[What follows is an extract from The people who moved the world, a forthcoming book by Jim Swire. It appears here by kind permission of Dr Swire and Peter Biddulph.]
Dr Thomas Hayes was formerly head of the forensics explosives laboratory at the British Royal Armaments Research and Defence Establishment (RARDE), and was a key witness in the prosecution case. I would find his evidence at times breathtaking and worrying.
He was aged fifty three, having retired from his RARDE post ten years earlier. As a bachelor of science honours in chemistry, a master of science in the faculty of forensic science, a doctor of philosophy in the faculty of forensic science, a chartered chemist, and a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, we might expect an outstanding memory. And yet he seemed reluctant to tell the court why or when he'd retired to start a new career as a chiropodist. When did he start work at Fort Halstead? In July 1974. And when did he leave? " The exact date of my leaving is a little circumspect, but I believe it was in 1990."
He actually retired in 1989, a year that for him may have been circumspect, but was, in relation to our trial, most significant. Hayes, I would discover from our own research, had an uncomfortable history in relation to one other major terrorist event, namely the IRA bombing said to involve seven members of the Maguire family - The Maguire Seven. In that trial Hayes and two close colleagues - including his immediate supervisor Dr Higgs - had performed a central and discredited role, and were found out by a Parliamentary investigation. To add to that Dr Higgs was also discovered to have conspired to mislead the court - with a further two RARDE colleagues of Hayes - in the case of Judith Ward, accused of a bombing in Guildford.
Was Hayes carefully avoiding using the numbers, "1989", so as to deter the court from forming its own conclusion? When asked by friendly advocate Campbell, Hayes could not recall when he became a chiropodist. Nor did his memory improve as he faced defence QC Richard Keen.
"KEEN. Dr Hayes, you told us in your earlier evidence that you were head of the Forensics explosives laboratory at RARDE until 1989? And your change of career from forensic scientist to chiropodist would appear to coincide in point of time with the decision of the Home Secretary to appoint Sir John May to inquire into the trial of those known as the Maguire Seven. Is that true?
HAYES. I believe so. I don't recall clearly."
I am convinced to this day that Hayes really did recall the date and reason. He simply did not dare say it in front of the judges. For in May 1989, even as he examined the fragment which appeared in the evidence bag with a label signed by Detective Constable Gilchrist and altered by unknown persons, a campaign was running in Parliament to have him and his colleagues investigated for their roles in both IRA trials. The Parliamentary findings were published in 1992 and 1996, long after the November 1991 indictments of the Libyan suspects Al-Megrahi and Fhimah.
In his study of the 1976 trial of the Maguire Seven, Sir John May found that the notebooks of three RARDE scientists, including Hayes, had been consciously withheld from the court. The first of the three was Douglas Higgs, Principal Scientific Officer and head of department; second was Walter Elliott, a Senior Scientific Officer; and the third was Hayes, at that time a Higher Scientific Officer.
During the trial, results of tests for traces of nitro-glycerine on skin and fingernails of the Maguire family were firmly maintained by the three scientists to be positive and decisive. Unknown to the court, however, the three had performed a second set of tests plus a series of experiments. Both tests and experiments indicated a negative result and an innocent means of contamination. They therefore knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court. Furthermore, during the inquiry their notebooks were disclosed to Sir John May only at the final "hearing" stage of that Inquiry. Thus he was forced to view the case files only on the last day of his public hearings.
Sir John recorded his unease at the delay, and concluded: "In all the elements of the prosecution case the Crown relied on the evidence of three RARDE scientists. Their accuracy, reliability, fairness and credibility were fundamental to the convictions. In my opinion the whole scientific basis upon which the prosecution was founded was so vitiated that on this basis alone the Court of Appeal should set aside the convictions."
Then the Judith Ward case: in February 1974 twelve people were killed in an IRA bombing attack on a military bus in Guildford. Ward was arrested, and in an almost exact parallel to the Maguire case, the evidence central to her conviction was an analysis of samples taken from the skin and fingernails. These, maintained three lying scientists, were evidence of her guilt. In November of 1974 she was sentenced to life imprisonment. She would spend fifteen years in jail before her innocence could be established.
Hers was one of a spate of miscarriages of justice including the Maguire case and the Birmingham Six. In every appeal, the manipulation of evidence by RARDE forensic scientists was a major feature of the convictions, and its exposure the cause of successful appeals.
Of the dishonesty revealed in the Ward case Lord Justice Glidewell observed that the catalogue of the lamentable omissions included "failure to reveal actual test results, the failure to reveal discrepant Rf values, the suppression of the boot polishing experimental data, the misrepresentation the first firing cell test results, economical witness statements calculated to obstruct inquiry by the defence, and most important of all, oral evidence at the trial in the course of which three senior RARDE scientists knowingly placed a false and distorted picture before the jury. It is, in our judgement, also a necessary inference that the three senior RARDE forensic scientists acted in concert in withholding material evidence."
Of Higgs Lord Justice Glidewell commented "We reject Mr Higgs' account as a deliberate falsehood" Higgs was, in the words of the appeal panel "An experienced chemist… the head of a closely knit team." The words "deliberate falsehood" are clear. The man and two senior members of his organisation were nothing less than liars.
