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

[Caustic Logic]

Sorry Caustic, you guys are all talking out of your hat. Post some real facts.

No, I'm sorry. Firm pronouncements ofnonsesne like that aside, you evidence no comprehension skills. We've posted many, many, many facts, which you've either ignored or hand-waved away with pointless quibbles. And all you have to back that claim is abstract uninformed confirmation bias on shameless display.

Please continue failing.

On another note, what is that picture in your avatar? Looks like a satellite photo of a giant dragonfly passing over a canal? If it's something obvious, you can make fun of me for that. But it changes not the clear fact that you have no idea what you're talking about on this issue and should just stop as you show no interest in learning.

 

[Buncrana]

Would this be facts of al-Megrahi's guilt? Because, I'm afraid to tell you these are thin on the ground. Despite what you may like to believe was produced in a 'court'. However, facts of US authorities being party to the framing al-Megrahi? These are far more apparent. Facts suggesting that the US authorities were coercing decisions in a Scottish court? These are apparent too. Facts that financial lure and inducement was utilized to manipulate witness statements as oppose to 'rewards' for vital information? This is clearly apparent too. Facts that much, if not all, of this information was hidden, obscured and withheld from the court and defence throughout? Yes, sadly this is only too apparent too.

Rewards for the Gauci brothers were first discussed in September 1989, and on numerous other occasions, although this particular fact was not admitted to by any of the witnesses presented at Zeist, or revealed by the prosecution to the original trial, or even the subsequent first appeal. The FBI and Scottish police, after taking the first initial statements from the Gauci's, noted in official documents uncovered by the SCCRC which were withheld from the original investigation and trial stated,

DCI Bell Diary (HOLMES version) (28/9/1989) [SCCRC Appendix: chapter 23/3] that on 28th September 1989 the FBI discussed with the Scottish Police an offer of unlimited money to Tony Gauci,with $10,000 being available immediately. […]

[…] Extract from DCI Bell Diary (HOLMES & manuscript versions) (21/2/91)
Refers to preparation of a security report re Tony Gauci faxed to LICC. Dictated version states that a typed report dated 21.2.91 is attached to the diary page: this is a reference to the Memo from DCI Bell to DSIO Gilchrist referred to above (which states inter alia that Tony Gauci had expressed an interest in receiving money in recent meetings) […]

[…] (2h) Extract from DCI Bell Diary (HOLMES & manuscript versions) (8/1/92)
“The manuscript version states "Bhiel states DOJ(Department of Justice) will give Magid $2 million dollars. Advised of our concern." The dictated version has the same first sentence but continues "He was immediately advised of our concern regarding this. I also clarified with him about the Gauci reward and the response was only if he gave evidence." (This last comment is also unredacted in more recently disclosed manuscript version)

Yet, throughout, this was the actual position which was to be asserted by the police and crown prosecutors,

“At no time prior to the conclusion of the trial was the subject of a reward/compensation payment discussed. The motivation of both witnesses has never at any stage been financial, as can be seen from their refusal of money from the media. They have received no financial gain from the Scottish Police; as a result, their integrity as witnesses remains intact. This has been the priority from the outset… The very fact that the witness was not motivated by financial gain and as a result his integrity as a crucial witness was maintained reinforces the need to ensure that at this stage his contribution and more importantly the manner of his contribution is recognised.”

http://www.megrahimystory.net/downloads/pp60%20-%20231%20Grounds%20of%20Appeal.pdf?

It is also worth noting that the initial discussions of financial reward were made after Tony's original recollection of the buyer of the clothes and on the particular date on which the purchase occurred. That is, the buyer was over 6ft, over 50 years of age and broad chested, while the sale was determined to be while his brother Paul had been absent from the shop, it was raining and the Christmas lights in Sliema were not up. This was in the nascent stages of the investigation and the PFLP group, and specifically Abu Talb, were the primary focus of the investigation. Tony, had in fact, corroborating this line of enquiry, identified Abu Talb to the investigators, while they were aware of substantial connections between the island of Malta and the PFLP group together with evidence that Talb has visited the island frequently in the months leading upto Dec 1988. Tony's initial recollection appeared to support all the evidence collected by the investigators, namely: Talb was on Malta in late November, and the details of the day of sale as far as Tony could remember was late november. The day his brother was absent from the shop, it had been raining, and the Christmas lights were not up, indicated the sale took place on Wednesday 23 November.

