Fresh appeal applied for in the Lockerbie case

That's a possibility. If the thing was planted I think Dextar is the front runner for where.

I have heard someone say that the US intelligence community knew very well that Iran was planning revenge for IR655, even if there was no collusion of the type Tam Dalyell alleged. I think this is pretty much irrefutable. We also know that the US liked to blame Gaddafi for everything, whether he actually did it or not, because it was politically expedient. It's also likely that they had a good motive for not blaming Iran. If it was determined that the reason a US plane came down was that the US president had fouled up dealing with the aftermath of the Vincennes incident, the relatives of the dead would be likely to be on the warpath. (Having said that, I haven't seen any evidence the relatives actually took that line, even at the time when Iran was assumed to have downed PA103 in revenge for IR655.)

So working on that premise, it's not at all impossible that they had some items prepared in advance that could be introduced into an investigation as and when an incident actually happened. They didn't need to know which plane or how, or even for sure that it was going to happen, they just needed to be working on the premise that something was quite likely to happen.

That could explain the early introduction of PT/35b, although not necessarily where that strange mix of the professional and the amateur came from. I'm a bit less certain that it could explain the possible planting of evidence relating to the radio-cassette player. How could they know a radio-cassette player was likely to be used? But if PT/35b was planted, it's extremely difficult to see how PT/35a and PT/2 (relating to the radio-cassette player) weren't planted as well. And if they were planted, that then throws a lot of suspicion on the Horton find, and on the Claiden fragment as well as some other bits of radio curcuit board.

I guess the Maltese clothes could be on the level. Purchased by the terrorists simply as a way to fill the suitcase with clothes that didn't trace back to them or to London in any way. And it was pure coincidence that the brown check trousers turned out to be uniquely identifiable and pinpoint the purchase to a particular shop in a time window only five weeks wide.

But somebody please explain how tray 8849 fits into all this because I swear to God that is the most mysterious and perplexing thing about it all, even surpassing PT/35b in its absolute inability to yield to any rational explanation apart from the one involving Parvez Tahiri, as far as I can tell.
 
Megrahi case being looked at by Review Commission.

"Any attempt to reverse the conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi has to confront two pieces of evidence that his supporters have never explained: his presence on the island of Malta the day before the bomb was loaded on to a connecting flight to Frankfurt; and the fact that he was with a man who is a convicted bomb-maker (Magnus Linklater writes).

Not only was al-Megrahi in Malta on the day in question, holding a false passport, he flew back to Libya just before the flight took off. With him on the return journey to Tripoli was Abu Agila Mas’ud, who has since been convicted in Libya of being a bomb-maker and is in a jail in the country."

The rest is behind paywall.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-momentous-decision-but-beware-what-it-may-lead-to-7qkc688md
 
Samson said:
Megrahi case being looked at by Review Commission.

"Any attempt to reverse the conviction of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi has to confront two pieces of evidence that his supporters have never explained: his presence on the island of Malta the day before the bomb was loaded on to a connecting flight to Frankfurt; and the fact that he was with a man who is a convicted bomb-maker (Magnus Linklater writes).

Not only was al-Megrahi in Malta on the day in question, holding a false passport, he flew back to Libya just before the flight took off. With him on the return journey to Tripoli was Abu Agila Mas’ud, who has since been convicted in Libya of being a bomb-maker and is in a jail in the country."

The rest is behind paywall.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-momentous-decision-but-beware-what-it-may-lead-to-7qkc688md
Click to expand...

Interesting...
 
Magnus Linklater is a confirmed Lockerbie guilter who refuses to look at any evidence that might contradict his entrenched position. He once declared he'd read my book when he clearly hadn't, and continues to attack my contention that the bomb was loaded at Heathrow rather than Malta by attacking an argument I have never actually made. It's interesting that he refuses to take on board a word I say, but as soon as Ken Dornstein comes out with this tenuous crap about Masoud he's all over it like a rash.

