Fresh appeal applied for in the Lockerbie case

They're only going with unreasonable verdict and non-disclosure. They seem to think Sandwood found something that rendered the Heathrow ingestion "not certain" and had other quibbled about other points, but we've got what we want.

Next phase, how to get the appeal to blow the case wide open. I leave that to the lawyers.

One important point is that it seems inevitable that the defence will have to be given access to the Sandwood report, so we can find out whether they really did discover something about the Heathrow ingestion that we didn't know, plus a lot of other juicy points.
 
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Excellent news.

Do the findings of the SCCRC have any impact on what arguments are used in the appeal itself?
 
Rolfe said:
They're only going with unreasonable verdict and non-disclosure. They seem to think Sandwood found something that rendered the Heathrow ingestion "not certain" and had other quibbled about other points, but we've got what we want.

Next phase, how to get the appeal to blow the case wide open. I leave that to the lawyers.

One important point is that it seems inevitable that the defence will have to be given access to the Sandwood report, so we can find out whether they really did discover something about the Heathrow ingestion that we didn't know, plus a lot of other juicy points.
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What they say about the theory that the suitcase was put on the plane at Heathrow:

The Commission concentrated on what it considered to be the most important aspect of the submissions. The theory lacked certain important information, which the Sandwood report had highlighted. In light of this, it was not arguable that the Justice for Megrahi theory could show conclusively that the bomb had entered the airline luggage in Heathrow.

Do you have any idea what they are talking about, Rolfe?

I presume, from the above, that you don't, but look forward to finding out.

Are the Megrahi family lawyers allowed to show anyone (such as yourself?) the full 419 page Statement of Reasons, or are they forbidden to do so?
 
The appeal is supposed to deal only with the grounds the SCCRC have allowed, unlike last time. They changed the law, probably with the specific purpose of limiting another appeal. However I've had an idea as to how the suitcase evidence might be brought in under the "unreasonable verdict" ground and I need to bounce it off the lawyers.

I have no idea what they are talking about as regards "certain important information". Hopefully we will find out. This depends on the defence getting hold of the Sandwood report, and we don't know yet if that will happen. Notably they didn't say the suitcase didn't go on at Heathrow, just that they didn't think we'd proved it conclusively. I think their "certain important information" may well be spurious but since nobody ever came back and said "we've discovered this, what do you think" then I don't know.

There was a huge fuss about the disclosure of the previous SCCRC report in 2007, because it was said that there were confidentiality issues. In the end, in 2012, one of the people who had a copy in relation to work with the defence team showed it to a newspaper to substantiate something he had written in an article, not with any intention that it should be made public, and the paper promptly published it. So anything can happen.
 
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It appears that the suitcase-ingestion ground was rejected by the Commission on the combination of two factors:

1) The Commission did not believe that Justice For Megrahi had proven conclusively that the suitcase was ingested at Heathrow (but that is not to say that JFM did not provide a compelling argument pointing to that possibility); and

2) The Commission believed that Megrahi's original defence could have argued this ground at trial, but did not do so (even though, importantly, all the underlying evidence was at least theoretically available to Megrahi's trial defence team), and the Commission believes that Megrahi's original trial defence was competently conducted.

So the Commission is in essence saying this: you (the appellant) have provided a compelling argument pointing towards the suitcase having been ingested at LHR, but (importantly) not actual proof. However we can disregard the strength (or otherwise) of your argument since Megrahi's defence team would have had the possibility to put the self-same argument to the court in his original trial, had they chosen to do so. They did not choose to do so, for which reason we do not know - but we judge his trial defence team to have been sufficiently competent, and operating sufficiently under Megrahi's instruction, to adjudicate that this cannot therefore constitute grounds for a later appeal.
 
The SCCRC press release also contains another intriguing passage:

The Commission, as part of the current review, obtained new information which,if believed, points at Libya, and Mr Megrahi as an operative in 1988 for that state, as being the culprits in the bombing of PA 103.

The SCCRC then goes on to say that since this "new information" does not, in its view, in itself constitute cast-iron proof of Megrahi's guilt, and it has not been able to establish its level credibility or reliability, it should not stand in the way of granting leave to appeal Megrahi's guilty verdict. Presumably though (and the SCCRC alludes to this), this "new information" will be properly investigated (by Police Scotland?) and presented to the court at Megrahi's appeal hearing.
 
Rolfe said:
The appeal is supposed to deal only with the grounds the SCCRC have allowed, unlike last time. They changed the law, probably with the specific purpose of limiting another appeal. However I've had an idea as to how the suitcase evidence might be brought in under the "unreasonable verdict" ground and I need to bounce it off the lawyers.

