Pan Am Flight 103

Boeing 747-121 "Clipper Maid of the Seas" pictured at Frankfurt Airport in July 1986

Pan Am Flight 103 wreckage - Cockpit section

Crater and property damage in Lockerbie caused by aircraft wreckage

On 21 December 1988 Pan Am Flight 103, a Boeing 747-121 named "Clipper Maid of the Seas", was on a scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport when there was an explosion on board. The aircraft broke up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie (Map), killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members. Eleven people in Lockerbie were killed by large sections of the plane which fell in and around the town, bringing total fatalities to 270.

Thirteen years later, on 31 January 2001, Libyan citizen Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was convicted of involvement in the bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment in Scotland. His co-defendant, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, was unanimously acquitted. Megrahi's appeal against his conviction in January 2001 was refused on 14 March 2002 by a panel of five Scottish judges at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

In June 2007, Megrahi was granted leave for a second appeal against his conviction, on the basis of evidence that a miscarriage of justice could have occurred. His appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal was abandoned by al-Megrahi in August 2009, just two days before the Scottish Government released him on compassionate grounds to return to Libya. The stated grounds for release were that he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and was likely to die within three months.

Lockerbie official narrative

Colin Boyd former Lord Advocate

In August 2001, Scottish Lord Advocate Colin Boyd presented the Lockerbie official narrative at a conference of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law (ISRCL):

"On the night of 21st December 1988, I was on the phone to my sister who lives in the north of England and who was telling me of her plans to come up to stay with my parents in Edinburgh for Christmas. She and her husband were going to drive up on Christmas Eve. The route would take them past a small town, which few outside Scotland had ever heard of, called Lockerbie. As we spoke my brother in law who was watching television called out to my sister that there was a news flash that a plane had crashed on the town. Over the next few days we watched in horror the human tragedy unfolded before us. Little did I realise that a decade or so later I would become responsible for the prosecution of the trial.

"This paper seeks to review some of the aspects of the investigation and prosecution of the trial and reflect on the politics of the Lockerbie case. It is not comprehensive and does not contain my final thoughts on the matter. Three things constrain me. First, there is not the time either in the presentation or in writing the paper to cover all aspects of the case. Secondly, an appeal is pending and I do not wish to say or do anything that might reflect on the appeal. Indeed it is on one view a particularly sensitive time. At the Court's request I have given an undertaking that the Crown will not disclose the grounds of appeal. That is being tested at the present time since newspaper reports in Scotland have discussed the appeal and given accounts of the nature of the appeal which are frankly false. Thirdly, the events of the last year have not had time to mature. In some ways it is too early to reach concluded views on what happened in the case, both in its preparation and presentation.

"Politics and diplomacy were necessarily interwoven with this case from the start. That was inevitable given the circumstances. Nevertheless the theme of this paper is that there is a place for both independence of the investigator and prosecutor and for a proper consideration of the political consequences of the scale of the event, of evidence uncovered and of decisions taken. There is a place too for political action in securing the interests of justice. In this case that was necessary to secure the resources for the investigation and prosecution, to secure the co-operation of foreign governments and agencies and in the end to achieve the handover of the accused for trial.

"Inevitably too this paper is much wider than the political aspects of the investigation. While as Lord Advocate I have the power to direct the police in their investigation my responsibility is for the prosecution of crime. Accordingly I intend to deal with the wider aspects of the investigation and the decision to hold the trial in the Netherlands.

"Pan Am 103 took off from Heathrow Airport, London at about 6.25pm on the night of 21st December 1988 bound for Kennedy Airport, New York. There were 259 passengers and crew on board. Most were Americans returning home for Christmas. The passengers included a number of family groups, returning servicemen and a group of students from Syracuse University in upstate New York. Many had joined the flight from a feeder from Frankfurt. The flight path would take them up the west of England and Scotland from where it would travel out over the Atlantic towards Greenland.

"The videotape from the radar displays show that the bomb exploded on board the plane at 7.03pm. The plane broke up into several large pieces. The nosepiece landed at Tundergarth some 3 miles from the centre of the town. The photograph of the nose and flight deck is now the enduring image of the disaster. The main part of the aircraft came down on the edge of the town on a street known as Sherwood Crescent. Eleven people on the ground were killed, making the total number killed at 270. Bodies and bits of bodies were scattered over a wide area in and around the town. Fire rained from the sky and witnesses spoke of having to dodge round the fires in the street and in the gardens. There was a strong westerly wind blowing that night and the debris trail spread some 70 odd miles across the south of Scotland and north of England out into the North Sea.

"In Scotland responsibility for the investigation of sudden deaths rests with the Procurator Fiscal, the local public prosecutor, who will attend the scene and may direct the police in the conduct of their inquiries. The Procurator Fiscal holds a Commission from the Lord Advocate who is a Government Minister. At the time of the bombing he was a member of the UK Government but is now, since devolution, a member of the Scottish Executive. His duties include the provision of legal advice to Government and the prosecution of crime in Scotland. All indictments run in the name of the Lord Advocate.

"On 28th December 1988, just a week after the crash, air accident investigators were able to announce that they had found traces of high explosive and that there was evidence that Pan Am 103 had been brought down by an improvised explosive device. The investigation of this crime fell to Jimmy McDougall, the Procurator Fiscal in the nearby town of Dumfries and to Dumfries and Galloway police, the smallest police force in Britain. Clearly the ordinary resources available to them were quite inadequate to deal with such an investigation. The police effort was augmented by officers from all over Scotland as well as the north of England. The Procurator Fiscal was given support from Crown Office in Edinburgh and in particular from Norman McFadyen, then the head of the Fraud and Specialist Services Group and now the Procurator Fiscal covering the Edinburgh area but also with special responsibility for the Lockerbie case.

"Indeed the scale of the investigation was such that who was going to pay for it became a political issue. Would it be paid out of the grant made to fund the Scottish Office budget or would the UK Government agree to special funding. A daily newspaper took up the campaign and shortly after the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, announced that all the funding for the investigation would be met out of the contingency fund, preserving the block grant to Scotland intact. Politics secured the commitment to funding which endured throughout the investigation and carried through to the trial.

"At first the investigation centred on the activities in Germany of a cell of the PFLP-GC, a Syrian-backed terrorist group. Members of that cell had been arrested in Germany in October 1988 in an operation known as 'Autumn Leaves'. That cell had been involved in a conspiracy against civilian aircraft and intriguingly had used a Toshiiba radio cassette in the construction of their devices, the same make, though a different type, as had been used in the Pan Am bombing.

"Conspiracy theorists have alleged that the investigators' move away from an interest in the PFLP-GC was prompted by political interference following a re-alignment of interests in the Middle East. Specifically, it is said that it suited Britain and the United States to exonerate Syria and others such as Iran who might be associated with her and to blame Libya, a country which we know trained members of the IRA. Accordingly evidence was 'found' which implicated Libya.

"This is best answered by looking at the evidence. During the painstaking search of a vast area of land police officers were asked to look out for items which might be charred and which might indicate that they had been close to an explosion. On 13th January 1989 in search sector 1, near Newcastleton, two police officers Thomas Gilchrist and Thomas McColm found a fragment of charred clothing. It was subsequently sent to the Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent for forensic examination.

