Nigel Don (Scottish National Party) | Question S3W-28072

To ask the Scottish Executive how the decision to transfer the suspects for the Glasgow Airport bombing to the custody of the Metropolitan Police on 2 July 2007 was taken.

Elish Angiolini:

I am aware of claims made in a book published yesterday by a former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Andy Hayman, about the decision to transfer the suspects to London. Mr Hayman’s account of how the decision was taken in July 2007 does not reflect the fact that the only issue was where, legally, the case could be brought to trial, given the cross border nature of the conduct under investigation.

I am concerned, in particular, about the suggestion that the decision to transfer the suspects to London was a political one. This suggests a basic misunderstanding of my role as the independent head of the system of prosecution in Scotland. The decision was taken solely by me in the public interest with the intention of securing the most effective investigation and prosecution of the terrorist plot. There were no political considerations whatsoever in the decision and to have allowed such considerations would have amounted to a gross breach of my independence.

Mr Hayman also suggests that time was wasted in persuading me that a transfer was the correct decision. I wish to make it absolutely clear that my decision did not delay the investigation in any way. I recognised the need for an effective cross-border investigation from the very first moment but was keen to ensure, before agreeing to transfer the suspects, that the English prosecutors were absolutely satisfied that the English courts would have jurisdiction over the attack in Glasgow. I received such an assurance from the Attorney General on the afternoon of 2 July 2009 and immediately agreed to the transfer at that point.

This was absolutely not about lawyers – far less politicians – being obstructive, but it was about lawyers doing their jobs in the interests of justice: no-one, including Mr Hayman, would have thanked me or the Attorney General if it had not been possible to bring the accused to trial for the Glasgow Airport attack.

The criticisms do a disservice to the very impressive joint work by Scottish and English police and prosecutors which saw one of the terrorists, Bilal Abdulla, sentenced in December 2008 to a minimum of 32 years imprisonment for both attacks.