Lockerbie: London Origin Theory

[Buncrana]

Yep, just about to post that.

Leppard was, if nothing else, at least following the 'official' lines of the investigation. The thing about that statement by Orr is that by this time the colour, make and position of the primary case was known, as was Bedford's description of 'a mysterious suitcase', and he would have been aware of Henderson's reconciliation of Heathrow interline passengers. Even if Henderson had not completed the full passenger manifest and luggage reconciliation, the Heathrow passengers would likely be a priority for the British investigators and by late March this would have been feasibly completed.

So, how could he categorize the bomb suitcase, known to be a Brown/Bronze samsonite, as coming from Frankfurt and yet rule out an unauthorised brown/bronze samsonite seen in AVE4041 before that flight arrived?

Quite easily it seems, as he has 7 accompanied items of baggage apparently identified.

I need to go back through some of the earlier stuff.

 

[Buncrana]

[FIFY, that list is wrong. Item 5 should be maroon soft-sided Samsonite suit carrier. I think I read a note about Lawrence Bennett's suitcase by accident and made a wrong entry earlier.

Thanks.

That's interesting, I didn't know that. I wonder why he said seven? I have no clue where he got that from. Where is your source for that quote? I'd like to read a bit more of that little lot. The FAI itself, in the findings, actually says "six or seven", twice. Clearly aware that there is some lack of clarity about that.

Yeah, I remember the uncertainty of numbers at the FAI. This seems to stem from Bedford being unsure of the precise number he loaded initially, and how many in total were in the container after returning from his tea break. Was it two additional suitcases added, or just one and another one that was already in 4041 moved?

However, the exercise of Bedford loading the container, indicated strongly that it was seven cases. So if Bedford and Sidhu remembered the container and suitcase as described, then it would have to mean five were along the rear of 4041 and two placed flat at the front.

My reading of the investigation during 1989 suggests that they simply assumed that the provenance of the Bedford suitcase would become clear once the baggage reconciliation was complete. I'm not sure at what point they realised that had not happened. In late November, a query from the BKA about the Bedford case was answered simply with a list of the complete Heathrow interline baggage as identified, without even specifying which items were in AVE4041 and which weren't. Of course that could have been obfuscation, if they'd realised by then. If the realisation came later than August 1989, it wouldn't be heeded anyway because they were in full cry to Malta after that.

Interesting that Orr said seven in March 1989 though.

Rolfe.

Perhaps, although as mentioned above, I'd have expected that the Heathrow passengers and luggage would have been the priority for the Brit investigators, and late March seems sufficient time to conclude this aspect.


Nevertheless, indeed some kudos to Baz for his persistence on the Bedford bag.

 

[Rolfe]

Yay! I've sorted my submission about the three-suitcase trick to be a lot more logical and address the Cullis evidence properly. All I had to do was change the order of the paragraphs and replace a few sentences. I'll email you.

The thing about that statement by Orr is that by this time the colour, make and position of the primary case was known, as was Bedford's description of 'a mysterious suitcase', and he would have been aware of Henderson's reconciliation of Heathrow interline passengers. Even if Henderson had not completed the full passenger manifest and luggage reconciliation, the Heathrow passengers would likely be a priority for the British investigators and by late March this would have been feasibly completed.

So, how could he categorize the bomb suitcase, known to be a Brown/Bronze samsonite, as coming from Frankfurt and yet rule out an unauthorised brown/bronze samsonite seen in AVE4041 before that flight arrived?

Quite easily it seems, as he has 7 accompanied items of baggage apparently identified.

I think it took longer than we realised to pick through the blast-damaged fragments and even figure out how many cases were contributing to the mix, never mind get them identified by the next of kin. Carlsson's case, in particular, took a long time. Nevertheless, the extent and impenetrability of the blind spot involved is quite remarkable. Any normal investigation, seeing a lead as apparently promising as Bedford's statements, would have been all over it like a rash. They'd have been desperately waiting for the reconciliation to see if this wildly suspicious suitcase was the answer to their prayers, their ticket to promotions and the Honours List, and their best chance of getting home to the wife and bairns in the evening, or if it was going to turn out to be innocent passenger luggage rearranged by some busybody.

