Megrahi, anger, and me

Thursday, 23 February 2012 17:53
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By Kenneth Roy

When we were starting the Institute of Contemporary Scotland, publisher of this magazine, in the golden hours of the century when there was lots of dosh swilling around for crazy new ideas, Sir Lewis Robertson (now deceased) arranged a lunch to enable me to meet the theological thinker Richard Holloway, of whom he was an admirer.

I never did discover the purpose of this lunch, enlightening as it was, since Mr Holloway made it clear that he would not be assisting the fledgling institute. 'I'm not a joiner,' he explained. It was not long after this that he joined the Scottish Arts Council as its chairman. 'I'm not a joiner' was perhaps a tactful way of saying, 'I'm not a joiner of the Institute of Contemporary Scotland, but I could be a joiner of the Scottish Arts Council'.

His remark stuck, because I’m not a joiner either. Yet I've just joined something. It's an odd feeling.

I even turned down an opportunity to join the Scottish Arts Council, long before Richard Holloway was its chairman. The idea was that I should become a member of the drama committee and work my passage from there. It was an attractive proposition; I was enamoured of the Scottish theatre, and the arts in general, in a way that I am not any more. And I enjoyed going to lunch with the woman who was doing the persuading. Mostly we didn't talk about the Scottish Arts Council. We just exchanged scurrilous gossip about this and that. Mostly that.

Eventually, I had to tell her. I confessed during one of our lunches that, all things considered, I wouldn't be joining the drama committee, that I was hopeless as a team player and that I wouldn't be happy about turning down applications which put people out of work. This must have come as a huge disappointment. The gossipy lunches ceased abruptly. It seemed we weren't friends any more.

One committee I did join, if only for one meeting, was some Church of Scotland advisory group on Life and Work magazine. The editor at the time was Bob Kernohan. I couldn't believe it when people started criticising stuff that had appeared in his magazine. Was our only purpose, if we had any, not to give moral support to the editor and tentatively pitch in an idea if asked? Who the hell did we think we were, lecturing one of Scotland's best journalists on how to do his job?

Hey, I'm not a joiner. I'm with Holloway on that one.

Why, then, have I just accepted an invitation to join JFM – the Justice for Megrahi Committee? The one obvious route to refusal was that membership of this committee might compromise my independence as a six hours a week journalist, filling this space; ii's often a useful get-out clause from any commitment to altruism or, for that matter, anything else.

Two things tipped me over the edge. The first was driven by anger, the emotion that my adviser Seneca counsels me against. I can't help it, Seneca, I'm not like you; for the time being I have to live in this world.

In this case, however, it's hardly likely. I have been banging on about Megrahi for years. My views are not going to change in a hurry, if ever. That report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission needs to be published, it needs to be published in full, it needs to be published pronto. Then and only then will the people of Scotland be able to judge for themselves the credibility of the prosecution case and the conduct of our justice system.

We paid for this report. It's a public document, one of the most important ever produced in Scotland, concerning the worst atrocity inflicted on these shores in peacetime and the deaths of 270 blameless people. But although we’re big enough to have paid for the report, it seems we are not big enough to be trusted with its contents. Important vested interests continue to obstruct its appearance.

Non-joining being bred in the bone, I still wouldn't have joined the Justice for Megrahi Committee. Two things tipped me over the edge. The first was driven by anger, the emotion that my adviser Seneca counsels me against. I can't help it, Seneca, I'm not like you; for the time being I have to live in this world.

Last Thursday, when we published a detailed positional paper from JFM with an accompanying editorial, all of 14 minutes elapsed before an iphone response from a Labour MSP pouring scorn on the Scottish Review's campaign for transparency in the Lockerbie case. Fourteen minutes, huh? Fourteen minutes in which to read and assimilate a complex document, and prepare a negative six-liner on your iphone – it's impressive. It could even tell us quite a lot about why the Labour Party hasn't been in power in Scotland for the last five years. They've all been too busy taking lessons in speed reading.

