Frank Mulholland to become judge

[A Scottish Government press release announces today that the Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC is amongst five new judges of the Court of Session and High Court of Justiciary. It reads as follows:]

Her Majesty the Queen has appointed five new Senators to the College of Justice on the recommendation of the First Minister.

Sheriff John Beckett QC, Ailsa Carmichael QC, Alistair Clark QC, the Rt Hon Frank Mulholland QC and Andrew Stewart QC will sit as judges in the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary.

The judges will deal with Scotland’s most important criminal and civil cases.

Their appointments take effect on dates to be agreed by the Lord President. Four of the appointments are to fill existing vacancies. The fifth appointment, to be taken up by Frank Mulholland QC, will take effect following the retirement of a senator later in the year.

'Realistic possibility' of second Lockerbie bombing trial

[This is the headline over a report published this evening on the STV News website. It reads in part:]

Scotland's chief law officer believes there is a "realistic possibility" of a second trial over the murder of 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing.

Scottish and American investigators announced last year that they had identified two Libyans as suspects over the 1988 atrocity but since then very little has been said publicly about the case.

In an interview with STV News to mark his departure from the post after five years, lord advocate Frank Mulholland QC discussed the prospect of fresh prosecutions over Britain's biggest mass murder.

"I've been to Tripoli twice," said. "I've established good relations with the law enforcement attorney general in Libya.

"We're currently at a stage where there are a number of outstanding international letters of request, one of which is seeking the permission of the Libyan authorities to interview two named individuals as suspects.

"Following all the work that's been going on, and it's been painstaking, it's taken some time, it does take time.

"I hope that the Libyans will grant permission for that to be done. I obviously can't say too much publicly but a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to make that happen.

"What I hope is that this will bear fruit and we can take it to the next stage of seeking the extradition of the two named individuals."

Last October, it was announced the lord advocate and the US attorney general had agreed there was "a proper basis in law" to treat the two Libyans as suspects.

The two men were not named by the Scottish or US authorities but they are Abdullah Senussi, Colonel Gaddafi's former intelligence chief, and Abouajela Masud.

Both are being held in jails in Libya - Senussi is appealing against a death sentence while Masud is serving ten years for bomb making. (...)

Asked if there was any realistic possibility of Senussi being surrendered for trial, Frank Mulholland replied: "Before I embarked on this work I was told that there was no possibility, absolutely none, of the Libyans cooperating with law enforcement in Scotland or the United States. That happened.

"In 2011, I attended a ceremony in Arlington where the Libyan ambassador to the US made a public commitment on behalf of the Libyan government to help. They have kept their word. They have helped.

"I said it takes time, and it will take time, and that's certainly something which we are used to in relation to the Lockerbie inquiry.

"If we get to the stage of seeking the extradition of two named individuals or indeed more persons, I think there's a realistic possibility that there could be a further trial."

The two men are suspected of bringing down Pan Am 103 while acting along with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who remains the only person convicted of the bombing.

He died protesting his innocence after being released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government. A high-profile campaign to clear his name continues.

The lord advocate acknowledged any new Lockerbie trial would involve a public re-examination of the disputed evidence from Megrahi's.

"I don't fear that," he said. "I think that's a good thing. Without seeking to comment on what the outcome would be, I think the evidence would stand up to a further test.

"We wouldn't be doing this unless we thought that the evidence was sufficiently credible and reliable to have them interviewed as suspects, I think that's the best way to put it."

For many years after the bombing it seemed extremely unlikely there would ever be prosecutions over Lockerbie.

Eventually a diplomatic deal paved the way for the first trial to go ahead in a specially-convened Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Frank Mulholland first raised the hope that the collapse of Gaddafi's regime could allow Scottish police to visit Libya back in 2011.

He is the first British or American official to publicly express the belief that a second trial could happen, albeit with carefully chosen words.

[RB: In my view the chances of either Senussi or Masud being extradited to stand trial for the Lockerbie bombing are precisely zero. I would, however, be delighted to be proved wrong since, as Frank Mulholland concedes, that would inevitably subject to further scrutiny the evidence that led to the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi -- a scrutiny that that evidence could not survive.]

