----------
From: Bob Olsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 23:43:10 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: UN condemns Lockerbie verdict
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 09:49:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: MichaelP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [MAI-NOT] Lockerbie verdict damned by UN observer
Thanks SM
I havn't seen this report anywhere except in Scots sources
Michael
====================
Three articles from the Scottish Sunday papers (8 April):
1. "UN claims Lockerbie trial rigged; Court was politically influenced
by US" (Sunday Herald)
2. "Lockerbie trial damned by UN report" (Scotland on Sunday)
3. "`Unfair, incomprehensible, irrational and arbitrary'"
(Scotland on Sunday)
================
Sunday Herald (Scotland)
8 April 2001, p.1
UN claims Lockerbie trial rigged; Court was politically influenced by US
By Neil Mackay Home Affairs Editor
The United Nations has savaged the Crown Office's handling of the
Lockerbie trial, claiming the outcome was rigged through the unfair
suppression of evidence; it was politically influenced by the USA; and the
court had no grounds to return a guilty verdict.
Dr Hans Kochler, who was handpicked by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to
act as the international observer during the trial in Holland, hinted that
the trial was rigged, claimed the guilty verdict handed down in February
to Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi was "arbitrary" and "irrational" and
gave his tacit support for an acquittal at the planned appeal. His
co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty.
Kochler's report, which calls for the case to be re-investigated and is
heavily critical of the conduct of the three trial judges - Lord
Sutherland, Lord Coulsfield and Lord MacLean - has sparked a bitter war of
words between the Scottish Executive, the Crown Office and the United
Nations. But a spokesman for Colin Boyd, the Lord Advocate, said Kochler
had "completely misunderstood" the trial and was ignorant of Scots law.
Kochler's report said the presence in court of two state prosecutors from
the US Department of Justice was "highly problematic", adding: "This
created the impression of 'supervisors' handling vital matters of the
prosecution strategy and deciding, in certain cases, which documents were
to be released in open court or what parts of information were to be
withheld."
He pointed to the handling of the key prosecution witness, Majid Giaka, a
Libyan double agent who implicated both accused in the bombing of Pan Am
103, as proof of how "representatives of foreign governments in the
Scottish courtroom" led to a "serious problem of due process".
During the case, CIA documents concerning Giaka were dismissed as "not
relevant" by the prosecution. The documents were later released in a
censored form and, said Kochler, "proved to be of high relevance".
"This seriously damaged the integrity of the whole legal procedure," he
said, claiming the US officials jeopardised "the independence and
integrity of legal procedures".
He added that this "negatively impacted on the court's ability to find the
truth". Kochler criticised the trial judges for introducing "a political
element into the proceedings" by letting the US prosecutors sit in court.
The report also says: "It was a consistent pattern during the whole trial
that - as an apparent result of political interests and considerations -
efforts were undertaken to withhold substantial information from the
court."
Kochler again pointed to a number of documents relating to Giaka not being
made available to the defence. "It may never be fully known to what extent
relevant information was hidden from the court," he said.
The UN also condemned the administration of Scottish justice following a
statement by the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, claiming that an unnamed
foreign government had "substantial new information relating to the
defence case".
The information was never provided despite the defence planning to show
that a Palestinian terrorist group carried out the bombing, not Libya. The
accused's lawyers effectively went on to put on no defence.
Kochler says "shrouds of secrecy and national security considerations"
prevented them putting on an adequate defence. "The court seems to have
accepted that the whole legal process was seriously flawed," the report
said. "As a result foreign governments may have been allowed to determine
which evidence was made available to court."
Pointing to a number of witnesses, such as Giaka, who lied in court, the
report said: "Virtually all people presented by the prosecution as key
witnesses were proven to lack credibility to a very high extent."
Kochler questioned the judges' conduct in incorporating this evidence into
the verdict, saying: "It seems highly arbitrary and irrational to choose
only parts of their statements for the formulation of a verdict that
requires certainty 'beyond any reasonable doubt'."
Kochler added: "The air of international power politics is present in the
whole verdict of the judges The guilty verdict is particularly
incomprehensible in view of the admission by the judges that the
identification was 'not absolute'."
He said the verdict was "exclusively based on circumstantial evidence"
while "not one single piece of material evidence" linked Megrahi to the
crime.
"Political considerations may have been overriding a strictly judicial
evaluation of the case and adversely affected the outcome of the trial,"
the report says. "This may have a profound impact on the evaluation of the
professional reputation and integrity of the three Scottish judges.
