20 years on and Lockerbie victim's father still searches for the truth

WHEN Jim Swire discovered the devastating news that his daughter Flora had died in the Lockerbie air disaster he had one burning aim - to bring her terrorist killers to justice.

But on the 20th anniversary of the outrage the former Midlands GP now finds himself in the extraordinary position of DEFENDING the man convicted of her murder.

Medical student Flora, 23, had been flying out to see her boyfriend in the US when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.

All 259 passengers and crew on board died on that cold winter night. A further 11 people on the ground also perished.

For the next 13 years Jim battled to bring chief suspect Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to trial, even risking his life by holding secret meetings with Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi.
Yet the dad-of-two became convinced the wrong man was in the dock after the Libyan was eventually convicted in 2001.

Since then he has fought a campaign to clear al-Megrahi - who is now suffering from prostrate cancer - and find the real killers of his daughter.

“I think a lot about whether Flora would have approved of what I am doing but I believe she would have,’’ said Jim, who lives in Chipping Camden, Gloucestershire.

‘‘The campaign has grown beyond anything I had ever expected. Twenty years of my life have been concentrated on it and I have had to try to balance it out with living a normal life.’’

The retired GP met al-Megrahi, 56, after he was jailed for life and says he still feels guilt over his part in bringing him to trial.

“I do feel responsible for al-Megrahi as I believe he was ultimately handed over by Gaddafi because of my meetings with him,’’ said Jim, 72.
‘‘But after hearing the evidence at the trial, I believe he isn’t guilty.”

Jim and wife Jane, a retired teacher, have endless fond memories of their beautiful and talented daughter who had wanted to follow her father into the medical profession.

Jane, 69, recalled: “Flora was a very gifted and confident individual. She was lively and creative and was always making something off Blue Peter.
“She began to shine in the sciences as a teenager and wanted to become a doctor.

‘‘Yet she’d seen the downside of a doctor’s life as my husband was a GP. She knew about the late call outs and how it was a tough profession. But she was a strong-minded woman and followed her dream.

“Flora was such a lovely child. I felt privileged to have her.’’

Her proud dad added: ‘‘Flora was a brilliant student and I have no doubt in mind that if she were alive today she would have been at the top of her profession.’’

But those dreams were shattered 20 years ago next month.

Flora had been desperately trying to find a flight to the US to celebrate Christmas with her boyfriend, Hart Lidov, when a late seat became available on the fateful Pan Am plane.

Jane recalled: “She had been trying to book a flight to the US but had no luck. She’d spent the weekend with us and we went to the theatre.

‘‘Two days later she called to tell us she had found a flight and asked if it was OK if she went. I told her we didn’t mind.”

Hours later Jane stumbled upon a terrifying news bulletin.
“Jim and I had just come home from a shopping trip and I turned on the TV and there was a newsflash about a plane crash in Scotland,’’ she recalled.

‘‘I was worried that it was the flight Flora was on, so I alerted Jim.
“We waited for the next news programme which told us that the plane had crashed at 7.05pm. I was praying it wasn’t Flora’s flight as it had taken off at 6pm and I was convinced it would have been way past Scotland by the time of the crash.

‘‘We were desperately trying to get through to the relatives’ hotline but it was constantly engaged.

“And then we realised that it was her plane - and that Flora was dead. We just sat and watched the devastating pictures of the plane. We were horrified yet mesmerised and terrified by it all.
‘‘We were completely beside ourselves.”

Soon afterwards Jim pledged to win justice for his daughter and all those killed on Pan Am Flight 103. Yet over the years he has become convinced the Libyans were not involved.
He said: “The evidence points to the involvement of Iran and Syria, not Libya.

“The case against al-Megrahi, I believe is invalid.”

Jim believes the Lockerbie bombing was a revenge attack against the Americans who had ordered an Iranian Airbus to be shot down months before Lockerbie killing 290 innocent people.

He also believes a Syrian terror group had amassed a cache of bombs designed for infiltration into European airports, explosives would sense the drop of pressure as an aircraft climbed into the skies - and would explode about 40 minutes after take-off.

And the Lockerbie bomb, he claims, may have been handed to and planted by an insider at Heathrow during a break-in the night before the disaster.

But with al-Megrahi serving a life sentence, he fears the true story will never be known unless the conviction is overturned.

