Merged Lockerbie bomber alive after 9 months

Rolfe said:
The possibility that the authorities had some killer behind-the-scenes information they couldn't bring to court which made them sure of his guilt just doesn't wash either.
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Even if it did wash it would be irrelevant. The whole point of an open court system is that we don't trust the government's ability to interpret evidence and decide guilt.
 
Leif Roar said:
Even if it did wash it would be irrelevant. The whole point of an open court system is that we don't trust the government's ability to interpret evidence and decide guilt.
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Well exactly. That's what's so shocking about the passage in the judgement of the first appeal (which was as big a stitch-up as the original trial if not more so), where the judges give their finding on the unaccompanied bag on the Malta-Frankfurt flight.

Those records [the ambiguous computer printout from Frankfurt] demonstrated the carriage of an unaccompanied bag from Malta on flight KM180. The evidence of Mr Borg did not rule out the possibility of that happening. It was to be remembered that the Crown case was that the security measures at Luqa had been deliberately circumvented by a criminal act.
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The Malta records were in apple-pie order, and the baggage supervisor had said that by any normal definition of "possible" it was impossible for anything to have been carried unaccompanied on that flight. They did it by counting. They knew they should have 55 bags, and every time they counted there were 55 bags. They excluded a substitution, because none of the passengers had reported any luggage missing at their destination. They excluded a conspirator on the plane who would not have reported a missing bag, by following up all the passengers and investigating them for terrorist connections until their pips squeaked.

The Frankfurt records were simply missing, with no explanation, and no apologies. The provenance of the extract that surfaced was bizarre, and that extract required interpretation. It was always possible the suspicious entry could have been a coding anomaly, not a real bag from Malta. The judges decided that since the defence had not proved there was any coding error, they were entitled to decide it was a real bag from Malta.

And they explained why they were ignoring the fact that there really was no unaccompanied bag according to the Malta records, which were complete and of proper provenance, by saying, well, remember the prosecution said this was a dastardly act!

This is utterly incomprehensible, as Hans Kochler noted. There's something that might shed a bit of light on it though. Vincent Cannistraro helpfully went into more detail about the prosecution case in a documentary produced before the trial.

VINCENT CANNISTRARO: They have vindicated themselves on paper in terms of the security procedures, but if their security personnel are suborned by hostile intelligence service, and they are completely vulnerable to whatever that hostile service would want to put on their aircraft, with baggage tags, without baggage tags. Once you have basically infiltrated the security apparatus there is no barrier to doing exactly what Fhimah and Megrahi did.
SHELLEY: According to the US State Department fact sheet Fhimah played a key role in getting the bomb suitcase on KM180. It's claimed he used his official status as station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines at Luqa Airport to bypass security.
DENIS PHIPPS: I'm satisfied that the aircraft was kept under proper supervision by Air Malta staff while it was being loaded, that the head loader supervised the closing of the doors and I do not believe that for one moment that the loading staff would have permitted such a thing to happen.
SHELLEY: Air Malta may very well produce screeds and screeds of documentation which proves on paper that no unaccompanied bag left on flight KM180, but if, as Vincent Cannistraro argues, the system was suborned then that argument really doesn't matter at the end of the day, does it?
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The prosecution had decided that the ground systems at Luqa airport had been completely suborned by Libyan intelligence, to the point where they could get an unaccompanied suitcase on a plane, and have the paperwork all falsified to conceal this. (They're even wrong about Fhimah, because he'd changed jobs by December 1988 and was no longer station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines at Luqa Airport. He still had an airside pass, and the prosecution tried to use that against him, but they could produce nobody who had seen him at the airport that day.)

They absolutely bust a gut trying to find evidence for this theory. They harrassed baggage staff and tapped their private phone lines. The Maltese staff at one point submitted an official protest about this. They got nothing. And in 20 years, nobody who was aware of this having happened has ever come forward to give evidence, in spite of a town in flames and 270 people dead. Now that's a conspiracy theory if you like.

However, there's a distinct hint in that judgement, the sentence I bolded, that the judges nevertheless haven't just thought about it, but have actually decided that's what happened. With absolutely ZERO supporting evidence.

It's a complete nonsense. Cannistraro in the same documentary also waxes lyrical about the important evidence Giaka will give, and Giaka was found beyond all doubt to be lying for money. Which Cannistraro knew, by the way. So why should we believe his little theory about the Malta baggage system?