At this stage I am unsure whether the SCCRC merely intends to look at the original six grounds of appeal granted by their predecessors in 2007 with a view to reinstating them, or whether they are going to conduct a more wide-ranging review of the case including other aspects. In one sense the six existing grounds should be enough to kill the conviction, simply by removing the contention that Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes in the bomb suitcase. Job done.

However Magnus's little billet doux illustrates a problem with that. So long as the idea that the bomb was put on board at Malta remains, it's possible to go on pointing the figure at Megrahi, saying, "OK maybe it can't be proved beyond reasonable doubt but there he was at the crucial time, looks suspicious at the very least." I'd quite possibly be saying that myself if I thought the bomb was put on board on Malta.

In order to illuminate the case properly the SCCRC needs to look at the wider case. It needs to consider the evidence that shows the bomb was present in the container in the shed at Heathrow an hour before the connecting flight (ultimately from Malta) arrived. It also needs to consider the new evidence about the timer fragment that wasn't available at the time of the previous appeal. Without that we could be left in this silly limbo where prats like Magnus keep pontificating about Megrahi being guilty anyway based on an entirely false theory about the modus operandi of the crime.
 
New Zealand is scheduled to have a review commission by next year, and the Scottish model is touted. I hope Andrew Little justice minister follows this case.
 
And so the groundwork begins for the Crown Office back-stop position.

Kenny MacAskill: Lockerbie bomber's conviction may well collapse

Note the implication of the headline. Megrahi is "the Lockerbie bomber", it's just that the conviction might collapse. In which case he's not the Lockerbie bomber, Kenny? Perish the thought.

The groundwork is aimed at preserving the falsehood that the police basically got it right. The bomb was introduced on Malta. Gaddafi was behind it. Megrahi was at the airport when the bomb was introduced and he was "a high-ranking Libyan security agent" (much disputed), so go figure. Shame that the Megrahi conviction had to be vacated but let's go after the other people we think he was working with.

Kenny declares that the Heathrow introduction has been disproved. Who by, Kenny? Not by the trial court or the first appeal, who didn't hear the evidence. Not by the 2007 SCCRC report or the second appeal, where that point wasn't even considered. Kenny is punting the line that Operation Sandwood is going to say the bomb came from Malta. I think he's lying, because he can't possibly know. The Sandwood detectives are like trappist monks on the topic of their conclusions. Kenny himself hasn't looked at the evidence. I put a copy of my book directly into his hands and he refused to read it. What does that say about him as a credible commentator on the subject?
 
I am encouraging New Zealanders to watch this closely Rolfe.
Anything you have to add is of great interest.
 
My home work is inadequate but I am with a friend in aviation who I am stating here saying Megrahi stated

"I knew about a plot"

Rolfe, I know you will have heard this, so a very brief comment is all I need to show him, this may be the key problem.
He agrees the bomb was loaded at Heathrow
 
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Rolfe said:
Megrahi never said any such thing. Just ask him for a source for that statement.
Click to expand...
"It was in the back of my mind".
Exact quote.

We are dealing with this, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

It dictates memes and is why (rule 11 alert) we are fighting rear guard with Lundy.
 
A baker's dozen, plus one

Rolfe said:
Who read a book? I have literally no idea what you're talking about.
Click to expand...
I assume that Samson means the person with whom he conversed. A quick Google search turned up quite a few possibilities; therefore, it is unclear to me which one his friend read. As long as we are on the subject of books, are there any that you would recommend?
 
I've given up trying to figure out what Samson is trying to say.

Megrahi: You are my Jury is well worth reading if you haven't already. (I assume you're read my book, I think you said you were going to.)
 
The book was

Lockerbie: The Truth: Douglas Boyd:

It is of no account except to find why people are fixated on a narrative even after it is disproved by a proper investigation (such as yours eg)..
He formed the view that the bomb serial numbers suggested Syrian/Lybian origin.
But he is not dying in a ditch over his beliefs and will read your book when I get some copies. I will go back in thread to find how without asking again.
 
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That book is new and I haven't read it yet. Judging by the reviews it's a rehash of things everyone has known for decades. I will read it soon though.

