“Since 31 January 2001 — the day the guilty verdict against Abdelbaset Megrahi was announced by the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist — I have made no secret of my belief in his innocence. His conviction, on the evidence led at the trial, was nothing short of astonishing. It constitutes, in my view, the worst miscarriage of justice perpetrated by a Scottish criminal court since the conviction of Oscar Slater in 1909 for the murder of Marion Gilchrist.”
Professor Robert Black — October 26 2008
“I regard the Lockerbie verdict against Megrahi as a ‘Grand Monument to Human Stupidity’. Indeed, the written opinion of the Lockerbie judges is a remarkable document that claims an ‘honoured place in the history of British miscarriages of justice.’ If the [SCCRC] Commission accepts the application for a full review, the infamous Zeist verdict doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving.”
Dr Ludwig De Braeckeleer — July 5 2017
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
Amateur criminologist William Roughead published his Trial of Oscar Slater, highlighting flaws in the prosecution. The book convinced many influential people included Sir Edward Marshall Hall, Ramsay MacDonald, Viscount Buckmaster; and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1912, Conan Doyle published The Case of Oscar Slater, a plea for a full pardon for Slater. Following years of campaigning and investigating from Conan Doyle, the Secretary of State for Scotland authorised Slater’s release on November 8, 1927
August 1 2018 — In her new book (Conan Doyle for the Defence), New York Times senior writer Margalit Fox brings to life a forgotten cause célèbre of how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle helped exonerate Oscar Slater, a man who was wrongfully convicted of murder. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
