC. “But it doesn’t mean that we did it in fact.”

“I admit that we played with words – we had to,” he said. “What can you do? Without writing that letter we would not be able to get rid of sanctions.”

Unanswered Lockerbie questions

[What follows is the text of a letter by Dr Jim Swire published in Tuesday's edition of The Times.]

Father of Lockerbie victim speaks out after release of al-Megrahi

Sir, So al-Megrahi has gone home and questions surround the propriety of his going. What about the question of his guilt? The official UN observer of the trial, Professor Hans Koechler of Vienna, has described the trial as a travesty of justice and the verdict as untenable. Even the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission decided there might have been a miscarriage of justice. The questions that are important to UK relatives of the Lockerbie victims are these: who was really behind the bombing? How was it carried out? Why did the Thatcher Government of the day ignore all the warnings it got before Lockerbie? Why did it refuse even to meet us to discuss the setting up of an inquiry? Why was the information about the Heathrow break-in concealed for 12 years so that the trial court could not hear of it till after the verdict?

Dr Jim Swire

Father of Lockerbie victim, Flora, and a member of the UK Families-Flight 103 group

[Two letters are published in Tuesday's edition of The Herald under the headline "The last thing governments want is truth of Lockerbie to emerge". They can be read here.

A letter from Dr Swire also appears in The Daily Telegraph. It is referred to here. The full text is as follows.]

Kenny MacAskill was thoughtful enough to listen to some of the UK relatives before he made his decision. I thought him a man of integrity and urged him, on humanitarian and Christian grounds to release the dying man under 'Compassionate Release', not 'Prisoner Transfer', which I saw as a political trap.

Unlike 'Prisoner Transfer' This would also have allowed Megrahi's appeal to continue, had the prisoner not withdrawn it. Megrahi had always told me that he was determined to clear his name before going home, but under the shadow of death, who can blame him for changing his mind, uncertain as he was that he could trust his captors? After 8 years jail his appeal had barely started and at a snail's pace even then, although Scotland's SCCRC had decided his trial might have been a miscarriage of justice.

Whatever the unsavoury concealment of the 'deal in the desert' may mean, there are a number of us who believe that wresting something good out of something as evil as Lockerbie is the way to go. Surely improving commercial ties is a good thing for the citizens of both countries, that is what good politicians do.

The media reaction to the release ignores a far far more important question: was he guilty anyway? Many believe he was not, the SCCRC thought he might not be. The UN's appointed observer, Prof. Hans Kochler of Vienna has described the verdict as incomprehensible and a parody of justice. Many others agree.If he was not guilty, then why was he prosecuted and the real perpetrators ignored?

What we the UK relatives need is the truth and answers to the following questions:

Who was behind the bombing? How was it carried out? Why did the Thatcher government of the day ignore all the warnings they got before Lockerbie? Why did they refuse even to meet us to discuss the setting up of this inquiry? Why was the information about the Heathrow break-in concealed for 12 years so that the trial court did not hear of it till after the verdict? Why were we constantly subjected to the ignominy of being denied the truth as to why our families were not protected in what even our crippled FAI (crippled because it too was denied the information about Heathrow) found to have been a preventable disaster?

The details of Mr Megrahi's release surely are of little significance compared with these questions.

US Senators challenged to back inquiry into Lockerbie saga

[This is the headline over a report on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. The following are excerpts:]

The four United States Senators who called for the postponed hearings into the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi have been challenged to add their names to a petition currently endorsed by an international coalition of signatories into the full circumstances of the Pan Am 103 debacle, after one of them called for a “longer term, multidimensional inquiry” in the affair.

Senator Robert Menéndez, set to chair the original Senate hearings that would have looked at BP‘s links to the release said: “no witness of consequence has the courage to step forward and clear the air. They would prefer to sweep this under the rug."

“Because of this stonewalling, we are shifting our efforts to a longer-term, multidimensional inquiry into the release of al-Megrahi. The hearing will be postponed and rescheduled, and it will be coupled with an investigation into al-Megrahi’s release,” he added.

Today, the Senators, Kirsten Gillibrand, Frank Lautenberg , Robert Menendez and Charles Schumer have been challenged to add their names to a petition submitted to the UN, signed by noteable figures including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Tam Dalyell, by original signatories including Professor Noam Chomksy, Professor Robert Black and Dr Jim Swire and as well as the committee of the Justice for Megrahi campaign.

“On the basis of the evidence laid before their Lordships at Kamp van Zeist, it has always been our contention that Mr Al-Megrahi may have been a victim of a gross miscarriage of justice,” the letter to the US Senators says.

“This view is clearly supported by the fact that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case to the Court of Appeal. This appeal was in progress up to a point immediately prior to Mr Al-Megrahi's release.

“We feel that the current focus on the circumstances surrounding Mr Al-Megrahi's release, whilst engaging in their own right, pale into insignificance if indeed there was a miscarriage of justice.”

