US authorities framed al-Megrahi for the destruction of Pan Am 103

[Rolfe]

OK, can we try this one again? Post 45, the one about the timer fragment, and was it planted. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=6186356

I'm suggesting that US and UK investigators (specifically "Orkin", Thurman, Feraday and Hayes) fabricated this tiny scrap of evidence, which consisted of the only corner of an MST-13 timer which could be identified (as it had a distinctive "fingerpad" printed circuit on it), and planted it among the Lockerbie debris. They did this to turn the direction of the investigation away from the PFLP-GC and Iran, and towards Libya.

One thing is certain, we will not be able to find out for sure. However, I've laid out the facts. Does anyone want to advance the view that it isn't/can't be a plant?

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

CL, where did you get that ridiculous picture? Have you any idea what the landscape round Lockerbie looks like? It's the Southern Uplands of Scotland, dammit, not the bloody Alps!

I made that goofy image, and I'm saddened you don't get it. How does everyone know that's the Alps? It's supposed to be generic mountains. Maybe the term"divide" doesn't have the connotation I was thinking of, like the Rockies, dividing two plains from each other. It's saying the plane crash and the truth are way up in these metaphorical mountains, generally unreachable. The people who care about that truth exist some on one side, some on the other, with the truth 'runoff' vastly different on each side. Or maybe it's the rain and the rain shadow. Do you have rain shadows in the UK? Probably not to any meaningful degree. So mountain climbing and massive erosion are the two possible goals I'm going for.

Too much metaphor? Okay, it's just a weird picture to make people wonder.

Yeah, Rodney Stitch commented at my Newsvine article. I don't know if there's anything to his big picture, and just how systemic corruption causes these plane crashes. It's not an insane notion in itself, but too vague and off-seeming to be compelling, and I haven't looked closely. I fear if I did it'd look worse than it does right off.

 

[Rolfe]

I've just taken time out to read a thread asking a 9/11 no-planer what happened to the people on the planes. I've never read such delusional drivel in my entire life, and yet people are responding. If I said Maid of the Seas was a hologram, would I get more debate here? /whine

There was one aspect of the timer saga that I didn't include, because I have serious doubts about it and I would hesitate very much to base any conclusions on it. I'm talking about the assertions that such an item couldn't possibly have survived the explosion in any recognisable form.

These came to a head at the beginning of this year, when BBC Newsnight broadcast a 15-minute film specifically about the timer. The whole thing can be viewed here.

'Flaws' in key Lockerbie evidence
Look, this is not a twoofer YouTube production, this is the BBC's own web site, professional production.

I don't wholly agree with some of their criticisms of the evidence. Tom Thurman identified the fragment by simple visual inspection, however I don't have a problem with that - it really is quite obvious that the fragment and the corner of the intact board are the same. (I don't know why the colour is so wrong in all the photos, as the damn thing never looks green, but I'm not making a big deal about it.)

I'm also a bit confused by the repeated complaints that the fragment wasn't tested for explosives. (Hey, better not - Hayes will say it's been in contact with explosives if it's only been playing cards, yes it's that Hayes we're talking about.) If it was fabricated, then I'm quite sure the people fabricating it were quite capable of ensuring an explosives test came up positive. The excuses for not testing it are pathetic though - one guy says he'd have loved to do it but the funds wouldn't stretch, which is silly, they tested half the bloody aeroplane for explosives, and another said it was too small, which it definitely wasn't. I still think it's a diversion though - what are those who complain about the lack of such a test implying? I have no idea.

The problem is Dr. Wyatt and his tests. I can't find a fault with it. He said he used 300 to 400 g Semtex, which is on the low end of the estimated size of the Lockerbie IED. He packed it in a radio, like the original, and he put that in a bronze Samsonite suitcase with the requisite clothes. He put that suitcase in a luggage container, piled with other cases. He did this twenty times. And he blew them all up.