The Scottish injustice

[This is the headline over an article by Neil Berry published today in the Kuwait newspaper the Khaleej Times:]

Megrahi apparently suffered a monstrous miscarriage of justice

Scotland’s former first minister, Alex Salmond, has often voiced contempt for the manner in which former British prime minister, Tony Blair, led Britain into war in Iraq on the basis of manipulated intelligence and secretive deliberations. Salmond’s boast is that, in contrast to the Machiavellian political establishment in London, his nation’s political culture stands for openness and democratic accountability.

But would Scottish public life have become a model of transparency if Scotland had voted to quit the United Kingdom in this year’s referendum on independence? Does candour really come more readily to Scotland’s devolved government than it does to the UK government in London? Signs are not wanting that Scottish power is capable of being every bit as opaque and arbitrary as power in the British capital.

This December Scotland’s chief law officer, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, has brushed aside the multiple reasons for suspecting that the Scottish judiciary wrongfully convicted the late Libyan, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, and killing 270 passengers, many of them Americans. There is, he bullishly declared, no evidence to cast doubt on Megrahi’s conviction.

In truth, there is an abundance of such evidence. The Scottish writers John Ashton and Morag Kerr have between them written three books that furnish solid grounds for believing that Megrahi suffered a monstrous miscarriage of justice when in 2001 he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands.

Ashton has demolished the credibility of the key prosecution witness, the Malta shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, who supposedly sold clothes to Megrahi that were wrapped round the bomb alleged to have been loaded onto a feeder flight from Malta to London via Frankfurt. Considered by one of the very trial judges to be in doubtful possession of his faculties, Gauci gave details of Megrahi’s age and appearance that were wildly at variance with the facts. Moreover, it was to transpire that Gauci and his brother Paul were paid $3 million by the US Department of Justice – an item of vital information damagingly withheld from Megrahi’s defence.

On top of all this, it has emerged that the bomb timer found at Lockerbie did not belong the batch of such devices sold to Libya by a Swiss firm and held by the prosecution to confirm Libyan culpability. There are also grounds for scepticism about whether the suitcase containing the Lockerbie bomb originated in Malta.

In a compelling review of the evidence, Morag Kerr concluded that it was planted at London Heathrow where, not long before Pan Am 103 took off, there was a breach of airport security that has never yet been explained.

What above all makes Frank Mulholland’s re-affirmation of Megrahi’s guilt ring hollow is that in 2007, five years before the Libyan’s death, Scotland’s Criminal Cases Review Commission accepted that the issue deserved to be re-visited. Megrahi’s sentence was ready to be appealed when in 2009 he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and allowed, on compassionate grounds, to go home to his family in Libya. Almost certainly the verdict would have been that the case against him came nowhere near to satisfying the fundamental requirement of Western justice that guilt be established ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.

It is far from being of mere incidental interest that Frank Mulholland formally re-affirmed Scottish belief in Megrahi’s guilt while attending a 26th Lockerbie anniversary memorial service in Washington. The suspicion is hard to escape that the enduring official resistance to re-opening the Megrahi case is bound up with fear in Scottish high places of re-kindling the venomous US outrage that was ignited in 2009 when Scotland freed a ‘terrorist’ who looms large in American demonology.

Mulholland assured his American audience that Scottish justice has ‘no sell-by date’ and that despite current turbulence in Libya the Scottish authorities would continue to pursue Megrahi’s accomplices. Yet what could be more grotesque than for a senior law officer to speak of justice in the language of the supermarket! Mulholland’s choice of expression is all the more crass considering that in this instance, far from having no sell-by date, Scottish justice appears to have been sold with indecent haste.

James Wolffe becomes Scotland’s most senior law officer - and is urged to look into Lockerbie case

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The National. It reads as follows, accompanied by a legal commentator’s analysis:]

The Dean of the Faculty of Advocates James Wolffe QC is to become Scotland’s most senior law officer in succession to Frank Mulholland QC who is stepping up to be a judge.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has recommended the appointment of Wolffe as Lord Advocate and senior advocate depute Alison Di Rollo as Scotland’s new law officers, the latter becoming Solicitor General.

News of Wolffe’s recommendation was welcomed by Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh Robert Black who has urged him to look into the Lockerbie bombing case. The Scottish Criminal Bar Association has also welcomed him.

Di Rollo succeeds Lesley Thomson, who was appointed to the post in 2011, and who has informed the First Minister that she wishes to pursue new challenges.

The appointments will be made by the Queen on the recommendation of the First Minister, with the agreement of the Scottish Parliament. The appointments, if approved, will complete the First Minister’s newly-appointed ministerial team.