Megrahi was 5' 6", was 34 years of age and was not 'broad chested'. Further to this, he was not on the island on the 23rd of November. However, as the investigation slowly dropped pursuing the PLFP line of enquiry, Megrahi became of increasing interest to the investigators. It was discovered that he was on the island on Wednesday the 7th December, two weeks later than Gauci initial recollection, but perhaps Gauci was mistaken with the build, size and age of the buyer? Perhaps the sale of the clothing so memorable to Tony had actually taken place two weeks after he had initially considered, and it would now be the 7th December. However, another area of Gauci's statement in those early stages would also present a problem for investigators now aiming for Megrahi: it wasn't raining on this Wednesday, Tony's brother Paul was not absent from the shop that day, and the Christmas lights were put up in the town on Tuesday Dec 6th.

However, throughout all this, which occurred over a period of 18 months, and the utterly inconsistent contradictory statements made by Gauci, it was all seemingly dismissed outright by the investigators, who were now content to assert the Megrahi was the purchaser, and the clothes were bought on Wednesday 7th December, so any financial 'compensation' or 'reward' promised or demanded for the Gauci's was justified, honourable and in-keeping with the search for 'justice'.

Yep, simple, hardheaded and tinfoil-free. No brains falling out of too-open minds here. Simple, like a stick figure.

Further, at the original trial at Zeist in 2001, this was stated by the prosecution,

"to the best of the Crown's knowledge neither of the Gauci brothers asked Scottish police officers for a reward or how to claim one".

Aside from the 'facts' that the US authorities had presented a known liar, whom once again the primary motive was financial reimbursement from the US, as the "star" witness at Zeist, while assuring the Scottish prosecutors that this witness would deliver to the court 'overwhelming' testimony utterly convincing of Megrahi (and Fhimah's!) guilt and complicity of arranging the bombing of 103. His testimony was dismissed from the court after the defence had secured previously withheld documents known to the US for years, and to the Crown from the early stages of the trial, which detailed information that the US had viewed their 'star' witness as a fantasist and fabricator who was only concerned with, once again, continued financial awards. On the points of manipulation of the court, prosecution and evidence presented at Zeist,

4. As far as the material aspects of due process and fairness of the trial are concerned, the presence of at least two representatives of a foreign government in the courtroom during the entire period of the trial was highly problematic. The two state prosecutors from the US Department of Justice were seated next to the prosecution team. They were not listed in any of the official information documents about the Court's officers produced by the Scottish Court Service, yet they were seen talking to the prosecutors while the Court was in session, checking notes and passing on documents. For an independent observer watching this from the visitors' gallery, this created the impression of "supervisors" handling vital matters of the prosecution strategy and deciding, in certain cases, which documents (evidence) were to be released in open court or what parts of information contained in a certain document were to be withheld (deleted). […]

It was a consistent pattern during the whole trial that − as an apparent result of political interests and considerations − efforts were undertaken to withhold substantial information from the Court. One of the most obvious cases in point was that of the former Libyan double agent, Abdul Majid Giaka, and the CIA cables related to him. Some of the cables were finally released after much insistence from the part of the defense, some were never made available. The Court was apparently content with this situation, which is hard to understand for an independent observer. It may never be fully known up to which extent relevant information was hidden from the Court.

http://i-p-o.org/lockerbie-report.htm

This is of course, omitting the 'facts' that were then presented showing how Megrahi and Fhimah then came to introduce an unaccompanied bag onto KM180 at Malta loaded with a bomb and tagged for 103 from Heathrow that evening. 'Facts' of which, once again, there were none. Let me reiterate that small point once again. 'Facts' presented that the bomb bag was intoduced at Luqa airport: ziltch, none, zero. Over the course of 11 years of investigating.

So, not only were there no 'facts' that Megrahi had bought the clothes, with or without 'reward' to Gauci, although it did help persuade a skewing of testimony, but there were also no 'facts' presented which could show how Megrahi came to load the bomb on an Air Malta flight.

