The original conviction is widely disbelieved in Scottish legal circles. Even the lead judge later called a key prosecution witness insane despite accepting his testimony during the (mis)trial. Last year another key witness admitted lying on oath for fear of being murdered by US security services. Megrahi launched his appeal in 2003 so will have suffered a six year delay before it actually gets to court next year, if he survives to see it. Earlier this year vital evidence was hidden from his defence under a Public Interest Immunity certificate issued by the British government and the state appointed Megrahis defence team. One experienced legal observer described this as the state 'going Soviet' on the case.


The UN observer at the UN sponsored trial, Dr Hans Koechler, gave the keynote speech at this years 'Law Awards of Scotland' and addressed the PII issue:

"Whether those in public office like it or not, the Lockerbie trial has become a test case for the criminal justice system of Scotland. At the same time, it has become an exemplary case on a global scale - its handling will demonstrate whether a domestic system of criminal justice can resist the dictates of international power politics or simply becomes dysfunctional as soon as "supreme state interests" interfere with the imperatives of justice. (...) The fairness of judicial proceedings is undoubtedly a supreme and permanent public interest. If the rule of law is to be upheld, the requirements of the administration of justice may have to take precedence over public interests of a secondary order - such as a state's momentary foreign policy considerations or commercial and trade interests. The internal stability and international legitimacy of a polity in the long term depend on whether it is able to ensure the supremacy of the law over considerations of power and convenience."



Lockerbie trial: an intelligence operation?
It is noteworthy that now – more than six years after Dr. Koechler’s first report – more and more details emerge that confirm the UN observer’s original doubts:
One of the “secret” grounds of referral of the convicted Libyan national’s case back to the appeal court has been revealed to be the fact that crucial information in the possession of the CIA that is related to the timer issue was withheld from the Defense;
Another of the “secret” grounds of appeal has now been revealed to be the offer of a huge payment by the CIA to the Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, a key witness of the prosecution, for identifying the Libyan Al-Megrahi as the one who bought clothes in his shop in Malta;
The Libyan-US double agent Abdul Majid Giaka had similarly been offered a huge amount for his testimony as a prosecution witness;
At least two forensic “experts” who were invited as witnesses by the Prosecution had links to intelligence agencies and were proven to be totally unreliable;
One of the directors of the “Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit” at the University of Glasgow which was set up at the beginning of the trial with the purpose of providing expert legal information to the interested public, was exposed by the British media as a member of British intelligence and had to step down.
Furthermore, Mr. Edwin Bollier, head of the Zurich-based company MEBO, today confirmed vis-à-vis Dr. Koechler that during a visit to the headquarters of the American FBI in Washington DC at the beginning of 1991 he was offered an amount of up to USD 4 million plus a new identity (name) in the United States if he would testify in court that the timer fragment that was allegedly found on the crash site around Lockerbie stemmed from a MST-13 timer that his company had delivered to Libya.

 http://www.i-p-o.org/IPO-nr-Lockerbie-5Oct07.htm


In his affidavit Mr. Lumpert implicitly admits to have committed perjury as witness No. 550 before the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. He states (Par. 2) that he has stolen a handmade (by him) sample of an “MST-13 Timer PC-board” from MEBO company in Zurich and handed it over, on 22 June 1989 (!), to an “official person investigating the Lockerbie case.” He further states (in Par. 5) that the fragment of the MST-13 timer, cut into two pieces for “supposedly forensic reasons,” which was presented in Court as vital part of evidence, stemmed from the piece which he had stolen and handed over to an investigator in 1989. He further states that when he became aware that this piece was used for an “intentional politically motivated criminal undertaking” (vorsätzliche politisch kriminelle “Machenschaft”) he decided, out of fear for his life, to keep silent on the matter.
The rather late admission of Mr. Lumpert is consistent with an earlier revelation in the British and Scottish media according to which a former Scottish police officer (whose identity has not yet been disclosed to the public) stated “that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan” for the bombing of the Pan Am jet (Scotland on Sunday, 28 August 2005).
A continuation of the rather obvious cover-up which we have witnessed up until now is neither acceptable for the citizens of Scotland nor for the international public, Dr. Koechler stated.

 http://www.i-p-o.org/IPO-Lockerbie-nr-28Aug2007.htm



UN Observer to the Lockerbie Trial says ‘totalitarian’ appeal process bears the hallmarks of an “intelligence operation”

I have commented on the PII "problem" last February ( http://i-p-o.org/Lockerbie-statement-koechler-25Feb08.htm) and have nothing to add in terms of legal substance. It is almost trivial to say that a fair trial requires the availability of evidence to both the Prosecution and Defense. Only in a totalitarian system would the executive power interfere in court proceedings and order the withholding of evidence and/or replace defense lawyers by MI-approved lawyers (which I hope will not happen in the present case).
My "extra-legal" questions at this stage are:

- where are Scotland's investigative journalists? (I know positively that several journalists shied away from questoning the official story);
- where are the Scottish parliamentarians who defend the rule of law (which includes the independence of the judiciary)?;
- where is Scottish civil society?
- why was the setting up of a Lockerbie Truth Commission never considered by civil society groups? Such a Commission could have organized lectures, hearings, press conferences, etc.

Furthermore: The fact that the new appeal proceedings take place in Scotland is not in conformity with the original intergovernmental agreement on the Lockerbie trial (which provided extraterritorial arrangements, with the presence of UN-appointed observers, also for the appeal). Under the present circumstances, there is a total lack of transparency of the proceedings. The entire procedure (with the PII as core issue of the appeal) looks more like an intelligence operation than a genuine undertaking of criminal justice.


 http://www.thefirmmagazine.com/news/901/UN_Observer_to_the_Lockerbie_Trial_says_%E2%80%98totalitarian%E2%80%99_appeal_process_bears_the_hallmarks_of_an_%E2%80%9Cintelligence_operation%E2%80%9D_.html