Pan Am responsible for lax baggage screening in Lockerbie incident

[This is the headline over a transcript of a segment from NBC Nightly News on this date in 1992. It reads as follows:]

TOM BROKAW, anchor:

Finally, there is some justice. That was the reaction today from a family member in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, when a federal jury found the airline guilty of willful misconduct. That decision is expected to force the insurance companies now to pay millions of dollars in claims. NBC's John Miller is following the case.

JOHN MILLER reporting:

It was four days before Christmas. The plane was blasted out of the sky at 39,000 feet. The tiny village of Lockerbie, Scotland, shook under a torrent of wreckage and corpses. 259 passengers were killed, 186 of them were Americans. Eleven more people were killed in the village below. For almost four years, the families of those killed have fought to get Pan Am to admit some responsibility. For five months in this New York courthouse, lawyers for Pan Am have been trying to claim to a jury they're not responsible. Today, that jury ruled that Pan Am was negligent by allowing the suitcase that contained the bomb to be loaded onto Flight 103. The suitcase was not inspected by Pan Am employees, even though records would have told them it wasn't connected to any of the passengers on that flight. A federal judge issued a gag order so lawyers and family members couldn't comment today. But Paul Hudson, who represents a group of the families, said this before he learned of the gag order:

PAUL HUDSON: Well it's, it's a matter of great relief that at least this phase is now over, and the, the issue of Pan Am's poor security has been formally determined.

MILLER: In London, British family members said the suit, which demands $300 million, wasn't about money. It was about forcing airlines to tighten security.

PETER WATSON: There's a warning to the airline industry that if their security is as lax and as poor and as haphazard as Pan Am's security was in this occasion, then they face fearful damages.

Lockerbie: 'We need the truth'

[This is the headline over an article published on 7 June in the Exeter Express and Echo.  It reads in part:]

The father of an Exeter schoolgirl killed in the Lockerbie disaster is continuing his fight for the full truth to come out after the death of the only man so far convicted of the bombing. (...)

[Melina Hudson] was flying home for the Christmas break after spending the term at Exeter School as part of an exchange programme. (...)

Melina's father Paul Hudson, who spoke exclusively to the Echo from his Florida home, has been a leading campaigner seeking justice for his daughter and the other victims.

Mr Hudson, who is the president of the Families of Pan Am 103 group, expressed hope that with Megrahi and former Libyan dictator Gaddafi both now dead, the authorities will reveal the truth behind the atrocity.

He said: "As the Lord Advocate (Frank Mulholland) and the FBI Director (Robert Mueller) have travelled to Libya and presented a letter requesting Libyan government co-operation, I am hopeful that, with appropriate pressure by the US and UK, the investigation can finally go forward.

"The Libyans have promised to co-operate on several occasions but have never followed through and until now have never been pressed.

"Megrahi has been implicated by new evidence after the trial but his defenders only mention the evidence they claim casts doubt on his conviction, and did not present sufficient evidence to reverse the guilty verdict according to two appeal decisions. [RB: I am not aware of any new evidence implicating Megrahi after his trial. Only one appeal decision in the case was ever issued. The limitations under which that appeal court operated are explained in this article, section headed “The Appeal”.]

"Without vigorous pursuit of the investigation now that Gaddafi is gone, not only will justice not be done and the truth not come out, but the integrity of the UK, Scottish and US justice systems will be sullied with allegations of corruption, manipulation and the manufacturing of evidence."

Hopes of finding the truth may now rest with a group of people in Libya previously close to the Gaddafi regime.

One is interim president, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, a former Gaddafi justice minister, who has claimed he has evidence Gaddafi ordered the bombing.

Another target could be Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, who stood trial with Megrahi but was acquitted.

Attention could also return to Abdullah Senussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law and security chief. Mr Senussi is currently under arrest in Mauritania, awaiting extradition proceedings – either to Libya, or The Hague, where he has been indicted on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court.

Mr Hudson added: "Libya should defer to the US criminal investigation. US support was key to Gaddafi being overthrown. Senussi now has every reason to co-operate with US investigators in naming names of those involved in the Lockerbie bombing and potentially avoiding extradition to Libya."

