Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial
The Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial began on 3 May 2000, more than 11 years after the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988. The 36-week bench trial took place at a specially convened Scottish Court in the Netherlands set up under Scots law and held at a disused United States Air Force base called Camp Zeist near Utrecht.
Five pre-trial hearings took place: the accused waived their right to attend two procedural hearings at the High Court in Edinburgh; they attended two hearings at Camp Zeist which were held in private; and, on 7 December 1999 they made their first public appearance before the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. At this public hearing the presiding judge, Lord Sutherland, ruled that:
The case against the two defendants rested primarily on three points:
Each of these points was contested by the defence.
In its closing arguments, the prosecution stressed that Megrahi could not have planted the bomb without the assistance of Fhimah – both defendants were equally guilty, and should stand or fall together.
Court proceedings started on 3 May 2000 with the prosecution outlining the case against the accused and previewing the evidence which they expected would satisfy the judges beyond reasonable doubt that the sabotage of PA 103 was caused by:
In the trial's second week, Detective Constable Gilchrist was asked about the piece of charred material that he and DC McColm had found three weeks after the PA 103 crash. DC Gilchrist attached a label to the material and wrote "Cloth (charred)" on it. The word 'cloth' was overwritten by the word 'debris'. DC Gilchrist's attempts to explain the overwriting were later described by the judges as "at worst evasive and at best confusing."
There was no third week and, because of equipment problems in the courtroom, only a truncated fourth week. In week 5, Professor Peel of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) gave evidence concerning the baggage container AVE 4041PA.
Week 6 was devoted to the testimony behind screens of CIA agents and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officers relating to interception of arms caches (including MST-13 timers) in the West African countries of Senegal and Togo.
In week 7 Alan Feraday, also of DERA, gave evidence.[8] Feraday presented the court with a simulated IED of the type alleged to have caused the sabotage of PA 103. Under cross-examination, he admitted the fragments of radio cassette and timer, found in DC Gilchrist's cloth/debris (charred) material, had not been tested for explosives residue. The defence were, however, later criticized for having failed to challenge Feraday to explain why his note to Detective Chief Inspector William Williamson in September 1989, covering a Polaroid photograph of the timer fragment (identified in May 1989), said it was "the best I can do in such a short time."
Later in week 7, the co-founder of Mebo AG, Erwin Meister, testified that Mebo had supplied Libya with 20 MST-13 timing devices, and identified one of the two accused (Megrahi) as a former business contact. The defence asked Meister, under cross-examination, to explain the purpose of his visit to Syria in 1984.
Meister's partner, Edwin Bollier, was questioned in week 8. Bollier said Mebo made a range of products including briefcases equipped to radio-detonate IEDs. He agreed that Mebo had sold 20 MST-13 timers to Libya in 1985 which were later tested by Libyan special forces at their base at Sabha. Bollier said: "I was present when two such timers were included in bomb cylinders". In court, Bollier was shown a number of printed circuit board fragments which he identified as coming from the Mebo MST-13 timer, but he claimed that these timer fragments appeared to have been modified.
Joachim Wenzel, an employee of the Stasi, the former East German intelligence agency, testified behind screens in week 9. Wenzel claimed to have been Bollier's handler in the years 1982–85 and testified that Mebo had supplied the Stasi with timers.
Former Mebo employee, Ulrich Lumpert, confirmed that as an electronics engineer he had produced all of the firm's MST-13 timers. Lumpert agreed that the fragments shown to him in court "could be" from that timer and was asked to confirm his signature on a letter concerning a technical fault with the prototype MST-13 timer. The trial was then adjourned until 12 July 2000.
On 18 July 2007 Lumpert admitted he had lied at the trial.[9] In an affidavit before a Zürich notary, Lumpert stated that he had stolen a prototype MST-13 timer PC-board from Mebo and gave it without permission on 22 June 1989, to "an official person investigating the Lockerbie case".[10] Dr Hans Köchler, UN observer at the Lockerbie trial, who was sent a copy of Lumpert's affidavit, said: "The Scottish authorities are now obliged to investigate this situation. Not only has Mr Lumpert admitted to stealing a sample of the timer, but to the fact he gave it to an official and then lied in court".
In week 11, Mebo lawyer Dieter Neupert filed an official criminal complaint against the Crown over what he alleged was a 'forged fragment of MST-13 timer'.[11] Tony Gauci of Mary's House, Sliema in Malta, testified that he had sold a number of items of clothing to one of the defendants, Megrahi. Wilfred Borg, Ground Operations Manager at Malta's Luqa airport, was questioned about Luqa's baggage handling procedures. A Mr Ferrugia confirmed that he had been a passenger on Air Malta flight KM 180 to Frankfurt on 21 December 1988.
Two Germans, Birgit Seliger and Evelin Steinwandt, confirmed in week 12 that they had also travelled on flight KM 180. Martin Huebner and Joachim Koscha were questioned about baggage handling procedures at Frankfurt airport.
Five more passengers on flight KM 180 testified in week 13. The captain of flight KM 180, Khalil Lahoud, also gave evidence and was asked to confirm that the aircraft's altitude during the flight had exceeded 30,000 ft. This information was intended to demonstrate that an IED loaded at Luqa airport would have had a timed detonator rather than a barometric trigger. The trial was then adjourned until 22 August 2000.