The second thing was more personal. One of the people on the Justice for Megrahi Committee is Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora on flight 103 and has been fighting for the truth ever since. I have discovered from years of interviewing them that, with few exceptiions, that is what victims yearn for and work towards: not revenge, not blood, but the truth. At the age of 76 Dr Swire goes on fighting for it, risking his life to enter the chaos that is Libya. Why wouldn't I join a committee with that noble man and do what little I can to help him?

So I've broken the habit of a lifetime and joined something. Fourteen minutes from now – maybe less – someone with an iphone will tell me I'm wrong. This time, I won't be counting.

 

Courtesy of Kenneth Roy - read Kenneth Roy at the Scottish Review

Comments  

 
# Electric Hermit 2012-02-23 18:14
An uncharacteristi cally upbeat epistle. This "joining" thing seems to be good for you.
 
 
# alisdair 2012-02-23 20:25
More power to your elbow Kenneth, now do some good for the people of Scotland, expose the utter mendacity of the UK and USA governments, you might find a very, very greatful world.
 
 
# tartanfever 2012-02-23 22:28
Good for you Mr Roy. I think Jim Swire is probably one of the most respected people around today and as you quite rightly point out, is someone deserving of full support.

Out of interest, i don't suppose their's any chance you could let us know the identity of the Labour MSP ?
 
 
# Astonished 2012-02-23 22:40
14 minutes ?? Speed reading ??

I think the more likely scenario is someone else speed read it and told the labour msp what to think. :)



You should name him/her - so we can guess if he read it her/himself ?
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-23 23:19
The US Innocence Project has described trying to get a miscarriage of justice reversed as "like unbaking a cake". I can see what they mean. Once a presumption of guilt is established, it's soul-destroying.

John Ashton's biography of Megrahi is being published next week, and already we've been treated to outrage from US relatives of the victims. The line seems to be that since he has been convicted, he should not be allowed to protest his innocence, and nobody should listen to him. The heinous nature of the atrocity is used as a pretext for denying Megrahi any redress.

How much worse, surely, to think about the terrorists who really bombed Pan Am 103, laughing their heads off for over 20 years every time someone refers to Megrahi as "the Lockerbie bomber".
 
 
# bringiton 2012-02-23 23:21
Thank you Kenneth.
Unfortunately state sponsored violence is a very murky place and I doubt very much that anything in the way of truth will ever prevail in this case.
Todays enemies are tomorrows allies and viceversa so it is never in anyone's interest for the facts to be revealed.
However,at least some doubt is now being cast on Megrahi's conviction which is all to the well.
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-23 23:43
WE all seem to realise Megrahi was wrongfully convicted. And indeed I don't see how anyone can look dispassionately at the evidence and at the outrageous circular reasoning in the court judgement, and not realise it. Clearly the SCCRC agreed, witness their referral of the case back to the Court of Appeal.

So does anyone have the foggiest idea why Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond keep on repeating that the Scottish government does not doubt the safety of the conviction?
 
 
# bringiton 2012-02-23 23:57
Perhaps it is with regard to the veracity of the Scottish legal system ?
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-24 00:11
The Scottish legal system, in the person of the SCCRC, most definitely does doubt the safety of the conviction, though.
 
 
# bringiton 2012-02-24 00:40
Once we are independent of London,the most important thing in Scottish life will be to establish a codified constitution which will bring all aspects of our society into a legally binding system subject to the sovereignty of the People of Scotland.
This will eliminate much of the obfuscation and lies that we have been subjected to under the present system of governance from Westminster.
Our current legal system is still influenced by political control from London so will always lend itself to
external interference.
This is only one of many many reasons for ridding ourselves of an outdated and corrupt system of governance who have betrayed every democratic value which they are supposed to uphold.
I look forward to an Scottish Autumn
when we are free of such malign influences.
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-24 00:51
Except, the current Scottish government seems to be doing this particular episode of "obfuscation and lies" all by themselves. I'm baffled.
 
