Lockerbie anguish continues as Al-Megrahi protests innocence

While many in Britain and America have condemned the celebratory nature of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi’s Libyan return, they conveniently overlook the fact he was unlikely to be the Lockerbie bomber. The Scottish government released the 57 year old cancer suffering al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds last week after serving eight years of his life sentence. But dying or not, al-Megrahi says he is still intent on proving his innocence. “If there is justice in the UK I would be acquitted or the verdict would be quashed because it was unsafe,” he said this weekend. “There was a miscarriage of justice.”

Al-Megrahi has a good point; justice has always taken a back seat to politics in the Lockerbie bombing. Pan Am flight 103 blew up over the small Scottish town a few nights before Christmas 1988 en route from London to New York. 270 people died - 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 residents on the ground. Scotland claimed jurisdiction for the crime as the plane was destroyed in Scottish airspace.

The initial suspect was a Syrian group with the unwieldy title of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command (PFLP-GC). The PFLP-GC had a motive by acting for Iran in revenge for the American attack on an Iranian Airlines passenger plane a few months earlier. Two years before Lockerbie, the group’s Syrian leader Ahmed Jibril had publicly warned there would be "no safety for any traveller on an Israeli or US airliner". Although PFLP-GC subsequently denied responsibility for Lockerbie, the early years of piecing together evidence focussed firmly on the Syria-Iran link.

But by 1990 Iraq had invaded Kuwait. Neighbouring Iran and Syria were now suddenly proxy-allies whom the west could not afford to alienate. The Lockerbie case refocussed on the “Malta connection” and later that year the US and British governments issued indictments of murder against two Libyan men Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah. In 1991 the pair were back in Libya and the US and the UK requested their extradition. Libya refused as it had no extradition treaty with either country. Libya arrested the pair but a local prosecution went nowhere as US/UK refused to hand over their evidence. The UN then made an unprecedented move to impose sanctions for not complying with the extradition request. The sanctions lasted six years.

After years of negotiation the UK agreed to Libyan demands for it to take place in a neutral country due to concerns of safety and a fair trial. The juryless trial began in May 2000 in the Netherlands under Scottish law and three Scottish judges. The key evidence was the brown Samsonsite suitcase which contained the bomb hidden in a radio/cassette player. The clothing in the suitcase was purchased at a shop in Malta and the store owner swore that a Libyan he could not identify bought them. Al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, was in Malta on the day of the purchase and stayed near the shop. He was unable to offer the court a reason for his stay on the island. This evidence plus his connections to airport security and the Swiss company that built the timer in the explosive device was enough to convict him. Al-Megrahi was given a life sentence.

The second defendant Fhimah was an acquaintance of al-Megrahi and an Air Malta employee. They both arrived in Malta on the same flight from Libya two days before the bombing. The prosecution argued Fhimah knew how to get unaccompanied baggage onto a plane but the court found no evidence to show he had assisted al-Megrahi and acquitted him. But with Fhimah’s acquittal part of the case against al-Megrahi collapsed too. How did he get the bomb out of Malta?

Also, as part of their defence under Scottish law, the pair accused the Syrian-backed PFLP-GC of carrying out the attack. A German police officer testified that PFLP-GC had the means and intention of attacking an airline but the timers and cassette player used were not consistent with other PFLP-GC attacks. A Jordanian agent Marwan Khreesat who had infiltrated the group said he had never seen radio cassette players with twin speakers converted into explosive devices. On the basis of the German and Jordanian evidence the court concluded the PFLP-GC did not make the bomb.

The UN appointed five observers to watch the trial. Of these only one, Professor Köchler from Innsbruck University, published his findings. Köchler concluded the trial was unfair based on two points of objection. He noted the extraordinary length of detention (though this had been requested by the defence to prepare its case) and said the “presence of foreigners” at the prosecution and defence tables hampered the judges’ ability to find the truth and introduced a political element to the case (though there was no evidence that the judges were swayed by the “foreigners”).

Al-Megrahi appealed against the sentence based on the strength of the evidence linking him to the fatal suitcase. There was also the startling evidence that emerged in September 2001. A former security guard at Heathrow named Ray Manley made a sworn affidavit he had told anti-terror police one of Pan Am's luggage rooms had been broken into on the night of the bombing. This evidence cast complete doubt on the whole Malta connection. But for many years Scotland fought the appeal process.

