Before I waffle about any theories I want to say a couple of things,I think that it was right to release Megrahi,he is dying and the practise in Scotland is to release anyone with under three months to live,this demonstrates way more compassion than one expects from any legal system.Libya gave him a heroes welcome,why should they not,he may well have served a term in prison for something he didn't do.
http://ttocb.blogspot.com/2009/08/lockerbie-pets-and-shotguns.html
The theories are varied but all are interesting and most no longer relevant to our 21st century world,although funnily enough one of them is a huge issue as the nation concerned are now considered enemies rather than people to be kept onside no matter the cost.
Theories.
Iran Air Flight 655
was shot down by the Americans on the 3rd july 88,it was a passenger plane and all 290 people on board died.Iran swore revenge and promised earthly and virginal rewards to anyone who could blow an American plane out of the sky.George Bush senior, under pressure and nearly two months after the shooting, famously said "I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are."
And in a move that matches what Libya have done if Al Megradi is guilty the ship's seniors, Captain Rogers and Commander Lustig were later presented with the Legion of Merit for their "performance in the Persian Gulf on 3 July 1988."
So that seems like a fairly good bit of evidence for an Iranian revenge attack,however ,later when the first Gulf war kicked off the USA and allies(us again) had to get Iran onside so started falsifying evidence incriminating Libya(see evidence section)
Link Top figures in the Iranian government held a series of meetings in Beirut with leaders of Ahmed Jibril's terror group, the PFLP-GC, says Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's chief of counter-terrorism at the time. "There was a conclusion made in the intelligence community that the Iranians were intending to sponsor the PFLP-GC's operations to attack American targets as part of a revenge operation," Cannistraro says.
Following its meetings with Iranian officials, Cannistraro says, the PFLP-GC set up a bomb-making operation centered in the West German town of Neuss. But the West German government was watching. In October, 1988, two months before Pan Am 103 exploded, the German federal police launched what they called Operation Autumn Leaves: they raided more than a dozen homes and businesses, rounding up seventeen men, including several high-ranking associates of PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril.
They also found Semtex plastic explosive and a barometric detonator designed to go off at high altitude รณ an airplane bomb. It was packed in a Toshiba cassette recorder called a Bombeat. The man who allegedly built the bomb had been surveilled carrying a brown Samsonite suitcase, according to West German police documents. Police jailed two leaders of the bomb-making group, but a judge ordered the rest released. Still, the West Germans boasted they'd successfully broken up a terrorist plot. Until two months later, when Pan Am 103 blew up over Lockerbie.
Forensic investigators in Lockerbie determined that the bomb had been hidden in a cassette player and suitcase similar to those seized from the PFLP-GC in Germany: a Toshiba Bombeat and a brown Samsonite. The focus on the PFLP-GC intensified a couple of months later. The man who admitted building bombs for the group, Marwan Khreesat, turned up in Amman, Jordan. Khreesat told authorities that while in Germany he'd built five bombs, not just the one the police had seized.
In the spring of 1989, West German police went back to Neuss to search for the four remaining bombs. At the apartment of the fruit merchant they found three. And the bombs were wired and ready: one blew up and killed a police technician. Still, one bomb went unaccounted for.
Cannistraro, then head of the CIA's Lockerbie investigation, says authorities focused on the likelihood that Marwan Khreesat's fifth bomb had blown up the Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie. "The immediate feeling was: we've missed someone. That someone in that [PFLP-GC] cell had escaped with one of the explosive devices and succeeded in planting it on Pan Am 103."
Gaddafi has voiced the opinion that the Apartheid government of South Africa may have been complicit.
A handful of senior South African officials including the then Foreign Minister Pik Botha cancelled bookings for the flight at short notice fuelling speculation that they had been tipped off about the bomb.
The suggestion was that there was a plot to assassinate Bernt Carlsson, the designated UN Commissioner for the newly independent Namibia, who died on the flight.
Mr Botha confirmed that he had indeed been booked onto the flight and cancelled but described the theory as "absurd and far-fetched" pointing out that security agents did not know which flight he was on.
Another theory claims that the CIA or rogue elements within it had cleared a drugs smuggling route from Europe to America involving Pan Am flights in return for intelligence about militant groups.
The theory goes that two US intelligence officials, Matthew Gannon and Maj Charles McKee, had uncovered the practice and were flying back unannounced to America to raise their concerns but were killed on the way.
Some have said that the decision to release Megrahi is part of a "blood money" deal between the Britain and Libya, bringing the former pariah state in from the cold in return for flogging us oil.
Tony Blair first announced a "new relationship" with Libya in 2004, the Duke of York has made four trips to the country, meeting Gaddafi and his son Seif.
Although Gordon Brown, who met Gaddafi earlier this year, has described the Lockerbie issue as a matter for the Scottish government, it was also allegedly raised when Lord Mandelson met Seif
But Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Minister, insisted that the decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds was his alone.
Evidence.
Magrahi was convicted on extremely flimsy evidence in a court with no jury and the intelligence services from more than one country present.The only important piece of evidence that differentiated al-Megrahi from Fhimah was the dubious identification of al-Megrahi by a storekeeper in Malta who fingered the Libyan as the buyer of clothing found in the bomb
suitcase.Malta says no not possible.