Jim added: “I believe that the truth will never come out while I am alive. Justice will not be done in my lifetime.”

Soon after Lockerbie Jim and Jane planted young trees in the grounds of their family home in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, which they named Flora’s Wood.

The trees are mature now and still stand there today, despite the couple selling the house in 2002. They were planted in the shape of an F for Flora, a poignant outline that can still be seen from satellite pictures on Google Earth.

http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/midlands-news/2008/11/08/20-years-on-and-lockerbie-victim-s-father-still-searches-for-the-truth-93633-22211467/

No Justification

Dr Jim Swire has written to The Herald newspaper in Scotland regarding the Judges decision last week to uphold the right of the UK government to block the release of documents to convicted Lockerbie bomber Megrahi's defence team in his current appeal.

Mr Swire, as many other observers, finds no justification for this stance taken by the UK government.

Article Here - http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.2105464.0.No_justification.php

Jim Swire's Letter - "Paying for Evidence"

Apologies for the lack of updates recently as I have been working abroad.

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Dr Jim Swire of the UKF 103, has written to The Herald newspaper in Scotland expressing his concerns regarding payments made to witnesses at the Lockerbie trial, and therefore the credibility of their testimony.

"Paying for evidence is contrary to justice"

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.1948469.0.Paying_for_evidence_is_contrary_to_justice.php

Lockerbie -19th Anniversary.

Jim Swire's Letter to The Herald.

"International Criminal Court requires new powers to catch up with Terrorists."

This is the title of a letter published in The Herald on the 19th anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy.

The Herald - http://tiny.cc/pyfvx

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Angiolini rapped over Lockerbie file.

By JOHN ROBERTSON

THE Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, was criticised by Scotland's senior judge yesterday over the appeal by the convicted Lockerbie bomber.

The spat between Mrs Angiolini, QC, and Lord Hamilton, the Lord Justice-General, centred on her failure to spell out clearly in written submissions her stance on the possible disclosure of confidential documents to lawyers for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 55, the Libyan serving a life sentence for the 1988 bombing.

Earlier this year, Megrahi's case was referred to the appeal court by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which concluded he may have suffered a miscarriage of justice in being convicted of the murders of the 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie.

The Scotsman article continues - http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Angiolini-rapped-over-Lockerbie-file.3611641.jp

Published Date: 21 December 2007
Source: The Scotsman
Location: Scotland

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Judge raps law chiefs for delays to Lockerbie document.

By Lucy Adams

The Herald article - http://tiny.cc/uN2UB

21/12/07

Plus ça Change....

Today's second procedural hearing in Edinburgh in connection with the appeal of Megrahi has once again echoed the problems which have persistently plagued the investigation and the resulting trial for almost 19 years.

It is clear that the Crown prosecution team, and indeed the British government, are impervious to pleas, appeals, or reason in seeking justice - not just in the possibility an innocent man may have served nearly seven years wrongly incarcerated, but also for the victims and some family members, who after 19 years, are still finding the truth about their loved ones deaths elusive.

With the news yesterday that the British government has also committed to an agreement with Libya with regards to prisoner transfers, specifically with regards to Megrahi, it merely highlighted the lies and hypocrisy at the heart of the current New Labour Government.

Tony Blair had explicitly told, just before he was forced from office (ironically as the result of the lies in taking Britain to war in Iraq, the lies surrounding cash for honors, and the scuppering of an investigation into an arms deal with Saudi Arabia), the Scottish government, and the British public, that the prisoner transfer memo agreement under discussion with the Libyan government, had no bearing whatsoever on Megrahi's case.


7 June 2007 - "The memorandum of understanding agreed with the Libyan Government last week does not cover this (Megrahi) case." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6731739.stm

19 Dec 2007 - "Jack Straw will be signing the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya tonight. Megrahi will not be listed in the treaty as somebody who is specifically excluded," http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Libya-deal-on-eve-of.3607023.jp


The Judges have set the date 20th February in court to discuss further the matter regarding the 'document(s)' which the Crown are refusing to disclose at the behest of the Lord Advocate and the British government.

The same document which, when requested by the SCCRC, was duly disclosed without qualification, and clearly was recognised as having significant bearing on the conviction, but now the Crown prosecution team has proposed a Public Interest Immunity (PII), that restricts Megrahi's defence team from it's use as possible evidence in any appeal process.

