Sputnik interview

Sputnik Radio's World in Focus programme today includes an interview with me on the projected application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission by the Megrahi family. The relevant segment begins 20 minutes 30 seconds into the programme.

Here is a photograph of the interviewer, Mark Hirst, and me taken in the studio.

FBI and CIA rôles in Lockerbie investigation

[On this date in 2014 the Russian news agency RIA Novosti (now Sputnik International) published an article by Mark Hirst headlined FBI Chief Investigator Dismisses CIA Officer’s Claims Over 1988 Plane Bombing Intel. It reads as follows:]

An agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who led the US probe into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 has denied claims made by a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s former officer who told RIA Novosti that FBI investigators did not read vital US intelligence material related to the attack.

Earlier Robert Baer, a retired CIA officer who was based in the Middle East, told RIA Novosti, “I’ve been having exchanges with the FBI investigators and they came right out and said they didn't read the intelligence."

“I just find that extraordinary and then later for them to comment on the intelligence and say it's no good; it’s amazing,” Baer said.

But Richard Marquise, who led the US investigation into the attack, dismissed Baer’s claim.

“Mr. Baer had no role in the investigation and anything he knows or claims to know is either hearsay or speculation,” Marquise told RIA Novosti.

“I find [Baer’s claims] interesting because he has previously said that the CIA did not pass us all the information, something I doubt he would be in a position to know,” Marquise argued.

“I agree that there were a handful of FBI personnel (agents and analysts) who had access to all the intelligence that was passed and it may have been possible that some FBI agents who played a minor role in the case may not have seen it,” he added.

For years controversy has surrounded the case following the 2001 conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer. Campaigners, including some relatives of victims of Pan Am 103, believe Megrahi was wrongly convicted and are continuing to call for a public inquiry into the events leading to the bombing.

Baer has previously claimed US intelligence pointed to Iran – not Libya – as the source of the attack that allegedly retaliated for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the American warship, USS Vincennes, five months before the attack on Pan Am 103. Baer told RIA Novosti that a convincing case implicating Libya was still to be made.

“Richard Marquise has taken a moral position on the case,” Baer told RIA Novosti. “I can still be convinced the Libyans did it, but I still need to be convinced of that.”

Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, has spent more than two decades studying the case.

“I'd be absolutely amazed if the FBI didn't consider the intelligence material, if only to reject it as unreliable or unusable as evidence in judicial proceedings,” Black told RIA Novosti.

“Indeed, there's clear evidence that they did make use of it. A key prosecution witness, Majid Giaka, was a CIA asset and was in a Department of Justice witness protection program,” Black added.

“The FBI falls under the Department of Justice. And Giaka was a crucial witness in the Washington DC grand jury hearing that led to the US indictment against Megrahi and Fhimah,” Black said.

Pan Am Flight 103 was flying from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York City when it was blown out of the sky over Scotland by a terrorist bomb that killed 270 people, including 11 on the ground. A three-year-long investigation yielded two Libyan suspects who were handed over to the United [Kingdom] (...) in 1999. In 2003, Gaddafi (...) paid compensation, but said he had never given the order for the attack.

A highly personal smear campaign

[What follows is the text of an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009:]

Lockerbie doubters branded ‘Holocaust deniers’

[This is the headline over a report in today's Scottish edition of The Sunday Times. It reads as follows:]

A representative of families of American victims of the Lockerbie disaster has likened those questioning the guilt of the convicted Libyan bomber to “Holocaust deniers”.

Frank Duggan, an official spokesman for Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, described those who believe Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is innocent as a “shameless band of conspiracy mavens”.

Those criticised include Christine Grahame, the nationalist MSP, her researcher Mark Hirst, Robert Black, the Edinburgh-based legal expert who helped broker Megrahi’s trial in the Netherlands and Gareth Peirce, the London-based human rights lawyer.

In an email sent to Richard Marquise, a former FBI official who headed the investigation, Duggan said Grahame, Hirst, Black and Peirce were “no worse than Holocaust deniers who will not accept the facts before their faces”.

Grahame, who believes that Iran, not Libya, was behind the 1988 bombing, which claimed 270 lives, said Duggan’s comments were ludicrous. “My father and the fathers and grandfathers of many of the other people who are seeking the truth about who attacked Pan Am 103 were fighting the perpetrators of the Holocaust for three years before the US saw fit to get involved,” she said.

