Monday 31 December 2018

Outrage before Lockerbie

[This is the heading over a letter from Lizanne MacKenzie published in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]

Whenever there is any coverage of the terrible events which happened in Lockerbie 30 years ago – and there has been a great deal of late – I am dismayed that there is no reference to what took place six months previously. On July 3, 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down, as it flew out of Tehran, by the USS Vincennes. In all, 290 people were killed, including 66 children. Two years later, the commander of the Vincennes was awarded the Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service".

Subsequent attempts to cover up the facts about what happened in that incident are shaming. Vice-President George H W Bush said on the campaign trail: "I will never apologise for the United States – I don't care what the facts are."

I write, not to detract from the Lockerbie crime, but to question why we make no connection between these two outrages – one all but forgotten by us in the West – surely, they are connected?

Saturday 29 December 2018

There are good reasons to believe that the conviction of Megrahi was a shameful miscarriage of justice

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Kim Sengupta published today on the website of the Belfast Telegraph (and a week ago behind a paywall on the website of The Independent):]

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi lay in his bed attached to a drip, on red sheets stained by dark splashes of blood he had coughed up. An oxygen mask covered his skeletal face; his body twitched as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was in the advanced stages of cancer: medicine he desperately needed had been plundered by looters; the doctors who had been treating him had fled.

This was in Tripoli in the winter of 2011, in the turmoil of Libya's civil war and the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. It was a time of great violence. A dozen bodies were piled up beside a roundabout a half-mile from where I had seen Megrahi lie slowly dying. They were corpses of black men, lynched by the rebels because they were supposedly mercenaries fighting for the regime. In reality, they were victims of a xenophobia against African migrants which had accompanied the uprising.

Megrahi himself had been convicted of a dreadful massacre; of being responsible for 270 deaths on December 21, 1988, when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland. A bomb - 12 ounces of Semtex in a Toshiba radio-cassette player - had been secreted in the luggage of the plane carrying passengers to the US, many returning home for Christmas.

After spending eight years in Scottish prisons following his conviction, Megrahi had been returned to Libya on compassionate grounds following a diagnosis of prostate cancer. After a few months in prison in Tripoli, unable to walk and bedridden, he was allowed to return to his family home.

There was vengeful anger expressed by some in Britain, and more so in the US, at Megrahi's return to Libya. He had faked his illness, it was claimed, and even if that was not the case, he had escaped justice by not actually dying in a cell.

The charge of subterfuge was reinforced by the perception that his release was part of the many dodgy deals between Tony Blair's government and Colonel Gaddafi's regime.

Yet there are good reasons to believe that the conviction of Megrahi was a shameful miscarriage of justice and that, as a result, the real perpetrators of one of the worst acts of terrorism in recent history remained free. That certainly was the view of many, including international jurists, intelligence officers, journalists who followed the case, and members of bereaved families.

Among the latter group was Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, Flora, in the bombing. Dr Swire, a man of integrity and compassion, who became a spokesman for UK Families 103, stressed that "the scandal around Megrahi is not that a sick man was released, but that he was even convicted in the first place. All I have ever wanted to see is that the people who murdered my daughter are brought to justice".

Megrahi died in May 2012, a few months after I had seen him. Yet a campaign Dr Swire had helped set up, Justice for Megrahi, continues to help the Libyan's family to seek a new appeal against the sentence in their efforts to posthumously clear his name.

Certainly, the chronology of the original investigation into the bombing is strange, raising serious questions about the official narrative.

Soon after the downing of the Pan Am flight, American and British security officials began laying the blame on an Iran-Syria axis. The suggested scenario was that Tehran had taken out a contract in revenge for the destruction of an Iranian civilian airliner (Iran Air Flight 655), which had been shot down by missiles fired from an American warship (the USS Vincennes) a few months earlier.

The theory went that the contract had been taken up by the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command), which specialised in such operations.

The blame switched to Libya - which was then very much a pariah state - around the time Iran and Syria joined the US-led coalition against Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf war.

Robert Baer, the former American intelligence officer and author, was among those who held that an Iranian-sponsored hit was the only plausible explanation for the attack. This was the firm belief held "to a man", he stated, by his former colleagues in the CIA.

After years of wrangling, Megrahi, the former head of security at Libyan Airlines and allegedly a Libyan intelligence officer, was finally extradited in 1999 - along with another man named as a suspect over the bombing, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, also allegedly employed by Libyan intelligence. (...)

I covered their trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, which took place in a specially constituted court, with a panel of Scottish judges but without a jury, under Scots law. The two men were effectively charged with joint enterprise - conspiracy - yet only Megrahi was found guilty. (...)

The prosecution evidence was circumstantial, details of the bomb timer on the plane were contradictory, and the testimony of a key witness, a Maltese shopkeeper, was extremely shaky under cross-examination.

Five years on from the trial, the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmville, who had been responsible for initiating the Lockerbie prosecution, famously described the witness, Tony Gauci, as "an apple short of a picnic" and "not quite the full shilling".

The performance and evidence of a supposedly prime CIA intelligence asset, Abdul Majid Giaka, codenamed Puzzle Piece, who turned up in a Shirley Bassey wig, was widely viewed as risible. It emerged later that important evidence had not been passed on to the defence lawyers. Ulrich Lumpert, an engineer who testified to the validity of a key piece of evidence, admitted later in an affidavit of lying to the court.

The observer for the UN at the trial severely criticised the verdict, as did many lawyers. Robert Black, a law professor born in Lockerbie, who played an important role in organising the Camp Zeist proceedings, later became convinced that a great injustice had taken place. (...)

Fr Patrick Keegans had just been appointed as parish priest in Lockerbie and was looking forward to his first Christmas there at the time of the crash. His tireless work with the traumatised community drew wide praise and is remembered with gratitude.

He reflected: "For those of us who experienced Lockerbie, the story will never come to an end. Lockerbie lives with us, we are part of Lockerbie and Lockerbie is part of us... the horror, the tragedy, the sadness, the grief, the support and the love that was shown - all of that stays with us."

Fr Keegans, who is now retired, joined the Justice for Megrahi campaign after meeting the convicted man's family and is now backing the call for a fresh appeal.

"I can't live with myself being silent," he explained, "when I'm truly convinced that this man has been unjustly convicted. Lockerbie is an unfinished story as far as the legal aspects are concerned."

Megrahi died at his home in Tripoli, still protesting his innocence. He thanked Dr Jim Swire and others who had believed in him.

In his final days, he said: "I pray for all those who died every day. I shall be meeting my God soon, but the truth will come out.

"I really hope the truth of what really happened will come out one day."

Thursday 27 December 2018

His belief in Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s innocence drove him forward

[What follows is excerpted from an article headlined The night fire fell from the sky published today on the website of the Scottish Catholic Observer:]

The 30th anniversary has put the catastrophe at the forefront of the media once again as witnesses and families relive the horror. One survivor who was there at the epicentre in Sherwood Crescent had, at the time of the disaster, recently been appointed parish priest of the town’s Holy Trinity Church.

