US Lockerbie bomber investigation

[IAN 2411]

US Lockerbie bomber investigation 'may visit UK'
An influential US Senate committee is ready to send members to the UK to question British witnesses on the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
Senator Robert Menendez revealed the plan after British witnesses including former Justice Secretary Jack Straw, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond turned down requests to attend a hearing of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in Washington.
Mr Salmond said he was happy to offer a visiting US senator "the courtesy" of a meeting. But he said there was "no way on Earth" that Scottish ministers would formally give evidence to a committee hearing of a foreign legislature, even if it is held in the UK.
Mr Menendez has been one of the most vocal US politicians calling for an inquiry into the decision to free Megrahi, who returned to a hero's welcome in Libya last year.
Mr Menendez accused the British politicians who failed to attend this week's hearing of lacking "courage" and "stonewalling".
He said: "In addition to making a request for them to come to hearings, we will be... having someone travel to Great Britain and Scotland to interview the individuals and ask questions and get a better understanding of how they came to their decisions."
Mr Menendez said the committee also wanted to talk to outgoing BP chief executive Tony Hayward about what role the company played in lobbying for a prisoner transfer agreement at a time when it was negotiating a multi-million pound oil deal with Libya.
But Mr Salmond told Newsnight: "We are co-operating with the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Its chairman John Kerry has described our response as thoughtful and thorough and we have answered all questions that Senator Menendez has sent to us."

Who the fuck does Senator Robert Menendez think he is, leading a US Senate committee over to UK to interrogate witnesses. This man has visions of grandeur and must really think he is the king of all committees. I would like to ask the question, do the Americans think that they are the law to the world, and they can walk into any country and ask questions and expect answers. Well, let him try it in the UK, and he will go home with an empty briefcase, he has a damn cheek to say the least. He wants to question our politicians on a matter that has fuck all to do with the American Senate or their Government. He is also questioning Scottish law, because it was Scottish law that released Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Meggrahi, and not BP executives lobbying for his release. The man is a complete idiot, he would be better employed trying to get re-elected, “Whoops” maybe this is what it is all about are the elections arriving soon?

Well I don’t know how true this is but the UK is sending the Iraq inquiry to the states. I think it is to interview a cowboy that was born New Haven Connecticut. They have a question or two for him, one being why did it take the British with him when decided his ego was not big enough, and he needed a war to show the world what a rooting tooting kick ass man he was. [Yea right]

I have something to say to the American Congress and Senate, stay in your own country and sort your own messes out before you have the cheek to come to the UK and tell us to sort our laws out

Please, I don’t want to hear any of that normal shit, [This is another dig at the American or its anti USA] because if the American President and now a crack pot Senator were not anti UK then I would not be writing this.

Regards ian 2411

[denuseri]

Its pretty obvious that its not about Brittian vs the USA when one reads that actual news story.

It sounds as if someone has some suspicions that someone else has been paid off in order to pull some political strings to release this known terrorist and got enough juice flowing that a senate committee was formed over here.

Senator Robert Menendez has confirmed that US Senate hearings on the release of the Lockerbie bomber have been postponed.

He criticised key witnesses for declining invitations and 'stonewalling' the US Senate's hearings - which were looking into claims that the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was linked to oil deals with Libya, becuase it is truely very suspicious how BP makes a deal with the Lybian government at one end and then a known terrorist is suddenly released at another end.

The Scotish Government is fully cooperating with the USA within so far as it is able considering how diplomatic channels bwteen our two countries function.

Menendez is part of the seneate comittee looking into BP and its shady dealings which would have most likely remained hidden if its wern't for the oil spill.

Its also pretty obvious that when one watches the broadcast where Menendez speaks that no one is "anti UK" over here.

But I am sure we will have to wait and see what happens...if we see anything else happen.

I predict the whole thing will just disapear in the political two step our respective governments have been doing ever since they became really super close allies during WW2.

[MMI]

Does Menendez believe that Al Meggrahi wouldn't have been sent home to die but for the pleas of BP.

And if so, doesn't that mean BP did good, even if it did get a little something extra on the side?

[denuseri]

Personally I think there is more going on here than meets the eye...like intellegence services are involved on both sides of the pond at the perhaps secret bequest of their governments.

[MMI]

Well, if BP was acting on behalf of MI5 or FBI, what's Menendez complaining about?

[denuseri]

It just seemed fishy to me is all...and then the sudden dropping of the inquiery (ie putting it on hold).

If MI-5 or 6 was involved they may or may not have informed their younger brothers and sisters accross the pond, so I don't know.

Its also possible that someone else in the political strata was involved and none of the intellegence services became aware of the deal until it was done.

[IAN 2411]

26% of BP has Uk investors
47% of BP is American
the rest is world owned that is stats 5 years ago
Are you telling me that All those Americans at BP would secretly vote for BP to seek his freedom knowing the fall out would be great, somehow i dont think so. Or is it that i am so nieve as to think it was Scotish Law that released him on compssionate grounds, and there was no outside influence. I think that if that inquirey was stopped because of MI5 6 or FBI said so there would be a lot of roumers flying about, because there is always someone with a big mouth.

Regards ian 2411

[denuseri]

I doubt the FBI would be involved so much as the CIA.

The fact that BP is a multi-national corperation is perhaps something that eludes most people.

[MMI]

The fact that BP is a multi-national corperation is perhaps something that eludes most people.

I doubt that. It is an oil company, after all, and how many of those are not multi-national?

[denuseri]

Over here at least it seems that way MMI and the media does nothing to promote otherwise.

[MMI]

Anyway, despite being a British registered multi-national, if ian 2411 is to be believed, it has more American shareholders than British ones, and, as ian also suggests, BP is more likely to want to pursue American interests rather than British ones.

[DuncanONeil]

Anyway, despite being a British registered multi-national, if ian 2411 is to be believed, it has more American shareholders than British ones, and, as ian also suggests, BP is more likely to want to pursue American interests rather than British ones.

Actually appears as if the numbers are equal!

Ownership statistics


Beneficial owners as at 31 December 2009a b
Percentage of shares in issue
Range of holdings Institutions Individuals Total
By principal area
UK 33 7 40
US 25 14 39
Rest of Europe 10 - 10
Rest of World 7 - 7
Miscellaneousc 4 - 4
79 21 100

[IAN 2411]

The Stats i had were four years older but i believe that when the Sky News quoted the percentages a few weeks ago they quoted Americans between 40 and 47% still, but i think it irrelivent because i doubt that you will hear the truth about the why anyway.

Regards ian 2411

[DuncanONeil]

So then the data is irrelevant. Thus permitting you to believe as you will.


The Stats i had were four years older but i believe that when the Sky News quoted the percentages a few weeks ago they quoted Americans between 40 and 47% still, but i think it irrelivent because i doubt that you will hear the truth about the why anyway.

Regards ian 2411

[TantricSoul]

Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is a proactive suggestion to take things a bit less personally.

It's my birthday tomorrow, and I'm really not in the mood to do the whole "grumpy moderator" thing :)

Everyone has a unique perception that forms their reality and their "truth." Trying to convince another that they are "wrong" is usually an exercise in futility.
Besides isn't it easier to post your facts and conclusions without the pot shots at one another?
It does equate to much less typing in the long run.

I hope you all are having a great weekend.

Respectfully,
Tantric

[IAN 2411]

So then the data is irrelevant. Thus permitting you to believe as you will.

Seems that way, at the end of the day it is not going to change anything dramaticly there will always be speculation.

Pot shots? There you go and i thought it was just a dull conversation.

Regards ian 2411

PS Happy Birthday TantricSoul

[TantricSoul]

thanks ian 2411

[MMI]

Hope you had a great day, Grumpy!

