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Mr. Dalyell: What on earth, then, is the objection to an incoming Labour Government offering to meet those people and talk to them, to find out face to face exactly what their position is? Is it not high time that we talked to them?
Mr. Lloyd: We have made it clear that we would welcome independent observers from the Arab League, the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations if they came to Scotland to discuss the trial process and satisfy themselves that a Scottish trial would be conducted impartially, independently and fairly. We believe that that is the way forward.
That invitation has been accepted by the United Nations, and we look forward to pursuing precisely the question of the independence and acceptability of a Scottish trial with those who are themselves independent. It is important for us not to give the false impression that we can accept some form of negotiation with those who claim to represent those accused of crimes of the utmost seriousness in this country.
Propounding his own views and those of Professor Black, my hon. Friend asked why only the Lord Advocate--or at least the Scottish legal establishment--took the view that there was a difficulty about a third-country trial. I refer him to the conclusions of Professor M. Cherif Bassaouni of the international human rights institute of De Paul university, Chicago, who was the keynote speaker at a conference organised by the International Bar Association in conjunction with the Arab Lawyers Union, and who concluded that there would be insurmountable practical difficulties in establishing a trial in a third country.
The professor proposed what he called a Scottish solution, which he considered the only way forward. His agenda was very similar to that of the Scottish legal authorities.
Mr. Dalyell:
I was at that conference, and a lot of other things were said. As I recollect, one of the objections was the difficulty of moving a jury. That objection, at least, I would have thought, had been met by Professor Black.
Mr. Lloyd:
A jury is there not only to protect the rights of a defendant but to protect the Crown and the wider public interest; it is there precisely because it is not the professional legal officers, of whom my hon. Friend complains, who are able to dictate the pace and the conclusions of the trial process; the jury establishes some independence. I feel strongly--this is a personal view--that the jury system may not be perfect, but it is the best of all the systems devised in legal circles.
I would be most reluctant to go down the road that my hon. Friend suggests. He mentioned Diplock courts in Northern Ireland, where juries were dispensed with; they were justified by the then Government on the basis that there was a severe risk of intimidation of witnesses. Neither he nor I would want to pretend that there would be witness intimidation in a trial in Scotland, were the accused to appear there. I know that he would accept that.
Perhaps I am venturing beyond my legal competence, but, in response to my hon. Friend's point that any appeal of a third-country trial would take place in Scotland, I can only reply that the same appeal structure would apply to a trial conducted in Scotland. I can refer him to instances when judges in both England and Scotland have discharged juries--as, recently, in the case of those accused of IRA activities--on the basis that a trial would have been prejudiced by the publicity.
There are safeguards in the Scottish and the general British legal systems for a mistrial such as might take place under those circumstances. We hold to the view that a jury trial is acceptable, offers protection for all sides, and would not easily take place outside the confines of the Scottish system.
Those matters, however, are not the real issue. The real point is that Libya wilfully refuses to make the suspects available for trial, and shelters behind the alleged views of the two accused. Few serious cases would ever be brought to trial if the accused were allowed to decide whether or where the case should come to court.
The Libyans suggest that publicity in Britain would prejudice that trial. I have already said that we do not accept that. We are proud of our judicial system and the legal safeguards that it provides for the defendant--as well, of course, as the desire to pursue the guilty. That is why we have no hesitation in inviting international observers to a trial of the suspects in Scotland.
As I have said, we have now invited the United Nations, the Arab League and the Organisation of African Unity to Scotland to see the system for themselves. We will be glad to answer their queries, and to meet any concerns that they may have. At the request of my hon. Friend, the Government's invitation to the United Nations, the Arab League and the OAU has been placed in the Library of the House. I know that he will have seen it. We are grateful to the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, for accepting that invitation.
While we will not negotiate with the Libyans, we talk with them on an on-going basis through the British interest section in Tripoli. It is always possible for them to put to us any areas of difficulty or concern that they have about a fair trial in Scotland on that basis. We would seek to answer those questions, but without accepting a priori that we feel that there is anything faulty or prejudicial about the Scottish legal system.