If the government have nothing to hide, then why keep their hands behind their back?

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From The Herald, Scotland.

Government blocks release of vital Lockerbie appeal document.

Herald article here - http://tiny.cc/SQClP


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Other articles on the hearing :

Prof. Robert Black Q.C. offers an in depth perspective on today's hearing - http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/12/second-procedural-hearing.html

Dr. Ludwig De Braeckeleer : http://gaiapost.blogspot.com/2007/12/lockerbie-crown-refuses-to-reveal.html

Post Script to Jim Swire...The Untold Story

From 1st July 2007:

Friday’s (Lesley) Riddoch Questions with Lockerbie relative leader Jim Swire was a pleasant case of déjà vu.

In 1994 when I was Asst Editor of the Scotsman, I took the decision to screen a film made by the late Alan Frankovich called the Maltese Double Cross. The film argued that Iran not Libya was behind the Lockerbie bombing and though it was meant to be screened by the London Film Festival, they dropped it after getting a legal challenge from….someone. This got me interested. Lockerbie was the biggest single act of terrorism on British soil and no-one wanted to screen a film trying to explain what happened.

A solid week followed with reporter Stephen Breen, working through the film frame by frame to answer the many, many reservations raised by the Scotsman’s lawyers. I booked an Edinburgh cinema, which discovered it was double-booked -- at the last minute. Happily, the Glasgow Film Theatre came to the rescue. Along with Jim Swire.

His daughter Flora was killed on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 and earlier that day Jim had been at the Commons where Tam Dalyell showed Frankovich’s film in a private screening. He agreed to head to Glasgow the next day and to take the second tape of the film with him.

Unlike Tam, we were showing the film in public and could be sued for defamation if we put a foot wrong. We had several last minute edits ordered by the lawyers and there was no other way but Jim to get the film to Glasgow on time.

While Jim and Tam were at the Commons, the only other copy of the Maltese Double Cross was stolen in a burglary at a Birmingham Human Rights Office, which, as I recall, was also burned to the ground. Which left me feeling a trifle jumpy, heading for Glasgow with the first tape in a shopping bag, praying that Jim Swire would make it in time, with the second. Minutes before the start, with a cinema fill of hacks, spooks and humans, he appeared.

Exhausted but optimistic the film would raise questions, open doors, open minds…… And here he is again. 13 years later, looking not a day older with his wife Jane. Still hopeful that the true story of the Lockerbie bombing will emerge and quite convinced that Al Megrahi, the man convicted and given leave to appeal again this week, is actually innocent.

Like many other relatives, Jim and Jane hardly allow themselves to believe the guilty man or men will ever be found. But after the appeal they’ll press for an independent inquiry to find out what they really want to know. Why did the British authorities ignore all the warnings that caused other countries to take people off the flight from Heathrow.

I really hope we won’t all be gathering again in another 13 years time. But who knows?

http://www.lesleyriddoch.com/2007/07/post-script-to-.html

From Dungeon To Talk Show Host

by Michael Brown. 28 May 1998.

A US District Judge has sentenced Lester K. Coleman, a witness in the Lockerbie disaster civil case, to time served and a $30,000 fine for five counts of perjury based on an affidavit he gave in the Pan Am case. Last week, Coleman, now a talk show host on WLXG in Lexington, Kentucky, retaliated with a $6.5 million damages lawsuit against the US prison service for his treatment during his time in jail awaiting trial.

Coleman had filed an affidavit in 1991 after fleeing to Sweden where he had been granted sanctuary on humanitarian grounds. He voluntarily returned to the US in 1996 and was immediately taken into custody. He is the only person in US legal history to be charged with perjury over an affidavit filed in a civil case.

Judge Thomas C. Platt had warned Coleman during sentencing : "If I hear you attacking the Government on your radio show, I shall take that very very seriously". Judge Platt also barred Coleman from speaking about his case on the radio programme. Coleman said after the sentencing : "Today was another episode in the saga of a five-year-old perjury case, based on a sever-year-old civil affidavit, over a ten-year-old air disaster. No American can ever give up free speech to preserve a judge's order."

