Stuart Henderson

Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson, SIO at the Lockerbie Incident Control Centre

Stuart Henderson, a former Detective Chief Superintendent with the Lothian and Borders Police, replaced John Orr as the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) at the Lockerbie Incident Control Centre in 1991, and led the Lockerbie bombing investigation.

The United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was the most prominent of the 270 people murdered at Lockerbie on 21 December 1988. Yet the criminal investigation of Bernt Carlsson's murder appears to have been both peremptory and superficial, according to the account given by Scottish police detective John Crawford. In his book, "The Lockerbie Incident: A Detective's Tale", DC Crawford wrote:

"We even went as far as consulting a very helpful lady librarian in Newcastle who contacted us with information she had on Bernt Carlsson. She provided much of the background on the political moves made by Carlsson on behalf of the United Nations. He had survived a previous attack on an aircraft he had been travelling on in Africa. It is unlikely that he was a target as the political scene in Southern Africa was moving inexorably towards its present state. No matter what happened to Carlsson after he had completed his mission in Namibia the political changes were already well in place and his demise would not have altered anything. This would have made a nonsense of any alleged assassination attempt on him as it would not have achieved anything. I discounted the theory as being almost totally beyond the realms of feasibility.

"We eventually produced a report on all fifteen [the 'first fifteen' of the interline passengers] to the SIO Stuart Henderson, each person had their own story and as many antecedents as we could gather. The other teams had also finished their profiles of their group of interline passengers. None of them had found anything which could categorically put any of the interline passengers into any frame as a target, dupe or anything else other than a victim of crime."

On 11 February 2010, George Burgess (Deputy Director of the Scottish Justice Directorate) emailed former diplomat Patrick Haseldine:

"You ask for an extract of the 'first fifteen' report referred to in John Crawford’s book. As I am sure you are aware, the Scottish Government itself is not involved in the conduct of criminal investigations. That responsibility lies with the police, under the direction of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. There is therefore no reason why we would have a copy of the 'first fifteen' report. I suggest that you contact Dumfries & Galloway Constabulary or the Crown Office."

On 8 November 2013, Patrick Haseldine emailed DCS Stuart Henderson to request an extract of the 'first fifteen' report (dealing specifically with interline passenger Bernt Carlsson) which WikiSpooks will publish.

Summary of Lockerbie Revisited

Lockerbie Revisited is a Dutch 50-minute documentary film from the VPRO television documentary series Backlight which was broadcast in the Netherlands on the eve of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's second appeal against conviction for the Lockerbie Bombing that started at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh on 28 April 2009. The film's director, Gideon Levy, narrates in Dutch and conducts interviews in English with: retired FBI agent Richard Marquise; Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson of the Scottish police; ex-FBI Crime Laboratory head Thomas Thurman; UN Observer at the Lockerbie trial Hans Köchler; author, journalist and the film's researcher Ian Ferguson; former CIA agent Robert Baer; ex-FBI laboratory scientist Fred Whitehurst and a former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie.

Robert Baer says that geopolitics and inter-agency rivalry prevented the CIA passing intelligence-derived evidence to the FBI. Richard Marquise states categorically that no money was paid to any of the witnesses before the Lockerbie bombing trial. In relation to witness Tony Gauci, Marquise refuses to say whether any money was paid out after the trial. Lord Fraser says he gave strict instructions that no payment should be made to witnesses. Dr Whitehurst describes the FBI laboratory as a "crime scene", where his unqualified colleague Thomas Thurman would routinely alter Whitehurst's scientific reports over a five-year period. Ian Ferguson reports that the timer fragment - allegedly found in the Pan Am Flight 103 debris and which allegedly was part of the MEBO timer that triggered the bomb - had not been tested for explosives residue because of 'budgetary reasons'. Whitehurst does not accept that cost could be the reason since it would have taken him just a morning's work to have tested the timer fragment. Thurman confirms that the fragment - the only real piece of evidence against Libya - had been brought over from the UK to the FBI crime lab, where he had personally identified it as coming from the circuit board of a MEBO MST-13 timer, only 20 of which had been made and all were supplied to Libya. Marquise agrees that "without the timer fragment we would have been unable to develop additional evidence against Libya." He says that of all the evidence retrieved from the crash scene, only one piece - the timer fragment - was brought to America. Lord Fraser disagrees saying he would have had to authorise the handing over to the FBI of this crucial piece of evidence, and he had not done so.

