Megrahi: You are my Jury

I am today publishing, in conjunction with the Sunday Herald, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s report on Mr Megrahi’s conviction. It will be available for download here at midday and can already be viewed on the Herald’s website.

Mr Megrahi wishes it to be published because he believes the public has a right to know what the commission uncovered during its four-year investigation. Publication also gives the lie to the claim that he is blocking the report’s release.

The report makes shocking reading. The commission concluded that Mr Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice on no fewer than six grounds (the six grounds are summarised here). One of these is that the guilty verdict was, in the report’s words, ‘at least arguably one which no reasonable court, properly directed, could have returned’. By any measure, this was a remarkable rebuke to the three senior law lords who heard the case.

However, it is the Crown who will be most embarrassed by publication. This is because four of the six grounds concern its failure to disclose important evidence to Mr Megrahi’s lawyers. There were seven such documents, which are described, in chapters 23 to 25. Those chapters and chapter 26 describe numerous other significant undisclosed documents.

Three of the seven concern reward payments to two key Crown witnesses, Tony and Paul Gauci. The commission established that after Mr Megrahi’s conviction each were ‘paid sums of money under the “Rewards for Justice” programme administered by the US Department of State.’ Police correspondence reveals that the Crown was prevented by its own rules from seeking this reward, yet did not stop the police from doing so.

The Crown’s failure to disclosure of all this evidence is a disgrace, for which it must be held to account.

I am sending a copy of the report to the justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, who has acknowledged that he has not seen it. When he has read it, he will no longer be able to cling to the fiction, which continues to be promoted by his government colleague the Lord Advocate, that Mr Megrahi’s conviction is safe.

The only redactions we have made are to protect the identity of certain people and the privacy of Mr Megrahi’s family and his co-accused, Lamin Fhimah. Mr Megrahi does not agree with all of the report’s conclusions, some of which are not favourable to him, however, he has nothing to fear from their publication.

Now that the report is published, the focus of public debate on Lockerbie should shift away from the rights and wrongs of Mr Megrahi’s release to the scandal of his conviction.

In view of recent developments, I predict that the Crown Office will selectively leak to Sunday newspapers sections of the SCCRC report that are less favourable to Abdelbaset. My money is on the Sunday Times.

The Daily Record has today published the following article under the headline Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi’s appeal “had more holes than Swiss cheese”.  It’s based on an unattributable briefing by a Crown Office source. This strengthens my view that the Crown Office is panicking and is gearing up for a media fightback. Watch this space.

THE Lockerbie bomber’s case that he was the victim of a massive miscarriage of justice is “riddled with inconsistencies”, the Daily Record can reveal.

Sources said Abdelbaset al-Megrahi came up with 40 reasons why he was “wrongly convicted”.

This was whittled down to just six by Scotland’s appeals watchdog – which prosecutors were sure they could tear apart.

A Crown Office source said: “When you put them under the microscope, his case starts to fall apart even more. They are full of contra-dictions and do not add up.

“For instance, he includes assertions that he never visited Malta when, in fact, we know and can prove that he did. His grounds for appeal has more holes than a Swiss cheese.” [Note: Abdelbaset’s grounds of appeal contained no such assertion.]

The news came after a massive row at the heart of Scotland’s justice system.

Angered by leaks over Megrahi’s appeal, the country’s top prosecutor gave the OK to publish the killer’s reasons. But appeals watchdog the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission refused and hid behind data protection laws.

In a letter, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC said “recent selective and misleading” reports of extracts from the Statement of Reasons in Megrahi’s case had created a “highly unsatisfactory situation”.

Mr Mulholland confirmed that, given the “exceptional circumstances,” it would not be in the public interest to prosecute a member of the commission over leaks if publication went ahead.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: “The Lord Advocate’s letter is hopefully a significant step forward in achieving publication.”

Campaigner Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora, 24, died in the 1988 bombing, said: “I am glad the Crown Office want these reasons published.”

Yesterday afternoon the Crown Office issued the following press release, which included a letter from the Lord Advocate to the SCCRC. The Crown Office knows more than it is saying and, in my view, this is a panic measure.
 

