Did Abdelbaset al-Megrahi blow up Pan Am 103?

[Caustic Logic]

Rolfe, you've done an admirable job of eliciting, following, and considering McHrozni's responses. The thread has been interesting so far for your persistence.

McHrozni, I appreciate your guts stepping back into this. You probably noticed no one much else has bothered to debunk this (too silly or too scary? Ask yourselves), and no one much came and got your back. Something's got their tongues, and there's a lot of cats around here, so I guess that's it. (American saying, "cat's got your tongue?" for "why aren't you saying anything?")

They say we learn from our failures, or rather CAN learn, so here's hoping you've learned a lot the last couple days, McHrozni. Let it serve you well.

GlennB, KevinLowe, Angrysoba, Buncrana, hi. Anything to add?

 

[Rolfe]

Sigh. I admit I was hoping for better.

There are actually a couple of other points that could be marshalled to support Megrahi's guilt - one easy to explain, the other (disallowed by the judges) rather less so. McHrozni completely failed to notice these.

It's not as if people aren't interested in debating whodunnits. The Amanda Knox thread is well past 5,000 posts now, and there's quite a battle going on about the JonBenet Ramsey murder too. I've seen equally heated debate about O. J. Simpson and other similar cases in the past.

It's not as if people don't care about Lockerbie. Last August, when Megrahi was released, the Politics and Social Issues forum areas were pretty much incandescent, with threads springing up all over the place. On about the 20th of most months now, someone starts a thread bitterly complaining that he isn't dead yet.

It's not as if people don't engage with complex international terrorist plots involving crashing aircraft. Just look at the 9/11 section. Lockerbie can even give you evil CIA LIHOP and even MIHOP if you're that way inclined. There's no shortage of genuine CTs to spice the whole thing up. If we could only get Charles and Patrick here to expound their theories!

It's not as if there isn't enough material. Everything from the AAIB report on the crash to the transcripts of the Camp Zeist trial, never mind jpegs of most of the important evidence, a good dozen professional investigative documentary films with interviews of most of the main witnesses, and more books than you can shake a stick at.

It's not as if everybody agrees what happened. We've had a couple of other people in this thread saying they believe Megrahi did it, though they didn't stick around to explain why. If you go into the protest threads in Politics or Social Issues, a lot of people will insist he's guilty. In fact, suggesting he isn't, in that context, just provokes a dismissive instruction to "take it to Conspiracy Theories".

I know I sould like a broken record, but I honestly don't understand why almost nobody is prepared to debate their belief that Megrahi is guilty. Kudos to McHronzi for giving it a shot, though I have to say I can't remember when I previously saw anyone cling so tenaciously to their original premise after having quite so many of their presuppositions whisked away.

Surely there's some sort of rational interpretation to be put on the evidence that will stand up to scrutiny? You'd think there might be a small cadre of people prepared to debate that, but it seems not.

Rolfe.

 

[McHrozni]

No, I'm merely asking for a reasoned explanation, based on the evidence available, why you or anyone else holds the belief that he's guilty.

I gave you that explanation. It's not airtight, and there is grounds for disagreement.

You haven't even attempted to maintain that he put the suitcase with the bomb on KM180, and you've consistently agreed that Gauci's evidence is weak, confused and unreliable. You haven't dealt with the fact that the least confused part of Gauci's evidence is the part where the clothes purchase happened on a day when Megrahi was nowhere near his shop.

Look, for the umpteenth time, Gaucis' testimony was incorrect in one way or another. I just think that he was able to get a good look at his customer and was mistaken about the christmas lights. The rain may have been a minor squall only, not even enough to even fully wet the ground, but enough for a business man to make an extra sale. It's his livelyhood, after all.

But again, if I only believed what could be proven to a satisfaction of a court I wouldn't believe many other things as well.

Oh, I don't have any trouble at all believing O. J. Simpson was guilty, even though he was acquitted. I've read a number of very rational, sensible explanations of why people believe this, based on the evidence available. I'm still waiting for anyone to attempt a similar explanation as regards Megrahi.

Yeah, and I don't really doubt the jury felt any different, but they still found him not guilty.

The little problem with your little tale above is that there's no equivalent of your illegal surveillance camera footage in the case under discussion. Your analogy therefore makes no more sense than your "two men in a spaceship" one.

Except that I was using the analogy to show you the principle. If the evidence is in question or inadmissible, the person is to be found not guilty by the court, even though the guilt isn't in any reasonable doubt.
It's how our legal system works. It's far from perfect, but it's the best we have.

Not at all. That is a matter of faith - you've chosen to believe in something for which there is at present no evidence.

No solid evidence, there are some leads as to how and where it could be possible. It could easily be argued the evidence implicating Megrahi is actually stronger than this, but the cases are too dissimilar to make a direct connection. You just disagree with the latter version for some reason.

McHrozni

 

[Rolfe]

I gave you that explanation. It's not airtight, and there is grounds for disagreement.

Look, for the umpteenth time, Gaucis' testimony was incorrect in one way or another. I just think that he was able to get a good look at his customer and was mistaken about the christmas lights. The rain may have been a minor squall only, not even enough to even fully wet the ground, but enough for a business man to make an extra sale. It's his livelyhood, after all.

