Once you call the integrity of investigators into question, literarily anything can be made to appear dodgy. The trick is in not doing it backwards - would anything of what you stated be only possible if he was being framed? The answer is obviously no. Is anything of what you stated considerably more plausible as a result of framing? Again, the answer is no.
Seriously, do you have any familiarity with the complexities of the incident? The problem is that the Official Version is several degrees less plausible than most of the CTs. There is very good reason to suspect a cover-up at the least and possibly fabrication of evidence, and once you've acknowledged that, then there's really no excuse for not examining all the possibilities even in the aspects that seem less suspicious than others.
If you begin by ascribing "maximum probability" to the official version and "vanishing improbability" to any sort of coverup or frame-up, then you're not going to get very far.
Perhaps. This was just one of the options. What if he calculated that the most likely delay was 36 minutes and hoped for the plane to crash on a part of London? I wouldn't do it, neither would you, but can you discount the possibility? Again, the answer is no.
Neither can I discount the possibility that the magic pixies told them to set the timer for that time, but I'd consider both suggestions somewhat less probable than the possibility that the detonation device might not actually have been of the type it was said to be. Thinking like the terrorist, as you advocate, throws that one out on the first pass.
Suppose someone warned the airline that there was a bomb on board of this flight. It could be connected to this attack, or just a random threat. Impossible? Definitely not.
Somebody did. About seven somebodies, I believe. At least, some sources detail about seven different warnings, though not to the actual airline. That's probably for another thread though.
I certainly agree his choice(s) aren't the best that could be made to futher his goals. That being said, had they been, that would be a strong indication he indeed had surprisingly good inside information - much stronger than lack thereof implicates a conspiracy.
I don't entirely follow that. What "conspiracy" do you need to postulate to explain a terrorist setting a timer to give the best possible chance of his device exploding over the ocean, and obtaining the materials he needed from sources that couldn't be traced back to him?
A strange assortment of stuff can be highly useful. Had the bomb been found, there would be nothing that should connect him to the crime, since it wasn't the clothes he wore or used. Perhaps he didn't consider it likely the shopkeepers would remember him (highly plausible), or perhaps someone else did the shopping for him (also highly plausible) - and the two are not mutually exclusive, either.
Are you at all familiar with the evidence as presented in court? The proposition that the same individual had bought the clothes and planted the bomb was central to the prosecution's case. If that didn't happen, then the Official Version is up in smoke.
I do find Gauci's memory to be quite implausible, given what he is said to have remembered about a short transaction that happened nine months before anyone asked him about it, which is kind of the starting point for the thread. It still seems an unnecessary risk to take, when one considers how many other ways there are of obtaining clothes that absolutely
can't be traced back to the purchaser.
If you wanted to make sure the hidden bomb couldn't be traced to you, putting new clothes you don't use besides it makes perfect sense. If the assortment is highly unusual, it might throw the investigators off your scent, so this is an added bonus.
I don't agree. Brand new clothes always have the possibility to be traced through the manufacturer, which is what was done in this case. Second-hand clothes, stolen clothes or even very old clothes are a lot less traceable. Buying the entire odd assortment in the same shop, only two weeks before the operation, isn't a great way not to be traced.
I find the behavior fairly consistent with hiding his identity. I know it backfired, but that was because a shopkeeper had a surprisingly good memory.
Perhaps he had a good memory, or perhaps Tony Gauci had a complexity that made people recognize and remember him easily. As you said, not necessarily anomalus, but even if it is, it doesn't mean anything else you have is anomalus - it is quite reasonable if you look it from the perspective of the terrorist, as you should.
Tony Gauci has been described as "an apple short of a picnic". Maybe he has a particularly quirky memory for specific purchasers (or rather purchases, he seems to get a lot hazier when it comes to the actual purchaser) that's reliable even after a nine-month gap, but nobody ever really investigated that.
Have you examined the evidence? The possibility that Gauci's identification (as relied on by the Official Version) is correct is actually quite remote. It would seem that the obvious question is, "in that case, who
was the mystery shopper?"
I came at this from the position of saying, well, Toni Gauci saw the man who bought those clothes, and whoever that was he was certainly part of the gang. That itself still leaves the huge question of "who was it" absolutely wide open.
However, the more I look at it, the more I wonder if in fact that purchase did actually take place in the way we are led to believe, and if indeed Tony ever saw one of the terrorists at all. It may be that he did, and his account is more or less accurate. Or not, as the case may be. However, the answer is likely to be found in close examination of the evidence, not in starting from the assumption that any Official Version (no matter how implausible or how thin the evidence for it is) must be seen
a priori as having maximum probability.
Rolfe.