SCCRC WILL NOT BE PROSECUTED FOR PUBLISHING MEGRAHI STATEMENT OF REASONS

The Crown Office today confirmed that no current member or employee of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) would be prosecuted if its Statement of Reasons in the case of Abdelbaset al Megrahi is formally published.

Whilst it is currently an offence for the Commission to disclose information obtained in its investigations, the Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, considers it would not be in the public interest to prosecute, given the selective publication of the Statement of Reasons in the media.

The Crown Office has today written to the SCCRC to clarify the position.

A Crown Office spokesperson said: “The Crown has repeatedly made it clear that it has no objection in principle to the publication of the SCCRC Statement of Reasons in the Megrahi case.

“Following the recent selective and misleading reporting of the Statement of Reasons – which would have been properly argued in Court had Megrahi not chosen to abandon his second appeal – the Lord Advocate wishes to ensure that there are no perceived barriers to publication, beyond the proper legal requirements which the Commission must take into account in publishing the document.

 “Accordingly, the Lord Advocate has today confirmed that it would not be in the public interest for current members and employees of the Commission to be prosecuted in terms of the offence of disclosure in section 194J of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 in relation to any official publication of the Statement of Reasons.”

 Notes to Editors:

 1.            The full text of the Lord Advocate’s letter to the SCCRC is at the foot of this news release.

 2.            Section 194J of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act makes it an offence for current or former employees or members of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to disclose information obtained in the exercise of its function.

 3.            The decision of the Lord Advocate does not apply to any other legal considerations which the Commission requires to take into account, such as data protection or the convention rights of individuals identified in the Statement of Reasons.

 4.            The Crown is bound by the confidentiality which attaches to the Statement of Reasons and are therefore also prevented from fully correcting the misleading reporting regarding the Crown and others.

 5.            A decision of the SCCRC to refer a conviction to the Appeal Court does not mean that there has been a miscarriage of justice. Only the Appeal Court can declare if there is has been a miscarriage of justice and quash a conviction.

 6.            In the Megrahi case, the Commission was asked to look at more than 40 possible grounds for a referral to the Appeal Court. The Commission rejected the vast majority of these and referred the case to the Appeal Court on six grounds, many of which were inter-related. Megrahi chose to abandon this ongoing appeal when he did not require to do so for release on compassionate grounds.

 7.            In preparing for Megrahi’s second appeal, the Crown had considered all the information in the Statement of Reasons and had every confidence in successfully defending the conviction in the Appeal Court for a second time.

 8.            Full text of the letter from the Lord Advocate to Mr Gerry Sinclair, Chief Executive, Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission:

 Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi  Publication of the Statement of Reasons

 I refer to your recent meeting with my officials at which you discussed once more publication of the Commission’s Statement of Reasons in this case.

 It was agreed that the Crown would undertake a further review of the Statement of Reasons to ensure that there was nothing contained within the document which would affect the ongoing criminal investigating if disclosed. I can confirm that we have concluded that further review and have not identified any issues which would hinder publication by the Commission.

 As you are aware, the Crown has made it clear on a number of occasions that it supports the publication of the Statement of Reasons by the Commission, albeit we also appreciate that there are some legal restrictions which the Commission must consider, some of which the Bill is intended to facilitate, before publication can take place.

 I appreciate that you are aware that as officers of the court, we take our responsibility to protect the confidentiality of the information very seriously.

 You will also be aware of the recent selective and misleading publication of extracts from the Statement of Reasons out of context in the media. Clearly the Crown was not responsible for the release of any of that information. This highly unsatisfactory situation is not sustainable.

It has resulted in public criticism of a number of named individuals who have not seen the Statement of Reasons and therefore cannot draw on material that may be found elsewhere in the full document which provides balance to the selections which have been taken out of context.

We are bound by the confidentiality which attaches to the document and are therefore also prevented from fully correcting the misleading reporting regarding the Crown and others.