It's really quite scary when you look at some of the details of these judgements.

Rolfe.
 
Architect said:
For those of you who don't get the Herald, Rolfe's letter has been published - unedited, as far as I can see, apart from the omission of the last line. There are a number of other letters also very critical of the US Senators.
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Finally, we're online. http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/herald-letters/letters-thursday-29-july-2010-1.1044691

The author of the first-up letter is a good friend of mine, as it happens. Small world.

My letter has been published complete, last line and all. The only editorial changes are to spell out "Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission", quite properly, because it is the first usage of that abbreviation on the page, and to add "in my view" before the remark about the evidence being insufficient to support the issuing of a parking ticket. So they actually made it longer!

I hope the senators keep this up, because the more it goes on, the stronger the lobby saying the conviction was unsound seems to be becoming.

Rolfe.
 
They now want to come to Britain to pursue their 'investigation' [1]. Hasn't anyone told them if you're in a hole, stop digging. Well, maybe their digging will unearth some unwelcome truths.

[1] - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-10810315

ETA: listened to Sen Menendez on Newsnight; seems to be stuck in a loop, asking the same questions, which have been surely answered numerous times in the last few weeks. Alec Salmond says he would probably meet the senator as a matter of courtesy as meetings between diplomats of both countries happen regularly, but reiterated the point that he is answerable to the Scottish Parliament only, and if wants to know about the PTA he should be asking Blair and Gadaffi.
 
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Senator Menendez is talking about his committee coming to Britain to "question witnesses". Alex Samond is talking about a courtesy meeting between senior politicians from different countries. This should be fun!

Alex said quite rightly that there was no way this senate commission was going to convene a formal hearing outside the USA. Any meetings will be as equals, and there is no way on God's green earth they are going to get Kenny MacAskill or anyone else to take an oath and stand in front of them as "witness". Not because he's got anything to hide, but because it's completely improper.

However, Patrick has made an interesting point, as I said above. That Frank Lautenberg, one of the quadrumvirate (if that's the word), was a member of the PCAST group immediately after Lockerbie, after a meeting of which (London, 12th February 1990) an aide told Martin Cadman that "your government and my government know exactly what happened. But they are never going to tell." The first indication of a cover-up, I think.

One imagines that the members of that group knew a bit more than these senators appear to know. This is confusing. Unless of course he really is stick-stone stupid, and simply didn't pick up on a single undercurrent in the past 20+ years.

Rolfe.
 
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Rolfe said:
My letter has been published complete, last line and all. The only editorial changes are to spell out "Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission", quite properly, because it is the first usage of that abbreviation on the page, and to add "in my view" before the remark about the evidence being insufficient to support the issuing of a parking ticket. So they actually made it longer!
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To be honest, being slightly naïve, I'm surprised that they added to your letter without square brackets, making you say something you never said. I expect letters to be cut as necessary, but adding bits without making it clear that you have done so is really not on.
 
Rat said:
To be honest, being slightly naïve, I'm surprised that they added to your letter without square brackets, making you say something you never said. I expect letters to be cut as necessary, but adding bits without making it clear that you have done so is really not on.
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Well, I agree with you in principle and I'm mildly narked, but not enough to do anything about it. They haven't changed the meaning in any way - after all, whose view would I be expressing but my own?

The effect, of course, is to soften the point. They're trying to distance themselves from what I said, which was that the evidence wouldn't support the issue of a parking ticket. I wonder why they found it necessary to do that? It's not as if it hasn't been said often enough before that the evidence was very weak. And I can't see what possible sanctions could be levelled against any newspaper for printing a letter from a reader containing that unqualified statement.

This is something I find very shocking. It's difficult to appreciate just how non-existent the evidence against Megrahi actually is, without examining the court case in some detail. Even then, it's quite difficult to get your head round it. I kept expecting to find something that would surely support an inference of guilt, but there's really nothing. The case was entirely manufactured around a couple of coincidences that support nothing at all, and indeed wouldn't get you a parking ticket. The written court judgements reveal an astonishing will to convict on the part of the judges, who at every turn chose to find in favour of the most wildly unlikely interpretation of the evidence so long as this supported Megrahi's guilt, rejecting the plain, sensible explanation that didn't.

It's an excellent example of the power of the internet. The extent of availability of the primary sources in this case is exceptional. We don't have to take Paul Foot's word for it, or Robert Black's or Hans Kochler's or anybody else's. We can read it for ourselves, and anyone we are debating with also has access to this material.

