The hidden scandal of Lockerbie

[What follows is the text of a review by Steve James of John Ashton and Ian Ferguson’s Cover-up of Convenience—the Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie that was published on the WSWS.org website on this date in 2002:]

John Ashton’s and Ian Ferguson’s work on the circumstances surrounding the destruction on December 21, 1988, of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland is worthy of careful study. It raises serious doubts, not only regarding the recent conviction of the Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, now incarcerated in Barlinnie jail, Glasgow, but over the entire official presentation of events before and after the crash, from 1988 to the present day. They give indicators as to how the full facts regarding the atrocity which killed 270, perhaps 271, people might be uncovered and conclude with a series of searching questions which any genuinely independent inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster should direct toward various governments, intelligence services, and individuals.

Ashton and Ferguson have followed Lockerbie for years. Ashton worked as the deputy to the late British film maker Allan Francovich, whose film The Maltese Double-Cross, examined various alternative scenarios that have been advanced as an explanation for the Lockerbie disaster, favouring that the bombing was a consequence of a CIA controlled drug running operation utilised to spy on Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian armed political groupings and factions.

Ferguson is a journalist, who has written many articles on Lockerbie, and along with Scottish lawyer Robert Black, architect of the Camp Zeist trial, maintains the www.thelockerbietrial.com website.

Writing in the immediate aftermath of the special Criminal Court verdict at Camp Zeist convicting al-Megrahi, Ashton and Ferguson have drawn together the fruits of long research and interviews with a large number of people involved in the disaster, including a number of current and former spies.

The authors do not proclaim that al-Megrahi is innocent. Rather, they review a large body of circumstantial evidence suggesting that responsibility for Lockerbie may lie primarily with the intelligence services of several Western governments, particularly the United States. They are highly critical of the role played by the media in parroting the twists and turns of the official line and note that no major British or US newspaper, radio, or TV channel has had the journalistic independence to undertake a sustained investigation of this most murky aspect of the disaster.

Ashton and Ferguson note that there were many general indications of a possible attack on an American flight in late 1988. After the 1988 American attack by the USS Vincennes on an Iranian Airbus, in which 255 pilgrims were murdered, Iranian broadcasts warned that the skies would “rain blood” in consequence. A Syrian backed Palestinian group with a history of attacks on passenger aircraft was known to be operating in Germany. Many staff at the US Embassy in Moscow altered flight plans to avoid Pan Am over the Christmas period.

More specifically, the authors suggest there may have been prior warnings of an attack on flight PA103. They imply that both the US ambassador to Lebanon, John McCarthy, and the South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha had their travel plans altered at the last minute in order to avoid PA103.

Others, including Charles McKee, a US Army Special Forces Major, and Matthew Gannon, the CIA’s Beirut deputy station chief, uniquely amongst US officials, allegedly changed their plans at the last minute to fly on PA103. McKee had been leading a hostage rescue team in Beirut. One suggestion, and it is no more than that, is that these individuals were the target of a successful assassination attempt in which intelligence agencies themselves played a role.

According to the authors, from as little as two hours after the crash, US intelligence officers were at the southern Scottish site. Over the next days many more arrived. They were not looking for survivors or explanations as to the cause of the crash. They did not cooperate with local rescue services. Instead, they were searching for particular pieces of debris, luggage and particular corpses. Ashton and Ferguson cite finds of large quantities of cash, cannabis and heroin on the flight, as well as intelligence papers owned by McKee, whose luggage was removed and replaced. A report noting the location of hostages held in Beirut was apparently found on the ground. There were reports of helicopter-borne armed groups guarding and then removing a large box, and an unidentified body.

A police surgeon from Bradford, David Fieldhouse, insists that one body was moved, after it had been tagged and its location noted, while another disappeared entirely. Fieldhouse was subsequently victimised. Other concerns were raised by local police officers, some of which phoned Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who then began to take an active interest in the case.

Ashton and Ferguson detail the main alternative theory—that the bombing was carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PLFP-GC). This was also largely the official position until 1991. Ahmed Jibril formed the PFLP-GC in 1968, when he broke away from the PFLP. The authors assert, on the basis of discussions with a number of spies, that the PFLP-GC were recruited by the Iraqi, Iranian, or Syrian governments to attack a US plane. When considering the motivation for such a terror operation, whether on the part of the PFLP-GC or any of their possible sponsors, the book is at its weakest. It gives very little insight into the politics of these governments or of the PFLP-GC, other than to make such observations as support for the PFLP-GC allowing the regime of Hafez Al Assad in Syria to appear to be supporting the Palestinian struggle against Israel.

The authors instead draw attention to the bombing by the PFLP-GC 18 years earlier, in 1970, of two aircraft destined for Israel—one survived with a two foot hole in the fuselage, the other, Swissair 330 to Zurich crashed killing 147 people—and another bombing 16 years earlier, in 1972. The PFLP-GC in 1988 certainly appears to have had a European operation based in Nuess in the Ruhr, Germany, intent on attacking US and Israeli targets. The group eventually blew up some railway lines used by US troop trains, planned an attack on an Israeli sports team, and became the target of a huge surveillance operation by German state security, the BKA. Their operation was hopelessly compromised. Raids by the BKA eventually discovered timers, guns, along with various electrical goods altered to contain explosives. Two PFLP-GC members were eventually jailed in 1991 for the train attacks.

Astonishingly, however, bomb-maker Marwan Khreesat was released on a legal technicality and left Germany. According to Ashton and Ferguson, Khreesat, who built the bombs used in the attacks during the 1970s, had by this time become a Jordanian spy in the PFLP-GC. Jordanian intelligence apparently has a close relationship with the Israeli Mossad and the CIA. Khreesat is still living in Amman, the Jordanian capital, under protection.