In week 17, another four passengers on flight KM 180 were asked to testify. The following week, Abdul Majid Giaka, a defector from the Libyan intelligence service, appeared wearing sunglasses and a wig. Giaka, who had been on the US Witness Protection Program since July 1991, testified that Megrahi was a Libyan agent.
Rather than calling the defendants to the witness stand, their legal team sought to use the special defence of incrimination against the person or persons they believed were guilty of the crime. There was speculation that Mohammed Abu Talb, a convicted PFLP-GC member, would be called by the defence to testify in week 19, and when he failed to appear the trial was adjourned for the next five weeks to allow new evidence from a "country in the Mid East" to be examined.
One of the last witnesses for the prosecution was broadcaster and politician, Pierre Salinger, who was questioned by prosecutor Alan Turnbull and by both defence counsel William Taylor and Richard Keen. After his testimony, judge Lord Sutherland asked Salinger to leave the witness box. However, the broadcaster responded:
But Lord Sutherland told Salinger:
Abu Talb gave evidence in week 25 and testified that he had been babysitting at home in Sweden when PA 103 was sabotaged on 21 December 1988.
The Crown concluded the prosecution case in week 26. In its closing address for Fhimah in weeks 26 and 27, the defence submitted there was no case for him to answer. There were no weeks 28 to 32.
The expected documents from the "country in the Mid East" – thought to be Syria – had not materialized by week 33, and the defence confirmed that the accused would not take the witness stand. The prosecution dropped two of the three charges against the accused, leaving the single charge of murder against both Megrahi and Fhimah. The defence claimed the accused had no case to answer.
In week 34 the defence argued that the IED started its journey at Heathrow, rather than Luqa airport in Malta. The judges then retired to consider their verdict.
There was no week 35. The judges announced their verdict on 31 January 2001 in week 36.
The defence team had 14 days in which to appeal against Megrahi's conviction on 31 January 2001, and a further six weeks to submit the full grounds of the appeal. These were considered by a judge sitting in private who decided to grant Megrahi leave to appeal. The only basis for an appeal under Scots law is that there has been a "miscarriage of justice" which is not defined in statute and so it is for the appeal court to determine the meaning of these words in each case.[15] Because three judges and one alternate judge had presided over the trial, five judges were required to preside over the Court of Criminal Appeal:
In what was described as a milestone in Scottish legal history, Lord Cullen granted the BBC permission in January 2002 to televise the appeal, and to broadcast it on the Internet in English with a simultaneous Arabic translation.
William Taylor QC, leading the defence, said at the appeal's opening on 23 January 2002 that the three trial judges sitting without a jury had failed to see the relevance of "significant" evidence and had accepted unreliable facts. He argued that the verdict was not one that a reasonable jury in an ordinary trial could have reached if it were given proper directions by the judge. The grounds of the appeal rested on two areas of evidence where the defence claimed the original court was mistaken: the evidence of Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, which the judges accepted as sufficient to prove that the "primary suitcase" started its journey in Malta; and, disputing the prosecution's case, fresh evidence would be adduced to show that the bomb's journey actually started at Heathrow. That evidence, which was not heard at the trial, showed that at some time in the two hours before 00:35 on 21 December 1988 a padlock had been forced on a secure door giving access air-side in Terminal 3 of Heathrow airport, near to the area referred to at the trial as the "baggage build-up area". Taylor claimed that the PA 103 bomb could have been planted then.[16]
On 14 March 2002 it took Lord Cullen less than three minutes to deliver the decision of the High Court of Justiciary. The five judges rejected the appeal, ruling unanimously that "none of the grounds of appeal was well-founded", adding "this brings proceedings to an end". The following day, a helicopter took Megrahi from Camp Zeist to continue his life sentence in Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow.
SCCRC review (September 2003 – June 2007)[edit]
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which was established by Act of Parliament in April 1999, has wide-ranging powers to investigate cases where a miscarriage of justice is alleged, and reviewed Megrahi's case from September 2003. Although the Commission normally expects to review a case and announce its decision within 12 months, it took nearly four years to complete the Megrahi review. On 28 June 2007 the SCCRC published a summary of its 800-page report and referred Megrahi's conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeal for a fresh appeal.[17] The SCCRC's findings were examined in detail by Al Jazeera in two episodes of the network's People & Power series in July 2007.[18]
Views[edit]
Views of Jim Swire[edit]
Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, and who
has been a spokesman for UK Families Flight 103, which represented
British relatives, has stated that he believes Megrahi is innocent.[34] Swire is also concerned by comments attributed to the former lord advocate Lord Fraser, which appeared to doubt the credibility of a key prosecution witness, Tony Gauci.[35]
Swire has stated that "the scandal around Megrahi is not that a sick man was released, but that he was ever convicted in the first place. All I have ever wanted is to see the people who murdered my daughter are brought to justice."[36]
Law Professor Robert Black[edit]
Professor Robert Black of the University of Edinburgh, one of Scotland's top legal experts and the person who devised the non-jury trial that saw the Lockerbie case heard in 2000, has called al-Megrahi's murder conviction "the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for 100 years". Prof. Black said he felt "a measure of personal responsibility" for persuading Libya to allow Megrahi and his co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima, who was acquitted, to stand trial under Scots law.
Some general statistics: