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).

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.

If the evidence was so flawed, why was Megrahi convicted?

[What follows is the text of an article published on the Daily Beast website on this date (BST) in 2011:]

There’s fresh trouble for Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Amid a clamor of criticism, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was released from a Scottish jail two years ago, allowed home on compassionate grounds. After a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer, he had been given just three months to live. Now the collapse of the Gaddafi regime has brought calls for Megrahi’s extradition to the United States or his return to prison in Libya.

For a vocal lobby in Washington, his freedom—and continuing survival—represent an affront that can at last be addressed. In the words of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: “Seeing him participate in good health at a pro-Gaddafi rally recently was another slap in the face not just for the families of the Lockerbie victims but for all Americans and for all nations of the world who are committed to bringing terrorists to justice.”

A tad overstated? Such rhetoric certainly won’t find universal support in Britain. Megrahi is far from friendless back in Scotland, where Pan Am flight 103 crashed in 1988 killing 270 passengers and residents of the small town of Lockerbie. Campaigners convinced of his innocence are pressing the Scottish parliament for an inquiry leading to a possible appeal that would clear Megrahi’s name.

And the roll-call of big-name supporters for the Justice for Megrahi group can’t be easily ignored. On the list: Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu; the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien; Jim Swire, the parent of a Lockerbie victim, and Professor Robert Black, the lawyer who devised the special court which tried Megrahi in the Netherlands in 2001.

One more backer, the leading lawyer Ian Hamilton, has blogged: “I don’t think there’s a lawyer in Scotland who now believes Mr. Megrahi was justly convicted."

The group insists there’s no case for extradition on legal grounds. Says Robert Forrester, secretary of the campaign: “Mr. Megrahi is a Scots prisoner released under license and still falls under Scots jurisdiction therefore and neither Washington nor Westminster has any jurisdiction under Scots law.” But he concedes that politics may determine his fate. “The man should be left alone to continue with his medical treatment but he has become such a pawn that I can’t believe that is going to happen.”

Campaigners have long fought to highlight what they see as serious flaws in the case against Megrahi, the only person ever convicted over the bombing. They point in particular to the contradictory testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who claims to have sold Megrahi the clothes packed in the suitcase that carried the bomb. Gauci reportedly received a $2 million reward from the U.S. for giving evidence. Megrahi abandoned an appeal against his conviction so as to ease his release in 2009.

One frustration, says Forrester, is that the facts of the case are so little known to the public. “The problem is that so many people come to this from a basis of ignorance. We end up having arguments with people in the pro-trial camp who haven’t read the transcript or even the judgment.”

His own involvement dates from a chance encounter with a Libyan neighbor in Glasgow who needed help to start his car. Through his new acquaintance, Forrester, a retired language teacher who has worked in the Middle East, was asked to proofread a letter on behalf of a Libyan student group in the city to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond calling for the Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds.

If the evidence was so flawed, why was Megrahi convicted? Forrester won’t endorse conspiracy theories or suggestions of political interference, but he’s ready to speculate on unconscious motives. “This was the most high-profile case ever to come before a Scots court. Perhaps at the back of the mind of the judges was ‘if we can’t get any conviction out of this incredibly high profile trial of this it will be hugely embarrassing.’ If ever the case returns to court, acquittal could prove far more embarrassing.

Media urged to back fresh Lockerbie inquiry

[This is the headline over an article published in The Drum on this date in 2010. It reads in part:]

Justice for Megrahi, a campaign group ... is now spearheading an international coalition inviting the press to back a petition calling for an inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing.

... the statement was distributed directly to the editors in chief of the Financial Times, the Herald, Guardian, Observer, The Times, Telegraph, Independent, Irish Times and The Scotsman and their respective Sunday sister titles, in addition to the Times of Malta. [RB: The full text of JfM’s letter to the various editors can be read here.]

Timed to coincide with renewed interest in the case both at home and abroad following Al-Megrahi’s compassionate release, which has seen the terminal cancer sufferer outlive his projected life expectancy by a considerable margin, the group hopes to up the political heat on governments either side of the Atlantic.