2nd Circuit sends dispute over Lockerbie fees back to lower court

A dispute over the allocation of attorney fees in the settlement of claims against Libya for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, is headed back to the district court.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals found three "significant" errors plagued a judge's decision ordering Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady to pay from its contingency fees $1.44 million, 21.3 percent of what it had then earned from the case, to a plaintiffs' committee, whose lead counsel until his death in 2003 was Lee S. Kreindler of Kreindler & Kreindler. (...)

Libya eventually agreed to pay $10 million to each plaintiff, although it withheld $2 million of this amount until May 2006, when the U.S. State Department removed the country from its State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

All but one of the 270 decedents accepted the settlement. Of those 269 parties, 240 were represented by members of the plaintiffs' committee. The remaining 29 parties were advised by 14 other counsel -- six by Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady.

Eventually, all of the non-committee counsel except Emery Celli agreed to pay the plaintiffs' committee a portion of their fees equal to 3 percent of their clients' recoveries. The plaintiffs' committee used part of those payments for expenses it said it had incurred on behalf of all plaintiffs. It donated the remainder to a nonprofit foundation established in the name of Kreindler that has endowed a chair at Harvard Law School and a conference center at Dartmouth College, both in his name.

As justification for refusing to pay the fee, Emery Celli argued that it had performed a key role in lobbying Congress to change the law to permit suits against Libya to go forward. According to the circuit decision, the firm also objected to the use of the fees for "nonprofit causes unrelated to victims' rights or anti-terrorism, serving instead to glorify Lee S. Kreindler's legacy." (...)

Richard D. Emery said Friday that the plaintiffs' committee had done excellent work but had ridden "our coattails" when it came to the crucial change in the law that held Libya accountable.

"This was a huge effort on our part on behalf of Paul Hudson in what was Paul's heroic fight to hold Libya accountable before the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act allowed any redress."

Emery noted that it was the initial dismissal of the case, and an affirmation of that dismissal by the 2nd Circuit, that triggered a "political outcry" and action by Congress, which "was the only reason that Kreindler and the other families ultimately won."

[From the Law.com website. The full text of the article can be read here.]

Lockerbie Lies & Libya

[This is the headline over an article published yesterday by writer Dean Henderson on his Left Hook website. Although interesting, it places excessive reliance on Juval Aviv’s Interfor Report and the Charles McKee/Monzer al-Kassar theory. Here is one paragraph from the article:]

Both the US and Britain have engaged in a cover-up of the facts. Columnist Jack Anderson reported a telephone conversation between President Bush Sr and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after the crash in which both agreed that the investigation should be limited so as not to harm the nations’ intelligence communities.  Paul Hudson, an Albany, NY attorney who heads the group Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie, lost his 16-year-old daughter in the crash.  “It appears that the government either has the facts and is covering them up, or doesn’t know all the facts and doesn’t want to know”, says Hudson.  In April 1990, the group’s British counterpart UK Families-Flight 103 sent angry letters to both Bush and Thatcher which cited “entirely believable published accounts… Both of you have decided to deliberately downplay the evidence and string out the investigation until the case can be dismissed as ancient history.”

Calls for justice for Lockerbie victims

[This is the headline over a report published in yesterday’s edition of the Sunday Mail. It does not appear to feature on the newspaper’s website, but can be read here.  It picks up the item posted on this blog on 20 September. The somewhat longer version submitted by journalist Bob Smyth reads as follows:]

An American politician says not enough has been done to investigate the Lockerbie bombing – so she’s bidding for new laws to tackle her concerns.

US Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle has announced she will introduce two pieces of legislation regarding the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing in 1988.

They will demand a further investigation into the crime and "just compensation" for the families of the victims.

“Sadly, all these years later, the families of American victims are still awaiting justice,” she said.

“Until now, there has yet to be a complete investigation of those implicated in the crimes."

However, Scottish prosecutors responded last night by stressing that their investigation into the crime is ongoing.

The congresswoman added: “The families of the victims continue to hope for proper compensation for the crimes they have endured, as only some have received compensation.”

The Republican member for New York has worked closely with Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie and its president, Paul Hudson, on the legislation for several months.

The organisation is based at New York’s Syracuse University, which lost 35 students in the bombing over Lockerbie, which killed 270 people.

