Justice Secretary denies agreeing to release of Lockerbie bomber in talks with BP lobbyist
Jack Straw was accused last night of trying to cover up details of talks he held with a BP lobbyist over an oil deal with Libya weeks before reversing a Government move to block the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
The Secretary of State for Justice has turned down a Freedom of Information request from a Commons select committee to reveal whether, during two phone calls with the lobbyist, he agreed to include Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in Britain's Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) with Libya.
Mr Straw has admitted having two conversations with Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 agent turned BP consultant, in the autumn of 2007. But he has insisted that "at no stage was any undertaking promised, hinted, given to the Libyans, that in return for an overall bilateral arrangement Mr Megrahi would be released". (...)
Megrahi, convicted for the 1988 bombing which killed 270, was released last August on compassionate grounds – rather than under the PTA – by the Scottish Executive.
But Mr Straw's discussions with BP are still contentious because MPs believe ministers gave a smooth path for the release in the interests of trade with the Libyan government.
In early 2007, BP signed a $900m (£562m) oil exploration deal with Libya but the energy giant was concerned that the ongoing stalemate over the PTA would damage the contract. Sir Mark, who was involved in the 2003 deal for Colonel Gaddafi to give up his weapons of mass destruction programme, left MI6 in 2004 to work for BP. He telephoned Mr Straw, whom he knew from the minister's time as Foreign Secretary, on 15 October and 9 November 2007. On 19 December 2007, Mr Straw wrote to Mr MacAskill informing him of the British government's change of position.
The Conservative MP and member of the Scottish affairs committee Ben Wallace has written to Mr Straw demanding to see notes of the calls.
During Mr Straw's appearance before the committee last Wednesday, Mr Wallace told him: "I think we should know to what extent HM Government gave commitments in exchange for trade and whether that included Megrahi."
Mr Straw replied: "There's been no secret about the fact that I took two telephone calls from Sir Mark Allen – I take telephone calls from all sorts of people. Sir Mark Allen is somebody I knew from my time in the Foreign Office. He actually had very extensive knowledge of the Middle East and in a role in the Foreign Office had been very much involved in these negotiations. I thought he was worth listening to. And that's what I did."
Asked by Mr Wallace whether he would release the notes, Mr Straw said tersely: "Decisions about the release of material under FOI are dealt with separately, with respect, all right?"
Mr Straw's spokesman said the request was turned down under section 35 of the FOI Act, which exempts ministerial communications. Mr Wallace is appealing on public interest grounds.
[The above are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Independent on Sunday. Readers may also care to have a look at this blog post.]
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Sunday 31 January 2010
Sunday 1 August 2010
Megrahi PTA was 'reward' for Libya’s WMD removal
[This is the headline over a long article published today on the Newsnet Scotland website. It reads in part:]
A former advisor to Tony Blair has claimed that the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) drafted by Blair and Col Gaddafi in the ‘deal in the desert’ was a 'reward' for Libya having given up its nuclear weapons.
The claim was made by John MacTernan who is a former special adviser to Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy and who was Tony Blair’s political secretary at the time of the secret deal.
Mr MacTernan denied that the PTA was related to the BP oil deal signed that same day saying: “The Prisoner Transfer Agreement was a deal, but it was a deal to recognise the fact that Gaddafi had given up his nuclear weapons.
“If the price for Libya giving up nuclear weapons was that Megrahi served his sentence and died in a Libyan jail the British government would have been happy with that”. (...)
[There follows a long account of UK and US dealings with Libya that culminated in the announcement that both countries were satisfied that Libya's nuclear weapons programme had been dismantled. The article continues:]
The claim by Mr MacTernan that the PTA was recognition by the UK of Libya’s removal of her WMDs may be partly true. However it seems unlikely that the UK government would offer the return to Libya of the UK’s most infamous mass murderer (victims mostly American) and seek nothing in return.
The question is though, is there anything that links Libya's abandonment of WMDs, the 'deal in the desert' and the signing of the BP oil contract?
Well yes, in the shape of another key player Sir Mark Allen.
Sir Mark was in charge of the Middle East and Africa department at MI6 until he left in 2004 to become an adviser to BP.
The former Oxford graduate is also the man credited with helping to persuade the Libyans to abandon their development of weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
It is known Sir Mark lobbied then justice secretary Jack Straw to speed up negotiations over the prisoner transfer agreement to avoid jeopardising a major trade deal with Libya. He made two phone calls to Mr Straw - who later let slip Sir Mark's involvement to a select committee.
Mr Straw said: "I knew Sir Mark from my time at the Foreign Office - he has an extensive knowledge of Libya and the Middle East and I thought he was worth listening to."
If Mr MacTernan’s ‘nuclear’ bombshell was an an attempt at diverting attention away from BP’s involvement in the deal in the desert it hasn't succeeded. It has served only to invite scrutiny of the UK, US, Libyan negotiations from December 2003 and draw attention to the very close diplomatic relations that were ongoing.
Far from separating the PTA from the BP contract, Mr MacTernan's statement seems to have drawn them closer together.
A former advisor to Tony Blair has claimed that the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) drafted by Blair and Col Gaddafi in the ‘deal in the desert’ was a 'reward' for Libya having given up its nuclear weapons.
The claim was made by John MacTernan who is a former special adviser to Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy and who was Tony Blair’s political secretary at the time of the secret deal.
Mr MacTernan denied that the PTA was related to the BP oil deal signed that same day saying: “The Prisoner Transfer Agreement was a deal, but it was a deal to recognise the fact that Gaddafi had given up his nuclear weapons.
“If the price for Libya giving up nuclear weapons was that Megrahi served his sentence and died in a Libyan jail the British government would have been happy with that”. (...)