"A certain co-ordination of the strategies of the prosecution, of the
defence and of the judges' considerations during the latter part of the
trial is not totally unlikely. This however - when actually proven - would
have a devastating effect on the whole legal process of the Scottish
court."
He said this "was not compatible with the independence of the judiciary"
and "put in jeopardy the very rule of law and the confidence citizens must
have in the legitimacy of state power". The report added: "There are many
more questions and doubts at the end of the trial than there were at its
beginning. The search for the truth must continue."
Kochler added that he hoped "an appeal will correct the deficiencies of
the trial".
A spokesman for the Crown Office said: "The UN observer, Dr Kochler,
appears to have misunderstood a number of aspects of criminal procedure
and processes in this case." The Crown pointed out that it was up to the
prosecution and defence teams, not judges, to investigate the case and
decide which evidence is heard in court.
"The suggestion that the verdict was politically motivated again proceeds
on a complete misunderstanding of the function and independence of the
judiciary," he added.
www.sundayherald.com
======================================================================
Scotland on Sunday
8 April 2001, p. 1
Lockerbie trial damned by UN report
By William Paul
A United Nations observer at the Lockerbie trial has branded the verdicts
in the case "unfair, irrational and politically motivated", saying they
should be overturned on appeal.
In a scathing denunciation of the proceedings and the quality of Scottish
justice, Professor Hans Koechler, a world-renowned expert in international
law, claims there was no basis in evidence for the guilty verdict against
one of the accused.
Koechler, personally appointed by UN secretary general Kofi Annan to
oversee the trial at Camp Zeist in Holland, said it was tainted by "the
air of international power politics" and was neither fair nor balanced.
"The guilty verdict in regard to the first accused appears to be
arbitrary, even irrational," his report states.
The outcome of the trial may well have been determined by political
considerations and may have been the result of a more or less "openly
- -exercised influence... from outside the judicial framework".
Koechler acknowledges that his condemnation of the trial "may have a
profound impact on the professional reputation and integrity of the three
Scottish judges" - Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and Maclean - but insists
that the verdicts were unfair and adds that he hopes any appeal will
"correct the deficiencies" of the trial. His report has been buried by
both the UN and the Scottish authorities for the past two months.
Koechler, president of the Vienna-based International Progress
Organisation and professor of philosophy of law at Innsbruck University,
reiterated his concerns at a conference in Cairo yesterday. He said: "In
my opinion, there seemed to be considerable political influence on the
judges and the verdict."
He was given privileged access to lawyers and the accused and sat through
all sessions of the court. He submitted his analysis within days of
Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi being found guilty, and his co-accused,
Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, not guilty of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and
the mass murder of 270 people.
The publication of his report now will come as a monumental embarrassment
to both the Scottish legal establishment and to the UN, which had hoped
the end of the trial would signal an improvement in relations between the
west and Libya.
After the trial Annan said that justice had taken its course and the
authority and legitimacy of the legal process must be respected.
Yesterday, a UN spokesman insisted Koechler's report was nothing more than
a "personal opinion" and that, as an observer of the trial, he was
required only to watch, not to report on its fairness.
Lord Sutherland, the senior trial judge whose verdict was condemned by
Koechler, said: "It would be inadvisable for me to make any comment. Let
the Appeal Court decide whether the verdict was irrational."
A spokesman for the Crown Office said the report appeared to be based on a
misunderstanding of the adversarial nature of the criminal justice system
in Scotland and other English-speaking countries.
"It involves a contest between prosecution and defence rather than an
inquiry carried out by judges.
"He does not appear to have understood it is for prosecution and defence
lawyers to investigate the case and decide what evidence to present to the
court. The suggestion that the verdict was politically motivated again
proceeds on a complete misunderstanding of facts and the independence of
the judiciary."
However, the Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga,19, was killed at
Lockerbie, said Koechler's report touched on many of the issues he had
raised with the Lord Advocate during the trial without receiving
satisfactory answers. "It expresses more eloquently than I managed to do
all of the major concerns that many of the relatives had identified," he
said.
======================================================================
Scotland on Sunday
8 April 2001, p. 10
'Unfair, incomprehensible, irrational and arbitrary'
By William Paul
There was always an undercurrent of disquiet when the Lockerbie trial
ended in Holland earlier this year. The unanimous guilty verdict on
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi unexpected, the not guilty verdict on Al
Amin Khalifa Fhimah apparently inconsistent, the loose logic adopted in
the written judgement seemingly open to challenge.