[TantricSoul]

thanks MMI, I did indeed have a great day!

[DuncanONeil]

Part of the problem of dealing with reported data. The date of the data collection is always important. Part of the reason I put in the date.
I have taken to trying to include that information more often as it sunk in that some of the data sets used in other places were a bit on the dated side.

In terms of who owns what I believe there is a requirement for companies to report that data for some reason of the regulators. Otherwise we would not be able to find it broken down in such a fashion.

[denuseri]

The latest from the Associated Press is:

A cancer expert who said Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi had only three months to live before his release from prison was quoted Sunday as saying he should have been more cautious about the prisoner's chances of survival.

Al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds from a Scottish prison in August 2009, and allowed to return home to Libya, where he continues to be treated for prostate cancer.

The Libyan is the only person to have been jailed over the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the small Scottish town of Lockerbie, which killed 259 people — mostly Americans — onboard and 11 more on the ground. He was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to serve a minimum of 27 years in a Scottish prison.

Al-Megrahi was freed by Scotland's government following advice from medical experts and a prison doctor. At the time of his release, al-Megrahi was not expected to survive for more than three months.

Three other experts provided an opinion for the Libyan government on al-Megrahi's condition. While those assessments were shared with Scottish authorities, officials insist those opinions were not taken into account when deciding to release the bomber.

"If I could go back in time, I would have probably been more vague and tried to emphasize the statistical chances and not hard fact," Prof. Karol Sikora, one of the experts who provided an assessment for Libya, was quoted as telling Britain's Observer newspaper on Sunday.

Last week, four U.S. Democratic senators — Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer of New York and Bob Menendez and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey — sent a letter to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond asking that al-Megrahi's full medical records be disclosed.

"Independent examination of Mr. al-Megrahi's complete medical record is necessary in order to understand the circumstances surrounding his compassionate release," the senators wrote. "A more complete medical record may help us understand exactly what Mr. al-Megrahi's treatment options were and thereby help clarify questions about his prognosis."

Annabel Goldie, a Conservative Party lawmaker in Scotland's Parliament, said she agrees that the medical advice which prompted al-Megrahi's release should be disclosed in full.

"We've never seen that medical evidence. We now know from the prison doctor that the cancer experts were not absolute in their view that al-Megrahi only had three months to live, so there is a lot of confusion here," she said.

Currently, the only publicly available document is a report by the Scottish Prison Service's medical chief, Andrew Fraser, which summarizes the notes of four specialists. The report described the three-month prognosis for al-Megrahi as "reasonable," but confirmed that none of those consulted was willing to rule out that al-Megrahi might live for longer.

"It's not like in the films when the oncologist says, 'I'm sorry you have three months to live.' There's a huge spectrum for every clinical situation. When I was asked, 'Is he likely to die in three months?', my opinion was that he was," Sikora told the newspaper. "If you look at the survival curve, there's about a 60 percent chance of someone being dead in three months, but that doesn't mean he will die in three months."

Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and Fraser both previously declined a request to attend a planned U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on the case.

Sikora insisted that medical experts gave an honest assessment of al-Megrahi's chances of survival, and were not pressured to reach certain conclusions. MacAskill has strongly denied allegations that oil giant BP pressured Scotland to free al-Megrahi — so it could win access to Libyan oil reserves.

Former chief executive of BP John Browne, who stepped down in 2007, said Saturday he held two meetings with Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi but had never discussed issues around the release of prisoners.

BP has acknowledged that it lobbied the U.K. government as Britain and Libya were negotiating a prisoner transfer agreement — known as a PTA — in autumn 2007, but said it had not raised the case of al-Megrahi.

"The PTA happened after I left the company. I went to see Col. Gadhafi twice and I think I moved things forward, but there was no discussion about the PTA and no agreement for exploration made at that time," Browne said, speaking Saturday at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Browne said one of the victims of the bombing was a friend, and claimed he could have boarded the plane himself. "Flight 103 means a lot to me because I nearly got on that plane and I lost a good friend and colleague Michael Pescatore who was a passenger on the plane," he said.

Sikora said he believed a panel of four or five independent experts should have reviewed al-Megrahi's condition, rather than the work be handled by Scotland's government.

He also responded to accusations that doctors should bear some blame for mistakenly assessing that al-Megrahi would likely die soon after his release. "What I find difficult is the idea I took the key and let him out. I provided an opinion, others provided an opinion, and someone else let him out. That decision of compassionate release is nothing to do with me," Sikora was quoted as saying.

[MMI]

What are they quoting a Tory SMP for? They are the least relevant "serious" party in Scotland.

I'm tempted to suggest that al-Megrahi's survival for such a long time is testimony to the efficiency of the Libyan health service. He probably wouldn't have lasted so long in Greenock Prison.

Our Health Service is little better than our Legal System, which is supposed to convict only when guilt is proved beyond reasonable doubt, yet in this case, where we have the Lord Advocate saying that the main witness was not quite the "full shilling", and whose testimony was suspect in that his identification of al Megrahi as the man he had sold clothes to 11 1/2 years earlier was simply that Megrahi "resembled" the customer ...

Worry first that /megrahi was not the victim of a miscarriage of justice, rather than making sure that someone ... anyone ... can pay the penalty for killing Americans

[IAN 2411]

I have to agree with MMI on this one as I was waiting for someone to bring up his trial. There were a lot of doubts cast as to some of the evidence and the only thing that committed him to jail was the one MMI mentioned. I forget the main events in the trial and I remember the speculation by the press about the clothes issue. I believed when he was sentenced and I do believe now that the wrong man was jailed, there were too many things didn’t add up at the time. Although when he was committed to jail, the press all changed their tune as nine times out of ten they always will. I believe strongly that there is a person out there that is guilty of a massacre and is still walking about free and he’s not in Libya. I don’t think it is the medical records of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Meggrahi the Americans should be asking for, they should be asking for the papers belonging to the investigation and the court case itself. You cannot even blame the Scottish court for any miscarriage of justice if there was one, they can only decide by the mitigating evidence that they are supplied with. One other thing you might like to think about, is that maybe the Scottish court found out later that it was a stitch up and that was why he was released. The English government might be involved as well.

Regards ian 2411

[MMI]

Something I forgot to mention, which could be worth pondering, is why there was no jury at al-Megrahi's trial. Could it be that the authorities realised that any ordinary panel of jurors would look at the evidence proffered and say to themselves, This does not prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt and refuse to convict. Even if the jury returned a verdict of Not Proven al-Megrahi would have had to be released, and that verdict would have caused as much outcry as the eventual release of the man to spend his last days with his loved ones.

The panel of judges had no such scruples.

But if you cannot prove the man is guilty, you should not imprison him - unless, that is, you are conducting a show trial.

This point was utterly lost on the Appeal Judges ... but when you realise that they were the same judges who heard the trial at first instance, it is not entirely surprising. What were the odds of them over-ruling themselves?

It is worth pointing out that many of the British victims' relatives are not protesting against al-Megrahi's release, because they do not believe in his guilt. They prefer the theory that the bomb was planted by Abu Talb, a Palestinian terrorist, and that is where the investigators should be looking ... rather than paying - so it was alleged - a simple-minded shopkeeper a couple of million pounds to testify against one of the suspects identified by British/American investigators (the other of whom turned out to be able to prove he was in Scandinavia at the time). However, his incontestable innocence did not help his co-accused, as someone, preferably a Libyan, so Gadaffi could be made to pay compensation - who would take the fall.

$3 billion. That's how much it costs to buy off the US Army from invading you!

[denuseri]

Or the Brittish?

