Can Brown Survive Lockerbie Storm?

As the Lockerbie plot thickens, double dealing Brown and his shady bunch of ministers are lying and tying themselves into knots. The struggling Supreme Leader may have returned to the fray refreshed from hols but Cameron is waiting in the wings ready to stick in the knife. The prime minister's position is looking precarious. All roads lead to Brown, thunders The Times.

Lockerbie's dirty little secrets are beginning to unravel, albeit slowly. What is becoming clear is there's more to al-Megrahi's release than just a shabby deal over oil.

More likely is a need to put a stop to al-Megrahi's hugely embarrassing appeal which could have cleared his name and laid bare the dirty secrets of the whole Lockerbie outrage.

Al-Megrahi’s release had been on the cards for some time in a carefully orchestrated plot to stop his appeal, hide the truth over the bombing and to get hold of Libya's oil and gas.

The decision to drop an appeal against conviction was part of a deal. That appeal would have laid bare failings in the original verdict and the manipulation of evidence.

The heat is on beleaguered Brown with documents showing he wanted al-Megrahi to die a free man. It seems easier for the government to take the flak and suffer the fall out from the 'oil for prisoner' row than open up the can of worms of the al-Megrahi conviction.

The Orange Party has long held this view and outlined the case here. Both the Mail and Jon Snow at Channel 4 News are coming round to similar conclusions.

Everyone knew there was something decidedly dodgy about the decision to release al-Megrahi. Macavity Brown's silence just made matters worse.

A simple and straightforward: "I didn't want him to die in prison" and the country would have moved on. Instead the public has suffered silence, manipulation and media management, passing the buck on to the Scottish government and treating the public like fools.

Yesterday's publication of some of the correspondence between Westminster and Holyrood didn't take the heat off Brown, it just threw up even more awkward questions over his handling of the affair.

Now the fag-end government and wretched prime minister stand accused of double-dealing, something they vehemently deny. But then they would wouldn't they?

Over the Pond, the Lockerbie fall-out is the final straw in strained US relations. The NY Daily News pulls no punches, branding the PM: Brown the Betrayer.

Both president Obama and secretary of state Clinton have publicly condemned al-Megrahi's release.

With nine months tops to go before the general election, both Brown and Cameron want to get on with doing what they do best - point-scoring at every opportunity.

But Cameron is not going to let this go easily. The Tories say Brown needs to be "straight" with the public accusing the government of "double dealing" and calling for an inquiry.

For the Tories it's a gift and boils down to trust - something sadly lacking in two-faced Brown and his deluded government.

Lockerbie is another nail in the coffin of the public's lack of trust in a government which wriggles and spins at every twist and turn.

Picture: Gerald Scarfe, Sunday Times

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Macavity Brown's Masterstroke Of Spin

Scotland is the fall-guy in the fall-out of the release of the Lockerbie "bomber" in a masterstroke of spin. The Scottish parliament is recalled to defend its decision. But it's the UK parliament which should be recalled and Macavity Brown called to account.

You have to hand it to the New Labour government. It is pulling-off a masterstroke to get SNP arch-enemy Salmond in the frame to take the flak and smooth the way for the UK to strike oil.

A masterpiece of government spin is managing to turn the tables, blaming the Scots for the dastardly decision to release al-Magrahi on compassionate grounds.

A spectacular wave of American outrage has swept across the Atlantic. The SNP and justice minister MacAskill seem to be under fire from all sides.

But in the US, it is bunkered Brown not Salmond who's in the firing line. Influential website Drudge screams with a large picture of Brown and the question: "YOU DID WHAT?!"

Former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has called for a congressional hearing into how the US government lobbied the UK over the release.

Pictures coming out of Libya splash al-Magrahi whopping it up with Gaddafi and his son.

But if pictures tell a thousand words then it is those of Blair with Gadaffi and the shameful 'deal in the desert' and Brown shaking hands with his new best friend that are the more telling.

The whole squalid charade stinks. Scotland is just a pawn in the diplomatic shenanigans. Someone's playing politics over Lockerbie. In the world of diplomatic spin, Whitehall has pulled a fast one over Holyrood.

Weekend disclosures in the Observer and elsewhere reveal Brown at the centre of detailed discussions with the Libyan dictator and a foreign office endorsing the Scots' decision. But bunkered Brown has steadfastly refused to speak publicly which once again calls into question his leadership.

Mandy too is in the frame, meeting Gaddafi the younger twice in the past four months with a "fleeting" discussion about al-Megrahi while sunning himself in Corfu.

Al-Megrahi's release was "on the table in all commercial, oil and gas agreements" and other dealings with Britain, according to Tripoli.

Misplaced outrage over the release of the Lockerbie Libyan and the wave of political posturing are hiding the shameful dealings in the aftermath of the atrocity.

