Merged Lockerbie bomber alive after 9 months

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Because what they want, according to New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg, is "to help shed light on claims that BP had influenced the release."

Although it appears that Senator Lautenberg either has reading comprehension problems, or has not read Salmond's reply, which contained the following:

"I can say unequivocally that the Scottish government has never, at any point, received any representations from BP in relation to al-Megrahi."

and

"There is nothing the Scottish government can add to this since we have had no contact with BP at any point in the process of considering al-Megrahi's position."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-10720279

 

[Fiona]

There was a new york senator on the radio yesterday: he did say they wanted to ask about BP involvement: he also said they wanted an account of the decision to release on compassionate grounds. Presumably this is because they do not accept the basis for that decison and they suspect it was actually influenced by BP despite what they have been told.

The idea that anyone would accept this "invitation" is laughable: they cannot seriously have expected anyone involved to come. But it has served a purpose: it has allowed them to imply their suspicions have substance and it has also allowed them to claim they are doing all they can to meet the US families' aspirations.

 

[Buncrana]

I've been giving Linklater's claim of the statement he attributed to Kenny MacAskill some thought. The statement he attributes to the Minister is, "There is no question of you being released while there is still an appeal outstanding. The decsion as to whether you pursue that appeal is for you and your legal team".

However, surely what Megrahi should have been told should have been:

1. The appeal and any legal proceeding must be dropped to be transferred

and

2. The appeal or any legal proceedings do not need to be dropped for the Minister to release him.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

I've been giving Linklater's claim of the statement he attributed to Kenny MacAskill some thought. The statement he attributes to the Minister is, "There is no question of you being released while there is still an appeal outstanding. The decsion as to whether you pursue that appeal is for you and your legal team".

However, surely what Megrahi should have been told should have been:

1. The appeal and any legal proceeding must be dropped to be transferred

and

2. The appeal or any legal proceedings do not need to be dropped for the Minister to release him.

Until Linklater provides some sort of support for his claim, there is nothing to be gained from trying to analyse it. I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Rolfe]

Radio 4, right now. Repeat of the programme for anyone who didn't check the podcast.

I sent an email to Any Answers, though I usually regard that as the green crayon brigade.

The real scandal regarding Mr. al-Megrahi's release was highlighted in your programme by Magnus Linklater. At the time, his appeal was before the court, and any reasonable examination of the evidence indicates it was likely to be successful - and not on any technicality, but because the conviction was a genuine miscarriage of justice.

Kenny MacAskill has said many times that Megrahi withdrew his appeal of his own free will, and this was not required for compassionate release. However, events at the time implied strongly that Mr. MacAskill's visit to Greenock prison was for the purpose of making it clear to Mr. Megrahi that if he wanted compassionate release, he would be well advised to withdraw the appeal. Mr. Linklater's statement strongly supports this suspicion.

If this is untrue, Mr. MacAskill needs to explain why Megrahi was not given the opportunity to wait for the decision on compassionate release before taking the irrevocable step of withdrawing his appeal to allow eligibility for prisoner transfer. Such a course of action would not only have been fair to the terminally-ill Megrahi, who has long protested his desire to clear his name, but to the Lockerbie relatives and the wider public who desire to know the truth about this murky affair.

The Justice Secretary has denied justice, and searching questions need to be asked.

I got an automated email suggesting I could ring in, but I don't want to go live on it - I'd just get tongue-tied.

Rolfe.

ETA: Yay me! I'm on Robert Black's blog! http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2010/07/macaskills-meeting-with-megrahi.html

ETA again: Gazumped by Tam Dalyell, currently on Any Answers live. Homes in on exactly the same point. He's going too far into CT-land though. Even if he believes what he's hinting, it's best to stick to the rational part.

ETA again: I got on! Dimbleby read out the entire email!

 

[Rolfe]

We do know more about that meeting than we did before, though, as Fergus Ewing explained the circumstances.

This was a meeting about the prisoner transfer agreement, and took place because the terms of that agreement stipulate that the prisoner is permitted to make representation. It may be true that this need not be a face-to-face meeting, but I don't know what precedents there are for this situation as I don't know of any other comparable case.

Obviously, when you think about it, Megrahi's solicitor would have been present. If you were Megrahi, and Kenny MacAskill said he was coming to see you, would your first instinct not be to say, I want my lawyer present? And given that this was an official meeting, then it makes complete sense that minutes or at least notes would be taken. Whether that is what Magnus Linklater has seen or not, I don't know, but the man is a very highly-placed journalist with heavyweight sources, so I wouldn't rule it out.

What I don't know is why this wasn't made clear last August. There was a lot of criticism at the time for Kenny's decision to visit Megrahi, and opponents were asking, why go to see Megrahi in jail when you haven't visited any of the other prisoners you granted compassionate release to? A statement that the visit repated to the PTA application would have been appropriate, but was never made at that time.

I think it was blatant blackmail, and I don't know why.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

There is no question of you[r] being released while there is still an appeal outstanding. The decsion as to whether you pursue that appeal is for you and your legal team

OK, JB, I take your point, but hey, let's analyse it anyway.