[IAN 2411]

denuseri; why the hell would the British want to invade Libya, i think it was 68/69 that we handed our sovriegn bases back to Gadaffi. I know that to be true because i was one of the last British soldiers in Al Adem after the RAF left and the last thing we did was blow to pieces the runway and demolish all traces of the British ever being there. Srategicly it was a waste of time we had to many other bases near the Russians in the cold war to worry about it. There would be no value to the British to go to war with them.

Regards ian 2411

[denuseri]

No more so than the americans.

Though it looks like cutting a 3 billion dollar back room deal will keep us both out and oil flowing for now.

[MMI]

Or the Brittish?

That's fair comment, den, but I'm sure Britain would have stayed away for much less! Anyway, I have to defer to ian's better knowledge in this regard.

The fact of the matter is, I think, that Col Gadaffi was scared that the US would (with or without its British lackeys), invade Libya, and, if memory serves me well, this was a fairly widespread belief at the time. For the good of Libya's oil economy, perhaps, and for the sake of Gadaffi's personal well-being, certainly (call me cynical if you like) he was prepared to accept responsibility for the bombing, renounce support for terrorism, and pay $10m wergeld to each family of the Flight 103 victims. It was the price of peace, and the payments were clearly linked to removal of sanctions and blacklisting by the US.

I think it was felt that it would be better to make Libya pay restitution in return for its rehabilitation, than to whistle in the wind for any form of compensation from the probable real bombers, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which neither would nor could pay out such money even if it had been proved responsible. But in order to make Libya look guilty, it was necessary for a show trial and a fall guy. Fortunately, Gadaffi was willing to offer up sacrificial victims to the High Court of Justiciary, and Britain was not at all reluctant to prostitute the Scottish legal system in order to secure a conviction.

So remind me ... what was it that BP did that was so wrong?

[denuseri]

The whole thing with going after Libya over lockerbie imho was becuase they couldnt punnish the PLO directly...so they went to the guy who gave them safe harbor as well as political and economic backing and punnished him instead.

And I don't and perhaps will never know what exact role BP has played in it. The story hasn't seen the light of day since the commission went dark, which tells me the respected governments involved have come to an agreeement, or the aggreement BP worked out has now been ruber stamped by them eaither way.

[MMI]

The whole thing with going after Libya over lockerbie imho was becuase they couldnt punnish the PLO directly...so they went to the guy who gave them safe harbor as well as political and economic backing and punnished him instead.

Agreed ... but that's hardly justice, not even rough justice. At best it's vengeance. You don't need to have five senior judges to take revenge.


And I don't and perhaps will never know what exact role BP has played in it. The story hasn't seen the light of day since the commission went dark, which tells me the respected governments involved have come to an agreeement, or the aggreement BP worked out has now been ruber stamped by them eaither way.

What governments agree between themselves always has less to do with the good of the people affected than the good of the people who effect the agreement. So keeping things quiet is par for the course.

[denuseri]

Yep thats the way its been since before Xenophon wrote about it all back in the heydays of the Greek Tyrants

[IAN 2411]

Labour aided Libya over bomber release - report

The Labour government tried to make it easier for Libya to seek the Lockerbie bomber's release, according to an official report published on Monday that could stoke anger in Washington.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was jailed for life for blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988. Scottish authorities freed him in August 2009 on compassionate grounds after concluding he had just months to live because of cancer. He is still alive

The report by Britain's senior civil servant, Gus O'Donnell, said the government decided British interests would be hurt if he died in a Scottish jail because of "the extremely high priority attached to Mr Megrahi's return by the Libyans."

The British government developed a policy to help the Libyans make an appeal to the devolved Scottish government for Megrahi to be transferred under prisoner agreements or released on compassionate grounds, the report said.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the report showed there was no conspiracy, as some in the United States had suggested, between oil giant BP, which has interests in Libya, the Scottish government and London to free Megrahi.

"It was a decision taken by the Scottish government, the wrong decision, but their decision nevertheless," Cameron told parliament.

Cameron, who took power after defeating Labour in an election in May and has regularly called the release a mistake, promised last year to publish documents reviewing it.

Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103, a group that represents the families of U.S. victims, said he did not believe the report's conclusion.

"I think this is one more evidence of everyone pointing the finger at someone else for having made this decision," Duggan told BBC television.

U.S. senator Charles Schumer, a long-standing champion for the victims, said it "strained credulity" that the British government's position was not well known by the Scottish authorities, even if no formal pressure was applied.

"This report confirms what many of us have long suspected: the British government and BP wanted Megrahi released so that an oil deal being negotiated with Libya could go forward," Schumer said.

Megrahi was given a triumphant homecoming in Libya and is still alive nearly two years later, despite being diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2008, causing anger in the United States because 189 of the 270 victims were American.

O'Donnell's report found that there was no evidence that either the government in London or BP had applied pressure on the Scottish national authorities who ultimately decided to release Megrahi.

However, the report said Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour government had taken steps after Megrahi was diagnosed that made it easier for Libya to appeal for his return.

Steps taken by London included ratifying a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, explaining to Libya how to apply for a transfer under that agreement or for compassionate release, and telling the Scottish government there was no legal barrier to a transfer.

BP and Scottish ministers have denied the oil company lobbied for Megrahi's release.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York)

[js207]

There is a leaked internal email, apparently authenticated, concerning the ongoing negotiations between London and Edinburgh - in essence, the SNP had said they would like two legislative changes from London in exchange for releasing Megrahi. The SNP wanted control over gun laws (which are UK-wide, set from London) and a way out of the huge compensation bill they faced over the "slopping out" court cases ... they got the second change they wanted, and then released Megrahi.

The worrying thing for me really is the government in London influencing Scotland to release Megrahi, rather than opposing his release or at least remaining neutral. I felt from the outset that Megrahi should have faced the death penalty rather than life in prison; waiving the death penalty and making it a Scottish court rather than American was, perhaps, a necessary compromise - but him leaving jail alive should never have been an option.

[IAN 2411]

I felt from the outset that Megrahi should have faced the death penalty rather than life in prison; waiving the death penalty and making it a Scottish court rather than American was, perhaps, a necessary compromise - but him leaving jail alive should never have been an option.

The thing is js most people in the UK thought he was stitched up, because as i said before in an earlier post, a lot of things the American inteligence stated was proved wrong at a later date. The American inteligence if they did their homework and investigated the case properly they might have got the Killer that is still out there somewhere, and i might add the UK inteligence. As cases prove since then you dont have to be from the Middle East to make and plant a bomb. He could be native American or British living next door, but in the end this was not carried out by one person, i doubt if the others are dying of cancer.

One other thing i would like to mention, my father died of prostrate cancer, and it is one of the most painfull of deaths, he was given two years and only lasted three months, it is a very fickel form of cancer and is hard to diagnose a time limit. Secondly the plane might have been American but it was over UK soverign area, when the Americans let us try our criminals that kill over in the states we will no doubt go Quid-pro-Quo. I would also like to point out that in no way am i siding with a bommer, i always look at both sides of the arguement.

Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}

[js207]

I know there are those here (I'm British, and lived near Lockerbie at the time) who think Megrahi is innocent - although both the judges and the appeal court felt otherwise, and as a matter of law he remains guilty and has officially ceased denying his guilt. I've seen some claims that one witness from Malta was "coached", but nothing convincing to point the finger away from Libyan intelligence, the owners of the detonator used. I also found the lavish welcome he was given not just distasteful, but indicative of guilt: he was being welcomed as some sort of hero, not the victim of a miscarriage of justice. He had already been afforded multiple opportunities to present any exculpatory evidence, without managing to shed any reasonable doubt on his guilt: after N failed attempts, why expect attempt N+1 to produce the opposite result?