Just as the previously sleepy town suddenly found itself on the centre of the world’s stage, Canon Patrick Keegans, then Fr Keegans, soon became one of the most recognisable faces of the tragedy.

As darkness descended, and the shortest day of the year gave way to the longest night, no one could have known how just how long the night would be and the devastation it would bring. (...)

“I was upstairs when it happened and the whole house shook so much I thought I would die there,” Canon Keegans said.

“My mother, who was downstairs, was protected by the fridge freezer. At that point I thought it was a fighter plane that had come down.”

Opening the front door, there was only the sound of the crackling of fire to break the momentary eerie silence before the emergency services would descend, only the light of the flames illuminating the darkness which the street had been plunged into as power failed.

“The whole street was gone, it was just debris everywhere,” Canon Keegans said.

“I made an effort to get further in and I think that was symbolic. I needed to try to do something.

“With another man, I was able to carry a woman out but that was as much as we could do in Sherwood Crescent.”

As the local priest, he was soon sought out and, although in the first days he was as shocked and tearful as anyone else, his capacity for pastoral support saw him become an essential part of the grieving and healing in the wake of the atrocity.

“It was simple in some ways because I had the plus factor of living there, of being in Sherwood Crescent at the time, and they could see the sadness in my eyes. And that’s a sorrow that lasts to this day,” he said. (...)

A public life he had never sought or wanted would soon begin. It was his conviction that the families needed to know the truth to begin to heal and his belief in Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s innocence drove him forward.

Megrahi, an alleged Libyan intelligence officer, was convicted in 2001 of carrying out the bombing.

However, some remain convinced of his innocence. Canon Keegans joined the Justice for Megrahi campaign, which ended his close friendships with many of the victims families.

“I was their blue-eyed boy and then suddenly I was the traitor,” he said.

“To a large extent the relationships went but I’m still close to some of them. I couldn’t just sit back when I believed in his innocence, so my conscience is clear.”

Canon Keegans was spared the survivor guilt which often plagues those who escape death in terrible circumstances.

“I never felt guilty, only grateful to be alive and grateful my mother was alive. I did wish that I had been taken instead of the children, all of whom I knew. (...)

Sunday 23 December 2018

The record must be set straight once and for all and justice delivered

[What follows is the text of an editorial headlined Libya and Lockerbie published today in the Daily Times of Pakistan:]

Three decades have passed since the Lockerbie tragedy. And it seems that increased doubt surrounds the Libyan role in the worst terrorist attack on American civilians; the events of 9/11 notwithstanding.

Back in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was travelling from London to New York when it was brought down by explosives. The plane crashed in the Scottish town of Lockerbie; killing all 270 aboard. What happened next would be the biggest investigation in British history.

There have long been claims that Iran gave the order to strike and paid a ‘middle-man’ the hefty sum of $10 million to do the needful: the Syria-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). [RB: Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer contends that the document alleged to show a $10m payment from Iran to the PFLP-GC does not in fact do so and has no connection with Lockerbie.] This was reportedly a tit-for-tat move. For a few months earlier, the Americans had, in their own words, mistakenly, downed an Iran Air plane; killing 290. Moreover, the daughter of a former PFLP operative  — in the run-up to the thirty-year anniversary of the disaster — repeated allegations of Tehran’s involvement. According to popular theories, London and Washington sought to frame Col Gaddafi of Libya for Lockerbie over his support for Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It has been argued that the UK and US were keen to keep Iran on side during the first Gulf War.

If true, there has been a terrible miscarriage of justice. First and foremost for purported Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset el-Megrahi who was convicted in 2001 on all 270 counts of murder and had always professed his innocence. And also for the entire nation. For once Gaddafi publicly carried the can for the terror attack some two years later — an unfortunate sequence of events put the country firmly in the eye of the American storm. El-Megrahi, who was suffering from cancer, was returned to Tripoli on compassionate grounds. And some political pundits believe that this provided the impetus for Barrack Obama to push for NATO intervention in the country. For at the time of the Benghazi offensive there were reports of JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) being on standby to try and pick up el-Megrahi and fly him to Washington to stand trial before American courts.

To avoid further speculation, therefore, an international tribunal must be set up to re-open the Lockerbie case. After all, spooks working on both sides of the Atlantic have in the past spoken of likely Iranian involvement. The world — particularly the Libyan people — deserve to know the truth. For important questions remain. Namely, why, if at all, would Gaddafi allow himself to be framed in this way? What was the payback he was hoping to secure from the West? This is not to rule out Iranian absolution. The point here is that the record must be set straight once and for all and justice delivered.

If nothing else, a re-investigation may afford a better understanding of the underlying dynamics that are currently fanning Middle Eastern flames. While affording the victims’ families long overdue closure.

Saturday 22 December 2018

Investigation not static, but no guarantee enough evidence for further proceedings

[What follows is excerpted from a report headlined Lockerbie bomb plotters still hunted, 30 years on published in today's edition of The Times:]

The solicitor-general for Scotland has pledged to work in close co-operation with US authorities if new evidence about the involvement of people in the Lockerbie bombing comes to light.

Scottish prosecutors said they had a number of strands of investigation that were producing intelligence and information which supported the findings of the trial that the bombing was state-sponsored terrorism by Libya in which Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was a main figure. (...)

The Crown Office said the investigation was also contributing evidence to the pursuit of other people involved in the conspiracy. Prosecutors insisted that the investigation was not static, but said they could not guarantee that it would uncover enough evidence to support further criminal proceedings.

Speaking in Washington at a commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the disaster which claimed 270 lives, Alison Di Rollo, QC, the solicitor-general, said: “Within the Scottish prosecution service we have nine prosecutors who are involved to varying extents in the investigation; one who was involved in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, three who have been with the case since 1999, two who joined the team in 2007, two in 2012 and one in 2015.

“We have resilience and succession planning for this challenging investigation, ensuring that the team contains a range of prosecutorial expertise in counter-terrorism, major crime investigations, forensic analysis, international co-operation and mutual legal assistance.

“As a prosecutor I cannot guarantee that the investigation will uncover enough evidence to support further criminal proceedings, but I can — and do — promise that the lord advocate and I, along with the prosecution team and the Police Service of Scotland, will remain committed to this investigation and to working as closely as we ever have with our US colleagues.”

She said that the Crown Office would not give details about the progress of the case team’s investigation work because of the rules about publicity and its potential to prejudice a criminal case. But she added: “Please be assured, however, that doesn’t mean that the investigation is static, or that progress is not being made.” (...)

In Scotland, the family and friends of Lockerbie victims travelled to the town for a memorial service. (...)

Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, 23, in the explosion, attended the memorial service in Lockerbie for the first time after years of spearheading campaigns by bereaved relatives for a full inquiry into the atrocity.

Mr Swire, 82, said: “I found it very moving. Partly because I felt so out of touch with the people of the town and I know that my campaigning inevitably results in the town’s name being talked about again and again and again.

“I felt that they might be resenting that, but I haven’t found that to be the case at all.

“The people I’ve met here have all been extremely warm and welcoming and they seem to respect the fact that this must never be forgotten and this is part of making sure it isn’t forgotten.”

