Appeals court upholds conviction of British national linked to Daesh

LONDON: A prominent lawyer who represented the British victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has urged President Donald Trump to declassify US intelligence files related to the attack, Sky News reported on Friday.

Prof. Peter Watson, who served as secretary for the Lockerbie Disaster Group, has called on Trump to release the documents, arguing that the families of those killed “deserve transparency, truth and answers.”

Trump has previously moved to declassify files concerning the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., and Watson said he believes Lockerbie should be next.

“Nearly four decades later, as new trials and investigations continue, the pursuit of truth and justice for the victims and their families endures,” he said.

“The families of the victims are entitled to know as much as possible about what happened on the night of the bombing, and we know there are documents held by the US and UK intelligence services that fill the vacuum of understanding that remains today.”

Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, killing 259 passengers and crew on board, along with 11 people on the ground.

Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing in 2003 and compensated the families of the victims to the tune of £2.1 billion ($2.7 billion), but significant questions about the attack remain with no public inquiry into the bombing held to date.

Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was convicted for the bombing but was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after being diagnosed with cancer. He died in 2012.

Libyan suspect Abu Agila Masud, who is alleged to have built the bomb, will stand trial in the US in May. He denies all charges.

Watson sent his declassification request in a letter to Matthew Palmer, the charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in London.

He wrote: “We have seen a move from President Trump to declassify a number of federal secrets, and we believe Lockerbie should be next.

“The families have waited far too long. They deserve transparency, truth and answers.”

WARSAW: A Polish court on Friday jailed two Russian men for more than five years each under espionage laws for distributing alleged propaganda for the now-disbanded Wagner mercenary group.
The pair, identified by Polish counter-intelligence as Alexei T. and Andrei G., were detained in August 2023 for distributing stickers in Warsaw and Krakow for Russia’s once-powerful mercenary group.
Also on Friday, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk posted on X that a Russian suspected of sabotage against Poland and its allies had been arrested.
The Russian, “suspected of coordinating sabotage acts against Poland, the United States and other allies, and who was hiding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been deported to Poland and placed under arrest,” Tusk said.
Poland’s Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak wrote on X that the arrest was “a major blow for the Russian sabotage network in Europe.”
The stickers posted by the two sentenced Russians bore the Wagner logo, a slogan in English saying “We are here. Join us,” and a QR code directing people to a Russian website about the mercenary group.
Poland’s counter-intelligence agency said at the time: “The Russians had on them more than 3,000 propaganda leaflets promoting the Wagner group.”
“These activities were an element of the hybrid warfare aimed at our country,” judge Ewa Karp-Sieklucka said Friday, media in Krakow, where the trial was held, reported.
They were sentenced to five years and six months in jail.
While they did not deny distributing the stickers, they pleaded not guilty, arguing they had not been aware they were taking part in a recruitment campaign.
Poland’s historically strained relations with neighboring Russia have dipped to new lows over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Almost three years into the war, Poland remains a staunch ally of Kyiv. It has become a major logistics hub for military equipment the West has been transferring to the war-torn country.
Warsaw officials have frequently blamed Russia for orchestrating sabotage attempts on its soil, which they say are aimed at destabilising the EU member.
In one of its largest espionage trials, Poland in 2023 convicted 14 citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine of preparing sabotage on behalf of Moscow as part of a spy ring.
They were sentenced for preparing to derail trains carrying aid to Ukraine, and monitoring military facilities and critical infrastructure.
In October, Poland ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Poznan, western Poland, over “the hybrid war” it accused Moscow of waging.