Judge Platt said from the bench : "I want to send to send a message to all those in the beltway in Washington that perjury in a civil case is prosecuted, as this case shows." (Platt, a Nixon appointee, may have been challenging Pres. Clinton's supporters who claimed that perjury in a civil case is never prosecuted.)

Coleman, a former agent with the Defence Intelligence Agency, provoked controversy in the US and UK by claiming in 1992 that the Lockerbie tragedy, in which 270 people died, was caused by an American drug sting operation which went wrong. (Transcript of Coleman affidavit posted below this article.)

Coleman claimed that the DEA had been operating a number of Beirut-based sting operations, involving more than 130 paid informants, which allowed controlled deliveries of heroin from Lebanon to US airports. The goal was to arrest US-based drug gangs. Several informants had been given CIA 'asset' status in 1987 to lure a suspected terrorist out of Beirut aboard a yatch off the coast of Cyprus. The operation was codenamed Goldenrod.

[ Further reading on this particular operation, and an admission by the DEA, in court, that the drug sting was indeed operational, is detailed in this article -
http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence/readme/lockerbie ]

This operation was co-ordinated by several key figures subsequently drafted in to deal with the bombing of Flight 103. Oliver 'Buck' Revel, Deputy Director of FBI, Vincent Cannistraro of the CIA's Rome Station and Michael T Hurley, the DEA attaché in Cyprus. Coleman suspected that it was Lebanese drug informants, adopted as CIA assets for the drug operation, who eventually provided Syria with the intelligence used to place the bomb aboard Pan Am 103.

Coleman claimed the DEA's drug operation had been infiltrated by Iranian financed and Syrian backed PLFP-GC, who had been ordered to avenge the shootdown by the US navy of a commercial Iranian flight (Iran Air 655) in July 1988, killing 290 people. Instead of placing the usual heroin on the flight, it was substituted for a suitcase containing explosives.

Coleman made the allegations in an affidavit to Pan Am during the airline's investigation into the tragedy. Pan Am had filed notice of legal action against the Government. Government attorneys balked at turning over classified documents claiming National Security reasons. The case was dismissed by then district Judge Thomas Platt in the Eastern District of New York for lack of evidence.

It was not until Coleman reiterated his allegations in a book, some two and a half years later, that the US government responded by accusing him of perjury. He became the first ever person to be charged with perjury over statements given in an affidavit in a civil case.

At the time "Trail of the Octopus" was published, Coleman and his family were already in Sweden having successfully applied for asylum. Coleman already had had the feeling that he had become a state target. His supporters claim that the charge of perjury was brought because he had dared to contradict the official US view that Libya was responsible for the bombing.

After six years in exile, in failing health and with the US pressing for his deportation, Coleman voluntarily returned home on 11 October 1996. He was held for five months, without bail, while a cancerous tumour the size of a golf ball, grew on his collar bone. Coleman repeatedly told his public defender, Abraham Clott, he needed medical care, but it was not until Vivian Shevitz agreed to take his case without fee that something was done.

Shevitz wrote to the Warden at Metropolitan Detention Centre on 13 January 1997, three months after Coleman's arrival : "I wrote on January 7th to suggest the need for immediate medical treatment for pre-trail detainee Lester K. Coleman. I visited Mr.Coleman yesterday and learned essentially nothing has been done. A painful growth on his chest is still apparently oozing. His t-shirt is covered with blood. Mr Coleman advised me that he was told on 23 December that it would take about two weeks for an operation. It has been longer than that and there is a need."

On January 21, Coleman was operated upon, returning the same day to jail. For 16 days, he received no further medical attention or assistance, and his wound became seriously infected. Shevitz wrote numerous letters to the court. Coleman was finally returned to hospital and Shevitz describes the visit in a letter : "It was not until Thursday 6 February that Mr Coleman was taken to see Dr Beaton at Downtown Hospital. While Dr Beaton refused to tell me directly about his reaction to Mr Coleman's condition, the two Special Deputy Marshals who accompanied Mr Coleman were willing to be forthcoming. (Despite their expressed
knowledge that the system expected their silence.)

Own Flynn is a Special Deputy Marshal who kindly spoke to me on the telephone on 7 February. He told me that when in the examination room with Mr Coleman, Dr Beaton, when first looking at the wound, said in substance :"Oh my God, look at this, this is criminal. This is appalling."