"It was examined there on 12th May 1989 by Dr Thomas Hayes. He teased out the cloth and found within it fragments of paper, fragments of black plastic and a piece of circuitry no larger than a fingernail. The cloth was found to be part of a grey slalom shirt - one of a number of items linked back to a little shop of Mary's House in Malta and the shopkeeper Tony Gauci. The mesh fragments were found to be consistent with the loudspeaker grille and the black plastic fragments consistent with the composition of the case of the Toshiba radio cassette. It had already been identified by other fragments of circuit board and from the fragment of the instruction manual which had been found the day after the crash by Mrs Gwendoline Horton in her garden at Longhorsely in Northumberland in north east England. The paper recovered from the charred cloth by Dr Hayes also matched a control sample of this owner's manual.

"In September 1989 Tony Gauci, the shopkeeper, was interviewed by Scottish police officers. He convincingly identified a range of clothing which he had sold to a man sometime before Christmas 1988. Among the items he remembered selling were two pairs of Yorkie trousers, two pairs of striped pyjamas, a tweed jacket, a blue babygro, two slalom shirts collar size 16 and a half, two cardigans, one brown and one blue and an umbrella. He described the man, and subsequently identified him as Megrahl. More importantly at the time he was in no doubt that he was a Libyan.

"In June 1990, with the assistance ultimately of the CIA and FBI, Allen Feraday of the Explosives Laboratory was able to identify the fragment as identical to circuitry from an MST-13 timer. It was already known to the CIA from an example seized in Togo in 1986 and photographed by them in Senegal in 1988. That took investigators to the firm of MEBO in Zürich. It was discovered that these timers had been manufactured to the order of two Libyans: Ezzadin Hinshin, at the time director of the Central Security Organisation of the Libyan External Security Organisation and Said Rashid, then head of the Operations Administration of the ESO.

"As if in confirmation of Libya's involvement during the preparation for the trial evidence was obtained from Toshiba which showed that, during October 1988, 20,000 black Toshiba RT-SF 16 radio cassettes, the type used in the Pan Am bomb, were shipped to Libya. Of the total world-wide sales of that model 76% were sold to General Electric Company of Libya whose chairman was Said Rashid.

"Accordingly, it’s clear that the move of interest by investigators away from the PFLP-GC and towards Libya was as a result of the evidence which was discovered and not as a result of any political interference in the investigation. I was not involved at that point but I am assured by those who were involved that no one sought to interfere or influence the investigation. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that there was political interference. The investigation was evidence-led.

"Much of the investigation centred in other countries. In the early stages Germany was a particular focus of attention, partly because of the feeder flight from Frankfurt but also because of the 'Autumn Leaves' investigation featuring the PFLP-GC. Later as the investigation moved away from Germany, Malta was important but also Switzerland and others. International co-operation was required to facilitate such investigations. The traditional method of obtaining international co-operation is of course through commissions rogatoire or 'Letters of Request' as we know them. Whatever the name they of course proceed under multilateral conventions or through mutual legal assistance treaties. These are excellent in facilitating co-operation in many cases but they do have their limitations. A certain amount of bureaucracy and formality is associated with them. It does involve investigation by questionnaire, never a very satisfactory way of proceeding. In the Lockerbie investigation it was clear early on that there was a need for closer co-operation, certainly between British and American investigators. And in the early part also with Germany. Dumfries and Galloway police set up a satellite office in Washington. The FBI and the BKA, the German Federal police stationed liaison offices in Lockerbie.

"That international co-operation was again required in the time leading up to and during the trial. In the run up to the trial we sent police officers and prosecutors to many countries to interview potential witnesses. The assistance we received from these countries in most cases far exceeded what one might ordinarily expect by operating the usual mutual assistance treaties. That assistance was given as a result of a mixture of a desire to assist, the terms of the UN resolution which endorsed the third country trial and diplomatic pressure through embassies and foreign office contacts. Diplomacy was absolutely crucial in paving the way for both the investigation and the prosecution.

"The investigations eventually identified a number of suspects. Ultimately the prosecuting authorities in Scotland and the United States considered that they had sufficiency of evidence against two men. On 14th November 1991 the then Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser and the acting United States Attorney General jointly announced that they had obtained warrants for the arrest of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah.

"On 27th November 1991, the British and United States Governments issued a joint statement calling on the Libyan government to surrender the two men for trial, to disclose everything it knew about the trial and to pay compensation. On 21st January 1992, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 731 calling on Libya to provide a full and effective response to British, American and French requests to surrender those suspected of both the Lockerbie bombing and the French UTA bombing. In the light of the failure of Libya to respond to resolution 731, the Security Council passed a further resolution 748 on 31st March 1992 imposing mandatory sanctions on Libya. They were strengthened by a further resolution passed on 11th November 1993.

"The Libyan response during this period was one of denial that they had been in any way involved. It also brought actions against both the United Kingdom and the United States at the International Court of Justice in the Hague alleging that we had infringed Libya's rights under the Montreal Convention by refusing to share the evidence with Libya and in securing sanctions. They further alleged that the Security Council had no authority to make the resolutions imposing sanctions.

"At various stages however they did indicate that they would not oppose a trial in a third country. Their proposals were vague and unfocused but the one which did eventually become established was for a Scottish trial before Scottish judges in the Hague. Libya claimed that the men could not obtain a fair trial before a Scottish jury. We disputed that and international jurists appointed at our request by the UN found that the men could get a fair trial in Scotland.

"My involvement with this case stems from May 1997 when, following the election of the Labour Government, I was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland, effectively the Lord Advocate's deputy. Andrew Hardie became Lord Advocate. Shortly after taking office we were given a briefing by officials about the Lockerbie investigation. It was then 6 years since the petition warrants had been granted for the arrest of the 2 Libyan suspects. While there had been hopes on occasion during this period that Libya would hand them over for trial, these had come to nothing. The British Government was anxious if at all possible to make progress to resolve the impasse. Indeed it is fair to say that it and the United States Government were under pressure to make progress. That had been evident, in the case of the UK, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Edinburgh in the autumn of 1997. Nelson Mandela in particular played a role in putting the case for a resolution of the dispute. In his view, this could best be done if we were to agree to a trial in a third country.

"Andrew Hardie was asked to consider whether he would agree to such a proposal. He and I discussed this at some length and a number of factors were clear. First, unlike Wine, evidence does not mature with age. Memories dim and the evidence becomes less reliable. The longer it took to get to trial, the more difficult it would be to prosecute it successfully. Secondly, sanctions had not so far had the desired effect. There was no reason to suppose that was about to change. Indeed the reverse was true. It was becoming more difficult to maintain sanctions and countries who had supported us in the past were increasingly questioning whether they could continue that support without some movement towards agreeing to a third country trial.

"Thirdly, we were conscious of our responsibility to the relatives. It was 10 years since the bombing. The wait for what they saw as justice was a long one. Many of the relatives, though by no means all, were strongly supportive of a third country trial. That was particularly true of the British relatives. They had made common cause with Professor Robert Black, a professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University who had travelled to Libya, met Gaddafi and had put forward proposals for a trial in a third country though using international judges. Indeed in the media's eyes he was seen as the author of the proposal.