We regard it as inappropriate for any party other than the Commission to publish the Statement of Reasons.  We would therefore urge the Commission to conclude its consideration of publication, in connection with the Criminal Cases (Punishment and Review) (Scotland) Bill, as quickly possible.

As you know we have facilitated your efforts in this direction by responding positively and promptly to all that you have requested from us by way of assistance in removing any perceived barriers to publication.

Further in this connection, we have of course considered the general offence of disclosure in section 194J of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 which applies to current and former employees and members of the commission. We recognise that the Bill which is before the Scottish Parliament provides an additional exception from the prohibition against disclosure in section 194J.

In the exceptional circumstances of this case and in recognition that the public interest is not served by selective and misleading reporting of the Statement of Reasons, we would wish to ensure that it can be made clear that the offence in section 194J is not perceived as a barrier to publication. Accordingly I am providing this written verification to you of the fact that it would not be in the public interest for any current member or employee of the Commission to be prosecuted in terms of section 194J of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 in connection with any official publication of the Statement of Reasons.  For the avoidance of any doubt, this decision does not apply to the appendices or any of the source material held by the Commission.

I’ve just been sent a short article, which appeared in last Friday’s edition of the Scottish Daily Mail, on page 42, under the headline Megrahi book is a publishing flop.  It reads:

The Lockerbie bomber’s ‘deathbed memoirs’ have been a publishing flop. The book by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi contains revelations about alleged miscarriages of justice suffered by the convicted terrorist. But sales estimates for Megrahi: You Are My Jury suggest the public have avoided the authorised biography in their droves.

Preliminary sales data collected by Nielsen BookScan show It has sold only 664 copies in the UK since its publication on February 28. This includes copies sold on websites such as Amazon. Frank Duggan – president of Victims of Pan Am 103, which represents the families of the Americans who died – said: ‘The book is full of total nonsense. I’m pleased to hear it has not been an overwhelming success.’

In fact the book has done far better than either I, or the publisher, Birlinn, dared to imagine. The 664 figure cited in the article was the amount sold in the first two days – a very healthy number for a book of this type. To our amazement, the first print run sold out within four days. It also scored highly in various online charts, including some of Amazon’s. Before anyone asks, it’s still some way from making a profit and, given the high costs that we’ve incurred, neither I nor Birlinn anticipate making any.

If Frank Duggan has read the book, he will know that what it’s really filled with is Crown evidence, much of which was not presented to the trial court. Is he accusing the Crown, the police and their legion of witnesses of speaking ‘total nonsense’? Surely not.

The latest issue of Private Eye carries the following article, under the headline Source sauce, about the BBC’s recent tawdry scoop on Abdelbaset’s private life.

The BBC has failed to protect its journalistic sources over its recent “revelation” about Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and his trips to Malta for sex. The claim was attributed to “previously secret documents, seen by BBC Scotland” – ie the report by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which concluded that the Libyan may have been wrongly convicted. But the Beeb is now accused of breaching the trust of the man who gave the information to programme-makers to satisfy lawyers’ concerns over last month’s BBC Scotland documentary on the case. John Ashton, author and researcher for Megrahi’s defence team, says that when he was asked by the BBC if it could release more of the document, he specifically forbade it by phone and in writing, saying that doing so would betray the key source of its documentary.

BBC Scotland’s home affairs correspondent Reevel Alderson used it anyway to “reveal” how Megrahi had told his defence lawyers that as an airline worker he could fly in and out of Malta without a passport, enabling him to travel undetected – as documented by Ashton in his book, Megrahi: You Are My Jury. (The secret lover was omitted because of sensitivity towards Megrahi’s wife.)

Alderson’s article on the BBC news website said that “lawyers had realised if the original trial had known how easily Megrahi could travel undetected to Malta it could have strengthened the prosecution case”. But what he failed to add was what the SCCRC actually concluded about the issue: that while it was unhelpful to his defence, it raised the question of why he didn’t travel that way on the crucial dates – when he used passports. A terrorist surely would have done so.

Ashton has complained formally to the BBC which is investigating.