The truth behind bomb that took down Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie remains a 30-year mystery

[This is the headline over an article by John R Schindler published yesterday on the US Observer website. It reads in part:]

Thirty years ago this week, Pan Am Flight 103 was torn apart by an explosion as it cruised 31,000 feet above the Scottish Lowlands, 38 minutes after it departed London’s Heathrow Airport. The shattered Boeing 747, named Clipper Maid of the Seas, was bound for New York but never made its destination, falling in flames around the bucolic town of Lockerbie. (...)

Once it was obvious that nobody survived the crash, the biggest investigation in British history commenced, painstakingly locating and cataloguing over four million pieces of wreckage—including thousands of body parts—spread over 850 square miles of the Scottish countryside. Within a week of the disaster, investigators discovered traces of explosive, revealing that the Lockerbie crash was no accident.

A bomb took down the 747, and FBI analysis revealed that the huge airliner was destroyed by less than a pound of plastic explosive, specifically Semtex from Czechoslovakia, packed in a Samsonite suitcase stowed in the plane’s forward left luggage container. The improvised explosive device was hidden in a Toshiba radio cassette player and was detonated by a barometric sensor designed to detect altitude.

This revelation set off alarm bells, since less than two months before the attack, German police rolled up a terrorist cell near Frankfurt—where Pam Am 103’s transatlantic trip originated—that was building bombs, specifically a Semtex bomb hidden inside a Toshiba radio cassette player. The cell belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command, a radical Arab group headed by Ahmed Jibril, a former Syrian army officer. Western intelligence considered the PFLP-GC to be little more than an extension of Syria’s security services.

Moreover, the October 1988 arrests bagged a top PFLP-GC official, plus the Jordanian national Marwan Khreesat, a veteran bomb-maker who is believed to have played a part in an unsolved terrorist attack in 1970 that took down a Swissair jetliner, killing 47 people. Before long, Khreesat was released from custody, apparently because he was an informant for Jordanian intelligence.

German police seized four bombs from the PFLP-GC’s Frankfurt cell, but a fifth IED went missing. Western intelligence agencies assumed that may have been the device that took down Pam Am 103. Neither was it difficult to ascertain a motive for the attack. Only months before, on July 3, the cruiser USS Vincennes, on station in the Persian Gulf, shot down an Iran Air Airbus, killing all 290 aboard, 66 of them children. It was a terrible accident, but hotheads in Tehran promised revenge. Had they gotten it in the skies over Scotland?

That was hardly a far-fetched idea. In the 1980s, Iranian-backed terrorists left a trail of bombings across the Middle East and beyond, several of which killed large numbers of Americans. Not to mention that the Syrian regime was friendly with the mullahs in Tehran, and outsourcing Iran’s vengeance for the downed Airbus to the PFLP-GC seemed plausible to seasoned Middle East-watchers.

That was the conclusion of US intelligence, particularly when the National Security Agency provided top-secret electronic intercepts which demonstrated that Tehran had commissioned the PFLP-GC to down Pan Am 103, reportedly for a $10 million fee. One veteran NSA analyst told me years later that his counterterrorism team “had no doubt” of Iranian culpability. Bob Baer, the veteran CIA officer, has stated that his agency believed just as unanimously that Tehran was behind the bombing. Within a year of the attack, our Intelligence Community assessed confidently that Lockerbie was an Iranian operation executed by Syrian cut-outs, and that take was shared by several allies with solid Middle Eastern insights, including Israeli intelligence.

American spies were therefore profoundly shocked in November 1991 when the American and British governments indicted two Libyans for the bombing. It took nine years for a trial to commence, since Libya was reluctant to hand over its nationals, and it began in May 2000 in the Netherlands, although the proceedings took place under Scottish law. In January 2001, only one of the defendants, Abdelbaset el-Megrahi, reported to be a Libyan intelligence officer, was convicted on 270 murder charges.

Megrahi professed his innocence and he was sent back to his native country in the summer of 2009 on compassionate grounds since he had terminal prostate cancer. He died in May 2012, not long after Libya’s revolution felled his former boss, dictator Muammar Gaddafi. In 2003, as part of his effort to curry Western favor, Gaddafi admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie attack and paid compensation to victims’ families, but he never conceded that he ordered the bombing. [RB: Libya did not admit "responsibility for the Lockerbie attack" -- it accepted "responsibility for the actions of its officials". The full text of the relevant document can be read here.] 

Libya, too, perpetrated a rash of terrorist attacks in the 1980s, and some of them killed Americans, so it was never implausible that Lockerbie was executed by Libyan intelligence. Indeed, U.S. intelligence never excluded the possibility that Libyan spies played some role in the attack. Such multinational collaboration in terrorism happens in the real world, with spies employing foreign terrorists, sometimes from multiple groups, as cut-outs. However, the evidence for Megrahi as the lead Lockerbie terrorist was never especially firm, and the case has weakened over time, as stories have changed.

While Libyan intelligence veterans have claimed that Gaddafi was behind Lockerbie, Iranian intelligence veterans have just as adamantly pointed the finger at Tehran. Revealingly, Jim Swire, an English doctor who lost his daughter on Pam Am 103, has devoted the last three decades to Lockerbie victims’ advocacy, becoming over time a vehement defender of the late Megrahi, believing the Libyan was a patsy. Like all sides in this mystery, Swire has assembled a convincing, if ultimately circumstantial, case for his theory of the crime.

The number of people who know the truth about Lockerbie is dwindling as time takes its toll. It is troubling that what U.S. intelligence confidently believed about the attack never translated into judicial or political action. The atrocity that took place over Scotland 30 years ago remains the deadliest terror attack on American civilians except for 9/11. In 2014, Marwan Khreesat was living freely in Jordan, posting pictures on Facebook of the blown-apart Pam Am 103 and a replica of the bomb which took her down. He died two years ago and Khreesat’s daughter recently told the media that her father left behind proof that he was responsible for Lockerbie due to his “deal with Iran.” Time is running out to let the public know what really happened to Clipper Maid of the Seas and 270 innocent people.

"Some say that you have received justice. I am not at all convinced"

[Lockerbie victims live on in our hearts, says priest is the headline over a Press Association news agency report as featured on the website of The Courier. It reads in part:]

Canon Pat Keegans delivered a homily during a memorial mass at Holy Trinity RC Church in the town on Friday evening.

He spoke of the aftermath of the disaster and how those who died on the night of December 21, 1988 will not be forgotten.

Canon Keegans also told how when he is in Lockerbie he visits the Memorial Stone at Dryfesdale Cemetery and reads the names of the 270 victims, among them people he knew in the town.

He said: “There you are, Joanne Flannigan from Sherwood Crescent. You are only 10. I remember you and I remember your friend Lyndsey Sommerville, who is 10, and her brother, Paul, who is 13.

“And you, Joanne, and Paul and Lyndsey are delivering Christmas cards. You ring my doorbell. You hand me a card. You smile and say, ‘Have a nice Christmas’ and all three of you die.

“But, as with all who died on that evening, whose names are engraved along with yours, you are not just a list. You are not just a distant memory.

