Frank Duggan "not familiar with certain aspects of Lockerbie"

[What follows is excerpted from an obituary of Frank Duggan published in today’s edition of The Herald:]

Frank Duggan, who has died of cancer aged 79, was a combative and often controversial lawyer and campaigner for American victims of the 1998 PanAm/Lockerbie disaster four days before Christmas 1988. He headed the organisation Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc, representing families in the US who lost relatives in the terrorist bombing in which 270 people died.

Whether he represented all the families of the 190 American victims was never quite clear - he once told George Galloway MP he had "never really counted them" - but he was instrumental in the legal action that won $2.7 billion from the Libyan government for the bereaved families, minus a stunning 30 percent in American lawyers' fees. He reportedly worked for the families initially for no pay but is thought to have shared in those fees.

Mr Duggan was incensed when Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice minister at the time, decided to release the convicted bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, on humanitarian grounds in 2009. Describing the decision as obscene, Mr Duggan was vociferous in insisting the then Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi had ordered the PanAm bombing. This brought him into often bitter conflict with many of the Scottish and other UK victims' families, notably the most-outspoken UK relative, the GP Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora perished in the tragedy.

Dr Swire and many other families always believed al-Megrahi's conviction was a miscarriage of justice and that Iran may have been behind the terrorist bombing in retaliation for a less-publicized tragedy. That was when an American Navy guided-missile cruiser, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iran Air Airbus passenger aircraft over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew - more than the later total of the Lockerbie tragedy. The Americans said they thought the airliner was a fighter plane and the deaths received a fraction of the publicity worldwide that the Lockerbie deaths would receive nearly six months later.

By all accounts, Frank Duggan was a good man, a man who recovered from years of alcoholism and who sincerely fought for the American victims of PanAm 103. But he was perhaps rather naive when it came to the media, as demonstrated in a telling telephone interview with George Galloway MP for talkRADIO in 2009.

In the call, Mr Duggan admits he was not familiar with certain aspects of Lockerbie, notably the evidence of the Maltese witness Tony Gauci, who said he had sold the clothes later found to have been wrapped around the bomb which brought PanAm 103 down. Mr Galloway asked Mr Duggan why the US government had given Mr Gauci a $2million "reward,"to which Mr Duggan replied that there was no proof of such a payment and that he was "not that familiar" with Mr Gauci's evidence.

Mr Duggan then proceeded to call Jim Swire and others of being "all of these cranks." Again, Mr Galloway pulled him up for calling Dr Swire a crank. It was too much for Mr Duggan and in the end he told Mr Galloway: "I don't have time to waste with people like you. I've got to go. Bye bye." And he hung up. (...)

It was George H W Bush who in early 1989, prompted by the Lockerbie tragedy, appointed Mr Duggan to the Presidential Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST) where he became a liaison between the US administration and the American Lockerbie victims.

According to a colleague at PCAST, former FBI agent J Brian Hyland, whose desk was next to Mr Duggan's, the latter had a tendency to sing or hum the patriotic Battle Hymn of the Republic (Mine Eyes have seen the Glory) to keep his colleagues in a positive frame of mind.

Despite the fact that he did not have a relative on the PanAm 103, the families - or at least a majority of them - trusted him and appointed him president of the group they called Victims of PanAm 103 Inc, and he represented them until the day of his death. In return, the families supported Mr Duggan, notably after his daughter was hit by a drunk driver and went into a coma. She eventually awoke but with brain damage.

As family liaison, Mr Duggan lobbied for their interests and listened to them with patience and understanding. After being appointed to Presidcent Bush's PCAST, he continued lobbying for the families as the trail turned to Libya. During this time, he went to work for one of the legal teams representing the families, headed by Allan Gerson, whose 2001 book noted that “for six years Duggan had worked for the families and had earned nothing for it except their trust and gratitude.”

Jim Swire responds to Frank Duggan's falsehood and fable accusation

[What follows is Dr Jim Swire’s response to Frank Duggan’s assertion that UK relatives are lying and promoting a fable when they refer to a member of  the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism saying: "Your government and mine know exactly what happened but they're never going to tell."]

I do not usually reply to statements in the media from Mr Frank Duggan, however he has recently very publicly accused me of lying, concerning an event which happened in the United States embassy, where Mr Duggan was present, acting as relatives' liaison officer over the Lockerbie case, I believe.

I was also present.

Mr Duggan now claims that an alleged remark to one of the British relatives was not made.