Ashton and Ferguson note an interview with Khreesat by the FBI, which was cited at the Camp Zeist trial but never reported in the world’s press, in which Khreesat alleges that one of his bombs went missing after the BKA raid. On this basis, the authors speculate as to whether the CIA had, with the cooperation of other intelligence agencies, played a more active role in allowing the destruction of the plane. They restate the suggestion that this might have been to prevent exposure of the CIA’s drug running operations from the Bekaa Valley, or for other reasons associated with US policy in the Middle East, particularly the aftermath of the Iran-Contra machinations. They suggest that a CIA approved suitcase, loaded with heroin from the Bekaa Valley, might have been swapped for one loaded instead with a bomb intended to kill McKee.

McKee and others had reportedly developed serious reservations about the drug-running operation; it having recently endangered their own lives through an aborted hostage rescue operation. The authors note that PA103 was brought down shortly after the election of ex-CIA chief George Bush, father of the current US president, when exposure of CIA drug running would have been highly embarrassing.

Those who have made allegations of possible CIA involvement include an ex-Mossad spy, Juval Aviv, hired by Pan Am to investigate the destruction of its aircraft, an erratic ex-US spy Lester Coleman, who at one point sought political asylum in Sweden, William Chasey, a Washington DC lobbyist, and Time journalist Roy Rowan.

Ashton and Ferguson trace the development of the official position of blaming Libya for the bombing. Bush called Margaret Thatcher in early 1989 asking for the inquiry to be “toned down”, at a time when Syria and the PFLP-GC were favoured suspects. Just over two years later, on November 14, 1991, simultaneous indictments were brought by the Scottish Crown Office and the US State Department against Libyan airline staff al-Megrahi and Lamen Fhimah. Days later, Bush announced that Syria, which had acquiesced in the 1991 US attack on Iraq, had taken a “bum rap”. The State Department put out a fact sheet to justify the change of position, claiming that previous pointers to the PFLP-GC and Syria had been cunning ruses by the Libyan government. UK Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said that no other countries besides Libya were targets for investigation. Four days later, the last Western hostages, including the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special envoy, Terry Waite, were released from Beirut.

The authors thereafter recount the official line that the bomb, equipped with an MST-13 timer from MeBo of Zurich, was loaded in a Samsonite suitcase packed with clothes, which was inserted by Libyan agents onto flight KM180 from Luqa airport in Malta, transferred at Frankfurt to a feeder flight for PA103, and then shuttled to Heathrow, where it was loaded on the fated Boeing 747. This was the case presented in the Camp Zeist trial.

Ashton and Ferguson carefully summarise the numerous problematic aspects of all the prosecution evidence at the trial; the dubious visual identification of al-Megrahi by Maltese shop owner Tony Gauci; the contradictory and bizarre ramblings of CIA spy Abdul Majid Giacka, the so-called “star witness” at Luqa airport whose evidence collapsed in court; the contested luggage records at Frankfurt airport; and the claim by MeBo owner Edwin Bollier that he had been approached by the CIA and encouraged to frame Libya, and that the CIA had had an MST-13 type timer in their possession before 1988.

At Camp Zeist, the trial was in danger of disintegrating. By November 2000 few observers, including the book’s authors, expected anything other than an acquittal, or a not proven verdict which is available under Scottish law. But the verdict delivered on January 2001, which admitted that the prosecution case was full of holes and based on circumstantial inferences, nevertheless found al-Megrahi guilty, while his only alleged accomplice Fhimah, was acquitted.

Ashton and Ferguson by no means completely exonerate Libya or al-Megrahi. They note that his refusal to account for his activities on 20 December 1988 and his visit to Malta using a false passport cannot be dismissed. Trial evidence suggests that al-Megrahi indeed worked for Libyan intelligence and he has, so far, offered no explanation as to why he chose not to take the stand to defend himself. Many aspects of the whole business remain to be uncovered.

What the authors do is to cite 25 questions to which any genuinely independent inquiry must seek answers. These include:

* the circumstances of the warnings given prior to the disaster.

* the circumstances of the booking changes for Pik Botha’s entourage, and McKee and Gannon.

* the drug and cash finds at Lockerbie.

* the possibility of an extra body, the circumstances under which bodies were moved, and the circumstances of wrong police evidence given against David Fieldhouse at the 1989 Fatal Accident Inquiry.

* why Transport Secretary Paul Channon was able to announce that arrests were imminent and why Margaret Thatcher blocked a full judicial enquiry?

* the relationship of the British MI6 to the Iran Contra deals and why was the Foreign office official in charge of liaising with the US on Iran-Contra, Andrew Green, was put in charge of the Lockerbie investigation.

* the role of the CIA and MI6 in hostage deals made after the exposure of Iran Contra in 1986 and 1991.

* why Juval Aviv and others were never interviewed by the investigation authorities about the bombing. What were the circumstances of legal cases brought against Aviv and others?

* why did it take a year for the MeBo circuit board to be discovered, what were the circumstances of its discovery, and what were the connections between MeBo’s Edwin Bollier and the CIA?

* why did the CIA and the Scottish Lord Advocate seek to block access to CIA cables that were helpful to the defence?

Under conditions where the US government is refusing to investigate its own intelligence failures leading up to the September 11 terror attacks, any exposure of a possible CIA role in aircraft terrorism clearly assumes great significance. Earlier this year, al-Megrahi’s appeal against his conviction was thrown out, despite defence evidence that made a strong circumstantial case for the bomb having been loaded at Heathrow airport in London.

Following Tam Dalyell’s question in parliament, on March 26, there is a suggestion that police evidence relating to Lockerbie is being destroyed, and that yet another suitcase owned by another Special Forces member, Joseph Patrick Murphy, was at one point early in the investigation thought to contain the bomb.