With Libya in the news for crimes against Americans, now is a good time to remember those who suffered under the Gaddafi regime, as well as the victims of the bombings, Buerkle said.

She added: “It is very little to ask that those who were responsible for the attack be brought to justice and that the families of the victims receive fair compensation.”

She has not revealed any more detail of the bills, which will be scrutinised by a committee of Congress to decide whether they should be allowed to proceed further.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person ever convicted over the bombing, died in Tripoli in May. He served eight years in prison, but was released in August 2009 after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

Following Megrahi’s death, Buerkle said: “I hope that his death will provide some level of closure for the families of the victims. However, the fight for justice will continue.”

Scottish prosecutors are currently making further investigations into Libya’s involvement in the tragedy. Earlier this week it was reported that authorities in Malta have held court hearings to take fresh evidence over Lockerbie.

Last night a Crown Office spokesman said: “The trial court accepted that Megrahi acted in furtherance of the Libyan intelligence services in an act of state-sponsored terrorism and did not act alone.

“Police are actively working with US law enforcement in pursuit of lines of enquiry to bring to justice the others involved in the Lockerbie bombing.

“The victims’ families are kept informed of any action or developments with the investigation wherever possible while preserving the integrity of the investigation.”

Lockerbie legislation to be introduced into US Congress

[What follows is the text of a report published today on the website of The Daily Orange, the newspaper of Syracuse University, New York:]

Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle [Republican, New York] has announced she will introduce two pieces of legislation regarding the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.

The legislation will call for further investigation into the bombing and just compensation for the families of the victims, according to a Sept 19 press release.

The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people, including 35 Syracuse University students returning from study abroad programs in London and Florence, Italy.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only individual ever convicted in the bombings, died in Tripoli in May. He served eight years in prison, but was released in August 2009 after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. Doctors gave him only three months to live, but the former Libyan intelligence officer lived for nearly three years after his release.

Moammar al Gadhafi, the former Libyan dictator who many suspect orchestrated the attack, was killed last October.

With Libya in the news for crimes against Americans, now is a good time to remember those who suffered under the Gadhafi regime, as well as the victims of the bombings, Buerkle said in the press release.

“Sadly, all these years later, the families of American victims are still awaiting justice. Until now, there has yet to be a complete investigation of those implicated in the crimes,” she said. “The families of the victims continue to hope for proper compensation for the crimes they have endured, as only some have received compensation.”

Buerkle has been working with the organization Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie and its president, Paul Hudson, on the legislation for several months.

Said Buerkle: “It is very little to ask that those who were responsible for the attack be brought to justice and that the families of the victims receive fair compensation.”

Press release from Families of Pan Am 103

[Families of Pan Am 103, one of the US organisations of relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie disaster, issued a press release on the current Libyan situation on 14 March. It reads as follows (with links deleted):]

Gaddafi has been branded by the international community as a serial violator of human rights, as well as by his own people. He is also the admitted No. 2 international terrorist, second only to Osama Bin Laden, having caused the murder of hundreds of Americans, French, UK and other innocent citizens in the bombings of U.S. bound Pan Am 103 killing 270, UTA flight 772 killing 170, the La Belle Disco bombing in Berlin, dozens of other terrorist attacks, and delivering large shipments of plastic explosives for IRA terrorist bombings, plus killing thousands of his own people who regularly disappear into his torture chambers or are assassinated abroad. (...)

Oil companies have invested $50 billion with the Gaddafi regime since U.S. bilateral sanctions were lifted five years ago. (...)

Oil interests therefore have a financial interest to let Gaddafi stay in power. Without a no fly zone and U.S. help, Gaddafi is expected to destroy the rebel forces. He has promised and has apparently begun to slaughter thousands in a "river of blood" all Libyans who have opposed him. With a Gaddafi victory, there likely will follow a new genocide for Libyans and a possible return to terrorism.

