Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part IV

[Reformed Offlian]

You really are not conversant with the political landscape of the time. Assassinated Prime Minister Olaf Palme was a 'friend' of Kurdish groups. There was a LOT of [recorded] illegal immigrants* coming across on the passenger ferries. Yes, when a passenger ferry with seventy -odd police bods is known to be travelling, who knows which terrorist group with a grudge is lying in wait. Especially as Palme's supporters are convinced Palme's assassination was a insider intelligence job and not a random middle-aged bloke. Whether this is fact or fantasy, it remains true that there were possible elements in the underworld looking for revenge, be it justified or misguided.

*IIRC a large number of illegal Kurds in a container truck had been intercepted earlier in the year.

So Kurds = Terrorists?

Racist much?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The car ramp doors were watertight and had gaskets. Because of the known danger of free surface effect they had to be. There was also a policy of their being locked to passenger during the journey, although there are reports of passengers who preferred to sleep in their car or truck than book a cabin and others who said they looked into the car deck to witness crew with blow torches and arc oxy-acetylene welding on previous journeys trying to fix this that or the other at the car ramp.

Silve Linde, the watchman on duty said he went to the information desk on the 4th Deck to ask that the car deck doors be unlocked, - whether he was telling the truth or not - confirms that they were kept locked and only authorised personnel could access them.

So to ask my question again. What do the doors to the car deck being locked have to do with ventilators?

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Oh dear. So if the CIA requested the UK extradite you to the USA without any court papers, you'd think that was 'just a deportation' when snatched whilst innocently strolling down Oxford Street and unceremoniously carted off to a private plane with no chance to speak to a lawyer, family of friends? Or is it only OK if that person is a certain demographic?

Wow, an accusation of racism. Lovely. How do you know what my ethnicity is? What if I was from an Egyptian-British family? Why are you making insinuations against me of racism when you know nothing of me? Isn't it you who keeps accusing others of being rude to you? Amazing double standards you've got there.

To answer the question, if I were an asylum seeker who was being recommended as having my application turned down and was taken and deported, I would call it a deportation, yes. Not a legal one, but a deportation nonetheless. Again, you've missed the point of my post, these people were not disappeared. If they had been disappeared they would have, you know, disappeared.

In any case, it was not legal no matter what heinous crime you might imagine such person may (or may not!) have committed.

Who said anything about crimes? I quite agree it was an illegal deportation, but it was not them being disappeared. There's a rather big difference between the two things. You claimed that Sweden had "disappeared" people. This is very much not that. It's reprehensible and illegal certainly, but that doesn't make it a disappearance.

BTW they were NOT 'denied asylum'. Their case was never heard.

They were deported and they would likely have been denied asylum anyway because 1. the security services had advised that they be denied on security grounds and 2. One of them was claiming illegally using a false passport.

Again, I'm not claiming that this was a perfectly ok thing to have happened, I'm simply stating that they were not "disappeared".

 

[carlitos]

Yes, they were. You may now be beginning to understand why that thread has gone on for so long.

I'm giving myself a holiday gift, which means you won't see me commenting further on this fascinating subject. Not good for my brain. Happy Christmas.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

If they said 'Clive' represented accountants Ernst & Young, say, why not? It would not refer to him as an accountant specifically, would it?

You're doing this deliberately aren't you?

Remember, this was the post you accused of snobbery:

Exactly.

As a corollary: I've spent a fair chunk of my career working in investment banking - as an investment banker. And I'm always amused whenever certain people who've made the news (usually for unedifying reasons) are labelled as "investment bankers" by the media.

What's usually actually happening is that the media have found out - correctly - that people work for a given investment bank.... but then they make the unwarranted leap to assume that all employees of an investment bank are investment bankers. Whereas I can virtually guarantee (and know for a fact wrt one instance in particular) that in most cases these people are back-office staff rather than bankers.

This post is noting that the media sometimes (often?) reports people as being investment bankers when they work for an investment banking firm regardless of their actual job. So again, in my analogy, you are watching a BBC report about your firm and they refer to Clive as being a Chartered Accountant. Not "representing Ernst & Young accountancy" but as being an accountant. Would it be snobbery of you to decry this error on the part of the BBC?

 

[Mojo]

Were you there in Rome in 1998, so that you could determine why they decided to criminalize it?

If we could locate the travaux préparatoires they might conceivably say something about the intentions behind the treaty, which is why I was trying to get Vixen to clarify exactly which treaty she meant.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Ah good! Vixen's educating us all in how to assess and interpret evidence!

I would usually add "Physician, heal thyself" at this point. But when it comes to Vixen's exhortation here, I can't go any further than "Quack, drink thine own snake oil".

I would just stick with "Quack", and keep reiterating the point, possibly flapping my arms for emphasis.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Crew member Sillaste was the only one who had been interrogated in the presence of Supo and Säpo as of that time.