I have no idea what they are talking about as regards "certain important information". Hopefully we will find out. This depends on the defence getting hold of the Sandwood report, and we don't know yet if that will happen. Notably they didn't say the suitcase didn't go on at Heathrow, just that they didn't think we'd proved it conclusively. I think their "certain important information" may well be spurious but since nobody ever came back and said "we've discovered this, what do you think" then I don't know.

There was a huge fuss about the disclosure of the previous SCCRC report in 2007, because it was said that there were confidentiality issues. In the end, in 2012, one of the people who had a copy in relation to work with the defence team showed it to a newspaper to substantiate something he had written in an article, not with any intention that it should be made public, and the paper promptly published it. So anything can happen.
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I was curious because I would have assumed that the review and the appeal were independent processes; however the way the report is worded comes across as limiting the grounds for appeal.

Since the Sandwood report is only mentioned in relation to the suitcase ingestion and that has been ruled out as grounds for appeal, I wonder if that will be used to justify not providing the report?
 
Not sure about that yet. Sandwood did consider the clothes purchase as well.

Right now, my honest opinion is that Sandwood has been in some way got at to accept some spurious piece of information as casting doubt on my analysis of the baggage transfer evidence. (Note that they didn't say the analysis was wrong, just that they didn't think it was 100% certain.) It's noteworthy that they didn't see fit to tell me what this information was or ask me what I thought about it. It's also noteworthy that while the SCCRC at one point asked to speak to me, after I gave my contact details over I waited in vain for that contact to come.

I think we have to wait and see how the defence team chooses to play this. Amaar Anwar can get quite pushy in defence of his clients, so it will be interesting to see what line he takes.
 
Nearly six and a half years since this thread was started, the third appeal in the Lockerbie case comes to court next week.

Please cross your fingers everyone.
 
Rolfe said:
Nearly six and a half years since this thread was started, the third appeal in the Lockerbie case comes to court next week.

Please cross your fingers everyone.
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Fingers crossed. Did I read somewhere that additional grounds for appeal had been allowed?

Happy birthday btw.
 
Here's an article explaining it.

The forthcoming Megrahi appeal

To be quite honest the last ten years have made me so cynical about the Scottish criminal justice system (not just this case) that I more than half expect the appeal court to bend over backwards to find some spurious reason to deny the appeal again.

It seems to be the way things are.

Thanks for the birthday wishes. We're on light restrictions here, few cases in the local authority area and none at all in our ward (an area about 35 miles by 15 miles with just over 6,000 people) since 8th November, so restaurants are open and a couple of friendly neighbours took me out for lunch.
 
Judges rule that secret docs implicating PFLP-GC must remain secret.

So there are a tranche of documents written by Jordanian intelligence, sent to the UK govt, by King Hussein, that lay out the case that we basically put together in the Lockerbie threads many moons ago.

The bomb was made by Khreesat (A Jordanian asset) the plot was a PFLP-GC one and a revenge attack for the Vincennes. Consequently Megrahi had bugger all to do with it.

I'm torn on this ruling. On one hand if releasing this information would indeed damage the capacity to share information between intelligence agencies and then hamper efforts to stop other attacks, then they should stay sealed.

On the other this was long ago, and how much damage can 30+ year old intel documents cause to intelligence sharing?

I get the impression that this would have opened up such a can of worms about what was covered up, why and by who that they just decided to keep a lid on it all. I am reminded of the article by Paul Foot all those years ago that got me interested in Lockerbie in the first place.

It's closing paragraph struck a chord.

In February 1990, a group of British
relatives went to the American embassy
in London for a meeting with the seven
members of the President’s commission
on aviation security and terrorism.
Martin Cadman remembers: “After we’d
had our say, the meeting broke up and
we moved towards the door. As we got
there, I found myself talking to two
members of the Commission – I think
they were senators. One of them said:
‘Your government and our government
know exactly what happened at
Lockerbie. But they are not going to tell
you.’ ”
Eleven years later, after a prolific
waste of many millions of pounds and
words, that is still the position.
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Almost 32 years later, that still remains the position.

I have everything crossed that the evidence that's already in the public domain is more than enough to clear Megrahi at his appeal.
 
In any just society the evidence that is in the public domain would at the very least introduce such strong reasonable doubt that the conviction would have to be vacated. I have no confidence whatsoever that I am living in such a just society. And the ruling that these documents cannot be disclosed merely serves to reinforce that opinion.
 
Rolfe said:
In any just society the evidence that is in the public domain would at the very least introduce such strong reasonable doubt that the conviction would have to be vacated. I have no confidence whatsoever that I am living in such a just society. And the ruling that these documents cannot be disclosed merely serves to reinforce that opinion.
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Yes happy birthday Rolfe!