Without making wild or unsustainable accusations, and despite serious political limitations, Ashton and Ferguson have provided an essential reference for anyone seeking to understand why a Boeing 747 should explode in mid-air killing hundreds of ordinary air travellers, and yet, more than 13 years later, there is still no generally accepted explanation of why it happened and who was responsible.

Governmental Lockerbie obstructionism nothing new

[During the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist (and during the subsequent appeal there) Ian Ferguson and I maintained a website, The Lockerbie Trial, providing daily commentary and analysis. It received an enormous volume of traffic, which was perhaps unsurprising given the shocking lack of media coverage of the trial and the atrocious quality of such that there was. Until late September 2000, almost five months after the trial started, Ferguson (who attended every day) and I had no access to the daily transcripts of the court’s proceedings. As from late September we were supplied with copies by a mole at Zeist.  Our attempts to persuade the authorities to give us legitimate access to the transcripts failed.  Here is what we wrote at the time about this matter:]

On Thursday, 15 June 2000,  Ian Ferguson sent to Jim Wallace QC MSP,  the Minister for Justice in the Scottish Executive, an e-mail in the following terms:

  "Dear Minister,

  "As a matter of some urgency, I would like to ask you to examine some issues relating to the trial taking place in Kamp Zeist in the Netherlands.  I have made it is known to the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC that in the interests of "Justice being seen to be done", that the transcripts of the trial should be made available on the Scottish Courts Website or some other site accessible by the public.  As I am sure you are aware, the transcripts are being made available via secure Website to relatives.  I along with many other journalists, who are not part of major media organisations, find that the costs of transcripts which can be made available to us is absolutely cost prohibitive, at £30.00 per day.  Being based in the United States and having covered this case extensively for many years including a major documentary, I do believe that the restrictions being placed on the transcripts do nothing for our system of justice.  The media coverage of this trial or lack of it to be more precise, is abysmal in my opinion and those few journalists like myself who are anxious to cover it are being severely penalised in our attempts to properly explore the proceedings in Zeist.  The Lord Advocate's Press Office has informed me that your office is the appropriate place to submit this request and I do urge you consider making these transcripts available as soon as possible.  This trial is not like any other Scottish trial.  The ‘man in the street’ is not able to stroll into the public gallery and watch the proceedings and I believe it is patently unfair to restrict the record of the proceedings whether it is by financial hurdles or any other method.

  "I look forward to receiving a speedy reply."

  When, after a week, no substantive reply had been received, Professor Robert Black QC on 22 June 2000 sent the following fax to the Minister and to Hamish Hamill CB, the civil service Head of the Department of Justice:

  "A week ago my co-editor on the website TheLockerbieTrial.com
communicated with you by e-mail regarding the possibility of making available to the public the daily transcripts of proceedings at the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist.  The quality of recent reporting of these proceedings in the media seems to me to make it imperative that, if the public are not to be seriously misled, those transcripts should be in the public domain. I shall give only two very recent examples of misleading reporting.

  "1. The BBC has recently been broadcasting (both on the airwaves and on the BBC Online website) that a witness, Edwin Bollier, has admitted in his evidence that his company manufactured the timer used in the Lockerbie bomb.  No other news agency or media organisation appears to have published this, for the very good reason that Bollier's evidence in fact contained no such admission.  But in the absence of a publicly available transcript, it is somewhat difficult to challenge the accuracy of the BBC's report.

  "2. Most of the Scottish media, both print and broadcast, reported that Bollier had said in his evidence that on 21 December 1988 he returned from Tripoli to Zurich via Malta.  In fact what he said was that he returned on a direct flight from Tripoli to Zurich, having originally thought that it might be necessary to travel via Malta.  Reuters got this right, and I have confirmed what Bollier said directly with a spokesman for the witness.  Once again, however, in the absence of a publicly available transcript, organs of the media are reluctant to accept the inaccuracy of their reporting.

  "All of this simply serves to underline the service that would be provided to the cause of accurate understanding if you were to arrange for the daily transcripts to be made publicly available."

  Four weeks after this fax was sent and received, the Scottish Executive Justice Department has just communicated a decision (having earlier omitted to accord Professor Black the courtesy of an acknowledgement).  That decision is that the request that daily transcripts be made publicly available free of charge should be refused.  This is highly regrettable, since the standard of media reporting of evidence at the trial has, if anything, declined even further in the past month:  instances of gross inaccuracy are given in Accuracy and the Media and Accuracy and the BBC: At It Again

  The joint editors of this website fail to understand what conceivable objection there can be to making available online to the public generally transcripts which are already available to the relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie disaster.

  The reasons given for rejecting the suggestion are that the matter was the subject of careful discussion before the trial started; that the Justice Department is not anxious to make changes in those arrangements after the start of the trial; that the arrangements have been accepted and have settled down; and that some people have already taken advantage of the opportunity to obtain transcripts at a cost of £30 per day, which covers the cost of copying.

  It would be interesting to know just how many transcripts at £30 a shot have in fact been sold over the whole period of the trial to date, but we suspect that any attempt to find out would be met with the hoary old "commercial confidentiality" excuse.  In any event, if the £30 charge is intended to cover the cost of copying, it is impossible to understand what its relevance is when what is being asked for is not hard copy, but the posting of the daily transcripts on a website.  This is already done for the benefit of the families. What conceivable additional costs can there be in making the facility equally available to others?