The Scottish law professor who negotiated the Netherlands trial says many people believe there was overt political pressure placed upon the judges. Robert Black says it was probably necessary to reach a conclusion that was satisfactory to the British and American governments. “I think that consciously or subconsciously, these judges appreciated that if neither of the two Libyan accused were convicted in this trial, this would be an enormous embarrassment to the prosecution system in Scotland,” he said.

But by 2003, Libya was no longer a public enemy. Gaddafy told the Americans about his weapons capability. The west lifted international sanctions against Libya after it admitted responsibility for Lockerbie in 2005 and paid about $2.7bn in compensation to the victims’ families. Libya has since got that money back and much more in oil revenues. As The Times points out, al-Megrahi’s freedom is a further product of the effort to bring Libya out of dangerous isolation. “This is as much to America’s advantage as Britain’s, but Washington has too much baggage to be openly involved,” said The Times. And 20 years on, everyone is happy except the families of the Lockerbie victims who are still no closer to knowing who killed their loved ones.

US Democrats oppose Libya relations

At least four Democrat senators including Hillary Clinton have threatened to block the appointment of the US’s first ambassador to Libya in 35 years. George W Bush nominated Gene Cretz to fill the vacant role on Wednesday. However Senate Democrats led by Frank Lautenberg (NJ) said no American ambassador should set foot in Tripoli until Libya fulfilled the financial commitments made to the Lockerbie victims' families. Lautenberg and Clinton’s move has been supported by Robert Menendez (NJ) and Charles Schumer (NY). “The US must not pursue fully normalised diplomatic relations with Libya until they fulfil their legal obligations to American families” said Lautenberg yesterday.

Gene Cretz is a possibly provocative choice of ambassador. Cretz is Jewish and currently based in Israel as the deputy chef de mission. He has often been the top US representative in Israel at Jewish memorial services, offering prayers in Hebrew. He spoke at the September 2005 funeral for Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Cretz is a veteran diplomat who has served at the US embassy in several Arab countries. Prior to serving in Israel, Cretz was the charge d'affaires at the US Embassy in Syria and has also served in Egypt.

However the appointment needs to be confirmed by the Senate and the four Democrats are leading the arguments to push the White House to make Libya do more to account for Lockerbie and the 1986 Berlin disco bombing that killed two US servicemen. The senators want Libya to pay $2.7 billion compensation stipulated in a 2006 agreement with the families of the 270 Lockerbie victims. "A promise made must be a promise kept," said Senator Menendez. "Libya has not made good on its promise to the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, and it must be held responsible."

The US had not had formal diplomat relations with Tripoli since 1980 and Libya was regarded as a pariah state until 2004. The US imposed a trade embargo in 1986 after a period of tension that ended in American air strikes against major targets in the capital, Tripoli, and elsewhere. In 2004 Britain facilitated a thaw in hostilities which enabled Washington to open a diplomatic office in the country. In May 2006 the Bush administration announced it was resuming regular diplomatic relations when it removed removing Gaddafy’s regime from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Not everyone in the US was happy with the decision. When Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte planned a visit to Libya to discuss Darfur, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton urged him to use the visit to tell Gaddafy to settle the remaining terrorism cases against his country before the US fully normalise diplomatic relations. Clinton quoted 1985 Egypt Air Flight 648 and the 1985 Rome Airport attack, the reneging of a proposed settlement with the victims of the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle discotheque in Berlin, and the fact they had not fully paid the Lockerbie families.

However new evidence has emerged that has cast doubt on the conviction of the Libyan convicted for the bombing. 55 year old Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was a former Libyan intelligence officer and head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 on 270 counts of murder for his part in the bombing. The prosecution alleged al-Megrahi arranged for an unaccompanied case containing the bomb to travel on an Air Malta flight from the island's Luqa airport. But the Scottish Sunday Herald claims the airport's then head baggage loader told the Maltese police investigating the disaster that there were no unaccompanied items on the flight to Frankfurt.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) has now announced it has granted a fresh appeal into al-Megrahi’s conviction. The UN observer appointed to oversee the Lockerbie trial, Dr Hans Köchler, has called on First Minister Alex Salmond to agree to demands for an international inquiry into the handling of the case. In a letter to Salmond, Dr Köchler called for "a full and independent public inquiry of the Lockerbie case and its handling by the Scottish judiciary as well as the British and US political and intelligence establishments". Megrahi’s appeal will not be heard until later next year.

US breaks its Gaddafy duck

On Monday 15 May, 2006 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the US was “normalising” relations with Libya. Rice hailed "tangible results that flow from the historic decisions taken by Libya's leadership in 2003 to renounce terrorism and to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs".

