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Lockerbie bomber: Megrahi's lawyer to release dossier 'proving' his innocence
By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter
29 Aug 2009
Tony Kelly, a Scottish solicitor, said that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, 57, who returned to his homeland ten days ago after being released from prison on compassionate grounds, remains determined to show his guilty verdict was unjust.
Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, withdrew his second appeal against conviction just two days before he was allowed to return to Libya.
Those close to him say he did so reluctantly because he was convinced it would improve his chances of being freed from a Scottish jail, eight years after being convicted of murdering 270 people.
The disclosure will further enrage critics of the decision to free Megrahi, the only man convicted of the atrocity.
It also raises the likelihood of further embarrassment for Scotland over the handling of the original trial and it could lead to fresh questions over whether Megrahi was innocent and, if so, who was really behind the bombing.
Mr Kelly intends to fly to Tripoli, the Libyan capital, within days to receive instructions from his client.
Mr Kelly said: "Mr Megrahi wants all the information that has been gathered made public at some point.
"But how and when this takes place is ultimately a matter for him to decide. It is my intention to travel to Tripoli in the course of the next week or so to obtain his instructions on this."
The lawyer said he had been unable to discuss this issue with Megrahi after his release because things were "fraught" and the Libyan had been rushing to get a plane to his homeland.
Mr Kelly confirmed that Megrahi had left the relevant legal documents supporting his second appeal in the UK rather than take the evidence back with him to Libya.
Although Mr Kelly declined to reveal the new evidence which would have been presented to appeal hearing, it is understood that Megrahi's legal team had planned to list some 20 grounds why his conviction was unsafe, including:
Potentially crucial evidence was deliberately withheld from Megrahi's first trial.
One crucial witness was paid $2 million (£1.25 million) for his suspect evidence.
Allegations of tampering with key evidence.
American intelligence believed Iran – not Libya – was responsible for Lockerbie
Several relatives of the Lockerbie victims are also convinced of Megrahi's innocence, including Dr Jim Swire, now 73, whose daughter, Flora, 24, died in the terror attack.
Dr Swire said he welcomes any new evidence relating to the bombing being made public.
"The way for Scotland to move forward is for it to drive a coach and horses through the sanctity of this [guilty] verdict," he said.
Professor Robert Black QC, the lawyer who was the architect of the Lockerbie trial, said Megrahi had been caught in a difficult position prior to his release.
This was because Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, was considering either releasing him on compassionate grounds or as part of a prisoner exchange programme between Britain and Libya that was first agreed by Tony Blair and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, two years ago.
Megrahi could have been released on compassionate ground without dropping his appeal – but he could not have been freed under the exchange programme if legal action was ongoing.
"Megrahi was reached a stage where he was so concerned to get back to Libya to die that he was prepared to do even unpalatable things [drop his appeal] to achieve that objective," Professor Black said.
He added that the new evidence relating to Megrahi's second appeal ought still to be made public – initially through a limited inquiry in Scotland into the entire Lockerbie criminal case.
He said there was also a chance of a larger EU or United Nations investigation into the case.
Christine Grahame, a Scottish National Party MSP who visited the Libyan in prison, said that Megrahi had been "leaned on" by the Scottish authorities to drop his second appeal. She welcomed any new evidence being made public.
Megrahi's second appeal had been permitted in 2007 after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission uncovered six separate grounds for believing the conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice.
Under Scottish law, provided the appeal was ongoing, Megrahi's family could have continued it after his death, but the legal action was halted by the appeal being withdrawn.
Many people, including President Barack Obama and US families of the Lockerbie victims, have criticised Mr MacAskill's decision to allow Megrahi to return to Libya. They wanted him to die in jail in Scotland.
In a statement issued at the time of his release, Megrahi said: "I have been faced with an appalling choice: to risk dying in prison in the hope that my name is cleared posthumously or to return home still carrying the weight of the guilty verdict, which will never now be lifted."
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Megrahi fights on to clear his name
August 31, 2009 .
LONDON: The Scottish lawyer acting for the freed Lockerbie bomber is to fly to Libya to prepare a dossier of evidence ''proving'' his client's innocence.
Tony Kelly said Abdel Basset al-Megrahi remains determined to show the guilty verdict at his trial in 2001 was unjust.
Megrahi was freed and returned to Libya two days after he withdrew his second appeal against his conviction. He did so reluctantly because he was convinced it would improve his chances of being freed.
Mr Kelly plans to fly to Tripoli, the Libyan capital, within days to receive instructions from his client.
The disclosure will further enrage critics of the decision to free Megrahi. It also could lead to fresh questions over whether Megrahi was innocent and, if so, who was behind the 1988 bombing.
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`I'LL REVEAL TRUE IDENTITY OF BOMBER'
Megrahi is to point the finger
Sunday August 23,2009
By Ben Borland
AN AMERICAN citizen is to be named by the Lockerbie bomber as the man who really carried out the terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103.
Megrahi's early release from prison on compassionate grounds.
