Megrahi – the Ronnie Biggs connection
Over the summer, the fog of ‘conspiracy’, ‘commercial deals’ and more have clouded around the fundamentals of what we know about the ‘early release’ of the convicted Libyan ‘Lockerbie bomber’.
I’ll be surprised if today’s release by Edinburgh and London of the ‘Lockerbie papers’ dispels the clouds significantly.
The UK government has worked overtime to distance itself from the decision of the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to free Abdel Basset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds, citing the autonomy of the Scottish legal process.
Let’s be clear, though, there’s much muttering among the diplomatic and legal ‘insiders’ in this case, to whom I have spoken over the years, that they are are in absolutely no doubt that the Megrahi release was “driven from the top”.
One of the mysteries about the case was the complete U-turn conducted by UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw over the early release on ‘compassionate grounds’ of train robber Ronnie Biggs.
On July 1st Jack Straw was adamant that Biggs would NOT be released on parole despite the train robber’s evidently failing health. Within just thirty seven short summer days, on August 6th, Biggs was out, in Straws new words, “very ill… his condition has deteriorated… death… likely to occur soon.”
What’s the release of a Great Train Robbery villain got to do with all this? Well, it would have been untenable politically for Biggs, whose release had been so recently rejected and who had killed no one, to stay in prison whilst Megrahi who had allegedly killed 270 people was freed.
Mr Straw has that rare qualification in this matter in that he knows both the legal and diplomatic issues surrounding this case. Oliver Miles, the former UK Ambassador to Libya, is quoted as asking why Megrahi gave up his legal appeal against conviction, an appeal he has always very publicly committed himself to pursuing.
“I’ve got a nasty feeling”, says Miles, “That he [Megrahi] did it because someone tipped him the wink that he was more likely to get a humanitarian release if he gave it up”.
There’s a view – some would call it conspiratorial, others would call it well-informed – that it’s proved much more convenient for the government to suffer the allegation that this was a ‘release for oil’, than that anyone would seriously examine the questionability of the case against Libya and Mr Megrahi.
Legal sources very close to Megrahi’s defence team have told me that a number of lawyers have been convinced from the very beginning that neither Libya nor Megrahi were central to the Lockerbie bombing.
Defence lawyers often resent losing a case, but in this case one very senior and much respected QC in the case has passionately believed all along that at the very least the Lockerbie trial that convicted Megrahi constituted a “profound miscarriage of justice”.
Those of us who have reported on Iran over the years have been much more intrigued by the view that Lockerbie had a strong Iranian involvement in reprisal for the shooting down by a US navy cruiser of an Iranian civilian airliner in the Straits of Hormuz.
Iran Air Flight IR 655 was destroyed with the loss of 290 lives, on 3rd July 1988 by the American warship the USS Vincennes. The Americans maintained that the Vincennes had mistakenly identified Iran Air flight as an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter and fired upon it.
Lockerbie occurred the following December 21st. But whilst Libya was already the subject of sanctions and international pressure, meting out the same treatment against the vastly more powerful and populous nation of Iran would have been a highly dangerous diplomatic manoeuvre.
The isolation of Libya was only broken by the payment by Libya of ‘reparations’ for Lockerbie to the tune of some $2.7 billion. (America on the other hand paid Iran $131.8 million for the shooting down of the Iranian airliner, although US insisted the payment meant it did not accept liability for the shooting.)
Neither America not Britain has ever wanted the Lockerbie case re-opened. Megrahi’s appeal was on course to do just that.
Just as Biggs had to be freed if Megrahi was to come out – if you believe those I’ve talked to – so Megrahi HAD to be freed if the inevitability of a dangerous re-opening of the case was to be avoided.
Is Oliver Miles, the former ambassador right that this is the core of the ‘mystery’? He calls it a ‘political deal’ not a compassionate one.
Is he right? Is a grubby deal about oil the real issue?
Or is it something with very much wider and more serious ramifications?
Related posts:
- Wall to wall in Tehran
- Obama wows the mullahs
- CIA contact reveals Israel-Iran fears
- Not very appealing
- 1989-2009: broadcasting from Qom
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No one is coming out smelling of roses over this, the release of documents will always leave further unanswered questions especially as I understand anything involving Tony Blair has been excluded from the release.
Jon Snow is absolutely spot on here.
We keep hearing about oil and we keep not hearing about the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (who didn’t seem to be a bunch of nutty conspiracy theorists last time I looked).
The truth will out one-day. Why not to-day?
Welcome back and thank you for voicing what a lot of us suspect – but which has been lamentably absent in all the mainstream media furure. The whole thing smacks of US-style complex geopoliticking.
And there is clearly no doubt that Biggs’ release was linked – I’d not spotted that.
(Welcome Back Jon)
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Is he right? Is a grubby deal about oil the real issue?
I think it was a grubby deal of oil and that is the real issue of the situation of the sudden release of Meghrai….