“You are not from the past. You are precious people who live on in our hearts, for that is where your names are truly engraved.”

He added: “Some say that you have received justice.  I am not at all convinced.

“What I can promise is that we will not close the book on the story of your lives, for the last chapter is still to be written: Pan Am 103. The truth must be known. The whole truth.”

Canon Keegans praised the way those in the town dealt with the aftermath of the tragedy.

He said: “As I speak to you here in Holy Trinity Church this evening, I can reflect that, having experienced here in Lockerbie, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and seeing such horror and devastation, we did not allow our lives to be poisoned by fear nor by a desire for revenge.

“All that we looked for was healing, recovery and justice.”

The service was led by Bishop William Nolan, with Father Jim Hayes the current parish Priest and Canon Keegans as guest preacher.

Lockerbie suspect now living in US suburb slams 'complete lie' he planted bomb

[This is the headline over a long report in today's edition of the Daily Mirror. It reads in part:]

The man suspected of planting the Lockerbie bomb has been tracked down by the Daily Mirror.

Once allegedly identified as Abu Elias, the Syria-born US citizen lives a normal life under a different name in a suburban town outside Washington DC.

Questioned by the Mirror, he said it was a “complete lie” that he played any role in the worst terror attack in Britain which killed 270 people 30 years ago.

He hit out after former Cold War spy Douglas Boyd named him as the prime suspect and argued Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – the only person to be convicted – was a fall guy.

And it comes after the Mirror’s world exclusive yesterday with stunning claims from the daughter of a senior Jordanian militant.

She said before his death two years ago, Marwan Khreesat told his family his old terror group the Popular Front for the ­Liberation of ­Palestine – General Command carried out the attack.

He claimed its chief Ahmed Jibril was paid millions of pounds by Iran, which wanted revenge for 290 deaths when a US warship shot down an Iranian passenger jet months earlier.

Author Boyd, in his recent book Lockerbie: The Truth, claims it was Jibril’s nephew Elias who most likely broke into the Pan Am baggage store at Heathrow to plant the device on Flight 103.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation and, previously, the CIA have also named Elias as a prime suspect.

Terror cell member Mobdi Goben also claimed Elias was guilty in a deathbed confession.

But the suspect, who lives just 20 miles from the ­Lockerbie Cairn Memorial at Washington, told the Daily Mirror he was innocent.

Asked if he was ever known as Abu Elias, he replied: “No. I have been subject to more than 90 hours of investigation from Scotland Yard and the FBI, and they are through with me.

“The FBI did their ­homework. They know me very well. They have a big thick file on me.”

He later admitted the identity he now lives under was not his birth name.

But he added: “I’m not the nephew to no one. The bit you are talking about is full of f***ing lies. It’s a bloody lie.”

Author Boyd wrote in his book: “Megrahi was convicted on a tissue of lies. Little of the evidence against him can be taken at face value.

“It is a story of incompetence, vengeance, political expediency and then a cover-up orchestrated from the highest levels in London and in ­Washington – where the real bomber is said to live today, under cover of a witness protection scheme.” (...)

Many believed some of the evidence [against Megrahi] was weak. He was identified as buying clothes in Malta that were later found in the Lockerbie luggage. Megrahi died at home in 2012 from prostate cancer, aged 60, having been released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds three years previously.

It is believed he planned to reveal Elias’ new identity in a bid to clear his own name.

However, two weeks after being freed to return to Tripoli, SNP politician Christine Grahame used Scottish Parliamentary privilege to identify the man she said was Elias.

She said at the time: “Why were there no criminal prosecutions following the shooting down of the Iranian Airbus by the USS Vincennes in 1988, five months before Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie?

“Was there a contract issued by the Iranian authorities to the PFLP-GC to take revenge for the death of 290 Iranian pilgrims, 60 of whom were children, by bringing down an ­­American plane bringing its pilgrims home for Christmas?

“Why have the US authorities not queried the true identity of [name withheld] alias Abu Elias, a senior figure in the PFLP-GC at the time of the bombing and nephew of Ahmed Jibril, former head of that terrorist organisation?”

We asked the suspect where he was on December 21, 1988 – the day of the bombing. He replied: “I was in the United States. The FBI saw my journal they know I was in South West Washington DC handling my job.” (...)

Speaking to the Daily Mirror, SNP politician Ms Grahame said: “These various discoveries that you have made builds further on the case that it was, as many of us believe, Iran that was responsible for the ­Lockerbie bombing and that Megrahi was the fall guy. Libya took the rap for various international reasons.” (...)

[The Megrahi family's] lawyer Aamer Anwar said this week: “Many believe that Megrahi was the victim of a miscarriage of justice and the finger of blame has long been pointed in the direction of Iran.”

Friday 21 December 2018

Pan Am 103 – The Truth Must Be Known

[This is the headline over an article by Tommy Sheridan published today on the website of Sputnik News. The following are excerpts:]

Now 82 years of age Jim Swire continues to fight for truth and justice in relation to Lockerbie. Like anyone with a morsel of brain matter in between their ears he knows that the trial of Abdelbaset al Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah in a makeshift Scottish Court convened in the Netherlands in late 2000 that led to the conviction of Megrahi in January 2001 was not just a farce but a concerted and contrived cover-up involving the British and American governments at the highest levels.

The pre-trial preparations, live trial obfuscations and subsequent conviction of Megrahi represent the darkest day in Scottish legal history and process. The collusion of some of the most senior judges in Scotland in what was no more than a pantomime of justice is shocking and although criminal conduct has been surprisingly ruled out by a lengthy police investigation, Operation Sandwood, professional negligence charges should still be brought against the three senior judges who jointly prosecuted the case against the two accused and determined their guilt or innocence. The role normally reserved for a jury of peers in murder trials was subsumed by three judges whose decision to find Megrahi guilty on the basis of the evidence presented was both bizarre and troubling.

The Justice For Megrahi (JFM) Campaign was formed after he was convicted of 270 counts of murder on 31st January 2001 and involves victims’ families, former and current legal practitioners and others concerned with opposing miscarriages of justice. One of its members, Len Murray a retired Scottish criminal court solicitor, said of the conviction of Megrahi:

“any notion that the case against Megrahi was "overwhelming", "could not be further from the truth"… and 

"It is worth bearing in mind that while the three [Scottish] judges [who tried the case] were experienced judges, judges in our High Court have never ever had to determine guilt or innocence — that's always left to the jury," he added. "But, when for the first time in modern legal history, it's left to three judges, they get it appallingly wrong."  

“Appallingly wrong”. That is the verdict of just about anyone who followed the case in 2000/01. Megrahi was subsequently released from prison on compassionate grounds in 2009 as he had contracted terminal cancer and eventually died of his cancer in 2012 in Libya. He was appealing his conviction prior to compassionate release but was advised to drop the appeal to help facilitate his return to Libya. Fortunately, a posthumous appeal is still being pursued via the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, a body specifically established to examine potential miscarriages of justice and make recommendations for conviction appeals to be heard based on examination of the trial evidence, new evidence and/or legal process failings. They are currently considering the case and will hopefully recommend Megrahi’s conviction is appealed against in Scotland’s’ Criminal Court of Appeal next year.