  The coverage of the Lockerbie trial in the Scottish media has been abysmal. None of the Scottish newspapers has a reporter in attendance.  Nor does the BBC (though given the quality of their output on those rare occasions when one has been present, this may not be too regrettable).  The only western media organisation which always has a reporter present at Zeist is Reuters. The Scottish media predominantly rely on news agency copy from this source. It is nothing short of disgraceful that BBC Scotland and the Scottish daily broadsheets and tabloids do not have reporters present to cover what is, after all, the largest mass murder trial in Scottish, indeed British, legal history.

  In our small way, we on this website are seeking to compensate for the lamentable dereliction of duty on the part of the Scottish media.  We are doing so for no financial reward, and at considerable cost in time and money. The public service that we are providing is being impeded by the refusal of the Justice Department to permit access to the transcripts of proceedings, save at a charge of £30 per day.  Do they care?  Do they want the people of Scotland to be reliant on scanty and inaccurate media reports? Do they regard ignorance as being preferable to knowledge, and inaccuracy as preferable to accuracy?

  The people of Scotland, through their taxes, are paying for the bulk of the cost of the Lockerbie trial, including the state of the art Live Note transcription service which is being used for the first time in Scottish proceedings. But they are being denied access to what they have paid for, even though it could be made readily available on the Scottish Courts website at no additional cost to the taxpayer. Why?

$2m witness payment, bogus forensic evidence and Pentagon memo blaming Iran: How Lockerbie bomber appeal threatened Scottish justice

[This is the headline over a long and highly detailed article in the Mail on Sunday. The following are excerpts:]

In a submission to the Court of Appeal running to thousands of words, Megrahi’s lawyers list 20 grounds of appeal which include:

* Details of a catalogue of deliberately undisclosed evidence at the original trial.
* Allegations of ‘tampering’ with evidence.
* A summary of how American intelligence agencies were convinced that Iran, not Libya, was involved but that their reports were not open to the 2001 trial.

[Note by RB: I strongly suspect that what is being referred to is the submission made on Mr Megrahi's behalf in 2003 to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, not the Grounds of Appeal lodged with the Criminal Appeal Court once the SCCRC had referred the case back.]

The closely guarded submission was obtained by Ian Ferguson, an investigative journalist and co-author of the book Cover-up of Convenience - The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie.

But the evidence will never be tested in open court after the dying Libyan abandoned it last week to spend his final days with his family.

Mr Ferguson, who has had 100 hours of unprecedented access to the 57-year-old former Libyan intelligence agent during his eight years in jail, claimed last night: ‘From the start there was a determination to try to prevent this appeal being heard.

'It opened but never got off the ground, with stall after stall as each month Megrahi weakened with the cancer that was killing him.

‘There was rejoicing in the Crown Office in Edinburgh when he was released and the appeal abandoned.

'There may well be political manoeuvres behind his release but at the heart was a decision to save the face of the Scottish judiciary - in particular the Crown Prosecution, who would have been shown to have been involved in an abuse of process by non-disclosure of witness statements.’

It took the use of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to unlock the full intelligence documents which are now highlighted in the appeal submission.

They show memos from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which suggested the downing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people in 1988, was in response to the shooting down of an Iranian Airbus by the American warship USS Vincennes five months earlier.

In a memo dated September 24, 1989, and reproduced in the appeal submission, the DIA states: ‘The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran’s former interior minister.

‘The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad [Jibril], Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command [PFLP-GC] leader, for a sum of $1million [£600,000.

‘$100,000 of this money was given to Jibril up front in Damascus by the Iranian ambassador to Sy [Syria], Muhammed Hussan [Akhari] for initial expenses.

'The remainder of the money was to be paid after successful completion of the mission.’ (...)

The memos and reports, denied in full to the original trial, were available to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which, two years ago, cast doubt on the safety of Megrahi’s conviction based on six separate counts of the legal argument.

Their view opened the way for a second appeal. That report has never been made public.

Mr Ferguson said: ‘Megrahi was made the scapegoat for whatever reason and from that point everything went in reverse to try to make the crime fit.’

Central to Megrahi’s conviction was the evidence of Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who claimed that Megrahi had bought clothes allegedly found in the suitcase bomb.

Lawyers were due to claim that Gauci was paid a $2million reward for his evidence, which followed more than 20 police interviews, and that many of the often wildly conflicting statements taken on each occasion were withheld from the defence.

Mr Ferguson says that, although too late for the submission, lawyers were planning to spring a witness called David Wright, an English builder who was on holiday in Malta and who is said to have information about the clothes shop.

He would have produced evidence as to the date and buyer of the clothes, seriously undermining Gauci’s reliability and credibility.

It is now believed that Gauci has moved to Australia.

Other new evidence listed in the grounds for appeal would have called in new witnesses to prove that the fragment of circuit board from a timing device found near the crash and pointing to Libyan involvement simply could not have survived such an explosion.

Subsequent analysis carried out by an independent forensic scientist found no trace of explosive on the tiny piece. (...)

Also due to be called was a witness who would allegedly discredit the accepted account that the suitcase in which the bomb was placed had somehow travelled unchecked and unaccompanied from Malta to Frankfurt and on to the Pan Am flight.

Questions would have been asked as to how a fragment of cloth - believed to be from the clothing wrapped around the bomb - subsequently came to be packed with material linking it direct to the bomb.

Mr Ferguson added: ‘Had this appeal gone ahead and witnesses recalled and cross-examined, I believe it would be shown that some had most definitely perjured themselves or deliberately misled the court.

‘It is no wonder that some people were hoping Megrahi would die before certain witnesses were called.

'The release on compassionate grounds is a blessed release for them, as much as it was for him.’

Mr Ferguson, who now lives in France but continues to pursue ‘leads’ in the case, first met Megrahi in 2002 and says he was a constant visitor over the years as they went over every aspect of the evidence against him.