He doesn't believe it's possible for a 4mm square fragment of the timer circuit board to have survived the explosion. Well, he says, he only did 20 repetitions, not 200, so he hesitates to say it's completely impossible (and Richard Marquise jumps on that and says, look, Wyatt says it wasn't impossible!, just the way the judges treated Wilfrid Borg's similar caveat, without weighting it at all). However, he was surprised by how little remained. "The timer and its circuit board were obliterated." "In all these 20 tests we found absolutely no sign at all."

So far so good, but the implication I'm getting from this is that he also doubts the recovered fragments of the radio itself, which is a whole other kettle of fish. The circuit boards of the radio were also smack up against the Semtex, as can be seen from the trial loading of the radio exhibited at the trial. http://channel.nationalgeographic.c...7x/2872_bombing-over-lockerbie-4_04700300.jpg And yet a tiny fragment of radio circuit board was found by an AAIB inspector, wedged in a data plate on the baggage container, very early in the investigation (less than a month). http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/lockerbie-mebo-timer-fragment.jpg It still had legible identification numbers on it.

I find it very difficult to imagine that the radio circuit board fragment wasn't genuine. Though I concede some people have claimed the position it was wedged in was the wrong side of the container for an explosion to have wedged it there.... So, while I don't dismiss what Dr. Wyatt is saying, and certainly not on the grounds Dick Marquise handwaves it away, I don't want to rely on an assertion that the survival of the fragment is impossible.

It seems a shame to go to al that trouble, and then not to tell us more about what was found - how damaged were the clothes, were pieces of radio case and so on blasted into the cloth? But that's a 15-minute TV slot for you.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I made that goofy image, and I'm saddened you don't get it.

I'm sorry, I have much too literal a mind. Chalk it down to my lack of imagination and general absence of soul.

How does everyone know that's the Alps? It's supposed to be generic mountains. Maybe the term"divide" doesn't have the connotation I was thinking of, like the Rockies, dividing two plains from each other. It's saying the plane crash and the truth are way up in these metaphorical mountains, generally unreachable. The people who care about that truth exist some on one side, some on the other, with the truth 'runoff' vastly different on each side. Or maybe it's the rain and the rain shadow. Do you have rain shadows in the UK? Probably not to any meaningful degree. So mountain climbing and massive erosion are the two possible goals I'm going for.

Too much metaphor? Okay, it's just a weird picture to make people wonder.

Too rarified for prosaic little me, sorry. Maybe others will appreciate it.

Yeah, Rodney Stitch commented at my Newsvine article. I don't know if there's anything to his big picture, and just how systemic corruption causes these plane crashes. It's not an insane notion in itself, but too vague and off-seeming to be compelling, and I haven't looked closely. I fear if I did it'd look worse than it does right off.

He's a raving nutter. It's extremely obvious from his web site. Even if he's right about some of it, it's virtually in the "stopped clock right twice a day" department.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I'm sorry, I have much too literal a mind. Chalk it down to my lack of imagination and general absence of soul.

Lol. Yeah, I was like... but it's cool. It's not the most clever thing ever, but it works - maybe an explanation would help.

My, another long post. Sometimes I wonder if people wonder if you're okay, going off like this (length-wise, not tone-wise). I think you're okay myself, just exuberant and verbose and possibly retired.

There was one aspect of the timer saga that I didn't include, because I have serious doubts about it and I would hesitate very much to base any conclusions on it. I'm talking about the assertions that such an item couldn't possibly have survived the explosion in any recognisable form.

These came to a head at the beginning of this year, when BBC Newsnight broadcast a 15-minute film specifically about the timer. The whole thing can be viewed here.

'Flaws' in key Lockerbie evidence
Look, this is not a twoofer YouTube production, this is the BBC's own web site, professional production.

I'm still so happy they ran this. I'd also still like to know more about how and why Dr. Wyatt wound up doing these tests. And I'd like to see the results in more detail, but I don't think that'll happen. I did e-mail him once to ask, but never heard back.