But normalisation began two years earlier. The US lifted its economic embargo in 2004. Six US companies resumed exploration for oil suspended since 1986 when the US bombed Libyan targets in the capital Tripoli and Benghazi, President Ronald Reagan called it self defence due to “terrorism aimed at America" such as the bombing of La Belle discotheque in West Berlin which killed many US soldiers.

100 people were killed in the 1986 Libyan attacks. These including Hanna Gaddafy, the adopted baby daughter of the Libyan leader, Colonel Muamar Gaddafy when his residential compound took a direct hit. Libya has been ruled by Gaddafy (or Gaddafi or Khaddafi or Qaddafi or any one of 32 different ways to spell his name) since he seized power in 1969. His rule set back a county that seemed to be an African standout.

In 1951, Libya was the first country to achieve independence under the auspices of the UN. It formed a constitutional monarchy under the pro-allies wartime leader King Idris. Idris stayed pro-western even after Britain precipitated the 1956 Suez Crisis which enveloped Libya’s powerful neighbour Egypt.

The young army officer Gaddafy took advantage in typical third world style of Idris’s Turkish medical treatment trip in 1969 to seize control. He took inspiration from Nasser’s power grab from an absent King Farouk in Egypt in 1952 and the new regime promoted a Nasser-like interpretation of socialism that integrated Islamic principles with social, economic, and political reform. Gaddafy rejected communism as atheistic. Nonetheless he destroyed the power of the Sanusi, the Islamic movement which was Idris’s power base.

Gaddafy moved quickly to close British and American military bases. In 1972 he convened the first National Congress of Al-Ittihad Al-Ishtiraki Al-Arabi (the Arab Socialist Union) at Tripoli. Later he issued a government decree prescribing the death penalty for belonging to a political party other than the Arab Socialist Union. Libya was formally a one-party state.

Gaddafy began to assert Libya on the world stage and saw himself as a champion of "oppressed peoples". Tensions with America grew through the seventies and exploded in 1981 in the Gulf of Sidra incident. Libya had earlier declared Sidra to be territorial waters and a “line of death” which if crossed would invite a military response. On August 9, two US aircraft flying combat patrol intercepted two Libyan fighters and shot them down after evading a missile strike. The election of Reagan in November exacerbated tensions between the countries due to Libya’s support for Palestine. The US placed a petroleum embargo on Libya in early 1982. Clashes in Sidra continued in 1986 giving Reagan the excuse to authorise the bombing.

In 1990, British investigators announced they found an electronic chip that linked Libya to the Lockerbie bombing. In November 1991, Scotland's chief law enforcement officer issued warrants for the arrest of two Libyans. One was Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, a member of the Libyan Intelligence Services and the station officer of Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta. The other was Abdel Baset al-Megrahi a senior officer in the Libyan Intelligence Services and head of Libyan Airlines security. Gaddafy argued for nearly eight years the suspects would not receive a fair trial in a Scottish court. The United Nations imposed sanctions on Libya that cost an estimated $33 billion. In 1998, after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and South African leader Nelson Mandela intervened, authorities agreed to Gaddafy's condition the trial be conducted in a neutral third country, Netherlands. Al-Megrahi was found guilty though calls remain to convict his superiors. Libya was forced to pay $2.7 billion to the victims' families in 2003.

With sanctions lifted, Libya adopted market reforms and liberalised the socialist-oriented economy. Libya is an oil-based economy which accounts for 90% of its exports. Libya is the largest oil producer in Africa with low production costs and proximity to European markets. Italy, Germany, Spain and France account for 74% of Libya’s exports. Despite 50 years of production, Libya remains largely unexplored with vast oil and gas potential.

The US moves announced by Rice is also aimed at tapping into the Libyan business boom. The black market and petty corruption have shrunk due to custom tariffs reform. Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem said reforms were positive steps towards turning Libya into a regional trading hub like Dubai or Hong Kong. Though Ghanem was replaced in March (possibly for controversial comments he made when he said Libya had ‘bought peace’) there appears to been a smooth transfer of power. As always Gaddafy is there behind the scenes, pulling all the strings.

The American decision to fully resume diplomatic relations see Libya turn full circle from the ‘rogue state’ of the 1980s. Gaddafy is now seen as a humanitarian and a senior African statesman. It is a remarkable makeover for one of the world’s most durable leaders if unpredictable leaders.