This is precisely what they were not doing, even before it looked like some people might get a few weeks all-expenses-paid in a Mediterranean holiday resort out of it. They were looking the other way, whistling nonchalantly, and when challenged about it, waving airily to a list of legitimate interline luggage and saying, one of these, I guess.

How do you get a team of cops to behave like that? My speculation is that only a few of them actually had all the information to know that Bedford's evidence was actually as significant as we can see it to be. John Orr, quite obviously. It seems as if Harry Bell might have been another, judging by the 23-11-89 message in response to Helge Tepp's inquiry. Those people, I imagine, would have to be on-message. God only knows what Derek Henderson thought.

Looking at the dates, Bedford was kept under wraps until late 1990 or so. That's when he was trotted up to the FAI, and it's also when Leppard was assembling his book (it was published quite early in 1991 I think). Of course, by that time the investigation wasn't just firmly committed to Malta (they had been committed to Malta for over a year by then in fact), they were already shifting to Libya away from the PFLP-GC. I think it was unlikely that anyone involved in the inquiry was going to break ranks at that time and start agitating about Bedford.

The period of interest, as you say, is March 1989. They might not have known the Bedford bag didn't reconcile to a passenger as early as that, but they must have known it looked bloody suspicious. They didn't even have the forensics to say the bang seemed to be on the second layer at that point. They had no other leads at all. The BKA were telling them that all the Frankfurt baggage records had been lost. Orr was in charge, and Orr certainly knew. Orr was making big noises about it not being Heathrow before the New Year, for pity's sake.

I wonder who said what to him?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

By the way, I noticed a little wrinkle in the Zeist transcript I hadn't noticed before. There is a suggestion that the "blue case with maroon trim" that was put to Bedford as possibly being the case he saw, was meant to be Gannon's case. (The description also fits Patricia's case, but that's just silly because that was on the feeder flight, even though they eventually tried to put it in that position.) They they say, well that was recovered with only peripheral explosion damage, so it wasn't under the bomb. So somebody had worked that bit out.

If you assume Bedford was mistaken about the colour, you could really make it anybody's case, so long as you were allowed to move it on the tarmac. You could even make it Hubbard's case, and I'm mildly surprised nobody tried actually. Possibly it was too risky to get everyone analysing the luggage suitcase-by-suitcase, in case they started thinking for themselves.

The very idea that these guys deliberately ignored a suitcase that matched the description of the bomb suitcase, had appeared mysteriously in almost exactly the position of the explosion, and had never been reconciled to a passenger, is just surreal.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Have to say, picked a poor time to even dabble back. 10" is not very high, relative to a 9" case, especially when it seems to a bit outboard which means slid up at an angle, if on the floor. and there's a problem with Claiden's assessment-it's 2-D in a 3-D world. Higher, lower, I tried to address the geometry issue with this post, in case it helps or you forgot about it. I'm not sure how good it ever was, but whatever...
http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/2010/07/container-geometry-and-blast-location.html

I will say, on the protected floor/first layer/two cases thing... I can see the floor being shielded as seen by PI-911 and the other big chunks. Iactually think that's the case either way. Something protected the lower side of that suitcase, be it primary case or the the one beneath it. That 2-foot stretch of lining fabric (PK1310A is it?) was clearly also shielded from the worst of the blast. I don't know what that protector would be, but those fragments were from the bottom of the lowest thing in there, I suspect.

 

[Rolfe]

That was exactly what I was going to ask you, because you've looked at that evidence more closely than I have.

Everything except that says the Bedford suitcase wasn't moved, and was the bomb. It could have been originally loaded partly on the sloping section, or it could have moved a few inches due to in-flight turbulence.

If the bomb was on the second layer, then the Bedford suitcase was underneath it. Such a suitcase simply doesn't exist.

My take on this is that while what you've said is interesting, and suggestive, it doesn't add up to 100% mathematical certainty. Given the rest of the evidence, is there any chance the explosion was on the bottom layer? Because if there was, it was.

