Was the objective not a trial but sanctions?

[What follows is excerpted from an article headed Criminal Justice or "War by Other Means" that was published on The Masonic Verses website on this date in 2008:]

It is generally assumed that the object of the announcement of the indictment on the 14th November 1991 was the trial of the two suspects (who were eventually handed over on the 5th April 1999.) However the Western powers pursued the case not under the relevant international Law (the 1971 Montreal Convention) but by political means through the UN Security Council and the imposition of sanctions against Libya.

The Lockerbie incident was exploited in order to impose UN sanction upon Libya for political considerations that largely predated the bombing and a trial was actually unwelcome to the West, their primary objective being regime change in Libya. A study of the historical background is necessary to understanding why Libya was blamed, a background that was largely irrelevant to the criminal proceedings.

In February 1986 the United States had imposed unilateral sanctions on Libya and US plans to topple Gaddafi long predated this. The Europeans, far more dependent on Libyan oil failed to support these sanctions to the chagrin of American business interests. Unilateral sanctions were ineffectual if Libya could trade elsewhere and it was an objective of US policy to transform unilateral sanctions into UN sanctions, achieved through the Lockerbie indictment.

Crucial evidence that the objective of the indictment was sanctions not a trial lies in the movements of Lhamin Fhimah (who was indicted solely to give credence to the “Malta” scenario.) In November 1991 Fhimah was again employed by Libyan Arab Airlines and was living openly in Tunis, capital of pro-Western Tunisia. On the day of the indictment Fhimah had returned to Tripoli for a visit when he saw news of his indictment on TV. (2)(3).

Did the Western intelligence agencies not know where Fhimah was living and could they not have sought his arrest and extradition by the Tunisian authorities? Or was Fhimah’s residence outside Libya an embarrassment? According to the former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser he had been asked by the Americans to “hold off” on the indictment while new evidence was developed (4) (likely the testimony of Majid Giaka) but if the object of the indictment was a trial why did they wait until Fhimah was in Libya before announcing it? Indeed the public announcement of the indictment at all was bizarre if the objective was a trial not sanctions.

From the announcement of the indictment until the trial the authorities pretended that the case against Libya was cast iron while dismissing any conflicting evidence. The prospect of a trial laid open the prospect of an acquittal. The announcement of an indictment allowed the authorities to claim the case was “solved” and to a great extent mollified the families of the victims and created a constituency to keep the issue (and the sanctions) going.

Of course if Libyan responsibility was undoubted, as the Americans proclaimed, why were they pursuing sanctions at all? The Americans had bombed Tripoli in response to a relatively minor outrage. This was something many US relatives could not grasp. Following a meeting with the FBI Director Dan Cohen commented:

“As we were leaving I asked Sessions if indictments would really be of any use, whether Pan Am 103 was something for the judicial system at all. After all, this wasn’t a drive-by shooting, it was really a military attack on America and should properly be answered in political or military terms. He thought for a moment and said, “You may very well be right”. (5) Cohen had a good point.

(2) The Maltese Double Cross, writer/director Alan Francovich

(3) Interview with Lhamin Fhimah (following his acquittal) featured

in Cover-up of Convenience by John Ashton & Ian Ferguson

Mainstream Publishing

(4) Ashton & Ferguson Interview with Lord Fraser

(5) Cohen, Susan and Daniel Pan Am 103 New American Library

2000 page 139

President-elect Trump and Lockerbie

[President-elect Donald Trump has featured on many occasions over the years on this blog. The relevant posts can be read here. What follows is a sample from 13 February 2014:]

Wind farms like Lockerbie disaster - Donald Trump

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The Scotsman.  It reads in part:]

Donald Trump sparked renewed outrage yesterday when he compared the development of wind farms in Scotland to the Lockerbie disaster.

On Tuesday, the billionaire tycoon announced that the Trump Organisation would be turning its back on Scotland and concentrating on developing a new course on the Republic of Ireland’s Atlantic coast.

The announcement came after Trump lost his legal challenge against the Scottish Government’s decision to give the go-ahead to an offshore wind farm in Aberdeen Bay which he claims will blight the view from his luxury golf resort at Menie, on the Aberdeenshire coast.