I really do wonder who exactly are the conspiracy theorists in this case?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Extracts from diaries, court transcripts, appeal documents, police reports, blah blah blah, Buncrana. What's been asked for is FACTS, meaning FACT, being the man was once convicted. All these silly details about HOW are just a mountain being made of a molehill, and show that we don't know what we're talking about. So YOU say there were offers of money this whole time, but if that were so, it would have come out in court. So it must not be so.[/sarcasm]

Excellent post, of course.

... their refusal of money from the media.

Oh my, that's a supporting argument? You know, one great way to get money grubbers like that to turn down the media's middling offers money is to make sure they know (or strongly suspect) that if they play ball, including refusing media money, they'll get much more.

For those who are confused, that's an observation, not any kind of proof.

"to the best of the Crown's knowledge...

So had they been denied access to ringleader Bell's diary? Or were they lying?

I had a supporting thought the other day (again, an observation, not evidence). Originally Tony described a purchaser 6" or more, 50ish, and visiting on November 23.

This last we know from analyzing the description of the day - Wednesday, Paul at home watching football at 6:50pm, Christmas decorations not yet up, raining lightly but enough to warrant an umbrella. (note: these are accepted facts, not opinions). He and Paul had both suggested early on this was November 23, and the police agreed.It was fitting with then-suspect Abu Talb.

But as the investigation shifted, so did Tony's details. I'm not sure how much he appended his original description of the buyer or the day prior to the trial. The main thing was pointing to Megrahi's photo in February 1991 (26 months after the alleged purchase), which was all but rigged with neon arrows pointing at it.

At trial in 2000, his memories became strangely vague.The rainfall was very minimal, barely existent, intermittent, something.He seems unclear. The man was under six feet, which is what he originally meant by "six feet or more." He was somewhere under 60, which is what he originally meant by 50. He claims ignorance of height and age, when he sells clothes for a living. The Christmas lights, he's not sure - maybe up, maybe not, or in the process of going up.

All this fudging happened to bring things closer to Megrahi on December 7. Is that a coincidence? Or a better memory emerging 12 years after that improved his original statement from 9 months after? Or a sign that someone told him what his buyer had to look like and what the day had to be like? Or did he learn it was Megrahi,and do his own research on when he was on the island and what that day's weather was like?

This is indirect evidence that someone was shaping the evidence.

Now this doesn't necessarily reflect back on the reward, but it probably does. The reward, I think everyone agrees, is contingent on helping bring in a conviction. By February 1991 at the latest investigators were pursuing Megrahi and Libya. All it would take from there is Gauci figuring out that IF there's ever to be a conviction, and thus a reward, it will be of Megrahi.

So when he sits in court under oath and helps make his original testimony sort of fit to help convict the man, can we confident he was speaking the new and better truth as opposed to trying to get $2 million?

Can anyone here provide a reason for such confidence?

 

[Rolfe]

I think Tony was pretty conflicted. Paul was the one who was keen on the money, once he realised it was a possibility. Paul was the one who was coaching Tony to make the right identification. Giving him magazine pictures of Megrahi which identified him as the bomber, and so on. (These magazine articles should have torpedoed the entire trial of course, and would have torpedoed any other trial - it was contempt of court, and it fatally compormosed the identification evidence.)

Tony didn't remember the face of the customer very well. But the police ignored his detailed description of the vital statistics of the man, and showed him pictures of faces. On several occasions he picked out one picture from a series as being the person who looked most like the customer, of the group. Megrahi was one of these. But he kept saying this wasn't the man, he was too young, but he looked like him. (The never, ever showed him pictures of men in the ago group he originally specified - the actual purchaser should have been in his sixties by the time of the trial, and the ID parade that was set up had Megrahi as the second-oldest by only a year or so, and people in it who would have been in their late teens or early twenties at the time this purchase was said to have been made by a man in his fifties!)

As Tony realised his original statements conflicted with the appearance of the suspect, and the date the suspect could have bought the clothes, he got vaguer and vaguer. I think Paul had a lot to do with that, plus time and confusion by being shown so many pictures and interviewed so many times. But he never, ever, said he recognised Megrahi as the clothes purchaser.

I think he was too dim to lie confidently. And I think he had Paul on one side pushing him to make that identification, and on the other side a degree of natural honesty that didn't want to accuse a man falsely.