I certainly don't believe the Prosecution thought the explosion could be 100% proved to have been on the second layer. If they had believed that, Sidhu would have been a star witness to prove that whatever this mystery case was, it couldn't have been the bomb.

Thoughts?

Rolfe.

 

[jargon buster]

Thoughts?

Just one, is there any possibility that the bomb wasnt in a case at all?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Given the rest of the evidence, is there any chance the explosion was on the bottom layer? Because if there was, it was.

I certainly don't believe the Prosecution thought the explosion could be 100% proved to have been on the second layer. If they had believed that, Sidhu would have been a star witness to prove that whatever this mystery case was, it couldn't have been the bomb.

Thoughts?

Rolfe.

Oh sure, it has its problems that kind of meshed with the Bedford two cases same/similar stuff, but it's definitely possible. And for simplicity I'll just agree it probably was so. PK1310A, PI-911, those other big chunks, and the floor beneath were all somehow protected well enough it could be 'about the same' and they could all be in contact, wherever the actual explosion was.

My explanation was the upper half of this secondary case, its contents, plus half the primary case above, is what shielded it. What aside from that would do so is a standing problem, but, eh...

And happy Thursday!

 

[Caustic Logic]

Just one, is there any possibility that the bomb wasnt in a case at all?

Very little. Well, it was unattended for a while, but ... I'll let Rolfe handle that.

Charles Norrie suggests it was a 1/2" thick plate bomb somehow snuck into the skin of the container itself.

 

[jargon buster]

Very little.

I hope that doesnt turn out to be the case (pardon the pun) or some people have been wasting a lot of time.

Charles Norrie suggests it was a 1/2" thick plate bomb somehow snuck into the skin of the container itself.

There are a few theories about what happened, each to their own I suppose.

 

[Rolfe]

Oh sure, it has its problems that kind of meshed with the Bedford two cases same/similar stuff, but it's definitely possible. And for simplicity I'll just agree it probably was so. PK1310A, PI-911, those other big chunks, and the floor beneath were all somehow protected well enough it could be 'about the same' and they could all be in contact, wherever the actual explosion was.

My explanation was the upper half of this secondary case, its contents, plus half the primary case above, is what shielded it. What aside from that would do so is a standing problem, but, eh...

I think we can rely on Sidhu not having moved the cases. It's not likely that a baggage handler in the sort of rush he was in would move luggage that didn't have to be moved, for a start. He was definite in all his statements and perfectly clear in the witness box at the FAI. He was even asked at the FAI if he had lifted a case out and replaced it with another one, and he said no, he hadn't. I also note from his statements that if he was asked something he wasn't sure about, he was perfectly willing to say he wasn't sure or didn't remember. He comes over a lot brighter than Sulkash Kamboj.

I also think we can rely on there not having been anything in the vicinity of the explosion that wasn't either the bomb suitcase or legitimate, identified passenger luggage. They went through all the debris very carefully, and they simply don't have a candidate. That in effect rules out both the two front suitcases as being non-explosive but still unaccounted-for luggage.

As far as the forensics goes, they want to say the explosion was on the second layer, and they have some observations that suggest that, but if the luggage wasn't moved then they have the problem of there being a non-existent case underneath it.

There are only two solutions to this. Either the luggage was moved in spite of everything Sidhu said, or the explosion was on the bottom layer in spite of the forensic opinion.

On balance I'd put Sidhu's clear and consistent statements at a higher level of reliability than the forensic conclusions, but then I could be biassed on that one which is why I wanted your opinion. But the other problem for the decision to go with the second-layer explosion and the shuffled luggage is that you still have an apparently rogue suitcase among the Heathrow-origin stuff.

Bedford's evidence in this context isn't conclusive, but it's very suggestive. If there was no funny stuff going on at Heathrow, where did the two front-loaded items come from? They aren't a fit for Bernstein's luggage, and why would someone be randomly rearranging the luggage in the container at that point anyway? To make it look pretty? We have to confront the fact that the trial loading exercises provided strong evidence there was one more case in there than there should have been, and that Bedford's description of that bloody case was an absolute dead ringer for the known appearance of the bomb suitcase. If you go for the "Sidhu was mistaken" explanation and insist that all the Heathrow stuff was innocent, you have to hand-wave all that away.