Sigh. You just think. Have you read any of Gauci's testimony? Have you read the forensic psychologists' reports on it? Are you at all familiar with what story he told in each of his 20 or so statements (not to mention the four or so that the police just "lost"), which photographs were shown to him at each photo-identity parade, and which ones he picked out?

Sigh. Thought not.

The whole of the testimony is doubtful, of course. However, could you please explain what about it leads you to the conclusion that "he was able to get a good look at his customer" (and, more importantly, he was able to remember him)?

His initial description was of someone 15 to 20 years older than Megrahi, about 6 inches taller, and much more heavily built. He never actually said the man was Megrahi at all - only that he "resembled" him. He said at one point that a photo of Abu Talb was even more like the purchaser than Megrahi was.

Remember that this purchase occurred in November 1988. He was a shopkeeper, serving customers every day of his life. This wasn't someone who came to his shop regularly, this was someone he saw only once. He wasn't even asked about this customer until September 1989. He wasn't shown the picture of Megrahi until February 1991, and then he said that although he resembled the purchaser he was too young. What sort of eidetic memory would he have needed to have a hope of getting this right - especially working from bad photographs rather than seeing the actual man? And remember, Gauci was officially "an apple short of a picnic".

The conduct of the photo-identity spreads was highly improper, and allowed massive opportunity for the policemen conducting them to influence Gauci to pick the desired photo - not necessarily deliberately, but because they knew which was the suspect's picture, they would inevitably send out unconscious clues when he was getting "warmer". The whole thing is a classic exercise in leading/training the witness, and when you realise how much money was being hinted at, it becomes easy to see why Gauci was so eager to please.

One striking thing about the statements is how he retracted certain early, and apparently quite confident assertions, as he gradually realised (from all the media publicity about the case) that his descriptions didn't match the "wanted" man. So "a 42 inch jacket would be too small for this man, his collar size was about 16½-17 inches and his waist about 36 inches" (none of which described Megrahi) turned into "I'm not an expert on height and build". Uh, no, you just sold clothes for a living, Tony.

Have you looked at the role of Paul Gauci, Tony's brother? Paul who was also awarded a million-pound reward, not for helping pinpoint the day of the purchase, but for keeping his brother up to the mark. Paul who was agitating about money and rewards from very early on, and who had a lot of influence over his rather dim sibling. Paul who is also living in luxury in Australia now.

This is all discussed at length in expert witness reports available online. Of course we may all have our own opinions, but forming an opinion without looking at the evidence seems a little rash, don't you think? Why do you have such a need to believe this guy guilty that you'll decide what you think just on the basis of wanting to think that?

Except that I was using the analogy to show you the principle. If the evidence is in question or inadmissible, the person is to be found not guilty by the court, even though the guilt isn't in any reasonable doubt.
It's how our legal system works. It's far from perfect, but it's the best we have.

This is just as silly as your "two-men-in-a-spaceship" analogy. Yes, if there were only two men in a spaceship and one was found murdered, the remaining one must be the murderer (assuming it wasn't actually an accident, and there was no influx of homicidal aliens). That has no relevance to this case, because the "spaceship" is the entire European air traffic network, to which many millions of people had access that day, and the credible suspects are any European, North African or Middle Eastern terrorist group, of which, sadly, there are quite a few.

Now you're saying that if the authorities had access to definite proof of guilt, but that proof was inadmissible in court, then he'd be guilty.



Yes, and if my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle, as Badly Shaved Monkey once said to a homoeopath presenting a similar argument.

I'm sorry, but we have to go with the evidence available to us. That does include evidence which was deemed inadmissible in court, but which is in the public domain, of course. What it doesn't include is "evidence" that you've dreamed up out of thin air.

"They brought the case to court with very flimsy evidence, which the judges bought anyway. So there must have been some killer sooper-sekrit evidence we've not been told about." Now there's a Conspiracy Theory, if you like! (No, they thought Giaka was the killer evidence, it just turned out he was making it all up to keep his CIA retainer coming in.)

No solid evidence, there are some leads as to how and where it could be possible. It could easily be argued the evidence implicating Megrahi is actually stronger than this, but the cases are too dissimilar to make a direct connection. You just disagree with the latter version for some reason.

Forgive me if I've misunderstood you, but are you saying that "for some reason" I disagree with your assumption that there must be some super-secret evidence against Megrahi that we don't know about? Well, Yeah, I do. Funny, that.

You're now saying the evidence implicating Megrahi is stronger than an illegal surveillance camera actually catching him in the act? Or have I misunderstood you again? If you want to argue the strong evidence, please carry on. However, so far all you've said is that you think Gauci positively identified Megrahi, apparently from a position of zero familiarity with Gauci's recorded testimony. It's not very impressive, you know.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

M, you just don't know when to quit. Hint - it was before that last post. If you'd care to discuss your sudden squall theory, there's a thread where I'll explain why that's wrong as well. Otherwise, just accept that your endless parting "maybes" are just word salad to cover for your fact-free faith.

 

[McHrozni]

Otherwise, just accept that your endless parting "maybes" are just word salad to cover for your fact-free faith.

I wouldn't call it exactly fact-free. Yes I do need to ignore or dismiss parts of evidence in order to fit in in my beliefs, but that goes both ways. That's what is bound to happen when you have no direct evidence. You could say I have to ignore more and that your version is therefore more reasonable, and more likely to be correct. That position would be rather difficult to disagree with.