Last week First Minister Alex Salmond was pressed by the same coalition to initiate a full public inquiry. Others, such as Dr Hans Kochler and MSP Christine Grahame, as well as newspaper Leaders across the UK, have called separately for a wider analysis of the circumstances surrounding the Pan Am 103 affair and the discredited conviction against Al Megrahi.

“Professor Robert Black, oft referred to as the ‘architect’ of Zeist and Dr Hans Köchler -International Observer at Zeist – appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan- have both variously and very publicly stated views ranging from the verdict’s being a clear miscarriage of justice to one which seemed more concerned with political expediency than justice. If protestations of this calibre alone are not enough to generate an inquiry, one feels obliged to ask: what is?” the letter continues.

“If ever a case were crying out for an inquiry, it is this one. Not only for the bereaved, not only for Mr Al-Megrahi but for justice itself.”

HMA v HMA: The Next Pan Am 103 trial

[This is the headline over a blistering article on the website of Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm by Steven Raeburn, the editor. It reads as follows:]

As the discredited Pan Am 103 case continues to crumble further, with damning revelations coming to light on an almost daily basis, the failure of duty by some of Scotland’s senior law officers over the years since the aircraft was destroyed is becoming clearer. Their actions and inaction is being exposed to scrutiny that reinforces the UN trial observer Hans Kochler’s conclusion that they amount to new criminal offences in themselves. 

For example, The Herald is quoting former Lord Advocate Colin Boyd this morning as follows: 

“I reject the suggestion that I or anyone else in the prosecution team failed to disclose material evidence to the defence. All of the relevant CIA cables were disclosed subject to some exceptions, principally to ensure that the lives of named individuals were not put at risk. They were disclosed as a result of a request from the court directed to me. 

“I am satisfied that the Crown acted with propriety throughout the trial and endeavoured in this case, as with any other conducted in my name as Lord Advocate, to secure the accused’s right to a fair trial.”

Subject to some exceptions... This is crucial, and reveals the identifiable moment when the showpiece trial (or was it simply a show trial?) trial was corrupted. 

Leaving aside for the moment the numerous flaws in the handling of the case between 1988 and the commencement of the trial, co-accused Fhimah's solicitor Eddie McKechnie told me that the process of disclosure of these cables was tortuous. 

He said the Crown dissembled, hummed and hawed and delayed passing them over to the defence for months. (it was reported yesterday that the SCCRC threatened civil action against the Crown Office for the same reason.) As is now well known, the cables revealed only the useless testimony of CIA salaried informer Abdul Majid Giaka, whose evidence as a "fantasist" was dismissed in its entirety by the trial judges. 

What is not generally known, McKechnie told me, is that Crown Office themselves did not know what was in the cables until after the trial had commenced, because they had only been given redacted versions from the CIA, and hollow assurances from US intelligence that they contained key evidence that would stand up in court. In particular, they were told that Giaka could positively identify Megrahi and Fhimah and link them to the atrocity. 

The material in the cables was not evidence gathered by COPFS or Dumfries and Galloway police, as would normally be the case in a trial brought in Scotland. It was delivered on a plate fully formed by US intelligence services, a somewhat murky group of people not renowned for their honesty nor the integrity of their motivations. 

This point is rarely if ever understood or reported. It is often overlooked that Megrahi and Fhimah themselves were sourced and presented to the Crown Office by the CIA. They were not tracked down nor placed in the frame by Scottish investigators.

By the time the cable contents were disclosed, the trial arrangements were irrevocable and the geopolitical deals that continue to define this case were done at UK level in Westminster. Scots law was a passenger from this point, and a hijacked one at that. 

The revelation of the non-redacted cables is the key moment when the case should have been dropped by Lord Fraser, and where the criminal ineptitude begins. Everything COPFS has done since then (and the Scottish Government, to a more or less equal degree) is designed to shore up that mistake and the shoddy trial that resulted from it, and to deflect any suggestion of error, or worse. It was under Fraser’s tenure that key witness Tony Gauci was bribed, or rather, received “possible reward payments.” [RB: My understanding is that the payments were not made until after the Zeist trial in Lord Advocate Colin Boyd's tenure of office. There were, of course, inquiries, nods and winks aplenty long before that time.] 

Key Crown personnel can be forgiven for naiveté, but the mistakes that have been evidenced escalate from incompetence in the first instance, but morph into negligence, malfeasance and dereliction of duty as time has gone on and every opportunity to address and correct these issues is not only spurned, but actively blocked. The trial itself was tainted by the perpetuation of this error, as witnessed by United Nations Observer Hans Koechler. In 2005 he said that "the falsification of evidence, selective presentation of evidence, manipulation of reports, interference into the conduct of judicial proceedings by intelligence services," he observed at the Zeist trial were "criminal offences in any country."

He said that the "possible criminal responsibility, under Scots law, of people involved in the Lockerbie trial should be carefully studied by the competent prosecutorial authorities." 

