Abdelbaset al-Megrahi

• 1. Introduction

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  A special court at Camp Zeist convicted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on the 31st of January 2001. Three Scottish judges found the Libyan guilty on 270 counts of murder for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which fell over Scotland on the 21st of December 1988.

  The verdict came more than a decade after the attack. It did not end the argument. Nelson Mandela, church leaders, a United Nations observer and a bereaved father all came to doubt it.

  This documentary asks why a Scottish case was heard so far from Scotland, and what the evidence against Megrahi really rested on. It asks why a dying prisoner was sent home, and whether he was as ill as the world was told. And it asks whether the matter truly closed when he died.

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• 2. Road To Camp Zeist

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  Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was born in Tripoli on the 1st of April 1952, into a poor family of the Magarha people. Little is recorded about his early years. In 1971 he spent nine months studying in Cardiff, Wales. During the late 1970s he made several trips to the United States and the United Kingdom.

  He later became head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines and director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli. The FBI and the Lockerbie prosecutors went further. They alleged that he was also an officer in the Libyan intelligence service, Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya.

  In November 1991, the US Attorney General and the Scottish Lord Advocate indicted Megrahi and a second Libyan, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah. Libya would not hand them over. It placed both men under armed house arrest in Tripoli and offered to try them at home, provided all the incriminating evidence was supplied. Washington and London refused, and a three-year impasse followed.

  On the 23rd of March 1995, the two men became the 441st and 442nd names on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. A reward of US$4 million came from the Air Line Pilots Association, the Air Transport Association and the State Department. The FBI added another $50,000.

  The way out was a compromise. The trial would be held in the Netherlands, under Scots law. Professor Robert Black, a legal academic at the University of Edinburgh, engineered the format. British foreign secretary Robin Cook gave the idea its political momentum.

  Long negotiations with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, together with UN economic sanctions on Libya, finally brought the accused to a neutral country. They were placed under arrest at Camp Zeist on the 5th of April 1999. Until then Megrahi had spent seven years under house arrest, living on a Libyan Arab Airlines pension and working as a teacher. The trial that followed would last eight months.

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• 3. Trial Without A Jury

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  Three senior judges and a fourth, non-voting judge sat on the bench at Camp Zeist, with no jury at all. Proceedings began on the 3rd of May 2000. Megrahi and Fhimah denied every charge. The indictment named the 259 passengers and crew of Pan Am 103, along with the eleven residents of Lockerbie killed on the ground.

  Each man had a Scottish defence team. Megrahi's solicitor was Alistair Duff, and his advocates were William Taylor KC, David Burns KC and John Beckett. Fhimah was represented by solicitor Eddie McKechnie and advocates Richard Keen QC, Jack Davidson QC and Murdo MacLeod. Both could also consult Kamel Maghur, a Libyan defence lawyer who had once been a foreign affairs minister in his government.

  The crucial prosecution witness against Megrahi was Tony Gauci, a Maltese storekeeper. Gauci testified that he had sold Megrahi the clothing later found in the remains of the suitcase bomb. Under questioning, though, he was unsure of the exact date of the sale. He was also not entirely certain that the buyer was Megrahi.

  Five years after the trial, the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, spoke publicly about Gauci. He called him "an apple short of a picnic" and "not quite the full shilling".

  Fhimah's case went differently. The defence showed that he had a watertight alibi, because he had been in Sweden at the time of the sabotage.

  The judges said: "There is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the first accused." They sentenced Megrahi to life imprisonment and recommended that he serve at least 20 years before parole. The same judges unanimously found Fhimah not guilty. He was freed and returned to his home at Souk al-Juma in Libya on the 1st of February 2001.

  Megrahi was sent to Barlinnie Prison in Scotland. In February 2005 he was moved to HM Prison Greenock.

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• 4. Appeals And Evidence

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  On the 14th of March 2002, a panel of five Scottish judges at Camp Zeist refused Megrahi's first appeal. According to a BBC report, Dr Hans Köchler, one of the UN observers at the trial, had serious doubts about the fairness of the proceedings. He spoke of a "spectacular miscarriage of justice".