Dealing with another item of evidence, an apparently bomb damaged suitcase, prosecution advocate Campbell QC led Hayes through what seemed an endless list of items in his detailed schedule. The catalogue droned onward for seventy six pages of transcript. Suddenly Hayes reached a thirteen word sentence, almost hidden from, and mostly missed by, the court and the relatives. It was quietly read: "… The suitcase was fitted with a rigid plastics handle, bright metal trim and locks, which were devoid of any proprietary or owner's identification. A rectangular hole had been cut in the hard shell above the handle. The left-hand edge of the suitcase showed evidence of having been damaged by an explosion, with disruption and blackening of the outer skin and bright metal body frame, [etc]
The suitcase belonged to Major Charles McKee, leader of a four-man CIA team returning from Beirut. He, with colleagues Gannon, Lariviere, and O'Connor, were on a mission to explore ways of freeing a group of American hostages held in Lebanon by Iranian-based terrorists. McKee's suitcase contained something that the US government were desperate to keep from the sight of the media or the public. That something remains so important to America's security that for twenty years the White House has never even hinted at what it might be.
McKee's case had been removed by unknown persons, a rectangular hole expertly sawn just below the handle, the contents taken away and new contents put in. Security suitcases of this type were fitted with an incendiary explosive device on the interior of the case, just by the handle. Should the suitcase be opened without the use of a security code, the suitcase would explode and incinerate the contents. Hence the hole sawn into the case to enable disablement of the explosive trigger. A clean set of clothes were inserted and the case was returned to the crime scene and placed on a Lockerbie hillside so that it could be "found". The removal of evidence from a crime scene is of itself a criminal offence. Yet nothing would be said of it in the trial by the prosecution or the judges.
It was and is - for me - a disturbing tale. How had Hayes, publicly demonstrated as untrustworthy, and working in a close-knit organisation discredited by two major criminal cases, become so central to the Lockerbie tragedy? His repeated plays on words, his professions of innocence, his claims of forgetfulness, all were greatly worrying. As a skilled forensic scientist he should have been immediately alerted by the tampering that took place between the finding of McKee's suitcase and its arrival in his laboratory. Label, name tag and contents had been removed, and a set of clothes put into the case. These were recorded as to '...show no evidence of explosive damage, as opposed to the suitcase which was damaged.' It was as if a new set of clothes had been put into the case. And when writing notes about the identification tags and name tag of the suitcase, instead of using the word 'removed', Hayes chose the words 'devoid of'; technically correct, but in the true sense meaning simply not there. What most worried me, and auguring badly for whatever verdict might follow, was the nature of Lord Sutherland's interjection. His Lordship saw intelligence service interference with the trial process and illegal tampering with evidence as no cause for concern. It seemed to me that he was not the first senior trial judge to be fooled by RARDE's economical witness statements calculated to obstruct inquiry by the defence.
"KEEN. A rectangular hole has been cut in the top of the case, and that cannot be attributed in any form to blast damage or impact damage in the disaster, can it?
HAYES. No, it cannot.
KEEN. You are presented with the alleged contents in a bag marked with the name of the owner of the case? That wasn't usual, so far as the presentation of evidence to you at RARDE was concerned, was it?
HAYES. I don't think I can helpfully answer your question. I don't know.
KEEN. You have no recollection of other cases being presented to you in this fashion, for the purposes of your forensic examination?
HAYES. A case outside this Lockerbie investigation?
KEEN. Outside this particular case on page 22.
HAYES. The suitcase?
KEEN. The suitcase.
HAYES. No particular recollection, no.
KEEN. What appears to have happened, Dr. Hayes, in respect of this case, is that it has been the subject of interference or intromission by some third party.
HAYES. The cut hole would seem to suggest that. The rest of the observations may have some quite innocent explanation.
KEEN. Well, was any innocent explanation proffered to you for the state of this evidence when it was given to you for forensic examination at RARDE?
HAYES. I never asked for an explanation.
KEEN. Was any explanation ever volunteered to you?
HAYES. I'm sorry, I don't recall."
Under further cross-examination Hayes was unable to explain his notes concerning a fragment of circuit board from the MEBO MST-13 timer which was said to be part of the bomb. He found and identified it on 12th May 1989, labelling it "PT35-B" on page fifty one of his one hundred and seventy two page loose-leaf notebook. He would maintain that he was the first person to observe this, finding it in the evidence bag signed and dated by DC Gilchrist, mentioned above.
Hayes said he always kept detailed notes, yet his sheets were strangely renumbered for all pages subsequent to that containing information on the circuit board fragment. Was that particular page later written up and inserted so as to create the illusion of a contemporaneous sequence of entries? Richard Keen tried to extract the truth:
"KEEN. Well, whether it be the date or the page number, Dr. Hayes, would you like to explain how the present page fifty one came to be in your examination notes?
HAYES. How it came to be there?
KEEN. Yes.
HAYES. I'm rather lost for words. It came to be there in exactly the same way as every other page came to be there.
KEEN. If that was the case, Dr. Hayes, the pagination of your notes would run quite simply from pages fifty to fifty six, without the need for the alterations that have been made in the pagination of the notes themselves, and the index; is that not the case?
HAYES. Well, I can understand you expressing some concern on page fifty two onwards. But to my mind, fifty two follows from page fifty one, page fifty one follows from page fifty in a perfectly normal way.
KEEN. But page fifty one can only be there because what preceded it as page fifty one has been changed to page fifty two; is that not equally obvious, Dr. Hayes?
HAYES. Well, otherwise there would be two pages fifty one, of course.
KEEN. And what would have appeared at the end of pages fifty two to fifty six now appears at the bottom half of page forty nine? That is the entry for PI/991.
HAYES. Well, the mystery -- apparent mystery of the entry on the bottom of page forty nine, PI/991, to my mind is no more complex than there was space available on the page. And rather than waste part of the page, I inserted an examination note and dated it. The pagination, to me, is of no great consequence. The date and day of the examination, to me, is of much greater consequence.
KEEN. Well, I understood you to tell us that these were contemporaneous notes that you prepared as you were carrying out your examinations; is that right?
HAYES. Yes. But presumably our definitions of "contemporaneous" are different. My -- I only mean that these notes were written on the date on the page, and that the notes were written at the time precisely of the examination, and not any time afterwards.