Successive Crown regimes have aggressively protected their own flawed conduct to preserve the personal reputations of a very few. The justice system has suffered, and a new culture of paranoia, fear and insularity has put the Crown Office in a permanent mode of lockdown. The late Paul McBride described it as a siege mentality, although in the real world, removed from the paranoid fantasies of the Crown Office, the only assault it has actually been under is from the truth, sought by bereaved families, and, as time has gone on, a growing army of observers including luminaries such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Professor Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Gareth Peirce, Robert Black QC, Cardinal Keith O Brien and those who signed an online petition submitted to the Holyrood petitions committee by the JFM group, all of whom have looked at the case for themselves and staked their reputations against the need for an inquiry. 

A full re-examination of the case will reveal the truth of Pan Am 103. It will also expose those culpable in our system to ridicule and the damning judgement of history.

If Scotland retained an independent Lord Advocate and a mature justice system, rather than the current degraded, paranoid runt of the once proud system, indictments would be issued at once by Frank Mulholland against former Lords Advocate Fraser, Boyd and Angiolini. Mulholland himself would step aside and submit to his successor for criminal scrutiny. The fact that the case of HMA v HMA is unlikely to appearing on the rolls of court anytime soon demonstrates the scale of the problem our system now faces in respect of this case. Her Majesty’s Advocate requires to investigate itself, but will not. Does the ICC now beckon? We are through the looking glass now.

Angiolini tells Parliament “no evidence of any criminal act” in Pan Am 103 evidence chain

[This is the headline over a news item just published on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It relates to the written answers given by the Lord Advocate to questions submitted by Christine Grahame MSP. The news item reads in part:]

The Lord Advocate has told the Holyrood Parliament that “there is no evidence of any criminal act having been carried out in relation to any of the forensic evidence in the Lockerbie investigation.”

Elish Angiolini was responding to a Parliamentary question from MSP Christine Grahame (...)

Grahame asked Angiolini if she was aware of the reported comments of former FBI scientist Frederic Whitehurst implying that the FBI laboratory in Washington DC may constitute an additional crime scene in the case.

Former Lord Advocate at the time of the trial, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, has stated publicly in a television interview for Dutch television in 2009 that he was not aware that the timer fragment known as PT35 was sent to the United States of America for examination by FBI officials, and that he would have opposed such transportation of this fragment on the basis of concerns that it might be lost in transit or provoke accusations that it had been tampered with.

Angiolini said in her Parliamentary answer that she was aware of this information, and confirmed that the fragment was taken to the United States of America by Scottish police officers and a British forensic scientist in June 1990 as part of the investigation into the Lockerbie event.

"There is no evidence of any criminal act having been carried out in relation to any of the forensic evidence in the Lockerbie investigation," she said.

“The fragment remained in the custody and control of the Scottish police officers and the British forensic scientist during the visit to the United States and was subsequently identified as having come from an electronic timer manufactured by a Swiss company, MEBO, to the order of the Libyan intelligence service,” she said.

In July 2007, one week after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case back to High Court for Megrahi’s appeal, former MEBO employee Ulrich Lumpert swore an affidavit stating that he had personally manufactured the fragment, and that it had been introduced falsely into the Crown’s evidence chain. He said that he handed the fragment to authorities investigating the case on 22 June 1989, and admitted committing perjury in the Zeist trial, citing fear of his life if his testimony reflected what he narrated in his affidavit. (...)

Angiolini's answers did not narrate what investigations may have been undertaken within the Crown Office or in Scottish police forces to reach the conclusion that there was no evidence of criminal acts.

This is not the first time the conduct of the trail and its handling has been considered a crime. On 14 October 2005, UN Special Observer Hans Kochler concluded that the conduct of the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmend Al Megrahi had concerned him to the extent that a crime may have taken place at Camp Zeist to manufacture the conviction of Megrahi.

“The falsification of evidence, selective presentation of evidence, manipulation of reports, interference into the conduct of judicial proceedings by intelligence services, etc. are criminal offenses in any country,” Kochler's office said in a statement.

“In view of the above new revelations and in regard to previously known facts as reported in Dr. Koechler’s reports, the question of possible criminal responsibility, under Scots law, of people involved in the Lockerbie trial should be carefully studied by the competent prosecutorial authorities.”

Lockerbie Appeal - To Crown it All

I am grateful to Robbie the Pict for drawing my attention to the following article in Private Eye of 27 June 2008.

'Unless the Scottish judiciary resists blatant meddling from Westminster, the forthcoming appeal of Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, jailed for life for the Lockerbie bombing, is in danger of descending into fiasco.

'Not only is the Foreign Office trying to keep secret intelligence documents that are crucial to the Libyan's defence by claiming public interest immunity (PII) on them (see Eye 1201), but the Crown Office is now seeking to limit Megrahi's appeal too.