What I find difficult to understand is why so few people, especially so few journalists, seem to have read it. There's a knee-jerk default position of believing that :rule10 bastard Kenny MacAskill when he declares that the conviction was sound and the court did a sterling job. No, they really didn't. They banged up an innocent man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It isn't the first time and it won't be the last, but given the extraordinarily high profile of the affair, you'd think more people would take the trouble to educate themselves.

Rolfe.

ETA: I've just noticed another alteration. I referred initially to "Abdelbaset al-Megrahi" and then subsequently to "Mr. al-Megrahi" in the letter, as a matter of courtesy. This has been changed on every occurrence to "Megrahi". One occurrence of "Mr. McAskill" has also been changed to "MacAskill".

The overall result seems to be a slightly dehumanising effect as regards the unfortunate prisoner.
 
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A very raw article from one of the US relatives, expressing anger at the release of Megrahi, referenced on Prof. Black's blog:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-06/hed-tk/

And a more measured letter in today's Herald, from a former police inspector who oversaw the temporary mortuary at the time:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/herald-letters/letters-saturday-7-august-2010-1.1046533

I can understand their anger; you can't criticise people for not feeling compassion toward someone they feel has wronged them so grievously.
 
I can understand it to some extent, if only the evidence that Megrahi didn't do it wasn't freely available on the internet in the form of primary source material. You don't even have to read any of the defence submissions, or the criticisms of the verdict from official sources, or the SCCRC press release. The two court judgements themselves provide ample evidence that they convicted an innocent man.

Mr. McManus uses his graphic description of the appalling carnage to whip up hate for the perpetrator, but he naively accepts the court verdict without question. Legalities aside, you can't decribe anyone as "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" when the SCCRC reported no less than six grounds for believing it was a possible miscarriage of justice.

Brian Flynn seems woefully uninformed for someone who has been involved in the case for so long. He is also unforgivably arrogant.

Brian Flynn said:
Our mission now is to hold these charlatans responsible. The Scottish ministers should be forced to resign, and then tried on corruption charges. Megrahi should be returned to prison.
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This is a foreign government Flynn is talking about. The government with actual jurisdiction in the case. Our government, actually. He, an American, calls our government "charlatans", wants to "hold them responsible", when they're responsible to us, not him. He, an American, wants to force our government ministers to resign, and then try them on corruption charges. On what evidence and under what jurisdiction, I wonder?

And I'd say the same if the government in question was Labour, or Tory, or Liberal. This is not the sort of language to use about another nation's jurisdiction, and the US would be the first to be outraged if any of us tried to call them to account, depose their elected leaders and try them on corruption charges.

So, many Americans were murdered in a foreign country. Are they going to decide to usurp the jurisdiction of any foreign country where an American happens to be murdered? Good luck with that in Russia, or China, or Saudi Arabia, I think. But Britain has been America's dutiful little lap-dog, supporting it in its illegal foreign wars and brown-nosing its educationally-challenged president, "special relationship" and all, and this is the result. Americans who think our sovereign government can be called to their heel at their ill-informed whim.

He also thinks a dying man should be returned to prison because he has had the cheek not to die as quickly as predicted. How he would do this is not explained. Would he care to send a gunboat to Tripoli and ask Gadaffi to hand him over?

I've no doubt Mr. Flynn suffered terrible hurt 22 years ago when he lost his brother - hurt which has not been assuaged by the great riches it brought him. But other people have lost brothers and got over it. This is no excuse for that shameful outburst.

No matter how heinous the atrocity, it cannot justify wreaking hate-filled vengeance on the wrong man.

Rolfe.
 
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Because if Kenny MacAskill thinks he didn't do it then he should have moved heaven and earth to expedite the appeal process (as should his predecessors). If the guy gets released before an appeal then of course a lot of people will presume he is guilty. That's only natural.

Simple way for no bad publicity - expedite his appeal, legally find his conviction unsafe/groundless/not proven/whatever and then release him.


And by the way, that reads as a really despicable thing to say:

Rolfe said:
I've no doubt Mr. Flynn suffered terrible hurt 22 years ago when he lost his brother - hurt which has not been assuaged by the great riches it brought him. .
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Rolfe said:
I can understand it to some extent, if only the evidence that Megrahi didn't do it wasn't freely available on the internet in the form of primary source material. You don't even have to read any of the defence submissions, or the criticisms of the verdict from official sources, or the SCCRC press release. The two court judgements themselves provide ample evidence that they convicted an innocent man.
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Perhaps. BUT:

1) People are used to trusting the result of due process in the court of an advanced western nation (i.e. Scotland) over the contents of files found on the internet. Most of the time this is a sensible attitude to take.