Hirst accused Duggan of a “highly personal” smear campaign against those who doubted the safety of Megrahi’s conviction.

The row reflects anger among the families of the American victims at the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, has outlived his three-month prognosis. Last week, MacAskill defended his decision to a Holyrood inquiry into the handling of Megrahi’s release, insisting that the medical advice was “quite clear”.

US intelligence files published last week claim Megrahi was involved in buying and developing chemical weapons for Libya.

Black declined to comment and Peirce was unavailable for comment.

[I declined to comment since I was unwilling to descend into the gutter with Mr Duggan.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which, on six grounds, found that Mr Megrahi's conviction may have amounted to a miscarriage of justice, no better than Holocaust deniers, forsooth!

According to The Chambers Dictionary "maven" or "mavin" is US slang, from Yiddish, for pundit or expert.

The full e-mail exchange between Mr Duggan, Richard Marquise and Mr Hirst can be read here.

An interesting commentary (in German) on The Sunday Times article can be found on the Austrian Wings website. A more general article on the Lockerbie affair on the same website by Editor in Chief Patrick Radosta can be read here.]

Lockerbie prosecutors "afflicted by wilful blindness"

[What follows is an article by Mark Hirst published today on the Russian Sputnik News website:]

Scottish prosecutors involved in the investigation of Lockerbie bombing in 1988 are “afflicted by wilful blindness” by ignoring concerns from distinguished UK lawyers, Robert Black QC, a Professor of Scots law has told Sputnik.

Scottish state prosecutors involved in the investigation of the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie in 1988 are “afflicted by wilful blindness” by ignoring concerns from distinguished UK lawyers about the safety of the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, Robert Black QC, a Professor of Scots law has told Sputnik.

“[Prosecutors] must be afflicted by wilful blindness or by unquestioning loyalty to the Crown Office party line,” Black told Sputnik Sunday.

“Among the distinguished lawyers who have expressed grave concerns about the evidence are Sir Gerald Gordon QC -- who was in charge of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) investigation in 2003 to 2007 -- Michael Mansfield QC, Anthony Lester QC, Gareth Peirce, Benedict Birnberg and Jock Thomson QC,” Black added.

At a service in Washington to mark the 26th anniversary since the bombing that claimed 270 lives, the worst single terrorist attack in British history, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, who heads Scotland’s prosecution, known as the Crown Office, told American relatives, “During the 26-year long inquiry not one Crown Office investigator or prosecutor has raised a concern about the evidence in this case.

“We remain committed to this investigation and our focus remains on the evidence, and not on speculation and supposition,” Mulholland added.

Black, along with many UK relatives of victims, has long claimed the prosecution of Megrahi was a miscarriage of justice. The Professor is currently campaigning to have a public inquiry established that would review all the evidence, including new information that, campaigners believe, throws fresh doubt over prosecution claims that Libya was responsible for the attack.

But Black told Sputnik the first step would be to overturn Megrahi’s guilty verdict.

“I think we may get there eventually,” Black told Sputnik referring to the prospects of securing an independent public inquiry. “But realistically the conviction will have to be overturned first – hopefully as a result of the current SCCRC application culminating in a reference back to the High Court.”

Megrahi, who was suffering from terminal cancer, was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government in 2009 and returned to Libya where he died in 2012. In June this year the Libyan’s relatives instructed a Scottish lawyer, Aamer Anwar, to start the process that they hope will lead to an appeal being heard in the Scottish High Court.

But Black told Sputnik that although a posthumous appeal was allowed under Scots law the process was not straightforward.

“The main obstacles are firstly the High Court's power to refuse to hear an appeal even when allowed by the SCCRC,” Black told Sputnik.

“The second obstacle is the tactic of delay. This was the Crown's principal tactic in the last Megrahi appeal, exercised so successfully that a case that should have been concluded before Megrahi’s illness was diagnosed had only just started when he had to apply for compassionate release. I have no doubt that [prosecutors] will use it again. Dragging things out adds to the expenses of the appellants – who will not this time be subsidised by the Libyan government – and the Crown will hope that they run out of money,” Black said.

In 2007 the SCCRC, following a four-year investigation into the case, concluded there were six grounds to refer the case back to the court of appeal, concluding that there may have been a miscarriage of justice. Shortly after the UK Government secured a Public Interest Immunity order preventing key evidence from being given to the defence that might assist in Megrahi’s defence.

