Why Mrs Angiolini did not deserve a damehood

[This is the headline over an article published today on the Scottish Review website by the editor, Kenneth Roy. It reads in part:]

Although it is tempting to dismiss the honours list as the ultimate exercise of human vanity – tempting because it so obviously is – the disposition of gongs at the top of the school tells us a great deal of interest about prevailing values and trends. (...)

D is for damehood. A d was awarded last weekend to the recently retired lord advocate Elish Angiolini for her 'services to the administration of justice in Scotland'. The constituency which this appointment is likely to offend includes many with a particular interest in the administration of justice in Scotland (...)

Mrs Angiolini appeals to the media because of her impeccable roots and her common touch. She is the sort of law officer who makes a great fuss of saying that some criminals should be locked up for life. The prosecution of the Sheridans – Tommy going down, Gail saved from Cornton Vale at the last minute – probably did her no harm, either. But it was her handling of the Megrahi case which earned her the greatest respect from the popular press and, perhaps, the public at large.

Her refusal to admit the possibility that a miscarriage of justice had occurred – even as the evidence piled up that an innocent man might have been sent to Greenock prison – confirmed for her media fans the stereotype of the don't-mess-with-me daughter of a Govan coal merchant, who had fought her way to the top and wasn't standing for any nonsense; far less any nuance.

In overlooked truth, it was a debacle on a grander scale than the World's End. It was epic. For one reason or another, important evidence helpful to Megrahi was not available at the trial, just as important evidence helpful to Nat Fraser was not produced at his. The appeal process dragged on, so tortuously slowly that, inevitably, suspicions were aroused that the Crown Office was employing those well-known techniques of any establishment in a tight spot, obfuscation and delaying tactics.

But again Elish Angiolini walked away with barely a mark. If anyone took the flak for the Megrahi fiasco it was the justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, whose release of the 'Lockerbie bomber' in August 2009 provoked howls of outrage (though not from this magazine). The Crown Office, meanwhile, having dragged its heels for so long, was able to blame Megrahi for abandoning a second appeal. Perfect.

The Megrahi Scandal: Part 2

[The second part of Kenneth Roy's essay in the Scottish Review on the scandal of the Megrahi conviction has now been published. Part 1 can be read here. Part 2 reads as follows:]

Revealed: the fatal flaw that will go on obscuring the truth about Lockerbie

This week's political gamesmanship on the circumstances of Megrahi's release is a distraction from the main question – whether he should have been convicted and imprisoned in the first place. Only the publication of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's massive report on the case can determine the strength of the possibility that there was a colossal miscarriage of justice. Will this report ever be made public?

The last week has seen some remarkable developments with SR at the heart of them.

After part 1 of 'The Megrahi Scandal' in this magazine last week, the Scottish government issued a statement: "We have always been as open and transparent as possible which is why, following the announcement last December that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has been unable to secure the necessary consents to release its statement of reasons in the Megrahi case due to the constraints of the current legislation, we now intend to bring forward legislation to overcome the problems presented by the current consent provision.

"This will allow the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to publish a statement of reasons in cases where an appeal is abandoned, subject of course to legal restrictions applying to the commission such as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities."

A bit of background may be helpful. A year ago this month, on the initiative of the Scottish ministers, a new order came into force. Before then, it would have been a criminal offence for the commission to publish information provided to it in the course of an investigation. The new order removed that restriction. The justice secretary Kenny MacAskill said at the time that the order allowed the commission to disclose information it holds; according to Mr MacAskill it was up to the commission to decide what, if anything, it released.

This was an over-simplification of the position. The commission's chief executive, Gerard Sinclair, pointed out that the order only permits the disclosure of such information with the consent of those who have, directly or indirectly, provided the information.

For nine months, Mr Sinclair attempted to obtain that consent from the main parties involved – including the Crown Office, the Foreign Office, the police, Megrahi himself. 'It became obvious,' he said, 'that there was no likelihood of obtaining the unqualified consent required.'

Late last year, the commission's board decided to discontinue the discussions. But it added a potentially significant rider: 'The commission will be happy to revisit this matter if the order is varied and the requirement to obtain the consent of parties is removed.'

It is now 22 years since the Lockerbie disaster. It is now 10 years since the trial in the Netherlands produced a conviction for Megrahi that is widely believed to be suspect, if not downright unsafe.

Why did the Scottish government not act on this suggestion? Why did it, instead, decide to embark on the more cumbersome and time-consuming route of primary legislation? Professor Robert Black QC, the Lockerbie authority, told an audience in Glasgow a few weeks ago of his suspicion that the decision to legislate was simply another delaying tactic by the Scottish government. To vary the order, removing the requirement to obtain the consent of the parties, would take very little time. How long will legislation take? I asked the Scottish government. It replied that there is, as yet, no timetable.

Meanwhile, it is worth re-visiting the exact terms of the statement issued to SR. When I read it a second time, alarm bells started to ring. The qualifications seemed more than a little restrictive... "subject of course to legal restrictions applying to the commission such as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities."

Thoroughly perplexed by this stage, I decided to seek an opinion from the commission itself. I emailed Gerard Sinclair and asked him to confirm that he agrees with the Scottish government's view that the primary legislation, when it is eventually enacted, will enable the full statement of reasons to be published at last.

His answer to this SR inquiry was commendably frank.

He does not necessarily agree that the new law will clear the way for publication of the report. It seems I was right to be concerned about the Scottish government's list of qualifications. In Mr Sinclair's opinion, there is so much sensitive personal information in the report that the requirements of data protection law may well prevent its publication.

