We are grateful to Professor Robert Black QC and Times journalists for exposing the truth behind the Lockerbie investigation and trial. If you have or had any doubts about the truthfulness of our blog posts, you owe it to Britain's reputation in the world to continue reading...

 

Declassified documents: US and UK governments finally exposed: Megrahi accusations based on unreliable witnesses and evidence.

We are grateful to Professor Robert Black QC and Times journalists for exposing the truth behind the Lockerbie investigation and trial. If you have or had any doubts about the truthfulness of our blog posts, you owe it to Britain's reputation in the world to continue reading...

Doubts over witness led to fears the Lockerbie trial would collapse.

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

Prosecutors in Edinburgh and Washington feared the case against the Lockerbie bomber would collapse if their concerns over the integrity of the star witness were made public, declassified documents have revealed.

The papers show that senior Scottish and US officials privately raised doubts over his reliability and are set to trigger fresh claims of a miscarriage of justice.

Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, was sentenced to 27 years by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands after being found guilty of masterminding the 1988 atrocity in which 270 people were killed.

The testimony of Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who claimed he sold clothing — believed to have been wrapped around the bomb — to a man resembling al-Megrahi, proved pivotal to securing his conviction in 2001. However, concerns were raised about the “soundness of Gauci’s identification” and the UK and US feared the case would founder if this became known.

The new information, disclosed last night, on the 33rd anniversary of the terrorist attack, has renewed calls for an appeal against al-Megrahi’s conviction.

Hans Koechler, who served as the UN’s independent observer at his trial, said: “I am even more convinced that a miscarriage of justice occurred.”

A report of a meeting between Alan Rodger, then Scotland’s lord advocate, and Robert Mueller, US assistant attorney-general, in Washington in 1992, states: “If it became known we or the US were sending people to check on the soundness of Gauci’s identification that would signal that we did not have a case on which we could confidently go to trial. The US Department of Justice maintained that they could not go to trial on the present identification.”

Gauci was the sole witness to link al-Megrahi directly to the bombing of Pan Am 103, over the town of Lockerbie.

In 2000 he told a panel of judges that al-Megrahi “resembled a lot” a man who bought clothes from his shop. But in 1992 a letter from the Crown Office to Mueller raised doubt. “Further inquiries concerning the identification made by the shopkeeper Gauci could be seized upon by those in Malta, Libya and elsewhere hostile to the conclusions of the investigation.” In 2007 it emerged that the US had paid $2 million to Gauci.

Robert Black, professor emeritus of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, who masterminded the trial, said: “It is now more obvious than ever that the Megrahi conviction is built on sand. An independent inquiry should be instituted into the case by the Scottish government, the UK government or both.”

The Crown Office said it would be inappropriate to comment further while leave to appeal (by al-Megrahi’s son Ali) is being considered by the UK Supreme Court. Police Scotland have confirmed that their investigation remains live. (...)

The confidential documents also show that British officials threatened to veto Malta’s application to join the EU if they did not back their demands over the Lockerbie bombing.

The UK and US insisted that the bomb which exploded over Scotland 33 years ago was loaded on to Air Malta flight KM-180, which left the island for Frankfurt on December 21. They contended it was then taken to London and transferred to Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie with the loss of 270 lives. The Maltese authorities strongly disputed this version of events, insisting it was technically impossible.

Their stance provoked considerable anxiety. A March 1992 memo to the Foreign Office from diplomatic staff in New York states: “We understand that the Maltese government is considering stating publicly that the allegation that the bomb was planted in Malta was not proven and instructed their ambassador to the UN to explain this to non-aligned members of the Security Council. We hope the Maltese government will think carefully on this and reconsider its position. The US embassy here have told us that their embassy in Valletta has been instructed to take action at the highest level.”

The Maltese were then told the UK would not support their attempt to join the European Community (EC), the precursor to the EU. (...)

The following month British officials noted with satisfaction: “Malta will now comply with mandatory sanctions, while not agreeing with them.”

Guido de Marco, Malta’s justice minister at the time of the bombing, wrote in 2010 shortly before his death that there had been “so much room for error” in the British version of events.

Officials ordered to monitor ‘troublesome’ relatives of victims

An independent investigation into the Lockerbie atrocity launched by bereaved family members posed “great potential for trouble” and should be carefully monitored, government officials were told. (...)

In 2018 relatives of the Lockerbie bomb victims told The Times they had been repeatedly bugged by the security services after official documents suggested that they needed “careful watching”.