But yesterday, Trump sparked an angry backlash after renewing his attack on green energy schemes in Scotland in an interview with The Irish Times.

He told the newspaper: “Wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103. They make people sick with the continuous noise. They’re an abomination and are only sustained with government subsidy. Scotland is in the middle of a revolution against wind farms. People don’t want them near their homes, ruining property values.” (...)

Trump’s outburst was condemned by MSPs and relatives of the victims.

Susan Cohen, a New Jersey pensioner whose daughter Theodora, an aspiring actress, was 20 when she was killed in the disaster, said: “Obviously, there is no call for that. Donald Trump says many, many things here in the United States and I am, of course, appreciative of anyone who takes a tough stand on Lockerbie which he did at times.

“But, at the same time, I think that is an unfortunate choice of words. I wish he had not made that comparison. Lockerbie was a ghastly tragedy that destroyed many lives and is beyond comparison. It is one of the great and terrible events of man’s inhumanity to man and therefore it’s of an order where it should not be likened to anything.”

Joan McAlpine, the SNP MSP for the South of Scotland, claimed: “Even by Donald Trump’s standards, these comments are unbelievably crass and show a complete lack of respect to the families affected by the Lockerbie bombing – in the US, Scotland and across the world. He should withdraw them as a matter of urgency and apologise for any offence he has caused.”

Alison Johnstone, a Green Party MSP for the Lothians and member of Holyrood’s economy, energy and tourism committee, also hit out at the tycoon’s remarks. She said: “It’s grossly offensive to link renewables with the Lockerbie bombing. Mr Trump has already been reprimanded by advertising authorities for making such distasteful statements and he should apologise for his continued crass behaviour.” Ms Johnstone added: “He didn’t have a shred of evidence that renewables are bad for tourism when he was quizzed in parliament. Twelve-thousand people are now employed in renewables in Scotland, proving that Mr Trump knows nothing about the Scottish economy.”

In December 2012, Trump was accused of “sinking to a new low” and being “sick” for publishing an advert in Scottish newspapers which linked the government’s support of wind farms with the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

The Scottish Green Party lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority over the controversial advert, published in two regional newspapers and urging the public to protest against First Minister Alex Salmond’s support for renewable energy.

Under the banner “Is this the future for Scotland?” the advert featured a picture of a huge wind farm in California and a photograph of the First Minister.

It stated: “Tourism will suffer and the beauty of your country is in jeopardy! This is the same mind that backed the release of terrorist al-Megrahi ‘for humane reasons’ – after he ruthlessly killed 270 people on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie.”

The advert was condemned as “misleading” by the Advertising Standards Authority. (...)

[David Milne, a long-standing opponent of the Trump resort:]

Words have been used by Mr Trump on many occasions to accuse others of impropriety and inappropriate behaviour, with little in the way of evidence to support his claims. Having read the Court of Session decision by Lord Doherty, he obviously came to a similar conclusion about the evidence supplied by Mr Trump in that situation.

Unfortunately, grandiose words seem to have failed Mr Trump this time and his use of the Lockerbie bombing in comparison to wind turbines is not acceptable.

To diminish the suffering of the families of that event by trying to compare an international terrorist event that killed people of several nationalities with an attempt to protect and extend the environment of our planet is insensitive and ill considered. I am certain even some of his own supporters back in the USA will be shocked.

Megrahi’s son vows to return to Scotland to clear his father’s name

[What follows is excerpted from an article published in today’s edition of the Sunday Post:]

The son of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has revealed he’s heading back to Scotland to fight for justice for his dad – while branding Libya a lawless jungle.

Speaking from his home in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, Khalid al-Megrahi said a fresh appeal to clear his dad’s name was imminent.

Khalid, 31, has vowed to return to Scotland to play a central role in the case.

He will bring his family, which now includes a son named after his father, who was the only man to be convicted of the 1988 atrocity.

“Libya is like a jungle,” he said. “I want to return to Scotland for justice.”

An appeal launched by campaigners who believe Megrahi is innocent collapsed last November.

At the time, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission – a Scottish Government body – said it could not proceed without input from Megrahi’s family.

It would have been the third appeal against Megrahi’s 2001 conviction.