If Megrahi had actually managed to succeed in his second appeal and been acquitted, I would feel differently - but to let the worst convicted mass murderer in the country's history go free, guilty but lightly punished? A travesty.

"Secondly the plane might have been American but it was over UK soverign area, when the Americans let us try our criminals that kill over in the states we will no doubt go Quid-pro-Quo."

No - Libya, the US and US are all signatories to the Tokyo Convention, which grants the US jurisdiction in this case: that aircraft, and those on it, were under US jurisdiction at the time, not UK. Equally, a crime committed on board a British aircraft flying from LA to London is under UK jurisdiction, and I can't see the US quibbling: indeed, they signed up for international law which would specifically prohibit any such prosecution! (That's why you need to be 18 to get served alcohol on a British aircraft, 21 on an American one.) Of course, unlike Libya, the US generally extradites criminals to the UK to face justice, as well as vice versa, with a few shameful exceptions like McKinnon. In a nutshell: we HAVE that 'quid pro quo' already, and have done for decades - with Libya as well as the US, though Libya violated that agreement over Megrahi.

I did, though, appreciate the irony: since the US has much more extensive screening for prostate cancer and far higher survival rates as a result, Libya's insistence on a Scots court and prison rather than US may arguably have shortened his life sentence in an unanticipated way. As for the uncertain prognosis, at the time officials assured us he had no more than a few months, "certainly not into next year"... you agree that they were lying to us about that aspect at least? It's already been admitted that the medical evidence was much less clear cut and more blatantly cherry-picked than we were told at the time.

Moreover, it has now been pointed out that a UN Security Council Resolution required that the culprits were to serve their whole sentence in the UK, nowhere else.

I am sorry about your father, but not sorry to hear that the man who remains convicted of the worst mass murder ever committed in this area apparently faces a painful end. Mine is still alive - although his deputy at the time committed suicide shortly after said atrocity, unable to cope with the traumatic experience of the aftermath. The absurd hoops Libya made us jump through instead of extraditing Megrahi properly were, to me, disgusting and pointless: making us build a temporary court in a foreign country!? Insisting on a UK court rather than the correct US one at least made sense - obviously you go for the softer touch system given a choice - but the circus of moving hundreds of people a thousand miles away, just for the sake of it?

[IAN 2411]

Scottish police and prosecutors are to meet Foreign Office officials to discuss Libyan defector Musa Kusa.
Representatives of the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Police will attend talks in London on Monday as part of the ongoing investigation into the Lockerbie bombing.
They asked to interview Muammar Gaddafi's former intelligence chief and foreign minister about the atrocity earlier this week.
But a Crown Office spokesman said they were unable to comment on the nature of the discussions, as the police investigation is still live.
Kusa arrived in Britain on Wednesday night, claiming he had defected from Libya.
Before becoming foreign minister in 2009, he had been head of Colonel Gaddafi's feared intelligence agency since 1994 and was a senior intelligence agent at the time of the December 1988 Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people were killed.
He is believed to have played a key role in securing the release of the only man convicted over the incident, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
........................................
Yea right, like the man is looking for political asylum in the UK... I am sure that the first thing on his mind will be admitting to being party to the mass murder of 270 people. I have to ask myself if the Scottish Police and prosecutors are on the same planet as the rest of us.

Be well IAN 2411

[js207]

Yea right, like the man is looking for political asylum in the UK... I am sure that the first thing on his mind will be admitting to being party to the mass murder of 270 people. I have to ask myself if the Scottish Police and prosecutors are on the same planet as the rest of us.


He won't want to implicate himself, of course - but if he's got more information or evidence (like "yes, Gaddaffi ordered it himself", "these are the five people who were involved in Malta, and how they did it" - or about any evidence they may have hidden, destroyed or tampered with; I seem to remember there was some material from Malta that "conveniently" went missing). Like any defector, he'll want to be of some value to his new hosts - otherwise he risks just getting "nice of you to visit, shame you didn't have anything to offer - back to Tripoli with you!" If he has any sense, at the very least he'll have grabbed the juicy looking stuff out of the filing cabinet on his way out. Names of sources, safe houses, bank account details, contacts - all stuff our government would give its eye teeth to get, and this guy's probably got at least some of it.

[IAN 2411]

Scottish Govt Stands By Lockerbie Decision

Sky News – 16 hours ago

The Scottish Government insists its decision to free the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds exactly two years ago has been "vindicated".

Libyan Abdelbaset al Megrahi was said to be three months from death when he was released by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill on August 20, 2009.

He was sentenced to life for murdering 270 people, mostly Americans, when he blew up Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

The decision to release him was condemned by some relatives of victims and politicians, including President Barack Obama - but also attracted high-profile support from figures such as Nelson Mandela.

Two years on, with Megrahi still alive in his home country, a spokesman for Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond defended the release.

Senior figures in the US, British and Scottish jurisdictions have all agreed that the decision was taken in good faith, the spokesman said.

"Two years of extensive scrutiny, under three jurisdictions, vindicates the position that the Justice Secretary released al Megrahi on compassionate grounds and compassionate grounds alone, based on the rules and regulations of Scots law and the reports of the Parole Board for Scotland, the Prison Governor and the Scottish Prison Service director of health and care Dr Andrew Fraser - all of which have been published," he added.

Dr Fraser's report, the only publicly-available document on Megrahi's health, describes the three-month prognosis as "reasonable".

It also states that no one "would be willing to say" if Megrahi would live longer.

The spokesman continued: "Regardless of people's views, they can have complete confidence that it was taken on the basis of Scots law, and without any consideration of the economic, political and diplomatic factors that the then UK Government based its position on.

"Whether people support or oppose the decision, it was made following the due process of Scots law, we stand by it, and al Megrahi is dying of terminal prostate cancer."

Meanwhile, conflicting reports about the health of the Lockerbie bomber continue to emerge.

Some have suggested the cancer is spreading, while others say he is being kept alive with cancer drugs unavailable in the UK.

Relatives of victims of the bombing are still looking for answers.

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was killed in the bombing, said: "It's extremely frustrating that we're here, still talking about this.

"The fact that it's now years later means that the decision was probably made on a spurious basis.

"I'm sure Kenny MacAskill made it in good faith, but why are we having this discussion now? It's just another thing that remains unsolved."

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

What "answers" will come from his death?

I don't recall any guarantees being given that Megrahi would be dead within 3 months of his release, or in any other period of time. What is certain, as Alex Salmond pointed out, is that he will die of cancer some time. Let those whom it will satisfy take satisfaction from that.

[IAN 2411]

What "answers" will come from his death?



I'll second that, because all the answers were lost when the investigation was bodged.

Be well IAN 2411

[js207]

What "answers" will come from his death?

I don't recall any guarantees being given that Megrahi would be dead within 3 months of his release, or in any other period of time. What is certain, as Alex Salmond pointed out, is that he will die of cancer some time. Let those whom it will satisfy take satisfaction from that.

Rather a vacuous statement from Salmond there - we will all die eventually, and being a 59 year old man now living in a war zone, another cause of death would hardly be a shock. The period of time had considerable legal importance, though: the law which allowed his release permits "the release from prison of anyone deemed by competent medical authority to have three months or less to live". At the very least, out-living by a factor of eight suggests that prognosis was unduly pessimistic; I seem to recall hearing at the time that those engineering the release had, to be charitable, "cherry-picked" the reports to support the release.

[MMI]

Salmond was right and his remark was pertinent. He stated it was certain that Megrahi would die from cancer, but was it really necessary for him to say, "unless he dies of something else first"?