“They will again assert Public Interest Immunity in respect of the document relating to timers that formed the basis of two of the SCCRC's grounds of referral in 2007,” Black told Sputnik. “This, of course, will contribute to delay and expense.”

His faith in Scottish justice was understandably low

What follows is an item first posted on this blog on this date five years ago:

Fragments of truth

[This is the heading over an article in the current issue of the magazine Scottish Left Review by Mark Hirst (...) The full article can (and should) be read here. The following are excerpts.]

Earlier this year I met with the man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in British history. Now back in Libya to await a verdict from a ‘higher court’, terminally ill Abdelbaset al Megrahi steadfastly maintains his innocence in the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie in December 1988. Many professionals involved in the case including US intelligence officers, legal experts and police investigators also share his view, in spite of the concerted propaganda efforts by vested interests in the Crown Office, FBI and US Justice and State Departments. Yet for reasons still to be fully explained by Megrahi, his defence or the Scottish Government, in August this year he dropped his second appeal and a week later Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill released him on compassionate grounds. That decision resulted in a hysterical reaction from representatives of some of the US relatives and somewhat half-hearted condemnatory slogans from the Obama led US Government.

Megrahi was not required to drop his appeal in order to qualify for compassionate release. He subsequently claimed in a newspaper interview after his return to Libya that no pressure was placed on him to do so. So why did he? When I, along with MSP Christine Grahame, met with him his focus had been very much on the detail of the case and the new evidence that would be led during his second appeal. But he made it clear that his priorities had changed since discovering he was terminally ill last year. His over-riding objective was to return to Libya and to see his family before he died. He understood fully why some, mostly UK victim’s relatives, were keen to see the appeal continue, but told us it would not take them any closer to the truth and who was ultimately responsible for the deaths of their relatives.

Megrahi literally was running out of time and was deeply concerned that he would, as he put it very directly, return to Libya in a wooden box in the hold of a cargo plane. I believe he was genuinely supportive of the need of relatives of victims to get to the ‘truth’, but those efforts were not going to bring him any closer to his family in Libya before he died. His faith in Scottish justice and the legal process he had been subjected to was understandably low. “If they have a brave judge who looks and says ‘good or bad’, ‘yes or no’, but I doubt that the chair of the judges, who chairs all the other judges in Scotland, will turn around and say that all the other judges [at the trial and the first appeal] before got it wrong.” Megrahi said, before adding, “They will want to show, to keep the integrity of the system, that they don’t care if they have to keep an innocent man in prison to do that.”

The integrity in the Scottish legal system, whether it deserves it or not, is right at the heart of this issue, because that is what is at stake if the complete truth behind this case emerges and that is why very prominent vested interests are even now working hard to close the case down. The latest spurious police investigation being just one example that will ensure no independent inquiry takes place any time soon. (…)

The message to Megrahi, whether made explicitly or not, appears to have persuaded him to drop his 18-year fight to clear his name. That view was confirmed when his defence counsel Maggie Scott QC addressed the High Court in August to confirm Megrahi was indeed dropping his appeal. Scott stated that her client believed that this action would “assist in the early determination of those applications”. Applications, plural. The link was made explicitly. Ultimately Megrahi was led to believe by vested interests in our own legal establishment that his only chance of returning home was by dropping his second appeal and to leave his family name forever associated with the bombing of Pan Am 103. That outcome is a scandal that will haunt the Scottish legal system in particular, for decades to come.

So was there a conspiracy? Perhaps, but there certainly has been a cover-up which is very much ongoing. A cover-up of the weakness of the evidence, the weakness of the criminal investigation and a cover-up of the shameful conclusions reached by three Scottish judges at the trial. (…)

Earlier this year Dutch filmmaker Gideon Levy completed an award-winning documentary, still to be shown in the UK, that proves that the then-Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of [Carmyllie] was unaware that the crucial fragment used to link Libya to the attack went to the United States FBI lab for examination. It now transpires it also went to West Germany, although despite recent Crown Office claims that movement was not explicitly made during the trial. Levy’s film includes interviews with the chief prosecutor in the case, Lord Fraser, the FBI’s Senior Investigating Officer Richard Marquise and Robert Baer who for 30 years worked in the Middle East Directorate of the CIA and was a senior US intelligence operative. What emerges during the course of Levy’s film is the staggering revelation that this crucial evidence was not properly secured by Scottish police and should never have gone to the US. The importance of this piece of evidence cannot be [overstated]. Marquise states that without the fragment, known as PT-35, there would have been no indictment, let along conviction of Megrahi.