I then contacted Robert Black in South Africa. He told me that, if the Scottish government tries to empower the commission by an Act of the Scottish Parliament, 'it may well be' that data protection restrictions will continue to apply. In contrast, the Criminal Procedure Act of the UK parliament allows data protection considerations to be over-ridden.

Could the situation be any more bizarre than this? It is now 22 years since the Lockerbie disaster. It is now 10 years since the trial in the Netherlands produced a conviction for Megrahi that is widely believed to be suspect, if not downright unsafe. It is now three years since the unpublished report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which concluded that there were six grounds for believing that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred. It is now almost 18 months since Megrahi dropped his second appeal and was sent home to die.

Yet it seems from all SR has been able to establish in the last week that we are no nearer to getting at the truth.

[It is my view that the Scottish Government is manufacturing difficulties where none need exist. Why? The simple answer is that the Scottish Government's legal advisers (if not the Scottish Ministers) are only too well aware of how much damage they themselves would suffer if the Lockerbie can of worms were allowed to be opened.]

Bàs Megrahi: ceistean [Death of Megrahi: issues]

[This is the headline over an article in Gaelic by Seonaidh Caimbeul in yesterday’s edition of The Scotsman.  Regrettably, Scots Gaelic is not one of the language options offered by Google Translate.   Babylon claims to do so, but I have been unable to get the download to work. The article reads as follows:]

Tha bàs Abdelbasat Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 60, Di-Dòmhnaich sa chaidh air ceist na coireachd air son là dubh Logarbaidh [Lockerbie] 21.12.88 a thogail ás ùr agus iomagain ann gu bheil an gnothach a’ tarraing aire nàireil do dh’Alba air adhbharan eadar-dhealaichte.

Air an dàrna làimh tha feadhainn den bheachd gur e uilebheist a bh’ anns an Libianach a mharbh 270 le boma a phlantaig e air bòrd PanAm 103 a thuit air Logarbaidh. Tha iad ag ràdh gur e mearachd a rinn Ministear a’ Cheartais, Coinneach MacAsgaill [Kenny MacAskill], le bhith a’ leigeil le al-Megrahi a dhol dhachaigh gu Tripoli seach bàsachadh sa phrìosan. Thuirt ceannard nan Làbarach, Johann NicLadhmainn [Johann Lamont], ’s i a’ bruidhinn “ás leth muinntir na h-Alba”, nach robh an co-dhùnadh sin ach “a’ dèanamh tàir air na h-ìobairtich agus an teaghlaichean”.

Air an làimh eile tha cuid de luchd-dàimh nam marbh agus sàr-eòlaich lagh cinnteach nach robh al-Megrahi neo Libia an sàs sa mhort ’s gu bheil fianais nas earbsaich a’ comharrachadh Iran. Tha litir fhosgailte le taic bho dhaoine cliùiteach ann am beatha phoblach a’ fàgail air Riaghaltas na h-Alba gun deach ceuman a ghabhail “a tha a’ cur bacadh air adhartas sam bith a dh’ionnsaigh togail a’ cheò a tha ’na laighe air na thachair”.

Tha am bàrd Aonghas Dubh MacNeacail a’ toirt taic ris an iomairt air son sgrùdadh poblach. Thuirt e: “Chan eil mi a’ tuigsinn car son a tha daoine a’ dùnadh an sùilean ri fianais a tha a’ cur teagamh anns a’ bhinn a chaidh a chur air Mgr Megrahi. Bha na breitheamhan eisimeileach air an fhianais agus an fhiosrachadh a bha romhpa sa chùirt agus tha sinn uile an urra ris na leugh sinn mun chùis lagh. Ge-tà, tha fianais ùr air nochdadh bhon uair sin agus tha sàr-eòlaich air ceistean a thogail air a’ bhuaidh a bh’ aig riaghaltasan Ameireaga ’s Breatainn air cùis lagha Albannach.”

Se an t-Oll. Raibeart MacilleDhuibh [Robert Black] a chuir cùis-lagha Mhegrahi air bhonn fo lagh na h-Alba aig cùirt shònraichte anns na Dùthchannan Ìsle. Thuirt e: “Tha mi toilichte faicinn gu bheil na meadhanan naidheachd an-seo agus anns na Stàitean Aonaichte ag aithneachadh a-nis gu bheil fìor dhuilgheadasan ann an dìteadh Megrahi. Se tha dhìth a-nis gun aithnich Riaghaltas na h-Alba cho riatanach ’s a tha sgrùdadh poblach neo-eisimeileach.”

Ghabhadh tagradh a chur a-steach an aghaidh na binne le teaghlach al-Megrahi, ged a tha ughdarrasan Albannach agus Ameireaganach fhathast a’ rannsachadh ceanglan Libianach ri uabhas Logarbaidh.


[Here is the full text of the quotation that I supplied to the journalist for use in the article:]


I am very pleased at the coverage that the open letter has had, both in the UK and around the world.  In particular it is gratifying to see influential mainstream news media in the United States for the first time recognising that there are real problems with the Megrahi conviction -- see eg http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2012/05/nyt-admits-lockerbie-case-flaws.html and  http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2012/05/cnn-did-someone-else-bomb-pan-am-103.html. What we need now is recognition from the Scottish Government that there is here a matter of real public concern and that an independent inquiry into the investigation, prosecution and conviction is necessary. People like Kate Adie, Benedict Birnberg, Ian Hislop, A L Kennedy, Len Murray, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, John Pilger, Tessa Ransford, James Robertson, Kenneth Roy, Desmond Tutu and Terry Waite cannot simply be contemptuously dismissed as "conspiracy theorists" -- the lazy slur used by people who refuse to address the manifest flaws in the Lockerbie prosecution.