=Dennis Junior=
The most worrying aspect of this whole sorry tale is the fact that with al-Megrahi’s release, and impending death, the entire subject will be deemed ‘finished’, and we will never get to the bottom of what happened that awful day. Oh, there will be calls for (yet another) enquiry, but it will be toothless, and, no doubt, an enquiry into ‘the process in the making of the decision to release’, as opposed to the far more interesting, difficult and important enquiry into ‘Who was responsible for the bombing of PanAm Flight 107? ‘
I fear that we will never know the truth, and that worries me.
Jock out.
At last, someone in mainstream media points out that he probably didn’t do it.
Well done, Jon!
Well John, you’re a journalist so how about going after the truth and start with asking for the publication of the SCCRC findings which led to Megrahi being given leave to submit a second appeal? Are you aware that a UN Observer has called the delaying tactics of the Scottish Judiciary, even after they knew Megrahi was dying, “scandalous”? He also mentioned the phrase “obstructing justice” ,again, about the Scottish Judiciary. They didn’t want this appeal heard either because it would have resulted in the original verdict being declared unsafe and damaged the reputation of Scottish Justice very, very badly. . Megrahi would have been acquitted and returned home a free man. And we would all then know that the people behind Lockerbie still hadn’t been brought to justice. Yet even the UK media is staying quiet about that. Astonishing.
John Snow’s summary here is pretty well put. However, it seems clear that although Oliver Miles is probably right in suggesting the reasons for Meghrai dropping his appeal, it is surely a misnomer to say that the release was a political “deal” that was struck by the UK government. No doubt that would have originally been the intention of the government, but events surely point to this “deal” looking less likely over the previous months; less likely in being publicly acceptable and less likely to be either necessary or workable within a timely framework. With the Scottish executive position being strongly indicated, it was obviously not necessary for the UK executive to push for any deal. Hence Jack Straw’s maneuverings. All they had to do was let the Scottish executive follow their clear intentions then sit back, keep silent and let the Scots take the fall-out. Which, of course, is exactly what they have done. The Scottish position, like it or not, is at least honourable, whereas the UK Government’s intentions were always shameful, money-grubbing and cowardly. In England it seems the law is expendable and tractable to the whims of the executive.
Good to have you back and asking questions Jon. As a Scottish citizen I’ve been wondering as the absence of commentary like yours regarding the shakiness of the entire Megrahi conviction.
As far as I knew most people suspected similar things but I suppose I don’t know much at all…
Okay conspiracy theory time: What if Megrahi’s appeal was about to be successful? Some of the victims’ families that attended his trial have previously said that the evidence was flimsy at best. To avoid embarrassing the security services (because if Megrahi didn’t do it then who DID?) they said that they’d let him go provided he dropped the appeal. Dropping his appeal is practically an admission of guilt. Then the British Government is slated for an alleged oil deal but thats alright because damage to a transient entity such as that is okay whereas damage to security services that are there forever would be harder to recover from. Just a thought, mind…
Silence over the forgotten victims of Gaddafi, the Libyan people, whose human rights are systematically and regulary violated
I am proud of the role and behaviour of Scottish instituions in this affair. I wonder if Jack Straw did his about-face because the UK Government thought it could ‘get rid’ of Meghrai whilst getting Scotland to do the dirty work – well that has truly blown up in his face.
I, nevertheless, feel desperately sad when I hear some representatives of the American families who felt so let down by the al-Megrahi’s release. They are victims of the US and UK governments’ original shenanigans in this case. The pathetic wee al-Megrahi was never anything other than a fall guy – and the entire affair had nothing to do with Libya.
The US was digging a further great hole for itself in Europe with the appalling attempts to bully and vilify Scotland. However, here in Scotland, there seems to be a continuing sense, despite some misgivings, that our institutions have done justice a better service than would have been the case under the earlier Westminster/US dominated system.
Perhaps this is yet another stage in the decay of the UK Union. This feeling of a UK adminstration increasingly uncomprehending about a post-devolution Scotland was strengthened on the weekend of the decision. We had on BBC 24hrs, the unshaven and bedraggled-looking ex Scottish Labour First Minister Jack McConnell, who ranting on about the ‘shame of Scotland’. Then later in the Holyrood parliamentary debate we had the Labour Leader claiming to speak for the ‘silent majority’ – so fitting that at this stage of such an illiberal Brown/Blair Government, we have their second level leaders making use of that chilling ‘silent majority’ term so beloved by USA Republican reactionaries in the Nixon Regean era
It now important to keep the focus on the possible criminality and injustice pertaining to the original prosecution of this case. Criminality and injustice, that is, possibily perpetrated by a USA government that could not afford at the time to see a proper prosecution against either Iran or Syria – the real suspects.
I am told that in Libya, as elsewhere, Megrahi is thought to be innocent. He is seen there as a martyr. Hence his reception when he arrived there. Not support for a terrorist at all. One cover-up leads to a world-wide misunderstanding.