The Lord Advocate is a Minister of the Scottish Government and acts as principal legal adviser, but decisions by him about criminal prosecutions and the investigation of deaths are taken independently of any other person.

The Solicitor General is the Lord Advocate’s deputy. She assists the Lord Advocate to carry out his functions and is also a Minister of the Scottish Government.

First Minister Sturgeon said: “I am extremely pleased to recommend the appointments of James Wolffe and Alison Di Rollo as Scotland’s senior law officers.

“James has an outstanding legal background and extensive experience at all levels, including the House of Lords, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

“Alison led the work of the ground-breaking National Sexual Crimes Unit (NSCU) for three years, having previously held the role of deputy. Her outstanding leadership in this most sensitive of areas has inspired confidence in all connected to it.”

James Wolffe said: “I thank the First Minister for nominating me to the office of Lord Advocate. If I am appointed, it will be a great privilege to serve Scotland in that role.”

Alison Di Rollo said: “I am both delighted and honoured to be nominated for this role by the First Minister and I am looking forward to working with James in his new role.”

The First Minister thanked both Frank Mulholland QC and Lesley Thomson QC for their service.

She said: “In his time as Lord Advocate, Frank has made a substantial contribution to both the law and to Scottish society. The creation of the National Sexual Crimes Unit was just one example of the increased specialisation of the Crown Office that Frank Mulholland presided over.

“In her role as Solicitor General, Lesley’s work, particularly around domestic abuse, was pivotal in moving towards a system that instils confidence in victims of abuse and ensures that their abusers are held to account. I thank both Frank and Lesley for their dedicated service to the Government, to justice and to Scotland as a whole.”

Prof Black said on his blog: “It is to be hoped that one of the first priorities of the new Lord Advocate will be to consider all of the evidence now available about the Lockerbie case and the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi.”

ANALYSIS: Andrew Tickell 

Wolffe has what is needed to help Sturgeon in legal rough and tumble

The Lord Advocate is much more than a public prosecutor. Scotland’s chief law officer heads up the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal service, its independent prosecutors indicting and trying those accused of crime in the public interest. But his coat buttons up tight over a range of other equally important duties. The Lord Advocate is also the Scottish Government’s principal legal advisor – the legal brain in the cabinet, who – confidentially, sympathetically – helps its ministers navigate the increasingly tricky and complex legal rules which constrain their choices. Compared to the blood and thunder of indicting wrongdoers and dishing out punishment to the guilty, his advisory role is unsexy. It catches no eyes and commands no headlines. Most of it, ye and me will never hear about. But it is absolutely essential part of modern government.

Holyrood must steer its legislation safely through the reefs and shoals of European Union law, the European Convention on Human Rights, and a sometimes knotty devolution settlement. Any major, controversial piece of legislation is always vulnerable to a legal challenge.

Land reform, tobacco vending machine bans, minimum alcohol pricing, the Named Persons provisions – all have been subject to well-organised and well-resourced challenges in our courts.

If I was the Scottish Government – so exposed to all these legal challenges to its agenda – I’d want the best legal brain on my side, counselling me, putting my side of the story if things get tough.

Nicola Sturgeon’s nominee – James Wolffe QC – has these qualities in spades. But the pick represents a clear departure for Sturgeon, who has broken with the approach adopted by her predecessor in Bute House.

This is to be welcomed.

When he first took office in 2007, Alex Salmond took the unprecedented step of leaving Jack MacConnell’s Lord Advocate in post. Elish Angiolini – a career prosecutor and solicitor – remained in office until the Holyrood election of 2011, to be replaced by her then Solicitor General and fellow career Crown Office prosecutor, Frank Mulholland. Mr Salmond was keen that his law officers should enjoy an unprecedented “independence from the political process”, establishing themselves as “independent of politics”.

In the event, Mr Salmond discovered that an independent prosecutor can be politically useful. Mr Muholland intervened regularly in political debates during his tenure. But historically, the law officers were explicitly political appointments. The garlands went to party loyalists: folk up to the job, with the requisite legal training, politically sympathetic to the government’s agenda. The Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General were partisan legal problem-solvers who could be relied on to tell legal truth to political power around the privacy of the Cabinet table, who did a bit of prosecuting on the side.