KEEN. Well, if that had been the case, there would have been no need for the insertion of what is now page fifty one, would there?
HAYES. Well, it is your suggestion that it was inserted. I have no recollection of an insertion of that form at all. If it was, then it was done for a particularly good and perfectly innocent reason.
KEEN. Which you can't now recollect?
HAYES. I wish I could help you. It would save a lot of awkwardness. But I cannot, no."
He was then re-examined by friendly prosecution advocate Campbell, who steered him methodically through his notes on those same pages. Suddenly, lo and behold, Hayes remembered it all.
"CAMPBELL. Does that explanation of the way in which the items detailed in examination notes are listed help to jog your memory?
HAYES. It has helped me, sir, in attempting to explain what appears to be an unfathomable mystery. And I think the solution is very straightforward. And it is this: That when I wrote these notes, I initially did not number the pages… And in numbering the pages, I mistakenly used the number 51 twice, realised my error, after numbering a few pages, and corrected it… So whereas the page numbers may be in sequential order, the dates would not be."
This sudden flash of recall under Campbell's friendly re-examination for me remains unconvincing, and differed totally from his previous explanation, namely that "… the mystery was no more complex than there was space available on the page. And rather than waste part of the page, I inserted an examination note and dated it." As I watched him playing games with the defence, I became more and more convinced that he was misleading the court so as to achieve a prosecution, and not for the first time. He may have made notes, but unlike all similar items which he found, the sole piece of material evidence, PT/35B, claimed to link Bollier and MEBO to the Libyans, was absent from his drawings. And he gave it a higher identification number in his index than a similar sized piece of material he was to examine four weeks later.
Then as Richard Keen probed further concerning the fragment of shirt collar found by Detective Constable Gilchrist, Hayes could not quite remember the moment of finding the fragment.
"KEEN. Do you actually recall finding this fragment?
HAYES. I think so. If I was -- it's tempting to be too helpful in answering your question and saying clearly a very important piece, you must have a memory of it. You have flashbacks of certain important items that you've looked at. I question whether those are flashbacks to the correct case examination or another case examination. So although in my mind there is no question whatever that I did find it within this neck-band, whether I have a clear recollection in my memory of teasing it out, I would prefer not to be too definite about it."
Finally Hayes' notes dated 12th May 1989 recorded the following: "Trapped in the grey material within the blackened area were A. several fragments of black plastics, B. a fragment of a green-coloured circuit board". Thus he exposed, in an unguarded moment, a serious discrepancy from the evidence previously given by DC Thomas Gilchrist.
"KEEN. Dr Hayes, you record in those notes on page fifty one that PT/35B was trapped in the collar of a shirt or in a piece of material. So that fragment could not, presumably, have come to light as far as the police were concerned, prior to it being extracted from the cloth by yourself?
HAYES. That's correct. Yes.
KEEN. It would follow that it could not have been seen by the police prior to the cloth being passed to you at RARDE and the article being extracted by you from the trapped area of material?
HAYES. I'm sure that is the case."
Thus he twice maintained that neither Gilchrist - nor anyone else - could have seen the fragment prior to his probing the collar on his workbench. So we may ask when was the label altered to "DEBRIS", and by whom? More importantly, for what purpose was the label altered, other than to draw attention to a piece of "debris" inserted into the bag by persons unknown? That discrepancy was never challenged either during the trial nor at the subsequent appeal.
In yet another puzzling exchange with Richard Keen, Hayes admitted that even though his initial conclusion was that the green fragment - PT35/B - was a fragment from a bomb timer, he failed to undertake a routine chemical trace analysis to determine whether it had been in contact with an explosion. This was quite contrary to standard forensic process, and can only be described as negligence. It contrasted with the chemical trace analyses he undertook of each of the twenty four pieces of luggage surrounding the immediate explosion of which the fragment was a component. In spite of prolonged cross-examination, Hayes could provide no logical explanation for it. Or, perhaps, did Hayes know what he would find, namely that the fragment possessed no trace of explosive? Only a controlled analysis by an independent forensic scientist might test the fragment's provenance. And that could not occur without a special form of appeal. Such would not prove possible until the year 2009, and I will return to this subject later in this book.
Meanwhile in Kamp Zeist the judges had only Hayes’ word. They knew of his record as a conspirator in with-holding evidence in a major IRA trial, and that of his immediate colleagues in a second IRA trial. They watched his contrasting explanations regarding the pagination of his notebook and the sudden return of his memory when gently steered under re-examination by the prosecution. They witnessed his word games regarding McKee's suitcase - illegal evidence tampering by the intelligence services of either the United Kingdom or America. They listened to him twice claim that he was the first to find debris - the fragment of the bomb - in the evidence bag, and that therefore neither Gilchrist nor anyone else could have seen it before he did. Yet instead of basing their judgement on what Hayes actually said, they would substitute their own explanations and believe the man implicitly.
Hundreds of fragments from the luggage container and its contents were discovered. From the remains of the Toshiba cassette recorder that contained the bomb; from twenty four items of luggage in the immediate vicinity of the explosion; from clothing and personal effects; even from a black umbrella. For me it was not unreasonable to expect many fragments from the bomb and timer, the wires, the circuits, the frame, the timer itself, to be embedded in surrounding clothing and luggage, the luggage container, the aircraft spars and structure. Yet apart from a charred shirt collar, none contained a single fragment of the bomb. The fragment too, when displayed before the court, and apart from fraying around the edges (said to have been done by laboratory processing), was almost pristine. Its bright green anti-solder covering was still bright green. Its printed circuits remained just as pristine. Both in spite of its position at the centre of a three thousand degree high explosive fireball.