Started a longer answer, but I must prioritize. Peace.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm not retired, I just type while I'm watching TV in the evening. (I'm on my coffee break now.) If that post was split up as shorter responses to other people, it wouldn't look like anything. The trouble is, not getting any response to my conspiracy theorising, I work it out for myself, then post the results as a single block. And I type quite fast.

I think the fragment was planted for three reasons.

• The 38-minute explosion. Any terrorist who actually had an MST-13 timer would have used it to cause the explosion 5 or 6 hours later than that, to allow for the possibility of the plane missing its slot and still being on the tarmac at 7 o'clock, and indeed to ensure an emergency landing at Prestwick was out of the question.
• The anomalies in the paperwork, especially the apparently interpolated page in Hayes's notes.
• The fact that this SODDING GREAT FREAKING CLUE was completely ignored for four months, at a time when finding and identifying pieces of circuit board was probably the #1 priority for the investigation.

The high probability that the fragment couldn't have survived that explosion is another factor of course.

The anomalies in respect of the label and the Scottish police may be relatively innocent. Some evidence bags weren't properly recorded as to who found them and so on, due to adverse weather. A tidying-up exercise whereby an important bag was retrospectively signed for may be entirely wrong and reprehensible, but it doesn't have to have been anything more than that. (The apparent alteration from "cloth" to "debris" is odd, because that's exactly what I believe happened, that a piece of cloth had debris planted in it. However, there seems no compelling reason to change the label - unless someone was just being too clever by half.)

Feraday's 15th September note is a little odd, because he speaks of a polaroid photo being the best he can do in such a short time, when he's supposed to have had the item for four months. However, the note seems to be a follow-up to a personal conversation, and we know that Feraday had been at Lockerbie a day or so previously, probably speaking to Williamson. He was there searching for any further pieces of Toshiba electronics he could find. It's an odd way to introduce this item, but it looks as if he said, there's another odd bit of circuit board back at RARDE, would you take a look at that.

I think the item really existed in September 1989, partly because if it didn't we'd have to assume Williamson was in on this plot (because surely he'd have said, but I wasn't sent these photos till later, otherwise), which is unnecessarily complicated, and because Hayes got the (polite) boot from RARDE about that time, after being heavily criticised by the May enquiry into the wrongful convictions of alleged IRA bombers he was mixed up in.

Another point I mentioned previously, is Feraday's curiously hands-off attitude to the thing. There is another page of evidence where he has drawn it and added some measurements, but that doesn't seem to have led to anything and it's undated. In effect, RARDE didn't try to trace the thing at all, they just passed the job over to the Scottish police and let them get on with it. This is in marked contrast to the tracing of the radio circuit board, which saw Feraday personally globetrotting after an answer.

Considering that RARDE are supposed to be the explosives experts, and it was surely obvious that this fragment was part of the actual IED as soon as it was realised it wasn't a Toshiba component, why weren't RARDE at the forefront of the search for the manufacturer?

My feeling is that the decision had been taken that once that item was planted in the evidence trail, it would be left to the Scottish police to trace it, to distance the RARDE personnel who had done the planting from the subsequent identification. It was probably believed the Scottish police would eventually call in the Americans to assist, only this took longer than anyone anticipated.

I'd just love for someone to debunk this. Certainly, if it were to be shown that the red-circle photo was a 35mm and not a polaroid, and that its negative was sitting snugly in a file with an unbreakable provenance of 12th May 1989 (that is not cut up from the film and with other items photographed the same day on the roll, properly dated and so on), the whole theory bites the dust. But right now I'd be actively astonished if that turned out to be the case.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

And then again, this whole business about using loose-leaf notes rather than a proper bound lab book. These books make it extremely difficult to remove or interpolate pages without detection. There was something said at the actual trial about this - Hayes said they used to use proper lab notebooks, but the practice had changed at some time. It looks very much as if the evidence the Maguire Seven and the Birmingham Six were stitched up came from looking at complete RARDE lab books, and realising that only the bits of the evidence that supported a conviction had been revealed, while the bits that didn't had been concealed.