In another interview towards the end of the film, Marquise changes his mind and is prompted by DCS Henderson to say that the "fragment never came to the US." Marquise volunteers that he actually saw the timer fragment (PT-35) in London, but Henderson corrects him saying Marquise had seen it where all the other evidence was kept in the UK. Before taking his leave, DCS Stuart Henderson emphasises to the camera that there are "no hidden holes to find because the culprit (Megrahi) is in custody - take my word for it!"

Releasing Megrahi

In August 2009, Stuart Henderson called the Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill "naive" for granting Abdelbaset al-Megrahi compassionate release from jail in Scotland:

The decision to release the Lockerbie bomber has been described as "naive" and a "mistake" by the Scottish detective who led the investigation into the Pan Am atrocity.

In a dramatic intervention ahead of the Justice Secretary's statement to the Scottish Parliament today (24 August 2009), Stuart Henderson – the retired senior investigating officer at the Lockerbie Incident Control Centre – also said Libya's jubilant celebrations on Thursday following the return of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who has who has terminal cancer, had "rubbed salt into the wounds" of the victims' families.

The retired officer's comments heaped further pressure on Mr MacAskill as protests from the United States intensified.

The top US military commander, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he was appalled at the release on compassionate grounds of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, adding "this is obviously a political decision".

Warnings of a trade boycott in protest at the decision grew last night, with one US state senator calling for a bar on Scottish products, including whisky, and even on banks.

The outrage, both at home and abroad, comes as Mr MacAskill prepares to face the Scottish Parliament today. MSPs have been recalled a week early to discuss the situation.

US protests were rebuffed by First Minister Alex Salmond, who insisted that the decision on Megrahi had not been taken to "court popularity" and reminded US authorities that it was a matter for Scots law.

While the row raged, Prime Minister Gordon Brown maintained his silence on whether he backed the decision to free Megrahi, although last night it emerged he would make the time to write to the England cricket team to congratulate them on the Ashes win.

Mr Henderson, a former Detective Chief Superintendent with Lothian and Borders Police, who was brought in to lead the investigation, said:

"It was a very unfortunate mistake to make. It should not have been handled that way and I feel sorry for Mr MacAskill's naivety about what has happened. We all knew he (Megrahi) would get a hero's welcome when he went back. It was distressing to see the Saltires being waved, that was really rubbing salt into the wounds, but that is the Libyans for you. That is how they operate. Gordon Brown should have known this would happen."

Mr Henderson spent four years leading the investigation, which took him to 47 countries. He retired in 1992 after handing over a report to the procurator-fiscal naming Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, who was later acquitted. Mr Henderson, 69, and Richard Marquise, the FBI special agent in charge of the US task force, had written to Mr MacAskill urging him not to release Megrahi.

Yesterday Mr Henderson said: "I think the only possible thing was to consider the grief caused to the families involved and to think of the lives of the 270 victims first before thinking about the criminal, who is now unwell."

Conspiracy theorists who insist Megrahi was innocent and that evidence was tampered with "make my blood boil", Mr Henderson said.

"It is an insult to our police officers. It's an insult to the Americans, to the Germans, to the Swiss and the Maltese officers. We visited 47 countries in the course of this investigation. We had officers working for four years. People think there is some doubt and they want to know who was behind it and who sponsored it? Up until now we have not been able to speak because there was an ongoing appeal and even if you are a retired officer it is not your place. But I would hope now that people will listen. We have nothing to hide. It has been very frustrating listening to all this nonsense. As a police officer you don't take sides, you follow the evidence and report what you find and if you don't find enough evidence then you report that. Let's be clear. He was convicted and then he was convicted again after an appeal. Are we saying eight Scottish high court judges don't know what they are talking about?"

He was supported yesterday by John Crawford, a fellow detective, who said:

"I think the compassion angle was all wrong. It was inevitable that people would use it against the decision he made as it was so obvious that Megrahi did not show one jot of compassion when he cold bloodedly went about his business of killing 270 innocent people."

See also

• Lockerbie Official Narrative
• Cameron's Report on Lockerbie Forensic Evidence
• The Framing of al-Megrahi
• The How, Why and Who of Pan Am Flight 103

External links

• "Lockerbie Bomber Returns to Cheers in Libya" Time Magazine, 21 August 2009
• "Lockerbie: police wanted to speak to eight other suspects" The Telegraph, 26 October 2009
• "Lockerbie: Will a Fresh Look Find New Evidence?" Time Magazine, 27 October 2009
• "Lockerbie: Stuart Henderson" STV, 6 August 2010
• "Lockerbie: Seven new Libyans named" Scottish Express, 3 February 2013