Gah, here I am arguing the same points.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

Now you're saying that if the authorities had access to definite proof of guilt, but that proof was inadmissible in court, then he'd be guilty.

He would be found not guilty by a sensible court, even though he was actually guilty (not in the legal sense, obviously) of the crime. Didn't you know?

"They brought the case to court with very flimsy evidence, which the judges bought anyway. So there must have been some killer sooper-sekrit evidence we've not been told about." Now there's a Conspiracy Theory, if you like! (No, they thought Giaka was the killer evidence, it just turned out he was making it all up to keep his CIA retainer coming in.)

Scratch the "must have" in favor of "might have", and you have a much better approximation. What, do you think all evidence always makes to the court or something?

You're now saying the evidence implicating Megrahi is stronger than an illegal surveillance camera actually catching him in the act? Or have I misunderstood you again?

Yes, you have.

McHrozni

 

[Caustic Logic]

I wouldn't call it exactly fact-free. Yes I do need to ignore or dismiss parts of evidence in order to fit in in my beliefs, but that goes both ways. That's what is bound to happen when you have no direct evidence. You could say I have to ignore more and that your version is therefore more reasonable, and more likely to be correct. That position would be rather difficult to disagree with.

Gah, here I am arguing the same points.

McHrozni

I think you're all right, and not totally fact-free. Definitely too abstract in your approach. Rolfe and I and some others, as you can see, have gotten quite concrete. You are trying to chop down a tree with a herring in comparison. Or to admit you cant, but you could, abstractly, if you were in a space station in a snowstorm, or something. You know what to do - it starts with a deep breath...

 

[Buncrana]

I suppose if I do have anything to add (in direct response to Mr Logic (hi)) it's in the same vein as Rolfe mentioned above. It's only my incredulity with which people blithely assume that 'we got the right man for blowing up a jumbo jet and killing 270 people, because our investigators and court said so'. Even if the evidence isn't correct or wasn't actually revealed! In our democratic and just society these issues of course should therefore not called into question.

Only I find myself further confounded that when presented with the most tenuous and circumstantial set of circumstances and evidence claiming to prove guilt of someone instrumental in the horrific mass murder of 270 people, that on closer inspection this slender and incidental evidence itself is littered with inconsistencies and contradictions.

The importance of the investigation, trial and conviction of Megrahi is seemingly inconsequential to those who either ignore these blatant failures of our law and justice system or who on simply on other preconceived notions will continue to condemn the accused and convicted regardless.

 

[Rolfe]

I wouldn't call it exactly fact-free. Yes I do need to ignore or dismiss parts of evidence in order to fit in in my beliefs, but that goes both ways. That's what is bound to happen when you have no direct evidence. You could say I have to ignore more and that your version is therefore more reasonable, and more likely to be correct. That position would be rather difficult to disagree with.

Well, I might say that, but I have a different take on it.

My interest is in figuring out what (probably) happened to Pan Am 103. For 20 years I've been reading articles and letters and points of view stating categorically that stuff was covered up, and Megrahi quite obviously didn't do it. And this isn't in Twoofer web sites, but in the respectable daily broadsheet newspaper that comes through my letter-box every morning, and even on the BBC news.

At the time of the trial, I remember a great deal of coverage to the effect that the verdict was perverse, in particular to the impossibility of Megrahi having got the suitcase on to KM180 without an accomplice, and yet the alleged accomplice was definitely shown to have been nowhere near the place at the time.

I had a mild interest in becoming better informed, which was rather stymied by the first book I bought about it being well-nigh incomprehensible. A couple of years ago (when the SCCRC report was published) I came to this forum area to find out more. I thought perhaps the whole thing had been subjected to a comprehensive Gravy-style debunking, which would save me a lot of time and effort. I was (and still am, really) entirely open to the conclusion that the court verdict was correct all along, indeed I thought that's what I might find to be the case.

I was surprised to find absolutely nothing at all about it on the forum, and the thread I started at the time didn't get beyond the first page. However, I discovered why the subject wasn't covered. I'd imagined the twoofers would be making hay with it, for the parallels with 9/11 - talking up the allegations of cover-up and the involvement of the CIA. However, they aren't. When I researched the Twoofer opinion on the matter, I discovered that they think Megrahi really did it. Plane Truth says so, and David Shayler says so quite emphatically. (He actually takes something like your line, McHrozni - he says he has inside knowledge that they framed the right guy. This is David Shayler talking, remember.)

It seems that the twoofers consider the "Megrahi was wrongfully convicted" theory to be mainstream opinion, and so to counter that, they've decided to take the opposite view - as best I can make out, that is. So, they don't come here shouting "Lockerbie was an inside jobby-job!!", so nobody has really addressed the issue. (Someone once made a joke about some twoofer being so delusional he was probably a Lockerbie no-planer, which I thought was quite funny.)

So with the help of a few knowledgeable people here, I gradually looked at the evidence available, bit by bit, and gradually got up to speed on the subject. I'm trying very hard to take account of all the evidence available. It's difficult to know what's relevant and what's coincidental, however it is important not to dismiss anything out of hand.

