Ethics, idealism and a minister who got it right

After an initial outcry, it looks like most Scots agree with MacAskill’s decision …

By most accounts, the SNP administration should now be in its death throes. "Election threat over Lockerbie scandal" screamed a tabloid paper headline on Monday, "Salmond facing Holyrood revolt as backlash spreads". "Will the bomber topple Salmond?" queried another. (…)

The Labour opposition in Holyrood lost no time with a denunciation of both the decision to release and the actions of the justice secretary leading up to it. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats joined in with attacks of their own. (…)

More disconcerting was the initial reaction within Scotland. This, I felt, quite misread the public mood, both on the decision and the terms in which the justice secretary explained it. I certainly felt that, far from being repelled, the ethical setting struck a deep chord with the feelings of many Scots. (…)

At The Scotsman, our readers’ letters swung decisively through the week in favour of MacAskill’s decision to release, while our online poll went from a very narrow majority opposing his decision to 57 per cent in favour by yesterday afternoon. (…)

Having seen so many adopt the position of instantaneous attack and how opinion has moved from that initial reaction, I cannot but agree with that savvy observer, the writer Kenneth Roy, who said: “There is a growing sense that the media and the political opposition may have misjudged the mood and spirit of a considerable number of thinking Scots.” MacAskill articulated, if clumsily, a sense of ethics and even idealism. When the row dies down, we owe it to ourselves to remember this.

[The above are excerpts from an article in today’s edition of The Scotsman by Bill Jamieson, the newspaper’s Executive Editor. The Scotsman is fiercely opposed to the Scottish National Party government and all its works, which makes this article all the more significant and a pretty clear indication of the way the Scottish political wind is now blowing on the repatriation issue.

Opinion polls show varying results. A telephone poll commissioned by BBC News found that 60 per cent disapproved and 32 per cent approved of the decision.

A MORI poll for Reuters news agency found that 47 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed with the decision, while 40 per cent agreed or strongly agreed.]

Lord Fraser and the unanswered questions

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

Two of the leading figures in the Lockerbie scandal have fallen off their perches within 13 months of each other. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man to have been convicted of the bombing, died on 20 May 2012, aged 60, and Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, the lord advocate who drew up the indictment against al-Megrahi and his co-accused, died on 23 June 2013, aged 68.

Few tears were shed for al-Megrahi, except by those – a small minority, though a significant one – who believed him to be innocent. In remarkable contrast, the tributes to his accuser, in the few days since his sudden death at the weekend, have been fulsome. Leaders of most parties, including Scotland's ruling one, have been at pains to assure us that he will be keenly missed from Scotland's public life.

Perhaps he will. He was certainly an ornament of it for long enough; and he had an enviable capacity for bouncing back from life's adversities. Just before Christmas 2006 he was charged with disorderly conduct on board an aircraft; two months later the Crown Office dropped the charge 'due to insufficient evidence that an offence had been committed'; and by August of the following year he was back in business as a member of the government-appointed Scottish Broadcasting Commission. This swift rehabilitation said much for his essential geniality and his popularity with the political and media classes.

In the general election campaign of 1979, which brought Margaret Thatcher to power and Peter Fraser into parliament as the member for South Angus, the young advocate (as he then was) took part in a BBC outside broadcast of the 'Any Questions' type. I was in the chair that night and remember him as pleasant but unremarkable. Three years later he became solicitor-general for Scotland and in 1989, at the age of 44, he was promoted to lord advocate. Not bad going, all things considered.

But the fulsome tributes should not be allowed to obscure important questions of continuing public interest about his record as Scotland's chief law officer (1989-92).

It was Fraser who was responsible for the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103; Fraser who issued warrants for the arrest of the two Libyans; Fraser who initiated the prosecution which led to the trial at Camp Zeist. And it was Fraser's opinion that Tony Gauci could be depended upon as the chief prosecution witness – relied upon to the extent that, without Gauci's testimony, the case against al-Megrahi effectively collapsed.