Prior to turnover of the Pan Am 103 indicted terrorists for trial, a letter by former UN Secretary Kofi Annan stated that the U.S. and UK had agreed not to pursue the case so as to destabilize the Gaddafi regime. (...) When Gaddafi agreed to give up his WMD program in 2003 after the U.S. invaded Iraq and Libya was labeled as part of a terrorist "axis of evil" by President George W. Bush, secret talks were held in London by top U.S. and UK officials, and Gaddafi's secret police henchman. The agreements reached remain secret, but after Libyan sanctions were lifted, the U.S. and UK both refused to pursue the criminal investigations of the Lockerbie bombing, notwithstanding Libya's formal promise to the UN that it would fully cooperate with U.S. criminal investigations of its admitted aviation bombings. Embarrassment for U.S. officials involved in the secret dealings with the Gaddafi regime is apparently another unstated reason for U.S. government inaction.

After the UK released the convicted Lockerbie bomber to Libya in 2009, the arms embargo was lifted and arms contracts allowed Gaddafi to buy modern weapons now being used against the Libyan people. (...)

President Obama has said Gaddafi must go "immediately," and that the U.S. is "considering all options," but so far has failed to take any military action to back up his words. If he does nothing now after peaceful demonstrators have been slaughtered and Gaddafi threatens genocide against his own people who do not support him, President Obama will have shown the world how weak his crisis leadership is.

Secretary Clinton gave a major speech in January that the U.S. will now support democratic forces in the Middle East; however, she doesn't favor a no fly zone needed to save a Free Libya and has not recognized the Libyan National Council in Benghazi. No fly zones in northern Iraq protected the Kurds from slaughter by Saddam Hussein, and saved many lives in Kosovo and Bosnia. Failure to impose this in southern Iraq allowed Saddam to crush after the Gulf War a 1991 rebellion that could have deposed him and avoided the entire Iraq War. Instead, this week Secretary Clinton is scheduled to close the Libyan embassy and evict the Libyan diplomats who are now opposing Gaddafi.

The UN was established after WWII mainly for collective security, so dictators could not run rampant and start major wars by international inaction. UN Security Council Resolution 1970 and the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide which the U.S. supports provides for force to stop genocide within a nation member. Tomorrow a No Fly resolution is expected to be presented. A petition in support by concerned citizens nearly a million strong is available on line. (...)

"If the U.S. does not act and Gaddafi wins, the U.S. will have restored an old enemy and sent a message to all democratic forces in oppressive regimes that we are indeed feckless, unreliable, oil sucking hypocrites," stated Paul Hudson, father of a Lockerbie victim and co-president of the Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie.

Jim Swire on "Gaddafi Terror Victims' Initiative"

[I am grateful to Dr Jim Swire for allowing me to publish here his reaction, contained in an e-mail sent to UK Lockerbie relatives, to the proposal soon to be announced by a number of US relatives of Lockerbie victims to launch a Gaddafi Terror Victims Initiative.]

I have no doubt that the 'Gaddafi terror victims initiative' from Victoria Cummock and Paul Hudson is launched with the very best of intentions and with sincerity. However I personally fear that, in terms of the Lockerbie atrocity it is unwise and may lead to unnecessary further grief for them, and perhaps all of us Lockerbie relatives. I hope it may empower those thousands of other victims of a long and brutal regime, though the healing of all that must come surely from within Libyan society,

I understand that a UK based lawyer is in Benghazi to gather and orchestrate support, and fully expect that the result will be an initiative supported by those now opposing Gaddafi there.

So far as Lockerbie is concerned, this initiative is, I believe, based on profoundly insecure foundations. Its title presupposes the guilt of the Gaddafi regime, its content presupposes the guilt of Megrahi.

The words of defectors to Benghazi, or of Moussa Koussa, come to that, should be regarded with the greatest circumspection, taking their present situations into account. War generates fog, and truth is then even harder to come by.

It has now become possible for those who were not present throughout the trial of Megrahi/Fhima to see with greater clarity, if they have the open-mindedness and patience to look, that Megrahi could not have been guilty as charged.

Without the certainty that Megrahi was guilty, which is implicit in this initiative, there can as yet be no certainty that the Libyan regime itself was involved, at least in the way that most in America believe.

In order to achieve the verdict against Megrahi, it was necessary both to conceal some evidence, some of which has now become available, but it also seems to have been necessary to inject some evidence which appears to have been deliberately fabricated.

Some of the crucial concealment of evidence appears to have been the responsibility of the investigating Scottish police, and perhaps their mentors.