It is hard to understand how he would know that because the remark was made 'off the record', confidentially in an aside to the father of another British victim.

I know and trust that victim's father.

The remark made to him was "Your government and ours know exactly what happened but they're never going to tell.”

That is not the kind of remark which any bereaved parent is ever likely to forget, but Mr Duggan could not have overheard it; perhaps he also does not understand its implications for a bereaved family.

Perhaps whatever Mr Duggan does not hear does not happen?

[RB: Jim Swire here wrote a sentence about PCAST which I have omitted because it referred to the wrong PCAST. Dr Swire has now circulated a correction. In an email to me he says: 'In demonstration of the fallibility of my memory I must also point out that Google led me to the wrong use of PCAST.' I may add that I should be happy if my own memory were only as fallible as Dr Swire's.]

I do however owe Mr Duggan and others an apology: the meeting in the US embassy in London apparently took place in February 1990 not in 1989 as I had thoughtlessly previously claimed. Forgive the weakness of an old man's memory for dates, Mr Duggan, but these days there is always Google.

Those who wish to view Mr Duggan in action may like to dig out of the net the Channel Four showing of a film about Lockerbie called The Maltese Double-Cross, which was followed by a live on air discussion where again I was present, as was Mr Duggan and where I had to ask a Mr Buck Revell of the FBI (appearing by satellite) why his son had canceled his flight on Pan Am 103 instead of getting murdered like my daughter. Mr Revell is, I understand, no longer in the FBI. If I recall correctly he told us that his son had received an unexpected change of leave dates from the army. His son was not claimed to be a member of the staff at the US Embassy in Moscow, where warnings about a terrorist threat specific to Pan Am had been posted on a staff notice board well before the tragedy. [RB: I cannot find this particular discussion online. But another instructive media performance by Frank Duggan can be viewed here.]

We have always been mystified as to why the Pan Am 103 plane was 'only' 2/3 full just before Christmas.

I won't ascribe a date to that discussion group, in case my memory might again prove defective.

There was also a British near equivalent to this amazing revelation from PCAST. In her autobiographical book published in 1993 - two years after the two Libyans had been indicted over involvement in the Lockerbie disaster. Lady Thatcher wrote, speaking of the attack by the USAF on Tripoli in 1986, itself an alleged reprisal for a terrorist bombing of a German disco:

“It turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined....the much vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place. Gaddafi had not been destroyed but he had been humbled.” (The Downing Street Years, pp 448-9)

I fear, Mr Duggan, we shall continue to seek the truth and since we are European citizens we have an inalienable right to that truth under the provisions of the ECHR. Please Google that.

"He didn’t get it on the plane"

[What follows is excerpted from an obituary of Frank Duggan published today on the website of The Washington Post:]

Francis J “Frank” Duggan, a lawyer and federal official who spent years as a pro bono advocate on behalf of families of the victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, died Nov 1 at his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 79.

The cause was lung cancer, said his son, Tim Duggan.

On Dec 21, 1988, a bomb exploded, killing all 259 people aboard Flight 103, plus 11 people on the ground, when the disabled aircraft crashed into the town of Lockerbie. The victims came from more than 20 countries.

In 1989, Mr Duggan was named to the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, which examined the causes of the bombing. He was the commission’s liaison to the victims’ families and continued to act as their pro bono advocate until his death. He eventually was named president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, an organization composed mostly of victims’ families.

“He was always the linchpin that made things happen,” said the group’s board chairwoman, Mary Kay Stratis, whose husband was killed on Flight 103. “He made connections in Scotland and the UK with journalists who understood our plight and had his finger on the pulse of our organization.”

Mr Duggan helped lobby Congress and federal officials to improve airline security and called on law enforcement agencies to bring charges in the case.

In 2001, more than 12 years after the incident, a onetime Libyan intelligence officer, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, was convicted of 270 counts of murder for his role in placing the bomb on the airliner. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The Libyan government agreed to accept responsibility for the bombing and to pay a penalty of $2.7 billion to the victims’ families in 2003, in return for the easing of international sanctions on the country. [RB: The Libyan government did not “accept responsibility for the bombing”; it accepted “responsibility for the actions of its officials”. The relevant document can be read here.]

In 2009, al-Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland on grounds of “compassionate relief” because he was believed to be terminally ill. He returned to Libya, where he lived until his death in 2012.

Mr Duggan strongly opposed al-Megrahi’s release and maintained that as many as seven other co-conspirators were never brought to justice.

