Libyan official warns against raising the Lockerbie issue

[This is the headline over a report published today on the Trend Detail News website. It reads in part:]

Ibrahim Bushnaf, the Libyan National Security Adviser, warned against deliberately raising the issue of the Pan Am 103 plane that crashed over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, and said that this issue “if it was raised again and became the subject of a criminal investigation, Libya would enter into decades of lawlessness. Only God knows its end.”

This warning comes amid current allegations that there is a [move] inside the country to hand over the Libyan citizen Abu Ajila Masoud, who is suspected of participating in the bombing of the plane, to the Americans, but [these] allegations remain against the backdrop of a political division between the two fronts in western and eastern Libya.

On February 6, 2021, statements were attributed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the interim “unity” government, Najla al-Manqoush, in which she expressed her cooperation with the possibility of her country working with the United States to extradite Abu Ajila, but she quickly retracted it at the time, and said that she “did not mention that text.” But she was answering a question about the Lockerbie case.

Bushnaf said, in a statement today (Friday), that “before US President Donald Trump left the White House, the Attorney General during his reign, William Barr, raised the (Lockerbie) case, what was reported at the time that he was calling on the Libyan authorities to extradite the Libyan citizen Abu Aguila Masoud, allegedly related to this case.

Bushnaf said, “Because we are aware of the details of the agreement that ended the conflict with the United States, we formed a legal and political team at the time, affiliated with the office of the Libyan Minister of Interior at the time, to follow up on the developments of the request.”

He explained: “The basis for the work of this team is that the Libyan state at the time of the previous regime insisted that the basis of the settlement is limited only to its civil liability for the actions of its subordinates without criminal liability. The settlement also included that any claims after the date of signing are directed to the United States government.”

Bushnaf pointed out that “statements attributed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs circulated last year on this issue, so the Prime Minister (Abdul Hamid al-Dabaiba) addressed us with a [text] that did not deviate from the content of this speech.”

Bushnaq went on to warn against raising the Lockerbie issue, calling on “all patriots and political entities in the country to line up to prevent this, away from the political conflict.”

And in December 2021, the US Department of Justice had previously charged the Libyan, Abu Ageila, with his “involvement in planning and manufacturing the bomb” that brought down the plane over Lockerbie during its flight from London to New York, killing 270 people, including 189 Americans.

At the time, William Barr demanded that the Libyan authorities in Tripoli quickly extradite Abu Ageila, who is under arrest, to be brought to trial in the United States. US officials said that Abu Ageila made confessions to the Libyan authorities in 2012 of his involvement in the Lockerbie bombing, and that these confessions were handed over to the Scottish authorities.

Abu Ageila is a former Libyan intelligence official, who is currently being held in a prison in the capital, Tripoli, on charges not related to the Lockerbie case. In 2003, Muammar Gaddafi’s regime officially acknowledged its responsibility for the Lockerbie attack and agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the victims. Al-Megrahi, who was sentenced to 27 years, was released for health reasons in 2009, but he died in 2012 at the age of 60 in Libya. [RB: What Libya acknowledged was "responsibility for the acts of its officials". The regime did not admit that it had ordered the bombing: http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/08/libyan-august-2003-acceptance-of.html]

The Libyan intelligence officer, Abd al-Basit al-Megrahi, was considered the main suspect in the bombing of the plane, and he was sentenced to 27 years in prison, but he was released in 2009 after he was diagnosed with the last stage of prostate cancer. Following an indication from the Daily Mail newspaper that Iran might be involved in the case, al-Megrahi’s family demanded compensation for the period he spent in prison, while several parallel demands arose in Libyan cities, talking about “the possibility of recovering the compensation paid by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime to the families of the Lockerbie victims.”

UK and US accuse Libyans of Lockerbie bombing

[What follows is the text of a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 1991:]

Two Libyan intelligence officers have been accused of masterminding the Lockerbie bombing.

The United States has called on Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi to hand over the two men, Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah.

The men have been indicted in the US on 193 charges, including three which carry the death penalty.

Arrest warrants have also been issued for the two Libyans in Scotland on charges of murder and conspiracy in relation to bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.

The plane was en route from London to New York when it exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground.

President George Bush is to consult British Prime Minister John Major and other world leaders over the next few days to decide the international response.

Both President Bush and Mr Major have refused to rule out military action if Libya fails to hand over the suspects for trial.

However, Libya's ambassador to France, Saeeb Mujber, has said his country would not comply with the indictments.