 
# Jiggsbro 2012-02-24 00:21
Quoting Soixante-neuf:
So does anyone have the foggiest idea why Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond keep on repeating that the Scottish government does not doubt the safety of the conviction?


Effective democracy requires separation of the executive and judicial branches of government; politicians should not interfere in the decisions of the judiciary.
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-24 01:16
Indeed, but Salmond and MacAskill have gone much further than that. They have actively expressed confidence in guilt, despite the findings of the SCCRC. There's a whole string of letters from a QC posted somewhere, asking for details of when the Scottish government agreed to take up that position, and on what grounds, but the replies were just boilerplate fob-off.
 
 
# proudscot 2012-02-24 00:59
Had I never had any personal doubts about the reliability of the Maltese shopkeeper's evidence, which seemed flimsy even at the trial, and NOT just in hindsight, the fact that it was later revealed that he had been paid $2M by the CIA would have immediately rung alarm bells with me.

If after a trial and conviction for a mere breach of the peace in a humble Magistrate's Court in Scotland, it was revealed that the key eye witness had been paid even a fiver for his evidence, the defence would have immediate grounds for appeal against the conviction, and the Appeal Court would automatically quash the conviction. Then a judicial inquiry would be instituted to look into possible charges being brought on the grounds of suborning a witness and thereby interfering with the course of justice!
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-24 01:21
And that's not the only problem with the conviction, far from it. In fact there is strong evidence that what Megrahi was convicted of doing didn't happen at all. The evidence presented at Camp Zeist shouldn't have been enough to support the issuing of a parking ticket.

Oh, just in case anyone thinks I'm subscribing to one of the daft conspiracy theories that claims the plane wasn't bombed at all, what I'm referring to is simply that there is no evidence that the bomb was introduced at Malta and sent on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt. There is a shedload of evidence the bomb was introduced into the baggage system about 4pm at Heathrow airport, when Megrahi was verifiably and definitely in Tripoli. That is what is usually described as "having an alibi".
 
 
# UpSpake 2012-02-24 09:04
There never was a bomb and this was never a terrorist act. Well sown false trail.
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-24 11:09
Oh, don't be ridiculous.
 
 
# 1314 2012-02-24 10:16
What a strange article. I see no connection between the first half and the second half except that they are joined together - and crudely at that.

Many of us know about the second half and have been saying much the same for long enough.

The only reason I can see for the first half is to do what Kenneth has done on other occasions - try to make himself look good while settling a petty old score - and achieving the opposite.
 
 
# chicmac 2012-02-24 12:38
It does seem to be a bit like a section from his memoirs with a bit on Megrahi added, but to be fair he has used 'Me' in the title.

We all need a little self-indulgent ego salve some time.
 
 
# 1314 2012-02-24 10:27
There are at least two sides to every individual so let's unjoin the Kenneth above from the one who has written many decent articles.

It may be that Kenneth has already done this (I haven't read all of his writings) but if not, here's the idea - that Kenneth should write an article about some episode where he didn't get things quite right.
 
 
# Jimbo 2012-02-24 12:44
Quote:
But although we’re big enough to have paid for the report, it seems we are not big enough to be trusted with its contents. Important vested interests continue to obstruct its appearance.


Everyone who comes on this site is politically aware to some degree, but we're only talking/preaching to each other. I think it's well past time that the general public were told just exactly who is behind all the obfuscation and what their vested interests are in obstructing justice.

Quote:
Last Thursday, when we published a detailed positional paper from JFM with an accompanying editorial, all of 14 minutes elapsed before an iphone response from a Labour MSP pouring scorn on the Scottish Review's campaign for transparency in the Lockerbie case.


Why would any MSP, regardless of their Party affiliation, pour scorn on a campaign for honesty and transparency? It is, after all, the MSPs who are our lawmakers, and they, above all others, should have a vested interest in seeing that justice is not only done, but seen to be done. This MSP should be named.