See JAIC

6.2.4 Summary of testimonies by the system engineer

The system engineer was interrogated five times.

1. 28 September 1994 in Turku by the Finnish police.


Sillaste is the ONLY one interviewed as of 28 September 1994, whilst the Three Prime Ministers were there.

The JAIC was formed later that afternoon, after the three flew to Helsinki from Turku (a 35-minute flight).


The stuff about the prime ministers chatting to other survivors in hospital is just the usual 'kissing babies' political gesture and not a proper interview. 'How are you?' 'All right?' 'Jolly good', and so on and so forth.

Learn to discern the important information from the fillers.

Is this an admission that survivors spoke to people before the police 'interrogation'?

 

[Here_to_learn]

Bengt Stenmark, Minister of Transport

No he was not.

 

[Mojo]

Vixen, what do you think 'civilian' means in the quote you provided? It's right there in your source!

That word contradicts Vixen’s conclusion, so it can safely be ignored.

 

[zooterkin]

What? I simply said that disappearing suspects was a recognised happening, hence the Rome Treaty.

"The fact there is a Treaty 1988 (Criminal Law) that forbids the disappearance of suspects, must mean that it had been happening."

Could you provide a link to the this Treaty 1988 (Criminal Law)?

 

[Mojo]

Could you provide a link to the this Treaty 1988 (Criminal Law)?

Let not go there any more, we’ve established that Vixen actually meant a 1998 treaty, and that it in no way supported her claim.

The “Treaty 1988 (Criminal Law)” stuff was most likely just a tactic to prolong the diversion.

 

[zooterkin]

Let not go there any more, we’ve established that Vixen actually meant a 1998 treaty, and that it in no way supported her claim.

Well, you might think so, but if that were the case, Vixen would surely now be referring to the treaty being in 1998 now the discrepancy has been brought to her attention.

 

[JayUtah]

Well, you might think so, but if that were the case, Vixen would surely now be referring to the treaty being in 1998 now the discrepancy has been brought to her attention.

She was quoting from an earlier post of hers, and chose to keep it verbatim.

 

[JesseCuster]

Please do not put words in my mouth, or twist what I said.

I didn't.

Here's the conversation, which you clearly are unable to actually follow:

carlitos asked you this question about the Rome Statute of the ICC:

In any case, the Estonia sank in 1994, so linking the creation of an international court by 2001 to this tragic accident seems like a pretty crazy red herring, yeah?

To which you responded:

It shows it wouldn't be the first time Sweden 'disappeared' suspects at the request of the CIA (as it did with the two Egyptians in 2001).

That's an unequivocal and unambiguous claim that the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court shows that it wouldn't be the first time that Sweden disappeared suspects at the request of the CIA.

So I asked you the following question:

How is the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court evidence that Sweden disappeared suspects at the request of the CIA?

To which you responded:

Please do not put words in my mouth, or twist what I said.

I didn't twist what you said. You were pretty clear that the 1998 Rome statute showed that Sweden was disappearing people at the request of the CIA, so I asked how is it evidence that such a thing was happening?

The conversation is there for all to see. I haven't twisted anything you said.

So I'll ask, again.

How does the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court show that Sweden was disappearing people at the request of the CIA?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Is that absolute fact for all of them, or an opinion?

Why does it matter?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Is that a fact or an opinion.

Your source says it is a fact.

 

[JesseCuster]

For comparison Vixen, here's you most definitely putting words in someone else's mouth and twisting their meaning. And you called them "incredibly ignorant" because of the bizarre meaning you took from the post.

Do you really not understand the term "administrators" in this context? Really?

(Hint: "administrators" here means, very clearly, that these were back-office functionaries: HR, finance, facilities, etc. It means that they were not investigators. If they had been investigators, they would not have been referred to as "administrators")

Seriously? How incredibly ignorant. So according to you, doctors and nurses have a higher social status than a Hospital Administrator and the head of M15 is a mere 'back office' lackey compared to some aspiring spook on a need-to-know basis in a 'cell'. Thanks for the fascinating insight into how you perceive the world.

It's frankly bizarre to interpret LondonJohn's post in the way you did, he said absolutely nothing about the social status of anyone and didn't even mention doctors and nurses, yet you somehow came up with that interpretation and called him "incredibly ignorant" based upon your very weird interpretation of his post.

Wow.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Those two guys were fit young Estonian athletes. Their fellow athletes died in that disaster. One slept in the car to protect their valuable sports equipment. I am guessing they were up and about. They never once said the car ramp was open. They say they climbed down the car ramp stiffeners, like a ladder, before jumping into the sea when the vessel was on its beams - i.e. already irreversibly sinking - so how could the seawater have got in so voluminously and violently if the ramp was shut?

The ramp swung shut again when the ship was on its side. Any reason to think it would not?

 

[Mojo]

Well, you might think so, but if that were the case, Vixen would surely now be referring to the treaty being in 1998 now the discrepancy has been brought to her attention.