'Crown lawyers want the appeal restricted to the six grounds cited last year by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). Because one of those grounds relates to documents which the UK government wants kept secret, the United Nations special observer, Dr Hans Kochler, has already said the appeal looks more like an "intelligence operation" than a fair hearing.

'To try now to limit the scope of the appeal will underscore Kochler's belief and confirm the view of many, including some of the victims' families, that the government does not want the truth to emerge about how and why Pan Am flight 103 was blasted from the sky nearly 20 years ago, killing 270 people.

'The secret documents relate indirectly to the timing device alleged to have detonated the bomb and said to provide the crucial link to both Libya and Megrahi. Recent leaks to two Scottish newspapers suggest the documents are German in origin and cast doubt on the Libyan connection. Scotland on Sunday quoted a source who had seen the material saying it held "considerable detail" and "appeared to confirm that the method of attack was typical of a Palestinian terror cell in Germany".

'A Syrian-backed Palestinian terrorist cell operating out of Frankfurt was of course broken by German police two months before Lockerbie. Altitude sensitive bombs packed in cassette recorders were found in their flat. It was calculated that they would blow an aircraft up around 40 minutes after take off- spookily similar to the fate of Pan Am 103 after it left Heathrow.

'The Palestinians were the main suspects for the Pan Am bombing for well over a year - until the investigation suddenly switched to Libya and Megrahi with the purported discovery of a tiny fragment of circuit board said to come from a Swiss-made MST 13 timer.

'How the fragment was found and later identified by UK scientists and US investigators has always been highly contentious. Thus any evidence about the timer is central to Megrahi's defence. As well as seeking disclosure of the secret material, it is understood his lawyers want to introduce the results of independent forensic tests casting farther doubt on the evidence given about the timer - unless the Crown Office succeeds in limiting the scope of the appeal.'

We should be proud of Al-Megrahi’s doctors

[This is the headline over an article by Dr Jim Swire that appeared in the British Medical Journal on this date in 2010:]

In December 1988 a Boeing 747 was destroyed by a bomb in a baggage container in its hold at 9500m over Lockerbie, 38 minutes after leaving Heathrow, where it had been loaded from empty. The criminal investigation was placed in the hands of the United Kingdom’s smallest police force, Dumfries and Galloway.

By May 2000 the investigation, following the lead of a random selection of clothing found at the crash site and originating in Malta, believed that the bomb had also entered the aviation chain there, aboard an Air Malta flight, placed by Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, a Libyan. A trial began at Zeist, near Utrecht.

Despite Air Malta’s denials of being the initial carrier, reinforced by substantial payments to them from a UK television company that had repeated that story on air, and despite the lack of any evidence in court as to how Al-Megrahi was supposed to have breached security at Luqa airport in Malta, he was found guilty. Then on the failure of his first appeal in Zeist in 2002 he was transferred to a Scottish prison.

Only during that first appeal was it revealed that, unlike at Luqa, where there was no evidence of any failure of security, the perimeter at Heathrow had been broken through the night before Lockerbie, close to where the container, in which the bomb exploded, was loaded. No effort had been made to discover the intruder or their motivation, despite the immediate logging of the “incident” by Heathrow staff.

There was no jury in the appeal; amazingly the verdict still stood. The official United Nations observer, Hans Kochler of Vienna; the Scottish law professor Robert Black of Edinburgh; and many others, including me (I attended at Zeist throughout) doubt that the verdict should have been reached. In Scotland, too, public opinion is deeply divided.

In view of these and other remarkable weaknesses in the trial it was little surprise when the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission decided in 2007, after four years’ delay, that the whole thing may have been a miscarriage of justice and referred the case back for a second appeal.

By August 2009 Al-Megrahi, now aged 57, was gravely ill and in pain. It was widely known that he had metastatic prostate cancer, with substantial skeletal secondaries. Under a precedent in Scottish law that terminally ill patients could be granted “compassionate release” if they were believed to have only a few months to live, Al-Megrahi—who still proclaimed his innocence—was released to his home in Tripoli by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary.

There were shouts of fury from those who had not looked at the evidence for themselves. Some of these were the same voices who had urged that analgesics should be withheld from the suffering prisoner; one wrote to me that he hoped Al-Megrahi’s death would be a long drawn out agony.

MacAskill had taken the advice of the prison medical service in Greenock prison, which in turn had called in two Scottish consultants; and he was also advised by a prominent professor of oncology. This oncologist was apparently accompanied by two other, English, doctors. I understand that all doctors involved conferred before advising MacAskill that a likely prognosis for Al-Megrahi was about three months.

But two major changes have taken place since then. Firstly, Al-Megrahi has been returned to his own country and is with his own loving family. We know that a major reduction in stress will sometimes induce a major remission, even in a terrible progressive illness such as his.

Secondly, he has undergone a course of treatment in Tripoli with one of the taxol series of drugs, together with palliative radiotherapy. These can be associated with remissions of many months. Presumably they had not been given in Scotland, for some reason.