So in the end he back-tracked on all his original memories - about the height and build and age of the customer, and the Christmas lights and so on - and just said he didn't remember. This allowed the judges to decide that the 6-foot, burly 50-year-old was actually the 5" 8', normally-built 36-year-old Megrahi. And he said merely that Megrahi (who could have been identified by just about anyone at Zeist by then) resembled the purchaser. The judges themselves went the last step and decided that "no this isn't the man but he looks like him" was an identification "beyond reasonable doubt".

It wasn't a great performance, considering. But it was enough to let a bench already heavily biassed in favour of a conviction to decide that it was an identification. So the Gaucis became multi-millionnaires.

Kopji, I wish you would tell us. What is it that makes you believe Megrahi was that clothes purchaser, when he was the wrong age and height and he wasn't even on Malta on the day in question? Just saying, well the judges thought he was, is a bit of a cop-out I think.

Rolfe.

 

[CharlesNorrie]

Let's start with the original crime

The IR-655 was downed by the Vincennes, then trespassing in Iranian territorial waters.

Despite this VP HW Bush would make no apology for "the United States", at the General Assembly of the UN. Eventually the US would pay up but at a ridiculously low vale of life $1600000-$300000 per like lost.

The US Navy's own internal inquiry has never been fully published, and will probably never see the light of day. Even the fact that the Vincennes was trespassing in Iranian territorial waters took three years to be reluctantly divulged.

The US said the atrocity, I word I use with full measure, was an accident. It is to take a very charitable view of the behaviour of the USS Vincennes to call it that.

The commander of Vincennes, whose name should go down in infamy in naval history, had been powering up an down the Persian Gulf confrontationally for a month or more before the downing. The conditions in the control room were far from ideal and the ignorant and ill trained not worthy of being called professionals. They were awarded gongs by the US Navy, an award designed to cause the Iranians further cause to feel hurt. One can only think in the fall-out from IR-655 the US was doing everything to inflame relations with Iran, who predictably cause for revenge, with as many as between 5-12 US commercial aircraft downed in reply.

The Iranians privately were being more cautious in their call for revenge, demanding qesas or like for like retribution.

They got it eventually in the form of Lockerbie, in which an Iranian necessarily had to plant an explosive at Heathrow, and the CIA had to ensure that the aircraft was completely destroyed, by exploding a package bomb 14 seconds after the first.

(You can read all of this at adifferentviewonlockerbie.blogspot.com)

But why was US Navy so ill managed. I can find of no atrocity in Royal Naval history that quite measures up to this level of crime, and I accept the Iranian view it was not accidental.

Since the beginning of the C20 the level of discretion for naval commanders and admirals has become progressively narrower, certainly in the Royal Navy, but I suspect in the US Navy as well.

Other ships' commanders had complained about the Vincennes' operations for a month or more. That must have been communicated back to Washington, who then proceeded to do nothing.

In other words Washington compassed and approved of the Vincennes' behaviour and wanted to do nothing to prevent it.

It was indeed an attempt to call out the "khaki" vote before the US General Election. Before IR-655 the Bush campaign was looking weak, after by flying the flag of American exceptionalism and immunity to others' views, after with the khaki, nationalistic vote behind him, there was no looking back.

For a review of the centralisation of naval control through the last four centuries in the Royal Navy have a look at Professor Andrew Lambert's book Admirals. ISBN 978-0-571-23157-7

 

[Rolfe]

Hi Charles, good to see you.

As you've so recently published your own theories in full, it might be good to start a separate thread on your document so we can discuss it in its own right.

Talk to you later, I'm off to see this play at the Fringe.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

We abandoned this in mid-flow, to go and shred Charles, and for some reason didn't return once he was banned. I'm fairly sure it still has mileage, although it did drift a bit from the specific topic of the frame-up.

The reason I'm resurrecting it now is because a journalist has highlighted the frame-up in an article in a serious newspaper.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...-im-against-the-alternative-vote-2219314.html

What is extraordinary is how little attention has been given to the strong grounds for thinking that Mr Megrahi is not only innocent, but that he was framed with the connivance of the British and American governments. The chief witness for the prosecution, the highly unreliable and inconsistent Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, was subsequently paid millions of dollars by the CIA and forensic evidence against Mr Megrahi was provided by two scientists working for the British government who had been previously discredited in trials of IRA suspects falsely accused of bomb-making.