Did Fraser really think that Gauci could be trusted? Or was the lord advocate bounced into the prosecution of al-Megrahi and his co-accused by the US justice department? The architect of the Camp Zeist trial, Professor Robert Black QC, believes that improper influence was exerted on Fraser and that he bowed to it. We shall probably never know.

It was five years after the trial that Fraser, long out of major public office by then, gave an unguarded interview to The Sunday Times in which he cast doubt on Gauci for the first and only time. This is what he said (and never denied saying): '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.'

These comments scandalised the legal establishment. The lord advocate at the time, Colin Boyd, said that at no stage had Fraser 'conveyed any reservation about any aspect of the prosecution to those who worked on the case, or to anyone in the prosecution service'. Colin Boyd challenged Fraser to clarify his apparent repudiation of Gauci. Fraser declined to rise to the challenge: there was no clarification.

William Taylor, the QC who defended al-Megrahi at his trial, went further: 'A man who has a public office, who is prosecuting in the criminal courts in Scotland, has a duty to put forward evidence based upon people he considers to be reliable. He [Fraser] was prepared to advance Gauci as a witness of truth in terms of identification and, if he had these misgivings about him, they should have surfaced at the time. The fact that he is coming out with this many years later, after my former client has been in prison for four and a half years, is nothing short of disgraceful. Gauci's evidence was absolutely central to the conviction and for Peter Fraser not to realise that is scandalous.'

Lord Fraser had nothing to say publicly about these serious allegations. But in August 2009, long after the fuss had died down, he gave a little-noticed television interview which was concerned mainly with al-Megrahi's release and the justice secretary Kenny MacAskill's handling of it. In the course of the interview he again referred to Tony Gauci, but in rather different terms. I was so struck by what he said that I played it back and took a note of it: '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 these reasons I think that Tony Gauci was an extremely good witness.'

How could Gauci be 'not quite the full shilling' according to Lord Fraser in 2005, yet 'an extremely good witness' according to the same Lord Fraser four years later? Is there any way of reconciling these conflicting assessments of the chief prosecution witness?

After the death of al-Megrahi, and the Justice for Megrahi committee's clumsy attempts to revive interest in the scandal, it seemed unlikely that the truth about Lockerbie would ever be established. But I suppose some of us were clinging to a faint hope that, in his old age, in some distant memoir serialised by The Sunday Times, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie would reveal all about his pivotal role in the affair. Since, like al-Megrahi, he has failed to reach old age, that hope has now gone. The unanswered questions seem destined to remain just that: unanswered.

Who is accused of perverting the course of justice?

In the (redacted) version of Justice for Megrahi’s letter alleging criminal misconduct in the Lockerbie investigation and prosecution that was released to the press on 23 October 2012, allegation no 1 reads as follows:

“1.  On 22 August 2000 the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, communicated to the judges of the Scottish Court in the Netherlands information about the contents of CIA cables relating to the Crown witness Abdul Majid Giaka that was known to members of the prosecution team [A B and C D] who had scrutinised the cables, to be false. The Lord Advocate did so after consulting these members of the prosecution team. It is submitted that this constituted an attempt to pervert the course of justice.”

A number of journalists have interpreted this paragraph as embodying an allegation that Colin Boyd attempted to pervert the course of justice. The latest of these is Kenneth Roy in an article in today's edition the Scottish Review headlined A High Court judge and an allegation of criminality.  This raises concerns about the standard of English comprehension amongst journalists, because the paragraph makes no such allegation -- indeed was very carefully drafted in order to avoid it. What the paragraph alleges is that two members of the prosecution team, A B and C D,  supplied to Colin Boyd information about the CIA cables which A B and C D knew to be false (because they had scrutinised the cables) and which they knew he was going to, and did, communicate to the court.  That is the perversion of the course of justice that is alleged. 