The idea that the law officers should be career prosecutors is a recent – and perhaps not altogether successful – innovation. It was Jack MacConnell who promoted Elish Angiolini to the role. The first woman to occupy the post, Strathclyde-educated Angiolini was a world away from the “Edinburgh legal fraternity” and the members of the Faculty of Advocates, who had filled the post for centuries. Her appointment prompted predictable rhubarbing from dark and dusty corners of Parliament House.

But it wasn’t all sour grapes, snobbery and personal disappointment. Some asked more substantive questions. Could career criminal lawyers effectively advise the governing on all the tough public law issues the government faces? You can’t be an expert in everything. Since 2007, the SNP has faced countless legal headaches, but its law officers have been drawn from a fairly narrow professional range. Mr Wolffe’s appointment suggests the SNP have learned from these bruising experiences before the courts, and are reckoning much more seriously with the legal rough and tumble which the Government will – inevitably – face this session.

This welcome appointment leaves Nicola Sturgeon’s government legally fortified.

Media reports following launch of John Ashton's Scotland's Shame

[The following are excerpts from media reports following upon yesterday’s launch of John Ashton’s Scotland’s Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters:]

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed in the Lockerbie tragedy, has written about the "painful task" of clearing out her room after her death and his struggle to avoid becoming bitter.

In the foreword to a new book by John Ashton, biographer of the Libyan convicted of the bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, Dr Swire describes Flora as "our deeply loved elder daughter" slaughtered "a day short of her 24th birthday". She was on flight PanAm103 because she wished to visit her boyfriend in Boston for Christmas. "If we had only said no..." he writes. "We would still have Flora with us."

Yesterday, at the launch of the book, Scotland's Shame, Dr Swire and Mr Ashton released an open letter to Frank Mulholland, the Lord Advocate, asking why he dismissed new evidence revealed in the [2012] biography of Megrahi, and why the witnesses relating to this evidence have not been questioned. Dr Swire said a public inquiry is the only way to answer the questions and concerns of the relatives of the 270 victims and the only way to hold the Crown Office to account.

The Scottish Government has repeatedly refused and instead called for Westminster to hold an inquiry or for the case to be tested with another appeal in the courts.

Dr Swire and Mr Ashton said an appeal, even if feasible, would not answer questions about the Crown Office's failure to disclose key documents.

The Crown Office said the case is still live and it therefore cannot comment. 

(From The Herald)

Twenty five years after his daughter was killed by the Lockerbie bomb, Jim Swire is to step back from active involvement in the campaign to uncover the full facts about the atrocity.

Dr Swire, 76, a retired GP, is the most prominent spokesman for British families affected by the attack on Pan Am Flight 103. Among the 270 dead was Flora, 23, his daughter, a medical student. He hoped he might find closure when Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi came to trial in 2001.

Instead he was horrified by what he saw as the flimsy case against the Libyan, who was found guilty. Dr Swire redoubled his efforts to get to the bottom of the crime.

Yesterday, at the launch of a book entitled Scotland’s Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters, he said he was ready to “disappear from the battlements”.

“I think my campaign has been my means of survival, but I have got to a point where I really have to cut back on it, otherwise it will do harm,” said Dr Swire. “One of the parameters of doing it is what Flora would have thought. I think Flora would be saying, ‘You’ve done your very best dad. It’s time to leave it to others, to younger men.’

“I suspect I will be called in to make comments to the media from time to time. That’s OK. What I don’t think is OK is investing as much time as I have been doing. I’m going to try to find ways of trying to avoid spending as much time on it.” Dr Swire has already bought a computer programme which converts words to text, which he say will cut by two thirds the time he has to devote to writing. By the anniversary, December 21, he would be ready to move on. (...)

There was little immediate sign that he was ready to wind down. In the foreword to the book, Dr Swire says the country’s justice system had survived the act of Union with England intact, only to be blighted by “the impenetrable arrogance of her prosecuting authorities”, the Crown Office.

Together with John Ashton, the book’s author, he used a press conference to launch an outspoken attack on Frank Mulholland, the Lord Advocate. Dr Swire and Mr Ashton have also written an open letter to the Crown Office, questioning aspects of the al-Megrahi trial, including the alleged withholding of evidence and the payment of a key witness, Tony Gauci.

At a meeting London in 2011, Dr Swire said he had asked Mr Mulholland repeatedly why evidence of a break-in at Heathrow airport in 1988, the night before the bombing, had not been presented at the trial.

