Ken Clarke: Data Protection no barrier to publication of SCCRC report

The following is from Professor Robert Black's Lockerbie Case blogspot of 23rd March 2012. To this we have added three paragraphs from a letter we sent in January 2012 to Christopher Graham, Information Commissioner for England and Wales.


"On 23 February 2012 Christine Grahame MSP, convener of the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee wrote to Kenneth Clarke MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice about the data protection concerns that had been raised before her committee (inter alios by the Scottish Government). In a reply dated 20 March 2012 Kenneth Clarke says the following:

“The central issue in your letter is whether a condition exists under Schedule 3 to the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) which could provide for disclosure of sensitive personal data by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in the case of Abdelbaset al Megrahi. My officials have considered the matter in detail with the SCCRC, the Scottish Government and the Information Commissioner’s Office. Following these discussions, there is a general agreement that disclosure of sensitive personal data by the SCCRC could satisfy the existing Schedule 3 condition that provides for processing where it is necessary for the administration of justice. To that extent, the DPA does not appear to be a barrier to disclosure of this information by the SCCRC.""

And from our own letter:-

To: Mr Christopher Graham, Information Commissioner for the United Kingdom

"Our understanding of Data Protection legislation is that it protects an individual from unjustified exposure of his or her personal identifiers, or exposure outside the terms and conditions under which that data has been provided.  In the case of the SCCRC’s findings, we consider that publication would be entirely justified on the grounds of public interest and natural justice.    

We hope you would agree that the purpose of Data Protection legislation has never been, nor should it ever be, to protect an individual from exposure of failure of public duty under the law."

We take no pleasure in being proved correct on this important issue, for sadly, prevarications within the body politic of two nations have yet again produced further delays in the conclusion of this tragic case.

We must lift the burden of false incrimination against a dying man

A letter by Dr Jim Swire published in today's edition of The Herald.

In a villa, within a high walled garden in Tripoli, Libya, there lies a man wracked by the pain of widespread cancer, living out the last days of his life, cared for by his wife and children.

His name is known around the world as Megrahi, "the Lockerbie bomber".

He is what we would call middle class. His work was as a part-time international entrepreneur, part time employee of his State's airline, where his role involved the unusual task of trying to obtain spares for that airline's Boeing airliners in the face of international sanctions against his state. His work took him often to Malta where he may have had a mistress. It also took him from time to time to Zurich.

Yes, he also had a state-issued passport in a false name, to facilitate and conceal his journeyings and no doubt his trysts. Later when both Abdelbasel Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, pictured, and his family were confined to Tripoli, awaiting trial, (which he had volunteered to attend, in order as he believed to clear his name), he arranged for two of his children also to be issued with false passports so that they could attend a children's festival in another country. Such were the mores of his country, such were the uses of false passports.

The Scottish court at Camp Zeist was told that an investigating Scottish policeman had kept a diary but he was not told to go and get it from Glasgow. Yet we now know it contained contemporaneous evidence that the Scottish investigators knew the Americans were offering multi million dollar rewards "with $10,000 up front" and that those who falsely identified Megrahi were also aware of rewards long before they gave their evidence.

We now know through the foresight of Megrahi's latter-day defence solicitor (now Professor) Tony Kelly of Glasgow,that it is not possible that the fragment found after the bombing could have come from a genuine Zurich timer board. That is unassailable scientific fact.

I hope that anyone reading this letter will consider the responsibility which Scotland carries for the failures that emerged in the delivery of justice at Zeist. We were responsible for failing to analyse "the fragment" fully, to discover whether it was genuine or not. We seem also to have been responsible for failing to produce evidence of the break-in at Heathrow which may have indicated a much simpler solution than the premeditated, contrived, cruel and criminal perversion of justice reached at Zeist.

It is time to lobby MSPs, to see if we can lift the terrible burden of false incrimination against this individual and his family, for which our court was in part responsible, before he dies. We may only have days or weeks to do so if he is to be alive to hear of it. Surely we owe that to him and to his family, currently cast as pariahs throughout the world. We also owe the truth about all that is known about the real killers, to the relatives of the victims.

We should remember the words of Nelson Mandela when the Zeist trial was announced: "No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and judge."  

Dr Jim Swire

21st February 2012

Lockerbie and the Heathrow Olympics

70,000 airside passes, all nationalities

Professor Norman Shanks is today a distinguished advisor to the Aviation security industry and business management.


He was, at the time of the Lockerbie bombing, the Airport Security Manager for Heathrow Airport, working closely with the Department of Transport, and developing security procedures for Heathrow and other airports across the UK.


In a startling revelation in the Sunday Express of 11th March 2012, Professor Shanks admits that on the day that the Lockerbie attack took place, there were in circulation at Heathrow approximately 70,000 airside passes.  He is quoted as saying: "Any authorised person with a pass was able to go airside, and that was around 70,000 people."


The multi-national operations at Heathrow, plus the presence on-site of major reconstruction works, meant that on 21st December 1988 the 70,000 users of airside passes were of all nationalities, all skin-colours, many and various jobs, employed by many and various companies, some with little connection to air-traffic matters. To this number must be added the staff of the many airlines arriving and departing, including Iran-Air.


In short, Heathrow authorities had no knowledge as to who was using the passes, nor where on the airport they were going, nor when, nor what was the purpose of their presence. Professor Shanks states: "This was way before we had screening of staff and a lot of staff felt they had the right to go anywhere they wanted."


A rogue suitcase could "have been brought in by an aircraft and transferred airside... It would have been equally possible [for] any country that flew into Heathrow... Several airlines had engineering stores brought in and transferred to some areas without having to come landside." 


"Iran Air were one of the Middle Eastern airlines with that access."


Professor Shanks now admits that there are "legitimate questions" over the conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi.


So now - after twenty three years - we know the truth about Heathrow's vulnerability.  It is a pity that Professor Shanks did not reveal this during the nine years that elapsed before the Lockerbie trial.  He and others close to him also had the opportunity to say these things during the three years leading to Al-Megrahi's first appeal, but they stayed silent.