Mr Mujber told the BBC that surrendering the two men would be to surrender Libya's sovereignty.

Libya had been implicated as an excuse for a military assault, he added.

"'This is a political thing. This is a lynching to bring Libya to its knees," Mr Mujber said.

But the US acting Attorney General, William Barr, said a fragment from the Toshiba radio-cassette recorder which contained the bomb linked the accused to the crime.

"Scientists determined that it was part of the bomb's timing device and traced it to its manufacturer - a Swiss company that had sold it to a high-level Libyan intelligence official," Mr Barr said.

"I wonder why they are still trying to blame the wrong people for my daughter’s death"

[What follows is excerpted from a long interview of Dr Jim Swire by Marcello Mega in today's edition of The Scottish Mail on Sunday:]

My daughter was murdered 32 years ago tomorrow on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. For us, the anniversary is no different to the other 364 days. We remember Flora and feel her loss every day.

She would have celebrated her 24th birthday in America with her boyfriend the next day. I’m sure she would have been a mother by now. That day, our family lost a beloved daughter and sister, and all the future joy she would have brought us.

I have no doubt she would have had a wonderful career. She wanted to specialise in neurology and had done so brilliantly at nottingham University that she had been given time out to set up her own research project at Queen Square Hospital, London, l ooking at how HIV affected the brain.

I have many reasons to be angry. Much of my anger is directed at our Government and prosecution service, and the US authorities.

I wonder why they are still trying to blame the wrong people for my daughter’s death.

To hear last week the US intends to pursue another Libyan suspected of making the bomb that murdered 270 people fills me with despair, as does the news there is ‘fresh evidence’ linking a second suspect.

American investigators refuse to acknowledge the many flaws in the case that blamed Libya, and they continue the charade, ignoring all the evidence pointing to Iran. Now, cynically I believe, while five Scottish judges consider the posthumous appeal raised by the family of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi – the only man convicted of the bombing – outgoing US attorney-general William Barr will announce they want to try Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, allegedly a bomb-maker for the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The second suspect, Abdullah Al Senussi, is the ex-intelligence chief and brother-in-law of Gaddafi.

Mr Barr held the same position when Megrahi was first charged in 1991. Having suddenly and inexplicably changed the focus of the investigation from Iran to Libya in the beginning, he appears to have rounded the circle when no credible evidence remains against Libya. I wonder if the timing now was contrived to put pressure on the judges.

To believe the Crown’s case against Megrahi, you have to believe in a series of astonishing coincidences.

In October 1988 a European cell of the PFLP-GC terror group was raided by the German secret police in Neuss. Four bombs were recovered, all hidden in Toshiba cassette-recorders. Members admitted one device had been taken away by their leader.

The devices had a simple timer that ran for half an hour after being triggered by lowered air pressure at altitude. On a Boeing 747 this would occur seven minutes into the flight. The explosion was 37 minutes after take-off. The evidence label for the fragment supposedly linked to Libya was the only one of thousands of productions to be altered. Originally it read ‘charred cloth’, but the word ‘debris’ was overwritten, presumably when the debris itself was added.

The case for Iran as culprit is far stronger. Five months before Lockerbie, the USS Vincennes, a warship patrolling the Gulf, shot down an Iranian Airbus, killing all 290 on board. Iran vowed the skies would run with the blood of Americans. The US offered no apology.

Security warnings were shared by Western intelligence services from October 1988 that terrorists intended to bomb a US aircraft.

The later warnings were specific to Pan Am, prompting the US to offer embassy staff in Moscow the chance to fly home for Christmas with another airline. But the UK Government did nothing, failing to protect Flora and the other 269 victims, despite Heathrow having been notified of a bomb threat.

The story that saw Megrahi wrongly convicted of mass murder has the bomb on flights from Malta to Frankfurt and then on to Heathrow, but that did not happen. Even the judges who found Megrahi guilty in 2001 acknowledged the Crown had failed to show an unaccompanied bag flew on the flight from Malta. The Maid of the Seas, the Boeing 747 that would disintegrate over Lockerbie, was loaded from empty at Heathrow.

Evidence of a break-in at Heathrow the night before – which would have let someone plant the suitcase with the bomb in the relevant area – was known to the Scottish police, and must therefore have been known to the Crown, but was not revealed to Megrahi’s defence.

At the time, Heathrow had been notified by the UK department of Transport of the threat of bombs in Toshiba cassette-recorders.

