Ian Bell on Lockerbie - five years ago today

What follows is the text of an item that was posted on this date in 2011 on this blog. It demonstrates perfectly just how much we have lost through the tragically early death of Ian Bell:

Lockerbie: Scoundrel Time

[This is the headline over the most recent post on Ian Bell's blog. It reads as follows:]

“There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world,

and the worst of it is that half of them are true.”

Churchill.

Expressen’s Kassem Hamade has been filing non-stop from Libya since he found his way into the country. You can hardly blame him. It’s not often a journalist winds up in the middle of a revolution, with a historic tale unfolding wherever he happens to look. Hamade files like a man in a hurry.

His Swedish newspaper is one of Europe’s more lurid tabloids, which is, of course, saying something. At a glance, it seems to publish just about anything its war correspondent elects to send. Whether it then asks many questions is another matter. You don’t dick around, as the Swedes may or may not say, with world exclusives. Print first, worry later.

Hamade is either a very good journalist, or a very bad one. Which is to say that either he has an instinct for a tale, or more luck than is strictly credible. This week, in any case, Expressen’s man found himself outside “a local parliament build­ing” in an unnamed Libyan town, just as someone important was being greeted by several hundred locals.

Given that it appears the gent in the “dark winter suit” and burgundy hat had only decided to switch sides and “join the people” on February 19, Hamade was luckier than usual. Here he was with a “40-minute interview” (readable in less than ten) with a top-level defector no more than three days after the event. This was smart work, on someone’s part.

Even better, the new-born patriot had the sound-bite of the year, perhaps of the decade: Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing. How about that?

Given that Mustafa Abdel-Jalil’s words reach us from Arabic via Swedish via (Googleised) English, we should probably exercise a little caution. This would set us apart from just about every newspaper, Scottish titles included, and web-site in the world, who excelled themselves if they remembered the word “claim”, and who oth­erwise didn’t give a toss. Gaddafi’s “justice minister” had spoken: gossip was proof.

Did any journalist, Hamade included, know anything at all about the erstwhile “Secretary of the General People’s Committee for Justice”, lately of Tripoli’s al-Salad Street, former recipient of numerous file-and-forget Amnesty petitions, nominal stew­ard of an arbitrary system of murder, torture, kidnapping, and “disappearance”? Thought not.

Did anyone know how close – or not – this individual had ever been to Gaddafi, particularly in December of 1988? A mere detail.

Did anyone pause to wonder why Abdel-Jalil’s revulsion at a massacre – the first he had ever heard of in Libya? – had coincided neatly with the regime’s collapse? Did they ask what he might have to gain, or to lose? But that sort of talk can seriously damage a world exclusive.

Hamade appears not to have allowed such words to enter his head. He did at least ask whether Abdel-Jalil possesses such a thing as proof, however, but was reas­sured by the functionary’s claim to have “information that is 100% sure” and “nothing I think... 100%.”

As the week wore on, this turned out to be the evidence heard around the world. It was enough, as any glance at the web will show, for almost every media outlet on the planet to go on. For most, the exciting follow-up was Abdel-Jalil’s loyal promise that “the devil” (Gaddafi) will “die like Hitler”, rather than a simple, scepti­cal question or two.

A pity. Had anyone read on, they would have found that Hamade did in fact get a little more change from his 40-minute investment. Why couldn’t his subject – who seemed to have returned to the business of governing in short order – just spill the beans?

Answer: “It is not time to reveal everything now”. Why not? Second answer: “I do not want to reveal the names involved, for the sake of the country”.

Aside from the fact that numerous individuals around the world involved with the Lockerbie case could – and have – allowed themselves the same excuse, this was interesting. Many of Gaddafi’s once stalwart ministers and diplomats have hit the rat runs; Abdel-Jalil is no different. But he seals his discretion in an odd fashion.

So he names Gaddafi as a mass murderer: that will suit Washington and Lon­don. It won’t upset Edinburgh much, either. Another slaughter to add to a lunatic’s charge sheet, and to bury therein. If the lunatic winds up dead “like Hitler”, so much the better. But Abdel-Jalil seems to be extending his insurance cover: having named a name, he retains “names”, and all “for the sake of the country”.

Things took another turn on Friday night. With his usual taste for self-dramatisa­tion, the BBC’s John Simpson secured an interview in the vicinity of Ben­ghazi with an escapee from the crumbling regime more significant than Abdel-Jalil. Until the end of last week, General Abdel Fattah Younes al-Abidi was Gaddafi’s trusted Interior Minister. He has also known the Colonel for 47 years.

Here was still another Libyan big shot who suddenly found himself unable to stomach the day job. In his own account, al-Abidi was sent to Benghazi to crush the demonstrations there. When he decided to break the habit of a lifetime – or simply failed in the task – he pleaded with Gaddafi, he claims, not to bomb the protesters, and suffered an assassination attempt for his trouble.

So the general also felt the urge to “join the people”. He was also able to con­firm that his former friend and leader will commit suicide or be killed. And the gen­eral also felt able to say for certain that Gaddafi had ordered the Lockerbie bombing.

Except he did nothing of the sort. Simpson, like Hamade, was content, oddly in this case, just to hear a lapsed member of the regime pin the blame for mass murder on his old boss. Nothing in the way of proof was sought. All that al-Abidi told the BBC’s correspondent was, “There is no doubt about it. Nothing happens without Gaddafi’s agreement. I’m sure this was a national, governmental decision.” What a coincidence: two superannuated thugs with the same gambit.