‘From the start I was struck by his total, unchanging, quiet protestation of his innocence.

'He readily admitted that his job was sanction-busting for the Libyan government but never anything more sinister.

‘He frequently said he knew his government were involved in many things but always looked me straight in the eye and said: "I am not a killer".

Despite seeing the by then frail and faltering Megrahi only four weeks ago as he waited to hear if he could be sent home, Mr Ferguson insists he did not press him on any political dealings which may have been going on behind the scenes.

He added: ‘Politics may have got him into prison but I believed it was only evidence that could get him out.

'I never believed, though, that he would give up the appeal after so many years of fighting for it. That was all we focused on in our meetings - his refusal to give up.

'At the end, though, I agreed with his decision because, otherwise, he would not have been able to get what he most wanted - to live out his last days with his family.’

Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal cancer in September last year.

Mr Ferguson, who saw him two months later, said: ‘He already looked very different. His complexion was drawn and he’d lost a lot of weight.

'He cried as he told me how he had been called into the prison governor’s office and learnt his cancer was inoperable and ultimately untreatable.

‘He called his wife and they were both crying for 15 minutes. He wasn’t embarrassed to cry in front of me.

'I’d had cancer myself in 2002, so I knew what he was going through.

'I contacted a psychologist specialising in this disease who I hoped would help him deal with it.’

Since Megrahi’s diagnosis, Mr Ferguson has seen him four times.

He added: ‘Our visits were shortened because he couldn’t sit down for too long before being in pain.

'Because he is so religious he wasn’t scared of death but he was desperate to have his name cleared before he died.

‘I felt he was being blackmailed but he never admitted it.

'The Crown wouldn’t agree to transfer him unless he gave up his appeal and the longer they stalled the more fragile he became physically. In the end he just couldn’t continue.’

He first met Megrahi and his lawyer in Glasgow’s Barlinnie prison - and quickly became convinced that he was innocent.

He said: ‘The first thing I asked him was if he had had anything to do with the bombing.

'He insisted he hadn’t and was convinced from the start his conviction would be overturned. He seemed smart and intelligent without being arrogant and very angry.

'The evidence was purely circumstantial and came at a time when the West wanted to implicate Libya at a time when it was politically inconvenient to accuse the real culprits.’

Over the months the pair reached a tacit understanding: ‘It was never spoken outright but Megrahi knew I would never jeopardise his trust by writing about our meetings.’

Documents to accompany Dr Swire's EIBF contribution

The following documents accompany Dr Jim Swire’s contribution to today’s Edinburgh International Book Festival session Megrahi: A spectacular miscarriage of justice?

1.  Foreword by Tam Dalyell MP to Cover-up of Convenience by John Ashton and Ian Ferguson (2001)

Seldom can an act of terrorism have had so many layers of sinister intrigue as the Lockerbie bombing. It was ten days after the disaster, on the evening of 31 December 1988 – Hogmanay – that I first became aware something very odd was afoot. A constituent, who I knew was an off-duty Lothian and Borders Police officer, pulled me aside at a function. He told me in confidence about disturbing events he had witnessed in the preceding days, while assigned to the Lockerbie crash site helping the Dumfries and Galloway force search the site. He described how American agents were swarming around the area, openly removing items of debris. He was concerned, not only because they appeared to be riding roughshod over the rules of evidence gathering required of a criminal investigation, but also because the police were doing nothing to stop them. My initial reaction was, ‘Well, one can hardly deny the Americans, since they’ve lost 175 citizens.’ During the following weeks I talked to more officers, some of whom had been left seething by similar experiences with the mysterious Americans.

Five years later, because I had repeatedly raised Lockerbie issues in the Commons, I was introduced to Allan Francovich, a remarkable American film-maker who had just begun to make his landmark Lockerbie documentary The Maltese Double Cross. His dogged investigation suggested that the ‘official version’ of the bombing (which insisted it was, in the words of one US official, a ‘Libyan government operation from start to finish’) was a sham and that the real culprits lay outside of Libya. More worryingly, he presented compelling evidence that the CIA was complicit in the disaster and, in so doing, made sense of the troubling accounts of my police sources.  Although not the first investigator to advance this ‘alternative version’, he did so with a degree of detail that was too great to be ignored. The British and American governments’ extraordinary joint campaign to discredit the film was both an indicator of how close Francovich had got to the truth and a disturbing reminder of the lengths to which some of those in authority would go to keep the lid on the affair.

Francovich’s sudden death in 1997 came as a massive blow, but
thankfully his deputy John Ashton has kept alive his spirit of inquiry.

In 1999 I became aware of another earnest seeker after the truth, Ian Ferguson, who was at the time producing a documentary for US National Public Radio. He is one of those rare individuals who, like Francovich and Ashton, is prepared to ask the awkward questions and devote many long hours to the search for answers. His reporting of the events surrounding the trial, for Scotland’s Sunday Herald newspaper and on his website thelockerbietrial.com, has been unsurpassed and has frequently rattled the cages of authority. I was delighted to learn that he and Ashton had collaborated to produce this book.

As an MP, I have seen it as my role to complement the efforts of the various investigators and the equally remarkable work of the British Lockerbie victims’ relatives, by raising questions in Parliament, and to that end I have so far initiated 16 adjournment debates. The sixth of these, held on 1 February 1995, was answered by the then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. I am told it was the only occasion since the war that a senior cabinet minister had replied to a backbencher’s adjournment debate. I am a creature of instinct and I sensed that he and the other ministers who have replied over the years were uncomfortable with having to peddle the official line. Later that day, Douglas spotted me talking to his then shadow and eventual successor Robin Cook MP. My diary entry for the day reads:

“Douglas [Hurd] swooped down on Robin and myself in the corridor by the window opposite the clerk’s assistant’s office. He said, ‘I really do ask you two to believe that as Foreign Secretary I cannot tell the [Scottish] Crown Office [which was in charge of the Lockerbie case] what to do, nor does the Foreign Office have detailed access to evidence which they say they have. You must understand that law officers really are a law unto themselves.’ Robin and I agreed that Douglas Hurd was not unfriendly towards us, and was probably correct in outlining the rules. Robin said that he guessed that Hurd was being honest with us and did not know the full story. I shrugged my shoulders, and told Robin he was probably right.”