So they changed to using loose-leaf note-taking. Well, well. That would make it a lot easier to pull something similar and not get caught, I imagine. So long as you don't do something stupid like re-numbering the pages, that is.

In the days before digital photography, the provenance of a photograph was from its negative, and its numbering and position within a film. If you use a Polaroid camera, that goes out of the window. When you put the probable use of a Polaroid camera together with the single-sheet note-taking, it does raise a distinct suspicion of a set-up designed to allow manipulation if someone were so inclined. And we know from the IRA conviction scandals that RARDE (and Hayes specifically) were indeed so inclined.

Does anyone think that timer fragment might be on the level?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Sigh. I forgot a bit. The assertion that that photo is a polaroid comes originally from Edwin Bollier, and he confirmed it when I asked him. He said, professional-quality Polaroid camera, part of the RARDE equipment. Now Edwin is one of the least reliable people in this entire story. He makes stuff up apparently at random, especially in relation to the timer fragment. However he has seen the actual photograph, or a copy of it, not just a jpeg. He was shown it by the Scottish police.

He has always maintained the picture is a polaroid, long before it dawned on anyone that this was important in establishing the provenance of the timer fragment. I thought initially that he must be mistaken, but he says not.

Then when we realise that every copy in existence has that red circle on it, consistent with someone (Feraday?) having circled the timer fragment on the original polaroid print (when he sent it to Williamson on 15th September?), and there being no negative to make a fresh unmarked print, it seems likely to be true.

So that's it. The case for the timer fragment being a plant. If nobody is interested in trying to debunk it, I may proceed to the next piece of probably fabricated evidence.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Sigh. I forgot a bit. The assertion that that photo is a polaroid comes originally from Edwin Bollier, and he confirmed it when I asked him. He said, professional-quality Polaroid camera, part of the RARDE equipment. Now Edwin is one of the least reliable people in this entire story. He makes stuff up apparently at random, especially in relation to the timer fragment. However he has seen the actual photograph, or a copy of it, not just a jpeg. He was shown it by the Scottish police.

He has always maintained the picture is a polaroid, long before it dawned on anyone that this was important in establishing the provenance of the timer fragment. I thought initially that he must be mistaken, but he says not.

Then when we realise that every copy in existence has that red circle on it, consistent with someone (Feraday?) having circled the timer fragment on the original polaroid print (when he sent it to Williamson on 15th September?), and there being no negative to make a fresh unmarked print, it seems likely to be true.

So that's it. The case for the timer fragment being a plant. If nobody is interested in trying to debunk it, I may proceed to the next piece of probably fabricated evidence.

Rolfe.

Nope. There is at least one other version/print of the photograph that has the paper lump and not the timer chunk circled in red. Read about it in the transcripts, somewhere. That would suggest prints off a negative, right?

But as you know I don't think in the slightest that this thing is genuine. There's no 100% argument against it, but about five points that are at least 50/50, so I consider it a safe bet.

Another point on Dr.Wyatt's tests, in favor - Bollier rejects the findings.
comments

You recall is correctly, I specifically reject that claim from Wyatt
All circuit board from radiorecorder and timers etc. do survive in large 1cm and more largely chunks after 450 or more grams of Semtex-H 1.5 inches away.

sorry, the next column in german language:

Wir, Me--Bo, haben das original MST-13 Timerfragment von Swiss Police (Anfang 1990) erstmals auf einer FBI- Polaroid-Foto gesehen, bevor es in zwei Teile getrennt wurde. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt haben ...

 

[Rolfe]

Nope. There is at least one other version/print of the photograph that has the paper lump and not the timer chunk circled in red. Read about it in the transcripts, somewhere. That would suggest prints off a negative, right?