Writing on the BBC’s web-site, Simpson prefaced the general’s quote with the following: “Although he was a military man rather than a politician at the time of the Lockerbie bombing in the 1980s, he [al-Abidi] maintains that Col Gaddafi was per­sonally responsible for the decision to blow up the Pan Am flight”.

There is no argument here for argument’s sake: if Gaddafi did it, he did it. But thus far we are being asked to accept – as the world is being asked to accept – the tes­timony of two men (no doubt there will be more) with skins to save and plenty of questions of their own still to answer. Yet even as they “confirm” they evade.

Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but persuasive testimony runs from remarks such as “It was common knowledge in the regime” to “I was there when he gave the order” to “This is how it was done”. The general was latterly Interior Minister, in Simpson’s words “one of the most powerful men in Libya”. Yet the best he can manage is “I’m sure this was a national, governmental decision”? What else would it be?

Stories and alibis are being assembled. Were you in the shoes of al-Abidi or Abdel-Jalil, bartering for your life and manoeuvring for a place in whatever power structure emerges when Gaddafi has gone, you would probably do the same. There’s no surprise in that.

My interest lies in how these off-handed confirmations, glib yet vague, con­nect with the Scottish justice system, the activities of successive British governments, and the statement of reasons – all 800-plus pages of it – produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in June of 2007 identifying “six grounds where (the Commission) believes that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred” in the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, “the Lockerbie Bomber”.

The short answer is that they do not, on the face of it, connect. Yet if there is somehow a connection the demand for explanations from the Scottish, British and American political and legal establishment is liable to become more, rather than less, intense. I’m betting we never reach that point. Our two new “witnesses” thus far re­semble nothing more than a pair of concentration camp guards who know the game is up, and who rack their brains for tales to tell.

These two emerge from the fog of war with hands full of mist. Here in Scot­land, meanwhile, that statement of reasons is locked still in a hall of legal mirrors, along with a Scottish government’s courage to insist on its legal right to inquire into the bombing. Which is worse?

In less than a week, a few evasive remarks by two tainted, desperate men have become common currency around the world, disseminated happily by those who know nothing, and gratefully by those who know better. Meanwhile, the evidence of crucial choices touching at the heart of justice lie buried from sight. Every party of government available to Scotland – Tory, Labour, and Nationalist – has been content to settle for that. Is it the questions they fear, or the answers? That could be settled easily enough.

Instead, we are asked to swallow the pronouncements of two individuals who worked hand in bloody glove with Gaddafi.

[Ian Bell ends his blog post with a graceful tribute to this blog. I find it difficult to express how much I appreciate this. To my mind Ian Bell (whom I have never met) is the best politics and current affairs commentator operating in the Scottish media today.]

Ian Bell's Lockerbie-related writings

I am deeply saddened to learn of the death at the age of 59 of Ian Bell, perhaps Scotland’s finest political columnist. Here, in chronological order, are links to some of his Lockerbie-related columns: 

1. Trust no-one, believe nothing; 2. Justice is the casualty in this Britain of secrets; 3. The demand for truth is more than rhetoric; 4. He’s dying: does it matter where?; 5. Caught in the middle of a transatlantic storm; 6. Tales of torture prove US has no right to moral leadership; 7. What do US cops know about justice?; 8. Too much heat and not enough light on Lockerbie; 9. Why do we still cling to mythical link with US?; 10. So many questions still unanswered on Megrahi; 11. Can Ian Bell be cloned, please?; 12. Truth lies hidden beneath the blather about Megrahi; 13. Lockerbie: some shrapnel; 14. Lockerbie: Scoundrel Time; 15. Lockerbie, Guilt & Gaddafi; 16. Libya & Lockerbie: secrets for sale; 17. Lockerbie: lawyers, guns & money; 18. We need truth about absurdity of unsafe Lockerbie conviction; 19. Lockerbie and Libya: hide & seek; and 20. Contempt shown to Scotland's legal system during Lockerbie shambles.

Can Ian Bell be cloned, please?

[The following is the text of a an article "Lockerbie: Muzzled, Toothless, Tamed" posted yesterday on Ian Bell's blog:]

A stirring piece of Westminster theatre, then. A judicious performance from David Cameron, mournfully deprecating a lack of clarity from his Labour predecessors. A fine display of righteous indignation on behalf of the dead from Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Some face-saving non-remarks – before his time, you understand – from Ed Miliband. And an intervention from Jack Straw that was feline, lawyerly, self-serving and utterly empty.

But there was a big, black, ugly dog in the shadows of the Commons chamber early yesterday afternoon, Sherlock. Once again, as so often before, that dog didn’t bark.

Britain’s politicians, some of them, are not fools. The Scots and the lawyers (often one and the same), in particular, have read all the articles, noted all the books, heard and seen the TV reports and documentaries. The ministers and former ministers among them have had access, confidentially, to more information than that.

They could each say – and such as Cameron certainly would – that the last La­bour government’s efforts to “facilitate” Libyan attempts to secure the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi were wholly hypocritical, and morally indefensi­ble. There’s no longer room for conjecture.

Oil; a prisoner transfer agreement (PTA); “bringing Gaddafi back into the fold”; Libyan threats and menaces; and a troublesome prisoner whose second appeal, likely to succeed despite every attempt to obstruct and undermine it, was looming: if the PTA wouldn’t stick, “compassion” would do instead. In the national interest.