The doctor had warned Mr Coleman that, even that the wound was infected, he would have to remove the stitches from the original operation, and that would be painful.

Dr Beaton wrote : "This frankly is an outrage, as it relates to a man who is charged with no more than perjury in an affidavit in a civil case! Whether he 'jumped bail' or not in the past or another charge, hardly smacks of Jack the Ripper : he voluntarily returned and has no money, nor energy to go anywhere. He is sick with cancer and needs medical care and rest. He needs also to prepare his case at the same time."

After Shevitz's letter to the court charging the Justice department with malpractice and cruelty, Coleman was sent to suburban hospital to recover. It took round the clock treatment for 11 days to clear up the infection. While he was there he was seen by resident psychiatrist, Harvey Berman, clinical professor at New York Medical College.

Dr Berman later wrote to the court on 11 September 1997 : "Mr Lester Coleman is a patient under my care. He has been in treatment with me since 28 February. His diagnosis is major depression. His symptoms include sad moods, insomnia, lethargy, difficulty in concentrating, ruminations of hopelessness, frequent thoughts of death and nightmares of his time at the MDC earlier this year where he received sub-standard medical care. I believe the depression was
precipitated by the way he was treated there."

Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for the British relatives of the Lockerbie victims said he was disturbed at how the US authorities were treating Coleman. Swire wrote "The gross maltreatment of Coleman by the American authorities appears to fit a pattern of victimisation of people who challenge the official version that Libya was solely to blame for Lockerbie."

Shevitz's campaign to obtain Coleman's release on bail finally bore fruit when Assistant Attorney Alan Vickery agreed on 27 March 1998 that Coleman could be released into the custody of his daughter, living upstate New York. The terms included house arrest, wearing an electronic bracelet (tag), with no travel except to see a doctor and to court.

For the next six months Coleman remained confined, but it remained a level up from the ordeal at MDC. He had still not seen the family that he had left behind at Atlanta Airport over a year before.

Coleman and Shevitz began preparing to take on the Government, filing a host of discovery requests for classified documents, listed by file number and name. It was obvious from the detailed requests that Coleman's past relationship with US military intelligence was real. Shevitz, still representing Coleman without charge, filed her expenses with the court only to be denied her motion by Judge Platt.

Soon she was out of pocket almost $10,000. Towards the end of the summer, with not one shred of discovery from the Government, Shevitz reluctantly told Coleman she was forced to withdraw. His only alternative was public defender, Abraham Clott, the lawyer who had not even bothered to complain about Coleman's medical treatment for several months.

With Clott back, the case ground to a halt. Clott and his boss, Attorney-in-Charge, Thomas J Cancannon visited Coleman at his daughter's home on August 28 1998. From illness and prescribed drugs, Coleman has little recollection of that day, but did have the where-with-all to tape the meeting. Cancannon and Clott advised Coleman he could take advantage of the unusual Rule 11 (1)(e) - Deal, plead guilty and walk free - or continue to fight, be returned to jail and face two or three years litigation before Judge Platt. Even in Coleman's distorted state, the choice was clear. He had had enough.

Still, Coleman wrestled with the decision until the day before he walked into court. Clott called him on September 10. Coleman again recorded the conversation :

Coleman : I might just walk in there and disagree with the whole thing, I don't know, I might just do that.
Clott : If you do that, you'll be remanded and face two to three years....
Coleman : Oh, I don't think this will go away anytime soon...
Clott : Yes it will
Coleman : It will?
Clott : I am sure it will, after tomorrow.

The following morning, on 11 September 1998, advised he would never have his day in court, he stood before Judge Thomas C. Platt, and pleaded guilty to five counts of perjury based on the affidavit he gave in the Pan Am civil case nearly seven years earlier.

Within two days, he was on a plane to Palm Springs, California at the Government's expense, where he was joined by his wife and three children.

Lockerbie: Protecting The Victim's Rights.

Following open letter to The Herald was published in accordance with Dr. Jim Swire:

In our democracy, there are two great protectors of the rights of the individual.
1.) the ability of our elected representatives to bring our concerns into the Court of Parliament.
2.) The Criminal Justice system.