“We went through this routine four times,” recalled Dr Swire. “At the end of, Mr Mulholland said. ‘You know, I wondered why it wasn’t available, but I haven’t been able to find out’. An incredible statement.”

Mr Ashton added: “Frank Mulholland, with aspects of his behaviour ... has really raised questions about whether he is fit to hold office.”

The Crown Office said that because the bombing was still a live case it could not comment on it. A spokesman said the remarks attributed by Dr Swire to the Lord Advocate at the meeting in London were “simply untrue”.  

(From The Times)

A report in The Scotsman can be read here.

Two years of Frank Mulholland as Lord Advocate

[Today marks the second anniversary of the appointment of Frank Mulholland QC as Lord Advocate.  Here is what I wrote on this blog at the time:]

This appointment is not unexpected, but it is to be regretted. Virtually the whole of Frank Mulholland's career has been spent as a Crown Office civil servant. This is not, in my view, the right background for the incumbent of the office of Lord Advocate, one of whose functions has traditionally been to bring an outsider's perspective to the operations and policy-making of the department. Sir Humphrey Appleby was an outstanding civil servant of a particular kind, but his role was an entirely different one from that of Jim Hacker and no-one would have regarded it as appropriate that he should be translated from Permanent Secretary of the Department of Administrative Affairs to Minister (or, indeed, from Secretary of the Cabinet to Prime Minister). 

The appointment by the previous Labour administration in Scotland of Elish Angiolini as Solicitor General and then as Lord Advocate was a mistake, both constitutionally and practically, as was her retention as Lord Advocate by the SNP minority government (though the political reasons for her re-appointment were understandable). It is sad that the new majority SNP Government has not taken the opportunity to return to the wholly desirable convention of appointing an advocate or solicitor from private practice to fill the office of Lord Advocate. The much-needed casting of a beady eye over the operations of the Crown Office is not to be expected from this appointee. This is deeply regrettable since such scrutiny is long overdue.

[The Mulholland tenure of office has been just as undistinguished as anticipated. The melancholy history of his Lockerbie involvement can be followed here.]

Crown Office musical chairs

Posted from Istanbul Atatürk Airport:

In the course of my great trek from the Roggeveld Karoo to Edinburgh, I have belatedly discovered (a) that the Crown Agent, the civil service head of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal service, has resigned and (b) that the ministerial head of that department, the Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, has announced that he will demit office after the Scottish Parliament elections to be held on 5 May 2016. 

Have the Megrahi case and the imminent submission by Police Scotland of the Operation Sandwood report on Justice for Megrahi’s nine allegation of criminal misconduct in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial any bearing on these departures? Who knows? And I have no doubt that the Crown Office would scathingly reject the suggestion. (Indeed, I see that it has done so.) Iain McKie makes some highly pertinent comments here.

As far as the replacement Lord Advocate is concerned, what I wrote when Mr Mulholland was appointed in 2011 is equally applicable to his successor:

“This appointment is not unexpected, but it is to be regretted. Virtually the whole of Frank Mulholland's career has been spent as a Crown Office civil servant. This is not, in my view, the right background for the incumbent of the office of Lord Advocate, one of whose functions has traditionally been to bring an outsider's perspective to the operations and policy-making of the department. Sir Humphrey Appleby was an outstanding civil servant of a particular kind, but his role was an entirely different one from that of Jim Hacker and no-one would have regarded it as appropriate that he should be translated from Permanent Secretary of the Department of Administrative Affairs to Minister (or, indeed, from Secretary of the Cabinet to Prime Minister). 

“The appointment by the previous Labour administration in Scotland of Elish Angiolini as Solicitor General and then as Lord Advocate was a mistake, both constitutionally and practically, as was her retention as Lord Advocate by the SNP minority government (though the political reasons for her re-appointment were understandable). It is sad that the new majority SNP Government has not taken the opportunity to return to the wholly desirable convention of appointing an advocate or solicitor from private practice to fill the office of Lord Advocate. The much-needed casting of a beady eye over the operations of the Crown Office is not to be expected from this appointee. This is deeply regrettable since such scrutiny is long overdue.”

The present Solicitor General for Scotland, Lesley Thomson, like Frank Mulholland, was appointed from within the ranks of Crown Office staffers. It would be a grave mistake for her to be promoted to Lord Advocate.