In time I would watch witness Allan Feraday, who prepared the final forensic report for the trial, confirm under oath that only one fragment - the Hayes four millimetre square piece of "debris" - was ever found. That of itself seemed an unusual occurrence. I found myself asking how much other material might have been removed, or re-inserted, or even planted. One of Cannistraro's colleagues in the White House had discussed the use of manufactured evidence to destabilise a middle eastern government. If such was good for Yemen, then why not for Libya? Yet in spite of my suspicions - also shared by many of those following the progress of the trial - the miraculous fragment would pass without challenge.
CIA had duplicate timers.
"There has been some speculation about timers from that same series being provided to STASI [The East German Secret Police, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989], and it's true that they were. But they were on brown circuit boards. The circuit board that was used in the explosion at Lockerbie was a green production model of the timer, and that came from Libyan intelligence." So spoke Vincent Cannistraro into the camera in 1993. His words were of interest, not for what he said, but for what he did not say. During that time, unknown to the public and the media, within the storeroom of the CIA laboratories in Langley Virginia lay at least one exact duplicate of an MST-13 timer. It was set on a green lacquered baseboard identical to the type from which the Hayes fragment was said to have originated.
8th June 2000.
A column of vans with blacked-out windows glided to a halt at the entrance to the court building. Shielded from public and journalist gaze several men were ushered into the rear entrance.
One of the men was witness Richard Louis Sherrow, a retired US Army veteran of twenty years' service, and an expert in firearms and explosives, who'd worked for the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Service (ATF). Prosecution advocate Turnbull led Sherrow through his evidence-in-chief. In 1986 Sherrow had been instructed by the ATF to travel to Lome, Togo, with an Edward Owen of the ATF, and James Casey of the State Department. During the visit, Sherrow observed a number of items, including explosives and several timers. One timer was of special interest to him.
"TURNBULL: Had you ever seen electronic timers similar to the ones you saw in Lome?
SHERROW: Not exactly similar, no, sir. Subsequently, I was allowed to take one timer and a sample of, I believe, three different types of explosives. They were placed in the United States diplomatic pouch and returned. I examined [the timer] at the headquarters of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, performed bench tests, functioning tests.
TURNBULL: Did you photograph it at the headquarters?
SHERROW: Yes, I did.
TURNBULL: And having performed these tests and photographed it, what did you then do with it?
SHERROW: I was requested to take it to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and give a briefing on what I found.
TURNBULL: And did you take the timer back with you?
SHERROW: No, I didn't. That was released to their custody."
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hayes "John May". Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hayes "John May". Sort by date Show all posts
Tuesday 7 October 2008
Thursday 13 November 2014
The case for a public inquiry remains overwhelming
The latest from Private Eye
The police “review” of the Lockerbie case appears to be little more than a sop to head off demands for a full public inquiry.
Any meaningful reinvestigation would involve another force being brought in to carry out the review – not an officer involved in the original investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103. It would also surely include a thorough review of the evidence upon which the independent Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) decided that Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice… But this is not to be.
Another new key area of concern is the forensic evidence underpinning the entire case: notably a small fragment of a circuit board for a bomb timer found in and among fragments of a man’s shirt recovered from the site. The shirt and other clothing recovered were said to have been traced back to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who said he had sold them to a man who resembled Megrahi.
The prosecution has always claimed that these tiny fragments were identified by Dr Thomas Hayes at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (Rarde) on 12 May 1989. There was concern at the time of the trial that the label on this crucial piece of evidence had been altered. Further, the pages in Hayes’ notes relating to this evidence had been curiously renumbered. Eye readers may recall that the work of Hayes and other Rarde scientists has subsequently been criticised in a series of high-profile miscarriage-of-justice cases involving IRA terrorism – in particular the inquiry by Sir John May into the wrongful conviction of the Maguire family, where scientific notebooks were found to have been altered.
Lawyers for Megrahi have now uncovered a similar pattern of inconsistencies, alterations, discrepancies and undisclosed material that again calls into question the integrity of the Rarde scientists. It comes from new scientific tests as well as a meticulous examination of evidence that was not disclosed or available at the time. Here are some examples …
* Photographs and evidence suggest that the circuit board and debris from the shirt had not been discovered until January 1990 – seven months later than Rarde claimed.
* Further evidence that scientific notes had been altered.
* Details of simulated explosions carried out in the US in July 1989 were not revealed, but debris from those blasts [was] taken both to Rarde and to Lockerbie for comparison.
* Exhibit labels were being written and attached by police more than a year after the debris was found.
* One man who was asked to put his name to the discovery of pieces of the charred shirt says he does not recall recovering the material. He also says the cloth shown to him by police was not the same grey colour as that identified in court as the shirt bought by Megrahi.
* Evidence to suggest the charred “bomb” shirt was in fact a child’s shirt.
* A wealth of conflicting evidence surrounding the discovery of charred pieces of a Babygro – also said to have been packed in the bomb suitcase and sold to Megrahi. One Babygro collected by investigators for comparison purposes was not accounted for.
The SCCRC which had some but not all of this material, rejected suggestions that the evidence had been deliberately fabricated. But it fell short of conducting its own forensic tests.
If this is a cock-up or incompetence, it is on such a scale that it recalls the verdict of Sir John May in the Maguire inquiry that the scientific basis on which the prosecution was founded should not be relied upon. Taken with Gauci’s highly dubious identification evidence …, the case for a public inquiry remains overwhelming.
[The above is the text of an article that appears on page 28 of the current edition (1249) of Private Eye. It does not feature on the magazine's website.]
On the same date Rolfe posted the following comment on the blog:
It would be nice to know the sources for these assertions.