BBC Scotland and the Maltese mistress

[This is the headline over an article in today’s edition of the Scottish Review by the editor, Kenneth Roy.  It reads in part:]

I woke up on Monday morning to the exciting headline on the BBC:  Lockerbie bomber Megrahi 'visited Malta for sex'

It has taken 23 years for sex and Lockerbie to become strange bedfellows. We have had the deaths of 270 people, the life sentence imposed on the families of the victims (grief, without parole), the trial in the Netherlands, the disputed conviction, the visit of Kenny MacAskill to Greenock prison, compassionate release, the long campaign to prove Megrahi's innocence, Jim Swire's heroic stoicism, Megrahi's refusal to die. Heaven sakes, the story has everything – except sex. But now it's got that too.

Lockerbie bomber Megrahi 'visited Malta for sex'

What was anyone supposed to make of this? Before reading the text, I assumed that Megrahi must have gone there in search of prostitutes. It is conceivable that Malta runs to one or two. 

It wasn't like this. It seems that Megrahi had an extra-marital relationship with a woman on the island, a woman whom the BBC describes as his mistress. How does BBC Scotland know about all this? Ah. It has now 'seen previously secret documents' – a reference to the 800-page unpublished report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in which Megrahi makes a frank confession of his infidelity by way of explanation for his visits to Malta.

But just how secret are these documents? They are all over the place. Indeed they form the basis of John Ashton's book, 'Megrahi: You Are My Jury'. In response to a comment in this column, Mr Ashton has written to me to clarify how he acquired access to the SCCRC report: 'I got to see it with Megrahi’s approval, when I worked alongside his legal team. He allowed me to keep it and gave me his authority to present its contents in the book'. Well, that's clear enough. (...)

Of course there is a bit more innuendo to the story than Baset in bed. There is the suggestion that, since he was allowed to visit the island without a passport, a fact previously known to students of the case, he could have been slipping in and out, able to visit Tony Gauci's shop on any number of occasions to buy the clothes to wrap round the explosive device to blow up the aircraft. On the other hand – always a hand worth inspecting in the Lockerbie case – it could be argued that the existence of the mistress removes any hint of a dark ulterior motive for Megrahi's visits to Malta. 

The recent pattern of events has been fascinating. Mr Ashton's book reveals a huge evidential base pointing to Megrahi's innocence. SR then publishes an article by Mr Ashton disclosing for the first time the heavy involvement of the Scottish police in negotiating three million dollar payouts to Gauci and his brother, negotiations with which the Crown Office was familiar but chose to do nothing about. I wouldn't have called it implicit approval of the deals, but it came close. The Scottish media fail to pick up on Mr Ashton's story. Mr Ashton himself confesses to be mystified by the lack of interest. But the Scottish media still can't see past the terms of the compassionate release and the role of the fall guy, Scotland's justice secretary. The huge evidential base is anyway too boring to examine in detail. Let's just have another go at Kenny. Oh, and here's Megrahi in bed with a woman. Fabulous.

It is now clear that the selective unofficial publication of the SCCRC report is taking this case nowhere. It is a dreadful way for any mature democracy, far less one making such grand claims for the future as Scotland's, to conduct itself. The report must be published in full and be available for scrutiny by fair-minded people of all instincts and persuasions so that an intelligent judgement can be formed. The alternative is the present recriprocal bad-mouthing. 

Is this really how we want Scottish justice to be conducted – by leak and smear?


[The following comes from Justice for Megrahi's secretary, Robert Forrester:]


Congratulations to the BBC, they have finally discovered a sex angle to Lockerbie! That certainly ought to be the clincher which proves once and for all that Megrahi did it. Whatever next? It has taken them till now to publicise the fact that Libyans could go back and forth to Malta without passports. This information was freely available to anyone reading John Ashton's book, 'Megrahi: You are my Jury', a week ago. Think too what it says about DCI Bell's detective skills when he was conducting his investigations on Malta all those years ago and failed to discover this. Perhaps if he and his colleagues hadn't been spending so much time getting "pissed" in celebrations and looking after "wee" Toni Gauci to keep him sweet, they might have, but it's doubtful. The facts remain that there is no evidence for the primary suitcase at either Luqa or Frankfurt, the forensics are shot to hell, anything connected with Gauci is like taking a funfair ride on the ghost train, none of the much trumpeted 'new evidence' has been forthcoming from the NTC (with the exception of Abdel-Jalil's spectacular April Fools' Day joke on Newsnight last year) and the Crown is rapidly recutting its cloth with the BBC chipping. This is a very cheap move on their part. And the biggest problem of all? Any member of a paramilitary/terrorist organisation suggesting such a method as the Crown maintain was used to bring down 103 would be quietly shot as a potential liability. Hoping that an unaccompanied item of luggage could evade detection at 3 international airports and end up in exactly the right location in the hold of 103 so that that a 1lb Semtex charge, detonated by the most primitive of timing devices (which has now been established not to have been employed anyway) would destroy the plane is, frankly, bonkers. These people have been watching far too many Mission Impossible films. While the Crown is chasing its tail, perhaps our esteemed media would serve us better by focusing on the reams of evidential problems surrounding the investigation and the prosecution case against Mr al-Megrahi.

