I hope the launch of the book Megrahi: You Are My Jury will make a lot of people aware of just how compromised the Lockerbie case at Camp Zeist was, and what the implications are ("MacAskill under pressure over Megrahi appeal claim", The Herald, February 28).
The question of whether or not Muammar Gaddafi's awful clique was involved should now be seen as a tactic by those powerful entities who wished to divert attention from the awful truth; a tactic which the unfortunate Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi found himself involved in.
The picture that now emerges is that neither Megrahi nor Malta was involved, there was no evidence of the use of a long-running timer from Malta and that the real improvised explosive device (IED) was probably delivered through a break-in at Heathrow and triggered by falling air pressure in the aircraft. The IED was one of a series manufactured in Damascus and (West) Germany by bomb-maker Marwhan Khreesat, a Jordanian probably in the pay of the Americans, but ostensibly working within the Palestinian terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), led by Ahmed Jibril, a relative of Basher al Assad's father. All Khreesat's IEDs in 1988 exploded after about 38 minutes in the air. It was 38 minutes from the Heathrow tarmac when Pan Am flight 103 was over Lockerbie.
This was avoidable. Frank Mulholland, the Lord Advocate, told me last Thursday that the Crown Office had tried all it could to discover why it was that evidence about the Heathrow break-in "disappeared" until after the verdict against Megrahi had been reached. It tried but it failed.
Since the Khreesat-type bombs could not be flown into Heathrow (they would explode en route) the question of the break-in looks rather central to the question of how this atrocity was perpetrated.
This Heathrow material would probably have stopped the trial had it been available, yet despite staff at Heathrow having been interviewed by the Metropolitan police in January 1989 about the break-in, the Lord Advocate accepts he is unable to discover why the Met files "disappeared".
It is time for a fully empowered inquiry in which the investigating Scottish police and the Crown Office should be required to answer as to why so much vital material, on both the alleged timer fragment and the Heathrow break-in, was not provided for the defence's use at appropriate times.
Jim Swire,
Rowans Corner,
Calf Lane, Chipping Campden.
Following new evidence in the authorised biography of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has again categorically denied that during his private meeting with Megrahi at Greenock Prison he suggested or implied Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds depended on him withdrawing his appeal.
Did Mr MacAskill make clear to Megrahi that his appeal could still go ahead if he was released, even if he was back in Libya and died there? If not, why not? And why did Megrahi's counsel and legal advisers not make this clear to him? It seems Megrahi did not understand the legal position when he withdrew his appeal, and may have been misled by a Libyan government official who visited him soon after discussing the matter with Mr MacAskill.
It is also claimed that the Justice Secretary was never alone with Megrahi, but surely Mr MacAskill would have had a civil servant in attendance to take notes of the meeting, in accordance with standard practice? If that happened, why has this official not been produced, along with his record to corroborate what was said? Was there no interpreter to make sure Megrahi fully understood what he was being told?
The Scottish Government has stated that its desire to publish the full report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Board is being thwarted by the refusal of the British and US governments to have certain classified documents made public. So why not just redact these references and publish the rest of the 800 pages? After all there are six separate grounds for suggesting the conviction may have been unsafe. Can we not be told the reasons for these concerns?
Your leader article ("Lockerbie and the pursuit of truth", February 28) is right to conclude that an independent public inquiry is the only way of finally getting the whole truth and bringing an end to this long drawn out affair which has caused so much heartache to relatives of the victims.
Have Mr MacAskill's department, the Crown Office and the legal establishment closed ranks, in a misguided attempt to protect the reputation of the Scottish justice system and the Camp Zeist trial process? I am afraid that reputations have already been badly tarnished by the public perception of secrecy, delay and obfuscation.
Iain AD Mann,
7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.
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