RIP Ambassador Andrew I Killgore

I am saddened to learn of the death on 20 December 2016 of Ambassador Andrew I Killgore, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and a longtime seeker after Lockerbie truth. Links to his many writings on the Lockerbie case can be found here. In an email to Dr Jim Swire, Robert Forrester and me, the managing editor of WRMEA, Janet McMahon, wrote:

“I'm sorry to have to tell you the sad news that Andy Killgore died yesterday. He had gotten increasingly frail over the last year or so, and was developing a second round of pneumonia after a fall last Wednesday and did not want to go to a hospital. We visited him Friday afternoon, and he was alert, comfortable and in good spirits. We had planned to visit him again yesterday, but his daughters called us to say he had died. It is definitely a shock, but we are grateful that he did not suffer or have to endure a long painful death. His beloved family was with him.

“As you know, he was very passionate about Lockerbie. I printed out all your communications to him and he read them avidly. He had his own idea about who was responsible, of course, but certainly agreed that there has been a most grievous cover-up. We often talked about going to London or Edinburgh if there were any major development. He felt close to you all, and was glad to have you as comrades-in-arms!”

In his reply Dr Swire wrote:

“The truth is that after 28 years all of us who like Andrew still feel passionately about the deception laid upon this tragedy are ageing now and others also among us have died.

“In their memory as well as for the memory of all those who died at Lockerbie, we cannot let the matter rest, and lately I have come to believe that within the next couple of years the truth will burst out.

“When it does that will be a good time to remember people like Andrew who gave so much sincerity to the search.”

WRMEA’s obituary of Ambassador Killgore can be read here.

Many still question Megrahi conviction in bombing of Pan Am 103

[This is the headline over an article in the current issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs by the magazine's publisher, Ambassador Andrew I Killgore. It reads as follows:]

Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi was convicted on Jan 31, 2001 of destroying Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec 21, 1988, killing the plane's 259 passengers, including 179 Americans, and 11 people on the ground. Megrahi was tried under Scottish law by Scottish judges in a special court sitting at Camp Zeist, a former American military base in The Netherlands.

As readers of the Washington Report are aware, the American media coverage of the Lockerbie trial was very thin, despite the heavy loss of American lives. There seems to be a determined silence about even the existence of an organization called "Justice for Megrahi," whose members include (full disclosure) this writer and several distinguished Britons, including Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the crash, and Dr. Robert Black, former professor of criminal law at Edinburgh University and creator of the idea of trying Megrahi and his co-defendant, Lamen Fhimah, in The Netherlands under Scottish law.

The revolution in Libya, and particularly the defection to Britain of former Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, has stirred some peripheral interest in Lockerbie. Before he became foreign minister, Koussa was head of Libyan intelligence, and close to Muammar al-Qaddafi. He would know what was in Qaddafi's mind when he agreed to turn over Megrahi and Fhimah for trial. Was it because the Libyan leader thought the two men were guilty, or because he knew he was obliged to do so to gain sufficient Western approval for the development of his country, including increased oil production?

The April 9 Washington Post ran an article saying that Scottish officials had "met" with Koussa, who they think may have crucial information about Lockerbie. According to the article, "Prosecutors said that they would offer no additional details of their conversations with Koussa." Just what did Koussa tell them, and why is no more information about the meeting forthcoming?

So far as this writer has seen, no American newspaper has mentioned that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled that Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice—a finding that presumably remains valid despite Megrahi's release from prison on compassionate grounds. Yet, the Washington Post article writes that "the case remains open despite Megrahi's conviction."

The heavy lethargy of the American media on Lockerbie includes no word that many outstanding Britons who lost relatives or friends in the Lockerbie crash do not believe that Megrahi is guilty. If members of "Justice for Megrahi," who obviously think he is not guilty, could possibly arrange a discussion with Moussa, it could clear up a lot of questions. Depending on Koussa's answers, it could reopen the question of who really bombed Pan Am 103.

[Yesterday, for the first time in its history, this blog had more visitors from the United States than from the United Kingdom. The most-read item was MSPs call for independent inquiry into Lockerbie.]