“Obviously it wasn’t just one guy,” Mr Duggan told the Syracuse Post-Standard in 2013. “One guy didn’t make the bomb and transport it . . . He didn’t put it on the [luggage conveyor] belt. He didn’t get it on the plane. There were other people that the investigation suspects, very strongly.” (...)

Mr Duggan was instrumental in arranging for a memorial cairn, consisting of 270 stones quarried near Lockerbie, which was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery in 1995.

Victims group continues search for answers in Pan Am 103 bombing

[This is the headline over a report published earlier this week in The Daily Orange, the newspaper of Syracuse University, New York, which lost 35 students in the Lockerbie disaster.  It reads in part:]

In the late-December days following the Pan Am Flight 103 explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland, friends and family of the 259 passengers boarded their own flights across the Atlantic.

“Victims’ family members went to Lockerbie because they just wanted to be there,” said Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc. “They were still bringing bodies in from the field.” (...)

The group formally organized in February 1989 to discover the truth about the bombing, said Duggan, who said he did not know anyone on the plane. The founding members advocated for airline safety and created a support network for grieving family and friends. While the passage of various air safety and victims advocacy legislation speak to the weighty influence of the victims’ group, current board members say the group continues to be an active political force working toward its founding goals. (...)

Aside from airline security, the Pan Am victims have played a significant role in shaping the way the US government deals with victims of disasters, said Richard Marquise, a retired FBI agent who worked on the investigation from the day of the crash.

“We did not have a lot of experience in dealing with victims,” Marquise said. “This was the first big one where we had to deal with 189 American victims and you actually had a cohesive group that came together and started asking questions of investigators.”

Marquise said he remembered the first time he addressed the victims group in Albany, NY, in early 1991 and the painful experience of hearing the family members say they felt the FBI wasn’t making any progress in the investigation.

“In terms of dealing with victims, it’s something that we did not do very well in the late 80s and 90s,” Marquise said.

But since then, he said, Congress has passed legislation to give victims more rights and ultimately deal with victims in a more proactive manner. “I won’t say they came out of Lockerbie, but part of the Lockerbie experience fed into how it’s in the government today,” he said.

The relationship between the victims group and the government continues to develop, said Duggan, president of the group, considering the investigation into the bombing is still open despite the indictment of Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.

“To this day, 25 years later, they convicted one guy and we know that he didn’t do it himself,” Duggan said.

He said the group met with former FBI Director Robert Mueller for a briefing on the investigation before Mueller’s retirement in September. At the briefing, nearly 25 years after the actual bombing, Duggan said, Mueller promised to find who else was involved in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.

Said Duggan: “We’ve been promised that by the US government and I believe the US government is going to do the best they can to get to the bottom of that.”

[If the US government, like the Scottish police and Crown Office, are looking only in Libya they are unlikely to get anywhere.  But that, of course, may be the whole point.  

An interview with Frank Duggan has today been posted on the Syracuse website of The Post-Standard.]

"I will never understand your motives or your methods"

[In an email of 16 July 2015 addressed to Dr Jim Swire and me, Frank Duggan, President of the US Lockerbie relatives organization Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 Inc wrote: “Prof Black and Dr Swire. Even if you honestly believe that Gadhafi had nothing to do with the Lockerbie bombing, he certainly did enough to lead this list of monsters. I will never understand your motives or your methods.”

The “list of monsters” refers to the Evolution of Evil television series, particularly the programme Gaddafi: Mad Dog of the Middle East.

What follows is the text of Dr Swire’s reply to Mr Duggan, dated 17 July:]

Dear Frank,

I agree with your statement (copied below) that:-

" I (Frank Duggan) will never understand your (Jim Swire's et al) motives or your methods."

My motive is so simple and has been so many times stated that it is clear you are unable to understand that it is simply to know the truth - which includes as much of the truth about what my Government and yours really know as can be forced from their unwilling grasp.

That is my motive: what is yours in maintaining adherence to the story accepted by the Zeist court?

Where were you as the evidence unfolded? Were you there?

I was.

As for my methods they are to question those directly involved wherever possible and make an assessment upon what they say.

Therefore my motive in repeatedly meeting with Gaddafi and other Arab leaders was to see what they had to say and more significantly to try to persuade them to send the accused for trial under Scottish law.

Of course the likes of Nelson Mandela (did you ever meet him? - I did) were of far greater importance than we could ever hope to be, but at least we did our utmost to persuade the late Colonel to send them over.