He dropped the second appeal in 2009 – launched while he was in prison in Scotland – because he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

Months later, he was controversially allowed to return to Libya on “compassionate grounds”, where he lived for a further three years.

Now, in his first interview since his father died in 2012, Khalid said the family’s participation in the appeal process has been hampered by “lawlessness in Libya”.

Khalid, Megrahi’s eldest son, has borne the burden of paternal responsibility since his dad was convicted in 2001.

He said it was only now during a lull in fighting in Libya that’s it had been possible for his family to get more involved in his father’s case. He said: “In Libya, it’s not a good time to do anything. Before the country was much better than it is now.

“And it’s not just for us but all Libyan people.

“It’s just not safe.

“Crime is everywhere. Banks don’t have money, police don’t work and the court system doesn’t work.

“You can ask any Libyan and he will tell you the same answer.”

Khalid, 31, said the capital often went without power, which compounded the problems of fighting a legal appeal from overseas and communicating with lawyers in Scotland.

Libya has been plagued by chaos since Nato-backed forces overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011. (...)

Khalid believes his family was targeted in the aftermath of Gaddafi’s death because of perceived closeness to the regime. (...)

But Khalid has distanced his family from the notorious Gaddafi clan and said he knew “nothing about them”.

Khalid, whose three-year-old son is named Abdelbaset in honour of his dad, said: “We had a lot of problems at the beginning of the revolution.

“We had a home and car stolen and they burned out our farm.

“There were also a lot of other things that happened to the family.

“The reason for doing all these crimes was that we belonged to the tribe of Megrahi.” (...)

Khalid said both he and his family had fond memories of their time in Scotland.

He spent his formative years here, was educated here and can’t wait to return so he can see his friends.

Khalid said: “I want to return to Scotland for the appeal. I love Scotland. I still keep in touch with some of the Scottish families.

“We are fighting because we believe Scotland will give us justice.

“The people of the country have always been very friendly towards us.

“We want justice not just for our family but also for the families of the victims.

“My family have been victims too.”

Khalid also revealed his toddler son Abdelbaset bore a resemblance to his father.

“I believe if I don’t clear my dad’s name my son will,” he said.

“We believe one day the truth will get out  – God willing.”

As well as eldest son Khalid, Megrahi had another four children – Ghada, Mohammed, Ali, and Motasem.

His eldest daughter Ghada, 33, studied law in Scotland and is now practicing in Tripoli.

IT consultant Khalid – also a Scottish graduate – spends time travelling the world with his work.

His three youngest siblings are all supportive of the appeal.

Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the 1988 disaster and who supports the Megrahi appeal, said: “There is not a scrap of doubt in my mind that if this appeal goes ahead, his conviction will be overturned.

“If that happens the relatives will examine calls for a full inquiry.”

But other relatives of victims last night blasted the Megrahi family’s new appeal as a fresh heartache.

Susan Cohen’s daughter Theodora, 20, was on board the flight when it exploded over Lockerbie.

Speaking from her home in New Jersey, USA, Mrs Cohen, 78, said: “For the Megrahis to call themselves victims, well, that is despicable.

“He was a mass murderer and to defend him is disgusting.”

A Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission spokesman said it had not received any new paperwork about the case and “there is no current appeal”.

Someone, somewhere, has been and still is hiding something

[The following are excerpts from a long article by retired ambassador Sir Brian Barder that was published on his website on this date in 2010:]

Several well informed people believe there are skeletons in this cupboard which powerful people in the UK and the US want to keep securely and permanently locked away right where they are.  For example, an impressive body of respectable opinion, by no means all professional conspiracy theorists, is not convinced that al-Megrahi was properly convicted. It’s impossible to know whether this doubt was a factor in Kenny MacAskill’s mind when he made his decision: fortunately for him, there were ample other grounds for compassionate release.  It does look however as if some of those concerned were anxious that al-Megrahi’s appeal should not be heard, either because it would risk bringing Scottish justice into disrepute by discrediting the original trial as unfair and defective, or for more sinister reasons.  Or were the likely consequences of al-Megrahi’s appeal possibly succeeding simply too awful to contemplate — for example, the reactions to be expected in the US, and the appalling questions then to be answered: if the two Libyan suspects didn’t do it, who did? And what compensation would be due to al-Megrahi or, if he had died in the meantime, his family?