1.) Parliament

It appears that MSPs are even now being told that they cannot ask questions about the appalling allegations of concealment and indeed deceit by the Crown Office, past and present.I quote from a recent comment to an MSP re the position at Holyrood re 'Rule 7.5.1:"Rule 7.5.1 of Standing Orders states; "A member may not in the proceedings of the Parliament refer to any matter in relation to which legal proceedings are active except to the extent permitted by the Presiding Officer" and Rule 7.5.2 states "For the purposes of paragraph 1, legal proceedings are active in relation to a matter if they are active for the purposes of section 2 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981".Under Rule 19B.1 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 1996, a referral by the Commission to the High Court is treated as an application for leave to appeal that has been made and granted.

The Contempt of Court Act states in Schedule 1, paragraph 15 that "Appellate proceedings are active from the time when they are commenced -(a) by an application for leave to appeal or apply for review, or by notice of such an application; (b) by notice of appeal or of application for review; (c) by other originating process."Therefore, as legal proceedings are active, under Rule 7.5.1 we are unable to admit questions on the case of Mr al-Megrahi.This looks like a gagging of our elected representatives in Parliament.

2.) Justice

Following Lockerbie, the US decided to issue a promise of major financial rewards to those providing information leading to the identification/arrest of the perpetrators. Amounts up to $4,000,000 were available. Posters similar to what one might see pinned on a tree in a cowboy film were printed and internationally distributed.This occurred long before the Zeist trial was agreed.

Surely the existence of this considerable programme to reward potential witnesses must be held to severely compromise the validity of evidence they eventually gave. It seems to me irrelevant as to whether - as now seems likely - Gauchi did receive perhaps $2,000,000 and live the high life in Australia as is now alleged. What matters is that it can be shown that there was widespread dissemination of the intention to reward, long before the witnesses gave their evidence.

Professor Koechler, appointed observer for the UN at Zeist, has just pointed out that the manufacturer of the timer allegedly used by the Lockerbie bomber, now claims that he was specifically offered 'up to $4,000,000' by the CIA if he would say in court that the famous 'timer fragment' had come from a timer that his firm had sold to the Libyans. At the very least the manufacturer, long before he gave his first tranche of 'evidence' would have had to be severely myopic not to be aware that large rewards were on offer.

Good intelligence services serve their country's perceived interests, not the truth; this combined with the reward offers seems to have been what crippled Scotland's brave attempt to hold a legitimate criminal trial in Zeist.

It may be part of our tragedy that the agreement to set up the Zeist trial came at a time when both Bill Clinton, and the late Robin cook were promoting the International Criminal Court, which America has since castrated.

It also came at a time when Nelson Mandela, speaking re Lockerbie in Edinburgh, said " No one country should be complainant, prosecutor and judge" It is hardly straining the truth to claim that at that time, concerning Lockerbie, the UK and US were indeed acting as 'one country'.I still have high hopes that Scotland will strain every sinew to try to extricate at least herself from the appalling ramifications of this terrible tragedy.

Dr Jim Swire.

Lockerbie Bomber To Go Free On Appeal

This article by David Horovich from the 'Jerusalem Post' seems confident that Megrahi will be freed on his appeal. There is a first procedural hearing in Megrahi's new appeal at 10am on Thursday, 11 October 2007 in the Justicary Appeal Court (Court 3) in the Court of Session building (Parliament House) in Edinburgh.

The conviction of Libyan intelligence officer Abdelsbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988 - the deadliest terrorist attack ever mounted in the UK - will be overturned in an appeals process that begins with a procedural hearing on Thursday and gets under way in earnest next year, several leading experts closely connected to the case have told The Jerusalem Post.

Megrahi, who was jailed for murder in 2001, is the only man ever convicted for the Lockerbie bombing, in which 259 passengers and crew, and 11 people on the ground, lost their lives. A second Libyan defendant, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, was acquitted. Libya, which was held responsible for the attack, has paid compensation to victims' families, but never formally accepted responsibility.

Megrahi, who has always denied involvement, lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002, and was only given leave to mount a second appeal in June. A Scottish legal review commission found six potential grounds for a miscarriage of justice, including flaws in the process by which he was identified and, reportedly, the non-disclosure of a classified report on the timer purportedly used in the bomb. The commission referred the case back to the Scottish courts.

The overturning of Megrahi's conviction could revive the bombing investigators' original theory, widely believed by many of those close to the case, that Lockerbie was not a Libyan plot at all, but was, rather, carried out by Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, on behalf of Iran.