It is a fact of life that atrocities lend themselves to miscarriages of justice. The more grotesque the crime the greater the clamour for some sort of justice and corners in investigations will be cut, proper legal processes warped and even evidence concocted or withheld to secure convictions. Think of the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six, Maguire Seven all prime examples of unsafe convictions delivered on the back of false testimonies, fabricated evidence, withheld evidence and warped police investigations and judicial failures. In the pursuit of those guilty of heinous crimes often innocent citizens can find themselves framed and ruined. 

Do yourself favour over the next couple of weeks. Take a rest from festive films and watch Jim Sheridan’s In The Name of the Father. It is based on the autobiography of Gerry Conlon, Proved Innocent: The Story of Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four and is a devastating condemnation of the British justice system. If you watch it and are not enraged and driven to tears of anger at the injustice it portrays you are bereft of humanity.

The arrest, trial and conviction of Abdelbaset al Megrahi for the murder of 270 people above and in Lockerbie 30 years ago today is also a travesty of justice. Don’t take my word for it. Consult the evidence painstakingly sought, found, uncovered and presented by the likes of the outstanding investigative journalist, the late Paul Foot, the bastion of legal integrity in Scotland, Professor Robert Black QC, the incredible and inspiring Jim Swire, the courageous and consistent English solicitor Gareth Peirce, who was also integrally involved in the Guildford Four case, and the various campaigns which have done so much to expose this miscarriage of justice and many more like the Scottish Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (SACC).

I dedicate this column to the victims of Lockerbie 21st December 1988 and the truth and justice campaigners like Jim Swire who have managed to deal with the unbearable pain and suffering associated with the loss of a child in such tragic circumstances but still pursue the truth on behalf of the whole of society. He will not rest until the truth about Lockerbie is uncovered and he and all affected by the horror that visited Scotland 30 years ago deserve those answers and that truth to be revealed. As for the rest of us let us reflect today and tonight just how lucky we are to still be able to hug our children and loved ones and tell them how much we love them.

Marwan Khreesat's daughter says Iran not Libya was behind bomb

[What follows is excerpted from a report in today's edition of the Daily Mirror:]

Iran paid a Palestinian terror group to carry out the Lockerbie bombing, it is claimed.

Member Marwan Khreesat ­allegedly told relatives boss Ahmed Jibril led the 1988 plot. Daughter Saha said: “He has a deal with Iran.”

For 17 years Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has been blamed for the Lockerbie bombing, despite grave doubts over his involvement.

But the Mirror today reveals fresh claims by the daughter of a former terrorist which she says finally proves Iran was behind the outrage that killed 270 people 30 years ago today.

Jordanian Marwan Khreesat left his wife a dossier of evidence that allegedly shows his boss in a Palestinian terror group, Ahmed Jibril, was paid millions of pound by Tehran to mastermind the horrific attack over the Scottish town.

Khreesat’s 43-year-old daughter Saha claims her father even gave the name of the bombmaker to her mother.

It will add to long-held suspicions that Tehran ordered the atrocity in revenge for the US shooting-down of an Iranian passenger plane months earlier, killing 290 civilians.

Saha insisted Khreesat played no part in the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 and blamed Jibril, who was leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

Speaking to us in the middle class suburb of the Jordanian capital Amman, she said: “I think he is responsible, and he has a deal with the Iran government.

“I do have a proof that Ahmed Jibril is ­responsible for ­Lockerbie." (...)

Khreesat was identified as a possible Lockerbie suspect shortly after the 1988 attack. He had been arrested two months earlier in Frankfurt with another PFLP-GC member who had plastic explosives hidden in a Toshiba cassette player in his car. The device was very similar to the one used on Flight 103.

Asked if her father knew the name of the bombmaker, Saha replied: “For sure he knows but I don’t know. My dad left ­something written about this but it’s not in the house.

“If my dad made the bomb he would have taken lots of money but now we don’t have anything because my dad didn’t have anything to do with it.

“Ahmed Jibril took the first million and then he took the rest of the money and got very rich but my dad didn’t take anything." (...)

Asked why her dad did not reveal this information while he was alive, she made reference to the US-led 1986 bombing of Libyan capital Tripoli, in revenge for terror explosions at a West Berlin nightclub.

She said: “Maybe he just wanted to protect Jordan. Maybe he’ll put Jordan in danger if he talked.

“What happened to Libya will happen to Jordan. Lockerbie is an important topic since it is related to America and no one is supposed to mess with America.”

Saha claimed Jordan’s intelligence services were not interested in the truth about Lockerbie. (...)

Scottish MSP Christine Graham said: “These various discoveries that you have made builds further on the case that it was, as many of us believe, Iran that was responsible for the ­Lockerbie bombing and that al-Megrahi was the fall guy. Libya took the rap for various reasons.”

Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the attack, added: “This confirms what we have known for a long time and have never been able to say in public.” Within months of Lockerbie, it was being blamed on the PFLP-GC and Iran by the US and UK. America named Jibril.

Former King Hussein of Jordan said the group was behind the attack in a 1996 letter to John Major. [RB: This is the document in respect of which the UK Government claimed Public Interest Immunity during the appeal by Megrahi that was abandoned when he sought repatriation. The details can be found here.] 

Khreesat died two years ago at 70. Jibril, 80, is believed to be in Syria fighting for Bashar al-Assad.

A special mass marking Lockerbie’s 30th anniversary will take place today at Holy Trinity RC Church. Parish priest at the time of the bombing, Canon Pat Keegans, will say he is “not convinced” justice has been done.

Lockerbie bombing 30 years on: What is the truth behind UK's deadliest terrorist atrocity?

[This is the headline over a long article in The Independent today. The following are excerpts:]

Thirty years ago on Friday the name Lockerbie became synonymous with disaster.

The grim sequel is that today, Lockerbie does not just conjure up images of tragedy. 

It brings to mind suggestions of conspiracy, of murky deals done in the diplomatic margins, of international machinations that betrayed justice, ensuring – some say – that the only person convicted in connection with the bombing, Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was an innocent man. (...)

It still took nearly 12 years before the trial of two Libyan suspects began on May 3 2000, at a specially convened tribunal, operating under Scottish law and heard by three Scottish judges without a jury, at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands.

The tortuous road to trial included the imposition of sanctions on Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya, suggestions the international consensus on sanctions was collapsing, and lengthy secret negotiations between the UK, US and the Netherlands, initiated by Tony Blair’s foreign secretary Robin Cook.

The investigation that put Megrahi and alleged accomplice Lamin Khalifa Fhimah in the frame had involved interviewing 15,000 people and examining 180,000 pieces of evidence.

When the trial began in the Netherlands, Dr [Jim] Swire was convinced both men were guilty.

By the time the judges acquitted Fhimah and found Megrahi guilty on 31 January 2001, Dr Swire was convinced that the only man convicted was innocent. 

He befriended Megrahi, visiting him, exchanging Christmas cards, becoming relentless in his efforts to clear the Libyan’s name, and thus to find his daughter’s ‘real killers’. (...)