It seems that the author is alleging, or at least suggesting, that the entire shebang contained in that evidence bag was fabricated, probably using material generated during the test detonations carried out in the USA in the summer of 1989. However, as I've said before, the existence of the red-circle photo would seem to argue against that hypothesis.
New viewers may start here.
Thomas Hayes's notes dated 12th May 1989 describe his examination of the contents of the bag in question. In the course of that examination he teased out a five-sheet-thick fragment of compacted paper (from the Toshiba manual) also found within the shirt collar.
The red-circle photo of the contents of the bag shows the timer fragment quite clearly - indeed, so clearly that it's possible to identify it as the same item as was exhibited at the trial in 2000. It also shows the fragment of paper - still compacted. Thus, unless it has been falsified, that picture was taken on (or before) 12th May 1989. And it shows the timer fragment.
The photo is not a polaroid, and thus should have a negative, which should establish the provenance of the photo to the date in question.
Or not, as the case may be.
Has anybody checked this out? Does the negative show up in a roll of film shot at the right time? This is absolutely crucial to the entire case, and I'd dearly love to know the answer.
My main sticking point on this issue is my doubt as to whether a group of law enforcement who were up to no good around Christmas 1989 would dare try to introduce this picture into the evidence trail retrospectively, with all the problems of negative provenance. The picture was circulated to the press, I believe - are we really to believe nobody noticed the negative wasn't from the date it was supposed to have been taken?
Nevertheless, this article seems to be suggesting they have exactly that sort of evidence.
Photographs and evidence suggest that the circuit board and debris from the shirt had not been discovered until January 1990 – seven months later than Rarde claimed.
Is this for real? Do they know something we don't? Or is this just Chinese Whispers and speculation?
Sunday 17 July 2011
New doubts over crucial evidence in Lockerbie trial
[This is the headline over an article by John Ashton in today's edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]
A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.
Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish border town on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.
The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.
However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative.
The revelation comes as the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee prepares to consider calls for a public inquiry into the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Campaigners believe he was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and accuse the police and Crown Office of concealing evidence that might have cleared him.
Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.
According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.
Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.
Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.
He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.
A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.
It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly.
Christine Grahame, SNP MSP and convener of the Justice Committee, said yesterday: “This adds to the growing body of evidence that Megrahi’s conviction, if it was placed before the appeal court today, would not stand the test of being proven beyond reasonable doubt.”
Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”
The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.
Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.
After seeing PT/35, Mebo’s owner, Edwin Bollier, said it was from a prototype circuit board that was never part of a functioning timer.
The police memo was one of hundreds of documents appended to the 800-page report into Megrahi’s conviction produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. However, its potential significance was apparently overlooked.
The Crown Office would not comment directly on the memo. In a joint statement with Dumfries and Galloway Police, which led the Lockerbie investigation, it said: “The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously … following trial and his conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges in an appeal court.”
[The flaws in the Zeist trial and the strictly circumscribed nature of the appeal are described in my article Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result.]
A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.
Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish border town on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.
The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.
However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative.
The revelation comes as the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee prepares to consider calls for a public inquiry into the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Campaigners believe he was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and accuse the police and Crown Office of concealing evidence that might have cleared him.
Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.
According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.
Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.
Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.
He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.
A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.
It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly.
Christine Grahame, SNP MSP and convener of the Justice Committee, said yesterday: “This adds to the growing body of evidence that Megrahi’s conviction, if it was placed before the appeal court today, would not stand the test of being proven beyond reasonable doubt.”
Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”
The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.
Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.
After seeing PT/35, Mebo’s owner, Edwin Bollier, said it was from a prototype circuit board that was never part of a functioning timer.
The police memo was one of hundreds of documents appended to the 800-page report into Megrahi’s conviction produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. However, its potential significance was apparently overlooked.
The Crown Office would not comment directly on the memo. In a joint statement with Dumfries and Galloway Police, which led the Lockerbie investigation, it said: “The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously … following trial and his conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges in an appeal court.”
[The flaws in the Zeist trial and the strictly circumscribed nature of the appeal are described in my article Lockerbie: A satisfactory process but a flawed result.]
Monday 17 July 2017
Shrouded in a cloud of anomalies
[What follows is the text of an article by John Ashton published in the Sunday Herald on this date in 2011:]
New doubts over crucial evidence in Lockerbie trial
A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.
Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish border town on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.
The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.
However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative.
The revelation comes as the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee prepares to consider calls for a public inquiry into the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Campaigners believe he was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and accuse the police and Crown Office of concealing evidence that might have cleared him.
Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.
According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.
Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.
Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.
He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.
A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.
It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly.
Christine Grahame, SNP MSP and convener of the Justice Committee, said yesterday: “This adds to the growing body of evidence that Megrahi’s conviction, if it was placed before the appeal court today, would not stand the test of being proven beyond reasonable doubt.”
Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”
The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.
Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.
After seeing PT/35, Mebo’s owner, Edwin Bollier, said it was from a prototype circuit board that was never part of a functioning timer.
The police memo was one of hundreds of documents appended to the 800-page report into Megrahi’s conviction produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. However, its potential significance was apparently overlooked.
The Crown Office would not comment directly on the memo. In a joint statement with Dumfries and Galloway Police, which led the Lockerbie investigation, it said: “The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously … following trial and his conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges in an appeal court.”
Saturday 21 June 2014
Gerry Conlon, Ann Maguire, Dr Thomas Hayes and Lockerbie
[This is the headline over an article published today on the Lockerbie Truth website of Dr Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph. It reads as follows:]
It is today reported that Gerard Conlon has died.
In 1974 the alleged IRA bomber Paul Hill, three of his colleagues (Gerard Conlon, Patrick Armstrong, Carole Richardson), plus all seven of the family of Ann Maguire were found guilty of the bombing, or association with the bombing, of an army barracks in Guildford. All served fifteen years imprisonment for their crimes. Gerard Conlon's father Guiseppe died in prison.