I find it necessary to ask, are you sure you're being charitable, and not (to be charitable) plain cynical? Did the person who alleged "cherry picking" know whereof he spoke, or was he just expressing an opinion, as opposing politicians and other people with their own agendas are apt to do? I should have thought Salmond would have issued a firm rebuttal if anyone had made such an allegation knowing it to be unfounded.

If anyone other than Megrahi had survived so long, you'd be pleased for the man (I hope) and would admire the medical support he had received. I doubt you'd question the motives of the doctors who originally gave him (that other person) just three months to live. Does anybody here know if anyone else has ever lived significantly longer than the doctors prognosticated?

[Thorne]

Does anybody here know if anyone else has ever lived significantly longer than the doctors prognosticated?
I don't know about the doctors, but my mother always used to say that I wasn't going to make it to 13. Almost 50 years later and I'm still going strong!

But seriously, how much of that 3 month prediction was based on the quality of care he would receive in prison, versus the quality of care he can get on the outside? Especially if the Libyan government is paying for that care? Just the emotional and psychological boost from being released would have impacted his health.

[IAN 2411]

The period of time had considerable legal importance, though: the law which allowed his release permits "the release from prison of anyone deemed by competent medical authority to have three months or less to live". At the very least, out-living by a factor of eight suggests that prognosis was unduly pessimistic; I seem to recall hearing at the time that those engineering the release had, to be charitable, "cherry-picked" the reports to support the release.

Ten years ago my father was diagnosed with the same cancer, he was given two years, he lasted less than three months. Cancer has a mind of its own and if you know anyone with the disease you will know what I mean. To estimate death or life either way was is just the roll of the dice.

Be well IAN 2411

[IAN 2411]

One other thing i was told, that there was not a cure, but there was a way to hold the disease from spreading by taking steroids. Though it never stopped the outcome of the painful death.

Be well IAN 2411

[js207]

But seriously, how much of that 3 month prediction was based on the quality of care he would receive in prison, versus the quality of care he can get on the outside? Especially if the Libyan government is paying for that care? Just the emotional and psychological boost from being released would have impacted his health.

At least one of the other doctors who had been asked the same question noted at the time that there was really no way to have any confidence in any prognosis. MMI seemed sceptical about the cherry-picking of medical reports, but also noted that if the allegation were really unfounded Salmond would have tried to refute it - it was reported at the time that they had been shopping around for a doctor willing to put their name to the three month prognosis they needed as the pretext for release, with several other doctors confirming they had been asked but couldn't give the prognosis wanted. I've seen that prognosis described as both "speculative" and "foolhardy" by a specialist in prostate cancer - and indeed the Prison Service's own report, which was the official basis for the release, noted that the specialists consulted refused to give such a prognosis - but conveniently, an unnamed GP said "a three-month prognosis is now a reasonable estimate for this patient"; another surgeon who specialised in prostate cancer later said the government had "misrepresented the medical evidence" and "chose to disregard the advice of specialists and release al-Megrahi on the opinion of one doctor, who we now know was not a specialist".

Looks like the 'cherry-picking' statement is pretty much rock-solid, which is why it's been so widely reported without any attempt at rebuttal by Salmond or anyone else: all they can do is shelter behind the one non-specialist doctor who said what they needed him to and try to deflect criticism of that flimsy basis.

At the time, thinking the stated prognosis was probably fairly close to reality, it seemed poetic justice that the Libyan insistence on a UK prison rather than a US one might have resulted in Megrahi serving a much shorter life sentence than he would otherwise (prostate cancer is very proactively screened for in the US, with statistically much better outcomes as a result). In fact, in Libya he has been treated with Abiraterone, an anti-cancer drug developed in London ... but not yet available to NHS patients. Whether Megrahi would have received better care than other prisoners had he continued serving his sentence is an open question, I think: it is known that Gaddafi was paying for doctors in addition to the NHS provision (including, by at least one report, £200/hr to the one who provided the convenient 'three month' figure other doctors rejected) but I'm not sure if they could have administered the Abiraterone in Scotland as they have been in Libya.

[IAN 2411]

Lockerbie Bomber 'In And Out Of A Coma'
By James Matthews, Scotland correspondent | Sky News – 13 hours ago

The family of the Lockerbie bomber has told Sky News that he is slipping in and out of a coma and that his cancer drugs have been stolen.

In an e-mail from Tripoli, the son of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi says his father has moved out of the family home into his mother's house.

It is the first explanation to emerge of Megrahi's movements since he went missing after rebel forces took Tripoli.

Scottish officials have been making urgent attempts to contact him, in accordance with the terms of his release on licence from jail in Scotland two years ago.

Under his release conditions, Megrahi has to check in with East Renfrewshire Council on a regular basis.

His doctors must submit regular medical reports and he must inform council officials of any change of address.

In his e-mail to Sky News, Khaled Elmegarhi writes: "My father general health very bad sometimes his in coma, family trying to help him to eat at least a little food. We move him to hospital and his parents' house. Still confined to his bed, my mother and his sister helping him.

All our house telephones out of order. I personally tried to get in touch with drugs store to get his regular daily use of medicine thieves has stolen most his medicine. PLEASE I BEG YOU GIVE MY FATHER CHANCE TO GOD FACE HIS DESTINY AND OUR GOD THE REMAINING IF HIS LIFE IN PEACE."

While he served his term, his family lived in a house in East Renfrewshire, so it is the council responsible for ensuring he doesn't breach the terms of his release. Contact is typically made via a phone call or video link-up.

The terms of his release, however, do allow for considerable flexibility.

Scottish officials at local and national government level have said they are not concerned by an absence of contact with Megrahi, given the current situation in Libya and difficulty with communications.

The Scottish Government and East Renfrewshire Council issued a joint statement: "Over the course of the weekend, there has been contact through Mr Al Megrahi's family.

"There was no evidence of a breach of his licence conditions, and his medical condition is consistent with someone suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

"Speculation about Al Megrahi in recent days has been unhelpful, unnecessary and indeed ill-informed.

"As has always been said, Al Megrahi is dying of a terminal disease, and matters regarding his medical condition should really be left there."

Megrahi was convicted over the deaths of 270 people after the bombing of a Pan Am flight in December 1988.

He was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
..............................................


With or without the drugs, I am surprised he lasted this long, and there is no way any person with that disease can die in peace or without pain. Depending on the outcome in Libya the truth might or might not go with him.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

Looks like the 'cherry-picking' statement is pretty much rock-solid, which is why it's been so widely reported without any attempt at rebuttal by Salmond or anyone else: all they can do is shelter behind the one non-specialist doctor who said what they needed him to and try to deflect criticism of that flimsy basis.



Based on your post - and I'm in no position to challenge any of it - it could look like cherry picking. Whether it was or not, I cannot say.

However, the guy does now seem to be at death's door, and calls for him to be returned to prison, in Scotland or USA are pointless to my mind.

[Thorne]

"Cherry picking" is a basic human condition. People tend to hear and remember things which they agree with over things which they disagree with. The strange thing to me is that people with so much responsibility weren't able to do a much better job of it!

And I'm with you, MMI: the guy's dying, quickly. Just let it go, and get down to fixing the system that (apparently) railroaded him in the first place, then released him in the second.

[js207]

"Cherry picking" is a basic human condition. People tend to hear and remember things which they agree with over things which they disagree with. The strange thing to me is that people with so much responsibility weren't able to do a much better job of it!

And I'm with you, MMI: the guy's dying, quickly. Just let it go, and get down to fixing the system that (apparently) railroaded him in the first place, then released him in the second.