Weel-kent names on Megrahi petition signature list

Among the well-known names that appear on the list of signatories of the Megrahi petition are: Benedict Birnberg, William Gillies, Ian Hamilton QC, AL Kennedy, Hector MacQueen, Aonghas MacNeacail, Stephen Maxwell, Marcello Mega, Len Murray, Tessa Ransford, James Robertson, Kenneth Roy, John Scott, and Jock Thomson QC. There is also a Libyan signatory whose name appears as Khaled Elmegarhi. I believe this to be Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's eldest son.

At around 10am tomorrow, the e-petition will have been online for one week. In spite of almost complete silence from the mainstream media, it should by then have gathered in the region of one thousand signatures. It remains open for signature until 28 October.

Three dead men and their secrets

[This is the headline over an article by Kenneth Roy in today’s issue of the Scottish Review. It reads in part:]

Three of the key figures in the tangled politics of Lockerbie have now died within four years of each other: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person ever to have been convicted of the bombing (died 2012), Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, the Lord Advocate who initiated the criminal proceedings against al-Megrahi (2013) and Tony Gauci, the chief prosecution witness (a few days ago). To say that all three left unanswered questions would be one of the under-statements of our time.

Gauci was the owner of a clothes shop in Malta called Mary’s House. It was alleged that on 7 December 1988, a fortnight before the atrocity, al-Megrahi bought some clothes and an umbrella from his shop, that the clothes were wrapped round the device which brought down flight 103, and that al-Megrahi, a former head of security at Libyan Arab Airlines, collaborated with an official of the airline to breach the security at Luqa Airport and get the device on the first stage of its journey as an interline bag to Frankfurt.

But how reliable was Gauci? His credibility took a battering four years after the trial in a remarkable newspaper interview with Lord Fraser. The words attributed to Fraser – he never denied using them – were: 'Gauci was not quite the full shilling. I think even his family would say he was an apple short of a picnic. He was quite a tricky guy. I don’t think he was deliberately lying, but if you asked him the same question three times he would just get irritated and refuse to answer’.

When his successor as Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, read this assessment of the Crown’s star witness, he asked Fraser to clarify his opinion of Gauci; others, including Tam Dalyell and al-Megrahi’s counsel, William Taylor QC, spoke out more strongly. If Fraser did clarify his opinion, the world was not made aware of it at the time.

Three years later, however, he gave Gauci a friendlier character reference in a television programme about the Lockerbie case: 'I have always been of the view, and I remain of the view, that both children and others who are not trying to rationalise their evidence are probably the most reliable witnesses and for that reason I think that Gauci was an extremely good witness’.

How this statement could be reconciled with his earlier disobliging view of the witness, Fraser did not divulge. But the remarks received little attention, for the story had moved on dramatically: al-Megrahi was now on his way home to Tripoli, released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds, having been diagnosed with terminal cancer, after serving eight years of a life sentence for mass murder.

Fraser’s re-evaluation of Gauci as 'an extremely good witness’ looked ridiculous on close scrutiny. When the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had a detailed look at the case, it concluded that there was 'no reasonable basis’ for the judges’ opinion that the purchase of the clothes from Mary’s House took place on 7 December; the commission decided that they have must have been bought on some unspecified date before then.

This was an encouraging finding for the many defenders of al-Megrahi (myself included) who believed that 7 December was the date of his only visit to Malta. But in 2014, in a documentary for American television, Ken Dornstein, whose brother died at Lockerbie, produced evidence which undermined the case for al-Megrahi’s innocence. During 15 years of patient investigation, Dornstein discovered that al-Megrahi had been in Malta in the weeks leading up to the bombing, and that he had company: a Libyan bomb-maker, Abu Agila Mas’ud, who was among those who greeted him on his return to Libya. (...) [RB: It was never disputed that Megrahi had been in Malta earlier in 1988. What was disputed -- and what has never been proved -- is that he was there on 23 November, the other possible purchase date. On the Dornstein films, see John Ashton here and Kevin Bannon here.]

A number of fascinating secrets now go to the grave and seem destined to stay there. We shall never know what Peter Fraser really thought of the witness who was to prove so vital to his successful prosecution. We shall never know how much Tony Gauci was paid by the American authorities in return for his helpful evidence (or how much the Scottish authorities knew of the deal). And we shall never know what al-Megrahi was doing in Malta with Mas’ud if he was not there to facilitate the planting of the device.

There is a fourth 'we shall never know’ that can be stated with a sense of growing probability: that with the passage of time, and as the important players in the saga continue to fall off their perches, we shall never know the truth about Lockerbie.

The coverage of his death has been crass and repugnant

[This is the headline over an article in the current edition of the Scottish Review by the editor, Kenneth Roy.  It reads as follows:]

Two of posh boy's closest chums, Charlie and Rebekah, along with a number of retainers, will be planking their expensively clad bottoms on the hard dock of Westminster magistrates' court three weeks tomorrow to face charges which, if proved, would normally lead to a significant stretch alongside ordinary Sun readers, heaven forbid, if not the life imprisonment to which these serious charges would make them theoretically liable; meanwhile, criminal proceedings against his former right-hand man, Mr Coulson, are still widely expected. I have just written an extremely long sentence. Purest coincidence.