I am disappointed when journalists attempt to explain or excuse their flagrant misinterpretation of a text by reference to its -- non-existent -- ambiguity. The paragraph quite simply does not say that Colin Boyd perverted the course of justice. To represent that it does is an error on the part of the reader, not the writer.

Legacy of Lockerbie: part 1

[What follows is taken from an article by Kenneth Roy, the editor of the Scottish Review, in today’s issue. Part 2 of the article is due to be published tomorrow.]

Vacuous and semi-literate: the state of political language in Scotland

Political language is bad, often very bad, and a current illustration can be found in the Scottish Government's official statement on the death of Megrahi. The statement is in the name of Alex Salmond, but it is difficult to believe that the first minister, who used to write well and probably still does, is more than formally responsible for it. Even this busy man should check before he signs off the stuff. 

Look and squirm at the first sentence: Our first thoughts are with the families of the Lockerbie atrocity, whose pain and suffering has been ongoing now for over 23 years.

This is scarcely literate. Presumably it is a bureaucrat's way of conveying sympathy for personal grief, but the language is so stale that it feels ritualistic. The Scottish Government had months – years, as it turned out – to prepare for Megrahi's death. If it had any genuine concern for the families, it could have found a more sensitive way of expressing it. It could have started by respecting the English language. 

Pain and suffering has is bad enough. I don't fancy 'over 23 years' when 'more than' would have taken a second longer to type. But ongoing is horrible. The once-trendy 'ongoing' may be just about permissible in official documents – in the sense that any abuse of language seems to be permissible in official documents – but in a message of condolence it is inexcusable. Worse, we have ongoing now. When do the pain and suffering cease to be ongoing now? No doubt when all concerned are conveniently dead. 

It is open for relatives of Mr Megrahi to apply to the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission to seek a further appeal. 

'Open to' rather than 'open for' would have been better usage, but the real howler in this sentence is the incorrect reference to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. If the people responsible for this statement – we should remind ourselves that they had years to prepare it – can get the name of this organisation wrong, we're entitled to wonder how much else they get wrong; seriously wrong.

Mr Megrahi's death ends one chapter of the Lockerbie case, but it does not close the book conforms to one of the main rules of political language. It is not only a cliché, but a meaningless one. It is so vague that it could signify anything or nothing. It is probably also disingenuous. It implies some desire on the part of the Scottish Government to go on with this book which has caused successive administrations on both sides of the border so much trouble for so many years. How our masters must long for that liberating word 'Finis' to be written across the final page of the accursed tome. But, of course, it is expedient to convey some cloudy suggestion of activity, a hint of ongoing now.

The Scottish Government's statement is about to deteriorate sharply. But before it does, a background note from 1946, when George Orwell identified a number of dying metaphors in political language. He defined this language in general terms as a succession of phrases 'tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house'. The Megrahi statement is a perfect vision of the hen-house. Yet there is a reluctant word to be said in its favour, since it does not include any of the following dying metaphors:
     take up the cudgels
     toe the line (aka tow the line)
     ride roughshod over
     no axe to grind
     grist to the mill
     stand shoulder to shoulder

Orwell thought that the two most risible dying metaphors – exploring every avenue and leaving no stone unturned – had disappeared from common use. He was being over-optimistic. Sixty-six years later, pompous cops continue to explore the avenue and leave no stone unturned, often in search of a male person or persons as they do so. But the male person who thought of leaving no turn unstoned deserves our gratitude for helping to boo the original off the stage.

I'm surprised that Orwell neglected to mention dying sporting metaphors. We are about to be drowned in them during the many weeks of the Greater London egg and spoon race. Surely, however, he would have savoured the following gem from the Megrahi statement: ...what emerged is that the Scottish Government were the only ones playing with a straight bat...

A straight bat, indeed. Think of this. At Lockerbie, 270 precious lives were lost. But that was a long time ago. More than – or over – 23 years later, it is safe to refer to the tragedy in terms of cricket, a jolly nice English sport, one of the few in which the first minister has expressed little if any interest. Put aside the circular ugliness of the sentence construction – 'what emerged is that' etc – and concentrate on the choice of this dying metaphor. Why cricket? Why bats? Straight in what way, exactly? Where do they keep their bent ones?