Lockerbie's dirty secrets are only slowly beginning to unravel. Deals stuck over trade and oil are only part of the plot.

Al-Megrahi’s release has been on the cards for some time in a carefully orchestrated plot to stop a hugely embarrassing appeal, hide the truth over the bombing and to get a hold of Libya's oil and gas. That appeal would have laid bare failings in the original verdict and the manipulation of evidence.

The Orange Party has long held the view the casualty here is justice and the truth about the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. With no appeal, only with a full public inquiry demanded by the bereaved families of some of the victims, would that truth be known. But for the moment that remains a side-issue.

The heat is on many politicians to explain their involvement in the controversial decision to release the Lockerbie "bomber", who was serving a life sentence for the mass murder of 270 people in 1988.

Former US ambassador Bolton said: "I'm appalled by the decision of the Scottish government. But I'm more appalled by the decision of the British government apparently to see commercial advantage for the UK in having this mass murderer go free. We wait to hear from Prime Minister Brown what he thinks."

Bolton may have to wait a while for tight-lipped Brown. Downing Street is sitting tight. In the spinning world, it the wrong Scot who is taking the flak and the wrong parliament which has been recalled.

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Lockerbie's Dirty Secrets Ignored

Misplaced outrage over the release of the Lockerbie Libyan and the wave of political posturing are hiding the shameful dealings in the aftermath of the atrocity. The casualty is justice and the truth about the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which now will never be known.

US relatives of victims of the 1988 bombing were quick to express their anger and disgust after Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill released the 57-year-old Libyan, who is dying of cancer, on compassionate grounds.

But that is in sharp contrast to some of the victims’ families here in the UK, who believe there has been a miscarriage of justice and an appeal would have been the only way to find out the truth.

Al-Megrahi’s release has been on the cards for some time in a carefully orchestrated plot to stop his appeal, hide the truth over the bombing and to get hold of Libya's oil and gas.

That appeal would have laid bare failings in the original verdict and the manipulation of evidence.

Blair's slimy 'deal in the desert' with Libyan dictator, colonel Gaddafi, started the ball rolling. The deal was sealed when Libya formally admitted responsibility paving the way for al-Megrahi’s release.

Justice minister Jack Straw rushed through the prisoner transfer deal. Brown and Obama rushed to be Libya's new best friend in a rush to grab the oil. Mandelson was caught out in cahoots with Gaddafi's son who also has ties with Prince Andrew.

Everything hinged on cosying up to Libya to secure trade, oil and gas deals. Al-Magrahi told Libyan TV his release was tied to those deals according to The Times.

But an appeal would open up old wounds. Halting the appeal in its tracks would prevent a major embarrassment to both the UK and US governments and Scottish justices who returned the original guilty verdict.

Any hopes that an al-Megrahi appeal would go ahead in his absence was never going to be allowed to happen. Dutifully he dropped his appeal in return for safe passage to Libya to die with his family.

Theories over the motives and perpetrators centre on who was behind the bombing and which country was pulling the strings. A CIA intelligence report from December 1988 makes no mention of Libya. Instead it points to a pro-Iranian group (opposite, click to enlarge).

One of the most widely held theories is Iranian revenge using Syrian-based terrorists in retaliation for the shooting down of the Iran Air Airbus by USS Vincennes in 1988. Libya was only later brought in the frame when both Iran and Syria needed to be kept on-side for the US-led Iraq-Kuwait war.

Al-Megrahi’s trial and conviction was a travesty of justice based on spurious circumstantial evidence.

Doubt on the conviction has been cast by some families of the bereaved and some journalists, most notably by investigative journalist Paul Foot. Attempts have been made to re-open the case amid allegations that Libya was framed.

Key testimonies of two witnesses in the pay of the CIA were crucial. But one was a notorious liar and paid informer, the other a dodgy Maltese shopkeeper who allegedly identified al-Megrahi as the man who bought clothes said to have been packed round the bomb.

Some forensic evidence appeared to have been tampered with and evidence withheld, including a serious breach in security in Heathrow at the Pan Am baggage area on the day of the bombing.

None of these disturbing issues have been aired in the media frenzy and political outpourings of outrage following al-Megrahi's release and jubilant welcome home. Tory leader, David Cameron is demanding to know why Macavity Brown is keeping his head down and hiding away from the diplomatic fall-out.

The deep outrage, anger and disgust would be better directed towards the UK and US governments and the justice systems that have conspired with years of hypocrisy and deceit to deny the full facts over the Lockerbie bombing.

Eleven Lockerbie residents were killed along with 259 air passengers when the Pan Am flight exploded in mid-air, at the time the worst mass murder in UK history. Without a full public inquiry demanded by the bereaved families of some of the victims, that truth will never be known.

Picture: Al-Megrahi in Libya with Col Gaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi.

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