Yet the prime minister, lol, still feels he's something of an authority on justice in this country. Mr High Moral Tone says the dying Megrahi should never have been released. John Junor's faithful assistant, Alice, invariably had a sick bag handy for passing to her master at the first sign of the latest hypocrisy. Alice, who was the busiest girl in British journalism, is badly missed. I could have used her at the weekend as I listened to David Cameron and again yesterday at the physically revolting media coverage of Megrahi's death. 

Was there anyone more crass than the prime minister lol? Almost unbelievably, there was. Her name is Johann Lamont and she appears to be the leader of the Scottish Labour Party.

This is what she said: Let me, on behalf of the people of Scotland, apologise to the families of all the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, for his [Megrahi's] early release. 

It is not necessary to accuse Ms Lamont of political opportunism; that goes with the territory. The truly remarkable thing about this statement – indeed the only remarkable thing – is its assumption that Johann Lamont is entitled to speak for the people of Scotland. I am one of the people of Scotland and she doesn't speak for me. My colleagues here are among the people of Scotland and she doesn't speak for them. In fact, there are many people of Scotland for whom Johann Lamont doesn't speak. How dare she?

I know for whom she speaks. There are 13,135 of them – the members of the Labour Party in Scotland. It's not a lot. It leaves 5,208,965 other people of Scotland whose opinions on the early release of Megrahi are unknown. Yet, on our behalf, Ms Lamont has just apologised to the families of the victims. She has presumed to apologise on my behalf, and your behalf, and everyone else's behalf. She has even had the audacity to apologise on behalf of the father of one of the victims, Dr Jim Swire, who has a home in Scotland, who could therefore be considered as one of the people of Scotland, and who supported Megrahi's early release and counted Megrahi as a friend.

If Ms Lamont's appointment as leader of the Scottish Labour Party had been endorsed by the Scottish public as a whole with her triumphant elevation to the office of first minister, her statement would have carried some authority. But it seems nothing much happened at the weekend while I was distracted trying to persuade Alice out of retirement. Johann Lamont simply went on being the leader of a party which collapsed dramatically only a year ago this month and is now reduced to 37 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament. A little modesty from Ms Lamont wouldn't go amiss. Oh, and a few ideas.

I forced myself to buy seven newspapers yesterday. Johann Lamont would have been proud of the Labour-supporting Daily Record with its front-page splash DO NOT MOURN THIS MONSTER. The Sun's NO PITY was almost subdued by comparison, but the paper recovered its form on page 2: HE FINALLY DIES...2 YEARS 6 MONTHS LATE. The Daily Mail had DEATH OF BOMBER AND THE SHAMING OF JUSTICE, the shaming in question being the release of Megrahi rather than the extreme doubts over the safety of his conviction. The Express was at least prepared to admit a doubt of its own, avoiding dogmatic certainty with its NOW TELL US THE TRUTH ABOUT LOCKERBIE.

THE BOMBER IS DEAD screamed The Scotsman across the full length of the front page – this from a paper with a proud sceptical tradition, the paper of Alastair Dunnett, Magnus Magnusson and Eric Mackay, a paper once regarded as Scotland's national quality daily.

Of the seven, only The Herald and The Guardian afforded the dead man the dignity of a name in its main headline. Both also studiously avoided calling him 'the Lockerbie bomber', a policy which The Herald adopted at an early stage; instead it more accurately described him as the only person convicted of involvement. Pedantic, of course; but honourably and essentially so. If you wanted balanced reporting yesterday, these were the places to look. It was, however, best to avoid BBC Scotland which still had 'the Lockerbie bomber' plastered all over its coverage, even in reference to the funeral. It is, as ever, interesting that the Scottish controller is unable or unwilling to impose journalistic standards on his own staff.

Among the political class, not everyone was as crudely populist as Johann Lamont. The Tory MP for Lockerbie, David Mundell, bravely inserted in his statement a note of condolence for the dead man's family. Willie Rennie, leader of the Liberal Democrat rump in the parliament, rose in my estimation for his demand that the facts must now be established, 'including whether crucial forensic evidence was withheld from the trial'. Mr Mundell's humanity and Mr Rennie's political leadership stood in stark contrast to the sheer awfulness of Cameron and Lamont.

For Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice secretary, the long ordeal is over. This magazine supported his decision at the time; we go on supporting it. God or the skill of the medical profession decrees when a terminally sick person will die – although personal determination may also be a factor. For any human being to commit to paper the words '2 years 6 months late' is repugnant. 

Despite the hysterical delusions of the media, I do not believe for a moment that the Scottish Government was party to any 'deal'. A decent politician released Megrahi on compassionate grounds and on these grounds alone. What do the Americans, who go on executing their citizens, have to teach us about compassion? I am grateful, indeed proud, to live in a country which embodies this principle in its penal code.

Arguments for a Lockerbie inquiry

[Around a year after the abandonment by Abdelbaset Megrahi of his

second appeal and his compassionate release on 20 August 2009,

representatives of UK Families Flight 103 had a meeting with the

Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, with a view

to pressing the case for an inquiry into Lockerbie. The Rev’d John

Mosey, a member of the group, has recently found amongst his papers

a briefing note that I wrote for the group before that meeting

containing suggestions for points that should be made to Mr MacAskill.

It reads as follows:]

1. The SCCRC findings are there. [RB: The Scottish Criminal Cases
Review Commission found in June 2007 that there were six grounds on
which Megrahi’s conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of
justice.] They cannot simply be ignored or swept under the carpet.