Taking another look at the destruction of Pan Am 103

[This is the headline over an article by Ambassador Andrew I Killgore that was published on the Voltaire.net website on this date in 2010. The following are excerpts:]

In February 1986 Israeli Mossad operatives installed a “Trojan” communications device on the top floor of an apartment house in Tripoli, Libya. The six-foot-long device was able to receive messages on one frequency and automatically rebroadcast the same message on a different frequency—in this case, one used by the government of Libya.

Israeli naval commandos arriving in miniature submarines in the middle of the night had delivered the Trojan, only seven inches in diameter, to the lone Mossad agent in Tripoli, who drove a rented van to their rendezvous point on a deserted beach outside Tripoli. The agent, along with four of the commandos, then took the Trojan to an apartment building in the Libyan capital where he had rented the top floor, and installed the device. By March the Trojan was broadcasting a series of “terrorist” orders to Libyan embassies around the world.

These messages were picked up by Spain, France and the United States. Thinking it odd that normally cautious Libya suddenly would become so careless, France and Spain took them to be fake. The US, however, accepted the broadcasts as real—especially since Washington was assured by Israel that they were indeed genuine.

The foregoing account is taken from The Other Side of Deception, the second of two books written by former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky after he left Israel’s foreign intelligence service.

Less than two months after the Trojan was installed, on April 5, 1986, the La Belle nightclub in then-West Berlin was bombed, killing two American soldiers and a Turkish woman. At the same time a false “success” signal was sent, apparently from the device in Tripoli.

“False-flagged” by Israel, President Ronald Reagan on April 14 sent American bombers from Britain and from US aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean to strike Tripoli and Benghazi, killing 101 people, including the adopted young daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi when his house in Tripoli was bombed.

Operation Trojan was one of Mossad’s “great successes,” Ostrovsky wrote. (...)

As soon as Pan Am Flight 103 crashed at Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec 21, 1988, Mossad could see the opportunity to repeat its earlier success.

The proximity in time between the Lockerbie crash and the shooting down by the USS Vincennes on July 3 of that year of an Iran Air passenger plane over the Persian Gulf, with the loss of 290 lives, presented a perfect “revenge” scenario. That, clearly, was the initial premise of the investigators at Lockerbie. Dr Robert Black, professor of criminal law at Edinburgh University in Scotland, told this writer that, for the first two years following the Pan Am crash, investigators were focused on Iran as having hired Ahmad Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command to carry out a retaliatory bombing.

In a Jan 28, 2009 article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, however, the late Russell Warren Howe cited the book Gideon’s Spies by Gordon Thomas. Thomas quotes a Mossad source as saying, “Within hours after the [Pan Am 103] crash Mossad’s LAP [psychological warfare or disinformation] staff were working their media contacts, urging them to blame and publicize that ‘Libya-did-it.’” (...)

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the crash, has written: “Coming from a scientific educational background, I found that it was the forensic evidence at [the trial at Camp] Zeist…which first convinced me that the prosecution case was a fabrication.”

Another astonishing factor was that the Crown (the prosecutors) ignored evidence of a break-in of the Pan Am luggage area at Heathrow early in the morning of that fatal December day. (...)

Dr Swire, who has described the Court’s conviction of Megrahi as “a cock and bull story,” is not alone in his skepticism. Hans Köehler, the UN observer at the trial, has described the verdict as “incomprehensible,” and Dr Robert Black has denounced the guilty verdict in equally dismissive language.

Thus the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 remains a mystery. If two years of investigating Iran produced no evidence, and the evidence used to convict Megrahi was fake, who was responsible for the horrific crime?

Lockerbie: 25 years on - a message from Justice for Megrahi

[What follows is the text of a message sent yesterday to Justice for Megrahi  signatory members and supporters by JFM’s secretary, Robert Forrester:]

On 21 December 1988, Europe was subject to its most notorious peacetime assault. In a matter of moments, the Lockerbie atrocity took 270 lives. All our hearts go out in love and comradeship to those the victims left behind as they remember their losses of a quarter of a century ago.