[There follows a long account of UK and US dealings with Libya that culminated in the announcement that both countries were satisfied that Libya's nuclear weapons programme had been dismantled. The article continues:]
The claim by Mr MacTernan that the PTA was recognition by the UK of Libya’s removal of her WMDs may be partly true. However it seems unlikely that the UK government would offer the return to Libya of the UK’s most infamous mass murderer (victims mostly American) and seek nothing in return.
The question is though, is there anything that links Libya's abandonment of WMDs, the 'deal in the desert' and the signing of the BP oil contract?
Well yes, in the shape of another key player Sir Mark Allen.
Sir Mark was in charge of the Middle East and Africa department at MI6 until he left in 2004 to become an adviser to BP.
The former Oxford graduate is also the man credited with helping to persuade the Libyans to abandon their development of weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
It is known Sir Mark lobbied then justice secretary Jack Straw to speed up negotiations over the prisoner transfer agreement to avoid jeopardising a major trade deal with Libya. He made two phone calls to Mr Straw - who later let slip Sir Mark's involvement to a select committee.
Mr Straw said: "I knew Sir Mark from my time at the Foreign Office - he has an extensive knowledge of Libya and the Middle East and I thought he was worth listening to."
If Mr MacTernan’s ‘nuclear’ bombshell was an an attempt at diverting attention away from BP’s involvement in the deal in the desert it hasn't succeeded. It has served only to invite scrutiny of the UK, US, Libyan negotiations from December 2003 and draw attention to the very close diplomatic relations that were ongoing.
Far from separating the PTA from the BP contract, Mr MacTernan's statement seems to have drawn them closer together.
Friday 22 July 2016
Deal done to get Megrahi to drop appeal
[What follows is the text of an article that appeared on the Channel 4 News website on this date in 2010:]
How does an ex-spy link BP, Libya and Lockerbie bomber? Who Knows Who investigates the key players at the heart of a growing transatlantic rift - from deals in the desert to the boardroom, via MI6.
The only man convicted in connection with the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing over Scotland, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds. He is terminally ill with prostate cancer.
He returned home, personally escorted by Saif Gaddafi, son of Libya's leader Colonel Gaddafi, to a hero's welcome in August 2009.
The celebrations sparked fury around the world and were condemned by President Obama and then prime minister Gordon Brown. Nearly a year on, al-Megrahi is still alive in Libya and his name is back in global headlines.
Thousands of miles away in the US, a group of senators has called for an inquiry into an admission by British energy giant BP that it lobbied UK ministers to get them to speed up the signing of a prisoner transfer agreement, in order to rescue an oil deal with Libya. BP insists it never lobbied about Mr al-Megrahi personally.
The witnesses the US politicians call could include Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, former justice secretary Jack Straw, Lord Browne, the former BP chief executive, and Tony Blair.
So who sped up the process which may have led to al-Megrahi's release? What did Tony Blair agree at the "deal in the desert"? And what is the BP connection?
Shortly after al-Megrahi's return home, Britain's former "man in Tripoli" Sir Oliver Miles told Channel 4 News he believed a deal had been done between the UK and Libya, to get al-Megrahi to drop an appeal against his conviction.
The former UK ambassador to Libya said: "I think Tony Blair originally thought that he could deal with it quite simply by [sending] al-Megrahi back to Libya under the prisoner transfer agreement. It turned out it wasn't as simple as that."
One man who knows more than most about what took place is Sir Nigel Sheinwald - Britain's ambassador to the US since 2007. Once Blair's right-hand man, he has been at David Cameron's side throughout the new prime minister's first official US trip.
Sir Nigel previously served as an adviser on foreign policy to Blair. Libyan ministers and diplomats are said to refer to the "Nigel and Tony" double act.
In 2003, with US approval, he chaired the secret meetings in London with the Libyans that led to an easing of international relations with Colonel Gaddafi.
Intriguingly, Mr Cameron's coalition partner also has a connection to Gaddafi. Before entering parliament, Deputy PM Nick Clegg worked for a lobby firm called GJW. One of its clients was Libya and a key project is said to have been "improving the reputation" of its controversial leader.
Sir Nigel Sheinwald was at the heart of this rehabilitation of Libya in the eyes of the West. He was sitting next to Tony Blair at the now infamous meeting in Gaddafi's tent in 2004.
Sir Nigel was again at Blair's side in 2007 when a prisoner transfer agreement was struck. On the same day Blair looked on as BP boss Tony Hayward signed a provisional agreement over $900m gas and oil exploration rights in Libya. Both deals later stalled and al-Megrahi's ill-health was the official reason for his release.
Another key player, and a name which should interest the US senators, is Sir Mark Allen. He was in charge of the Middle East and Africa department at MI6 until he left in 2004 to become an adviser to BP.
It is known Sir Mark lobbied then justice secretary Jack Straw to speed up an agreement over prisoner transfers to avoid jeopardising a major trade deal with Libya.
He made two phone calls to Mr Straw - who later let slip Sir Mark's involvement to a select committee. He said: "I knew Sir Mark from my time at the Foreign Office - he has an extensive knowledge of Libya and the Middle East and I thought he was worth listening to."
Sir Mark, an Oxford graduate and a fan of falconry, has been credited with helping to persuade the Libyans to abandon development of weapons of mass destruction in 2003. He is said to have "charmed" Gaddafi out of his international isolation.
But has BP's influence been overplayed? Sir Oliver Miles, the former British ambassador, believes so. He says that the US senators, angry at the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, are trying to "kick BP while it's down".
He said that Libya had signed deals not just with BP, but also with Shell and ExxonMobil - the three biggest energy firms in the world.