"As we discussed the options the attraction of resolving the issue by agreeing to a trial in another country before a panel of Scottish judges grew in our minds. The crucial factor was the assessment from the Foreign Office that in their opinion there was little or no prospect of the two accused being handed over for trial in the UK or the United States in the foreseeable future. The American State Department shared that assessment. While on one view these opinions may be seen as self-serving given the desire to make progress on the issue, we took the view first, that they were in the best position to reach that view and secondly, that we knew of nothing to contradict these assessments. Indeed all the evidence suggested that they were right.

"Before we could agree, however, we had to be satisfied on two other matters. First, were we ourselves satisfied that there was evidence which would entitle us to prosecute? Remember the warrants for the arrest had been granted some time ago. While we had no reason to doubt the original decision to seek the arrest warrant from the court it could be that evidence which was available then was no longer available for one reason or another. As Law Officers we would never be forgiven if we did not check the position ourselves and subsequently had to withdraw the prosecution. Secondly, we had to be satisfied that a trial could be mounted in a third country without prejudicing either the prosecution or the wider interests of justice. Accordingly, the Lord Advocate appointed one of his Deputes, Robert Reed QC, now a High Court Judge in Scotland, to review the evidence. It took him nearly six months but the answer was that there was the evidence to support a prosecution and we could mount a trial in a third country.

"Agreeing to the principle of a third country trial was one thing. Working out the practicalities was quite another matter. Early on it was agreed that the Netherlands was the best option. It already had the International Court of Justice and the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal. It had established itself as a seat for international justice. Moreover there were good transport links with Scotland. The Dutch Government agreed to host the Court. Eventually a treaty was concluded between the Dutch and British Governments in which the Dutch Government agreed to the establishment within Holland of a Scottish Court with jurisdiction to try the two Libyans on charges of conspiracy to murder, murder and a contravention of the Aviation Security Act 1982. This is quite unique in international jurisprudence. Courts have, of course, sat in foreign countries for the purpose of taking evidence. It's the first time though that a Court has sat wholly within the territory of another state and exercised jurisdiction within it.

"But the treaty had to do more than simply provide for jurisdiction of the Court. There are all the incidental matters which we perhaps take for granted but which are crucial to support any criminal justice system. We had to build a prison and the Dutch had to permit the Scottish authorities to hold the accused for trial. We had to provide for witnesses to be able to travel to the Court without fear that they might be arrested for some other outstanding matter by the Dutch. Scottish police officers had to have authority to protect the premises of the Court as well as the accused and other Court officials. We had to provide that they could carry firearms within the Court premises but ensure that everyone was clear as to the limits of their powers and jurisdiction. We had to allow for access to the Court by prosecutors and defence counsel and the inviolability of Court documents. Provision was made exempting the Court from Dutch taxes including as it happened, and to the delight of the media, taxes on alcohol. Sadly for them this provision was not used.

"Before the treaty had been finalised however we had sufficient agreement between the parties for Britain and the United States to jointly announce that they would agree to a trial of the two accused in the Netherlands before a Scottish Court sitting without a jury. That announcement was made on 24th August 1998. Three days later, the Security Council passed UN resolution 1192 welcoming the initiative and calling on the Dutch and British Governments to take such steps as were necessary to enable the Court to be established. That was important since it allowed Britain to pass the amending legislation by Order in Council under the United Nations Act 1946. The Dutch could similarly amend their law by secondary legislation. The Order in Council was in fact signed by the Queen, as the Order records and by a strange irony, at Heathrow. She was on her way to the Far East.

"The UN resolution also required the Libyan Government to ensure the appearance in the Netherlands of the two accused and to ensure that any evidence or witnesses in Libya were upon request of the Court, promptly made available to the Court. Again this was of crucial importance since Libya was not only required to hand over the two men but also such evidence as it may have at the Court's request. This was used to obtain certain documents from Libya and to require that police officers and prosecutors could go to Libya to see witnesses.

"Megrahi and Fhimah were handed over to the Dutch on 5th April 1999. They waived their right to contest the request for extradition and were handed on to Scottish police officers at Camp Zeist the same day. They were formally arrested and appeared in Court the following day. That was the point at which we knew for sure that we had a prosecution. Many had been sceptical up to that point. There was a feeling in some quarters that we were going through this exercise as part of a diplomatic game. If Libya failed to produce the two men we could say to the rest of the world: 'We did as you asked. We offered them a trial in a third country and they have still not produced them. Far from ditching sanctions you should renew them and pursue them with increased vigour.'

"Perhaps I was happily naive of the diplomatic niceties but I was confident that they would be handed over for trial. To me Libya had been cornered and she could not afford to affront friends such as South Africa and Saudi Arabia. Whether you were an optimist or pessimist fortunately all agreed after the announcement in August 1998 that we should now prepare for trial. We assembled a team of Counsel and of Procurator Fiscal staff. In Scotland the prosecution undertook an investigative process of its own independently of the police, known as precognition. Precognition involves the Fiscal or a paralegal, known as a Precognition Officer in seeing all the major witnesses and interviewing them. That is taken down in writing as a precognition. That, and not the statements taken by police officers, is used to enable Crown Counsel to decide whether to indict the accused, whether to direct the police or Fiscal to undertake further inquiries and to prepare for Court.

"In this case given the scale of the exercise we established a core team consisting of the 2 senior Counsel, Alastair Campbell QC, who led the prosecution in court and Alan Turnbull QC and Fiscal staff led by Norman McFadyen with Jim Brisbane and John Dunn. John Logue joined the team shortly after. The team was chaired by me as Solicitor General and met on a weekly basis right through from October 1998 until near the start of the trial itself in about January 2000. The purpose was to direct the precognition process and to take strategic decisions in connection with the case. Beyond the team were 2 junior counsel who were instructed to work full time from May 1999 after the hand over of the men and seven Fiscal staff prosecutors all of whom were directed to work on discreet areas of evidence.

"We also had to work closely with the police. Very helpfully Dumfries and Galloway police established an office in Edinburgh just a few doors along from the Crown Office where the core team was established. In May 1999 the police held an international conference of prosecutors and investigators in Dumfries to help secure the international co-operation that I referred to earlier. We held another similar exercise in Zeist in January 2000 to secure the co-operation of other countries in getting witnesses to come to Court.

"During the trial there was criticism of my decision to have Department of Justice attorneys sitting alongside the prosecution team in Court. That criticism is entirely misplaced and, to my mind, smacks of a certain jingoism. The truth is that this was an American plane on its way to the United States carrying mostly Americans. The United States had jurisdiction to try the case themselves and a clear interest in the outcome. Moreover the prosecution was as a result of the joint investigation by law enforcement agencies in both countries. They were contributing to the cost of the trial and were also taking the lead, through the Office for the Victims of Crime, in dealing with the families. The Department of Justice attorneys played a crucial role in assisting us with the evidence held by American agencies. I must confess to a certain apprehension at the beginning of the preparation of the case. I need not have worried. They offered us advice generally and at difficult times in the case gave us psychological support telling us how well we were doing and to keep at it. They became members of the team and firm friendships were established which will I believe endure long after the conclusion of the proceedings.