But this storekeeper had earlier identified several other people,including one who was a CIA agent. When he finally identified al-Megrahi from a photo, it was after al-Megrahi's photo had been in the world news for years.
There also were major discrepancies between the shopkeeper's original description of the clothes-buyer and al-Megrahi's actual appearance. The
shopkeeper told police that the customer was "six feet or more in height" and "was about 50 years of age." Al-Megrahi was 5'8" tall and
was 36 in 1988.
The Scottish judges acknowledged that the initial description "would not in a number of respects fit the first accused [al-Megrahi]" and that "it
has to be accepted that there was a substantial discrepancy."Nevertheless, the judges accepted the identification as accurate. There is a very good breakdown of this 'dodgy' evidence here .
Another piece of evidence was about the alleged timers ,if he hadn't abandoned his appeal in a desperate rush to get home before death it is rumoured that Magrahi was to have presented evidence that the timer fragment had never been part of a bomb,contained no evidence of explosive residues and was possibly planted by someone in a position of authority.
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This is the man's statement,he has nothing to lose,so why make it?
Statement from Megrahi
After leaving HM Prison Greenock after being released on compassionate grounds, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi released the following statement:
I am obviously very relieved to be leaving my prison cell at last and returning to Libya, my homeland.
I would like to first of all take the opportunity to extend my gratitude to the many people of Scotland, and elsewhere, who have sent me their good wishes.
I bear no ill will to the people of Scotland; indeed, it is one of my regrets that I have been unable to experience any meaningful aspect of Scottish life, or to see your country.
To the staff in HM Prison Greenock, and before that at HM Prison Barlinnie, I wish to express thanks for the kindness that they were able to show me.
For those who assisted in my medical and nursing care; who tried to make my time here as comfortable as possible, I am of course grateful.
My legal team has worked tirelessly on my behalf; I wish to thank Advocates Margaret Scott QC, Jamie Gilchrist QC, Shelagh McCall and Martin Richardson together with the team at Taylor & Kelly, for all of their gallant efforts in my bid to clear my name.
I know they share, in no small measure, my disappointment about the abandonment of my appeal.
Many people, including the relatives of those who died in, and over, Lockerbie, are, I know, upset that my appeal has come to an end; that nothing more can be done about the circumstances surrounding the Lockerbie bombing.
I share their frustration. I had most to gain and nothing to lose about the whole truth coming out - until my diagnosis of cancer.
To those victims' relatives who can bear to hear me say this: they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered.
To those who bear me ill will, I do not return that to you.
And, lastly, I must turn to my conviction and imprisonment.
To be incarcerated in a far off land, completely alien to my way of life and culture has been not only been a shock but also a most profound dislocation for me personally and for my whole family.
I have had many burdens to overcome during my incarceration.
I had to sit through a trial which I had been persuaded to attend on the basis that it would have been scrupulously fair.
In my second, most recent, appeal I disputed such a description.
I had to endure a verdict being issued at the conclusion of that trial which is now characterised by my lawyers, and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, as unreasonable.
Aeroplane with Megrahi on board leaving Glasgow Airport
A Libyan aircraft leaves Glasgow Airport with Megrahi on board
To me, and to other right thinking people back at home in Libya, and in the international community, it is nothing short of a disgrace.
As a result of my surrender, and that judgment of the Court, I had to spend over 10 years in prison.
I cannot find words in my language or yours that give proper expression to the desolation I have felt. This horrible ordeal is not ended by my return to Libya.
It may never end for me until I die. Perhaps the only liberation for me will be death.
And I say in the clearest possible terms, which I hope every person in every land will hear: all of this I have had to endure for something that I did not do.
The remaining days of my life are being lived under the shadow of the wrongness of my conviction.
I have been faced with an appalling choice: to risk dying in prison in the hope that my name is cleared posthumously or to return home still carrying the weight of the guilty verdict, which will never now be lifted.
The choice which I made is a matter of sorrow, disappointment and anger, which I fear I will never overcome.
I say goodbye to Scotland and shall not return. My time here has been very unhappy and I do not leave a piece of myself. But to the country's people I offer my gratitude and best wishes.
Right I am knackered so have a peek at some of the links.........oh by the way this report is from a UN observer at the trial,this from a top Scottish lawyer about of Megrahi's trial,"I thought this was a very, very weak circumstantial case. I am absolutely astounded, astonished. I was extremely reluctant to believe that any Scottish judge would convict anyone, even a Libyan, on the basis of such evidence."
Professor Robert Black, Architect of the Lockerbie Trial - London Telegraph Feb 4,2001
pretty damned damning if you ask me..
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2 comments:
I have been reading about this too. Your blog is extremely well researched but far too lengthy to digest at once. I shall print this off and read it later - it looks interesting.
I cannot really add anything to the post you have already put here but I would like to ask if you have read anything about the co-accused Fhimah.
I am sure I read somewhere that there was no evidence that Fhimah had knowingly helped Megrahi but that there were alleged entries in Fhimah’s diary which indicated he had provided luggage tags which were used to get the bomb transferred onto the Pam Am Flight and that he was acquitted because no evidence of this was presented to the court.
I haven’t seen any mention of Fhimah or the luggage tags in the press reports and I am rubbish at research. Did you come across any mention of it when you were researching your article?
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