That's why I think an even-handed examination of this evidence comes down solidly on the side of the forensics being mistaken about the second-layer part, and the Bedford case being the bomb. And that's why I think the prosecution didn't dare allow all the evidence to be heard. They only presented evidence for the explanation they wanted, and stuffed the rest of it down the back of the sofa.

I actually think they were prepared to lose the case on the basis of the Bedford suitcase being so bloody suspicious that even if Sidhu had moved the luggage the probability was that he just put the Bedford case back on top of Patricia's. I think they simply saw that as preferable to losing the case because it was demonstrable with pretty much mathematical certainty that the Bedford case was the bomb. In the former case, it would be possible to go on insisting they were right but they lost on the basis that the defence managed to establish reasonable doubt. In the latter case, it would be clear to the world's press that the Lockerbie investigation had let the real culprits escape because they overlooked the clue of the century in the first few weeks on the inquiry.

This may explain the intensity of the high-fives and so on when the verdict was announced.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Very little. Well, it was unattended for a while, but ... I'll let Rolfe handle that.

Charles Norrie suggests it was a 1/2" thick plate bomb somehow snuck into the skin of the container itself.

Do I gather someone whose posts I can't see is channelling Charles? (Or maybe Ludwig de Braeckeleer?)

I don't think there's any possibility the bomb wasn't in a case at all. I simply cannot imagine any scenario in which it wasn't, and in that I even include a scenario where someone went out on the hills a day or two after the crash and planted all the bits of bronze Samsonite and Maltese clothes for the investigators to find.

AVE4041 was real, and AVE4041 had damage consistent with there having been an explosion in the bottom left-hand front corner. Patricia Coyle's case was real, and that was genuinely blown to bits in a manner that really can't have been caused by anything other than a bomb in the suitcase lying flat alongside it.

Rolfe.

 

[jargon buster]

I don't think there's any possibility the bomb wasn't in a case at all.

Yet you cant decide which one?

 

[Rolfe]

I suppose it comes down to a straight choice, in a way. Sidhu was mistaken or Cullis was mistaken.

I recall that the JFK baggage had to be unloaded very quickly as we only had about 15 minutes to get this baggage transferred to the 747. Sandy and I filled up the container on top of the baggage which was already there.

Further to my previous statements. When I took the AVE from the baggage build up to the 727 I did not reposition any of the interline bags in that container. I did not see anyone else reposition the interline bags prior to the Frankfurt bags being loaded into the container.

I took the container out to the 727 and positioned it at the bottom of the rocket so that bags could be put straight in. I undid the curtain and saw the same bags inside in the same position because they didn't have room to move about. I did not reposition any of these bags and didn't need to because of the position they were in already. Dave Sandhu didn't touch the bags either. Dave Sandhu and I loaded the bags from the rocket into the container and on top of the 5 or 6 or 7 bags already there.

Q Did you rearrange the cases which had originally been in the container?
A No I did not.
Q Did you take any of them out and put them on a different level or anything like that?
A No, I didn't because I was quite satisfied they were loaded.
Q You were satisfied about the way they were loaded?
A Yes.
Q Do you know if Sandy rearranged the cases in the container before putting the cases from the plane into it?
A As far as I can remember no.

That's Sidhu. Four times.