The public hue and cry for revenge appeared satisfied. Fortunately for the eleven convicted men and women, several public campaigns conducted before and during the trial to bring back hanging proved unsuccessful.
What Britain had experienced was yet another phase of legal history where public prejudice, legal stupidity or laziness, and sleight of hand by the police and their forensic services merged to a "group think" of public hysteria based on uninformed prejudice.
After serving fifteen years in prison, some in solitary confinement, the remaining ten were released on appeal. At the opening of the appeal, the prosecution lawyers were deeply embarrassed to have to admit that their prosecution case at the trial had been totally without foundation.
Sadly for all eleven convicted, all was too late; their families had been destroyed and lives ruined by a corrupt and inadequate system of justice.
In today's BBC report concerning Gerard Conlon, which can be read here, the BBC says blandly "They were convicted and jailed for handling explosives, based on scientific evidence which was later entirely discredited".
Few people today are aware that that "scientific" evidence was in part provided by Dr Thomas Hayes, a Higher Scientific Officer at the Royal Armaments and Research Defence Establishment (RARDE).
Hayes was never disciplined for his actions. Indeed, he was soon to be promoted to head of department. His career would in time merge into the Lockerbie investigation and trial. Here is part of an account of his appearance at Kamp Zeist, alongside his colleague Allan Feraday:
THE LOCKERBIE TRIAL
It is today reported that Gerard Conlon has died.
In 1974 the alleged IRA bomber Paul Hill, three of his colleagues (Gerard Conlon, Patrick Armstrong, Carole Richardson), plus all seven of the family of Ann Maguire were found guilty of the bombing, or association with the bombing, of an army barracks in Guildford. All served fifteen years imprisonment for their crimes. Gerard Conlon's father Guiseppe died in prison.
The public hue and cry for revenge appeared satisfied. Fortunately for the eleven convicted men and women, several public campaigns conducted before and during the trial to bring back hanging proved unsuccessful.
What Britain had experienced was yet another phase of legal history where public prejudice, legal stupidity or laziness, and sleight of hand by the police and their forensic services merged to a "group think" of public hysteria based on uninformed prejudice.
After serving fifteen years in prison, some in solitary confinement, the remaining ten were released on appeal. At the opening of the appeal, the prosecution lawyers were deeply embarrassed to have to admit that their prosecution case at the trial had been totally without foundation.
Sadly for all eleven convicted, all was too late; their families had been destroyed and lives ruined by a corrupt and inadequate system of justice.
In today's BBC report concerning Gerard Conlon, which can be read here, the BBC says blandly "They were convicted and jailed for handling explosives, based on scientific evidence which was later entirely discredited".
Few people today are aware that that "scientific" evidence was in part provided by Dr Thomas Hayes, a Higher Scientific Officer at the Royal Armaments and Research Defence Establishment (RARDE).
Hayes was never disciplined for his actions. Indeed, he was soon to be promoted to head of department. His career would in time merge into the Lockerbie investigation and trial. Here is part of an account of his appearance at Kamp Zeist, alongside his colleague Allan Feraday:
THE LOCKERBIE TRIAL
Day 15: 5 June 2000
Dr Thomas Hayes was formerly head of the Forensics explosives laboratory at the British Royal Armaments Research and Defence Establishment (RARDE). He would prove a central figure in the prosecution case.
At the time of the trial he was aged fifty-three, having retired from his RARDE post ten years earlier just as the joint Scottish police and FBI investigation into the Lockerbie attack was reaching its climax.
As a bachelor of science honours in chemistry, a master of science in the faculty of forensic science, a doctor of philosophy in the faculty of forensic science, a chartered chemist, and a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, we might expect an outstanding memory.
And yet he seemed reluctant to tell the court when he'd resigned in order to commence a radically new career as a chiropodist. When did he start work at Fort Halstead? "In July 1974." And when did he leave? “The exact date of my leaving is a little circumspect, but I believe it was in 1990."
He actually resigned in 1989, a year that for him may have been circumspect, but was, in relation to the Lockerbie trial, most significant. For he possessed an uncomfortable history in relation to another major terrorist event, namely the alleged IRA bombing involving members of the Maguire family - The Maguire Seven. [RB: See Guildford Four and Maguire Seven.]
In that trial Hayes and two of his colleagues were aware of evidence consistent with the innocence of the accused, decided among themselves that this evidence be not declared, and did not mention it during the trial.
The first of the three was Douglas Higgs, Principal Scientific Officer and head of department; second was Walter Elliott, a Senior Scientific Officer; and the third was Hayes, at that time a Higher Scientific Officer.
During the trial, results of tests for traces of nitro-glycerine on skin and fingernails of the Maguire family were firmly maintained by the three scientists to be positive and decisive. Unknown to the court, however, the three had performed a second set of tests plus a series of experiments. Both tests and experiments indicated a negative result and an innocent means of contamination, and this information was recorded in their forensic notebooks.
It was only through a Parliamentary inquiry by a senior judge, Sir John May, beginning in September 1989 and concluding in July 1990 that the matter was exposed.
Sir John discovered that the notebooks of the three scientists had been deliberately concealed from the court, and cross-examination of witnesses for the prosecution therefore severely hampered.
His main conclusions include the statement: "... the whole scientific basis upon which the prosecution [of Ann Maguire and six members of her family] was founded was in truth so vitiated that on this basis alone the Court of Appeal should be invited to set aside the convictions." [1]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Thomas Hayes was formerly head of the Forensics explosives laboratory at the British Royal Armaments Research and Defence Establishment (RARDE). He would prove a central figure in the prosecution case.