Some of the apparently fabricated introduced evidence appears to have originated from intelligence sources operating in support of the US government, but also requiring collusion within the UK investigation.

Throughout the post-tragedy years there has been an undertow of a lust for revenge against the alleged perpetrators, without first establishing a sound basis for believing in their guilt. That was true even before the trial in Zeist had begun.

There are real suspicions that the UK Government of the day may also have interfered in the structure of the ensuing investigation into the tragedy, reducing the visibility of their own culpability in the process.

Press reports in the intervening years have suggested that both the UK and US leaders agreed that the investigation of the tragedy should be kept 'low key'.

Following the UTA (French) disaster, Moussa Koussa was investigated by Judge Brugiere and rejected as a suspect in that atrocity. The French investigation named Senussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law as the main perpetrator, and he was sentenced to 'life', in absentia. For the sake of the UTA relatives, it is to be hoped that he, and those named with him, may be 'flushed out' by present events, to serve their sentences.

That does not imply that the Libyan regime was directly responsible for Lockerbie, any more than it exonerates them. The Lockerbie investigation did not assess evidence for or against members of the Libyan regime per se, merely alleging that the two accused Libyans had colluded with others. To search for truth amongst the ruins of Libya would be more likely to bear fruit when the fog of war has settled, but one can only admire the determination of those behind this initiative to seek out the truth: but how can they recognise it, if the core presumptions of the searchers turn out to be incorrect?

For some of us, one of the main reasons for seeking trial under Scottish rather than American law, was to avoid the possibility of the death penalty. Megrahi, now so widely acknowledged to be innocent of the charges against him, would no doubt be long dead had he been tried in the USA.

I believe there is a better way forward, and that is first to allow a complete review of the Megrahi verdict through whatever legal process can be engaged to achieve that, making use of all the evidence now available. Such a process will have to exclude the possibility that executives who have made serious mistakes, or even acted criminally in their work on this case, might try to damage the review process.

From 1991 onwards I had presumed that the two indicted Libyans must be among the guilty. It was the evidence I heard throughout the Zeist trial, specially the forensic evidence about the PFLP-GC IEDs, which converted me to believing that I had not heard the truth, and that they were not guilty as charged. Only after my conversion and after the verdict did we discover the evidence of the break-in.

Meanwhile we should remember a number of existing concerns about the trial itself.

1. The UN's special observer of the Megrahi/Fhima trial has roundly condemned it as not having represented justice.

2. Intelligence assets from the US and from Libya were present amongst the prosecution and defence teams in the well of the court. This even opened the possibility of covert prompting of witnesses.

3. Scotland's own Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission spent three years studying all the evidence then available and came to the conclusion that this trial may have been a miscarriage of justice. Political intervention has stifled publication of their full reasons to this day.

4. In Megrahi's first appeal his then defence team chose not even to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence heard in his main trial. Current knowledge has underlined how rash that was.

5. Scotland has had the opportunity for frank re-assessment of this case for 10 years, but has failed to do so, except through the SCCRC's findings, still partly politically suppressed. Megrahi's second appeal in Edinburgh was confounded by a combination of political interference and deliberate delaying tactics, until the issue of his illness put a stop to it. That court was briefly attended by two of the same officials from the US Department of Justice who had been active during the trial itself. They circulated emails which alleged that British relatives 'only attended while the press cameras were there'. In fact we were there to watch one DoJ official snoring during the proceedings, and we were there again after they had left. Again this does not suggest a scrupulous care for the truth.

6. An ever growing number of experienced lawyers and media commentators now believe that Megrahi should never have been convicted.

7. Nelson Mandela, himself a staunch supporter of getting the two accused Libyans to trial, said of it " No one country should be complainant prosecutor and judge." This principle was breached by the closeness of the US and the UK in assembling evidence, prosecuting and judging this case. It would be far more severely breached now, were the USA to assume sole responsibility for a renewed prosecution, as this initiative seems to hope.

8. The British Prime Minister at the time of Lockerbie, commanding huge respect in the USA, was Margaret Thatcher. In her book The Downing Street Years (ISBN 0 00 255049 0 published 1993) on pages 448/9, referring to her support for the USAF bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi under President Reagan in 1986, wrote: "It [the USAF bombing of Tripoli] turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined....the much vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place......there was a marked decline in Libyan sponsored terrorism in succeeding years"

One is left wondering what connection there may be between this extraordinary claim, and the suppression of the evidence of the break-in at Heathrow, so close to the baggage assembly shed, and to the Iran Air facility, on the night before Lockerbie.