Lord Fraser, who brought the original indictments against Megrahi is then asked if he was aware that PT-35 had ever been to the US. “Not to my knowledge... I would not have permitted this as it was important evidence that could have been lost in transit, or tampered with or lost,” He is then shown the interview with Marquise, who confirms the fragment did go to the US before the trial. Fraser responds; “Well this is all news to me”. Later in the film Levy challenges Marquise to clarify whether PT-35 was taken to the US without the knowledge of the Lord Advocate. Standing next to him is retired Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson, the senior Scottish investigating officer in the case. Marquise initially seems confused over whether PT-35 was taken to Washington, contradicting his earlier on-camera interview, before Henderson interrupts and states categorically that the fragment was never in the US. “It was too important to be waved around”, Henderson states. “It was never in the US, it was never out of Scottish control. They [The FBI] came to the UK to see it, but it was never in the US.” After filming Marquise emailed Levy to “clarify” and confirm that PT-35 was indeed in the US and apologised for the earlier confusion. It is clear that if Marquise did not understand the significance of PT-35s foreign movements then Stuart Henderson clearly did.

What has not yet been made public, until now, is that Stuart Henderson states in his precognition statement that he gave to the Crown, ahead of Megrahi’s second appeal, that the fragment, PT-35 definitely did go the US. Henderson states that on the 22nd of June 1990 he travelled to the US with the fragment accompanied by Chief Inspector McLean, DI Williamson and Alan Feraday of RARDE, the forensic explosives laboratory in Kent. According to Henderson’s statement to the Crown they met with Metropolitan Field Officers of the FBI and Thomas Thurman, the FBI official who, it is claimed later ‘identified’ the origin of the fragment. Thurman has a degree in political science and has no relevant formal qualifications in electronics or any other scientific field.

I have also seen one of the crucial productions that was to be led during Megrahi’s second appeal which is the official log that accompanied PT-35 and is meant to record each movement of the evidence in order to protect the evidential chain. At each point it is signed for by the relevant police officer. This is an extremely important process and is meant to ensure the chain of evidence is not broken. There is no entry in this log recording that PT-35 ever went to the US, at any point. That has to cast serious doubts over its integrity in light of Henderson’s precognition statement and the confirmation from the FBI’s Dick Marquise that the fragment was in the US prior to the trial.

Reports claim terrorist Ahmed Jibril linked to Lockerbie bombing assassinated in Syria

[This is the headline over a report just published on the website of the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.  It reads as follows:]

Unconfirmed reports from the Syrian capital have claimed Ahmed Jibril, the founder and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) who has been on the America’s “most wanted” list for decades, has been assassinated by an al-Qaeda affiliated group.

Jordanian media have reported that Jabhat al-Nusra, an off-shoot of al-Qaeda, used an improvised explosive device to kill the 76-year-old Jibril, a strong supporter of Syria’s President Assad. The reports state that the attack on Jibril took place several days ago and although the Palestinian leader survived the initial attack he succumbed to his injuries in a Damascus hospital on Monday.

“If it is true that Jibril is dead, I don't think that makes much difference to the search for the truth about Lockerbie,” Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scottish Law at the University of Edinburgh, told RIA Novosti.

“He was never likely himself to admit responsibility. It is possible, though unlikely, that his absence from the scene might give others the courage to speak up about his involvement,” Black added.

“But I think we will just be left with what evidence already exists, particularly the $10million payment from Iran into the PFLP-GC's coffers a few days after 21 December 1988,” Black said.

Jibril and the PFLP-GC has long been associated with the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988 that killed 270 people, despite the West officially blaming Libya for the attack.

Black told RIA Novosti that many Western and Middle Eastern sources believe the PFLP-GC did not play a significant role in the struggle for Palestinian rights.

“There are those (in the West and in the Middle East) who think that Jibril and the PFLP-GC were never really important figures in the Palestinian struggle: good at raking in funds but leaving the fighting to others,” Black said.