2. The SCCRC is not a body composed of conspiracy theorists. Nor are
those who have, like it, questioned the justifiability of the Zeist verdict.
Apart from a number of UK relatives, they include the UN observer
Dr Hans Koechler, Kate Adie, Ian Bell, Ian Hislop, Michael Mansfield QC,
Gareth Peirce, John Pilger, Kenneth Roy, and Desmond Tutu.

3. There is widespread public concern within Scotland regarding the
Megrahi conviction. Look at the letters that have been published, and
the readers' online comments that have followed articles, in eg The
Herald, The Scotsman and Newsnet Scotland. Public confidence in the
Scottish prosecution system and the Scottish criminal justice system
has been severely dented.

4. At the very least there must be an inquiry covering the six issues on
which the SCCRC found that there might have been a miscarriage of
justice. All of the material on the basis of which that conclusion was
reached is already in the hands of the SCCRC in Scotland. There is
therefore no justification for contending that a purely Scottish inquiry
would not be meaningful, and the UK relatives may soon be compelled
to begin saying so very publicly. In respect of some of the SCCRC
evidence the previous Foreign Secretary [David Miliband] asserted
public interest immunity. If the new Foreign Secretary [William Hague]
refused to allow that material to be laid before an independent Scottish
inquiry, he would open himself to public excoriation. And even an
inquiry limited to the mass of SCCRC material in respect of which no
PII issue arises would still be valuable.

5. If, as a spokesman for the First Minister has asserted, "the Scottish
Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Megrahi"
will the Scottish Government disband the Scottish Criminal Cases Review
Commission? This expert body has stated that on six grounds there are
reasons for believing that Megrahi may have been the victim of a
miscarriage of justice. On what grounds and on the basis of what
evidence does the Scottish Government expect the people of Scotland
and elsewhere to prefer its satisfaction with the conviction over the
SCCRC's doubts? If the Scottish Government has evidence that
establishes that the SCCRC's concerns are unjustified, laying it before
an independent inquiry would be the best way of getting it before the
public at home and abroad and allaying their concerns about the safety
of the Megrahi conviction.

6. At present the SNP, unlike the Labour and Conservative parties, has
clean hands over the Megrahi conviction. But unless it moves soon, the
opprobrium over that conviction will begin to attach to the SNP as well.

7. Moreover, establishing an inquiry, as the UK relatives wish, is
morally the right thing to do. Surely the Scottish Government wishes to
occupy the moral high ground?

8. It took 19 years for Scottish politicians and the Scottish criminal
justice system to rectify the miscarriage of justice suffered by Oscar
Slater. Does the Scottish Government really want to break that dismal
record in relation to the Megrahi case?

9. Until the Megrahi conviction is removed from the picture, it can be
used -- and is being used -- by governments and politicians as a reason
for denying relatives an independent inquiry into the whole Pan Am 103
affair. By establishing an inquiry covering the SCCRC concerns only, the
Scottish Government would deprive the UK Government of this very
convenient excuse.

10. It was Voltaire who said that the best is the enemy of the good. Of
course an inquiry convened under international auspices, or an inquiry
convened by the UK Government which has foreign relations powers,
would be better than one which would of necessity be limited to such
aspects of Lockerbie -- eg the police investigation, the prosecution, the
trial, the conviction, the SCCRC investigation and findings, the
applications for prisoner transfer and compassionate release -- as are
within the competence of the Scottish Government. But the argument
that a good and useful thing should not be done because somebody
else could, if so minded, do a better and more useful thing is always
a bad argument. It is sad to see the Scottish Government resorting to it.

11. There are skeletons in the cupboard of Scottish and UK Labour
Governments in relation to the Lockerbie case. If the Scottish
Government falls in May 2011 into the hands of the Labour Party,
there is no prospect whatsoever of a serious investigation. They have
too much to hide. Our only hope is for the SNP Government to do the
right thing.

Megrahi, anger, and me

[This is the headline over an article by Kenneth Roy, editor of the Scottish Review, published yesterday on the Newsnet Scotland website.  It reads in part:]

Hey, I'm not a joiner. (…) Why, then, have I just accepted an invitation to join JFM – the Justice for Megrahi Committee? The one obvious route to refusal was that membership of this committee might compromise my independence as a six hours a week journalist, filling this space; it's often a useful get-out clause from any commitment to altruism or, for that matter, anything else.

In this case, however, it's hardly likely. I have been banging on about Megrahi for years. My views are not going to change in a hurry, if ever. That report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission needs to be published, it needs to be published in full, it needs to be published pronto. Then and only then will the people of Scotland be able to judge for themselves the credibility of the prosecution case and the conduct of our justice system.

We paid for this report. It's a public document, one of the most important ever produced in Scotland, concerning the worst atrocity inflicted on these shores in peacetime and the deaths of 270 blameless people. But although we’re big enough to have paid for the report, it seems we are not big enough to be trusted with its contents. Important vested interests continue to obstruct its appearance.

Non-joining being bred in the bone, I still wouldn't have joined the Justice for Megrahi Committee. Two things tipped me over the edge. The first was driven by anger, the emotion that my adviser Seneca counsels me against. I can't help it, Seneca, I'm not like you; for the time being I have to live in this world.

Last Thursday, when we published a detailed positional paper from JFM with an accompanying editorial, all of 14 minutes elapsed before an iphone response from a Labour MSP pouring scorn on the Scottish Review's campaign for transparency in the Lockerbie case. Fourteen minutes, huh? Fourteen minutes in which to read and assimilate a complex document, and prepare a negative six-liner on your iphone – it's impressive. It could even tell us quite a lot about why the Labour Party hasn't been in power in Scotland for the last five years. They've all been too busy taking lessons in speed reading.

