Morag Kerr– Any thoughts about this David Harvie person?

Robert Black — I’ve never to my knowledge encountered him and I know nothing about him.

Twitter (Feb. 3 2021)

February 4 2021 — Whenever someone is telling you that he never met a person and knows nothing about that person, you should hear a bell go off in your head. History has indulged us with plenty of such transparent lies. VP George H. W. Bush had never met Noriega and former Colombia president Alvaro Uribe has never had diner with Pablo Escobar. Of course… When things seem just too simple, that is when we must look a bit harder. The strange story of David Harvie has piqued my curiosity. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

RELATED POST: 20 Years Ago — Kangaroo Zeist Court issues Infamous Lockerbie verdict (January 31 2001)

Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!

QUICK NOTES — To make it easier for the readers to retrieve various chapters of my book, I have created a special page  “Lockerbie” where all the links to the chapters will be listed with a brief description. You can access that page directly as it appears at the far right of the top bar of this blog.

Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!

“One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.”

May Sarton — Belgian-American poet (May 3, 1912 – July 16, 1995)

Anyone who has researched the Lockerbie Case is thoroughly familiar with the work of Crown office’s David Harvie who was seconded to the Lockerbie criminal trial team during the Zeist trial.

In truth, it is no exaggeration to claim that Harvie is to Lockerbie what Deep Throat is to Watergate.

Or at least, that is the way it should have been. Indeed, I strongly believe that if Megrahi’s lawyers had followed on a tip from David Harvie, they would have easily convinced the Zeist judges that there was simply no case to answer.

So when some Lockerbie experts claim today that they have never heard of David Harvie, you have to ask yourself what is going on? Allow me to explain.

Flashback — The MEMO (November 17 1999)

A memo — sent by Murdo Macleod to Richard S Keen on November 17 1999 — suggests that the defence teams may have been misled by the Crown.

The truly amazing part is that this memo reveals that Crown Office’s David Harvie had told Keen’s team to look carefully at the “CIA Senegal Cables” and compare them to the evidence obtained from CIA jack Orkin* (assumed name) and FBI Thomas Thurman.

“With regard to the comparison of the various timers, Harvie suggested that this is a matter which we would be better exploring ourselves.

Off the record however, he stated that we might be interested in James Thurman (587) and John Scott Orkin (588). Orkin in particular would be of interest to us. Cables from Senegal to the US will feature as productions (copies will be sent to McGrigor Donald in the next day or two). These cables and related reports are said by Harvie to be ‘extremely relevant’ to our preparations.”

Anyone who had followed this tip would have quickly discovered enough evidence to obliterate the Lockerbie Case against Libya.

The mystery is why, having all the information available to destroy the indictment, Megrahi’s lawyers decided to ignore this trove completely.

And by the way…

In late June 2015, I asked Professor Black what he thought of this Memo and the tip from David Harvie. Here is his reply:

“I am delighted to have my attention drawn to an instance of a member of the Crown Office’s Lockerbie team drawing to the attention of the defence material that might be of assistance to them, rather than concealing or disguising such material. It is, however, sad (and only too indicative of the normal Crown Office approach in this case) that the staff member who acted in this way felt that, for his own protection, he had to insist that his disclosure was ‘off the record’.”

So, why is it that some Lockerbie experts want to forget about David Harvie today.

Because that MEMO should have been at the heart of the last Lockerbie appeal. The case is a textbook example of inadequate defense.

Instead of chasing useless classified documents, Megrahi’s lawyers had only to show that evidence available all along could have proved that the case had been fabricated and that incontrovertible evidence has been ignored by all Megrahi’s lawyers over the last three decades.

Why on earth? Is it merely a case of gross incompetence? One should never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but, as Einstein argued, don’t rule out malice! 

PS — In a recent interview, Dr Jim Swire claims that the appeal has skillfully

“managed to avoid or ignore many of the aspects of the Zeist evidence in which failures are self evident, and have never fully addressed some of the further pieces of evidence which have emerged since.”

Dr Swire is of course talking about the timer evidence and he is 100% wrong. As I have explained to him and Pr. Black many years ago, the evidence regarding PT/35(b) and the infamous MST-13 timers was available all along since the early 90’s.

The fact that John Ashton rediscovered a bit of it two decades later does not make this evidence a legal new fact. I could understand that Dr Swire does not understand that, but surely a lawyer should.

REFERENCES

David Harvie : Chief Executive of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service — Official biography

“David joined the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in 1996, after working in private practice. He served as a procurator fiscal depute in Paisley until 1999, when he was seconded to the Lockerbie criminal trial team. After the trial he was promoted to principal depute, Aberdeen.”

=

Lockerbie — The Mysterious Case of David Harvie