We have a copy of a telex sent to Heathrow two days before Lockerbie, warning that such bombs would be hard to see on X-rays.

Incredibly, it told security staff at the airport that if an item looked uncertain on X-ray and was to be carried, it ‘could only be carried in the hold of the aircraft’.

The suppression of evidence that did not fit their case was a deliberate tactic of prosecutors.

They did not reveal that star witness Tony Gauci, owner of the shop that sold the clothing packed around the bomb, was to get $2 million (£1.5 million) for his testimony, even though he never once said the buyer was definitely Megrahi. The judges acknowledged his doubt in their verdict, but, uniquely in a criminal case where certainty is everything, made a virtue of it.

The statements Gauci made that didn’t fit the case were never shared but the judges later ruled on two matters Gauci was 100 per cent reliable on: the list of clothing and prices – not knowing that in an unseen statement he made in 1999 he had produced a different list – and that the buyer was Libyan.

The clothes purchase was agreed to have occurred on November 23, when Megrahi was in Malta. Other evidence, including Gauci’s brother Paul’s statement, pointed to december 7. Paul Gauci was not called to give evidence and received a $1 million (£740,000) reward. 

Megrahi received a life sentence.

The new appeal has not heard any of the considerable fresh evidence relating to the timer fragment.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case back to appeal but restricted the terms. There is copious evidence the fragment could not have been part of the bomb, yet the judges must decide if the conviction is safe without hearing it.

UK Families Flight 103 has always wanted to know why our loved ones were not protected despite the warnings, who killed them and why.

Our Government has always refused us a public inquiry. I am 84 and still hope to see justice done. It still brings tears to my eyes when I remember clearing out Flora’s London flat after her murder.

We found an offer to complete her studies at Cambridge, where I was an undergraduate. She would have been saving the news to tell us on Christmas day, or on her return from the States. I owe it to my wonderful daughter and to the man wrongly blamed for her death to keep fighting for the truth.

Libyan tribe urges Prime Minister to release Lockerbie suspect

[What follows is excerpted from a report published yesterday on the Libya Review website:]

The tribe of the Libyan officer, who was previously linked to the Lockerbie case, has called on the Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity (GNU), Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba to “intervene immediately to release him, without restrictions or conditions.”

The Maraima tribe demanded in a statement that Dbaiba “not involve the name of Abu Ajila Masoud in the Lockerbie case again.”

The tribe called for “the release of Abu Ajila after he was kidnapped by an unknown party on the background of the Lockerbie case.” It held the kidnapping party “legally and morally responsible,” and urged “the tribes and the Libyan people to work for Abu Ajila’s release.”

Earlier this month, the Libyan National Security Adviser, Ibrahim Bushnaf warned against deliberately raising the issue of the Lockerbie Case.

In press remarks on Friday, Bushnaf warned that if the Lockerbie case was raised again and criminal investigations were conducted, Libya would enter into decades of lawlessness. (...) Bushnaf’s statements came amid current allegations that Libya could hand over Abu Ajila. Local media reported that Abu Ajila was “kidnapped” by government-affiliated forces, and likely he will be handed over to the US.

“Before US President Donald Trump left the White House, the then US Attorney General, William Barr, raised the (Lockerbie) case. At that time, reports alleged that Barr was calling on the Libyan authorities to extradite Abu Ajila,” Bushnaf said.

On 6 February 2021, Libyan Foreign Minister, Najla Al-Mangoush expressed her willingness to cooperate with the United States to extradite Abu Ajila. She quickly retracted her statements, claiming that she “did not mention that text,” and that she was answering a question about the Lockerbie case.

[An article yesterday on The Reference website contains the following:]

The file of the downing of a passenger plane over Lockerbie in Scotland continues to haunt Libyan authorities.

This is especially true with the (...) Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh government planning to extradite the last defendant in the case to the United States.

Washington had repeatedly called for this extradition, even as Libya had paid tens of billions of dollars in compensation under late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Some Libyans are warning, meanwhile, against reopening the file of the plane.

This, they say, may force Libya to pay new compensation for the families of the victims of the plane downing.

The last defendant in the case, Bouajila Massoud, was kidnapped from his home in Tripoli by militias affiliated with Abdul Ghani al-Kakli [more commonly "Kikli"], a military commander loyal to the Dbeibeh government.

Massoud's kidnappers escorted him to an unknown location.

This development caused widespread anger, and several warnings against reopening this file, which may lead to forcing Libya to pay new compensation to the families of the victims and their countries.