I think he misses the most important trick here by failing to highlight the role of Giaka and the far more blatant bribery (and threats) that went on in that department. The handling of Gauci was discretion personified compared to the behaviour of the authorities with respect to Giaka.

And of course the bribery is only one part of a complex campaign to railroad Megrahi, which involved selective interpretation of evidence, concealing evidence from the court, and probably fabricating evidence. Is there any percentage in continuing with this thread now?

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

It's a good and simple lead-off people can grasp. I'd add that referring to what he did for the money (beyond "unreliable") is also sueful, besides focusing on the price tage. I took Ingram's lead, while also mentioning Giaka, in this comment on a Chicago Tribune editorial that they didn't seem to accept:

Eds: "Only one person, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, was convicted for this shocking atrocity."

Indeed. What ever happened to that accomplice Fhimah, the one touted in 1991 and necessary for the plot? He was found not guilty, and sent home to a hero's welcome for helping end the sanctions. That was because the judges felt the "star witness" Abdul Majid Giaka might have just lied to the FBI for a new life in America and, unbeknownst to them, a $2 million prize.

Would they have convicted Megrahi himself, the man with no known accomplice, if they'd known that another $3 was promised (and later delivered) to the evidence tag-team of Tony and Paul Gauci, if Tony's testimony helped score a conviction? Would their lordships then have noticed the witness' strategic flip-flopping on every point of evidence where his testimony conflicted with the Megrahi ID? Would they still have found him guilty on the basis of buying those clothes?

Maybe they would have, the persistent buggers. Doesn't mean Megrahi actually did it.

Otherwise, the editors make some good points about how releasing a guy convicted for something like this seems like a really bad thing.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Also, on seeing this, I almost want to say it doesn't belong in the CT forum. Good on you to specify the framed part. The issue of his guilt based on the evidence led is not conspiracy material or silly in any way. Leading legal experts agree on actually looking at it that the judgment was at best questionable.

So that he might not be really guilty despite the ruling that he is is a question of justice and its application, not for conspiracy-theory ...

But was he framed? That's a conspiracy being considered. Of course, I say yes. I can't see a fraction of this stuff going on by accident. Who exactly conspired? How consciously, and how much out of going with the flow despite muted misgivings? I don't know. There are points where I can name names, and quite a few, as making suspect decisions and leaps of (or from) logic that one could hardly miss oneself making.

Anyone want to see a weird little cluster of what I'm talking about, recorded by detective Harry Bell, the lead investigator on Malta, but with input from others, see this post - his eight reasons, in Feb. 1991, to consider Megrahi the Libyan plotter and buyer of those clothes. I can hardly imagine this kind of circular reasoning, absolute fluff, and ... I don't know the terms for all the logical fallacies and so on in that diary entry, but it's worth a good deconstruction. Anyway, I can hardly imagine people working with and around that kind of thinking without someone noticing, at least subtly, that something felt weird about this case.

They had to know, some of them to some degree at least.

And my opinion matters because I've led multiple high-level investigations and I know just what pro behavior looks like. But seriously, this stuff doesn't look level to me, and I really think a level investigation would.

 

[Rolfe]

There are quite a number of different strands to the frame-up, and I don't think we've covered all of them. Some of them are more concerned with pushing the blame generically on to Libya, others with fingering Megrahi in person.

• The bribing and threatening of Giaka
• The skewing of the evidence away from Heathrow (and Frankfurt) towards Malta
• The bribing and pressurising of Tony Gauci
• Fabrication of evidence - the timer fragment and the radio manual page
• Misdirection of the FAI
• Concealing evidence from the Zeist court

The Frankfurt baggage records are a slightly different matter in that the original disappearance (like the original decision not to follow up a possible Heathrow introduction) seems to have been motivated simply by a desire that the airport should not be blamed, rather than handing the blame on to anyone else in particular. However, I still can't make my mind up whether tray B8849 on the Erac printout was simply a spectacularly convenient coincidence, or something more sinister.

Have I missed anything? Which bits have we already covered?

Is Kopji ever going to come back and read the "real facts" we already posted?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Crikey, I didn't think this thread had been buried for so long. I'm bumping it to note that Jim Swire has tried to come out in public and say what a lot of us have been thinking, although the direct accusation was edited out of the letters he wrote when the Herald published their version.