At the time of the trial he was aged fifty-three, having retired from his RARDE post ten years earlier just as the joint Scottish police and FBI investigation into the Lockerbie attack was reaching its climax.
As a bachelor of science honours in chemistry, a master of science in the faculty of forensic science, a doctor of philosophy in the faculty of forensic science, a chartered chemist, and a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, we might expect an outstanding memory.
And yet he seemed reluctant to tell the court when he'd resigned in order to commence a radically new career as a chiropodist. When did he start work at Fort Halstead? "In July 1974." And when did he leave? “The exact date of my leaving is a little circumspect, but I believe it was in 1990."
He actually resigned in 1989, a year that for him may have been circumspect, but was, in relation to the Lockerbie trial, most significant. For he possessed an uncomfortable history in relation to another major terrorist event, namely the alleged IRA bombing involving members of the Maguire family - The Maguire Seven. [RB: See Guildford Four and Maguire Seven.]
In that trial Hayes and two of his colleagues were aware of evidence consistent with the innocence of the accused, decided among themselves that this evidence be not declared, and did not mention it during the trial.
The first of the three was Douglas Higgs, Principal Scientific Officer and head of department; second was Walter Elliott, a Senior Scientific Officer; and the third was Hayes, at that time a Higher Scientific Officer.
During the trial, results of tests for traces of nitro-glycerine on skin and fingernails of the Maguire family were firmly maintained by the three scientists to be positive and decisive. Unknown to the court, however, the three had performed a second set of tests plus a series of experiments. Both tests and experiments indicated a negative result and an innocent means of contamination, and this information was recorded in their forensic notebooks.
It was only through a Parliamentary inquiry by a senior judge, Sir John May, beginning in September 1989 and concluding in July 1990 that the matter was exposed.
Sir John discovered that the notebooks of the three scientists had been deliberately concealed from the court, and cross-examination of witnesses for the prosecution therefore severely hampered.
His main conclusions include the statement: "... the whole scientific basis upon which the prosecution [of Ann Maguire and six members of her family] was founded was in truth so vitiated that on this basis alone the Court of Appeal should be invited to set aside the convictions." [1]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Rt Hon Sir John May, Interim Report on the Maguire Case, 12 July 1990, and Second Report on the Maguire Case, 3 December 1992. http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc8990/hc05/0556/0556.pdf
[An outline of Justice for Megrahi's allegations of forensic scientific misconduct in the Lockerbie case can be read here (allegations 5, 6 and 7). A further related allegation has since been lodged with Police Scotland.]
[An outline of Justice for Megrahi's allegations of forensic scientific misconduct in the Lockerbie case can be read here (allegations 5, 6 and 7). A further related allegation has since been lodged with Police Scotland.]
Friday 13 November 2009
The latest from Private Eye
The police “review” of the Lockerbie case appears to be little more than a sop to head off demands for a full public inquiry.
Any meaningful reinvestigation would involve another force being brought in to carry out the review – not an officer involved in the original investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103. It would also surely include a thorough review of the evidence upon which the independent Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) decided that Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice… But this is not to be.
Another new key area of concern is the forensic evidence underpinning the entire case: notably a small fragment of a circuit board for a bomb timer found in and among fragments of a man’s shirt recovered from the site. The shirt and other clothing recovered were said to have been traced back to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who said he had sold them to a man who resembled Megrahi.
The prosecution has always claimed that these tiny fragments were identified by Dr Thomas Hayes at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (Rarde) on 12 May 1989. There was concern at the time of the trial that the label on this crucial piece of evidence had been altered. Further, the pages in Hayes’ notes relating to this evidence had been curiously renumbered. Eye readers may recall that the work of Hayes and other Rarde scientists has subsequently been criticised in a series of high-profile miscarriage-of-justice cases involving IRA terrorism – in particular the inquiry by Sir John May into the wrongful conviction of the Maguire family, where scientific notebooks were found to have been altered.
Lawyers for Megrahi have now uncovered a similar pattern of inconsistencies, alterations, discrepancies and undisclosed material that again calls into question the integrity of the Rarde scientists. It comes from new scientific tests as well as a meticulous examination of evidence that was not disclosed or available at the time. Here are some examples …
* Photographs and evidence suggest that the circuit board and debris from the shirt had not been discovered until January 1990 – seven months later than Rarde claimed.
* Further evidence that scientific notes had been altered.
* Details of simulated explosions carried out in the US in July 1989 were not revealed, but debris from those blasts [was] taken both to Rarde and to Lockerbie for comparison.
* Exhibit labels were being written and attached by police more than a year after the debris was found.
* One man who was asked to put his name to the discovery of pieces of the charred shirt says he does not recall recovering the material. He also says the cloth shown to him by police was not the same grey colour as that identified in court as the shirt bought by Megrahi.
* Evidence to suggest the charred “bomb” shirt was in fact a child’s shirt.
* A wealth of conflicting evidence surrounding the discovery of charred pieces of a Babygro – also said to have been packed in the bomb suitcase and sold to Megrahi. One Babygro collected by investigators for comparison purposes was not accounted for.
The SCCRC which had some but not all of this material, rejected suggestions that the evidence had been deliberately fabricated. But it fell short of conducting its own forensic tests.
If this is a cock-up or incompetence, it is on such a scale that it recalls the verdict of Sir John May in the Maguire inquiry that the scientific basis on which the prosecution was founded should not be relied upon. Taken with Gauci’s highly dubious identification evidence …, the case for a public inquiry remains overwhelming.
[The above is the text of an article that appears on page 28 of the current edition (1249) of Private Eye. It does not feature on the magazine's website.]