Now that he has survived for seven months, allegations are appearing in the media that this man’s illness was fabricated or at least exaggerated for some political or economic motive and that the doctors must have been “bought.”

My own medical knowledge of the case is confined to meeting Al-Megrahi in prison and observing his physical decline and is without any professional involvement, except for discussion with the oncologist. Nevertheless I wish to support the advice that my distinguished medical colleagues gave to MacAskill. BMJ readers will be able to confirm that the two major changes in Al-Megrahi’s circumstances might well explain the dramatic and welcome improvement in his condition.

In any case, “How long have I got, doc?” was never a question to which I knew a precise answer as a GP; seldom are a doctor’s humanity and tact more tested.

The prognosis delivered by our doctors in this fraught case helped to precipitate a major crisis in the UK-US alliance, in which President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were both to express their great displeasure. But by sticking to their patient oriented professional duty, the doctors contributed to a major relief for a dying man. We should be proud of them.

When I last met this quiet and dignified Muslim in his Greenock cell he had prepared a Christmas card for me. On it he had written, “To Doctor Swire and family, please pray for me and my family.” It is a treasured possession by which I shall always remember him. Even out of such death and destruction comes a message of hope and reconciliation for Easter.

Megrahi events 'a political fix'

[This is the headline over a report from The Press Association news agency on today’s keynote session at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It reads as follows:]

The cancer which killed the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was a "gift from God" to establishments with something to hide, according to the Libyan's biographer.

John Ashton made the claim at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, joined by other high-profile critics of the controversial case.

Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, and Hans Kochler, the UN observer at the subsequent trial in the Netherlands, also took part before a capacity crowd.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was sentenced to life for the atrocity which claimed 270 lives above Lockerbie and on the ground at the town. He was released from prison on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, which eventually led to his death in May.

Mr Ashton, who recently published a book on the former Libyan intelligence officer, said: "Megrahi's cancer was a gift from God for everybody involved that had something to hide. It allowed his release, it allowed the final stages of the rapprochement between the UK and Libya, and it allowed the Scottish Government to allow him out of prison on a legal basis that wasn't one laid down by the hated government in Westminster. It was a tragedy for Megrahi but I think everybody else was punching the air."

The course of events was a "political fix", he told the audience at the venue in Charlotte Square. But he denied the trial was a "grand conspiracy" involving a range of security services and leading all the way to heads of state such as the US president. "What I say is, first and foremost, that the judges got it wrong, for whatever reason, and the Crown Office withheld evidence," he said. "I'm sure they did so in good faith but their behaviour was utterly incompetent and shameful."

The three men highlighted areas of evidence, heard under Scots law at Camp Zeist in Utrecht, which they said undermine the case against Megrahi. Key among them was a break-in at Heathrow Airport and discrepancies over the identification of Megrahi in a shop in Malta.

Dr Köchler said he cannot understand why Megrahi was found guilty but his alleged co-conspirator was not. "If such an argument, if such an opinion of court, was presented by a student in a seminar, he would not have passed because it is full of contradictions," he said. "They got it wrong. But the question is why?" He said the trial was politically motivated.

Mr Swire, an outspoken critic of the trial, believes a bomb was taken on board at London. "During the whole trial we did not know that Heathrow Airport had been broken into 16 hours before Lockerbie happened, it seemed to me very likely that was the technology that had been used," he said. "The whole concept that the thing came from Malta via Megrahi's luggage or anyone else's seemed to me far-fetched."

The panel's comments underlined the gulf between those who believe in Megrahi's guilt and those who feel he was innocent or the victim of a miscarriage of justice. American relatives in particular were angered by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to free Megrahi under compassionate release rules.

When doing the Scottish thing backfires

[This is the headline over an article by Sarah Lyall in today's edition of The New York Times. It reads in part:]

Scots are very touchy these days about the decision to free the bomber, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, and very worried about their international reputation.

Mr. Megrahi, the only person ever convicted in connection with the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, was freed from prison on compassionate grounds in August, having served less than a third of his 27-year sentence. Ill with terminal prostate cancer, he is now in intensive care at a hospital in Tripoli, his lawyer said. But the debate over his release rages on.

Indeed, there has been a great deal of talk about conspiracies and backdoor deals between Britain and Libya over Mr. Megrahi’s case. Britain wants to have better relations — both politically and financially — with Libya, and it is clear that the Megrahi issue came up repeatedly in discussions. As a condition of improved cooperation, Britain had to withdraw its demand to get Mr. Megrahi’s name removed as an exception when it negotiated a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

But the conspiracy theories ignore the parochial nature of Scottish politics, and also the political agenda of Alex Salmond, the leader of the governing Scottish National Party. Relations between Mr. Salmond and Gordon Brown, the British Labour prime minister, are said to be particularly frosty, and the last thing Mr. Salmond wants to do is appear to be taking orders from London.