At Kamp van Zeist in 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted for the villainy behind Pan Am 103. In 2009, his second appeal supported by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was dropped against a background of arguably dubious political double dealing which secured his repatriation to Libya and his family due to his terminal medical condition. He died in 2012, without having succeeded in clearing his name.

As one of the country’s most renowned political and legal figures has put it: “There is not a lawyer in Scotland who believes he was guilty.” In 2011, a leading Scottish newspaper’s poll found that 52% of Scots agreed there should be an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing while 34% disagreed and 14% were unsure. A petition for an inquiry has been before the Scottish Parliament for three years now calling for such an inquiry. The petition continues to receive unanimous parliamentarian support.  Allegations of criminality against police, forensic and Crown officials have been sidelined by the Scottish police and the Crown Office since August of this year because it is claimed that the allegations conflict with the Crown’s attempts to shore up the indefensible. Would the Crown Office, Police Scotland and the FBI be going on trips to Libya and Malta in their futile and secretive attempts to maintain the charade of implicating further Libyan nationals 25 years after the event were it not for the pressure they have found themselves under due to the overwhelming evidence presented by activists? Doubtful. What seems to be being presented is a cynical blind for public consumption.

Precisely how is justice being served by such intransigence as is being displayed by both the Crown Office and the Scottish Government? What kind of justice is it that produces more victims than it started with? Many good and honest folk firmly believe that justice has not been either done or seen to be done in this tragic case. There has been no completion, nor has there been any finality. A resolution is required.  The hearts and minds of the bereaved, the al-Megrahi family and all who invest their trust and faith in our justice system must be satisfied.

In the last few weeks another flood of information further undermines the Crown Office and Scottish Government position. The Foreign Minister of Malta has declared his profound doubts over the conviction. Documentary evidence has been revealed which proves that a key witness in the case against Mr. Megrahi was paid $2 million by the American authorities. This mounting evidence, on top of the evidence the SCCRC relied on for the basis of the second appeal, only serves to prove that our justice system has failed.

A third appeal must be referred. Methodical and persistent pressure can rectify the mistakes of dubious forensics, a bungled investigation and a misguided judgement. Something is seriously wrong in this case. Something seems deeply rotten in a state when public officials attempt to bluster their way out of having to deal with mass murder and a deranged court process to preserve a fantasy of reputation and as a result risk allowing those who may have committed this gross act to escape justice.

As the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy approaches and the legacy of Nelson Mandela unfolds we demand no retribution or vengeance, we do not even seek to attribute blame, we simply ask that those who profess to serve justice do so without fear, favour or prejudice.

Signatory members of Justice for Megrahi

Ms Kate Adie (Former Chief News Correspondent for BBC News).

Mr John Ashton (Author of Scotland’s Shame and Megrahi: You are my Jury and Co- author of Cover Up of Convenience).

Mr Mikhail Basmadjian (Actor, Malta).

Mr David Benson (Actor/author of the play Lockerbie: Unfinished Business).

Mrs Jean Berkley (Mother of Alistair Berkley: victim of Pan Am 103).

Mr Peter Biddulph (Lockerbie tragedy researcher).

Mr Benedict Birnberg (Retired senior partner Birnberg Peirce & Partners).

Professor Robert Black QC (‘Architect’ of the Kamp van Zeist Trial).

Mr Christopher Brookmyre (Novelist).

Mr Paul Bull (Close friend of Bill Cadman: killed on Pan Am 103).

Ms Julia Calvert (Actress and creative director, Malta).

Mr Manuel Cauchi (Actor, Malta).

Professor Noam Chomsky (Human rights, social and political commentator).

Mr Tam Dalyell (UK MP: 1962-2005. Father of the House: 2001-2005).

Christina Dunwoodie (Soprano and opera director).

Mr Ian Ferguson (Co-author of: Cover Up of Convenience).

Dr David Fieldhouse (Police surgeon present at the Pan Am 103 crash site).

Mr Robert Forrester (Justice for Megrahi Committee).

Ms Christine Grahame MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).

Mr Ian Hamilton QC (Advocate, author and former university rector).

Mr Ian Hislop (Editor of Private Eye).