I thought that was a photoshop, where the original red circle had been erased, and a new one drawn? I could be remembering wrongly though; do you know where is a copy of that version?

But as you know I don't think in the slightest that this thing is genuine. There's no 100% argument against it, but about five points that are at least 50/50, so I consider it a safe bet.

How would you make the fragment a fake if that photo is a 35mm, then? Do you seriously think Hayes and/or Feraday would risk having negatives with a provenance four months later than advertised? Alternatively, if Hayes really did take that photograph on 12th May, then the apparently interpolated page, which is a major plank of the "plant" theory, means nothing.

Another point on Dr.Wyatt's tests, in favor - Bollier rejects the findings.
comments

Rolfe.

 

[Chaos]

I've just taken time out to read a thread asking a 9/11 no-planer what happened to the people on the planes. I've never read such delusional drivel in my entire life, and yet people are responding. If I said Maid of the Seas was a hologram, would I get more debate here? /whine

I think the (relative) lack of response simply means people who are reading your posts aren´t finding any of those glaringly obvious logical flaws in your argument that are so much fun to tear into.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I think the (relative) lack of response simply means people who are reading your posts aren´t finding any of those glaringly obvious logical flaws in your argument that are so much fun to tear into.

That's another side of it for sure. Debunking is kind of a game, and it's not always uniformly fun to play.

Rolfe: I don't have the time to dig that up ATM. Other than the photoshop possibility you mention, which sounds weird to me, I could add
1) they might possibly have had the fragments in the photo back in May (I forget how thoroughly that's been ruled out)
2) they might have destroyed the original film or otherwise eliminated the clues of a later photo shoot
3) It might still be polaroid - they might have just stood there and took two or five snaps and then did different circles on each

I don't know what to make of it for sure. Bollier saying Polaroid obviously does nothing for me.

 

[Rolfe]

I think the (relative) lack of response simply means people who are reading your posts aren´t finding any of those glaringly obvious logical flaws in your argument that are so much fun to tear into.

Dunno. Is anybody reading? The thread isn't getting many views either. A.A.Alfie says nobody cares.

I think the case that al-Megrahi was framed in a plain vanilla manner because he was a plausible suspect in the wrong place at the wrong time is unanswerable, frankly. And that the subsequent conviction was politically-motivated, and the present cover-up may be interpreted merely as a cover-up of a deeply embarrassing miscarriage of justice.

I therefore find it incomprehensible that "nobody cares" about this, in the light of the constant headlines going on right now, monstering an innocent man because he was granted the privilege of going home to die of cancer.

However, this is going somewhere. The legend of Lockerbie includes a tuppence coloured conspiracy theory, whereby the US authorities sought from the beginning to avoid bringing the probable real culprits to justice, and to lay the blame on Libya instead. Only two years later did this crystallise out into blaming a particular Libyan.

The usual reason given for this (the Gulf War) doesn't wash. Did it happen at all, or has the plain vanilla conspiracy merely been over-interpreted? Was the main intent to blame Libya - or rather, to avoid investigating the real culprits, and Libya was just a handy diversion?

Was the CIA actually culpable in some way for the Lockerbie disaster, a way which would become public if the true culprits were brought to book, and which would be far too embarrassing ever to allow to be discovered? Is this why evidence pointing to Libya in general was planted in the early months of the enquiry, evidence which (perhaps fortuitously) eventually led to the fingering and conviction of an innocent Libyan for the crime?

I actually don't know. But I don't discount it on principle. So let's see whether anyone is interested if and when the progression of the thread gets that far.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

That's another side of it for sure. Debunking is kind of a game, and it's not always uniformly fun to play.

Yeah, but sometimes it's hugely fun! [Rolfe fondly remembers Malcolm Kirkman....]

But, not all conspiracy theories are nonsense. Isn't anybody interested in one that might not be?