Speaking to Channel 4 News he added: "Libya knows the only way it can achieve a boost in oil production is by bringing in the world's biggest oil companies.
"You don't have to look for any dirty business to explain why they're doing business with BP."
Wednesday 21 July 2010
SNP under pressure as Obama demands answers on Megrahi
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Barack Obama has called for all the facts to be made public about the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as he piled more pressure on the Scottish Government by describing its decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi as heartbreaking for the victims’ families.
The US President told a White House press conference: “All of us here in the US were surprised, disappointed and angry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber … We welcome any additional information that will give us insights and better understanding of why the decision was made.”
With David Cameron, on his first prime ministerial trip to Washington, standing beside him, Obama added: “The key thing here is we have got a British Prime Minister who shares our anger over the decision and also objects to how it played out … The bottom line is that we all disagreed with it. It was a bad decision.”
Earlier, Cameron, having rejected calls for a UK public inquiry into the release of Megrahi, announced he had asked Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, to launch a full review to see if any more documents could be published to give clarification and said that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown would be consulted. (...)
Last night, the SNP Government, under intense fire, stood its ground and launched a thinly veiled counterattack against Washington and London.
A spokesman said: “The Scottish Government has already published all relevant information where we had the necessary permission to do so.
“The US authorities did not give us permission to publish their communications with the Scottish Government and the UK Government also requested non-publication of some correspondence.”
He stressed there was a difference between the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) negotiated by the British and Libyan Governments and compassionate release, a “totally different process based on entirely different criteria”. (...)
With BP still dominating headlines in America because of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, Cameron sought to allay US suspicions that the oil giant had a role in Megrahi’s release, saying: “That was not a decision taken by BP, it was a decision taken by the Scottish Government.” (...)
However, among the documents Sir Gus might look at are details of telephone conversations in late 2007 between Jack Straw, the then justice secretary, and Sir Mark Allen, a BP lobbyist who argued for a swift PTA between London and Tripoli.
At the time this could have led to Megrahi’s release from his Scottish jail – and helped the firm’s commercial interests.
The oil company has subsequently admitted its lobbying was aimed at Libya sealing a deal on drilling rights but has stressed that Sir Mark, a former MI6 agent, did not specifically lobby for Megrahi’s release.
At the beginning of this year, Straw turned down a Freedom of Information request to release details of his calls with BP. Last night, one Whitehall source told The Herald: “These documents could be the smoking gun.”
Barack Obama has called for all the facts to be made public about the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as he piled more pressure on the Scottish Government by describing its decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi as heartbreaking for the victims’ families.
The US President told a White House press conference: “All of us here in the US were surprised, disappointed and angry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber … We welcome any additional information that will give us insights and better understanding of why the decision was made.”
With David Cameron, on his first prime ministerial trip to Washington, standing beside him, Obama added: “The key thing here is we have got a British Prime Minister who shares our anger over the decision and also objects to how it played out … The bottom line is that we all disagreed with it. It was a bad decision.”
Earlier, Cameron, having rejected calls for a UK public inquiry into the release of Megrahi, announced he had asked Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, to launch a full review to see if any more documents could be published to give clarification and said that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown would be consulted. (...)
Last night, the SNP Government, under intense fire, stood its ground and launched a thinly veiled counterattack against Washington and London.
A spokesman said: “The Scottish Government has already published all relevant information where we had the necessary permission to do so.
“The US authorities did not give us permission to publish their communications with the Scottish Government and the UK Government also requested non-publication of some correspondence.”
He stressed there was a difference between the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) negotiated by the British and Libyan Governments and compassionate release, a “totally different process based on entirely different criteria”. (...)
With BP still dominating headlines in America because of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, Cameron sought to allay US suspicions that the oil giant had a role in Megrahi’s release, saying: “That was not a decision taken by BP, it was a decision taken by the Scottish Government.” (...)
However, among the documents Sir Gus might look at are details of telephone conversations in late 2007 between Jack Straw, the then justice secretary, and Sir Mark Allen, a BP lobbyist who argued for a swift PTA between London and Tripoli.
At the time this could have led to Megrahi’s release from his Scottish jail – and helped the firm’s commercial interests.
The oil company has subsequently admitted its lobbying was aimed at Libya sealing a deal on drilling rights but has stressed that Sir Mark, a former MI6 agent, did not specifically lobby for Megrahi’s release.
At the beginning of this year, Straw turned down a Freedom of Information request to release details of his calls with BP. Last night, one Whitehall source told The Herald: “These documents could be the smoking gun.”
Tuesday 1 November 2011
Questions remain about links with ex-spy chief
[This is the headline over a report (behind the paywall) in today's edition of The Times. It reads as follows:]
The revelation that Moussa Koussa met top British and US officials at a Cotswolds hotel in 2003 will fuel suspicions that the Government shielded the former Libyan spy chief from prosecution after he defected to Britain in March.
For three decades Mr Koussa was a member of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle. He was expelled from Britain in 1980 for ordering the assassination of regime opponents. He was suspected of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other terrorist atrocities. He was Libya’s spy chief for 15 years, and witnesses recently told the BBC’s Panorama that he was present when 1,200 inmates were massacred at Abu Salim prison, Tripoli, in 1996.
Since 2001, however, he was a key player in Libya’s rapprochement with the West, negotiating his country’s abandonment of weapons of mass destruction and providing intelligence on al-Qaeda.
On visits to Britain he met officials at places such as The Travellers Club in Pall Mall and, as The Times reveals today, the Bay Tree Hotel in Burford, where he negotiated with Sir Mark Allen, then head of counter-terrorism at MI6 and now an adviser to BP, and Steve Kappes, a CIA agent who resigned as deputy director last year.
