Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 Feb. - 6 March 2002 Issue No.575
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Hot on the trail

He is no conspiracy theorist and he is no "big friend of Libya." But Scottish journalist Ian Ferguson is certain the wrong man is on trial for the 1998 Lockerbie bombing, writes Judit Neurink from Camp Zeist

He shuns photographers. The back of his book about the Lockerbie case bears no photo, because as an investigative journalist, Ian Ferguson, wants to be able to do his undercover work without being recognised. Only recently he put this sound policy to work and was handed his biggest scoop in years. He had received a tip that one of the main witnesses at the Lockerbie trail, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, had been offered luxurious holidays in Scotland by the Scottish police.

He was eager to follow up the lead, but he had already spoken to Gauci before. He sent a friend instead to visit Gauci in Malta, and the shopkeeper unknowingly spoke about the trips. It was a journalistic coup for Ferguson and another piece in the puzzle he has been putting together for the last 11 years about the 1998 bombing of a PanAm airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. "Gauci knows me, because I did research on Malta and spoke to him. He would never have told me this," Ferguson told Al- Ahram Weekly.

Since May 2000, Ferguson has haunted the special Scottish court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands set up to try the Lockerbie suspects. He can be found in the public gallery, or conversing with the any of the key observers and members of the prosecution and defence, with whom he has become well acquainted. Fuelled by his determination to uncover the truth in this extraordinary case, Ferguson has been prolific and consistently successful. He is one of the few journalists who, 13 years after the PanAm crash which killed 270 people, is still coming up with new leads. "It's like pulling bits of wool from a sweater. If you pull long enough, the whole sweater will come apart."

In his book Cover-up of Convenience, which was released last year, Ferguson is quite adamant the Libyan defendant Abdel-Basset Al-Megrahi, who last year was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attack in 1988, is not guilty. An appeal is pending at Camp Zeist. Ferguson has argued that Libya was blamed for the attacks by the US and Britain at a time when it was politically inconvenient to accuse the real culprits. This contention positions Ferguson squarely on one side of the line that divides Camp Zeist. On the one hand, there are those who believe Libya was behind Lockerbie. Many of the families of the American victims of the bombing fall into this camp. On the other hand, there are those who are starting to wonder. But Ferguson defines the distinction differently. There are "those who have collected information about the case, and those who did not," he says.

He started digging in the case in 1991, when two Libyans were named as the main suspects behind the attack. "It seemed an odd state of affairs that a terrorist group would have sent a bomb unaccompanied on a plane, hoping it would pass security at two airports and reach its destination," Ferguson explains. "And also: Libya did not have a reputation for blowing up planes."

Because of his belief that the Libyan defendants were fall guys in a web of political intrigue, Ferguson has been accused of being a conspiracy theorist. "But I am the opposite," Ferguson says. "Because, in my experience, acts of terror are usually very simple." He admits that in the Lockerbie case, he does see a conspiracy, "but one that leads away from the real perpetrators."

His investigations have come under fire at times, most notably when he probed an alleged secret drug line run by the CIA ran 1988 between the Middle East and Europe. When he was putting together a radio documentary about the Lockerbie bombing for American public broadcasting, his colleagues at the Washington desk pressured him to cut the part about the drug running. Meanwhile, he was also receiving threats. "I know I have been followed whilst making the documentary, and that telephone calls were intercepted," he says. "When my wife phoned me in Switzerland, she heard a voice saying: 'American wife of the journalist, we are watching you'." Ferguson says the drug case and the threats are clearly linked. "Every time I got near something to do with that case, the threats would increase."

Even so, he is not really worried: "If something happens, worrying about it would not have helped anyway. I could have scripted my e-mails, but I never did -- because I am not doing anything wrong." But he says that he is always aware that his calls might be monitored. "If you do this kind of research, it would be very naive to think you have not attracted the attention of the secret services."

He can talk for hours about the case. When asked if working on the same case for more than 10 years does not point to an obsession, he is resolute in his denial. "When you are obsessed, you can't judge rationally. But I've stepped back time after time to see where I was standing." To him it is more a matter of passion -- the professional passion of a journalist who loves his work. "I want to speak out for the little man who is powerless against the state. In the Lockerbie case, it is not Great Britain and the Scottish Crown against Libya. No, it's those two against, originally, two individuals." The man accused of perpetrating the bombing with Al-Megrahi, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted last year because of lack of evidence.

This does not mean Ferguson is a great friend of Libya, as has been said of him. "Because I criticise the prosecution, I have to be in favour of Libya. But I am in favour of justice," he says. At the appeal, he says, it is Scottish justice that is standing trial. "I am ashamed, as a Scot, to see how our judicial system has been manipulated. I have proof that from the moment the plane crashed, members of the American secret service have been involved in removing evidence, in tampering with it. And at Camp Zeist, at the back, five CIA men are in attendance. I cannot imagine the Scottish could have accomplished the same in the US."

Ferguson is also critical of the Scottish judges, who he maintains never gave Al- Megrahi the benefit of the doubt. He dismisses the defence as "very weak," and blames the defence team for not using his scoop about Gauci's Scottish holiday to further their case. But his main frustration is his conviction that the real culprits have been allowed to escape scot-free. "Justice will only be done when the real people responsible are caught and prosecuted. But the problem there is, the truth lies with the secret services, especially in the United States."

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