Lawyers for the bomber were to argue that an "elusive" terrorist codenamed Abu Elias planted the bomb in December 1988, causing the deaths of 270 innocent people.
Megrahi is now expected to identify the man behind this alias.
The Scottisch Sunday Express tracked this man down to his home in the US, and he strongly denied having anything to do with the atrocity.
However, we can reveal that he has connections to at least two international terrorists and a Palestinian terror group, as well as links to the US intelligence services.
The man, who works as a schools engineer for the US government, was to become the central figure in Megrahi's aborted appeal.
`Elias', a commander in a Palestinian terror organisation, was identified as the CIA's primary Lockerbie suspect but was never caught.
Megrahi set to name US citizen as prime suspect who hid behind terror alias of Abu Elias
Sources close to Megrahi believe he may actually have been a double agent working for the FBI or the CIA.
Last night the man, who we have chosen not to name, said: "Sorry, I don't think that I can help in this case. It is a clear case of either mistaken identity and/or fabrication.
"I don't wish my name to be mentioned in any capacity in the press. I am sure you understand the sensitivity of this matter since I have a family and children."
However, Christine Grahame MSP, who visited Megrahi in Greenock prison and campaigned for his release, is believed to be considering naming the man in the Scottish Parliament chamber.
She said: "It is apparent that US intelligence has known or must have known the primary suspect of the Lockerbie bombing was alive and living safely in Washington.
"There has been a suggestion made that he is in some way an `intelligence asset' for the US and that is why he has been allowed to live in peace.
"He must be deeply relieved that Megrahi was forced to drop his appeal and that he will never face justice for this atrocity."
Yesterday, Megrahi promised that before he dies he will present new evidence gathered for the appeal which will exonerate him. He said he will call on the British and Scottish people "to be the jury".
The man Megrahi believes was Abu Elias now lives in a suburban neighbourhood near Washington's Dulles airport, just a few miles from the White House and the Lockerbie memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. He even has his own Facebook social network page.
He is the nephew of Syrian terror warlord Ahmed Jibril, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC).
Jibril was allegedly paid $10million by Iran to bomb an American passenger jet in retaliation for the US Navy accidentally shooting down an Iranian plane earlier in 1988, killing all 298 pilgrims on board.
The man is also related to Nezar Hindawi, a Syrian currently serving a 45-year sentence in Whitemoor high-security prison in Cambridgeshire for plotting to blow up an Israeli jet flying from Heathrow to Tel Aviv in 1986.
A document submitted to the appeal court by Megrahi's lawyers states: "The FBI had apparently investigated `X' and knew he was the nephew of Ahmed Jibril.
"`X' had met with FBI special agents [an appointment was in his diary for August 1988] but neither `X' nor the Department of Justice would disclose who the agents were or the precise purpose of the recorded meeting. `X' admitted the meeting had taken place. It is inconceivable that he did not produce his Syrian passport for examination. Only extracts from his US passport were revealed.
"Once again, the hand of the US government appeared to be guiding matters behind the scenes."
`Elias' was also connected to Mohammed Abu Talb, an Egyptian named by Dumfries and Galloway Police as their chief suspect less than a year after the bombing. The true identity of `Elias' first came to light during a closed hearing at the Lockerbie trial in Holland in 2001, which led to Megrahi's conviction.
However, the defence claim that attempts to investigate further were dismissed as a "fishing" exercise by the then Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd.
There is further evidence to link the PFLP-GC to the disaster, as first reported by the Scottish Sunday Express in 2004.
In October 1988, following a tip-off from the CIA, German police raided a PFLP-GC safe house in Neuss and discovered a bomb in a Toshiba cassette player, identical to the one which exploded on board Flight 103, as well as a Pan Am timetable.
Codenamed Autumn Leaves, the raid resulted in 16 arrests including that of cell leader Hafez Dalkamoni, later convicted for a bombing campaign on German railways, and Marwan Khreesat, a double agent for the Jordanian intelligence service.
Khreesat said in an interview with an FBI agent that he had been introduced to a man called Abu Elias, an explosives and airline security expert who had been "giving orders".
Another member of the terror cell, Mobdi Goben, later disclosed Elias's true identity in a deathbed confession which became known as the Goben Memorandum during the Camp Zeist trial. Goben claimed `Elias' placed a bomb in the luggage of Khaled Jafar, a Lebanese/American from Detroit who died on board Pan Am Flight 103.
A source close to Megrahi said yesterday that `Elias' could have been spying for the Americans.
The source said: "Not only was Abu Elias known to the Americans, but what if he was working for them? The guy comes into the US from the former Soviet Union, he's the nephew of Ahmed Jibril – the Bin Laden of his day – and he just strolls into the US?
"I think they turned him, and I think he operated as a double agent.
"Khreeshat said if they had waited one more day they would have got Elias in the Autumn Leaves raid.
Goben says Elias put the bomb into Jafar's case without his knowledge.
"Abu Elias was a prime suspect. An American double agent was responsible for bringing down an American plane. How good a reason for a cover-up would that be?"