Did you try to do that?

In the case of Gaddafi I decided that he was inscrutable and that I could never find out what he did or did not know. That is why if you review all that I have said, you will find that since the Zeist trial I have never claimed to know whether he was involved or not, only to being sure (largely courtesy of the Zeist trial evidence) that his man Megrahi was not involved.

I confess that before the trial I believed him to be involved and I wanted his men to be tried, in order to learn the truth. This was wrong in so far as all accused are entitled to a presumption of innocence, but my Government had told me that there was irrefutable evidence about Libyan involvement but none about any other country. I was naive and that is my excuse

As early as February 1989 I had been shown a detailed warning received by the UK Government from the West German BKA in October 1988. It showed that the PFLP-GC of Damascus had perfected bombs which were inert at ground level but, having no user adjustments except an arming plug, on sensing the drop in pressure as an aircraft climbs, they were committed to exploding around 35, plus or minus five, minutes following take off.

Such devices had to be infiltrated at the airport of take off of the target flight, in this case Heathrow: if inserted at Frankfurt they would explode over Europe before reaching Heathrow. All this was repeated with further details by Herr Gobel during the Zeist trial.

Perhaps you remember that the Lockerbie flight lasted 38 minutes from take off?

If you re-examine the evidence led by Mr Bedford, the chief baggage handler at Heathrow, you will see that he reported that two suitcases had been put into the Pan Am baggage container AV4041 with no known security clearance and in his absence, long before the Frankfurt flight had even landed, that no one would admit having put them there, and that one of them was a dark coloured hard sided 'Samsonite type' suitcase occupying the position where the origin of the explosion occurred.

Funny that, it fits the description of the primary suitcase containing the bomb and the court decided without justificatory evidence of any kind that in fact one of the late arriving cases from Frankfurt 'must' have displaced it, apparently using the circular argument that the bomb must have come from Frankfurt.

The point of origin of the explosion can be explored in the Air Accident Investigation Branch report 2/90.

You  might also like to read the book Adequately explained by stupidity? by Morag Kerr which details events at Heathrow.

Of course, the Scottish police/Crown Office had also known from February 1989 that the Heathrow airside security had been broken into 16 hours prior to Lockerbie, but for whatever reason they kept that concealed from the defence and the court.

As the trial progressed we learned that the identifying of Megrahi as the buyer of the famous Maltese clothing depended on the evidence of a man who knew that if his evidence convicted the Libyan he was in line for several million dollars.

Is that a sound basis for reliable evidence do you think?

Then there was the fact, as their Lordships themselves had to admit in their summary, that there simply was no evidence to show how Megrahi  was supposed to have got the bomb on board at Malta.

When I pushed for trial under Scottish criminal law, I believed that the task of the court was to prove a case 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

Do you believe that these proceedings reached that standard?

But of course you will say a fragment of circuit board proved that a long running timer sold to Libya had been used, not one of the cruder fixed run-time devices made in Damascus.

Do you know that that fragment was found by a UK forensic officer within the only Scottish police evidence bag whose label, the court heard, had been illegally tampered with? Could there be reasonable doubt about the authenticity of the bag's contents also?

Do you know that that same forensic officer told the court under oath that the fragment was "similar in all respects" to the boards in the timers owned by Libya?

Have you seen the dated report from him which shows that he knew before giving that evidence that the plating was incompatible?

Have you read the scientific academic reports which confirm that this plating difference could not have been caused by exposure to a Semtex explosion?

In this country we had a philosopher now commonly referred to as 'William of Occam' he was born in 1285 (rather before the Pilgrim Fathers got their act together I fear) in the little Surrey village of Occam.

His best known philosophical statement is nowadays currently rendered along the lines that 'The simplest explanation that fits the known facts is usually the correct one'.

Having studied all the available evidence as best I can I think the bomb was built by Marwhan Khreesat of the PFLP-GC, and put aboard at Heathrow with the dreadful consequences we all know.

William of Occam would no doubt have preferred that conclusion to the complexities of the Megrahi/Malta/Frankfurt scenario.

I am satisfied that the Megrahi/Malta story is nothing more than a fable, because there is far more evidence against it than for it, and that in this case it is wise to follow William's advice.

I wonder what your guess would be as to the origin of the fragment known as PT35b? The realisation that it really could not have come from one of the timers owned by Libya destroys the one anomaly which seemed to genuinely support the Malta hypothesis.