Signatories, who thus far include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dr Jim Swire and Tam Dalyell, are calling for the “travesty of justice” which led to Al Megrahi’s conviction for planting an improvised explosive device within Pan Am 103 to be looked at anew.

This, campaigners hope, will redeem the image of the Scottish justice system which they say is “regarded internationally as an embarrassment… demonstrably malleable by political hands.”

It is hoped that consensual outrage in the press will be sufficient to tip First Minister Alex Salmond into setting up such an inquiry in Scotland after having already endorsed the idea in principle.

Serious questions raised by serious people

What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2012.

Lockerbie inquiry calls rejected

[This is the headline over a report just published by The Press Association news agency.  It reads as follows:]

Fresh calls for an inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing have been rejected by the First Minister.

Only a court of law can determine guilt or innocence, Alex Salmond said during First Minister's Questions at Holyrood.

He was urged by Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie to consider an inquiry less than a week after the man convicted for the atrocity died in Libya.

More than 40 politicians, religious leaders and journalists signed a letter on Tuesday calling for an independent inquiry into Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction. The "perverse judgment" has left Scotland's criminal justice system a "mangled wreck", the letter says.

Mr Rennie said: "The First Minister has previously said he would be prepared to co-operate with a UK inquiry. If he has no objection to an inquiry in principle, and this group wants a Scottish inquiry, will he agree to hold it?"

Mr Salmond said: "The place where you determine guilt or innocence of an individual is a court of law.

"As Willie Rennie should know, the relatives of Mr Megrahi have the ability, if they so choose, to go back to the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission and seek further leave to appeal. That is the process which can be followed."

Mr Rennie said the conduct of the Crown should be looked at, rather than focusing on guilt or innocence.

He asked Mr Salmond: "Surely it can't just be left in the hands of a family somewhere in Tripoli for that to be determined? If he chooses to act on this inquiry he'd have the support of Desmond Tutu, Terry Waite, John Pilger and so many others. This is not a normal case. It's Scotland's biggest terrorist atrocity. These are serious questions raised by serious people, and the world is watching."

Mr Salmond replied: "They're looking for an inquiry for the responsibility, ultimately, for Lockerbie. That touches on matters of huge international importance which would be beyond the ability of the Scottish inquiry to summon witnesses, compel evidence, etcetera."

[Mr Salmond gravely misrepresents the nature of the inquiry that Justice for Megrahi is seeking.  The true position is, as has been pointed out on many occasions, that what is being called for is an inquiry into the investigation, prosecution and conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. Each and every one of these matters is within the jurisdiction of Scots law and the remit of the Scottish Government:

• The event occurred over and on Scottish territory.
• The case was investigated by a Scottish police force.
• The trial was conducted under Scots Law.
• Mr Megrahi was convicted under Scots Law.
• Mr Megrahi was imprisoned in a Scottish gaol.
• The SCCRC referred the second appeal to the Scottish Court of Appeal.
• Mr Megrahi was given compassionate release by the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice.

That is the nature of the inquiry that Justice for Megrahi's petition is asking the Scottish Government to convene. A more wide-ranging inquiry into what really happened to Pan Am 103 would involve non-devolved issues.  Such an inquiry would have to be instituted by the UK Government (or by the UK and Scottish governments jointly -- the Inquiries Act 2005 specifically envisages such joint inquiries in section 32 read with section 1(2)). But we are and always have been clear that our request to the Scottish Government relates exclusively to matters that are within devolved Scottish jurisdiction.  

In a statement after First Minister’s Questions, Willie Rennie said:

“A liberal society should be one that is prepared to look hard at its justice system, even if it is worried about what it might find.

“I have called for a Scottish public inquiry into the Lockerbie prosecution.

“The First Minister has the opportunity to shine a light onto the conduct of the Crown Office, which for years has been left blemished by the six separate grounds of appeal identified by the Government's own Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

“On matters which relate to the integrity, fairness and justice of the Scottish justice system, it is simply not good enough to leave this to a family in Tripoli.

"Questions relating to Scottish justice are not a matter to be left to a UK inquiry. It has the backing of 40 leading figures, is about Scotland's biggest terrorist atrocity and potential flaws have been identified by the Government's own review body. We need the First Minister to act."]