One must be clear that the PTA does not release the prisoner. If that process had happened, Megrahi would have been returned to Tripoli to serve his sentence out in a Libyan jail. We might surmise that something rather different might have transpired in the actual event, but that is the legal position. Only the other process, compassionate release, is as it says, a release.

If Magnus has the wording right, this is something of a smoking gun. Kenny is a lawyer, and knows to choose his words carefully. The word "release" has no place in a discussion relating to the PTA.

Rolfe.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

OK, JB, I take your point, but hey, let's analyse it anyway.

One must be clear that the PTA does not release the prisoner. If that process had happened, Megrahi would have been returned to Tripoli to serve his sentence out in a Libyan jail. We might surmise that something rather different might have transpired in the actual event, but that is the legal position. Only the other process, compassionate release, is as it says, a release.

If Magnus has the wording right, this is something of a smoking gun. Kenny is a lawyer, and knows to choose his words carefully. The word "release" has no place in a discussion relating to the PTA.

Rolfe.

Your building a house of cards. IF Linklater has a transcript and IF he has quoted accurately from it then you are still making an assumption that the word "release" has no place in the conversation. With no context there is absolutely no way to know. For example if the conversation had been about being "released to serve out his sentence in a Libyan jail" or "released from Greenock prison" or "released under the PTA" then it would not be abnormal.

I repeat, there is nothing to be achieved by attempting a detailed analysis of a report of a claimed quote from a transcript that has never been produced or referred to before and which may not exist.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

This was a meeting about the prisoner transfer agreement, and took place because the terms of that agreement stipulate that the prisoner is permitted to make representation. It may be true that this need not be a face-to-face meeting, but I don't know what precedents there are for this situation as I don't know of any other comparable case.

Because there are none.

From the statement MacAskill made to the Scottish parliament on 24 August:

"Prior to being ratified, the prisoner transfer agreement was scrutinised by the Westminster Joint Committee on Human Rights. It was the first PTA that did not require the consent of the prisoner. As a result, Jack Straw, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Justice, gave a commitment that, in the prisoner must be given the opportunity to make representations. Mr al-Megrahi had the opportunity to make representations and he chose to do so in person. That was his decision. It would have been outwith the tenets of natural justice to refuse that request; therefore, I was duty bound to meet cases in which applications were not submitted personally by the prisoner, him."

and in response to a question from Gil Paterson:

"As I said, this was the first ever prisoner transfer application that could be made by a national Government without the consent of the prisoner involved. The application that came before me was made by the Government of Libya. Accordingly, I required to hear representations from the prisoner involved. Mr al-Megrahi chose to make those representations himself. I practised in the courts of Scotland over a period of 20 years and—except in an instance in which someone was seeking to harass a witness in a sensitive sexual offence case—I have never yet come across an instance of somebody who chose to represent themselves being refused that right and entitlement. Natural justice dictated it."

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialreports/meetingsparliament/or-09/sor0824-02.htm

Under every previous prisoner transfer agreement, it is the prisoner who makes the request. Uniquely under the agreement reached by the UK govt (Blair, Straw) with Libya, it was not.

 

[Rolfe]

I repeat, there is nothing to be achieved by attempting a detailed analysis of a report of a claimed quote from a transcript that has never been produced or referred to before and which may not exist.

JB, this is an internet forum. Where in the rules does it say that speculation from flimsy premises is forbidden? You're even doing it yourself, just taking a contrary view.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Because there are none.

From the statement MacAskill made to the Scottish parliament on 24 August:

"Prior to being ratified, the prisoner transfer agreement was scrutinised by the Westminster Joint Committee on Human Rights. It was the first PTA that did not require the consent of the prisoner. As a result, Jack Straw, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Justice, gave a commitment that, in the prisoner must be given the opportunity to make representations. Mr al-Megrahi had the opportunity to make representations and he chose to do so in person. That was his decision. It would have been outwith the tenets of natural justice to refuse that request; therefore, I was duty bound to meet cases in which applications were not submitted personally by the prisoner, him."

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialreports/meetingsparliament/or-09/sor0824-02.htm

Under every previous prisoner transfer agreement, it is the prisoner who makes the request. Uniquely under the agreement reached by the UK govt (Blair, Straw) with Libya, it was not.

That's interesting. I realise that PTAs are individual to each country with whom an agreement is reached, but I rather imagined they were mostly boilerplate, standard agreements.

It does appear it was the Libyan government that was keener for this agreement to be in place than Megrahi himself. Before his illness, and remember he was only 56 when he was diagnosed, he was adamant that his main priority was to advance his appeal and clear his name. If the appeal had been unsuccessful, of course he might have been of a different mind.

More speculation, but it seems the Libyan government had no real interest in the appeal being pursued.

Rolfe.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

What I don't know is why this wasn't made clear last August. There was a lot of criticism at the time for Kenny's decision to visit Megrahi, and opponents were asking, why go to see Megrahi in jail when you haven't visited any of the other prisoners you granted compassionate release to? A statement that the visit repated to the PTA application would have been appropriate, but was never made at that time.

You have spent far more time on this than most, yet appear to be unaware of the very clear reason given by MacAskill for the meeting referred to in my previous post.