So I'm really quite interested in examining the view that Megrahi did it, if that is based on logic and evidence. (I know how I'd try to support that argument if I had to, though I fear it does run into the sand after a bit - you haven't touched on the aspect I'm thinking of though.) I'm not impervious to argument or persuasion.

I'd be quite keen to know which parts of the evidence I'm "ignoring" (rather than discounting on reasoned grounds), because I don't want to do that. Unlike you, I don't have a "belief" as such, only an opinion formed after much reading and discussion. So if I'm ignoring relevant facts, I want to know which these are.

I do need to ignore or dismiss parts of evidence in order to fit in in my beliefs, [....]

It's tempting to say, thank you for admitting you have a pre-determined belief, and that you're prepared to ignore evidence in order to go on holding it. That would be a bit petty, but I do think a slightly more open mind might be of benefit here.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

He would be found not guilty by a sensible court, even though he was actually guilty (not in the legal sense, obviously) of the crime. Didn't you know?

Scratch the "must have" in favor of "might have", and you have a much better approximation. What, do you think all evidence always makes to the court or something?

You're not actually David Shayler, are you? In fact, it's a bit more sensible coming from him, because he at least had some inside access to the security services. You, on the other hand, have had to be led by the hand through even the evidence in the public domain (well, some of it ), so I seriously doubt that you have any knowledge about secret evidence the authorities couldn't bring to court.

Your problem is that you have no foundation for your assumption that secret evidence exists. We know the nature of the "killer evidence" that led to the authorities believing they had a good case to bring to court. It was called Abdul Majid Giaka. It's not secret at all. The CIA hoped Giaka could give them a lead to Lockerbie, so they pressed him on it, with threats of cutting off his funds if he couldn't give them anything. Giaka, concerned about keeping his income going (and keen for the relocation to the USA with a new identity, which he was promised and was actually given), simply made up a story about a couple of people he thought were connected to the Libyan security services.

The real mystery is why, after the revelation that Giaka made it all up to keep the CIA payments coming, the judges still convicted. I think it's fairly straightforward myself. I don't think they could face the embarrassment of the whole circus ending up without a conviction - whether they realised it or not.

Nowhere in that series of events is there any need for an assumption of further, secret, inadmissible evidence. The only need for that is if you have a desire to keep on believing that Megrahi was guilty. Which I have to say, I don't understand.

Rolfe.

 

[McHrozni]

I'd be quite keen to know which parts of the evidence I'm "ignoring" (rather than discounting on reasoned grounds), because I don't want to do that. Unlike you, I don't have a "belief" as such, only an opinion formed after much reading and discussion. So if I'm ignoring relevant facts, I want to know which these are.

I could say discounting on reasoned grounds just as well as ignoring. I see no need to state all that again. The evidence implicating PFLP-GC is all highly circumstantial and easily discountable as prrof of their involvement.
Again, that doesn't mean they weren't involved, but there is no proof of it. If they went to a trial with what we have against them right now, it would be most likely dismissed for lack of evidence, or at least resulted in a not guilty verdict.

It's tempting to say, thank you for admitting you have a pre-determined belief, and that you're prepared to ignore evidence in order to go on holding it. That would be a bit petty, but I do think a slightly more open mind might be of benefit here.

You may be right. Just so you know, I have changed my opinion somewhat since coming here, but not enough to think that Megrahi was completely uninvolved and PFLP-GC was the cultprit. I think that the most likely explanation is that he was assisting them in the crime, such as providing them with clothes and the timer, possibly without even knowing what they were using them for.

McHrozni

 

[Rolfe]

I could say discounting on reasoned grounds just as well as ignoring. I see no need to state all that again. The evidence implicating PFLP-GC is all highly circumstantial and easily discountable as prrof of their involvement.
Again, that doesn't mean they weren't involved, but there is no proof of it. If they went to a trial with what we have against them right now, it would be most likely dismissed for lack of evidence, or at least resulted in a not guilty verdict.

And what does that have to do with the price of fish?

You're very keen to point out that even if Megrahi had been found not guilty (which he wasn't), he could still have done it. The same applies to Jibril & Co. Just because the evidence might not be enough for a conviction doesn't mean they didn't do it.

But that is so totally not the point. I've explained a dozen times that the arguments that Megrahi didn't do it are in no way dependent on proving that Jibril did it. Jibril was only brought up because you insisted on having another plausible suspect before you would even discuss the very possibility that Megrahi didn't do it.

But hey. Maybe Jibril didn't do it either. Maybe any one of the half-dozen or so other theories is nearer the mark. Maybe we really and truly have no more idea who blew up that plane than we have of who murdered Jill Dando. That doesn't mean we have to cling to our belief that the man who was charged with the crime did it. If the evidence doesn't support his guilt, then you have to accept that so far as you know, he didn't do it. Even if you have no freaking clue who did.

You may be right. Just so you know, I have changed my opinion somewhat since coming here, but not enough to think that Megrahi was completely uninvolved and PFLP-GC was the cultprit. I think that the most likely explanation is that he was assisting them in the crime, such as providing them with clothes and the timer, possibly without even knowing what they were using them for.

But yet again, this point of view seems to be based on faith, not reason. The evidence that he bought the clothes just doesn't stand up to scrutiny any way you slice it. I don't know why you keep asserting that he did. And why the blazes would the PFLP-GC need Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (the Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli, not the sort of person you use as an errand boy) to give them a pile of clothes bought in Malta? Abu Talb, one of that group, already had a house full of new clothes he had acquired in Malta!