Rolfe: I don't have the time to dig that up ATM. Other than the photoshop possibility you mention, which sounds weird to me, I could add
1) they might possibly have had the fragments in the photo back in May (I forget how thoroughly that's been ruled out)
2) they might have destroyed the original film or otherwise eliminated the clues of a later photo shoot
3) It might still be polaroid - they might have just stood there and took two or five snaps and then did different circles on each.

I think the problem with the May date for the photo is that it makes much of the rest of the theory a bit moot. The extra page that seems to indicate rerospective insertion becomes meaningless. The four months of ignoring this FREAKING ENORMOUS CLUE starts to look more like incompetence of a truly monumental extent.

Yes, one can always "lose" a batch of negatives. We don't know if the relevant batch has been "lost", of course. Or whether that would be too big a risk to take.

The third would be my preferred theory, if we were still proposing it was a polaroid. If the camera was on a tripod, you could take several copies of each shot and they'd look the same, I think. If I was deliberately pulling this trick, that's what I'd do.

I don't know what to make of it for sure. Bollier saying Polaroid obviously does nothing for me.

Well, quite. However, he has been saying that long before anyone figured out it was important. I don't know how to tell a professional-quality polaroid print from a 35mm though.

Rolfe.

 

[theprestige]

Dunno. Is anybody reading? The thread isn't getting many views either. A.A.Alfie says nobody cares.

I think the case that al-Megrahi was framed in a plain vanilla manner because he was a plausible suspect in the wrong place at the wrong time is unanswerable, frankly.

I apologize in advance for being an inadequate foil for your insightful analysis.

I would, however, like to point out that Woodward and Bernstein brought down a presidency by presenting not just an "unanswerable" conspiracy theory, but an unanswerable conspiracy fact.

It seems to me that, whatever my own shortcomings as an Internet slapfighter, if you're judging the success of your analysis by the "unanswerableness" of stuff you've posted on Internet forums, you're setting your standards of success far, far lower than the tenor of your posts appears to demand.

If you truly believe that Megrahi was framed for a heinous crime, while the real perpetrators got away, and you truly believe that this is Very Important, why are you still posting here?

Congratulations: You won an Internet slap-fight on JREF: Is that the most you have to offer to the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing? Or is that just the most you care to offer?

 

[Rolfe]

That's an interesting piece of double-think. Why do you think I shouldn't be posting here? Why do you think you can hand-wave away the facts just because I haven't done something you think I ought to have done?

My purpose in raising the matter was to demonstrate to posters on the JREF forum, especially the American ones, that al-Megrahi was framed. This is common knowledge in Scotland, and has been for years, even if many people couldn't explain the minutiae of the case. It's important because it's a topical issue that certain people are trying to make political capital out of right at the moment, and their behaviour is spectacularly hypocritical in that they focus only on the (non-existent) link between his release and BP, while ignoring the fact that the US authorities framed the man for the crime in the first place.

There are people a lot higher up the food chain than I am, pressing the case for the conviction to be reviewed. Law professors, UN representatives and so on - and some of the families of the victims. It's amazing how easy it is for those in authority to ignore all that pressure, though. Megrahi was essentially blackmailed into dropping the appeal that would have cleared him, as a quid pro quo for being granted the compassionate release. He thought he only had three months to live, at the time.

So now, even though all the facts are in the public domain, the stock answer is simply "the appeal was withdrawn, the conviction stands, that's the end of the matter." And if you're in government, and you want that to be the end of the matter, then as far as the legal process is concerned, it is.

So, you don't want to accept he was framed, even though you have no rebuttal to any of the evidence that demonstrates he was, and that's your affair. Just don't claim to be a "sceptic", or clear-thinking, or evidence-led, that's all.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Ooh! Woodward and Bernstein! My favorite anti-CT fallacy! If a borderline insane and self-destructive president hasn't been impeached over a universally accepted, mass-media saturated, insider-enabled, AND well-researched real conspiracy, then there's no conspiracy. Right?