  On the 23rd of September 2003, Megrahi's lawyers asked the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to examine both his conviction and his sentence. Two months later, on the 24th of November, he appeared before the High Court in Glasgow. He learned that he must serve at least 27 years, counted from April 1999, before parole could be considered. The hearing was required because the European Convention on Human Rights had entered Scots law in 2001, and it obliged the court to state the punishment part of a life term.

  In January 2006, retired judge Lord MacLean gave an interview to The Scotsman. He was one of the three who had convicted Megrahi, and he expected the review to produce something. His words were: "They can't be working for two years without producing something with which to go to the court." He added that a new appeal would show the flexibility of Scots law rather than a weakness.

  On the 28th of June 2007, the Commission ended a four-year review. It had found evidence that a miscarriage of justice could have occurred, and it granted Megrahi leave for a second appeal.

  A procedural hearing in Edinburgh on the 11th of October 2007 heard four fresh claims. His lawyers said that CIA documents about the Mebo timer, which allegedly detonated the bomb, had been withheld from the trial defence. Gauci was alleged to have been paid $2 million for his testimony. Edwin Bollier, owner of Mebo, claimed the FBI had offered him $4 million in 1991 to say that a timer fragment came from a Mebo MST-13 supplied to Libya. And a former Mebo employee, Ulrich Lumpert, swore an affidavit that he had stolen a prototype MST-13 in 1989 and handed it to a person officially investigating the case.

  On the 1st of November 2007, Megrahi invited Robert Black to visit him at Greenock. After a two-hour meeting, Black said that "not only was there a wrongful conviction, but the victim of it was an innocent man."

  Dr Köchler wrote to Foreign Secretary David Miliband on the 21st of July 2008. He objected to a Public Interest Immunity certificate that could keep a document from the defence, and he asked how equality of arms could exist. The Foreign Office replied that the court, not the Foreign Secretary, would decide whether material should be disclosed.

  On the 15th of October 2008, five judges unanimously rejected a Crown Office bid to confine the second appeal to the grounds the Commission had identified. A bail application followed. On the 6th of November 2008 the judges reserved their decision, and a week later they refused it.

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• 5. Voices Of Doubt

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  At the start of 2003, Nelson Mandela asked Western Christian churches to intervene in what he called "a clear miscarriage of justice". The Church of Scotland's leading scientist, Dr John Urquhart Cameron, then wrote a highly critical report on the forensic evidence from the trial. In July 2003 the Church's Moderator, Iain Torrance, petitioned Prime Minister Tony Blair to consider releasing Megrahi. He cited widespread unease in Scotland about the safety of the verdict.

  Tam Dalyell, a former Labour MP for West Lothian, went further and called Megrahi a scapegoat. Dalyell was backed by Mandela, the Church of Scotland, the Catholic Church, the law faculties of Scottish universities, representatives of British relatives and the UN's official observer.

  Jim Swire lost his daughter Flora in the bombing and became a spokesman for UK Families Flight 103. He came to believe Megrahi was innocent. In his words: "the scandal around Megrahi is not that a sick man was released, but that he was ever convicted in the first place."

  Robert Black, who had designed the trial format, called the conviction "the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for 100 years". He said he felt "a measure of personal responsibility" for persuading Libya to accept Scots law. Of his campaign he said: "I won't let it go."

  On the 14th of September 2008, the Arab League Ministerial Council called Megrahi a "political hostage" and demanded his release. It also backed Libya's claim to compensation for the damage UN sanctions did to its economy between 1991 and 1999.

  On the twentieth anniversary of the bombing, journalist Hugh Miles asked in The Independent: if Megrahi did not do it, who did? He pointed to a gang headed by a convicted Palestinian named Abu Talb and a Jordanian triple agent, Marwan Abdel Razzaq Khreesat. Miles wrote that Talb received lifelong immunity in exchange for his evidence at the trial. He added that German police released Khreesat for lack of evidence, even though a barometric timer of the type used on Pan Am 103 was found in his car.