Labour at least confessed that it did not wish to see al-Megrahi die in a British prison. The problem was two-fold: the Americans wanted exactly that, and there was no guarantee that the Nationalists in charge in Edinburgh could be relied upon to co-operate with a distrusted political rival. And did any party fancy facing the conse­quences if the dying man’s appeal succeeded? The tale told in all those articles and TV docs – effectively an international conspiracy to pervert the course of justice – had horrifying implications for very important people.

Hence our ugly, silent dog. Not a well-informed soul mentioned the safety of al-Megrahi’s conviction in the Commons yesterday, even for the sake of invective. Taking a pop at the SNP was routine. Keeping BP clear of the mess was all-but a pa­triotic duty. Sticking to the tight brief that Cameron himself had handed to Sir Gus O’Donnell was simplicity itself. And venting anger against mass murder, covered up or not, was all in a political day’s work.

I don’t say that the O’Donnell exercise has added nothing to the stock of infor­mation surrounding Lockerbie. It could certainly be construed as grounds for the SNP government to demand a couple of apologies. Equally, you could define it as another reason to ask why that same administration still refuses to question the safety of the conviction. But no one at Westminster has any intention of approaching that territory, even to dismiss the very idea as unworthy and outrageous.

[Yet another article on the subject is due to appear in The Herald tomorrow. Mr Bell's blog version can be read here. I shall blog on the published version tomorrow, if my unstable internet connection permits.

There has been lots of media coverage of Sir Gus O'Donnell's report and David Cameron's House of Commons statement. But none of it that I have been able to access merits a reference here, except the editorial in The Herald headed Megrahi questions still unanswered.]

Lockerbie and Libya: hide & seek

[This is the heading over another article from Ian Bell on his Prospero blog. It reads as follows:]

Alex Salmond says that Moussa Koussa, formerly Gaddafi’s head of intelligence, is merely a “potential witness” in the (still live) Lockerbie investigation, but not a suspect. Dear me, no.

As the First Minister explains it, had Moussa Koussa been a suspect, he would have been arrested. Since he has not been arrested...

This is almost as good, if you are in the mood, as William Hague’s assurance that at no time was the non-suspect offered immunity from prosecution after his defection. After all, if there was never any real intention to prosecute, why bother to talk about immunity?

Better still is the decision, at Britain’s prodding, to remove the non-immune non-suspect from the so-called EU watch list. This means he will henceforth be free to travel as his pleases, and that his assets will no longer be frozen.

Since Moussa Koussa is not suspected of anything, we can therefore conclude that assets lodged in Europe or the US were in no sense stolen from the Libyan people. Since he is free as a bird, it must also follow (forgetting Lockerbie) that he had no hand in arming the IRA, or in endorsing threats against the lives of exiled Libyans, or in the commission of a single crime during decades in Gaddafi’s service.

Brilliant. The Colonel is promised the International Criminal Court for numberless heinous acts, but his most notable henchman, a man with various bloodcurdling nicknames, did nothing at all.

For his reward, he gets to lay hands on enough money to enjoy his retirement in the pleasant climes of his choice, no questions – none whatsoever – asked.

Those climes will not include Britain, if reports (the Telegraph and others) are to be believed. As a British “official” has explained, since Moussa Koussa was never detained – no suspicion, no immunity, ergo no crimes – “It’s up to him”. There goes Salmond’s “potential witness”, delighted to have been of service.

Think of it this way. Let’s say a Mr X turns up in London. “Oh, yes,” he admits. “Member of al Qaeda I was, man and boy. Quite important I was, too, though I do say so myself. Some said I was bin Laden’s right-hand man. Not that I killed anyone, you understand, not personally. Now, are you sure there’s nothing you’d like to ask me?”

Meanwhile, our old friend Mustafa Abdul Jalil is back in business with a “sworn statement” – worth all the paper it was written on – to (oddly) the English Bar’s Human Rights Committee. Once again he offers to prove that, as to Lockerbie, Gaddafi did it, with Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi as his one and only instrument.

No proof as yet – yet again – however. Instead, the assertion, hardly a secret in any case, that the Colonel recompensed al-Megrahi with quantities of money. In Jalil’s previous version, as I recall, this was “a slush fund”, offered up not for lawyers and such, but under the threat that the lone agent would spill the beans.

If I follow Magnus Linklater in The Times, the unwitting folk from the Bar of England and Wales did not ask Libya’s former justice minister to reconcile his claims with problems – six of them – encountered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review (SCCRC) Commission. Strange how that slips everyone’s mind.

But then, if the First Minister of Scotland hasn’t wondered why Moussa Koussa is not being detained for a view on the discrepancy, and if Hague is happy for the non-suspect to keep his memories of events and files to himself, the rest of us can only guess what the SCCRC was on about.

That seems to be the general idea.

[I wonder why it is that Ian Bell so often gets to the heart of an issue (not just Lockerbie and Megrahi) when other commentators are floundering or simply parroting the received wisdom or whatever it is that the establishment wants us to believe.]

Justice is the casualty in this Britain of secrets

Here is an excerpt from an article with this title by Ian Bell in today's issue of The Herald:

"The IPCC [Independent Police Complaints Commission] will not now be taking action against four Met officers for their roles in the killing of [Jean Charles] De Menezes. As with Omagh, no-one is being held to account. Combine crude with legal, and you could say this: no-one did it. Yet, in the matter of Lockerbie, the biggest atrocity of all in these islands, we are offered the surreal converse: officially, one man did it. Except, of course, he did not.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi will be plucked from Scottish justice, and from his belated exoneration, in a deal whose existence was denied by our former Prime Minister while the Crown, citing a public interest it will not define, withholds a key document from a Scottish court. The document might demonstrate a miscarriage of justice. A reasonable person will ask, such being the case, why the Crown has elected to obstruct a court.