The Scottish Crown Office - backed it should be said by many American victims' families - remains sure Megrahi was a Libyan agent, a key player in a plot where an unwitting Air Malta worker checked the Samsonite onto a Frankfurt-bound flight as a favour for a “friend” in Germany, where the suitcase was routed to Heathrow, then loaded on to Pan Am 103.

Tony Gauci, whose shop Mary’s House was near Malta’s airport, identified Megrahi as the man who bought clothes from him that were later found to have been packed into the Samsonite, concealing the bomb.

But there were reports of large undisclosed payments going from the US Justice Department to Mr Gauci.

The suspicion was growing that, either by accident or cover-up, Megrahi had become the innocent fall guy who got a life sentence for mass murder.

The Libyan was described, by The Independent among others, as less secret agent and more “Tripoli airport control manager briefly assigned to Libyan intelligence for bureaucratic rather than specialist tradecraft reasons.”

Many came to believe the Lockerbie atrocity was the work of Palestinian militants, with suspicion falling in particular on the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC).

The trial, for example, had heard evidence from FBI agent Edward Marshman that Jordanian bomb maker Marwan Khreesat told him he had supplied the PFLP-GC with explosive devices similar to the one used to down Pan Am 103.

By contrast there was considerable scepticism about the prosecution’s attempts to link Libya’s intelligence services to the improvised explosive device that destroyed the jet.

A fingernail-sized fragment of circuit board found in the wreckage was identified by prosecutors as being part of a timer made by contractor Thuring and sold by Swiss company Mebo to the Libyan armed forces.

But sceptics said independent analysis of the timer fragment showed it had a pure tin coating, whereas Thuring devices were covered in a tin-lead alloy.

Dr Swire came to disbelieve the official story of a bomb going from Malta to Frankfurt to London, thinking instead that the bomb had been smuggled through Heathrow and only ever travelled on one aeroplane: Pan Am 103.

One Heathrow staff member reportedly told police in January 1989 that he had seen a hard-shell Samsonite in a luggage container heading for the Boeing 747’s hold before the Frankfurt feeder flight that was supposed to have carried the bomb had even landed at the London airport.

Some accounts were prepared to accept that Libyan money might have helped fund the Palestinian militants – the US bombing raid on Tripoli in 1986 certainly gave Gaddafi plenty of motive for becoming (or continuing as) a terrorist paymaster.

But the downing of Iran Air Flight 655 by a missile fired in error from a US warship in July 1988 gave another Middle East government a far more recent grievance, one that would have made targeting American civilian air passengers particularly appealing.

Whatever the truth, the conflicting accounts and the seeming entanglement with Middle Eastern intrigue left many with the sense that Lockerbie had become a decidedly murky affair. (...)

In 2015 Scottish prosecutors effectively re-opened the Lockerbie investigation by naming two Libyans they wanted to talk to: Abdullah al-Senussi, Gaddaffi’s brother-in-law and formerly a senior Libyan intelligence official, and Abu Agila Masud, a man believed to have bomb-making skills.

Both men are in jail in Libya.  Scottish and American prosecutors are said to be hopeful they will be allowed, despite the chaos now bedevilling Libya, to talk to the two suspects. 

A report in this week’s Times suggested prosecutors were “closing in” on their two targets.  The response from the Libyan government – or at least the UN-backed version of it – was said to have been “positive and constructive”.

Megrahi’s family, meanwhile, has launched a fresh appeal against his conviction to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC).

When he died in 2012, his brother Abdulhakim said: “Just because Abdulbaset is dead doesn’t mean the past is now erased.  We will always tell the world my brother was innocent.”

For his part, Dr Swire described the death of his friend as “a very sad event”.  He praised the way that Megrahi, even when dying and in great pain, had sought to pass on the information amassed by his defence team.

Dr Swire himself is now 82.

Thirty years on from being called from his study to watch a TV news bulletin that changed his life, he is still searching for simple, undisputed truth about what happened to his daughter and 269 others.

Given what we now know about Lockerbie, it seems rash to assume that anyone will ever find it.

Thursday 20 December 2018

MacAskill: I’ve never believed Megrahi to be the bomber

[An article by Kenny MacAskill in today's edition of The Scotsman is headlined Lockerbie bomber was freed ‘to protect Scotland’, says Kenny MacAskill. It reads in part:]

... as justice secretary in 2009, it was my responsibility to consider applications for prisoner transfer and compassionate release made by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the only man every convicted of the crime. That saw me engage with state leaders as well as with the families of the victims from around the globe, for Lockerbie was truly international in its dimensions both with those who perpetrated it and those who suffered by it.

As with the atrocity itself, that period is also ingrained in my memory. It couldn’t be anything else given the significance of it and the focus that fell upon me. I realised it was going to be big but it was impossible at the outset to realise just how big. Later, finding my face on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and other international media brought it home.

But, though I’m now part of what seems a never-ending saga, my own involvement was quite truncated, most taking place over a short space of time from spring 2009, when an application for prisoner transfer was submitted by Libya, through to August of that year when I made my decision to release on compassionate grounds.

Of course, there had been involvement before as, just weeks into my tenure in 2007, it was announced that the UK and Libya were seeking to conclude a prisoner transfer agreement (PTA). There was of course only one Libyan national detained in Scotland and it was evident that the UK’s intention was his release. Indeed, Jack Straw, the UK justice secretary, was quite open about it when I spoke to him. BP were seeking a major oil contract and without it the deal would go to an American competitor.

New Labour had either forgotten about devolution or failed to notice that an SNP administration was now in charge at Holyrood. The First Minister quickly raised objections and the UK realised that there were complications. However, though I was involved in discussions, much was dealt with by Alex Salmond given the constitutional aspect.

As debate raged on over the PTA, however, a further twist in the tale came when Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. I was advised of that in September 2008 but things still seemed a long way off, as arguments over prisoner transfer continued and his illness was in its early stages. Indeed, I recall a conversation with my wife at Hogmanay that year when I explained it would be my decision but there still seemed no immediacy.

But, by spring 2009 the pace was picking up as the UK ignored Scottish objections and signed a treaty with Libya. Likewise, Megrahi’s health was worsening and it would only be a matter of time before an application for compassionate release would be submitted.

The months following were to become quite frenetic. Prisoner transfer applications have set timetables and accordingly the clock was ticking. Invariably the responsibility was compounded by us being not just a minority administration but the first ever SNP one. If there were to be political casualties then they would be limited to one. The decision would be for me alone.

However, I was remarkably well supported by staff, even more so as the days passed and pressure mounted. There was no consensus that could be brokered or solution that would see it all just go away. Accordingly, I resolved that the decision I had to make wouldn’t be subject to economic or strategic issues but based on the laws and guidance that applied. They would be followed scrupulously and wherever possible information and actions would be open and public.

That remained the policy of the Scottish Government throughout.

The only red line I ever set was that Megrahi wouldn’t die in a Scottish prison cell. Rejection of either or both applications remained open until my final conclusions but it simply meant that he’d never be allowed to pass away here, even if it meant being medically evacuated at the very last moment. I wasn’t prepared to risk the lives of those who worked in health or prisons through the creation of a martyr and attacks following from those who perpetrate such terror. Events in cities around the globe since then have simply confirmed my view.