The cosiness of the relationship was laid embarrassingly bare in letters found in Mr Koussa’s office after the fall of Tripoli in August. In one, Sir Mark trumpeted Britain’s cooperation in forcibly repatriating a regime opponent, saying that was “the least we could do for you”.
When Mr Koussa fled Libya on March 30 he was flown in a private plane to Farnborough Airport and taken to a safe house.
David Cameron and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, both denied that he had been granted immunity from prosecution, and he was questioned by Lockerbie investigators. But within days the EU unfroze his assets at Britain’s request and he left for Qatar. He has lived in the Four Seasons Hotel, Qatar, ever since.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office insists there were no grounds for detaining him. But officials also accept that prosecuting Mr Koussa would have deterred other defections, and silenced a priceless source of inside information about Gaddafi’s regime.“I can’t say there was a deal, but it was very convenient for the Government that Moussa Koussa moved to Qatar,” Guma el-Gamaty, the former coordinator of Libya’s National Transitional Council in Britain, said. “If he’d stayed any longer the Lockerbie investigators were coming in to demand he should be investigated.”
The revelation that Moussa Koussa met top British and US officials at a Cotswolds hotel in 2003 will fuel suspicions that the Government shielded the former Libyan spy chief from prosecution after he defected to Britain in March.
For three decades Mr Koussa was a member of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle. He was expelled from Britain in 1980 for ordering the assassination of regime opponents. He was suspected of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other terrorist atrocities. He was Libya’s spy chief for 15 years, and witnesses recently told the BBC’s Panorama that he was present when 1,200 inmates were massacred at Abu Salim prison, Tripoli, in 1996.
Since 2001, however, he was a key player in Libya’s rapprochement with the West, negotiating his country’s abandonment of weapons of mass destruction and providing intelligence on al-Qaeda.
On visits to Britain he met officials at places such as The Travellers Club in Pall Mall and, as The Times reveals today, the Bay Tree Hotel in Burford, where he negotiated with Sir Mark Allen, then head of counter-terrorism at MI6 and now an adviser to BP, and Steve Kappes, a CIA agent who resigned as deputy director last year.
The cosiness of the relationship was laid embarrassingly bare in letters found in Mr Koussa’s office after the fall of Tripoli in August. In one, Sir Mark trumpeted Britain’s cooperation in forcibly repatriating a regime opponent, saying that was “the least we could do for you”.
When Mr Koussa fled Libya on March 30 he was flown in a private plane to Farnborough Airport and taken to a safe house.
David Cameron and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, both denied that he had been granted immunity from prosecution, and he was questioned by Lockerbie investigators. But within days the EU unfroze his assets at Britain’s request and he left for Qatar. He has lived in the Four Seasons Hotel, Qatar, ever since.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office insists there were no grounds for detaining him. But officials also accept that prosecuting Mr Koussa would have deterred other defections, and silenced a priceless source of inside information about Gaddafi’s regime.“I can’t say there was a deal, but it was very convenient for the Government that Moussa Koussa moved to Qatar,” Guma el-Gamaty, the former coordinator of Libya’s National Transitional Council in Britain, said. “If he’d stayed any longer the Lockerbie investigators were coming in to demand he should be investigated.”
Friday 23 July 2010
US Senate committee backs down over plans to call Tony Blair over Lockerbie bomber release
[This is the headline over a report on the Telegraph website. It reads in part:]
The US Senate committee investigating the release of the Lockerbie bomber appears to have mysteriously backed down over plans to call Tony Blair to testify.
The committee seemingly drafted a letter to ask the former Prime Minister to appear before it but this was never sent.
It remains unclear if a genuine error was made somewhere in the Senate. The committee may have decided that it was too controversial to ask him
Frederick Jones, communications director for the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “Mr Blair was not and will not be an invitee.”
He added: “I deeply regret any confusion this may have caused. We still have to get to the bottom of this.”
Jack Straw, the former Justice and Foreign Secretary, has been asked to appear next week before a US Senate committee investigating the possible role of BP in the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Senators have written to Mr Straw asking him to the hearing next week along with BP executives and members of the Scottish devolved administration.
BP, which has won contracts in Libya, has admitted it lobbied Mr Straw in 2007 to introduce a prisoner transfer agreement with the North African state.
Senators are focusing on the relationship between Mr Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 official who helped BP to win the valuable contracts. Sir Mark has also been asked to appear.
He became a special adviser to BP and had at least two telephone conversations with Mr Straw to discuss the prisoner transfer deal. He also had meetings with Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Mr Straw said last night: “I have no objection in principle to explaining the background to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Indeed, I have done so on a number of occasions before the United Kingdom Parliament.
“However, before coming to any decision as to whether to accept this invitation I shall be consulting Gordon Brown, as prime minister at the time, and seeking the advice of the Foreign Office.
“It is, in my experience, highly unusual for the legislature of one sovereign state to conduct an inquiry into decisions of another sovereign state, including, as in this case, decisions by a devolved administration on the release of a prisoner.”
[An amusing piece on the "phoney letter to Tony" appears on the Sky News website.
For the current state of play on who will attend the Senate committee's hearing, see "Will anybody attend the US Lockerbie hearing?" on The First Post website.]
The US Senate committee investigating the release of the Lockerbie bomber appears to have mysteriously backed down over plans to call Tony Blair to testify.
The committee seemingly drafted a letter to ask the former Prime Minister to appear before it but this was never sent.
It remains unclear if a genuine error was made somewhere in the Senate. The committee may have decided that it was too controversial to ask him
Frederick Jones, communications director for the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “Mr Blair was not and will not be an invitee.”
He added: “I deeply regret any confusion this may have caused. We still have to get to the bottom of this.”