The truth is known to some, but not granted to all. On what authority? In each of these cases, judges have proved impotent and justice has been denied, blatantly, shamelessly. A pattern does not prove a theory. It certainly does not prove conspiracy. But this secret Britain has begun to stink, and stink badly."

See http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.1923252.0.Justice_is_the_casualty_in_this_Britain_of_secrets.php

As far as I am aware, the prisoner transfer agreement concluded between the Westminster Government and Libya does not exclude Mr Megrahi. But the ultimate decision, if any application for repatriation were made, would rest with the Scottish Ministers. I would be surprised if any behind-the-scenes arrangement to transfer Mr Megrahi had been arrived at with them. But, of course, I could be wrong. Otherwise, I find it difficult to dissent from Ian Bell's sentiments.

Lockerbie: Scoundrel Time

[This is the headline over the most recent post on Ian Bell's blog. It reads as follows:]

“There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world,
and the worst of it is that half of them are true.”
Churchill.

Expressen’s Kassem Hamade has been filing non-stop from Libya since he found his way into the country. You can hardly blame him. It’s not often a journalist winds up in the middle of a revolution, with a historic tale unfolding wherever he happens to look. Hamade files like a man in a hurry.

His Swedish newspaper is one of Europe’s more lurid tabloids, which is, of course, saying something. At a glance, it seems to publish just about anything its war correspondent elects to send. Whether it then asks many questions is another matter. You don’t dick around, as the Swedes may or may not say, with world exclusives. Print first, worry later.

Hamade is either a very good journalist, or a very bad one. Which is to say that either he has an instinct for a tale, or more luck than is strictly credible. This week, in any case, Expressen’s man found himself outside “a local parliament build­ing” in an unnamed Libyan town, just as someone important was being greeted by several hundred locals.

Given that it appears the gent in the “dark winter suit” and burgundy hat had only decided to switch sides and “join the people” on February 19, Hamade was luckier than usual. Here he was with a “40-minute interview” (readable in less than ten) with a top-level defector no more than three days after the event. This was smart work, on someone’s part.

Even better, the new-born patriot had the sound-bite of the year, perhaps of the decade: Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing. How about that?

Given that Mustafa Abdel-Jalil’s words reach us from Arabic via Swedish via (Googleised) English, we should probably exercise a little caution. This would set us apart from just about every newspaper, Scottish titles included, and web-site in the world, who excelled themselves if they remembered the word “claim”, and who oth­erwise didn’t give a toss. Gaddafi’s “justice minister” had spoken: gossip was proof.

Did any journalist, Hamade included, know anything at all about the erstwhile “Secretary of the General People’s Committee for Justice”, lately of Tripoli’s al-Salad Street, former recipient of numerous file-and-forget Amnesty petitions, nominal stew­ard of an arbitrary system of murder, torture, kidnapping, and “disappearance”? Thought not.

Did anyone know how close – or not – this individual had ever been to Gaddafi, particularly in December of 1988? A mere detail.

Did anyone pause to wonder why Abdel-Jalil’s revulsion at a massacre – the first he had ever heard of in Libya? – had coincided neatly with the regime’s collapse? Did they ask what he might have to gain, or to lose? But that sort of talk can seriously damage a world exclusive.

Hamade appears not to have allowed such words to enter his head. He did at least ask whether Abdel-Jalil possesses such a thing as proof, however, but was reas­sured by the functionary’s claim to have “information that is 100% sure” and “nothing I think... 100%.”

As the week wore on, this turned out to be the evidence heard around the world. It was enough, as any glance at the web will show, for almost every media outlet on the planet to go on. For most, the exciting follow-up was Abdel-Jalil’s loyal promise that “the devil” (Gaddafi) will “die like Hitler”, rather than a simple, scepti­cal question or two.

A pity. Had anyone read on, they would have found that Hamade did in fact get a little more change from his 40-minute investment. Why couldn’t his subject – who seemed to have returned to the business of governing in short order – just spill the beans?

Answer: “It is not time to reveal everything now”. Why not? Second answer: “I do not want to reveal the names involved, for the sake of the country”.

Aside from the fact that numerous individuals around the world involved with the Lockerbie case could – and have – allowed themselves the same excuse, this was interesting. Many of Gaddafi’s once stalwart ministers and diplomats have hit the rat runs; Abdel-Jalil is no different. But he seals his discretion in an odd fashion.

So he names Gaddafi as a mass murderer: that will suit Washington and Lon­don. It won’t upset Edinburgh much, either. Another slaughter to add to a lunatic’s charge sheet, and to bury therein. If the lunatic winds up dead “like Hitler”, so much the better. But Abdel-Jalil seems to be extending his insurance cover: having named a name, he retains “names”, and all “for the sake of the country”.

Things took another turn on Friday night. With his usual taste for self-dramatisa­tion, the BBC’s John Simpson secured an interview in the vicinity of Ben­ghazi with an escapee from the crumbling regime more significant than Abdel-Jalil. Until the end of last week, General Abdel Fattah Younes al-Abidi was Gaddafi’s trusted Interior Minister. He has also known the Colonel for 47 years.