A I would associate the presence of the pitting and the downward depression of the base in that region as indicating that there was a bag or some sort of structure between the device and the floor.
Q And why would you say that?
A I would say that because the deformation of the floor is associated with an impulsive load. It is deformed. It is typical of the sorts of deformation that we see from remote blast loading, but I do not see any evidence of explosive effects, pitting or carbon. Therefore, I conclude there cannot be -- there cannot have been a line of sight between the charge and that floor, that region of the floor.
Q So should we understand, then, that if an explosion occurred within a suitcase, or within that container, it would have effects?
A Yes.
Q And one of the effects might be to produce sooting?
A Yes.
Q And it might be to produce pitting?
A Yes.
Q And where would pitting and sooting occur in relation to the suitcase that contained the bomb?
A In regions that were in a direct line of sight, in the case of sooting. In the case of pitting, in a direct line of sight or in a direct line where there were -- where there might be structures in between that were thin enough that the projectiles could go through them and then strike the base.
Q Thank you. And would you expect a particular type of damage to occur to any metal which was in direct contact with the suitcase containing the explosion?
A Yes. I would expect it to be pitted. I would expect to see some soot deposit, and I would expect regions of it to be shattered.
Q Now, what do you mean by “shattered” in that context?
A I mean fragmented into a number of small pieces.
Q You did draw our attention to what you described as cracking in the floor of the container base. Might we also term that tearing?
A Yes.
Q Is that tearing what you have in mind, in thinking about cracking?
A No, it is not.
LORD COULSFIELD: Could I just ask one question about the expression “line of sight” which you have used. To me that rather suggests an empty space between the explosion and the object which receives the effect of it. But if we are discussing a hypothetical case of an explosive device in a suitcase, then there must, ex hypothesi, be something between the device and anything that it comes in contact with?
A Yes.
LORD COULSFIELD: Could you just explain in that sort of situation what you mean by “line of sight”?
A What I mean is that if you consider a device inside a suitcase, when the bomb detonates, that suitcase will fragment. In fragmenting, products will escape through the gaps that are created. And those products will then move forward and will deposit evidence, sooting or pitting, in any other structure that is in its way.
LORD COULSFIELD: So it’s -- the line of sight, as you are explaining it, includes the case in which any intervening object is itself destroyed or fragmented by the explosive force --
A Yes, I am. Yes.
LORD COULSFIELD: Thank you.
MR. TURNBULL:
Q If we return to the container floor for a moment, Dr. Cullis, you were explaining to us that there is damage to the metal, such as we might call tearing. Do we see on the floor of the container any damage of the sort that you had in mind when speaking about shattering?
A No, I do not.
Q And taking then together the absence of shattering and the absence of pitting and the absence of sooting to the floor of the container, what does that tell you about the location of the explosion?
A I would conclude that the device was not in a suitcase that was on the floor of this container.
Q Do you mean immediately on the floor?
A Immediately on the floor, in contact with the floor.
Q Thank you. If there was one or more suitcases on the floor of the container, and there were, on top of those suitcases, others, and within one of those on the second level, there was an explosion, would there be anything in what you see consistent with that location?
A Yes.
Q What would that be?
A Well, looking at this region immediately in the corner nearest to me, there is an indent that looks like the imprint of a suitcase that has been impulsively driven into the base of the container.

That's Cullis. He's perfectly plausible too.

They can't both be right. If Sidhu is not mistaken, the suitcase Cullis is hypothesising which was between the bomb and the floor of the container doesn't exist. If Sidhu is right, Cullis has misinterpreted his sooting and pitting. If Cullis is right, Sidhu must have done exactly what he said he didn't do, at the FAI.

Rolfe.

 

[Buncrana]

Kamboj was in the clear!

Essentially this was the conclusion so desperately sought from the Indian Head Tests carried out in April '89. Clearly the case that Bedford had alerted everyone to on the 3rd Jan was of some anxiety to all concerned. Except the Germans. But they weren't invited to the tests. Thurman, Feraday and Harry Bell, on call for Orr, were the ones with the vested interest.

So if Sidhu was completely mistaken and, despite his consitent memory of that particular loading, did move the luggage that Bedford had loaded - including the curious brown samsonite - then it also happened to be one of those suitcases that no trace of, partial or microscopic, was ever found.

Well, that would be as long as you don't think Bedford was mistaken too. And if you accept that he did witness a curious brown samsonite, then this was the case Sidhu would have to have forgotton that he lifted out and put Ms Coyles in its place.