Mulholland to be new Lord Advocate

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]

Solicitor General Frank Mulholland will today be named Lord Advocate, succeeding Elish Angiolini who last year announced plans to step down.

This will create a vacancy for the second law officer post and The Herald understands that it has been decided that a woman will fill the deputy role.

One of the names mooted for the Solicitor General post had been experienced QC Ronnie Clancy, a son of a police officer who has been at the bar since 1990 and was senior Crown counsel in the Lockerbie appeal.

However, The Herald has been told that with the promotion of Mr Mulholland, his No 2 will be a woman. A source at the Faculty of Advocates made the point that the number of women there has expanded from 10 to 100 in just 20 years, so with other senior female fiscals there will be no shortage of choice. (...)

Mr Mulholland was appointed by Alex Salmond as Solicitor General four years ago and it is understood he will now be promoted to the top post.

Mr Salmond will name his Cabinet team today after being sworn in at the Court of Session. He will swear three oaths – as First Minister, as Keeper of the Seal, and of allegiance to the Queen – before receiving the Royal warrant confirming his appointment as First Minister.

[This appointment is not unexpected, but it is to be regretted. Virtually the whole of Frank Mulholland's career has been spent as a Crown Office civil servant. This is not, in my view, the right background for the incumbent of the office of Lord Advocate, one of whose functions has traditionally been to bring an outsider's perspective to the operations and policy-making of the department. Sir Humphrey Appleby was an outstanding civil servant of a particular kind, but his role was an entirely different one from that of Jim Hacker and no-one would have regarded it as appropriate that he should be translated from Permanent Secretary of the Department of Administrative Affairs to Minister (or, indeed, from Secretary of the Cabinet to Prime Minister).

The appointment by the previous Labour administration in Scotland of Elish Angiolini as Solicitor General and then as Lord Advocate was a mistake, both constitutionally and practically, as was her retention as Lord Advocate by the SNP minority government (though the political reasons for her re-appointment were understandable). It is sad that the new majority SNP Government has not taken the opportunity to return to the wholly desirable convention of appointing an advocate or solicitor from private practice to fill the office of Lord Advocate. The much-needed casting of a beady eye over the operations of the Crown Office is not to be expected from this appointee. This is deeply regrettable since such scrutiny is long overdue.

The Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm has picked up this post. Its report can be read here.]

Authorities still trying to keep a lid on Lockerbie scandal

John Ashton’s Scotland’s Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters was launched this morning at a press conference in Edinburgh.  The book contains the following chapters:

Foreword by Dr Jim Swire (9 pages)

1.  Flawed Charges (18 pages)

2.  Getting Away with Murder (18 pages)

3.  A Nation Condemned (9 pages)

4.  A Shameful Verdict (9 pages)

5.  Burying the Evidence (23 pages)

6.  A Bigger Picture (16 pages)

7.  The Crown out of Control (15 pages)

8.  A Failure of Politics (13 pages)

Conclusion: A System in Denial (12 pages).

At the launch, addresses by John Ashton and Jim Swire were followed by a lively question and answer session to which, amongst others, representatives of The Herald, The Scotsman, The Times, STV News, Iain McKie and I contributed.  A taste of Dr Swire’s remarks can be found here.  The press release issued to accompany the launch can be accessed here. An open letter sent today to the Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC by Mr Ashton and Dr Swire can be read here.

Mr Ashton indicated that he would, starting next week, be releasing previously unpublished documents: “These are the documents the Crown didn’t want you to see.  I am making them public because, after 25 years, the authorities are still trying to keep a lid on this scandal.”  

Following this morning’s launch, a further press release has been issued.  It reads as follows:

Lockerbie 25th anniversary:

Will Scotland head for independence with a justice system the country can’t believe in? Will the politicians of Scotland continue to ignore 270 innocent victims?

Leading author joins voices with bereaved father to accuse Crown Office and Scottish Government of protecting murderers

At a press conference this morning, Dr Jim Swire, the father of a woman killed in the Lockerbie bombing, made his most outspoken attack on the Scottish authorities over their handling of the case. Speaking at the launch of a new book Scotland’s Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters, which marks the 25th anniversary of the bombing, Dr Swire said:

“It is Scotland’s shame that our judicial prosecution system is cowering behind its privileges in a brazen attempt to continue to block all reasonable allegations of its previous failures. In doing so it destroys its own credibility, demeans our country, and protects those who really were responsible for the murders of our families almost 25 years ago.”