Here was still another Libyan big shot who suddenly found himself unable to stomach the day job. In his own account, al-Abidi was sent to Benghazi to crush the demonstrations there. When he decided to break the habit of a lifetime – or simply failed in the task – he pleaded with Gaddafi, he claims, not to bomb the protesters, and suffered an assassination attempt for his trouble.

So the general also felt the urge to “join the people”. He was also able to con­firm that his former friend and leader will commit suicide or be killed. And the gen­eral also felt able to say for certain that Gaddafi had ordered the Lockerbie bombing.

Except he did nothing of the sort. Simpson, like Hamade, was content, oddly in this case, just to hear a lapsed member of the regime pin the blame for mass murder on his old boss. Nothing in the way of proof was sought. All that al-Abidi told the BBC’s correspondent was, “There is no doubt about it. Nothing happens without Gaddafi’s agreement. I’m sure this was a national, governmental decision.” What a coincidence: two superannuated thugs with the same gambit.

Writing on the BBC’s web-site, Simpson prefaced the general’s quote with the following: “Although he was a military man rather than a politician at the time of the Lockerbie bombing in the 1980s, he [al-Abidi] maintains that Col Gaddafi was per­sonally responsible for the decision to blow up the Pan Am flight”.

There is no argument here for argument’s sake: if Gaddafi did it, he did it. But thus far we are being asked to accept – as the world is being asked to accept – the tes­timony of two men (no doubt there will be more) with skins to save and plenty of questions of their own still to answer. Yet even as they “confirm” they evade.

Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but persuasive testimony runs from remarks such as “It was common knowledge in the regime” to “I was there when he gave the order” to “This is how it was done”. The general was latterly Interior Minister, in Simpson’s words “one of the most powerful men in Libya”. Yet the best he can manage is “I’m sure this was a national, governmental decision”? What else would it be?

Stories and alibis are being assembled. Were you in the shoes of al-Abidi or Abdel-Jalil, bartering for your life and manoeuvring for a place in whatever power structure emerges when Gaddafi has gone, you would probably do the same. There’s no surprise in that.

My interest lies in how these off-handed confirmations, glib yet vague, con­nect with the Scottish justice system, the activities of successive British governments, and the statement of reasons – all 800-plus pages of it – produced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in June of 2007 identifying “six grounds where (the Commission) believes that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred” in the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, “the Lockerbie Bomber”.

The short answer is that they do not, on the face of it, connect. Yet if there is somehow a connection the demand for explanations from the Scottish, British and American political and legal establishment is liable to become more, rather than less, intense. I’m betting we never reach that point. Our two new “witnesses” thus far re­semble nothing more than a pair of concentration camp guards who know the game is up, and who rack their brains for tales to tell.

These two emerge from the fog of war with hands full of mist. Here in Scot­land, meanwhile, that statement of reasons is locked still in a hall of legal mirrors, along with a Scottish government’s courage to insist on its legal right to inquire into the bombing. Which is worse?

In less than a week, a few evasive remarks by two tainted, desperate men have become common currency around the world, disseminated happily by those who know nothing, and gratefully by those who know better. Meanwhile, the evidence of crucial choices touching at the heart of justice lie buried from sight. Every party of government available to Scotland – Tory, Labour, and Nationalist – has been content to settle for that. Is it the questions they fear, or the answers? That could be settled easily enough.

Instead, we are asked to swallow the pronouncements of two individuals who worked hand in bloody glove with Gaddafi.

[Ian Bell ends his blog post with a graceful tribute to this blog. I find it difficult to express how much I appreciate this. To my mind Ian Bell (whom I have never met) is the best politics and current affairs commentator operating in the Scottish media today. Only Kenneth Roy and Iain Macwhirter play in the same league.

The following are excerpts from an article by Nigel Horne published yesterday on The First Post website:]

A senior member of Col Gaddafi's administration has claimed that Gaddafi himself ordered the the bombing of the PanAm jetliner which exploded over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing a total of 270 people, the majority of them Americans.

Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who was Libya's justice minister until he resigned in protest at Gaddafi's orders to murder unarmed protesters, has told the Swedish tabloid Expressen that he possesses proof that Gaddafi gave the order.

Conspicuously, neither Abdel-Jalil nor the paper's correspondent, Kassem Hamade, can reveal what the 'proof' is. (...)

But is Abdel-Jalil telling the truth - or is this a convenient lie, told in the hope that Gaddafi will go to his grave with the secret intact?

The fact is, many politicians and journalists - not nutcase conspiracy theorists, but serious investigative reporters - who have observed and reported into the Lockerbie bombing from the outset have never been persuaded that Libya masterminded the attack. They remain convinced that Libya only ever acted as an agent for another Middle Eastern power and/or - as Alexander Cockburn reported here last year - that Libya and Megrahi were framed.

Iran, Syria, Hezbollah - all have been held up over the past two decades as likely candidates for ordering the bombing.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, still alive in Tripoli, will likely die without giving up his story: recent reports suggest the prostate cancer that was supposed to kill him in 2009 has spread through his body and he has little time left.

But if Gaddafi should die in some final conflagration as the Libyan endgame approaches, there is a real danger that the Lockerbie relatives seeking 'closure' will have been fooled if they accept Abdel-Jalil's claim.

Their best hope of learning the truth is that Gaddafi gets out of Libya alive and in handcuffs, to appear before the International Criminal Court at The Hague, and that he is persuaded to tell the whole truth about the worst terrorist atrocity ever perpetrated on British soil.