Despite calls for disclosing the place where Massoud is kept and his release, the authorities in Tripoli did not make any response.

They only ruled out plans to negotiate over the Lockerbie file again.

Massoud, a former Libyan intelligence officer, was imprisoned after the downfall of the Gaddafi regime.

He was convicted on charges unrelated to the Lockerbie issue.

Megrahi appeal dismissed

The High Court has dismissed the posthumous appeal brought on behalf of Abdelbaset Megrahi. The 64-page opinion of the court can be read here. [RB: In the version originally issued, the date of the disaster was stated by the court to be 22 December 1988, the same blunder as was made in the trial court's judgement. This has since been corrected to 21 December. Careless.] A summary can be found here. 

As regards the first ground of appeal, the court concludes in paragraph 87 that, notwithstanding evidence challenging 7 December 1988 as the date of purchase of the items from Tony Gauci's shop, and notwithstanding concerns about the evidence supporting Gauci's "identification" of Megrahi, "... the contention that the trial court reached a verdict that no reasonable court could have reached is rejected. On the evidence at trial, a reasonable jury, properly directed, would have been entitled to return a guilty verdict."

As regards the ground of appeal founding upon failure by the Crown to disclose material that would have been helpful to the defence the court concludes that even if the material had been disclosed it would not have made a difference to the guilty verdict. Paragraph 135 of the opinion reads: "The contention that the Crown failed to disclose material which would have created a real prospect of a different verdict is rejected."

The outcome of the appeal is a cogent illustration of just how difficult it is to have the Scottish criminal justice system acknowledge that a mistake has been made, as I continue to believe has happened here. It is, I contend, a matter of grave public concern, that the appeal was so narrowly confined and that issues such as the metallurgy of the circuit board fragment and Dr Morag Kerr's findings regarding the loading of the bomb suitcase at Heathrow were not ventilated.

The Herald's report on the dismissal of the appeal contains the following statement from the Megrahi family's solicitor, Aamer Anwar:

"Ali Al-Megrahi the son of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing said his family were left heart broken by the decision of the Scottish courts, he maintained his father’s innocence and is determined to fulfil the promise he made to clear his name and that of Libya.

"As of this morning the Megrahi family have instructed our legal team to appeal to the UK Supreme Court [and] we will lodge an application within 14 days.

"The family demand the release of secret evidence held by the UK Government, which they believe incriminates others such as Iran and the Syrian-Palestinian group, the Foreign Secretary had refused to do so, this must happen for the truth to emerge."

[What follows is excerpted from a press release issued today by Aamer Anwar:]

Significant material has been received by the Legal team over the last several months, but especially since the announcement by Donald Trump’s former Attorney General William Barr on 21 December 2020, where he stated that the USA wished to extradite a former Libyan Intelligence Officer, Abu Agila Mohammad Masud for the Lockerbie bombing, 32 years later.

Masud’s confession to being involved in the conspiracy with Al-Megrahi to blow up Pan Am Flight 103, was supposedly ‘extracted’ by a ‘Libyan law enforcement agent’ in 2012, whilst in custody in a Libyan Prison. No new information appeared to be presented by Attorney General Barr.

What was significant in the US criminal complaint against Masud was his claim that he bought the clothes to put into the Samsonite suitcase that is claimed went on to blow up Pan Am Flight 103.

Of course, the problem for the US Department of Justice is that the case against Megrahi is still based on the eye-witness testimony of Toni Gauci stating that Megrahi bought the clothes. How can both men be held responsible?

The al-Megrahi family believe that if the conviction against their father were to be overturned then the US case against Masud would be non-existent.

Undoubtedly there will now be huge pressure on Libya and the GNA, the Government of National Accord based in Tripoli to extradite Abu Agila Masud to the US, but of course the American authorities will be also aware that if the Megrahi’s were to be successful at the Supreme Court, then so called case against Abu Masud would crumble. 

A reversal of the verdict would have meant that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom stand exposed as having lived a monumental lie for 32 years, imprisoning a man they knew to be innocent and punishing the Libyan people for a crime which they did not commit.

All the Megrahi family want for Scotland is peace and justice, but as Ali stated today their journey is not over, Libya has suffered enough, as has family for the crime of Lockerbie, they remain determined to fight for justice.

They are grateful to their legal team for their unwavering commitment and also to the British families for their compassion and search for justice.

Ali said God willing, he will visit his father's grave one day to tell him that justice was done and that he fulfilled his promise to clear his name and that of Libya.