The Rev John Mosey, a church minister who lost his teenage daughter, Helga, in the bombing, said that after speaking publicly his phone calls were often disrupted and documents relating to the bombing had gone missing from his computer.

Jim Swire, a GP who became the public face of the campaign to secure an independent inquiry into the atrocity, reported similar intrusions and deliberately included false information in private correspondence, only for it to appear in the press days later.

[Note: Peter Biddulph, co-author of Jim Swire's current Book) suffered the same intrusion. Just days after his first interview with Jim Swire late in the year 2000, unknown persons accessed his computer and all his files and notes.]

Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed, said: “I cannot believe that a supposedly decent country could behave in such a way towards grieving people whose only crime was to seek the truth.”

[RB: It is no surprise that those at the top of the Lockerbie prosecution team in both Scotland and the United States were gravely concerned about the quality of the evidence that Tony Gauci would give at Camp Zeist. What is surprising is that the prosecution was prepared to proceed to trial in reliance on that evidence, and that the judges at the trial found that Gauci's evidence amounted to an identification of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and that it was credible and reliable. Had they not done so, there was insufficient evidence in law for Megrahi to be convicted. 

The most rigorous analysis of Gauci's statements before and during the trial has been provided by Dr Kevin Bannon: https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-centrepiece-of-case-against-megrahi.html. Here is part of what he found:

"The development of Tony Gauci’s statements from his first police interviews in September 1989 through to his testimony in court, reveal his recollections systematically developing in favour of the Crown narrative, in increasing contradiction of all his freshest recollections.

"... it is not merely the case (as has often been stated) that Gauci’s evidence was contradictory, but that in every aspect, it changed in favour of the Crown narrative, in some instances quite drastically. Gauci’s original, freshest recollections about the appearance of the Libyan purchaser and the time of his visit, would have, and should have, categorically eliminated al-Megrahi from suspicion.

"Gauci’s testimony, the centrepiece of the case against al-Megrahi and, by implication, the principal Libyan connection to the crime, simply has no integrity whatsoever - nevertheless he was given a substantial financial reward for his latter evidence. These discrepancies render the entire case against al-Megrahi invalid."

Had the newly released documents been available before the most recent appeal, it is possible that the Megrahi family's lawyers could have made use of them in their case. But I see no realistic prospect of a further posthumous appeal. It is now more than ever obvious that the Megrahi conviction is built on sand. What should now happen is that an independent inquiry should be instituted into the Lockerbie case by the Scottish Government, the UK Government or both in tandem. There is much evidence now available that has not been considered in any of the Scottish Lockerbie appeals, in part because of the highly restrictive rules governing what material can be made use of in Scottish criminal appeals. Only with an independent inquiry is there a possibility that the false narrative supported by the shameful conviction of Megrahi can be rectified.]

 BOOK LAUNCH 6TH MAY, FOLLOWED BY GLASGOW'S LITERARY FESTIVAL AYE WRITE.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19218089.aye-write-2021-glasgows-book-festival-goes-online/

The full programme will be announced shortly, and includes an interview with the BBC's former Chief News Correspondent Kate Adie on the evening of 21st May. 

                                                                                    

                                                                                    Photo: Ken Lennox 

Birlinn Publishing have a range of brilliantly incisive history and current affairs books being published in 2021. Including...

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The destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 was the largest attack on Britain since World War Two. 259 passengers and 11 townsfolk of Lockerbie were murdered. Libyan Abdelbaset alMegrahi was convicted of the crime. He maintained his innocence until his death in 2012. Among the passengers was Flora, beloved daughter of Dr Jim Swire. Jim accepted American claims that Libya was responsible, but during the Lockerbie Trial he began to distrust key witnesses and supposed firm evidence. Since then it has been revealed that the USA paid millions of dollars to two central identification witnesses, and the only forensic evidence central to the prosecution has been discredited. The book takes us along Dr. Swire’s journey as his initial grief and loss becomes a campaign to uncover the truth behind not only a personal tragedy but one of the modern world’s most shocking events.

Soon to be a major TV series

https://birlinn.co.uk/latest/

Also available at: Amazon, Waterstones,  Foyles, W H Smith, GoogleBooks, Bokus, Loot, Wordery, IBS (Italy), Tales (Denmark), Exlibris (Germany), Bol (Nederlands), BooksaMillion (USA), Kristostomus (Greece), Kinokunyia (Japan), Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs, and all good bookshops.

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Application lodged for leave to appeal to Supreme Court.

From the blogsite of Professor Robert Black QC. 

Application lodged for leave to appeal to Supreme Court.