As the Times is now behind a paywall, much of its content remains under the radar. So it was with an opinion piece written by the late Paul McBride QC, published on the day of the book’s publication, 28 February, which I only saw last week and to which I have been unable to respond until now.

McBride was, by all accounts, a very gifted and popular advocate. It’s sad that what was almost certainly his last published article should be so poor.

My comments are in normal typeface.

Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s book is called You The Jury and in it he, of course, maintains his innocence, and argues that he was framed by the authorities for a crime of which he was innocent. Furthermore, he maintains that he had been persuaded to drop his appeal by the Justice Secretary to ease his passage back to Libya. Both of these assertions are complete self-serving nonsense.

Abdelbaset has never claimed that Kenny MacAskill persuaded him to drop his appeal, rather, he claims that Libyan minister Abdelati al-Obedi told him that MacAskill had said privately that it would be easier to grant compassionate release if Abdelbaset abandoned the appeal.

Al-Megrahi is happy to set forth his detailed account to a friendly journalist while not on oath in front of his imaginary jury. He chose not to give evidence at his actual trial, where he would have been the subject of cross-examination and have the opportunity to tell the court his account. Accordingly, his claims are easily dismissed as self serving and worthless untruths.

When writing the article McBride could have had no idea of Abdelbaset’s detailed account because he hadn’t read the book, which was not published until the day after.

While I have never been of the opinion that Kenny MacAskill should have visited the prisoner at Greenock prison – in his own interests, if nothing else – it is obvious he acted in good faith to assess the condition of a dying man. Furthermore, al-Megrahi’s claims about Mr MacAskill cannot stand up to any reasonable scrutiny. If the Justice Secretary had been minded to release al-Megrahi but insist that he drop his appeal, it would have been open to him to use the prisoner transfer treaty, given birth to by Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, where there is a requirement that an appeal has to be abandoned before a transfer.

Any ‘reasonable scrutiny’ of Abdelbaset’s decision should take into account the fact that he was terminally ill and stuck in a foreign prison with little prospect of accessing the best quality medical care. He was, in short, desperate and willing to take any course of action that increased his chances of returning home.

The Justice Secretary, however, chose to release al-Megrahi on the ground of compassion, where there is absolutely no requirement for an appeal to be dropped. Indeed, far from covering matters up, the Justice Secretary is bringing forward legislation to allow the public to see the documentation of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’s referral to the appeal court. Hardly the actions one might think of a man involved in a cover-up.

Other, better informed, legal commentators have pointed out that the Scottish government could have taken a far less tortuous route to publication of the SCCRC report.

Furthermore, al-Megrahi’s lawyers would have informed the Libyan that he could continue with his appeal not only after his compassionate release, but that the appeal could be continued by a member of his family after his death. In any event, al-Megrahi chose to abandon his appeal and he – and he alone – prevented any further examination of the evidence.

Abdelbaset was well aware that he did not have to abandon his appeal and was very upset that he had to do so. If he was, as McBride implies, guilty, why would have spent so many of his dying days cooperating with the writing of a book?

Readers should also bear in mind that he had a previous appeal unanimously refused.

Readers should further bear in mind that none of the evidence that would have been presented at his second appeal was available to the first appeal court.

On 18 March Scotland on Sunday ran an article headlined Megrahi probe ‘failed to speak to FBI agents’, which reported criticisms of the SCCRC by FBI officers Oliver ‘Buck’ Revell and Richard Marquise.

It states:

Oliver “Buck” Revell, the former associate deputy director of investigations for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, has reacted angrily to the examination into the case by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). In an e-mail seen by Scotland on Sunday, Revell expressed frustration that no-one from the FBI was consulted by the SCCRC when it compiled its report into the safety of Megrahi’s conviction … In his e-mail to government and legal officials in Scotland and the US, Revell complained that the SCCRC failed to interview members of the FBI for its Statement of Reasons. The e-mail pointed out that the original Lockerbie investigation was carried out by Scottish police, Scotland Yard, the German BKA and the FBI. Revell added: “I don’t know what the SCCRC expects to determine when it is not even interviewing the actual investigators involved in solving this terrible crime.”