Fr Pat Keegans (Lockerbie parish priest on 21st December 1988).

Ms A L Kennedy (Author).

Dr Morag Kerr (Justice for Megrahi Committee and author of Adequately Explained by Stupidity?).

Mr Andrew Killgore (Former US Ambassador to Qatar).

Mr Adam Larson (Editor and proprietor of The Lockerbie Divide).

Mr Aonghas MacNeacail (Poet and journalist).

Mr Eddie McDaid (Lockerbie commentator).

Mr Rik McHarg (Communications hub coordinator: Lockerbie crash sites).

Mr Iain McKie (Retired Superintendent of Police).

Mr Marcello Mega (Journalist covering the Lockerbie incident).

Ms Heather Mills (Reporter for Private Eye).

Mr Alan Montanaro (Actor and drama school principal, Malta).

Rev’d John F Mosey (Father of Helga Mosey: victim of Pan Am 103).

Ms Denise Mulholland (Actress, Malta).

Mr Len Murray (Retired solicitor).

Mr Alan Paris (Actor and creative director, Malta).

Mr Denis Phipps (Aviation security expert).

Mr John Pilger (Campaigning human rights journalist).

Mr Steven Raeburn (Former editor of The Firm).

Dr Tessa Ransford OBE  (Poetry Practitioner and Adviser).

Mr James Robertson (Author).

Mr Mike Ross (Photographer and designer, Malta).

Dr David Stevenson (Retired medical specialist and Lockerbie commentator).

Dr Jim Swire (Father of Flora Swire: victim of Pan Am 103).

Sir Teddy Taylor (UK MP: 1964-2005. Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland).

Mr George Thomson (Private investigator).

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize Winner).

Mr Terry Waite CBE (Former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury and hostage negotiator).

Mr Simon Walker (Close friend of Joyce Dimauro: victim of 103).

Deceased members of Justice for Megrahi

Mr Moses Kungu (Lockerbie Councillor in 1988).

Mr Jock Thomson QC (Former police officer and senior prosecutor. Latterly criminal defence advocate).

Convicted Lockerbie bomber probably not guilty—so who is the real criminal?

[This is the headline over an article in the current issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs by the magazine's publisher, Ambassador Andrew I Killgore. The following are excerpts.]

On Aug 21 Scotland freed Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi—convicted under Scottish law at a special court in The Netherlands of destroying Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on [December] 21, 1988. Killed were 259 persons, including 189 Americans on board and 11 people on the ground. The terminally ill Megrahi, after dropping his second appeal, was released on compassionate grounds. Back in Libya, he continues to protest his innocence. (...)

At the Lockerbie trial so-called “key witness” [Tony] Gauci would identify Megrahi as the purchaser of certain items of clothing found at the crash site that Gauci claimed were purchased at his shop in Valetta, Malta. But on the witness stand Gauci proved to be a flop at identification. An FBI officer, Harold Hendershot, called to the witness stand to bolster Gauci’s testimony, also appeared to lack credibility.

Another puzzling aspect of the Lockerbie trial was that, despite the prosecution’s insistence that the bombing could only have been a two-man job, Megrahi’s co-defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted. No explanation was ever forthcoming. A middle-aged American (judging by his accent) attending the trial was overheard by this writer on a BBC broadcast expressing uncertainty about the testimony: “I wonder who killed our relatives?”

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the crash, is sure that Gauci identified the wrong man. Swire is an unusual man. As an officer in the British army, he was trained in the use of plastic explosives. After completing his army national service, he worked for the BBC as an electronics engineer before studying medicine and becoming a practicing physician. Dr Swire cannot accept as credible the Lockerbie trial’s technical details about the explosives that brought down Pan Am 103. He became a spokesman for relatives of British nationals killed in the crash. Overwhelmingly these relatives do not believe that Megrahi is guilty.

Dr Swire is convinced that shopkeeper Gauci identified an innocent man as the bomber. In a Dec 27, 2007 e-mail from Swire to this writer, Swire quoted Gauci as saying that Megrahi was “like” the man who bought clothes in his shop, but that the age and height were “very different.” Nevertheless, the Scottish judges accepted Gauci’s testimony.