The worst possible outcome would be a trial that collapsed on technicalities. The truth might then never emerge, and that would be a real risk in a trial without precedent, set up by a new instrument to allow a Scottish court to sit in a third country. It cannot be right that those accused of a savage crime should dictate the form and venue of their trial.
To be honest, my hon. Friend is being slightly casual--I say that in kindness, as I do not normally accuse him of anything other than the utmost thoroughness--in suggesting that the choice of a trial anywhere in the world is comparable to the forced choice of a trial either in the United States or in Scotland, when there is a clear judicial criterion by which both those places are determined.
It is simply not the same to say that the accused ought to have unlimited choice as to where the trial should take place. That would set a precedent for the trial of other suspected terrorists accused of killing innocent people both here in the United Kingdom and more generally, and the horrific nature of such a crime means that we must in the end insist on a trial in one of the two places where there is a clear judicial locus.
Mr. Dalyell:
Casual or not, the difficulty is that we will whistle in the wind. My hon. Friend talks about "in the end". When is there going to be an end? This has gone on for nine long years. Is it to go on for another nine, beyond the life of this and many other Governments? When will it be brought to an end? The difficulties with the Germans were brought to an end at least five years after 1945.
Mr. Lloyd:
Of course, in the end I, like everyone else, recognise the terrible frustration, particularly of those most directly concerned--
Mr. Lloyd:
Of course. They are the ones most directly concerned. I also recognise the frustration felt by everyone else on the issue.
We are pursuing this matter with real vigour. That is why we have issued the invitations to the world community and why we are asking it to involve itself in a way that we have not done previously. It is why we are asking that the United Nations Security Council resolutions be applied. They are not the resolutions of the United States--suspicious as my hon. Friend is of the United States--or even of Britain, but resolutions put forward by the United Nations as a community of the world.
It is those resolutions that we insist should be complied with. That is why we are inviting the world community to join us in that venture. That is the vigour that we want to apply to the present debate, because we also want to bring the matter to an end. The only way that we can put an end to the speculation and pain is by pursuing the matter in that way. We will continue to push that as hard as we can.
Mr. Dalyell:
My hon. Friend says that I am suspicious of the United States. I was once a member of the executive of the British American parliamentary group, and would consider myself in many ways friendly to the United States, but I am extremely suspicious of them on this because they have been brutally critical of their forensic scientist, James Thurman. Many of the doubts about this whole issue are coming out of the United States.
Mr. Lloyd:
I remind my hon. Friend that the then Lord Advocate wrote to him in October 1995 explaining that the proof of the Lockerbie case did not depend on the evidence of Mr. Thurman. The allegations against him were made by a former colleague, Dr. Frederick Whitehurst, and related to criminal investigations other than Lockerbie. It was alleged that he had committed perjury, obstructed the course of justice and fabricated evidence.
The allegations were investigated, and found to have no validity. A report published by the inspector general found that there was no evidence to support them. The report criticised lapses in Mr. Thurman's supervisory procedures, in recognition of which he was reassigned to other duties. He was not dismissed, as has been widely reported, although Dr. Whitehurst was dismissed from his post. Mr. Thurman's centrality to the case is not what my hon. Friend may believe it to be.
We believe that the role of the United States in the investigation to date, and in any future prosecution, has been, and will continue to be, one of the fullest co-operation. We have shared the evidence that has been collected with them, and their co-operation has, in turn, earned our deep gratitude, just as the work of the Scottish investigators has earned American praise. Any prosecution will entail further co-operation. There is no disagreement between us that the prosecution should proceed. We intend to continue to act in the same spirit of consultation and co-operation that has characterised the pursuit of the case so far.
In this instance, let me assure my hon. Friend that there is no question of United States dominance of the process or of the evidence. The Lord Advocate's decision to
continue the prosecution was made on the basis of the evidence presented to him. It is in our national interest, not that of anyone else. It is part of our duty to those who died at Lockerbie and to their relatives that we proceed on that basis. The question of the dominance of one country over another in this case is peripheral, a non-starter. It is Britain's interest that determines the way we act.
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