If you truly believe that Megrahi was framed for a heinous crime, while the real perpetrators got away, and you truly believe that this is Very Important, why are you still posting here?

Why the "if?" Do you suspect insincerity?

We're at a discussion forum here, aren't we? That's a place to discuss things.

Do you really have any idea just WHAT we should be doing instead of talking? I'm all ears. Or is this just a cop-out for why you can't be bothered to discuss the issues themselves? Because after the concrete details we've examined strongly suggesting from every angle that Megrahi was framed, your seeming suggestion of insincerity pales to vanishing as a counter-argument. You'll need to do much better than that or I'll have to say you lose the slapfight.

 

[Rolfe]

If Professor Robert Black, Professor Hans Kochler, Dr. Jim Swire, Mr. Martin Cadman (the last two being Lockerbie relatives very concerned about this), Megrahi's legal defence team, Miss Christine Grahame MSP and a whole bunch of other influential people haven't succeeded in getting an independent enquiry into this scandal, I don't quite see what a private person can do.

Other than explain in a US forum to US posters, what the facts are.

Sometimes you really can't do anything against an establishment intent on covering its own backside. It's hardly sceptical to infer from that that said establishment is somehow, inexplicably, magically in the right.

If you truly believe that Megrahi was framed for a heinous crime....

Er, haven't you been reading? It's not a question of "if", or personal belief, it's a question of the facts and the evidence. If you've read all the facts and the evidence, and you agree they're compelling, then on what basis would you form a contrary "belief"?

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

If Professor Robert Black, Professor Hans Kochler, Dr. Jim Swire, Mr. Martin Cadman (the last two being Lockerbie relatives very concerned about this), Megrahi's legal defence team, Miss Christine Grahame MSP and a whole bunch of other influential people haven't succeeded in getting an independent enquiry into this scandal, I don't quite see what a private person can do.

Other than explain in a US forum to US posters, what the facts are.

Sometimes you really can't do anything against an establishment intent on covering its own backside. It's hardly sceptical to infer from that that said establishment is somehow, inexplicably, magically in the right.

Brilliantly put. What she said. Theprestige, any rebuttal? Might I suggest something like 'touche' or 'fair enough,' and then, if you feel the issue caredabout by those named above is worthy, maybe help us discuss what can be found out and what can be done.

And might I add to the scpetical victim's families:
Pamela Dix
John Mosey
Matthew Berkley (www.mattberkley.com)

 

[Rolfe]

Yeah, there are other people. The UK victims' families have been screaming for an independent public enquiry since early in 1989. They've been fobbed off at every turn. They're simply outraged that current calls for an enquiry are focussing purely on the non-story of the non-link to BP (and even there, the senators are studiously ignoring the one person who could explain exactly where BP was and wasn't involved in the wider picture, who is Tony Blair). The hypocrisy that it is US senators who are doing that, when it was the US which was the lead player in framing Megrahi in the first place is not lost on anyone.

I'd respect anyone who could explain, rationally, why they believe Megrahi was actually guilty, with reference to the facts and evidence we have. It's never been done. The bomb didn't go on at Luqa airport. Megrahi didn't buy the clothes. The case goes up in smoke, because that's all the evidence there ever was.

Sometimes all you can do is look at the truth, and accept it, and realise that you can't actually do anything about it - certainly nothing to rectify what is widely regarded as an appalling miscarriage of justice.

Sometimes the best you can do is to present the evidence for that truth in a public forum, so that understanding that this was indeed a miscarriage of justice is wider than it was before.

Theprestige seems to be saying, OK you win, but it's just a game, and it's not going to affect my real-life beliefs. That's not how it works. If the evidence points to a conclusion, and that conclusion is unassailable, then changing your real-life beliefs is what it's about.

Accepting that you can't in practice do any more about it doesn't make that evidence go away.

Rolfe.