Ah, I'm going to regret this, but more for any lurkers than for JB, I'll give it another shot.
- There is clear, irrefutable and compelling evidence that the bomb was introduced into the baggage container in the interline shed at Heathrow Terminal 1 between 4.15 and 4.45 pm, which is an hour before the feeder flight from Frankfurt landed. (This, by the way, completely absolves Megrahi, who was provably in Tripoli at that time.)
- The initial police investigation during 1989-90 completely overlooked this evidence, and instead became fixated on the theory that the bomb was introduced into the luggage system on Malta early that morning, and was transferred to the baggage container from the Frankfurt flight.
- Although the investigators had a damn good idea who the terrorists were from the very early stages of the inquiry, extensive and detailed investigation on Malta failed to find any evidence at all of this gang having been anywhere near Luqa airport that morning. This eventually led to this group being dropped as suspects.
- Later still, a suspect was identified who had been near Luqa airport that morning, and the cops set about fitting him up.
- Due to the unusual political circumstances there was a gap of eight years before the actual trial proceedings commenced. During that time the investigation was essentially at a standstill.
- When the trial was imminent, the Crown Office was provided with the evidence to be used to construct their case, by the police. In the course of their analysis of the evidence provided, Crown Office lawyers spotted the evidence referred to in point 1.
- In order to prevent the Court spotting it, the Crown concealed certain key points of evidence from the Court. They did this cleverly enough that the defence didn't spot it either.
Is that clear enough, or should I draw a picture?
There are three points in that process where misconduct may have or definitely did occur.
Point 2. Did the investigation simply fail to spot that evidence in 1989, or was there a deliberate policy of overlooking it in order not to implicate Britain's flagship airport in the disaster? Both alternatives seem inherently unlikely; the first because the evidence really is absolutely in-your-face, and the second because, well, it's a conspiracy theory. However, one or other must have happened.
Point 4. When the police have decided to construct a case against a suspect for whom they have no smoking gun, history teaches us that improper conduct is far from unusual. This case was no exception. There was massaging and concealing of evidence, and grooming, coaching, threatening and bribery of witnesses. This extended right through to the trial, where at least one witness perjured himself, and the Lord Advocate gave false information to the bench, all to keep the case from collapsing.
Point 7. Even if the overlooking of the Heathrow evidence was inadvertent in 1989-90, it was spotted in 1999 by the prosecution team. One day if we're supremely lucky we may see memos or minutes of these discussions. I suspect it was serious brown-trouser time. Instead of presenting the evidence honestly so that the Court could draw its own conclusions, the Crown chose to conceal important evidence and present a false, contrived scenario which allowed the possibility of the bomb having come from the Frankfurt flight to continue to be asserted.
It seems to take 20 to 30 years for the British state to deal with its notorious cover-ups in a decent and honourable fashion. Hillsborough (1989) was laid bare last week. Bloody Sunday (1972) took longer, being finally laid to rest in 2010. This year sees the 24th anniversary of Lockerbie.
Rolfe.