To me, the root problem is that the 'justice' guy was regarding anything supporting the mass-murderer's release as being good, anything impeding that release as bad ... shouldn't anyone in that position be at least neutral on the question of release, rather than wanting a reason to release criminals if he can? I'm not alone in suspecting he never really put his previous career as a defence agent behind him.

Yes, Megrahi will soon die - as he was "supposed" to almost two years ago now - which will at least bring a little closure. I would hope this debacle has at least made this government less trigger-happy about letting convicts out - perhaps amend the law to exclude violent crimes from the scope of this early release loophole, and/or change it to a tagging-based home release, with a curfew and absolute prohibition on leaving the country. As it is, even after Megrahi violated the conditions of his release (regular checkins and notifying the authorities of any change of address), was there really any chance of the Libyans returning him because of it?

Of course, bringing back capital punishment and applying it in his case would have avoided the whole issue - though sadly the promising start that e-petition had seems to have stalled now, and our politicians are probably too soft to comply anyway.

[Thorne]

the root problem is that the 'justice' guy was regarding anything supporting the mass-murderer's release as being good, anything impeding that release as bad
Which is the very definition of cherry picking. He had already made up his mind and only needed a minimum of support to "justify" his decision. To his credit, for what it's worth, he at least didn't try to misrepresent the doctor, trying to make it seem as though the doctor said one thing while in reality he'd said another. That's another all-to-common tactic.

[MMI]

While things look bad for the Government(s), if the Scottish authorities did cherry-pick, and it is by no means certain that they did, the presumption must be in their favour until proved otherwise. Why would Scotland want to appease Gadaffi; it has no foreign policy? Brown must have had Salmond's arm up behind his back while he did so.

Megrahi was released because he was going to die of prostate cancer. That was the reason he was let go, and it was a valid one. No amount of griping will alter that. Maybe he wouldn't have been so lucky without a handy arab state pleading his cause, but the reason for release, if convenient, was real. It must be borne in mind that there is a significant body of opinion the either Megrahi is entirely innocent, and that his conviction resulted from the worst miscarriage of justice in Scotland for a century. I, for one, would be unhappy to hang a man where there were such significant doubts about his guilt.

"Strong" politicians, no doubt, would hang everyone in sight until they found the right one?

As for the breach of the conditions of his release, I think Ian2411 has dealt with that.

[StrictMasterD]

Simply put, he never should have been realzedfrom Jail for "Health Reasons" is is not dying nor was he doing so know, it wil be interrsting to see what now come of him in Lybia with the chaging over the "Guard" there

[IAN 2411]

Simply put, he never should have been realzedfrom Jail for "Health Reasons" is is not dying nor was he doing so know, it wil be interrsting to see what now come of him in Lybia with the chaging over the "Guard" there

We all have to respect the written law whether we like them or not. He was releaced from prison under Scotish Law and when in Scotland we all abide by their laws, and irispective of what country we originate. He was realeaced under their health of prisoners law whatever, and no country will break their own laws for one person. Nothing will happen in Libya because he was released in the eyes of the law and is a free man. Even the Americans would not be stupid enough to put him back in prison for a few weeks or days. If their investigators had done their work correctly in the first place they might have convicted the right person, instead of framing and fitting up an easy target.

Be well IAN 2411

[js207]

MMI: "Why would Scotland want to appease Gadaffi; it has no foreign policy? Brown must have had Salmond's arm up behind his back while he did so."

Actually, that near-absence of any official "foreign policy" would have been one factor pushing Salmond in this direction: Scotland has very little authority over any form of foreign policy, and Scottish politicians in general and Salmond's party in particular has yearned from the outset to change that - hence sending Scottish delegates to any foreign event they have an excuse for, renaming itself the "Scottish Government" rather than "Scottish Executive" and other little gestures in that direction. They've been trying to gather influence like this for years, for example over work permits: one of my co-workers a few years ago had a Scotland-specific work permit (for working in Scotland after graduating from a Scottish university) - as it happens her desk was actually in London, but for legal purposes she was being employed in Scotland to qualify for that visa.

IAN: "We all have to respect the written law whether we like them or not. He was releaced from prison under Scotish Law and when in Scotland we all abide by their laws, and irispective of what country we originate. He was realeaced under their health of prisoners law whatever, and no country will break their own laws for one person."

I don't think any law would have been broken by denying his release: as I understand it, the law permits prisoners to be released if their health deteriorates to a certain point and some other criteria are met - that does not mean the law requires their release until the sentence has actually been served.

[IAN 2411]

Blair's two trips to see Gaddafi
Press Association – 18th September 2011
Former prime minister Tony Blair twice visited Libya for talks with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in the months leading up to the release of the Lockerbie bomber, it has been disclosed.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that documents discovered in Tripoli showed that the ousted dictator had arranged to fly Mr Blair on his private jet for meetings in June 2008 and April 2009.

The talks came at a time when Libya was threatening to sever all commercial links with Britain if Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was not released from the Scottish prison where he was being held for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103.

A spokesman for Mr Blair acknowledged that the Libyans had raised the issue of Megrahi's release but said that the former premier had simply told them that it was a matter for the Scottish Executive. The spokesman added that there had been no "commercial or business element" to the meetings.

However, the latest disclosure it likely to add to pressure for Mr Blair to make public the full extent of his dealings with Gaddafi since leaving Downing Street in 2007.

The Sunday Telegraph said that the documents showed that in both 2008 and 2009, Mr Blair negotiated to fly to Tripoli from Sierra Leone in west Africa in a jet provided by Gaddafi.

The first letter, sent on notepaper headed Office of the Quartet Representative - Mr Blair's title as Middle East peace envoy - was written by Gavin Mackay in Mr Blair's London office to the Libyan ambassador to the UK and is dated June 2 2008. It stated: "Let me begin my (sic) saying that Mr Blair is delighted that The Leader is likely to be able to see him during the afternoon of 10 June and he is most grateful that the Libyan authorities have kindly offered an aircraft to take him from Freetown to Tripoli and back to London."

Details of the 2009 meeting are contained in an exchange of emails between Victoria Gould, who was Mr Blair's events organiser, and Sir Vincent Fean, the former British ambassador to Libya. Miss Gould wrote to Sir Vincent on March 31 to say an audience with Gaddafi was "looking positive". She added: "If we were able to stay at the Residence I know TB would be really grateful (as would we all)."

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: "As we have made clear many times before, Tony Blair has never had any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the government of Libya and he has no commercial relationship with any Libyan company or entity.

"The subjects of the conversations during Mr Blair's occasional visits was primarily Africa, as Libya was for a time head of the African Union; but also the Middle East and how Libya should reform and open up.
.................................................. ..................................

Well it might be that things are not as they should be, and it was Tony Blair and not poor old tough man Gordon Brown that brokered a deal.

If you keep shaking the can of worms some must surely drop out.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

MMI: "Why would Scotland want to appease Gadaffi; it has no foreign policy? Brown must have had Salmond's arm up behind his back while he did so."

Actually, that near-absence of any official "foreign policy" would have been one factor pushing Salmond in this direction: Scotland has very little authority over any form of foreign policy, and Scottish politicians in general and Salmond's party in particular has yearned from the outset to change that - hence sending Scottish delegates to any foreign event they have an excuse for, renaming itself the "Scottish Government" rather than "Scottish Executive" and other little gestures in that direction. They've been trying to gather influence like this for years, for example over work permits: one of my co-workers a few years ago had a Scotland-specific work permit (for working in Scotland after graduating from a Scottish university) - as it happens her desk was actually in London, but for legal purposes she was being employed in Scotland to qualify for that visa.



I'm sorry, but you'll have to explain how not having a foreign policy would cause Scotland to want to appease Gaddaffi ...