In this appeal the legal arguments related to two distinct challenges to the conviction. The first was that it was contended that no reasonable jury properly directed could have convicted Mr Megrahi on the evidence led, focusing in particular on the evidence of Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci stating that Megrahi bought clothes from him that were ultimately placed into a suitcase containing the bomb planted on the plane.

The second ground was that the failure to disclose information to the defence, led to the trial being unfair and thus a miscarriage of justice, these related to the reliability of Mr Gauci’s identification of Megrahi as the person who bought the clothes, as well as the content of CIA cables.  

In relation to the second ground of appeal, the failure to disclose information to the defence, the decision of the Appeal Court is the determination of a “compatibility issue” – an issue arising from a question relating to the breach of human rights, in this case article 6 the right to a fair trial.   

Where the Appeal Court in Scotland determines a compatibility issue, it is competent to seek leave to appeal from the Appeal Court of the determination of that issue to the UK Supreme Court in London.  If leave to appeal by the Scottish courts is refused, it is competent to seek leave to appeal directly from the Supreme Court in London. 

... the Megrahi family have instructed us to make an application to the UK Supreme Court.  We must now lodge an application within 14 days. Today’s decision will be carefully considered and intimated to the Crown and the UK Advocate General and lodged with the Justiciary Clerk with 14 days of the opinion of the court which is dated 15th January  2021.

The Justiciary Clerk will then ask for written submissions.  The Crown is allowed to lodge  submissions to object. Written submissions are always required even if there is an oral hearing.  It may be that the court will advise that the matter will be considered on paper submissions only. 

The time for a decision on that application is difficult to estimate, however we would expect the al-Megrahi case to progress relatively quickly and no longer than 2-3 months.

When the decision of the High Court of Justiciary is known - if it is an adverse decision then within 28 days an application for 'permission to appeal' can be lodged with the UKSC Registrar to directly appeal to the Supreme Court. One would hope that if such a process were followed then the appeal would be heard before the end of 2021.

US announces charges against Megrahi and Fhimah

[What follows is one of the items for this date in 1991 on the On This Day section of the BBC website:]

US accuses Libyans of Lockerbie bombing

Two Libyan intelligence officers have been accused of masterminding the Lockerbie bombing.

The United States has called on Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi to hand over the two men, Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah.

The men have been indicted in the US on 193 charges, including three which carry the death penalty.

Arrest warrants have also been issued for the two Libyans in Scotland on charges of murder and conspiracy in relation to bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.

The plane was en route from London to New York when it exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground.

President George Bush is to consult British Prime Minister John Major and other world leaders over the next few days to decide the international response.

Both President Bush and Mr Major have refused to rule out military action if Libya fails to hand over the suspects for trial.

However, Libya's ambassador to France, Saeeb Mujber, has said his country would not comply with the indictments.

Mr Mujber told the BBC that surrendering the two men would be to surrender Libya's sovereignty.

Libya had been implicated as an excuse for a military assault, he added.

"'This is a political thing. This is a lynching to bring Libya to its knees," Mr Mujber said.

But the US acting Attorney General, William Barr, said a fragment from the Toshiba radio-cassette recorder which contained the bomb linked the accused to the crime.

"Scientists determined that it was part of the bomb's timing device and traced it to its manufacturer - a Swiss company that had sold it to a high-level Libyan intelligence official," Mr Barr said.

What is US covering up with Lockerbie? And why?

[This is the headline over an article by Martin Jay published recently on the Maghrebi.org website. It reads in part:]

There can be no better example of the old saying “a lie can travel half way around the world before the truth is even putting its shoes on” than Lockerbie. This tragic story of a US passenger flight brought down by a bomb over the small Scottish village just a few days before Christmas in 1988 is heart breaking on a number of levels. But the main one is that even to this day, the Americans continue to keep the huge lie alive: Libya’s involvement.

Just in the last week of November, still we see news reports from US media newswires writing about Lockerbie and continuing to promote Libya’s involvement when 34 years after the terrible event the evidence is so overwhelming to show that Libya had nothing to do with the bombing.

In recent days, it has been reported that a third man in the Lockerbie bombing – a Libyan intelligence officer with bomb-making skills – has disappeared, sparking worries in Libya that the Americans might restart a case against the country even though a previous agreement with the US is in place. The officer in question Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir al-Marimi who in 2020 was charged by US Attorney General William Barr a week before he left office during Trump’s presidency. Barr is the useful idiot who earlier during George W H Bush’s term in office charged in 1991, two Libyan nationals for the bombing: Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah.