This metaphor, like most metaphors in political language, is designed to conceal. It is lacking in precision; it spares its author the effort of communicating plainly. The metaphor is a disgrace; the statement as a whole is a disgrace. It reveals only that we should not necessarily believe a word we are told about Lockerbie.

Tomorrow: Part 2 of Legacy of Lockerbie

We need an open mind and a fresh start at the Crown Office

[This is the heading over an article in the online edition of the Scottish Review by its editor, Kenneth Roy. It reads in part:]

There is nothing to deplore
Part of the job of the Lord Advocate under the devolved settlement is to give legal advice to the Scottish Government; at the same time she is the chief prosecutor of Scotland, responsible for bringing the most serious charges to court. There has always been an inherent dichotomy between these two roles. How can the public prosecutor, committed to the pursuit of conviction, offer ministers impartial legal advice? The long years of the Lockerbie case have made this balancing act almost impossible. Lockerbie was big politics when Alex Salmond 'de-politicised' the post of Lord Advocate; it is bigger politics now; it is likely to remain a huge and troubling issue.

There is a suggestion that Elish Angiolini was not fully consulted, if she was consulted at all, about the justice secretary's decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing – loosely described by the BBC and others as 'the bomber' – on compassionate grounds. Perhaps she feels aggrieved. Perhaps she is entitled to feel aggrieved. Whatever the explanation, last weekend she made a statement which indicated a loss of composure. She said she 'deplored' the attempt by Megrahi to challenge his conviction by releasing on the internet the papers he would have used in his abandoned appeal.

What is there to deplore? The case, from the point of view of the person whose behaviour is being deplored, is clear enough. He is in pain. He has been in prison for eight years. He says that he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. He says that he is innocent of the crimes for which he has been convicted. He says that he has treated the judiciary of the country of his imprisonment with courtesy and respect at all times. But now, at the age of 57, he is dying. Who can tell when? Only God knows; or, in the absence of God, no one. The little gods of the media demand no less; within three months at that. His death will occur soon enough no doubt, with or without journalistic temptations of providence. He wishes to clear his name while there is still a little time left. That much should be understandable to any fully paid-up member of the human race.

The Lord Advocate declares that the appropriate forum for innocence or guilt to be decided is a court of law, and that it was Megrahi's decision to withdraw from the legal determination of his case. This claim ignores two realities of the situation. First, there have been too many grave miscarriages of justice in this country for the authority of the judicial system ever to be completely trusted. Earlier this week it was announced that, in the light of the release of Sean Hodgson after 27 years in jail for a crime he did not commit, DNA evidence having proved that he could not have committed it, no fewer than 240 murder and rape convictions are now being 'reviewed' in England and Wales. Second, the failure of Megrahi's appeal against conviction to be heard is not his fault, but the result of a succession of official delays which have never been satisfactorily explained.

Yet, audaciously, the Lord Advocate suggests that, in dropping the appeal, he has made his subsequent action deplorable. Consider the position in which he finds himself. He wishes to return to his own country, to his family, as any of us would wish to do. He believes that dropping the appeal will hasten this outcome. He drops the appeal. He achieves the desired outcome. But still he is anxious to tell the world what he would have said if the long-delayed hearing had ever gone ahead.

All this is simple humanity. It is how any of us might choose to defend the integrity of our life as it comes to an end. It is basic stuff. But I agree that it is essentially an emotional response, in the same way that Mrs Angiolini reached for a word of feeling, the word 'deplore'.

As it happens, however, it is not just simple humanity. It is not just basic stuff. The dying man's entitlement to do what he did last week is actually enshrined in a piece of legislation called the Human Rights Act 1998. Mrs Angiolini is more familiar with this act than most of us. In 1997, she ceased for a while to be a prosecutor in the criminal courts and joined the Crown Office as head of policy. One of her responsibilities was to prepare her department for the introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998. I imagine that, a brief 11 years later, she will not have forgotten what it says.