Among the leading figures who publicly voiced this assertion was then trade minister Ariel Sharon, who told a press conference in Madrid seven weeks after the bombing, "Israel believes it was Ahmed Jibril."

Investigators initially stated that the Pan Am jumbo jet, which was blown up 38 minutes into its journey from London to New York, was destroyed by a device featuring an air pressure switch similar to several devices seized by German police when they arrested a PFLP-GC cell a few weeks before the bombing.

But the subsequent purported linking of Megrahi to items in the suitcase containing the bomb, and the discovery at the crash site of a fragment of a different timing device, purportedly traced to Libya, saw the investigation change course dramatically. The identification of Megrahi - by a Maltese shopkeeper named Tony Gauci, who testified to having sold Megrahi items found in the suitcase - and the provenance of the "Libyan" timer have been consistently disputed by the defense.

In separate telephone interviews in the last few days, the spokesman for the Lockerbie victims' families, the UN's observer on the case and the Scottish law professor who formulated the legal framework under which Megrahi was tried have all told the Post they are convinced the conviction will be overturned. The appeals process begins on Thursday with a procedural hearing, at which a timetable will likely be set for the full appeal next year. Megrahi is not expected to attend Thursday's hearing.

Families' spokesman Dr. Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, said he was certain that the new evidence would see Megrahi released, but that he feared it would be "convenient" for the appeals court to free the Libyan on "some semi-technical" count - "something along the lines of the prosecution having failed to give the defense access to all the evidence" - without the full truth ever coming out.

Swire said he feared this full truth included "the deliberate fabrication of evidence" such as the timer fragment, in order to frame Megrahi and render Libya as the "perfect scapegoat" for Lockerbie.

Hans Koechler, appointed as an "international observer" to the trial by the UN Security Council on the nomination of then secretary-general Kofi Annan, told the Post: "They'll cancel the judgement. The appeal court will decide that a miscarriage of justice has occurred, because of the unreliability of Tony Gauci's evidence."

And Robert Black, the emeritus professor of law at the University of Edinburgh who formulated the complex legal mechanism that facilitated the original trial before Scottish judges in the Netherlands, said the same thing. "Megrahi will go free. He should never have been convicted. The evidence does not show him to have had anything to do with [the Lockerbie bombing]."
Libya's motivation in ordering the attack is said to have included a desire for revenge on the part of Col. Gaddafi for a series of confrontations with the US, including a military strike in 1986 in which his daughter was killed.

Koechler did not posit an alternative theory, but Swire and Black both said they were convinced that the PFLP-GC was to blame, and that it carried out the attack on behalf of Iran.

"The Iranians had told the world that they would seek revenge for the Vincennes attack," said Swire, a reference to the shooting down by the US Navy's guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes of an Iran Air civilian flight in July 1988, in which 290 passengers and crew were killed. Iran said the attack was deliberate; the US said it had mistaken the plane for a fighter jet.

The Iranians "had colluded in the past with the PFLP-GC under Jibril, and now they colluded again," said Swire, adding: "The PFLP-GC was the 'sensible choice' because, as has been established, it maintained a workshop on the outskirts of Damascus that manufactured timing devices" involving an air-pressure switch for bombs to detonate aboard airplanes.

Both Swire and Black said the case had been skewed because of the timing of the Lockerbie investigation, which played out as the first Gulf War was developing. The US-led coalition, gearing up to take on Saddam Hussein, needed Syria to stay out of the conflict, said Swire, and also did not want to face "hordes of Iranian foot soldiers swarming across the border to attack it. So it was not worth irritating Iran and Syria."

Added Black: "The PFLP-GC was funded and protected by Syria... And with the unfolding of Operation 'Desert Storm'.. the coalition needed at least the benevolent neutrality of Syria." Black added: "It was never anticipated that Libya would surrender the two suspects for trial. The thinking was, 'We'll just generally blame the Libyans.'"

Black said he was scandalized by the cover-up. It was terrible that "national governments would get up to this kind of thing," he said. But as a "parochial Scottish lawyer," he went on, he was most pained "that the criminal justice system in my country lent itself to this."