Marquise said:

“I don’t know if you can say you have done a comprehensive report unless you speak to key people. To me it is an incomplete report whatever they are going to publish. They never did speak to the people who might be able to shed some light on whatever it is that they were looking to find out. If you are going to say you have done a complete investigation, you should talk to everybody who was key, and I like to think people in the FBI were key. I like to think some people in the CIA were key and they could and should have been interviewed.”

While neither man shed any light on what the FBI investigators could have told the commission, we might infer from their comments that the Bureau held further evidence of Abdelbaset’s guilt. Of course, it almost certainly didn’t, because any such evidence would have been handed to the Crown.

That said, I share Revell’s and Marquise’s disappointment that the SCCRC failed to interview anyone from the FBI, as many important questions remain unanswered. For example:

1. What did FBI agent John Hosinski discuss with Tony Gauci when he met him alone on 2 October 1989?

2. What did Senegalese official Jean Collin reveal when interviewed in the US in December 1990?

3. Was the content of Collin’s interview revealed to the Scottish police? And, if not, why not?

4. Why did the FBI’s Tom Thurman ‘front’ for the CIA in relation to the identification of the timer fragment?

5. According to FBI agent Hal Hendershott, Thurman had a laboratory in Lockerbie within days of the bombing. What forensic work did he undertake and was that work shared with the Scottish investigators?

6.When, in June 1990, Thurman demonstrated to the Scottish police that PT/35b matched the control sample MST-13 timer, why did he not reveal that he was already aware that the timers were made by Mebo?

7. Why was Hendershot aware of the contents of the Toshiba manual fragment PK/689 before it was examined for the Scottish police at RARDE?

8. Why was the FBI able to investigate debris item PI/1389 (a blue T-shirt, which, according to the FBI’s Bonn legal attache David Keyes, showed blast damage and the imprint of the grills of two radio speakers) before RARDE?

9. What information did Hendershot, Thurman and Bob Howen uncover in relation to the crystals used in the MST-13 timers? In particular, were they able to establish the date of manufacture of the crystal used in the control sample timer K-1, which was recovered from Togo and which Thurman used for comparative purposes with the fragment PT/35b?

10. Regarding the episode at Frankfurt airport, witnessed by FBI agent Lawrence Whittaker and DI Watson McAteer, in which a baggage handler apparently entered a bag into the automated transit system without recording the transaction, why was Whittaker’s trial testimony at odds with McAteer’s statement S3743A?

11. How many FBI FD302 reports by Lockerbie field agents were handed to the Crown? (Only a handful were provided to the defence.)

12. The US Department of Justice has stated that only three reports were produced in relation to the FBI’s inquiries in Malta. Given the centrality of Malta to the case, why were there so few?

Perhaps Mr Revell and Mr Marquise can answer these questions.

The article is also notable for the following quote by Marquise:

“On the issue of witnesses being paid, no witness [was paid] to my knowledge. What some police officer or FBI agent might have told somebody in the corner in a dark room in the middle night that I don’t know about, I can’t vouch for that. But everybody that worked for me were under orders that they were not allowed to tell people that they could get money for this case. So, as far as I know, nobody was promised or paid money to testify.”

The SCCRC report states, at paragraph 23.19:

Enquiries with D&G [Dumfriesx  and Galloway Police] have established that, some time after the conclusion of the applicant’s appeal against conviction, Anthony and Paul Gauci were each paid sums of money under the “Rewards for Justice” programme administered by the US Department of State. Under that programme the US Secretary of State was initially authorised to offer rewards of up to $5m for information leading to the arrest or conviction of persons involved in acts of terrorism against US persons or property worldwide. The upper limit on such payments was increased by legislation passed in the US in 2001.

According to DCI Harry Bell’s diary, on 28 September 1989, FBI agent Chris Murray told Bell that he (Murray): ‘had the authority to arrange unlimited money for Tony Gauci and relocation is available. Murray states that he could arrange $10,000 immediately.’ Murray would not have said these things unless he believe that the offer might have been put to Gauci, yet, according to Marquise, “everybody that worked for me were under orders that they were not allowed to tell people that they could get money for this case.” So, was Murray acting against Marquise’s orders? And, if so will he be held to account? Again, maybe Marquise and Revell can enlighten us.