"On 31st January 2001, the Court convicted Megrahi of the murder of 270 people. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve at least 20 years before he is considered eligible for parole. The verdict found him guilty of 'being a member of the Libyan Intelligence Services' and 'while acting in concert with others, formed a criminal purpose to destroy a civil passenger aircraft and murder the occupants in furtherance of the purposes of the ... Libyan Intelligence Services'. Fhimah was acquitted. An appeal has been lodged with the Court in Edinburgh and leave has been given. There will be a procedural hearing at the Court in the Netherlands on 15th October 2001 and the appeal itself is likely to take place early next year.

"Some general statistics may assist in comprehending the scale of this trial. It commenced on 3rd May 2000. There were 84 court days and 230 witnesses gave evidence. The Crown listed 1160 witnesses, and called 227; the Defence 121, and called 3. The witnesses came from the UK, USA, Libya, Japan, Germany, Malta, Switzerland, Slovenia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, India, France and Singapore. The languages translated in court were Arabic, French, Czech, Japanese, Swedish, Maltese and German. There were 1867 documentary productions and 621 label productions or exhibits, the largest of which was an aircraft reconstruction. That was the only one not conveyed to the court. It remained at the Air Accident Investigation Branch premises at Farnborough in England.

"As it happens the decision to go for a trial in the Netherlands was less controversial than it might have been. It was not, however, without its critics and there were many on both sides of the Atlantic who had misgivings at the decision. For some politics had interfered with the due process of law. Two people accused of the most serious of crimes had been protected by their government to the point where we had to amend the law in order to accommodate groundless fears about their inability to receive a fair trial. Despite the apparent success of the trial this remains on the face of it a potent criticism and deserves an answer.

"For myself, I am satisfied that had we not agreed to a trial in a third country there would have been no trial. The families of the victims would still be waiting for some justice to be done. Anyone who has met the families and spent time with them will know what this trial has meant for them. They emphasise that it is not closure but for many there has come a sort of peace which had been denied them before the trial.

"While the interests of the families is itself I believe a good reason for agreeing to this trial there are also good reasons in principle why it was the right thing to do. We cannot shut our eyes to the political consequences not only of crimes themselves but also the results of crime. This crime was an act of terrorism committed to further the aims of an important arm of the Libyan regime.

"How far others outside the Libyan Intelligence Services in other parts of the Libyan Government might be involved I cannot say but the fact is that either directly or indirectly Libya, a nation state and member of the United Nations was implicated. Once that was established it become an international issue which could only be resolved through the United Nations. Two principles were I believe at stake. First, that justice should be done. Secondly, that the world should remain at peace. I strongly believe that by showing that we can bring to justice and prosecute individuals for the worst crimes even where a nation state may be implicated we have actually made the world a little safer. We have a strong belief in the rule of law. That should apply not only to individuals and to nations’ internal arrangements but also apply internationally. The Lockerbie trial was part of a growing international movement which has seen the establishment of War Crimes Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia and will soon see the creation of the International Criminal Court. With Lockerbie we established that where countries are prepared to be flexible in their criminal justice system and where there is international co-operation we can achieve justice.

"In conclusion, it seems to me to be absolutely right that the investigation of crime and the prosecutorial decisions which flow from that investigation must be taken independently of political influence. When we talk about political influence, however, we must be clear what it is that we are really objecting to. What we do not want is a situation where some crimes are investigated but others are not because it suits one party and not the other. Nor do we want a situation where decisions on whether to prosecute are taken for political reasons. That is corrupt and must not be allowed to happen. Nevertheless, there are also questions of public interest and of accountability.

"In the Lockerbie case, the public interest demanded that the crime should be investigated. Political action was necessary to secure the funding and allocation of resources. Political and diplomatic activity secured international co-operation and goodwill. Political and diplomatic action secured the trial. The investigation of the case and the prosecution of the trial were driven by the evidence.

"Early on we made an important decision. The prosecution would, so far as possible, be conducted in exactly the same way as any other prosecution in Scotland. We did not know any other way of doing it. So the ethics and values which were applied by the prosecution were the same as in any other trial. Despite the political nature of the appointment of the Lord Advocate, the independence of the prosecutor is deeply ingrained in Scotland. That independence was observed and respected in the Lockerbie case but we were always alive to the need to use diplomatic and political efforts to secure justice. The public interest demanded no less from us.

Colin Boyd QC 28th August 2001

Background

Geopolitical considerations

At the time of the attack

• UK-US relations with Libya were icy over alleged Libyan sponsorship of terrorism and its stubborn refusal to 'see things the West's way'.
• UK-US relations with Iran were slated for improvement following the cessation of the Iran Iraq war in which both sides had been armed by the West.
• On 3 July 1988 Iran Air Flight 655, a civilian Airbus A300 airliner en-route from Bandar Abbas, Iran to Dubai, UAE was brought down by a missile fired by the US Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes, with the loss of 290 lives. The US government claimed that the Airliner had been mistaken for an attacking F14 Tomcat fighter.

At the time of the trial

• UK-US relations with Libya were being 'normalised' following Libya's agreement to extradite al-Megrahi for trial and its abandonment of its allegedly belligerent stance over previously core issues of policy on trade, oil and support for groups antagonistic to Western interests. The accommodation resulted in the lifting of UN trade sanctions against Libya which had progressively paralyzed its economy over the preceding decade.
• UK-US relations with Iran were close to all-time lows and deteriorating over the usual issues of Iranian refusal to 'see things the West's way'

The Trial

• Lockerbie: The Truth is finally coming out. - Post by Michael Meacher MP on his blog (since removed) and reposted on Robert Black's blog. It alleges bribery of the chief prosecution witness with the collusion of Strathclyde police and the US Authorities.

Personalities central to the investigation and prosecution case

1. Vincent Cannistraro - CIA task force officer in the brutal 1980s Iran-Contra campaign. Deployed a training manual of invasion and killing of Nicaraguan citizens and officials. Wrote "the anatomy of a lie" to cover up US government involvement in Nicaragua. In 1986 was commissioned by the US President to "Destabilize Libya and destroy the Gaddafi regime". Secretly worked to arm the Afghanistan Mujahadeen and Osama Bin Laden. His chief Admiral Poindexter chaired a top-level meeting - to which Cannistraro had access - to discuss the manufacture of evidence to destabilize the government of Yemen. Head of the CIA Lockerbie team, but did not attend the trial to give evidence.
2. Thomas Thurman - FBI Laboratory 'scientist'.
3. Alan Feraday - Former head of the forensic laboratory at Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) at Fort Halstead.
4. Dr Thomas Hayes - Over the 1970s and early 1980s progressed to head the RARDE forensic laboratory. His testimony was central to the Lockerbie verdict. Yet he and two colleagues conspired to with-hold evidence from the 1974 alleged IRA Maguire Seven trial which would have indicated innocence. The Maguires were freed on appeal after fifteen years in jail. This matter was exposed in the Lockerbie trial, but the judges trusted Hayes' word implicitly.

Two key elements in the al-Megrahi conviction

1. The identification of Al-Megrahi: In an extraordinary development in 2005, Maltese shopkeeper Toni Gauci was exposed as an unreliable witness by the man who in 1991 indicted Megrahi, former Scottish Lord Advocate Peter Fraser. In Fraser's words, Gauci was "an apple short of a picnic." And yet the judges trusted Gauci's contradictory and confused evidence, and ignored the fact that Gauci was on a promise of a multi-million dollar reward if Al-Megrahi was convicted. It is now documented and proven that Gauci was paid at least $2 million for his evidence, and his brother Paul $1 million.
2. The alleged bomb timer fragment: Was it planted to frame Libya for the crime? The fragment's label had been altered by unknown persons. And its finding and examination by Dr Thomas Hayes proved highly suspicious. A series of scientific tests in 2009 have proved that its survival two centimetres from the centre of a high explosive fireball was impossible.