New Zealand looks no better, a number of cases one of which is beyond disgusting and very live with our newly minted CCRC. I hope we are not in a race to the bottom, but Lockerbie looks tracking the way you fear.
 
Ambrosia said:
Judges rule that secret docs implicating PFLP-GC must remain secret.

So there are a tranche of documents written by Jordanian intelligence, sent to the UK govt, by King Hussein, that lay out the case that we basically put together in the Lockerbie threads many moons ago.

The bomb was made by Khreesat (A Jordanian asset) the plot was a PFLP-GC one and a revenge attack for the Vincennes. Consequently Megrahi had bugger all to do with it.

I'm torn on this ruling. On one hand if releasing this information would indeed damage the capacity to share information between intelligence agencies and then hamper efforts to stop other attacks, then they should stay sealed.

On the other this was long ago, and how much damage can 30+ year old intel documents cause to intelligence sharing?

I get the impression that this would have opened up such a can of worms about what was covered up, why and by who that they just decided to keep a lid on it all. I am reminded of the article by Paul Foot all those years ago that got me interested in Lockerbie in the first place.

It's closing paragraph struck a chord.



Almost 32 years later, that still remains the position.

I have everything crossed that the evidence that's already in the public domain is more than enough to clear Megrahi at his appeal.
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Apologies if I am asking something that everyone here knows but what does (and who is - I feel I am in Life of Brian) PFLJ GC have to do with shooting down an Iranian airliner? I thought PFLP were a secularist resistance organisation with ties to Libya, Saddam's Iraq, USSR.
 
putting my Foot down

Ambrosia said:
I get the impression that this would have opened up such a can of worms about what was covered up, why and by who that they just decided to keep a lid on it all. I am reminded of the article by Paul Foot all those years ago that got me interested in Lockerbie in the first place.
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I have been reviewing the cases of the Birmingham Six, The Maguire Seven, and related cases, and by coincidence, I found two articles by Paul Foot as well. With respect to the Scottish system of justice, the case of Luke Mitchell, which is the subject of a thread here, alone is enough to make one cynical. Although I am reluctant to push this idea very hard, a common thread that runs through many wrongful convictions is that when there is a high profile case that generates much public outrage, the authorities want to convict someone but are not always fussy about whom.
 
Planigale, there is a lot of evidence pointing to the likelihood that the PFLP-GC under the leadership of Ahmed Jibril accepted a paid commission from the Iranian government to carry out their retaliatory attack in revenge for the US shooting down of the airliner IR655 over the Persian Gulf only six months previously.

While the PFLP-GC were primarily engaged in a terrorist campaign against Israel, their experience in downing airliners in flight in the early 1970s made them potentially the go-to experts in this area. If they were responsible for Lockerbie, as I believe they were, it would have been in the role of paid mercenaries.
 
Chris, one alarming point of relevance is that while England has had a fair number of high-profile miscarriages of justice acknowledged and the convictions overturned (Judith Ward, the Birmingham Six, the Maguire Seven, the Guildford Four, Sion Jenkins, Stefan Kiszko, Barry George, Paul Esslemont, Sally Clark, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony and that's just off the top of my head), Scotland has no such list. The only name that springs to mind is David Asbury, and the circumstances of that acquittal (look up the Shirley McKie affair) do not inspire confidence.

Yes indeed there are other scandalous cases in England where innocent people appear still to be languishing in jail, but the sheer dearth of convictions being overturned in Scotland does not to me suggest a system that habitually gets it right, it suggests a system constitutionally incapable of admitting error.
 
Rolfe said:
Planigale, there is a lot of evidence pointing to the likelihood that the PFLP-GC under the leadership of Ahmed Jibril accepted a paid commission from the Iranian government to carry out their retaliatory attack in revenge for the US shooting down of the airliner IR655 over the Persian Gulf only six months previously.

While the PFLP-GC were primarily engaged in a terrorist campaign against Israel, their experience in downing airliners in flight in the early 1970s made them potentially the go-to experts in this area. If they were responsible for Lockerbie, as I believe they were, it would have been in the role of paid mercenaries.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your courtesy in replying to what I know to you is obvious. My understanding of the issue is a little better now.
 
Rolfe said:
Planigale, there is a lot of evidence pointing to the likelihood that the PFLP-GC under the leadership of Ahmed Jibril accepted a paid commission from the Iranian government to carry out their retaliatory attack in revenge for the US shooting down of the airliner IR655 over the Persian Gulf only six months previously.

While the PFLP-GC were primarily engaged in a terrorist campaign against Israel, their experience in downing airliners in flight in the early 1970s made them potentially the go-to experts in this area. If they were responsible for Lockerbie, as I believe they were, it would have been in the role of paid mercenaries.
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I believed this after reading about the cassette players seized in Frankfurt months before. Seems like quite a coincidence. But I don't know the story in detail.
 
There's a lot of evidence that the modus operandi as found by the court was not what happened, and that Megrahi had nothing to do with it. We know that in October 1988 the PFLP-GC cell in Frankfurt was preparing to bring down an airliner in pretty much exactly the way PA103 was brought down.

So if the PFLP-GC also had nothing to do with it we have to postulate yet another group, another set of suspects of whom we know nothing at all, who were also planning to do exactly that at that time, and who succeeded. I don't think so, do you?
 
Planigale said:
Should the current appeal be put on hold pending further information about the Libyan the US is seeking to extradite for the bombing; this may lead to significant new evidence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55337459
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The problem is that Libya has next to no involvement in the bombing.

As best as we can tell the bombing was bought and paid for by Iran and perpetrated by Ahmed Jibril and his cronies.

The bomb was put onto the plane at Heathrow, by planting the samsonite case in the loading bins destined for the flight the night before.

The "official theory" is that the bomb was loaded onto an aircraft in Malta by Megrahi and the bomb was then flown via Frankfurt and interlined onto PA103. Subsequent evidence (which Rolfe is much more familiar with) disproves that scenario entirely.

The other claim is that fragments of circuit board found in the wreckage identify a timer used as part of the bomb as being Libyan in origin.

The evidence does not show that the fragments of circuit board found were part of any device that brought down the plane. The assumption is just made that hey we found this dodgy bit of circuit that comes from a timer, and the plane was blown up, so it must have been the bomb. There is no physical evidence that links the fragment of circuit to the bomb (it wasn't tested for explosives residue for example, thanks to incompetency of the original investigation team)


That's the only connection to Libya. That and the Gauci evidence that id's Megrahi as being the guy that bought the clothes found to be packed in the bomb suitcase. (which is essentially worse than worthless)

If the US have fresh evidence then great, lets evaluate it. I'd like to know why exactly it's taken them this long to make a case against someone else.

Given the extremely flimsy nature of the evidence in their previous case, and given that if you look carefully at all the evidence so far presented you cannot help but come to the conclusion that Megrahi had nothing to do with the Lockerbie bombing, I am not holding out much hope that their case against this new Libyan is going to hold water.

If new evidence does come to light and subsequently proves me wrong, I will happily hold up my hand and say so, but I am not holding my breath.

As to your question. Not the appeal should not be held up. The conviction should be overturned immediately and fresh investigations ordered to find out what actually happened and who was actually responsible.

For all of the research I have done over the years about Lockerbie I cannot tell you who blew up the plane, how they did it, or why.

I suspect it was the PFLP-GC. But I cannot show you enough evidence to prove it. The best we can do is prove that Megrahi wasn't involved.

One day I would very much like to know who was involved, though I suspect that day might never arrive.
 
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But absent an unimpeachable alibi, won't it be impossible ever to prove that Megrahi wasn't involved?

I think the most that happen is that it can be shown that there's not (and never was) sufficient evidence to prove Megrahi's involvement BARD.


I wrote in this thread a while back (but got predicably attacked for it!) and posed this hypothetical question of fact, leaving aside judicial findings for a moment: does a belief that PFLP-GC were behind the bombing necessarily allow us to infer that Libya had nothing to do with it?

And I posed that question because it seemed to me that there was a prevailing assumption - both in the campaign to clear Megrahi's name and in these threads - that in effect a causal relationship existed between a) evidence/belief of PFLP-GC's/Iran's involvement and b) the factual innocence of Megrahi (and, in fact, any Libyans).

I'd asked whether in fact it may have been a plausible possibility that there may have been some level of collaborative involvement (whether in strategy, manpower, expertise or finance) between Iran, PFLP-GC, and Libya? After all, the PFLF-GC theory already necessitated a collaboration between Iran and PFLP-GC. We of course also already know that Libya assisted & funded terrorist activities in collaboration with groups which had nothing in common with Libya (except for a belief in the efficacy of armed insurgency and terrorism), most notably the Provisional IRA.

So is it impossible, I asked (and ask), to conceive of the idea that the Lockerbie bombing might have been planned, financed and executed by a collaborative team including Iran, PFLP-GC and Libya?

Now, there are two extremely important caveats to my question. The first is that there is zero evidence explicitly indicating a three-way collaboration. But one cannot rule out the feasibility of it simply on the basis that there's no evidence of it. And my purpose in suggesting the possiility of the collaboration is specifically to confront assumptions along the lines of "if PFLP-GC and Iran were involved, this necessarily means that Libya could not have been involved".