Megrahi had dealings with the manufacturer of the timers, but not in connection with the supply of the timers. He was never shown to have laid a finger on one of these timers, at all. Even if the timer was supplied to the PFLP-GC by Libya, there is precisely zero evidence to suggest that Megrahi himself had any involvement in this.

Your assertions of Megrahi's involvement get more tenuous with each post you make. He's gone from being "the only man in the world" who could have done it, who was "at the scene of the crime", to the guy who perhaps passed some clothes and a timing device to someone in the PFLP-GC without knowing what they were for. (Crikey, even I could make a better case against him than that!)

You seem to have a strong need to go on believing that the man who was convicted of the crime was actually involved in some way, even if your suggestions have nothing to do with the actual allegations against him. I don't really understand that. It's a shocking thought, that the wrong person was convicted (and maybe even more shocking for me, because it was my country's legal system that convicted him), but you know what? It happens. And, sadly, it's especially likely to happen where there is strong political and public opinion pressure to solve a particular crime.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

As promised, I'm posting Brian Flynn's list of "things to consider" as regards Megrahi's guilt, for us to chew over.

Why should anyone believe any of his claims today after his lies in 1991? A liar does not a murderer make; however, the following should clarify the facts:

1. Libya had the motivation to carry out the attack due to the US raid on Tripoli in 1986.
2. In September 1989 Libyan agents bombed a French flight over Africa.
3. Libyan officials received 20 sophisticated timers from MEBO. A fragment of one was among debris found at Lockerbie.
4. Libyan officials were trying to get additional timers in December 1988 and only "cancelled" their order when they said they "had what they needed."
5. Megrahi was a member of the Libyan Intelligence Service.
6. Megrahi traveled to Malta on December 7, 1988 and purchased clothing and other items from a shop which ended up at Lockerbie.
7. The Fhimah diary (co-conspirator) documented that he had accomplished the task of obtaining "taggs" from Air Malta in mid December 1988.
8. Fhimah's airside access badge, good until December 31, 1988 was found in a desk which he used after that date indicating he had it in December 1988.
9. Fhimah and Megrahi traveled from Tripoli to Malta together on the evening of December 20, 1988
10. Megrahi traveled with Fhimah on his false Abdusamad passport and stayed in Malta less than 24 hours.
11. Megrahi had a connection to the Swiss company, MEBO, which made the timer.
12. The Libyan leader claimed in February 2001, he would let the world know the truth about Lockerbie in a few days time and that has never happened
13. Libya took responsibilities for the actions of its agents.

Here are my preliminary comments.

He provides the counter to his initial point himself. Lying to a journalist does not prove that the person in question committed a terrorist act.

1. Motive does not prove criminality. Iran had just as good a motive as regards the shooting down of IA655 by the USS Vincennes earlier in 1988. One of these actions went unavenged - which was it? (I might at this point note that Margaret Thatcher, who was in a position to know, stated in her memoirs that the 1986 raid on Tripoli had succeeded in stopping Libyan terrorism and the country had not carried out a significant terrorist attack since then.)
2. And? The relevance of this point completely escapes me. Did anyone suggest Libya was not a terrorist state? Maybe someone should have told Maggie about that one, or perhaps dead Frogs don't count.
3. These 20 timers were supplied in 1986. Later, two were found in Togo and two in Senegal. Libya was well known for acting as "quartermaster to the world's terrorists" at that time. It supplied much of the armaments used by the IRA at that point. There is no particular reason why a fragment of MST-13 timer would even point to a specific Libyan operation. It certainly has no bearing on whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was involved in smuggling a bomb on KM180 on 21st December 1988.
4. And? Maybe they'd sold them all. Maybe they then secured a supply of a sutable alternative product. This has nothing to do with whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was involved in smuggling a bomb on KM180 on 21st December 1988.
5. Agreed. So were a lot of other people. That doesn't in any way implicate him in the events of 21st December 1988.
6. No, he really didn't. The evidence of Tony Gauci describes a purchaser at least 10 years older than Megrahi, significantly taller and of much heavier build. Tony was consistently shown pictures of men younger than his description, and encouraged to pick out someone who resembled the purchaser. He originally picked out Abu Talb on that basis, and although he later also agreed Megrahi resembled the purchaser, he qualified this by saying that Abu Talb was a better resemblance. At the identity parade, by which time he'd learned to pick Megrahi out by looking at press photographs, he said Megrahi was not the man he saw in his shop but he looked like him. As regards the day of the purchase, 7th December was a poor match for Tony's recollection. His initial recollection was that the Christmas lights were not yet lit and it was raining slightly. The Christmas lights were lit on 6th December and there was no rain recorded at the airport that evening, only three miles away. Perusal of Tony's evidence shows him backtracking on a number of points he was quite sure about initially, for example the Christmas lights, and the age and height of the purchaser. This becomes easier to explain when it is revealed that both Tony and his brother were anxious to receive a reward for getting the identification right, and knew that life-changing sums of money were available. After the trial, Tony was paid "in excess of $2 million" and Paul "in excess of $1 million" - the latter not for giving evidence, because he didn't, but for "maintaining the resolve of his brother". It's clear that Paul was coaching Tony on the identification.
7. Fhimah turned over his diary voluntarily to investigators two years after the disaster. The point about the "taggs" entry was fully explored at the trial and discounted by the judges. There was evidence to support his explanation that he wanted samples to show to a printer.
8. There was no evidence at all to place Fhimah at Luqa airport on the morning of 21st December. So his possession of an airside pass is irrelevant. Several witnesses (e.g. the Air Malta check-in girl) knew Fhimah well by sight. None had seen him that morning.
9. Lots of people travelled to Malta from lots of places on 20th December. Are you going to accuse them all of being the bomber?
10. Megrahi had used the Abdusamad passport in the past, and it was never shown he had used it for any illegal activities. Its use on 20th/21st December suggests he was engaged in something undercover at that time. This may well explain why he never stated the purpose of his journey. It might be circumstantial evidence of involvement if the bomb started its journey in Malta. Which, as they say, is required to be proved.
11. No doubt many people had a connection to MEBO. Megrahi was never shown to have had any connection with bomb-making or terrorist activities, nor to have been in possession of any of these timers.
12. Huh? Gadaffi said something dramatic he never followed up on? Sorry, can you get any more tenuous?
13. Libya wrote that letter as a political move to bring to an end the sanctions imposed on the country following the suspicions regarding Lockerbie. They were "playing with words" (Saif al-Islam). It's easy to take responsibility for the actions of your agents if you tacitly reserve the right to deny that your agents actually performed the actions in question.