Evidence withheld or not available at the time of the trial

• Former CIA agent, Robert Baer, CIA Middle Eastern specialist, worked on the early stages of the investigation. He has repeatedly claimed that, in 1989, there was "Grade A intelligence" held by America to prove that Iran requested and paid for the Lockerbie bombing. If Baer is correct, then the bomb timer fragment which pointed to Libya must have been planted.
• Lord Peter Fraser, Scotland's Chief Law Officer during the investigation and indictments, claimed in 1991 that witnesses would "prove the case beyond reasonable doubt." In 2005 he admitted to journalists that his chief witness Gauci was highly unreliable. Then in 2008, when questioned by a Times journalist, Fraser indicated suspicions that key evidence might have been planted with the knowledge of the CIA.
• Shukri Ghanem, Libyan Prime Minister 2003 - 2006, has said, on at least two occasions in radio and television interviews, that Libya was not responsible and it paid the $2.7 billion compensation with great reluctance and only "to buy peace and move forward."

Post-Trial developments

Statement by UN Observer at the Trial

On 23 August 2003, Dr Hans Koechler, the United Nations Observer at the Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands (2000-2002), released a "Statement on the agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and the Libyan Jamahiriya on the remaining issues relating to the fulfilment of all Security Council resolutions resulting from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie." The Statement concluded:

"17. The chapter of the Lockerbie investigation can only be closed when the full truth will have been established and when the question will have been satisfactorily answered why only a lone individual has been sentenced in a case that relates to a terrorist crime the commission of which required a vast and sophisticated operational network (most likely involving more than one country and/or terrorist organisation) and huge financial resources. An ambiguous declaration of "state responsibility" such as the one deposited with the UN Security Council does in no way answer the urgent and legitimate question as to personal criminal responsibility of individuals other than Mr Al-Megrahi (and eventually also from other countries) for the Lockerbie crime. A political deal such as the one concluded last week between the US, UK and Libya linking individual compensation with the lifting of multilateral and subsequently unilateral sanctions does not advance the cause of justice in the present case, but is part of the politics of national interest of the countries involved in the present dispute. The intelligence cooperation established between the three countries since September 11, 2001, in the area of counter-terrorism must not come at the expense of the search for truth in the Lockerbie case. The doubts and misgivings about the Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands will only disappear when a full investigation of the crime by an independent commission will have been undertaken. Up to this moment the undersigned will maintain his doubts about the Lockerbie verdict and will consider the judgment concerning Mr Al-Megrahi – on the basis of an Indictment that was substantially modified in the course of the trial and altered by the judges as part of the Verdict – as a miscarriage of justice."

Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission

On 23 September 2003 lawyers acting for Abdelbaset al-Megrahi applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) for a review of the case (both sentence and conviction), arguing that there had been a miscarriage of justice. On 1 November 2006, Megrahi was reported to have dropped his demand for the new appeal to be held at Camp Zeist. In an interview with The Scotsman newspaper of 31 January 2006, retired Scottish Judge Lord MacLean – one of the three who convicted Megrahi in 2001 – said he believed the SCCRC would return the case for a further appeal against conviction:

"They can't be working for two years without producing something with which to go to the court."

MacLean added that any new appeal would indicate the flexibility of Scots law, rather than a weakness:

"It might even be the strength of the system – it is capable of looking at itself subsequently and determining a ground for appeal."

In January 2007, the SCCRC announced that it would issue its decision on Megrahi's case by the end of June 2007. On 9 June 2007 rumours of a possible prisoner swap deal involving Megrahi were strenuously denied by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Later in June, The Observer confirmed the imminence of the SCCRC ruling and reported:

"Abdelbaset al-Megrahi never wavered in his denial of causing the Lockerbie disaster: now some Scottish legal experts say they believe him."

On 28 June 2007, the SCCRC concluded its four-year review and, having uncovered evidence that a miscarriage of justice could have occurred, the commission granted Megrahi leave to appeal against his Lockerbie bombing conviction for a second time.

In a statement dated 29 June 2007 Dr Hans Köchler, international observer at the Lockerbie trial, expressed his surprise at the SCCRC's narrow focus and apparent bias towards the judicial establishment:

"In giving exoneration to the police, prosecutors and forensic staff, I think they show their lack of independence. No officials to be blamed, simply a Maltese shopkeeper."

Alternative Possibilities

South African Apartheid Regime

President P W Botha ruled apartheid South Africa between 1978 and 1989 and was responsible for gross human rights violations, including all the violence that was sanctioned by the State Security Council (SSC), an executive organ of his apartheid regime. Such violence included using torture, abduction, arson and sabotage, and murdering those opposed to apartheid. An SSC subcommittee, chaired by 'superspy' Major Craig Williamson, targeted anti-apartheid groups and individuals.

From Chequers to Lockerbie

The distance by road from Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country residence in Buckinghamshire, to the site in Scotland of the Pan Am Flight 103 crash on 21 December 1988 is 310 miles. It took more than 4½ years for President P W Botha to complete his murderous journey from meeting Margaret Thatcher at Chequers on 2 June 1984 to the sabotage at Lockerbie.

The full article "From Chequers to Lockerbie" by Patrick Haseldine can be read here.

Highest profile Pan Am Flight 103 victim

Assistant-Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson

Newspaper reports quickly identified Bernt Carlsson as the highest profile Pan Am Flight 103 victim.

The New York Times

The New York Times of Thursday, 22 December 1988 reported:

U.N. Officer on Flight 103

"Bernt Carlsson, who was a passenger on the Pan Am flight that crashed over Scotland, had served as chief administrative officer of the United Nations Council for Namibia since July 1987. He was on his way here for a ceremony on Thursday, at which accords providing for Namibia's independence are to be signed by Angola, Cuba and South Africa. The officer is, in theory, the United Nations' appointed governor for Namibia, the South African-ruled territory also known as South-West Africa. But because United Nations authority over Namibia is not recognised by South Africa, he is in practice the chief United Nations officer in charge of development programs intended to prepare Namibia for independence.

"Mr Carlsson, a 51-year-old Swedish diplomat, had been in London for a meeting with non-governmental groups, United Nations officials said. He telephoned his office from the boarding gate at Heathrow Airport before the flight to New York.

"From 1983 to 1985 Mr Carlsson served as a Swedish Ambassador at Large to the Middle East. He was General Secretary of the Socialist International, the world federation of socialist and social democratic parties, from 1976 to 1983. From 1983 to 1985, he was an Ambassador at Large and special emissary of Prime Minister Olof Palme to the Middle East and Africa. He also served as international secretary of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and as Under Secretary of State for Nordic Affairs in the Swedish Foreign Ministry."

The Guardian

Bernt Carlsson's Obituary in The Guardian of 23 December 1988

Bernt Carlsson's Obituary appeared in The Guardian of 23 December 1988:

Key figure in Namibian peace process

"The death of Bernt Carlsson in the Lockerbie aircrash is a poignant tragedy within a tragedy. The UN Commissioner for Namibia was on his way to what should have been an occasion of unalloyed joy: the signing of the settlement in south-western Africa, after which his post would have come into its own.

