The release of Megrahi: The buck stops here

Published on Wednesday 21 July 2010 17:11

THE phrase may have originated in America, but the only buck-passing last week was going on this side of the Atlantic.

Normal relations between Edinburgh and London since the dawn of devolution eleven years ago have been that of a low-level turf war, with both sides wrestling over chunks of power. The release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, however, is an issue where normal rules do not apply.

"We are witnessing the UK Government claiming the release was entirely the decision of the Scottish Government and vice versa," lamented Senator Frank Lautenberg in a letter to Alex Salmond yesterday. "We all know what the parties are going to say, and that is to point the finger at everyone else," adds Frank Duggan, the spokesman of the American Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 group. Rather than arguing about who has power this weekend, Scotland and London appear locked in a war about who can best demonstrate that they don't.

The uniqueness of this spectacle testifies to the complex one-off nature of the entire Lockerbie case. Rarely can the intricacies of international diplomacy, trade and crime have come together in such a convoluted fashion. But as both UK and Scottish governments play the blame game this weekend, the troubling question for senators hoping to get to the bottom of the Lockerbie mystery is whether both centres of power are, in point of fact, justified in their stances. And if they are, doesn't that mean that the senate should be looking elsewhere for answers?

Surely Edinburgh and London can't both be right in claiming it's not their fault? The truth is that they can – when judged narrowly on their own criteria. Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill was first up last week, declaring less than an hour after the request from the US Senate demanding his presence in Washington this week, that he had nothing more to add.

The US Senate's inquiry, announced two weeks ago, has been controversial from the start. Fired up by the backlash against BP's Gulf oil spill, the senators attempted to try and weld it and the Lockerbie case together – this after discovering last year that the British oil firm had lobbied the UK Government to include Megrahi in a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Libya. Deep-sea drilling off the Libyan coast will soon commence. So had BP aided Megrahi's release as well, the senators wanted to know?

For MacAskill and Salmond, here was their get-out. As well as objecting to the principle of one legislature answering to another, the First Minister noted on Friday that nobody was claiming that BP lobbied Scotland; all the lobbying was aimed at the UK, and their former Justice Secretary Jack Straw. In this he was right: no correspondence between BP and Edinburgh has come to light, and – what is more – because Edinburgh had always objected to the very idea of a PTA from the start, and had no control over its signing, there would have been little point in BP doing so anyway.

So it was Straw who should be giving evidence, then? Not so, he declared on Friday. Straw pointed out – again rightly – that the final decision of the Scottish Government had been nothing to do with the PTA wrangling. Megrahi's PTA application, over which BP had lobbied him last year, was rejected by MacAskill. The bomber was allowed out because, suffering from prostate cancer, he had qualified for compassionate release. "I had absolutely nothing to do with that decision," Straw said on Friday. "I saw no papers about it, and was not consulted about it."

Their logic has been met with understandable annoyance in America, as expressed by Lautenberg's letter to Salmond today. There is clear evidence that the UK Government did negotiate with Libya, allowing Megrahi to be part of the agreement, against the wishes of Edinburgh.

There is clear evidence that BP was involved in these talks. But there is no evidence that Straw influenced MacAskill's eventual decision on compassionate release.

With the two governments having rehearsed their lines over and again, it is hard to see how, even if they hauled Straw and MacAskill over in manacles, they would get further than the simple facts which the two governments can lean upon. MacAskill released Megrahi because he was ill. Straw and BP didn't release Megrahi because they couldn't.

End of story? Not quite. For relatives such as Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among those killed in December 1988, the hope is that the questionable genesis of the Senate inquiry, and the buck-passing of its witnesses, will not deter it from a more thorough investigation; into the trial of Megrahi himself.

Here the controversy really begins. For while BP's alleged involvement has created all the heat in Washington in recent weeks, the slow-burning story of Megrahi's prosecution is likely to last for much longer. Lockerbie veterans such as former Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who has long believed in Megrahi's innocence, thinks there is an obvious reason why MacAskill decided to free Megrahi. Yes, because he was terminally ill. But also: "I think he and Alex Salmond know in their heart of hearts that Megrahi was an innocent man who had nothing to do with Lockerbie."

He goes on: "Of course they can't say this because if they were to say it, here would be an SNP government decrying the quality of Scottish justice. It would be saying that Scottish justice had made an almighty fool of itself in the eyes of the world."

Dalyell and other sceptics such as Swire and UN Observer Hans Kochler, all argue that Megrahi's release was inextricably linked to the prisoner's decision to drop his appeal just before he was released last year. Minutes from the controversial meeting MacAskill had with Megrahi in Greenock jail show that the Justice Secretary raised the question of the appeal with Megrahi, warning him that the Scottish Government could "only grant a transfer if there are no court proceedings ongoing".

Megrahi had already been informed that the PTA request and compassionate release request (which was not affected by the appeal) would be taken together. There is no evidence in the minutes of any deal being brokered, but questions about why that meeting took place are now being raised. Kochler declared: "It is entirely appropriate to ask whether the decisive motive might have been the termination of proceedings so that the Scottish, UK and US administrations in the handing of the Lockerbie case would never be fully scrutinised in a court of law." Swire, Kochler and Dalyell all believe the matter needs to be examined.

For many American relatives who are convinced of Megrahi's guilt, such an inquiry into the reliability of the conviction would be met with dismay. Kochler and others are "conspiracy buffs", they argue The evidence linking Megrahi to the crime was clear. But the fact is that the senate inquiry, however misguided in its approach, is now focusing attention once more on the original claims: the Iranian connection; the claims of baggage on Flight 103 being tampered with at Heathrow; the evidence allegedly planted on the scene; the complicity of the US and UK Governments in a cover-up; and whether an innocent man was put in the dock.

The logical lesson to be taken from last week's buck-passing is clear.

If the US Senate cannot get the answers, then surely a proper inquiry should be called. The US Senators themselves have acknowledged this.

Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the four who called this week's hearing, declared: "The only way to restore the integrity of what happened and to continue the integrity of the British government is to do a full and complete investigation." Only a few weeks ago – before he took office – David Cameron agreed, arguing in the strongest terms that the matters most be probed. Now in office, he is vacillating. It was Jack Straw and Kenny MacAskill who played the blame game last week. But if Cameron refuses to act over the coming weeks, he may go down as the biggest buck-passer of them all.