And that seems to be it. Almost all the points tangentially relevant, if at all. No attempt to show the bomb was ever within a thousand miles of Luqa airport. No attempt to support the statement that the clothes were bought by Megrahi on 7th December, which is a point so seriously undermined it disappeared beneath the waves some time ago.

No attempt, either, to explain why any terrorist would plan and execute a plot of such mind-numbing stupidity, which could only have succeeded by the merest fluke, and where the incredibly successful part (the fact that no trace of the bomb or its introduction into the airline system was ever found on Malta) was completely negated first by carrying out an extremely conspicuous purchase of brand new, locally-manufactured, traceable clothes only three miles from the airport where this impenetrable plan was to be carried through, and second, by the same person who bought the clothes also showing up at the airport at the crucial moment, for no readily apparent reason.

I was hoping Bunntamas might come and defend some of these points, so maybe bumping this thread with them will encourage him.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I was hoping Bunntamas might come and defend some of these points, so maybe bumping this thread with them will encourage him.

I'd like that too, but I'm afraid anything I could say will scare him off. For example, I want to go back to those points above and Flynn's intro. I can't get it to come backup now, but something like letting the facts speak for themselves. So far, they're kind of mumbling.

 

[Rolfe]

One thing I’m beginning to pick up on is that Brian Flynn, and possibly Bunntamas and other US family members too, tend to take the alleged "Libyan plot to introduce the bomb at Malta" as read, as the prima facie "way it was done", so that any tenuous scrap of information that might support that (such as general evidence that Libya was a terrorist state) is held to provide support for the theory. As I mentioned in my last post, this plot is anything but obvious or sensible, and I think it’s worth looking in detail what the "Official Version" actually alleges the conspirators did.

First, the bomb or its components had to be smuggled on to the island of Malta. This was a resounding success, with no trace of the exercise ever being discovered. (It seems to me it might have been quite simple to smuggle the ready-assembled suitcase on to the island without detection, but that wasn’t what was actually alleged. It was alleged that Megrahi and Fhimah had personally built the bomb in the LAA offices in Malta. These offices were shared with Air Malta, there were Maltese staff going in and out all the time, and neither Megrahi nor Fhimah was shown to have had any previous experience in handling explosives or building bombs. Megrahi was actually an official who was pretty high up the food chain, not exactly technician level. Either way, no trace of the bomb or the suitcase was ever found on Malta despite extensive investigations.)

Second, the suitcase had to be smuggled on to KM180 on the morning of 21st December. Again this was a resounding success. Not only was this completely undetected, the strength of the baggage record evidence from Malta was sufficient to amount to virtual proof that that hadn’t happened. The identity of the person or persons who actually accomplished this also remained undetected, as Megrahi certainly didn’t do it – he didn’t go airside that morning, all he did was catch his plane to Tripoli.

So far so good. Wildly successful plot, with absolutely no trace of the bomb or the suitcase ever being found on the island of Malta or its airport.

But then what did the conspirators do? Rather than source the clothes in the bomb bag from a charity shop, or a big anonymous department store, or even just any clothes old enough not to be traceable through the manufacturer, they chose to make a very conspicuous special purchase of all (or nearly all) the clothes from a small shop in a way almost calculated to make the shopkeeper remember the transaction. The shop was only three miles from the airport where the astonishingly-concealed introduction of the bomb was being planned, and they chose brand new, locally-manufactured clothes that would be remarkably easy to trace to the island from anywhere in the world.

Next, the same individual who made that conspicuous purchase then showed up at the airport at the time the bomb was being introduced – for no readily apparent reason, as he appeared to take no part in the actual introduction of the device (not going airside at any time). Although he was travelling on an undercover passport, that passport was one he had used before and was traceable to him.