So why did al-Megrahi agree to abandon his appeal before it could be heard? Was it because he feared that he would not live long enough to see it determined, or because abandoning the appeal was a condition, implied or explicit, of his release on compassionate grounds? Perhaps someone should put this question to al-Megrahi while he is still alive.

A recent article in the Independent newspaper alleged that the Libyan government had paid the doctors whose prognosis that al-Megrahi would die within three months had provided the justification for his release on compassionate grounds:

There are several facts that batter these claims with question marks. The most obvious is that, 11 months later, Megrahi isn’t dead. It’s the most amazing medical recovery since Lazarus. Or is it? It turns out the doctors who declared him sick were paid for by the Libyan government, and one of them says he was put under pressure by Libya to offer the most pessimistic estimate of life expectancy. Susan Cohen, whose only daughter died in Lockerbie, asks: “Why didn’t the Scottish Government pay for the doctors?”     [Johann Hari, The Independent, 23 July 2010]

But as a crisp comment on this canard pointed out, —

This is utterly untrue. The medical report was by Scottish doctors, NHS cancer experts. The ones paid for by Libya were not part of the evidence used by the Justice Secretary. Fact checking mate, you call yourself a journalist?

Indeed, the main medical advice on which MacAskill relied was provided by the Director of Health and Care of the Scottish Prison Service, Dr Andrew Fraser,  who has been described by MacAskill as a doctor of “unimpeachable integrity”.  Yet the slanderous claim that the prognosis had been provided by doctors paid by the Libyan government spreads like toadstools all over the blogosphere and into the MSM.  Moreover, it has repeatedly been made clear that the three-month prognosis was accompanied by a warning that he might die earlier, or he might live longer: no forecast in such circumstances could be certain.  And who knows whether al-Megrahi would still be alive if he had been left in his Scottish prison cell to die, in a foreign country miles from his family?  As to the repugnance commonly expressed at the ‘hero’s welcome’ he received on his arrival back in Libya, it needs to be pointed out that he was being welcomed back as a victim of a monstrous injustice, the Libyans believing almost to a man and woman that he had been wrongly convicted;  this was the opposite of a welcome accorded to a mass murderer and terrorist.

I’m generally suspicious of conspiracy theories but in this case I seem to smell a number of rats — not least because of the decision of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in June 2007 after lengthy study of the case to refer it to the High Court for a second appeal against conviction.  There were also a number of reports by Hans Köchler, who had been an international observer of the original trial, appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and who described the decisions of the trial and appeal courts as a “spectacular miscarriage of justice”. Some of the relatives of the victims, who have naturally followed all the proceedings closely, are doubtful whether al-Megrahi was properly convicted. There is a strong suspicion that Iran may have been involved, including a specific Iranian said to have been in the pay of the CIA (I am not of course suggesting that the CIA could have been involved in planning or carrying out the bombing). Al-Megrahi’s fellow-Libyan co-defendant was unanimously acquitted by the judges. There’s a good deal of doubt about (...) the principal prosecution witness, on whose testimony al-Megrahi’s conviction effectively stands or falls, and about his alleged identification of al-Megrahi at the trial, which was both shaky and possibly compromised. Even the vehemence of American protests at al-Megrahi’s release tends to arouse suspicion: what beans did they fear he might spill once out of prison? Why all the effort to prevent the second appeal from coming to court? And so on. It really does look as if someone, somewhere, has been and still is hiding something.

Fundamental principles were ignored

[What follows is the text of a report published on the website of The Guardian on this date in 2002 (and in the print edition of the newspaper the following day):]

The prison visitor arrived at Barlinnie mid-morning in a flurry of cars and police outriders. He bypassed the bleak waiting room with its metal benches and chipped linoleum and was led, without being searched, straight to a suite of cells deep within the grim Victorian fortress on Glasgow's eastern edge.

The inmate he had come to see greeted him with a handshake. They sat and talked for more than an hour. The statesman and the convicted mass killer: Nelson Mandela and the Lockerbie bomber.