One of the most remarkable, but least reported, revelations in the recent trial of the two Libyans was that even the Crown Office did not know the ‘full story’ when it indicted the pair in 1991. Indeed, it was not until the trial was underway that it learned that its star witness was highly unreliable. The CIA had known this for well over a decade, yet had not seen fit to make available the crucial paperwork documenting this man’s failings. Evidence heard at the trial also confirmed the long-held suspicion that CIA agents were involved in the highly irregular activities at the crash site witnessed by my police sources.

In my view, these facts alone warrant the public inquiry that has always been the demand of the British victims’ relatives. I have no doubt that there is much else in this book that will add weight to that demand. My government colleagues promised such an inquiry when in opposition and I trust that, as men of honour, they will make good that pledge.


2.  Letter  to Jim Swire from Chief Constable, Dumfries & Galloway Police

Dear Dr Swire,                                                   2 April 2012                           

I refer to your recent correspondence headed ‘Apparent Suppression of Evidence’. This letter seeks to fulfil the undertaking I gave you to provide you with an unambiguous response to concerns you raised regarding the handling of statements and evidence in connection with the insecurity detected at Heathrow.

I can confirm the following:

1.    In January 1989 BAA security notified the Metropolitan police that an insecurity had been detected within terminal 3 at Heathrow during the early hours of 21 December 1988.

2.    The Metropolitan police passed this evidence to the Police Incident Room at Lockerbie and Actions were raised to investigate this matter.

3.    During the course of this investigation Mr Manly, the BAA Security Team Leader who discovered the insecurity, was interviewed by an officer from the Metropolitan Police and a statement was obtained from him. The interview took place on 31 January 1989. A number of other witnesses were also traced and interviewed regarding the insecurity.

4.    Mr Manly’s statement was passed to the police incident room at Lockerbie and was registered on the HOLMES system on 2 February 1989. This statement and those from other witnesses identified At Heathrow were considered by enquiry officers at the time in the context of a range of emerging strands of evidence.

5.    In 1991 the police report outlining the evidence against Mr Megrahi and Mr Fhima was submitted to the Crown Office. This report did not contain a reference to the insecurity at Heathrow and made no mention of Mr Manly's statement.

6.    The surrender of Mr Megrahi and Mr Fhima for trial in the Netherlands prompted a massive preparation exercise during the course of which over 14,000 witness statements were provided to Crown Office in 1999. Mr Manly's statement was included in the material supplied to Crown though again the police made no reference to it.

7.    In 2001, as a result of Mr Manly contacting defence representatives, the insecurity at Heathrow was subject to a fresh investigation, the Crown disclosed the relevant statements to the defence and as you know the matter was considered during Mr Megrahi's first appeal. The appeal judges, in rejecting the appeal, made it clear that their assessment of the significance of this additional evidence must be conducted in the context of the whole circumstantial evidence laid before the trial court and concluded that "it cannot be said that the verdict falls to be regarded as a miscarriage of justice on account of having been reached in ignorance of the additional evidence" As the Lord Advocate explained at the meeting in London it is not for the appeal court to look at the case "afresh", it has to consider the new evidence in the context of the whole case that the trial court had before it.

In summary I can categorically state that no suppression of evidence took place and I hope this information alleviates your concerns in that regard.

(Signed) Patrick Shearer, Chief Constable.


3.  The place of Lockerbie in world events, a review by Neil Berry of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury

Published by the plucky Scottish press Birlinn, John Ashton’s new book Megrahi: You are my Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence casts grave doubt on the validity of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi’s conviction as the Libyan terrorist responsible for blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 and murdering 259 mostly American people in December 1988. At the same time, it raises deeply disturbing questions about the United States and United Kingdom’s boasted commitment to truth and justice.

It is perhaps no surprise that the mainstream British media are fighting shy of according this bulky volume the attention it deserves. For to discuss its contents would mean re-visiting a vastly acrimonious episode that threatened to poison relations between Britain and the US: The early release in August 2009 from his Scottish prison — on grounds that he was dying of cancer — of a Muslim convict who was seen by many as the personification of evil.

A member of Megrahi’s legal team, John Ashton is liable to the charge that his familiarity with the Libyan has clouded his judgment, but his book — which intersperses an exhaustive examination of the evidence that led to his conviction with Megrahi’s own testimony — collates the work of several hands and is a model of forensic rigor. It is indeed hard to believe that any fair-minded person could read it without being persuaded that Megrahi was the victim of a grotesque miscarriage of justice. The powerful impression left by the book is that Megrahi, who had run security for Libyan Arab Airlines while engaging in clandestine trading, had the ill-luck to be in Malta, the putative point of origin of the Lockerbie bomb, at the wrong time, and that he was framed because the US found it convenient to point the finger of blame at Libya.

What has never been widely recognized is that the blowing up of Pan Am 103 over the Scottish town ofLockerbie took place six months after the shooting down of an Iranian airbus over the Persian Gulf in July 1988 by the American battle cruiser, the USS Vincennes, with the deaths of 290 Iranians. It was an outrage Iran immediately vowed to avenge, and all the indications were that it was Iran, acting through the shadowy terrorist splinter group, the Palestine Popular Struggle Front, that mandated the Lockerbie operation. If, in the aftermath of Lockerbie, the US shrank from confrontation with Tehran, it was because, on top of seeking to negotiate the release of American hostages held by Iranian-backed terrorists, it was concerned to have a free hand in repelling Saddam Hussein’s attempt to annex Kuwait to Iraq.