The bomb didn't have a serial number that anyone knows about. Only that single disputed fragment of PCB was found and that didn't have any numbers on it. The radio's PCBs had at least one number.
 
a good read

Rolfe said:
I've given up trying to figure out what Samson is trying to say.

Megrahi: You are my Jury is well worth reading if you haven't already. (I assume you're read my book, I think you said you were going to.)
Click to expand...
I did over Christmas last year, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I am under no illusions that it made me into an expert, but it is good to be at least conversant.
 
Someone who, I think, has read the Boyd book, said it's obvious he hasn't read my book. That's a serious failure of research. If you're going to write a Lockerbie book it's incumbent on you to read everything serious that's already been published whether you think you're going to agree with it or not. Otherwise you risk having egg all over your face.

I did read everything I could find. I believe my face is still comfortingly egg-free.
 
Rolfe said:
That book is new and I haven't read it yet. Judging by the reviews it's a rehash of things everyone has known for decades. I will read it soon though.

The bomb didn't have a serial number that anyone knows about. Only that single disputed fragment of PCB was found and that didn't have any numbers on it. The radio's PCBs had at least one number.
Click to expand...
Well he has not read it then, he described a book with the cockpit on the cover and pointed to that one from a lineup, but he read it years ago. I guess a lot of books have a picture of the cockpit, and the one he described was early, before the arrests I think.
I had better withdraw before I add to the confusion.

ETA just bought your book on kindle, it wasn't available a year or two back.
 
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I think my book has been on Kindle since early 2014 - I know Lionking read it in Australia then. But maybe availability varies between countries. Thanks for the sale anyway.

I've just bought that Boyd book, and another one published a couple of years ago that had gone under my radar. And one from America about the legal procedure in the hope it has more about the Platt court proceedings because I don't have a complete handle on that.

I don't know what your friend can be talking about. There are three books published 1989-91, but these all came out before Megrahi was indicted or even named as a suspect so they don't have anything about him in them. As far as I recall it's a bit of a desert from then until 2001 when several books came out fairly soon after the verdict. Probably more than half of the books published about Lockerbie have the cockpit on the cover in at least one edition. My publisher wanted to do the same thing but I put my foot down because I felt the image was way over-used. The three most recent books, published after mine, all use it too though!

As far as Megrahi saying "I knew about a plot" or "It was in the back of my mind", neither of these phrases rings any bells at all so I don't know where he could have got them from. Megrahi continually asserted his innocence until he died. He did give an interview to Pierre Salinger in 1992 when he told a pack of lies about not having travelled to Malta on 20th December 1988, but that's a different issue. He'd been promised by the Libyan government he'd have a lawyer for the interview but the lawyer never appeared. Salinger promised it would be a non-hostile general chat so he went ahead. When the questioning became probing he thought he'd better deny everything for fear he might make an admission his government didn't want him to make. But then that interview was used against him in court as if it had been a police interview under caution, and he'd lied to the police. But it can't be that, because he absolutely definitely didn't admit to anything in that - not even to going to Malta, which he definitely did do.

The only other thing I can think of is an interview Megrahi gave in about 2010 when he was back in Libya and very ill. He was speaking in Arabic and said, roughly, "they exaggerated my name". He meant the investigators had made him out to be someone he wasn't - a Libyan secret service agent, when he wasn't connected to the secret service at all. Then someone mistranslated that as "they exaggerated my part in the bombing", apparently maliciously. Shockingly the BBC, which had originally broadcast the interview without the mistranslation (and which is positively bristling with Arabic experts) latched on to that false report and made a lot of it.

But the fact is that Megrahi never admitted to any involvement or to knowing anything about a plot to blow up that or any other airliner. So I think your friend is mistaken.
 
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I might have found the book. When the two books I ordered arrived I noticed they had very similar covers. One was the Boyd book your friend picked out from its cover and the other wasn't published in 2016 as I thought, but in 1995. It's this one.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pan-Am-103-Lockerbie-Cover-Up/dp/0964010410#reader_0964010410

The cover on display on the Amazon mage isn't the same as the cover on the book I received. If you click on "look inside" (the link might take you there) you can see the actual cover on the book and it's very like the cover on the Boyd book.