... and also how attendance at international events serves as a substitute for a foreign policy.

Meanwhile, I understand from Wikipedia that, although the Scottish Executive was renamed the Scottish Government in English, the Gaelic name, Riaghaltas na h-Alba has not been changed. The Gaelic translates as Scottish Government. This suggests that the English version of the name was mistaken originally: I'm sure Gaelic has a word or phrase for Executive that could have been used otherwise.

I don't know anything about how visas are issued, but it would surprise me if foreign students were not subject to certain restrictions if they are to be allowed to stay after graduation. In the case you cite, it seems entirely reasonable to stipulate that the graduate be employed in Scotland (or England, Wales or NI for that matter) if that's where she studied. But being employed in Scotland will not prevent her from going anywhere else in Britain, or anywhere else in the world, to carry out her duties, if that's what her employment entailed. Are you sure that the young lady in question was not given a British visa that happened to be issued in Scotland (just like some passports are) rather than a "Scottish visa"?

Or perhaps the visa was issued by the Scottish Government under powers devolved to it by Westminster.

[js207]

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to explain how not having a foreign policy would cause Scotland to want to appease Gaddaffi ... and also how attendance at international events serves as a substitute for a foreign policy."

It seems obvious to me: with official foreign policy (running embassies, negotiating treaties, etc) being 'reserved' to the UK government, Salmond's bunch want to do what they can to pretend they have those powers too: sending representatives to international events in lieu of having an actual ambassador, etc.

If the Gaelic and English versions differ, considering the name is set by legislation negotiated by English-speakers and passed by Parliament in London, why assume it is the foreign-language translation which is wrong? Even here in Scotland it's spoken by less than 2% of the population (as of the 2001 Census). Indeed, as the Wikipedia page itself notes, the official name remains "Scottish Executive"; it is the English-language text of the Scotland Act, including the name Scottish Executive, which is the legal one: the Gaelic translation has no more legal force than an Urdu one would (and, interestingly, fewer potential readers in Scotland!) From a legal perspective, by definition it must be the Gaelic translation which is wrong - but as you note, it could have been translated correctly had the translator wished. Care to guess the political leanings of most of those who do Gaelic translations?

"But being employed in Scotland will not prevent her from going anywhere else in Britain, or anywhere else in the world, to carry out her duties, if that's what her employment entailed. Are you sure that the young lady in question was not given a British visa that happened to be issued in Scotland (just like some passports are) rather than a "Scottish visa"?"

Very - I handled part of the paperwork for it. I did not mean it was issued in Scotland, I mean it was a Scotland-specific visa scheme. To quote the announcement at the time: "Home Secretary David Blunkett has provisionally agreed to the request made by the Scottish premier to allow overseas stundent to remain in Scotland for an additional two years after they graduate and be able to look for any type of job during this time." It's issued by the UK government like all other visas - the Scottish government doesn't actually have the authority to issue visas, which is why it had to ask the then-Home Secretary to do it on their behalf. Just like Gaddaffi: a back door route to exercising a little bit more power than they have in their own right.

[MMI]

js207: Nothing about appeasing Gadaffi, I note. As for the delegates to international events, I imagine that's motivated more by the desire to secure more international investment, or tourism or trade than to pretend to be able to negotiate binding treaties with other nations or pursue different policies from the British Government. I also have my doubts that the international events in question would accept the Scottish delegations if they did not believe they had something useful to contribute.

I agree that the Scotland Act is an English-language piece of legislation, and your point is well made to that extent: one would have expected the Gaelic name to be a more accurate translation. However, in a five minute skim through that Act, I did not see any provision preventing the Scottish Executive from changing its name, and, in 2007 it did so. As a consequence, Westminster proposes to amend the Scotland Act by changing all references to the Scottish Executive to the Scottish Government in the Scotland Bill (2011).

(I hate to be picky, but I feel bound to mention that Gaelic is not a foreign language in Scotland, even if it is a minority one.)

Now that you have explained that the visa was issued by the Home Secretary, and that the Scottish Government has no power to do so, then I do not agree that your foreign colleague's permission to stay in Scotland after graduating demonstrates any creeping assumption of additional powers by the Scots. If she is now living and working in England by virtue of a legal fiction, then the lie is an English one rather than a Scottish one.

I think you have failed to show both that Scotland is trying top exercise more power than it rightfully should, and that Scotland released Megrahi in order to curry favour with Gaddaffi.

[js207]

The Scottish Executive's name was enshrined in an Act of Parliament which it has no authority to amend, and legal experts have noted that the legal name remains the Scottish Executive until the Act is properly amended - as you note, this amendment is now being proposed. If the Scottish Executive's change of name were valid, that amendment would be redundant. (In rather the same way the British Railways Board accidentally out-lived BR itself for a while) Gaelic is indeed foreign to England, where the Act in question was passed, and indeed is not spoken natively in most of Scotland either. If you follow such matters closely, you may recall the complaints when the government was asked how it would handle an enquiry sent in Gaelic: the answer was that it would be forwarded to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for translation, in exactly the same way such a letter in Urdu would be handled. How do you draw the line on "foreign" languages to include Gaelic, with less than 60,000 native speakers in the country and was actually introduced to Scotland by Irish immigrants, but not Urdu or Polish which are also spoken by people born here?

(Gaelic, or rather the expenditure of public funds on propping it up, is a long-standing bugbear of mine, as well as being tightly entwined with the SNP and independence, which is why I doubt the mistranslation to Gaelic was inadvertent.)

Incidentally, as a matter of pure fact, the body in question is actually an executive one, rather than an entire government, since the legislative and judicial functions are vested elsewhere. Again, trying to puff itself up into something bigger, in the way you deny it does...

You seem to have missed the main point there: the pattern of exercising powers they do hold, and influencing powers they do not (like requesting a special Scotland-only visa, despite visas remaining a UK-wide system in law), in order to exert indirectly more authority than they have been granted. Partly this is in the nature of governments everywhere, and part of this is their stated desire to become a full sovereign government. Since they have openly and repeatedly stated that they seek to secure all power - full independence - I'm surprised you even question the existence of that agenda!

As for currying favour, I was actually pointing out another motivation entirely, that it enabled Salmond and his defence-lawyer "justice" guy to posture on a bigger stage, to exercise a bit of power they don't normally get to use, to have a little bit more of that independence from Westminster they have said they crave - and yes, it brought financial benefits as well, as my Libyan colleague said it would the day this first hit the news - exactly the international investment you said yourself they would seek to obtain. Or they could just have let the mass-murdered die in jail as sentenced, and nobody outside Libya would really have noticed or cared. Which option would you expect politicians like that to take?

[MMI]

The Scottish Executive did not amend Westminster's Act, it changed its own name to one which most Scots recognised and preferred. That Westminster proposes to recognise this de facto change of name must surely close this discussion: the change of name is effective.

I have no knowledge of the enquiry you mention. No doubt the response given was due to the fact that the FCO has the most convenient translation facilities. I daresay a similar response would have been given if the same question had been posed about enquiries in Welsh, Irish or Manx. But, in case you argue that the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland and Wales are all foreign places too, what about Cornish? Would the answer be the same in that case? I expect so.

The answer would also have to be the same, I imagine, if British speakers of Urdu or Polish sent in an enquiry.

The inability of Westminster to function in any language other than English (since it forsook Norman French and Latin) is its own shortcoming, born of its Anglo-centric arrogance.

Gaelic came to Britain long before Scotland came into being - at a time when (probably) Pictish or Cumbric was spoken. It descends from Irish, agreed, and has probably only separated from that language in the past few hundred years, but it is a language that has been native to modern Scotland for at least as long as Scots, English and the original Anglo-Saxon, and for much, much longer than Urdu or Polish. That, I believe, is the key.