He added:

“… of course there is still time for the SNP to announce an enquiry before this scandal undermines the referendum assuming it has not already done so and threatens independence. But this is much more than party politics and the 270 victims deserve more from our politicians.”

John Ashton, biographer of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, and author of this new book: Scotland’s Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters, brands the case the greatest scandal of Scotland’s post-devolution era.

At the press conference this morning he stated:

“The conduct of the Scottish criminal justice system – and the Crown Office in particular – in the Lockerbie case has hugely undermined the public’s trust in it. This raises a fundamental question: if people don’t trust Scotland’s foremost independent institution, will they trust an independent Scottish government? I believe that this is why the current government has tried to keep a lid on the scandal by refusing a public inquiry in to the Crown Office’s conduct. It’s a significant miscalculation by Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill, because they would only gain public trust by granting an inquiry.”

He also questioned Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland’s position:

“ Despite the fact that we now know that the Crown withheld numerous items of important evidence from Megrahi’s defence team, the current Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland has refused to acknowledge that anything went wrong. Furthermore, he has failed to order the police to follow up new witness evidence that undermines the prosecution case. Instead he has engaged in bluster and distortions and has smeared his critics by branding them conspiracy theorists. I believe that, if he continues in the vein, he will no longer be fit for office.”

In this new book, Ashton argues that the evidence against Megrahi was so weak that the charges should never have been brought and that the guilty verdict against him was blatantly unreasonable. It also describes how the Crown Office withheld crucial evidence from Megrahi’s defence team and how successive Scottish governments have turned a blind eye to the scandal. It demonstrates that, as a consequence of these failings, the real bombers went free and the Libyan people were unjustly subjected to seven years of biting UN sanctions.

John Ashton will also release documents hithero unseen over the next few weeks:

‘These are the documents that the Crown didn’t want you to see. I am making them public because, after 25 years, the authorities are still trying to keep a lid on this scandal.’

"It’s a long process but I’m not giving up" says Lord Advocate

[What follows is the Lockerbie portion of an article reporting on an exclusive interview given by Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, to the Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser:]

A steely determination to seek the truth and deliver justice has catapulted Coatbridge-born Frank Mulholland to the powerful top law post in Scotland of Lord Advocate.

And in an exclusive interview with the Advertiser this week, the nation’s top prosecutor reveals his views on the Lockerbie bombing (...)

The 53-year-old former St Bernard’s Primary and St Columba’s High School pupil told how he will not give up on the Lockerbie bombing investigation (...)

Mr Mulholland travelled to Libya in April with the director of the FBI Robert Mueller to discuss opportunities for stepping up the probe into the 1988 bombing, which killed 270 people.

He said: “Going to Libya was the right thing to do.

“The Interim Prime Minister made very helpful statements regarding co-operation.

“I was looked after by a lot of good people and felt safe under their security.

“I would go back if there was good reason to do so and if my visit was not putting others at risk.

“It’s a long process but I’m not giving up. A lot of people lost their lives.”

[Be assured, Mr Mulholland, Justice for Megrahi is not giving up either, notwithstanding Crown Office bluster.]

Law Officers to join Faculty of Advocates

Elish Angiolini QC , the Lord Advocate and Frank Mulholland QC, the Solicitor General for Scotland, are to become members of the Faculty of Advocates.

In a statement issued today the Faculty said: “The Dean of the Faculty of Advocates Richard Keen QC, is pleased to announce the prospective admission to membership of the Faculty of Elish Angiolini QC, the Lord Advocate and Frank Mulholland QC, the Solicitor General.

“Mrs Angiolini and Mr Mulholland have played a leading role in the legal profession for a number of years and it is entirely appropriate that they should join the Faculty with its long tradition of service to the justice system and the people of Scotland.”

They will be formally admitted to membership of the Faculty at a calling ceremony on November 7.

A spokesperson for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said:

"Mrs Angiolini and Mr Mulholland are honoured to have been invited to apply to join the Faculty of Advocates, which is highly respected for its central role in delivering independent legal services in Scotland."

[From the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine, The Firm. The Dean of Faculty, Richard Keen QC, was senior counsel for Lamin Fhimah, the acquitted co-accused in the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist. There is an interesting article on Mrs Angiolini's forthcoming membership of the Faculty of Advocates, and the possible reasons for it, on The Scotsman website.]