I’ve just been sent a copy of the front page splash from last Sunday’s Scottish edition of the Sunday Times, headlined Lockerbie conspiracies demolished. It’s a classic of its kind: recycled information masquerading as news, based on a false predicate.  It opens:

An independent investigation into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber has dismissed conspiracy theories implicating others in Britain’s worst terrorist attack. A secret report by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) found Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who was found guilty in 2001, may have suffered a miscarriage of justice. However, it has emerged that the report rejected several arguments advanced by the Libyan’s defence team as evidence of his innocence ... The release of the 821-page dossier has been delayed by data protection issues but large chunks have been leaked by John Ashton, a journalist who worked for Megrahi’s defence team.

What the reporters, Mark Macaskill and Jason Allardyce, failed to tell their readers was that all their information about the SCCRC report was culled from an article on this website (which was the original unedited version of one  published on the Herald’s website last Wednesday).

The false predicate comes a few lines later:

The SCCRC report undermines theories that formed the backbone of an appeal put together by Megrahi’s defence team.

In fact Abdelbaset’s appeal did not advance any of the ‘conspiracy theories’ rejected by the SCCRC. Furthermore, had  Macaskill and Allardyce bothered to read the extracts of the grounds of appeal, which have been available online for two and a half years, they would know that much of the appeal would have focused on previously undisclosed evidence unearthed by the SCCRC.

The latest issue of the New Statesman carries the following article by me under the headline Still no justice for Megrahi

The killing of 270 people on 21 December 1988, when a bomb destroyed the New York bound Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, was Britain’s worst mass murder. It resulted in the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, which to many who have studied the case, is the country’s worst miscarriage of justice. Yet, for the wider public, the only cause for concern is that Megrahi was allowed home to Libya. In the two and a half years since his plane took off from Glasgow airport, David Cameron and Scotland’s opposition parties have missed no opportunity to sling mud at the SNP justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, for his decision to grant the terminally ill prisoner compassionate release.

Everyone recalls Megrahi being greeted by Saltire-waving supporters in Tripoli, but few know that, two years earlier, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC – the statutory body that examines alleged miscarriages of justice) referred his case back to the court of appeal on six grounds, including that the trial court judgment was unreasonable.

In convicting Megrahi, three Scottish law lords accepted the Crown’s case that on 7 December 1988 Megrahi bought clothes from a small shop in Malta, which were later placed in the same suitcase as the bomb. At first glance, it appeared to fit: Megrahi was in Malta that day and the shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, said he looked similar to a man who had bought clothes a few weeks before the bombing. But Gauci was certain that it was raining as the man left the shop, yet weather records showed that there was no rain on the 7th – Megrahi’s only window of opportunity. He also described a man taller and older than Megrahi.

The SCCRC discovered that Crown had failed to disclose evidence to Megrahi’s defence team, including documents revealing that, before first picking out Megrahi from a photo line-up in 1991, Gauci knew that a large reward was on offer from the US government and had  “expressed an interest in receiving money”.

Why did Megrahi abandon his appeal? His explanation, revealed for the first time last month, is that MacAskill privately told a Libyan government minister that it would be easier for him to grant compassionate release if he dropped the appeal. MacAskill denies it, claiming his SNP government had nothing to fear from the appeal.  Others disagree, among them Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the bombing and firmly believes Megrahi was wrongly convicted. They believe that the Libyan’s decision averted possibly the biggest crisis that Scotland’s criminal justice system has ever faced. Given that the CJS is the country’s foremost independent institution, that outcome would have caused particular discomfort to a party that stands for full independence.

Alex Salmond and his justice minister have stuck faithfully to the Crown Office line that nothing is amiss with Megrahi’s conviction. The longer they maintain this fiction, the greater the scandal they are creating for themselves. Sooner or later they will have to explain why they ignored all the warnings that their cherished system got things very wrong. They would do well to start working on their explanations now.