I do not for a moment overlook the SNP's aims, and my heart, if not my head, supports them. I certainly believe Gaelic is entitled to the same recognition as Welsh. As the SNP are the party in power at the moment, and all of the unionist parties are in opposition, does that not suggest something to you? Instead of cavilling about what they choose to call themselves, and the language they choose to do it in, offer a better alternative, or watch Salmond woo the electorate away from England. Probably with England's fond blessing too.

As for Megrahi, the Scottish Government did nothing it had no power to do, and what it did do was within its powers, regardless of who was or was not watching. If you're blaming Salmond for seeking political attention, there are hundreds of other reasons to attack him for that, just as there are for attacking Goldie, Gray or Rennie.

[IAN 2411]

SCCRC 'queried Lockerbie verdict'

Press Association – 1300 March 13th

New details of the legal grounds that could have cast doubt on the Lockerbie bomber's conviction have been disclosed, according to a newspaper report.

The six grounds for referral back to the appeal court are contained in a document by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), the body which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, with extracts printed in the Herald newspaper.

The Scottish Government has brought forward legislation to bring about the publication of the full report but data protection rules still bar its formal publication.

On claims the verdict was unreasonable, the SCCRC report quoted in the Herald states: "The commission has reached the view that the trial court's verdict is at least arguably one which no reasonable court, properly directed, could have returned."

The six grounds for referral were previously published by the SCCRC in summary. Four of the reasons refer to undisclosed evidence from the Crown to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's defence team.

Those grounds cover evidence about a positive identification of Megrahi by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who said he sold clothes to a Libyan man. The clothes were linked to a suitcase loaded onto the plane, which was then linked to the bomb and eventually to Megrahi.

The SCCRC raised concerns that evidence suggesting Mr Gauci had seen a magazine article linking Megrahi to the bomb was not passed to the defence.

Contradictions about the day Megrahi was said to have bought the clothes were also highlighted. The court was told the purchase was on December 7 but the SCCRC said Mr Gauci also thought it might have been November 29.

"In the commission's view, by withholding this information the Crown deprived the defence of the opportunity to take such steps as it might have deemed necessary," the report in the Herald adds.

Also of concern to the SCCRC was undisclosed evidence about Mr Gauci's interest in rewards. A fifth reason covered "secret" intelligence documents not seen by Megrahi's legal team while the sixth referred to new evidence on the date of clothes purchased in Malta.
...........................................

Well there you have it, I did say in an earlier post his conviction was unsafe, and that he was set up by blundering police and secret services both sides of the pond.

Be well IAN 2411

[Thorne]

Yeah, with the number of people being released from prison after DNA testing refutes the guilty verdicts, and with the number of prosecutors who are fighting to keep cases from being reopened, it's becoming quite evident that prosecutors and police are far more interested in closing a case quickly than in catching the actual criminals. Apparently it's more important to swiftly railroad an innocent person and show the public how great you are than it is to actually do the fucking work to catch the guilty party!

[StrictMasterD]

Releasing him as they did when they did and why they did was Joke form day 1 of his release, not mention when I lannded and deplaned he as greeted as a Heroe

[IAN 2411]

Releasing him as they did when they did and why they did was Joke form day 1 of his release, not mention when I lannded and deplaned he as greeted as a Heroe

It was a stich up from day one of the trial because the USA's and UK's secret service hadn't a bloody clue. It was fabricated evidence...which bit of the case did you miss?

Be well IAN 2411

[js207]

It was a stich up from day one of the trial because the USA's and UK's secret service hadn't a bloody clue. It was fabricated evidence...which bit of the case did you miss?

The bit where there was any doubt about his guilt, which both sets of judges apparently missed too?

[IAN 2411]

The bit where there was any doubt about his guilt, which both sets of judges apparently missed too?

How can you have a fair trial if the secret service are keeping the evidence secret from the Judges, and half the evidence is not made public?

[MMI]

If the report in The Herald is correct, there must be a question over the Judges' assessment of al-Megrahi's guilt ("The commission has reached the view that the trial court's verdict is at least arguably one which no reasonable court, properly directed, could have returned." - post 62 above.)

If the prosecution did not disclose the evidence it proposed to use against al-Megrahi, then that is surely a failure to observe standard procedure, don't you think?

It always strikes me as flagrantly unjust that a defendant might be unable to see evidence coming from the secret services on the grounds of national security: the words Show Trial spring to mind.

I have never felt the trial was a fair one, even if Megrahi was guilty, and it did Scottish justice no favours at all.

[js207]

If the report in The Herald is correct, there must be a question over the Judges' assessment of al-Megrahi's guilt ("The commission has reached the view that the trial court's verdict is at least arguably one which no reasonable court, properly directed, could have returned." - post 62 above.)

So, if the Herald is right, only 2 out of the 3 bodies to examine the evidence felt sure he was guilty. Megrahi himself refused to allow their report to be disclosed, by slightly circuitous means, and engaged in odd delaying tactics along the way ... odd if he were innocent and finally had something to show that, why not hurry up and show it?

Incidentally, while Megrahi blocked the release of the full Commission report, they indicate specifically that 'much of the information that has been written about the Commission’s investigations has been either inaccurate or incorrect' and that there was only one issue about which they felt there was a question, the timing of the purchase of the clothes in the suitcase. The Herald appear to be grossly misrepresenting the SCCRC's position: it was not the verdict itself they felt unreasonable, but one particular detail from the prosecution case - a very, very different situation.

With a little more digging, it seems the Herald have misinterpreted the wording of section 106(3)(b) of the 1995 Act - in reality, Megrahi's own defence team specifically conceded that the original verdict was not "a verdict which no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned": exceedingly sloppy reporting at best. The so-called "quote" does not actually appear anywhere in the SCCRC release, nor is it at all compatible with what they actually say!


If the prosecution did not disclose the evidence it proposed to use against al-Megrahi, then that is surely a failure to observe standard procedure, don't you think?

This was not 'evidence it proposed to use against al-Megrahi' - it was a document Megrahi wanted to get his hands on. Given the nature of his previous employment - Libyan intelligence/security - and the nature of the document - classified European counter-terrorism information regarding their investigation of supplies to Libya - it is not a great leap to suspect he might have had another motive for wanting to get hold of that information, is it?

There was one unusual feature, but it's a matter of historical/legal trivia rather than relevant: being the first PII signed since Scottish devolution, it was signed by the Foreign Secretary and introduced by the Advocate General rather than by the Lord Advocate, because the latter was no longer a UK government post as it had been for all previous PIIs. I understand it's a long-established rule that defendants can be denied access to information which is important for law enforcement: informant identities, surveillance techniques and equipment - not normally controversial.


It always strikes me as flagrantly unjust that a defendant might be unable to see evidence coming from the secret services on the grounds of national security: the words Show Trial spring to mind.

It's not ideal, but that debate was over many, many years ago. It's important, though, to note this was not evidence: the prosecution were not showing something to the judge and refusing to allow it to be challenged or disputed, the government was refusing to allow it to be made available to the court at all.


I have never felt the trial was a fair one, even if Megrahi was guilty, and it did Scottish justice no favours at all.

The bizarre circus of shipping the court off to another country to hold precisely the same procedure they would normally have held in Scotland never made any sense, but making us jump through absurd hoops apparently pleased the Libyans as well as allowing the trial to proceed at last. It's no surprise that some counterterrorism documents are classified and not available to us or to the court, but it is a shame Megrahi himself chose not to allow the release of other material.