The one voice we have heard the least in the Lockerbie saga belongs to the man convicted of the bombing. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi did not take the stand at his trial at Camp Zeist and has since done his best to avoid the demands of the international media.
In August 2009, he permitted The Herald to interview him at his home in Tripoli just days after his release on compassionate grounds. It was his first and fullest interview to date. Tonight, the BBC and Al Jazeeera will air the first televised interviews in English with him.
The book, Megrahi You Are My Jury, is authored largely by John Ashton, but Megrahi writes in the first person about his experiences in Libya before the indictment, how he met his wife and built up a business importing goods embargoed under international trade sanctions, and how he felt at different stages of the trial and on his release.
On those who lost their loved ones in the tragedy, he writes: "I am painfully aware that publication of this book will upset the many relatives of the Lockerbie dead who believe me to be guilty. They continue to have my utmost sympathy for their unbearable loss. I say to them, and to all readers, I understand that you will judge me with your hearts, but please also judge me with your heads."
When he heard about the indictment on the radio he says: "At first I assumed it was referring to some unknown namesakes, but, as the details were described, I realised with horror that we were the wanted men. In an instant I was plunged into a nightmare from which there seemed no escape."
The book shows us a more personal side to him. As a child he says his passion was football. Libya, he says, was a poor country and his family shared their home with two other families when he was growing up. He describes working for both Libyan arab Airlines and setting up a Zurich-based business to make additional money. And he explains that Libya’s intelligence service the JSO provided security for the airline.
The prosecution case claimed he was a member of the JSO - an allegation he has always denied but in the book he makes clear that he had close connections with some of their officials.
He writes: "While the work might have been out of the ordinary, there was nothing unusual in me combining my work for the Centre with business activities."
He makes clear that he did have close connections with certain JSO officials but says that they are all "known to many innocent Libyans".
He says that his wife Aisha was nervous about his many foreign trips to organise imported goods so he started telling her he was just travelling in Libya and, that the coded passports issued by the Libyan Government helped him to deceive her.
Of his family, he writes: "One of the few consolations during my first year at Barlinnie was regular familiy visits. Shortly after my transfer they moved to a house in Newton Mearns. In many ways their life was more difficult than mine. Within the first few months the house was pelted with eggs three times."
In 2003, the Home Office told the family their visa would not be renewed. Megrahi says one of his sons asked him. "'Dad, why do they hate us so much?'".
He describes an unannounced visit by two Crown Office officials and claims they put pressure on him to reveal who had instructed him to carry out the bombing. He told them he didn’t want to see them without his lawyer. He says: "The two men made clear that if I cooperated, I could expect a more lenient tariff."
One of the officials, he writes, "angrily warned me that I would regret my decision at the sentencing hearing".
On Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who claimed he sold Megrahi particular clothes linking him to the bombing, he writes: "As I near the end of my life, I wish to say the following to him directly. I swear to God I was never in your shop and never saw you in my life until we were in court."
In response to the allegations against him, Megrahi writes: "If I was a terrorist, then I was an exceptionally stupid one. I entered Malta on December 7 using my own passport and stayed at the Holiday Inn in my own name. I chose to use a distinctive timing device, which, as far as the JSO would have been aware, was made exclusively for Libya."
In conclusion he says he believes he will die with the conviction still weighing heavy upon him. He writes: "My conscience, however, will be clear, and until my last breath I shall pray that the real stories of Lockerbie will one day be known to all."
These extracts are all taken from Megrahi: You Are My Jury by John Ashton, published by Birlinn
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