I have not been able to find out what happened between October 1988 when the Germans lost track of at least one of the PFLP-GC type bombs and December 1988 at Heathrow, nor have I been able to discover who broke into Heathrow airside.

I therefore have no idea whether Gaddafi himself was responsible in some way, and that is why I do not claim to know whether he was a guilty party. Study the records again.

You Frank say "Even if you honestly believe that Gaddafi had nothing to do with the Lockerbie bombing, he certainly did enough to lead this list of monsters", I have tried to explain that I do not know whether the late colonel was involved over Lockerbie or not. It looks likely that his right hand man Moussa Koussa probably at least knew of the plot, his body language suggested guilt when I met him, but that would make an even weaker case than the story I heard at Zeist, would it not.

I doubt I shall respond to your emails in future, there is no point if your eyes and ears are closed to fact based discussion, but there are two favours I would ask of you all the same.

1.) I have always been aware that our search for the truth has upset certain US relatives by disturbing what they see as their closure. Of course they would see this email as just 'Swire trotting out the same old arguments again' but it may none the less be upsetting for them to read. Some will have seeds of doubt in their minds aware that the constancy of our position could most easily be explained (though you say you cannot understand it yourself) by having the simplicity of truth; by being in other words correct. I have not found a way to avoid upsetting the US relatives, but if you have their real interests at heart, I think you should not make them read this, instead your time might be better spent in pondering for yourself some of the very real weaknesses of the case we heard at Zeist, perhaps following William of Occam's advice.

2.) I beg you not to encourage 'your' members to hate. The heading "EVOLUTION OF EVIL - Premiering 16th July 2015 on The American Heroes Channel" ... suggests incitement to hate. We have experienced the outpourings of some unfortunate relatives in the form of hatred, hatred for Arabs, hatred for Gaddafi, even hatred for those of us who seek the truth. This is what terrorists do, they thrive on hatred. Every time someone descends to hatred, the terrorists score again, for the consequence of harbouring hatred is destruction of the personal lives of those who harbour it.

No man is simply "AN EVOLUTION OF EVIL" we are all flawed and imperfect, but capable of both good acts and evil ones. I can tell you that Gaddafi was both inscrutable and cyclothymic, but in the running of his country he seems, albeit at terrible cost to his people, to have been rather more effective than the chaos that our Western actions have triggered. following his murder. I fear we do not have the luxury of simplification offered by describing individuals as either pure good or pure evil. The world and we ourselves are far more complex than that.

Of course those who do evil acts like Lockerbie must be brought before the law and agreed punishments administered if found guilty through valid evidence, but you might care to remember the axioms "judge not, that ye be not judged", or perhaps " Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee".

[The following are two emailed responses from Mr Duggan:]

1. Dr Swire: there is nothing new in your lengthy email, and no evidence to support any of your theories. Theories are not admissible in court without some proof.

Regards,

Frank Duggan

2. Dr Swire: attached is a review of Hurley's book which recounts the Channel 4 panel discussion we had in London. The moderator was certainly not impartial, but I was able to explain the warnings you have been talking about for 25 years. I would also note that you were defending the Libyans at this point, before the trial and before you had heard any evidence in court. It is not true that you went into that court with an open mind, and there are other family members who recall conversations with you as to the innocence of the Libyans. One family member said that you had all the arguments that had been prepared by Prof Black, who maintains to this day that no court would find the Libyans guilty.

Regards,

Frank Duggan

https://books.google.com/books?id=0TcZMd9TioYC&pg=PA390&dq=Frank+Duggan+Pan+Am+103&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIpoTkwNTixgIVDD4-Ch1Wwwe_#v=onepage&q=Frank%20Duggan%20Pan%20Am%20103&f=false

Fragments of truth, continued

[The following exchange of e-mails involving Richard Marquise, Frank Duggan and Mark Hirst took place following the appearance on 17 November of Mark Hirst's article "Fragments of truth".]

1. From Richard Marquise to Mark Hirst, copied to Frank Duggan, dated 22 November
I have read your recent Lockerbie article entitled "Fragments of Truth" and I will tell you, that I believe your article was aptly named.

I can appreciate that Mr. Megrahi "steadfastly maintains his innocence" but I am certain you weighed that claim with all the other lies he has told in the past--"I am not a member of Libyan intelligence," and "I was not in Malta on 20-21 December 1988, I was here in Tripoli with my family." Those lies were proven at trial but somehow, you want to believe what he tells you today. I am incredulous. Is it the truth now or was it last time he spoke??

