Edinburgh 6th March 2008
At yet a further preliminary hearing today, the appeal judges ruled against the defence team being allowed to see the secret report said to concern the Hayes fragment. More...
Edinburgh 20th February 2008
At the second preliminary hearing today it was revealed that Foreign Secretary David Miliband has signed a Public Interest Immunity Certificate to prevent public and court access to the secret document whose existence was revealed in the first preliminary hearing on 20th December last. The Scottish Crown are fighting a rear-guard action to prevent new and highly significant evidence from being heard in Al-Megrahi's second appeal. More...
Edinburgh 20th December 2007
Al-Megrahi's Second Appeal has been delayed further by today's continued refusal by the Scottish Crown to reveal a secret document to the defence team. The document is admitted by the SCCRC itself to have a bearing on the case, and to be a justification for a second appeal. Yet judges Hamilton, Kingarth and Eassie have allowed the prosecution to continue in its refusal to disclose.
_______________
6th October 2007.
The Herald: The SCCRC have found new documents referring to discussions between the CIA and identification witness Tony Gauci and his brother Paul. An offer of $2m was made and recorded. Also discovered, a secret agreement between the trial prosecution team and the US government not to disclose a top secret report regarding the MST-13 timer said to have been used in the Lockerbie bomb. Full report...
____________
13th July 2007
BBC: Jack Straw reveals talks under way regarding transfer of Al-Megrahi to Libya
The BBC reports that Jack Straw has met Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond to discuss prisoner transfer arrangements with Libya, and that the agenda included Al-Megrahi's early transfer to a Libyan prison.
Full Report...
28th June 2007
SCCRC announces its decision. Recommends further appeal by Al-Megrahi
The press release by the SCCRC is welcomed, but raises several questions about the thoroughness of its process.
1. The Hayes bomb fragment. The SCCRC's dismissal of all doubt regarding the provenance of the 4 mm square section of timer board appears to contradict suspicions raised under cross-examination in the trial. We can but hope that the SCCRC will make clear how they came to their conclusions. The fragment first came to light upon the workbench of Dr Thomas Hayes. A new appeal must take account of Hayes' proven past activities which led to the false imprisonment of the Maguire family, and re-examine the circumstances in which he claimed to have discovered the fragment, and recorded it in his laboratory notebook.
2. The ambiguity of statements made by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci will hopefully be re-examined in the light of the unease publicly expressed by former Scottish Lord Advocate Peter Fraser. Fraser collated and presented the prosecution evidence supporting the November 1991 indictment of Al-Megrahi. His views about the unreliability of Gauci's testimony at the time of the indictment are noted elsewhere on this site.
June 16th 2007
Blair deal to return Al-Megrahi to Libya?
Recent media reports have suggested that a British-Libyan deal regarding future prisoner exchanges has been designed to allow Al-Megrahi to serve the rest of his sentence in Libya. Downing Street has firmly denied the charge, claiming that the agreement does not cover the Lockerbie issue, and that "the Scottish legal process must take its course with a probable conclusion in the latter half of 2007".
Should the Blair-Gaddafi deal indeed be designed to by-pass the SCCRC considerations and avoid a second appeal by Megrahi, it would cast serious doubt on the ability of the Scottish judicial process to seek and
discover the truth regarding Lockerbie. It would also suggest that Downing Street was attempting to avoid an appeal which could well expose information embarrassing to the British and American governments.
December 2006. Former Libyan Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem
said on Al-Jazeera television's People and Power report of 19th December 2006 that "We thought that it was easier for us to buy peace. And this is why we agreed the compensation. Therefore, we said, let us buy peace, let us put the whole thing behind us, let us move forward."
Home