He is the idiot who Bush instructed to continue with the case against the Libyans when the US president actually knew by that time, through his own intelligence officers’ reports, that Iran was culpable with the aid of Syria. Bush didn’t want any heat from Syria’s Hafez al-Assad who he needed on his side for his Kuwait invasion in 1990, so it suited Bush senior to continue with the Libya charade which framed the two Libyan officers.

Megrahi was found guilty in Scotland of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001 and freed in 2009 on compassionate release grounds before dying of cancer in 2012. Subsequent to his death though a tome of evidence has been produced to show that the Scottish court in the Netherlands had acted improperly in sentencing him and that the link with Libya was manufactured by those who masterminded the bombing.

Moreover, both their cases have since proved by a number of leading journalists to be a grotesque travesty of justice and in all respects the two were ‘fall guys’ to a bigger plot yet to be exposed by mainstream media. The FBI, the Scottish police and the British government were all intent on putting the case together towards the two Libyans as America badly wanted to frame Gaddafi and so the fundamental flaw in the case – clothes in the suitcase supposedly coming from Malta – became the red herring which fingered the two Libyan agents. Even today, on the FBI’s website, the same astonishing lie rests at the heart of one of America’s biggest ever cover ups. The FBI, without a shred of evidence still claim that the suitcase the bomb came with, was placed on board the flight from Malta which has a large number of Libyan intelligence officers. Yet any number of investigations subsequently have proved that according to Frankfurt Airport records, this is untrue.

A number of British investigators (...) insist that the suitcase in question was actually loaded onto Pan Am 103 in Heathrow. (...) it certainly wasn’t placed on the flight from Malta. (...)

The initiative by the Americans, just two years ago, to pursue this third man is part of a greater cover up which started in the late 80s to frame the Libyans in preference to accusing Iran and Syria which US presidents still to this day fear. But it’s also about money. How much money would the American families get if they brought cases against the American government today?

Almost 34 years after Lockerbie, there is now ample evidence both from journalists, investigators and whistle blowers for those families to see the truth about Lockerbie which is so shocking that it would make Hollywood film makers turn it down as a movie script as it is so unbelievable. (...)

Libya was always an easy target to frame as western media had been priming its readers with fake news stories about Gaddafi’s terror attacks in the west, in most cases entirely falsifying evidence and framing him for many which were in fact carried out by other groups, the best example being the Berlin disco bombing of April 1986, which was in fact carried out by Iranian groups based in Lebanon. It suited Ronald Reagan very well to shy away from tackling Iran and Syria head on and cultivate the myth of Gaddafi as the ‘mad dog’ of the region and subsequent US presidents like Bush senior. But in reality the American public were being cheated on a grand scale, even to this day.

Although it’s not only the American public who are being fooled.

The Lockerbie case cost the Libyans great financial losses during the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, as Libya paid compensation to the families of the victims estimated at $2.7 billion. Libyans fear the case could be reopened, leading to more financial losses. (...)

And so, to this day, the blame is put on the Libyans even though the mad dog Gaddafi is long gone. It’s the most easiest and logical way to keep the lie alive as just as Gaddafi was reluctant to destroy the myth of his involvement (as it boosted his credibility in the Arab world), even today there is no real accountability. Conveniently, Libya remains opaque, unaccountable and bereft of any free press that can dig for truth there and there is also a big question today as to whether some political factions there are happy to play the game the Americans want. There are even rumours that Marimi, who was in a Libyan jail, was handed over to the Americans in a secret deal. If this is the case, then the feral need to keep the Libya connection alive is as important today as it was in the late 80s. Just as then, US leaders were too afraid to point the finger at Tehran, they are the same today. Iran didn’t just get revenge for the downing of its Flight 655. It got payback on a scale it couldn’t imagine as the Libyan game that the US is still playing today shows that Iran has always been the winner in this dirty war.

Private Eye on the Masud charges

[What follows is the text of an article that appears in the latest edition of Private Eye:]

Late charges 

The parting shot by US attorney-general William Barr just before Christmas that another Libyan, Abu Agila Masud, was to be charged over the Lockerbie bombing will have delighted Scotland's prosecutors. The Crown Office is nervously awaiting the outcome of a posthumous appeal against the copviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 atrocity, which killed 270 people. 