Any meaningful reinvestigation would involve another force being brought in to carry out the review – not an officer involved in the original investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103. It would also surely include a thorough review of the evidence upon which the independent Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) decided that Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice… But this is not to be.
Another new key area of concern is the forensic evidence underpinning the entire case: notably a small fragment of a circuit board for a bomb timer found in and among fragments of a man’s shirt recovered from the site. The shirt and other clothing recovered were said to have been traced back to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who said he had sold them to a man who resembled Megrahi.
The prosecution has always claimed that these tiny fragments were identified by Dr Thomas Hayes at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (Rarde) on 12 May 1989. There was concern at the time of the trial that the label on this crucial piece of evidence had been altered. Further, the pages in Hayes’ notes relating to this evidence had been curiously renumbered. Eye readers may recall that the work of Hayes and other Rarde scientists has subsequently been criticised in a series of high-profile miscarriage-of-justice cases involving IRA terrorism – in particular the inquiry by Sir John May into the wrongful conviction of the Maguire family, where scientific notebooks were found to have been altered.
Lawyers for Megrahi have now uncovered a similar pattern of inconsistencies, alterations, discrepancies and undisclosed material that again calls into question the integrity of the Rarde scientists. It comes from new scientific tests as well as a meticulous examination of evidence that was not disclosed or available at the time. Here are some examples …
* Photographs and evidence suggest that the circuit board and debris from the shirt had not been discovered until January 1990 – seven months later than Rarde claimed.
* Further evidence that scientific notes had been altered.
* Details of simulated explosions carried out in the US in July 1989 were not revealed, but debris from those blasts [was] taken both to Rarde and to Lockerbie for comparison.
* Exhibit labels were being written and attached by police more than a year after the debris was found.
* One man who was asked to put his name to the discovery of pieces of the charred shirt says he does not recall recovering the material. He also says the cloth shown to him by police was not the same grey colour as that identified in court as the shirt bought by Megrahi.
* Evidence to suggest the charred “bomb” shirt was in fact a child’s shirt.
* A wealth of conflicting evidence surrounding the discovery of charred pieces of a Babygro – also said to have been packed in the bomb suitcase and sold to Megrahi. One Babygro collected by investigators for comparison purposes was not accounted for.
The SCCRC which had some but not all of this material, rejected suggestions that the evidence had been deliberately fabricated. But it fell short of conducting its own forensic tests.
If this is a cock-up or incompetence, it is on such a scale that it recalls the verdict of Sir John May in the Maguire inquiry that the scientific basis on which the prosecution was founded should not be relied upon. Taken with Gauci’s highly dubious identification evidence …, the case for a public inquiry remains overwhelming.
[The above is the text of an article that appears on page 28 of the current edition (1249) of Private Eye. It does not feature on the magazine's website.]
Friday 3 April 2015
Lockerbie judges misled over testing of timer fragment
[A police memorandum dated 3 April 1990 during the Lockerbie investigation disclosed that the circuit board fragment PT/35 that allegedly formed part of the timing mechanism of the bomb (and that linked Libya to the atrocity) bore no trace of explosive contamination. At the Zeist trial Crown forensic scientific experts testified that the fragment had not been tested for explosive residue. The details that follow are taken from a blogpost of 17 July 2011 reporting on an article in that day’s Sunday Herald:]
A prosecution expert misled judges at the Lockerbie trial about key evidence, according to a classified police memo obtained by the Sunday Herald.
The trial of the two Libyan men accused of the bombing began in May 2000, in front of a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. During the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that a fragment allegedly from the bomb’s timer had not been tested for explosive residues.
However, according to the memo, tests were in fact carried out – and proved negative. (...)
Forensic evidence suggested that the fragment, known as PT/35, was part of a timer supplied to Libyan intelligence by the Swiss company Mebo. Mebo’s offices were shared by a company co-owned by Megrahi.
According to the prosecution, the timer and the explosive were hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player which Megrahi packed into a suitcase along with clothing.
Hayes was employed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), linked to the UK Ministry of Defence. Scientists from the RARDE were involved in examining material found at the Lockerbie crash scene.
Hayes told the trial in June 2000 that he did not test PT/35, or a fragment of Toshiba circuit board, for explosive residues because it was clear from their appearance that they were bomb-damaged.
He added that the chances of finding residues were “vanishingly small”, but acknowledged that residues had been found on pieces of aircraft debris, and that test results for other items were not disclosed.
A previously secret memo, dated April 3, 1990, describes a visit to the Lockerbie investigation by French police officers examining the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Niger. The memo states that Detective Superintendent Stuart Henderson, senior investigating officer, told the French delegation “that the piece of PCB [printed circuit board] from the Toshiba [cassette player] bore no trace of explosive contamination and that this was due to the total consummation of the explosive material. Similarly with PT/35, the item was negative in regard to explosive traces”.
It is not known whether Hayes knew of the tests alluded to in the memo, and there is no suggestion that he deliberately misled the court. Henderson did not testify at the trial, and there is no suggestion that he acted improperly. (...)
Calls for a public enquiry have been led by the campaign group Justice for Megrahi. Group member Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing, said yesterday: “At the end of Megrahi’s trial, PT/35 stood out for me as being shrouded in a cloud of anomalies. Everything that I’ve learned since then has added to my suspicion that there was something very wrong.”
The trial court heard that Hayes found the fragment in May 1989 in the collar of a blast-damaged shirt. However, his laboratory notes and the collar’s police evidence label were inexplicably altered, and other official documents gave the date of discovery as January 1990.
Hayes’s employer, the RARDE, was involved in a string of miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, Hayes and senior colleagues were criticised by former appeal court judge Sir John May in his report on the Maguire Seven case, in which individuals had been charged with handling explosives linked to the IRA. Sir John said they knew of evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused yet failed to inform the court.
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