And the second very important caveat is this: I think it's now pretty clear that Megrahi should never have been convicted - there was never sufficient (or in fact any) credible and reliable evidence indicating his guilt. I look forward to his conviction being correctly quashed before too long, and I hugely applaud those campaigners who've doggedly pursued this line and who've assisted & supported his appeals.


But these latest developments are potentially interesting, especially of course in respect of whether there is any new (and reliable & credible) evidence pointing towards Libya in general and this new individual in particular. And, as I said, I really don't think that any belief in the involvement of PFLP-GC and Iran - a belief that I myself hold - automatically means that Libya could not have been involved at any level. I would love new evidence to be uncovered resulting in the successful prosecution of individuals connected to PFLP-GC; and I would love the combined investigative and judicial authorities to bring the whole picture into the light one day (and it'll be disgusting if it's ever credibly shown that those authorities had strong and prosecutable evidence of the involvement of PFLP-GC but buried it for political reasons).


**DUCKS AND COVERS**
 
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LondonJohn said:
But absent an unimpeachable alibi, won't it be impossible ever to prove that Megrahi wasn't involved?

I think the most that happen is that it can be shown that there's not (and never was) sufficient evidence to prove Megrahi's involvement BARD.


I wrote in this thread a while back (but got predicably attacked for it!) and posed this hypothetical question of fact, leaving aside judicial findings for a moment: does a belief that PFLP-GC were behind the bombing necessarily allow us to infer that Libya had nothing to do with it?

And I posed that question because it seemed to me that there was a prevailing assumption - both in the campaign to clear Megrahi's name and in these threads - that in effect a causal relationship existed between a) evidence/belief of PFLP-GC's/Iran's involvement and b) the factual innocence of Megrahi (and, in fact, any Libyans).

I'd asked whether in fact it may have been a plausible possibility that there may have been some level of collaborative involvement (whether in strategy, manpower, expertise or finance) between Iran, PFLP-GC, and Libya? After all, the PFLF-GC theory already necessitated a collaboration between Iran and PFLP-GC. We of course also already know that Libya assisted & funded terrorist activities in collaboration with groups which had nothing in common with Libya (except for a belief in the efficacy of armed insurgency and terrorism), most notably the Provisional IRA.

So is it impossible, I asked (and ask), to conceive of the idea that the Lockerbie bombing might have been planned, financed and executed by a collaborative team including Iran, PFLP-GC and Libya?

Now, there are two extremely important caveats to my question. The first is that there is zero evidence explicitly indicating a three-way collaboration. But one cannot rule out the feasibility of it simply on the basis that there's no evidence of it. And my purpose in suggesting the possiility of the collaboration is specifically to confront assumptions along the lines of "if PFLP-GC and Iran were involved, this necessarily means that Libya could not have been involved".

And the second very important caveat is this: I think it's now pretty clear that Megrahi should never have been convicted - there was never sufficient (or in fact any) credible and reliable evidence indicating his guilt. I look forward to his conviction being correctly quashed before too long, and I hugely applaud those campaigners who've doggedly pursued this line and who've assisted & supported his appeals.


But these latest developments are potentially interesting, especially of course in respect of whether there is any new (and reliable & credible) evidence pointing towards Libya in general and this new individual in particular. And, as I said, I really don't think that any belief in the involvement of PFLP-GC and Iran - a belief that I myself hold - automatically means that Libya could not have been involved at any level. I would love new evidence to be uncovered resulting in the successful prosecution of individuals connected to PFLP-GC; and I would love the combined investigative and judicial authorities to bring the whole picture into the light one day (and it'll be disgusting if it's ever credibly shown that those authorities had strong and prosecutable evidence of the involvement of PFLP-GC but buried it for political reasons).


**DUCKS AND COVERS**
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I suppose that unless one understands the politics between the Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine?, Libya and Iran in the 1970s it is difficult to know whether one might be regarded as splitters and unlikely to co-operate with the others. Given the current anti-Iran US view I find it surprising that they are not backing Rolfe in accusing Iran. If the current US executive is accusing Libya and not Iran, I feel that they must be really convinced Iran had nothing to do with this because any excuse to blame Iran.
 
LondonJohn said:
So is it impossible, I asked (and ask), to conceive of the idea that the Lockerbie bombing might have been planned, financed and executed by a collaborative team including Iran, PFLP-GC and Libya?
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it's entirely possible that Libya was involved.

However if we discount the Gauci identification evidence the *only* evidence that might point to Libyan involvement is the timer fragment linked to a timer of Libyan origin and some tenous links between Bollier and Libya.