I have no idea why they say it was published in 2016. It's pretty terrible actually and mostly one man's gripe about how badly he was treated by the American establishment after he took an interest in the Lockerbie case.

He claims to have travelled to Libya in 1992 and met Megrahi and Fhimah while they were under house arrest there. I say claims because he repeatedly gives Megrahi's age as 55. He's not repeating a mistake I've ever seen elsewhere so I don't know where he got it from. Megrahi was 40 in 1992. Can you meet a 40-year-old man (whose photos don't suggest he was prematurely aged at that time) and think he's 55?

This picture of Megrahi was taken about 18 months before Chasey claims to have met him. Doesn't look anywhere near 55 to me.

http://cdn2.theweek.co.uk/sites/theweek/files/images/090820megrahi--125077466774949500.jpg

Anyway this is what Chasey says. First he asked both men if they did it and they denied it. Then...

I asked each man to respond to my second question individually. Did they know who was responsible for the Lockerbie disaster? Fhimah said, "Authorities in the United Stated and Britain know who did it. They have had the evidence since early 1989, but have failed to act on it."

Megrahi sounded in by adding that the answer was to be found in Syria and Iran, not in Libya. Megrahi said, "We have been a convenient scapegoat for the United States. The evidence against us is circumstantial and would never stand up in court, even if we could get a fair trial in some neutral country."
Click to expand...


And that's it. The chapter (and the book) just go on to repeat the story about the PFLP-GC which almost everyone who doesn't buy the Libyan narrative subscribes to. Megrahi isn't quoted as saying anything incriminating.
 
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I am on Reddit, because someone there was discussing my book a few years ago and I weighed in.

That write-up is extremely accurate, and includes a lot of photos I haven't seen before. Ray Manly's evidence came to light in 2001, not 2009 as stated, but that's the only inaccuracy I saw in a quick read through. (It stated the two elderly ladies who were killed on the ground were both widows, but in the FAI report it's implied that only one had been married - the other had no maiden name listed. I don't know who's right about that. One of them was the grandmother of my next-door-neighbour-but-one, I had assumed she was the lady with the maiden name listed but I don't know. We don't speak about it because it upsets her too much even now. I suspect I'll go to the memorial service on the 21st and my neighbour won't. That's what happened five years ago.)

Of course some of the stuff that's included is debatable, but nothing that is debatable has been presented as fact in the write-up, simply that this has been said.
 
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Ampulla of Vater said:
Rolfe,
I don't know if you do reddit, but here is a write-up about the bombing. I am not sure how accurate it is, but it made me think of you. I am going to read it later to see if she got the details correct.
Click to expand...

Interesting someone mentions the Syracuse sweater on the reddit thread because that asshat Mueller mentioned a Syracuse sweater.


Just by hearing him talk you can tell he had no intention of "losing."
 
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Rolfe said:
I might have found the book. When the two books I ordered arrived I noticed they had very similar covers. One was the Boyd book your friend picked out from its cover and the other wasn't published in 2016 as I thought, but in 1995. It's this one.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pan-Am-103-Lockerbie-Cover-Up/dp/0964010410#reader_0964010410

The cover on display on the Amazon mage isn't the same as the cover on the book I received. If you click on "look inside" (the link might take you there) you can see the actual cover on the book and it's very like the cover on the Boyd book.

I have no idea why they say it was published in 2016. It's pretty terrible actually and mostly one man's gripe about how badly he was treated by the American establishment after he took an interest in the Lockerbie case.

He claims to have travelled to Libya in 1992 and met Megrahi and Fhimah while they were under house arrest there. I say claims because he repeatedly gives Megrahi's age as 55. He's not repeating a mistake I've ever seen elsewhere so I don't know where he got it from. Megrahi was 40 in 1992. Can you meet a 40-year-old man (whose photos don't suggest he was prematurely aged at that time) and think he's 55?