Your statement alleges that "many professionals involved in this case including US intelligence officers,legal experts and police investigators" share Mr. Megrahi's view. Who are they??? Former CIA agent Robert Baer should not count since he never worked on the case and has no idea what the evidence was or how it was collected or shared. Who are these other people? I do not count Gareth Pearce or Robert Black--they too know only what they "think?" As we who have been law enforcement professionals know--"thinking" is not admissible in court--facts and evidence are--even circumstantial evidence.

You speak of "new evidence" in this case but I have read his postings to date and have seen nothing which would change my mind about the righteousness of his conviction.

You talk about the "cover up" of the weakness of the investigation-- there was never a cover up--the evidence was the evidence and the three judges convicted him. You might call their reading the the evidence "shameful" but I think they came to the correct conclusion--Mr. Megrahi was guilty of murder the Libyan Government was responsible for the attack.

You believe we had pressure to secure the indictment. Yes, we did believe that a "timescale" was in place to announce something but we also recognized that without someone in Libya providing us information, there would probably never be any new evidence developed. This proved to be the case until 1999 when the Libyan Government was compelled to "cooperate" and some additional evidence was collected (which proved that Mr. Megrahi and Abdusamad were one in the same and that Mr. Megrahi was a Libyan agent. To me, these findings corroborated some of the things Mr. Giaka told us.

While it is true that intelligence agencies did provide the name of Mr. Megrahi (one of many), it was through the investigation that Mr. Fhimah was brought into the case. His name did not come from intelligence agencies and was a complete byproduct of "detective" work.

You (and others) continue to claim that witnesses at trial were motivated by money. While I will not be able to say what motivates each and every person who testifies at any trial, I have said it before and will say it again--no witness--none-- was ever promised money or asked to say anything at any interview or at trial in exchange for money. None!! In fact, it was Mr. Bollier who came to the US Embassy in January 1989 and attempted to implicate the Libyans, long before there was one shred of real evidence collected at Lockerbie. It would be nearly two years before he could even be identified as that person.

You continue to make allegations about Mr. Thurman and that he has no credentials to do "forensic" examinations. Would it shock you to know that not only does he have extensive experience as an explosives expert in the US military (pre FBI), he also has a masters degree in Forensic Science? I am certain that will be made clear in your next attempt to criticize him.

With regard to the "travel" of PT-35-- once again-- it was the sharing of information which led to the solution of this case. If the fragment had remained behind in Scotland, never shared, it would possibly be unidentified today. No one would ever have discovered it was a piece of one of 20 timers given to Libyan intelligence. It is clear no one ever attempted to "cover" that up-- I freely admitted it in my book, Mr. Henderson stated such in his precognition and I again said so to Mr. Levy. My "confusion" at Arlington last December over whether it had come to the US or not, was due more to the tone of the question, the setting and the allegation I may have lied to him when he first interviewed me. Unlike Mr. Megrahi, I do not tell lies when it comes to the evidence in this case. I said it right when Mr. Levy first interviewed me. We had nothing to hide because we did the right thing and there has never, never, never been one scintilla of proof that PT-35 was altered or changed in any way.

I was a bit disappointed that you chose to end your "treatise" using the vulgar quote from Ian Ferguson. I guess I expected better from someone who is involved in politics.

I would hope that in the future you cover "all" the facts when you write concerning Lockerbie.

2. From Frank Duggan to Richard Marquise, copied to Mark Hirst and Robert Black, dated 22 November
We greatly appreciate your continuing to present the facts to Mr. Hirst, Ms. Grahame, Prof. Black, Gareth Pearce and the rest of the shameless band of conspiracy mavens. They are no worse than holocaust deniers, who will not accept the facts before their faces.

Thanks for your continued efforts on behalf of 270 innocent souls murdered by Mr. Megrahi and his state sponsors of terrorism.

3. From Mark Hirst to Richard Marquise and Frank Duggan, copied to Robert Black, dated 23 November
I am at somewhat of a loss as to know where to begin as it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is a huge intellectual void between us. You talk freely of "facts" yet seem utterly incapable of critically examining the facts that have come to light since the trial and indeed re-examine the supposed facts that were led during it.

I note, with some despondency, that US Governmental control of the doctrinal system may make it ultimately impossible for you to accept and consider the realities in this case and that American culture encourages an ideology that "hates" to lose and therefore it is extremely difficult for you to consider, even if you consciously knew it, that you may be entirely wrong.

