Lockerbie Air Disaster Group lawyer suspended as part-time sheriff

[What follows is taken from an article in today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal:]

Scottish legal authorities have suspended a part-time judge with a former connection to collapsed hedge fund Heather Capital.

Sheriff Peter Watson was suspended from office at the start of last week, according to a statement on the Judicial Office for Scotland’s website. (...)

Mr Watson offered not to sit as a judge on a voluntary basis, according to the statement. However, having read the summons, the Lord President, Lord Gill, concluded that in the circumstances a voluntary de-rostering wasn’t appropriate and that suspension was necessary to maintain public confidence in the judiciary.

A spokesperson for Mr Watson referred to comments he gave to a Scottish newspaper, in which he said that he welcomed the suspension and said it is “not appropriate” for him to sit as a sheriff while civil litigation is ongoing.

Mr Watson is one of Scotland’s most high-profile lawyers and has been involved in some of the country’s best-known legal issues. According to the website of his firm PBW Law, he represented the families of 16 pupils in the massacre at Dunblane primary school in 1996 and played a key role in the Lockerbie Air Disaster Group, following the bombing of a Pan Am flight from London to New York in 1988.

[RB: The Lord President, Lord Gill, as Mr Brian Gill QC, represented the bereaved relatives who were members of the Lockerbie Air Disaster Group at the Fatal Accident Inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster held in Dumfries in 1990/1991.]

Libya and Lockerbie compensation

[What follows is taken from a report headlined Diplomatic row threatens payout in Lockerbie compensation deal which was published in The Herald on this date in 2005:]

A lawyer representing relatives of victims of the Lockerbie bombing last night expressed optimism that they would receive a final compensation payment, despite a row between the US and Libyan governments which threatens the settlement.

The hopes expressed by Peter Watson, a Glasgow solicitor-advocate, followed news that the Libyan Central Bank had withdrawn a payment of £277m intended for relatives of 270 people killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

No reason was given for the withdrawal of the money, intended as a final instalment of £1.1m per family.

Libya, which has acknowledged responsibility for the bombing, is understood to have already paid each family £4.4m in compensation after the US and the United Nations agreed to lift sanctions. [RB: Libya has not “acknowledged responsibility for the bombing”; what it has done is “accept responsibility for the actions of its officials”.]

The US State Department, however, has not removed Libya from its list of states that sponsor terrorism - the condition Libya set for the final payment. The State Department has refused to comment.

In September, George W Bush signed an order removing a ban on commercial air services to Libya and released £720m in Libyan assets in recognition of steps it had taken to eliminate its programme for weapons of mass destruction. The move was seen as the trigger for the release of more than £560m in compensation to relatives of victims of the bombing.

Under the terms of a compensation deal involving the US, British and Libyan governments, each victim's family was to receive pounds £7m - 40 per cent to be paid when UN sanctions were lifted, and a further 40 per cent once US sanctions were ended.

The final 20 per cent was to have been paid when Libya was removed from the State Department's list of countries that sponsor international terrorism.

Before the weekend, Libya had paid 80 per cent of the agreed compensation. The final 20-per cent (£277m), which was held in the Bank of International Settlements in Geneva, was due to have been paid at the end of February.

However, Mr Watson explained last night: "In terms of the agreement that was reached, the money was due to go back to Libya in the absence of all of the requirements of the agreement being satisfied.

"The US, for the moment, has not removed Libya from the list of states that sponsor terrorism.

"As a result, the final part of the payment has not been paid.

The parties involved continue to meet and hope that a mechanism will be found to complete the payment and reach a settlement."

Jim Swire, a spokesman for the UK Families Flight 103 Group, said: "Libya appears to have stuck to its part of the agreement. We need an answer from the US as to why Libya's name remains on its list of countries that sponsor international terrorism."

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: "The UK families remain a priority. We hope the compensation paid allows the families some comfort on Lockerbie, although we recognise they remain committed to finding the truth about the bombing."

[RB: The final tranche was eventually paid over by Libya at the end of October 2008, Libya having been removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism in mid-2006.]

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.

Pan Am guilty of wilful misconduct over Lockerbie

[What follows is the text of a report published on the website of The Independent on this date in 1992:]

Relatives of the Lockerbie victims last night welcomed an American jury's finding of 'wilful misconduct' by Pan Am as a major step forward in their fight for adequate compensation.

Jim Swire, the British representative of the relatives, said last night: 'It is an important victory. It opens the way for substantial compensation claims, but more than that, it means airlines will at last take security seriously because it will cost too much not to.'

After three days of deliberation the jury in Brooklyn ruled in favour of the relatives of the 270 victims of Flight 103, who sued the airline claiming the baggage handling had suffered from lax security. An unaccompanied suitcase held the bomb that exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.

The result could open the way to multi-million dollar damages claims against the Pan Am insurer, United States Aviation Insurance Group (USAIG). The airline is no longer flying. Airlines throughout the world could be forced to review their security in light of the ruling.

Another trial will be needed to assess any damages claim, and none has yet been scheduled. [RB: On 21 July 1992 the jury awarded the family of the victim damages of $9.23 million.]

Dr Swire said that money alone could never compensate for the loss of a relative, but welcomed the implications the ruling would have for airline security.

He said technology able to identify unaccompanied baggage - similar to that containing the Lockerbie bomb - already existed. But it was not being widely installed at airports because of the costs involved. He said the threat of having to settle massive compensation claims in the wake of the decision in the New York case would give airline companies and their insurers a financial incentive to introduce new security systems.

'It sickens me that these changes are spurred for financial rather than humanitarian reasons, but that's just the way it is.'

Peter Watson, British lawyer for the families, said on the BBC that the decision would force airlines to tighten security.

'It's a warning to the airline industry that if their security is as lax, poor and haphazard as Pan Am's was on this occasion, then they face fearful damages. That is the only way a court can bring this home to an airline.'

Yesterday's verdict was greeted with sighs of relief by the many relatives and friends of the victims who crowded the courtroom. The suit sought up to $500m (£277m) in damages from the airline, which would be paid by the USAIG.

Under international treaties the amount of damages is limited to $75,000 (£40,000) for each victim, but the 'wilful misconduct' verdict means that much higher damages can now be paid.

The outcome of the trial in the US also strengthens the case against Libya. The insurance company tried to persuade the jury that the bomb was put on the aircraft in London or Frankfurt because of a slip-up in a drug operation mounted by American intelligence and that there was little the airline could have done to prevent the bombing.

Lawyers for the families argued that Pan Am was criminally negligent in its security procedures at Frankfurt and elsewhere around the world, making it possible for a bomb to be put on board the flight from a connecting airline. The defence team believes, as do the Scottish police, that the bomb was placed on a flight in Malta and checked through to New York via Frankfurt and London.

Two Libyan intelligence agents have been charged in Scottish and American courts with engineering the bombing and Libya's refusal to hand them over for trial has led to sanctions being imposed by the United Nations Security Council.