The case against Megrahi was always riddled with holes, and since his 2001 conviction more evidence - some withheld from his trial - has emerged to cast further doubt (Eyes passim). Last March the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case back to the appeal court on the basis that no reasonable court could have reached a guilty verdict "beyond all reasonable doubt" and significant non-disclosure of evidence. 

Both grounds related to the damning evidence of the key prosecution witness, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who said Megrahi resembled a man who bought the clothes found wrapped around the bomb. It subsequently emerged that Gauci was paid $2m by the US Department of Justice (DoJ). But other troubling evidence was excluded from the appeal. That included forensic material suggesting that a circuit board fragment found at the scene could not have originated from the batch of timers said to incriminate Libya and Megrahi, and new evidence indicating that the bomb almost certainly originated from Heathrow rather than Malta (adding to the fact of a break-in at Heathrow the night before the flight).  

Masud, the third Libyan to be charged (Lamin Fhimah who stood trial alongside Megrahi, was acquitted), is now said to be the Lockerbie bombmaker. He is also alleged to have made the bomb for the 1986 La Belle Disco attack in Berlin, which killed two US servicemen and a Turkish woman.  

The new charges are based on an investigation by American film-maker Ken Dornstein,  who lost his brother m the Lockerbie bombing, and on an affidavit by an FBI agent, which describes a confession allegedly made by Masud to "a Libyan law enforcement officer". That "confession" names Megrahi, a fellow intelligence officer, as a co-conspirator. It dates from 2012, when Masud was in prison awaiting trial for making booby-trapped bombs for use against opponents of the Gaddafi regime, which fell in 2011. As it came during a time of revenge and score-settling, key questions will be what side the Libyan law officer was on and under what circumstances the confession was made. 

US prosecutors might also seek to rely on a key witness in Dornstein's documentary, Musbah Eter, a Libyan former diplomat who was convicted in 2001 of the La Belle bombing. He claims Masud told him he was involved in Lockerbie. However, as declassified East German Stasi documents revealed, Eter has a credibility problem - not least because he was a CIA "asset" who had never previously claimed any knowledge of Lockerbie. 

Nevertheless, the news has received a guarded welcome by those convinced of Megrahi's innocence. Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the blast, would like any evidence properly tested in open court to try to get to the truth about Lockerbie and what US and UK investigators knew. But he tells the Eye that if the case is linked to Megrahi and Malta it is already fatally flawed. 

The DoJ has been sitting on Masud's damning confession and evidence gathered by Dornstein for years, so why did it wait until last month before charging Masud? Might the answer be, as Swire suggests, that it is Barr's attempt to salvage his own credibility? Or, as those representing Megrahi's family believe, a timely attempt to add to the already considerable pressure on the Scottish appeal judges to uphold the only conviction? 

The charade begins...

Twenty-one years ago today, in simultaneous announcements in Edinburgh and Washington DC, the Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC, and the Acting Attorney General of the United States, William Barr, disclosed that criminal proceedings had been launched against two Libyans, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and al-Amin Khalifa Fhima, for the murder of the 270 people killed in the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988. The Washington DC Grand Jury indictment can be read here. The Scottish indictment that followed on from the November 1991 Dumfries sheriff court petition was in essence the same.

Libyan commentator's assessment of the Masud affair

[I am grateful to the distinguished Libyan journalist and commentator Dr Mustafa Fetouri for supplying this assessment of the Masud affair.]

Over the last two weeks I have tried to figure out what is going on in Libya concerning the situation of Libyan Abuajila Masud accused by the United States of being a culprit in the Lockerbie disaster. Since William Barr, the US Attorney General, publicly named him in December 2020 the man disappeared and little information has been obtained as to what is happening to him. Sorting out the real news from what is fake and lies in Libya today is very hard. It appears the entire political elite, government and the media they just addicted to lies. They simply lie even when there is no interest to do so. In the end I can say with a degree of certainty that: 

1.  Abu Agela Masud is indeed alive and he is living in the Abu Salim area just south of the capital Tripoli. He was released from Al-Hadba notorious prison sometime in 2017 after spending years there. That prison, until taken over after a day-long heavy fighting in 2017, was under the control of the terrorist group Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). After he was forced to flee to Turkey I caught up with Kahlid Sherif, who used to be the director and top LIFG leader. I went to Istanbul in 2020 to meet him but he failed to show up. Through written message I asked him questions but he mostly refused to answer. In 2021, if I remember correctly, he was hosted on Clubhouse for a long session. I was kicked out of the room before I could ask all my questions. Even after that he refused to sit for an interview with me. 

