Below is the text of an email that I have sent to the Crown Office concerning the statement it issued in response to the publication of the SCCRC report.<\/p>\n
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Dear Sir or Madam,<\/em><\/p>\n I am the author of the book \u2018Megrahi: You are my jury\u2019 and also wrote some of the recent articles in the Herald about the SCCRC report on Mr Megrahi\u2019s conviction.<\/em><\/p>\n In a statement issued yesterday, in response to the release of the SCCRC report, the Crown Office stated:<\/em> [The Golfer\u2019s]<\/span> accounts were erratic, often inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, and on one occasion he called the Commission from a bar when clearly drunk.<\/span> The Commission barely disguised its irritation at the other written submissions. It had had clearly spent a great deal of time investigating each one in detail, only to dismiss them all. It also wholly rejected the Golfer\u2019s allegations that the police had covered up and fabricated evidence. Having interviewed him three times, it found \u2018a vast array of inconsistencies\u2019 within his various accounts, which gave rise to \u2018serious misgivings\u2019 as to his credibility and reliability.<\/span> The Golfer was the cover name of a police officer who told Megrahi\u2019s then legal team that key items of evidence had been manipulated to fit the prosecution case. Subsequent submissions to the SCCRC by the lawyers, MacKechnie & Associates, highlighted anomalies in police documentation, which appeared to support these claims. The Commission spent a long time investigating the allegations, and interviewed the Golfer three times, but found nothing to substantiate the claims. His accounts proved to be erratic and, according to the report, on one occasion he \u201ctelephoned a member of the enquiry team from a bar, apparently under the influence of alcohol.\u201d The Commission did not consider the documentary anomalies to be sinister:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cwhile some of the allegations made in the submissions were based upon information said to have been provided by the Golfer, others were based purely on perceived irregularities in the recorded chain of evidence. The Commission\u2019s approach to the latter was that in any police enquiry, let alone one as large scale and complex as the present one, human error is inevitable. Although apparent omissions, inconsistencies or mistakes in productions records may, after a long period of time, appear difficult to explain, or even suspicious, in the Commission\u2019s view they do not, in themselves, support allegations of impropriety against those involved in the investigation.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Given the above, the Crown Office should issue a correction to its statement, making clear that neither the book, nor the Herald articles made the claims apparently attributed to them. If the Crown Office fails to do so, I shall make a formal complaint.<\/em><\/p>\n Yours sincerely,<\/em><\/p>\n John Ashton. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Below is the text of an email that I have sent to the Crown Office concerning the statement it issued in response to the publication of the SCCRC report. Dear Sir or Madam, I am the author of the … Continue reading
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\nallegations of serious misconduct have been made in the media against a number of individuals for which the commission found no evidence. This is also to be deplored.\u00a0 In fact the commission found no basis for concluding that evidence in the case was fabricated by the police, the Crown, forensic scientists or any other representatives of official bodies or government agencies \u2026<\/span>
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\nThis gives the impression that Megrahi: You are my jury and the previous reports in the Herald made unsubstantiated allegations against certain individuals and failed to report that the commission found no evidence that evidence was fabricated. In fact they did no such thing and were careful to report the commission\u2019s findings on these matters. The allegations of evidence fabrication rest largely upon the claims of the witness known as \u2018the Golfer\u2019. You should note that the book states at p.291:<\/em><\/p>\n
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\nAnd at p.306:<\/em><\/p>\n
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\nFurthermore, in an article for the Herald published on 14 March, I wrote:<\/em><\/p>\n