Mr Duggan, it is apparent to me from your blatant right wing political agenda that your grasp of what facts there are is extremely limited. For information, unlike the United States of America, both my grandfathers fought for three consecutive the perpetrators of the holocaust before the US woke up to the danger of aggressive imperialist fascism, the same type of imperial cultural and political fascism which appears to be an integral part of US foreign policy today.

I suspect (although I have yet to see any evidence!) that at some base level both you and Mr Marquise are aware of the facts in this case, which is presumably why you have both consistently endeavoured to lower the arguments surrounding this case to concentrating on character assassination and failed to argue the substantive points in the case or answer the core questions at its heart.

Mr Duggan, despite what you may think, you clearly do not represent the 270 innocent souls who were murdered in December 1988, a fact that I fear has completely eluded you.

Turning to your comments Mr Marquise. I have been generous with you in the past and have stated to those I have met and discussed this with, including the Justice Minister at the time of the trial and others, that you may not have actively tried to deceive and that you simply reached the wrong conclusions on the limited evidence available and due to the enforced timescales imposed to secure an indictment. However it is clear that you have and are involved in a propaganda campaign to defend the conviction. I understand why on a personal level you would wish to do that. Your entire professional career and reputation and that of Henderson and other senior legal people here in Scotland depend on maintaining this unsafe conviction. That personal stake in this case has blinded you and those you have helped indoctrinate into ignoring the substantive pieces of information and evidence that has come to light since the kangaroo court proceedings in Holland.

I am willing to accept that there was a slackness in the investigation (in terms of failure to follow correct procedure), certainly in the Scottish police aspect of the case, because at that time no one seriously believed Libya would ever surrender the two accused. I can only imagine the sense of panic that ensued when it became evident that the Megrahi and Fhimah were prepared to come before what they were told, and believed would be a fair court process.

You seem to be trapped by the illusion that our certainty in Megrahi’s innocence is based solely on us meeting him in person and not by the conclusions of the SCCRC report, the discussions we have had with police officers involved in the case and very senior figures inside the Scottish legal system who are as appalled as us with the outcome of the investigation and conviction of an innocent man, whilst the real perpetrators go unpunished.

Regarding the cash reward received by witnesses I can only say if they were motivated by a civic or moral duty why would they need the money? In fact why would they actively seek financial reward, as you must know was the case? Another fact obscured by your visceral hatred of those who seek to objectively and critically examine the case you presented.

You claim that no money was ever offered or promised before trial. Presumably you mean "was never offered by the FBI" as you must know that money was discussed at length by US intelligence. I thought it was "us" who were the "deniers"?

You imply that I am behind the allegations that Mr Thurman is not properly qualified. That is not the case. It was the FBI’s Fred Whitehurst who makes that assertion although I appreciate it will not be a comforting experience to have fellow Americans undermine the determined indoctrination process you are involved with.

As I have previously stated I coincidentally worked as a Quality Inspector for the world’s biggest PCB manufacturer in the world, ironically a US owned company. I therefore happen to know a little about circuit boards. Having recently read the court transcript the identification of PT35 was done purely on a visual comparison of a complete board which the CIA happened to have and which Thurman acquired. As I have previously stated the board was NOT manufactured by MEBO, but by Thuring AG and then sold to MEBO to be "populated". I have made the point before, and this is evident in the court transcript, that there are design characteristics on PT35 which yes, could be present on a complete MST13 timer, but, which the Court failed to consider, equally present on any number of other circuits produced by Thuring. That is not just my view but a view shared by people I know who still work in the industry and presumably why none of the 55 PCB companies visited by investigators was able to give a categorical identification of the fragment before Thurman’s "miraculous" (I am being generous) ID in Washington.

As you have stated Mr Marquise, without PT35 there would be no indictment, let alone a conviction so this and the other serious questions regarding PT35 are significant. Incidentally you previously took me to task over whether the MST13 timers were sold or simply "given" to Libya and stated, as "fact", that they were "given" and not sold. If you would like I am happy to send you a recorded interview conducted in 2000 with your associate Robert Muller, who I believe runs the FBI today. He makes it clear then that the timers were "sold". Perhaps a conference call may be required to get your stories straight before you begin lecturing others on what constitutes "fact" and what does not.

I am sorry you took offence at the "vulgar" quote I used from Ian Ferguson. It seemed to fit the vulgar outcome of the manner in which this investigation and trial were conducted and underscore the sheer scale of the huge miscarriage of justice that has taken place. In that context I believe there are other more substantive and relevant apologies to be made.