I don't think Bollier has anything to do with the whole thing, so I tend to discount him and links to him from the case.


Certainly circa 1988 Libya was a player in international terrorism under the auspices of Ghadaffi. It would not be right to say that Libya was definitively not involved in the bomb plot.

All that said though there is precious little evidence to support Libyan involvement.

It boils down to the fragment of circuit board (labelled Pt/35b in the evidence). Personally I doubt it's provenance, and don't think it's genuine, but try as I might I cannot prove that BARD. I think I am at the point where I could prove it was planted, on the balance of probabilities, but that's not the standard for a criminal court.


But these latest developments are potentially interesting, especially of course in respect of whether there is any new (and reliable & credible) evidence pointing towards Libya in general and this new individual in particular. And, as I said, I really don't think that any belief in the involvement of PFLP-GC and Iran - a belief that I myself hold - automatically means that Libya could not have been involved at any level.
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I think at this point I am not wedded to any particular version of events. Given the research I have done I have a version of the story in my head I think is most likely, BUT, if more, newer, better evidence comes to light I could easily be persuaded otherwise.

Yes Libya could be involved, although I tend to think that there would be other evidence pointing in that direction already if that was the case. The physical evidence from the Lockerbie crash site is fairly well documented and has been pored over by much better researchers than me, and links to Libya are very thin on the ground.

I would love to be proven wrong about the timer fragment PT/35b. My version of events has US intelligence planting it into the evidence in order to "frame the people who we know did this horrible thing" which doesn't sit well with me at all.

Ultimately I just want to know the truth of the matter. I very much look forward to any new evidence that is brought to light as a result of a new indictment.
 
Ambrosia said:
it's entirely possible that Libya was involved.

However if we discount the Gauci identification evidence the *only* evidence that might point to Libyan involvement is the timer fragment linked to a timer of Libyan origin and some tenous links between Bollier and Libya.

I don't think Bollier has anything to do with the whole thing, so I tend to discount him and links to him from the case.


Certainly circa 1988 Libya was a player in international terrorism under the auspices of Ghadaffi. It would not be right to say that Libya was definitively not involved in the bomb plot.

All that said though there is precious little evidence to support Libyan involvement.

It boils down to the fragment of circuit board (labelled Pt/35b in the evidence). Personally I doubt it's provenance, and don't think it's genuine, but try as I might I cannot prove that BARD. I think I am at the point where I could prove it was planted, on the balance of probabilities, but that's not the standard for a criminal court.




I think at this point I am not wedded to any particular version of events. Given the research I have done I have a version of the story in my head I think is most likely, BUT, if more, newer, better evidence comes to light I could easily be persuaded otherwise.

Yes Libya could be involved, although I tend to think that there would be other evidence pointing in that direction already if that was the case. The physical evidence from the Lockerbie crash site is fairly well documented and has been pored over by much better researchers than me, and links to Libya are very thin on the ground.

I would love to be proven wrong about the timer fragment PT/35b. My version of events has US intelligence planting it into the evidence in order to "frame the people who we know did this horrible thing" which doesn't sit well with me at all.

Ultimately I just want to know the truth of the matter. I very much look forward to any new evidence that is brought to light as a result of a new indictment.
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I'm in agreement with all of this. I'd love to know what really happened, and who really was (and was not) involved.

Of course, one thing that will probably be at issue, especially since the criminal act took place so long ago, will be the likely divergence between factual truth and "judicial truth". My own opinion is that, by this point, there's very little chance that there will ever be enough credible, reliable evidence to constitute proof BARD of any individual's guilt (or it would take a momentous discovery of new evidence for BARD guilt ever to be a possibility). On the other hand, fragments of new evidence might come to light which would facilitate at least a "balance of probabilities" understanding about how the bombing happened, who'd planned & financed it, and who'd executed it.
 
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...e-bombing-new-charges-suspect-plane-attack-us

A Libyan man accused of being the bomb-maker behind the terrorist attack that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 has been charged in a US court for his alleged role in the murder of 270 people.

Mohammed Abouagela Masud was charged on the 32nd anniversary of the bombing, which took place on 21 December 1988, killing all 259 people on the plane as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. Some 190 of the victims were American.
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old news.

Masud is the prime suspect in Ken Dornsteins film "My Brothers Bomber" which he made for Frontline in 2015.


It's possible, but meh.

We need more evidence.

Circa 2012 Megrahi died in Libya. 2011 Ghadaffi was killed. 2008 (I think I'm not 100% sure on the dates) Libya admitted "liability" for Lockerbie and agreed to pay reparations.