Gauci reportedly now lives in Australia with a $2 million (some reports say $4 million) reward from the American government. According to the State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” Web site, since its inception in 1984 the program has paid $77 million to more than 50 people.

But the biggest reason for questioning the validity of the “Libya-did-it” scenario is the sheer improbability of placing a bomb on a plane in Valetta, Malta, bound for Frankfurt, Germany, there to be offloaded on a second plane bound for London, where it would be offloaded on a third plane bound for New York, to explode 38 minutes later. Common sense would dictate a far more simple scheme: load the bomb aboard a plane in London with a simple pressure mechanism to go off when the plane was safely out to sea (...)

In the aforementioned e-mail, from which I am free to quote, Dr Swire said the Lockerbie court heard of a “specialized timer/baroceptor bomb mechanism” made by the PFLP-GC in the Damascus suburbs. This device would explode within 30 to 45 minutes after takeoff, but was stable indefinitely at ground level. The court heard that these devices could not be altered. “Yet the court believed,” Swire wrote, “that Megrahi ‘happened’ to set his Swiss timer in such a way that it went off in the middle of the time window for the Syrian device, surviving changes of planes at Frankfurt and London.”

Dr Swire told the BBC News of Aug 20, 2009 that the prosecution at the Lockerbie trial failed to take into consideration the reported break-in of the Pan Am baggage area at Heathrow in the early morning hours of the day of Pan Am 103’s doomed flight.

Many of the British relatives of Pan Am 103 victims have come to believe that the bomb was loaded in London, and thus that Megrahi could not be guilty. These relatives and Dr Swire were opposed to Megrahi’s withdrawing his second appeal on the grounds that further evidence would come out that might have pointed to the real culprit.

In a Jan 4, 2008 e-mail, Dr Swire warned that “there is some deep secret hidden in this tragedy which evokes virulent responses...when questions are raised.”

In an Aug 20, 2009 e-mail response to this writer’s inquiry, Dr Swire said “that it appears that the Iranians used the PFLP-GC as mercenaries in this ghastly business.” According to this theory, held by many who doubt Megrahi’s guilt, including CounterPunch’s Alexander Cockburn, Iran hired the PFLP-GC to avenge the July 3, 1988 shooting down by the USS Vincennes of an Iranian Airbus passenger plane, killing 290 passengers, including 66 children. The US ship’s officers later received medals for heroism in combat.

Having lost his daughter in the Pan Am crash, and as an expert in explosives, Dr Swire is uniquely qualified to examine the Pan Am tragedy. America and its mainstream media did not reflect credit on themselves by refusing to acknowledge questions about Megrahi’s guilt.

Dr Swire may well be right in blaming the PFLP-GC for the tragedy. But this writer still has his doubts — because the ineptness of the trial and Washington’s fanaticism in pushing such a flimsy case against Libya leave an impression that it must be covering up for the real criminals. Somehow it seems unlikely that the US would go to such lengths to protect Iran, much less the PFLP-GC.

All Lockerbie theories, in context

[This is the heading over an item published on this date in 2010 in Caustic Logic’s blog The Lockerbie Divide. It reads as follows:]

Broadly speaking, there are five classes of explanation for the fall of Pan Am 103.

1) Libya did it

 a) via Megrahi, as determined at Camp Zeist

 b) by some other agent

2) Iran did it

 a) via the PFLP-GC using a Khreesat bomb

 b) via some more direct method

3) Someone else did it (CIA, Israel, South Africa)

4) No one did it - the whole thing was an accident

5) It's not clear who or what caused the bombing, but it wasn't Megrahi

The first class is worth discussing, at least in that subset a) is the legally established, officially accepted, and culturally real version (within the US anyway) and b) follows from a) mixed with the doubts of the intelligent over the case against Megrahi. It's what we're debunking here, so of course it gets mentioned a lot and in detail. Tellingly, most proponents of the official 1a) conspiracy theory are less enthuusiastic about discussing the details in depth. They'd rather just point to some judges twice acting as if they believed it all. We know this, and just aren't impressed with their reasoning.