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/we-must-lift-burden-of-false.html

We now know that the famous timer board fragment PT35b was fabricated to match the circuit boards in a set of professional timers sold to the Libyans in the days of Gaddafi.

The patterns traced on PT35b were near perfect copies of those on the real Swiss/Libyan circuit boards, only human error in treating the surface of the copper tracks on them has now revealed the truth through scientific analysis. PT35b simply could never have been part of one of the Libyan owned and Swiss made timers.

It must be clear to all who are not 'blind because they do not wish to see', that the purpose of this slight of hand was to incriminate Libya in this dreadful mass murder, using the hapless Megrahi as scapegoat.

I lean very seriously to the view that he's right, and that fragment was planted by the CIA. We discussed where they might have got the PCB from to create the fragment, since they obviously couldn't use the one they had on file which they needed as a reference. Was it another of the original 20, acquired from a third party? Was it somehow one of the ones the Stasi had? (Not possible if these were brown prototypes.) Or was it a knock-off manufactured for the purpose?

This new revelation points to the last suggestion. The suspicion over that fragment just piles higher and higher.

• The sheer incongruity of the thing in the context of the 38-minute explosion
• The multiple anomalies in the provenance/chain of custody while in the possession of the investigators
• The remarkable traceability of the precise corner preserved, to such a tiny production batch supplied to the US's no 1 bogeyman
• And now the discovery that the fragment did not originate from one of that production batch.

If it wasn't one of the timers made by Thuring, what was it? A similar timer made by a different company which came into the hands of the Lockerbie terrorists, whoever they were? Something else that was in or near the bomb suitcase, perhaps part of the IED, but not actually a countdown timer? Or a knock-off deliberately made to provide fake evidence?

Have I missed anything?

I always keep a degree of an open mind about this fragment. The Frankfurt evidence is looking more and more like cock-up not conspiracy, the closer I look. However suspicious the PCB fragment is, I think we should always be prepared to consider if it might actually be for real.

Some of the behaviour of Hayes and Feraday is relatively disarming. Hayes speculates that there might have been a barometric element as well. Feraday doesn't conceal the metallurgy results completely, he just glosses over them. And yet, if the thing isn't genuine, they have to be complicit. Hayes wrote the suspect notes. I just can't see how Thurman could have introduced the thing and persuaded them to play along, without it being obvious it was a fabrication.

Intellectually, I believe the fragment was fabricated by Orkin +/- Thurman, introduced into the chain of evidence by Thurman with Hayes +/- Feraday's complicity, following which the latter two conspired to create a back-dated provenance for the thing right through to Blinkbonny Farm on 13th January 1989.

Emotionally, I have serious difficulty actually accepting that this happened. I try to ignore my basic incredulity and follow the evidence, but it's hard. Now Jim Swire is trying to make a definite public accusation that the fragment originated from a fake PCB deliberately created to serve as a source of planted evidence.

Is he right?

Rolfe.

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Do you have a link to more detail on the analysis of the PCB?

 

[Rolfe]

Yup.

http://www.birlinn.co.uk/book/detai...y-Jury--The-Lockerbie-Evidence-9781780270159/

Amazon have it discounted.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Megrahi-You-Jury-Lockerbie-Evidence/dp/1780270151

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Is there anybody out there?

I'm still intrigued by the question of how far back the plot to frame Megrahi in person actually goes. We know the US authorities wanted to pin the bombing on Libya practically from the moment the bodies hit the ground, and it was only the humungous pile of evidence pointing to the Palestinian gang that forced them to back off at that stage. Would they have cared if the Brits had brought Jibril and his thugs to trial and convicted them? I can't judge that, but we do have Paul Foot's account of Thatcher being told by Bush to back off that line in March 1989.

Whenever they decided to fake up the timer fragment, even if the main objective was to provide a plausible way the bomb could have been loaded somewhere other than Heathrow, of course the CIA were going to take the opportunity to use something that would point to the desired culprit. Especially since they had a nifty little number on file that fit the bill.