Koechler is calling for a new investigation into the bombing, without the involvement of the US, UK or Libya, but he said he feared "it will not happen."

http://tinyurl.com/245eog

PFLP-GC

An article in The Sunday Express has pointed the finger of blame of the Lockerbie disaster at the PFLP-GC, Ahmed Jibril, Abu Talb, Abu Elias, Mobdi Goben and Hafez Dalkamoni. Nothing new you might think. However, one of the named, Abu Elias is an American citizen, living in Washington under a new identity.

FINGER OF BLAME FOR LOCKERBIE POINTED AT AMERICAN CITIZEN
By Derek Lambie


AN AMERICAN citizen living close to the White House has emerged as the real Lockerbie bomber, the Sunday Express can reveal.

In a sensational twist, Abu Elias, currently living near Washington DC, will be named with others believed to be in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) as part of a terror cell behind the Pan Am disaster.

Lawyers claim the radical Palestinian organisation was hired for $10million to avenge the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the US five months earlier. Two weeks ago Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 55, was given the right to appeal his conviction. Elias - who has a new identity the Sunday Express cannot divulge - is the nephew of the terror group's leader, Ahmed Jibril, the man believed to be the mastermind of the bombing.

The Sunday Express understands new documents - likely to form the basis for al-Megrahi's appeal - show the American was described as "the primary target" early in the investigation. They also state he conspired with Mohammed Abu Talb, an Egyptian named by Dumfries and Galloway Police as the initial chief suspect.

Lockerbie relatives last night said they are more convinced than ever that the PFLP-GC are the perpetrators of the atrocity. Dr Jim Swire, who lost daughter Flora in the disaster, said: "My view has always been that Abu Talb was involved but that he was not the actual bomber. This development is encouraging and opens new avenues."

Pan Am Flight 103 was just 38 minutes into its journey from London to New York when it was blown up. Investigators concluded a Semtex bomb was in a cassette player rigged with a Swiss electronic timing device. Al-Megrahi was convicted in 2002 following a £75million trial at a Scottish Court, at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, although his co-accused Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima was cleared.

But the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) has identified six grounds where it believes a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, with its main focus on the evidence from Tony Gauci, who said al-Megrahi had come into his shop in Malta and bought clothes found at the scene of the disaster.

With the decision, the finger of blame is once again being pointed at the PFLP-GC. Jibril was suspected of organising the bombing on behalf of Iran as revenge on the US for shooting down Iran Air 655 over the Persian Gulf in 1988.

Evidence submitted to the SCCRC named Jibril, now 79, as the mastermind, with his nephew working with Abu Talb, a member of a splinter group and later jailed for life in Sweden for a bomb attack that left one person dead.

The defence case included a US Defence Intelligence Agency cable from September 24, 1989, which states: "The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar (Mohtashemi-Pur), theformer Iranian Minister of Interior."The operation was contracted to Ahmad Jabril (sic)... for $1million. The remainder was to be paid after successful completion of the mission."

Documents viewed by the Sunday Express allege the plot began when a man named Mobdi Goben supplied material for the bomb to Hafez Dalkamoni, the leader of the PFLP-GC's European cell. He was then introduced to the alleged bomb maker Marwan Khreesat, by Elias, who has both Syrian and American passports. Very little is known about Elias, but the defence insists he was paid in travellers' cheques by terror leader Dalkamoni in Cyprus, before he took delivery of the bomb in Frankfurt. Elias was identified as the key suspect although it was never explored in court, even after documents about his role suddenly emerged during the trial.

The Goben Memorandum, said to have been written by a dying member of the PFLP-GC, was handed to the Lord Advocate detailing the group's activities and a confession about Elias. Elias was concerning the FBI before the bombing and was quizzed about cheques deposited in his bank. In August 1988 he met with agents, who knew he was Jibril's nephew. While the SCCRC said there is dubiety over whether Gauci had correctly identified al-Megrahi, documents show the shopkeeper had no such problems identifying Abu Talb.

Despite the evidence, the investigation took an unexpected twist and the Syrian terror group's suspected role in the disaster was dropped. Meanwhile, it emerged Talb could be brought to trial in Scotland because he does not have lifetime immunity from prosecution as had been believed. During al-Megrahi's trial there was a widespread belief he had been given Crown protection for giving evidence. However, the Crown Office yesterday confirmed he does not have immunity.

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/12732