FBI ordered McKie case 'swept under carpet'

From the Scotsman:

"THE FBI met senior members of Scotland's forensic service to ensure the Shirley McKie affair was "swept under the carpet" and so avoid any embarrassment in the run-up to the Lockerbie trial, according to an investigator into the bombing.

Juval Aviv, who was Pan Am's senior Lockerbie investigator, said officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation travelled to Scotland to pressure the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) into a swift resolution of the McKie fingerprint case.

Mr Aviv said that during discussions with two senior members of staff in the fingerprint laboratory at SCRO in 1999 or 2000, both told him they had misgivings over the evidence against Ms McKie but had been urged to "fall in line with the evidence"."

Mr Aviv further alleges that the SCRO was put under pressure from the FBI to manufacture evidence that would help convict the Libyan.

A spokesman from the Crown Office said the connection between the cases is entirely "without foundation" and "deeply-offensive to all those involved". This may be so but with all the uncertainty attaching itself to the McKie case already, Alex Salmon was surely right to say that the case for a public enquiry is now overwhelming.