But increased security soon surrounded me as governments and organisations from far and wide sought to make their views known. Locked car doors and being driven everywhere were immediately noticeable, though to the chagrin of my driver I often insisted on walking. Hourly drive-bys by police vehicles at home and my office, and even panic alarms installed at both. Sadly, that level of intrusion also impacted on others as my wife from whom I’d recently separated also required to endure it.

It did, though, create a bond with those who worked with me and shared the risks that I’ll take to the grave.

My staff did their best to insulate me from undue pressure and I recall being advised that Robert Mueller, currently investigating President Trump but then FBI director, had sought to have a letter delivered personally to me. It was out of office hours and contrary to diplomatic protocols and his request was speedily rejected by my office, who advised it could be delivered to St Andrews House in the usual manner. I remained sound asleep oblivious to it all but was told that a police armed response team had been scrambled to my address just in case, greatly endearing me to them ever since.

To make a decision, evidence had to be heard from victims’ families and States. Much was harrowing indeed with many meetings being distressing for staff and myself. Governments varied in their attitudes. The Libyans convivial but with an underlying hint of menace; the Americans business like but co-operative with information; whilst the UK was shameless, all the time conniving for Megrahi’s release but equally insisting it was nothing to do with them.

Many politicians were equally shameful. Labour in Scotland simply opposed whatever I did despite the risks to the nation and the collusion of their London colleagues with Libya. Tories likewise condemned whilst former Tory ministers sought to lobby on behalf of Anglo-Arab business interests.

As is now well known I refused the prisoner transfer request as it was clear that there had been a UN brokered agreement between UK/USA and Libya that sentences would be served in Scotland.

The legal criteria for compassionate release were also met and so I rejected the former but granted the latter.

It’s a decision I stand by to this day and whilst some disagree, with it few can fault the procedure. Indeed, information that has since come to light since has simply confirmed my view. I always knew that Scotland was but a small cog in a much bigger international wheel. The British and Americans, whatever their public utterances, were colluding with Gadhafi on everything from training his special forces to rendering prisoners to him. Tony Blair’s embrace of the Libyan despot was matched by the fawning over his family by Hillary Clinton and the desire of the west for trade deals and strategic alliances

At the same time the supposed hero’s welcome received by Megrahi on his return to Libya was shown to have been fake news which the British and Americans were aware of. But they were never going to allow truth to stand in the way of an opportunity to heap opprobrium on Scotland. (...)

Questions remain over the conviction of Megrahi but whilst I’ve never believed him to be the bomber, he most certainly was no innocent abroad. He was the highest-ranking official Libya would release and the lowest one the west would accept. [RB: There is absolutely no evidence that I am aware of that the west sought higher-ranking officials than Megrahi and that Libya refused; and, given my contacts with the Libyan government during my efforts to secure a Lockerbie trial, I am sure I would have been informed.]

But the UK and USA know the full story, even if a court never will, having their spies and even getting their sources out. Sadly, that’s why the conspiracy theories will run for ever with me now part of them.

Probably we will never know exactly who did it

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Mike Wade in today's edition of The Times headlined Lockerbie 30 years on: Flora Swire’s parents tell of the struggle to cope with her death. It reads in part:]

Flora was vivacious, funny, shrewd and beautiful, “a terrific searcher after truth”, in Jim’s words, a young woman of endless curiosity, whose life was cut short by a bomb the day before her 24th birthday in 1988.

Numb with grief, it would take the Swires a couple of days to travel to Lockerbie. When they arrived, Jim demanded to see Flora’s body, in defiance of the official advice. He identified her by a mole on her toe and returned from the mortuary with a lock of his daughter’s hair. A keepsake that Jane has treasured.

Jim’s activism had begun. Within weeks he was a familiar figure on news bulletins, his angular face and shock of hair set off by a lapel badge reading: “Pan Am 103: The Truth Must Be Known.”

Early on he persuaded Cecil Parkinson of the need for a public inquiry, but the transport secretary was “handbagged” by the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and the inquiry never happened. Eighteen months after the attack he carried a “bomb” made of marzipan on to a plane, to demonstrate the inadequacy of British and US airport security.

Over the next decade he campaigned remorselessly to have the suspected bombers brought to court, lobbying the leaders of the Arab League and meeting Nelson Mandela. In 1998, seven years after indictments had been issued for two Libyan suspects, he travelled to Tripoli to urge Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to give up the men.

Jane never joined in any of this. “The how, why, when, what and where questions were unimportant compared with the loss,” she says. “Someone who has been so important in your life suddenly gone, just like that, was too much [for me] to take in. So I could never have been active politically, trying to process this terrible grief.”

When her husband’s activities prompted unwelcome media attention, Jane forgave him. “We are all different, and I felt it helped Jim, because he was so angry,” she says. “I was devastated with sorrow. I envied him his anger confronting these political things. But I didn’t have it, so I could not join in.”

For a whole year, in 2000-01, the couple lived in the Netherlands during the trial at Camp Zeist of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, the men charged with carrying out the attack. Typically, Jim attended every day, Jane less often. At the time, she gave an interview to the Daily Mail, suggesting she had lost her husband to the tragedy, along with her daughter.

“It sounds as if I was angry about that, but I wasn’t,” Jane says. “We are all so different and everyone would process this devastating ‘event’ — it sounds too trite a word — in their own way. You’re alone in your grief, it is quite difficult to share.

“You are in a differing relationship with the loving, lovely person that’s gone. He was a father, I was a mother, probably closer really, just trying to survive, doing my best, trying to cope for the sake of our remaining family.” Jim, 82, does not demur. He says: “One of the awful things is you don’t just lose your lovely daughter, you lose what she would have become in later life: the children she would have had; the professorship I’m sure she would have achieved.

“We often get back to this basic divergence about my campaigning, and Jane will say, quite rightly, ‘Whatever you do, it will never bring Flora back.’ ”

His wife, 79, is nodding. “There is a terrible finality in death, which is unequivocal,” she says. A former religious education teacher, her faith has been shaken, but she still holds out hope of meeting Flora in heaven. (...)

Al-Megrahi alone was convicted of the crime, although he died of cancer in 2012 protesting his innocence. Jim believed him, became his friend and for the past 18 years has campaigned to clear the Libyan’s name. He hopes an appeal by al-Megrahi’s family will succeed, opening the way for his daughter’s real killers to be brought to justice.

Thirty years on, do they think Jim’s campaigning will reveal the full truth in their lifetimes? Both are doubtful. “There will be new inquiries. Probably we will never know exactly who did it,” Jane says.

“I think Flora would have appreciated my trying to get to the truth,” Jim says. “At the bar of history I want it to be fairly straightforward for objective investigators to see what was done.” Mum’s grief. Dad’s anger. Flora would have expected nothing less and would have loved them all the more. “She would,” Jane says, “she would.”