If this break-in, as seems so likely, was the real portal of entry of the device, it would mean that the total failure of the Heathrow authorities to find out who broke in or why, or to suspend outgoing flights till they had some answers, would amount to nothing less than criminal negligence. I believe they did suspend outward bound flights eventually - after 19.03 on the 21st of December 1988 that is. Till that point there was simply money to be made as usual.

The break-in evidence coupled to the 38 minute flight time of the Lockerbie aircraft, when assessed together with the German forensic evidence led at Zeist, strongly suggest the use of a specialised type of IED, unique to the PFLP-GC Palestinian terrorist group in Syria. These IEDs all guaranteed a flight time of 35 to 45 minutes before exploding, required no setting by the user, and were unaffected by having to wait around in an airport, or anywhere else at ground level, no matter for how long, until required for use, when they would still always allow approximately 38 minutes flight time before exploding if put in an aircraft.

Do read the court transcripts.

We know from evidence led at Zeist that a substantial number of these IEDs had been made, though almost all had been confiscated by the (West) German police in October 1988. These IEDs had an air pressure sensitive switch; if exposed to the lower air pressure in a flying jet, they would all have exploded about 35-40 minutes from take-off, hence the need for bringing one by a surface route to Heathrow, to be introduced via a break-in requiring and absolutely no intervention within an airport, save that of getting them into an aircraft's hull.They were unique in their deadliness and in their fitness for purpose. Thus they could be left undisturbed, hidden in a suitcase.The break-in offered the ideal portal of entry. The overturning of the verdict against Megrahi will demonstrate just how unlikely the story that the IED ever came from Malta via Frankfurt always was

Whatever happened to the need to exclude 'reasonable doubt' in a criminal trial?.

Had the break-in evidence been available to the trial court, it is doubtful whether the trial could have continued.

Who suppressed it, and for what motive? Does Stuart Henderson of the investigating Scottish police force now admit knowing of its existence before the trial? If so why did the court not know of it too?

Do you feel angry that your family boarded a plane that night at an airport, which, despite having been warned of increased terrorist threat, didn't even bother to investigate a break-in which gave immediate access, not only to where the interline bags for their aircraft were assembled the following evening, but also to the Iran Air facility at that airport?

Then there is the disturbing fact that Iran lost an airbus and 290 people to a missile fired by the USS Vincennes only 6 months before Lockerbie, (in a ghastly error I believe). Iran then had to watch as the captain of that ship, Will Rogers, was awarded a medal after his return to the USA.. None need doubt that Lockerbie was an act of revenge, but by which country? If we were to get that wrong, the scene might be set for a further cycle of revenge.

However strong our need to find the truth about why our loved ones died, I believe we have an absolute obligation to find out what that truth really is, lest from our activities further injustice and revenge should be unleashed. We must not fall into that trap: surely the victims would not be proud of us if we did.

If we can exhibit a little more patience on top of the last 22 years, we shall see more of the truth. War, as over Libya now, generates fog not clarity, now is not the time to try to add an extra level onto the existing structure created in the hope of explaining what happened, its foundations will soon collapse anyway.

The allegations of those in Benghazi or from the likes of Moussa Koussa are particularly difficult to assess at this time, laced as they will be with strong but partially hidden motivations.

It has been difficult to keep referring to the growing doubts over 'the official version' all these years, precisely because of the distress it may have caused to others wishing to find closure in their acceptance of the Zeist verdict.

Of course all relatives of the dead are free to cope the best way they can, but I hope that there will be restraint over putting reliance on the claims of those whose country and futures are being so torn apart in Libya at this time.

Failure to show restraint now may make coping even harder in the years ahead.

Meanwhile the initiative's last sentence deserves everyone's total support: it reads: "No government should be able to suppress truth, justice and accountability for the sake [of] diplomatic convenience and oil money."

[This story has now been picked up and reported -- without acknowledgment, of course -- by The Guardian.]