I wonder, actually, if it's possible the fabrication wasn't put in hand until the investigators got sight of Malta as the assumed point of origin. That make the acquisition of something that wasn't a barometric timer rather essential, even for the section of the investigation that would have been perfectly happy to pin it all on Jibril. 17th August, when the BKA revealed the printout to the D&G, to 15th September when Feraday sends his polaroids to Williamson apparently in such a hurry. Is it possible?

But that really is the latest the timer fragment could have been introduced into the evidence. I don't see how they could have had Megrahi/Abdusamad in their sights at that point, because they would have been bonkers to let Harry Bell and his merry men show Tony squillions of people who weren't Megrahi. The D&G could quite conceivably have manufactured a case against Abu Talb during 1989-90, to the point where if couldn't be reversed.

And yet, the D&G never identified or traced Megrahi as someone who had been at the airport at the crucial moment. All that detective work, and he wasn't on the radar at all. He was brought into the frame because the CIA handed his photo(s) to Harry Bell out of the blue in January 1991, and suggested they try to get Tony to say he was the clothes purchaser. How long did the CIA have that one up their sleeves for? What made them think Megrahi was someone worthy of attention? Giaka, and Ebola, I suppose. But it was all terribly convenient. I just have a feeling there's more to that than meets the naked eye.

Rolfe.

 

[LSSBB]

Rolfe, bear with me on this, I plead a lack of CT bandwidth between 9/11 and the USS Liberty, plus working two jobs and having a family. Are there any current legal / government investigations of the framing / cover up?

 

[Rolfe]

I'm tempted to ask if you're just back from Mars, not meaning to be disrespectful in any way.

This was last Sunday's front page.

Lockerbie exclusive: we publish the report that could have cleared Megrahi

The Sunday Herald has chosen to publish the full report online today to allow the public to see for themselves the analysis of the evidence which could have resulted in the acquittal of Megrahi. Under Section 32 of the Data Protection Act, journalists can publish in the public interest. We have made very few redactions to protect the names of confidential sources and private information.

Click here to read the report in full

The publication of the report adds weight to calls for a full public inquiry into the atrocity – something for which many of the relatives have been campaigning for more than two decades.

That report, however, was clearly aimed at allowing Megrahi's conviction to be quashed without going anywhere near the serious allegations of deliberate framing. Which was not unexpected. I think it will be difficult to go there, and expose what went wrong with the original inquiry from December 1988 to November 1991, until Megrahi's conviction is actually overturned.

For example, many people knowledgeable about the case are shouting on any platform they can get that the basic problem of the case is that the bomb never travelled on KM180 to Frankfurt in the first place. Pretty much the first thing the SCCRC report says is that they aren't going to look at that part. Of course, that part clears Megrahi more comprehensively than anything else. Here is one such article, published yesterday.

A Scottish show trial has descended into farce

Having been involved in the appeal for many years, I would say my greatest doubts as a scientist involve the highly dubious theory that the bomb entered the system in Malta. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever an unaccompanied suitcase was secreted onto flight KM180, but Air Malta had won a libel action in 1993 establishing that it was not.

The Maltese police have always protested that this was a most unlikely scenario and the senior airport baggage loader was adamant that he always double-counted his luggage. This reliable official counted his luggage when it was finally gathered and again when it was physically loaded onto the plane and was certain there was no extra case. In fact, the idea of unaccompanied baggage with a bomb rattling around Europe before finding its way onto Pan Am 103 in London has always been widely ridiculed. The excellent screening at Frankfurt would almost certainly have picked it up and the theory added the further complication of requiring a non-barometric timer be used.

The interline baggage hall at Heathrow was notoriously insecure and John Bedford, a loader-driver employed by Pan Am had already told police of suspicious activity. He had placed a number of cases in the baggage container AVE 4041 for the flight but returned from a tea break to find a distinctive brown Samsonite case had been added.

And then there's this.

http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/28...an_only_be_investigated_by_self_referral.html

There's quite a lot about this case that has more than a whiff of Escher about it. Starting with the "reasoning" of the judges.

Rolfe.

 

[LSSBB]

I'm tempted to ask if you're just back from Mars, not meaning to be disrespectful in any way.

This was last Sunday's front page.