The second category is the most widely accepted alternate to Libya. The circumstantial evidence is strong, and anchored by Iran's epic grievance over Iran Air-655. This all but necessitated they do something like PA103 around the time it was done, and there's reasons to believe the German PFLP-GC cell making altimeter bombs was on this job. I'm all about informing or reminding people about this. To be sure there are many versions that aren't quite correct, like the drug swap theory. But the clues for a London infiltration of the bomb fit superbly with the Iran's desire to actually succeed, and with the known PFLP-GC technology.

Subset b) of "Iran did it" is occupied, to my knowledge, by Charles Norrie only. He also falls into group three, suggesting a joint Iranian-CIA operation. His theory is discussed in this post. Continuing with the scant category three, Patrick Haseldine has proposed - widely, loudly - the notion that apartheid South Africa carried out the bombing. At the Divide, that's discussed here and nowhere else. Andrew Killgore of WRMEA has hinted that - perhaps - Israel was to blame. That's covered here and nowhere else (no need).  

It's the last two categories that I have yet to address. On #4, the sparse allegations that a tragic accident was to blame for those 270 deaths, are - so far as I've seen - too irrational to bother discussing. To the extent I may be wrong, I've just created a post and invite full commentary on such issue there - and nowhere else on my blog, if you please.  For some reason, I've also lumped in different explosion theories in the same post - allegations the blast was too powerful, too far this way or that, a second bomb elsewhere, etc. In short, if your problem is what caused the plane to break up (and there is some room for legit questions), that is where I'd like to have it discussed.

Of these four, only "Iran did it" account for the obvious grievance Iran held in latter 1988. The others, proposing that Libya, or the South Africans, or happenstance, happened to blow up a mostly American plane within six months of its mirror image, while the Iranians apparently decided to let it slide at about the same time raises the question why?What amazing evidence compels you to propose such an amazing coincidence?

On option 5, proclaiming no good guess just always seems to me like a cop-out. Really, after all this time to consider the facts, you still don't have a best guess who or what caused such a historic event? Alright, well I suggest you read up a little more and try to at least narrow it down.

Other than links and some elaborations I may add, that pretty well sums up the allegedly confused field of "whodunnit" conspiracy theories. Five groups, four of which have something concrete to say. One dominates with the collusion of political power, one solidly challenges with the legitimacy of dethroned reality, and two are appear to be just wacky ideas supported by a small handful of persistent wingnuts.

Please do not allow yourselves to be too confused by all this.

[The comments that follow the article are also well worth reading.]

A statement by Justice for Megrahi on the death of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has now died without having been able to clear his name of the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 on the 21st of December 1988 during his lifetime. Now all those politicians and Megrahi-guilt apologists who regard compassion as being a weakling's alternative to vengeance, who boast of their skills at remote medical diagnosis, and who persistently refuse to address the uncomfortable facts of the case, will doubtless fall silent. Finally, the ‘evil terrorist’ has been called to account for himself before a “Higher Power”.

The prosecution case against him held water like a sieve. We are expected to believe the fantastic tale of the Luqa-Frankfurt-Heathrow transfer of an invisible, unaccompanied suitcase which miraculously found itself situated in the perfect position in the hold of 103 to create maximum destructive effect having eluded no fewer than three separate security regimes. There is no evidence for any such luggage ever having left the ground in either Malta or Germany, it is mere surmise. Not only that but we have accusations of the key Crown witness having been bribed for testimony; a multitude of serious question marks over material evidence, including the very real possibility of the crucial fragment of PCB having been fabricated; discredited forensic scientists testifying for the prosecution; Crown witness testimony being retracted after the trial and, most worryingly, allegations of the Crown’s non-disclosure of evidence which could have been key to the defence. Added to which, evidence supporting the alternative and infinitely more logical ingestion of the bomb directly at Heathrow was either dismissed at the trial or withheld from the court until after the verdict of guilty had been returned.