"Mr Carlsson took up the assignment in July last year when it was still one of the most frustrating tasks the United Nations had to offer. The world body declared South Africa’s occupation of the former German possession of South West Africa illegal in 1966 and tried in vain to assert its authority in the territory thereafter.

"The UN Council on Namibia proved unable to shift or shame Pretoria out of the last colony in Africa, overrun by the South Africans in 1915, mandated to them by the League of Nations after the first world war and by the UN after the second. The Council was reduced to gathering information and wandering the world like a homeless family, "raising awareness" of the Namibian issue at its conferences. The Commissioner was no more than the impotent shadow-head of a transitional government in waiting.

"But within a year of Carlsson’s appointment the diplomatic log-jam began to shift. South Africa decided it could no longer afford the diplomatic, political, military and economic cost of its war in Angola. Namibia’s northern neighbour became a target in 1975 when it gave shelter to Swapo nationalists struggling to free Namibia. In hunting them South Africa soon became involved in an escalating conflict with their Angolan allies, supported by over 50,000 Cubans and huge quantities of Soviet munitions.

"Angola and Cuba, encouraged by the Kremlin as it shed foreign liabilities, also showed signs of war-weariness, joining the South Africans in talks chaired by the US and closely monitored by Moscow. It was time for Carlsson, who gave significant background support to the peacemaking effort, to dust off the UN plan for Namibian independence, as laid down in Security Council resolution 435 of 1978.

"Bernt Carlsson should therefore have been a guest of honour at yesterday’s signature ceremony in New York. Instead the dignitaries mourned the passing of one of a distinguished band of universally respected Swedish international envoys.

"Bernt Carlsson was born in Stockholm 50 years ago and went into the foreign ministry after graduating from the city’s university. In 1970 he was detached to become international secretary of the ruling Social Democratic party and special adviser to the late prime minister, Olof Palme, to whom he was very close. He went to the Socialist International in 1976 for a seven-year term as general secretary. He returned home in 1983 for two years as roving ambassador and special emissary of Mr Palme to the Middle East and Africa. His last position before he went to the UN was head of Nordic affairs at the foreign ministry. He was unmarried." (by Dan van der Vat)

Los Angeles Times

An Obituary to Bernt Carlsson, written by his friend Michael Harrington, was published in the Los Angeles Times on 26 December 1988.

Lost On Flight 103: A Hero To The Wretched Of The World

"It was not an accident that my friend Bernt Carlsson, the UN Commissioner for Namibia, was killed in the crash of Pan American World Airways Flight 103.

"Of course, it was a cruel and capricious fate that struck at Carlsson and his fellow passengers. But in Bernt's case it was part of a pattern - the kind of thing that might happen to a man who had spent his life ranging the Earth in search of justice and peace. And that life itself was emblematic of a Swedish socialist movement that has made solidarity with the wretched of the world a personal ethic.

"Carlsson was returning home to New York for the signing of the agreement on Namibian independence, the culmination of his most recent mission. Before that he was a roving ambassador. From 1976 to 1983 he had been the general secretary of the Socialist International when that organisation was reaching out to the Third World as never before.

"There had been so many flights, so many trips to the dangerous places like the Middle East and the front-line states of Southern Africa - even a brush with terrorism when Issam Sartawi, a Palestinian moderate, was murdered in the lobby of the Portuguese hotel at which the International was holding its congress in 1983. It was not inevitable that Carlsson be on a plane that, some suspect, was the target of fanatics, but it was not surprising - not the least because he came from a movement that made peace-making a way of life.

"I sometimes think that if these Swedish men and women did not exist, the world would have to invent them. So it was that the United Nations gave Carlsson's mentor, the late Olof Palme, the impossible task of negotiating an end to the Iran-Iraq War. And why, as I saw firsthand at a meeting in Botswana, the Swedish prime minister was deeply mourned in black Africa. I had joked with Palme after a visit to Dar-es-Salaam in 1976 that the typical Tanzanian must be blond-haired and blue-eyed because of all the Swedes I encountered in that city.

"It was Carlsson's friend and contemporary, Pierre Shori, who had played a major role in setting up the catalytic meeting in Stockholm between Yasser Arafat and five American Jews. I saw Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson in Paris on the day before that event, and he clearly regarded it as a serious governmental priority. Because the Swedish socialist commitment to peace-making sometimes requires criticism of the United States, there were those who said that its activists were "anti-American." When Palme was assassinated, practically every obituary remembered that he had marched with the North Vietnamese ambassador in a famous Stockholm rally against the American war; only one mentioned that, around the same time, the Swedish leader had publicly demonstrated in solidarity with the dissident communists of Czechoslovakia and against the Soviet invasion of their country.

"Bernt Carlsson, like Palme and his other comrades, opposed Washington's policies and yet he deeply admired Americans, particularly their egalitarian irreverence. I remember vividly when Carlsson and I were in Managua in 1981 on a Socialist International mission to defend the revolution against Washington's intervention. Our group was led by Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, which guaranteed that it was taken with the utmost seriousness by the Sandinistas.

"Carlsson was utterly firm in his opposition to American destabilisation. But then, to underline his commitment to democracy, he went to the offices of the opposition newspaper, La Prensa, and took out a subscription.

"This gentle, shy, soft-spoken man with a soul as tough as steel was the true son of a movement that has proved that the conscience of a small nation can affect the superpowers.

"In Jewish legend, a handful of the just keep the world from being destroyed. One of them died on Pan Am Flight 103, and many of them, like the blond-haired, blue-eyed people I saw in Dar-es-Salaam, seem to be Swedish."

"Finger of suspicion"

Former British diplomat Patrick Haseldine first suspected the involvement of the apartheid regime in the Lockerbie bombing when he heard South African foreign minister Pik Botha's interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme on January 11, 1989.

On that day Botha – along with other international representatives including UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar – was in Stockholm to attend the memorial service for Bernt Carlsson, UN Commissioner for Namibia. Botha told the BBC that he had been forced to make a last-minute change in his own booking on Pan Am Flight 103 because of a warning by an intelligence source that he (Botha) was being targeted by Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC).

Patrick Haseldine's letter to The Guardian of December 7, 1989

Using this information, which had not been reported elsewhere in the media, Haseldine wrote a letter to The Guardian on December 7, 1989:

Finger of suspicion

"Exactly one year ago, you published my letter suggesting that Mrs Thatcher might have a blind spot as far as South African terrorism is concerned.

"Fourteen days after publication, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky upon Lockerbie. Of the 270 victims, the most prominent person was the Swede Mr Bernt Carlsson – UN Commissioner for Namibia – whose obituary appeared on page 29 of your December 23, 1988 edition.

"I cannot be the only puzzled observer of this tragedy to wonder why police attention did not immediately focus on a South African connection. The question to be put (probably to Mrs Thatcher) is: given the South African proclivity to using the diplomatic bag for conveying explosives and the likelihood that the bomb was loaded aboard the aircraft at Heathrow (vide David Pallister, The Guardian, November 9, 1989) why has it taken so long for the finger of suspicion to point towards South Africa?

"Were police inquiries into Lockerbie subject to any political guidance or imperatives?"