Yet criticism was largely muted, even among some relatives of the 270
victims of Pan Am Flight 103 who had fought so hard and for so long to
have the case brought to court and were mostly convinced that if the
Libyans were involved at all they were, at best, minor players in a
greater conspiracy that would only be exposed with the trial over.
Once the shock of the court's findings had sunk in, a consensus quickly
arose among those with reservations about the verdicts. After all, due
process of law had been followed and evidence had been heard in open court
as promised. This had the effect of more or less suppressing the
widespread sense of dissatisfaction.
Into this comparative vacuum stepped the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, with a
series of "roadshows" for relatives in Britain and America which were said
to have a distinctly triumphalist tone. The reputation of Robert Black,
the Edinburgh University law professor who had been a constant critic of
the way the case was handled, was subjected to "vicious and acidic"
attack, according to one relative present at the briefings. It was also
suggested that had Megrahi given evidence Fhimah would have been convicted
too.
Trial judge Lord Sutherland agreed that such personal briefings were
unusual but added in reference to Black who was adamant there was
insufficient evidence for a guilty verdict: "If the Crown were getting
their own back I'm not entirely surprised... I suppose pointing out that
he wasn't necessarily right might be a useful counterblast."
Now the authorities are facing a different kind of counterblast, this time
from an independent observer who cannot be easily ignored. Dr Hans
Koechler, president of the Vienna-based International Progress
Organisation and a world -renowned expert on law and human rights, was
personally appointed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to
ensure fair play and high standards. Koechler, who sat through every day
of the trial at Camp Zeist, not only supports Black's argument that there
was insufficient evidence to convict Megrahi, but goes much further in
condemning what went on in the special court as hopelessly contaminated by
political considerations to the detriment of the rule of law. The conduct
of the judges, previously regarded as beyond reproach, is also criticised
for allowing a political dimension to be present in the courtroom and
therefore to influence the final outcome.
This is a monumental embarrassment to the judges, the Crown prosecution
team, and to the UN, an organisation that was pivotal in brokering the
diplomatic understanding that allowed the Lockerbie trial to go ahead in a
neutral venue after so many years of the British and American governments
refusing to compromise.
On the day, January 31, Fhimah was set free and Megrahi was sentenced to
life imprisonment, Annan said: "Justice has taken its course and the
authority and legitimacy of the legal process must be respected. "
Within days , Annan had received a report from Koechler telling him
exactly what he didn't want to hear; the trial had been tainted by
political interference and the verdicts were contradictory and irrational.
Yesterday a spokesman for Annan attempted to distance the UN from
Koechler's report, saying it amounted to one person's personal opinion and
could not be regarded as an official UN document. And the Crown Office
pointed out that Koechler seemed not to understand the adversarial nature
of criminal procedures in Scots law, nor how it was for the prosecution
and defence to decide what evidence was presented in court, not the
judges.
Koechler's report, does not pull any punches in its forthright
condemnation of the way politics was allowed to dictate the course of the
Lockerbie trial.
The problems began on the first day with two representatives of the US
Justice Department sitting with the Crown prosecution team and seemingly
acting as "supervisors" of strategy and presentation of evidence.
Soon after the start of the trial in May last year, Scotland on Sunday
revealed concern over the presence of American lawyers Dana Biehl and
Brian Murtaugh, members of the Office for the Victims of Crime, an
offshoot of the Department of Justice. It was said their presence gave the
court "an unfortunate US v Libya flavour".
Koechler writes: "This serious problem of due process became evident in
the matter of the CIA cables concerning one of the Crown's key witnesses,
Mr Giaka. Those cables were initially dismissed by the prosecution as not
relevant but proved to be highly relevant when finally (but only
partially) released."
The cables eventually showed that Abdul Majid Giaka, a Libyan defector,
had been paid by the CIA for information which was regarded as of minimal
worth. He had not mentioned any knowledge of Lockerbie until months after
the bombing and only after being threatened with having his payments
stopped. Then he implicated the accused by claiming to have seen them at
Luqa airport in Malta with a suspicious suitcase.
"It has become obvious that the presence of foreign governments in a
Scottish courtroom (in any courtroom for that matter) jeopardises the
independence and integrity of legal procedures and is not in conformity
with the general standards of fairness," Koechler wrote.
Relatives of the victims also complained about the two, sometimes three,
Americans who sat with the prosecution team. In response, the Lord
Advocate, Colin Boyd, said it was up to him who was invited to join him in
the court.