Last year the Palestinian National Council announced it would expel Jibril over his role in the Syrian civil war with one PFLP officials quoted as saying, “Jibril does not even belong to the Palestinian Left. He is closer to the extremist right-wing groups than to revolutionary leftist ones.”

As yet there has been no official confirmation that Jibril has been killed, but Robert Black, who is a leading expert on the Lockerbie bombing, told RIA Novosti his death will not bring the public any closer to the truth about who was responsible for the worst terrorist attack in British history.

[I am informed by RIA Novosti foreign affairs correspondent Mark Hirst that the PFLP-GC press office has told the news agency’s Moscow desk that Jibril is still alive and not wounded. He remarks that the picture is confusing given the conflicting reports, although Jewish Press is reporting his death.]

Judicial requirements subordinated to considerations of power politics

[This is the headline over a report by Mark Hirst published today on the website of Russian news agency RIA Novosti.  It reads in part:]

Judicial standards in the UK were “subordinated by power politics” during the Pan Am 103/Lockerbie judicial proceedings, the UN’s official observer to the trial, Hans Koechler, has told RIA Novosti.

Koechler added that he did not believe that a decision by the previous UK Government to withhold “potentially vital” evidence from the defense team of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of 1988 bombing, would be overturned by the current British coalition Government in London.

Megrahi, terminally ill with prostate cancer, was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government and returned to Libya before passing away in 2012.

“It goes without saying that justice requires transparency and that proper judicial proceedings cannot be conducted in the absence of – potentially vital – evidence,” Koechler told RIA Novosti.

Koechler, a Professor at the University of Innsbruck, said it was important a new appeal, recently launched by Megrahi’s family against his conviction, proceeded.

“It is certainly important that a new appeal goes ahead. The second appeal, that followed the referral by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, should never have been dropped,” Koechler told RIA Novosti.

“It was obvious to me at the time that Megrahi acted under pressure.”

Six years ago Koechler wrote to the British Foreign Secretary urging him to drop the Public Immunity Interest (PII) certificate that allowed the UK Government to withhold key evidence from the defense team.

“It will be up to the applicants' legal representatives to raise the issue of the PII certificate in the course of a new appeal,” Koechler said.

“However, what I have learned from observing the Lockerbie controversy, when the "supreme interests" of the state and/or a state's allies are concerned, judicial requirements are always subordinated to considerations of power politics,” Koechler told RIA Novosti.

“This was exactly the dilemma of the Lockerbie case from very beginning: that one cannot conduct judicial proceedings as an intelligence operation. Under such circumstances, the rule of law will always be the victim,” Koechler said. “According to my assessment, it is highly unlikely that the previous British Government’s PII decision will be overruled by the present administration in London.”

Koechler was first to call for an independent international public inquiry into the events that led to the atrocity, which remains the worst terrorist attack in British history.

But whilst the Scottish Parliament is formally considering a petition calling for such an inquiry to be established, Koechler believes chances of one proceeding are unrealistic in the current political climate.

“The Security Council is not anymore seized of the matter – the Lockerbie dispute – and a new consensus among the Council's permanent members on the setting up of an investigative committee is not realistic,” Koechler told RIA Novosti.

“Only a coercive resolution would provide the necessary powers – and independence – to international investigators,” Koechler added. “Under these circumstances, everything will depend on the domestic situation in the UK.”

Koechler dismissed efforts to secure a public inquiry set up by the Scottish authorities.

“An investigation mandated by the Scottish Parliament will not be sufficient because the issue is an international one,” Koechler told RIA Novosti. (...)

One man, Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was convicted of the attack, but since his trial serious doubts have been raised by campaigners and some relatives of victims of PA103 about the safety of his conviction.

In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred the case back to the Scottish High Court for a second appeal against the conviction. The SCCRC report determined “a miscarriage of justice may have occurred”.

The second appeal was ultimately dropped by Megrahi’s own defense team in 2009 who told the High Court they believed it would “assist” in the determination of the Libyan’s application to be released on compassionate grounds.

Eight days after formally dropping his appeal Megrahi was released and returned to Libya.

Did the FBI liaise with the CIA in the Lockerbie investigation?