2.  On the early morning of 17 November 2022, a group of armed men came to Masud’s house and took him away. His family, friends, and neighbours never knew where he is. They still do not. The government in Tripoli is silent. The House of Representatives, the Higher Council of State (consultative body), and the National Security Advisor (former judge) have rejected, in statements, all attempts to open the Lockerbie case while condemning the disappearance of Mr Masud. Ironically, their separate statements never actually, with certainty, said what is going on. None of them produced any reasonable narrative nor proof that the man indeed has been kidnapped let alone his whereabouts.  

3.  Mr Masud, has indeed been taken away. Who took him and where is pretty difficult to figure out. His family, in a statement, have confirmed this. But I suspect that the statement may not be true and authentic and actually written by the family. It simply does not sound right. I have been trying to contact the family but so far failed to do so.  

4.  The narrative/rumours (nothing is certain) go like this: the Tripoli government wants to please the US to remain in power. Foreign minister Al-Mangoush in November 2021 did hint in a BBC interview about the possibility of handing over Masud to the US. This is the first time the corrupt Tripoli government ever talked about Lockerbie. At the time I led a social media campaign, including several TV appearances on prominent Libya TV channels. The public reaction supporting me was huge and the minister was forced to clarify her comments. She even denied what was attributed to her in that BBC interview, despite the fact a video clip of that conversation was aired!  And then silence until the news/rumours broke last week. 

5.  Finally: I never believed that the US is serious about extraditing Mr Masud to stand trial. However I tried, I could not confirm that the Libyan side received any official request from the Americans to extradite the man. There are no indications that the Americans are really seeking him. One simple indication of that is the fact that, as of today, Masud’s name is not on the FBI list of most wanted. I recall in 1991 the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was on the top list as soon as he was indicted. Would the corrupt Tripoli government hand Masud over if it believed that could help it stay in power? It is unlikely, but such government is capable of committing almost any sin against the country and its people. 

Nineteenth anniversary of Megrahi accusation

It was on 14 November 1991 that the prosecution authorities in Scotland (the Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC) and the United States (acting US Attorney General, William Barr) simultaneously announced that they had brought criminal charges -- principally murder and conspiracy to murder -- arising out of the destruction of Pan Am 103 against two Libyan nationals, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, who were alleged to be members, and to have been acting throughout as agents, of the Libyan intelligence service.

According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.

[From a forthcoming book on the Lockerbie case.]

"The evidence is pointing to crimes more egregious than just a cover-up"

Purely by chance I today discovered an article by Ali Adair headlined William Barr: How many crimes did he commit as the ‘Cover-up General’ for Presidents since the 1980s? that was published on the Keep It Simple News website on 14 February 2020. The article contains a long and detailed section on the Lockerbie bombing and the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. It is a welcome addition to the (short but distinguished) list of commentaries by American writers that recognise the weakness of the official US and UK account of the Pan Am 103 tragedy, and is well worth a read. 

Twenty years on

[Here is a post from this blog dated one year ago today:]

It was on 14 November 1991 that the prosecution authorities in Scotland (the Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC) and the United States (acting US Attorney General, William Barr) simultaneously announced that they had brought criminal charges -- principally murder and conspiracy to murder -- arising out of the destruction of Pan Am 103 against two Libyan nationals, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, who were alleged to be members, and to have been acting throughout as agents, of the Libyan intelligence service.

According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.

[The US grand jury indictment announced by the acting Attorney General is the basis of the current US contention that Megrahi should be extradited from Libya to the United States. This, of course, blithely ignores UN Security Council Resolution 1192 and the Zeist trial at which two US Justice Department lawyers formed part of the Lord Advocate's prosecution team.

In this context the following Written Question to the Scottish Government should be noted:]

Question S4W-04021 - Christine Grahame (Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale) (Scottish National Party) (Date Lodged 11/11/2011) :

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the (a) Cabinet Secretary for Justice or (b) Lord Advocate had received any communication from the (i) US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, (ii) Home Office or (iii) interim Libyan government concerning proposals to extradite Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi to the USA.

Twenty-two years on

It was on 14 November 1991 that the prosecution authorities in Scotland (the Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC) and the United States (acting US Attorney General, William Barr) simultaneously announced that they had brought criminal charges -- principally murder and conspiracy to murder -- arising out of the destruction of Pan Am 103 against two Libyan nationals, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, who were alleged to be members, and to have been acting throughout as agents, of the Libyan intelligence service.

According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.

[From this blog on 14 November 2010.]