She will not have forgotten, for example, Article 10 on free expression. Free expression, to which you and I have a human right, is defined in the legislation as the holding of views or opinions, the speaking of them aloud or their publication in articles or books or leaflets, or the broadcasting of them on television or radio, or their communication through the internet. Under Article 10, you and I may use language which others find offensive or shocking, so long as we are not doing so in a racial or ethnic context. This means that, although you and I may find the Lord Advocate's use of language last Friday slightly offensive, she is perfectly entitled to use such language. But the dying man is equally entitled to express his opinions and the law specifically permits him to use the internet as a medium for doing so.

Since, then, the dying man is exercising his legal entitlement under the Human Rights Act 1998, I must put the question again: what is there to deplore? The use of the word tells us more about the Lord Advocate than it does about the case. It is possible that Mrs Angiolini is so exasperated by the constant questioning of the Crown Office's motives and conduct during her years as Solicitor General (2001-06) and Lord Advocate (since 2006) that she could restrain herself no longer. The questioning, however, continues; it will not go away. An essay in the current edition of the London Review of Books by her fellow solicitor, Gareth Peirce, concludes after a devastating forensic deconstruction of the Lockerbie prosecution that there has been 'a form of death in this case – the death of justice'. Such perceptions do serious damage. What follows 'the death of justice'? From Mrs Angiolini or her successor we should hear no more talk of deploring. We need an open mind, a fresh start, a spirit of humility. But beyond that, a structural change is required. It is time to separate the two functions of the office of Lord Advocate, disempowering the holder of the office from any responsibility for public prosecutions. This change has long been mooted; it has become overdue. If it is too late to save the reputation of Megrahi, it should not be too late to save the reputation of Scottish justice.

A good man, a smear, and the Crown Office

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

I

There are many reasons to be pessimistic about the outcome of the appeal lodged by the family of the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. I have just finished reading one of those reasons.

There has been one, only one, public hearing in Scotland of the facts about Lockerbie. (I disregard the unsatisfactory criminal trial of Megrahi and one other, which took place in the Netherlands, though under Scottish jurisdiction.) This was the fatal accident inquiry heard by Sheriff John Mowat in 1990, two years after the disaster.

The choice of location seems, in retrospect, grimly appropriate: the recreation hall of a psychiatric hospital, converted into a courtroom with seating for 400. When I turned up one morning and reported to the media centre, I found it deserted. There were dozens of desks and cubicles for the international press, but only a handful of them had ever been occupied and there was no need to connect the telephones. Visiting this ghostly place was a strange experience.

In the courtroom itself, the anticipated throng of relatives and interested parties had never materialised: the public benches were deserted. Heavy, dark green curtains, tightly drawn, enabled the proceedings to be conducted in an atmosphere of stygian gloom.

The symbolism was thus complete: in a room shedding no natural light, witnesses presented their testimony to an empty auditorium and, beyond, to a world that had seemingly lost interest. But it is instructive to look back at that under-reported inquiry from the distance of almost quarter of a century – if only for proof that the truth about Lockerbie will probably never be known.

II

The part of the transcript I had been reading, just before the announcement of the Megrahi appeal, was the evidence of a policeman, a member of the now disbanded Dumfries and Galloway constabulary, concerning the activities of Dr David Fieldhouse.

The name David Fieldhouse may mean nothing to you, yet he is a figure of some importance in the saga. He was sitting in front of the television in his home in Yorkshire on the evening of 21 December 1988 when the first news of the disaster flashed on the screen. His reaction was impulsive. He got into his car and drove all the way from Bradford to Lockerbie, arriving at around 10.50pm.

He immediately contacted the authorities, explained that he was a police surgeon, and offered to help with the search for bodies (there was never any hope of finding survivors). The police accepted his offer and, bearing in mind the Scottish requirement for corroboration, assigned an officer to accompany him. Over the course of the next 24 hours, more than one police officer accompanied him.