It would have been handy if Kenneth had provided an Internet link to the detailed positional paper from JFM with an accompanying editorial.
 
 
# Barontorc 2012-02-24 12:45
The conduct of the trial and conviction of Al-Megrahi was to me, as an an unqualified, but increasingly, very interested observer, a botched piece of work.

It has tarnished the reputation of Scottish justice irreparably and the SCCRC quite correctly have flagged it up, for what it is.

At best, it's remiss over the conviction. At worst, it's a contrived decision, wrought by multi-national interests.

Making it even more perplexing, is the UK Government itself refusing to co-operate with the Scottish Justice system, which is an outrageous situation.

Given all of this, where the Scottish Government come into play - I am not too certain, but I personally feel very frustrated that they cannot, or will not, set about recovering the wrongs of it all. It offends my natural concept of justice sought and delivered.
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-24 13:30
My feeling is that while many realise the conviction should never have happened on the evidence presented in court, they still think it's possible Megrahi might have been involved in the atrocity. This tends to temper the outrage to some extent.

They seem to reason, well, the witness who says Megrahi bought the clothes was very unsure, and he was bribed, but does that mean Megrahi didn't buy the clothes? Well, yes, he didn't buy the clothes. He wasn't on the island of Malta the day the clothes were bought, and the witness's original description of the buyer was of a man looking nothing like Megrahi.

But then they say, Megrahi was at the airport at the time the bomb went on the plane, and he was a Libyan security officer travelling on a false passport. Surely that's pretty suspicious, even if all he seems to have done was catch a plane? Well, no actually. There's no evidence the bomb was anywhere near that airport at the time Megrahi was there, and plenty evidence it was somewhere else. And Megrahi had a passport in a false name quite legally, the same way many security people have, and his story that he was in Malta on private business that day and simply picked up the "coded" passport because it was the one that came to hand at the time has never been disproved, despite herculean efforts by the security forces of two countries to pin something else on him.

The investigators folowed a red herring to Malta because it was far more politically acceptable than implicating Heathrow and BAA for the security lapse, and refused to give up on the lead even after a year of intensive inquiry found nothing at all to substantiate the theory (and actually it would have been a brain-dead plot if it had been done that way). Megrahi was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, looking just suspicious enough to be railroaded.

If this was more widely realised, rather than just the "insufficient evidence to convict" mantra, perhaps people would push a bit harder.
 
 
# Barontorc 2012-02-24 13:53
69 - "...perhaps people would push a bit harder."!!!

My goodness, what people do you call on, if Prof Robert Black and Dr Jim Swire cannot prise these doors open then who can?

Let's not mince words here - the hard and very obvious road ahead follows the sign post that says, writ large and glaring:- RESOLVE THIS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE BY A SCOTTISH COURT - end of!
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-24 14:08
Well, obviously I wasn't talking about these two. Though for public consumption the Justice for Megrahi line is indeed strictly that the conviction is unsafe, not that Megrahi is factually innocent. Even though the private belief of all involved is that he is indeed factually innocent.

I was talking about public perception. I've even heard Christine Grahame say "insufficient evidence". Well that's true of course, but all that rhetoric leaves some less involved onlookers with the feeling that it's all about trying to get a possible/probable terrorist off on a technicality.

If that's what I thought, I wouldn't be that aerated about it all. It's because Megrahi is quite manifestly innocent of the bombing that I'm aerated about it.
 
 
# Arbroath1320 2012-02-24 20:02
Just seen a trailer for an EBC Scotland programme on Monday night.

"Lockerbie - The Lost Evidence".

Monday 27th, 19:30. EBC1.

Might be worth a wee squint at!
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-24 20:13
Indeed. I've already declined an invitation for that evening, citing a "prior engagement" (with BBC1!).
 
 
# Jester 2012-02-24 20:59
Quoting Soixante-neuf:
Indeed. I've already declined an invitation for that evening, citing a "prior engagement" (with BBC1!).