Lockerbie exclusive: we publish the report that could have cleared Megrahi




That report, however, was clearly aimed at allowing Megrahi's conviction to be quashed without going anywhere near the serious allegations of deliberate framing. Which was not unexpected. I think it will be difficult to go there, and expose what went wrong with the original inquiry from December 1988 to November 1991, until Megrahi's conviction is actually overturned.

For example, many people knowledgeable about the case are shouting on any platform they can get that the basic problem of the case is that the bomb never travelled on KM180 to Frankfurt in the first place. Pretty much the first thing the SCCRC report says is that they aren't going to look at that part. Of course, that part clears Megrahi more comprehensively than anything else. Here is one such article, published yesterday.

A Scottish show trial has descended into farce




And then there's this.

http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/28...an_only_be_investigated_by_self_referral.html

There's quite a lot about this case that has more than a whiff of Escher about it. Starting with the "reasoning" of the judges.

Rolfe.

Titan, actually, but thanks a lot, much appreciated!

ETA: Is there any way to break that chain there? You can't investigate an organization unless the organization chief says you can? It all smacks of Chicago-style government.

 

[Rolfe]

The whole thing's quite complicated. It's not as if there's an official agency just gagging to dig into official malfeasance, whether police or prosecutors or government agencies. When they're really cornered they're more likely to try to slither out from under, say by allowing an appeal that would be granted on a point which didn't touch on the framing (or not any more than it had to) or the fabrication of evidence, or say by telling the prisoner that he would have a better chance of going home right now if he would just drop that appeal altogether, please.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

This is an interesting article in this context.

http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/1091/Editor%27s_blog_-_HMA_v_HMA%3A_The_Next_Pan_Am_103.html

As the discredited Pan Am 103 case continues to crumble further, with damning revelations coming to light on an almost daily basis, the failure of duty by some of Scotland’s senior law officers over the years since the aircraft was destroyed is becoming clearer. Their actions and inaction is being exposed to scrutiny that reinforces the UN trial observer Hans Kochler’s conclusion that they amount to new criminal offences in themselves.

What is not generally known, McKechnie told me, is that Crown Office themselves did not know what was in the [Giaka] cables until after the trial had commenced, because they had only been given redacted versions from the CIA, and hollow assurances from US intelligence that they contained key evidence that would stand up in court. In particular, they were told that Giaka could positively identify Megrahi and Fhimah and link them to the atrocity.

The material in the cables was not evidence gathered by COPFS or Dumfries and Galloway police, as would normally be the case in a trial brought in Scotland. It was delivered on a plate fully formed by US intelligence services, a somewhat murky group of people not renowned for their honesty nor the integrity of their motivations.

This point is rarely if ever understood or reported. It is often overlooked that Megrahi and Fhimah themselves were sourced and presented to the Crown Office by the CIA. They were not tracked down nor placed in the frame by Scottish investigators.

By the time the cable contents were disclosed, the trial arrangements were irrevocable and the geopolitical deals that continue to define this case were done at UK level in Westminster. Scots law was a passenger from this point, and a hijacked one at that.

The revelation of the non-redacted cables is the key moment when the case should have been dropped by Lord Fraser, and where the criminal ineptitude begins. Everything COPFS has done since then (and the Scottish Government, to a more or less equal degree) is designed to shore up that mistake and the shoddy trial that resulted from it, and to deflect any suggestion of error, or worse. It was under Fraser’s tenure that key witness Tony Gauci was bribed, or rather, received “possible reward payments.”.

And so on. The impression is that the Scottish police and the Crown were being manipulated by the FBI who were themselves being manipulated by the CIA. How much of this was just incompetent and stubborn investigators chasing a red herring down a blind alley and finding a plausible fall guy, and how much was the US influence steering them to do that, I don't know.

I'd be helluva interested to find out though.

Rolfe.

 

[LSSBB]

This is an interesting article in this context.

http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/1091/Editor%27s_blog_-_HMA_v_HMA%3A_The_Next_Pan_Am_103.html

And so on. The impression is that the Scottish police and the Crown were being manipulated by the FBI who were themselves being manipulated by the CIA. How much of this was just incompetent and stubborn investigators chasing a red herring down a blind alley and finding a plausible fall guy, and how much was the US influence steering them to do that, I don't know.

I'd be helluva interested to find out though.

Rolfe.

Did anything come out from Wikileaks concerning the CIA and FBI actions regarding al-Megrahi?