On 29 January 2021 the lawyers for the Megrahi family lodged with the High Court of Justiciary an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. They have until 8 February to lodge written submissions supporting these grounds. The Crown and the Advocate General for Scotland (representing the UK Government) then have until 22 February to lodge their responses in writing. The High Court may consider the matter based on written arguments, or it may call for a hearing. If the High Court refuses permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, the appellants can ask the Supreme Court itself to agree to consider the appeal.

In Scottish criminal appeal cases the UK Supreme Court cannot simply overturn a decision of the Scottish court; it only has jurisdiction to decide whether there might have been a breach of the appellant's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. A decision that there had been such a breach would not by itself overturn the conviction but would result in the case being sent back to the Scottish court for it to consider the issue and apply the right test under the European Convention, which might or might not result in a different decision being reached in relation to the conviction. 

Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court will be granted only if the case raises an arguable point of law of general public importance which ought to be considered  by the Supreme Court. 

The grounds of appeal which the Megrahi legal team wish the Supreme Court to consider can be summarised as follows: 

1. The decision of the High Court not to allow all of the original grounds of appeal to form part of the appeal for the reasons it gave was in breach of Article 6 of the ECHR, the right to a fair trial. In August 2020 the High Court limited the grounds of appeal to the matters referred by the SCCRC in their 2020 referral (unreasonable verdict and non-disclosure of material relating to rewards and identification evidence) and also allowed in the issue of disclosure of the cables relating to the Crown witness Majid Giaka. The court expressly rejected the ground of appeal which argued that there was a systemic failure by the Crown to disclose material and also the particular instances of non-disclosure which the appellants argued demonstrated this systemic failure. The appellants contend that this is a matter which must be considered by the Supreme Court as it relates to the application of Article 6 and was wrongly decided. 

2. The decision of the High Court not to overturn the Public Interest Immunity Certificate and order disclosure of the Protectively Marked Documents, and not to allow the non-disclosure of the documents to form a ground of appeal, also constituted a breach of Article 6. The appellants submit that these documents related to the special defence of incrimination put forward at trial and so in order for the appellant to receive a fair trial they should have been disclosed, and that this should have formed part of the grounds of appeal the court allowed to be argued.

3. As regards matters which did form part of the appeal and were argued at the full appeal hearing, the appellants' position is that the High Court erred in its decision to refuse Ground of Appeal 2, which related to non-disclosure of rewards material and non-disclosure of documents relating to Crown witness Tony Gauci’s identification evidence. They contend that the court applied the appropriate test wrongly and too narrowly and therefore breached the appellant’s right to a fair trial. In relation to Ground of Appeal 1, unreasonable verdict, they submit that the High Court’s decision to refuse this ground of appeal was also wrong, in that they took into account evidence which the trial court had ruled out, namely the evidence of the former co-accused Fhimah’s diaries. They contend that the High Court erred in substituting its own assessment of whether the diaries were admissible, as this meant they were not considering the case on the same evidence as the trial court did; and by so doing the appeal court has not returned a reasoned judgment on the verdict of the trial court and therefore again the appellant’s article 6 right has been breached.

The Megrahi legal team conclude by submitting that all three points raised are of general public importance and therefore meet the test for an application to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Lockerbie trial 'catastrophic' for Scottish justice

 SUNDAY 31ST JANUARY 2021.

Lockerbie trial 'catastrophic' for Scottish justice

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday. It reads as follows:]

The trial of the only man ever convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has had a “catastrophic” effect on the Scottish criminal justice system, with the damage intensified by authorities’ “continuing avoidance” of a reexamination of the entirety of the evidence, according to the father of one of the victims.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the atrocity, said that steps were required to ensure the better administration of justice of Scotland, but warned that such an overhaul would “have to be propelled by a force outwith Scotland.”

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the conviction of the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was found guilty of mass murder unanimously at a specially-convened Scottish court in the Netherlands.

Two weeks ago, judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal rejected a third appeal on behalf of the Libyan national, who died in 2012.

However, his family and numerous campaigners, Swire included, have long maintained he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Now, Swire has told Scotland on Sunday that the biggest mass murder trial in British history continues to cast a long shadow over Scotland’s judiciary.

Swire sat throughout the trial at Camp Zeist, and collapsed in court after the verdict was read out. It was held before three Scottish judges - Lord Sutherland, Lord Coulsfield and Lord MacLean - with no jury. The trial’s architect, Professor Robert Black QC, initially proposed it should have involved an international panel of judges, presided over and chaired by a Scottish judge.