Dr Fieldhouse worked through the night and all of the following day; he did so without pausing for sleep and with nothing to eat except a biscuit. It was a heroic one-man undertaking. By the time darkness fell on 22 December, he had found and labelled 59 bodies.

On the morning of the 23rd, he was due to meet a senior police officer at a pre-arranged rendezvous (Tundergarth Church). He waited two hours. When it became clear that the detective chief inspector was not going to show up, Dr Fieldhouse drove back to Yorkshire and compiled a report on his work – an account that he had already given in detail, verbally, on the spot. He was then surprised to learn that his 59 tags had been replaced by 58 'official' ones. There was one missing. It remains a mystery.

David Fieldhouse received no thanks from the police for his act of selfless dedication. He went back to work and, so far as possible, put Lockerbie behind him. Two years later, he was shocked to learn that there had been an attempt by the Crown Office and the police to call his integrity into question.

A police witness at the fatal accident inquiry in Dumfries was asked by the Crown about one of the bodies found and labelled by Dr Fieldhouse.

Q. Would that be another example of Dr or Mr Fieldhouse carrying out a search on his own?

A. It would, my Lord.

Q. And marking the body of the person who is dead without notifying the police?

A. That is correct.

The content of that brief extract is utterly disgraceful on two counts. First there is the innuendo that Dr Fieldhouse was not a doctor at all – that some medically unqualified individual, a mere 'Mr', an imposter in effect, took it upon himself to go looking for bodies. Second there is the specific allegation that he did so without the authority of the police.

Neither the innuendo nor the allegation was true. The police officers who accompanied Dr Fieldhouse confirmed that they were present in every case when he pronounced life extinct, and that the procedures he followed were scrupulous.

Why, then, did the Crown Office, assisted by the Dumfries and Galloway police, spread untruths about him in this way? The only alternative explanation – that it was all the result of some unfortunate misunderstanding – is hard to swallow. The Crown Office had had the best part of two years to assemble the facts; and there were few more central to the purpose of the fatal accident inquiry than the facts about the recovery and identification of bodies. Yet not only did the Crown Office misrepresent what happened on the night of 21-22 December 1988; for no apparent reason they decided to smear David Fieldhouse.

It was left to Dr Fieldhouse to request an opportunity to clear his name. As a late witness, he duly did. But from the Crown Office there was no explanation and no apology. The only person who ever had the decency to apologise was the blameless Sheriff Mowat in his written determination.

III

The experience of David Fieldhouse is one of the reasons why the truth about Lockerbie will probably never be known. It is a vignette that, like so many vignettes, illuminates a larger canvas.

Put it this way. If the Crown Office was prepared to rubbish the reputation of a completely innocent man, who had acted in the public service for no personal gain whatever, we can expect it to have little difficulty in confirming the guilt of someone over whom a considerable doubt continues to linger – the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

[Dr David Fieldhouse is a signatory member of Justice for Megrahi.]

A blot on the conscience of Scotland

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Kenneth Roy headlined The Lockerbie cover-up that was published by Newsnet Scotland on this date in 2010:]

The conviction of Megrahi hinged on the testimony of one man, the chief prosecution witness Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper. Without Gauci there was no case. He was the owner of a clothes shop in Malta called Mary's House. It was alleged at the trial that on 7 December 1988, Megrahi bought some clothes and an umbrella from Gauci's shop. The clothes were then said to have been wrapped around the improvised explosive device that brought down the PanAm aircraft over Lockerbie a fortnight later. This was the only piece of evidence linking Megrahi to the device.