Jack Straw, the former Justice and Foreign Secretary, has been asked to appear next week before a US Senate committee investigating the possible role of BP in the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
Senators have written to Mr Straw asking him to the hearing next week along with BP executives and members of the Scottish devolved administration.
BP, which has won contracts in Libya, has admitted it lobbied Mr Straw in 2007 to introduce a prisoner transfer agreement with the North African state.
Senators are focusing on the relationship between Mr Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 official who helped BP to win the valuable contracts. Sir Mark has also been asked to appear.
He became a special adviser to BP and had at least two telephone conversations with Mr Straw to discuss the prisoner transfer deal. He also had meetings with Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Mr Straw said last night: “I have no objection in principle to explaining the background to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Indeed, I have done so on a number of occasions before the United Kingdom Parliament.
“However, before coming to any decision as to whether to accept this invitation I shall be consulting Gordon Brown, as prime minister at the time, and seeking the advice of the Foreign Office.
“It is, in my experience, highly unusual for the legislature of one sovereign state to conduct an inquiry into decisions of another sovereign state, including, as in this case, decisions by a devolved administration on the release of a prisoner.”
[An amusing piece on the "phoney letter to Tony" appears on the Sky News website.
For the current state of play on who will attend the Senate committee's hearing, see "Will anybody attend the US Lockerbie hearing?" on The First Post website.]
Monday 23 June 2014
The Lockerbie forensic scientific evidence
[Fourteen years ago, the Crown’s principal forensic scientific witness, Allen Feraday, had just completed his evidence in the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist. Here is a contemporaneous commentary from the website The Lockerbie Trial which was edited by Ian Ferguson and me:]
As one of the Crown's key witnesses gave his testimony this week in Camp Zeist at the trial of the two Libyans accused of the bombing of Pan Am 103, one man, Hassan Assali watched news reports with interest as Allen Feraday took the witness stand.
Assali, 48, born in Libya but who has lived in the United Kingdom since 1965, was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to nine years. He was charged under the 1883 Explosives Substances Act, namely making electronic timers.
The Crown's case against Assali depended largely on the evidence of one man, Allen Feraday. Feraday concluded that the timers in question had only one purpose, to trigger bombs.
While in Prison Assali, met John Berry, who had also been convicted of selling timers and the man responsible for leading the Crown evidence against Berry was once again, Feraday. Again Feraday contended that the timers sold by Berry could have only one use, terrorist bombs.
With Assali's help Berry successfully appealed his conviction, using the services of a leading forensic expert and former British Army electronic warfare officer, Owen Lewis.
Assali's case is currently before the [English] Criminal Cases Review Commission, the CCRC. It has been there since 1997. Assali believes that his case might be delayed deliberately, as he stated to the Home Secretary, Jack Straw in a fax in February 1999: "I feel that my case is being neglected or put on the back burner for political reasons."
Assali believes that if his case is overturned on appeal during the Lockerbie trial it will be a further huge blow to Feraday's credibility and ultimately the Crown's case against the Libyans.
There is no doubt that a number of highly qualified forensic scientists do not care for the highly "opinionated" type of testimony, which is a hall mark of many of Feraday's cases.
He has been known, especially in cases involving timers to state in one case that the absence of a safety device makes it suitable for terrorists and then in another claim that the presence of a safety device proves the same, granted that the devices were different, but it is the most emphatic way in which he testifies that his opinions are "facts", that worries forensic scientists and defence lawyers.
In his report on Feraday's evidence in the Assali case, Owen Lewis states, "It is my view that Mr. Feraday's firm and unwavering assertion that the timing devices in the Assali case were made for and could have no other purpose than the triggering of IED's is most seriously flawed, to the point that a conviction which relied on such testimony must be open to grave doubt."
A host of other scientists, all with vastly more qualifications than Feraday concurred with Owen Lewis.
A report by Michael Moyes, a highly qualified electronics engineer and former Squadron Leader in the RAF, concluded that "there is no evidence that we are aware that the timers of this type have ever been found to be used for terrorist purposes. Moreover the design is not suited to that application."
Moyes was also struck by the similarity in the Berry and Assali case, in terms of the Feraday evidence.
In setting aside Berry's conviction in the appeal Court, Lord Justice Taylor described Feraday's evidence as "dogmatic".
This week in the Lockerbie trial, Feraday exhibited that same attitude when questioned by Richard Keen QC.
Keen asked Feraday about Lord Justice Taylor's remarks on his evidence, but Feraday, dogmatically, said he stands by his evidence in the Berry case.
He was further challenged over making contemporaneous notes on items of evidence he examined. Asked if he was certain that he had made those notes at the time, he said yes. When shown the official police log book which showed that some of the items Feraday had claimed to have examined had in actual fact been destroyed or returned to their owner before he claimed to examined them, his response, true to his dogmatic evidence was the police logs were wrong.
Under cross-examination though, it did become clear that Feraday completed a report for John Orr who was leading the police Lockerbie investigation and in that report he stated he was, "Completely satisfied that the Lockerbie bomb had been contained inside a white Toshiba RT 8016 or 8026 radio-cassette player", and not, as he now testifies, "inside a black Toshiba RT SF 16 model."
As recently as May [2000], the leading civil liberties solicitor, Ms Gareth Peirce, told the Irish Times that the Lockerbie trial should be viewed with a questioning eye as lessons learned from other cases showed that scientific conclusions were not always what they seemed.
Speaking in Dublin Castle at an international conference on forensic science, Ms Peirce said she observed with interest the opening of the Lockerbie trial and some of the circumstances which, she said, had in the view of the prosecution dramatically affected the case.