I'm not sure how much faith I put in a coerced "confession" by some Libyan circa 2012, fresh after Ghadaffi has been removed violently. It's too politically convenient for the new regime and there is a paucity of evidence to support it.

If there is more evidence to support it then great, lets see the evidence. At present though I remain sceptical.
 
Samson said:
"At the center of the new charges against Masud is an interview from 2012 in which he is alleged to have confessed to Libyan intelligence while in custody after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. Barr said a copy of the transcript of the interview was supplied by Libya to US law enforcement."

Will the transcript be quickly available?
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According to an interview I heard there is a second admission, to a terrorist at present imprisoned in Germany. Two independent admissions of involvement seem strongly suggestive if not sufficient BARD.
 
Planigale said:
According to an interview I heard there is a second admission, to a terrorist at present imprisoned in Germany. Two independent admissions of involvement seem strongly suggestive if not sufficient BARD.
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Fascinating.
Rolfe (and no doubt others) prove the bomb was loaded at Heathrow, so how does this fit with the current events?
 
Planigale said:
According to an interview I heard there is a second admission, to a terrorist at present imprisoned in Germany. Two independent admissions of involvement seem strongly suggestive if not sufficient BARD.
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If there are 2 independent confessions, and neither was coerced then I'd give it a little more credence, but...

How was the bomb loaded onto PA103? We can prove way BARD that it was placed in the baggage shed at Heathrow the night before the bombing in a brown samsonite case.

The "official theory" has the bomb case loaded onto a flight from Malta, via Frankfurt, onto PA103 using the luggage interline system as back then you could check in your luggage to a flight and then not get on the plane yourself. It was a tangle of inferences based on the assumption of a Malta bomb loading that was the foundation of the case against Megrahi.

We need to see his account of what happened and when, to see if they fit with what we can already prove happened.
There are a number of reasons I can think of for someone to fabricate their story that shows they were involved in xyz crime. Does his story line up with the facts which are known? If it differs in some respects, can those be explained? etc etc..

I am also not sure why the US has waited this long to indict him if the evidence to do so was well known back in 2015, but I digress.
 
I have a question-- if there are indeed 2 independent confessions that the bombing was a Libyan operation that placed it in Malta, what does that do to the narrative that it was "beyond a reasonable doubt" embedded at Heathrow? That seems to throw significant shade on "beyond a reasonable doubt."
 
Yalius said:
I have a question-- if there are indeed 2 independent confessions that the bombing was a Libyan operation that placed it in Malta, what does that do to the narrative that it was "beyond a reasonable doubt" embedded at Heathrow? That seems to throw significant shade on "beyond a reasonable doubt."
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I think the admission is only that he was involved in planning / commissioning the action. He appears to have been a known go between between Libya / Gadaffi and terrorists. What hasn't come out is the details of who and how. i suppose you could just substitute Libya for Iran as the commissioners and keep the rest of the narrative the same.
 
Yalius said:
I have a question-- if there are indeed 2 independent confessions that the bombing was a Libyan operation that placed it in Malta, what does that do to the narrative that it was "beyond a reasonable doubt" embedded at Heathrow? That seems to throw significant shade on "beyond a reasonable doubt."
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Rolfe knows the details better than I do, but the evidence for the heathrow planting of the bomb is basically rock solid. It's primarily based on physical evidence not on "eye witness" evidence.

We know from analysis of damage to PA103 *exactly* where the bomb was inside the cargo hold, we can work out how big it was, we know from physical evidence that it was in a samsonite case. We know there was a break in at Heathrow in the place where the luggage containers that were used on PA103 were stored (the interline shed) etc etc.

We don't know (afaik) yet the details of Masuds confession(s). We are unsure as to whether there is more than 1, or 2 separate reports are referring to the same confession. We don't know if either was coerced. It's plausible that Libya "admitted liability" for the bombing in order to get crippling sanctions lifted, despite actually having little to nothing to do with it, and if so perhaps Masud was instructed to spin a story to that end.
Perhaps he is mentally ill, and is just plain making **** up.


There is a fair amount of evidence that points to Khreesat as being the manufacturer of the bomb. I am not aware of any evidence, other than these reported confession(s) to support Masud, or anyone else as having made the device.
If Masud did make the bomb then there should be other corroborating
evidence to support that fact, and it's also entirely possible that both Masud making the bomb and it later being planted at Heathrow, both being true.
It does not follow that if a Libyan made the bomb it was put onto PA103 via the Malta flight.
The "heathrow evidence" developed by Rolfe completely rules out a Malta ingestion for the bomb suitcase. It simply contradicts too much known physical evidence, so if Masud is claiming a Malta ingestion (and as far as I know he isn't, just that the plot was Libyan and he made the bomb) then his story will need a fair amount of corroborating evidence to back it up.
 