For Mr Mandela, it was a defining experience. Emerging to talk to the press, the former South African president called immediately for a fresh appeal and for Abdel Baset al-Megrahi to be transferred from Britain to a Muslim prison. The Libyan's solitary confinement in Scotland's toughest jail was nothing short of "psychological persecution", he said. And too many questions had been raised about his conviction to let the matter rest. An urgent meeting would be sought with both Tony Blair and the US president, George Bush, to plead Megrahi's case.

Mr Mandela, 83, has long been troubled by Lockerbie. He played a crucial role in persuading the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, to hand over the two men suspected of involvement in the 1988 atrocity which left 270 people dead, and has followed events closely. Last week he announced he intended to travel to Glasgow to check on Megrahi's welfare.

Megrahi faces 20 years in isolation in Barlinnie after his conviction at the Scottish court in the Netherlands. His co-defendant, Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah, was acquitted. The Libyan, who does not have to slop out like other prisoners and has access to kitchen facilities and an interpreter, told Mr Mandela that staff treated him well but he had been taunted by other inmates when he exercised.

"Megrahi is all alone," Mr Mandela said afterwards. "He has nobody he can talk to. It is a psychological persecution that a man must stay for the length of his long sentence all alone. It would be fair if he transferred to a Muslim country - and there are Muslim countries which are trusted by the west. It will make it easier for his family to visit him if he is in a place like the kingdom of Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt.

"He says he is being treated well by the officials but when he takes exercise he has been harassed by a number of prisoners. He cannot identify them because they shout at him from their cells through the windows."

Composed and often jovial, Mr Mandela refused to say whether he believed Megrahi to be innocent or to criticise the Scottish judicial system directly. "My belief is irrelevant," he said.

But he listed criticisms of the judgment which led to Megrahi's jailing, including the views of a four-judge commission from the Organisation of African Unity: "This is what other legal men, other judges are saying of this judgment. They have criticised it ferociously and it will be a pity if no court reviews the case itself. From the point of view of fundamental principles of natural law, it would be fair if he is given a chance to appeal either to the privy council or the European court of human rights."

Earlier, Megrahi's lawyer, Eddie MacKechnie, said new information had come to light about an alleged payment of $11m by the government of Iran to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command two days after the bombing. "We have interviewed twice a former CIA officer who has given us details of the payment; times, dates, and bank accounts," he said. "My concern is not simply that there is evidence of such payment, but whether that information was available to any British authorities."

Megrahi's defence team is pursuing a hearing at the European court of human rights which will be launched in Strasbourg in September.

Back inside Barlinnie, Mr Mandela said he did not regret his efforts to bring Megrahi to trial. "No. Why should I regret?" he said. "I got involved in the Lockerbie trial because there was a deadlock. And I intervened because I was thinking first of the relatives of the victims, that they must see justice done - but justice done according to the fundamental principles of law. It does appear from what the judges have said that these fundamental principles were ignored."

But his continued involvement in the case has upset some of the relatives. Susan Cohen of New Jersey, who lost her daughter Theodora, said Mr Mandela's visit to Barlinnie was "an attempt to make Megrahi appear to be the victim".

Mr Mandela said he had hoped to meet the relatives during his visit but time had been too short: "I am coming back here in July and it is my intention to visit Scotland and speak to all the victims of Lockerbie."

It was not strange for him to visit a prison, he said. His own 27 years of incarceration had been leavened by access to other inmates and a full library.

"Our minds were occupied every day with something positive, something productive," he said. "It is difficult for me to believe that I was in jail for 27 years because it seems to have gone very fast."

MacAskill accused of cashing in on Lockerbie

[This is the headline over a report published in today’s edition of The Times. It adds nothing whatever to the story in yesterday’s edition of the Daily Mail and, once again, contains comments exclusively from US, not UK, Lockerbie relatives. It reads in part:]

Relatives of the Lockerbie bomb victims are angry that Kenny MacAskill, the former Scottish justice secretary, is to profit from a book about his decision to release the man convicted of the atrocity.

In The Lockerbie Bombing: the Search for Justice Mr MacAskill explains his decision in 2009 to release Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.

His publisher will not reveal whether Mr MacAskill received an advance or what he would do with any royalties.

Relatives of some of the 270 people who died when Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down over Lockerbie in 1988 criticised his decision to make a profit.