She asked herself questions particularly relating to circuit boards which featured in the Lockerbie case and also in a case that she took on behalf of Mr. Danny McNamee, whose conviction for conspiracy to cause explosions in connection with the Hyde Park bombings (another case in which Feraday testified) was eventually quashed. She asked herself whether the same procedures were involved.
Danny McNamee may be the most recent Feraday case to be overturned, Hassan Assali believes his case will be the next.
[RB: Hassan Assali’s conviction was quashed in July 2005. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, stated that Allen Feraday “should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in the field of electronics”.]
Tuesday 19 July 2016
Feraday’s legacy
[On this date in 2005 Hassan Assali’s explosives conviction was quashed by the English Court of Appeal. His conviction in 1985 was founded on evidence given by Allen Feraday. What follows is a comment that appeared during the Zeist trial on the website edited by Ian Ferguson and me:]
As one of the Crown's key witnesses gave his testimony this week in Camp Zeist at the trial of the two Libyans accused of the bombing of Pan Am 103, one man, Hassan Assali watched news reports with interest as Allen Feraday took the witness stand.
Assali, 48, born in Libya but who has lived in the United Kingdom since 1965, was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to nine years. He was charged under the 1883 Explosives Substances Act, namely making electronic timers.
The Crown's case against Assali depended largely on the evidence of one man, Allen Feraday. Feraday concluded that the timers in question had only one purpose, to trigger bombs.
While in Prison Assali, met John Berry, who had also been convicted of selling timers and the man responsible for leading the Crown evidence against Berry was once again, Feraday. Again Feraday contended that the timers sold by Berry could have only one use, terrorist bombs.
With Assali's help Berry successfully appealed his conviction, using the services of a leading forensic expert and former British Army electronic warfare officer, Owen Lewis.
Assali's case is currently before the [English] Criminal Cases Review Commission, the CCRC. It has been there since 1997. Assali believes that his case might be delayed deliberately, as he stated to the Home Secretary, Jack Straw in a fax in February 1999: "I feel that my case is being neglected or put on the back burner for political reasons."
Assali believes that if his case is overturned on appeal during the Lockerbie trial it will be a further huge blow to Feraday's credibility and ultimately the Crown's case against the Libyans.
There is no doubt that a number of highly qualified forensic scientists do not care for the highly "opinionated" type of testimony, which is a hall mark of many of Feraday's cases.
He has been known, especially in cases involving timers to state in one case that the absence of a safety device makes it suitable for terrorists and then in another claim that the presence of a safety device proves the same, granted that the devices were different, but it is the most emphatic way in which he testifies that his opinions are "facts", that worries forensic scientists and defence lawyers.
In his report on Feraday's evidence in the Assali case, Owen Lewis states, "It is my view that Mr. Feraday's firm and unwavering assertion that the timing devices in the Assali case were made for and could have no other purpose than the triggering of IED's is most seriously flawed, to the point that a conviction which relied on such testimony must be open to grave doubt."
A host of other scientists, all with vastly more qualifications than Feraday concurred with Owen Lewis.
A report by Michael Moyes, a highly qualified electronics engineer and former Squadron Leader in the RAF, concluded that "there is no evidence that we are aware that the timers of this type have ever been found to be used for terrorist purposes. Moreover the design is not suited to that application."
Moyes was also struck by the similarity in the Berry and Assali case, in terms of the Feraday evidence.
In setting aside Berry's conviction in the appeal Court, Lord Justice Taylor described Feraday's evidence as "dogmatic".
This week in the Lockerbie trial, Feraday exhibited that same attitude when questioned by Richard Keen QC.
Keen asked Feraday about Lord Justice Taylor's remarks on his evidence, but Feraday, dogmatically, said he stands by his evidence in the Berry case.
He was further challenged over making contemporaneous notes on items of evidence he examined. Asked if he was certain that he had made those notes at the time, he said yes. When shown the official police log book which showed that some of the items Feraday had claimed to have examined had in actual fact been destroyed or returned to their owner before he claimed to examined them, his response, true to his dogmatic evidence was the police logs were wrong.
Under cross-examination though, it did become clear that Feraday completed a report for John Orr who was leading the police Lockerbie investigation and in that report he stated he was, "Completely satisfied that the Lockerbie bomb had been contained inside a white Toshiba RT 8016 or 8026 radio-cassette player", and not, as he now testifies, "inside a black Toshiba RT SF 16 model."
As recently as May [2000], the leading civil liberties solicitor, Ms Gareth Peirce, told the Irish Times that the Lockerbie trial should be viewed with a questioning eye as lessons learned from other cases showed that scientific conclusions were not always what they seemed.
Speaking in Dublin Castle at an international conference on forensic science, Ms Peirce said she observed with interest the opening of the Lockerbie trial and some of the circumstances which, she said, had in the view of the prosecution dramatically affected the case.
She asked herself questions particularly relating to circuit boards which featured in the Lockerbie case and also in a case that she took on behalf of Mr. Danny McNamee, whose conviction for conspiracy to cause explosions in connection with the Hyde Park bombings (another case in which Feraday testified) was eventually quashed. She asked herself whether the same procedures were involved.
Danny McNamee may be the most recent Feraday case to be overturned, Hassan Assali believes his case will be the next.
[RB: As mentioned above, Assali’s conviction was quashed on 19 July 2005. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, stated that Allen Feraday “should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in the field of electronics”.]
Friday 23 June 2017
Forensic scientific dogmatism
[Seventeen years ago, the Crown’s principal forensic scientific witness, Allen Feraday, had just completed his evidence in the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist. Here is a contemporaneous commentary from the website The Lockerbie Trial which was edited by Ian Ferguson and me:]
As one of the Crown's key witnesses gave his testimony this week in Camp Zeist at the trial of the two Libyans accused of the bombing of Pan Am 103, one man, Hassan Assali watched news reports with interest as Allen Feraday took the witness stand.