Nice to finally read something on this that calls into question the doubt of the original verdict and not all the sensationalist, conspiracy, political point-scoring nonesense that seem to be dominating the press. I wish the media and public would focus on getting the case reopened and the real answers found, rather than simply baying for blood.
Far be it for me to pass off another’s work, but John Pilger sums it up very neatly. ‘Megrahi was framed’
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Lockerbie: Megrahi was framed
3 Sept 2009
In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the suppression of facts behind the furore over the “compassionate” release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber, Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. He writes that Megrahi was “in effect blackmailed by the governments of Scotland and England” so that it would not be revealed in his appeal that he had been framed for a crime he did not commit.
The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown’s “repulsion” to Barack Obama’s “outrage”, the theatre of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those who call themselves journalists. “But what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?” whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. “What will you say to your constituents, then?”
Horror of horrors that a dying man should live longer than prescribed before he “pays” for his “heinous crime”: the description of the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, whose “compassion” allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to “face justice from a higher power”. Amen.
The American satirist Larry David once addressed a voluble crony as “a babbling brook of bullshit”. Such eloquence summarises the circus of Megrahi’s release.
No one in authority has had the guts to state the truth about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988 in which 270 people were killed. The governments in England and Scotland in effect blackmailed Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. Of course there were oil and arms deals under way with Libya; but had Megrahi proceeded with his appeal, some 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence would have set the seal on his innocence and given us more than a glimpse of how and why he was stitched up for the benefit of “strategic interests”.
“The endgame came down to damage limitation,” said the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who took part in the original investigation, “because the evidence amassed by [Megrahi’s] appeal is explosive and extremely damning to the system of justice.” New witnesses would show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft – he was convicted on the word of a Maltese shopowner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and even failed to recognise him in the courtroom.
The new evidence would have shown that a fragment of a circuit board and bomb timer, “discovered” in the Scottish countryside and said to have been in Megrahi’s suitcase, was probably a plant. A forensic scientist found no trace of an explosion on it. The new evidence would demonstrate the impossibility of the bomb beginning its journey in Malta before it was “transferred” through two airports undetected to Flight 103.
A “key secret witness” at the original trial, who claimed to have seen Megrahi and his co-accused al-Alim Khalifa Fahimah (who was acquitted) loading the bomb on to the plane at Frankfurt, was bribed by the US authorities holding him as a “protected witness”. The defence exposed him as a CIA informer who stood to collect, on the Libyans’ conviction, up to $4m as a reward.
Megrahi was convicted by three Scottish judges sitting in a courtroom in “neutral” Holland. There was no jury. One of the few reporters to sit through the long and often farcical proceedings was the late Paul Foot, whose landmark investigation in Private Eye exposed it as a cacophony of blunders, deceptions and lies: a whitewash. The Scottish judges, while admitting a “mass of conflicting evidence” and rejecting the fantasies of the CIA informer, found Megrahi guilty on hearsay and unproven circumstance. Their 90-page “opinion”, wrote Foot, “is a remarkable document that claims an honoured place in the history of British miscarriages of justice”. (Lockerbie – the Flight from Justice by Paul Foot can be downloaded from the Private Eye website for £5).
Foot reported that most of the staff of the US embassy in Moscow who had reserved seats on Pan Am flights from Frankfurt cancelled their bookings when they were alerted by US intelligence that a terrorist attack was planned. He named Margaret Thatcher the “architect” of the cover-up after revealing that she killed the independent inquiry her transport secretary Cecil Parkinson had promised the Lockerbie families; and in a phone call to President George Bush Sr on 11 January 1990, she agreed to “low-key” the disaster after their intelligence services had reported “beyond doubt” that the Lockerbie bomb had been placed by a Palestinian group contracted by Tehran as a reprisal for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a US warship in Iranian territorial waters. Among the 290 dead were 66 children. In 1990, the ship’s captain was awarded the Legion of Merit by Bush Sr “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer”.
Peversely, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, Bush needed Iran’s support as he built a “coalition” to expel his wayward client from an American oil colony. The only country that defied Bush and backed Iraq was Libya. “Like lazy and overfed fish,” wrote Foot, “the British media jumped to the bait. In almost unanimous chorus, they engaged in furious vilification and op en warmongering against Libya.” The framing of Libya for the Lockerbie crime was inevitable. Since then, a US defence intelligence agency report, obtained under Freedom of Information, has confirmed these truths and identified the likely bomber; it was to be centrepiece of Megrahi’s defence.
In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi’s case for appeal. “The commission is of the view,” said its chairman, Dr Graham Forbes, “that based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.”
The words “miscarriage of justice” are missing entirely from the current furore, with Kenny MacAskill reassuring the baying mob that the scapegoat will soon face justice from that “higher power”. What a disgrace.