As you are aware, I and many others (including those inside the US and UK intelligence services) hold the view that Iran was responsible for this attack. Our narrative of the crime which led to the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie is based on our belief that Iran carried out the attack in revenge for the terrorist atrocity which the US carried out against Iran when they shot down Flight 655, five months before Lockerbie.

As you will see later today, we are now calling for an international inquiry to be established to examine the broader context that led to the Pan Am 103 attack and which, if we lived in a non-hypocritical, fair and just world, would hopefully lead to the conviction of those who are really responsible for Pan Am 103 and those officers and crew who illegally entered Iranian waters and blew up 290 innocent victims on the Iranian flight five months before. These are two interrelated terrorist acts in which the perpetrators, on both sides, have yet to face justice.

I appreciate the real sense of angst that many US families will have regarding the Megrahi release and those who believe, as I do, that he is innocent of this crime. They have been, as one US family member told me "lied to from the outset by our own government and others". I understand too that the American sense of "justice" is very much based on the concept of an eye for an eye and why, therefore, it would be very difficult for Americans to accept the revenge attack which Iran sponsored in retaliation for the murder of 290 of their citizens. I also understand why, Mr Marquise, you are so passionate to defend your reputation in the face of facts that existed during the investigation and which have emerged subsequently. That is an entirely understandable human reaction.

As you must surely appreciate by now, this is not an issue that is going to slip away quietly. Because the real perpetrators have yet to face justice, it shouldn’t be allowed to.

It may be comforting for you, Mr Duggan in particular, to hide behind his metaphoric redoubt and sling entirely inappropriate comment at those who are challenging the official version of events that has been fed to you over the years. The holocaust comparison you make directed at me is presumably an attempt to align those of us who believe Iran was responsible for the attack on Pan Am 103 to the abhorrent comments of the current President of Iran who is on record as a holocaust denier. What a vulgar irony that truly is.

Given, Mr Marquise, you are blind copying in other people to your correspondence between us you will have no particular objection to Professor Black reporting this exchange on his blog?

4. From Frank Duggan to Mark Hirst, copied to Richard Marquise and Robert Black, dated 24 November
There is no intellectual void. It would be helpful to your advocacy if you would explain Mr. Megrahi's actions in Malta and elsewhere, as brought out in the court's decision concerning his guilt. Stating that there were other reasonable, legal explanations for his carrying a false passport and lying about it is not helpful. These are facts that you "seem utterly incapable of critically examining."

5. From Mark Hirst to Frank Duggan, copied to Richard Marquise and Robert Black, dated 25 November

I suspect this exchange could continue forever and with no resolution between our differing views. I think this issue has been debated many times, but I don't see how inverting the burden of proof really assists the case being made against Megrahi. There are any number of unrelated reasons (unrelated to the crime) that would explain why Megrahi could have been carrying a diplomatic coded passport and these are already in the public domain. It was for the Crown to demonstrate these issues were directly connected to the crime, not for Megrahi or anyone else to explain what other possible reasons he may have had for carrying such a passport or other business he may, or may not have had in Malta. I understand that some of Megrahi's own children were also carrying coded diplomatic passports. Were these children involved in the crime also?

The independent SCCRC has concluded that there are very serious issues around the identification by Gauci, not just the millions of dollars he and his brother solicited and received from the CIA. Without the identification there is no case against Megrahi. The fact that the three judges appear to have misdirected themselves by coming up with their own narrative of the crime, which differed significantly from the one the Crown presented, is somewhat of a red herring in terms of defending the conviction being the "considered conclusion of a Scottish court", with the implication that they did not make a monumental legal error in doing so. You must at least know that.

Yourself and Mr Marquise continually attempt to dismiss critical examination of the case as the work of "conspiracy theorists" and appear to believe, without foundation, there is some kind of active conspiracy between myself, Ms Grahame, Professor Black, Dr Swire, John Pilger, Professor Chomsky, Nelson Mandela, Hans Kochler, Ian Ferguson, Gareth Pierce, Gideon Levy, Bob Baer, Fred Whitehurst and many others (including, most likely the SCCRC) who have looked at this case. Clearly the wide range of individuals, most, if not all, with exemplary professional credentials (despite your attempts at character assassination) demonstrates that beyond the three trial judges there remains, and is likely to remain, very serious doubts over the safety of this conviction and the manner in which the investigation was conducted.

That is one fact that I am confident we can both agree on.