Assali, 48, born in Libya but who has lived in the United Kingdom since 1965, was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to nine years. He was charged under the 1883 Explosives Substances Act, namely making electronic timers.
The Crown's case against Assali depended largely on the evidence of one man, Allen Feraday. Feraday concluded that the timers in question had only one purpose, to trigger bombs.
While in Prison Assali, met John Berry, who had also been convicted of selling timers and the man responsible for leading the Crown evidence against Berry was once again, Feraday. Again Feraday contended that the timers sold by Berry could have only one use, terrorist bombs.
With Assali's help Berry successfully appealed his conviction, using the services of a leading forensic expert and former British Army electronic warfare officer, Owen Lewis.
Assali's case is currently before the [English] Criminal Cases Review Commission, the CCRC. It has been there since 1997. Assali believes that his case might be delayed deliberately, as he stated to the Home Secretary, Jack Straw in a fax in February 1999: "I feel that my case is being neglected or put on the back burner for political reasons."
Assali believes that if his case is overturned on appeal during the Lockerbie trial it will be a further huge blow to Feraday's credibility and ultimately the Crown's case against the Libyans.
There is no doubt that a number of highly qualified forensic scientists do not care for the highly "opinionated" type of testimony, which is a hall mark of many of Feraday's cases.
He has been known, especially in cases involving timers to state in one case that the absence of a safety device makes it suitable for terrorists and then in another claim that the presence of a safety device proves the same, granted that the devices were different, but it is the most emphatic way in which he testifies that his opinions are "facts", that worries forensic scientists and defence lawyers.
In his report on Feraday's evidence in the Assali case, Owen Lewis states, "It is my view that Mr Feraday's firm and unwavering assertion that the timing devices in the Assali case were made for and could have no other purpose than the triggering of IED's is most seriously flawed, to the point that a conviction which relied on such testimony must be open to grave doubt."
A host of other scientists, all with vastly more qualifications than Feraday concurred with Owen Lewis.
A report by Michael Moyes, a highly qualified electronics engineer and former Squadron Leader in the RAF, concluded that "there is no evidence that we are aware that the timers of this type have ever been found to be used for terrorist purposes. Moreover the design is not suited to that application."
Moyes was also struck by the similarity in the Berry and Assali case, in terms of the Feraday evidence.
In setting aside Berry's conviction in the appeal Court, Lord Justice Taylor described Feraday's evidence as "dogmatic".
This week in the Lockerbie trial, Feraday exhibited that same attitude when questioned by Richard Keen QC.
Keen asked Feraday about Lord Justice Taylor's remarks on his evidence, but Feraday, dogmatically, said he stands by his evidence in the Berry case.
He was further challenged over making contemporaneous notes on items of evidence he examined. Asked if he was certain that he had made those notes at the time, he said yes. When shown the official police log book which showed that some of the items Feraday had claimed to have examined had in actual fact been destroyed or returned to their owner before he claimed to examined them, his response, true to his dogmatic evidence was the police logs were wrong.
Under cross-examination though, it did become clear that Feraday completed a report for John Orr who was leading the police Lockerbie investigation and in that report he stated he was, "Completely satisfied that the Lockerbie bomb had been contained inside a white Toshiba RT 8016 or 8026 radio-cassette player", and not, as he now testifies, "inside a black Toshiba RT SF 16 model."
As recently as May [2000], the leading civil liberties solicitor, Ms Gareth Peirce, told the Irish Times that the Lockerbie trial should be viewed with a questioning eye as lessons learned from other cases showed that scientific conclusions were not always what they seemed.
Speaking in Dublin Castle at an international conference on forensic science, Ms Peirce said she observed with interest the opening of the Lockerbie trial and some of the circumstances which, she said, had in the view of the prosecution dramatically affected the case.
She asked herself questions particularly relating to circuit boards which featured in the Lockerbie case and also in a case that she took on behalf of Mr. Danny McNamee, whose conviction for conspiracy to cause explosions in connection with the Hyde Park bombings (another case in which Feraday testified) was eventually quashed. She asked herself whether the same procedures were involved.
Danny McNamee may be the most recent Feraday case to be overturned, Hassan Assali believes his case will be the next.
[RB: Hassan Assali’s conviction was quashed in July 2005. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, stated that Allen Feraday “should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in the field of electronics”.]
Wednesday 11 March 2015
Blair and Gaddafi
[The Daily Mail is currently publishing extracts from Blair Inc: The Man Behind The Mask by Francis Beckett, David Hencke and Nick Kochan. Here is part of yesterday’s instalment:]
The confusion Blair creates with his business methods is typified by his contacts with the Libyan dictator, Colonel Gaddafi — as Tim Collins, billionaire founder of a Wall Street investment company and now an ex-friend of the former Prime Minister, discovered to his disgust and dismay.
In April 2009, two years after leaving office, Blair was holding secret talks with Gaddafi about the possible release from prison in the United Kingdom of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
Libya was threatening to cut all business links if Megrahi stayed in a British jail.
Blair, who flew to Libya at Gaddafi’s expense — and in Gaddafi’s private jet — invited Collins along.
Collins thought he was going in his capacity as a trustee of Blair’s Faith Foundation to promote a campaign for anti-mosquito nets for children in Africa.
When he got there, he found Gaddafi eager to discuss investment to build beach resorts on the Libyan coast.
Mosquito nets were barely mentioned. (...)
Whatever the truth, Collins cringed at Blair’s deferential attitude towards the dictator.
He himself thought Gaddafi quite mad and refused to do business with him.