Asked if he thought Megrahi would have been convicted on the evidence presented under such an arrangement, Swire said: “Answers about questions based on ‘what if’ carry little weight, but from what I know now, this would seem to have been a far safer solution than that allowed at Zeist.

“Nelson Mandela himself warned me that ‘No one country should be complainant, prosecutor, and judge’. History, to my sorrow, has proved him right, for Scotland became all three at Zeist.”

Swire, now 84, said the past two decades had been “torturous,” and accused the Crown Office and “certain leaders” in Scotland’s legal profession of following a “readily visible course” based on the premise that the Netherlands court was infallible.

“Appeals have managed to avoid or ignore many of the aspects of the Zeist evidence in which failures are self evident, and have never fully addressed some of the further pieces of evidence which have emerged since,” he added.

“From a layman’s point of view, this seems to have been skilfully achieved. If I were asked to answer, ‘Why would they do that?’, I would have to reply that the impression given to me a layman is that they wish to conceal the profound failings within their system and its dangerous opacity to criticism, in order that damage to its reputation shall be minimised.”

Asked to respond to Swire’s criticisms, a Crown Office spokesman said: “The conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the murder of 270 people at Lockerbie in 1988 has been reviewed and appealed twice in accordance with the law over twenty years.

“His conviction stands and the investigation by Scottish prosecutors and police officers into the involvement of others with him in the plot to attack an American aircraft continues.”

 

FROM THE BLOGSITE OF PROFESSOR ROBERT BLACK QC.

"Independent" Lockerbie commentator "instructed and paid by Iran"

[What follows is excerpted from a report in today's edition of The Scotsman headlined Academic who defended Tehran against Lockerbie allegations accused of secretly working for Iranian government:]

Authorities in the US allege Kaveh Afrasiabi, a political scientist and veteran commentator on Iranian issues, of acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the Iranian state for more than a decade, during which time he made media appearances rejecting any suggestions that Iran was involved in the 1988 atrocity.

A complaint filed against Afrasiabi in a federal court in New York alleges that he was instructed over what to say to journalists by Iranian government officials assigned to the country’s permanent mission to the United Nations, before advocating positions and policies “favoured” by Iran.

The interviews included Afrasiabi’s views on a 2014 Al Jazeera documentary, entitled ‘Lockerbie: What Really Happened?’, which claimed the bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by the Syrian-based terror group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

The documentary, which was subsequently screened in the Scottish Parliament, included testimony from Abolghasem Mesbahi, a former high-ranking Iranian intelligence agent, who said Iran had sanctioned the attack in revenge for the destruction in July 1988 of an Iranian airbus mistakenly shot down by USS Vincennes.

Afrasiabi, a former visiting scholar at Harvard University, went on to appear on an Al Jazeera interview, refuting the documentary’s premise. However, the complaint against him alleges he was advised on what to say by a press secretary at the Iranian mission, and told to state that he was giving his views as an “independent expert.”

During a phone call with the Iranian official on 11 March 2014, the complaint goes on, Afrasiabi was instructed “in sum and substance to explain that both the US and Britain completed their investigations” into the incident.

It also alleges that the day after the interview, Afrasiabi advised the Iranian government to threaten a $500 million lawsuit against Al Jazeera,” stating that it “would act as a brake on their current plan and might put a stop.” He added: “Soft diplomacy does not answer this specific situation.”

Afrasiabi also sent Al Jazeera an article prepared by his Iranian government contacts refuting the documentary’s claims, according to the complaint.

It adds that since 2007, Afrasiabi has “surreptitiously derived a significant portion of his income from compensation for services performed at the direction and under the control of the government of the Islamic republic of Iran,” claiming he received more than $265,000 over the period, as well as health insurance benefits.

The complaint also alleges Afrasiabi contacted an official in the US State Department, asking for its “latest thinking” on the Iran nuclear issue, without revealing the nature of his relationship with Iranian authorities.

Afrasiabi has described the allegations against him as “lies,” while Iran’s foreign ministry said the accusations were “baseless,” and accused the US of “a clear hostage-taking of Iranian nationals.”

System cannot admit it made mistake with Lockerbie

 FROM THE BLOGSITE OF PROFESSOR ROBERT BLACK QC.

System cannot admit it made mistake with Lockerbie

[Yesterday's decision by the High Court of Justiciary dismissing the posthumous appeal on behalf of Abdelbaset Megrahi receives extensive coverage in UK and overseas media. A selection, courtesy of Google News, can be found here. 

What follows is excerpted from reports by Mike Wade here and here on the website of The Times:]

An attempt by the family of the only man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing posthumously to clear his name has been rejected by the Court of Criminal Appeal in Scotland.