The second thing was more personal. One of the people on the Justice for Megrahi Committee is Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora on flight 103 and has been fighting for the truth ever since. I have discovered from years of interviewing them that, with few exceptiions, that is what victims yearn for and work towards: not revenge, not blood, but the truth. At the age of 76 Dr Swire goes on fighting for it, risking his life to enter the chaos that is Libya. Why wouldn't I join a committee with that noble man and do what little I can to help him?

So I've broken the habit of a lifetime and joined something. Fourteen minutes from now – maybe less – someone with an iphone will tell me I'm wrong. This time, I won't be counting.

[The Scottish Review has also published an article by Megrahi biographer John Ashton entitled The Crown case against Megrahi is about to sink without trace and another by Gerard Sinclair, the chief executive of the Scottish Criminal Cases review Commission.]

The correct decision

[This is the headline over an article which has just appeared on the website of the Scottish Review by Kenneth Roy, the editor. It reads in part:]

Friday would be a good day to be out of the country. The first anniversary of the release from Greenock prison of the man commonly described as the Lockerbie bomber will provoke an extreme reaction from the popular press and from politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. The attack dogs are in place. They will soon be given the nod to do their rabid worst.

The most depressing aspect of the Lockerbie affair, as we approach this latest milestone, is the refusal of those opposed to Megrahi's liberation to contemplate the likelihood that a colossal miscarriage of justice took place. The flaky foundations of the prosecution case, the lack of credibility of the chief prosecution witness, the suggestion – never denied – that he was in the pay of the CIA, the judgement of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission that there were compelling grounds for a second appeal, the existence of important new evidence which has never been divulged – all these matters have been squarely presented by those closest to the case, including one of the victims, the heroic Jim Swire.

But it has made very little if any difference. When Friday dawns, Megrahi will still be 'the bomber' rather than 'the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing' and there will be a shrill renewal of a deeply unpleasant question: why is this man not dead?

For believers in God, there ought to be a simple answer: God has so far decreed otherwise. Since many of those who insist on putting the question are indeed believers, some fervently so, we can only conclude that they consider this case beyond God; that it is too important to be left to God; that Megrahi's continued survival should be no business of God's. Beyond God – who knows? Beyond reason – certainly. In the Lockerbie case, rationality was abandoned long ago. (...)

[T]he essence of the case adjudicated by Mr MacAskill – the nub of it – has never been pointed out, except once in this magazine. It is extremely strange that it has been so overlooked. No doubt many with an interest in the case, in the media and elsewhere, regard it as an inconvenience. Perhaps for the Scottish government to acknowledge it would be too embarrassing since it reflects so badly on an important aspect of social policy. But, given the continuing obsession with Megrahi's health, its complete absence from the discussion still feels odd.

Here it is, then.

The question facing Mr MacAskill was not whether there was a reasonable expectation that Megrahi would be dead within a few months but whether there was a reasonable expectation that Megrahi would be dead within a few months if he remained in prison. When, many months ago, I first stated this as my reading of the situation, no one challenged it. Indeed there was an informal acknowledgement from quite a high source that this was indeed the question facing the justice secretary.

This issue was never raised again. So far as I know, it has never been used as part of a wider justification of Mr MacAskill's action. Yet is it not quite important? Anyone familiar with the inside of a Scottish prison will know how important. The typical Scottish prison (I have not visited Greenock, but I know Barlinnie and Saughton) is a disgusting institution harmful to the health and well-being of inmates. It is well-documented that Megrahi himself, as well as being physically sick, was mentally in a very poor state.

His chances of survival beyond three months in such an environment were not considered high. Indeed the idea of anyone with terminal cancer languishing in such a place is repellent. But it is reasonable to assume that once released, and returned home to his family and familiar surroundings, his life expectancy would improve to some extent. Anyone who denies the possibility of such an improvement must know very little of the workings of the human psyche; or is simply being disingenuous.

I don't expect any of this will moderate the political and media frenzy which is about to overwhelm us. I feel sorry for Kenny MacAskill, a decent man who did the decent thing, and has been paying a heavy price ever since. His decision was a humane one. It remains the correct one.

Cable right to challenge Scots omerta

[This is the headline over a letter from Tom Minogue in today’s edition of The Scotsman.  It reads as follows:]

The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, has got a nerve suggesting that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable, may be attempting to interfere with the independent investigation and prosecutorial decision-making by the law officers of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) (“Scots law chief rebukes Cable over RBS legal bid”, 2 May).

All Mr Cable is guilty of is showing civic concern in the delay and apparent lack of interest shown by COPFS in what some might consider a national outrage: the loss of more than £40 billion from Royal Bank of Scotland and the loss of Scotland’s reputation as a prudent financial centre.

COPFS is a master of spin and not slow to set the news agenda, especially when it involves photo opportunities for Mr Mulholland, such as jetting off to Libya to look for more evidence in the Lockerbie bombing case.

Yet in this matter, an ­outrage that has seen people from John O’Groats to the Borders lose out on their life savings, there seems to be a Scots omerta. I have been interviewed by officers from Police Scotland’s Specialist Crime Division in connection with my complaint about possible fraud at Bank of Scotland and HBOS leading to a loss similar to that at RBS.

At the coming HBOS annual general meeting, I will also be asking the board to safeguard records of all past transactions by directors and to follow my example in ­inviting Police Scotland to investigate staff at Bank of Scotland/HBOS over what I believe amounts to criminal conduct.