[What follows is an article by Mark Hirst published this afternoon on the website of Russian news agency RIA Novosti. It reads as follows:]

An agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who led the US probe into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 has denied claims made by a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s former officer who told RIA Novosti that FBI investigators did not read vital US intelligence material related to the attack.

Earlier Robert Baer, a retired CIA officer who was based in the Middle East, told RIA Novosti, “I’ve been having exchanges with the FBI investigators and they came right out and said they didn't read the intelligence."

“I just find that extraordinary and then later for them to comment on the intelligence and say it's no good; it’s amazing,” Baer said.

But Richard Marquise, who led the US investigation into the attack, dismissed Baer’s claim.

“Mr. Baer had no role in the investigation and anything he knows or claims to know is either hearsay or speculation,” Marquise told RIA Novosti.

“I find [Baer’s claims] interesting because he has previously said that the CIA did not pass us all the information, something I doubt he would be in a position to know,” Marquise argued.

“I agree that there were a handful of FBI personnel (agents and analysts) who had access to all the intelligence that was passed and it may have been possible that some FBI agents who played a minor role in the case may not have seen it,” he added.

For years controversy has surrounded the case following the 2001 conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer. Campaigners, including some relatives of victims of Pan Am 103, believe Megrahi was wrongly convicted and are continuing to call for a public inquiry into the events leading to the bombing.

Baer has previously claimed US intelligence pointed to Iran – not Libya – as the source of the attack that allegedly retaliated for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the American warship, USS Vincennes, five months before the attack on Pan Am 103. Baer told RIA Novosti that a convincing case implicating Libya was still to be made.

“Richard Marquise has taken a moral position on the case,” Baer told RIA Novosti. “I can still be convinced the Libyans did it, but I still need to be convinced of that.”

Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, has spent more than two decades studying the case.

“I'd be absolutely amazed if the FBI didn't consider the intelligence material, if only to reject it as unreliable or unusable as evidence in judicial proceedings,” Black told RIA Novosti.

“Indeed, there's clear evidence that they did make use of it. A key prosecution witness, Majid Giaka, was a CIA asset and was in a Department of Justice witness protection program,” Black added.

“The FBI falls under the Department of Justice. And Giaka was a crucial witness in the Washington DC grand jury hearing that led to the US indictment against Megrahi and Fhimah,” Black said.

Pan Am Flight 103 was flying from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York City when it was blown out of the sky over Scotland by a terrorist bomb that killed 270 people, including 11 on the ground. A three-year-long investigation yielded two Libyan suspects who were handed over to the United [Kingdom] (...) in 1999. In 2003, Gaddafi (...) paid compensation, but said he had never given the order for the attack.

Legal responsibility for aircraft accident investigation

[I was interviewed this morning by Mark Hirst for RIA Novosti. Here is his report:]

European investigators, who unexpectedly arrived on the Malaysian aircraft crash site in eastern Ukraine, had “no legal locus” to participate in the investigation without Kiev's invite, Professor Robert Black of the University of Edinburgh, known as the “architect of the Lockerbie trial”, told RIA Novosti on Monday.

“If the nation decides that they don’t have the necessary facilities or investigative infrastructure, then they can call on another state or states to lend them the expertise,” said Black, a globally recognized legal expert, who specialized in examining the judicial issues surrounding the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.

“Air investigation teams from Europe simply arrived at the scene and are now complaining that they weren’t immediately allowed free access to the site,” the lawyer said.

“It is understandable that they should be annoyed, but they have no legal locus to be there whatsoever unless and until they are invited to participate by the state which has the legal responsibility to investigate,” Black added.

“The law is that the responsibility to investigate is that of the state where the plane came down. But given the circumstances in that part of Ukraine at the moment, it is a difficult question to answer. Who is the state and who is the government of that state?” the expert said.

Black agreed it was important for the site to be secured and called for proper international investigation into the circumstances of the crash.

Malaysia Airlines' Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on July 17 near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, causing death of 283 passengers and 15 crew members.

Ukrainian government and militia have been trading blame for the alleged downing of the plane, with independence supporters saying they lacked the technology to shoot down a target flying at altitude of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).

Commenting on the crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was vital to abstain from hasty conclusions on the case before the international investigation was over.

The UN Security Council late on Sunday night completed the text of its resolution regarding the Malaysia Airlines crash. Russia introduced its own draft resolution to the UN Security Council, calling for an impartial investigation into the circumstances of the crash.