  On the 29th of August 2011, The Wall Street Journal found a private letter from Megrahi in the intelligence headquarters in Tripoli. Rebels had forced open a steel filing cabinet in the office of intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi. The letter, written in blue ink on ordinary paper, said: "I am an innocent man."

  Megrahi's own cousin recalled a vow he used to repeat: "If God gives me life and health I will appeal my case and prove my innocence."

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• 6. Release And Homecoming

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  Megrahi was 56 when doctors diagnosed advanced prostate cancer on the 23rd of September 2008. The news prompted calls for his second appeal to be heard quickly. He had married Aisha in 1982, and the couple had five children, four sons and a daughter. On the 19th of December 2008, an online petition asked Scottish ministers to let him spend his remaining time with his family in Glasgow while he awaited the appeal.

  On the 4th of August 2009, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill visited Greenock Prison to hear Megrahi's request for transfer to Libya. International pressure mounted. US victims' groups urged him not to release Megrahi, as did Syracuse University, which lost 25 students in the bombing.

  On the 14th of August, Megrahi's lawyers said he had applied two days earlier to withdraw his second appeal. They also said his condition had "taken a significant turn for the worse". On the 20th of August 2009, MacAskill granted compassionate release. He said Megrahi was in the final stages of terminal prostate cancer and expected to live no more than three months. MacAskill declared himself "bound by Scottish values to release him".

  Strathclyde Police escorted Megrahi to Glasgow Airport. He boarded a chartered Airbus A300 of the Libyan state-owned Afriqiyah Airways, which was Colonel Gaddafi's personal aircraft. It was destroyed on the ground at Tripoli Airport in 2011, during the fighting to overthrow the regime. Megrahi arrived in time for celebrations marking 40 years since Libya's revolution.

  Several hundred young people waited at Tripoli Airport, some waving Libyan or Scottish flags and others throwing flower petals. Libyan officials had ushered some away, to play down the arrival as Britain and the United States wished. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who had pledged in 2008 to bring Megrahi home, accompanied him. Fhimah joined them on the aircraft steps, the first time the pair had met since their trial.

  Megrahi's 86-year-old mother, Hajja Fatma Ali al-Arabi, was waiting for him. She had not been told of his cancer, for fear the shock would be too great. He also met Colonel Gaddafi, and Libyan state television showed the reception.

  The next day Megrahi gave an interview to The Times. He promised new evidence and said: "my message to the British and Scottish communities is that I will put out the evidence and ask them to be the jury". On the 18th of September 2009, he released a 300-page dossier challenging the case against him. Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini condemned the move, noting that he had abandoned his appeal before his release.

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• 7. Three Months To Live

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  Scottish guidance on compassionate release says death must be likely to occur "soon". It sets no fixed limit, though a life expectancy of three months is suggested as appropriate. Dr Richard Simpson, a Labour MSP who had specialised in prostate disease research, doubted that Megrahi would die within three months. He said Megrahi might live for eight months, and he complained that MacAskill acted on the advice of one unnamed doctor.

  On the 27th of August 2009, The Scotsman quoted an anonymous government source who said four specialists had refused to speculate on Megrahi's lifespan. Members of Holyrood's justice committee later said prison service guidelines had not been followed and the medical evidence was flimsy. Prison doctors and some experts, however, said he met the Scottish standard. The decision belonged to the justice minister, not to a committee.

  A US Embassy cable dated the 24th of October 2008 had already described the medical picture. Megrahi was first diagnosed on the 23rd of September at Inverclyde Royal Hospital, and a second diagnosis followed on the 10th of October. The cancer had spread to his bones and was inoperable. He might live as long as five years, but the average for his age and condition was eighteen months to two years.

  In Tripoli, a video showed Megrahi breathing through an oxygen mask in hospital. On the 2nd of September 2009, reports said he had been moved to intensive care. His family said they were not allowed to visit; the Foreign Ministry said this was for his safety. He left intensive care on the 5th of September and received chemotherapy with the drug docetaxel. On the 2nd of November he was discharged to a villa in the New Damascus district of west Tripoli, reportedly built or bought for him by the Libyan government.