The credibility of Tony Gauci was badly damaged by the man who initiated the prosecution of Megrahi and his co-accused, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, in a remarkable newspaper interview four years ago. The words attributed to him – he has 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 the then Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, read this assessment of the Crown's star witness, he was sufficiently moved to ask Lord Fraser to clarify his view of Gauci's credibility; others, including Tam Dalyell and Megrahi's counsel, spoke out more strongly. If Lord Fraser did clarify his view, the world remained unaware of the clarification. Last August, however, Lord Fraser gave a revised opinion in a little-noticed television interview mainly concerned with Megrahi's release and the justice secretary Kenny MacAskill's handling of it. I noted down his reply to a question about Gauci:

'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 Tony Gauci was an extremely good witness.'

What the use of the phrase 'children and others' was intended to convey about Gauci, and how this statement could be compared to Lord Fraser's earlier view of the witness, was not pursued as an issue (except in this magazine). Conveniently, perhaps, all eyes were on Megrahi himself, the 'triumphant' return to Tripoli, and the perceived shortcomings of Kenny MacAskill. Tony Gauci and Lord Fraser of Carmyllie pretty well disappeared off the radar.

Extremely awkward questions remain unanswered, however, and will continue to haunt the Lockerbie case so long as there is an official conspiracy of secrecy. Specifically:

Were the clothes sold to Megrahi?

Were they sold on the date alleged?

As a result of its investigation, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission formed the view (a) that there was 'no reasonable basis' for the court's judgement that the purchase of the clothes from Mary's House took place on 7 December and (b) that the clothes were bought on some unspecified date before then. As 7 December was the only date when Megrahi was in the area, it follows (a) that they could not have been sold to Megrahi and (b) that the case against Megrahi collapses.

This much we know. What we do not know – and what we seem to be further away than ever from knowing – is the nature of the 'additional evidence' which so convinced the commission that the court's judgement was wrong; and, more disturbing still, why this evidence was not made available to the court of Scottish judges sitting in the Netherlands.

In 2007, the commission concluded that it had identified six grounds where it believed that 'a miscarriage of justice may have occurred and that it is in the interests of justice [my italics] to refer the matter to the court of appeal'. Since there is no possibility of a referral to the court of appeal, and no prospect of the commission's report being published, we have the worst possible outcome – lingering doubt and suspicion, a complete lack of closure, and a continuing affront to the families of all those who died.

I wrote here last August: 'Judicially, the case is at en end. We are therefore left to assume that the interests of justice will never be served. There is a blot on the conscience of Scotland and it is hard to see how it will ever be eradicated'. It is harder still today.

RIP Archbishop Desmond Tutu

[I am saddened to learn of the death today at the age of 90 of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who was a convinced and long-time supporter of the Justice for Megrahi campaign. What follows is an article posted today on Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph's Lockerbie Truth website:]

Today's sad news about the death of former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu holds a feature common to much of the media in the UK and USA. 

The selective amnesia of certain media editors is clear: Effusively praise those issues in which Tutu agrees with your agenda, and ignore those in which he opposes.

And so it is, once again, with the campaign for an inquiry into the factors surrounding the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and subsequent trial.

On the 15th March 2015 we reported that a petition had been submitted to the Scottish Parliament by the Justice for Megrahi group of bereaved relatives. That petition was rapidly and publicly supported by prominent personalities around the world. The petition, even after six years, still runs current on the Scottish Parliament's agenda.

Among those signing in support of the petition was Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He proved to be a strong supporter of the imprisoned Baset al-Megrahi and a South African colleague Nelson Mandela.  Mandela's support for al-Megrahi, too, remains ignored by the main British and US media. 

On 15th March 2015 we published the following post: [Names in alphabetical order].

Campaign for the acquittal of Baset Al-Megrahi and an official inquiry into Lockerbie

A petition requesting that the Scottish authorities undertake a comprehensive inquiry into Lockerbie is supported and signed by the following world renowned personalities. All support the campaign for acquittal of Baset Al-Megrahi, who was in 2000 convicted for the murder of 270 people on Pan Am 103.

Kate Adie was chief news correspondent for the BBC, covering several war zones 

on risky assignments. Currently hosts the BBC Radio 4 programme 

From Our Own Correspondent.