Once again, bear in mind that Megrahi was quite a high-placed official. It seems incongruous that he would personally undertake the purchase of the clothes, especially if there was some aspect of the plot that required him also to show his face at the airport at the crucial time. The clothes purchase completely undermines the spectacular success in concealing all trace of the bomb on Malta, and for the same person to undertake both that aspect and a role in the airport part of the introduction is simply suicidal.

Then what? The suitcase was sent on its unaccompanied way through the airport baggage system of northern Europe, in winter, at the height of the Christmas rush. The route involved three different flights, and two more airports after the initial introduction.

• It could simply have been lost – lost airline luggage is hardly unusual.
• Any of the flights could have been delayed by bad weather, mechanical problems or other operational glitches, and a connection missed.
• Frankfurt airport had a computerised baggage system, and it would have been expected that examination of the full records immediately after the disaster would allow the bomb suitcase to be reliably tracked through the airport and back to the Malta flight, again negating the highly successful covert introduction on Malta and leading investigators right there.
• All luggage coming through Frankfurt airport on to PA103A was x-rayed, by an operator who had recently been alerted specifically to the threat of a bomb disguised as a radio-cassette player concealed in a suitcase (the "Autumn Leaves" investigation), and to the "Helsinki warning" of a proposed attempt to blow up a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt to New York by means of a booby-trapped suitcase. The alleged plotters would have had to assume Kurt Maier would be asleep at the wheel that day.
• On arrival at Heathrow, the suitcase would be put randomly into the baggage container for PA103. By my estimation, only about 30% of the cases in that container were positioned so that an explosion in one of them would blow out the hull of the aircraft. There was about a 70% chance the explosion would have been non-lethal.
• The explosion was triggered by a simple timer, set for 19.00 (well, 19.03) GMT. The plane was only scheduled to take off about 18.10-18.15 GMT. Any of the operational problems mentioned above could have seen it still on the tarmac at 19.03, and again the explosion would have been non-lethal (and these Maltese clothes all right there to be traced immediately). The plane wasn’t due to land at JFK until 01.40 GMT – a flight time of 7 hours 40 minutes. There’s no rational explanation for the timer to have been set so early, when the plane might still have been on the ground, or even if on time, still close enough to a major airport for an emergency landing to be feasible if the positioning of the case was such that the damage was sub-lethal.

You could say, yes it was a stupid plot, an extremely long shot, but it worked. However, international terrorist conspirators don’t pin everything on a string of luck like this. In particular, the assumption that Kurt Maier wouldn’t spot the device on his state-of-the-art x-ray machine is a ridiculous chance to take. (All the “Frankfurt baggage-switch” Lockerbie conspiracy theories rely on active circumvention of the x-ray stage by the conspirators.) Banking on the fortuitous positioning of the suitcase right up against the weakest part of the aircraft hull is another very long shot. And for goodness sake, the timer should have been set for about midnight!

We often say on this site, "extraordinary assertions require extraordinary proof". There’s an element of that here. Maybe the Libyans really did plan and execute such a bizarre plot, and against some pretty heavy odds and by a bit of a fluke, it worked. However, proving this requires a bit more than vague statements to the effect that Gadaffi was a bad man and Megrahi was one of his officials.

What evidence is there, actually, that the Lockerbie bomb did take this circuitous and chancy route? Nothing at all, but that one-line entry (B8849) on Bogomira Erac’s souvenir computer printout, emerging from the black hole of the lost/disappeared/destroyed Frankfurt baggage records, eight months after the disaster.

That’s it. Take out Bogomira’s morbid little souvenir, and all you have is some clothes bought in Malta at least a fortnight earlier, which could have gone anywhere in the world in that time, and Abdelbaset al-Megrahi catching his flight to Tripoli that morning while using a diplomatic "coded" passport, just one of millions of travellers who were going about their business at that time, all over Europe, Asia and north Africa.

Unless someone has some evidence we don't yet know about.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Okay, now I'm becoming more sure that Mr. Bunntamas won't be appearing.

That's too bad, but perhaps preferable to his actually having to keep pretending he's right in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. I really can't imagine what it must be like for these people, to have that indescribable void of pain, the government's solace and help to secure justice tangled with something really smelly, dragging you along through sanctions, a kangaroo court trial, and then a fat wad of millions of dollars along with some fuzzy admission of Libyan responsibility for something mumbled ...

The situation screams for cognitive dissonance. How could it not settle in? All the color and then the gray would bleed from the picture, leaving black and white and they know they have to be white. Nonetheless, the noise in their heads must get just too loud to handle at times.

One thing I’m beginning to pick up on is that Brian Flynn, and possibly Bunntamas and other US family members too, tend to take the alleged "Libyan plot to introduce the bomb at Malta" as read, as the prima facie "way it was done", so that any tenuous scrap of information that might support that (such as general evidence that Libya was a terrorist state) is held to provide support for the theory. As I mentioned in my last post, this plot is anything but obvious or sensible, and I think it’s worth looking in detail what the "Official Version" actually alleges the conspirators did.

Indeed. There's something about Malta that allows one to imagine almost anything happening there. Consider this comment from Bunntamas

Did any of you know that LAA was in charge of baggage / security for ALL of Luqa in '88?

source

LAA is of course Libyan Arab Airlines, for whom both Megrahi and Fhimah (I believe?) had worked, assumed in the investigation to be affiliated with the JSO and a cover for terrorist operations. In charge of security at the only international airport in a neighboring sovereign nation?