The statement you refer to was made, clearly and unequivocally.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

JB, this is an internet forum. Where in the rules does it say that speculation from flimsy premises is forbidden? You're even doing it yourself, just taking a contrary view.

Rolfe.

I didn't say it was forbidden, I said it would achieve nothing. And it won't.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

That's interesting. I realise that PTAs are individual to each country with whom an agreement is reached, but I rather imagined they were mostly boilerplate, standard agreements.

It does appear it was the Libyan government that was keener for this agreement to be in place than Megrahi himself. Before his illness, and remember he was only 56 when he was diagnosed, he was adamant that his main priority was to advance his appeal and clear his name. If the appeal had been unsuccessful, of course he might have been of a different mind.

More speculation, but it seems the Libyan government had no real interest in the appeal being pursued.

Rolfe.

Yep - and the second quote that I added to the post you replied to (think I was editing when you were quoting) makes it very clear why he met Megrahi.

A number of the myths about the release (why he met him, that the possibility of him living beyond three months was never acknowledged, etc.) can be eliminated by reading the transcript of his statement and the Q&A that followed it. It appears this is not something that many of those commenting in the US have bothered to do.

 

[Rolfe]

That's fair enough. I have spent a lot of time on it, but more on the original evidence than the compassionate release. I followed a great deal about that when it was happening, but there was a great deal to follow, and it's not at all unlikely I missed something.

One of the very usleful things about this forum is that if you make an incorrect statement, someone is likely to correct it, and so one learns and becomes better informed.

It was the first PTA that did not require the consent of the prisoner.

Bloody hell! I read past that the first time. You're right, I need to read the entire thing, this is weirder than I realised.

Rolfe.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

That's fair enough. I have spent a lot of time on it, but more on the original evidence than the compassionate release. I followed a great deal about that when it was happening, but there was a great deal to follow, and it's not at all unlikely I missed something.

Wasn't meant as a criticism, more an observation that if someone who has put the time in that you have has difficulty in keeping across all aspects, it is unsurprising that those who have not get confused.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

One of the very usleful things about this forum is that if you make an incorrect statement, someone is likely to correct it, and so one learns and becomes better informed.

And one of the other good things is that it makes you go and look and see what documents are actually out there:

Like the note (not a transcript) of the meeting between Megrahi and MacAskill, published by the Scottish parliament and freely available on the internet.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/925/0085963.pdf

Page 13-15 of the pdf contain the note (turns out there were 5 people in attendance). Point 12 is the relevant one and clearly refers to the PTA only, not compassionate release.

 

[Rat]

Heh, I heard that on Any Answers while driving to town and, although yours is a more common name in Scotland than it here, I immediately knew it was you.

 

[Darat]

Radio 4, right now. Repeat of the programme for anyone who didn't check the podcast.

I sent an email to Any Answers, though I usually regard that as the green crayon brigade.




I got an automated email suggesting I could ring in, but I don't want to go live on it - I'd just get tongue-tied.

Rolfe.

ETA: Yay me! I'm on Robert Black's blog! http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2010/07/macaskills-meeting-with-megrahi.html

ETA again: Gazumped by Tam Dalyell, currently on Any Answers live. Homes in on exactly the same point. He's going too far into CT-land though. Even if he believes what he's hinting, it's best to stick to the rational part.

ETA again: I got on! Dimbleby read out the entire email!

Was sitting with the other half enjoying a sandwich in the sunshine and we had Any Answers on in the background (I've heard that it is good to raise your heartbeat every so often and it's much easier than exercise) and your email was read out and I said - "That sounds like someone from the Forum" and lo and behold it was you!

 

[Rolfe]

Wasn't meant as a criticism, more an observation that if someone who has put the time in that you have has difficulty in keeping across all aspects, it is unsurprising that those who have not get confused.

Fair enough, but it was a justified criticism. Someone once said anybody wanting to comment on Lockerbie needed a PhD in Lockerbie Studies, and I don't think that's entirely facetious. It's quite a research project.

Many even of the prominent commentators make cardinal errors, such as imagining that the crucial evidence pointing to Libya only appeared after September 1990, when the direction of the investigation started to change. That's incorrect - it appears that evidence was showing up in the summer of 1989, well before the Gulf War can be blamed for any change of direction.

There have been a catalogue of crass errors in the letters pages of the Herald in recent days. One letter said that the MST-13 timer fragment was found in the Kielder Forest in 1990 by "a couple of Americans not part of the official enquiry". Bzzt, wrong. Another said that according to Gauci it was "raining heavily" on the day the terrorist bought the clothes. Bzzt, wrong. Another said that Gauci wasn't interviewed about the clothes purchase until two years after the incident, but still "remembered" the sale perfectly. Bzzt, wrong (it was nine months).

Basing suggestions that the conviction was a frame-up on false premises is hugely damaging, in my opinion. One might start investigating further on the basis of believing these falsehoods, and on discovering that they're false, form the opinion that there was no frame-up. Drilling down to the correct information is laborious, but it's only by doing that that it's possible to see the real evidence for the frame-up emerge.

Rolfe.