He has enough troubles at home. In the Scottish Parliament, the justice committee is to conduct an inquiry into how the decision was reached, putting the nationalists on the defensive.

The National Party, which has a plurality but not a majority in Parliament and so clings to power tenuously, is at heart a single-issue organization: it believes that Scotland should be independent from Britain. As a result, its critics say, the party badly wants to prove itself, but has ended up looking foolish in the highest-profile decision of its governing time.

“They are desperate to be players on the international stage,” said Richard Baker, a member of the Scottish Parliament who is justice spokesman for the Labour Party here. “But there’s a huge arrogance within the S.N.P. in claiming that they speak for Scotland.” (...)

Even some people who believe Mr. Megrahi was unfairly imprisoned and deserved to be free are annoyed at the way the government handled his release. (...)

Although it means little to outsiders, particularly families of the victims of Flight 103, the Scottish government insists that there is a huge distinction between releasing Mr. Megrahi under the prisoner transfer agreement — which London may have tacitly supported had it happened, but which Scotland refused to allow — and releasing him on compassionate grounds, an extremely Scottish move.

In Scotland, opinion polls show a mixed reaction to the Megrahi release. A BBC poll found the majority were opposed to the decision. But polls in local newspapers found heavy majorities applauding it, and in an Internet poll conducted by the Firm, a magazine for lawyers, judges and others in the legal profession, some 69 percent of responders said they supported the release.

And, as a complicating factor, many Scots — including influential members of the legal establishment — feel that Mr. Megrahi was unjustly convicted and should never have been imprisoned in the first place.

Among them are Robert Black, the lawyer who helped broker the deal to hold the Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands rather than in Scotland; and Hans Kochler, the United Nations observer at the trial, who called the guilty verdict “inconsistent” and “arbitrary,” and has been a harsh critic of Scottish justice.

Mr. Megrahi has always maintained his innocence. His first appeal failed, but an influential group called the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission then referred his case back for another appeal, saying that it believed he “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.”

Mr. Megrahi dropped the appeal in August, a tactic that he thought would help his chances of being released early, his lawyer said. But he has begun publishing on the Internet the legal arguments he had planned to use, as a way toward establishing his innocence.

In the Scottish Parliament, Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s justice secretary, defended his decision to release Mr. Megrahi on compassionate grounds, saying that humanity “is viewed as a defining characteristic” of Scotland.

In fact, releasing terminally ill prisoners is fairly standard practice in Scotland. Since 1997, 31 prisoners, including Mr. Megrahi, have applied for compassionate release. Twenty-four have had their applications granted; the remaining seven did not meet the medical criteria, in which, generally, the prisoner is deemed likely to die within three months.

“Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion be available,” Mr. MacAskill told Parliament. “Our beliefs dictate that justice be served, but mercy be shown.”

On the Royal Mile, Gordon Nicolson, who owns a kiltmaking shop, said that Mr. MacAskill’s efforts had backfired.

“They’re trying to show that Scotland can be politically independent,” he said. “But if this is the kind of decision they make, this calls into question Scotland’s ability to make good decisions.”

Sunday newspapers on Megrahi's plight

The Sunday Herald runs a long article by John Bynorth, largely based on an interview with me, claiming that Abdelbaset Megrahi has been treated shabbily by the Scottish criminal justice system. It focuses primarily upon the delay in bringing his current appeal against a highly questionable conviction to fruition.

The Sunday Mail prints an article claiming that Megrahi wishes to be released following the diagnosis of advanced stage prostate cancer, but wishes to remain in Scotland (and to be joined here by his wife and children) for palliative care.

The Sunday Times runs an opinion piece by its columnist, Joan McAlpine. It reads in part:

'Last year, after four years of deliberation, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission suggested there may have been a miscarriage of justice. The new appeal will take place next year, missing the 20th anniversary of Lockerbie this December. By then, Megrahi will probably be dead as well.

'Robert Black QC, the emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, believes a miscarriage of justice has indeed occurred and is scathing about the legal establishment’s apparent reluctance to put this right. He has accused the Lord Advocate and the British government of resorting to “every delaying tactic in the book” to obstruct an appeal, exposing Scottish justice to ridicule around the world. This view is shared by Professor Hans Kochler, the UN observer at the Camp Zeist trial, and one of its biggest critics.

'Given the circumstances, there are many who believe it appropriate for the Libyan to be released early, so he can spend his last days with his wife and children. The law, quite correctly, allows the early release of prisoners who face imminent death. There are some, however, who the public would never tolerate releasing, even on humanitarian grounds, such as West and Huntley. But if Megrahi is guilty, then why should his terrible murders be seen as less serious than their terrible murders? It is easier to be compassionate if you think the man is innocent. Some individuals, including Tam Dalyell MP, describe him as a quiet, cultured man who is incapable of such a ghastly act. I do seem to remember the late Lord Longford saying something similar about the child killer Myra Hindley. Nobody paid much attention.