This picture of Megrahi was taken about 18 months before Chasey claims to have met him. Doesn't look anywhere near 55 to me.

http://cdn2.theweek.co.uk/sites/theweek/files/images/090820megrahi--125077466774949500.jpg

Anyway this is what Chasey says. First he asked both men if they did it and they denied it. Then...




And that's it. The chapter (and the book) just go on to repeat the story about the PFLP-GC which almost everyone who doesn't buy the Libyan narrative subscribes to. Megrahi isn't quoted as saying anything incriminating.
Click to expand...
Thanks Rolfe, the thing is we discuss a lot of aviation matters, he was a helicopter pilot and his brother is a 777 pilot for Brunei, I will get back to this, realistically I know not much so just a voyeur. But fascinated by prosecutions of the innocent of course.
 
Baylor said:
Interesting someone mentions the Syracuse sweater on the reddit thread because that asshat Mueller mentioned a Syracuse sweater.


Just by hearing him talk you can tell he had no intention of "losing."
Click to expand...


Do give it a rest. This was and is a Scottish case, prosecuted in Scotland by Scottish lawyers under Scots law. Mueller is a bit player who is seldom even mentioned.
 
Samson said:
Thanks Rolfe, the thing is we discuss a lot of aviation matters, he was a helicopter pilot and his brother is a 777 pilot for Brunei, I will get back to this, realistically I know not much so just a voyeur. But fascinated by prosecutions of the innocent of course.
Click to expand...


Well the simple fact is that Megrahi continued to maintain his innocence until his dying breath, more or less literally. There is no record of his having said anything about being involved or having any knowledge of the atrocity other than things which were mistranslations or misrepresentations.
 
Rolfe said:
Well the simple fact is that Megrahi continued to maintain his innocence until his dying breath, more or less literally. There is no record of his having said anything about being involved or having any knowledge of the atrocity other than things which were mistranslations or misrepresentations.
Click to expand...
Just checking in, the book was not the one you decided, I need to get up to speed by reading your book. I might try to print a hard copy for these people.
 
I've still got about 200 printed copies sitting in boxes, but, y'know, New Zealand...

Interesting thing about the book. I remember a poster (who got so abusive he was banned) yelling at me that I ought to be donating all the proceeds from the book to the relatives of the victims, it was immoral for me to profit from it, and if I wanted the information out there why didn't I just put it up as a free PDF online.

Well of course it's not like that. I think it probably cost me about £6,000 to publish the book, and I did that because the existence of a printed-and-bound book gives an argument credibility that a PDF online simply doesn't have. Of course the book has to be well presented, but I could do that. So it's on Amazon, which is a bit of a pain because they take 65% of the cover price, but on the other hand it makes it available and it comes up in "related items" displays and if anyone is searching for books about Lockerbie they'll find it.

And most importantly of all, the police have it.

I think I've recouped just over £4,000 in book and eBook sales and I'll probably get a few hundred more as the case plays out, so I'm only about £2,000 down on the whole thing. And it's been worth every penny just to see a Scottish policeman holding a very dog-eared copy bristling with post-it stickers.

And the relatives of the victims will just have to struggle on with the multi-million dollar settlements they all got from Pan AM's insurance company and then Gaddafi. They're all astoundingly rich on the back of the disaster. (Except for Marina de Larracoechea who lost her sister, who has always been so adamant that Libya wasn't involved that she turned down Gaddafi's money, and John Mosey who opened a mission in Africa with the money.)
 
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Rolfe said:
I've still got about 200 printed copies sitting in boxes, but, y'know, New Zealand...

Interesting thing about the book. I remember a poster (who got so abusive he was banned) yelling at me that I ought to be donating all the proceeds from the book to the relatives of the victims, it was immoral for me to profit from it, and if I wanted the information out there why didn't I just put it up as a free PDF online.

