Megrahi: You Are My Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence [Paperback]

For those who have long had severe doubts, if not downright disbelief, about the way the Lockerbie investigation and trial were conducted, John Ashton's book provides all the detailed analysis of what went wrong that one could wish for. Just about all the relevant information is gathered here, so it is an excellent handbook for anyone interested in this tragic affair.

Of course the purpose of the book is to put Megrahi's side of the story, and some will find that difficult or even offensive. But what emerges - whether or not you believe that he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice - is such a damning critique of the Scottish justice system that it is surely inconceivable that the legal and political establishment can hold out much longer against disclosure of all the facts. It is certainly unacceptable if the report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission into why Megrahi may have had an unfair trial is not soon published in full: that report is now leaking like a sieve and there is no longer any sensible reason not to let us see all of it.

Personally I believe that Megrahi is innocent. I am willing to be persuaded otherwise but the original trial judgment certainly failed in every way to convince me of his guilt. John Ashton's book scores particularly highly in describing all the information that came to light AFTER the trial - including much evidence that appears to have been deliberately withheld from the defence team by the Crown and the police. The incredible interference and control of American intelligence agencies in the affair is also well documented.

This book rightly concentrates on why Megrahi's conviction was wrong, and does not dwell on the question of his compassionate release, which is a secondary matter. Whether Scotland opts for independence in the next few years or stays within the United Kingdom, its justice system has a terrible stain on it, and will continue to have unless and until a full inquiry into the whole sorry business brings the facts out of the shadows.

If this book were a work of fiction, describing murder and intrigue in the Middle East around the end of the Cold War, it would rank as a masterwork along with the best of Forsyth and le Carre. Tragically everything John Ashton has written has a ring of truth and every piece of evidence is cross-referenced to an authoritative source.

John Ashton worked for many years as a researcher on the case and in that capacity he had legitimate access to the massive report from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which carried out its own enquiries for many years and concluded that there were several major reasons why the original trial decision was unsound and Mr Megrahi should be allowed a second appeal. (Incidentally, contrary to what has often been said by British and American public figures, the first appeal was limited to very technical matters so that the judges were not asked to review the actual evidence at all.) The SCCRC report remains officially secret, even the Scottish Justice Secretary saying recently that he had not seen it, so Mr Ashton's book deserves a special status as a major part of the historical record.

Devastatingly for the reputation of the Scottish justice system and its denizens the tragedy of Lockerbie continues to blot our legal landscape and will continue to do so until the name of Mr Megrahi is cleared and the victims of the disaster get the closure they all deserve. As the book shows, the first could have happened before now had the cancer-stricken appellant not withdrawn his case, apparently in the hope that it would help achieve his desire to die at home with his family. Matters had not been helped by the Crown Office delaying the process of the second appeal with various technical and ultimately unsuccessful challenges. The second, closure, can only be found if and when the true facts become clear. That will depend on much greater will on both sides of the Atlantic to open official records than presently exists.

Like many other Scots I was horrified by the original disaster and have followed events ever since. In the early years almost everything in the Press seemed to direct suspicion towards Iranian and/or Palestinian involvement with Libya hardly being mentioned. There were references to the previous shooting down of an Iranian plane carrying pilgrims to Mecca by the USS Vincennes, a horrific atrocity which resulted in the crew of the warship receiving awards. It seemed obvious that Iran would seek some revenge for this. Accordingly it was a surprise to find attention being changed to Libya some years later.

As a lawyer I followed the case in the Press and studied the trial judgement when it was published online. I was not a specialist in criminal work but it seemed that the judges had made some logical leaps to justify their verdict, there being for example nothing to suggest how Mr Megrahi was supposed to have engineered the placing of the bomb on the plane at Luqa Airport, where the judges declared the security to be exemplary. Incidentally I think most if us feel more secure flying to small provincial airports where security is invariably direct and personal rather than enormous hubs such as Frankfurt or Heathrow. I am not alone in my views and I doubt if one could find a lawyer who, having read the judgement, would argue that it was sound (outside, perhaps, government circles). Circumstantial cases can be very strong but every link must match up and a major problem with this one was that the star witness Mr Giaka was found to be in the pay of the CIA and unreliable so that his evidence had to be almost totally disregarded.

John Ashton's book describes all these events in detail and then takes us on a journey to the present. It is an important part of a story which continues to unfold and of huge importance not just to those of us who live in Scotland but to all who are concerned with the way events and their coverage are controlled in a supposedly free society.

I read John Ashton's 500 page tour de force `Megrahi: You Are My Jury' at a sitting and though I would not expect anyone else to do so it is an invaluable `source' for the public. His dissection of the trial in general and the 80 page judgement of Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean in particular make compelling if disturbing reading. The British public, media and politicians have a spectacularly poor knowledge of science and technology as debates over such things as windfarms and GM crops makes clear. It would be unreasonable to expect our Law Lords, classically educated at public schools where the teaching of science was bad and technology non-existent, to be any better. It was therefore only to be expected they would struggle to comprehend the weakness of the forensic evidence or to understand the operation of Frankfurt airport's X-ray security. Yet, as the UN observer wrote, that does not excuse their reliance on the partial evidence from wholly unreliable witnesses to reach a verdict `beyond any reasonable doubt'. The Crown's case was that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, acting together, smuggled the bomb on board a feeder flight from Malta in unaccompanied baggage. The Prosecution insisted they were either both innocent or both guilty however the only evidence linking Fhimah to this scenario depended on the evidence on one witness. This was Majid Giaka, a CIA informant, and by the time Fhimah's counsel, Richard Keen, had finished with him it was clear Giaka was both a liar and a fantasist. I thought the trial was over and though it still dragged on with increasing absurdity I was not surprised when the Crown closed that Keen submitted Fhimah had no case to answer. However, I had not counted on Alastair Campbell, who led the Crown's case, informing the court he was dropping the conspiracy charge i.e. separating al-Megrahi and Fhimah. This was allowed but conspiracy was the basis of the case so I asked a leading figure in our judiciary if they could do that and he said the Law Lords could do what they liked. When I replied that was illogical and unfair he archly responded, "Show me where it says Scots Law must be logical and fair." and an historic miscarriage of justice was inevitable.