If in time I see no visible evidence of progress in either complaint, then like Vince Cable I will be writing to the Advocate General, or anyone else who might help expedite the investigation into the outrage that has traduced Scotland’s reputation in the eyes of the world to that of a corrupt, banana republic. 

[Coincidentally, the Scottish Review today publishes a piece by editor Kenneth Roy on delays within the Scottish justice system (including COPFS).]

Jim Swire: one of the noblest men alive

[This is the headline over an article published today in the Scottish Review by the editor, Kenneth Roy. It reads in part:]

As we were packing up for the move [of the editorial office from Kilmarnock to Prestwick], one press cutting, and one alone, fluttered out of a desk drawer stuffed with long-discarded items. It was a three-year-old piece from the Scottish Sunday Express with a familiar byline.

Why did I keep this one small product of British journalism when all the others that had passed through my hands in our nine years at Kilmarnock had been wrapped round the proverbial fish and chips? What was its special quality?

The headline was unusual enough. 'Mercy the best route for us all', it said simply. It would be hard to argue with this conclusion, as we see its truth being worked out in so many daily situations. Yet the media do not generally do mercy. The media do punishment and the media do revenge. Old Testament to a man – or, just as ferociously, woman.

In the case of Megrahi, whose photograph occupies a quarter of the page of this cutting, they would have had him executed years ago. Why, it is only a few days since one of the tabloids – The Sun, of course – used the word 'Fiend' to describe him in a front-page headline, announcing excitedly that the SAS was pursuing him.

In the lexicon of the popular press, the SAS is no longer so much a body of fighting men as a macho symbol of clinical aggression to be invoked, usually symbolically, whenever a target of its homicidal lust hoves conveniently into view. It is impossible to say whether there was a shred of fact in The Sun's latest boys' own adventure, but the SAS would not have had far to look: they would have found their target on his deathbed. How's that for anti-climax?

Meanwhile, the deputy prime minister, the ever-opportunistic Nick Clegg, was not gunning for Megrahi's head, merely for his return to prison – wired up to an oxygen mask, presumably, but not before he was chained to his own stretcher. Charming fellow, Mr Clegg. He reminds me of the old saying about Liberals, that they are the sort of people who fire their staff at Christmas.

So, mercy. Not a lot of it around these days (...)

The familiar byline was that of Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for UK Families Flight 103. At the distance of almost three years, his leader-page article has a certain poignancy. It was written 10 months before Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice secretary, freed Megrahi from Greenock prison on compassionate grounds, but already Dr Swire was begging the Scottish government to order his release – 'perhaps to a special facility where he could be with his family, yet be safe and have specialist palliative care to hand'. In August 2009, the special facility, rightly or wrongly, turned out to be Libya.

Unlike the good old British journalist – whom there is no need to bribe 'seeing what he will do unbribed' – Dr Swire and the other UK relatives had no desire for vengeance. 'We wanted the truth,' he writes.

I have spoken at length to the victims of mass murder – at Dunblane and on 7/7 – and the search for the truth is a constant pre-occupation of the families; it over-rides everything else. It is always accompanied by a determination that those who died, and the events themselves, will never be forgotten. (The best book about Dunblane, by Mick North, is actually called Dunblane: Never Forget). So Jim Swire's statement, 'We wanted the truth', should surprise no-one who has explored the psychology of victims.

For Dr Swire, the search for the truth led to one inescapable conclusion: the innocence of Megrahi. It was the evidence at the trial in Holland that convinced him that the case against Megrahi was invalid. Time and again that evidence pointed to the involvement of Iran and Syria, not Libya.

Robert Black QC, the architect of the Camp Zeist trial, recently put it to me another way: the trial persuaded him that there was no evidence to justify conviction, but it was only when he met Megrahi in prison that he knew he was innocent. There is a difference; sometimes all the difference in the world. Robert Black, like Jim Swire, has fought tirelessly to establish Megrahi's innocence and made a thorough nuisance of himself with the Edinburgh legal establishment. I have never asked him how much the campaign has cost him professionally or personally. Perhaps he has given up caring.

With Jim Swire, there is a more painful dimension: the human factor. His daughter Flora was one of the 270 lives – many of them young lives – lost 38 minutes after Flight 103 left Heathrow that day. He had less reason than most – he had no reason at all, other than a personal commitment to humanity and justice – to devote the rest of his life to proving the innocence of the man convicted of Flora's murder. HIs self-sacrifice, in so many ways, is humbling. He is now a man in his 70s, yet still he goes on fighting for Megrahi.

I have met him only once: in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when I chaired a public meeting at which he spoke. I thought then he was an impressive human being, but my admiration for him has deepened over the years. Now I think he is one of the noblest men alive.

When Jim Swire wrote that piece in the Scottish Sunday Express in 2008, it was almost six years since Megrahi had requested a second appeal. After three years of delays, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had agreed that his trial might have been unfair, had conceded in effect that there were gaping holes in the prosecution, and that the case should go to further appeal. His frustration at the lack of progress, at the continuing obstruction of justice, leaps from the page.

How much more frustrated must he feel now? The justice secretary's decision to release Megrahi was well-founded, but the subsequent failure of the Scottish Government to release all the facts known to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is a continuing scandal and a blot on the conscience of Scotland.

Of one thing we can be sure: Megrahi's imminent death will not put a stop to Jim Swire's quest. That will go on as long as it takes.

[A related post on the Ian Hamilton QC blog can be read here.]