Professor Noam Chomsky has spent most of his career at the Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is currently Professor Emeritus, 

and has authored over 100 books. In a 2005 poll was voted 

the "world's top public intellectual".

Tam Dalyell, former Member of British Parliament and Father of the House. 

An eminent speaker who throughout his career refused to be prevented 

from speaking the truth to powerful administrations.

 

Christine Grahame MSP, determined advocate of the Lockerbie campaign.

Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye magazine.

Father Pat Keegans, Lockerbie Catholic parish priest at the time of the tragedy. 

 Mr Andrew Killgore, former US Ambassador to Qatar. Founder of Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs.

John Pilger, former war correspondent, now a campaigning journalist and film maker. 

Dr Jim Swire.

Sir Teddy Taylor, British Conservative Party politician, MP from 1964 to 1979. 

Desmond Tutu, former Anglican Archbishop of South Africa. 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr Terry Waite. Former envoy for the church of England, held captive from 1987 to 1991

THE FULL LIST OF SIGNATORIES

Ms Kate Adie (Former Chief News Correspondent for BBC News).

Mr John Ashton (Author of ‘Megrahi: You are my Jury’ and co-author of ‘Cover Up of Convenience’).

Mr David Benson (Actor/author of the play ‘Lockerbie: Unfinished Business’).

Mrs Jean Berkley (Mother of Alistair Berkley: victim of Pan Am 103).

Mr Peter Biddulph (Lockerbie tragedy researcher).

Mr Benedict Birnberg (Retired senior partner of Birnberg Peirce & Partners).

Professor Robert Black QC (‘Architect’ of the Kamp van Zeist Trial).

Mr Paul Bull (Close friend of Bill Cadman: killed on Pan Am 103).

Professor Noam Chomsky (Human rights, social and political commentator).

Mr Tam Dalyell (UK MP: 1962-2005. Father of the House: 2001-2005).

Mr Ian Ferguson (Co-author of ‘Cover Up of Convenience’).

Dr David Fieldhouse (Police surgeon present at the Pan Am 103 crash site).

Mr Robert Forrester (Secretary of Justice for Megrahi).

Ms Christine Grahame MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).

Mr Ian Hamilton QC (Advocate, author and former university rector).

Mr Ian Hislop (Editor of ‘Private Eye’).

Fr Pat Keegans (Lockerbie parish priest on 21^st December 1988).

Ms A L Kennedy (Author).

Dr Morag Kerr (Secretary Depute of Justice for Megrahi).

Mr Andrew Killgore (Former US Ambassador to Qatar).

Mr Moses Kungu (Lockerbie councillor on the 21^st of December 1988).

Mr Adam Larson (Editor and proprietor of ‘The Lockerbie Divide’).

Mr Aonghas MacNeacail (Poet and journalist).

Mr Eddie McDaid (Lockerbie commentator).

Mr Rik McHarg (Communications hub coordinator: Lockerbie crash sites).

Mr Iain McKie (Retired Superintendent of Police).

Mr Marcello Mega (Journalist covering the Lockerbie incident).

Ms Heather Mills (Reporter for ‘Private Eye’).

Rev’d John F Mosey (Father of Helga Mosey: victim of Pan Am 103).

Mr Len Murray (Retired solicitor).

Cardinal Keith O’Brien (Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh and Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church).

Mr Denis Phipps (Aviation security expert).

Mr John Pilger (Campaigning human rights journalist).

Mr Steven Raeburn (Editor of ‘The Firm’).

Dr Tessa Ransford OBE  (Poetry Practitioner and Adviser).

Mr James Robertson (Author).

Mr Kenneth Roy (Editor of ‘The Scottish Review’).

Dr David Stevenson (Retired medical specialist and Lockerbie commentator).

Dr Jim Swire (Father of Flora Swire: victim of Pan Am 103).

Sir Teddy Taylor (UK MP: 1964-2005. Former Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland).

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize Winner).

Mr Terry Waite CBE (Former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury and hostage negotiator).