My reading of this development, so far as I'm aware of what's going on, is that Masoud, whose presence was known about back in the 1990s but nothing seems to have been pinned on him then, was resurrected when it became necessary to find some narrative to counter the evidence of the bomb having gone on at Heathrow. Another "suspect" being present at Malta filled the bill.

All they have on Masoud seems to be this confession, and given the circumstances of that it's entirely possible it was obtained by torture. This is all quite disturbing.

Ken Dornstein (whom I have met, and who is so keen on his own theory as to be impervious to any other evidence) seems to have been fed the "evidence" relating to Masoud and facilitated in his investigative trip into Libya to "uncover" and "reveal" this, as a documentary-maker and relative of a victim. Great story to put out, intrepid brother searching for the truth enters Libya and discovers "Megrahi's accomplice"!

As far as this evidence goes, it doesn't amount to anything much beyond the dubious confession, and indeed Masoud's actual presence in Malta if anything could have been regarded as exculpatory to Megrahi because one of the points against Megrahi was that he was the only potentially suspicious character hanging around Luqa airport that morning so who else could it have been? But so convenient if you need an "accomplice" to cement the Malta introduction and Megrahi's involvement.

The possibility that Masoud was tortured specifically in order to obtain evidence to counter what I uncovered about Heathrow is a bit disturbing, even if he is an out-and-out bad guy.

What remains to be seen is whether the appeal judges will judge the case before them on its merits, or whether they will be swayed by this news from the USA - which would have been contempt of court if it had emerged in Scotland. Are they likely to realise this development has been engineered and timed specifically to interfere with their appeal judgement?

I kind of doubt it, and my feeling is that Scottish justice is fundamentally corrupt and this conviction will not be allowed to be overturned no matter the actual evidence. I hope I'm wrong, but the more this goes on the more cynical I get.
 
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Ambrosia said:
I would love to be proven wrong about the timer fragment PT/35b. My version of events has US intelligence planting it into the evidence in order to "frame the people who we know did this horrible thing" which doesn't sit well with me at all.
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I know where you're coming from there. However, I don't think I'm that close to proving that PT/35b was planted in the wreckage. I'm finding it extraordinarily difficult to construct any scenario at all that accounts for the damn thing. Planted, genuine part of the bomb, nothing makes sense. I don't even know what it is, who made it or when or why. Again every time I formulate a hypothesis I find more evidence that blows it out of the water.

Could you explain your working hypothesis that might be balance of probabilities?
 
Rolfe said:
My reading of this development, so far as I'm aware of what's going on, is that Masoud, whose presence was known about back in the 1990s but nothing seems to have been pinned on him then, was resurrected when it became necessary to find some narrative to counter the evidence of the bomb having gone on at Heathrow. Another "suspect" being present at Malta filled the bill.

All they have on Masoud seems to be this confession, and given the circumstances of that it's entirely possible it was obtained by torture. This is all quite disturbing.

Ken Dornstein (whom I have met, and who is so keen on his own theory as to be impervious to any other evidence) seems to have been fed the "evidence" relating to Masoud and facilitated in his investigative trip into Libya to "uncover" and "reveal" this, as a documentary-maker and relative of a victim. Great story to put out, intrepid brother searching for the truth enters Libya and discovers "Megrahi's accomplice"!

As far as this evidence goes, it doesn't amount to anything much beyond the dubious confession, and indeed Masoud's actual presence in Malta if anything could have been regarded as exculpatory to Megrahi because one of the points against Megrahi was that he was the only potentially suspicious character hanging around Luqa airport that morning so who else could it have been? But so convenient if you need an "accomplice" to cement the Malta introduction and Megrahi's involvement.

The possibility that Masoud was tortured specifically in order to obtain evidence to counter what I uncovered about Heathrow is a bit disturbing, even if he is an out-and-out bad guy.

What remains to be seen is whether the appeal judges will judge the case before them on its merits, or whether they will be swayed by this news from the USA - which would have been contempt of court if it had emerged in Scotland. Are they likely to realise this development has been engineered and timed specifically to interfere with their appeal judgement?

I kind of doubt it, and my feeling is that Scottish justice is fundamentally corrupt and this conviction will not be allowed to be overturned no matter the actual evidence. I hope I'm wrong, but the more this goes on the more cynical I get.
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This is not a derail but needs to be said.
New Zealand is Scotland in population and various measures.
I totally understand how this corruption can be real.
Your knowledge of this case is clearly as absolute as a reasonable person could assess and I see the same type of activism in a bunch of NZ cases where the system is sacrificing individuals with naked malice and in cold blood.
 
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