Well of course it's not like that. I think it probably cost me about £6,000 to publish the book, and I did that because the existence of a printed-and-bound book gives an argument credibility that a PDF online simply doesn't have. Of course the book has to be well presented, but I could do that. So it's on Amazon, which is a bit of a pain because they take 65% of the cover price, but on the other hand it makes it available and it comes up in "related items" displays and if anyone is searching for books about Lockerbie they'll find it.

And most importantly of all, the police have it.

I think I've recouped just over £4,000 in book and eBook sales and I'll probably get a few hundred more as the case plays out, so I'm only about £2,000 down on the whole thing. And it's been worth every penny just to see a Scottish policeman holding a very dog-eared copy bristling with post-it stickers.

And the relatives of the victims will just have to struggle on with the multi-million dollar settlements they all got from Pan AM's insurance company and then Gaddafi. They're all astoundingly rich on the back of the disaster. (Except for Marina de Larracoechea who lost her sister, who has always been so adamant that Libya wasn't involved that she turned down Gaddafi's money, and John Mosey who opened a mission in Africa with the money.)
Click to expand...
All very interesting, on a slightly related note, well not really but I hope I get away with it, they are finally establishing a physical memorial for Erebus victims where they can quietly reflect.
Not really my thing, I am just not that metaphysical, but there is a strong view from real pilots that Captain Collins was absolutely not entitled to fly at about 6,000 feet in white out conditions and rely solely on the programmed coordinates, with a 12,000 foot mountain nearby.
But you can't tell his relatives....

I guess there is a Lockerbie memorial in a logical place, easier to meaningfully construct.
 
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Yes. It's in the cemetery at Dryfesdale in Lockerbie, close to where the people were killed on the ground. There's a commemoration there on the 30th anniversary this year which I'm going to. I went to the 25th anniversary one in 2013. I hope the piping is better this time. It was embarrassing five years ago. I know it was cold and raining a bit but even so.
 
Rolfe said:
Yes. It's in the cemetery at Dryfesdale in Lockerbie, close to where the people were killed on the ground. There's a commemoration there on the 30th anniversary this year which I'm going to. I went to the 25th anniversary one in 2013. I hope the piping is better this time. It was embarrassing five years ago. I know it was cold and raining a bit but even so.
Click to expand...
Surely no excuse for bad piping in Scotland.
Certainly worth sticking your oar in, I encourage you to intervene since you have music in your blood. Do not leave it to chance if you can make a difference, my thoughts only. 30 years is a reason to get it right.

ETA

My first cousin's son from Oxford played the bagpipes, quite well I thought, as my 90 year old aunt was being moved for the last time in a hearse in Christchurch.
I got a video I think, it was a very moving passage.
The pipes are unforgettable.

We are all of Scottish heritage.
 
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Ha ha. The chance of anyone in the local British Legion listening to me are somewhere south of absolute zero. I just hope they get their act together this time. Last time was embarrassing. Or maybe the assorted Americans present didn't notice. But our own village pipers could have done a lot better.
 
5th June 2014 was when I started this thread. Tomorrow is crunch day. The SCCRC is scheduled to announce whether or not they are referring the case back to the court of appeal at one o'clock tomorrow.

The family's solicitor is very optimistic. I hope his optimism is well founded. Wish us luck folks.
 
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helpful book

Thank you for your hard work on this case. I found your book to be quite enlightening and helpful.
 
I can't get through to the SCCRC news page for some reason, but the Justice for Megrahi secretary just emailed to us "Hurrah, statement 1 gone." Statement 1 was the one we had agreed to release to the press in the event of an appeal being allowed.


ETA: YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/8f56052e/files/uploaded/11%20March%202020%20-%20SCCRC%20News%20Release%20-%20Application%20on%20behalf%20of%20Mr%20Abdelbaset%20Ali%20Mohmed%20Al%20Megrahi_dgMrLN20RqqEoEwzK4eV.pdf
 
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Daily Mail report

Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi may have been victim of miscarriage of justice says Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
By ED RILEY FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 09:55 EDT, 11 March 2020 | UPDATED: 10:00 EDT, 11 March 2020
Daily Mail. Yes, not my favorite source, either. Another link here.
 
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