Yet a scapegoat for Lockerbie was imperative and Libya, with an egregious leader, Col Qaddafi, whose image in the West was that of a deranged tribal savage, figured as the ideal candidate. John Ashton’s book underlines how readily the Western public accepted the case for imposing crippling sanctions on Libya as the culprit for Lockerbie. Few demurred when — even before he was sentenced by 3 Scottish judges at a special court in the Netherlands in 2001 — US President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright repeatedly described Megrahi not as a suspect but as a mass murderer.

All this would be chilling enough — even if the case against Megrahi were a more compelling one. In truth, his conviction relied on the testimony of a shopkeeper in Malta who had but the sketchiest memory of selling clothes to an Arab customer around the time when a suitcase containing the bomb was supposedly put on a feeder flight to London, there to be loaded onto Pan Am 103. It relied, too, on a circuit board, alleged to have been part of the bomb and to have derived from a batch of Swiss timing devices sold to Libya, though it was to transpire that this item of evidence — found far from the Lockerbie crash site — had nothing to do with the timers in question. What is particularly shocking is how much material evidence was withheld from Megrahi’s trial — including the striking circumstance that the night before Pan Am 103 flew from London Heathrow, the airport was broken into.

The assumption that the Lockerbie bomb originated in Malta may well have deflected attention from a far more productive line of inquiry.

Megrahi endured his 8-year Scottish incarceration in the bitter knowledge that he had been convicted on a basis that came nowhere near to satisfying the principle that guilt should be proved “beyond reasonable doubt.” Following 9/11, however, he felt that his chances of ever clearing his name had all but vanished. Certainly, the belief that he was the “Lockerbie bomber,” a malevolent Muslim who had carried out Britain’s worst ever terrorist atrocity, lodged deep in the public mind — so deep that when he was diagnosed as having only months to live and Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MackAskill, decreed he should be allowed to return to Libya to die, there was widespread outrage, not least in the United States.

In Britain and the US, many were of the opinion that Megrahi was the beneficiary of a squalid oil deal struck with Qaddafi by Britain’s sometime Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and that British and Scottish politicians were not only colluding with a vile regime but insulting the dead.

Outrage about the commutation of his sentence grew as Megrahi confounded Scottish medical expectations regarding his survival prospects, living on in Tripoli until May of this year. And though he remained desperately ill, there were to be vindictive demands, following the toppling of Col Qaddafi in 2011, that he be made to face justice in the United States.

Yet on the evidence of John Ashton’s book it is not his truncated sentence that ought to be on British and American consciences. It is the fact that Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was ever convicted at all.

From The Sunday Times, Malta

The judges got it wrong

Ian Ferguson

In an article for The Sunday Times, British journalist and author Ian Ferguson, who has covered the Lockerbie case extensively internationally for TV, radio and newspapers, casts doubt over the Malta-link to Lockerbie.

A German expert has raised fresh controversy on a crucial piece of evidence in the conviction of Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi as the Lockerbie bomber.

The verdict relied heavily on the judges' acceptance of a brief computer printout of the baggage movements at Frankfurt airport. The prosecution had argued it proved an unaccompanied bag containing the bomb was transferred from Air Malta flight KM180 to the Pan Am flight 103 to London on December 21, 1988.

The expert who helped design the baggage system in place at Frankfurt airport in 1988 and familiar with the operating software has now said: "The Lockerbie judges got it wrong, they simply got it wrong."

In the original trial, the Crown could offer no evidence of how the bag got aboard the Air Malta flight in the first place. Malta had presented records showing that no unaccompanied baggage was on the Air Malta flight in question.

The baggage reconciliation system at Malta's airport did not only rely on computer lists. Personnel also counted all pieces of baggage, manually checking them off against passenger records. Maltese baggage loaders had been prepared to testify, yet they were never called as witnesses.

In spite of a lack of evidence that the baggage containing the bomb actually left Malta, the judges concluded that it must have been the case, based on an interpretation of the computer print out from Frankfurt.

The hotly disputed computer printout was saved by Bogomira Erac, a technician at Frankfurt airport. She testified at the original trial under the pseudonym Madame X. One of the reasons this computer printout was so controversial was that although Ms Erac thought it important to save, she then tossed it in her locker and went on holiday.

Only on her return did she hand it to her supervisor who gave it to the Bundeskiminalmt (BKA), the German Federal Police. The BKA did not disclose this printout to Scottish and American investigators for several months.

The German expert has now examined all of the evidence that related to the Frankfurt baggage system placed before the court in the original trial. The expert, who agreed to review this evidence on condition of anonymity, spent six months examining the data.

Although he demanded anonymity, he agreed that if a formal approach was made by Mr Al-Megrahi's lawyers or the Scottish Criminal Cases review commission, he would meet them.

He was puzzled when he saw how short the printout out was and explained that there was no need to print a very small extract from the baggage system traffic, as a full back-up tape was made. This would have shown all the baggage movements at Frankfurt airport that day.

When it was explained that the court heard that the system was purged every few days and that no back-up tape existed, he said: "This is not true."

"Of course it is possible no back-up tape was made for that particular day but that day would have been the first and only day in the history of Frankfurt Airport when not one piece of baggage or cargo was lost, rerouted or misplaced," he added.

He went on to say that FAG, the company that operated Frankfurt Airport, needed these tapes to defend against insurance claims for lost or damaged cargo.