Wednesday 19 December 2018

A verdict based upon findings-in-fact that, on the evidence led, no reasonable court could have reached

[Today's edition of The Scotsman contains an article headlined Lockerbie anniversary: No reasonable tribunal could have convicted Megrahi, says Robert Black. It reads as follows:]

“I don’t think there’s a lawyer in Scotland who now believes Mr Megrahi was justly convicted.” Ian Hamilton QC, 7 October 2010

On 31 January 2001, after just over 130 court days of a trial that had started on 3 May 2000, the three judges in the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist (Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean) returned a unanimous verdict of guilty of murder in respect of the first accused, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, and a unanimous verdict of not guilty of murder in respect of the second accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima.

Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommendation that he serve at least 20 years (altered under later legislation to life with a “punishment part” of 27 years).

Since the day of the verdict I have contended that no reasonable tribunal could have convicted Megrahi on the evidence led at the trial. Here are three instances of the trial court’s idiosyncratic approach to the evidence. More examples could be provided.

1. The suitcase which contained the bomb also contained clothes and an umbrella bought in a particular shop, Mary’s House, in Sliema, Malta. Megrahi was identified by the Maltese shopkeeper as the person who bought the clothes and umbrella.

Commentary: The most that the Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, would say (either in his evidence in court or at an identification parade before the trial or in a series of nineteen police statements over the years) was that Megrahi “resembled a lot” the purchaser, a phrase which he equally used with reference to Abu Talb, one of those mentioned in the special defence of incrimination lodged on behalf of Megrahi. Gauci had also described his customer to the police as being dark skinned, six feet tall and over fifty years of age. Megrahi was light skinned and the evidence at the trial established (i) that he was five feet eight inches tall and (ii) that in late 1988 he was thirty-six years of age. Norwithstanding this evidence, the judges found in fact that Megrahi was the purchaser.

2. The suitcase containing the bomb was sent as unaccompanied baggage from Luqa Airport in Malta, via Frankfurt, on the morning of 21 December 1988 on an Air Malta flight, KM 180. Megrahi was in Malta on the night of 20/21 December 1988 and left for Tripoli from Luqa Airport on the morning of 21 December.

Commentary: The trial judges held it proved that the bomb was contained in a piece of unaccompanied baggage which was transported on Air Malta flight KM 180 from Luqa to Frankfurt on 21 December 1988, and was then carried on a feeder flight to Heathrow where Pan Am flight 103 was loaded from empty. The evidence supporting the finding that there was such a piece of unaccompanied baggage was a computer printout which could be interpreted to indicate that a piece of baggage went through the particular luggage coding station at Frankfurt Airport used for baggage from KM 180, and was routed towards the feeder flight to Heathrow, at a time consistent with its having been offloaded from KM 180. Against this, the evidence from Luqa Airport in Malta (whose baggage reconciliation and security systems were proven to be, by international standards, very effective) was to the effect that there was no unaccompanied bag on that flight to Frankfurt. All luggage on that flight was accounted for. The number of bags loaded into the hold matched the number of bags checked in (and subsequently collected) by the passengers on the aircraft. Notwithstanding this evidence the court held it proved that there had been a piece of unaccompanied baggage on flight KM 180.

3. A vitally important issue was the date on which the goods that surrounded the bomb were purchased in a shop in Malta.

There were only two live possibilities: 7 December 1988, a date when Megrahi was proved to be on Malta and 23 November 1988 when he was not. In an attempt to establish just which of these dates was the correct one, the weather conditions in Sliema on these two days were explored. The shopkeeper’s evidence was that when the purchaser left his shop it was raining so heavily that his customer thought it advisable to buy an umbrella to protect himself while he went in search of a taxi.

The unchallenged meteorological evidence led by the defence established that while it had rained on 23 November at the relevant time, it was unlikely that it had rained at all on 7 December; and if there had been any rain, it would have been at most a few drops, insufficient to wet the ground.

Notwithstanding this evidence, the judges found in fact that the clothes were purchased on 7 December.

My view on this issue, first expressed within days of the verdict being delivered in January 2001, was that on the evidence led at the trial, no reasonable court could have reached the conclusion that the date of purchase was 7 December. Weighty support for this view was supplied by the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in June 2007. Among the six reasons found by the SCCRC for concluding that the Megrahi conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of justice was the following:

“The Commission formed the view that there is no reasonable basis in the trial court’s judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary’s House, took place on 7 December 1988.

“Although it was proved that the applicant was in Malta on several occasions in December 1988, in terms of the evidence 7 December was the only date on which he would have had the opportunity to purchase the items. The finding as to the date of purchase was therefore important to the trial court’s conclusion that the applicant was the purchaser.

“Likewise, the trial court’s conclusion that the applicant was the purchaser was important to the verdict against him. Because of these factors the Commission has reached the view that the requirements of the legal test may be satisfied in the applicant’s case.”

The reasons given by the commission for finding that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in this case were therefore not limited to the effect of new evidence which has become available since the date of the original trial and the non-disclosure by the police and prosecution of evidence helpful to the defence (though both of these things happened and are important).

The prima facie miscarriage of justice identified by the commission includes the trial court’s finding in fact on the evidence heard at the trial that the clothes which surrounded the bomb were purchased in Malta on 7 December 1988 and that Megrahi was the purchaser. This was the very cornerstone of the Crown’s case against him.

If, as suggested, that finding had no reasonable basis in the evidence, then there was no legal justification whatsoever for his conviction.

An appeal against conviction failed in 2002 because, for reasons that are to me utterly inexplicable, Megrahi’s lawyers failed to argue that the evidence had been insufficient to convict or that no reasonable court could have convicted on that evidence.

Since the Zeist trial and appeal important additional evidence has emerged that further undermines the guilty verdict against Megrahi. For example, the fragment of circuit board that was the principal link between the bomb and Libya is now known to have a significantly different metallurgical composition from the timers that were supplied to the Gaddafi regime.

This difference was known to the Crown but was never disclosed to the defence or to the court.

Again, the painstaking research of Dr Morag Kerr in 2012 into the placement and condition of the items of baggage in luggage container AVE4041 that is known to have housed the suitcase containing the bomb has conclusively demonstrated that the guilty Samsonite suitcase was already in that container before any suitcase could have arrived from Malta in the feeder flight from Frankfurt.

Research and analysis of this type ought, of course, to have been done before the trial. But it wasn’t (or, if it was, the outcome was not presented in evidence to the court, perhaps because it failed to support the Malta ingestion scenario).

This new material is without doubt significant. But even more significant is that in the most important criminal trial ever held under the Scottish criminal justice system, the court returned a verdict of guilty based upon findings-in-fact that, on the evidence led, no reasonable court could have reached.

Abdelbaset Megrahi is now dead.

But his widow and children have launched an application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to be allowed to bring a fresh appeal against his conviction.

It is to be hoped that such an appeal takes place, not only to remove from Megrahi’s name the stigma of being “the Lockerbie bomber” but also to allow the international and domestic reputation of Scottish criminal justice system to recover from the stain of having presided over such an egregious miscarriage of justice and of having failed for years to have the courage to take the steps necessary to rectify it.