What the rest of us have always heard is that a single airline does or did manage security at the airport, but that airline was Air Malta. Did they take a year off in '88 to allow the Libyans to handle "security" there? When he popped in to my blog briefly yesterday, I reminded him that he hadn't explained that yet, and offered my own theory:

I'm guessing you embarrassingly confused air Malta and LAA. It's understandable, given the degree of complicity/subornation implied in Megrahi's plot being allowed to bloom like that unhindered. Your friend Frank Duggan seems to lean this way himself.

By that I was referring to this:

In December I wrote an article sarcastically accusing the Maltese government and Air Malta of complicity in Megrahi’s plot to destroy PA103. I even suggested the UK sever the “axis of malice between Velletta and Triploi” by re-conquering the island. Duggan wasn’t the only commenter to miss the fine-tuned sarcasm, but he was the only one who sided with what he saw, and called it : “a welcome change from the bilge we have to read from the Libya shills.” Said shills, he explained, “have no shame and cannot be embarrassed by the facts.” And he thanked me for my “efforts to publish the truth,” and said “you are like a breath of fresh air.” [4] I felt a little sorry for the poor guy, in fact. It was’t meant to trick anyone, except into reading it. They were supposed to get it by halfway through …

source with link to original quote.

Anyway, Bunntamas hasn't come back yet to tell me if I'm right or if he has some major evidence of a whole new conspiracy theory. I looked up his screen name and found it's an old Gaelic word meaning something like "sense/solidity." I think the silence in this circumstance shows it's an apt screen name.

 

[Rolfe]

Hmmm. He came on Robert Black's blog earlier this morning (maybe that's last night to you guys) and just typed:

Two words: CHEMO THHERAPY.
Enough said.

He then added, "Ooops ... Therapy," but that doesn't make it any clearer. He didn't add anything to the threads where we'd been discussing the actual evidence as far as I can tell.

I can't imagine how it would be to be one of the Lockerbie relatives, so I don't try. There must be something that makes it different from, for example, losing a student son or daughter in a senseless car smash caused by a drunk driver, but it's hard to know what. Different people cope (or fail to cope) in different ways I suppose, and I notice we hear from only a minority of the families. I suppose it's not that uncommon to hear the parents of the drunk driving victim bitterly complaining that the drunk driver hasn't been punished severely enough and so on. Maybe trying to explain that this wasn't actually the guy who'd been driving the car at the time would be too much for them.

So far as I know, Air Malta was in charge of security at Luqa airport at the time. Wilfrid Borg was the head of department, and he was the person who collated all the records and gave the main evidence about it. I didn't leap in with that because it's such a given I don't know where I'd lay my hand on the definitive statement to that effect.

I also find it incredible on first principles that LAA would have been in charge of security. Libya was recognised as a terrorist state at the time, and although they also ran perfectly normal operations, it would be a bit like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. It's also never mentioned at the trial. What is said is that there was a JSO presence at Luqa, but it's also pointed out that there was a JSO presence at quite a number of European airports, including Frankfurt.

One noteworthy point that came up in the evidence was the matter of baggage reconciliation. Air Malta did it all by counting bags, and if the right number of bags were there, that was OK. This wouldn't of course prevent a bag-switch, and the Lockerbie investigation had to do a lot of work after the event to prove that a bag-switch hadn't happened. It was remarked that the only airline flying out of Luqa that carried out actual reconciliation was LAA - passengers on that airline had to physically confirm that the bags were theirs before take-off.

I'm as sure as I possibly can be without the hard evidence in fromt of me that Bunntamas is wrong about this. I'd think better of him if he would admit it. I also think it's pretty shocking that he can claim to have followed the case closely for 20 years, and to have attended the trial at Zeist, and be wrong about something as fundamental as this.

Rolfe.

 

[Bunntamas]

Hello Rolfie, et. al.
Well, I finally managed to get in here. And none too soon. It's getting quite heated over there at Pr. Black's blog, and I've been spending far too much time on stupid comments of late whilst waiting to be approved for JREF when I should have been compiling answers to your points above.
Phew! Good to be here... I hope. You mentioned in comments on Pr. Black's blog that folks don't bite here, at JREF, so I'm hoping you're correct. I'm up for debate, but folks twisting my comments around to a different meaning, I am not. So, if it heads in that direction, I'm outta here. And hopefully my bumbling attempts at humor won't get me booted. I'll try to be as polite as possible, and keep it civil.
Sorry it took me so long. And it may take me a bit longer. Your points are all good ones, so I want to make sure I respond in a learned, experienced manner. I have a ton of documents I've accumulated over the years, and I'm still sifting through them. Plus, I do have a life beyond posting comments on blogs and forums, so that takes time too.
I'll be back, with answers, and hopefully we may discuss all your points above ...nicely.
Cheers,
Bunny

 

[Bunntamas]

One more thing, Rolfe - would you prefer I address first, the many "points" you noted, when you initially bumped this thread to me? Or would you like me to address the Chemo Therapy point first? The latter may come quicker, as the former is obviously a more lengthy discussion and may head down multiple paths of discussion. Just trying to make sure I'm "in line" so to speak, and not make anyone here mad.