'For the moment, Megrahi is a convicted child killer — the youngest person on PanAm 103 was nine months old. Many, including the families of most American victims, are convinced of his guilt. The families have, after all, received millions of dollars of compensation from Gaddafi, his employer. This leaves a terrible taste. If Megrahi, an intelligence agent, placed the bomb, it was at the command of a president who is now our new best friend.

'It is for the court of appeal to determine the facts. Black argues it can proceed even if Megrahi dies. Beyond that, we need to nail allegations that Scottish justice was compromised. Was evidence withheld from the defence for political reasons? Why is the appeal process so slow the appellant is likely to die first? Lockerbie is more damaging to our legal system’s reputation than the Shirley McKie fingerprint scandal. Like the McKie case, it should be scrutinised by a full public inquiry.

'As for Megrahi, he should be treated with compassion in his last days. But unless and until his conviction is overturned, that must be within the walls of Greenock prison.'

Lockerbie: the alternate theories

[This is the headline over a long article by Katie Worth that was published yesterday evening on the PBS website to accompany Ken Dornstein's films. It reads as follows:]

The only person ever convicted for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was Libyan. And although the former Libyan dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, never accepted personal blame for the attack, in 2003 his government took responsibility “for the actions of its officials” and agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to families of the bombing’s 270 victims.

But the case against Libya has never been universally accepted. Nearly 30 years since the attack, some victims’ family members, journalists, and investigators dispute the prosecution’s version of events. Among those who have found fault with the case include a United Nations observer to the Lockerbie trial, the trial’s legal architect and an independent review commission established by the Scottish government.

Over the years, alternative theories have proliferated, as have books and documentaries that purport to present the “real story” of what was one of the worst terrorist attacks against Americans before 9/11.

QUESTIONS ABOUT LIBYA

Two men were originally indicted for the Lockerbie attack: Abdel Basset al Megrahi, who was convicted in 2001, and a second Libyan, Lhamen Fhimah, who was acquitted. Over the course of their months-long trial, prosecutors alleged that Megrahi, a man U.S. investigators identified as a member of Libyan intelligence, and Fhimah, a station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines, were responsible for getting the suitcase believed to have carried the bomb onto Flight 103. The bomb was built into a Toshiba cassette recorder, and tucked inside a brown Samsonite suitcase with clothes that Megrahi was said to have purchased.

The court accepted the prosecution’s arguments against Megrahi and sentenced him to life in prison, but it acquitted Fhimah, stating that there was “insufficient corroboration” of the evidence against him.

This outcome was emphatically criticized by the United Nations observer to Megrahi’s trial, Hans Kochler, who in 2001 stated in his official report that the court’s decision was “exclusively based on circumstantial evidence and on a series of highly problematic inferences,” and that the guilty verdict “appears to be arbitrary, even irrational.”

The outcome was similarly decried by the man credited with creating the unique legal framework of the trial — a non-jury trial under Scots Law held in the neutral country of Netherlands — Edinburgh University emeritus law professor Robert Black. He has spent years blogging about his disagreement with Megrahi’s conviction, which he says was unwarranted considering the evidence, and would not have been replicated in a jury trial.

In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, after more than three years of investigating, validated several of these misgivings, concluding that “some of what we have discovered may imply innocence” and referred Megrahi’s case to an appeal court in the interests of avoiding “a miscarriage of justice.”

The commission rejected several points of contention raised by critics, saying they found no signs that evidence had been tampered with, that the Libyans had been framed, or that there had been “unofficial CIA involvement” in the investigation. But other points were worrying enough that the case merited an appeal.

One point of concern for the commission involved a key witness for the prosecution — a shopkeeper from Malta named Tony Gauci, who testified that Megrahi had purchased the clothes that accompanied the bomb from his shop.

However, the commission found Gauci’s testimony problematic. He said it was raining the day Megrahi went shopping, but weather reports show it was likely not raining when Megrahi was in Malta. And Gauci said that Christmas lights on his streets were not yet on, when there is evidence that they were.

Gauci also identified Megrahi from a lineup as the man who came into his shop — but only after being shown a picture of him in a magazine. The commission said this detail “undermines the reliability of his identification” of Megrahi.

Megrahi’s defenders say there is still more to consider. In an interview with FRONTLINE filmmaker Ken Dornstein, John Ashton, who worked as a defense investigator during Megrahi’s first appeal and has written three books arguing that Megrahi was innocent, said the origin of the timer used in the bomb is questionable. According to metallurgists hired by the defense in 2009, the timer’s circuit board was a different color and coated in a different substance than those designed by MEBO, the Swiss company that the timer was linked back to and that had a relationship with the Libyans. This discrepancy “breaks the link with those timers, breaks the link with Libya, breaks the link with Megrahi,” said Ashton.

