This public release from Dr Koechler arrived today. As usual, I would like to heartily
endorse his views.
|
Statement
by Dr Hans Köchler, international
observer appointed by the United Nations to the Lockerbie Trial in the on
the referral of the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed
Al Megrahi by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review
Commission to the High Court of Justiciary |
» Lockerbie
Observer Mission of Dr. Hans Koechler (Home) «
Vienna,
Austria, 29 June 2007/P/HK/20429
Dr. Hans Köchler, President of the International
Progress Organization (I.P.O.) and Head of the Dept. of Philosophy at the
University of Innsbruck, Austria, served from 5 May 2000 until 14 March 2002 as
international observer at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands
("Lockerbie Court"). He had been nominated by the Secretary-General
of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan, on the basis of Security Council resolution 1192
(1998). Dr. Koechler issued two comprehensive
analytical reports after the Trial (
In his reports, Dr. Köchler was highly
critical of the proceedings and questioned the fairness and impartiality of
both the Trial and Appeal Courts. In an interview for the BBC on
However,
in interviews conducted yesterday by representatives of the Scottish, British
and German media, Dr. Koechler expressed his surprise
at the Commission's focus of review and apparent bias in favour
of the judicial establishment: "In
giving exoneration to the police, prosecutors, and forensic staff, I think they
show their lack of independence. No officials to be blamed, simply a Maltese
shopkeeper." (The Herald,
****
The
decision, announced by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) on
28 June 2007, to refer Mr. Al Megrahi's case back to
the High Court of Justiciary has been long overdue
and has created the chance for a second legal evaluation by an Appeal Court of
five Scottish judges.
It is to be hoped that, in view of the far-reaching political
implications and international ramifications of the case, this time the judges
will act in full independence and that the proceedings will meet the standards
of fair trial under the European Convention for the Protection of Human
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. If this final chance to put things right
and conduct criminal proceedings in a fair and fully transparent manner is
missed, irreparable damage will be done to the rule of law in Scotland and to
the principle of "devolution" of important areas of public
administration from the United Kingdom level to that of Scotland.
The
undersigned would like to restate the point he made in his appeal report in
2002, namely that the final arbiter of the fairness of Scottish criminal
proceedings (after
all means of review in the domestic context have been exhausted) is the
European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg) that exercises its jurisdiction on
the basis of the European Human Rights Convention.
Regrettably,
the SCCRC has not disclosed all its grounds of referral and, in its news
release of 28 June, has basically concentrated on the dubious role of Maltese
witness Tony Gauci - while at the same time engaging in a rather
strange exercise of "preventive exoneration" of certain people
belonging to the British and/or Scottish police and judicial system whose behaviour, as pointed out in the undersigned's reports and
confirmed, in the meantime, in several affidavits, has been highly questionable
and may have detrimentally affected the fairness of the proceedings (see I.P.O. News Release of 14
October 2005). It is particularly difficult to comprehend why the SCCRC would
take great pains to "absolve" Mr. Megrahi's
defense team during the trial and first appeal from any criticisms in regard to
their performance in the interest of their client (Par. 4.1 of the News Release
of the SCCRC). The lack of integrity of the defense was obvious to the
undersigned during the more than two years he observed the proceedings at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands and was the object of a
conversation of the undersigned with the appellant (Mr. Megrahi),
arranged, at the latter's request, by the Scottish Court Service at HM Prison Zeist.
In view of the flawed trial and appeal proceedings, now
acknowledged, at least in part, by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review
Commission, and for the sake of transparency, the report of the Commission
should be made public in its entirety. The victims' families as well as the
international public deserve to know the full truth about the reasons of
referral of Mr. Al Megrahi's case back to the High
Court of Justiciary.
In conformity with the principle of transparency of the
proceedings that was guiding United Nations Security Council resolution 1192
(1998) (operative para. 6), the proceedings of the
The undersigned renews his call for a full and independent public
inquiry of the Lockerbie case and its handling by the Scottish judiciary as
well as the British and US political and intelligence establishments. In order
to avoid bias, such an investigation will require the participation of
additional legal experts, to be appointed by the United Nations Organization,
from countries that are not involved in the Lockerbie dispute.
Those politicians in the
(signed) Dr. Hans Köchler
o
Dr. Hans Köchler's Trial Report of 2001 
o
Dr. Hans Köchler's Appeal Report of 2002
o
Hans Köchler and Jason Subler (eds.), The
Lockerbie Trial. Documents Related to the I.P.O. Observer
Dr Jim Swire
(jim@swirefamily.net)