And then put the removed Bedford samsonite immediately on top of Ms Coyles? No, because that was B8849, which just so happened to match the description of the Bedford bag. Sidhu then continues loading AVE4041 and finally, at some point, tosses the Bedford case into 4041 for it to simply vanish forever and no trace of it ever found.

Which, really, brings us right back to Zeist.

Except, aside from this fanciful theory, and accepting Bedford's statement, there is still no Heathrow interline passenger match for a seventh suitcase or, worse still, a suitcase, just like the one Bedford said he saw within 2 weeks of Pan Am 103's destruction and which coincidentally was also a duplicate of the characteristics known of the primary suitcase, that could be associated to one of these passengers.

 

[Buncrana]

The striking thing about all the enquiries is that there seems to be a concerted effort not to discount the Bedford/Kamboj bag on the basis of association with one of the legitimate passengers who were interline at Heathrow, but simply on the basis of location of the explosion. So, by the time of the Indian Head Tests in April ’89, investigators were apparently already well aware of the importance attached to the location of the explosion. An inch or two either way could mean it was the Bedford bag and Heathrow, or else the finger could be pointed towards Frankfurt.

And the impression, as related by Leppard, was that even if we have no freaking clue how exactly that bag came to be in AVE4041, or who it belonged to, or that it matches the primary suitcase in every respect, we’re satisfied it is a couple of inches too low to be the bomb. Over to you, Frankfurt.

If anyone of those initial Heathrow interline group had even possibly been in possession of a bag that matched Bedford’s description, and thus able to be ruled out as being the bomb bag, then that fact would have been undoubtedly presented. However, the fact that it was illegitimate and matched the description of the bomb bag is somehow wilfully cast aside on the basis of a couple of inches.

Sheriff Mowat on the bomb suitcase and a brown samsonite at the FAI,

[…] I am also satisfied on a balance of probabilities that it was not associated with any of the passengers who boarded Flight 103 at Heathrow. […]based upon the evidence of Detective Constable Henderson who analysed the baggage which was recovered and those pieces which were not recovered and where possible linked each piece with the person accompanying it. He gave evidence to the effect that none of the descriptions given by relatives of the baggage which they expected the victims to have been carrying fitted this suitcase.

Not only could Mowat or Derek Henderson not find anyone that could be legitimately associated with a bag that matched the primary suitcase, or Bedford’s description of a mysterious bag seen on the floor of 4041, but neither could Crawford nor Marquise.

Obviously however, there remains the discrepancy over Cullis’ conclusions over “sooting and pitting” not being consistent with a bag exploding on the base, and we also have the very rough drawing made by the BKA in early January ’89. Both would have perhaps good reason to find favour with a scenario that would absolve their own responsibility, but the BKA would have had no prior knowledge of the Bedford case, its position or whether legitimate or not, at the time they offered that first sketch.

So, the bomb bag was on the second layer with Ms Coyle’s below it shielding the base of AVE4041 from the explosion – despite all evidence to the contrary.

What was the bag above the bomb bag again?

 

[Rolfe]

Except, aside from this fanciful theory, and accepting Bedford's statement, there is still no Heathrow interline passenger match for a seventh suitcase or, worse still, a suitcase, just like the one Bedford said he saw within 2 weeks of Pan Am 103's destruction and which coincidentally was also a duplicate of the characteristics known of the primary suitcase, that could be associated to one of these passengers.

This is why they had to conceal both Sidhu's evidence and the baggage reconciliation. Even if you accept that Sidhu was consistently mistaken, you still have to confront the fact that you can't explain Bedford's evidence.

I've gone through this giving maximum leeway for people being mistaken, and it still comes out smelling of Semtex. The arrangement of the luggage (two cases flat on the floor at the front and four or five upright behind them) is certain, because Bedford, Sahota and Sandhu all said the same thing. Although they all put five cases in the row on the back, we could speculate they were mistaken and maybe there were only four. But it still doesn't fly.