Blair, however, seems to have had no qualms about an ever closer association with Gaddafi.
In an interview in 2010, a Gaddafi associate acknowledged that the dictator ‘talks regularly to Blair as a friend’ and ‘consults him on many issues.’
Papers found in Tripoli after Gaddafi’s overthrow in 2011 show that Blair held at least six private meetings with him in the three years after he left No 10 Downing Street.
Blair’s involvement with Libya goes back to his days as Prime Minister, when he spotted the considerable commercial benefits to be gained from access to Libya’s colossal reserves of oil and gas, as well as huge opportunities for foreign firms to renew its ancient infrastructure.
In seeking to take advantage of this, he was ably assisted by Sir Mark Allen, a former British spy who spent much of his operational career in the Middle East. He was head of MI6’s counter-terrorism unit, which is alleged to have colluded in the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to torture terror suspects in Libya.
In 2004 his bid to become head of MI6 failed and he retired from public service.
But Prime Minister Blair cleared him to take work immediately as a special adviser for the oil giant BP, despite rules that would normally have prevented a former civil servant from taking money from a large corporation so soon after retirement.
As Blair’s premiership was coming to an end in 2007, Allen used his contacts in both the UK and Libya to resolve issues surrounding the release of Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi.
This in turn enabled a deal in which BP announced it would return to operations in Libya after a 30-year absence.
Libya under Gaddafi turned out to be a natural place for Blair to exercise his entrepreneurial talent.
On behalf of British companies, he courted the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and the National Oil Corporation (NOC).
Both the LIA and the NOC were massive and corrupt institutions with fabulous wealth. Regime figures describe Blair lobbying extensively for clients, and in return he intervened personally to aid the Gaddafi clan on several occasions.
He tried to persuade Oxford University to give a place to Saif, Gaddafi’s son, and is thought to have been instrumental in the eventual decision of the LSE to admit him as a PhD student.
His relationship with Gaddafi continued right up to the dictator’s fall.
During the Libyan Revolution, Blair telephoned Gaddafi twice on February 27, 2011, reportedly to ask him to stop the violent crackdown on his opponents.
Gaddafi might reasonably have expected a little help at the time of his greatest need, but that was the last time the two spoke, and a few weeks later Gaddafi was captured and slaughtered.
Perhaps Blair shed a tear for his old chum. Then again, perhaps he didn’t.
The confusion Blair creates with his business methods is typified by his contacts with the Libyan dictator, Colonel Gaddafi — as Tim Collins, billionaire founder of a Wall Street investment company and now an ex-friend of the former Prime Minister, discovered to his disgust and dismay.
In April 2009, two years after leaving office, Blair was holding secret talks with Gaddafi about the possible release from prison in the United Kingdom of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
Libya was threatening to cut all business links if Megrahi stayed in a British jail.
Blair, who flew to Libya at Gaddafi’s expense — and in Gaddafi’s private jet — invited Collins along.
Collins thought he was going in his capacity as a trustee of Blair’s Faith Foundation to promote a campaign for anti-mosquito nets for children in Africa.
When he got there, he found Gaddafi eager to discuss investment to build beach resorts on the Libyan coast.
Mosquito nets were barely mentioned. (...)
Whatever the truth, Collins cringed at Blair’s deferential attitude towards the dictator.
He himself thought Gaddafi quite mad and refused to do business with him.
Blair, however, seems to have had no qualms about an ever closer association with Gaddafi.
In an interview in 2010, a Gaddafi associate acknowledged that the dictator ‘talks regularly to Blair as a friend’ and ‘consults him on many issues.’
Papers found in Tripoli after Gaddafi’s overthrow in 2011 show that Blair held at least six private meetings with him in the three years after he left No 10 Downing Street.
Blair’s involvement with Libya goes back to his days as Prime Minister, when he spotted the considerable commercial benefits to be gained from access to Libya’s colossal reserves of oil and gas, as well as huge opportunities for foreign firms to renew its ancient infrastructure.
In seeking to take advantage of this, he was ably assisted by Sir Mark Allen, a former British spy who spent much of his operational career in the Middle East. He was head of MI6’s counter-terrorism unit, which is alleged to have colluded in the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to torture terror suspects in Libya.
In 2004 his bid to become head of MI6 failed and he retired from public service.
But Prime Minister Blair cleared him to take work immediately as a special adviser for the oil giant BP, despite rules that would normally have prevented a former civil servant from taking money from a large corporation so soon after retirement.
As Blair’s premiership was coming to an end in 2007, Allen used his contacts in both the UK and Libya to resolve issues surrounding the release of Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi.
This in turn enabled a deal in which BP announced it would return to operations in Libya after a 30-year absence.
Libya under Gaddafi turned out to be a natural place for Blair to exercise his entrepreneurial talent.
On behalf of British companies, he courted the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and the National Oil Corporation (NOC).
Both the LIA and the NOC were massive and corrupt institutions with fabulous wealth. Regime figures describe Blair lobbying extensively for clients, and in return he intervened personally to aid the Gaddafi clan on several occasions.
He tried to persuade Oxford University to give a place to Saif, Gaddafi’s son, and is thought to have been instrumental in the eventual decision of the LSE to admit him as a PhD student.
His relationship with Gaddafi continued right up to the dictator’s fall.
During the Libyan Revolution, Blair telephoned Gaddafi twice on February 27, 2011, reportedly to ask him to stop the violent crackdown on his opponents.
Gaddafi might reasonably have expected a little help at the time of his greatest need, but that was the last time the two spoke, and a few weeks later Gaddafi was captured and slaughtered.
Perhaps Blair shed a tear for his old chum. Then again, perhaps he didn’t.
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