The family of Abdul Ali Baset al-Megrahi had appealed his conviction after a ruling by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) that “it was in the interests of justice” that his case was reconsidered.

Mr Anwar said that Ali al-Megrahi, the convicted man’s son, said that his family had been “left heartbroken by the decision of the Scottish courts, (but) maintained his father’s innocence and is determined to fulfil the promise he made to clear his name and that of Libya”.

The family has instructed its legal team to appeal to the UK Supreme Court and an application will be lodged within two weeks. (...)

Megrahi previously lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002. Five years later the SCCRC recommended that he should be granted the second appeal, which he later dropped.

Al-Megrahi insisted in his authorised biography, published in the year of his death, that a Scottish government decision to agree his early release from prison was conditional on his decision to drop his second appeal.

He said that Kenny MacAskill, who was then the Scottish justice secretary, had suggested the deal to a Libyan government official.

In the latest appeal the court was not asked by the SCCRC to consider a tiny fragment of circuit board, believed to have been from the bomb’s timer. This, campaigners insist, was a key piece of evidence that could have cleared al-Megrahi’s name.

After this morning’s decision the al-Megrahi family demanded the release of secret evidence held by the UK government that they believe incriminates others such as Iran and a Syrian-Palestinian group. (...)

In December, on the 32nd anniversary of the bombing, William Barr, the US attorney-general, announced new criminal charges against an alleged bombmaker involved in the atrocity.

Abu Agila Masud, another former Libyan intelligence officer, allegedly admitted to assembling the bomb that blew up the plane as it passed over Lockerbie en route from London to New York. Masud was the third person to face charges in the attack after al-Megrahi and another Libyan, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, were charged nearly 30 years ago. Fhimah was found not guilty in 2001.

It was Mr Barr who announced the charges against al-Megrahi and Fhimah in 1991, saying at the time: “This investigation is by no means over.” Al-Megrahi’s supporters claim that Mr Barr’s recent intervention weighed heavily on the appeal court judges.

A source said: “For the judges to overturn the conviction would be absolutely momentous and I don’t think they have the stomach for that. William Barr piled on the pressure by announcing new indictments. It was too much of a hot potato for them.”

Mr Anwar said the first ground for appeal — that “no reasonable jury properly directed could have convicted” — was built largely around the evidence of Tony Gauci, who died in 2016.

In the 2001 trial, Mr Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper, identified al-Megrahi as the man who bought clothes from him that were later packed in a suitcase containing the bomb. After the trial it was disclosed that he had received $2 million from the US authorities.

In his judgment Lord Carloway said the original trial had given due consideration to Mr Gauci’s identification.

Mr Anwar said the second ground of appeal — the failure to disclose information to the defence — hinged on a “compatibility issue” arising from a question relating to a breach of human rights. This will be the basis for the application to the Supreme Court.

[A further article in The Times, headlined System cannot admit it made mistake with Lockerbie, says lawyer who designed first trial contains the following:]

The Scottish court system is unable to acknowledge that a mistake has been made, the lawyer who designed the 2001 Lockerbie trial has said.

Robert Black, emeritus professor of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, drew up plans to enable a Scottish court to sit on neutral territory in the Netherlands but when the trial ended he was convinced that he had witnessed a miscarriage of justice.

He said yesterday that the Scottish criminal justice system was unable to acknowledge “a mistake has been made” in the conviction of Abdul Baset al-Megrahi and it was “a matter of grave concern” that the most recent appeal had been so narrowly restricted to certain legal areas. The Scottish Criminal Case Review Committee allowed al-Megrahi’s posthumous appeal on only two grounds: that the verdict had been unreasonable and that some evidence had not been disclosed to the defence.

Four other grounds for appeal were rejected by the committee, including evidence about a fragment from a circuit board and a theory that the suitcase that contained the bomb had not been loaded onto an aircraft in Malta.

The Crown argued that the circuit board, part of a timing device, was one of many sold to the Libyan government by Mebo, a Swiss company. It was found in the remains of a shirt collar, which in turn led to a shop in Malta owned by Tony Gauci. Campaigners for al-Megrahi say forensic analysis has shown the circuit board was coated in pure tin and not in a tin-lead alloy, the only kind supplied by Mebo. Independent scientists, consulted by the Crown, had noticed the difference but maintained the tin fragment and the tin-lead amalgam were “similar in all respects”.

Professor Black also cited evidence the bomb suitcase was put on at Heathrow before luggage from Malta arrived.