Bedford was adamant that he himself only placed cases in the row on the back. So what were the two on the front? Bernstein's two seem the obvious answer, either being added later by Kamboj or absentmindedly by Bedford himself before he went on his break. However, Bernstein's smaller case is the one, of all six legitimate pieces, that really doesn't fit the description of the front items. It's small, soft-sided, light in colour and actually checked. McKee's two grey hardshells are a better match, but you'd have to assume they were delayed in coming from the Larnaca flight by more than an hour and a half. Then you'd have to assume that Bedford forgot putting them there, or Kamboj forgot putting them there, and that Sidhu forgot that he moved the left-hand one to get Patricia's case in (for no readily apparent reason). And that Bedford was also mistaken in his description of that case, and that it was pure coincidence that this description was an absolute dead ringer for the actual bomb suitcase. And all this while we're assuming that all three baggage handlers were mistaken when they placed seven items in the container. This is what I meant by special pleading.

What we really have, of course, is a suitcase that exactly matches the description of the bomb suitcase, appearing mysteriously in the container in almost exactly the position of the explosion, which according to the one man who should know wasn't moved. In that case, it was right in the middle of the explosion along with the bomb suitcase and Patricia's. But they only found bits of the bomb suitcase and Patricia's. And they found all six legitimate items without the damage that would have placed them in the middle of the explosion.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I've had one or two people say to me that maybe there was no grand conspiracy to protect Heathrow from 1989-91. Someone pointed out the Yorkshire Ripper case, where they had all the information they needed to nail Peter Sutcliffe way before they actually did. One of the more senior people in the inquiry put too much store by a hoax audio tape claiming responsibility, which had been made by a man with a different accent from Sutcliffe. The cop insisted that only suspects with that accent should be seriously considered.

John Orr (top cop on Lockerbie in the earlier stages of the inquiry) put out that statement on 30th December 1988, saying it wasn't Heathrow. Apparently because the baggage container where the bomb had gone off was the one with the Frankfurt transfer luggage. He didn't know at that time that there was any Heathrow luggage in the container, as far as I can see.

Then they were so sure the culprits were the Frankfurt-based PFLP-GC, so they assumed the bomb must have come from Frankfurt anyway. At that time they may not have had all the details of the altimeter bombs. I don't know how much they found out from the one that was seized in October 1988, and how much had to wait till the disastrous events of April 1989, when Sonntag was killed.

And although the initial German notes place the bomb right on the bottom, later in January 1989 Hayes was estimating something like 16 inches from the floor. If that estimate had been right, then it would have had to have been one of the Frankfurt suitcases. If that was the measurement they were working on for a while, then it might not have been so mad to be ignoring Bedford's story.

They didn't get all the baggage reconciliation in for quite a while. Late 1989 at the earliest, and the definite attribution of the grey Presikhaaf to Bernt Carlsson was very late (though it was a provisional attribution from relatively early). They simply seem to have assumed the Bedford suitcase would reconcile as legitimate luggage in due course.

If all the reconciliation wasn't in before they were well set on the Malta theory, then it's possible they were too set on that to re-think the Heathrow evidence later. I know Feraday produced a list of nine ways a Khreesat device might have exploded after a Heathrow take-off even though it had been loaded at Frankfurt.

It seems completely senseless to me that anyone could look at Bedford's statement in, say, March 1989, and not be extremely enthusiastic that this could be The Answer. But it may be that nobody noticed the relevance. At least that is what one or two friends have suggested. One said, look, cops are not actually all that bright. Most of them are not PhD material. They go for bizarre theories quite often - look at Sion Jenkins for one. They ignore obvious culprits from time to time, not because of any grand conspiracy, but because the person involved doesn't conform to their prevailing theory.

I think the prosecution spotted it in 1999. They went to too much trouble to perpetrate a massive fudge surrounding the identity and placement of the Heathrow luggage for that to have been entirely innocent. But could the cops really have been simply stupid in early 1989 and the months following?

There's no doubt the Frankfurt cops were mindblowingly stupid then. First they fail to secure the computerised baggage transfer data. Then Fuhl makes an almighty fool of himself in analysing Bogomira's printout. Then they screw up the follow-up of the Autumn Leaves investigation quite astoundingly, culminating in an absolute Keystone Kops farce which ended up with Hans Sonntag dead and a colleague seriously injured. Then Fuhl has a second go at the printout and messes it up again.