P J Haseldine

(Address supplied)

Carlsson's "secret meeting"

Jan-Olof Bengtsson, political editor of Kvällsposten

Jan-Olof Bengtsson is the political editor of Kvällsposten newspaper in Malmö, Sweden, and a renowned investigative journalist. Mr Bengtsson's most important work - although perhaps the least publicised - is his series of three articles in Sweden's iDAG newspaper on 12, 13 and 14 March 1990. Never published in the English language, the iDAG articles featured Sweden's UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson who was the most prominent victim of Pan Am Flight 103 which was sabotaged over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988. Bengtsson alleged that Commissioner Carlsson's arm had been twisted by the diamond mining giant De Beers into making a stopover in London for a secret meeting and into joining the doomed flight, rather than taking as he had intended a Sabena flight direct from Brussels to New York:

"Bernt Carlsson, UN Commissioner for Namibia, had less than seven hours to live when at 11.06am on 21 December 1988 he arrived in London on flight BA 391.

"Strictly speaking he was meant to fly directly from Brussels to New York in time for the historic signing of the Namibia Independence Agreement the day after. But Bernt Carlsson could not make it. He had a meeting. An important meeting with a 'pressuriser' from the South African diamond cartel, which was so secret that evidently not even Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, UN Secretary-General, knew anything about it. Here iDAG maps out the last 24 hours in the life of Bernt Carlsson.

"The memorial service in the Folkets Hus in Stockholm on 11 January 1989 for Bernt Carlsson gathered most of our Heads of Government, representatives of the Namibia independence movement SWAPO and Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the UN Secretary-General.

"When he died in the Pan Am bombing, Bernt Carlsson was less than 24 hours away from the fulfilment of his dreams - the signing of the Namibia agreement in New York which would finally pave the way to a free and independent Namibia. This was supposed to be the climax of his career with the UN, a career that began in December 1986 when he was appointed Commissioner for Namibia. Bernt Carlsson had great support from SWAPO but much less so from South Africa because of that country's substantial economic interests in Namibia: an interest in gold, uranium but above all in diamonds.

"Javier Pérez de Cuéllar in his speech at the memorial ceremony on a cold day in January last year [1989] described the last 24 hours in the life of Bernt Carlsson:

'Bernt Carlsson was returning to New York following an official visit to Brussels where he had spoken to a Committee within the European Parliament about the Namibia agreement,' Pérez de Cuéllar began. 'He stopped briefly in London to honour a long-standing invitation by a non-governmental organisation with interests in Namibia.'

"Pérez de Cuéllar was wrong. True, Bernt Carlsson's trip to Brussels had been planned almost six months earlier. But his decision to return to New York via London was only made on 16 December 1988. The meeting in London was definitely not a long-standing invitation by Namibia sympathisers."

Lockerbie cover-up

Within a few weeks of those December 1988 newspaper reports, Bernt Carlsson's name would hardly ever be mentioned again by the mainstream media in the Lockerbie context. Bernt Carlsson had effectively become a "nonperson" - whose death was never properly investigated - and the Lockerbie cover-up was beginning:

Nelson Mandela accused

Pik Botha, apartheid South Africa's foreign minister

Three weeks after the Lockerbie disaster, the apartheid regime accused Nelson Mandela and the ANC of masterminding the sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103. This amazing accusation was made on 11 January 1989 by South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha who had travelled to Stockholm in Sweden with other foreign dignitaries – including UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar – to attend the memorial service of United Nations Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, the highest profile victim of the 270 fatalities at Lockerbie. Interviewed by Sue MacGregor on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Pik Botha alleged that he and a 22-strong South African delegation, who were booked to fly from London to New York on 21 December 1988, had been targeted by the ANC. However, having been alerted to these ANC plans to kill him, Pik Botha said he managed to outsmart them by taking the earlier Pan Am Flight 101 from Heathrow to JFK, New York. Pik Botha's claim to have been booked to travel on Pan Am Flight 103 was later shown to be false.

President Botha quits

President P W Botha and Margaret Thatcher in 1984

On 18 January 1989, President P W Botha was reported to have suffered a mild stroke which prevented him from attending a meeting with Namibian political leaders on 20 January 1989. On 2 February 1989, P W Botha resigned as leader of the National Party (NP) anticipating his nominee – finance minister Barend du Plessis – would succeed him. Instead, the NP's parliamentary caucus selected as leader education minister F W de Klerk, who moved quickly to consolidate his position within the party. In March 1989, the NP elected de Klerk as state president but Botha refused to resign, saying in a television address that the constitution entitled him to remain in office until March 1990 and that he was even considering running for another five-year term. Following a series of acrimonious meetings in Cape Town, and five days after UN Security Council Resolution 435 was implemented in Namibia on 1 April 1989, Botha and de Klerk reached a compromise: Botha would retire after the parliamentary elections in September, allowing de Klerk to take over as president. However, P W Botha resigned from the state presidency abruptly on 14 August 1989 complaining that he had not been consulted by de Klerk over his scheduled visit to see president Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia: "The ANC is enjoying the protection of president Kaunda and is planning insurgency activities against South Africa from Lusaka," Botha declared on nationwide television. He said he had asked the cabinet what reason he should give the public for abruptly leaving office. "They replied I could use my health as an excuse. To this, I replied that I am not prepared to leave on a lie. It is evident to me that after all these years of my best efforts for the National Party and for the government of this country, as well as the security of our country, I am being ignored by ministers serving in my cabinet."

Thatcher visits Namibia

File:Rössing Uranium Mine.jpg

Rössing Uranium Mine

At the end of March 1989, Margaret Thatcher and the rising star in Conservative Research Department, David Cameron, visited apartheid South Africa. The past and future British Prime Ministers made a point of visiting the Rössing Uranium Mine in Namibia (illegally occupied by apartheid South Africa in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 435). In 1989, the Rössing mine was jointly owned by Rio Tinto Group and the Iranian Government, and was supplying uranium to develop Iran’s nuclear programme. Mrs Thatcher was so impressed with the Rössing Uranium Mine that she declared it made her "proud to be British", a sentiment echoed by David Cameron.

Pressure on UN's man

Guardian letter of 5 August 1991

Extract from Patrick Haseldine's letter to The Guardian of August 5, 1991:

Missing diplomatic links and the Lockerbie tragedy

"On April 1, 1989 Mrs Thatcher put pressure on UN Special Representative in Namibia, Martti Ahtisaari, to permit the South African Defence Force (SADF) to take action against SWAPO soldiers who were peacefully returning to Namibia to vote in the 1989 independence elections. As a result, as many as 308 SWAPO soldiers were killed - shot in the back according to former SADF major Nico Basson.

"Whether Mrs Thatcher could have persuaded UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, to agree to such treachery we shall never know since Mr Carlsson was assassinated four months earlier, on December 21, 1988.

"It may not be entirely coincidental that on the same day (July 25, 1991) as South Africa's Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, admitted the illicit funding of anti-SWAPO political parties in Namibia, BBC Radio Four's Today Programme carried an interview about the Scottish police investigation into the Lockerbie disaster, in which Mr Carlsson perished. According to the interview, the criminal investigation has just been concluded and we are now asked to believe that Libyan intelligence were responsible.