2) There is a reason why we should follow due process rather than just a; "well I think he's innocent so its alright to let him go" or "I think he's guilty so string him up". If due process had been followed and an appeal heard then this wouldn't be generating the same storm of controversy (there'd be a completely different storm of controversy!)
 
Cardinal attacks US over Lockerbie bomber reaction

'...Cardinal Keith O'Brien said the Scottish government was right to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi last year on compassionate grounds.

US lawmakers want Scots politicians to explain their decision to a committee but the cardinal said ministers should not go "crawling like lapdogs".

He said Scotland had a culture of care, while the US was fixed on vengeance. ...'

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-10905562. The Cardinal goes on to say

'... The cardinal said Americans should "direct their gaze inwards" rather than scrutinise how the Scottish justice system worked.

He said the use of the death penalty meant the US kept "invidious company" with countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran. ...'

Also

'... "We shouldn't be crawling out to America, or having them come here and questioning us on our own territory." ...'

In other words, America can - in the words of the prophet - go and get ecclesiastically stuffed.

And so says all of Scotland.
 
When the world takes notice of the opinion of a religious leader it's time to give up.

That's all EJ? The opinion of a Cardinal? He and you speak for all of Scotland?
Edited by Tricky: 
Edited for civility.
 
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Never heard of him and he certainly doesn't speak for me, or Scotland , on anything.

Nor, I venture to suggest, does E.J.


That said, I'm of the opinion Megrahi should never have been convicted in the first place; that this had become rather apparent even to politicians; and that letting him go on compassionate grounds was a cynical face-saver. Whether this improves anyone's view of Scots lawyers or politicians is not for me to decide.

As I happen to think the death penalty is a perfectly acceptable alternative to locking someone away for life, I cannot agree with the Cardinal's use of "invidious", but the fact that those three countries are among the minority to still execute people can hardly be argued, even by the most rabid anti-Catholic.
 
Soapy Sam said:
That said, I'm of the opinion Megrahi should never have been convicted in the first place; that this had become rather apparent even to politicians; and that letting him go on compassionate grounds was a cynical face-saver. Whether this improves anyone's view of Scots lawyers or politicians is not for me to decide.
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One of the conditions for his 'release' was that he dropped his appeal; which was apparently going to have some interesting new evidence.

Oh well, it may be published in 30 years time. Possibly.
 
The first thing people need to do is read the actual article. E J's quote minning has been pretty inventive.

The Cardinal does make some good points (From a Scottish perspective) example opposition to the death penalty. Concerns for how some American politians have expressed themselves regarding an explanation from the Scottish government.

I feel the real blame lays with the medical experts who gave the diagnosis in the first place that lead to this man's release. What did they miss, ignore, not understand about the job they were doing
 
Giz said:
Because if Kenny MacAskill thinks he didn't do it then he should have moved heaven and earth to expedite the appeal process (as should his predecessors).
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I couldn't agree more. Kenny MacAskill's behaviour has been baffling in this respect, and I for one am not a happy bunny about it.

Giz said:
If the guy gets released before an appeal then of course a lot of people will presume he is guilty. That's only natural.

Simple way for no bad publicity - expedite his appeal, legally find his conviction unsafe/groundless/not proven/whatever and then release him.
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Indeed. I don't know why everybody concerned was so keen to move heaven and earth to prevent the appeal coming to court.

Giz said:
If due process had been followed and an appeal heard then this wouldn't be generating the same storm of controversy (there'd be a completely different storm of controversy!)
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If Megrahi had been granted his compassionate release, but hadn't been blackmailed into dropping his appeal at the same time, it's extremely likely he would be a free man as of right by now.

And the Scottish criminal justice system would be facing up to re-opening 270 extremely cold case murder investigations.

Giz said:
And by the way, that reads as a really despicable thing to say:
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Maybe so. However, the Lockerbie relatives got about £8 million apiece because of this. Very few people become millionnaires after the tragic loss of a loved one, most simply have to deal with it. I sometimes wonder if there is a reluctance to confront the possibility that this money was paid out on false premises.

Rolfe.
 
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