So maybe. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I suppose the bottom line is this. If Sidhu was not massively mistaken, then the Bedford suitcase was the bomb, beyond reasonable doubt.

Nobody even speculated that Sidhu was mistaken until 2000. More than that, it seemed to be an important plank of their reasoning that Sidhu wasn't mistaken. (And all common sense says Sidhu was not mistaken, come to that.)

So, a clear-headed analysis of the evidence as it was being understood at the time of the rush to Malta, and at the time of the indictment of the two Libyans, and all through the eight years when Libyan people were dying because of the punitive sanctions imposed on the country on the assumption that Megrahi and Fhimah were guilty - shows that the bomb originated at Heathrow.

That's what the prosecution were handed in 1999. Oops.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't know if I buy this "the cops just had a massive blind spot" theory. That Bedford case is just too damn suspicious. And they deliberately buried the evidence about the midnight break-in, which also suggests a deliberate shielding of Heathrow in the teeth of actual evidence of a Heathrow introduction. It seems however that only a few of the detectives actually knew about Bedford's evidence during 1989-90, which would mean only these few were deliberately ignoring the suspicious suitcase.

In the main, the line seems to have been that all the suitcases belonging to the Heathrow interline passengers were reconciled and had been shown not to be the bomb suitcase, and besides none of these was a brown Samsonite. (I don't know why Orr apparently said there were seven to Leppard's source though, as there were only six. I also don't know how they dealt with the Carlsson case, which wasn't definitely reconciled until late in the process.)

Then, they accepted Sidhu's evidence that the Heathrow items were not moved, and they decided the explosion was on the second layer, so again that absolved the Heathrow items and implicated the Frankfurt luggage. Henderson tracked down all the Frankfurt-origin luggage, and it was all reconciled and none of the items was the bomb. Or so he said. He seems to be matching the carton of wine to Walker, but that was never recovered. (OK, it couldn't have been the bomb.) One of Weinacker's cases wasn't recovered either, but again he seems to have excluded that, presumably on the basis that Weinacker wasn't a terrorist and the suitcase wasn't maroon (according to its owner). But basically he seems to have been saying that all the legitimate luggage was accounted for and none of it was the bomb.

So, the bomb suitcase was unaccompanied. (This glosses over the whole Jaafar thing, whereby the two items said to have been his checked-in luggage were probably his carry-on luggage, but that was probably the object of the exercise.) And it was on the second layer, therefore it was Frankfurt-origin luggage.

This seems to have been precisely what was presented to the FAI, plus the fairy-story about all the interline luggage having been together in the container therefore the bomb was interline. In 1992 that latter point was replaced by some sort of analysis of the Erac printout that equated this rogue bag to tray 8849 from Malta. Quite how they reconciled the six other unidentified items, or the uncertainty about how many interline items there had actually been, with this certainty, I don't know. But still. Bomb suitcase second layer, therefore Frankfurt. All legitimate luggage ruled out, therefore a rogue bag. Thus, a rogue bag from Frankfurt.

Nobody seems to have even thought about the possibility of a rogue bag at Heathrow, because of this "second layer" decision. The point that the second-layer decision wasn't incontrovertible didn't seem to penetrate anyone's consciousness. Even after the FAI, nobody seemed to be thinking about Bedford's evidence - presumably because of the 1991 indictments being seen as validating the Malta theory.

By that time, I suppose nobody (except Baz!) was thinking about anything but Malta. Nobody realised that the question of the identity of the presumably pulverised suitcase that had been below the bomb was something that had to be answered. It wasn't any of the six legitimate Heathrow items. And the only blast-damaged suitcase fragments recovered on the ground that weren't part of legitimate, identified luggage, were the bits of the bomb suitcase.

And nobody really thought this was an issue until the Crown analysed the evidence in 1999. But I really don't think this state of affairs came about entirely through incompetence and stupidity.

Rolfe.