"In the light of Major Basson's evidence (detailed by Phillip van Niekerk's article, Guardian, July 27) and Pik Botha's admission, I think that, even at this late stage, the Scottish police should reopen their investigation and look for a South African connection to the Lockerbie tragedy.

Secret nuclear deal

It has recently been reported that Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron concluded a secret nuclear deal with the apartheid regime during their visit to South Africa in 1989.

Stateside silence

Ronald Reagan, the outgoing President, was still smarting after having his veto overridden in 1986 by the US Congress of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act which, inter alia, banned South African Airways from flying to the United States. Plus, according to Professor Francis Boyle's recent book, President Reagan had some old scores that he wanted to settle with Colonel Gaddafi.

Discussing Iran Air Flight 655 in the White House library: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher

So, on 28 December 1988, when there was as yet no evidence of any country's culpability for the Lockerbie bombing and in one of the last acts of his Presidency, Ronald Reagan extended US sanctions against Libya and threatened renewed bombing raids on Tripoli and Benghazi. Vice-President George H W Bush had won the 1988 US presidential election easily defeating Democratic Party challenger Michael Dukakis (who would have branded P W Botha's apartheid South Africa a 'terrorist state') and was sworn in as US President on 20 January 1989.

Drawing upon his previous experience at the United Nations and as Director of the CIA, and maintaining his refusal to apologise for the US Navy's destruction of the Iranian Airbus in July 1988, President Bush Sr then arranged for Muammar Gaddafi to be 'fitted up' at the UN Security Council for the sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103. According to British investigative journalist Paul Foot: "In mid-March 1989, three months after Lockerbie, George Bush rang Margaret Thatcher to warn her to 'cool it' on the subject."

British Blackout

Tiny Rowland, UK coordinator

Professor Robert Black QC

After years of sleuthing, Emeritus Professor of Lockerbie Studies Patrick Haseldine eventually identified British mining magnate, Observer newspaper owner and MI6 operative Tiny Rowland as the UK coordinator of the Lockerbie cover-up.

Haseldine alleges that Tiny Rowland recruited Emeritus Professor of Scots Law Robert Black to organise the British Blackout and to frustrate all of Nelson Mandela’s plans for Lockerbie justice.

In January 1992, Mandela outlined his blueprint for the Lockerbie trial:

• If no extradition treaty exists between the countries concerned, the trial must be conducted in the country where the accused were arrested;
• The trial should be conducted in a neutral country by independent judges;
• The trial should be conducted at The Hague by an international court of justice.

Five years later, President Mandela emphasised at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Edinburgh that "no one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge" in the Lockerbie case.

By 1999, the so-called "architect of the Lockerbie trial" had managed to blackout the whole Mandela blueprint. Professor Black:

• ensured that the Lockerbie trial was not held in a neutral country. Instead, he arranged for the trial to be conducted from May 2000 to January 2001 at Camp Zeist, a former US Air Force base in the Netherlands which, for the duration of the trial, became British territory;
• decreed that Scotland’s Crown Office would be the ‘complainant’ at the trial;
• arranged for Scotland’s Lord Advocate Colin Boyd to be the ‘prosecutor’ at the trial; and,
• insisted that – instead of ‘independent judges’ at the trial – all four Judges (Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield, MacLean and Abernethy) had to be from Scotland.

Although one of the two accused Libyans was found not guilty of the Lockerbie bombing, Haseldine alleges it was thanks to Professor Black that the other Libyan, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was found guilty.

Haseldine says:

.... so for the past 20 years, Professor Robert Black has been suppressing the truth about the Lockerbie disaster, thus delaying justice for the 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103 and their relatives. Prof Black was supported in his attempt to blackout apartheid South Africa’s targeting of Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103 by inter alia these assets of British intelligence:

John Ashton (Author, producer and researcher, see: The Maltese Double Cross; the 2001 book "Cover-up of Convenience" by John Ashton and Ian Ferguson; the 2012 book "Megrahi; You are my Jury" by John Ashton; the 2012 article "Was Libya really behind it?" with John Ashton; and a new book "Scotland’s Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters" that was published by Birlinn on 3 October 2013);

Ian Ferguson (Author, journalist and researcher, see: The Lockerbie Trial.com website of Professor Black and Ian Ferguson; and the 2009 film Lockerbie Revisited researcher Ian Ferguson);

Robert Forrester (Secretary of Justice for Megrahi campaign group);

Professor Andrew Fulton (see: "Former MI6 spy joins Armor Group to hunt down new business");

Dr Alan George (Middle East academic, recruited by solicitors Eversheds to reinforce the defence of Megrahi's co-accused Lamin Khalifah Fhimah);

Dr Morag Kerr (Deputy Secretary of Justice for Megrahi campaign group, see , her book "Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies" will be published on 21 December 2013 );

Adam Larson (Associate of Dr Kerr and owner of The Lockerbie Divide website); and,

Steven Raeburn (Editor of Scots Law journal The Firm).

Patrick Haseldine concludes: "It is high time that this 'Blackout over Lockerbie' was illuminated and dispelled."

See also

On WikiSpooks

• The how, why and who of Pan Am Flight 103
• A MUST READ - File:The Framing of al-Megrahi.doc - An article by Gareth Pierce from the London Review of Books - September 2009.
• UN Report on the first Lockerbie case appeal Professor Hans Koechler Vienna 26 March 2002
• How Megrahi and Libya were framed for Lockerbie - Alexander Cockburn in "The First Post" July 2010
• Bomber, Bomber, Bomber - Steven Raeburn of "The Firm", a Scottish Lawyers Web Site
• The Lockerbie case and the corruption of justice - Dr Hans Koechler
• Release of the Lockerbie Prisoner - Dr Hans Koechler
• The Lockerbie case and the corruption of justice - Dr Hans Koechler
• The Syrian Connection - David Guyatt
• Lockerbie: Ayatollah's Vengeance Exacted by Botha's Regime - Patrick Haseldine
• Comments from Patrick Haseldine on Robert Black's Blog - 6 October 2009

External sites

• A 'MUST CONSULT' RESOURCE - The Herald, Scotland - Lockerbie archive - A substantial Establishment-sceptic resource.
• A 'MUST CONSULT' RESOURCE - - ohmynews - list of articles on the Lockerbie Bombing
• Scottish Law Reporter. Lockerbie pages
• Lockerbie - The evidence
• Flight From the Truth - The Guardian 27 June 2001
• Jim Swire's Web Site
• Facebook group: U.N. must investigate the targeting of Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103
• Professor Robert Black's Blog
• Crown Fights to keep 48 pieces of evidence secret - Glasgow Herald 19 February 2010
• Questions remain over Lockerbie - Guardian letters 23 July 2010
• Lockerbie witness 'put up for reward'
• Lockerbie Bombing Case Faces U-Turn after Perjury Confession - Sofia News Agency 20 August 2007
• UN Claims Lockerbie Trial Was Rigged - Common Dreams 8 April 2001 from The Glasgow Herald
• WikiPedia - Pan Am Flight 103 page

Video

• Lockerbie Lies - A Youtube video featuring Professor Robert Black who was largely responsible for the setup of the Hague Trial and believes that Megrahi would be aquitted in any retrial.
• "The Lockerbie Bombing - Pan Am Flight 103" Al-Jazeera TV documentary featuring Professor Robert Black and Dr John Cameron.