Koechler's criticism extended to the defence, and the presence of Kamal
Maghour, a former foreign affairs minister in the Libyan government .
Again, Maghour was not listed in any official records as being present.
The two Libyan accused lodged a special defence blaming named Palestinian
terrorists for the bombing.
"It was a consistent pattern during the whole trial that - as an apparent
result of political interests and considerations - efforts were undertaken
to withhold substantial information from the court. It may never be fully
known to which extent relevant information was hidden from the court. The
most serious case... is related to the special defence. The alternative
theory of the defence - leading to conclusions contradictory to those of
the prosecution - was never seriously investigated... although it was
officially declared as being of major importance to the defence. By not
having pursued... an alternative theory, the court seems to have accepted
that the whole legal process was seriously flawed in regard to the
requirements of objectivity and due process. As a result the undersigned
(Koechler) has reached the conclusion that foreign governments or
governmental agencies may have been allowed, albeit indirectly, to
determine to a considerable extent, which evidence was made available to
the court."
Koechler says it was "highly arbitrary and irrational" to take witnesses
like Giaka and Edwin Bollier, whose electronics firm supplied the fatal
timing device, and rely on parts of their evidence when other parts were
dismissed as riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions.
"In spite of the reservations explaining the verdict itself, the guilty
verdict in the case of Megrahi is particularly incomprehensible in view of
the admission by the judges themselves that identification was 'not
absolute' and that there was a mass of conflicting evidence," the report
says. Furthermore, the Opinion of the Court seems to be inconsistent in a
basic respect: while the first accused was found guilty, the second
accused was found not guilty. This is totally incomprehensible when one
considers that the indictment in its very essence was based on the joint
action of the two accused in Malta."
Koechler asserts, "The guilty verdict in regard to the first accused
appears to be arbitrary, even irrational. This leads the undersigned to
the suspicion that political considerations may have been over-riding a
strictly judicial evaluation of the case thus may have adversely affected
the outcome of the trial. This may have a profound impact on the
evaluation of the professional reputation and integrity of the panel of
three Scottish judges. Seen from the final outcome, a certain
co-ordination of the strategies of prosecution, of defence, and of the
judges' considerations during the later period of the trial is not totally
unlikely. This, however, when actually proven, would have a devastating
effect on the whole legal process of the Scottish Court in the Netherlands
and on the legal quality of its findings.
"In the above context, the undersigned has reached the general conclusion
that the outcome of the trial may well have been determined by political
considerations and may to a considerable extent have been the result of
more or less openly exercised influence from the part of actors outside
the judicial framework - facts which are not compatible with the basic
principle of the division of powers and with the independence of the
judiciary, and which put in jeopardy the very rule of law and the
confidence citizens must have in the legitimacy of state power and the
functioning of the state's organs - whether on the traditional national
level or in the framework of international justice ."
Koechler's ultimate conclusion is that the Lockerbie trial had done a
disservice to the cause of international criminal justice. It was neither
fair, nor conducted in an objective manner.
Koechler's final message to Kofi Annan is to express the hope that
Megrahi's appeal will "correct the deficiencies" of the trial and that
will depend on the integrity and independence of the five judges who will
hear it.
The appeal against conviction is likely to be heard in September.
* The man behind the report
HANS Koechler has been professor of legal, anthropological and political
philosophy in the law faculty at the University of Innsbruck, in Austria,
since 1982.
As well as writing on theology and morals, he has written papers on the
ethics of sanctions, the political principles of Pope John Paul II, and
the problems of over-centralisation in Europe.
His titles include The New International Economic Order, The Legal Aspects
of the Palestinian Problem, and The UN and International Democracy.
He is founder and president of the International Progress Organisation in
Vienna, which promotes cultural and academic exchanges between nations and
advances an open-minded but critical attitude towards ideological and
political systems. It is a non-governmental organisation in consultative
status with the UN.
He was selected as one of five independent observers for the Lockerbie
trial by the United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan.
The others were Robert Thabit, also representing IPO; M H Baerenboom of
the European Commission; Ms Hairat Balogun of the Organisation of Arab
Unity; and Dr Nabil El-Araby of the Arab League.
======================
*** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE acknowledge the
source. ***
- --
For MAI-not (un)subscription information, posting guidelines and
links to other MAI sites please see http://mai.flora.org/
.........................................
Liberate democracy from corporate control
Bob Olsen, Toronto [EMAIL PROTECTED]
..........................................
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki
Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
General class struggle news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Geopolitical news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
__________________________________________________