  In early April 2010, cancer consultant Karol Sikora said Megrahi was bed-bound and probably had no more than four weeks. Sikora had backed the three-month prognosis, but his evidence did not feed into the release decision because Libyan authorities paid him. In July 2010 he told The Daily Telegraph that Megrahi could have lived 10 or 20 years, though that would be unusual. He added: "It was clear that three months was what they (the Libyan government) were aiming for". He later said his words had been misquoted. He put the chance of such long survival below 1 percent, with a 90 percent likelihood of death within weeks.

  First Minister Alex Salmond compared Megrahi to Ronald Biggs, another famous prisoner who outlived expectations on compassionate release.

  On the 26th of July 2011, Libyan state television showed Megrahi, frail and in a wheelchair, at a pro-Gaddafi tribal rally. In late August, CNN reported that a crew had found him comatose. On the 30th of August Salmond said the pictures showed an extremely sick man, and he hoped they would end the "ridiculous conspiracy theories". In October, Megrahi told Reuters from his bed that he had days, weeks or months to live.

  He was hospitalized on the 13th of April 2012. He died at home in Tripoli on the 20th of May 2012, aged 60, which was 33 months after his release. His funeral was held the next day.

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• 8. Deals And Aftermath

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  On the 28th of August 2009, The Herald published an interview with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. He insisted that Megrahi's release was not tied to oil deals, though he said: "We signed an oil deal at the same time." He described the prisoner transfer agreement and the compassionate release as "two completely different animals".

  Two days later, the Sunday Times reported on a letter from Justice Secretary Jack Straw to his Scottish counterpart, dated the 19th of December 2007. Straw wrote that he could not secure an explicit exclusion of Megrahi from the transfer agreement. "In view of the overwhelming interests for the UK", the agreement would be in standard form. Straw denied any deal, and Salmond insisted the release was compassionate.

  On the 16th of July 2010, four United States senators said they believed BP had pushed for the release to secure a deal with Libya. BP confirmed it had pressed for a transfer agreement, since a delay might have "negative consequences" for UK commercial interests. It denied any role in discussions about Megrahi's release. Hearings planned for Capitol Hill on the 29th of July were postponed after US Justice Department and British witnesses declined to attend.

  President Obama said Americans were "surprised, disappointed and angry" at the release. Yet Frank LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, had written to Salmond beforehand. He said that if Scotland felt Megrahi must go, conditional compassionate release was far preferable to a prisoner transfer, which Washington strongly opposed. Former Chancellor Alistair Darling later said it was true that "the British Government wanted Megrahi out", while denying any government role in the release.

  Diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks showed the pressure on the other side. A Tripoli cable of the 28th of January 2009 called Megrahi's case the regime's most sensitive political subject. Another recorded British fears of action against UK interests if he died in prison.

  After Colonel Gaddafi was killed on the 20th of October 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for Megrahi to return to prison. The Scottish government rejected the call, saying only it could make such a request and that Megrahi had kept to his release conditions.

  When Megrahi died, Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking at a NATO summit in Chicago, urged people to think of the victims of "an appalling terrorist act". The Guardian reported that Libyans expressed relief rather than sadness, because Megrahi reminded them of the sanctions that had impoverished the country. Many victims' families wanted the appeal reopened, but Cameron refused. Salmond said the death "ends one chapter of the Lockerbie case, but it does not close the book".

  On the 5th of June 2014, the Glasgow lawyer Aamer Anwar announced that he had been instructed by Megrahi's family and by 24 British relatives, including Jim Swire. In December 2014, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland restated his belief in Megrahi's guilt and hoped to find accomplices. In December 2018, Malta's former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami said Malta had never accepted the theory of how Megrahi moved the bomb from Malta to the United Kingdom.

  In January 2021, the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal rejected the claims of a miscarriage of justice over secret documents and of an unreasonable verdict. It also ruled that evidence about luggage tags, once judged inadmissible, should have been admitted at the original trial. The court said this evidence made the case against Megrahi and Fhimah substantially stronger.

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