Such is the nature of what he could tell the court, however, that there are some western governments who might prefer that he meets his end before that can happen.

So many questions still unanswered on Megrahi

[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Herald by Ian Bell, probably the most consistently interesting columnist writing in the print media in Scotland today. The article reads in part:]

Monday morning was enlivened by the sight of Tony Blair on the BBC advising Egyptians as to the proper handling of the democracy thing.

He has a certain panache, our former prime minister, and a certain – what shall we say? – psychological resilience where truth and reputation are concerned.

Tuesday sparked up with another WikiLeak. Once more, it fell into the broad category of things-you-guessed. It slotted into the existing record, however. It also filled the gaps left open by the persistent refusal of innumerable freedom of information requests, north and south of the border. It left Mr Blair – deja vu has a familiar ring, doesn’t it? – with questions to answer.

So: he cuts a prisoner transfer deal, ignoring the Scottish jurisdiction, with Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. There is only one relevant prisoner, and a single atrocity at issue.

So: a big energy deal follows. Atrocities are negotiable.

So: American diplomats record that a junior Foreign Office minister, Bill Rammell, has tutored the Libyans in Scots law, with particular reference to section 3 of the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act (1993), and the notion of compassionate release. A civil servant, Rob Dixon, has meanwhile joined the dots for the American friends.

The Libyans catch on quick. They follow this FO advice – denied and deniable – to the letter. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, “the Lockerbie Bomber”, certainly has cancer, and will certainly die because of it, sooner or later. Mr Gaddafi’s tame patriots also issue the usual threats to British interests. Ergo: “compassion” suits everyone. But it also suits Whitehall to have a Scottish patsy when – says the WikiLeak – (Alex) “Salmond told” (Jack, then Justice Secretary) “Straw that he would make the decision based on humanitarian grounds, not foreign policy grounds”. That’s not how the story was spun. American ire, Hillary Clinton’s ire, was directed at Edinburgh when Washington and London certainly knew better. Much better.

Still, a Union is a reassuring thing, isn’t it?

Despite anything US senators might say, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill played it straight. Despite anything the American bereaved have been told, Edinburgh did not spring Megrahi to placate Libya, facilitate oil deals, “pick a fight with Westminster” or obscure the truth of Lockerbie. That, like all the back-channel work, was London’s doing. Mr MacAskill allowed a dying man to go home.

In some quarters, even that is nefarious. Al-Megrahi has had the impertinence to go on living. That mass murderer, feted yet gasping, has escaped the horrors he visited upon his victims. This is, for many, intolerable. How so?

First up, the idea that our dull devolution settlement is, in American eyes, just a perfidious British thing. Edinburgh did London’s dirty work to hide a dirtier deal, they think. But how does that fit with the second charge? Namely: why didn’t Gordon Brown “order” Mr Salmond to pursue justice, when foreign policy is Westminster’s preserve?

One possibility: because the US Consulate in leafy Edinburgh did its job, and explained the Alex and Gordon relationship?

So why was Megrahi given his liberty when other terminally ill prisoners of the Crown in Scotland have enjoyed far fewer courtesies? “Compassion” is not a notable feature of Scottish justice. And Al-Megrahi wasn’t just any prisoner. The fact that he was obliged to abandon his appeal against conviction in order to – a legalism – get free, wasn’t trivial. How come? (...)

Why was it so important, for so long, to so many people, that Megrahi should be dead, or at least out of the way?

He didn’t do it. That statement suits no-one. The important thing to remember, in Scotland, is that Megrahi abandoned his appeal. Such was the price of his liberty.

No-one has dealt with the fact that the US Department of Justice sanctioned payments of $3 million to a pair of Maltese “witnesses” – Tony and Paul Gauci, for their “crucial evidence” over clothes and a suitcase – or whether a Scottish court, even one in a foreign country, allows bribery.

No-one has dealt, for that matter, with the evidentiary status of a bit of plastic, a fragment of the alleged timer on the bomb that killed so many people. There is not a forensic expert in the world, given freedom of contract, who buys it.

Yet the Scottish Government, otherwise defamed, will not entertain the idea that Megrahi’s conviction was unsound. I find that fact more interesting than all the predictable WikiStuff about Mr Blair’s ministers and their devious memos. When did that fix go in? If we insist, as we must, that Scotland’s justice system is inviolable, and fundamental to the Union, we had better ensure that our system is as good as it gets. Refusing to carry the can for Mr Blair’s games is one thing. How – dispassionately – did a Scottish court convict Megrahi, and why does Scotland juridico-political establishment go on calling the conviction safe?

WikiLeaks reminds journalists that paper is rationed, when it matters. Where Megrahi is concerned, numerous questions are literally, actually, rigorously, unanswered. I do know, however, that the government of Scotland entertains no doubts as to the Libyan’s conviction for the worst terrorist massacre ever perpetrated on these islands. I’m also aware of distinguished Scots lawyers who don’t give that idea the time of day.

It’s a thought. There should be a means to examine such a thought. Instead, we insinuate and speculate endlessly. We can say that noble Scottish judges and a Scottish Government have been cleared of double-dealing, thanks to indefatigable WikiLeaks. What’s the score on single dealing, then?

What’s the score on a Union that defers each choice, almost sublimely, to a higher power, in another country? Asymmetric is only the first of the ugly words. Scottish justice, Scottish traditions of jurisprudence, were supposed to be guaranteed under the old deal, and in writing.