Rosemary Mild, 74, whose stepdaughter Miriam Wolfe, 20, died, told the Daily Mail: “It is blood money when this man is profiting in this way — it is disgusting. Kenny MacAskill should have been forced to resign at the time of al-Megrahi’s release because what he did changed the way Scotland was regarded in the US and around the world. It was an abomination of justice.”

It is understood that Mr MacAskill’s book will be published in hardback on May 26 and will retail for £20.

Susan Cohen, an American who lost her daughter, Theodora, in the bombing, said: “It is totally self-serving of Kenny MacAskill to write this book. It is loathsome and disgusting.

“He is profiting from a decision which caused absolute outrage around the world, profiting from other people’s pain. If he is so convinced he made the right decision, why does he feel the need to attempt to justify it?”

Mr MacAskill, the former SNP member for Edinburgh Eastern at Holyrood, said recently that he wrote the book to “set the record straight” and added: “What I can say, without disclosing the full contents of the book, is that I knew we were a cog in a wheel.

“What I didn’t realise was how small a cog and how big a wheel. I think what comes out of this is that others should hang their head in shame and none of them is in Scotland.” (...)

A spokesman for Biteback Publishing said: “I can’t comment on the question of [whether he received] an advance, or what Kenny intends to do with any proceeds, as these arrangements are strictly between author and publisher.”

Mr MacAskill was not available for comment last night.

“This is the trial of the people who murdered our son”

[On this date in 2000 the Lockerbie trial began at Camp Zeist. The fullest account in the media of the day’s proceedings is to be found on Safia Aoude’s The Pan Am 103 Crash Website, from which the following excerpts are taken:]

Members of the court rose when the judges, wearing white wigs and dressed in flowing ivory robes with embroidered red crosses, were led into the chamber by a sentry bearing a silver mace. They took their seats on the bench underneath a Scottish royal crest bearing the Latin words: "Nemo me impune lacessit," which means "None dare meddle with me". The accused have waited almost a decade to have their day in court.

Flanked by Scottish police officers, the two suspects put on headphones to hear an Arabic interpretation of the English-speaking proceedings. Their facial expressions gave little away. Mr Fhimah sat virtually motionless, Mr Megrahi fiddled with his headphones and adjusted his glasses knowing that these new surroundings would become a kind of home over the next 12 months.

The suspects, clad in Libyan national dress of black cap, white robe and waistcoat, then pleaded not guilty to carrying out the bombing of New York-bound Pan Am flight 103 on the night of December 21, 1988. The clerk to the specially-convened Scottish court read a list of Arabic names of people he said the defence would allege were the real Lockerbie bombers.

It included members of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General and members of another group called the PPSF. The indictment against the accused - who sat impassively throughout - took 20 minutes to read, after which the clerk of the court announced that both men were pleading not guilty to all charges. (...)

More than 30 American victims' relatives were getting front-row seats in the public gallery, separated from the court by bulletproof glass. Relatives of the defendants sat on the other side, dressed in white robes like the accused, among them their daughters and Mr Fhimah's 15-year-old son, uncle and father. The two groups made obvious efforts to avoid each. Megrahi's 15-year-old son Khalid, dressed in a black bomber jacket and beige canvas trousers, sat just a couple of meters away from his father -- separated by bullet-proof glass and a Scottish police officer.

Victims' relatives shifted from seat to seat to find the best vantage point. “I like aisles. Aisles are good if I want to get away,” said one American woman. “We believe in faith. Whatever is written cannot be changed. We are not upset because we know they will get a fair trial and we know they are innocent,” said Ali Fahima, Fahima's cousin, speaking to reporters with the Libyan journalist interpreting.

Al-Megrahi's brother, Mohammed Ali Megrahi, said he is convinced his brother is innocent. "We are looking for the truth and we believe he didn't do it," he said outside the courtroom. "If we believed he did it, we wouldn't be here, and he wouldn't have come voluntarily." (...)

"I feel sick," said Susan Cohen, of Cape May Courthouse, NJ, whose daughter Theodora died in the crash. "I saw the Libyans come in, and I'm trying not to look at them." Her husband Daniel Cohen shares a sentiment common to many victims’ family members.  “I’m angry and you know I have absolutely no trouble with the word ‘revenge.’ None. I am just that angry.” (...)