Go out and enjoy yersel! it's on catch up...
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-24 21:51
Don't worry, I rearranged for Tuesday. I should be picking up my pre-ordered copy of John Ashton's new book that afternoon too. I just hope it's better than Cover-up of Convenience. Should be, really.
 
 
# Arbroath1320 2012-02-24 21:59
If you haven't seen it this programme from Al Jazeere is worth a watch too 69.

It will be interesting to see if any information contained in the Al Jazeera programme is discussed in the EBC programme.

As an aside. I'm actually amazed that the EBC have actually found Al Megrahi to do the interview. The last time they went looking for him they couldn't find him. According to the EBC al Megrahi had left Tripoli. It wasn't until, ABC I think, had carried out an interview with him that the EBC "found" al Megrahi!
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-25 01:01
Yeah, I watched it a couple of times. A nice job, but since the evidence already showed conclusively that Megrahi didn't buy these clothes it was in a sense another layer of redundancy!

George Thomson has a lot of original court productions I'd love to get a closer look at, but he's a bit over-enthusiastic - he could be more critical of his own ideas. For example, he showed the original hand-written statement Tony Gauci signed, and pointed to a sentence that seemed to be squeezed in retrospectively . That referred to the clothes purchaser as being Libyan. Thomson suggested Tony hadn't claimed that, and the sentence was added later. But just a few lines down, in the middle of a part that quite obviously wasn't interpolated, there is the same statement. It's far more likely Tony did think the man was Libyan, but to him "Libyan" described any Arab who wasn't obviously Tunisian.

He did show the full 15th February 1991 photospread on screen though, and I had been gagging to get sight of that. That was very very informative!

Did you see the appalling hatchet-job STV did, I think in 2010? Things which are very much in dispute (to put it mildly) were stated as if they were bald fact (such as that baggage records at Frankfurt showed the bomb suitcase had come in on a flight from Malta), without anyone countering them. A tiny snippet of an interview with Jim Swire was shown, that made him look like a sentimental old fool.

Let's hope this isn't another of the same.
 
 
# Arbroath1320 2012-02-25 01:10
Sorry, I haven't seen the STV programme.

Apparently, the South of Scotland are not actually part of Scotland!
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-25 01:16
You didn't miss anything. If you knew anything about the case, all it was going to do was put your blood pressure up to levels that wouldn't disgrace a racing bike.

I sympathise re. Border TV. If I lived less than a mile from where I am, I'd be in the same hole.
 
 
# derek 2012-02-25 01:21
The terrestrial line might not go as far as Doncaster? LoL!
 
 
# sneckedagain 2012-02-25 00:25
No sensible person I know believes Al Megrahi was guilty.
This will evntually be exposed as a quite deliberate stitch up of an innocent man by the US and UK governments.
The effect on the opinion of the UK Government held by most of our people will be devastating
 
 
# Soixante-neuf 2012-02-25 01:13
This is absolutely true. The bizarre thing is, there is way more than enough information in the public domain already to show quite clearly that that is the case. Sometimes I just don't know what it will take to swing media and perceived opinion round to that, though. It's almost like the McCrone report. Once it's out there, and has been shrugged off once, they seem to be able to ignore it indefinitely.

But as you say, it was a stitch-up between the Bush Snr. government and Thatcher's government, initially. They were in charge right up to the indictments in November 1991. Then the farce at Camp Zeist happened when Labour was in power both in Westminster and in Holyrood. It was a Labour Lord Advocate (Colin Boyd) who lied to the court to try to cover up the fact that the lying liar Giaka had been threatened, bribed and probably coached by the CIA to implicate Megrahi and Fhimah. [Hang on, mods, this is fact, and absolutely substantiated - Giaka's evidence was disallowed because of it. It's all in the court transcripts for anyone to read, and lots of people have. Paul Foot wrote about it.]

So the SNP are the one party with absolutely clean hands in all that. So why the steadfast refusal to acknowledge that Megrahi's indictment and conviction both stink to high heaven? It doesn't make any sense.
 

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