Perhaps some forensic examination is in order.

[A version of this article also appears on Ian Bell's blog.]

Arguments for a Lockerbie inquiry

[Around a year after the abandonment by Abdelbaset Megrahi of his

second appeal and his compassionate release on 20 August 2009,

representatives of UK Families Flight 103 had a meeting with the

Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, with a view

to pressing the case for an inquiry into Lockerbie. The Rev’d John

Mosey, a member of the group, has recently found amongst his papers

a briefing note that I wrote for the group before that meeting

containing suggestions for points that should be made to Mr MacAskill.

It reads as follows:]

1. The SCCRC findings are there. [RB: The Scottish Criminal Cases
Review Commission found in June 2007 that there were six grounds on
which Megrahi’s conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of
justice.] They cannot simply be ignored or swept under the carpet.

2. The SCCRC is not a body composed of conspiracy theorists. Nor are
those who have, like it, questioned the justifiability of the Zeist verdict.
Apart from a number of UK relatives, they include the UN observer
Dr Hans Koechler, Kate Adie, Ian Bell, Ian Hislop, Michael Mansfield QC,
Gareth Peirce, John Pilger, Kenneth Roy, and Desmond Tutu.

3. There is widespread public concern within Scotland regarding the
Megrahi conviction. Look at the letters that have been published, and
the readers' online comments that have followed articles, in eg The
Herald, The Scotsman and Newsnet Scotland. Public confidence in the
Scottish prosecution system and the Scottish criminal justice system
has been severely dented.

4. At the very least there must be an inquiry covering the six issues on
which the SCCRC found that there might have been a miscarriage of
justice. All of the material on the basis of which that conclusion was
reached is already in the hands of the SCCRC in Scotland. There is
therefore no justification for contending that a purely Scottish inquiry
would not be meaningful, and the UK relatives may soon be compelled
to begin saying so very publicly. In respect of some of the SCCRC
evidence the previous Foreign Secretary [David Miliband] asserted
public interest immunity. If the new Foreign Secretary [William Hague]
refused to allow that material to be laid before an independent Scottish
inquiry, he would open himself to public excoriation. And even an
inquiry limited to the mass of SCCRC material in respect of which no
PII issue arises would still be valuable.

5. If, as a spokesman for the First Minister has asserted, "the Scottish
Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Megrahi"
will the Scottish Government disband the Scottish Criminal Cases Review
Commission? This expert body has stated that on six grounds there are
reasons for believing that Megrahi may have been the victim of a
miscarriage of justice. On what grounds and on the basis of what
evidence does the Scottish Government expect the people of Scotland
and elsewhere to prefer its satisfaction with the conviction over the
SCCRC's doubts? If the Scottish Government has evidence that
establishes that the SCCRC's concerns are unjustified, laying it before
an independent inquiry would be the best way of getting it before the
public at home and abroad and allaying their concerns about the safety
of the Megrahi conviction.

6. At present the SNP, unlike the Labour and Conservative parties, has
clean hands over the Megrahi conviction. But unless it moves soon, the
opprobrium over that conviction will begin to attach to the SNP as well.

7. Moreover, establishing an inquiry, as the UK relatives wish, is
morally the right thing to do. Surely the Scottish Government wishes to
occupy the moral high ground?

8. It took 19 years for Scottish politicians and the Scottish criminal
justice system to rectify the miscarriage of justice suffered by Oscar
Slater. Does the Scottish Government really want to break that dismal
record in relation to the Megrahi case?

9. Until the Megrahi conviction is removed from the picture, it can be
used -- and is being used -- by governments and politicians as a reason
for denying relatives an independent inquiry into the whole Pan Am 103
affair. By establishing an inquiry covering the SCCRC concerns only, the
Scottish Government would deprive the UK Government of this very
convenient excuse.

10. It was Voltaire who said that the best is the enemy of the good. Of
course an inquiry convened under international auspices, or an inquiry
convened by the UK Government which has foreign relations powers,
would be better than one which would of necessity be limited to such
aspects of Lockerbie -- eg the police investigation, the prosecution, the
trial, the conviction, the SCCRC investigation and findings, the
applications for prisoner transfer and compassionate release -- as are
within the competence of the Scottish Government. But the argument
that a good and useful thing should not be done because somebody
else could, if so minded, do a better and more useful thing is always
a bad argument. It is sad to see the Scottish Government resorting to it.

11. There are skeletons in the cupboard of Scottish and UK Labour
Governments in relation to the Lockerbie case. If the Scottish
Government falls in May 2011 into the hands of the Labour Party,
there is no prospect whatsoever of a serious investigation. They have
too much to hide. Our only hope is for the SNP Government to do the
right thing.

Pick your villain, pick your story, then bend your laws

[On this date in 2007 an article by Ian Bell headed Trust no-one, believe nothing was published in the Sunday Herald.  It reads as follows:]

A lack of inhibition must come easily when your parent is one of the world's more resilient dictators. Why fib when people rarely contest a word you say? If your dad is Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's unchallenged leader and new best friend to the West, you can tell the truth - or not - without much fear of the consequences.

Comments last week to French newspaper Le Monde by Saif al Islam, Gaddafi's 35-year-old son, amounted to an interesting parable, I think, for the democracies of the West. Faced with terrorism and an abundance of threats, they have become economical, to put it kindly, in their use of truth. Just possibly, just once or twice, they have not told us quite everything about reasons and risks. Young Saif, in contrast, enjoys the luxury of frankness.