“The people who are really responsible are who we are after,” said Kathleen Flynn of Montville, NJ, whose son, John Patrick Flynn, was among the victims. "We will attend every day, either here or in New York," said Kathleen Flynn. "This is the trial of the people who murdered our son, John Patrick Flynn. It will be terrible to sit in a courtroom with the murderers, but a parent has to do that."  “I don’t think Fhimah and Megrahi were sitting around a cafe in Malta and deciding, ‘Let’s blow up an American plane today.’ So I think obviously the culpability has to go up the chain of command and we want to know who did it and why.” (...)

No relatives turn up at Dumfries tv-link room in Scotland

It was business as usual at Dumfries Sheriff Court on Wednesday morning, with little evidence that the venue was electronically linked to Scotland's biggest ever murder trial. The legal proceedings at Camp Zeist, where two Libyan men stand accused of the murder of 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing, were relayed live to two screens in a small courtroom. The court was one of a number of venues in Britain and the United States chosen to televise the proceedings for the benefit of relatives and those directly affected by the disaster.

However, no-one had turned up at Courtroom Number Four by 1600 BST on Wednesday. Accredited relatives had been invited to use the facility but so far no-one has asked to do so. This could change, as the trial progresses though, according to Bert Houston, who was one of the first journalists on the scene of the disaster in the nearby town of Lockerbie on the night of 21 December 1988.

He said: "The point is that relatives do visit Lockerbie constantly throughout the summer and they may want to see some of the proceedings.  "The idea is that they come across here, spend a couple of hours or spend all day if they want, watching the proceedings.  "It's only 12 miles form Lockerbie and I'm quite sure relatives will take advantage of the situation later in the year."

Because it was recognised that not all of the victims' relatives would be able to attend the trial in the Netherlands, it was agreed that special centres should be set up where they could watch a television feed of the proceedings.

Dewar acts to calm anger as Lockerbie prosecutor quits

Circumstances precluded my posting on this blog yesterday (Thursday, 18 February 2016). What follows is what I would have posted had it been possible.

[This is the headline over a report by Gerard Seenan in The Guardian on this date in 2000. It reads as follows:]

Scotland's first minister, Donald Dewar, yesterday moved to allay fears that the prosecution of the Lockerbie bomb suspects was in disarray by quickly nominating a replacement for the man who had been due to lead the prosecution team.

In less than six weeks, Lord Hardie, the lord advocate, Scotland's senior law officer, was supposed to lead the prosecution against the two Libyan suspects at Kamp van Zeist, in the Netherlands. But he quit late on Wednesday - and appointed himself a judge.

The move prompted accusations that Lord Hardie had left the families of the Lockerbie victims in the lurch, and led opposition politicians to call for an immediate review of the way judges are appointed, particularly the notion of self-appointment.

During an angry exchange at first minister's questions, the Scottish National party leader, Alex Salmond, accused Lord Hardie of letting Scotland down in the eyes of the world. Mr Dewar dismissed this as "over-dramatic".

By yesterday morning there was growing concern north of the border that Lord Hardie's decision would leave a vacuum at the heart of the case against the Libyan suspects.

The Scottish executive denied the departure would affect the trial and Mr Dewar announced he was recommending to the Queen that Colin Boyd, the solicitor general for Scotland, should become the new lord advocate.

Mr Boyd has played a prominent role in the Lockerbie case, appearing in person for the prosecution at some of the pre-trial hearings in Edinburgh and the Netherlands.

Roseanna Cunningham, the shadow justice minister, said many people felt let down by Lord Hardie's departure. "He has been responsible for key decisions in the Lockerbie prosecution, and the least he could have done was see this very important trial through to a close," she said.

Families of those who lost their lives in the Lockerbie bombing said they were appalled by Lord Hardie's decision. Susan Cohen, from New Jersey, in the US, who lost her daughter Theodora, said: "I am appalled and amazed at a moment like this, that the lord advocate just decides to leave."

Lord Hardie recently came under fire over his role in the appointment of Scottish judges after a high court ruling that using temporary sheriffs was in breach of the European convention on human rights.

After the SNP claimed Lord Hardie had mishandled the incorporation of the convention into Scots law, the Scottish justice minister, Jim Wallace, gave Lord Hardie his backing.