The expert maintains that even with his expert knowledge of the system he could not draw the conclusion reached by the Lockerbie trial judges in 2001.

"They would have needed much more information of the baggage movements, not this very narrow time frame," he said.

Questions are now raised about why Mr Al-Megrahi's legal team at the trial in the Netherlands decided to accept and rely upon a report on the baggage system compiled by a BKA officer and not find an expert on the system. The Scottish police also did not seek to interview those people who designed and installed the system.

Jim Swire, whose daughter lost her life in the bombing and who has been campaigning relentlessly for the truth to emerge, explained there was a break-in at Heathrow airport, early on December 21, 1988, in the relevant area of Terminal 3. This was followed by the sighting (before the flight from Frankfurt had even landed) of an unauthorised bag within the very container where the explosion later occurred.

"What we need now is an equally clear explanation as to why the information about the Heathrow break-in was concealed for 13 years," he said.

Dr Swire added: "At last, the time has come to turn away from Malta and Frankfurt and look a lot closer to home at Heathrow airport for the truth, for that is what we still seek.


Scottish legal expert says Lockerbie verdict was flawed

'No evidence the bomb left from Malta'

Caroline Muscat, Mark Micallef

A former Scottish judge who was the architect of the original Lockerbie trial has told The Sunday Times there was never any evidence that the bomb which claimed the lives of 270 people actually left from Malta.

The trial held in the Netherlands under Scottish law led to the conviction in 2001 of Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi as the bomber who placed the explosive on Air Malta flight KM180 on December 21, 1988. It was said that the suitcase containing the bomb was transferred in Frankfurt to Pan Am flight 103A which then headed for London before continuing to the US.

"There is no acceptable evidence that the bomb left Malta. There never was. There was never an explanation given by the judges to contradict the clear evidence from Malta," Prof. Robert Black said.

Malta presented records at the original trial showing there had been no unaccompanied bags on the flight.

Prof. Black echoed comments made last week by a representative of the families of the British victims, Jim Swire, who lost his 24-year-old daughter Flora when Pan Am Flight 103 from London Heathrow to New York's JFK airport exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland an hour into the journey on December 21, 1988. All 259 people on board died as well as 11 locals on the ground.

The legal team representing Mr Al-Megrahi, who is eight years into a 27-year sentence for his part in the bombing, began appeal proceedings in Edinburgh on April 28. They are arguing that the evidence against him in the original trial was "wholly circumstantial".

Mr Al-Megrahi was told last year he is dying. Doctors discovered he has advanced and aggressive prostate cancer, which has spread to his bones. He has a few months left to live, a diagnosis confirmed by two cancer specialists.

The Maltese government yesterday told The Sunday Times it was monitoring the situation, while Air Malta said it had no comment to make.

The ongoing appeal was ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007, after a four-year investigation that concluded Mr Al-Megrahi may have suffered a "miscarriage of justice".

According to Prof. Black the appeal took so long to reach the court because the prosecutors and the British Foreign Office used delaying tactics.

"They refused the defence access to documents they were entitled to see and that were an important part of the conclusions reached."

Documentation sought by the defence team includes a fax they say questions the original testimony of key Maltese witness Tony Gauci, who said he sold clothes to Mr Al-Megrahi from his shop in Sliema. It was said the suitcase containing the bomb on the Pan Am flight included those clothes.

The evidence the defence team is seeking relates to contact between police and other investigators with another potential Maltese witness, David Wright. They believe Mr Wright may have material evidence that calls into question Mr Gauci's statement.

At the start of the appeal, the judges ordered prosecutors to hand over 45 key pieces of evidence to the defence in what was described by British newspaper The Herald as "an embarrassing setback for the Crown Office".

Prof. Black was not surprised: "The truth would be extremely embarrassing from the point of view of saving what is left of the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system. Also, the truth would not place Britain's reputation in a very good light."

He insisted that it was in the interest of the British government that this appeal would "quietly go away".

"The easiest way for that to happen is for Mr Al-Megrahi to abandon his appeal and be transferred back to Libya."

Libyan authorities recently applied for Mr Al-Megrahi's transfer to Libya. It came after a prisoner transfer agreement was ratified by the UK and Libyan governments two weeks ago.

A few weeks earlier, the Westminister Joint Select Committee on Human Rights had called for the ratification of the agreement to be delayed, pending investigation into concerns over the content of the treaty. But Jack Straw, the UK Secretary of State for Justice, insisted the treaty must go ahead.

This prompted the campaign group UK Families Flight 103 to issue a statement accusing Mr Straw of hypocrisy, saying the agreement cleared the way for the man convicted of the bombing to return home before the truth emerged. But Kathleen Flynn, from New Jersey, US, who also lost her son John Patrick to the bombing, said she would be horrified if Mr Al-Megrahi is released to the Libyan government.

"This man is not a political prisoner, he is a murderer and there is a big difference... to me it is inconceivable how this idea could be entertained," she told The Sunday Times.

"He is likely to be received as a national hero in Libya," she added.

Unlike Dr Swire, she has full confidence in the guilty verdict: "The person responsible for a crime of this nature should serve his entire sentence, while given all the medical attention he needs."

Asked what would happen if the transfer is given the go ahead, she said: "I can assure you we will not just say au revoir... we have been successful in the past 20 years at making sure justice is done."

According to Scottish law, the application for transfer cannot be submitted while an appeal is pending, meaning Mr Al-Megrahi has to abandon his appeal before he can go home.

Although Mr Al-Megrahi is suffering from terminal cancer, his lawyers did not confirm whether he would choose to go home. If he does, he will remain a condemned man and Malta will remain implicated in a terrorist act that killed 270 people.

[The first of these articles can be accessed here; and the second here.]