So, was a deal struck between Tony Blair and Gaddafi to engineer the repatriation of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the "Lockerbie bomber"? That question caused some trouble earlier in the year, you'll recall, when Alex Salmond complained about failures of communication between London and Edinburgh on the issue.

London said, and continues to say, that any decision concerning the prisoner was, and is, "a matter for the Scottish courts and Scottish authorities". Edinburgh said that it would defend the integrity of a legal system already debauched, as it happened, by Megrahi's farcical trial in the Hague. Last week, Saif said in Nice (more or less, for my Arabic isn't up to much): "A deal? Of course."

Saif proclaimed himself confident that Megrahi will soon be returned to Libya and took satisfaction from a developing extradition arrangement between his country and Britain. How does that square, precisely, with all the Downing Street denials, the rubbishing of Salmond's "grandstanding", and the continuing insistence that Scots law remains paramount?

Surely it could not be possible or likely that someone - let's say a departing prime minister - failed to tell us the whole truth? Where Lockerbie is concerned, the difference between likely and probable is paper-thin.

There are complications, of course. The first is fundamental: Megrahi didn't do it. There is not the space here to explain why the man in Greenock Prison did not procure the murders of 270 people on Pan Am flight 103in December 1988. For now, I merely assert that the evidence presented in the Hague would have been laughable in any other circumstance. Scots law disgraced itself in those compromised proceedings.

That being so, however, the Court of Appeal will soon have to decide whether to accept a recommendation from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission calling for the evidence in the Lockerbie trial to be re-examined. The definition of "flimsy" is about to be tested. All the lawyers of my acquaintance say that, in due course, Megrahi will surely walk free, if he is not shipped out of Scotland beforehand.

So what then? Are we asked to believe that the worst atrocity ever inflicted on Scotland involved not a single perpetrator? That a long, allegedly intense, international investigation resulted in nothing better than the persecution of one innocent man? And that a Scottish court, in all its majesty, returned a guilty verdict on such a basis?

To put it no higher: a quick extradition deal, and a few more lies to conceal Blair's untruths, won't cover this. It amounts to an unholy shambles, the unravelling of almost two decades of deceit. Just imagine what follows if "the evidence" is truly re-examined with proper care.

Megrahi was convicted, supposedly after the most thorough investigation the police and security forces of the West could muster. Now the Libyans - those trusting souls - reckon that Blair gave his word guaranteeing the return of the only person we ever managed to convict. Scotland's legal system, and hence the Scottish Executive, therefore have some astonishing questions to answer.

Jack Straw, Westminster's new justice secretary, may have brought a little clarity to relationships between Edinburgh and London since Blair's departure, so it is said, but that hardly alters fundamentals. Sometimes the law misfires: we know this. Sometimes, though, the entire system we seek to defend against terrorists (or politicians) gets bent out of recognition. Corrupted in its own defence: that's almost an epitaph.

The wrong guy was the only guy. Worse, all those who failed to name the actual culprits, thanks to incompetence or intent, face no interrogation. Increasingly, Lockerbie resembles a political-management precursor to our manipulated post-11 September, 2001 world: pick your villain, pick your story, then bend your laws, your politics, and your media to fit. Democracy.

I tried this question in various formulations: are people secure if they cease to believe those defending their security? Can you be defended, truly, by those who lie about your defences, and the need for defence? If we are denied truth, what remains but lies? Who did bomb Lockerbie, and why have a succession of career bastards spent almost 20 years evading the question?

The tree-protected memorial that stands near the little town, amid those wind-blown, moss-green hills, will take your breath away. A "why" this happened is easy - causes are ten a penny. The "how" is harder. How did someone do the thing, how did others agree to it, and how do others still go on cultivating the lies, under democratic sanction, two decades on?

The family and friends of Jean Charles de Menezes may wonder about that. Had you listened late last week to Sir Ian Blair, the lead man at the Metropolitan Police, you would have heard "Britain's top cop" insisting that he had no knowledge whatever of the assassination of a 27-year-old Brazilian in 2005. Not a clue. Not one of his subordinates passed the word of the hit. Believable?

You would also have heard Blair denying that he was telling the public about vast terrorist threats with no understanding of - in the language of the Independent Police Complaints Commission - a "ghastly mistake" at Stockwell Tube station. Assistant commissioner, Andy Heyman, meanwhile, misled no-one; or misled them with the best of intentions; or misled them while enjoying the full support of a superior who, of course, knew nothing about anything. And so forth.

The people in these islands will cope with a very great deal if someone would, just once, honour them with the truth. We know that things go wrong. We know that mistakes are made. We strain to believe that those who defend us would allow a Pan Am jet to be dropped on a small Scottish town.

We wonder, though. Menezes died thanks, we hope to believe, to procedures in need of revision. At a long stretch, most of us would probably accept that he died because of a horrible error committed for the best of reasons. So why the deluge of excuses? Had an authentic terrorist chosen the best possible way to undermine the British public's will to resist, the jihadi would have selected last week's dire remarks by Sir Ian Blair.

Truth is fundamental. Truth is, they tell us, our distinguishing feature as a democracy. It was once the shining virtue of Scotland's jurisprudence. That was the least of Lockerbie's collateral damage, but not the least significant.

Are not the people of this little country entitled to the moral right to know, finally, who bombed Pan Am 103?

If there is no answer, I know, finally, what I think: they lied; they lie.