Ashton has also dismissed the prosecution’s allegation that the suitcase originated from Malta and travelled through Frankfurt, writing in a recent opinion piece that a researcher “has effectively proved that the bomb originated from Heathrow.” This theory hangs on evidence of a security breach at Heathrow Airport in London — where Pan Am Flight 103 originated — 18 hours prior to the attack. However, an appeals panel rejected this argument as grounds for a retrial. [RB: Dr Morag Kerr’s evidence establishing that the bomb suitcase was in luggage container AVE4041 before the baggage ever arrived on the feeder flight from Frankfurt is in no way linked to, or dependent upon, the break-in at Terminal 3.]

Many of these points have never seen their day in court, because Megrahi abandoned his second appeal right before he was released from Scottish prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health.

“The appeal, had it gone forward, would have dragged the Scottish criminal justice through the mud,” Ashton said. “I believe they wanted this buried.”

EARLY THEORIES

The Libyans weren’t initially on investigators’ radar, according to a 1991 fact sheetreleased by the U.S. State Department: “The dominant hypothesis of the early stages of the Pan Am 103 investigation focused on indications that the bombing was the outcome of joint planning by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLC-GC).”

This theory stemmed from what the fact sheet described as “reliable intelligence” that indicated those groups were planning to attack a U.S. target in retaliation for an incident in which American warship USS Vincennes accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus in July 1988, five months before Lockerbie.

Further, the bomb that exploded on Pan Am 103 was strikingly similar to one found in the car of a PFLC-GC militant during a raid in Frankfurt, Germany less than two months earlier. Both were concealed in a Toshiba radio and consisted of similar explosives. The PFLC-GC was also reportedly in possession of flight schedules. And the Frankfurt connection — the Pan Am 103 flight came from Frankfurt before landing in Heathrow and then departing for New York — seemed unlikely to be coincidental, some have said.

But investigators eventually turned away from this theory. Per the State Department, the Toshiba radios were different in appearance and used different bomb technology.  The PFLC-GC’s bomb used an altimeter for activation, while the bomb on Pan Am 103 used a sophisticated timer. And even though the origin of the suitcase that is believed to have carried the bomb onto Flight 103 would later raise questions, investigators said that it was most likely transferred from Malta to Frankfurt. This, the State Department memo said, pointed investigators’ attention to the Libyans, who had been traveling in and out of Malta.

Though investigators say they never found hard evidence of an Iranian-Palestinian conspiracy, last year, an Iranian defector to Germany gave the theory new life when he claimed the attack was ordered by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomheini “to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian Airbus” that had been shot down by the U.S. warship.

This theory has proved durable and, for many, convincing. In its 800-page review of the Lockerbie evidence, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said the evidence found in the Frankfurt raid shortly before the Lockerbie bombing — including the Toshiba bomb and the flight timetable — led it to determine that “there was some evidence that could support an inference of involvement by” Palestinian terrorists.

Dr. Jim Swire, whose daughter was one of the 270 victims of Flight 103, is among those who believe Megrahi was innocent. Swire has repeatedly told reporters that he believes Iran was primarily responsible for the attack, and that the U.S. did not pursue this angle because officials wanted  “to blame somebody, anybody, rather than Iran.”

Investigating the Iran link, says Swire, would have caused diplomatic problems at a time when Americans were negotiating over hostages in Lebanon.

“It seems to me that by far the most likely explanation for the blaming of Libya was to secure the release of Terry Waite and other hostages from Beirut,” Swire told The Telegraph in 2013.

A MULTINATIONAL CONSPIRACY?

The main competing theories of who was behind the attack — Libyans or a cohort of Iranian and/or Palestinian extremists — are not mutually exclusive for some of those who’ve looked into the case. After all, Libya, Iran and Palestinian terrorist groups had close ties, and had worked together in previous attacks.

Two years before Lockerbie, the State Department reported that Qaddafi had provided “safe haven, money and arms” to the PFLP-GC and had also announced a “strategic alliance” with Iran, which he hoped to “use as a foundation for joint operational planning for terrorist attacks against various regional foes.”

Nor did he express qualms about using these links to attack American targets. During a speech in 1985, Qaddafi remarked that “we have the right to fight America, and we have the right to export terrorism to them.”

Syria may have also been involved, according to some theories. Libya, Iran and Palestinian extremists all had links in Syria, and according to the State Department’s fact sheet, Syria was the primary political sponsor of PFLP-GC, and “was at least broadly aware” of the group’s alliances and operations.

So did the leaders Libya, Iran, Syria and a Palestinian extremist group collaborate to bring down Pan Am 103? The State Department did not dismiss the possibility in its 1991 memo.

“We cannot rule out a broader conspiracy between Libya and other governments or terrorist organizations,” the fact sheet stated. “Despite these links, we lack information indicating direct collaboration.”

Today, nearly 30 years after the attack, many such questions around Lockerbie have yet to be definitively answered. For some at least, that means the bombing will remain a mystery.