The judges were under immense pressure to bring in a verdict of guilty. Zeist was the most high profile trial that the Scottish High Court of Justiciary had ever presided over. There was massive international interest, and this was compounded by the fact that the judges played the dual roles of judge and jury in a case in which the indictments were brought by the same official body that had appointed them as judges in the first instance, the Lord Advocate. Anyone hoping, therefore, to discover an application of sound, empirical reasoning based on concrete evidence being exercised in the field of jurisprudence would do well to avoid the Zeist judgement. Indeed, the most exceptional of Zeist’s many exceptional features is the judgement. Anyone reading this extraordinary document could be forgiven for thinking that in Scotland there is a presumption of guilt and the burden of proof is on the defence. In the words of Professor Hans Köchler (UN appointed International Observer at the Kamp van Zeist Trial) commenting on the second appeal: “[it] bears the hallmarks of an intelligence operation.”

The Crown and successive governments have, for years, acted to obstruct any attempts to investigate how the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi came about. Some in the legal and political establishments may well be breathing a sigh of relief now that Mr al-Megrahi has died. This would be a mistake. Many unfortunates who fell foul of outrageous miscarriages of justice in the past have had their names cleared posthumously. The great and the good of western civilisation who have clamoured for Mr al-Megrahi’s blood of late may find it a salutary experience to reflect on the case of Derek Bentley: convicted and hanged in 1953, aged nineteen, for a crime for which in 1998 he was acquitted on his posthumous appeal. However long it takes, the campaign seeking to have Mr al-Megrahi’s conviction quashed will continue unabated not only in his name and that of his family, who must still bear the stigma of being related to the ‘Lockerbie Bomber’, but, above all, it will carry on in the name of justice. A justice which is still being sought by and denied to many of the bereaved resultant from the Lockerbie tragedy.

It took almost half a century to resolve the Bentley case. With the Zeist justice campaign now in its twelfth year, one has to ask, when faced with such intransigence, precisely whom the democratically elected, executive arm of state represents. Historically, all the major parties, both in Holyrood and Westminster, must shoulder equal responsibility. However, since first coming to power in 2007, the SNP government has actively taken measures which hinder any progress towards lifting the fog that lies over events, much to the dismay of its own party supporters and activists who take an interest in the case. In 2009, a statutory instrument which was supposed to remove the legislative prohibition on publication of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s statement of reasons for the second appeal (a document that cost tax payers in excess of £1,000,000 to produce) was so drafted as to render publication effectively impossible. In 2010, the government also fired new legislation through parliament (‘Cadder’ Section7) that makes any prospect of opening another appeal in the interests of justice a forlorn hope. Even today, ignoring the fact that, with the support of the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee, campaigners finally forced the government to admit that it does in law (under the Inquiries Act of 2005) have the power to open an inquiry into the case, the government persists in sending out correspondence claiming that it doesn’t; this, of course, is accompanied by the hackneyed old mantra of their not doubting the safety of the conviction. Furthermore, during the consultation period of the Criminal Cases (Punishment and Review) (Scotland) Bill, campaigners established that the Data Protection Act posed no legal obstacle to the publication of the SCCRC’s statement of reasons for the second appeal, however, the government maintained otherwise with the result that it was ultimately left to the courage and commitment of members of the journalistic community to test the government’s position to destruction. All of the aforementioned, and the regrettable habit of appointing Crown Office insiders to the position of Lord Advocate, are not reassuring signs that this matter is being treated with a sense of balance and objectivity by the authorities. The record has stuck. The longer this goes on, the more the doubts over the government’s true loyalties will increase.

This case has now become emblematic of an issue which affects each and every one of us and poses some profoundly basic questions which we ignore at our peril, namely: what do we perceive justice to be, what role ought it to play in our society and whom should it exist to serve? Our laws and how we apply them to our society are the most fundamental descriptor of how we function as a cohesive and coherent entity. They are effectively a portrait of our identity as a people. If, through complacency, we permit cosy, established authority to dictate the terms and to brush under the carpet concerns over how justice is defined and dispensed for the sake of convenience, expediency and reputation, we will only have ourselves to blame for the consequences.

The Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, says that “Scotland's Criminal Justice system is a cornerstone of our society, and it is paramount that there is total public confidence in it.” Scotland’s independent and professional arbiter in the matter of referrals to the Court of Appeal, the SCCRC, believe that, on no fewer than six grounds, Mr al-Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice at Zeist. Whether or not the courts are the right and proper platform to deal with this case, the conviction has been in the hands of the High Court of Justiciary since 2001 producing no resolution whatsoever and, moreover, how amenable are the courts now likely to be towards sanctioning another appeal given that they have been invested with new powers which allow them to reject applications which question their own judgements? Fine words are not enough. Action is required. After all, the government took executive action to release Mr al-Megrahi following the dropping of his appeal (something he was under no legal obligation to do). 52% of respondents to an opinion poll conducted by a major Scottish national newspaper supported the call for an independent inquiry into the case. Over a two week period, and with minimal publicity, 1,646 individuals put their names to a petition for an inquiry, which still remains open before the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee. If Scotland wishes to see its criminal justice system reinstated to the position of respect that it once held rather than its languishing as the mangled wreck it has become because of this perverse judgement, it is imperative that its government act by endorsing an independent inquiry into this entire affair. As a nation which aspires to independence, Scotland must have the courage to look itself in the mirror.

Signed:

Ms Kate Adie (Former Chief News Correspondent for BBC News).

Mr John Ashton (Author of ‘Megrahi: You are my Jury’ and co-author of ‘Cover Up of Convenience’).

Mr David Benson (Actor/author of the play ‘Lockerbie: Unfinished Business’).

Mrs Jean Berkley (Mother of Alistair Berkley: victim of Pan Am 103).

Mr Peter Biddulph (Lockerbie tragedy researcher).

Mr Benedict Birnberg (Retired senior partner of Birnberg Peirce & Partners).

Professor Robert Black QC (‘Architect’ of the Kamp van Zeist Trial).

Mr Paul Bull (Close friend of Bill Cadman: killed on Pan Am 103).

Professor Noam Chomsky (Human rights, social and political commentator).

Mr Tam Dalyell (UK MP: 1962-2005. Father of the House: 2001-2005).

Mr Ian Ferguson (Co-author of ‘Cover Up of Convenience’).

Dr David Fieldhouse (Police surgeon present at the Pan Am 103 crash site).

Mr Robert Forrester (Secretary of Justice for Megrahi).

Ms Christine Grahame MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).

Mr Ian Hamilton QC (Advocate, author and former university rector).

Mr Ian Hislop (Editor of ‘Private Eye’).

Fr Pat Keegans (Lockerbie parish priest on 21^st December 1988).

Ms A L Kennedy (Author).

Dr Morag Kerr (Secretary Depute of Justice for Megrahi).

Mr Andrew Killgore (Former US Ambassador to Qatar).

Mr Moses Kungu (Lockerbie councillor on the 21^st of December 1988).

Mr Adam Larson (Editor and proprietor of ‘The Lockerbie Divide’).

Mr Aonghas MacNeacail (Poet and journalist).

Mr Eddie McDaid (Lockerbie commentator).

Mr Rik McHarg (Communications hub coordinator: Lockerbie crash sites).

Mr Iain McKie (Retired Superintendent of Police).

Mr Marcello Mega (Journalist covering the Lockerbie incident).

Ms Heather Mills (Reporter for ‘Private Eye’).

Rev’d John F Mosey (Father of Helga Mosey: victim of Pan Am 103).

Mr Len Murray (Retired solicitor).

Cardinal Keith O’Brien (Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh and Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church).

Mr Denis Phipps (Aviation security expert).

Mr John Pilger (Campaigning human rights journalist).

Mr Steven Raeburn (Editor of ‘The Firm’).

Dr Tessa Ransford OBE  (Poetry Practitioner and Adviser).

Mr James Robertson (Author).

Mr Kenneth Roy (Editor of ‘The Scottish Review’).

Dr David Stevenson (Retired medical specialist and Lockerbie commentator).

Dr Jim Swire (Father of Flora Swire: victim of Pan Am 103).

Sir Teddy Taylor (UK MP: 1964-2005. Former Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland).

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize Winner).

Mr Terry Waite CBE (Former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury and hostage negotiator).